Sep 122024
 
 September 12, 2024  Posted by at 8:43 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  47 Responses »


M. C. Escher Meeting (Encounter) 1940

 

Debate ‘Was Rigged’ – Trump (RT)
The Debate Will Backfire Horribly For Both Kamala Harris And ABC (QTR)
CNN Poll: More Than 60% Think Harris Beat Trump in Debate (Sp.)
Harris Won – Biden (RT)
Harris and Trump Debating on Titanic – Zakharova (RT)
Trump-Harris ‘Kabuki Theater’ Debate Crystalized Candidates’ Position (Sp.)
We’ll Never Reach Mars If Kamala Wins – Musk (RT)
Biden Leading US To ‘Nuclear Immolation’ – RFK Jr. (RT)
Biden Mulls Stepping on Ukraine Long-Range Missile Tripwire (Sp.)
Ukraine Races To Peace Talks With No Driver, No Breaks And a Dead Satnav (Jay)
Ukraine Will Join NATO – Blinken (RT)
Enemies Must Be Sure Russia Is Ready To Use Nuclear Weapons – Karaganov (RT)
The 23rd Anniversary of September 11, 2001 (Paul Craig Roberts)
Durov’s Case Is ‘Exemplary’ – Paris Prosecutor (RT)
Elon Musk ‘Proposes’ To Taylor Swift (RT)

 

 

 

 

Megyn Kelly

 

 

RFK debate
https://twitter.com/i/status/1833707252751995181

 

 

WWIII

 

 

Hoaxes

 

 

Taliban

 

 

Pets

 

 

Greenwald

 

 

Willie Brown

 

 

 

 

He walked into a trap -not smart- and got out somewhat OK. Turn the page and move on.

Debate ‘Was Rigged’ – Trump (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump has criticized the “dishonest” moderation of his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris by ABC News, saying he would only consider a rematch if it were hosted by “a fair network.” Speaking to Fox’s Sean Hannity immediately after Tuesday night’s debate, Trump claimed that he emerged from the encounter as the victor. Informed by Hannity that Harris reportedly wants a second debate, Trump seemed dismissive of the idea. “She wants it because she lost,” Trump told Hannity. “You know what happens when you’re a prizefighter and you lose, you immediately want a new fight… maybe if it was on a fair network I would do that.”

Harris is widely considered to have won the debate, with Trump struggling to fend off attacks from the vice president, as well as moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis. According to a flash poll conducted by CNN on Tuesday night, 63% of viewers felt that Harris had outperformed Trump. Speaking to Fox News on Wednesday morning, Trump slammed the debate as “totally rigged,” and called ABC the “most dishonest news organization.” “So many things I said were debunked, like totally debunked,” he told Fox. “But she could say anything she wanted. My stuff was right, but they would correct you.”

Trump was repeatedly interrupted and fact-checked by Muir and Davis throughout the debate, for instance when he claimed that Haitian migrants are “eating the pets” of people in Ohio. While multiple locals have testified that pet cats and wild birds are being eaten by the migrants, local police say they have received no reports of such incidents. Harris was not fact-checked when she repeatedly tied Trump to ‘Project 2025’, a conservative manifesto explicitly disavowed by the former president. Nor was she corrected when she claimed that Trump once referred to neo-Nazis as “fine people.” In reality, Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides” of a right-wing rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, but that he was “not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally.”

“I’d be less inclined to [debate again] because we had a great night,” Trump told Fox on Wednesday, adding again: “We won the debate.” Trump initially asked Harris to agree to three debates: one hosted by Fox News on September 4, another hosted by ABC on September 10, and a third hosted by NBC News on an unconfirmed date. Harris’ campaign only agreed to the ABC debate, although Trump wavered about committing to this showdown, accusing the network of “ridiculous and biased” coverage of him.

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“I reaffirmed to myself my trust in the American people to think for themselves and to see tonight for what it was in hindsight: a set up..”

The Debate Will Backfire Horribly For Both Kamala Harris And ABC (QTR)

The initial reaction to tonight’s debate is that Kamala Harris held her own, albeit with the help of two ABC moderators, and that Trump was “rattled” and on the defense more than he needed to be. Generally, the debate is being cast as anything but the overwhelming victory for Trump that many predicted. But my guess is that both the dejection from the right and the perceived victory from the left will fade almost immediately as people have a chance to take in everything that really took place tonight. For starters, the times when Trump looked “the worst,” like when moderators tried to debunk him on the Springfield, Ohio, animal/pet killings that were confirmed by 911 calls minutes before the debate, will once again be proven to be factual and on point. The delivery wasn’t fantastic, but over the last three years, the country’s tolerance for being lied to by the media has shrunk significantly, so it won’t take as long as it normally would for people to see past Trump’s delivery.

People are thinking critically now more than ever and doing their own independent fact-checking more than ever. In short, people will quickly realize that Trump’s comments sounded justified. And if Americans need a reminder as to why doing their own fact checking is so important, they only need to look at Kamala Harris’s near admission that COVID came out of a lab in China early in the debate. 3 years ago her side of the aisle would have called you a conspiracy theorist and banned you from social media for saying so. I’ve already written extensively about how the media has lost significant credibility with independent and moderate voters due to their covering for Joe Biden in the midst of his obvious mental decline. I wrote about it in an article a couple of months ago simply called “We Can Be Lied To About Anything”.

After tonight, when the average critically thinking, independent or moderate voter begins to emerge from the visceral reaction of who “won” the debate, the picture will start to come into focus. And it’ll be a picture of a news network that constantly tried to fact-check Donald Trump, despite Kamala Harris repeating multiple debunked conspiracy theories, like Trump’s Charlottesville comments, which were already debunked by Snopes, and his “bloodbath” comment, which was used in the context of talking about the auto industry. When the average critically thinking American looks at the veracity of the lies that Kamala Harris put forth tonight – including lies about Trump’s stance on in vitro fertilization, lies about Trump being associated with Project 2025, and lies about Trump not wanting to secure the border – it’s going to be very difficult to look back on this debate as a victory for her.

And God forbid these same moderate voters were looking for an actual policy stance from Kamala Harris. Despite being well-seasoned in her narrative and her answers and obviously prepared to answer questions she may or may not have received in advance, while benefiting from two friendly moderators and a question format that constantly pinned Trump as the antagonist before David Muir would lead Harris to her answer to reaffirm what the moderators had already decided, she was noticeably devoid of an explanation on her flip-flopping policies. She offered little to no detail on her flip-flops about fracking and her poor performance as border czar, and she failed to take accountability for what happened in Afghanistan, while simultaneously admitting that she approved of how it took place.

Not unlike when she was first crowned the “joy” candidate of the Left, there was a luster to her performance at the debate tonight that is going to wear off very quickly. And in my opinion, tonight will just be another example of a constantly evolving populace seeing the left-wing media for exactly what it is: an arm of the Democratic Party. Despite some mumbles and grumbles from the Republican side of the aisle tonight, as soon as the debate ended, I reaffirmed to myself my trust in the American people to think for themselves and to see tonight for what it was in hindsight: a set up. I honestly believe that the rise of alternative media in this country, and the legacy media’s track record of horrific embarrassments, like covering up the Hunter Biden laptop story and lying to the American people about the mental acuity of President Joe Biden, have built up a bullshit tolerance for media spin in the average American.

