Tara Reade Archives - The Automatic Earth

My one on one interview with President Donald Trump. In depth. No holds barred. A must watch. pic.twitter.com/a5SuCgVsdW

— Dr. Phil (@DrPhil) June 7, 2024

Yale Law professor

Yale Law Professor Has Brilliant Plan for Trump Legal Team to Overturn 'Guilty' Verdict Before the Election

"Could Trump actually be put in jail? You bet he could."

"Each count of this 34 count indictment has a maximum penalty attached to it of four years. Well, that's four… pic.twitter.com/47neHaqPtB

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) June 6, 2024

Bomb jobs – The Arsenal of democracy
https://twitter.com/i/status/1798965632022819096

Holder

One of the most amazing clips ever. CNN host asks Eric Holder what would happen if Trump gets re-elected and he chooses a corrupt AG. pic.twitter.com/Ame68Xxsyy

— MAZE (@mazemoore) June 6, 2024

Trump Arpaio

President Trump realized Sheriff Joe Arpaio is in the crowd and invites him on stage to say a few words:

SHERIFF JOE: “I told my wife, I finally found the only hero I ever had, and it’s [Trump].” pic.twitter.com/BWmGfvt7qy

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) June 6, 2024

Roseanne

Roseanne Barr on Joe Biden: “How come no one looks out for the poor guy? Nobody protects him. They keep shoving him out in places that he doesn’t belong.. he should be in a home. Jill is making her husband go out on stage when he craps his pants at the drop of a dime.” pic.twitter.com/f7TGMhoToo

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) June 7, 2024

Roseanne Barr says she thinks Diddy is about to get the ‘Epstein Treatment’:

“I think he’s going to be the one that goes down… he’ll probably be the only one. Certainly Bill Clinton won’t, certainly everyone else on that list that went more than 25 times won’t..” pic.twitter.com/Y4kBFXlXmz

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) June 6, 2024

Making sure that Trump cannot use it on appeal?!

• Trump Judge Flags Facebook Post Suggesting Possible Mistrial (RT)

The judge presiding over the New York criminal case in which former US President Donald Trump was found guilty of 34 felony charges has notified defense lawyers and prosecutors of a social media post indicating possible jury misconduct, raising questions over whether the verdict could be nullified. Judge Juan Merchan sent a letter to attorneys in the case on Friday, flagging a comment that was apparently posted on the New York State Unified Court System’s Facebook page on May 29, the day before Trump’s guilty verdict was announced. The author, identified as Michael Anderson, said, “My cousin is a juror and says Trump is getting convicted. Thank you folks for all your hard work!!!” Merchan gave no indication of whether he considered the post to be legitimate, and he didn’t ask the prosecution or defense teams to do anything in response.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1799193726557868517

The judge said the court “became aware” of the pre-verdict comment and was therefore bringing it to the attention of parties in the case. Jurors were given strict instructions not to discuss the case or their deliberations with anyone besides each other. If those rules were proven to have been violated, Trump could seek a mistrial to have his conviction thrown out based on jury misconduct. The jury deliberated from May 28 to May 30 before finding Trump guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records to boost his chances of winning the 2016 presidential election. Lawyers for the ex-president had unsuccessfully sought a change of venue in the case, arguing that they couldn’t get a fair trial with a jury in one of the most staunchly Democrat cities in the nation.

It’s not clear whether Anderson was actually related to one of the 12 jurors; nor has it been verified that he posted his message before the verdict was declared. Nevertheless, Trump supporters quickly seized on Merchan’s letter as further evidence that the trial wasn’t fair. “If true, this is likely headed to a mistrial because a juror isn’t allowed to discuss the case with family or friends like this,” conservative podcast host Robby Starbuck said. “Big deal.” Former federal prosecutor Joyce Alene said that it was smart for Merchan to notify the parties of the potentially incriminating post and hold a hearing to resolve the issue. “Why does a clear record matter?” she asked. “Because Trump will raise this on appeal to argue for reversal. Now, both sides have notice of this issue, and there’s an opportunity to get all of the details and facts out so that if there is nothing to this, it won’t affect the appeal.”

Juror
https://twitter.com/i/status/1799191685735305423

“The West is losing four wars in one – economically (in trade and debt), financially (de-dollarization and international payment systems), militarily (in Ukraine in battle and in a comparison of weapons systems) and geopolitically with a massive loss of influence around the world..”

• Putin’s 4D Chess: West ‘Losing’ War on Four Fronts (Sp.)

Tens of thousands of sanctions leveled against Russia by Western countries have paradoxically failed to crush the Russian economy, and on the contrary the country is seeing economic growth at rates almost unprecedented in its post-Soviet history. “We have set a goal to enter the top four largest economies in the world,” President Putin said during his speech at SPIEF on Friday. “Just last week the World Bank made additional calculations and put Russia in fourth place. We found ourselves ahead of Japan. Russia ranks fourth in terms of purchasing power parity GDP.” But Russia won’t rest on its laurels, Putin said, noting that the difference in GDP remains “small,” that other countries are not standing in one place, and that “leadership positions need to be constantly confirmed and strengthened.”

To that end, Putin outlined an economic growth and investment strategy over the next six year period, including, among other things, a drive toward increased self-sufficiency, a substantial jump in capital investment, changes to the tax code, and a renewed push to attract private investment. Highlighting Russia’s reorientation in trade and payments away from the West toward the developing world, the Russian president said the West had “been dealt a significant blow,” largely “by Western countries themselves,” with countries boosting trade in currencies other than the dollar and the euro. At the same time, Putin said, the hegemon of the Western economic order, the United States, faces serious financial straits which would be even more serious were it not for its continued plunder of developing nations. “They have a current account deficit of a trillion dollars. What is this? I think, everyone will understand what I’m talking about. This is neocolonialism in its modern iteration. Using the monopoly position of the dollar, the United States consumes a trillion dollars a year more than it produces. They seem to be pumping out these resources from other countries,” Putin said. He added that America’s gargantuan debt, which runs in the tens of trillions of dollars, is not backed by any tangible assets.

“The growth in the Russian economy (outpacing Western economies) is spectacular and it shows that the 15,000 sanctions applied by the West have blown back on them,” British academic and author Rodney Atkinson told Sputnik, offering his key takeaways from Putin’s speech. “The West is losing four wars in one – economically (in trade and debt), financially (de-dollarization and international payment systems), militarily (in Ukraine in battle and in a comparison of weapons systems) and geopolitically with a massive loss of influence around the world,” Atkinson explained. To make matters worse, the political and economic commentator stressed that the hostility with which the West has responded to the metamorphosis of a unipolar world order into a multipolar one has only made matters worse for itself thanks to its selfish and short-sighted policy elites.

“Even before the 20-year expansion towards Russia and the 2014 Maidan-instigated war, European imperial ambitions and US neocon aggression were unpopular. Now that the Global South has witnessed recent events and the BRICS offer an alternative and the US has descended into record debt and industrial weakness, it is very difficult for the West to recover its influence. Plagued by geopolitical ignorance, financially irresponsible policies and weak leadership, the US and its allies may not even survive as one of the poles of the multi-polar world,” Atkinson said.

Atkinson emphasized the madness of the West’s logic of slapping sanctions against a country the size of Russia with its abundance of food, mineral and energy resources. What’s worse (for the West) is that Moscow has been trailblazing a path to independence which can be emulated by other nations. “Import substitution by Russia and the unwillingness of Western companies to leave Russia (1,600 international companies have left Russia since 2022 but there are more than 2,100 left) and the substitution of national currencies for dollar-based trade (i.e. rupee, yuan, ruble) all show the Global South that there are alternatives to a Western-based system based on sanctions,” Atkinson said.

“..Putin explained. It is now June 2024, and in order to do this, I feel, it will take a year. He will be tolerated until the spring, until the beginning of next year..”

• West Will Remove Zelensky – Kremlin (RT)

The US and its allies will tolerate Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky until he has served his purpose, at which point he will be replaced, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday. President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman gave an interview to Izvestia on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), where he addressed recent remarks by the president about the likely fate of Zelensky. “Obviously, he will be removed,” Peskov said. “Obviously, reducing the mobilization age will cause an increasing wave of negativity in Ukrainian society.”

Peskov’s comments came as clarification to statements made by Putin on Wednesday, in a meeting with the heads of international news agencies that lasted more than three hours. At one point, the Russian president noted that the US has been pressuring Ukraine to mobilize increasingly younger men. According to Putin, Washington has already compelled Kiev to lower the draft age from 27 to 25, with a view of moving it down to 23 next, and then to 20 or straight to 18. “The law has to be passed and certain steps have to be taken,” Putin explained. “It is now June 2024, and in order to do this, I feel, it will take a year. He will be tolerated until the spring, until the beginning of next year at the very least. When it is done, they will say goodbye.”

Ukraine is currently losing around 50,000 troops per month and is able to mobilize only 30,000 replacements, leaving Kiev with an unsolvable problem, Putin added. The West already has “a few candidates” lined up to serve as president of Ukraine, according to the Russian president. Earlier in the conversation, Putin said that Zelensky had effectively carried out a coup by extending his presidential term past May 20, when it legally expired. Zelensky has argued that Ukrainian law forbids elections during a state of emergency, so he has to stay in office until the end of the conflict with Russia. The Ukrainian constitution, however, contains no such provisions – and in fact stipulates that the head of the parliament should assume power.

“..The two officially met for the first time in 2011..”

• Kremlin Responds After Biden Claims He’s Known Putin For 40 Years (RT)

Vladimir Putin wearing KGB uniform in 1980. © Wikipedia

It is often difficult to fathom what US President Joe Biden means with his statements, including when he claims to have known his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, for 40 years, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. Biden lashed out at Putin during an interview with ABC News on Thursday, saying: “I have known him for over 40 years. He has concerned me for 40 years. He is not a decent man. He is a dictator.” Speaking on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) on Friday, Peskov stated that Putin “does not react and will not react” to insults such as Biden’s. The spokesman added that he could only express regret that “in international politics at this level such rhetoric and such expressions are employed regarding a head of state.”

Referring to Biden’s claim that he has known the Russian leader for four decades, Peskov added that “sometimes one can only wonder what the US president means, including when he speaks about [knowing Putin for] 40 years.” Some commentators have already “rolled back time to understand what Putin was doing 40 years ago. One can make very deep analytical conclusions about how Biden could have become acquainted with him [at that time],” Peskov said, prompting laughter from journalists. The presidential spokesman was apparently referring to the fact that 40 years ago, the then 32-year-old Putin was working for the Soviet security agency, the KGB. Biden was 41 at the time, serving as senator for the US state of Delaware. The two officially met for the first time in 2011, when Putin held the post of prime minister under President Dmitry Medvedev, and Biden was US vice president in the administration of Barack Obama.

Posting on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday, conservative commentator and former US Senate staffer Steve Guest wrote that by claiming he had known Putin for four decades, the 81-year-old Biden was “either… lying or he is admitting he was in contact with a KGB agent since 1984 or Biden’s brain is so cooked that he doesn’t know what on earth he is talking about.” The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week, citing dozens of people who have been in contact with Biden recently, that beyond his frequent mental gaffes in public, the president is also showing “signs of slipping” in closed-door meetings with US lawmakers. Biden has directed insults at Putin throughout his presidency, among other things calling the Russian leader a “killer” in 2021 and a “crazy SOB” in February. The Kremlin has denounced the comments as “shameful,” but has declined to respond with equally harsh rhetoric.

He says he won’t pardon Hunter because he knows he doesn’t have to..

• Some Dads Don’t Pardon (Manley)

The maximum sentence for the first son’s most serious charge is 10 years in prison, but if he is convicted he would most likely face a lighter sentence. US President Joe Biden said he would not pardon his son, Hunter Biden, if he is convicted in his criminal trial in Delaware. The president sat down for an interview with ABC News in Normandy, France during a trip in commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the WWII D-Day landings. During the interview, the president was asked if he would accept the outcome of his son’s trial in Wilmington, Delaware, to which he said, “Yes.” During the interview, Biden said that former President Donald Trump got a “fair trial” and said the “jury spoke”. The president also said he would not pardon his son if he is convicted, which he has reportedly been saying for months. Biden issued a personal statement on Monday offering support for his son and said he was a father as well as the president.

