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Debt Rattle August 8 2024

Aug 082024
 
 August 8, 2024  Posted by at 9:34 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  52 Responses »


Henry Bacon General View of the Acropolis at Sunset 1900(?)

 

• Stolen Valor: Walz Bailed On Iraq Tour, Then Lied About Combat Deployment (ZH)
• The GOP Plan To Handle Tim Walz, ‘Ideological Soul Mate’ of Harris (RCW)
• Minnesota National Guard Confirms VP Nominee Tim Walz Demoted (JTN)
• Kamala Donated To ‘Defund Police’ Group Pushing For DC Sanctuary City (ZH)
• US Arms Makers Refusing To Invest In Ukraine (RT)
• EU Hails Incursion Into Russia As Ukraine’s Right To ‘Self-defense’ (RT)
• Ukraine Spreading ‘Terrorism’ Around The World – Zakharova (RT)
• Fourth African State Sanctions Ukraine For ‘Supporting Terrorism’ (RT)
• Why Did America Give Away Its Manufacturing Jobs? (Paul Craig Roberts)
• FBI Raids Scott Ritter’s House (RT)
• Vienna Cancels Taylor Swift Concerts Over ISIS Attack Fears (RT)
• Hunter Biden Got ‘Millions’ of Dollars From Romania to Influence US Gov’t (Sp.)
• The “No Kings Act” is a Decapitation of the Constitution (Turley)
• Crazed Authoritarians Demand X Be Shut Down in UK (MN)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shellenberger

 

 

Pelosi

 

 

Somalia

 

 

Sinwar
https://twitter.com/i/status/1821017557538590978

 

 

Victor Davis Hanson: “Anything That Didn’t Kill [Trump] Made Him Stronger”

 

 

 

 

Did they vet this guy at all? He bailed on his National Guard battalion when he heard he would be deployed to Iraq, and you want to put him second in line for Commander-in-Chief?

• Stolen Valor: Walz Bailed On Iraq Tour, Then Lied About Combat Deployment (ZH)

Kamala Harris’ VP pick Tim Walz has come under fire over his extreme left-wing policies, from joking about helping illegal immigrants into the country by investing in a ‘ladder company,’ to signing a law that gives them driver’s licenses, to delaying the deployment of the National Guard during the Georger Floyd riots. And while there’s much more to discuss, Walz has come under the most intense scrutiny for embellishing his military record, when in reality he bailed on his National Guard battalion – instead running off to Congress after learning that he would be deployed to Iraq.”On May 16th, 2005, [Walz] quit, betraying his country, leaving the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion and its Soldiers hanging; without its senior Non-Commissioned Officer, as the battalion prepared for war,” wrote retired Command Sergeants Major Thomas Behrends and Paul Herr in a 2018 letter posted to Facebook.

The pair further criticized Walz for abandoning the National Guard for Congress despite being fully aware that he could have requested permission from the Pentagon to seek office while on active duty. And instead of filing the proper paperwork to ensure a smooth transition out of the military, Walz “instead … slithered out the door,” the letter reads, adding that Walz “embellished and selectively omitted facts of his military career for years.” Trump VP pick JD Vance ripped Walz in a press conference, saying “What bothers me about Tim Walz is the stolen valor garbage. Do not pretend to be something you’re not. And if he wants to criticize me for getting an Ivy League education, I’m proud […] I was able to make something of myself and I would be ashamed if I was him and I lied about my military service like he did.” (X via @townhallcom). What’s more, Walz lied – telling a crowd that he was in fact deployed. “I carried weapons of war in war,” he said. Walz insists he has an “honorable record.”

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“..Democrats have “shifted so far to the left as a whole that candidates as extreme as Kamala Harris, as extreme as Tim Walz, are now considered mainstream.”

• The GOP Plan To Handle Tim Walz, ‘Ideological Soul Mate’ of Harris (RCW)

Democrats are eager to introduce Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to the country. He is a veteran who used the GI Bill to get to college, a former public-school teacher who coached high school football, and a two-term governor of a midwestern state with a record of accomplishments on behalf of working-class families. Republicans are just as excited. Despite his Rust Belt resume, they say Vice President Harris has selected a radical as her running mate. In an interview with RealClearPolitics, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley said, “Tim Walz is really, truly her ideological soulmate.” The emerging Republican plan to beat the Harris-Walz ticket? Just roll the tape, replied Whatley: “Our opposition research is going to be video clips of Tim Walz.” More specifically, Whatley said the GOP would point to Walz’s previous comments about wanting to invest in a “30-foot-ladder factory” to help migrants scale former President Trump’s border wall, his support for giving undocumented individuals healthcare and driver’s licenses in Minnesota, and his handling of the 2020 riots in Minneapolis that followed the death of George Floyd.

Republicans have already been hitting Harris over illegal immigration and the border, inflation and the economy, and crime. Walz just presents a new wrinkle and new video clips. One immediately began circulating online. Conservatives were quick to criticize Walz for not deploying the Minnesota National Guard sooner in the summer of 2020 as rioters looted and burned through Minneapolis. “I could smell the burning tires, and that was a very real thing,” Minnesota first lady Gwen Walz told a local news reporter in an interview making the rounds online Tuesday. “I kept the windows open as long as I could because I felt like that was such a touchstone of what was happening.” According to the GOP, this is more evidence of the weak-on-crime radicalism of Democrats. The race is now on for Democrats to introduce their new folksy anti-Trump champion while Republicans rush to define him as more of the same.

For his part, Walz has a history of spoiling GOP plans. He punched his ticket to Congress in 2006 by flipping a Republican House seat. After more than a decade, Walz ran and won the governor’s mansion by more than 10 points in 2018, a post he easily held a second time four years later. Michael Tyler, a spokesman for the Harris campaign, said that by picking Walz, Harris has “cemented the fundamental contrast in this race between the Harris-Walz ticket which is fighting for working families and the Trump-Vance Project 2025 agenda that would unleash harm on Americans across the country.” The pair will spend the coming months, he added, traveling the country talking about “building up the middle class instead of cutting taxes for the rich, and fighting for our fundamental freedoms, including reproductive freedom.” Walz may be an asset particularly in the Midwest. He talks plainly, and his small-town biography explains his appeal.

When President Biden announced his retirement, Walz was quick to throw his support behind Harris as many others did. He emerged as a sort of pathfinder for Democrats with his broadsides against Sen. J.D. Vance as soon as Trump named the Ohio Republican his running mate. “The golden rule” in rural, small-town America, Walz said during a “Morning Joe” interview last month, was to “mind your own damn business.” And then the governor forged the talking point that the left has used with some immediate success to define the GOP ticket. “We do not like what has happened where we can’t even go to Thanksgiving dinner because you end up in some weird fight that is unnecessary,” he continued. “Well, it’s true. These guys are just weird.” And in this way, the word “weird” became the Democratic byword for the Republican ticket. Trump, Vance, and all their ideas, Democrats have said on repeat for weeks, aren’t just a threat to democracy, they are unusual and out of touch with America itself.

The left now enjoys rare alignment. Everyone from New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to West Virginia independent Sen. Joe Manchin praised the Walz pick. All of it, replied Whatley, is more evidence that Democrats have “shifted so far to the left as a whole that candidates as extreme as Kamala Harris, as extreme as Tim Walz, are now considered mainstream.”

While the party boss said that the GOP playbook remains the same now that Walz has joined the ticket, behind the scenes Republicans expressed giddiness that Walz, instead of a more moderate candidate like Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, was selected. One prominent Republican operative accused Walz of “plagiarizing California’s failed far-left liberal agenda for Minnesota.” Republicans hope to compete in that state, despite Donald Trump’s two narrow losses there. The selection of Walz won’t do anything to change that strategy, Whatley told RCP. He said Republicans are looking forward to “a conversation in Minnesota about how, as the governor, Walz allowed riots to basically burn down Minneapolis, and then Kamala Harris came in and bailed out all those people out.” That will continue to be, he said, “a conversation we’re happy to have in Minnesota.”

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“He ran away. It’s sad.” “He had the opportunity to serve his country, and said ‘Screw you’ to the United States..”

• Minnesota National Guard Confirms VP Nominee Tim Walz Demoted (JTN)

The Minnesota National Guard confirmed Wednesday that Gov. Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’ vice presidential running mate, was demoted and did not retire as a command sergeant major like he has claimed for years, including on his official gubernatorial biography. While Walz temporarily held the title of command sergeant major he “retired as a master sergeant in 2005 for benefit purposes because he did not complete additional coursework at the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy,” Army Lt. Col. Kristen Augé, the Minnesota National Guard’s State Public Affairs Officer, told Just the News. The statement reignited a controversy that began during his 2018 election for governor in which National Guardsman claimed on social media and in a paid ad that Walz declined to deploy to Iraq for combat duty in 2005 and forfeited his title of command sergeant major. Walz chose to run for Congress that year.

The governor’s biography, published on the state’s official website, says that “Command Sergeant Major Walz” retired from the Minnesota National Guard in 2005. At the time he was serving as one of the highest ranking members of the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion. The Minnesota National Guard disputed his description of his final rank,. “Governor Tim Walz served from April 8, 1981, to May 16, 2005. Governor Walz served in the Minnesota National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery after transferring from the Nebraska National Guard in 1996. While serving in Minnesota, his military occupational specialties were 13B – a cannon crewmember who operates and maintains cannons and 13Z -field artillery senior sergeant. In Nebraska, he served as a 11Z – infantry senior sergeant, and a 71L – administrative specialist. He held multiple positions within field artillery such as firing battery chief, operations sergeant, first sergeant, and culminated his career serving as the command sergeant major for the battalion,” Army Lt. Col. Kristen Augé, Minnesota National Guard’s State Public Affairs Officer, told Just the News in a statement Wednesday.