More people know today that the left-leaning media has a narrative and lies to them than ever before. This debate will be different from other ones because it’ll eventually be looked at in that context. And when people go back and watch how the moderators constantly argued the merits with Trump while leading Harris in her answers to multiple questions, this debate will be revealed for the biased farce that it was. And then — mark my words — it will do more harm than good for Kamala Harris. Harris has already come out and asked for a second debate with Trump, ostensibly indicating that she thinks tonight was a success. When the debate ended, the scrutinization of ABC’s dirty tricks began — and they will be off the table in any future debates. If I were Kamala, I’d be careful what I wish for in asking to step in the ring for a second debate. Just because the judges saw one round with Trump as a draw doesn’t mean you can go the distance and win by decision.

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Why do a poll when you know beforehand what it will say? Yeah, let’s poll CNN viewers… And it’s still just 63%..

CNN Poll: More Than 60% Think Harris Beat Trump in Debate (Sp.)

More than half of registered US voters said Democratic candidate Kamala Harris outperformed her Republican rival, Donald Trump, in their first presidential debate, a CNN poll out on Wednesday showed. The survey conducted by SSRS Research found that 63% of 605 debate watchers polled said Harris had turned in a better performance onstage in Philadelphia, versus 37% who said Trump did a better job. Prior to the debate, the voters were evenly split, with 50% saying Harris would perform more strongly and 50% believing that Trump would. On August 23-27, ABC News and Ipsos conducted a poll among 2,496 respondents. According to the poll results, 43% thought that Harris would beat Trump in the debate, and 37% said that Trump would succeed. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris faced off on ABC News on Tuesday night for the first time since Harris entered the race. The US presidential election will be held on November 5.

Rematch

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He thought he did fine in his own debate too.

Harris Won – Biden (RT)

US President Joe Biden has claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris clearly won the debate against her Republican rival, Donald Trump, and expressed pride in working alongside her for three and a half years. Biden dropped out of the race against Trump shortly after his own disastrous performance in June. The president, who reportedly couldn’t even remember if he re-watched his own debate, followed Harris closely from a hotel in New York City with family and staff, according to a CNN source. “America got to see tonight the leader I’ve been proud to work alongside for three and a half years. It wasn’t even close. VP Harris proved she’s the best choice to lead our nation forward. We’re not going back,” a message posted on Biden’s X account said late Tuesday.

During the debate with Harris, Trump repeatedly attacked her boss for being an embarrassment to the country and the world. “They respect me; they don’t respect Biden. Why would you respect him, for what reason?” Trump asked. “We are playing with WWIII, and we have a president that… Where is our president?” “They threw him out of the campaign like a dog… We have a president that doesn’t even know he’s alive.” Harris countered that Trump is now running against her, not Biden. However, Trump sought to frame a potential Harris presidency as nothing more than a second term for Biden.

“Remember this: She is Biden,” Trump said. “She copied Biden’s plan. It’s like four sentences long: ‘Run, Spot, Run’ – just oh, we’ll try to lower taxes… She doesn’t have a plan.” In his closing statement, the former president questioned Harris’ track record and the new promises she made during the debate. “She just started by saying she’s gonna do this, she’s gonna do that, she’s gonna do all these wonderful things… Why hasn’t she done it? She’s been there for three and a half years,” Trump said. “What these people have done to our country… they’re destroying our country. The worst president, the worst vice president in the history of our country,” he added.

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”Who do you think won? Why would that matter? The iceberg is 15 minutes away..”

Harris and Trump Debating on Titanic – Zakharova (RT)

The US presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris lacked substance and was largely irrelevant considering that their country is going full speed ahead towards disaster, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has argued. Speaking on Radio Sputnik on Wednesday, she said she did not consider it a high-profile event. It mattered as much as the outcome of a hypothetical wrestling match on board the ill-fated Titanic during its trip across the Atlantic Ocean, she claimed. ”Who do you think won? Why would that matter? The iceberg is 15 minutes away,” she said. Extending the metaphor, she said neither Trump nor Harris intended to get to the wheel to change the course of the ship. America is on its way to a “total, global disaster” and the rest of the world is trying to prepare for it, she suggested.

The debate itself, according to Zakharova, was a mixture of “fantasizing about the future” and citing some facts about the past, with the candidates failing to agree on what those facts were. ”We were given the latest show by people who apparently never ever take any responsibility for what they say,” the Russian official said. International audiences paid attention to what happened in Philadelphia on Tuesday night because they want to know which nations “will get punished and how much” during the next US presidential term, Zakharova stated. According to the media, neither candidate had a decisive advantage over the other in the debate, which could be the only one between Trump and Harris before the November election. In a CNN focus group of 13 undecided voters from Pennsylvania, eight said the Democratic candidate won. Meanwhile six out of 10 undecided voters interviewed by Reuters said they were siding with the Republican after the face off.

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“It’s going to perhaps create the perception or help build support for declaring that Kamala won the presidency, because I think there are active measures underway to try to steal the election..”

Trump-Harris ‘Kabuki Theater’ Debate Crystalized Candidates’ Position (Sp.)

Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris held their first (and potentially only) presidential debate on Tuesday ahead of the November election. Former CIA analyst Larry Johnson explains how the debate crystalized the candidates’ radically different views on the defining issue of our times: the conflict in Ukraine. From Ukraine and Gaza to China, North Korea and Iran, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris touched on an array of foreign policy matters alongside domestic concerns ranging from the economy and inflation to the energy and migration crises. Trump, who thrashed President Biden at a debate in June so badly that the latter dropped out of the race after showing signs of mental decline, focused much of his ire against Harris on national security matters and what he characterized as the threat of a nuclear third world war.

“With respect to this talk about Ukraine and Russia, the Kamala Harris approach is the Hillary Clinton approach from 2016, that Donald Trump ‘is a tool of Russia’, [that] ‘he’s a surrender monkey’, [that] ‘he’s going to give Vladimir Putin whatever he wants’. And Kamala Harris and the Democrats are ‘going to fight the Russians tooth and nail.’ It just underscores that there is no room in the United States right now for an opposition politician to make the case that we need to talk to Russia, that we need to deal with Russia as adults and have mutual respect,” Johnson said. “The only possible change in policy is if Trump is elected and there will be an effort to stop the war. If it’s the Democrats, then the war will continue. It continues for one good reason – it’s making people a lot of money. If you look at the stock prices of Raytheon, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, they’ve doubled and tripled in some cases since the start of the special military operation.

So we’re talking literally billions, tens of billions of dollars that are being made,” the observer stressed. Commenting on his impressions of the debate overall, Johnson suggested that it was mostly “meaningless,” in the sense that it igno[..] red changes in how people get their information on presidential candidates. “The old debate style, when it started out back in the 19th century with Lincoln-Douglas – the only way people could really get information was by having to hear people talk out in public or maybe read a newspaper. And that was basically the system until 20 years ago. What has emerged over the last eight years is this dramatic spread of social media. So the notion, number one, that there’s an undecided voter out there who was unaware of the positions of Donald Trump or the positions of Kamala Harris is just I think ridiculous. Most people’s minds are made up,” Johnson said.

