Sep 282023
 
 September 28, 2023  Posted by at 9:20 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  44 Responses »


Claude Monet The Pond at Montgeron 1876

 

Trump Rages At “Deranged” NY Judge’s ‘Corporate Death Penalty’ Decision (ZH)
Trump Says Net Worth ‘Much Greater’ Than Financial Statements (JTN)
Real Estate Insiders: Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Worth At Least $300M, Not $18M (NYP)
Russian “Alabuga” Complex to Be “More Powerful Than a Nuclear Bomb” (Zlatko)
US’ Ukraine Reforms is Signal to Zelensky That His Time is Up (Sp.)
US Aid to Ukraine May Dry Out, But Not Because of House GOP (Sp.)
Is World War III About to Start? Part II: The MIC and Deep State (Cook)
Western Left Abandoned The People To Fuel NATO’s Carnage (Rogatyuk)
Ukraine Offered To Strike Iran And Syria – Guardian (RT)
Fauci Was ‘Smuggled’ Into CIA HQ To “Influence” Covid-19 Origins Probe (ZH)
EcoHealth is a “CIA Front Organization” (ZH)
100s Of Pages Of Newly Released Memos Spark Fresh Biden Corruption Charges (ZH)
FBI Refuses To Release Nationwide Voter Registration Fraud Probe Docs (JTN)
Disappearing Americans (Paul Craig Roberts)

 

 

 

 

Paperclip

 

 

Canada nazis

 

 

 

 

Tucker Bill O’Reilly Short&Long

 

 

Jimmy Dore

 

 

 

 

“From 2011-2021, the Palm Beach County Assessor appraised the market value of Mar-a-Lago at between $18 million and $27.6 million because of various land use restrictions. The judge simply restated the appraisal which is an undisputed fact.”

The assessor, and now the judge, are the only people who claim the assessment is correct. Everyone else puts the value at 20-30 times that, if not more.

They’re simply trying to bankrupt Trump, and think a 10-day window is enough: “..must dissolve all business interests in the state and exit within 10 days..”

They think they can sell off his property for cheap.

Trump Rages At “Deranged” NY Judge’s ‘Corporate Death Penalty’ Decision (ZH)

Right on cue, in a stunning decision on Tuesday, a New York State judge found – with no trial or jury – that Donald Trump, his family, and his business, theTrump Organization, was liable for fraud, and ordered what experts in New York financial crimes say amounts to the dissolution of his company. In a 35-page ruling, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron (D) revoked the New York “business certificates” belonging to the Trump Organization and any other New York-based business run by Trump or his family – while ordering that an independent third party will be tasked with “managing the dissolution of the cancelled LLCs.” “It’s a staggering judgement,” said John Moscow, a former financial crimes prosecutor for the Manhattan district attorney’s office. “It means you are no longer a company, and the judge is appointing someone to take over the assets and distribute them as the court sees fit.”

“It’s comparable to once a person dies. A dead person can’t sell property. Only the executor of the estate can do that – or in this case, the receiver.” Experts are calling it the “corporate death penalty.” As Sundance at TheConservativeTreehouse.com put it: “All the banks and lenders did their own due diligence on the financing. All operational loans and business loans were paid back. There were no defaults or banking interests adversely impacted. There are no victims of what the State calls “fraud,” yet the judge is ruling the Trump organization must dissolve all business interests in the state and exit within 10 days.” As you might expect, President Trump was enraged, blasting “The widespread, radical attack against me, my family and my supporters have now devolved to new, un-American depths,” calling Engoron “deranged” and James a “completely biased and corrupt ‘prosecutor.’”

“We are rapidly becoming a communist country, and my civil rights have been taken away from me,” he continued. “This is Democrat political lawfare and a witch hunt at a level never seen before.” Trump plans to appeal the decision, his attorneys said. “Today’s outrageous decision is completely disconnected from the facts and governing law,” Christopher Kise, a lawyer for Trump, said in a statement. “President Trump and his family will seek all available appellate remedies to rectify this miscarriage of justice.” Eric and Don Jr. Trump took to X to slam the Judge’s valuation of his father’s Mar-a-Lago resort, which Trump claims is over a billion dollars, but Engoron ruled is worth between $18 million and $27.6 million – which is absurd when you look at the surrounding property values.

 

 

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“..the Florida property “IS WORTH POSSIBLY 100 TIMES THAT AMOUNT..”

Trump Says Net Worth ‘Much Greater’ Than Financial Statements (JTN)

Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday said his net worth is “much greater” than that shown on his financial statements, which he says contained a “disclaimer clause” stating that the information should not be relied upon, after a New York judge found that the former president, his two eldest sons and his businesses could be held liable for fraud in the state attorney general’s civil case against them.Trump wrote on Truth Social: “In addition to the fact that my Net Worth is much greater than the number shown in the Financial Statements, there is a POWERFUL Disclaimer Clause … explaining that there should be no reliance placed on these Financial Statements, but instead everyone should do their own independent research, analysis, and due diligence.” He also said banks understood the clause and there were no problems with it.

Judge Arthur Engoron ruled Tuesday that New York Democrat Attorney General Letitia James demonstrated that Trump, his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, several of the family’s entities and former employees, could be liable for “repeated and persistent fraud by preparing, certifying and submitting to lenders and insurers false and misleading financial statements” in violation of New York law. Trump specifically took issue with Engoron’s evaluation of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, which the judge said could be worth as little as $18 million, citing an appraisal from the Palm Beach County Assessor.

Trump said in a separate Truth Social post that the Florida property “IS WORTH POSSIBLY 100 TIMES THAT AMOUNT” and that the judge’s “anger & hatred is politically motivated & unprecedented by those who watched!” James is also attempting to get $250 million in damages from Trump and the other defendants in the case, as well as an order barring the former president and his two eldest sons from being leaders at New York-based companies. That trial is set to begin Oct. 2.

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“..a 2-acre wooded lot at 1980 S. Ocean Blvd., just 5 minutes from Mar-a-Lago, is currently listed for $150 million. Mar-a-Lago, situated at 1100 S. Ocean Blvd., dwarfs this lot tenfold and operates as a commercial business..”

Real Estate Insiders: Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Worth At Least $300M, Not $18M (NYP)

A New York judge’s Tuesday ruling valuing Donald Trump’s sprawling, headline-making Florida estate at $18 million has left industry experts perplexed. In his verdict, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron delivered a bombshell ruling that the former president committed fraud by inflating the value of his wealth, with details including the monetary value associated with Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach. This decision, which came down without a jury, has sent shockwaves through political — and real estate — circles, especially that $18 million base value for the property. One prominent Palm Beach real estate broker, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told The Post, “It’s utterly delusional to think that property is only worth $18 million.”

The insider added, “If that property were on the market today, I would list it at around $300 million, minimum … at least. He also has the separate golf course minutes away.” Engoron’s verdict holds Trump, 77, along with his family and his business empire, the Trump Organization, liable for fraud — a central allegation in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit against the defendants. In a 35-page judgment, Engoron sided with James, asserting that Trump had made unequivocally false statements in official documents to secure favorable terms with financial institutions. Notably, Trump’s claims, such as his triplex penthouse in Trump Tower being 30,000 square feet when it was closer to 11,000, were also described by Engoron as “fraudulent” given their significant discrepancies.

However, the ruling raised eyebrows when Engoron, a Democrat who ran unopposed in the general election on Nov. 3, 2015, evaluated the worth of Trump’s prized Mar-a-Lago Club resort at $18 million, ruling that the property was inflated by 2,300%. He cited a basic Palm Beach Assessor valuation that ranged from $18 million to $28 million between 2011 and 2021, with industry sources saying it fails to take into consideration the fair market value. This valuation is far from Trump’s 1985 purchase price of $10 million, $8 million less than what the judge declared it was worth today. There are also nearby comps. To put it in perspective, a 2-acre wooded lot at 1980 S. Ocean Blvd., just 5 minutes from Mar-a-Lago, is currently listed for $150 million. Mar-a-Lago, situated at 1100 S. Ocean Blvd., dwarfs this lot tenfold and operates as a commercial business with around 500 members as part of the golf club.


Eric Trump: “These homes are about 1/30 the size of Mar-a-Lago, not on the beach (let alone the beach and intercostal), don’t span from once side of the Palm Beach Island to the other… it is a travesty of justice and an embarrassment to the court.”

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X thread.

Russian “Alabuga” Complex to Be “More Powerful Than a Nuclear Bomb” (Zlatko)

In Russia, the development of a missile equipped with a high-frequency generator of significant power is underway, which would allow neutralizing the enemy without firing a single shot. In the West, “Alabuga” is referred to as “secret weaponry” that is “more powerful than a nuclear bomb” and capable of “disabling entire armies.” The electromagnetic missile can disrupt all enemy electronics within a radius of 3.5 kilometers. “The military plans to install this weapon on state-of-the-art Russian drones to deter enemy aircraft.

Among other uses, such a system could be employed to destroy missile warheads and communication devices on aircraft. Additionally, it disables tank loading mechanisms, detonates artillery shells inside gun turrets, and eliminates enemy soldiers hiding underground at depths of up to 100 meters using radiation,” Daily Star reported this already in 2017. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently mentioned the development of weapons based on new physical principles at the Eastern Economic Forum.

“Even when it comes to security matters, weapons based on new physical principles will ensure the security of any country in the near historical perspective. We understand this perfectly well and are working on it,” the president stated. Moreover, this summer, Russian troops already received the “Listva” remote-controlled mine-clearing vehicles. They can detect and disable radio-controlled mines using super high-frequency emissions.

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“..the elimination of corruption in Ukraine is the number one priority: reforms in this sphere should be accomplished within a three-month timeframe…”

US’ Ukraine Reforms is Signal to Zelensky That His Time is Up (Sp.)

Earlier this week, Deputy White House National Security Adviser for International Economics Mike Pyle sent a draft list of reforms to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, as per Ukrainian media. The document was also forwarded to the multi-agency Donor Coordination Platform, a group of organizations including the EU, G7 governments, and the main international financial organizations, including the IMF, the World Bank, and others. Later, the US Embassy in Ukraine confirmed that Kiev had been “provided a proposed list of priority reforms for discussion and feedback at the multi-donor coordination platform in Brussels”. The document titled “Reforms Linked to Conditions on US Assistance” details the necessary changes in order of urgency – 0-3 months, 3-6 months, one year, and 18 months.]

Some of the provisions have additions in italics, like “EU MFA [macro-financial assistance] conditionality”; “IMF Structural Benchmark”; “requirements for Ukraine to begin EU accession process”; and “IMF MEFP [Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies]” suggest that the list covers not only US assistance, but also aid from Western-led international organizations. The document clearly indicates Ukraine will further lose its sovereignty in favor of EU and NATO institutions. Per the White House list, the elimination of corruption in Ukraine is the number one priority: reforms in this sphere should be accomplished within a three-month timeframe.
· Ukraine has to reform the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), in line with the parameters of the IMF structural benchmark.
· Increase the number of detectives of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) by at least 300; provide them with wiretapping capability; and preserve the agency’s “independence and exclusive investigative authority over high-profile corruption matters.”
· Reinstate mandatory asset and financial disclosure requirements for public officials, judges, and political parties.
· Select new head of the National Agency for Corruption Prevention (NACP).
· Complete the High Council of Justice (HCJ) reboot by establishing a Service of Disciplinary Inspectors with direct and meaningful participation of independent experts to restore the HCJ “disciplinary function.”

Furthermore, in the three-to-six month timeframe, the Kiev regime has to expand the number of judges on the nation’s High Anti-Corruption Court; establish a new specialized court (the High Administrative Court of Ukraine [HACU]) for administrative cases against national state agencies; reform Ukraine’s Supreme Court (SC). Remarkably, at the same time, Kiev is required to “limit” the powers of the infamous Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) “to those associated with counter-intelligence, counter-espionage, cybersecurity, and counterterrorism,” and reshuffle the agency. “Create a credible disciplinary committee and replace staff who do not meet ethical and professional standards,” the document reads. “Enhance parliamentary and civilian oversight of SBU. Restructure process for requesting lawful intercept (wiretapping), and allow other institutions to conduct judicial intercept separate from SBU.”

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The Pentagon plays tricks.

US Aid to Ukraine May Dry Out, But Not Because of House GOP (Sp.)

The Biden administration wants the US Congress to pass a $24 billion package for Ukraine along with other spending initiatives as soon as possible. Washington has already committed over $110 billion in Ukraine assistance to date. While House Republicans appear skeptical about further financial and military assistance to the Kiev regime, which has failed to succeed with its summer counteroffensive, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy proposed to pass a stopgap measure to avoid a looming government shutdown. September 30 is the deadline. GOP lawmakers have signaled that they won’t include any funds for Ukraine in their stopgap bill. On September 22, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Capitol Hill to lobby for a hefty multi-billion package.

Even though McCarthy (unlike his predecessor Nancy Pelosi) did not provide the Ukrainian president with an opportunity to address the House, he held a conversation with Zelensky. The day after the meeting with Zelensky, McCarthy told reporters in the Capitol that he had decided to keep the $300 million in Ukraine aid in the Pentagon funding bill, adding that another spending measure set for the State Department and foreign operations would also include money for Kiev. The development is by no means surprising, according to retired US Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, a former analyst for the US Department of Defense. “The Pentagon has stated that Ukraine funding and aid would continue unabated by any government shutdown, and this includes the payment of salaries for tens of thousands of Ukrainian government employees and bureaucrats – even as paychecks for US government employees, and bureaucrats can and likely would be held back in the event of a shutdown,” Kwiatkowski told Sputnik.

“I think this is a Pentagon and administration attempt to remove the ability of the Congressional GOP Freedom Caucus to argue that they desire to pay American salaries, before they pay Ukrainian ones – by saying we (the Biden admin) are paying Ukrainian salaries no matter what you (the House America First-types) do.” When it comes to the larger $24 billion package, the former Pentagon analyst has a sense that “if serious negotiations are forced on Speaker Kevin McCarthy, they will find a way to reduce this amount, or to separate this aid out for separate and subsequent Congressional consideration.” The Biden administration has publicly promised this aid to Ukraine, but they do not control the appropriations – the House does, she emphasized.

“However – the Pentagon could simply provide it to Ukraine using a recalculation ‘trick’ and devaluing of past aid in the amount of $24 billion. I give this a 50% chance of happening in some way,” Kwiatkowski said. For example, in late June, the Pentagon said that it had overestimated the value of the arms it supplied to Kiev by $6.2 billion over the past two years. Four weeks earlier, the US Department of Defense cited an accounting error of at least $3 billion. Eventually, the “surplus” simply went back into the Pentagon’s pot allocated for Ukraine within the president’s drawdown authority (which allows providing Kiev with weapons directly, without Congressional approval).

“I think there is a good chance Ukraine will be able to wring out much of the promised $24 billion – but that the political battle, here in the US, to make that happen will reveal much to Congress and the American people about both the shady accounting ‘principles’ of the Pentagon and the honest situation in Ukraine,” Kwiatkowski said. Still, trouble is brewing for Kiev: it seems like many in Congress on both sides of the political aisle are beginning to understand the practical and political need for Kiev and Washington to end the conflict immediately, according to the former Pentagon analyst. She suspects that “the truth about the terrific loss on the battlefield and in Ukrainian military capability in the past 18 months is getting to the various committees in both the House and the Senate.”

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“.. the MIC is probably the principal economic engine of the U.S. as a whole..”

“So are we going to tell what adds up to tens of millions of people, sorry, your services are no longer needed? Good luck with that.”

Is World War III About to Start? Part II: The MIC and Deep State (Cook)

Today about 2.1 million people are employed by the defense industry. According to Acara Solutions, a major MIC recruiting firm, their average annual salary is $106,700, 40 percent higher than the national average. The companies they work for produced revenues in 2022 of $741 billion. How much of their production is high-priced junk, no one knows. The performance of U.S.-produced armaments in the Ukraine conflict does not seem impressive. No modern U.S. weapons have ever been tested in an industrial-type war against an equal adversary. The MIC also includes active-duty uniformed personnel of 1.37 million and reserves of 849,000. There are 750 U.S. military bases in more than 80 countries outside of the U.S. More than 100,000 U.S. military personnel are stationed in Europe.

Annual salary and benefits of the military are currently $146 billion per year, escalating with COLAs compounded at two to three percent annually, sometimes more. Some former U.S. military personnel are assumed to be fighting in Ukraine as mercenaries or helping direct the fighting from safe locations like Kiev or Lvov. Then there are the civilian employees. According to the DoD, it employs more than 700,000 civilians “in an array of critical positions worldwide,” with compensation totaling about $70 billion. According to the Government Accountability Office, we may also add 560,000 contractor employees, whose compensation is typically higher than the career workforce. We can also add hundreds of thousands of executives, managers, employees and contractors of the three-letter Deep State agencies, such as the CIA, NSA, DEA, FBI, and now DHS, etc., who interface with the MIC day in and day out and are part of the same fabric of state-sanctioned force and enemy identification and interdiction.

Added to the above are members of Congress who vote on military budgets and make the laws that protect the MIC from accountability, lobbyists who pressure those members to cast votes favorable to their MIC clients, private sector financial service employees who handle the retirement accounts of the MIC multitude, foreigners who are employed at overseas bases, and various scoundrels and hangers-on. I would include in the latter category the multitude of MIC cheerleaders from Hollywood who produce trashy spectacles like Top Gun. On top of everything else, there are millions of retirees drawing annuities in excess of what most working-class Americans earn, many of these retirees double- or triple-dipping with lucrative jobs in business or government.