“He retired as a master sergeant in 2005 for benefit purposes because he did not complete additional coursework at the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy,” she added. According to Army Regulation 600-8-19, a solider who does not complete the requisite coursework results is automatically demoted. “The Soldier must complete the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Course as a condition of this promotion. Failure to meet the condition will cause demotion per AR 600 – 8 – 19,” the regulation reads. This is not the first time that Walz’s military records have come under scrutiny. During his campaign for governor in 2018, two retired senior officials in the Minnesota National Guard criticized Walz for retiring shortly before his battalion was set for a deployment to Iraq. The two retired Command Sergeants Major in the guard wrote in an open letter posted to Facebook that they felt it was their “duty and responsibility to bring forth the truth as we know it concerning his service record.”

Thomas Behrends, one signer of the letter, was chosen to replace Walz. According to the letter, Minnesota Governor Walz was selected in 2004 to serve as the Command Sergeant Major of the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion and by September of that year Walz was conditionally promoted to the rank. But, by early 2005, Walz’s battalion was ordered to mobilize for an active duty deployment to Iraq. Shortly after, in May 2005, Walz “quit, leaving the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion and its Soldiers hanging; without its senior Non-Commissioned Officer, as the battalion prepared for war,” according to the two Command Sergeants Major. “When your country calls, you are supposed to run into battle — not the other way,” Behrends told the New York Post Tuesday. He ran away. It’s sad.” “He had the opportunity to serve his country, and said ‘Screw you’ to the United States. That’s not who I would pick to run for vice president,” he added.

The office of Governor Walz did not respond to a request for comment from Just the News. Retired U.S. Army Reserve Major General Tim Haake told Just the News that, based on his experience, a Command Sergeant Major resigning shortly before a deployment would likely have a “deleterious” effect on the unit. “The Command Sergeant Major is the highest enlisted rank in a unit and is the key person ensuring the troops are prepared, logistically, emotionally, and any other way, for the mission.” As a result of his abrupt retirement, and breach of his conditional agreement, the authors claimed Walz was demoted to Master Sergeant for his retirement.

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#BlackLivesMatter still exists?

• Kamala Donated To ‘Defund Police’ Group Pushing For DC Sanctuary City (ZH)

Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff donated to a progressive legal group last year that pushed to defund the police, and wants to make Washington DC a permanent “sanctuary city” for illegals, the Washington Examiner reports, citing a copy of their joint tax return. Harris and Emhoff donated $1,000 to Legal Aid DC, a nonprofit that works on housing law and represents low-income clients in multiple areas. The pair also donated $1,000 to the nonprofit in 2021, according to the report. “News of the donations, which have not been reported on until now, comes as Harris faces scrutiny on the 2024 campaign trail over her support in 2020 for defunding the police and her handling of the border crisis. Harris has reversed course on a variety of her left-wing policy positions after becoming the Democratic presidential nominee.

“But the vice president’s willingness to fund Legal Aid DC as recently as 2023 could raise questions about her ties to controversial progressive activists — including after Harris selected Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), who has been widely criticized over his response to the 2020 riots in Minnesota, as her running mate.” -Washington Examiner. Legal Aid DC was founded in 1932, and brands itself as “the district’s oldest and largest civil legal services organization” helping to “make justice real in individual and systemic ways.” In 2020, Legal Aid DC published a statement in the wake of George Floyd’s death noting that it “stands in solidarity with those speaking out, demonstrating, and demanding a country and society that will treat every one of its residents with dignity and respect.” Days later, the group’s housing law attorney Amanda Korber was quoted in an article pushing for fewer police officers in DC.

Legal Aid DC shared the article on social media, writing “As Legal Aid’s Amanda Korber noted in the article, we are concerned, especially given the ongoing protest movement, about any solution that involves more police and policing in DC public housing. #BlackLivesMatterDC.” As the Examiner notes further, Legal Aid DC shared an article in 2021 glorifying BLM, and amplifying a quote by Minneapolis City Councilman Jeremiah Ellison declaring “I think the police will view a leftist protester with a gas mask as more dangerous than a right-wing protester with a semiautomatic rifle.” Of note, Ellison – the son of Minnesota AG Keith Ellison, helped lead the charge in 2020 to “dismantle” the Minneapolis Police Department. Legal Aid DC also supported a since-approved law in DC that to make it a “permanent” sanctuary city – legislation which restricts cooperation between US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and local agencies.

Legal Aid’s Adam Jacobs said at the time that the law “could lift some of the terror our immigrant neighbors and their families have faced for many years.” “It also restricts the city’s prisons from functioning as immigration detention centers and amends a loophole used by ICE and the U.S. Marshals to detain immigrants outside of D.C. Superior Court,” reported NBC4 Washington in 2020 upon the City Council’s approval of a permanent version of the then-temporary law. Meanwhile, Harris running mate Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), has supported similar “sanctuary state” policies in the past, as well as a law allowing illegal immigrants to obtain a driver’s license.

Meanwhile, Legal Aid DC also submitted testimony in 2023 in support of a bill to “create a reparations task force and fund to address the impacts of slavery and institutional racism in Washington, D.C.,” according to documents. The organization’s policy counsel, Jen Jenkins, told the DC City Counsel that it’s essential for the district “to acknowledge that slavery, colonialism, and systemic racism have left deep scars in D.C. and to begin rectifying those impacts for black D.C. residents through enacting this bill.” Also, Walz’s wife is ‘weird’…

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“Making investments into a manufacturing facility that could be obliterated by Russia and may not have sustained demand in the future “has to make sense from a business case..”

• US Arms Makers Refusing To Invest In Ukraine (RT)

American arms manufacturers are reluctant to open workshops in Ukraine despite the Pentagon coaxing them to do so, the military news outlet Defense One reported on Tuesday, citing a US State Department official. The Ukrainian government has touted the build-up of domestic arms manufacturing by foreign firms as an alternative to the long-term supply of military aid by Western sponsors. Germany’s Rheinmetall has so far voiced the most ambitious plans to operate on Ukrainian soil, promising to make not just munitions, but also armored vehicles and tanks in the country. However, other large players, particularly those from the US, have been cautious about making such pledges. Northrop Grumman is an exception, having announced last month that it had finalized an agreement to produce medium-caliber ammunition in Ukraine. The company will provide equipment and training, but has refused to put its own employees on the ground.

Making investments into a manufacturing facility that could be obliterated by Russia and may not have sustained demand in the future “has to make sense from a business case,” a US State Department official told Defense One on the sidelines of the Farnborough air show in the UK. The US industry “is really eager” to profit, but needs the government to hedge their investments for risks, according to the source. ”It has to be a business case for what they’re trying to do, and so looking at maybe starting off with a maintenance, repair, and overhaul type stuff, spare parts production, so kind of starting a crawl-walk-run-type philosophy, before you actually get to the more advanced stuff,” the official said. In addition to the war-related risks, Western firms are also concerned about corruption, the source acknowledged. The US diplomat claimed that Ukraine was making progress in that regard, but was far from where it needed to be to allay the concerns.

Graft has been an endemic problem in the country since it gained independence in the early 1990s. Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has reportedly complained about the attention paid to the problem by his Western backers, claiming that it is largely irrelevant at a time when his nation is fighting Russia. Russia has described the Ukraine conflict as a US-triggered proxy war against it, waged for the sake of Washington’s geopolitical interests. The American economy has benefited from it by boosting demand for weapons and tanking the competitiveness of Western European manufacturers, Russian officials have said. European firms have lost access to cheap Russian energy and raw materials due to the breakdown of trade with the country, with some relocating plants to the US as a result.

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Where did they find 1,000 extra troops?

• EU Hails Incursion Into Russia As Ukraine’s Right To ‘Self-defense’ (RT)

The European Union fully supports the actions of Ukraine’s forces, including striking Russian territory, European Commission spokesman Peter Stano has said. The statement came a day after Ukraine launched a major cross-border sortie into Russia’s Kursk Region early on Tuesday. At least five civilians were killed in assault as of Wednesday evening, according to the Interim Governor of Kursk, Aleksey Smirnov. Another 31 people – including six children – were injured in the Ukrainian shelling of the town of Sudzha, Russia’s Health Ministry said late on Wednesday. Russian President Vladimir Putin has called the Kursk attack yet another “large-scale provocation” by Kiev, accusing Ukrainian troops of deliberately targeting civilians. Commenting on the raid, Stano said Ukraine has the right to defend itself, “including by striking the aggressor on its territory.”

“The EU continues to fully support Ukraine’s legitimate right to defend itself” and win back its lost territories, the spokesperson told the Ukrainian news network Suspilne on Wednesday. Kiev considers the Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, the Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, as well as the Crimean peninsula to be parts of Ukraine. All five territories formerly joined the Russian Federation after a series of democratic referendums. Ukrainian forces numbering up to a thousand, supported by tanks and artillery, moved across the border in an attempt to take hold of the Sudzhinsky district of Russia’s Kursk Region, the Russian Ministry of Defense said on Wednesday, reporting that the Ukrainian advance had been stopped. In the attack, Kiev’s forces suffered at least 315 casualties, with more than 100 killed and the rest wounded as of Wednesday, the chief of the Russian General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, reported.

Ukraine also lost at least 54 armored vehicles, including seven tanks during the push, he stated. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova slammed the incursion as a “massed terrorist attack.” The “barbaric attack” aimed to “sow panic among the residents of the region and demonstrate at least some semblance of activity, amid the constant failures of the Ukrainian armed forces in the conflict,” she stated. Commenting on Kiev’s incursion, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Washington’s stance on Ukraine’s use of US-supplied weapons in cross-border attacks has not changed, and that “with the actions that they are taking today, they’re not in violation of our policy.” Moscow has repeatedly warned that Western arms supplies to Ukraine will not break the course of the conflict, but only prolong it.