“I’ve been very clear — the president is not going to pardon his son,” Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, told reporters in December. Former Republican presidential candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy, said on social media that Hunter Biden’s trial is a “smoke screen”, and is “designed to make the prosecution of Trump appear nonpartisan, yet the outcome of the Hunter trial doesn’t matter” because the president “can and will pardon him.” The trial is on felony charges related to the first son’s efforts to obtain a .38 revolver from a gun shop in 2018 while allegedly battling drug addiction. Prosecutors allege that in October 2018, the president’s son visited StarQuest Shooters & Survival Supply in Wilmington to purchase the gun but say he lied about his drug addiction.

The younger Biden is now facing charges of false statement in purchasing of a firearm, false statement related to information required to be kept by a federal firearms licensed dealer, and possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance. This is the first time that the son of a sitting president has faced a criminal trial. On Thursday, the widow of Hunter Biden’s late brother, Hallie Biden, testified. Following Beau Biden’s death in 2015, Hunter began an affair with Hallie Biden who said she “panicked” when she found a Colt Cobra revolver in Hunter’s vehicle on October 23, 2018. She said she threw it away in a trash can as a result. Hallie claims that Hunter smoked crack on a “daily” basis or “frequently” during her testimony. However, she told the jury that she did not see Hunter Biden abusing drugs or alcohol for most of the month of October.

Prosecutors said that they will rest their case on Friday and that they have two more witnesses – a DEA drug specialist and an FBI chemist. Meanwhile, the defense counsel said they would call two or three witnesses and would likely rest their case by the end of the day on Monday. The trial comes on the heels of Trump’s own criminal trial, the conclusion of which found the former president guilty of 34 felonies, making him the first president in US history to be criminally convicted. Hours before leaving office, Trump himself pardoned 70 people and commuted the sentences of 73 others. Of the 143 people he excused, his former chief strategist Steve Bannon and his former top fundraiser Elliott Broidy, were on the list. Others he pardoned included those committed of fraud schemes, the illegal use of a disadvantage business enterprise to receive government-funded construction contracts, a Google engineer sentenced for stealing a trade secret, bank fraud over the 2009 collapse of a mortgage company, and the ex-husband of a Fox News host.

51 former spooks (+ Blinken) to prosecute… for election interference..

• Media Shrugs as Biden Laptop is Authenticated in Federal Court (Turley)

Watching the coverage this week out of Delaware was like finding oneself in a parallel universe. There were ABC, NBC, CBS, the Washington Post and other news outlets reporting matter-of-factly that the Hunter Biden laptop showed no evidence of tampering and was both real and authentic. These are the same outlets, and some of the same reporters, who eagerly spread the false claims that the laptop was “Russian disinformation.” Yet, what followed the testimony of FBI agent Erika Jensen was absolute crickets. There was no effort to track down the signatories of the now-debunked letter from former intelligence officials just before the election. In the letter, figures such as Leon Panetta, former CIA director in the Obama administration, claimed that the laptop had all the markings of a Russian disinformation effort by intelligence services. (Panetta continued to make the assertion even in late 2023 in pushing what the federal government is now calling a “conspiracy theory.”)

There was no attempt by the media to confront associates of the Biden campaign (including now Secretary of State Antony Blinken) who pushed a long effort to get former intelligence officials to sign a letter. There was no attempt to question President Joe Biden, who made this false claim in the presidential election to deflect any questions about the evidence of corrupt influence peddling on the laptop. Years ago, I wrote that the Biden campaign had pulled off the single greatest political trick in history. As I wrote back then, the key to this Houdini-esque trick was to get the media to invest in the deception like audience members called to the stage.Houdini used to make his elephant Jennifer disappear on stage every night because he knew that the audience wanted her to disappear. They were part of the act. The Bidens made the media part of the act, and these reporters have to back the illusion or admit that they were part of the deception.

They are all laptop deniers, but they know that there are few who will call them to account for their conspiracy theory. Rather, it is social media where readers can see videos of leading media claiming that the laptop is the work of Russian intelligence. In 2020, CBS News’ Lesley Stahl literally laughed mockingly at then-President Donald Trump when he raised the Hunter Biden laptop and what it revealed about the Bidens. Figures like former Chief of Staff at the CIA and Department of Defense Jeremy Bash, who told MSNBC that the laptop “looked like Russian intelligence” and “walked like Russian intelligence.” He dismissed the relevance of the laptop before the election by declaring that “this effort by Rudy Giuliani and the New York Post and Steve Bannon to cook up supposed dirt on Joe Biden looks like a classic, Russian playbook disinformation campaign.”

Bash added that it made Trump an effective agent of Russian intelligence since he kept referencing the laptop: “[when] Rudy Giuliani suddenly comes forward with these mysteriously created emails, probably hacked through a Russian intelligence operation, we have to acknowledge the fact that the President of the United States is supporting, is condoning, is welcoming a Russian intelligence operation in 2020. … This is collusion in plain sight.” Bash, like others behind the conspiracy theory, was later given an intelligence position by Biden.

“.. there are facilities that the entire US Congress and their families will be safe with, if we get to a nuclear stage. But they don’t care about the actual people. They don’t care about their own people..”

• Retired US Army Officer: West Pushing World to Brink of Nuclear War (Sp.)

Russian President Vladimir Putin held a meeting with foreign journalists on June 5 within the framework of the 27th annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). Addressing the Ukraine conflict the Russian president noted that Western weapon deliveries to the Kiev regime, coupled with the approval to hit targets deep inside Russia, is fraught with severe escalation risks. “How do you respond to this use of weapons and allowing them to attack and basically violate the sovereignty of Russia itself?” Earl Rasmussen, a retired US Army lieutenant colonel and international consultant told Sputnik. “If we look at these attacks, they’re not targeting military targets, or they’re targeting strategic targets. They’re targeting civilians, many of them, or strategic targets as well. It’s essentially, basically authorizing and supporting terrorism.”

Russia is aware of the fact that while Ukrainian military personnel can participate in the selection of targets for long-range NATO-grade missiles, decisions to strike are made by those who supply the weapons, the president emphasized. Putin made it clear that Russia will respond and consider various options to do this. To illustrate his point, the president suggested delivering weapons to third countries confronting NATO member states involved in the Ukraine conflict. “Why do we not have the right to supply our weapons of the same class to those regions of the world where attacks on sensitive facilities will be carried out… The answer may be asymmetric. We will think about it,” Putin remarked. For his part, Rasmussen said that, “He could be looking at something that’s not the typical type of response, but much broader, perhaps looking at other areas of the world, perhaps looking at where weapons are originating from, or where advisers or intelligence information is gathered to provide for firing. Perhaps we’re looking at Western efforts in the Middle East or in Asia.”

While Russia pursues a policy of no first use (NFU) of nukes, Putin did not rule out using all means available to Russia if the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are threatened in accordance with its nuclear doctrine. “Russia, and to another extent China as well, has been very patient,” Rasmussen highlighted. “They have been measured in their responses to different situations. (…) We need to have a grasp, and President Putin has shown a much more understanding and grasp of where we are in this situation. He went on to say that, unfortunately, Western leaders continue to move up the escalation ladder being completely detached from reality. “[Western leaders] really would not accept failure. It’s scary. They’re moving the world to the precipice, to the cliff. And they would rather destroy the world, I think. It’s astonishing that we’ve somehow come to the point with leaders that have very little vision,” Rasmussen said.

“Sometimes I think that they have their nuclear-hardened bunkers for senior decision makers. I mean, there are facilities that the entire US Congress and their families will be safe with, if we get to a nuclear stage. But they don’t care about the actual people. They don’t care about their own people,” Rasmussen said. The expert lamented the fact that the Western establishment is trying to silence voices in the US and Europe which are warning against raising stakes in Ukraine and bringing the ongoing proxy war with Russia to a direct confrontation. Rasmussen particularly referred to the US authorities’ decision to seize the passport of former Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter to prevent him from traveling to Russia. Given all of the above, it’s hardly surprising that Western elites are eager to fight for the last Ukrainian in its proxy war against Russia, the expert remarked. During the meeting with foreign journalists, Putin drew attention to the US behind-the-scenes efforts to force the Kiev regime to lower the draft age to 18 in order to replenish its huge losses on the battleground.

According to Putin, the Ukrainian Army loses about 50,000 soldiers a month, with sanitary losses accounting for only 50% of them. “I said 50,000, but this is the most modest estimate. These are 50,000, this is what we see on the battlefield,” the president said, adding that Russia’s losses are several times less with an approximate one-to-five ratio. “The unacceptance of the Western leaders to recognize this clearly shows they do not care or have any ambitions or any desire to support Ukraine itself,” the military expert said. “Their entire desire is to try to weaken Russia. And it has been a complete failure. Yet politically they don’t want to accept that.” “It’s almost as if Western leaders are living in a parallel universe and they couldn’t care less. They do not care about the Ukrainian people whatsoever. They don’t care about Ukraine as a country. They do not care. They’re purely using it as a tool and it has not been working. The Ukraine project is a failure and the current leadership will not accept it,” Rasmussen concluded.

“Anyone who goes against US national security goals, including the escalation of tensions with Russia, is “deemed an enemy of the state – literally..”

• US Won’t Tolerate Dissent On Russia Narrative – Scott Ritter (RT)

Western governments need the people to perceive Russia as a threat, so they target anyone who tries to show the reality of the country, American political commentator Scott Ritter said at a St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) panel on Friday. Ritter was invited to take part in an RT-hosted panel discussion on Western efforts to vilify Russia. He was not able to do so in person because his passport was seized by the US authorities just as he was boarding a plane, so he joined the event remotely via video link. The former US Marine and UN weapons inspector in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq became a vocal critic of Washington’s foreign policy in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of the Middle Eastern country.

Anyone who goes against US national security goals, including the escalation of tensions with Russia, is “deemed an enemy of the state – literally,” he told the audience. ”It comes down to perception vs. reality, and perception is going to win if you are not able to put an alternative point of view out there. It’s a constant struggle.” The US and its allies need Russia as an enemy, since they are consolidating resources on the pretext of countering a threat, Ritter, who is an RT contributor, explained. Apart from Ritter, the event gathered several high-profile speakers, including Tara Reade – a former aide to Joe Biden – former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl, and the great nephew of Otto von Bismarck, Alexander von Bismarck.

The Dems are all about #MeToo, but they force Tara Reade to flee the country.

“I don’t think the US wants their citizens to know how good it is because the Russian state provides education, medical care, and housing in a way that America does not..”

• Tara Reade: If Biden is Reelected, ‘We’re Looking at World War III’ (Sp.)

If Biden is reelected for another four years, “we’re looking at World War III,” Tara Reade, a writer, and former assistant in Joe Biden’s Senate office, told Sputnik. “There’s no question, that’s where we’re at right now,” she said on the sidelines of the 27th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). “So the administration is very hawkish, the people around him and behind him. His leadership is feeble at best. I don’t even know if he’ll last that long, much less through the campaign. So no, I don’t think America economically and existentially can survive Joe Biden and his administration,” Reade said. Tara Reade, a former staffer in Biden’s US Senate office, spoke out about allegedly being sexually assaulted by the current president in 1993 after several women reported Biden’s unwelcomed “touching.” She was also spurred on by the #MeToo movement.

However, after telling her story in 2019 about then-candidate Joe Biden, she found herself branded “a Russian asset.” The Biden administration has vehemently denied her claims.Reade currently lives in Russia, where she has continued writing, and hosts a podcast. She claims she was forced to move to Russia because the FBI was harassing her, noting that they issued sealed subpoenas against her social media accounts. Weighing in on her impressions of life in Russia under sanctions, she extolled the thriving economy of the country, and how safe she felt living here. “Russia is so safe. It’s safer than the United States actually. You have a much lower crime rate. And I have been here a year and I can’t tell you how much I love it,” said Reade.

The former Senate staffer lauded everything from the culture to the food and the efficiency of the transportation. She added that her travels had taken her outside Moscow, and everywhere across the country she witnessed, “a lot of development and building because …Russians have a thriving middle class and working class.” “I don’t think the US wants their citizens to know how good it is because the Russian state provides education, medical care, and housing in a way that America does not. So we have 700,000 homeless right in comparison to Russia where there is virtually no homeless.” People in Russia enjoy “a better standard of living because the economy is really thriving,” said Reade, pointing to the 5.7% growth rate of one of the world’s largest economies. “That’s a thriving economy. That’s a sign that things are going the right direction,” underscored Tara Reade.

“You cannot have 1% of the world that stands on the neck of the 99% of the world and expect that to continue..”