Each of the above individuals supports multiple family members, workers, and vendors within the civilian economy who, with the ripple effect and velocity of money, keep entire towns, cities, states, regions, and industries afloat. An example is building the F-35 that has workers assembling it in 350 congressional districts. It is probably no exaggeration to say that given the vast exiting of civilian U.S. factories and jobs over the last half-century to cheap-labor countries abroad, the MIC is probably the principal economic engine of the U.S. as a whole. So are we going to tell what adds up to tens of millions of people, sorry, your services are no longer needed? Good luck with that. And isn’t it obvious that all these people, especially the higher echelons, are going to do everything within their power to persuade us that their jobs are so essential that without them we will shortly be overwhelmed and eaten alive by every “enemy” on the planet?

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The real warmongers.

Western Left Abandoned The People To Fuel NATO’s Carnage (Rogatyuk)

After the breakout of the First World War, the Second International and the numerous socialist organizations affiliated with it across Western Europe threw their weight behind their governments’ new military adventurism and became completely oblivious to the suffering of their fellow man at the hands of their countries’ economic and political elites. More than a century later, many of their modern-day counterparts have joined the chorus of Western governments, and their respective military-industrial complexes, in their proxy war hymn against Russia. And some of them have gone as far as giving a standing ovation to a literal member of the Waffen-SS, Yaroslav Hunka, when he was presented as a “veteran who fought for Ukrainian independence against Russia during WWII” in the Canadian parliament. It seems that even praising Nazis has become an acceptable part of the Western progressives’ discourse against all things Russian.

While many of the social democrats of the 1970s and 80s throughout Western Europe strongly opposed NATO’s expansionism and the presence of US military bases, the modern-day progressive and green parties go out of their way to roll out the red carpet for foreign soldiers on their soil. The examples are numerous. There’s Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign minister from the Greens, who made headlines around the world for admitting that Germany is “fighting a war against Russia,” the former prime minister of Finland, Sanna Marin, who attended the funeral of a well-known neo-Nazi leader in Ukraine, Mette Frederiksen of Denmark, the first to pledge F-16 jets to Kiev, and Spain’s Pedro Sanchez, one of the first to promise Zelensky Leopard tanks.

In the United States, the Squad – a group of relatively young members of Congress elected in 2018 and 2022 on a progressive left-wing platform – was once considered something of an alternative to the Democratic Party establishment, but has equally fallen under the spell of the siren war song of President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Except for criticism of the delivery of cluster munitions and depleted uranium shells and supporting Bernie Sanders’ proposal to cut military spending, the Squad has consistently voted in favor of progressively bigger and bigger military aid packages to Kiev, while largely ignoring the threat posed by the various neo-Nazi armed groups in Kiev’s employ.

Even the trade unions, long considered the backbone of the anti-war movement, are not immune to the whims of the mass Russophobia and the warmongering spirit of the progressive and liberal leaders. The British Trade Union Council’s resolution urging Rishi Sunak’s government to commit further arms deliveries and financial assistance to the regime in Kiev is a stab in the back for the Stop the War coalition and millions of British workers who view the cost-of-living crisis as far more important than the delivery of military aid to a government that has thrown the rights of its own workers back to the 19th century with the new law 5371.

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Imagine dreaming of WWIII because you think it will save you.

Ukraine Offered To Strike Iran And Syria – Guardian (RT)

The Ukrainian government urged its Western backers last month to conduct missile strikes on drone factories in Iran and Syria, offering to launch the attacks itself if given the weapons to do so, according to a document seen by The Guardian. The document in question was handed to G7 governments by Ukrainian officials in August, the British newspaper reported on Wednesday. In it, the Ukrainians claimed that kamikaze drones used by Russian forces are built by Iranian manufacturers in Iran and Syria, and contain Western components. Kiev has alleged that Russia uses Iranian-made Shahed-131 and Shahed-136 drones, and that these contain 51 and 57 Western-made parts respectively.

“Among the manufacturers are companies headquartered in the countries of the sanctions coalition: the United States, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, Canada, Japan, and Poland,” the document reportedly stated. Russia denies using Iranian drones, insisting that the Shahed-like craft it launches at Ukrainian military and infrastructure targets are designed and made in Russia. According to The Guardian, the report recommended “missile strikes on the production plants of these UAVs in Iran [and] Syria, as well as on a potential production site in the Russian federation.” “The above may be carried out by the Ukrainian defense forces if partners provide the necessary means of destruction,” the document continued.

While Israel occasionally strikes military factories in Syria and is widely believed to be behind similar attacks in Iran, it is highly unlikely that the US or its allies would consider a direct attack on Iran. Likewise, it is unlikely that Ukraine would be given the long-range missiles necessary for such an operation, considering the US has even expressed reservations about providing Kiev with missiles capable of hitting targets inside Russia. Additionally, Moscow claims that Ukraine has lost 83,000 men since June in its failing effort to breach Russian defensive lines near Zaporozhye and Donetsk. With losses mounting, the chances of Ukraine being able to fight foreign forces 1,500km away are extremely slim.

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He financed it all.

Fauci Was ‘Smuggled’ Into CIA HQ To “Influence” Covid-19 Origins Probe (ZH)

Dr. Anthony Fauci was smuggled into CIA headquarters, “without a record of entry,” where he “participated in the analysis to “influence” the Agency’s” Covid-19 investigation, according to the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. Fauci’s alleged CIA meeting was revealed in a Tuesday night letter from Subcommittee Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) to the Inspector General of the US Department of Health and Human Services, which demands documents, communications and other evidence between Fauci and the CIA. This allegation is even more interesting in light of a report from two weeks ago that the CIA bribed analysts to say Covid-19 did not originate in a Chinese lab. According to a ‘senior-level’ CIA whistleblower, the agency ‘tried to pay off six analysts who found SARS-CoV-2 likely originated in a Wuhan lab if they changed their position and said the virus jumped from animals to humans.’

“According to the whistleblower, at the end of its review, six of the seven members of the Team believed the intelligence and science were sufficient to make a low confidence assessment that COVID-19 originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China,” reads the letter from Wenstrup. “The seventh member of the Team, who also happened to be the most senior, was the lone officer to believe COVID-19 originated through zoonosis. “The whistleblower further contends that to come to the eventual public determination of uncertainty, the other six members were given a significant monetary incentive to change their position,” the letters continue, adding that the analysts were “experienced officers with significant scientific expertise.”

Wenstrup and Turner also asked for documents and communications between the CIA and other federal agencies, including the State Department, FBI, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Energy Department. In a separate letter, the House committee leaders identified former CIA Chief Operating Officer Andrew Makridis as having “played a central role” in the COVID investigation and asked him to sit for a transcribed interview. -NY Post In June, the US Intelligence Community declassified a 10-page report on COVID origins, in which it found “biosafety concerns” and “genetic engineering” taking place in Wuhan, but that most of its “agencies assess that SARS-CoV-2 was not genetically engineered.” As the Committee noted on Tuesday;

Dr. Fauci’s questionable presence at the CIA, coupled with recently uncovered evidence that he, Dr. Fauci, “prompted” the drafting of “Proximal Origin” — the infamous paper that was used to attempt to “disprove” the lab leak theory — lends credence to heightened concerns about the promotion of a false COVID-19 origins narrative by multiple federal government agencies. Chairman Wenstrup is seeking all documents and communications related to Dr. Fauci’s access to CIA facilities and CIA employees as it relates to these allegations. Also, after becoming aware of additional information, the Select Subcommittee is requesting Special Agent Brett Rowland appear for a transcribed interview regarding Dr. Fauci’s purported movements to and from the CIA. As mounting evidence continues to imply that federal government officials covered-up the origins of COVID-19, investigating any improper influence will ensure future accountability of not only the intelligence community, but also public health officials.

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“..NAIAD, under the direction of Dr. Fauci, went ahead with the research in Wuhan, China and at several sites across the U.S…”

EcoHealth is a “CIA Front Organization” (ZH)

According to a January, 2022 Twitter (now “X”) thread by [former EcoHealth Alliance scientist Andrew] Huff, who worked at EcoHealth from 2014 to 2016, “I knew in December of 2019 that COVID was likely a lab leak.” Huff then claimed that “Not only is EcoHealth Alliance a CIA front organization, but the United States of America is primarily responsible for COVID, not China.” Huff also told Fox Business in January: “This was actually a failed intelligence operation. We were actually trading China advanced biotechnology for access to and collect intelligence on their bioweapons laboratory. I believe. I can’t prove that but a number of agencies that I discuss in the book, including Dr. Peter Daszak telling me he worked with the CIA.” From Huff’s book, “The Truth About Wuhan”:

“These discussions resulted in publications indicating that Dr. Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, was working with the CIA, and that the biological agent commonly known as COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) had been in development at EcoHealth Alliance since 2012, and other evidence suggested that SARS-CoV-2 began earlier than 2012. The development of SARS-CoV-2 included several prominent US-based scientists and US academic institutions that received funding from numerous federal government agencies and private non-governmental organizations to complete the gain of function work on SARS-CoV-2.”

Huff also posted a document obtained by Project Veritas and published in January of 2022 purportedly authored (and not denied) by Maj. Joseph Murphy (USMC), which states “SARS-CoV-2 is an American-created recombinant bat vaccine” which was “created by an EcoHealth Alliance program at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).” Project Veritas has obtained a separate report to the Inspector General of the Department of Defense written by U.S. Marine Corp Major, Joseph Murphy, a former DARPA Fellow. The report states that EcoHealth Alliance approached DARPA in March 2018, seeking funding to conduct gain of function research of bat borne coronaviruses. The proposal, named Project Defuse, was rejected by DARPA over safety concerns and the notion that it violates the basis gain of function research moratorium. According to the documents, NAIAD, under the direction of Dr. Fauci, went ahead with the research in Wuhan, China and at several sites across the U.S. -Project Veritas

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Impeachment inquiry starts today.

“..the Biden family foreign influence peddling operation suggests an effort to sway U.S. policy decisions.”

100s Of Pages Of Newly Released Memos Spark Fresh Biden Corruption Charges (ZH)

[..] Republicans have portrayed the initial hearing as merely a summary or review of the evidence obtained to date, but Mr. Comer announced Sept. 26 that his panel received in response to subpoenas two previously unknown wire transfers to Hunter Biden from Chinese businessmen with numerous links to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). “On July 26, 2019, Hunter Biden received a $10,000 wire from Wang Xin. On August 2, 2019, Hunter Biden received a $250,000 wire from Jonathan Li and Tan Ling. Both wires originated in Beijing and Joe Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home is listed as the beneficiary address for both wires,” Mr. Comer said in a statement. The transfers directly contradict claims by the President and Hunter Biden’s lawyer that no funds were received from China.

In addition, Mr. Comer pointed out that “evidence shows Joe Biden developed a familiar relationship with Jonathan Li during his vice presidency and prior to these payments to Hunter Biden. Devon Archer, a Biden business associate, described [to the oversight committee in closed-door testimony] how Joe Biden met with Jonathan Li in Beijing, China, had a phone call with him, and later wrote college recommendation letters for his children.” Then on Sept. 27, Mr. Smith’s panel made public 700 pages of additional evidence provided by two IRS whistleblowers who were deeply involved in the government’s long-running investigation of Hunter Biden’s failure to pay taxes on income he received in 2014 and 2015.

The Ways and Means panel made the new evidence public following a closed-door executive session in which all 18 Democrats opposed the release. The new materials made public by Mr. Smith indicated the Biden family received at least $19 million in income from entities in at least 23 countries around the world which was channeled through 20 shell companies. The income was ultimately received directly or indirectly by multiple members of the Biden family, including the president while he was vice president.

The materials also included numerous references in emails and telephone messages to the senior Biden playing an active role in what Mr. Smith described to reporters during a Capitol Hill news conference following the executive session as “a complex and lucrative enterprise operated by the Biden family to enrich themselves to the tune of at least $20 million, with much of Hunter Biden’s share going unreported for taxes.” Mr. Smith further claimed the new evidence makes clear that “then Vice President Joe Biden’s political power and influence was ‘the brand’ that Hunter Biden was selling all over the world. Even more alarming, the Biden family foreign influence peddling operation suggests an effort to sway U.S. policy decisions.”

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“The material you requested is located in an investigative file which is exempt from disclosure.” Like for the next 5 years?!

FBI Refuses To Release Nationwide Voter Registration Fraud Probe Docs (JTN)

The FBI took over a 2020 probe into voter registration fraud that began in Michigan but has denied a Freedom of Information Act request regarding the investigation, citing an exemption in that law regarding ongoing investigations. According to the dozens of pages of police reports from the Muskegon Police Department and Michigan State Police, a firm called GBI Strategies was under scrutiny as an organization central to alleged voter registration fraud in the 2020 presidential election. The matter was initially investigated by city and state authorities before the FBI took over. Contacts between local law enforcement and the FBI continued into 2022 but there is no evidence of what happened after that in the memos obtained by Just the News through requests made under Michigan’s own Freedom of Information Act.

Last week, the FBI denied a Freedom of Information/Privacy Acts request from Just the News regarding records from the investigation into GBI Strategies. The request sought “copies of all reports, documents, and records about GBI Strategies, including all communication and correspondence regarding investigations of GBI Strategies with Michigan government officials, city and state law enforcement agencies in Michigan, and all other state government officials and law enforcement agencies involved in investigations of GBI Strategies.” The FBI’s response partially reads: “The material you requested is located in an investigative file which is exempt from disclosure.”

The FBI cited 5 U.S. Code § 552(b)(7)(A) for exempting disclosure of the records, specifically, “records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes, but only to the extent that the production of such law enforcement records or information … could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings.” The agency’s response continued: “The records responsive to your request are law enforcement records; there is a pending or prospective law enforcement proceeding relevant to these responsive records, and release of the information could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings.”

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“As a nation, the United States no longer exists. What was once a country is today just a geographical location.”

Disappearing Americans (Paul Craig Roberts)

Washington lies to American citizens for the benefit of non-citizens and well-connected citizens such as Big Pharma, agri-business, and the military-security complex. To prove the point, the anti-American Biden Regime’s “Justice” Department is suing Elon Musk for hiring American Citizens instead of immigrant-invaders. The anti-American Biden Regime calls immigrant-invaders “asylees” and “refugees” and although they do not have green cards, that is, permission to reside and work in the US, the anti-American Biden Regime gives the immigrant-invaders equal footing with American citizens and green card holders to employment rights. Elon Musk, a patriot who wishes to employ American citizens is being sued for employing Americans instead of immigrant-invaders. This is the fate of Americans under the America-Hating-Democrats. Here is what the Biden Department of “Justice” said:

“Our investigation found that SpaceX failed to fairly consider or hire asylees and refugees because of their citizenship status and imposed what amounted to a ban on their hire regardless of their qualification, in violation of federal law,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Our investigation also found that SpaceX recruiters and high-level officials took actions that actively discouraged asylees and refugees from seeking work opportunities at the company. Asylees and refugees have overcome many obstacles in their lives, and unlawful employment discrimination based on their citizenship status should not be one of them. Through this lawsuit we will hold SpaceX accountable for its illegal employment practices and seek relief that allows asylees and refugees to fairly compete for job opportunities and contribute their talents to SpaceX’s workforce.”

Dear insouciant Americans: This is what the Biden Regime’s “Justice” Department is telling you: Your citizenship as an American citizen means nothing whatsoever. Your status as an American citizen places you on the same level, or even lower, than the status of an immigrant-invader. If you hire an American Citizen instead of an immigrant-invader you have violated US law! Insouciant Americans send their sons and daughters to fight for rights of immigrant-invaders who have turned our country into a Tower of Babel. Take a moment and consider, what was the consequence of the fake “war on terror” other than massive acceptance of “refugees” from our own attacks on the Middle East and North Africa? What is the consequence of our war against Russia in Ukraine other than millions of immigrant-invders into the US and Europe?

Every time the anti-Americans who rule us launch a war, whether against “terror,” or “to build democracy,” or against “Putin reconstructing the Soviet Empire,” we get more boatloads of immigrant-invaders who demand rights at the expense of American citizens. Washington’s wars and open borders have destroyed the cohesiveness of American society and the homogeneousness of the American population. The anti-Americans in Washington have turned the United States of America into a Tower of Babel. As a nation, the United States no longer exists. What was once a country is today just a geographical location.

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Trevi

 

 

 

 

Butterfly

 

 

DogDucks

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Sep 272023
 
 September 27, 2023  Posted by at 9:04 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  46 Responses »


Frederick Carl Frieseke Girl In Blue Arranging Flowers 1915

 

Hersh Reveals US Motive For Destruction Of Nord Stream Pipelines (MoA)
Biden Planned On Blowing Nord Stream Before Ukraine Conflict Began – Hersh (RT)
Nord Stream Blast: Why the West Still Can’t Name the Culprit (Sp.)
Canadian Parliament Speaker Resigns After Honoring Ukrainian Nazi (RT)
Russian Foreign Ministry Responds To Canada Honoring Nazi Veteran (RT)
Nazi Hunter: Canada Failed Miserably in Bringing Nazis to Justice (Sp.)
Russian Black Sea Fleet Commander Seen Alive and Well (Sp.)
Nothing Is Off Table To Get Ukraine Into EU – Parliament President (G.)
How Russia Will Deal With American Tanks in Ukraine (Sp.)
US Judge Finds Trump Committed Fraud by Inflating Wealth, Assets (Sp.)
Hunter Biden Sues Rudy Giuliani for Spreading Contents From Laptop (Sp.)
Hunter Biden Used Dad’s Classified Doc House For $250K China Wire Transfer (ZH)
EU Warns Elon Musk After X Found To Have Highest Rate Of Disinformation (G.)