The former intelligence analyst agreed with other commentators who have suggested that the debate was stacked against Trump, saying the ex-president’s performance was less about debating Harris, and more about debating “biased” media “fact-checking” him while serving Harris “softball questions.” “I don’t think this is going to have a lot to do with shaping people’s votes. It’s going to perhaps create the perception or help build support for declaring that Kamala won the presidency, because I think there are active measures underway to try to steal the election. For example, registering literally millions of illegal migrants that have come into the United States who are not citizens but nonetheless are being signed up to vote. If those votes end up counting in any form or fashion, it could affect the outcome of the election,” Johnson summed up.

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“Biden rarely shows up for work, so she’s basically in charge already.”

We’ll Never Reach Mars If Kamala Wins – Musk (RT)

Former President Donald Trump would “do a better job” as the next US leader than current Vice President Kamala Harris, according to tech billionaire Elon Musk. The businessman’s comments follow a contentious first debate between the two candidates on Tuesday night, hosted by US outlet ABC. In a post on X, Musk said that while Harris “exceeded most people’s expectations” in the face-off with Trump, she still lacks his ability to produce real results. “When it comes to getting things done, not just saying nice-sounding words, I strongly believe that Trump will do a far better job,” Musk stated. He said that if Harris had the ability to “do great things,” she would have demonstrated it during her tenure as President Joe Biden’s right hand, as “Biden rarely shows up for work, so she’s basically in charge already.”

In a separate post, he explained that the US needs significant government reforms to move forward and “allow great things to be done,” which he said would not come from Harris. “We will never reach Mars if Kamala wins,” concluded Musk, who is well known for his investments in space travel and technology. Tuesday’s debate was widely seen as crucial to the outcome of the election, as polls currently indicate a tight race. Throughout the event, which ran past its scheduled 90 minutes, Trump and Harris clashed with each other on both domestic and foreign policy, including abortion rights, immigration, and trade wars. The two candidates often interrupted one another, and traded accusations over problems with the US economy and the Ukraine conflict.

Musk joined other netizens in observing that the debate hosts, ABC anchors David Muir and Linsey Davis, seemed unfair to Trump. One X user mocked the anchors for paying too much attention to fact-checking Trump and too little with regard to Kamala, while another slammed the entire face-off as “a gang up of 3 against Trump.” Meanwhile, the Harris campaign challenged Trump to another debate in an email immediately after the showdown on Tuesday, reportedly painting the event as a win for the Democrat. Trump told the press he would “think about” the challenge, claiming that Harris wants a rematch because “she didn’t do well” on Tuesday. It is currently unclear whether another debate will take place before voting day on November 5. However, according to Reuters, Fox News has already proposed hosting a second face off in October.

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“Trump makes a point that I hope everyone hears: Russia has nuclear weapons.”

Biden Leading US To ‘Nuclear Immolation’ – RFK Jr. (RT)

The aggressive policy of the administration of US President Joe Biden towards Russia and its continued attempts to inflict a defeat on Moscow in Ukraine could result in a nuclear conflict, former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said. The comments were made following a debate between Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris, which took place in Philadelphia on Tuesday night. During a discussion of the Ukraine conflict, Trump noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin “has got a thing that other people do not have. He has got nuclear weapons. They do not ever talk about that. And eventually maybe he will use them. Maybe he has not been that threatening. But he does have that.” Kennedy took to X to say, “Trump makes a point that I hope everyone hears: Russia has nuclear weapons.”

“The Biden administration’s policy of maximum confrontation, seeking Russia’s humiliating defeat and regime change, is a recipe for nuclear immolation,” he warned. Kennedy suspended his presidential campaign last month and endorsed Trump. A pinned message on his X page which he published on Tuesday reads: “Bottom line: No matter what state you live in, vote Trump. A Trump victory is a Kennedy victory.” During the debate, Trump reiterated that he would settle the conflict between Russia and Ukraine “in 24 hours” if reelected this November, even before being sworn in. “It is in the US’ best interest to get this war finished and just get it done. We need to negotiate a deal because we have to stop all these human lives from being destroyed,” he said.

The conflict between Moscow and Kiev began in February 2022 because Biden and Vice President Harris had “no idea” how to talk with Putin, Trump said. “And it is only getting worse; it could lead to World War III.” In June, Putin announced that Russia will update its nuclear arsenal, given that it is the primary guarantor of national security. He warned that the country would use all means available to defend itself should the nation’s existence ever be at stake. He added, however, that any conflict involving the use of nuclear weapons would have dire consequences for humanity. According to Putin, Moscow is not “brandishing” its arsenal, but instead hopes that “it will never come to” an actual nuclear exchange.

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“..the West, instead of seeking a peaceful way out and talking to Russia, is preferring confrontation..”

Biden Mulls Stepping on Ukraine Long-Range Missile Tripwire (Sp.)

“Biden has shifted every single position that he said was a red line, so I don’t see why he’s not going to violate this one as well,” retired CIA analyst and counterterrorism expert-turned whistleblower Larry Johnson told Sputnik, commenting on Washington’s threats to lift its missile restrictions. The Biden administration “can’t afford a defeat” in Ukraine before the November vote, and thinks that if it takes the “incredibly dangerous and foolish” step of just okaying the missiles’ delivery and use, that will somehow help Ukraine, Johnson believes. “I appreciate President Putin’s desire to show restraint and keep this as a special military operation. But the West is at war with Russia, and I don’t think people are getting their brains around that.

We keep dancing around the edges pretending that this is not going to happen. It’s going to happen. And it’s not going to change the military situation as far as what Ukraine is facing. Ukraine is facing defeat. They will be defeated. But it gets more to the point that the West, instead of seeking a peaceful way out and talking to Russia, is preferring confrontation,” Johnson warned. Another question is whether Ukraine even has the relevant long-range missiles left, and whether the US is in a state to supply them, according to the observer.

“Because if the United States moves to supply a missile that’s frankly bigger than the ATACMS or if they offer up an ATACMS or a JASSM that has an extended range capability, then I think it’s going to raise the real possibility that the logistics hubs that are outside of Ukraine that are being used to provide these missiles could become targets. Which then is this is going to expand the war,” Johnson warned. In that sense, while the Biden administration may believe the move to free Kiev’s hand on the use of NATO missiles to attack the Russian interior could stave off the Zelensky regime’s defeat, “it may actually have the opposite effect of causing this war to expand and expand in a way that will get the United States involved. And then we’re into some very new and dangerous territory,” Johnson summed up.

Macgregor

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“.. during peacetime he must call presidential elections which he will certainly lose. Trump also knows this. The war itself is Zelensky’s oldest friend and greatest supporter.”

Ukraine Races To Peace Talks With No Driver, No Breaks And a Dead Satnav (Jay)

The admission was shocking. In an interview with an American journalist Victoria Nuland more or less admitted plainly that the reason why Boris Johnson was flown into Istanbul at the end of the peace talks between Ukraine and Russia was to scupper the deal, so that U.S. arms manufacturers could go ahead with their intended mega deals supplying the country, aligning it to NATO standards. She tells Ryan Grim of DropSiteNews that the peace deal – which gave Ukrainians land back which the Russians held – would have effectively neutered Ukraine blocking massive deals in the pipeline which would have reaped scores of billions of dollars for U.S. arms makers. The admission is important for two main reasons. First it shows just how disingenuous everything that western politicians tell their voters about Ukraine is.