• US Faces ‘Economic Degradation And Misery’ Due To Foreign Policy – Hinkle (RT)

Washington is wasting money on foreign policy blunders like Ukraine, instead of improving the lives of American people, US journalist Jackson Hinkle has said.The political commentator was one of the guests for a discussion panel on US information warfare against Russia, which RT hosted on Friday as part of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). He lampooned the administration of US President Joe Biden for trying to justify continued military assistance to Ukraine by highlighting its intention to spend the money at home to ramp up military production. Biden and other senior officials have repeatedly used this narrative when a White House appropriation request stalls in Congress due to Republican opposition.

It was a “pragmatic” decision to tell the Americans that “the money is actually going to Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, which are, of course, historic friends of the American people, right?” Hinkle joked. People in the US would rather see the funds spent “to fix our roads, our infrastructure, the trains that are blowing up, the planes that are cruising,” he added. But there are also indirect consequences, since the US is antagonizing the rest of the world with its foreign policy, Hinkle warned. As Washington loses its clout, Americans face “economic degradation and misery,” he said, adding that America’s claim to global hegemony is leading it towards disaster. “Unipolarity cannot exist. You cannot have 1% of the world that stands on the neck of the 99% of the world and expect that to continue,” he said.

“[Otto] used to say: if Russia and Germany go together and be friends together, then Europe will be well,” he stated.”

• Most Germans Disagree With Berlin On Russia Policy – Bismarck Descendant (RT)

The Western mainstream media is distorting reality regarding Russia and doesn’t reflect what people really think of the country and its actions, German politician Alexander von Bismarck, great nephew of his nation’s first chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, has claimed. Speaking during an RT panel discussion titled ‘The Empire of Evil: Has the West Successfully Demonized Russia?’ at the 2024 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) on Friday, the politician argued that the media toeing the line drawn by Western governments regarding Russia and the Ukraine conflict. Berlin and its Western partners sided with Kiev when the conflict began in 2022, and has been instrumental in supporting Ukraine’s military effort with financial aid and sanctions against Moscow. Bismarck, however, said ordinary Germans are not fooled by the anti-Russian narrative.

“[The view of] the German political elite on Russia is very different to the rest of Germany. 80% don’t believe what our government does and says… The mainstream media want to push the people, they want to give another picture, but most young people look not at the mainstream – they look at the social media and […] the thinking of the young people is other than the political elite,” he stressed. Bismarck also stated that the policy of painting Russia in an unfavorable light dates back to the days of the Cold War, when the US wanted to promote the idea of “the crazy Russian people” in West Germany. The general opinion of those living in East Germany always focused on separating people from politics when forming opinions on Russia and Russians, he added. The politician signaled that his renowned ancestor, who at one point served as an envoy to Russia, would not have approved of the current state of relations between Moscow and Berlin.

“[Otto] used to say: if Russia and Germany go together and be friends together, then Europe will be well,” he stated. He added that he has faith in the younger generation, which has an opportunity to communicate globally through social media and form opinions without the influence of political agendas, to change Berlin’s policies. Otherwise, Bismarck warned, Germany may find itself “the biggest loser” in the Ukraine conflict by continuing to act on orders from Washington. “The younger generation… they look to many countries and say: yes, America does bad things, they only think about themselves for money, and Europe pays for this conflict, and Germany is the biggest loser in the whole of Europe,” he stated.

Victor Davis Hanson sees just the little parts, but not the connection.

• The Myth That Biden Had Nothing To Do with the Prosecutions of Trump (VDH)

Given Politico was publicly reporting six months ago about Biden’s anger at the pace of his DOJ’s prosecution of Trump, does anyone believe his special counsel, Jack Smith, was not aware of such presidential displeasure and pressure? Note Smith had petitioned and was denied an unusual request to the court to speed up the course of his Trump indictment. And why would Biden’s own Attorney General, Garland, select such an obvious partisan as Smith? Remember, in his last tenure as special counsel, Smith had previously gone after popular Republican and conservative Virginia governor Bob MacDonald. Yet Smith’s politicized persecution of the innocent [MacDonald] was reversed by a unanimous verdict of the U.S. Supreme Court. That rare court unanimity normally should have raised a red flag to the Biden DOJ about both Smith’s partiality and his incompetence. But then again, Smith’s wife had donated to the 2020 Biden campaign fund. And she was previously known for producing a hagiographic 2020 documentary (“Becoming”) about Michelle Obama.

Selecting a special counsel with a successful record of prior nonpartisan convictions was clearly not why the DOJ appointed Smith. The White House’s involvement is not limited to the Smith federal indictments. Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis’s paramour and erstwhile lead prosecutor in her indictment of Trump, Nathan Wade, met twice with the White House counsel’s office. On one occasion, Wade met inside the Biden White House. Subpoenaed records reveal that the brazen Wade actually billed the federal government for his time spent with the White House counsel’s staff — although so far no one has disclosed under oath the nature of such meetings. Of the tens of thousands of local prosecutions each year, in how many instances does a county prosecutor consult with the White House counsel’s office — and then bill it for his knowledge? Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s just-completed felony convictions of Trump were spearheaded by former prominent federal prosecutor Matthew Colangelo.

He is not just a well-known Democratic partisan who served as a political consultant to the Democratic National Committee. Colangelo had also just left his prior position in the Biden Justice Department — reputedly as Garland’s third-ranking prosecutor — to join the local Bragg team. Again, among all the multitudes of annual municipal indictments nationwide, how many local prosecutors manage to enlist one of the nation’s three top federal attorneys to head their case? So, apparently, it was not enough for the shameless Bragg to campaign flagrantly on promises to go after Trump. In addition, Bragg brashly drafted a top Democratic operative and political appointee from inside Joe Biden’s DOJ to head his prosecution. Not surprisingly, it took only a few hours after the Colangelo-Bragg conviction of Trump for Biden on spec to start blasting his rival as a “convicted felon.” Biden is delighted that his own former prosecutor, a left-wing judge, and a Manhattan jury may well keep Trump off the campaign trail.

So, it is past time for the media and Democrats to drop this ridiculous ruse of Biden’s White House “neutrality.” Instead, they should admit that they are terrified of the will of the people in November and so are conniving to silence them.

“More than twenty states have “motor-voter laws” that automatically register anybody with a driver’s license. And these enrollees don’t even have to cast their ballot..”

• Time to Jettison the Animals (Kunstler)

The most astounding part of America’s “Joe Biden” three-plus-years thrill ride is that the Party of Chaos and Hoaxes was able to pretend until just a few days ago that this political phantasm could run for re-election. Now, regime insiders are forced to confess that they can’t hide it anymore. They spilled the beans as “unnamed sources” this week in a huge Wall Street Journal article. The president is going necrotic in full view of the whole world. His mind is gone. He looks ridiculous when he shuffles in front of the cameras. He utters obvious absurdities and lies. His wife has to lead him around like a dog on a leash. Everyone can see it. He’s got to go. ASAP.

The embarrassing ineptitude has been on view since the 2020 campaign, yet his handlers managed to flimflam half the country ever since, thanks to a news media captured by intel blob gaslighters and to half the country’s susceptibility to mass formation psychosis — fear driven thought disorder — that gave cover to treasonous actors seeking to save their asses even if they had to wreck the USA doing it. Who were these actors? The Clintons and the coterie around them, steeped in financial crime and sex trafficking; the Obama coterie of anti-white racists and bungling Marxists; the batshit-crazy Woke race-and-gender hustlers working to derange the merit-based social order (and get paid for doing it); the congressional grifters living off Pharma and Pentagon loot; the agency top bureaucrats who became a corrupt praetorian guard for all the above players, now desperate to evade accountability.

Everything they’ve done since 2020 has been in the service of covering up their crimes, and each hoax has just compounded the damage done to our country. The Covid-19 prank was pulled to enable mail-in ballot fraud so as to assure a permanent government-by-blob, of which the Democratic Party is now a mere tentacle. We don’t know yet whether the mRNA vaccine module of the prank was a deliberate effort to kill a lot of people or a grievous blunder by greedy drug-makers, or some wicked combo — with assistance from the WEF or China.

They can’t afford to lose their grip on the levers of power in the 2024 election — lose control of the Justice Department, the FBI, and the so-called “national security” apparatus, especially. The open border is just an effort to illegally import and enlist a vast wad of potential new voters to ensure an election victory. More than twenty states have “motor-voter laws” that automatically register anybody with a driver’s license. And these enrollees don’t even have to cast their ballot. Their names can just be “harvested” systematically, attached to voting documents, and bundled to be submitted for them. Millions have entered the country illegally since 2021 at “Joe Biden’s” direct invitation. There’s nothing hidden about this — but all you see is the learned helplessness of actual US citizens unable to stop it.

And yet, even that prank may not work to keep the Party of Chaos and Hoaxes in power. Designated candidate “Joe Biden” is obviously so far gone that even actual citizen voters under the mass formation spell can’t be counted on anymore. His poll numbers look abysmal. He’s scheduled to debate his opponent, the outlaw Donald Trump, on June 27. If his handlers allow that to actually happen, it will be like the unmasking scene in The Phantom of the Opera: brain-ringing horror, from sea to shining sea! Of course, an insult to the zeitgeist that severe will force the party leaders into some ‘splainin’, and I personally doubt they will be able to ‘splain their way out of it. Did all of you Democrats not notice?

“On a very personal level, these are torturous discussions with their family members about whether or not they have to leave the country to avoid being unconstitutionally and illegally detained..”

• FBI Agents Fear Being Jailed By Trump – McCabe (RT)

Former US intelligence and law enforcement officials are fretting that they may face retribution, including incarceration, if Donald Trump wins back the presidency in November, an ex-deputy director of the FBI has claimed. Andrew McCabe, who was fired by the Trump administration in 2018 for lying to investigators about a media leak, revealed his fears in a CNN segment on Thursday. Now working as an analyst for the media outlet, he called the prospect of a potential Trump victory in the presidential election “terrifying” and “frightening.” “If he feels like he’s been wronged in some way, then he focuses on revenge and vengeance,” McCabe said. “And so, he’s made it perfectly clear that that’s what he’s going to do.” McCabe did not spell out what he and other Washington officials had done to make themselves enemies of the former president, but some of their clashes with Trump are well known.

Trump has accused the US Department of Justice (DOJ) of trying to help block his return to the White House by filing bogus criminal charges against him. Just last month, Trump said FBI agents were “locked and loaded” to potentially shoot him when they raided his home for classified documents in 2022. The FBI improperly spied on a Trump campaign staffer in 2016 and lied to the US FISA court to obtain warrants in a probe of alleged Russian interference in that year’s election. The agency also covered up its knowledge that the ‘Russiagate’ conspiracy narrative was false. A high-level FBI agent and his mistress, an FBI lawyer, discussed the use of the Russia investigation as an “insurance policy” to ensure that Trump did not win the election. Trump suggested in 2019 that McCabe and other FBI leaders had committed treason. More than 50 former intelligence agency officials put their thumbs on the scale in the 2020 election when Trump was running against Joe Biden.

They falsely claimed that a Biden influence-peddling scandal – reported by the New York Post just weeks before the election – appeared to stem from “Russian disinformation.” McCabe said he has spoken to many former intelligence and law enforcement colleagues who are trying to assess the risks they would face in a second Trump presidential term. “On a very personal level, these are torturous discussions with their family members about whether or not they have to leave the country to avoid being unconstitutionally and illegally detained. I mean, people are actually worried about being thrown in jail or grabbed in some sort of extrajudicial detention.” Trump runs the risk of “dismantling and gravely incapacitating” the DOJ and the FBI, McCabe argued. “That is something that Americans on both sides of the political aisle should be worried about. We depend on those institutions to protect us, and he is proposing to tear them down.”

“She must be turned out of office. But for this salutary change to happen, the rightist parties must achieve big results on June 9th.”

Hmm. I’d say if she plays her cards, she’ll become the elected head.

• Power Play: Von der Leyen Faces Showdown in EU Leadership Race (Sp.)

With the European Parliament (MEPs) elections taking place on June 6-9, the chances of the European Commission’s head Ursula von der Leyen keeping her job are slimming. Rising non-systemic right-wing mobilization may boost Eurosceptic MEPs, challenging von der Leyen’s pro-American stance. Loss of support in the European Council adds to her woes. On the eve of the Euroelections, Politico has published a story headlined “Charles Michel Plots A Revenge Against Ursula Von Der Leyen.” The story attracted a lot of attention, since the position of the European Commission’s president is crucial. The president heads the whole executive branch of power inside the EU. But that is not all: only the commission and its head can present draft laws for the vote in the European Parliament, which gave von der Leyen (VDL) some legislative leverage, too.