 

 

 

 

NYC Sanctuary

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yeadon

 

 

 

 

Russell

 

 

 

 

On the first anniversary of the Nordstream blast, lots of articles. Also about “alternative explanations”. But Sy Hersh doesn’t make things up. That’s not his MO at all.

“And thus followed the ultimate fear: that America would lose its long-standing primacy in Western Europe.”

Hersh Reveals US Motive For Destruction Of Nord Stream Pipelines (MoA)

It was no surprise to the agency’s secret planning group when on January 27, 2022, the assured and confident Nuland, then undersecretary of state for political affairs, stridently warned Putin that if he invaded Ukraine, as he clearly was planning to, that “one way or another Nord Stream 2 will not move forward.” The line attracted enormous attention, but the words preceding the threat did not. The official State Department transcript shows that she preceded her threat by saying that with regard to the pipeline: “We continue to have very strong and clear conversations with our German allies. … The German leader was considered then—and now—by some members of the CIA team to be fully aware of the secret planning underway to destroy the pipelines.

What I did not know then, but was told recently, was that after Biden’s extraordinary public threat to blow up Nord Stream 2, with Scholz standing next to him, the CIA planning group was told by the White House that there would be no immediate attack on the two pipelines, but the group should arrange to plant the necessary bombs and be ready to trigger them “on demand”—after the war began. “It was then that we”—the small planning group that was working in Oslo with the Royal Norwegian Navy and special services on the project—“understood that the attack on the pipelines was not a deterrent because as the war went on we never got the command.” After Biden’s order to trigger the explosives planted on the pipelines, it took only a short flight with a Norwegian fighter and the dropping of an altered off-the-shelf sonar device at the right spot in the Baltic Sea to get it done.

By then the CIA group had long disbanded. By then, too, the official told me: “We realized that the destruction of the two Russian pipelines was not related to the Ukrainian war”—Putin was in the process of annexing the four Ukrainian oblasts he wanted—“but was part of a neocon political agenda to keep Scholz and Germany, with winter coming up and the pipelines shut down, from getting cold feet and opening up” the shuttered Nord Stream 2. “The White House fear was that Putin would get Germany under his thumb and then he was going to get Poland.”

All of this explains why a routine question I posed a month or so after the bombings to someone with many years in the American intelligence community led me to a truth that no one in America or Germany seems to want to pursue. My question was simple: “Who did it?” The Biden administration blew up the pipelines but the action had little to do with winning or stopping the war in Ukraine. It resulted from fears in the White House that Germany would waver and turn on the flow of Russia gas—and that Germany and then NATO, for economic reasons, would fall under the sway of Russia and its extensive and inexpensive natural resources. And thus followed the ultimate fear: that America would lose its long-standing primacy in Western Europe.

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“We realized that the destruction of the two Russian pipelines was not related to the Ukrainian war..”

Biden Planned On Blowing Nord Stream Before Ukraine Conflict Began – Hersh (RT)

US President Joe Biden initially planned on destroying the Nord Stream gas pipelines to deter Russia from launching its military operation in Ukraine, American journalist Seymour Hersh reported on Tuesday. However, Hersh alleged that the sabotage operation went ahead later not to deter Russia, but to harm the German economy. The Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, which connected Russia and Germany under the Baltic Sea, were destroyed in a series of underwater explosions exactly a year ago on Tuesday. Competing theories have emerged as to who was to blame, with mainstream media in the West blaming a Ukrainian commando unit and Seymour Hersh claiming that the CIA carried out the operation under direct orders from Biden.

In a blog post on Tuesday, Hersh alleged that US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan convened a series of meetings in late 2021, tasking intelligence officials with coming up with a means of deterring Russian President Vladimir Putin from sending troops into Ukraine. “The White House’s policy was to deter Russia from an attack,” an intelligence source told Hersh. “The challenge it gave to the intelligence community was to come up with a way that was powerful enough to do that, and to make a strong statement of American capability.” By January, as Russian forces were massing on the Ukrainian border, the CIA had “solved the problem,” the source said. With a plan in place to plant remotely-detonated explosives on the pipelines under the Baltic Sea, Biden warned in early February that in the event of military action by Russia, “there will no longer be a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”

Following Biden’s statement, which was delivered alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the CIA team tasked with sabotaging the pipelines received new orders, Hersh claimed. Instead of immediately destroying Nord Stream, the team was instructed to plant the explosives for detonation at a later date. “It was then that we understood that the attack on the pipelines was not a deterrent because as the war went on we never got the command,” a member of the team told Hersh. “We realized that the destruction of the two Russian pipelines was not related to the Ukrainian war,” the source continued. “But was part of a neocon political agenda to keep Scholz and Germany, with winter coming up and the pipelines shut down, from getting cold feet and opening up.”

According to Hersh’s earlier reporting, CIA divers planted the explosives last summer with the help of the Norwegian navy, using a NATO exercise in the region as cover. By the time the bombs were triggered in September, the flow of Russian gas to Germany via Nord Stream 1 had already been slowed to a trickle by Russia in response to Western sanctions, while Nord Stream 2 was never certified to begin operation by Scholz’s government. However, with the German economy heavily dependent on Russian gas, Biden reportedly feared that Scholz would choose reproachment with Moscow over support for Ukraine. “The President of the United States would rather see Germany freeze than [see] Germany possibly stop supporting Ukraine,” Hersh declared earlier this year.

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“Giraldi said that he feels that Hersh’s narrative is “correct in every detail.”

Nord Stream Blast: Why the West Still Can’t Name the Culprit (Sp.)

Gas leaks from the Nord Stream pipeline system were detected on 26 September 2022, with the EU leadership admitting that this could be the result of a “deliberate attack”. Two days later, on 28 September, the Kremlin announced that Russia was ready to consider applications from EU countries for a joint investigation into the Nord Stream incident. However, not only did the West snub Moscow’s request but also blamed Russia for destroying its own pipelines. Later, European and American officials backtracked on their accusations but fell short of naming a potential perpetrator. On 12 October 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the incident “an act of international terrorism”. Meanwhile, as gas prices soared and US energy producers secured lucrative LNG contracts with European countries, it became clear that Washington had been the major beneficiary from the Nord Stream destruction. Furthermore, the US leadership had previously issued several threats that it would destroy the pipelines.

“We know that the United States President Joe Biden, threatened openly that he would stop Nord Stream 2 if the Russians were to militarily intervene in Ukraine,” Philip Giraldi, former CIA station chief and now an executive director of the Council for the National Interest, told Sputnik. “That was repeated by Victoria Nuland, who was Number Three at the State Department. She said basically the same thing. So we had the President and a senior official both saying that they would stop the pipeline if this were to happen. So we have a statement coming from the government itself saying it would do this.” “And then I would say on top of that, the United States – given its military capabilities – had the capability to do this. They sent divers down to attach explosives and to arrange for a drone satellite that would ignite the charges and blow up the pipelines.

“It had the capability to do it. And it also had the motive, which was basically to weaken Russia’s ability to use its energy resources to affect politics in Europe. So this is what it was all about,” Giraldi continued. On 8 February 2023, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh dropped a bombshell, detailing an apparent plot by Team Biden and the US intelligence community to blast the Nord Stream pipelines with the help of Norwegian operatives. Reflecting on Hersh’s version, Giraldi said that he feels that Hersh’s narrative is “correct in every detail.” “And I can confirm to you that Sy Hersh, whom I know somewhat, has excellent sources inside CIA and inside the Pentagon. So what he’s telling us comes straight from people who know about it,” the CIA veteran said.

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Scapegoat.

Canadian Parliament Speaker Resigns After Honoring Ukrainian Nazi (RT)

Canadian House Speaker Anthony Rota stepped down on Tuesday after a Nazi veteran was his invited guest at a speech by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. The invitation has faced widespread condemnation. Rota apologized on Monday for the presence of 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka at Zelensky’s address to Canadian lawmakers on Friday, but refused to resign. Although lawmakers from all parties – including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau – cheered and applauded Hunka at the event, calls for Rota’s resignation grew over the weekend as the incident drew worldwide attention, particularly from the governments of Russia and Poland. Rota eventually announced his resignation on Tuesday afternoon, stating that he would leave his position at the end of Wednesday’s session.

“The work of this house is above any of us. Therefore, I must step down as your speaker,” Rota said. “I reiterate my profound regret for my error.” Politicians from the opposition New Democrats and Bloc Quebecois parties issued the loudest demands for Rota’s resignation, with New Democrats leader Peter Julian describing the invitation as “an unforgivable error which puts the entire House in disrepute.” Trudeau, who leads the Liberal Party, of which Rota is a member, did not call for the speaker’s resignation, but described the ceremony as “deeply embarrassing for the House and for Canada.” During the event, Rota hailed Hunka as “a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero… who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians.”

Rota did not mention that Hunka fought in Hitler’s elite Waffen SS, but the nonagenarian was identified by the Associated Press as a member of the First Ukrainian Division, a volunteer unit created by the Nazis in 1943. Also known as the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, the unit is known to have committed atrocities against Jews and Poles during its campaign on the Eastern Front. “There should be no confusion that this unit was responsible for the mass murder of innocent civilians with a level of brutality and malice that is unimaginable,” the Toronto-based Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC) said in a statement on Sunday.


The Ukrainian Postal Service is now issuing stamps of Waffen SS Nazi Galicia Yaroslav Hunko

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“..the ultra-liberal ideology propagated in Canada and permeated with hatred for Russia, its culture, religious and traditional values, essentially has the same roots as Nazism.”

Russian Foreign Ministry Responds To Canada Honoring Nazi Veteran (RT)

The Canadian Parliament’s public celebration of a Ukrainian Nazi veteran last week is a cynical abuse of the memory of the victims of Nazism and an example of the blatant Russophobia embraced by the Canadian government, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement published on Tuesday. The message comes after the Canadian House of Commons on Friday gave a standing ovation to 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka, a member of the 14th Waffen Grenadier division of the SS, which was responsible for countless war crimes during the second half of World War II. The commemoration took place during a visit by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. The Russian Foreign Ministry stated that the incident was “the best possible way to characterize the regime of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has embraced unbridled Russophobia.”

After facing backlash from Jewish and Polish communities over the incident, House Speaker Anthony Rota apologized for inviting the Nazi veteran, while Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described the situation as “profoundly embarrassing.” The Russian ministry stressed, however, that despite Canada’s apologies, “the fact remains that the ultra-liberal ideology propagated in Canada and permeated with hatred for Russia, its culture, religious and traditional values, essentially has the same roots as Nazism.” Moscow added that it was “no coincidence” that Canada has monuments to Ukrainian nationalist leaders while the government allows the overwhelming majority of Nazi veterans like Hunka, who was granted asylum in Canada after the end of World War II, to live out their days “in safety, honored and cared for (in particular, by Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland) as ‘fighters against Russian Communism.’”

The ministry concluded its statement by stressing that the “hostile actions” of the Canadian government, such as the continuous expansion of anti-Russian sanctions and blacklists of Russian nationals will not be left unanswered and that Moscow will not tolerate the fact that “Canadian liberals are flirting with Nazism.” “We expect that healthy forces in Canadian society will speak out against the ‘Nazification’ of history and daily life encouraged by the country’s officials, which goes hand-in-hand with aggressive Russophobia,” it said.

Russia to Canada

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“Canada is not a unique situation. Ten thousand Nazi war criminals emigrated to the United States, thousands to Australia, Great Britain, and in fewer numbers to New Zealand.”

Nazi Hunter: Canada Failed Miserably in Bringing Nazis to Justice (Sp.)

Ninety-eight-year-old Ukrainian Nazi veteran Yaroslav Hunka, who fought in the ranks of the Schutzstaffel’s (SS) 14th Waffen Grenadier Division, was enthusiastically hailed by Canadian lawmakers and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The incident triggered a wave of fierce criticism, prompting House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota to apologize for featuring a Nazi soldier in the Canadian legislature. Sputnik reached out to Dr. Efraim Zuroff, a legendary Nazi hunter of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the director of its Israel Office, to ask why the scandalous honoring of a Nazi became possible in a modern Western state. “It’s no secret that hundreds, at least hundreds, if not thousands of people who committed Holocaust crimes and/or collaborated with the Nazis were able to emigrate to Canada,” Dr. Zuroff told Sputnik.

“And by the way, Canada is not a unique situation. Ten thousand Nazi war criminals emigrated to the United States, thousands to Australia, Great Britain, and in fewer numbers to New Zealand.” Dr. Zuroff is unfamiliar with the particular case of Yaroslav Hunka, but it is still well known that the Waffen SS Galicia Division was “very involved in the mass murder of Jews and Poles in eastern Poland and Galicia,” he pointed out. “And it’s a very sad thing that the heroes, the leadership of the Ukrainian nationalists during World War II, which was headed by Stepan Bandera, for example and the UPA*, the army raised by the Ukrainians to fight with the Germans, with the Waffen SS, which was led by Roman Shukhevych, these are the heroes of Ukraine,” the Nazi hunter highlighted.

It is common knowledge that Nazi Germany played the lead role in the Holocaust – the systematic state-sponsored killing of European Jews in the Second World War. Still, Westerners are not fully aware of the incredibly important role played by local collaborators in the mass murder of the Jewish people, according to Dr. Zuroff. Nazi Germany’s Einsatzgruppen, mobile killing units organized by the SS (tasked with the “final solution of the Jewish question, i.e. the genocide of the ethnic group), “covered an area from Tallinn in the north of Estonia, all the way down to Odessa, near the Black Sea, a front of 1,500 kilometers, and murdered 1.5 million, primarily Jews, in less than two years,” the expert said.

“There were only several thousand people who served in the Einsatzgruppen, and they were working in territory, which they didn’t know the language, they didn’t know the topography. They needed help from the locals,” he explained, adding that this help was provided. “And they’re [locals] the ones who carried out these murders, in many cases without any Germans present. We know in Lithuania, for example, that there were less than a thousand Germans in Lithuania. In Lithuania, there were 220,000 Jews who lived under the Nazi occupation, of whom 212,000 were murdered, 90% of them by shooting near their homes.”

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The Black Sea Fleet command convenes in an underground bunker.

Russian Black Sea Fleet Commander Seen Alive and Well (Sp.)

Western media reported that Russian Black Sea Fleet commander Admiral Viktor Sokolov was killed in Ukrainian attack on Sevastopol, citing Ukrainian officials, without verifying the information. Ukraine used several British-sourced Storm Shadow cruise missiles to target the HQs building of the Russian Fleet in Sevastopol, Crimea last Friday. Russian Black Sea Fleet commander Admiral Viktor Sokolov has turned up alive and well, taking part in a Defense Ministry board meeting alongside Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Tuesday. Sokolov’s appearance follows claims in dozens of Western media outlets quoting Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces claiming that he had been killed in last week’s strike on the Black Sea Fleet’s HQ in Sevastopol.

The Russian Defense Ministry said six people were injured in the September 22 attack, with one person unaccounted for and the HQ’s historic building suffering damage. These figures are a far cry from estimates made by Kiev – which claimed that dozens of servicemen and officers were killed and over 100 injured. US reconnaissance forces were spotted in the area near the HQ two days prior to the attack, prompting Russian and US military observers to tell Sputnik that they suspect direct NATO involvement in the strike. The UK approved the delivery of Storm Shadow cruise missile systems to Ukraine in May, with Ukraine’s armed forces subsequently using them liberally, including to attack built-up civilian areas in the Donbass. Despite generous arms deliveries, intelligence and other support to Kiev, the United States and most of its allies refuse to admit that the Ukrainian crisis is a NATO proxy war against Russia.

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Where do they find these people?

Nothing Is Off Table To Get Ukraine Into EU – Parliament President (G.)

The European Union must begin a major wave of change to prepare for the arrival of Ukraine as a member state, the leader of its parliament has said, with “nothing off the table”, including removing trade tariffs and giving Kyiv access to internal markets before full membership. Speaking exclusively to the Guardian, Roberta Metsola, an MEP from Malta who became the European parliament’s youngest ever president last year, said she expected member states to begin formal negotiations with Ukraine as soon as December. “If they are going fast, we should match that speed,” she urged. Metsola was the first political leader to visit Ukraine after Russia’s invasion, meeting the country’s president, President Zelenskiy, in Kyiv on 1 April 2022, when the capital was still under curfew and surrounded by tanks.

She has made the images of that encounter a symbol of her presidency: a poster of the pair in military green, shaking hands, hangs over the Parliament courtyard. Defying caution and outright antagonism from some member states, she has given unequivocal support to Ukraine’s attempt to join the EU, a process which has advanced even as the country’s attempts to join Nato have stalled. Ukraine is one year into a what many expect will be four or five year journey. But Metsola reflects fresh thinking among some EU leaders that the bloc needs to accelerate access to Ukraine- and the Balkan states that have also applied- in order to curb the risk of Russian interference in these former Soviet territories.