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“Things will get worse in terms of Ukrainian terrorism spreading across the planet. It’s not a joke..”

• Ukraine Spreading ‘Terrorism’ Around The World – Zakharova (RT)

The Ukrainian government has become a terrorist organization acting on behalf of Western nations and their “deep state structures,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has claimed. The official condemned Kiev in an interview on Wednesday, after Ukrainian troops launched an incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region one day previously and several civilians were killed by Ukrainian strikes. “This is an act of terrorism. It was obviously directed against peaceful people. There is no doubt about that,” the spokeswoman told Sputnik Radio. Zakharova brought up Mali’s decision earlier this month to cut diplomatic relations with Kiev, after Ukrainian officials claimed credit for an ambush on Russian military contractors by Tuareg militants. A spokesman for the Ukrainian military intelligence called it a “successful military operation” by his agency, but Bamako described it as support for terrorism in the Sahel region of Africa.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has since denied Kiev’s involvement in the incident, while neighboring Niger joined Mali in condemning Ukraine and breaking ties with it. “Things will get worse in terms of Ukrainian terrorism spreading across the planet. It’s not a joke,” Zakharova warned. People in power in Kiev have turned their country into a “terrorist gang” doing the dirty work for Western nations and their “deep state structures,” the diplomat claimed. She also asked what it would take to convince the American people that by bankrolling Ukraine, their government was sponsoring terrorism. Ukrainian troops have been launching attacks against settlements in the border areas of Kursk Region as they try to push their way inside Russian territory.

On Tuesday evening, acting Governor Aleksey Smirnov reported that the civilian death toll from the hostilities had increased, after a Ukrainian kamikaze drone hit an ambulance near the town of Sudzha, one of the primary targets of the attacks. The strike killed the driver and an elderly paramedic, and left a doctor injured, he said. Previous updates confirmed three civilian fatalities. Meanwhile, local health officials reported on Wednesday that at least 28 people had been injured by Ukrainian strikes. Zakharova cited a deep fake video of Smirnov, in which the governor urged all men in Kursk Region to go to conscription centers and take arms, as evidence that Ukraine’s military activities were primarily meant to disturb Russian civilians. The clip was apparently based on an actual video statement made by the governor on Tuesday, which urged citizens to keep calm and prioritize their safety.

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Mali, Niger, Senegal and Burkina Faso. What business does Kiev have there?

• Fourth African State Sanctions Ukraine For ‘Supporting Terrorism’ (RT)

Niger has severed diplomatic relations with Ukraine in response to Kiev’s alleged support for militants who killed dozens of Malian soldiers and Russian Wagner Group contractors in an attack last month. The West African state’s decision on Tuesday came just two days after Mali took the same step, accusing Kiev of supporting international terrorism. Ukrainian officials had earlier indicated that Kiev had assisted Tuareg rebels who staged an attack in the village of Tinzaouaten. In an interview following the incident, Ukraine’s spy agency spokesman, Andrey Yusov, indicated on national TV that the insurgents had received intelligence to conduct a “successful military operation against Russian war criminals.” He warned that “there will be more to come.” Ukraine’s embassy in Senegal posted the video – now deleted – on its Facebook page along with a comment from Ambassador Yury Pivovarov, who said “there will certainly be other results.”

Niamey’s military government spokesman, Amadou Abdramane, called the remarks “indecent” and “unacceptable” in an address on state TV late on Tuesday, claiming that they characterize “acts of aggression.” “Niger, in total solidarity with the government and people of Mali, has decided in all sovereignty […] to sever diplomatic relations between the Republic of Niger and Ukraine with immediate effect,” Abdramane said. Kiev has yet to respond to the African state’s move. On Monday, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry denied any involvement in the terrorist attack and described Mali’s decision to break off diplomatic ties as “shortsighted and hasty.” “Ukraine is known in Africa as an important contributor to ensuring regional security,” the ministry stated, arguing that Bamako had acted without providing any evidence of Kiev’s complicity in the ambush near the Algerian border.

On Tuesday, the West African regional bloc ECOWAS condemned the killings in Mali and expressed “strong” opposition to “any foreign interference” that threatens the region’s peace and security. Bamako’s neighbors, including Senegal and Burkina Faso, have all criticized Ukraine over the statements by its officials. Since 2012, Mali has been embroiled in a jihadist insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives. A decade-long French military mission failed to quell the violence, which has spilled over to neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger. All three former French colonies, led by their militaries, have severed defense ties with Paris and formed the Alliance of Sahel States to combat terrorism. Russia, which Bamako, Niamey, and Ouagadougou regard as a strategic security ally, has agreed to assist the troubled Sahel states in combating long-standing terrorist threats.

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“Journalism as an occupation no longer exists. Today the struggle is not to get at the heart of an issue, but to have one’s agenda prevail.”

• Why Did America Give Away Its Manufacturing Jobs? (Paul Craig Roberts)

Not long ago a couple of publishers asked about my memoirs. I told them I had no interest. Memoirs are an enormous undertaking, especially when your files haven’t been organized for the purpose. Moreover, many of mine have been discarded in moves. When you have lived as long as I have and been involved in so many major issues, files are a voluminous collection. Moreover, I have always had a jaundiced eye toward memoirs, being unsure whether they are an exercise in egotism. In past times I think memoirs, even if they were attempts to control the narrative, something done for us today by the CIA and woke media and universities, still made information available that otherwise would have died with the person. I find this a bit sobering as there is a great deal of information that is going to die with me. Despite all the winnowing of my files, I still have 25 crates that if I did nothing else for one year I might get through. To organize the information, I would need at least two assistants.

I have barely touched the crates, and already I have found important matters long forgotten. In 2004 NY Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer and I opened a New Year with a jointly authored column in the New York Times. We raised the offshoring issue. American manufacturing jobs and the tech jobs of American professionals were being sent to Asia. We posed the question that if jobs offshoring was free trade, as economists claimed, was free trade any longer in America’s interest? My position was that jobs offshoring is a contradiction of free trade–more later–and Schumer was still in his idealistic period when he was concerned about the displacement of American labor by foreign labor in the production of goods and services that Americans consumed. Our article caused a firestorm. The Brookings Institution in Washington called a conference and asked us to come and defend our position. C-Span broadcast the conference live and rebroadcast it a number of times. Schumer and I carried the day.

Delighted with the publicity, Schumer suggested a follow-up article. The NY Times was eager. We began a draft, and then it went cold. My explanation is that Wall Street, which was committed to jobs offshoring, got to Schumer and explained campaign contributions to him. I continued on. Conservatives, free market economists, and libertarians, who are indoctrinated with free trade, but who do not comprehend the theory, called me a heretic. Nevertheless, both the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post were intrigued that the “most ardent” of the “Reagan policymakers” had taken a position against the policy that Wall Street was imposing on the country. The Wall Street Journal assigned Timothy Aeppel to arrange a series of debates to be published in the Wall Street Journal between me and Columbia University Professor Jagdish Bhagwati. The question was: Is jobs offshoring really free trade?

Adam Smith and David Ricardo’s theory of free trade rests on the principle of comparative advantage. What this means is that a country’s capital remains employed at home and is employed in areas in which the capital is best used. If all countries do this, there are gains from trade, and all countries will be better off than if they are self-sufficient. I have wondered if the free trade theory was used as a stratagem to repeal the British Corn Laws and reduce the income and power of the landed aristocracy. Both Smith and Ricardo made it completely clear that if a country’s capital left the country, it was pursuing absolute advantage, not comparative advantage, and free trade theory is vitiated. This is the point I made. Without comparative advantage, there is no case for free trade. The Wall Street Journal wasn’t the only media institution interested in the facts. So was the Washington Post.

The Washington Post assigned their economics editor Paul Blustein to interview me and my critics and to do a news report. Blustein interviewed me at least three times prior to writing his story. Keep in mind that Blustein had been a critic during my Treasury days with the Reagan administration. Nevertheless, after giving my critics their say, Blustein wrote:“Still, mainstream economists can’t answer a key question that Roberts raises, which is how the U.S. economy can generate better employment opportunities to replace the white-collar jobs that are suddenly vanishing. “Roberts recently got some support for his argument from a heavyweight academic economist, William J. Baumol . . . a past president of the American Economic Association and a book he published with Ralph E. Gomery, [a distinguished mathematician] that pokes some holes in economic orthodoxy by showing that free trade will not necessarily provide mutual gains to countries.”

Today this exchange of ideas in the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post and the honest appraisal of one’s opponents is not possible. I am banned from the Wall Street Journal, a newspaper I used to edit. I am banned from the Washington Post for which I was a contributor. I am banned from the NY Times which used to call me and ask me to write on current issues. I am banned from the newspapers of the Scripps Howard News Service. I am banned from the San Diego Union, the San Francisco Examiner, and the Los Angeles Times for which I was a regular contributor. There is no debate. There are narratives, and the narratives are imposed. Journalism as an occupation no longer exists. Today the struggle is not to get at the heart of an issue, but to have one’s agenda prevail.

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“..violations of the Foreign Agent Restriction Act (FARA)”

• FBI Raids Scott Ritter’s House (RT)

Federal agents and state police have searched the house of former US Marine and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter in New York state on Wednesday. State Police and FBI agents descended on the street of Bethlehem township, south of Albany, around noon, according to the local outlet Times-Union. They carried “more than two dozen boxes” out of the house just before 5pm local time. The law enforcement executed a search warrant “related to concerns apparently the US government has about violations of the Foreign Agent Restriction Act (FARA)” Ritter told reporters gathered outside the house after the agents left. He denied any allegations of wrongdoing and said the federal government was trying to intimidate him. An FBI spokesperson confirmed “law enforcement activity in connection with an ongoing federal investigation,” but would say nothing further.