During her mandate, VDL made several controversial steps, which make her, too, a divisive candidate. These steps included:
• Invitation of embattled and impoverished Ukraine to the EU and a promise of speedy membership amid the protests in Poland and Rumania against cheap Ukrainian exports;
• Non-collegial way of running EU policy, with even the EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell telling El País* that “she should not take personal credit for all the successes of the European Commission”;
• active lobbying of greater involvement of the EU in anti-Russian sanctions and of EU member countries in military aid to Ukraine, which led to protests from Hungary and the non-systemic right wing in France and Germany.

No wonder that news about von der Leyen having a powerful enemy in the person of Michel, the head of the European Council, attracted attention. Gilbert Doctorow an international relations and Russian affairs analyst accused VDL of “usurping” power. “The biggest usurper is, of course, the Commission’s president Ursula von der Leyen who has taken into her hands all manner of decision-making which under her predecessors was left to the [European] Council, meaning the heads of state acting together, or to individual EU member states,” he told Sputnik. “She must be turned out of office. But for this salutary change to happen, the rightist parties must achieve big results on June 9th.”

Several European media outlets have recalled that VDL became the president of the European Commission in 2019 in an undemocratic way, with Michel’s European Council involved. As Germany’s Der Spiegel reported, von der Leyen did not win an honest vote in the newly elected European Parliament with many candidates running. Instead, her candidacy was “handpicked at a confidential meeting” of the European Council. An unelected institution, the European Council is a body that unites presidents and prime ministers of the EU’s member countries. This time, von der Leyen, most likely, will have to go through a real election through the European Parliament, without the European Council throwing its weight behind her candidacy. So, relying on its own calculations, Politico concludes in another headline, “Von der Leyen needs 361 votes to keep her job.” But this is a tricky challenge.

“..if Budapest’s troops were to do so, they would be commanded by officers appointed by the US-led military bloc. “If this happens, then we have lost a very important part of our sovereignty..”

• EU Is In ‘War Psychosis’ – Orban (RT)

The EU has plunged into “war psychosis” in the Ukraine conflict, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said, arguing that this mindset will almost certainly lead to the deployment of Western troops in the country. In an interview with Radio Kossuth on Friday, Orban said the West was “approaching the end of its possibilities” for the conflict between Moscow and Kiev to be ended, adding that “whoever claims that there is no immediate danger of war is deceiving people.” “Only a blind person does not see that there is a war psychosis in Europe, the logical conclusion of which will be the arrival of the military units of the Western European countries on the territory of Ukraine, at best not on the front line,” the prime minister said.

Orban said that, despite tensions reaching boiling point, “hope dies last” and the ongoing European Parliament election could defuse the crisis to a certain extent. According to the Hungarian leader, if the conflict does not spill beyond the Russian-Ukrainian front in the coming weeks, “as early as November if [US presidential candidate] Donald Trump returns, and with a good European election behind us, we can make a pan-Western, transatlantic peace coalition” to cease hostilities. Orban insisted that Hungary must refrain from taking part in any possible NATO mission in Ukraine, noting that if Budapest’s troops were to do so, they would be commanded by officers appointed by the US-led military bloc.

“If this happens, then we have lost a very important part of our sovereignty,” he said, adding that Hungary was already paying an economic price for the conflict. Budapest has consistently slammed the Western approach to the Ukraine conflict, warning that it could result in an escalation and direct NATO-Russia clash. The EU country has also opposed arms shipments to Kiev and called for immediate ceasefire talks. It has also pushed back against remarks by French President Emmanuel Macron, who had suggested that the West should not rule out the option of sending troops to Ukraine, warning that such a move could trigger World War III.

It’s like it is all on purpose. How many blunders is credible?

• Bob Iger, DEI, and Wokism Broke Disney’s Trust with America (AmG)

On May 7, 2024, in the wake of its successful battle to keep activist investor Nelson Peltz off its Board of Directors back in April (after which Peltz liquidated his Disney holdings, walking away with more than $1 billion), Disney CEO Bob Iger held Disney’s quarterly earnings call, during which its stock tanked almost 10%, losing $20 billion in its market cap. While it has recovered a bit, to $105 a share, it’s well below its 52-week high, $123.72, and off its all-time highest closing price of $201.91 on March 8, 2021. Those investors who abandoned Peltz in his proxy battle for two seats on the Disney Board of Directors can now lick their financial wounds. There is speculation in the financial community that if Disney stock again falls below $90 a share, Peltz could mount a third bid for two or more seats on the Disney board or possibly oust Iger.

It’s hilarious to watch the New York Times put its spin on the battle, saying Peltz lost his battle with Iger. Actually, Peltz and his Trian Partners investment group walked away with $1 billion. Yes, Peltz lost the battle, but he won the war. Despite the current dip, many stock analysts are predicting that Disney stock will rebound. That seems unlikely. Here are the reasons why things are likely to get worse, not better, for The Walt Disney Company for the remainder of 2024 and into 2025. Disney is one of America’s wokest companies. It sees itself as being out in front on cultural and social issues, especially where Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are concerned. This has been a huge issue in America’s—especially American parents’—loss of trust in the House of Mouse. You can’t watch this clip from Disney programming Vice President Latoya Raveneau bragging about how she pushed LGBTQ messages anywhere she could into Disney’s programming without parents seeing that agenda.

Because of this agenda, Disney parks, Disney feature films, Disney animation, and especially the Disney Channel have lost trust with many parents. Disney has lost its decades-long leadership in animation to NBCUniversal’s Dreamworks Animation studio. Its slate of feature films—with their bloated $250,000,000 production budgets requiring a $500,000,000 theatrical run to just break even—has been an unmitigated disaster. Along the way, it has destroyed two of the successful film franchises it acquired during Iger’s first term as CEO: Star Wars and Indiana Jones. And its long-delayed live-action remake of its own 1937 Snow White classic animated film is mired in its own disaster, mostly due to woke comments from its star, Rachel Ziegler. It was moved back a year from a March 2024 release to 2025. But could its theatrical release be scrapped entirely and go directly to the Disney+ streaming service?

Related to its film franchises, which also include Marvel and Pixar (which just laid off 175 employees), was the company’s $250,000,000 misadventure, Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, a $6,000 two-night Star Wars-themed hotel experience that opened on March 1, 2022, and closed on September 30, 2023. It was forced to take a charge against earnings for this catastrophe. This disaster was documented in a four-hour viral video by YouTuber Jenny Nicholson that has received an incredible seven million views in a little more than two weeks. (That was 10 times the number of views CNN’s coverage of the debacle received.)

Marathon

Kelvin Kiptum's world record marathon pace: 21 km/h or 13 mph.

[📹 karlis_ancans]pic.twitter.com/xZ3wSm5SoC

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) June 7, 2024

Dogbed

pic.twitter.com/w1pnjyIvzW

— Doglover (@puppiesDoglover) June 7, 2024

Argue
https://twitter.com/i/status/1798616700549759035

Maravilloso

Maravilloso. pic.twitter.com/fBUMAGBMPt

— Luis (@Thor_luisXVII) June 6, 2024

Productive
https://twitter.com/i/status/1798683288539697184

Car washer

He is the world's most expensive car washer pic.twitter.com/ArVDCRBaHe

— CLEAN CAR CLUB (@TheCleanCarClub) June 7, 2024

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Debt Rattle May 10 2024

May 102024

May 10, 2024 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 8:50 am Finance Tagged with: Biden, Boeing, drones, hypersonic, Jack Smith, shipbuilding, Tara Reade, Trump, Tucker Carlson 45 Responses »

Carl Spitzweg The raven 1845

• Jack Smith Has Few Options in Trump Case, Say Former Prosecutors (ET)

• Trump Announces ‘Major Motion’ Filed in New York Appeals Court (ET)

• Democrats Attack Judge for Delaying Trump Florida Trial (Turley)

• Putin Doesn’t Bluff (Jim Rickards)

• US Defenseless Against Russian Hypersonic Missiles, Iranian Drones – DoD (Sp.)

• Boeing’s Setbacks Show Why US Industries Lose Competitive Edge (Sp.)

• Aging US Fleet and Drained Stockpiles No Match for China and Russia (Sp.)

• Biden Denies Economic Reality In Car Crash CNN Interview (MN)

• Tucker Carlson Interviews Biden Accuser Tara Reade (RT)

• Whole West Is Working To Supply Ukraine – Putin (RT)

• West ‘Trying To Distort’ History Of WWII – Putin (RT)

Fani more

Fani Willis and Nathan Wade had sex in the Fulton County evidence office. The Georgia Court of Appeals disqualification hearing into Willis will be lit. America is going to learn a lot of things they wish they did not know about Willis and Wade and their “get Trump” relationship. pic.twitter.com/wP30NdY9bW

— Charles R Downs (@TheCharlesDowns) May 8, 2024

Larry Johnson

Ex-CIA analyst Larry Johnson:

"Russia is on a roll now. I have already said that I thought their offensive was in full swing. But it turned out to be not what we, in the West, usually imagined as an offensive. Well, there are tanks in a row, someone gives a signal, and… pic.twitter.com/1kRcnlqKxl

— Victor vicktop55 (@vicktop55) May 9, 2024

Evidence tampering. Throw out the whole case. Not salvageable.

• Jack Smith Has Few Options in Trump Case, Say Former Prosecutors (ET)

A federal judge’s ruling this week that postponed former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case represents a significant legal win for the former president, legal analysts say. A former federal prosecutor, Renato Mariotti, wrote that there is virtually “nothing” special counsel Jack Smith can do to speed the process up. “Realistically there is nothing Jack Smith can do to move the Mar-a-Lago case forward to trial before the election. Judges have extremely broad discretion over their trial calendar, which is what gives Judge Cannon the ability to avoid setting a trial date at this time,” Mr. Mariotti wrote on social media. Another former federal prosecutor, Brandon Van Grack, wrote that Mr. Smith’s team will have “a bumpy ride” ahead of them because of Judge Cannon’s “numerous other scheduled hearings on pretrial motions” from President Trump and two co-defendants, which he indicates that Judge Cannon believes “have merit.”

Harry P. Litman, a law professor and a former U.S. attorney, echoed those claims, saying that the case is now in a “deep freeze” after the latest order. Meanwhile, multiple television legal analysts claimed that with her latest order, Judge Cannon is intentionally trying to delay the case. The Epoch Times contacted the court for comment. “This is news but it’s hardly unexpected. Judge Cannon seems desperate to avoid trying this case. This isn’t justice. defendants aren’t the only ones with speedy trial act rights, we the people have them too,” wrote former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance, who currently works for MSNBC, on Tuesday afternoon. But Tim Fitton, the head of the Judicial Watch legal group, wrote that complaints about Judge Cannon’s decisions are unwarranted, arguing that such a timeline “is normal and not surprising.”

“But the Left’s election riggers and civil rights abusers believe that Trump has no rights and will attack Judge Cannon for proceeding normally in this case and for not violating Trump’s constitutional rights,” he wrote on X, formerly known Twitter. In that post, he pointed out that Mr. Smith’s team last week submitted court papers to Judge Cannon essentially saying that his team misled the court because the contents of a box of documents were re-arranged. Prosecutors did not disclose the exact reason why the materials may have been shifted. “There are some boxes where the order of items within that box is not the same as in the associated scans,” Mr. Smith’s team wrote, adding that the update contrasts with what they told the judge several weeks ago during a hearing.

The boxes in question have “items smaller than standard paper such as index cards, books, and stationary, which shift easily when the boxes are carried, especially because many of the boxes are not full,” they added. After the disclosure, President Trump wrote his Truth Social platform that he believes Mr. Smith should be arrested before calling for the case to be immediately dropped.

“‘I’ve been doing this for 60 years, and I don’t understand what crime he’s been charged with. Nobody understands this. I just don’t get the crime. There’s no evidence of any crime whatsoever..”

• Trump Announces ‘Major Motion’ Filed in New York Appeals Court (ET)

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday confirmed that his lawyers asked a New York state appellate court to issue a ruling on a judge’s gag order that prohibits him from speaking about certain individuals connected to his ongoing trial. His team filed a motion on Wednesday, which has been sealed and is inaccessible, according to the court docket. The Manhattan district attorney’s office filed a response to the motion, but it was also sealed. While speaking with reporters outside the courthouse on Thursday morning, President Trump confirmed the move. Anonymously sourced reports published Wednesday said that it was a motion to expedite the ruling. “I just want to let you know that we’ve just filed a major motion in the appellate division concerning the absolutely unconstitutional gag order, where I’m essentially not allowed to talk to you about anything meaningful that’s going on in the case. And many good things are going on with the case. It shouldn’t have been filed,” he said. During his comments to reporters, he did not go into specifics about the motion.