“Pushing the can down the road” on enlargement will only fuel nationalism and the far-right, she warned. “It increases the extremes on the political spectrum, the Euroscepticism. Campaigns in accession countries are fought, and lost or won, on the basis of the dream and hope of the EU.” Metsola wants formal talks to begin before Christmas. The decision rests with EU ministers, who will meet formally in December after a public report in October on Ukraine’s progress in reforming its judiciary, curbing corruption and opening its markets. “I expect a concrete outcome because the worst signal could be that we have given these people targets and deadlines which we can’t meet ourselves,” said Metsola.

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They strip off the protective parts before shipping them to Kiev.

How Russia Will Deal With American Tanks in Ukraine (Sp.)

Ukraine has received some of its long-promised Abrams tanks, with the rest scheduled to be delivered later this fall. The long wait began in January, when US President Joe Biden announced that a battalions’ worth of America’s best tanks would be sent to “improve” Ukraine’s “ability to maneuver in open terrain.” The Abrams are the last of three NATO heavy tank platforms to be delivered to Ukraine to date, with Washington using promises about their deployment to get the alliance’s European members, particularly Germany, to approve the sending of their Leopard series MBTs (hundreds of Leopard 1 and Leopard 2 tanks have been sent to Kiev since then). The UK also joined in, sending 14 of its fearsome Challenger 2s – boasting the status of one of the only major MBTs in NATO armies’ service never to have been destroyed by the enemy in battle.

Russian forces taking on Ukraine’s NATO-equipped army during the summer counteroffensive soon changed all that, with dozens of Leopard 1 and Leopard 2s knocked out, and at least two of Britain’s “unbeatable” tanks taken out in fierce fighting in Zaporozhye after finally appearing on the battlefield earlier this month. [..] The Abrams tanks that Ukraine is getting aren’t up to the same standard as those used by the US military. While its tanks are receiving the same controversial depleted uranium munitions which the US and NATO have already successfully used to poison vast swathes of the former Yugoslavia and Iraq, they are not equipped with the same layer of ultra-thick DU armor plates for enhanced protection of the tank and its crew that US Army Abrams have.

Ukraine’s Abrams are made from refurbished hulls and turrets from California’s Sierra Army Depot, with their DU armor plating removed for secrecy reasons. With the tanks proving vulnerable to enemy anti-tank systems even with the DU armor installed, Russian forces should have no problem using any or all of the above-mentioned weapons systems to target them.

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Wonder what’s in the tax filings (not inflated numbers!). Wonder if the banks saw those. And if not, why.

US Judge Finds Trump Committed Fraud by Inflating Wealth, Assets (Sp.)

A New York state judge on Tuesday found former US President Donald Trump liable for fraud in a civil lawsuit that accuses the one-time commander of intentionally inflating his wealth and asset value. The 35-page ruling, brought forward by the New York Attorney General’s Office, determined Trump and company submitted multiple misleading valuations for real estate assets in official statements to insurers and other financial institutions in order to secure favorable loans and lower insurance premiums throughout the years. Properties listed in the suit included Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Florida resort, his golf course in Scotland, Trump Park Avenue, and his Seven Springs property in New York’s Westchester County, among other sites.

“In defendants’ world, rent-regulated apartments are worth the same as unregulated apartments; restricted land is worth the same as unrestricted land; restrictions can evaporate into thin air,” Judge Arthur Engoron wrote in the decision. “That is a fantasy world, not the real world.” In granting a partial summary judgement to NY Attorney General Letitia James, Engoron outlined that such business maneuvers violated the law and as such canceled the business certificates of Trump and listed defendants, including those of his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump. Also named were Allen Weisselberg, who served as the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, and company executive Jeff McConney. Additionally, Engoron ordered individual sanctions of $7,500 against lawyers who represented the listed Trump defendants and required that within 10 days’ time each defendant submit three independent receivers to manage the dissolution for the business certificates.

The Trump camp has argued claims laid out in the civil filing are barred due to the statute of limitations, with lawyer noting banks involved in the Trump-affiliated deals were far from victims as the same entities turned profits. The former president has also rejected committing any wrongdoing, instead claiming James’ suit is a politically-driven attack. The Tuesday ruling, which denied a request by Trump to end the civil fraud lawsuit, did not settle six other claims at the center of James’ lawsuit. In fact, a non-jury trial set to start on October 2 will address the remaining key points. The New York attorney general is seeking about $250 million in damages and is looking to enforce a ban on Trump doing any business in the Empire State.

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He should have given the laptop to WikiLeaks.

Hunter Biden Sues Rudy Giuliani for Spreading Contents From Laptop (Sp.)

The lawsuit, which relies on the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, was filed in the Central District of California. Neither Rudy Giuliani nor Hunter Biden live in that district and the alleged crimes took place in Delaware. Whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld told Sputnik the choice was the result of “venue shopping.” Embattled first son Hunter Biden is continuing to file lawsuits against individuals he blames for the release of the contents of a laptop he reportedly abandoned at a Delaware computer repair store. The lawsuit is against former New York City mayor and Donald Trump lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. The suit, filed in the Central District of California, accuses the former mayor of “looking for, hacking into, tampering with, manipulating, copying, [and] disseminating … data that was taken or stolen,” thereby violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

It is the latest string of lawsuits brought by Hunter Biden against individuals surrounding his laptop. He also sued the owner of the non-profit Marco Polo, which has been publishing the contents of the laptop, the owner of the computer repair shop where Biden reportedly abandoned the laptop and the FBI for allegedly violating his privacy when two FBI agents told Congress and the media they were concerned the agency was slow-walking the investigation. The laptop in question first made headlines in October 2020, shortly before the 2020 presidential election. Reportedly, the computer repair shop owner had given the laptop to the FBI months before, but after not hearing anything about it on the news, contacted Giuliani’s lawyer at the time Bob Costello and provided him a copy of the computer’s hard drive. Costello is also a defendant in Biden’s latest lawsuit.

Contents of the laptop were published by the New York Post, showing the future first son smoking what appears to be crack cocaine, fornicating with suspected prostitutes and other salacious details. Further reporting on the laptop revealed emails related to Hunter Biden’s foreign business deals and financial records showing the Biden family received millions of dollars from foreign businesses, including those in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, China and Russia. Some of the email and text messages found on the iPhone backup implied that current US President Joe Biden may have joined in on some business calls with his son and references to payments made to “the big guy” have been pointed to by critics as proof the elder Biden was more involved in his son’s business deals than the president claimed. As recently as August, the US president has reiterated he “never talked business” with his son.

The laptop was originally called “Russian disinformation” by multiple media outlets in the United States, and more than 50 former senior intelligence officers signed a letter saying it had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” One by one, the various outlets who discredited the laptop as disinformation quietly admitted it was legitimate and a former CIA official testified to the House Judiciary Committee that former Biden campaign adviser and now-Secretary of State Antony Blinken “played a role in the inception.” Giuliani’s spokesman Ted Goodman pointed to the changing story of the laptop’s detractors when responding to the lawsuit. “Hunter Biden previously refused to admit ownership of the laptop. I’m not surprised he’s now falsely claiming his laptop hard drive was manipulated by Mayor Giuliani, considering the sordid material and potential evidence of crimes on that thing,” Goodman said.

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My son is the smartest man I know.

Hunter Biden Used Dad’s Classified Doc House For $250K China Wire Transfer (ZH)

Hunter Biden used his Dad’s Delaware home where classified documents were found strewn about the garage to receive more than $250,000 in Chinese wire transfers, according to the House Oversight Committee. The wires were from Wang Xin and Jonathan Li, the latter of whom ran a Chinese private equity fund (BHR) which Hunter was listed as being on the board of directors. Hunter also arranged for a meeting between Li and Joe Biden while Joe was VP, while Joe allegedly gave Li’s son a letter of recommendation. Here’s the breakdown of events from the Committee:

• 2009-2017: During his time as Vice President and prior to later payments to Hunter Biden, evidence shows Joe Biden developed a familiar relationship with Jonathan Li. Devon Archer, a Biden business associate, described how Joe Biden met with Jonathan Li for coffee in Beijing, China, had a phone call with him, and wrote college recommendation letters for his children.
• April 25, 2019: Joe Biden announced his candidacy in the 2020 presidential election.
• July 26, 2019: Wang Xin wired $10,000 with Joe Biden’s home listed on the wire.
• August 2, 2019: Jonathan Li wired $250,000 with Joe Biden’s home listed on the wire.
• October 13, 2019: George Mesires, who served as Hunter Biden’s lawyer, stated, in part, that Hunter Biden served with BHR “only as a member of its board of directors,” which was purportedly an “unpaid position.”
• October 22, 2020: During a presidential debate, Joe Biden said, “My son has not made money […] in China.”

Of note, Hunter was living at the Wilmington house while he was raking in millions of dollars from CCP-linked business dealings. Hunter was living there… Seamus Bruner (researcher for legendary bombshell-dropper Peter Schweizer), reports via Breitbart News, that “While addicted to drugs, cavorting with prostitutes, and making deals with businessmen tied to the highest levels of Chinese intelligence, Hunter Biden lived in the house where Joe Biden stored classified documents.” Second, the Washington Free Beacon reported in January that photos from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop place him at the Wilmington House in July, 2017. Of note, the classified documents were reportedly brought to the house in January of that year. The photos ‘are the most concrete evidence to date’ that Hunter – who was actively negotiating a deal with a CCP-linked Chinese energy company – had access to areas of his father’s home where classified documents were stored.

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I know there’s the EU’s Code of Practice on Disinformation, and I know there’s the Digital Services Act, but I don’t know who decided that Musk is violating either.

Oh, and it’s basically all Russia Russia. Ring a bell? It’s like Trudy reacting to the Nazi he celebrated by saying we should all be wary of Russian disinformation. Same thing. Diversion. Squirrel!

EU Warns Elon Musk After X Found To Have Highest Rate Of Disinformation (G.)

The EU has issued a warning to Elon Musk to comply with sweeping new laws on fake news and Russian propaganda, after X formerly known as Twitter was found to have the highest ratio of disinformation posts of all large social media platforms. The report analysed the ratio of disinformation for a new report laying bare for the first time the scale of fake news on social media across the EU, with millions of fake accounts removed by TikTok and LinkedIn. Facebook was the second worst offender, according to the first ever report recording posts that will be deemed illegal across the EU under the Digital Services Act (DSA), which came into force in August.

Nevertheless, Facebook and other tech giants, including Google, TikTok and Microsoft, have signed up to the code of practice the EU drew up to ensure they could get ready in time to operate within the confines of the new laws. Twitter left the code of practice but it is obliged under the new law to comply with the rules or face a ban across the EU. Mr Musk knows he is not off the hook by leaving the code of practice, said the European commissioner Vera Jourova, who is responsible for the implementation of the new anti-disinformation code. There are obligations under the hard law. So my message for Twitter/X is you have to comply. We will be watching what you do.

X, formerly Twitter, is the platform with the largest ratio of mis/disinformation followed by Facebook, she told reporters. The 200-page report is an account of the work the large platforms have done in the first six months of 2023 to prepare for compliance with the new law and lifts the lid on the behind-the-scenes efforts made by Facebook and others to crack down on Russian propaganda, hate speech and other disinformation. The Russian state has engaged in the war of ideas to pollute our information space with half truth and lies to create a false image that democracy is no better than autocracy, said Jourova.

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This five-month-old bar-tailed godwit smashed the record for long-distance migration following a non-stop, 11-day flight from Alaska to Tasmania: a 13,560 km journey beating the previous record, a godwit which flew 13,000 km

 

 

Burzynski

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Sep 242023
 
 September 24, 2023  Posted by at 9:21 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  18 Responses »


Jackson Pollock Shooting Star 1947

 

‘New World Order’ Vs ’Empire Of Lies’ – Lavrov at UN (RT)
Is World War III About to Start? Part I: Drift Toward War (Cook)
Defeat (Michael Brenner)
McCarthy Reverses Course, Maintains Ukraine Aid in Pentagon Funding Bill (Sp.)
Kiev’s Counteroffensive Unlikely To Achieve Its Goals – US Officials (RT)
Jackson Hinkle: Western Elites Want War Against Russia, China (Sp.)
RFK, Jr. As A Third-Party Candidate (AT)
California Democrats Could Guarantee Trump 2024 Win (Seiler)
Middle East Security Requires Solution to Palestinian Issue – Saudi FM (Sp.)
Elon Musk: Media ‘Instructed Not To Cover’ Border Crisis (Fox)
What Biden’s Open-Border Agenda Means For The US (Robert Bridge)
Rhino Population Increasing In Africa For 1st Time In Decade (RT)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fauci 30 yrs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..[if they want it] to be on the battlefield, let it be on the battlefield..”

‘New World Order’ Vs ’Empire Of Lies’ – Lavrov at UN (RT)

The world has a chance to achieve “authentic democratization” in international relations by establishing a multipolar world order, marking the first such opportunity since the end of World War II, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the UN General Assembly (UNGA) on Saturday. The US and its Western allies seek to prevent such a development by stirring up new conflicts to divide humanity and keep their “hegemony of the global minority” in place, he added. The US and its allies still reject the principle of equality in international relations, Lavrov said. Americans and Europeans keep looking down on the rest of the world and that leads to their “total intractability” in any negotiations. Washington and its allies “keep making promises left and right” that end up being reneged-on, the Russian minister added. “As Russian President Vladimir Putin put it, the West is now the real ‘empire of lies’,” he said.

NATO activities have reached “unprecedented” levels since the end of the Cold War, the top Russian diplomat believes. The US-led forces of the bloc have conducted drills that involved simulating nuclear strikes against Russia, he claimed, adding that Washington is also actively seeking to project its military might in the Asia-Pacific through establishing military-political “alliances” with nations like Australia, South Korea or Japan and pushing them towards closer cooperation with NATO. Such actions “risk creating a new explosive geopolitical hotspot in addition to the … European one,” Lavrov warned, adding that Western politicians have been so blinded by a feeling of impunity that they’ve lost “the sense of self-preservation.” For the first time since 1945, when the United Nations was established, the world has a chance to establish a truly democratic world order, the Russian foreign minister said.

The “global majority” – ie the nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America – are increasingly seeking independence and equality, as well as respect for their sovereignty in international relations. “It is obvious for Russia that there is no other way,” Lavrov told the UNGA, adding that this fact “encourages optimism in those believing in the rule of international law and wishing to see the UN restored to its role of a central coordinating body of world politics.” The US and its allies seek to stall the onset of a multipolar world order, in particular by “stirring up conflicts that artificially divide humanity into hostile blocs and prevent it from achieving common goals,” the Russian minister pointed out. The West wants the world to “play by its infamous and self-serving rules,” he said, adding that the international community should instead strive for a world where everyone “agrees on how to solve issues together, on the basis of a fair balance of interests.”

Russia is calling for “an immediate and full” lifting of sanctions imposed against such nations as Cuba, Venezuela and Syria, Lavrov said, adding that such unilateral punitive measures “blatantly violate the principle of sovereign equality of nations” and interfere with these countries’ rights to development. “One should put an end to any coercive measures imposed in circumvention of the UN Security Council as well as to the West’s … practice of manipulating its sanctions policies to exert pressure on those deemed undesirable,” he added. Russia’s top diplomat also blasted the US over what he called threats against nations willing to work with Moscow. “It is shameful for a great power to run around like this and threaten everyone and only demonstrating its obsession with domination,” he told journalists after the UNGA session.

Moscow is ready for talks on its ongoing conflict with Kiev at any time, Lavrov told a press conference on the sidelines of the UN assembly. However, Russia will not consider any deals involving a ceasefire, he said, adding that Moscow and Kiev had supposedly almost reached an agreement in the first months of the conflict following a series of talks in Belarus and Türkiye only for this process to be disrupted, supposedly by Ukraine’s Western backers.“Putin said it very clearly: yes, we are ready for talks but we will not consider any ceasefire proposals because we did so once and were deceived.” Russia also respects Ukraine’s sovereignty in accordance with the Ukrainian declaration of independence and its constitution, Lavrov said, adding that both documents also declare the non-aligned status of Ukraine and respect for the Russian language and Russian-speaking minorities.

Ukraine’s sovereignty “was destroyed by those who staged and supported a coup, the leaders of which then declared a war on their own people,” Lavrov said, referring to the 2014 Maidan coup. The US and its allies are de-facto engaged in a conflict with Russia, Lavrov told the press conference. “We call it a hybrid war but it does not change things,” he said. Western nations are sending arms to Kiev and training its troops, he explained, so “They are de-facto fighting against us with the hands and bodies of Ukrainians.” Western nations also openly say that “Russia should be defeated on the battlefield,” Moscow’s top diplomat said, adding that Moscow is ready for such a development. “Under such circumstances, [if they want it] to be on the battlefield, let it be on the battlefield,” he said.

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“The only alternative would then be to activate a gigantic airlift of additional forces into Europe with U.S. cargo planes sitting ducks for destruction en route. Impossible.”