Ritter is a former US Marine Corps major who served as a UN weapons inspector in Iraq during the 1990s. He opposed the 2003 US invasion, insisting that Saddam Hussein’s government did not have weapons of mass destruction, as Washington claimed at the time. He has also been an RT contributor and saw his passport seized by the US government when he tried to attend the St Petersburg International Economic Forum in June. Jim Hoffman, Ritter’s neighbor across the street for two decades, told the Times-Union that the former inspector has kept a low profile. “When he came out against the Iraq War back in early 2000s, he was vilified everywhere,” Hoffman said. “Honestly, he was right. He said there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”

Ritter himself has not posted anything about the raid on social media. His most recent post on X was from Tuesday’s meeting with independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The administrators of his Telegram channel posted photos of the raid and said they have not heard from him either.

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Hmmm…

• Vienna Cancels Taylor Swift Concerts Over ISIS Attack Fears (RT)

US pop mega-star Taylor Swift has canceled three upcoming concerts in Vienna, Austria after two suspects were arrested for allegedly planning terrorist attacks on the shows. Swift was supposed to perform at Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadium on August 8, 9, and 10 as part of her European leg of the Eras Tour. Venues across the continent have been sold out for weeks. “With confirmation from government officials of a planned terrorist attack at Ernst Happel Stadium, we have no choice but to cancel the three scheduled shows for everyone’s safety,” concert promoter Barracuda Music said in an Instagram post. “All tickets will be automatically refunded within the next 10 business days.” Austrian police arrested a 19-year-old who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS) in Ternitz, a town south of Vienna. Another suspect was later detained in the capital

Franz Ruf, director-general for public safety in the Austrian Ministry of the Interior, told reporters that the suspects were allegedly self-radicalized online, planned to attack Vienna, and expressed particular interest in Swift’s concerts. The organizers expected 65,000 concertgoers at each show and an additional 10,000 to 15,000 fans outside the arena, police said. The risk justified raising security precautions, said Vienna police chief Gerhard Purst. The 19-year-old suspect may have been building an explosive device, police said, and the chemical substances found at his home are currently being investigated. The names of the suspects have not been made public. Swift embarked on the Eras Tour in March 2023, aiming to do 152 concerts across five continents, performing hits from her 17-year career. The 34-year-old songstress is expected to make $2 billion from the tour by the time it wraps up in December.

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Pardon him while you still can..

• Hunter Biden Got ‘Millions’ of Dollars From Romania to Influence US Gov’t (Sp.)

Hunter Biden, the son of US President Joe Biden, has received millions of dollars from a Romanian entrepreneur in order to influence the US government during his father’s vice presidency, court filings have revealed. US Department of Justice Special Counsel David Weiss’s office found that Biden received “substantial” sums of money from foreign firms and individuals in exchange for acting as a lobbyist, consultant, or legal adviser. “With respect to his first topic, ‘allegations that Mr. Biden (1) acted on behalf of a foreign principal to influence U.S. policy and public opinion,’ the defendant did receive compensation from a foreign principal to attempt to influence U.S. policy and public opinion, as alleged in the indictment, and this evidence is relevant and not unfairly prejudicial,” the Wednesday filing read. Hunter Biden worked for Romanian businessman Gabriel Popoviciu (referred to as G.P. in the document) to help him escape bribery charges in Romania, Weiss’s office also revealed.

“The evidence of what the defendant agreed to do and did do for G.P. demonstrates the defendant’s state of mind and intent during the relevant tax years charged in the indictment. It is also evidence that the defendants actions do not reflect someone with a diminished capacity, given that he agreed to attempt to influence U.S. public policy and receive millions of dollars,” the document said. In November 2023, House Republicans subpoenaed the president’s brother James Biden and Hunter Biden to appear for a deposition before lawmakers. In May, Smith said that Hunter Biden had repeatedly lied to Congress in his February deposition to distance his involvement in what should be considered a “clear scheme to enrich the Biden family.” The House of Representatives is investigating the Biden family for alleged criminal activity, including foreign influence peddling and bribery.

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The Supreme Court is the only things they don’t control..

• The “No Kings Act” is a Decapitation of the Constitution (Turley)

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) has introduced the “No Kings Act” with great fanfare and the support of most of his Democratic colleagues. Liberal groups have heralded the measure to legislatively reverse the ruling in Trump v. United States. It is obviously popular with the press and pundits. It is also entirely unconstitutional in my view. The “No Kings Act” is not just a cynical abdication of responsibility by Democrats, but would constitute the virtual decapitation of the Constitution. I have previously written about the false claims made about the Supreme Court’s decision by President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and other leading democrats. The press and pundits have reached a new level of sensationalism and hysteria in the coverage with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow even claiming that it was a “death squad ruling.” The Court actually rejected the most extreme positions of both the Trump team and the lower courts.

As it has in the past, the Court adopted a three-tiered approach to presidential powers based on the source of a presidential action. Chief Justice John Roberts cited Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer, in which the court ruled against President Harry Truman’s takeover of steel mills. In his famous concurrence to Youngstown, Justice Robert Jackson broke down the balance of executive and legislative authority between three types of actions. In the first, a president acts with express or implied authority from Congress. In the second, he acts where Congress is silent (“the zone of twilight” area). In the third, the president acts in defiance of Congress. In this decision, the court adopted a similar sliding scale. It held that presidents enjoy absolute immunity for actions that fall within their “exclusive sphere of constitutional authority” while they enjoy presumptive immunity for other official acts. They do not enjoy immunity for unofficial or private actions.

Where the coverage has been wildly inaccurate, the No Kings Act is cynically dishonest. To his credit, President Joe Biden was at least honest in proposing a constitutional amendment to overturn the decision in Trump. However, that was dead on arrival in Congress since under Article V it would require a two-thirds majority vote in both houses and then ratification by three-fourths of the states. The Democrats are seeking to circumvent that process with simple majority votes with the No Kings Act. The bill is being presented as a jurisdiction-stripping measure, not an effort to dictate outcomes. Congress does have authority to change the jurisdiction of the federal courts. That authority was recognized by the Court itself in Ex parte McCardle (1869). Chief Justice Salmon Chase ruled that it did have the authority “to make exceptions to the appellate jurisdiction of this court.”

However, Chase also emphasized that the law did “not affect the jurisdiction which was previously exercised” so that prior decisions would remain fully enforceable. Moreover, shortly after McCardle, the Court ruled in United States v. Klein (1871), that Congress may not use its authority of court jurisdiction to lay out a “rule of decision” for the Supreme Court, or effectively dictate results in court cases. The No Kings Act does more than just strip jurisdiction and makes no secret of its purpose in dictating the outcome of future cases. It purports in Section 2 to “clarify that a President or Vice President is not entitled to any form of immunity from criminal prosecution for violations of the criminal laws of the United States unless specified by Congress.” That is a rather Orwellian view of “clarification” since it directly contradicts the opinion in declaring in the very next section that “[a] President, former President, Vice President, or former Vice President shall not be entitled to any form of immunity (whether absolute, presumptive, or otherwise) from criminal laws of the United States unless specified by Congress.”

Schumer and most of the Democratic senators actually believe that they can simply instruct lower courts to ignore a Supreme Court ruling on the meaning of the Constitution. It would undermine the basis of Marbury v. Madison after 221 years. To be sure, it is stated in strictly jurisdictional terms. Yet, it crafts the jurisdictional changes to mirror the decision and future immunity claims. The bill declares that federal courts “may not consider whether an alleged violation of any criminal laws of the United States committed by a President or Vice President was within the conclusive or preclusive constitutional authority of a President or Vice President or was related to the official duties of a President or Vice President unless directed by Congress.” But the Democrats are not done yet. Section 4 actually removes the Supreme Court from such questions and makes appellate courts the effective highest courts of the land when it comes to presidential immunity:

“The Supreme Court of the United States shall have no appellate jurisdiction, on the basis that an alleged criminal act was within the conclusive or preclusive constitutional authority of a President or Vice President or on the basis that an alleged criminal act was related to the official duties of a President or Vice President.” Notably, this is one of the wacky ideas put forward by the President’s Supreme Court Commission. After all, why pack the Court if you can just gut it? Of course, some sponsors like Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) want to both pack the Court and strip it of authority. Presumably, once packed, the authority to act as a court would be at least restored with the liberal majority.

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Sorry, Two Tier Kier. NASA need Musk to save their ISS astronauts.

• Crazed Authoritarians Demand X Be Shut Down in UK (MN)

Mimicking a policy that the west once condemned Communist China for pursuing, authoritarians are now calling for X to be shut down completely in the UK to stop civil unrest. After the country was rocked by a series of riots over the past week in response to a 17-year-old son of Rwandan immigrants killing three little girls in Southport, the media and the political class blamed the anger on “misinformation” shared on X. In reality, the UK has been a boiling pot of resentment and rage over mass migration for years, with huge numbers continuing to arrive, putting massive strain on the country and making some parts of major towns and cities unrecognizable, despite nobody having ever voted for it. However, the disorder is being exploited to grease the skids for mass censorship. Cambridge professor Sander van der Linden said the government could “geo-restrict access to a platform if the situation got so bad” and Twitter could also be “banned from the app store for violating policies.”

Jessica Simor QC also called for the UK government to “pass a short bill closing down Twitter in the UK.” Entrepreneur Ana Vilhete also called for Twitter to be temporarily banned in the UK to “limit the spread of inflammatory information.” Journalist Paul Mason, a Marxist who once worked for the BBC, demanded the government use the Online Safety Bill (which passed under the excuse of protecting children from harmful content) to “pull the plug” on X. Apparently, it’s horrendous for Middle Eastern dictators to shut down and block social media networks during times of civil unrest, as occurred during the Arab Spring, but when the UK does it, it’s fine. Whenever there are anti-government protests in China, the Communist regime there also blocks and suspends social media networks, something that was once slammed by western governments as a vicious attack on basic freedom, but a tactic which they now emulate.