The former president is under a gag order that prohibits him from making public statements about potential witnesses, court staff, prosecutors’ staff, or family members. Judge Juan Merchan, who issued the order and later expanded it, ruled that President Trump violated his directive 10 times before threatening to jail the former president if he makes future comments that he believes violate that order. Previously, the New York Court of Appeals rejected the former president’s bid to pause the trial while he battles the gag order. They also rejected an attempt to pause the enforcement of the order, which was issued in March after prosecutors requested it. His lawyers have argued that the gag order violates the former president’s First Amendment right to free speech, noting that he is currently the leading Republican presidential candidate. But earlier this week, Judge Merchan fined the former president for a 10th time for an April remark that he made to a media outlet about the Manhattan jury pool, which he said was “95 percent” Democratic.

The judge then said that a $1,000 fine isn’t enough and that he might have to jail the former president, although he did not go into specifics about how that would look like. “Your continued willful violations of this court’s orders threaten to interfere with the … administration of justice,” Judge Merchan said before issuing a warning about possible jail time. The former president, in response, criticized the judge and wrote on Truth Social that he is now not allowed to respond publicly to “lies and false statements” made about him during the New York trial. It came after witness Stormy Daniels made salacious allegations about President Trump during her first trial appearance, which President Trump has denied. According to emails reviewed by The Epoch Times, the Trump campaign also used the judge’s threat as a means to fundraise for his presidential campaign. “The liberal judge in New York just threatened to THROW ME IN JAIL,” read one of the emails, adding that they want him “in HANDCUFFS.”

During his remarks to reporters on Thursday, the former president also quoted multiple legal analysts’ commentary on the case to say that it should never have been brought against him. Those analysts, which President Trump read aloud from a piece of paper, stated prosecutors revived the case after more than seven years in a politicized attempt to harm his 2024 reelection campaign. “‘I’ve been doing this for 60 years, and I don’t understand what crime he’s been charged with. Nobody understands this. I just don’t get the crime. There’s no evidence of any crime whatsoever. This is a sham,’” President Trump said, quoting retired Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz. The trial is expected to last another two weeks. On Thursday, Ms. Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, again took the witness stand and was grilled by defense attorneys about whether she was using her allegations against President Trump to make money for herself and bolster her name recognition.

President Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up his former lawyer Michael Cohen’s $130,000 payment to Ms. Daniels for her silence ahead of the 2016 election about the alleged encounter. President Trump has pleaded not guilty and denies Ms. Daniels’ claims. The case is seen by some as the least consequential of the four criminal prosecutions President Trump faces. But the chances of the other three, going to trial before the election are growing more distant. He has pleaded not guilty in all the cases. The former president’s cases in Georgia and Washington were paused by the respective judges overseeing them. Meanwhile, in a major legal win, a Florida federal judge suspended his classified documents case indefinitely after prosecutors revealed that the contents of an evidence box were inexplicably rearranged.

” this is a case where justice delayed is justice.”

• Democrats Attack Judge for Delaying Trump Florida Trial (Turley)

While pundits, politicians and the press have long expressed outrage over attacks on judges by former President Donald Trump, many are now attacking any judge who delays any trial of Trump before the election. Democrats have accused Judge Aileen Cannon of being politically compromised, if not conspiratorial, in her delay of the Florida trial over the mishandling of classified documents. Yet, there is ample reason for the delay that many of us anticipated in this type of case when it was filed. For months, many of us have said that we doubt that this type of trial could be held on the rapid schedule demanded by Special Counsel Jake Smith. Smith has repeatedly sought to curtail trial review and even appellate rights of Trump to advance his schedule. His office has made convicting Trump before the election the overriding objective of its motion — a sharp departure from past Justice Department efforts to avoid trials to influence elections.

As a criminal defense counsel, I have handled classified material cases and they are notoriously slow. Smith could have prosecuted this case in the shorter time frame if he simply charge obstruction. That would have also eliminated the glaring contrast with the handling of the Biden investigation into the current president’s retention and mishandling of classified material. Smith decided to charge an array of document charges related to classified material. The defense must have access, review, and can appeal issue related to the classified procedures. Yet, Smith wanted both the array of document charges and a fast track to trial. The Supreme Court has agreed with Cannon that Smith desire to secure a conviction before the election is not the overriding consideration. Judge Cannon is faced with recent admissions that the government mixed up files in the boxes and staged the famous photos of document strewn over a floor with classified jackets. Most importantly, disputes over the relevant documents continue as expected in the case. Nevertheless, leading democrats are denouncing Cannon as a partisan hack.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on federal courts and oversight subcommittee, said accused Cannon of “deliberately slow-walking the case.” Ignoring the fact that similar cases have taken much longer to go to trial, Whitehouse simply declared “it is hard for me not to reach the conclusion that this [judge] is deliberately slow-walking the case to put it into a position where should [Trump] be elected, he can order that the investigation and prosecution be terminated.” His colleague Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) insisted that Cannon was “managing this case in a way that is making it highly unlikely that it will be resolved in a timely fashion.” Coons added “Justice deferred is often justice denied.” It is a bizarre statement. Classified documents cases routinely take longer to go to trial. The alternative is to cut off the ability of the defense to fully review the documents and review objections for resolution before trial. Yet, because the defendant is Trump and these Democrats want the trial to influence the election, such defense protections are now evidence of judicial bias.

They, of course, ignore that Cannon has ruled repeatedly against major Trump motions in the case. Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, said Cannon’s “at it again, doing everything she can to delay.” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), offered the most telling line. He said “I question whether this judge understands the magnitude or the legal import of this trial.”Indeed, it is the timing as much as the charges that makes this so important to the Justice Department and the Democrats. Smith has crafted this case to impact the election and the failure of the court to support that effort is apparently grounds for recusal. Blumenthal called for such a motion before the window is lost before the election: “It’s a classic dilemma for justice that a particular judicial officer may be conducting a trial that could be better done by somebody else.” Despite the statement of his colleague Coons, this is a case where justice delayed is justice.

“You may assume that Houthi rebels in Yemen want to avoid attacks by the U.S., but they don’t care — they live in caves anyway, so you can’t bomb them into the Stone Age because they’re already there//”

• Putin Doesn’t Bluff (Jim Rickards)

One of the persistent problems in intelligence analysis is what experts call “mirror imaging.” This is jargon for an analytic flaw in which the analyst assumes that his beliefs and preferences are shared by an adversary. Instead of looking at the adversary as he actually is, the analyst is looking in a mirror while assuming he is looking at the adversary. This is an extremely dangerous flaw. You may be rational, but the mullahs who rule Iran are not. You may believe that leaders want economic growth, but Communist Chinese leaders elevate the party over all other considerations including the well-being of their people. You may assume that Houthi rebels in Yemen want to avoid attacks by the U.S., but they don’t care — they live in caves anyway, so you can’t bomb them into the Stone Age because they’re already there. Nowhere is this flaw more apparent today than in the U.S. intelligence analysis of Vladimir Putin.

In 2008, President Bush said that Ukraine and Georgia should join NATO. A few months later, Putin invaded Georgia, annexed part of its territory and destroyed Georgia’s chances of joining NATO. In 2014, the U.S. backed a coup d’état in Ukraine that deposed a duly elected leader. Three months later, Putin annexed Crimea from Ukraine and made it part of the Russian Federation. In 2021, NATO began formal processes to admit Ukraine as a member. In February 2022, Russia began a special military operation that’s resulted in 500,000 dead Ukrainian soldiers. Some estimates are even higher. Ukraine’s chances of joining NATO are now zero. In every case, U.S. analysts did not believe Putin would take the steps he did because they thought it might somehow weaken Putin or Russia. That’s mirror imaging at its worst. The truth is Putin doesn’t bluff. When he says he will do something, he does. When he says he will react to some Western act, the reaction takes place.

Putin said if the West steals Russian assets, Russia will retaliate by seizing billions of dollars of direct foreign investment in Russia owned by major European companies such as Siemens, Total, BP and others. And sure enough, just days after Biden signed legislation to authorize the theft of Russian assets, a Russian court ordered $440 million be seized from JPMorgan. The escalation in the asset seizure war has begun. Putin will win in the end. Unfortunately, escalation is also increasing on the geopolitical front. The U.S. and some of its European allies are becoming increasingly desperate about Ukraine’s ability to hold off Russia on the battlefield. The recent $61 billion aid package for Ukraine (about two-thirds of which will go to U.S. defense companies) won’t be nearly enough to reverse the tide. The U.S. and its NATO allies have already given just about all they can afford to give Ukraine without jeopardizing their own security. The problem isn’t a lack of money but a lack of weapons and ammunition. Before the aid package was approved, critics complained that Ukraine was losing because the U.S. was withholding desperately needed materiel. But that’s not really true.

The Europeans could have simply bought the weapons from the U.S. and delivered them to Ukraine. They didn’t. Why? Because the weapons simply weren’t there. Yes, there will always be a supply of weapons flowing to Ukraine — they’re not going to run out completely. But Ukraine won’t have nearly enough weapons and ammunition to undertake meaningful offensive operations against the Russians. They’ll just have enough to keep them in the fight, which is the goal of NATO. Unfortunately for Ukraine, the problems run much deeper than a lack of equipment. They’re also running out of trained manpower. Former commander Valeriy Zaluzhny has suggested Ukraine needs an extra 500,000 troops. But they’re having trouble finding new volunteers. An estimated 650,000 fighting age men have fled Ukraine. Meanwhile, the Russian army is even larger than it was before the invasion, and Russian industry is churning out weapons and ammunition at astonishing rates.

“..could we knock down 99 percent of those missiles coming in?”

• US Defenseless Against Russian Hypersonic Missiles, Iranian Drones – DoD (Sp.)

The crisis in Ukraine and escalating tensions in the Middle East have demonstrated that the US’ $886 billion defense budget has not translated into real-world capabilities on the ground. Now, an explosive verbal exchange on Capitol Hill has revealed that North America’s skies are defenseless against not only Russian, but even Iranian missiles. An otherwise boring and formulaic briefing by senior Pentagon officials to lawmakers from the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces went off the rails on Wednesday after subcommittee Chairman Angus King took the floor and forced Department of Defense officials to reveal that North America is helpless against adversaries it has spent years agitating around the world. “The truth is we have no defense for hypersonic missiles – yes or no? Mr. Hill, any defense on the hypersonic missile?

You’re the commander of an aircraft carrier in the Greenland Gap. If we have a hypersonic missile launched from Murmansk [traveling at] 6,000 miles an hour, what do you do?” King asked, querying Deputy Secretary of Defense for Space and Missile Defense John Hill. “We have some systems to defend in the terminal stage but we need more, you’re correct, Senator King… that our hypersonic defenses are inadequate and we do need [more]. SM-6 is in the Navy’s terminal range [capability], the Patriot – I’ll let General Gainey speak to the specifics on that. Those are examples but no argument, we need to focus on hypersonic defenses,” Hill responded. “So why are we talking about 2029 and even stretching that out? This is next year kind of stuff. I don’t get your budget,” King countered, referencing the lack of focus on anti-hypersonic capabilities in current US defense spending plans.

“What we faced in the budget this year – it was a difficult year, particularly with the Fiscal Responsibility Act caps that we had to work with. There were must-pay bills that we had to work with for the personnel, the salaries, the health care, inflation costs. When you get down to the point of where you get down to the discretionary types of things where you can really control your choices,” Hill said. “But that’s your mission – your mission is missile defense,” King retorted. “The budget decisions are made at a higher level and so you’re trading off between readiness or your future investments,” Hill said. “Well let me put the question another way: let’s say what happened on April 14 [Iran’s retaliatory missile and drone attack on Israel, ed.] happened over the Arctic Ocean – 300 missiles, drones, UAVs came across the Arctic Ocean toward Canada and North America. Could we do what Israel and we and other countries did – could we knock down 99 percent of those missiles coming in?” King asked. “No chairman,” Air Force General Gregory Guillot, commander of US Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), responded.

One major accident away from bankruptcy.

• Boeing’s Setbacks Show Why US Industries Lose Competitive Edge (Sp.)