Is World War III About to Start? Part I: Drift Toward War (Cook)

Now the U.S., with the Neocons firmly entrenched in the State Department and elsewhere, surrounded Russia with military bases and attacked its perimeter with color revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, following on the dismemberment of Yugoslavia in the late 1990s and early 2000s. President Barack Obama then situated the Aegis Missile Defense System in Poland and Romania with the potential to activate missiles that could reach Moscow with nuclear warheads in six minutes. Talk was current of a possible “decapitation” strike against the Russian leadership. Finally, in 2014, with “cookies” Victoria Nuland and Vice President Joe “Burisma” Biden in charge, the U.S. fomented a coup in Ukraine with the aid of paid snipers to drive out a president friendly toward Russia and his replacement with a NeoNazi junta that put Ukraine on a war footing.

In response, Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula, where Sevastopol is the home of its Black Sea fleet, with 85 percent popular approval, while the eastern Ukrainian Donbass provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk, ethnically-Russian, declared independence. Finally, after eight years of Ukrainian provocations, the death from Ukrainian shelling of more than 10,000 Donbass civilians, and the treachery of Germany and France in failing to uphold the Minsk agreements they had guaranteed, Russia entered Ukraine with its military forces in February 2022. The conflict was on, a conflict that Russia is winning. U.S.-led sanctions against Russia failed to bring down its economy or force regime change against Putin. But each Ukrainian setback on the battlefield has been followed by more weapons and money supplied to the Volodymyr Zelensky regime by the U.S., UK, Germany, France, and other NATO members.

But who was calling the shots? In March 2022, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators reached agreement on a tentative settlement at meetings in Istanbul. UK prime minister Boris Johnson then rushed to Kiev to induce Zelensky to tear up the agreement and continue the war. Western escalation has included billions of dollars worth of heavy tanks and other weapons to Ukraine, along with cluster munitions and depleted uranium projectiles. There have been drone attacks on Russia itself and on Crimea. But the Ukrainian counteroffensive has collapsed, with speculation increasing of a major Russian counterattack, possibly even cutting Ukraine off from the Black Sea.

We have now come full circle. Warnings from Washington continue that Putin had better not go nuclear, which can be read as inviting him to do so. This is obviously a new phase of brinkmanship that could give the U.S. a pretext for themselves moving to nuclear war. Meanwhile, the U.S. understands that it could in no way challenge Russia in a conventional war even with the entire NATO alliance being activated. Even then, divisiveness within NATO and the absence of sufficient military force anywhere in Europe make this impossible at present. Veteran military analyst Scott Ritter writes in Sputnik News on September 21, 2023, that even were the U.S. to activate its entire military force stationed in Europe against Russia, it would be defeated within one to two weeks of intensive combat. The only alternative would then be to activate a gigantic airlift of additional forces into Europe with U.S. cargo planes sitting ducks for destruction en route. Impossible.

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“..deep emotions rather than reasoned thought are propelling us toward an avoidable, potentially catastrophic conflict..”

Defeat (Michael Brenner)

The march to war with China defies all conventional wisdom. After all, it poses no military threat to our security or core interests. China has no history of empire-building or conquest. China has been the source of great economic benefit via dense exchanges that serve us as well as them. Therefore, what is the justification for the widespread judgment that a crossing-of-swords is inescapable? Sensible nations do not commit themselves to a possibly cataclysmic war because China, the designated number one enemy, builds radar warning stations on sandy atolls in the South China Sea. Because it markets electric vehicles more cheaply than we can. Because its advances in developing semi-conductors may outclass ours.

Because of its treatment of an ethnic minority in western China. Because it follows our example in funding NGOs that promote a positive view of their country. Because it engages in industrial espionage just the way the United States and everybody else does. Because it wafts balloons over North America (declared benign by General Milley last week). None of these are compelling reasons to press hard for a confrontation. The truth is far simpler – and far more disquieting. We are obsessed with China because it exists. Like K-2, that itself is a challenge for we must prove our prowess (to others, but mainly to ourselves), that we can surmount it. That is the true meaning of a perceived existential threat. The focal shift from Russia in Europe to China in Asia is less a mechanism for coping with defeat than the pathological reaction of a country that, feeling a gnawing sense of diminishing prowess, can manage to do nothing more than try one final fling at proving to itself that it still has the right stuff – since living without that exalted sense of self is intolerable.

What is deemed heterodox, and daring, in Washington these days is to argue that we should wrap up the Ukraine affair one way or another so that we might gird our loins for the truly historic contest with Beijing. The disconcerting truth that nobody of consequence in the country’s foreign policy establishment has denounced this hazardous turn toward war supports the proposition that deep emotions rather than reasoned thought are propelling us toward an avoidable, potentially catastrophic conflict. A society represented by an entire political class that is not sobered by that prospect rightly can be judged as providing prime facie evidence of being collectively unhinged.

Second, amnesia may serve the purpose of sparing our political elites, and the American populace at large, the acute discomfort of acknowledging mistakes and defeat. However, that success is not matched by an analogous process of memory erasure in other places. We were fortunate, in the case of Vietnam, that the United States’ dominant position in the world outside of the Soviet Bloc and the PRC allowed us to maintain respect, status and influence. Things have now changed, though. Our relative strength in all domains is weaker, there are strong centrifugal forces around the global that are producing a dispersion of power, will and outlook among other states. The BRICs phenomenon is the concrete embodiment of that reality. Hence, the prerogatives of the United States are narrowing, our ability to shape the global system in conformity with our ideas and interests are under mounting challenge, and premiums are being placed on diplomacy of an order that seems beyond our present aptitudes. We are confounded.

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Yeah, America loves flip-floppers.

McCarthy Reverses Course, Maintains Ukraine Aid in Pentagon Funding Bill (Sp.)

In a surprising shift, Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) announced he will keep $300 million in Ukraine aid within the Pentagon funding bill, going back on his earlier decision to remove it due to opposition from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). McCarthy’s decision was explained during a press briefing at the Capitol, where he revealed that he had reconsidered after realizing that another spending measure, which is set to be considered next week and funds the State Department and Foreign Operations, also includes financial support for Ukraine. Stripping Ukraine aid from the State Department and Foreign Operations bill became “more difficult to do,” leading McCarthy to choose to maintain the funding for Ukraine in both appropriations measures.

The House is scheduled to take a procedural vote next week to advance four appropriations bills, including those that fund the Pentagon and the State Department and Foreign Operations. McCarthy acknowledged that despite his decision to retain Ukraine aid in both bills, there will still be votes on amendments to remove the aid from both spending bills, according to Rep. Garret Graves (R-LA). However, these votes may not take place if lawmakers block the measures from being debated. A coalition of House conservatives had previously opposed the rule for the Pentagon appropriations bill twice this week, preventing the legislation from advancing to debate and a final vote.

These unexpected failures to pass the rule have presented challenges for McCarthy, who is trying to advance spending bills ahead of the September 30 government funding deadline. The Pentagon funding bill includes $300 million earmarked “to provide assistance, including training; equipment; lethal assistance; logistics support, supplies and services; salaries and stipends; sustainment; and intelligence support to the military and national security forces of Ukraine… for replacement of any weapons or articles provided to the Government of Ukraine from the inventory of the US.” McCarthy is facing threats of a “vote to vacate” from members of his own party, which would boot him from his speaker position.

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NYT appears to lead the change in MSM narrative.

Kiev’s Counteroffensive Unlikely To Achieve Its Goals – US Officials (RT)

Officials in Washington have suggested that Ukraine’s military forces won’t be able to cut Russia’s land bridge to Crimea as part of their counteroffensive or achieve other key goals, the New York Times has reported. “Some American officials have said that the Ukrainian counteroffensive appears likely to fall short of its strategic goals,” the paper reported in an article on Friday. Kiev’s forces are struggling to achieve the aim of reaching the Sea of Azov in Russia’s Zaporozhye Region, because the minefields set up by Moscow’s forces, they say, have proven to be “a potent defense,” the Times added. According to US officials, conducting offensive operations would also soon become even more difficult for Ukraine “as the ground becomes soft and muddy”in the region.

The NYT also said that some in Washington have warned that “within a few weeks, the Ukrainian army will need time to rebuild their stockpile of equipment and to rest forces exhausted by the summer fighting.” The Ukrainian counteroffensive was launched in early June, although Kiev has so far only reported the capture of a handful of small villages some distance away from the main Russian defense lines. President Vladimir Putin said earlier this month that Ukraine has lost more than 71,000 troops and over 540 tanks since the beginning of summer, while failing to achieve any significant results on the battlefield. On Friday, President Vladimir Zelensky told journalists in Washington that Kiev “will do everything not to stop during difficult days in autumn with poor weather and in winter.”

Zelensky claimed that Ukraine has a “very, very comprehensive plan”to “de-occupy” Artyomovsk (known as Bakhmut in Ukraine) and two other cities, which he refused to name, in the coming months. Ukraine suffered huge losses trying to defend Artyomovsk and the strategic city in Donetsk People’s Republic nonetheless fell under Russian control in May, after months of fighting. The NYT pointed out that US intelligence and military had warned the Zelensky government against spending its manpower and resources in Artyomovsk, suggesting that it would be better focused on operations in Zaporozhye Region. “Some American officials say the fight in [Artyomovsk] has become something of an obsession for Mr Zelensky and his military leaders,”the paper said.

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‘there’s nothing like that right now in the White House. There’s no communication whatsoever.’

Jackson Hinkle: Western Elites Want War Against Russia, China (Sp.)

The US establishment is not hesitant to start World War Three to maintain its globalist dominance, American political commentator Jackson Hinkle told Sputnik’s New Rules podcast.” I guess Tucker [Carlson] has got a point when he says, ‘I’m willing to bet my house that Joe Biden is going to start World War Three with Russia,’ because look what they’ve done,” Jackson Hinkle told Sputnik. “These people are insane. Even like, taking [ex-House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi on her jet to go to Taiwan and meet with Taiwanese officials. There was a lot of people, myself included, who were thinking, ‘Goodness, the [Chinese] People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is going to shoot her out of the sky or something right now? Is this going to be how it all begins?’ They’re reckless. They are completely Russophobic and beating the drums of war to go to war with China.”

Moreover, the American elite’s hostility toward Russia has surpassed that of the Cold War era, leading to a worrying breakdown in communications between Washington and Moscow, according to the political commentator. “The level of communication breakdown is so severe compared to the Cold War,” he said. “I got to meet the guy that actually developed the telephone, they had the red hotline telephone between the US and the USSR during the Cold War. And he told me he’s like, ‘there’s nothing like that right now in the White House. There’s no communication whatsoever.’ And we’re not too far off from that same sort of a lack of dialogue with the Chinese, because they want to go to war against the Chinese.”

It did not happen overnight, according to the analyst. Over the past 30 years, Washington and its allies have reneged on all the pledges they made to Moscow at the end of the Cold War. One of them was a verbal promise that NATO would not extend an inch east of Germany. “NATO since then, at the behest of the US, has violated that promise on 16 occasions now,” Hinkle remarked. The transatlantic alliance does not conceal its plans to draw in Ukraine and possibly Georgia, thus moving even closer to Russia’s borders.”

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“You won’t see RFK, Jr. tripping on stairs, falling off his bicycle at 5 mph, or saying I have to go to bed now during a news interview.”

RFK, Jr. As A Third-Party Candidate (AT)

Even as President Joe Biden leads in the 2024 primaries, Democrat presidential contender Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has higher favorability and lower unfavorability numbers than either President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, (Trump 43%, Biden 41%, RFK, Jr. 14% unfavorability) according to a new poll by The Economist/YouGov. Rasmussen reports that a survey also revealed that twenty-five percent (25%) of likely Democrat voters would vote for RFK Jr. in the 2023 primaries for President. Three percent (3%) of Democrats favor author Marianne Williamson in the primaries, while seven percent (7%) would vote for another candidate. The Rasmussen Report is based on a national survey of 998 U.S. likely voters conducted September 14 and 17-18, 2023.

Teddy Roosevelt ran for president in 1912 on the Progressive Party ticket, a third party, against incumbent Republican President William Howard Taft. Taft was elected president in 1908, the successor of Teddy Roosevelt, but was defeated for reelection in 1912 by Woodrow Wilson because Roosevelt’s third party split the Republican vote. The Republicans won in 1920 with a campaign positioned around opposition to Wilson’s policies with Warren G. Harding promising a “return to normalcy.” Sound familiar? The Progressive Party was nicknamed the Bull Moose Party when Roosevelt boasted that he felt “strong as a bull moose” after losing the Republican nomination at the June 1912 convention in Chicago. RFK, Jr. is as strong as a bull moose both physically and mentally. RFK, Jr. is jacked and that is well documented. At 69, he is ripped like few others his age. He’d beat Putin in a Mr. Universe Senior contest. You won’t see RFK, Jr. tripping on stairs, falling off his bicycle at 5 mph, or saying I have to go to bed now during a news interview.

Don’t let spasmodic dysphonia, a neurological disorder that causes involuntary spasms in the larynx, cloud your judgement about RFK, Jr.’s mental acuity or toughness. He lived through the tragedy of his uncle, President John F. Kennedy and his dad’s assassinations, and has had an extraordinarily successful career as an environmental lawyer fighting for sane policies against the U.S. Department of Environment Protection and big business. His ideas on foreign policy, the economy, and other critical issues are clear, logical, and convincing. His detractors want you to believe he is feeding Americans’ hunger for conspiracies. Americans have been fed conspiracies constantly by the extreme Left. The Left bombards us every day with “conspiracy theories” that is if you liken a conspiracy to a lie.

RFK, Jr. explained convincingly the circumstances and facts surrounding his uncle’s death in a recent speech at a private residence New Hampshire. Attend one of his campaign events to find out firsthand that JFK, Jr. is a straight shooter, extremely well versed, and perspicacious on a multitude of topics affecting Main Street America. Can RFK, Jr. win the presidency on a third-party ticket? Who knows? At the very least a third party would in all likelihood obtain enough votes to allow a pro-Main Street America candidate like former President Donald J. Trump. This country needs to return to what made America great: hard work, freedom to choose, and the right to speak without fear of disparagement, or worse.

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It’s sort of amusing. But mostly, it’s deeply sad.

California Democrats Could Guarantee Trump 2024 Win (Seiler)

Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021 supposedly made him the leader of an “insurrection.” The best argument against that was advanced by former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey in the Wall Street Journal: “The use of the term ‘officer of the United States’ in other constitutional provisions shows that it refers only to appointed officials, not to elected ones. In US vs Mouat (1888), the Supreme Court ruled that ‘unless a person in the service of the government … holds his place by virtue of an appointment … he is not, strictly speaking, an officer of the United States. Chief Justice John Roberts reiterated the point in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (2010): ‘The people do not vote for the Officers of the United States.” ”

Now, here’s where it gets interesting. Hypothetically, what if Mr. Mukasey’s argument doesn’t hold up in the courts? Then California and other states’ attorneys general and governors, or lawsuits by political groups, could throw Mr. Trump off the ballot. Especially critical would be the swing states with Democratic governors: Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper. Or Fulton County (Atlanta) District Attorney Fani Willis, already prosecuting Trump for allegedly interfering in the 2020 election, could do it. But then, Republicans could do it in their swing states, throwing President Joe Biden off the ballot. They could say his alleged bribes from Communist China disqualify him under the 14th amendment’s Section 3 wording for having “given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

Republicans governors invoking that clause could include Glenn Youngkin of Virginia, Brian Kemp of Georgia, Kim Reynolds of Iowa, Joe Lombardo of Nevada, and Chris Sununu of New Hampshire. It would be what in military parlance is called Mutual Assured Destruction. If that happened, neither Mr. Trump nor Mr. Biden would reach the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency in the Electoral College. Then what? Then we would have the fourth of what s called a Contingent Election, although the phrase itself isn t in the Constitution. It means the matter is decided by the House of Representatives (or the Senate for vice presidents). There have been three so far: Thomas Jefferson beat Aaron Burr in 1800; John Quincy Adams beat Andrew Jackson in 1825. And in 1837 the vice presidential election was given to Richard Mentor Johnson over Francis Granger.

Under a Contingent Election in the House, all 435 members don’t get to vote. Rather, each state delegation gets one vote, 50 votes total. On Sept. 18 Canadian political writer Stephen Marche wrote an article for the left-wing Guardian titled, Here’s the scary way Trump could win without the electoral or popular vote: In a contingent election, he could lose the popular vote, electoral college and all his legal cases and still end up the legal US president. He calculated: State delegations in the House would favor Republicans as a matter of course. In the struggle for congressional delegates, Republicans would have 19 safe House delegations and the Democrats would have 14, as it stands, with more states leaning Republican than Democrat. So California, by knocking Mr. Trump off the ballot, could guarantee he becomes president.

Again, none of this is likely to happen. If any state tries to keep him off the ballot, the courts almost certainly would put him back on, possibly reasoning along the lines Mr. Mukasey detailed. There’s one thing this whole escapade teaches us: A large number of California’s politicians hold in contempt the Constitution, democracy, and the people of the state they claim to represent. In this train-wreck of a state, with housing, homelessness, drug addiction, schooling, budget, and countless other problems festering—don’t they have anything better to do?

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“..guaranteeing the right of the Palestinian people to create an independent state within the 1967 borders..”

Middle East Security Requires Solution to Palestinian Issue – Saudi FM (Sp.)