Yes, there is an ideological rationale there of America and its allies wanting to hit Putin but it is not very convincing and at best looks increasingly lame as the months and years pass. Do senators in the U.S. like Lyndsey Graham really hate Russians so much? Or is it that they love money so much more and profit themselves from those megadeals coming together? The second point about the Nuland admission is that it casts a long shadow over western governments and their relationships with the military industrial complex and leaves the observer feeling that we have reached a new peak now with that sector and the ruling elites. The former no longer lobbies or informs the latter but controls it. Completely.

A third point which is possibly a parenthesis to the whole story is that slowly we are seeing the truth emerge, like repugnant liquid excrement oozing out of an old sack. And it stinks. Biden is just one more U.S. president who allowed the military industrial complex to control him and his erroneous so-called foreign policies which can really be summed up in a few words: wherever possible, go to war. We need wars. But we in the West bit off far too much more than we could chew. In the early days of the Russian invasion the euphoria and confidence of Biden and Boris, not to mention Macron, was palpable. They genuinely believed that the war would be over in a matter of weeks. And that Russian sanctions would grind the economy down over a longer period of time bringing Putin to his knees.

Today, nobody acknowledges privately how futile and stupid these notions were more than the Ukrainian president. And nobody appreciates how shallow and self-serving this initial policy to go to war with Russia in the first place is, more than President Zelensky himself. Put yourself in his shoes. He is counting the days now to the U.S. presidential election, wondering if Trump gets in, how many days will pass in January 2025 before the Donald falls out with him? If Trump does get in, the future is unclear as we know from history that Trump is capricious, unpredictable and driven by ideas and values which few can understand but usually relate to him on a personal level. It is likely though after he pulls off a ceasefire in his first week of office – which both sides want but can’t admit it openly – it will be very hard indeed to thrash out a deal that both can agree on, particularly knowing that the martial law, which keeps Zelensky is in office, is over, during peacetime he must call presidential elections which he will certainly lose. Trump also knows this. The war itself is Zelensky’s oldest friend and greatest supporter.

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It would have to beat Russia first. That won’t happen. But the profits will be huge.

Ukraine Will Join NATO – Blinken (RT)

Washington wants to see Kiev win the conflict against Moscow and join NATO, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said. Blinken is visiting Kiev with his British counterpart David Lammy to reiterate Anglo-American support for Vladimir Zelensky’s government. “At the July summit, we declared that Ukraine’s path to NATO membership is irreversible,” Blinken said on Wednesday, reminding his hosts that the US-led bloc has “established a command dedicated to support Ukraine’s membership.” Blinken has made the case for Kiev’s membership in NATO before. However, the bloc has officially declared, both in Washington this summer and last year in Lithuania, that this could only happen “when allies agree and conditions are met.” Hungary and Slovakia have already said they will not agree under any circumstances, as bringing Ukraine into NATO would mean war with Russia.

During the same speech in Kiev, Blinken painted a rosy picture of Ukraine’s military industry, claiming it had expanded six-fold over the last year. “In the coming years, that’s going to give Ukraine one of the most advanced defense industries in the world, and it will be able to take that to the global market and take global market share away from other countries like Russia, and also supply NATO allies,” he added. Kiev is presently entirely dependent on the West for weapons, equipment, ammunition and even cash infusions to keep its government going. Ukraine is also facing widespread electricity shortages, as Russian missile strikes have degraded power production capacity. Blinken himself announced on Wednesday that the US will send $325 million to help repair the Ukrainian power grid and provide emergency backup generators for critical infrastructure.

Another $290 million has been earmarked for “food, water, shelter, health care and education programs for Ukrainians” both in the country and abroad, with the remaining $102 million designated for landmine removal. “The bottom line is this: We want Ukraine to win,” Blinken declared at another point during his visit, according to AP. This, too, was stated by Western officials before, as a prerequisite for Kiev’s membership in NATO. This effectively means that Ukraine will never join the bloc, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said in June. NATO’s 2008 announcement about Ukraine’s possible membership “became the trigger for much of the entire crisis that we are observing today,” Ryabkov said at the time. “If NATO members are ready to fall into the same trap again and history teaches them nothing, then they will get hit again and their bruises will get worse,” he added.

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“It’s high time we stated that any massive strikes against our territory give us a right to respond with a nuclear strike..”

Enemies Must Be Sure Russia Is Ready To Use Nuclear Weapons – Karaganov (RT)

Russia’s nuclear doctrine urgently needs to be revised to allow a nuclear response to any major military aggression against the country, former Kremlin adviser Sergey Karaganov stated on Wednesday. The former foreign policy adviser to the deputy head of the Russian presidential administration told the Kommersant daily that the existing document is “woefully outdated” and no longer serves as an effective deterrent. Adopted in 2020, Russia’s nuclear doctrine does not provide for pre-emptive nuclear strikes and envisages the use of nuclear weapons only in “exceptional cases” in the face of a “threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity” of the country. According to Karaganov, this approach has rendered it nearly useless and has effectively “excluded” the nuclear deterrence factor from Russia’s military and foreign policy arsenal.

“We have allowed the situation to deteriorate to a point when our adversaries believe we will not use nuclear weapons under any circumstances,” the political scientist said. “Having nuclear weapons without being able to convince your enemies that you are ready to use them is suicide.” A failure to have an effective nuclear deterrent policy “would plunge the world into a series of wars that would inevitably turn nuclear and end up with the World War III,” Karaganov believes, adding that this could happen “within the span of several years.” “The main goal of a doctrine should be in convincing all current and future enemies that Russia is ready to use nuclear weapons.” His words came amid the continued Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region and Kiev’s attempts to receive permission for the use of Western long-range missiles to strike deep inside the country. “It’s high time we stated that any massive strikes against our territory give us a right to respond with a nuclear strike,” Karaganov insists.

He also called on Moscow to clearly define the “nuclear escalation” steps in the next doctrine to leave Russia’s adversaries no room for doubt about whether it is ready to use its nuclear arsenal and when. President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly demonstrated a more reserved position on the issue. Talking to Karaganov at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in June, the president said that Russia was “not brandishing” nuclear weapons and expressed hope that “it will never come” to a nuclear exchange between Moscow and the West. Moscow “has no reasons to even think about” using nuclear weapons, he said at the time, calling on Russian officials to not even “touch upon” the subject of nuclear weapons unless absolutely necessary. Later in June, Putin also said that Russia did not “need a preventive strike yet, because the enemy is guaranteed to be destroyed in a retaliatory strike.” He did not rule out changes to the doctrine, though.

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“You can’t pull a building unless it is wired, a time-consuming complex job.”