Although the riots are cited as the primary reason for mass censorship, the calls are also being driven by the fact that Elon Musk has challenged the mainstream narrative on the riots and embarrassed Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Musk branded Starmer ‘Two Tier Kier’ for pursuing a vigorous crackdown on anti-mass migration demonstrators while turning a blind eye to Muslim mobs who have also rioted and physically attacked innocent people. The British political establishment engaged in a collective hissy fit over Musk’s simple question for Starmer and the government when he asked, “Why aren’t all communities protected in Britain?”. The X owner also drew attention to a viral video clip of a man being arrested in his own home by police over a Facebook post, asking if it was “Britain or the Soviet Union”. The regime is deeply fearful that Musk’s intervention is causing them to lose control of the narrative that the unrest is being fueled by mindless, racist thuggery and not legitimate concerns about the impact of mass migration on working class people in the UK.

Hitchens/Starmer

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All roads…

 

 

Mar a lago

 

 

Starlink

 

 

Sting
https://twitter.com/i/status/1820913480192725080

 

 

Rescue
https://twitter.com/i/status/1820900188627857766

 

 

Oh no!

 

 

More friends

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle January 31 2024

Jan 312024
 
 January 31, 2024  Posted by at 9:40 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  60 Responses »


Tamara de Lempicka The refugees 1937

 

• Biden Wants Taylor Swift To Sing For Him – NYT (RT)
• Is There A Taylor Swift Psyop? (ZH)
• The Next Big Thing (Jim Kunstler)
• US Foreign Arms Sales Rocket to Record Highs (Sp.)
• Stoltenberg: Weapons for Ukraine Are ‘the Way to Peace’ (Sp.)
• West Asks Countries To Secretly Send Russian Weapons To Ukraine – Lavrov (RT)
• Russia Warns US Against Returning Tactical Nuclear Weapons to UK (Sp.)
• The Palestinians Won in The Hague: So Did the Rest of Us (Patrick Lawrence)
• ICJ Ruling Is What It Is: Symbolic. But What Happens Next Is Critical (Jay)
• West Starts to Understand That Ukraine Project ‘Failing’ – Lavrov (Sp.)
• Lavrov Blasts ‘Absurd’ Claims That Russia Will Attack NATO (RT)
• Zelensky Ready To Further Fuel Ukraine Conflict (Sp.)
• Ukraine To Teach Troops To Speak Ukrainian (RT)
• US Facing ‘Death Spiral’ Of Swelling Debt – Nassim Taleb (RT)
• Imran Khan Sentenced To Ten Years In Prison (RT)
• Imran Khan Sentenced To 14-year New Jail Term (RT)

 

 

 

 

Illegals
https://twitter.com/i/status/1752498124877336987

 

 

Poll
https://twitter.com/i/status/1752450941633335551

 

 

A Delaware judge just retroactively voided Elon’s $55B Tesla pay package from 2018 where shareholders voted in favor for it, all milestones were hit, and Tesla stock is up 800% since then.


Elon Musk:”Never incorporate your company in the state of Delaware.”

 

 

Cybertruck

 

 

Tucker Russell Brand


https://twitter.com/i/status/1752487123528093806

 

 

 

 

Joe Biden, George Soros and Taylor Swift. What a plotline.

“Joe Biden is in [a] hole with young people, he knows it. And if he thinks Taylor can get him out of that hole, he’s gonna go for it.”

• Biden Wants Taylor Swift To Sing For Him – NYT (RT)

US President Joe Biden is pursuing an endorsement from global pop superstar Taylor Swift ahead of November’s election, the New York Times has claimed. The Democratic leader’s campaign is reportedly seeking to counter flagging polls that show him trailing likely Republican candidate, Donald Trump. Trump’s strong performances in early Republican primaries and caucuses have suggested that a rematch of the 2020 election is the most likely scenario at the US ballot box later this year. As such, Biden’s staff plan to rehash tactics that proved successful in the caustic battle with Trump four years ago, the New York Times said on Monday. Principally, this is said to involve painting the former president as a threat to American democracy, along with a heavy focus on abortion rights as part of a broader appeal to voters against alleged conservative efforts to restrict personal freedoms.

One influential voice the Democrats again intend to harness is that of Swift, arguably the most famous popstar on the planet. Perhaps more specifically, her 280 million Instagram followers are of significant interest, the report claims. Swift publicly backed Biden and his vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris in 2020, saying that she would “proudly vote” for the Democratic ticket because “under their leadership, I believe America has a chance to start the healing process it so desperately needs.” Last year, a single social media post from Swift led to the registration of 35,000 new voters in the US, the NYT report said, and Democrats are keen to secure her backing to expand this enthusiasm to a national scale. It is also predicted that fund-raising appeals from the singer could boost Biden’s campaign to the tune of millions of dollars.

“Taylor Swift stands tall and unique,” California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, said last year. “What she was able to accomplish just in getting young people activated to consider that they have a voice and that they should have a voice in the next election, I think, is extremely powerful.” Perhaps courting Swift’s backing, the White House last week condemned salacious fake AI images of the singer that have been circulating on social media in recent days. Fox News anchor Jeanine Pirro, a vocal backer of Trump, on Monday warned Swift not to “get involved in politics.” “We don’t want to see you there,” Pirro said on the news network’s ‘The Five’ show. “Joe Biden is in [a] hole with young people, he knows it. And if he thinks Taylor can get him out of that hole, he’s gonna go for it.” Trump, though, is also no stranger to leaning on popular culture for support. He has previously boasted of backing from the likes of Kanye West and Kid Rock. The latest polling data shows Trump holding an advantage of between 1 and 5 percentage points over Biden in a head-to-head race.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1752521142831562803

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“..has been pitched by legacy media as finally finding the “perfect match”: Kansas City Chiefs Travis Kelce. The relationship doesn’t pass the sniff test..”

• Is There A Taylor Swift Psyop? (ZH)

Welcome to the matrix. The current news cycle gives the impression that Taylor Swift is everywhere. According to Bloomberg data, corporate media headlines featuring “Taylor Swift” began ramping up in the first half of 2023 and hit new record highs later in the year. The singer, who has made an entire career whining about having chosen the wrong men, has been pitched by legacy media as finally finding the “perfect match”: Kansas City Chiefs Travis Kelce. The relationship doesn’t pass the sniff test, given Taylor’s terrible choices with men. Let’s begin with Michael Benz, a former Trump admin State Department official whose work has been cited in congressional hearings, posted on X a video from 2019 featuring the Pentagon’s psychological operations research that pitched the idea of turning Taylor into an asset to combat “disinformation.”

Back to Taylor’s relationship with Kelce. Consider this:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1752042447088017527

And there’s this.

We’re not alone. Fox News’ Jesse Watters also asked: “Why is Taylor Swift Everywhere?” Perhaps it’s not by chance that the story count in corporate media for Taylor has exponentially exploded, averaging above 1,000 per day since late September. Taylor’s surge comes as legacy corporate media is terrified about the rise of alternative media. Wall Street Journal Chief Emma Tucker warned WEF elites at Davos this month: “We no longer own the news.” [..] While it remains to be seen if Taylor has become a NATO asset. Certainty Democrats appear to be salivating all over her ahead of the presidential election to turn ‘Swifites’ into blue voters.

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“Joe Biden” will seize an excuse to declare a national emergency and subject the US to some manner of martial law..”

• The Next Big Thing (Jim Kunstler)

I’m sure you can see exactly where all this is going. By all this, I refer to the cortège of disasters orchestrated by “Joe Biden” and associates — with help from a power-crazed globalist cabal — hauling our country at a gallop now to the graveyard of empires. Is there any question that they are out to wreck Western Civ? And speeding up the action because too many actual citizens are rising to oppose their degenerate wickedness? Most particularly, the people who have not surrendered their reason to the Woke-Marxist mind-fuck that calls itself “progressivism” have had enough of the purposeful inflow of something like ten-thousand fake asylum-seekers a day across the border, mostly men, a lot of them from China, and many more of them mutts from faraway lands where Jihad is the order of the day — meaning the crusade to exterminate the people of Western Civ. We’re supposed to be okay with that.

This deliberate, treasonous policy was rightfully declared an “invasion” last week by the Governor of Texas, requiring the human wave to be met with real force, not the welcome wagon that the federal border patrol has been turned into. The result so far is a real-live Mexican stand-off between the regime in Washington and the state of Texas, joined by twenty-five other sympathetic US states willing to send men and matériel to seal the border. None of this is reported in Monday morning’s New York Times, by the way, though you can read Is Dying Your Hair Bad for Your Health there. Nor will you read about the caravan of American truckers striking out from all points around the country to “peacefully protest and pray” at the border while Texas attempts to settle its hash with “Joe Biden.” Nor will you read about the uprising of European farmers blocking highways to protest ruinous EU rules on food imports, diesel fuel prices, carbon emissions inanity, and, of course, the officially-enabled tide of Africans and jihadists flooding into EU member states.

“Joe Biden’s” response so far is to say he’ll attend to the border situation only if Congress green-lights another massive aid package for Ukraine, a dishonest proffer from any angle. Ukraine is a lost cause that should never have been a cause of ours in the first place. Yet securing the US border is a principal duty of the executive branch, not some optional fringe benefit to be used as leverage for other projects. Congress has already got impeachment articles ready for Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas, who has lied repeatedly under oath about the border being “secure.” But it’s obviously not enough. The failure is entirely “Joe Biden’s” and warrants his impeachment on its face, aside from all the evidence of bribery and racketeering among him and his family.