Security in the Middle East requires a fair and comprehensive solution to the Palestinian problem, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said on Saturday. “Security in the Middle East requires an acceleration in the search for a just and comprehensive solution to the Palestinian problem based on international law and the Arab peace initiative, guaranteeing the right of the Palestinian people to create an independent state within the 1967 borders,” the Saudi minister said at the UN General Assembly, adding that his country rejects any actions that impede the resolution of the Palestinian issue Bin Farhan Al Saud also noted the need for de-escalation in Sudan, called for a solution to the Syrian crisis and declared the country’s interest in security and stability in Yemen.

In addition, the minister said that Riyadh is striving to stabilize energy prices. On Wednesday, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud said that the country is “getting closer every day” to normalizing relations with Israel. On Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel is on the verge of a historic peace agreement with Saudi Arabia, which will change the face of the Middle East. Relations between Palestine and Israel have been adversarial since the latter’s founding in 1948. Palestinians seek diplomatic recognition of their independent state on the territories of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, which is partially occupied by Israel, and the Gaza Strip. The Israeli government refuses to recognize Palestine as an independent political and diplomatic entity and continues to build settlements in the occupied areas despite objections from the United Nations.

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“..if you’re going to leave your country, go somewhere else.”

Elon Musk: Media ‘Instructed Not To Cover’ Border Crisis (Fox)

Billionaire and X, formerly known as Twitter, owner Elon Musk on Thursday accused news outlets of ignoring the crisis along the southern border because they were “instructed” not to cover it. FOX News national correspondent Bill Melugin posted on social media how local news networks are covering the migrant crisis more than other national news networks. “Watching the TVs at gym in Eagle Pass. Every single local news station in the San Antonio market, both English & Spanish, are leading their shows and have much of their A blocks centered on the border crisis and the mass illegal crossing in Eagle Pass today,” he wrote. “National networks were MIA at the bridge today, other than @FoxNews.” Musk responded to Melugin’s post by writing, “This gets no coverage because the media NPCs are instructed not to cover it.”

NPC stands for “non-player characters,” meaning scripted characters in video games that are programmed with specific behavior rather than directly controlled by a human being. The term is used online for someone who doesn’t think for themselves. Thousands of predominantly Venezuelan adult illegal immigrants moved into Texas and gathered under a nearby bridge on Wednesday. Texas troopers told FOX News that their initial count of the number of migrants moving across the water into Eagle Pass on Wednesday was about 4,000. The migrants gathered under the bridge and were waiting to be processed by Border Patrol, in the hope of being released into the U.S. Concern about the border has reached a fever pitch in recent weeks as even some Democrats are warning that the crisis has gotten out of control, while other liberal figures still reject those claims.

Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams made an ominous warning about the immigration crisis at a town hall meeting earlier this month. “I don’t see an ending to this. I don’t see an ending to this. This issue will destroy New York City. Destroy New York City,” he said. MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan responded by ridiculing the mayor in a social media post, referring to him as a “Trump knock-off.” Gov. Kathy Hochul, D-N.Y., similarly faced mockery after telling migrants, “We don’t have capacity, so we have to also message properly that we’re at our limit, if you’re going to leave your country, go somewhere else.”

Read more …

“..entering the US illegally now ranks up there with “basic American values.”

What Biden’s Open-Border Agenda Means For The US (Robert Bridge)

The defenders of open US borders like to sell the happy, optimistic narrative that asylum seekers are primarily innocent people looking to build a better life in the United States. The raw data, however, points to a much more complicated story. It’s the rarest occurrence of all when politicians admit that they were wrong, but that’s what is (almost) happening in Democrat-ruled cities, including New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, which are being forced to absorb a continuous influx of migrants, together with a large slab of humble pie. “Let me tell you something New Yorkers, never in my life have I had a problem that I did not see an ending to — I don’t see an ending to this,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams told a hushed audience in Manhattan as he called for federal assistance just days before the anniversary of 9/11. “This issue will destroy New York City.” “We are past our breaking point,” Adams continued with his apocalyptic plot. “New Yorkers’ compassion may be limitless, but our resources are not.”

Back on the campaign trail in 2021, Adams’ campaign posted on what was then Twitter: “We should protect our immigrants. Period. Yes, New York City will remain a sanctuary city under an Adams administration.” Much of the Democratic Party’s headache stems from the creation of so-called ‘sanctuary cities,’ defined as a municipality that limits or rejects cooperation with the federal government in enforcing immigration law. In other words, the sort of neighborhood Antifa would fully endorse. Sanctuary policies have been around since the late 1970s, but they were practically unheard-of until quite recently. The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) estimated that 564 US jurisdictions had adopted sanctuary policies in 2018. To put that into perspective, there were just 40 such protected zones when Barack Obama was sworn into the White House in 2009.

Not surprisingly, many illegal migrants, without any means of supporting themselves, flock to these ‘arrest-free’ zones where they can take advantage of social services such as housing, health care and public education without any fear of deportation. But it goes beyond just free handouts. Here is how FAIR describes sanctuary cities, and the obstacles they place in front of law enforcement and border patrol: “In their various forms, [sanctuary policies] forbid state and local officials (including law enforcement officers) from asking people about their immigration status; reporting suspected illegal aliens to the federal government; holding criminal aliens for arrest by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); or otherwise cooperating with or assisting federal immigration enforcement agents. These policies endanger public safety and enjoy very little public support. Rather, they are the product of intense pressure from well-funded groups that oppose nearly all forms of immigration enforcement, or due to the capitulation by local officials in the face of threatened lawsuits by self-anointed ‘civil liberties’ organizations.”

The ACLU, for example, is of the opinion that the actions of sanctuary cities “represent basic American values: a spirit of inclusiveness and respect for individual rights.” In other words, entering the US illegally now ranks up there with “basic American values.”

Read more …

1900: 500,000
1970: 70,000
2022: 23,290

Rhino Population Increasing In Africa For 1st Time In Decade (RT)

The African rhino population is growing across the continent for the first time in a decade, despite poaching remaining high, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) announced. According to the figures released ahead of the World Rhino Day on Friday, there was an estimate of 23,290 total rhinos at the end of 2022, an increase of 5.2% from the year before. Most notably, the number of white rhinos, which were assessed for The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species in 2020, has grown by 5.6% and now stands at around 16,803 animals. This is the first increase since 2012.

“With this good news, we can take a sigh of relief for the first time in a decade. However, it is imperative to further consolidate and build upon this positive development and not drop our guard,” said Dr Michael Knight, Chair of the IUCN African Rhino Specialist Group (AfRSG). According to IUCN’s website, the positive development is attributed to a combination of protection and biological management initiatives by the privately owned Platinum Rhino project, which is aimed at protecting and breeding the species to prevent extinction. Earlier this year, the project was sold to the African Parks Foundation, which plans to rewild 2,000 rhinos over the coming decade. There are five species of rhino in the world, with Africa being a home to the white and black rhinos, while the remaining three – the Sumatran, Javan and Indian rhinos – live in Asia.

Poaching remains a huge problem. According to official figures, 448 rhinos were illegally killed in South Africa in 2022, with neighboring Namibia recording 93 poached rhinos. While the numbers are still concerning, they represent a significant decline from in 2015, when 1,349 African rhinos were poached. At the beginning of the 20th century, about 500,000 rhinos roamed Africa and Asia. Their numbers dropped to just 70,000 by 1970. Despite southern white rhinos currently thriving in protected sanctuaries, the western black rhino and northern white rhinos have recently become extinct in the wild. The only two remaining northern white rhinos are kept under 24-hour guard in Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dogs ball

 

 

Elephant

 

 

Sandstone

 

 

 

 

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Sep 212023
 
 September 21, 2023  Posted by at 1:54 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  10 Responses »


Théodore Géricault The Raft of the Medusa 1819

 

 

A short comment on an all too familiar sort of MSM article about US politics these days. This article, a few days old, comes from Gary O’Donoghue, Washington correspondent, BBC News.

The MSM must concede that Hunter Biden is under investigation. Now that it’s official, they can no longer hide it. Time for plan B. This is the BBC, more MSM than anyone. The new narrative is that both political sides are being probed now, supposed to make us think there’s a sort of balance, a neutrality.

And the DOJ is some kind of impartial office (just like the FBI and CIA). Even though the entire alphabet soup has been directed squarely against Trump for 8 years now. The result is that they list the charges against the two sides as follows: 91 against Trump, one -small one- against Hunter, and zero against Joe Biden (he’s not even mentioned here).

Not one word about Joe Biden’s own involvement in what Hunter is accused of. Not one word about the laptop. Or about the tens of millions of dollars the House Commitee says the Biden family received from foreign sources. Ergo: Trump is much worse than Hunter. And Joe never put a single finger wrong.

What Hunter Biden Charges Mean For The President

Politically speaking, there are currently two Americas. One is outraged and horrified that the former president, Donald Trump, is facing 91 federal and state criminal charges in what they see as a deep state conspiracy orchestrated in part by Joe Biden’s Department of Justice. The other believes that very same justice department has spent five years unfairly pursuing Mr Biden’s son, Hunter, over his tax affairs and behaviour while a self-declared and repentant drug addict. In other words, both Americas believe the department responsible for enforcing the laws of the land has been taken captive by the other side and is hopelessly politicised.

“..improper and partisan interference..” but not from the Democrats…

Hunter Biden’s lawyer responded to the news that his client had been indicted on three federal gun charges by accusing the prosecutor of bending to “improper and partisan interference” from Trump-supporting Republicans. Meanwhile, Andy Biggs, one of those conservatives in Congress, suggested the charges were simply a manoeuvre to make it look like the justice department was fair. “Don’t fall for it. They’re trying to protect him from way more serious charges coming his way!”, he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Republicans only focus on Hunter because of Trump’s “legal jeopardies”. Not because of the laptop contents. Which the FBI sat on for 5 years, and we would never have known about if the repair shop owner had not given a copy to Rudy Giuliani. The FBI were busy targeting Trump, after all. Hunter’s “legal woes” are only “a blow in a personal sense to his father”. Surely not because his father pops up a thousand times in the laptop in comprimising ways,

Hunter Biden’s legal woes will of course be a blow in a personal sense to his father and his family. But the ramifications go much further than that. Republicans have for some time known that the president’s son is a vulnerability. Exploiting that has the power not just to significantly rile up Joe Biden, but also to help distract from their own problems with Mr Trump’s legal jeopardies. Add to that the fact that most Democrats, when asked, are far from happy that Mr Biden is running for the White House again in 2024. Hunter seems like just another reason for some continuing to press for the 80-year-old president to step aside for the next generation.

But wait, this is not about Hunter, it’s about Trump. And it’s certainly not about Joe. Nothing Hunter did could possible be as grave as Trump’s actions. Why else would there be 91 charges against him?

All this means that the outcome of Hunter Biden’s case will play a significant part in what promises to be a turbulent election year. But Republicans face something of a dilemma. It’s true that the three gun-related charges are felonies rather than misdemeanours; and it’s true that further charges could come relating to Hunter Biden’s tax affairs and foreign dealings. But none of it currently quite rises to the scale and quantity of Donald Trump’s alleged crimes. So any attempt to weaponise Hunter Biden’s problems could simply invite the American people to compare and contrast. Also, as Democrats will no doubt continue to point out, Hunter Biden is not running for dog catcher, let alone to be President of the United States.

“After all, there is nothing in the Constitution about drug addicts being unable to bear arms.” Gotta love that line.

One intriguing aspect of Hunter Biden’s case is that his lawyers clearly believe the plea deal that broke down in July could still be resurrected – and that the recent expansion of Second Amendment rights by various courts could be an element in his defence. After all, there is nothing in the Constitution about drug addicts being unable to bear arms. That would be an extraordinary irony given where most Democrats stand on gun control.

“..seven months of existing investigations into Hunter Biden..” Again, the FBI has had the laptop for 5 years. What more can you say? Jim Jordan just yesterday in the House: “We have an investigation run by Mr. Weiss that not only had a sweetheart deal rejected, but according to The New York Times, there was an even sweeter earlier deal with Mr. Biden where he would not have to plead guilty to anything. Four and a half years and all that..”

Thursday’s indictment came just days after Kevin McCarthy, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, announced an impeachment inquiry into President Biden – a move dismissed as a political stunt by the White House. Mr McCarthy said there were “serious and credible allegations” into the family’s business dealings and President Biden’s conduct. And Republicans will hope this new inquiry implicates the president in the peddling of power and corruption. So far, however, seven months of existing investigations into Hunter Biden have produced snippets from former business partners, an FBI informant and a couple of IRS agents, but nothing that comes close to a real smoking gun.

The reason for the impeachment inquiry vs Joe Biden is not to get rid of him, or even “win a vote”, it’s to establish a record. The Senate would never agree to impeach him, just like it didn’t Donald Trump when the GOP had a majority. But the record is crucial. Pelosi and Schiff knew it, and now so does the GOP.

That may change when the subpoenas begin to fly, but the Republican majority in the House is so slim, that it is far from certain that Republicans would win an impeachment vote on the House floor, if it got that far. What is certain, is that the once-clear distinction between the political and legal systems has become increasingly blurred. And that’s a major problem, according to Randy Zelin, adjunct professor of law at Cornell Law School. “Somebody woke up one day and said, boy I have a new toy and that is called the federal criminal justice system, where I’m going to use the criminal system to punish people who don’t agree with my politics,” Prof Zelin told the BBC. “I think the sole influence here is that this country is being torn apart by this never-ending battle.”

This is how the media today wants you to see it. But where were they during the Steele dossier days? Or any of the other anti-Trump shenanigans? Remember, they never proved a single thing against him. They just “won” some votes in theaters where they had a majority. And now they’ve come up with 91 new charges in the theaters that the DOJ and FBI have been turned into. Vs zero for Joe Biden. And one puny one for Hunter. Hey, we have an election coming up.

I suggested recently that there wouldn’t be a US election in 2024. But trying to imagine what would happen if they attempted to have one, replete with Dominion machines and mail-in ballots, I’m starting to wonder if there will be a country left next year to hold an election in.

The two sides are so far apart (not really of course, they’re still neighbors, it’s all in the head), that they may as well live in different countries. And then one day they actually might. 1861 is not that long ago.

 

 

 

 

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Sep 212023
 
 September 21, 2023  Posted by at 9:07 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  58 Responses »


Willem de Kooning Gotham News 1955

 

The Question About Biden (Patrick Lawrence)
Jim Jordan: The Fix Is In (Kanekoa)
Feds Thwarted Probe Into ‘Criminal Violations’ In 2020 Biden Campaign (JTN)
Poland Announces It Will No Longer Arm Ukraine (ZH)
McCarthy Refuses To Guarantee $24 Billion For Zelensky (RT)
The ‘Kitchen Sink’ Is McCarthy’s Only Path To Avoid Shutdown (ZH)
Rand Paul To Hold Up Any Spending Stopgap That Includes Ukraine Funding (Hill)
Trump Silent On Peace Plan As Ukrainians Die – Zelensky (RT)
With Gonzalo Lira In Ukraine Prison, Billions More For Ukrainian ‘Freedom’ (BB)
Russian Announces Full Ceasefire Agreement For Nagorno-Karabakh (TASS)
Jacinda Ardern Calls on the United Nations to Crack Down on Free Speech
Putin Never Insults People: Peskov In Response To Biden (TASS)
DHS Is Grooming Americans to Report on Each Other (Whitehead)
The Bull Missed The Red Flag In The Russian Provincial Elections (Helmer)
MEP Delivers Damning Message to the Global Tyrants (VN)

 

 

 

 

She’s the best
https://twitter.com/i/status/1704320986135290064

 

 

 

 

Nap Larry Johnson

 

 

Nap Ritter

 

 

 

 

Watters

 

 

 

 

Dystopia

 

 

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

– H. L. Mencken

 

 

 

 

“Biden and his minders are not going to fight the impeachment process in committee rooms and courts because they cannot win on the evidentiary merits. They are going to fight this by mounting a propaganda op..”

The Question About Biden (Patrick Lawrence)

A friend and colleague wrote in an unusually sage commentary a couple of years ago that Ukraine would prove “NATO’s Waterloo.” He called the brewing conflict there “a debacle-in-waiting.” This was two months before the U.S. provoked the Russian intervention in February 2022. Now that is prescience. Ukraine, indeed, has revealed NATO somewhat in the way of the old pun: No action, talk only. As Scott Ritter argued in a recent speech, it now appears the alliance is incapable of waging war in Ukraine or anywhere else in Europe. But let’s set NATO’s surprising weakness aside for now and consider who, as the Ukrainian sinkhole widens and deepens, is tumbling fastest into it.

Here I offer a confession: I take pleasure, not at all perverse, in watching Joesph R. Biden, Jr. and those around him panic as the bill comes due for all those years of conniving with Ukrainian crooks and as the unforgivable folly of the war he started is now everywhere understood, even among those who continue in public to pretend otherwise. It is not yet possible to discern just how our burbling president will go down, but go down he will. Of this we can now be certain. The time of comeuppance is near. My question as of last week is this: Is the Biden regime’s whatever-it-takes, as- long-as-it-takes commitment to the war tied to his escalating vulnerability to charges of corruption dating to his years as Barack Obama’s vice-president, when he carried the Ukraine portfolio? Does Biden have a personal interest in prolonging this war, to put this question another way?