The 23rd Anniversary of September 11, 2001 (Paul Craig Roberts)

Time passes. An entire generation has grown up since that day when a few Saudi Arabians armed only with box cutters caused airport safety to fail four times on the same morning, caused the entire US/NATO/Mossad security system to fail, caused the WTC towers constructed to withstand airliner collisions to collapse into dust by flying hijacked airliners into them, and attack the Pentagon using maneuvers of which airliners and pilots are incapable and destroying the section of the Pentagon where the documents were that explained where the Pentagon’s missing billions or was it trillions of dollars had gone. During these hours of activity the US Air Force was unable to get interceptors off the ground, and no evidence has ever been found of the passengers on the four hijacked airliners. But an undamaged passport of one of the alleged hijackers were found in the ruins of two hundred-storied skyscrapers. And Americans fell for this totally unbelievable story. What hope is there for Americans?

It took a year of pressure on the Bush/Cheney regime to get a commission established that instead of an investigation wrote down the official narrative as dictated to them. Later the commission co-chairmen and legal counsel wrote books saying that the government withheld information and set the commission up to fail. It only took 10 minutes for a high school physics professor to demolish NIST’s multi-year computer simulation of the collapse of Building 7, the 47 story WTC building that a BBC reporter stood in front of announcing its collapse 30 minutes ahead of the collapse. They knew the building was slated for destruction, but the word got out prior to the event. Silverstein, who owned or had the leases to the World Trade Center said on live TV that the decision was made to pull building 7. You can’t pull a building unless it is wired, a time-consuming complex job.

It is totally obvious that all 3 buildings were wired for demolition. Building 7 collapsed at free fall acceleration, and the two towers at essentially the same speed. This can only be achieved by controlled demolition. If the alleged Muslim hijackers wired the buildings–an impossibility–what is the point of flying airliners into them? The orchestrated event was used by Washington to launch wars in the Middle East against Israel’s opponents. Norman Podhoretz at Commentary had called for these wars, and US four star general Wesley Clark, NATO’s commander in chief, later confirmed that Pentagon generals showed him war plans calling for the US to overthrow “Seven countries in five years.”Little of this extraordinary evidence had any impression on insouciant Americans who swallowed the false narrative hook, line, and sinker.

Consequently, Washington destroyed Iraq and Libya and was about to destroy Syria, but the Russians intervened. Israel has kept the American gun aimed at Iran, but Putin has said Russia will not tolerate an attack on Iran. You can easily understand why Zionist Jews hate Putin and Russia and why America is at risk from serving the Zionist agenda. But it is difficult to understand Putin’s patience with Israel. Does Netanyahu own the Kremlin like he owns Washington? We don’t yet know how the events unleashed by 9/11 will finish unfolding. They may bring death to all of us. What I have never been able to understand is why Dick Cheney, the neoconservatives, the military/security complex, and the whore media were so determined to turn a few Saudi Arabians into superheroes who were more than a match for the American National Security State. How can Washington possibly deal with Russia, China, and Iran when a few Muslims can deliver the worst humiliation ever delivered to an alleged superpower?

The total humiliation that the official narrative delivered to America on 9/11 is without parallel in history. One would have thought that such a system wide failure would have destroyed Americans’ confidence in Washington. Why explains American fists rising not against Washington but against Muslim countries that had nothing to do with it? If the American population is incapable of paying attention, how does it expect to remain free?

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Paris rules the world.

Durov’s Case Is ‘Exemplary’ – Paris Prosecutor (RT)

The case against the CEO of Telegram messaging app, Pavel Durov, is “exemplary” with regard to the battle against cybercrime waged by the French authorities, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau has said. Durov was arrested after landing in Paris in late August and charged with multiple offenses ranging from refusal to cooperate with the authorities to administering an online platform allegedly used by organized crime for illegal conduct, such as trafficking and child sexual abuse. The Russian tech entrepreneur, who also has French, UAE, and Saint Kitts and Nevis citizenship, was later released on €5 million ($5.55 million) bail. The 39-year-old billionaire is banned from leaving the country while the case is ongoing. Asked about the investigation into Durov and Telegram in an interview with RTL Radio on Wednesday, Beccuau said, “this case is exemplary in terms of the actions taken by the cybercrime unit of the Paris Prosecutor’s Office.”

She added that her agency previously had issues with the Coco chat website and Sky ECC encrypted messenger, which were both shut down. “Organized crime is spreading in a world that we consider to be virtual,” the prosecutor said. According to the Beccuau, France is reacting to this by amending its legislation and introducing a new criminal offense for administering an online platform that allows illegal transactions – one of the charges Durov faces. Telegram attracted the attention of the Paris Prosecutor’s Office because its cybercrime unit “contacted the platform several times asking it to identify cybercriminals, especially in the area of child pornography. But the platform did not respond to these requests. It did not react,” she explained. Beccuau noted that Durov is fulfilling the terms of his bail, which require him to report to the police twice a week.

Last week, Durov issued a lengthy statement on Telegram, insisting that the claims by some media outlets that his platform “is some sort of anarchic paradise are absolutely untrue.” Telegram takes down “millions of harmful posts and channels every day,” and publishes “daily transparency reports” about actions taken against the dissemination of illegal content, including child abuse and terrorism, he said. Durov claimed that he has cooperated with French law enforcement in the past and “personally helped them establish a hotline with Telegram to deal with the threat of terrorism in France.” He added that the platform remains open to working with state regulators to establish “the right balance between privacy and security.”

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“But if she agrees to have Elon’s baby, she could break even..”

Elon Musk ‘Proposes’ To Taylor Swift (RT)

Tech mogul Elon Musk has offered to father a child with Taylor Swift and protect her cats, after the songstress announced her endorsement in the US presidential race. In a post to her 280 million Instagram followers, the 34-year-old pop star backed Democrat Kamala Harris, used a photo of herself holding a cat, and signed it “Childless Cat Lady.” That appeared to be a dig at a statement by J.D. Vance, Republican candidate Donald Trump’s running mate, who once said the Democrats are run “by a bunch of childless cat ladies.” “Fine Taylor… you win… I will give you a child and guard your cats with my life,” Musk posted on X on Wednesday. Musk has fathered at least 12 children with three different women since 2000. One died in infancy and another became transgender, after which the tech billionaire famously vowed to “destroy the woke mind virus.”

He has also openly endorsed Trump and signaled he would take the job of “government efficiency czar” in his administration. Swift publicly backed Harris after Tuesday evening’s presidential debate with Trump, calling her “a steady-handed, gifted leader” and arguing that the US could achieve more “if we are led by calm and not chaos.” The endorsement did not exactly come as a surprise, since Swift had backed the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris ticket in 2020.

Her catty post on Tuesday resulted in losing followers on social media, suggesting that there might be some substance to rumors about many ‘Swifties’ now favoring Trump. “Swift’s endorsement of Harris could end up costing her several-hundred-million dollars,” cartoonist and commentator Scott Adams said on Wednesday. He calculated about a 20% cut to her $92 million annual income from losing pro-Trump fans, paying higher taxes if the Democrats win, and facing “insane” unrealized gains taxes on the value of her music catalog, currently estimated at “around $500-600 million” “But if she agrees to have Elon’s baby, she could break even,” Adams quipped.