The best move would be to impeach both the president and his proclaimed “border czar” Veep Kamala Harris — which would put Speaker Mike Johnson in the oval office. But the impeachment process is too slow and awkward for that. So, now I will tell you where all this is actually going: “Joe Biden” will seize an excuse to declare a national emergency and subject the US to some manner of martial law. The excuse could be an outbreak of violence in the quarrel between the states and the feds over the border. Or it could be a widening of the war in the Middle East, a direct confrontation with Iran that would draw in Russia and Turkey and kickoff World War Three, a war we would have an excellent shot at losing, considering our DEI-ravaged, over-vaxxed army, our obsolete naval carrier groups that can be sunk by hypersonic missiles, and our depleted reserves of armaments already fobbed off by Ukraine and, lately, given to Israel in the Gaza campaign to destroy Hamas.

If such a war didn’t set off a world-ending exchange of nukes, it would at least collapse the economies of Europe and America and, with that, many governments, including possibly ours. And what role might all those recently-arrived illegal aliens play in such a fiasco? Any way you cut it, we’d be in for chaos and hardship. Or, if we somehow avert major war, “Joe Biden” can try the national emergency ploy when the much-heralded (by the WHO) “Disease X” trots onstage. (And we must ask whether that will just be a delayed side-effect of the mRNA vaccine deaths?) Ultimately, the purpose of any national emergency at this moment in history, whatever prompts it, will be to suspend the 2024 elections. The Democratic Party has gone so completely off-the-rails psychologically that it will do anything to avert losing control of the government.

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What it’s all about. The bottom line.

• US Foreign Arms Sales Rocket to Record Highs (Sp.)

Capitalizing on armed conflicts across the world is not uncommon for Washington, something that is confirmed by the fact that the US’ foreign military sales (FMS) reached $80.9 billion in fiscal year 2023, soaring almost 56% from the previous year to set a new record. Apart from FMS, America’s so-called direct commercial sales (DCS) likewise increased last year to $157.5 billion from $153.6 billion in fiscal 2022, the State Department said in a statement. A record total of FMS and DCS in FY2023 stands at about $238 billion. The total $80.9 billion figure for FMS last year includes $62.25 billion in arms sales funded by US allied and partner nations, as well as $3.97 billion through the Title 22 Foreign Military Financing program, according to data released. An additional $14.68 billion was funded through other Department of State and Department of Defense programs, including the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.

Poland made some of the biggest purchases, buying Apache helicopters for $12 billion and also paying $10 billion for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS). Germany spent $8.5 billion on Chinook helicopters while Bulgaria paid $1.5 billion for Stryker armoured vehicles and Norway bought $1 billion worth of multi-mission helicopters. The Czech Republic bought $5.6 billion in F-35 jets and munitions. Outside of Europe, the State Department data indicated that South Korea paid $5 billion for F-35 fighter jets and Australia spent $6.3 billion on C130J-30 Super Hercules planes. Also, Japan reached a $1 billion deal for an E-2D Hawkeye surveillance plane. Examples of last year’s major DCS Congressional Notifications include a hefty agreement with the Ukrainian Defense Ministry to supply National Advanced Surface to Air Missile System (NASAMS) worth $1.2 billion.

Other agreements worth approximately the above-mentioned sum pertain to Italy, India, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, and Norway, per the State Department. It’s safe to assume that commercializing wars has become a trend in US policy. In the same vein, in a 2022 extensive report by the Washington-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft think tank, the authors urged the Biden administration “to address a number of key issues if US policy on arms sales is to be made consistent with long-term US interests.”

“The key policy consideration is how to restrict sales to those that will help allies defend themselves without provoking arms races or increasing the prospects for conflict,” the report pointed out, referring to the AUKUS submarine deal, which “will benefit US contractors but risks fueling arms competition and increasing tensions with China.” On the “rapid” US military assistance to Ukraine, the report underscored that “the United States has failed to offer an accompanying diplomatic strategy aimed at ending the war before it evolves into a long, grinding conflict or escalates into a direct US-Russian confrontation.” Moscow has repeatedly warned the US and its allies that sending arms to Kiev would only prolong the Ukraine conflict. The authors warned that foreign arms sales can also pose risks to US security “by fueling conflicts, provoking American adversaries, stoking arms races, and drawing the US into unnecessary or counterproductive wars.”

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Works for the industry.

• Stoltenberg: Weapons for Ukraine Are ‘the Way to Peace’ (Sp.)

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said during a press briefing that supporting Ukraine goes beyond charity, serving as an investment into global security. “Supporting Ukraine is not a charity, it is an investment in our own security,” Stoltenberg said during a press briefing on Monday. Stoltenberg also suggested that arms for Ukraine are “the way to peace.” In October, the White House requested from Congress supplemental funding of for more than $100 billion, including more than $60 billion for Ukraine, but Republican lawmakers have refused to approve the request without including substantive measures to strengthen US border security and address record levels of illegal immigration into the United States.

Western countries have been providing military aid to Ukraine since the start of Russia’s special military operation in February 2022 in the amount of hundreds of billions of dollars. The aid evolved from artillery munitions and training in 2022 to heavier weapons, including tanks, advanced air-defense systems, cluster munitions and missiles later that year and in 2023. The Kremlin has consistently warned against the West’s continued arms deliveries to Ukraine. Moscow has repeatedly stated that Western military supplies do not bode well for Ukraine and only prolong the conflict. In addition, vehicles carrying supplied weapons are a legitimate target for the Russian Army.

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“In accordance with this certificate, the recipient of the weapon does not have the right to resell it or redirect it anywhere without the consent of the supplier country..”

• West Asks Countries To Secretly Send Russian Weapons To Ukraine – Lavrov (RT)

Moscow has become aware of several cases of Western powers asking certain countries to secretly donate Russian-made weaponry to Kiev for use in the Ukraine conflict, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. The Russian diplomat’s comments come as Kiev ramps up its demands for more military aid, citing acute shortages in hardware and ammunition. The US and its allies have also been seeking to approve further financial and military support for Ukraine. Speaking at a roundtable meeting with the heads of foreign diplomatic missions in Moscow on Tuesday, Lavrov stated that Russia has been in contact with “certain countries” that the West has been trying to convince to hand over Russia-supplied weapons to Ukraine, without informing Moscow of such transfers.

The minister noted that there have been “several cases of this kind” recorded by Moscow over the past year and a half, and stressed that Russia will continue to demand that all international obligations regarding weapons transfers be observed. Lavrov pointed out that when a foreign country legally acquires Russian arms, the shipments come with a certain package of documents, including an end-user certificate. “In accordance with this certificate, the recipient of the weapon does not have the right to resell it or redirect it anywhere without the consent of the supplier country,” the minister explained.

At the same time, Russia’s top diplomat noted that the West has been pretending not to notice that its own weapons, which it has supplied to Ukraine, have already spread to war zones across the world, where they are frequently being used by extremists and terrorists. “The weapons that the West supplies to the Ukrainian regime have been found not only in conflict zones in the Middle East, but in illegal shipments that have been recorded in Finland, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Gaza,” Lavrov said. Last week, speaking at a UN Security Council meeting, Lavrov reiterated Moscow’s claims that Kiev has been reselling Western weapons on the black market, and expressed disbelief that Ukraine’s backers were unaware of this. Russia has repeatedly condemned Western weapons deliveries to Ukraine, insisting that such shipments only serve to prolong the fighting and lead to more bloodshed without affecting the eventual outcome.

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“..the United States is expected to station B61-12 gravity bombs, which are three times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, at the Lakenheath base for the first time in 15 years..”

• Russia Warns US Against Returning Tactical Nuclear Weapons to UK (Sp.)

Russia strongly warns the US against returning its tactical nuclear weapons to the territory of the UK, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Tuesday.”Regarding the hypothetical return of US tactical nuclear weapons to the UK territory, I would like to strongly warn against this destabilizing step,” Ryabkov told reporters. The move would not strengthen the security of either the UK or the US, but would increase the level of escalation and threat in Europe, the diplomat said. “We assume that despite the rather sad experience, from the point of view of ensuring European security, the experience of recent years in London and Washington, hotheads are not drawing any lessons from this, so this scenario is quite possible,” he added.

The Telegraph reported on January 26 that the United States is expected to station B61-12 gravity bombs, which are three times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, at the Lakenheath base for the first time in 15 years after Washington decided to remove its nuclear arsenal from the United Kingdom in 2008. A Pentagon spokesperson, commenting on the development, said in a statement to Sputnik that it is a US policy to neither confirm nor deny the presence or absence of nuclear weapons at a specific location amid reports that Washington plans to station its nuclear weapons in the United Kingdom.

“It is U.S. policy to neither confirm nor deny the presence or absence of nuclear weapons at any general or specific location,” the statement said. The statement noted that the United States “routinely upgrades its military facilities in allied nations. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said that the Kremlin would view the deployment of US nuclear weapons in the United Kingdom as an escalatory action.

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“.. it ordered Israel should facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid, it actually said, “You have to cease fire because there is no [other] way of doing that.”

• The Palestinians Won in The Hague: So Did the Rest of Us (Patrick Lawrence)

Half a dozen years ago I sat in the lobby lounge at the Algonquin Hotel in Manhattan talking at length with Richard Falk, the scholar, lawyer, U.N. rapporteur, and advocate of Palestinian rights. Inevitably, the conversation turned for a time to international law, a topic on which Falk has long been a recognized authority. Here is a little of what he said as we took our afternoon tea: When international law is on the side of the geopolitical actors, then they are very serious about its relevance. When the American embassy was seized in Tehran after the Iranian Revolution, they talked about the flouting of international law as if that was the most sacred body of law that ever existed. International law is used very instrumentally. If you’re protecting private investment in Venezuela or Chile, then it’s barbaric not to uphold it. But if it’s blocking the pursuit of some kind of interventionist project, then it’s flaky or irrelevant to talk about it …

I thought about that exchange over the weekend, as I considered the International Court of Justice’s ruling last Friday that the apartheid state of Israel may be guilty of genocide against Gaza’s Palestinian population, as South Africa charges, and that the case Pretoria brought last month must proceed. Later Friday, the estimable Phyllis Bennis quoted Falk in a piece she wrote for In These Times. Falk called the decision the court’s “greatest moment,” and went on to explain, “It strengthens the claims of international law to be respected by all sovereign states—not just some.” Consistency of thought: It does not get more admirable than this. There are many, many ways to look upon the ICJ’s ruling, many things worth saying. The very first of these is that the significance of the ICJ’s interim finding lies beyond dispute.