It took the House of Representatives nearly a year, but last Tuesday Kevin McCarthy, the U.S. House speaker, directed the chamber to open an impeachment inquiry into Biden’s evidently extravagant grifting and influence peddling in Ukraine and elsewhere. It is hard to believe the Democrats’ response to this development. The Democratic machine and its clerks in the press pretended for years there was nothing to allegations that Biden and his son Hunter were on the take from a Ukrainian oligarch, as well as various other business people in China, Russia and Central Asia. They have more recently pretended there is no credible evidence of misconduct, even as investigators sent piles of it to the House Oversight Committee.

And now they pretend the imminent inquiry is so hollow and silly it is not worth bothering about. John Fetterman, the Democratic senator from Pennsylvania, struck the new pose as soon as McCarthy announced the inquiry: “Oh, my God, really? Oh, my gosh, it’s devastating,” Fetterman mocked. “Oooh, don’t do it. Please don’t do it.” You are now on notice, readers: Biden and his minders are not going to fight the impeachment process in committee rooms and courts because they cannot win on the evidentiary merits. They are going to fight this by mounting a propaganda op that is daring even for the party that concocted and then sustained the Russiagate hoax for five years. Here is Peter Baker, The New York Times’s chief White House correspondent, last Thursday:

“Forget the weighty legal arguments over the meaning of high crimes and misdemeanors or the constitutional history of the removal process. Mr. Biden’s defense team has chosen to take on the Republican threat by convincing Americans that it is nothing more than rank partisanship driven by the radical wing of the opposition party.” The oafish Baker then elaborates the strategy: “The White House and its allies have gone on the offensive, dismissing the allegations against the president as baseless and debunked, attacking the investigators for distorting the evidence, issuing fund-raising appeals to financial supporters and pressuring the news media to frame the conflict on Mr. Biden’s terms.”

Read more …

X “thread”.

Jim Jordan: The Fix Is In (Kanekoa)

@Jim_Jordan: “The fix is in, even with a face-saving indictment last week of Hunter Biden, everyone knows the fix is in. For four and a half years, the Department of Justice has been investigating Mr. Biden. An investigation run by David Weiss that limited the number of witnesses agents could interview. An investigation that prohibited agents from referring to the President as the “Big Guy” in interviews. An investigation that curtailed attempts to interview Mr. Biden by giving his transition team a heads up. An investigation that notified Mr. Biden’s defense counsel about a pending search warrant. An investigation run by Mr. Weiss where they told Congress three different stories in 33 days.

They told this Committee on June 7, David Weiss said I have ultimate authority to determine when, where, and whether to bring charges. 23 days later, on June 30, he told this committee; actually, I can only bring charges in the District of Delaware. And then, to further confuse matters on July 10, he told Senator Graham, I have not sought Special Counsel status… An investigation run by Mr. Weiss that negotiated a plea deal that the Federal District Court declined to accept. A plea deal so ridiculous that the judge asked, “Is there any precedent for agreeing not to prosecute crimes that have nothing to do with the charges being diverted?” The DOJ lawyer responded, “I’m not aware of any, your Honor.”

A plea deal so ridiculous that the judge also asked, “Have you ever seen a diversion agreement where the agreement not to prosecute was so broad that it encompasses crimes in a different case?” The response from the DOJ lawyer? “No, Your Honor.” We have an investigation run by Mr. Weiss that not only had a sweetheart deal rejected, but according to The New York Times, there was an even sweeter earlier deal with Mr. Biden where he would not have to plead guilty to anything. Four and a half years and all that. And now we get a Special Counsel, and who does the Attorney General pick? David Weiss, the guy who let this all happen.” [“The one guy he knows will protect Joe Biden.”]

——-

The American administrative state is eliminating its primary opponent from a presidential race. At the same time, they run cover for the Biden family’s unregistered foreign lobbying, money laundering, and bribery operation that collected millions of dollars from Russian, Chinese, and Ukrainian oligarchs.

Read more …

“..you had this individual come in and cover Hunter Biden’s tax liability,” he added. “That’s kind of interesting. And then, was in fact that a contribution to Mr. Biden’s campaign when he ran for president?”

Feds Thwarted Probe Into ‘Criminal Violations’ In 2020 Biden Campaign (JTN)

The FBI and IRS probed allegations that Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign may have benefitted from “campaign finance criminal violations” by allowing a politically connected lawyer to help pay off Hunter Biden’s large tax debts but agents were blocked by federal prosecutors from further action, according to new information uncovered by congressional investigators. The previously unreported campaign finance inquiry was first alluded to in transcribed interviews by House investigators with two IRS agents and a retired FBI supervisor, and the allegations since have been augmented in recent weeks by new evidence uncovered by the House Ways and Means Committee, the House Judiciary Committee and the House Oversight Committee.

That evidence includes a case summary memo written by IRS Supervisory Criminal Investigative Agent Gary Shapley to his bosses dated May 3, 2021 in which he alleged that Lesley Wolf, a top prosecutor in the Hunter Biden case inside Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss’ office, waived agents off the campaign finance case. Shapley provided the information to Congress under the protections of whistleblower laws, and lawmakers voted the information to be public “This investigation has been hampered and slowed by claims of potential election meddling,” Shapley wrote in the memo, according to his now-public transcribed interview with House Ways and Means where he read verbatim a passage from the memo. “Through interviews and review of evidence obtained, it appears there may be campaign finance criminal violations.

“AUSA Wolf stated on the last prosecution team meeting that she did not want any of the agents to look into the allegation,” Shapley’s memo stated, according to his interview. “She cited a need to focus on the 2014 tax year, that we could not yet prove an allegation beyond a reasonable doubt, and that she does not want to include their Public Integrity Unit because they would take authority away from her. We do not agree with her obstruction on this matter.” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told Just the News on Tuesday evening that the campaign finance inquiry is a newer matter under investigation by his committee but it fits a pattern of other investigative avenues ranging from search warrants to interviews that were inexplicably turned down by prosecutors in the Hunter Biden case.

“We’re just getting into this issue and the concerns,” Jordan [said]. “But it wouldn’t surprise me if they were told to stand down because remember this investigation over a five-year timeframe was slow-walked.” “This is something that I think is a concern, because, you know, you had this individual come in and cover Hunter Biden’s tax liability,” he added. “That’s kind of interesting. And then, was in fact that a contribution to Mr. Biden’s campaign when he ran for president?”

Read more …

US next?

Poland Announces It Will No Longer Arm Ukraine (ZH)

The dam is breaking on unified Western support for Ukraine, and the timing couldn’t be worse for Zelensky, given tomorrow he’s expected to meet with President Biden at the White House. On Wednesday evening there is monumental news out of Poland which could potentially change the entire course of the war. “Poland will no longer arm Ukraine to focus on its own defense,” Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced just hours after Warsaw summoned Ukraine’s ambassador related to a fresh war of words and spat over blocked grain, according to the AFP. Warsaw has throughout more than a year-and-a-half of the Ukraine-Russia war been Kiev’s staunchest and most outspoken supporter. Will this massive and hugely significant about-face mark the beginning of the end? Are peace negotiations and ceding of territory in the Donbas inevitable at this point?

Within the last 48 hours relations between Poland and Ukraine quickly spiraled to their lowest point since the Russian invasion, and it is directly related to Warsaw leading a handful of EU countries to extend a grain export ban on Ukraine, amid continuing anger and outrage from Polish farmers who are suffering due to their country being flooded with cheap Ukrainian wheat. Crucially, Poland will hold parliamentary elections on Oct.15. The prior atmosphere of enthusiastic pro-Kiev rhetoric has drastically changed, now with comparisons likening Ukraine to a “drowning man”. As The Associated Press explains:

“Polish leaders have compared Ukraine to a drowning person hurting his helper and threatened to expand a ban on food products from the war-torn country. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggested that EU allies that are prohibiting imports of his nation’s grain are helping Russia. Now, Polish officials, who are trying to win parliamentary elections next month with help from farmers’ votes, are expressing dismay over some of Ukraine’s latest moves, including a World Trade Organization complaint over bans on Ukrainian grain from Poland and two other EU countries.” In surprisingly blunt and terse words given to reporters on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Polish President Andrzej Duda said on Tuesday: “Ukraine is behaving like a drowning person clinging to anything available.”

He then said, “A drowning person is extremely dangerous, capable of pulling you down to the depths & simply drown the rescuer.” Given Ukraine’s battlefield losses and as it’s currently bogged down in a failing counteroffensive, the words no doubt stung. But as The Hill notes further of the domestic political context in Poland: Public sentiment around the issue, however, has started to deteriorate, putting the ruling party in a difficult position ahead of a close October election. The far-right Confederation party is hoping to capitalize on the waning support in the country. Reuters reported that a recent poll showed support for Ukrainian refugees fell from 91 percent when the war started to just 69 percent recently. The same survey showed a quarter of Poles are against supporting refugees, compared to 4 percent in early 2022.

In response to the grain ban, Zelensky during his UN speech had condemned the “alarming” behavior of allies regarding the import ban, but without naming Poland specifically. Further, Kiev has announced plans to sue Warsaw in the World Trade Organization while also holding out the possibility of its own embargo on Polish foodstuffs, including onions, tomatoes, cabbage, and apples. Again, all of this amounts to a full-blown diplomatic crisis for Zelensky which couldn’t come at a worse time, as he’s in D.C.

Read more …

“..Any money we give to Ukraine, we’re borrowing from our future.” “It’s not a good time for [Zelensky] to be here, quite frankly..”

McCarthy Refuses To Guarantee $24 Billion For Zelensky (RT)

US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has refused to commit another $24 billion to Ukraine, telling reporters that he “has questions” for Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky first. With American military aid to Kiev dried up, disagreement on authorizing another funding package threatens to grind Washington to a halt. Zelensky is due to meet with lawmakers on Capitol Hill during a visit to Washington on Thursday. Ahead of the meeting, McCarthy was asked on Tuesday whether he would pledge $24 billion in military and economic aid to the Ukrainian president, as US President Joe Biden has requested. “Is Zelensky elected to Congress?”McCarthy responded. “Is he our president? I don’t think I have to commit anything and I think I have questions for him.”

“Where’s the accountability on the money we’ve already spent?” the Republican leader continued. “What is the plan for victory? I think that’s what the American public wants to know.” In the US Senate, the top Republican and Democrat leaders – Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer – want the $24 billion attached to a wider funding bill that must be passed before the end of the month to keep the government running. McCarthy wants any money for Ukraine to be discussed as a standalone bill, while a small group of hardline conservatives in the House want the broad funding bill replaced with individual bills for individual government agencies. This group, dubbed the ‘Freedom Caucus’, backed McCarthy’s speakership last year in exchange for the right to remove him from the position.

Most members of the ‘Freedom Caucus’ are politically aligned with former President Donald Trump, and oppose further US aid to Ukraine. “There’s no money in the House right now for Ukraine. It’s not there,” Rep. Byron Donalds told The Recount on Tuesday. “To be blunt, we’re running a $2 trillion deficit. Any money we give to Ukraine, we’re borrowing from our future.” “It’s not a good time for [Zelensky] to be here, quite frankly,” Donalds added. The US has allocated a total of $113 billion in aid to Ukraine since Russia launched its military operation last February, including more than $43 billion worth of arms, ammunition, and other military equipment.

Read more …

“..the bill will then head to the Senate, where they’ll undoubtedly strip out key Republican demands, and send a revised bill back to McCarthy that will likely contain billions of dollars for Ukraine..”

The ‘Kitchen Sink’ Is McCarthy’s Only Path To Avoid Shutdown (ZH)

With a shutdown looming in just over a week, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has backed himself into a corner. On Tuesday, House Republicans were forced to cancel a procedural vote for a 30-day stopgap funding measure (Continuing Resolution) to keep the government’s lights on beyond Sept. 30. Hours later, five GOP lawmakers crossed the aisle to vote with Democrats to bring down the rule for the Pentagon’s spending bill. As Punchbowl News puts it: “Tuesday was a bad day for McCarthy and House Republicans.” The problem for Kevin is that he needs votes from members of the Freedom Caucus, who are demanding that the CR be spliced up so that it doesn’t fund ‘the election interference of Jack Smith,’ according to Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL).

Gaetz also wants McCarthy to sign a subpoena to better investigation Hunter Biden’s alleged “high crimes and misdemeanors,” – with the Florida rep going so far as to draft said subpoena for McCarthy to sign. McCarthy can also throw a Hail Mary and pander to Democrats for the votes he needs to pass the CR, however doing so would likely seal his fate over a looming threat by Gaetz and others to remove him from his post. The former Politico journalists at Punchbowl News – who have an uncanny read on inside baseball on the Hill, say that McCarthy’s only solution here is to cave to the Freedom Caucus (which might still screw him!) with a “kitchen sink” approach of acquiescing to all of their demands. McCarthy needs to take all of the conservatives’ demands and lump them together into one 30-day funding bill. Ignore how far-fetched or illogical these proposals are and accept what they represent — a means to an end. -Punchbowl News

Freedom Caucus member Ralph Norman (R-SC) told the outlet that he’d vote for the CR if McCarthy will commit to a $1.47 trillion discretionary spending cap, and a schedule for the 11 remaining FY2024 appropriations bills during the 30 days to which the CR applies. But the pain isn’t over for McCarthy – even if he bends the knee and Freedom Caucus members agree to pass it, the bill will then head to the Senate, where they’ll undoubtedly strip out key Republican demands, and send a revised bill back to McCarthy that will likely contain billions of dollars for Ukraine. McCarthy will then need to sell the CR back to House Republicans, who will either need to accept the reality of a divided government to avert a shutdown, or not. Oh, and the Freedom Caucus might still dick him…

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“..I will not consent to expedited passage of any spending measure that provides any more U.S. aid to Ukraine..”

Rand Paul To Hold Up Any Spending Stopgap That Includes Ukraine Funding (Hill)

Conservative Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) announced Wednesday he will hold up any funding bill to keep the government open past Sept. 30 if it includes funding for the war in Ukraine. Today I’m putting congressional leadership & @POTUS on notice that I will oppose any effort to hold the federal government hostage for Ukraine funding. I will not consent to expedited passage of any spending measure that provides any more U.S. aid to Ukraine,” Paul wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. That means if Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) wants to add Ukraine money to a stopgap measure to fund federal departments and agencies, he would have to go through the time-consuming process of filing cloture and scheduling a vote to end debate on the bill, which would take a few days.

The country risks a shutdown if Congress doesn’t pass what’s known as a continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government open past Sept. 30. The problem Schumer faces is that Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) hasn’t been able to muster up enough votes in the House to pass a CR and send it to the Senate. The impasse in the House is holding up action in the Senate, giving Paul leverage to threaten Ukraine funding. President Biden has requested $24 billion in security and humanitarian aid for Ukraine. Senators are scheduled to receive a classified briefing on Ukraine at 5 p.m. Wednesday ahead of a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky scheduled for 10 a.m. Thursday in the Old Senate Chamber. Schumer on Tuesday declined to say whether he would add Ukraine funding and disaster assistance to the continuing resolution but observed the package would need support from Democrats and Republicans.

“We’d like to work on a bipartisan basis on the CR with the Republicans. We’ve gotten indications that they want to do that. We’ve done it very successfully on the appropriations process and hopefully we can come together bipartisan here as well,” he said. Schumer criticized House Republicans on Tuesday for reaching a deal on a continuing resolution that didn’t include Ukraine or disaster relief money. The Democratic leader could attempt to pass the continuing resolution through the Senate first by using a legislative vehicle passed earlier this year in the House, but he hasn’t made a decision on that yet. “Our first job is to get the House to pass something. We’ll see if they can but we need a bipartisan bill in each body,” Schumer said.

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You’re sending them out to die, not Trump.

Trump Silent On Peace Plan As Ukrainians Die – Zelensky (RT)

If former US President Donald Trump actually believes that his claimed plan to resolve the Ukraine crisis in 24 hours is feasible, he should present it to the world rather than let hostilities continue at the cost of Ukrainian lives, President Vladimir Zelensky has said. Trump has repeatedly claimed that he would be able to swiftly resolve the conflict by striking a “fair deal.” He has said that his approach would involve pressuring both Russia and Ukraine into making concessions. Zelensky was asked about the idea by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer during an interview on Tuesday. “If he has this plan, why be afraid and wait?” he asked in Ukrainian, before switching to English. “If he has some smart idea, he could share it with us.”

“He can publicly share his idea now, not waste time, not to lose people, and say: ‘My formula is to stop the war and stop all this tragedy and stop Russian aggression’,” the Ukrainian president continued. Zelensky made clear that he would reject any Trump plan involving territorial concessions by Ukraine or one that would not end with Russian troops ousted from “our land.” “Otherwise, he is not presenting the global idea of peace. So [if] the idea is how to take the part of our territory and to give it to Putin, that is not the peace formula.” Zelensky suggested that Trump himself may not be the person who formulated his plan. He urged the US as a country to contemplate what it would “give to Putin from your territories” in exchange for Russia not using nuclear weapons.