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Remigration

 

 

Paul Newman
https://twitter.com/i/status/1833615164890911146

 

 

Ohio cats

 

 

Noses

 

 

Red wolf
https://twitter.com/i/status/1833674414208012666

 

 

Perspective
https://twitter.com/i/status/1833875646390370790

 

 

 

 

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Mar 142019
 


Pablo Picasso Studio with plaster head 1925

 

Zugzwang Brexit : How the UK Can Escape The Checkmate/Stalemate (English)
May Issues Final Warning To Tory Rebels: Back Me Or Lose Brexit (G.)
EU On No-Deal Brexit Motion: ‘Like Titanic Voting For Iceberg To Move’ (G.)
‘No Delay From EU – Or We Elect 73 Nigel Farages Into European Parliament’ (RT)
US Grounds Boeing 737 Max Planes, Citing Links Between 2 Fatal Crashes (CNBC)
Battle Brews over Who Should Analyze Black Boxes from 737 Crash (Fort.)
US Lawmakers Emerge From Whitaker Meeting With Conflicting Accounts (R.)
Mueller’s Forensics-Free Findings (VIPS)
Paul Manafort Sentenced To 43 Additional Months (ZH)
Greek Financial Crisis Still Evokes Pain, Fear On The Streets Of Athens (CNBC)
Sharp Rise In Arctic Temperatures Now Inevitable – UN (G.)
Coca-Cola Produces 200,000 Plastic Bottles A Minute (G.)

 

 

Nice different view of things: in chess, you can be forced to make a move (Zugzwang), even if your position gets worse. Buit there is a way out: forfeit the game, stop playing.

Zugzwang Brexit : How the UK Can Escape The Checkmate/Stalemate (English)

The EU referendum has plunged the United Kingdom into a chaos so unprecedented, that only a fool would bet on the final outcome. What is clear is that each move to try to break the political deadlock has merely shoved the nation into further bedlam. With just two weeks to go before the March 29th deadline – the country is like that coach in the final scene of 1969 crime caper The Italian Job. Any move in any direction risks sending the whole thing tumbling down a cliff, while staying put is likewise not an option. In short, all attempts to resolve the crisis simply make matters worse. The Germans have a word for this. “Zugzwang” is a term used by chess masters to describe the situation where a participant is compelled to play, even when it is clearly not in their interests to do so.

“Zugzwang Brexit” is where we are now at. Consider May’s potential moves. The EU rightly insists it is up to the UK to find a solution – but with her deal voted down, no viable alternative on the table and the EU leaders unwilling to debate the matter further what alternatives does the PM have? It is far from certain that the EU 27 would grant the UK extra time. Even if they did, an extension of Article 50 would merely kick the can further down the road. A second referendum could go either way. If ‘Leave’ were to win again we would be back at square one. If Remain won but not by a considerable margin then the issue would not be satisfactorily resolved. A No Deal Brexit would heap ruin on the country and only serve as an ‘I told you so’ for Remainers as we disappeared down the plughole of global relevance.

If the polls are to be believed a General Election would be unlikely to deliver a result very different to that of 2017 and further uncertainty – possibly lasting years would ensue. Labour’s leadership anyway remain committed to Brexit. So What Can be Done? Well there is a way out of ‘Zugzwang Brexit’ – but it is the political equivalent of forfeiting the game. The UK could revoke Article 50 and simply accept that the country has failed to reach political accord. May has twice failed to get her deal through the House of Commons and it seems likely that any further version, negotiated by any of her successors would meet a similar fate.

By revoking the mechanism by which a member state leaves the EU – dignity and sanity could momentarily be restored and the country could dampen the fuse of the ticking time bomb which Theresa May so recklessly and foolishly lit. That would be in the public’s interest, in the nations’ interest, in the interest of jobs and industry and the UK economy. As such – it’s unlikely to happen.

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“Seething Brexiteer Tory MPs lining up on ERG’s WhatsApp group in their dozens to vote against Govt A50 motion tonight, and John McDonnell confirms to #r4Today Labour will amend it – leaving it no hope of passing. Then what?”

May Issues Final Warning To Tory Rebels: Back Me Or Lose Brexit (G.)

Theresa May will attempt one final desperate roll of the dice on her Brexit deal, issuing a stark warning to mutinous Brexiters that they must approve her offer by next week or face a long article 50 extension. The prime minister was humiliated yet again amid chaotic scenes on Wednesday night in parliament, as her cabinet ruptured three ways and MPs inflicted two more defeats on the government to demand no deal should be taken off the table permanently. In an unprecedented night of Tory splits, four cabinet ministers, Amber Rudd, David Mundell, David Gauke and Greg Clark, defied their party’s last-minute whip and refused to vote against the government’s own motion, after it was amended to rule out any prospect of no-deal Brexit.

Six other cabinet ministers also splintered to back a separate proposal for a “managed no deal”, despite the prime minister’s warning that the plan was doomed. After her defeat, May signalled she would gamble one last time on forcing through her Brexit deal, bringing forward a motion on Thursday on delaying Brexit which would “set out the fundamental choice facing this house”.= If MPs agreed a deal, she said, the government would request a “short, technical extension” to article 50, a hint that May plans a third meaningful vote next week. Without an agreed deal, she said, there would be a “much longer extension” that would require the UK to take part in European parliament elections. “I do not think that would be the right outcome,” May said.

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“..the EU’s deputy Brexit negotiator, Sabine Weyand, told EU ambassadors that she feared the Commons was “divorced from reality”..”

EU On No-Deal Brexit Motion: ‘Like Titanic Voting For Iceberg To Move’ (G.)

Brussels has said a vote by UK MPs to block a no-deal Brexit in any circumstances is a meaningless move, with one senior EU negotiator describing it as “the Titanic voting for the iceberg to get out of the way”. A European commission spokesman offered a withering assessment of the decision by MPs to ignore Theresa May’s assertion that no deal was the default position unless there was a deal in place by the time of the UK’s departure. “We take note of the votes in the House of Commons this evening,” the spokesman said. “There are only two ways to leave the EU: with or without a deal. The EU is prepared for both. To take no deal off the table, it is not enough to vote against no deal – you have to agree to a deal. We have agreed a deal with the prime minister, and the EU is ready to sign it.”

MPs voted by 312 to 308 to support a backbench amendment ruling out a no-deal Brexit and striking out a phrase in a government-backed motion noting that no deal remained the default position in UK and EU law if an agreement was not ratified. They then voted on the amended motion, which won by a majority of 43. On Thursday, MPs will vote on whether to request an extension of the article 50 negotiating period beyond 29 March until 30 June. But the commission is pushing member states to take an uncompromising position. Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, speaking to the European parliament in Strasbourg earlier on Wednesday, questioned whether the EU should offer extra time for talks, leading officials to prepare for all options to be on the table at a leaders’ summit next week.

“Why would we extend these discussions?” Barnier asked. “The discussion on article 50 is done and dusted. We have the withdrawal agreement. It is there.” During a private meeting before his public comments, Barnier advised senior MEPs that at present there was no consensus among the EU’s member states over an extension, let alone on the conditions that would be attached. At the same time, the EU’s deputy Brexit negotiator, Sabine Weyand, told EU ambassadors that she feared the Commons was “divorced from reality”. Quoting private remarks by the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, Weyand concurred with his description of the decision to vote for no deal as “like the Titanic voting for the iceberg to get out of the way”.