Will the barbarities of a nation self-evidently suffering a collective psychosis now stop? No. What Dick Falk said six years ago still holds: Israel has already made clear it will ignore The Hague’s judgment. But what “the Jewish state” does this week or next is not for the moment our question. What are the enduring consequences of this ruling for the global order? How shall we situate the court’s judgment? Where does its importance lie? These are our questions. And Falk was right last Friday, too: The ICJ has begun the work—the long work—of restoring international law as a foundational feature of a world order worthy of the term. Having made this point, I must immediately note the abject deflections we find in the reports of our corporate media—which, nearly to a one, urge their readers, listeners, and viewers to dismiss the ICJ’s interim finding as, borrowing from Falk, more or less flaky and irrelevant.

In the second paragraph of its main story Friday, The New York Times, fairly bursting to get the point across, wrote, “The court did not rule on whether Israel was committing genocide, and it did not call on Israel to stop its campaign to crush Hamas…” Three untruths here, straight off the top. One, the South Africans did not ask The Hague to issue a ruling on genocide one way or the other. In the cause of expedience, to stop the savagery as quickly as possible, it asked for what it got—a swift interim judgment so the court could order Israel to stop the violence and that the larger case on genocide could proceed. Two, a mountain has been made of the fact that the ICJ did not, in so many words, call upon Israel to cease fire in Gaza. This is preposterously misleading.

Peruse the six stipulations that comprise the ruling, the first of which reads, “Israel shall take all measures within its power to prevent all acts within the scope of Genocide Convention, Article 2.” Here I defer to Raz Segal, an Israeli historian who professes at Stockton University in New Jersey. This is from a segment of Democracy Now!, distributed last Friday: We’re already seeing headlines in The New York Times today which frame this as, “The court did not issue an order for a ceasefire”—which, in effect, it actually did, because if it ordered that Israel should cease from genocidal acts, and it ordered Israel should facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid, it actually said, “You have to cease fire because there is no [other] way of doing that.”

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“It’s the starter’s pistol of a global clampdown, which will impact humble Israelis as their economy tumbles and life gets tougher..”

• ICJ Ruling Is What It Is: Symbolic. But What Happens Next Is Critical (Jay)

All eyes now will be on Joe Biden to see what card he will play next after he has cut UNRWA aid – a despicable move which will haunt him until his dying days For many, the ruling of the ICJ in the Hague was surreal as it swiftly delivered a judgement against Israel for its genocide in Gaza. Yet even though the interpretation from around the world was that the conclusion of the court was unequivocal, the only real way of judging the validity of both the court and its judgement is with its impact. One has to wonder why the court, for example, didn’t use the word “genocide” and also why it stopped short of calling for an all-out ceasefire. For those naïve enough to believe that the court is entirely independent, the decision by the U.S. to veto any decision made by the United Nations Security Council should set minds at rest. We know that the Americans will do nothing at all, but there might be plans, however, for other countries to use the ruling as a basis for a host of actions against Israel, beyond merely legal ones.

The Americans were quick to point out on the day of the ruling that the court did not rule that Israel carried out a genocide. And so, by definition, it didn’t. This mentality, which is popular among gangsters, is really all that matters and is what those seeking justice will have to grapple with now.But the ruling did throw a spotlight on just how desperate both the Americans and Israelis are becoming as the stunt they pulled on the same day of the ruling, to distract media attention away from the court case and its significance, is telling.UNRWA is the UN agency, which takes care of the Palestinians, not only in Israel but in other countries like Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. For the Biden administration to entirely pull its funding of this agency, the last lifeline for thousands of Palestinians who rely on it even for food aid, is desperate, pathetic and despicable.

For those wondering what this stunt was intended to do, all they had to do is watch BBC news and see how this once fine international broadcaster has become a propaganda channel for U.S. hegemony. Eight minutes were given to why the Biden administration took the decision and only a couple of minutes given to the court decision itself.The Americans and Israel are still fighting a media war, which, for them, must feel like flogging a dead horse, despite most analysts acknowledging that all of the West’s media giants are completely supportive of israel. Israel clearly prepared the dossier and tortured its Palestinian prisoners to fabricate a story about UNRWA workers being complicit with the October 7th attacks in a confession signed in blood. Shamefully, this “evidence” which wouldn’t stand up in any court in the U.S. or UK, was all it took for Biden to go ahead with the plan, which leading commentators like George Galloway in the UK have already called an act of genocide in itself.

The UNRWA stunt is absolutely disgusting as it is craven and an all-time new low point for Biden. It paints Biden as a U.S. president who is happy to play his role in murdering thousands of civilians all in the name of fighting the media and controlling the debate. Some commentators will no doubt note the irony that the Gaza campaign started with claims by Israel of Hamas beheading babies and Israeli women being raped – the latter claim just retracted by the New York Times in recent days – and is now noted for Israel’s baptism of fake news as it struggles now even to get the upper hand in Gaza amidst reports of Hamas fighters returning to northern Gaza.

The ruling however will send shockwaves around the world for Israel to deal with. Certainly most of the countries, which make up the UN General Assembly, which has a good working relationship with the court, will not keep quiet about a U.S. veto in the Security Council. The boycott of goods may well be cranked up to official sanctions on Israel’s goods, visas and even the entity’s participation of international events. But for Netanyahu, this is not a badge of honour. He knows that the ruling will only compound his all-time low ratings in his own country. It’s the starter’s pistol of a global clampdown, which will impact humble Israelis as their economy tumbles and life gets tougher. Biden of course, could use the ruling to leverage Bibi to call a ceasefire. That is of course if you believe the reports that sleepy Joe really wants one, or is just bluffing once again, using his own journalists to help him with this deception.

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Oh, they know.. Admitting it is something else.

• West Starts to Understand That Ukraine Project ‘Failing’ – Lavrov (Sp.)

The West is beginning to understand that the “Ukraine project” is failing but can not stop assisting Kiev because of its economic benefit and fear of losing “prestige,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday. “The figures that are hidden in Ukraine, they speak a lot about how important it is for the West to prevent the ‘failure’ of their ‘Ukraine project’. Moreover, they already understand that the failure has already begun. But nevertheless they cannot stop. And not only for reasons of prestige … And also from the point of view of economic benefits,” Lavrov said during a meeting with foreign diplomats in Moscow. Addressing the UN Security Council meeting on January 22, 2023, Lavrov emphasized that there are no interests – and there never were – in the conflict with Russia in favor of the Ukrainian people.

There are only “the interests of the Anglo-Saxons, their henchmen and the criminal, rotten Kiev elite, which is tied to the West by mutual responsibility and which is afraid of being swept away the day after the end of the war.” The Russian top diplomat pointed out that Moscow has never given up on a peaceful resolution to the Ukraine conflict. “We never gave up on the peaceful resolution, we are always ready to negotiate — negotiate not about how to keep the leadership of the Kiev regime in place but about overcoming the inheritance of a decade-long destructive looting of the country and violence against the people, removing the reasons for the tragic Ukrainian situation,” Lavrov said. However, the key factor hindering a resolution of the conflict in Ukraine is the continued support of the West, he added.

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Without those claims, what is left?

• Lavrov Blasts ‘Absurd’ Claims That Russia Will Attack NATO (RT)

Speculation in the West that Russia could attack the Baltic and Nordic states once the Ukraine conflict ends is pure fiction, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. Speaking to the heads of diplomatic missions on Tuesday, Lavrov said the US had gathered a group of 54 countries to provide military, technical and intelligence aid to Ukraine to help it fight Russia. “All this is being done to prevent Russia from claiming victory,” he added. He said Western countries were claiming that “if Russia wins and asserts its interests in this war, the Baltics, Sweden, and Finland will be next.” Three Baltic nations became NATO members in the early 2000s, more than a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Both Helsinki and Stockholm applied to join the bloc after the start of the Ukraine conflict, although only Finland’s application has been ratified so far.

Lavrov noted that this view was shared by Joe Biden, referring to remarks by the US president in early December, when he said that “if [Russian President Vladimir] Putin takes Ukraine, he won’t stop there” and could proceed to attack a NATO country. Moscow said at the time that such comments were “unacceptable for a responsible nuclear state.” The Russian foreign minister said that “the absurdity of such statements is clear to anyone who understands the slightest bit of history and the goals of the special military operation in Ukraine, which we announced openly and without hiding.” Russian officials have repeatedly said that Moscow is seeking the “denazification” and “demilitarization” of Ukraine, as well as an arrangement guaranteeing that the country would not join NATO, and would instead recommit to neutrality.

Lavrov further noted that the military campaign against Kiev is aimed at eliminating “historical injustice.” According to the minister, Moscow is fighting attempts to rewrite history, as well as efforts to turn territories where Russians and other peoples of Russia have lived for centuries “into a springboard for US-led NATO to be used to threaten the [country’s] security.” Last month, Putin said Moscow had no interest whatsoever in launching an offensive against the bloc. He added that the president of the United States – which he called the “master” of NATO – surely knows that “Russia has no interest… geopolitically, economically or militarily… in waging war against [the bloc].”

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When you lose, escalate.