Boeing’s problems keep piling up. The company faces a new inquiry over B787 Dreamliner safety inspections and is feeling the blowback from sanctions on Russia. Passengers and crew members have been evacuated from a Corendon Airlines Boeing 737-800 after one of the plane’s tyres burst during landing in Turkey. The accident occurred on Thursday at Gazipasa, an airport near the Turkish town of Alanya. It was the third serious incident involving one of the aviation giant’s aircraft in just two days, the Daily Mail noted. Bad news has dogged Boeing for the past few years, undermining its profits and driving down its share price. Earlier this week, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) opened a new probe into whether the Seattle-based corporation broke rules during inspections of its long-haul B787 Dreamliner passenger jet, and whether its employees falsified aircraft records.

The FAA announced last month that Boeing had “voluntarily” revealed that some of its employees had not performed required tests to confirm adequate bonding and grounding of the fasteners connecting the wings to the fuselage, and had then falsely reported the checks had been completed. Quoting a source familiar with the issue, CBS News said as many as 450 aircraft could be affected, including around 60 airframes still on the production line. According to the FAA, the aircraft still in Boeing’s possession are undergoing re-inspection, while the company maintains that the reported “misconduct” would not pose an “immediate safety-of-flight issue.” The FAA’s latest inquiry comes on the heels of a US Congressional investigation into the safety culture and manufacturing standards at Boeing. Sam Salehpour, a Boeing quality engineer, told Congress last month that the industrial giant was cutting corners to speed up production — which is fraught with acute safety risks.

The whistle-blower also complained that Boeing employees raising red flags over quality issues were “ignored, marginalized, threatened, sidelined and worse.” He told Congress that he was afraid of being subjected to “physical violence” after exposing the aerospace corporation’s flaws Two other Boeing whistleblowers, Joshua Dean, former quality auditor at Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems, and John “Mitch” Barnett, a former Boeing employee, passed away in May and March, respectively. Dean died after a short illness, while Barnett was found dead in an apparent suicide. Barnett and Dean both raised the alarm over manufacturing defects in Boeing’s 737 Max and other planes, after a series of crashes involving the aircraft. In January, all 171 Boeing 737 Max 9 planes were temporarily grounded by the FAA after a door panel blew out on an Alaska Airlines flight. The same month, an oxygen leak was discovered on board a Boeing 737. Remarkably, the aircraft was scheduled to carry US Secretary of State Antony Blinken from the Davos World Economic Forum.

At least ten more whistle-blowers, including former and current employees, are ready to testify against the aerospace company, the Independent reported, quoting lawyers for both Dean and Barnett. Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that Boeing is facing a new problem stemming from anti-Russia sanctions, imposed by the US over Moscow’s special operation in Ukraine. As a result, the industrial giant cannot deliver enough B787 Dreamliners. According to the WSJ, the trouble was caused by a lack of heat exchangers – temperature-regulating parts for the B787 – which were previously produced in Russia. Even though the production was shifted to the US and the UK, new factories have proven incapable of keeping up with demand.

Boeing’s inability to obtain enough heat exchangers disrupted the pace of Dreamliner manufacturing. The company was forced to warn investors that it will not deliver as many planes as anticipated this year. American Airlines blamed Dreamliner delays for its decision to suspend some international and long-haul flights this year and next. Boeing also severed ties with a major Russian titanium supplier and halted selling spare parts and maintenance services to Russian airlines that operate its passenger planes. The WSJ admitted that US anti-Russia sanctions significantly backfired on Boeing and jet manufacturing in general, naming Russia “a big player in the global aerospace supply chain.”

China possesses approximately 370 warships, compared to the US fleet of 291 vessels. In 2023, China added 30 ships to its fleet [..] the US built only two warships last year..”

• Aging US Fleet and Drained Stockpiles No Match for China and Russia (Sp.)

The US Navy faces delays in vessel repairs and a sluggish pace in construction of new warships. The crisis was reported by the US Naval Institute (USNI) and the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), according to Asia Times. Diana Maurer, Director of Defense Capabilities and Management at the Government Accountability Office, testified to the Senate Armed Services readiness subcommittee on May 1. She revealed that fewer than 40 percent of US Navy ships had completed repairs on time, despite available space in shipyards. According to the GAO, “the Navy has not developed a full cost and schedule estimate for its Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program (SIOP) – an effort to improve its dry docks, facilities, and equipment – and reports that it will not be able to do so until Fiscal Year 2025.” Maurer signaled that shipyard conditions are second only to F-35 Lightning II sustainment costs, raising the alarm over the Navy’s readiness.

In his own congressional testimony, Vice Chief of Naval Operations Admiral James Kilby acknowledged that issues related to “ship production and repair” rank among the top challenges confronting the US Navy today. The US Navy’s ship design practices are largely outdated, which contributes to the slower pace, less predictable costs and performance outcomes of warship construction when compared to commercial shipbuilding. According to GAO, the Navy has been slow to embrace new design tools such as 3-D modeling and digital twinning, and still provides its contractors with 2D design data for legacy ship classes. Shipbuilders also complain that the Navy is usually slow to provide vendor-furnished information (VFI) – the documents that shipyards need as input to engineering and design products – to feed digital models. The Navy’s contractors want clearer technical tasks as well as funding for acquiring and implementing new digital tools.

The issue has been raised amid the US growing competition with China and the Biden administration’s saber-rattling over the island of Taiwan and the South China Sea. At the Senate panel’s hearing, Republican Senator Dan Sullivan from Alaska lamented that the building of new submarines and surface warships in the US is well below the pace set by China. Last July, a leaked US Navy intelligence briefing slide published by The War Zone revealed that China’s shipbuilding capacity is 232 times greater than that of the US. While the People’s Republic’s shipyards have a capacity of over 23.2 million tons, the US capacity is less than 100,000 tons according to the leaked presentation, which was confirmed as authentic in September 2023 by a US Navy spokesperson.

The US Naval Institute admitted in 2021 that China already boasted the world’s largest navy, while in February 2024, US Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) commander Admiral Samuel Paparo warned that Beijing was winning the shipbuilding numbers game. According to Congress, China possesses approximately 370 warships, compared to the US fleet of 291 vessels. In 2023, China added 30 ships to its fleet, 15 of which were large surface combatants including cruisers, destroyers. and an additional aircraft carrier. By contrast, the US built only two warships last year.

“..claiming that inflation was 9 percent when he came into office, when in reality it was 1.4 percent..”

• Biden Denies Economic Reality In Car Crash CNN Interview (MN)

During a brutal CNN interview aired Wednesday, Joe Biden looked shocked when host Erin Burnett reeled off a list of stats detailing how bad the economy is. Instead of suggesting how he is going to improve the situation, Biden denied any of it was real and claimed every poll showing Americans favouring Trump on the economy is wrong. “Voters, by a wide margin, trust Trump more on the economy,” Burnett noted, before listing possible reasons for that including the cost of buying a home having doubled, real income accounting for inflation being down, economic growth being way short of expectations and consumer confidence being near a two year low. “Are you worried that you’re running out of time to turn [the economy] around?” Burnett asked Biden. “We’ve already turned it around,” Biden bizarrely claimed, before adding that “the polling data has been wrong all along.”

Biden looks shocked as CNN host Erin Burnett reels off a list of stats detailing how bad the economy is. Biden claims he's already "turned it around" and that every poll showing Americans favouring Trump on the economy is wrong. Full report here: https://t.co/smaN0DjOVD pic.twitter.com/K2wTAwdrse

— m o d e r n i t y (@ModernityNews) May 9, 2024

When Burnett pointed out that Grocery prices are up almost a third, Biden shrugged it off and claimed Americans “have the money to spend.”

CNN: "Grocery prices are up 30%+ … that's a real day-to-day pain that people feel…"

BIDEN: "They have the money to spend!"

Then he repeats the debunked lie about Snickers bars and "corporate greed." pic.twitter.com/3qJDyK1bvy

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 8, 2024

He repeated the tired lie about creating millions of jobs that everyone knows is complete rubbish because he’s including jobs that were reinstated from the pandemic:

"Why should people here believe that you will succeed at creating jobs?"

BIDEN: "I've never failed! I've created over 15 million jobs!"

(UNMENTIONED: The vast majority of those jobs were simply recovered from the pandemic) pic.twitter.com/XQlNz6tdZk

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 8, 2024

Biden also told an absolute whopper, claiming that inflation was 9 percent when he came into office, when in reality it was 1.4 percent. After Biden took office, inflation surged to rates unseen since the early 1980s, peaking at an annual rate of 9.1 percent in June 2022, a full 17 months after he took office. Yet, he is claiming it was ALREADY at 9 percent. Since Biden took office, the average prices of goods and services have increased 19 percent, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. By comparison, during Trump’s four years in office, prices increased by 8 percent, or roughly 2 percent per year, which is the normal annual rate of inflation.

Good thing he went to see her.

• Tucker Carlson Interviews Biden Accuser Tara Reade (RT)

American journalist Tucker Carlson has released a 22-minute interview with RT contributor and former US Senate aide Tara Reade, who rose to prominence after accusing Joe Biden of having sexually assaulted her back in 1993. The interview was recorded in Moscow, where Reade moved last year due to concerns for her safety in the US. In 2020, at the height of the US presidential election campaign, Reade publicly accused Biden of having subjected her to a “violent sexual assault” on the Capitol grounds in 1993. She was working on the Democratic senator’s team at the time. In a 2021 interview, President Biden said the incident “never happened.” In her interview with Carlson, Reade recounted how the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI had “harassed” her, claiming that she had even received “death threats. According to the former aide, US authorities built a case against her after accessing her email and social media accounts.

She added that, while the FBI and the DOJ had come close to indicting her, they wouldn’t disclose what her supposed crime was as the whole case was “sealed.” Reade suggested that the real reason behind the legal proceedings was her failure to ‘shut up’ about the sexual assault allegedly perpetrated by Biden. She claimed that the mainstream US media had lapped up “innuendos” about her, with most outlets working as “proxies of the US government.” Reade added that, in addition to her sexual harassment allegations against Biden, her recent criticism regarding the state of the US economy as well as the “proxy war against Russia via Ukraine” had made US authorities view her as a “traitor.” She said this was all the more “heartbreaking” because she had spent years working for the Democratic Party, and “believed in it wholeheartedly.” “I’ve never committed a crime. I’m not a traitor. I’m not a spy,” she told Carlson.

Tara Reade

EXILED: American citizen Tara Reade (@ReadeAlexandra) is seeking political asylum in Russia after being exiled from the United States. She says the FBI is after her after she accused Trump’s opponent Joe Biden of sexual assault. WATCH pic.twitter.com/GtNrGh6WGb

— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) May 9, 2024

Who is the weak link?

• Whole West Is Working To Supply Ukraine – Putin (RT)

The collective West has been working tirelessly to arm Ukraine against Russia, seeking to destroy it in its present form throughout the conflict, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. He made the remarks while hosting a group of military commanders in the Kremlin who have distinguished themselves in the special operation against Ukraine. The meeting took place on Tuesday after Putin’s inauguration for his fifth term in office, but was released only on Thursday amid Victory Day celebrations. “We know, and you know this better than anyone else, the enemy has enough modern tools, since the entire Western community is working for our enemy, dreaming about Russia ceasing to exist in its current form,” Putin stated.

The collective West itself has created a “system of confrontation,” believing Russia to be a “weak link” in it, the president explained. The conflict with Ukraine, however, has already proven that is not the case and the West was mistaken, Putin stated. “I am sure they are now convinced that this was far from the reality, and rather the opposite is true,” he said. Putin underscored the need to further develop military technologies and be “one step ahead” of the country’s adversaries in order to be “successful.” Among other things, Putin commended on the efforts of Russian civil society to actively support the country’s troops and supply the military with assorted additional tools, ranging from mask nettings to sophisticated drones.

“In our country, as we often say, the so-called people’s military industrial complex is growing now. To be honest, when I meet with those who are in one way or another involved in such activities, the combat work in the civilian sphere, I, frankly, am surprised myself,” Putin stated. In order to be truly effective, however, civilian crowdfunded projects still require the state’s involvement and support, the president said. “Of course, all this must be concentrated in a certain way, everything must be sorted into the right places in a certain way, and supported at the state level. That’s what we are doing,” Putin concluded.

“..based on the desire to justify current followers of the Nazis..
”

• West ‘Trying To Distort’ History Of WWII – Putin (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin has used his address at the military parade in Moscow celebrating the 79th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany to accuse the West of “distorting the history” of the conflict. He also accused the US-led bloc of wielding “colonial policies” aimed at elevating a few nations by restraining the development of other sovereign states. According to Putin, Western nations “would like to forget the lessons of World War II.” “We see how they are trying to distort the truth about World War II – it interferes with those who are accustomed to building their essentially colonial policy on hypocrisy and lies. They demolish memorials to true fighters against Nazism and place traitors and Nazi collaborators on pedestals,” the president said. He called this revanchism policy a “mockery of history” based on the desire to justify current followers of the Nazis.