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What powers would UK MEPs have in case a temporary extension comes into play? Interesting question.

‘No Delay From EU – Or We Elect 73 Nigel Farages Into European Parliament’ (RT)

The UK Parliament is set to seek postponement of Brexit, but Brussels may be reluctant to grant it. One argument against may be a potential poison pill in the form of Eurosceptic MEPs, voted in by offended Britons in May. The dramatic week of Brexit votes in the UK Parliament draws to a conclusion on Thursday. Earlier, MPs rejected both the deal negotiated with the EU by Prime Minister Theresa May’s cabinet, and the option to leave the EU with no deal at all, which the government asked to leave on the table to keep pressure on Brussels. MPs are now set to vote on whether London should ask for a delay in exiting the union.

While a disorderly Brexit would hurt the EU, several top European officials warned that no delay would be granted unless Britain comes up with a clear and substantial plan, which it would try to achieve if given more time. But European bureaucrats may have more reasons not to tolerate Britain dragging its feet, MEP from Scotland David Coburn told RT. If we end up staying beyond a certain period, we have to take part in the European elections. Then what you are going to see is 73 Nigel Farages returned to the European Parliament. It would make the government of the EU impossible. They would probably want to throw us out, I should think.

The next European election is scheduled for the end of May. The UK’s share of the seats would be 73 if it remained part of the EU – with both Britain and the EU making contingencies for this scenario. Nigel Farage, the former leader of the UK Independence Party, is still technically an independent MEP, as is David Coburn, even though they belong to the newly-formed Eurosceptic Brexit Party. [..] “People are becoming more and more angry about the European Union. And more and more people, who previously voted for ‘Remain’, are now supporting ‘Leave’,” he said. “I think people do not like the way that Britain has been treated by the EU.”

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Bopeing will be sued like nuts by airlines. They pay $121 million for the brand new thing and then can’t fly it. Orders are over 5000.

US Grounds Boeing 737 Max Planes, Citing Links Between 2 Fatal Crashes (CNBC)

The Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday grounded all Boeing 737 Max jets in the U.S., citing new evidence that showed similarities between two fatal crashes of the popular planes that have killed 346 people in less than five months. The move marks a stunning turnaround for the U.S., which has stood by the American-made aircraft as dozens of countries around the world grounded the planes. The crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on Sunday came less than five months after a Lion Air Boeing 737 Max 8 — the same type of plane — plunged into the Java Sea minutes into the flight from Jakarta, Indonesia, killing all 189 people on board. Both planes were new, delivered from Boeing just months before their doomed flights.

The FAA said the grounding will remain in effect while it investigates the crash. “An FAA team is in Ethiopia assisting the NTSB as parties to the investigation of the Flight 302 accident,” it said in a statement. New satellite data shows the plane’s movement was similar to the October crash, the FAA’s acting administrator Daniel Elwell told reporters on a call Wednesday. The agency also took physical evidence into account, but Elwell declined to elaborate. “It became clear the track was very close and behaved similarly to the Lion Air flight,” Elwell told reporters on a call Wednesday. “My hope is the FAA, the carriers, the manufacturers and all parties will work very hard to make this grounding as short as possible so that these airplanes can get back up in the sky.”

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US standing in the world.

Battle Brews over Who Should Analyze Black Boxes from 737 Crash (Fort.)

Ethiopia’s aviation authority is unable to read the black box recorders from the Boeing 737 Max plane that crashed Sunday, but a row is brewing over just where the flight recorders will be sent for analysis. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is pushing to have its experts analyze the data and voice recorders, which were partly damaged, the Wall Street Journal reports, but Ethiopian authorities would prefer to work with the U.K.’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch to ensure that U.S. experts won’t have undue influence in the probe of the American-made plane. Ethiopian Airlines CEO Tewolde GebreMariam told WSJ that the U.K., France and Germany were being considered as destinations for the black boxes, as was the European Union Aviation Safety Agency based in Cologne.

He added that a decision would be made Wednesday. Aviation authorities worldwide are anxiously awaiting the data from the black box recorders, hoping it will give answers as to why Boeing’s (BA, +0.55%) best-selling model has been involved in two major crashes in the past six months. Ethiopian Airlines’ recently acquired Boeing 737 Max 8 was flying from Addis Ababa to Nairobi, Kenya, when it crashed six minutes into its flight, killing all 157 people on board. The Lion Air plane that crashed 12 minutes into its flight in Indonesia in October, killing 189 people, was the same model.

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Wow. 180º different accounts of one and the same meeting. A good journalist should be able to get a good story out of this.

US Lawmakers Emerge From Whitaker Meeting With Conflicting Accounts (R.)

U.S. lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee emerged from a closed-door meeting with former acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker on Wednesday with conflicting accounts of their conversation with the controversial Trump ally. Whitaker was called to Capitol Hill to clarify his testimony at a combative Feb. 8 committee hearing, during which he denied speaking with President Donald Trump about a federal case involving Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, who met for two hours with Whitaker and the panel’s top Republican, Representative Doug Collins, said Whitaker no longer denied speaking to Trump about Cohen or about the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York.

“Unlike in the hearing room, Mr. Whitaker did not deny that the president called him to discuss the Michael Cohen case and personnel decisions in the Southern District,” the New York Democrat told reporters. Nadler also said Whitaker told the lawmakers that he was involved in conversations about U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman’s recusal from the Cohen investigation in the Southern District of New York and about whether its campaign finance case involving hush money payments to two women who claim they had affairs with Trump had gone too far. Nadler’s committee is seeking evidence that Trump may have urged Whitaker to put the investigations under the supervision of Berman, a Trump donor and former law partner of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani who is recused.

But Collins, a Georgia Republican, contradicted much of Nadler’s account. “He (Whitaker) said that he had not talked with the president about Mr. Cohen at all,” Collins told reporters. Collins described Whitaker’s conversations about Berman and the campaign finance case as questions for his personal staff. “(Whitaker) had no conversations with the Southern District of New York,” he said. Collins also dismissed a Nadler statement that Whitaker was involved in conversations about firing one or more U.S. attorneys as “normal personnel issues.”

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US intelligence continues to ignore its own veterans. There’s a long list of them. But their message doesn’t rhyme with official standpoints. I’ve said it before, Mueller’s account relies on hacking Russians and Assange. And he’s a coward and a liar for doing that.

Mueller’s Forensics-Free Findings (VIPS)

MEMORANDUM FOR: The Attorney General Media reports are predicting that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is about to give you the findings of his probe into any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump. If Mueller gives you his “completed” report anytime soon, it should be graded “incomplete.” Major deficiencies include depending on a DNC-hired cybersecurity company for forensics and failure to consult with those who have done original forensic work, including us and the independent forensic investigators with whom we have examined the data. We stand ready to help.

We veteran intelligence professionals (VIPS) have done enough detailed forensic work to prove the speciousness of the prevailing story that the DNC emails published by WikiLeaks came from Russian hacking. Given the paucity of evidence to support that story, we believe Mueller may choose to finesse this key issue and leave everyone hanging. That would help sustain the widespread belief that Trump owes his victory to President Vladimir Putin, and strengthen the hand of those who pay little heed to the unpredictable consequences of an increase in tensions with nuclear-armed Russia. There is an overabundance of “assessments” but a lack of hard evidence to support that prevailing narrative.