• Zelensky Ready To Further Fuel Ukraine Conflict (Sp.)

Doubts about the West’s willingness to further prop up the Kiev regime may drive Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to stir up the Ukraine conflict even further by ordering riskier attacks against Russia, Time magazine reported. Zelensky is already taking “bigger risks” in order to turn the conflict around and bolster his political standing at home, according to the publication. Every one of these actions is ripe with the potential for Russian retaliation, which may in turn deepen the hostilities and directly drag in NATO, Time magazine notes, adding that neither Moscow nor Brussels wants such a development. Armed conflicts “take on a life of their own, particularly with one of the key players -in this case, Zelensky- becoming a wild/ card to watch, the magazine concluded.

This follows Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov telling reporters that Zelensky is currently in a tight spot because no one is providing him with money and Ukraine is up against a crisis at the moment. “Zelensky is in a tough position. He has stopped receiving money, there are not enough shells for him abroad, he is also facing a tense situation inside the country, and many people are dissatisfied. In order to cloak his positions, he resorts to disguising them with utterly ludicrous decrees. It is unlikely that this can help the Kiev regime in any way, [so] the difficulties will only mount. This is despite the fact that there certainly are still more or less bright minds who understand what needs to be done to get out of this situation,” Peskov said, commenting on Zelensky’s decree entitled “On the territories of the Russian Federation historically inhabited by Ukrainians.”

Time’s report comes after The American Conservative pointed out that Zelensky has issued frenzied orders to attack civilians in order to fuel the conflict and secure further assistance from the West. On January 21, 27 people were killed and 25 more wounded when Ukrainian troops shelled the Kirovsky district of the city of Donetsk, according to head of the Donetsk People’s Republic Denis Pushilin. The shelling was preceded by the Ukrainian military’s strike on the Russian city of Belgorod on December 30, which killed 25 civilians and wounded 109 others. Moscow excoriated the murderous attack, slamming it as an act of terrorism. Also in December, President Vladimir Putin stressed in an interview with Russian media that Moscow has “no reason and no interest – neither geopolitical, nor economic, political, and military – to fight with NATO countries.” Russia and NATO members do not have any territorial claims against one another, Putin noted, adding that Moscow is unwilling to spoil relations with the alliance.

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“..Many soldiers reportedly continue to speak Russian on the front lines..”

• Ukraine To Teach Troops To Speak Ukrainian (RT)

Special courses will be created for Kiev’s troops so that they can improve their command of the Ukrainian language, government official Taras Kremen has said.Kremen, who is Ukraine’s language ombudsman, made the announcement as he met with servicemen at a Territorial Defense Forces training center on Monday, his office said in a statement.Violations of the country’s language law, which among other things obliges the military to use Ukrainian, have been recorded in a large number of units, including in the capital Kiev, according to the commissioner.Ukraine historically has a large Russian-speaking population, especially in its eastern regions. Many soldiers reportedly continue to speak Russian on the front lines. In a 2001 census, more than 14.2 million Ukrainian citizens (almost 30% of the population) called Russian their native language.

During the meeting with servicemen, it was “agreed to open language courses for military personnel who want to improve their knowledge and properly prepare for the exam to determine the level of proficiency in the state language,” Kremen said. “I will be happy to assist in the creation of such a network [of courses] in other military units as well,” the commissioner added. Signed by then President Pyotr Poroshenko in 2019, the language law established Ukrainian as the sole state language and made it obligatory for use in all areas of social life. It was a continuation of Kiev’s policy of forcing out the Russian language, pursued by the authorities after the violent Western-backed coup in 2014.Since 2021, passing a Ukrainian language exam has been mandatory to become a government employee or to obtain Ukrainian citizenship.

“Nobody there [in the conflict zone] speaks Ukrainian,” a sniper from Kiev’s forces told the TSN media outlet in October. Despite concealing his identity, the serviceman enjoyed a certain celebrity status in Ukraine due to his regular interviews and podcast appearances.He claimed that Russian was common in all sections of the front line that he had been posted to. In his own unit, “two people speak the harshest Surzhik [a mix of Russian and Ukrainian] and, probably, two or three others [use] Ukrainian language. All the rest are Russian-speaking,” the sniper insisted. Moscow has repeatedly denounced Kiev’s clampdown on Russian culture and language, insisting that the “forced Ukrainization” violates international law and infringes upon the rights of native Russian speakers, who make up around a quarter of the population.

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“..It now amounts to about $102,000 for an average American family of three..”

• US Facing ‘Death Spiral’ Of Swelling Debt – Nassim Taleb (RT)

The burgeoning US debt pile is akin to a “death spiral” that only a “miracle” could extract the country from, economist and ‘Black Swan’ author Nassim Taleb said at a business event on Monday, as quoted by Bloomberg. Taleb defined the expanding US debt load as a “white swan,” meaning a risk event that is highly predictable and more probable than a “black swan” event, a metaphor describing an occurrence that comes as a complete surprise. “So long as you have Congress keep extending the debt limit and doing deals because they’re afraid of the consequences of doing the right thing, that’s the political structure of the political system, eventually you’re going to have a debt spiral,” Taleb said. “And a debt spiral is like a death spiral.” Earlier this week, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that the absolute level of US public debt looks like “a scary number.”

US government federal debt topped $34 trillion for the first time in history at the end of December. It now amounts to about $102,000 for an average American family of three. In 2023 alone, it grew by more than $4 trillion.According to Taleb, a former trader who is best known for publishing several bestselling books on economics, white swans include both the US deficit and the American economy that has grown more vulnerable to shocks than in previous years. He called such vulnerability a feature of globalization, as problems in one region can ricochet around the world.When asked how the US “debt spiral” could play out, Taleb said, “we need something to come in from the outside, or maybe some kind of miracle,” adding that this makes him “kind of gloomy about the entire political system in the Western world.”

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“..a classified cable that was sent to Islamabad by the Pakistani ambassador to Washington in 2022, which allegedly suggested that the US wanted Khan ousted over his neutrality in the Ukraine conflict.”

• Imran Khan Sentenced To Ten Years In Prison (RT)

A Pakistani court has sentenced former prime minister Imran Khan to ten years behind bars. He has been charged with leaking state secrets, according to the spokesman for the politician’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI). On Tuesday, Zulfiqar Bukhari said, as quoted by AP, that the verdict was announced at a prison in the northern city of Rawalpindi, not far from the capital, Islamabad. The same sentence was also imposed on former Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi. The charges relate to the so-called cipher, a classified cable sent to Islamabad by the Pakistani ambassador to Washington in 2022, shortly after the start of the Ukraine conflict. The document allegedly suggested that the US wanted to remove Khan over his neutrality regarding the hostilities.

The ex-Pakistani PM called the cipher case on Tuesday “false,” adding that it “is being completed in violation of constitutional requirements and legal regulations.” “This is not a trial but a fixed match outcome of which was predetermined,” he added. Echoing those comments, his party PTI noted that “there can be no more ridiculous case than the cipher.” “What can be more ridiculous than that Pakistan has imprisoned its prime minister and foreign minister for exposing the foreign conspiracy!” Khan, a former professional cricket player who became prime minister in 2018, was ousted in 2022 in a non-confidence vote. The opposition accused him of poor governance, as well as of mismanaging the economy and foreign policy. At the time, he claimed that he had been toppled as a result of a US conspiracy.

The controversy around the politician did not end there, however, with Khan becoming a target of dozens of cases, sparking mass street protests organized by his supporters, which resulted in dozens of casualties. In August 2023, the politician was sentenced to a three-year jail sentence on charges related to what prosecutors argued was an attempt to conceal receiving state gifts while Khan was serving as PM. The country’s judiciary, however, later suspended the sentence, granting him bail. Khan still remained incarcerated on other charges.

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And one day later, there’s more…

• Imran Khan Sentenced To 14-year New Jail Term (RT)

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife have been sentenced to 14 years in prison in a corruption case. This comes after another court ruling in which Khan was given ten years for leaking state secrets. The politician and his wife, Bushra Bibi, were sentenced by a Pakistani accountability court on Wednesday in the city of Rawalpindi, not far from the capital, Islamabad. Both were charged with the illegal sale of state gifts while Khan was prime minister from 2018 to 2022. In addition to the sentence, the two have been barred from running for public office for ten years and fined $2.7 million.

This comes after Khan was sentenced to ten years on Tuesday for leaking state secrets. The charges are related to a cipher, a classified cable that was sent to Islamabad by the Pakistani ambassador to Washington in 2022, which allegedly suggested that the US wanted Khan ousted over his neutrality in the Ukraine conflict. Commenting on the verdict, Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI) denounced what it called the “complete destruction of every existing law in Pakistan in two days.” “Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi have faced yet another kangaroo trial in which no right to defense was given to both. Like cipher, this case has no basis to stand in any higher court.”

Both sentences come ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for February 8. The PTI said the “atrocities against [Khan] will be avenged by the power of the vote.” Khan, a former cricketer-turned-politician, was ousted in a no-confidence vote in 2022, with the opposition accusing him of mismanaging the economy and foreign policy. Khan claims that he was overthrown as a result of a US conspiracy. Since then, the former leader has fought dozens of legal battles. Islamabad’s attempts to prosecute him sparked massive public unrest with numerous casualties.

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In the earliest days of space exploration, most calculations for early space missions were done by “human computers,” and most of these computers were women. These calculations helped the U.S. launch its first satellite, Explorer 1, 65 years ago #Today.

 

 

Stonehenge

 

 

Paris
https://twitter.com/i/status/1752419193520115948

 

 

Big baby
https://twitter.com/i/status/1752304443435917681

 

 

Hummingbird

 

 

Baby elephant
https://twitter.com/i/status/1752315809270206564

 

 

Finch
https://twitter.com/i/status/1752427413722611823

 

 

 

 

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