“These [actions] are part of the general policy of Western elites of inciting more and more regional conflicts, interethnic and interreligious hostility, and restraining the development of sovereign independent states,” Putin stated, noting that no country or military bloc has a right to do so, which World War II proved. We reject any state or alliance’s claims to exceptionalism. We know what the exorbitance of such ambitions leads to. This year’s Victory Day celebration is taking place amid a tense geopolitical situation due to the Ukraine conflict, in which most Western states have firmly taken Kiev’s side. Over the past two years, many Western leaders have been spreading what Moscow calls Russophobia, claiming that Russia may attack Europe if it secures victory in Ukraine. Putin emphasized that while Russia would do everything possible to prevent a global conflict, it will not allow anyone to threaten its own safety and sovereignty.

Eva

The Great Replacement is real: The white, native European population is already outnumbered in many of its major cities. And our establishment celebrates this fact.

Imagine an African or Asian leader rejoicing in the fact that their people will become a minority. Unthinkable. pic.twitter.com/6tZU1SlKgf

— Eva Vlaardingerbroek (@EvaVlaar) May 9, 2024

17 million

"17 million people…died [in] the COVID-19 clinical trials, that is reported worldwide…We did international statistical analysis to show the correlation of injection and death was 32 standard deviations, and above three is statistically significant."

Professor, immunologist,… pic.twitter.com/oSdnvxznQJ

— Sense Receptor (@SenseReceptor) May 9, 2024

1000s

Nice spectacle worth seeing in Lapland.
A huge herd of reindeer crossing a road.pic.twitter.com/pxkFAdTVsY

— Figen (@TheFigen_) May 8, 2024

Feather star
https://twitter.com/i/status/1788199677097091323

Bees

Curiosity and bees
pic.twitter.com/COuYXHnLfO

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) May 9, 2024

Break
https://twitter.com/i/status/1788300348085407848

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Debt Rattle August 16 2020

Aug 162020

August 16, 2020 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:47 am Finance Tagged with: Biden, Binney, CIA, Clinesmith, coronavirus, Covid19, FBI, hacked, Hillary, Kamala, Steele, surrogates, Tara Reade, YouTube 6 Responses »

Michael Andrews Lights VII: A Shadow 1974

• Clinesmith Was Working For Mueller When He Forged That Email (RS)

• Democrats Still Denounce This ‘Investigation Of Investigators’ (Turley)

• FBI Misled Congress on Reliability of Steele Dossier (SAC)

• CIA Behind Guccifer & Russiagate – Binney (SCF)

• Biden Campaign Not Putting Any Surrogates On Sunday Shows Pre-Convention (Fox)

• Finance Execs Cheer Selection of Kamala Harris as Dem VP (LI)

• Hillary Clinton ‘Ready To Help’ In Biden Administration If Asked (NYP)

• Biden Accuser Tara Reade Slams Dems For Bill Clinton Convention Speech (NYP)

• Info On Wikileaks, “Hacked Information” Banned Under New YouTube Rules (MPN)

• PBOC: China’s Yuan Continues To Grow As An International Currency (SCMP)

US politics has definitely become the new main topic, replacing COVID. The big picture as we now get it from Durham and various declassified docs is that the biggest scandal in America over the past 4-5 years was not alleged Russian support for Trump that allegedly skewed the 2016 election.

Instead, it is that all of that story, not just some or most of it, but all of it, was fabricated from whole cloth by Trump’s opponents in intelligence, media and the Democratic party. With all of Trump’s all too obvious flaws, they elected to go with a fantasy story. It will all make the coming (or ongoing) election season a hot stew of boiling over spices.

Meanwhile, Biden’s people refuse to let anyone go on the habitual Sunday talk shows, Joe remains in the basement, Kamala will be kept far apart from any journalist who might ask an actual question, and Hillary’s ready to “help”.

Which means that if Biden is withdrawn at some point, as seems likely, the US could be governed by two women so unpopular in their own party they both lost seemingly easy votes. Nobody on that side of the divide appears to care. But in the end it’s not the corporate sponsors or the party bigwigs who do the voting, it’s the people; they just hope they’ve spread enough hatred of Trump to get the votes.

The usual weekend stumble along numbers. US deaths down to 1,071, good enough to ditch the graph.

Trump Durham

We Caught Em. They Used @carterwpage to Spy on Trump Campaign. It’s A DISGRACE. There All GUILTY as Hell. The Insurance Policy where if @HillaryClinton LOSES Were Going to take him out. That was @petestrzok & @NatSecLisa the two great Lovers that got Caught. @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/iX0EWn53rv

— OUknow7 ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (@DenverFlynn) August 13, 2020

It’s in the little details…

• Clinesmith Was Working For Mueller When He Forged That Email (RS)

One important fact getting overlooked in all the discussion of whether FBI Attorney Kevin Clinesmith’s guilty plea represents the sacrifice of a minor criminal so the ringleaders can escape justice or the beginning of the end for those who were running the show is exactly whose show Clinesmith was a part of when the crime he’s admitted committing occurred. You see, Clinesmith wasn’t working for James Comey on June 19, 2017, the date he altered that CIA email inconveniently identifying Trump’s onetime foreign policy advisor Carter Page as a trusted source. By that point in time, Clinesmith was part of Robert Mueller’s Independent Counsel investigation. And it was Mueller’s crew who made use of the renewed FISA warrant to spy on Page that Clinesmith’s willingness to commit forgery had enabled.

On the recommendation of acting Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, Trump had fired Comey on May 9, 2017. As a consequence, Comey’s second-in-command, Andrew McCabe automatically took over as acting FBI Director till June 7, when Trump appointed Christopher Wray. (Wray was interim director until his Senate confirmation on July 20.) McCabe was in charge for less than a month. But within just 8 days he’d started a second investigation of Trump in addition to the still ongoing Crossfire Hurricane probe of his campaign’s ties to Russia. Despite Trump’s having fired Comey at Rosenstein’s urging and the president’s authority to terminate the director of the FBI for any reason he pleases, McCabe wasted no time in using his boss’s dismissal as a pretext to investigate Trump for obstructing Crossfire Hurricane.

Given the enormity of his new responsibilities after suddenly becoming the head of the FBI and how quickly McCabe rushed to add a second investigation of the President of the United States to them, you’d almost think he must have been planning it before Comey was even fired. Interestingly, McCabe had also helped tip over the very first domino that ultimately led to Robert Mueller’s appointment as independent counsel. Though it hasn’t received nearly enough attention, he played a substantial role in ginning up the phony controversy over whether Jeff Sessions lied to Congress about his contacts with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during his confirmation hearing.

Sessions takes a lot of heat for enabling the Mueller probe by recusing himself. But though there’s no question he made a disastrous error, most people aren’t aware of the stuff going on in the background that almost seems like it could have been designed to make Sessions step aside and put Rosenstein in control. A few months before starting that second investigation into whether Trump obstructed justice by taking Rosenstein’s advice, Andrew “Itchy Finger” McCabe had triggered another criminal investigation of Sessions for lying about his contacts with Kislyak at the request of Democratic Sens. Patrick Leahy and Al Franken. The fuss quickly died down and Mueller closed the investigation in January 2018. But the ginned-up controversy did force Sessions to recuse himself; which put Rosenstein in a position to urge Trump to fire Comey; which then put McCabe in the position to start a second investigation of Trump for obstruction of justice for taking Rosenstein’s advice.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

• Democrats Still Denounce This ‘Investigation Of Investigators’ (Turley)

“Gosh almighty.” Those words from former Vice President Joe Biden sum up plenty about the announced criminal plea by former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith. Of course, Biden was not referring to the implications of the FBI lawyer who lied to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court for the efforts to continue the surveillance of an adviser to the campaign of Donald Trump. Nor was he referring to growing evidence that the Russia investigation was launched based on false and flawed evidence. Biden was referring to the federal investigation by United States Attorney John Durham that led to the criminal plea by Clinesmith. Like most other Democrats, Biden previously denounced the investigation and the effort to look into criminality. Now that criminality has been found, Democrats and commentators still insist there are no reasons to continue it.

From the start, Democrats overwhelmingly condemned the investigation despite admitting Durham is a respected prosecutor. Leaders like House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff deemed the investigation “tainted” and “political.” Biden mocked the very idea of an “investigation of the investigators” and added, “Give me a break. Gosh almighty.” These are the same figures who repeatedly cited plea agreements in the special counsel investigation by Robert Mueller as proof that real crimes were waiting to be found. When the plea by former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn was announced, it was cited as the critical development even though FBI agents said they did not believe Flynn had intentionally lied about his conversations with Russian diplomats.

Many in the media cited the plea by Flynn to disprove the insistence by Trump that the Mueller investigation was a hoax. But they are not citing the plea by Clinesmith to disprove the statement by Biden. Indeed, they have barely covered it. It does not appear to matter that Clinesmith said “viva la resistance” after the 2016 election or that, after claiming he was devastated by the victory of Trump, he lamented that “my god damned name was all over those legal documents investigating his staff.” But several Democrats and commentators maintained there was never a targeting of the campaign before the special counsel appointment. That was untrue. Declassified documents show that an agent was used with a national security briefing of Trump and his aides during the campaign to gather information for the Russia investigation.

Who did the agent report to? Clinesmith and Peter Strzok at the FBI, who infamously referred to his own “insurance” with the chance that Trump might be elected.

The courts AND Congress.

• FBI Misled Congress on Reliability of Steele Dossier (SAC)

Documents recently released by the Senate Intelligence Committee indicate that there were strong doubts about the reliability of the Steele Dossier as early as December 2016. As the FBI and CIA worked together to create an Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) to present to President Barack Obama, those in the CIA camp, according to the now-declassified interviews conducted by the Senate Intelligence Committee, worried that the FBI was playing up the Steele Dossier too much. Sen. Lindsey Graham released a statement on the Senate Judiciary Committee website in which he addressed the newly declassified documents: “This document clearly shows that the FBI was continuing to mislead regarding the reliability of the Steele dossier. The FBI did to the Senate Intelligence Committee what the Department of Justice and FBI had previously done to the FISA Court: mischaracterize, mislead and lie.

The characterizations regarding the dossier were completely out of touch with reality in terms of what the Russian sub-source actually said to the FBI. “What does this mean? That Congress, as well as the FISA Court, was lied to about the reliability of the Russian sub-source. I will be asking FBI Director Wray to provide me all the details possible about how the briefing was arranged and who provided it. “Inspector General Horowitz’s team found this briefing document. Inspector General Horowitz and his team deserve great credit for uncovering systematic fraud at the Department of Justice surrounding the Carter Page FISA warrant. I’m also very appreciative of the Department of Justice’s release of the FBI document used to brief the Senate Intelligence Committee.”

We’ve known this for a long time. But nobody wants to report on it.

• CIA Behind Guccifer & Russiagate – Binney (SCF)

William Binney and other independent former U.S. intelligence experts say they can prove the Russiagate narrative is bogus. The proof relies on their forensic analysis of the data released by Guccifer. The analysis of timestamps demonstrates that the download of voluminous data could not have been physically possible based on known standard internet speeds. These independent experts conclude that the data from the Democrat party could not have been hacked, as Guccifer and Russiagaters claim. It could only have been obtained by a leak from inside the party, perhaps by a disgruntled staffer who downloaded the information on to a disc. That is the only feasible way such a huge amount of data could have been released. That means the “Russian hacker” claims are baseless.

Wikileaks, whose founder Julian Assange is currently imprisoned in Britain pending an extradition trial to the U.S. to face espionage charges, has consistently maintained that their source of files was not a hacker, nor did they collude with Russian intelligence. As a matter of principle, Wikileaks does not disclose the identity of its sources, but the organization has indicated it was an insider leak which provided the information on senior Democrat party corruption. William Binney says forensic analysis of the files released by Guccifer shows that the mystery hacker deliberately inserted digital “fingerprints” in order to give the impression that the files came from Russian sources.