We believe that there are enough people of integrity in the Department of Justice to prevent the outright manufacture or distortion of “evidence,” particularly if they become aware that experienced scientists have completed independent forensic study that yield very different conclusions. We know only too well — and did our best to expose — how our former colleagues in the intelligence community manufactured fraudulent “evidence” of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

We can prove that the conventional-wisdom story about Russian-hacking-DNC-emails-for-WikiLeaks is false. Drawing largely on the unique expertise of two VIPS scientists who worked for a combined total of 70 years at the National Security Agency and became Technical Directors there, we have regularly published our findings. But we have been deprived of a hearing in mainstream media — an experience painfully reminiscent of what we had to endure when we exposed the corruption of intelligence before the attack on Iraq 16 years ago.

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No love lost for Manafort. But sending him away for years while people like the Podestas walk free, doesn’t sound fair.

Paul Manafort Sentenced To 43 Additional Months (ZH)

Lobbyist and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was sentenced to more than six years in prison by a federal judge in the District of Columbia on two conspiracy counts. Manafort pleaded guilty last fall to the two charges which encompass a host of crimes – including money laundering and obstruction of justice. Manafort was sentenced to 60 months on count one, with 30 months of that overlapping a 47 month sentence handed down last week in a separate trial in Virginia – and 13 months on count two. In total, he will serve 90 months in prison, or 7.5 years.

Manafort asked Judge Amy Berman Jackson for leniency during Wednesday’s hearing, saying that the criminal charges against him have “taken everything from me already,” and asking that Berman Jackson not impose any additional prison time beyond the sentence handed down last week. Jackson agreed with Manafort that the original 19-24 year sentencing guideline “overstates the seriousness of this offense.” “I am sorry for what I have done and all the activities that have gotten us here today,” said Manafort in a calm and steady voice as he read from a prepared statement. “While I cannot undo the past, I will ensure that the future will be very different.”

[..] Before reading her decision, Berman Jackson reamed Manafort – saying that there was no good explanation for granting the leniency Manafort had requested.”What you were doing was lying to Congress and the American public,” said Berman Jackson, adding that Manafort had “contempt for” and “believed he had the right to manipulate these proceedings.” “Saying I’m sorry I got caught is not an inspiring plea for leniency,” the judge said, adding that Manafort’s defense that there was “no collusion” with Russia is not related to the case.

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A few days ago the IMF talked about how great Greece is doing. BS. 2% growth from nothing is still nothing.

Greek Financial Crisis Still Evokes Pain, Fear On The Streets Of Athens (CNBC)

Greece’s financial crisis is still hurting the hopes and dreams of the people that live in the Mediterranean nation. The country has been in economic turmoil for most of the last decade. Years of financial mismanagement alongside a culture of clientelistic politics, where goods and services were exchanged for political support, culminated in a long-term recession.= “I still think the crisis exists. It’s more than in one field now, (it’s) not only (a) financial crisis, but it’s a crisis of our values … I don’t think it’s better now … it is really a stressful period for Greece,” Stavros Dimopoulos, a 23-year-old university student told CNBC in Athens.

Different governments in Greece borrowed above the country’s capacity and its public debt pile became so high that in 2010 investors were no longer willing to keep on financing the Greek government. The end result: George Papandreou, the prime minister at the time, saw no other way out but to ask for a bailout — without even consulting with other European leaders. Since August, the Greek government has tried to show that austerity is over, by providing additional funds to the lower and middle classes. But ordinary Greeks told CNBC they haven’t seen a massive difference in their lives. “We love our city, we love our weather, we love the Greek people, but we are scared and afraid in a way, because the situation is not that good,” Dimopoulos said about him and his friends.

“We have to try harder and harder to make our own money … Sometimes we are talking (about going) abroad: If it is going to be better for us to leave Greece or if it is going to be better to stay in Greece and try harder. It is in our minds.” [..] 2019 is expected to be the country’s third consecutive year of growth, at a pace of about 2.2 percent. Still, this growth doesn’t seem to be making ordinary Greeks happy about the economy. Nikolas complained there hasn’t been a significant improvement for people and there’s still way too many taxes. “Some people have good jobs if they are in the civil service, but the others are suffering, they are paying like 85 percent taxes, which is very hard to get by. You risk losing your house if you don’t have enough money to pay the taxes,” he said. “(the) long term is hard, we just have to smile, pretend.”

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Maybe it’s an idea to rethink the way the data are made public. It’s a litany of ever more of the same now.

Sharp Rise In Arctic Temperatures Now Inevitable – UN (G.)

Sharp and potentially devastating temperature rises of 3C to 5C in the Arctic are now inevitable even if the world succeeds in cutting greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris agreement, research has found. Winter temperatures at the north pole are likely to rise by at least 3C above pre-industrial levels by mid-century, and there could be further rises to between 5C and 9C above the recent average for the region, according to the UN. Such changes would result in rapidly melting ice and permafrost, leading to sea level rises and potentially to even more destructive levels of warming. Scientists fear Arctic heating could trigger a climate “tipping point” as melting permafrost releases the powerful greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere, which in turn could create a runaway warming effect.

“What happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic,” said Joyce Msuya, the acting executive director of UN Environment. “We have the science. Now more urgent climate action is needed to steer away from tipping points that could be even worse for our planet than we first thought.” The findings, presented at the UN Environment assembly in Nairobi on Wednesday, give a stark picture of one of the planet’s most sensitive regions and one that is key to the fate of the world’s climate. Last year’s stark warnings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, setting out the dramatic impacts of 1.5C of global warming, did not include the impacts of potential tipping points such as melting permafrost.

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Coca-Cola produces 3 million tonnes of plastic packaging a year.

Coca-Cola Produces 200,000 Plastic Bottles A Minute (G.)

Coca-Cola has revealed for the first time it produces 3m tonnes of plastic packaging a year – equivalent to 200,000 bottles a minute – as a report calls on other global companies to end the secrecy over their plastic footprint. The data from the soft drinks manufacturer was provided to the campaigner Ellen MacArthur, who is pushing for major companies and governments to do more to tackle plastic pollution. The figures – which the company has refused in the past to disclose – reveal the amount of plastic packaging Coca-Cola produced in 2017. The company did not reveal the scale of its bottle production but when its packaging footprint is translated into 500ml PET plastic bottles, it amounts to about 108bn bottles a year, more than a fifth of the world’s PET bottle output of about 500bn bottles a year.

Coca-Cola is one of 31 companies – including Mars, Nestlé and Danone – that have revealed how much plastic packaging they create as part of a drive for transparency by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Combined, they produce 8m tonnes of plastic packaging a year. But the majority of the 150 companies who have signed up to MacArthur’s global commitment to reduce plastic pollution are still refusing to publicly disclose figures on their own plastic packaging production. These include Pepsi Co, H&M, L’Oréal, Walmart, Marks & Spencer and Burberry – which was heavily criticised last year when it was revealed that the company burned £28m of stock in a year to prevent counterfeiting.


Photograph: Richard Levine/Corbis via Getty Images

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