It is known from information later disclosed by former NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden that the CIA has a secretive program – Vault 7 – which is dedicated to false incrimination of cyber attacks to other actors. It seems that the purpose of Guccifer was to create the perception of a connection between Wikileaks and Russian intelligence in order to beef up the Russiagate narrative. “So that suggested [to] us all the evidence was pointing back to CIA as the originator [of] Guccifer 2.0. And that Guccifer 2.0 was inside CIA… I’m pointing to that group as the group that was probably the originator of Guccifer 2.0 and also this fabrication of the entire story of Russiagate,” concludes Binney in his interview with Sputnik news outlet.

“I don’t understand what’s going on here. This is the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen that you would you know, you’re basically giving a campaign…”

• Biden Campaign Not Putting Any Surrogates On Sunday Shows Pre-Convention (Fox)

Chris Wallace – Host of Fox News Sunday & Author of “Countdown 1945: The Extraordinary Story of the Atomic Bomb and the 116 Days that Changed the World ” spoke with Fox News Radio’s Guy Benson about the upcoming DNC convention. Wallace spoke to why the Biden campaign isn’t putting any campaign surrogates on any of the Sunday shows the weekend before the DNC convention. Saying,

“So I’ve been doing Sunday shows with conventions. I started on Meet the Press in 1988. I’ve been doing it on and off. For what? What is that? Thirty two years. And and it always happens that the Sunday before the convention. The campaign puts out top officials to preview the convention and to say this is what we’re gonna try to get accomplished. So, you know, we put counting all week on, you know, having a top official from the Biden campaign, the campaign manager, the top pollster, the chief strategist, to talk about what they’re going to talk about during this next week. They are not putting anybody out. And at first I thought, well, maybe it’s because it’s Fox News and they’re boycotting us. No, they’re not putting anybody out on any of the Sunday shows point.

I don’t understand what’s going on here. This is the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen that you would you know, you’re basically giving a campaign. And as I say, it’s a traditional thing. We’re gonna do it for the Republicans a week from Sunday. What are you trying to accomplish this week? And they the Biden campaign isn’t putting anybody out. And this just is of a piece with the the vice president not not doing really any serious interviews, not answering any questions since the rollout. I don’t you know, you can you can try and I understand and has worked pretty well. And he continues to lead with what I’ll call the basement strategy. I don’t think you can hide from now until Election Day. I just I just don’t think it’s possible.”

This should cause many on the left to not vote for her and Joe. “She’s a great fundraiser”…

• Finance Execs Cheer Selection of Kamala Harris as Dem VP (LI)

With the prospect of longtime bank critic and progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren being chosen as Joe Biden’s running mate now officially dead, Wall Street executives are openly applauding the presumptive Democratic nominee’s selection of California Sen. Kamala Harris as a signal that the top of the party’s ticket in November will be sufficiently “moderate” for their liking. Charles Myers, the founder of financial advisory firm Signum, told CNBC after Biden announced the California Democrat as his vice presidential pick that his “clients really wanted to know if Biden was going to stay in the center, and his pick of Harris reinforces that.” “While certain to generate excitement and to invite additional scrutiny of Harris’ record, we see this choice as a net positive for the Biden ticket,” Myers wrote in a note to clients late Tuesday.

“Harris, who generally could be called a centrist, will not push Biden to the left or the right on major policy issues. She will be supportive of Biden and the Democratic Party’s policy platform.” Other Wall Street executives echoed Myers’ assessment in interviews with CNBC, pointing to Harris’ experience as a senator and California Attorney General as well as her fundraising abilities. “I think it’s great,” said Marc Lasry, the CEO of investment firm Avenue Capital Group. “She’s going to help Joe immensely. He picked the perfect partner.” Ray McGuire of Citigroup and Blair Effron of investment firm Centerview Partners also hailed Biden’s choice of Harris as “great.” “She has a strong and active fundraising organization,” said Mike Kempner, founder of corporate public relations firm MWWPR.

“She will be an important and immediate addition to the Biden fundraising effort. She is a fundraising star. Her experience as a prosecutor makes her uniquely qualified to deliver the case against Trump.” Biden’s selection of Harris as his running mate comes months after Wall Street executives and other corporate donors warned the former vice president against picking Warren, a frequent and fierce critic of big banks and advocate for the interests of consumers. “She would be horrible,” one anonymous Wall Street executive and Democratic donor told CNBC in April. A longtime Biden fundraiser said “a lot of the donor base, on board and coming, would prefer almost anyone but Elizabeth.”= Veteran progressive organizer and radio host Jim Hightower suggested nothing about the choice of Harris should be surprising, but said the selection only makes more clear the road ahead for those wanting much bolder social change:

A country ruled by two highly unpopular women among their own party, Kamala and Hillary. Why do it?

• Hillary Clinton ‘Ready To Help’ In Biden Administration If Asked (NYP)

Hillary Clinton could be headed back to D.C. The former 2016 Democratic presidential candidate said she is “ready to help in any way I can” when asked if she would take a job in a Biden administration. “I’m ready to help in any way I can,” Clinton said at the 19th Represents Summit on Thursday. “Because I think this will be a moment where every American — I don’t care what party you are, I don’t care what age, race, gender, I don’t care — every American should want to fix our country … So if you’re asked to serve, you should certainly consider that.” Clinton previously served as Secretary of State under the Obama administration alongside Joe Biden, whom she formally endorsed for president in late April.

Clinton also spoke at the summit, which references the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote, in defense of voting by mail for the November election. She criticized President Trump for implementing what she called a “hostile takeover” of the US Postal Service. Clinton added she fears Trump will use the mail service as part of a bid to cast doubt on election results should he lose. “I have every reason to believe that Trump is not going to go silently into the night if he loses,” Clinton said. “He’s going to try to confuse us. He’s going to try to bring all kinds of lawsuits.”

The Dems live in their own little world.

• Biden Accuser Tara Reade Slams Dems For Bill Clinton Convention Speech (NYP)

Why him? That’s what Tara Reade is demanding to know after learning Bill Clinton snagged a prime speaker’s slot at this week’s Democratic National Convention, calling the move “unconscionable.” Reade, who made headlines this year when she accused Joe Biden of shoving her against a wall and forcibly penetrating her with his fingers at a Capitol Hill office building in 1993, slammed party bigwigs for bringing in Bubba. “The Democratic National Committee has made it clear to survivors that they enable and they uphold institutionalized rape culture by allowing Bill Clinton to be a main speaker,” Reade told The Post. She added: “He has a history of sexual misconduct.”

So she wondered why DNC brass would put him on the big stage. “It is unconscionable that Bill Clinton is a main speaker, and this is coming from someone who voted for him. This is coming from a multi-generational Democrat.” Reade said she believes Clinton is a sexual predator. “This is based on talking to two of the survivors and also the court documents that have now been released because of Ghislaine Maxwell.” Clinton infamously palled around with Maxwell’s boss, Jeffrey Epstein. Giving Clinton a forum at the convention will set a “dangerous precedent,” Reade said. “They are holding up the MeToo movement as a shield for the sexual predators they are allowing in the Democratic establishment.”

She added: “I feel that hypocrisy, like sexual assault and sexual harassment, is an equal opportunity offender and it’s a nonpartisan issue. So I think the hypocrisy of the Democratic party is on full display by their speaker line-up for the Democratic national convention.” Biden has repeatedly said women who come forward with allegations of sexual assault should be believed, but he’s vehemently denied Reade’s accusation and said he doesn’t remember her working for him. The fallout from the scandal has left Reade “destitute,” she said. “After I came forward about Joe Biden, I lost everything, my work, my housing everything,” Reade said. “The weaponization of fear and shame to silence survivors has to stop.”

“Many go to the platform precisely because it offers alternative and more diverse opinions to corporate-dominated radio, print and television. But YouTube is now funneling them back towards those same sources.”

“The emails, Clinton contends, swung the election from her to Trump. If this is the case, the decision to ban all discussion of them would have fundamentally altered the democratic process.”

• Info On Wikileaks, “Hacked Information” Banned Under New YouTube Rules (MPN)

Social media giant YouTube announced yesterday a host of new measures it says are aimed at preventing any interference in the upcoming presidential elections. Chief among the list it wrote on its blog, is “removing content that contains hacked information, the disclosure of which may interfere with democratic processes, such as elections and censuses.” An example it gives, would be deleting “videos that contain hacked information about a political candidate.” It also promised to “raise up authoritative voices” when it comes to current events and politics by changing its algorithm to show users more credible channels and “reduce the spread of harmful misinformation and borderline content.” Example channels that produce authoritative content, it tells readers, includes Fox News and CNN. It also noted it would expand information panels underneath videos.

There are a number of reasons this new policy could concern users of its platform. Firstly, the great majority of leaked information — the lifeblood of investigative journalism — is anonymous. Often, like in the cases of Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning or Reality Winner, whistleblowers face serious consequences if their names become attached to documents exposing government or corporate malfeasance. But without a name to go with a document, the difference between leaked data and hacked data is impossible to define. Thus, powerful people and organizations could claim data was hacked, rather than leaked, and simply block all discussion of the matter on the platform. Hearing the news, some feared already existing content from investigative journalists would be subject to removal under the new guidelines.

YouTube’s choice of Fox News and CNN as reliable sources might also raise eyebrows in some quarters. According to the latest Reuters Institute Digital News Report, fewer than half of all Americans trust the two networks (Fox at 42 percent and CNN at 47 percent). And a new study from Gallup/Knight Foundation finds that fewer than a third of the country has a favorable view of the media more generally, including only 19 percent of those under thirty (YouTube’s prime demographic). Many go to the platform precisely because it offers alternative and more diverse opinions to corporate-dominated radio, print and television. But YouTube is now funneling them back towards those same sources.

The 2016 presidential election was colored by Wikileaks’ release of the Podesta emails, discussion of which would be banned under YouTube’s new rules. The Hillary Clinton campaign alleges the emails were hacked from Podesta’s computer. The published communications, the authenticity of which is not in doubt, informed the country of the machinations of the Democratic Party, how it tipped the electoral scales in favor of Clinton and against Bernie Sanders in the primary, how Clinton stated to Wall Street that she had a “public” and a “private” position on regulation, insinuating she was lying to the nation, how representatives of Qatar wanted to meet with her husband Bill for “five minutes” to present him with a $1 million check for his birthday, and how her own staff held her in contempt. The emails, Clinton contends, swung the election from her to Trump. If this is the case, the decision to ban all discussion of them would have fundamentally altered the democratic process.

Dream on.

• PBOC: China’s Yuan Continues To Grow As An International Currency (SCMP)

China’s central bank said it expects more countries to accept the yuan for cross-border payments and settlements amid growing concerns about the country’s high exposure to the US dollar. In its annual report on the internationalisation of the yuan, which was released on Friday, the People’s Bank of China estimated “rapid and robust growth” this year despite the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Such expansion would help to consolidate the growth momentum seen since the yuan was added to the IMF’s currency basket in 2015. “We expect more market participants will accept yuan as settlement and payment currency,” it said.

China is heavily exposed to the US-led Clearing House Interbank Payment System (CHIPS) and the Belgium-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), which means it is vulnerable to US sanctions, such as those imposed on Iran and Russia. A total of 11 officials from mainland China and Hong Kong were put on a US sanctions list last week, as the rivalry between the world’s two largest economies continues to escalate. China’s state-owned banks with overseas operations could be the next targets if they are found to have business links to the sanctioned officials. The central bank report indicated rapid growth in the internationalisation of the yuan in recent years.

The total value of cross-border yuan payments and receipts by banks on behalf of clients rose 24.1 per cent year on year in 2019 to 19.67 trillion yuan (US$2.83 trillion). The value of global reserves of the yuan rose 1.95 per cent in the year to become the world’s fifth largest, while its share of the foreign exchange trading market was 4.3 per cent. The report also cited a survey conducted by Bank of China that said 69 per cent of the 3,300 foreign industrial and commercial companies polled planned to use or increase their use of the yuan. The yuan internationalisation index, released by Renmin University of China last month, rose 13 per cent last year to 3.03 and is forecast to rise to 5 in the first half of this year. But the currency still trails the US dollar at 50.85 and euro at 26.28.

The central bank said it would continue to remove barriers to cross-border use of the yuan, open up financial markets wider to foreign investors and promote the development of offshore yuan markets. The report highlighted countries involved in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, domestic free-trade zones and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area as having the most potential for growth. It also forecast the rapid expansion of China’s Cross-border Interbank Payment System, which was launched in 2015 and is now used in nearly 100 countries. In 2019, it handled 1.9 million cross-border yuan transactions – an increase of 31 per cent from 2018 – while the total amount involved rose 28 per cent to 33.9 trillion yuan.

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