Moscow considers the conflict in Ukraine to be part of a Western proxy war against Russia. In his public speeches, the Russian president has stated that his government would not hesitate to use all the weapons in its arsenal, in accordance with the nation’s military doctrine. Under the document, the nuclear option is reserved for contingencies where the existence of Russia is at stake. Putin has said he considers the risks posed by the Ukraine conflict are nowhere near that threshold. Zelensky arrived in the US on Monday to participate in the UN General Assembly and meet senior US officials. He seeks to convince them to maintain the flow of military aid to his country and provide more advanced weapons from the Pentagon’s stockpiles.

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What is Biden doing to free him?

With Gonzalo Lira In Ukraine Prison, Billions More For Ukrainian ‘Freedom’ (BB)

The Biden administration is asking Congress to approve another $24 billion for Ukraine for now through the end of this year, which would add to the $113 billion that Congress has committed to the country since its war with Russia began in February of last year. President Biden on Tuesday at the United Nations argued that investment in Ukraine was an investment in “the future of every country that seeks a world governed by basic rules.” However, the administration has been much less vocal about Ukraine potentially violating the rights of an American journalist who is currently detained in Ukraine for his reporting; and in a speech at the U.N. almost entirely devoted to Ukraine, the status of Gonzalo Lira was not mentioned once by Biden.

Lira, a dual citizen of the United States and Chile who was living in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv at the time of the Russian invasion, is reportedly facing between five to eight years in prison under Ukraine’s wartime propaganda laws. The American citizen journalist was initially arrested in May of this year on suspicion of producing pro-Russian propaganda on his YouTube channel, where he questioned the narratives around the war presented in the legacy media and from the Zelensky government, including suggesting that Moscow was provoked into invading by the Ukrainian government and the expansion east of the American-led NATO military alliance.

In July of this year, Lira posted messages on Twitter and YouTube claiming that he was going to try to cross the Ukrainian border into Hungary to claim asylum after being released from prison on bail. He has not posted on either platform since. In his final video message, Lira claimed that if he did not post after his attempt to cross the border, it would mean that he had been arrested again by the Ukrainian authorities. Lira said that in such an event, he would “die in prison” and begged the public to “raise a ruckus” about his arrest. The former red pill-style dating coach turned citizen journalist has maintained that he merely discussed publicly available information about the war. “The American State Department knows exactly who I am and the fate that awaits me,” he said before attempting to cross the border.

Read more …

Not going smoothly. Armenia=US here.

Russian Announces Full Ceasefire Agreement For Nagorno-Karabakh (TASS)

A full ceasefire agreement between Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh has been reached through the mediation of Russian peacekeepers, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement. “A ceasefire agreement between the Azerbaijani side and representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh has been reached through the mediation of the command for Russia’s peacekeeping mission,” the statement reads. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, “the agreement will be implemented in coordination with the command for the Russian peacekeeping contingent.” The ministry said earlier that Russian peacekeeping forces in Nagorno-Karabakh continued to perform their mission amid rising tensions, providing all possible assistance to civilians. According to the ministry, a total of 2,261 civilians, including 1,049 children, are currently staying at the peacekeepers’ base camp.

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New Zealand should take her to court.

Jacinda Ardern Calls on the United Nations to Crack Down on Free Speech

Jacinda Ardern may no longer be Prime Minister of New Zealand, but she was back at the United Nations continuing her call for international censorship. Ardern is now one of the leading anti-free speech figures in the world and continues to draw support from political and academic establishments. In her latest attack on free speech, Ardean declared free speech as a virtual weapon of war. She is demanding that the world join her in battling free speech as part of its own war against “misinformation” and “disinformation.” Her views, of course, were not only enthusiastically embraced by authoritarian countries, but the government and academic elite. In her speech, she notes that we cannot allow free speech to get in the way of fighting things like climate change.

She notes that they cannot win the war on climate change if people do not believe them about the underlying problem. The solution is to silence those with opposing views. It is that simple. While some of us have denounced her views as an attack on free expression, Harvard rushed to give her not one but two fellowships. While the free speech community denounced her for unrelenting attacks on this human right, Harvard praised her for “strong and empathetic political leadership” and specifically enlisted her to help “improve content standards and platform accountability for extremist content online.” I actually have no objection to the inclusion of Ardern as a Harvard fellow. She is a former world leader who is leading the movement against free speech. It is a view that students should consider in looking at these controversies.

However, Harvard has heralded her views with no acknowledgment of her extreme antagonism toward free speech principles. There is also little countervailing balance at the school with fellows supporting free speech as a human right. Rather, Harvard (which ranks dead last on the recent free speech survey) has become a virtual clearinghouse for anti-free speech academics and advocates. Free speech is now commonly treated on campuses as harmful. Rather than the right that defines us, it is treated as an existential threat. What is so chilling is to hear Ardean express her fealty to free speech as she calls on the nations of the world to severely curtail it to prevent people from undermining their policies and priorities. She remains the “empathetic” face of raw censorship and intolerance. She is now the virtual ambassador-at-large for global speech regulation and criminalization.

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True.

Putin Never Insults People: Peskov In Response To Biden (TASS)

Russian President Vladimir Putin never allows himself to stoop to insults, Kremlin Dmitry Peskov said when asked about the chances of a stern response to US President Joe Biden who had described Putin as a “dictator.” “You know that our president never stoops to this – to the level of personal insults against his colleagues. He certainly has his own opinion about this style of rhetoric. But the president, I repeat again, has never stooped to this and will not do so,” Peskov said. According to the spokesman, what is most important is that Putin is supported by the overwhelming majority of Russians, as has been confirmed more than once during presidential elections.

“In his entire career as a politician, President Biden has never once garnered the same level of support as President Putin. This is what he should probably strive for,” Peskov said. He said Biden faces “a very, very difficult election.” “We understand that the US is now actively clearing the electoral field of undesirable competition. But we have our own concerns, which we will be dealing with,” the spokesman said.

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“See Something, Say Something”

DHS Is Grooming Americans to Report on Each Other (Whitehead)

Are you among the 41% of Americans who regularly attend church or some other religious service? Do you believe the economy is about to collapse and the government will soon declare martial law? Do you display an unusual number of political and/or ideological bumper stickers on your car? Are you among the 44% of Americans who live in a household with a gun? If so, are you concerned that the government may be plotting to confiscate your firearms? If you answered yes to any of the above questions, you may be an anti-government extremist (a.k.a. domestic terrorist) in the eyes of the government and flagged for heightened surveillance and preemptive intervention. Let that sink in a moment.

If you believe in and exercise your rights under the Constitution (namely, your right to speak freely, worship freely, associate with like-minded individuals who share your political views, criticize the government, own a weapon, demand a warrant before being questioned or searched, or any other activity viewed as potentially anti-government, racist, bigoted, anarchic or sovereign), you have just been promoted to the top of the government’s terrorism watch list. I assure you I’m not making this stuff up. So what is the government doing about these so-called American “extremists”? The government is grooming the American people to spy on each other as part of its Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships, or CP3 program.

According to journalist Leo Hohmann, the government is handing out $20 million in grants to police, mental health networks, universities, churches and school districts to enlist their help in identifying Americans who might be political dissidents or potential “extremists.” As Hohmann explains, “Whether it’s COVID and vaccines, the war in Ukraine, immigration, the Second Amendment, LGBTQ ideology and child-gender confusion, the integrity of our elections, or the issue of protecting life in the womb, you are no longer allowed to hold dissenting opinions and voice them publicly in America. If you do, your own government will take note and consider you a potential ‘violent extremist’ and terrorist.” Cue the dawning of the Snitch State. This new era of snitch surveillance is the lovechild of the government’s post-9/11 “See Something, Say Something” programs combined with the self-righteousness of a politically correct, hyper-vigilant, technologically-wired age.

For more than two decades, the Department of Homeland Security has plastered its “See Something, Say Something” campaign on the walls of metro stations, on billboards, on coffee cup sleeves, at the Super Bowl, even on television monitors in the Statue of Liberty. Colleges, universities and even football teams and sporting arenas have lined up for grants to participate in the program. The government has even designated September 25 as National “If You See Something, Say Something” Awareness Day. If you see something suspicious, says the DHS, say something about it to the police, call it in to a government hotline, or report it using a convenient app on your smart phone. This DHS slogan is nothing more than the government’s way of indoctrinating “we the people” into the mindset that we’re an extension of the government and, as such, have a patriotic duty to be suspicious of, spy on, and turn in our fellow citizens. This is what is commonly referred to as community policing.

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“..of all the twenty leading countries in the world, only we have a flat tax scale..”

The Bull Missed The Red Flag In The Russian Provincial Elections (Helmer)

Like men, bulls grow less intelligent, more stubborn and miscalculating with age. This is also a problem for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) whose leader, Gennady Zyuganov, has recently turned 79 years of age. He is compos mentis compared to the similarly aged leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties in the White House and US Congress. But that’s not saying much – not enough to have persuaded Russian voters to support the KPRF candidates in the regional, gubernatorial, and mayoral elections which were held across the country between September 8 and 10. [..] Zyuganov insists the KPRF still leads the opposition in the country. “We need to realise that this war has been declared against the entire Russian world, our civilisation,” Zyuganov says in an interview published on the party website on Monday.

“So we have only one way out — to win a complete and unconditional victory. But to do this, it is necessary to correctly assess the current situation, understand our strengths and weaknesses — and resolutely go on the offensive. It is necessary to unite society as much as possible, to mobilise resources, to master all the most advanced and freshest. And to be able to do it in conditions of unprecedented sanctions.” “Putin has changed his strategy four times over the past twenty years. He came to power after the ‘dashing 1990s’, during which more than 80,000 enterprises were destroyed and sold off, citizens’ savings were blown to the wind, and the Soviet government was shot. In the 1990s, the country turned itself into Uncle Sam’s wagging tail and decided to turn into an oil and gas pipe, a quarry, and a sawmill. But Putin realised it was necessary to change the strategy… But the remnants of the Yeltsin era [remain] in power. They still occupy many offices in the Kremlin and the government…”

“Putin made a very interesting and informative speech at the Fareastern Forum. But I would like to pay special attention to the part of his speech that concerned tax legislation. The oligarchy breathed a sigh of relief — the president says we will not change the situation with taxes. But of all the twenty leading countries in the world, only we have a flat tax scale, in which the same percentage of income is collected from both the poor and the leading rich! This is absolutely unfair and directly contradicts the interests of the state. Thanks to this policy, the oligarchs do not pay normal taxes…They continue to plunder the country at an unprecedented pace. In 2022 alone, $261 billion was transferred from Russia abroad. The total capital of our 25 richest oligarchs has already exceeded $300 billion. This is more than the entire Russian budget! And all this happens in the conditions of the special military operation, when help, support, and compassion are needed! When maximum consolidation and cohesion is needed!”

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German MEP Christine Anderson.

MEP Delivers Damning Message to the Global Tyrants (VN)

“We just need to find a way to wake the people up. Because the point is simply this: it comes down to a choice. It’s either freedom, democracy, and the rule of law — or enslavement. “There is no such thing in between. There is no such thing as a little freedom, a little democracy, a little rule of law, just as there is no such thing as a little enslavement. So that’s the choice. It comes down to – it’s either the globalitarian misanthropists or the people. It comes down to – it’s either us or them. And that’s, I think, what this really is all about. “Now, when my colleagues and I were elected to this parliament, there was no question about it. We were on the side of the people because the people actually pay us to act in their best interests. That’s our job.

And once again, I will say to every single elected representative around the world, to every single member in every elected government around the world, if you do not unequivocally stand with the people and serve in their best interests, act in their best interests, you have no place in any parliament or in any government. You belong behind bars. You may even rot in hell for all I care at this point because that’s exactly what you deserve if you sell out the people.” Now, I would like to make a promise to the people, and I’m pretty sure I can speak or speak on behalf of my colleagues. We will continue to stand with you, the people. We will continue to fight for freedom, democracy, and the rule of law. We will not shut up, and we will not stop going after those despicable globalitarian misanthropists.

“But we would also like to have you make a promise to us. You may have heard it’s all coming back. The first country is already starting [to talk about] mask mandates in Israel. They’re already imposing it. I’ve heard of a few universities in the United States. They’re already bringing it all back. And I would really like for you, the people, to not go along. Simply say no! They want you to wear a mask; say no. They want you to put in another mRNA shot; say no. They want to impose a curfew on you; say no. That’s really all you have to do. “And it might not be or might sound a little hard, but it’s actually not that hard. Because once you have made it clear to them that you will no longer go along, once you’ve let them know, they cannot scare you anymore. Because as long as you are afraid of what they might do if you don’t comply, they have power over you.

Take the power away from them! Simply say no. Once you do that, they don’t have power over you anymore. You will feel so free. Simply say no. “And considering what we’ve heard today, and considering what we’ve seen in the last three years. Considering what we know they want to implement, heck, you might even be well within your right to tell them to screw themselves and go to hell! That’s where they belong. What will you get out of that? I can tell you. Once you’ve done that, once you’ve told them to just go to hell, they no longer have power over you. You will have an incredible feeling — kind of like a sensation of freedom will swap through your body. I promise you will feel so relieved. “And this is the state of mind that I would ask all of you to get to. Simply don’t let them grind you down anymore. You are worth it. You are deserving of just standing up for yourselves. And tell them all to go to hell. Thank you very much.”

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Cluster B

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elephant electric fence

 

 

Baby dog
https://twitter.com/i/status/1704369650379747821

 

 

Snacks

 

 

Sinead

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Sep 202023
 
 September 20, 2023  Posted by at 8:52 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  45 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Femme 1930

 

We Can No Longer Hide the Truth About the Russia-Ukraine War (Newsweek)
NYT Exposes Zelensky Lie About Donbass Missile Strike (RT)
NYT Spreading ‘Conspiracy Theories’ On Ukrainian Missile Strike – Podoliak (RT)
Zelensky’s US Visit a ‘Dog & Pony Show’ to Plug Cracks in Ukraine Support (Sp.)
EU Seeking Something Russian To Sanction – Bloomberg (RT)
Russia, North Korea Stage ‘Strategic Coup’ Against Western Hegemony (Pepe Escobar)
Biden Repeats ‘Unforgivable’ Remark About Putin (RT)
Putin Behind EU Migrant Crisis – Polish Diplomat (RT)
Kremlin Calls on Armenia and Azerbaijan to Adhere to Trilateral Agreements (Sp.)
The West Destroyed Africa, Eurasia Will Revive It (Ehret)
California Lawmakers Push for Ruling on Booting Trump From State Primary Ballot (Sp.)
House Republicans Set Date for 1st Biden Impeachment Hearing (ET)
McCarthy Delays Vote on 30-Day Funding Resolution as Gov’t Shutdown Nears (Sp.)
COVID-19 Vaccines Revealed as ‘Neither Safe, Nor Effective’: Watchdog (ET)

 

 

 

 

RFK The Wages of War

 

 

ComicDaveSmith

 

 

 

 

Brand voting machines

Russell

 

 

 

 

Aaron Siri

 

 

 

 

In the same day, two US MSM publications, Newsweek and NYT, go against what has so far been the official view on Ukraine. As Zelensky is in Washington/NYC. That can’t be a coincidence.

First, a Newsweek piece authored by “Daniel L. Davis , Senior Fellow, Defense Priorities”. Apart from admitting that Ukraine is screwed, he has some numbers that made me think:

“Ukraine was reported to have lost 17,500 troops in the first year of the war..”

That appears to be a official US number. Col. Macgregor estimated some 20x more for the first year. Then came the “spring offensive”:

“.. it is presently assessed to have lost a breathtakingly high 50,000 additional deaths, for a total of 70,000 dead and 120,000 wounded..”

So in 3 months, they had 3 times more deaths than in the entire first year, which included the Bakhmut meat grinder. And you think: maybe he just doesn’t know, this “senior fellow”. But then he comes with:

“Rather than repeating over the next year and a half what has already not worked—potentially costing Ukraine yet additional hundreds of thousands of losses..”

And I thought: he does know. He goes from “breathtakingly high 50,000 additional deaths” to “additional hundreds of thousands of losses”. It’s in the way he phrases it.

We Can No Longer Hide the Truth About the Russia-Ukraine War (Newsweek)

As leading American politicians, generals, and pundits continue advocating for open-ended support to Kyiv in their war against Russia, a sober, accurate analysis of Ukraine’s nearly completed summer offensive reveals that the heroic sacrifice Ukraine continues to make is producing little to no meaningful progress toward the objective of evicting Russia from Ukraine’s territory. Washington should instead employ a necessary course correction and form a new policy, based on the harsh, ground-truth combat realities in Ukraine. Revising the objectives would give Washington and Kyiv a chance to preserve Ukrainian lives and American interests. Washington’s current policies do neither. Despite great hopes for a rapid success, Ukraine’s months-in-the-making offensive has sputtered from the outset.

That shouldn’t have surprised anyone in the White House. On April 5, two months before the start of the offensive, I wrote that “Zelensky’s troops—with little to no air power and a dearth in artillery ammunition—could suffer egregious casualties while gaining little.” Five days later, The Washington Post revealed the contents of a leaked Top Secret U.S. intelligence assessment which likewise predicted the Ukrainian offensive would probably fall “well short” of expectations, and that “enduring Ukrainian deficiencies in training and munitions supplies probably will strain progress and exacerbate casualties during the offensive.” Total Ukrainian deaths in the war at that point were estimated to be as low as 17,500. About a month before the start of the offensive, I again warned that the odds were stacked heavily against Kyiv.

To succeed, I explained, Ukraine would “have to conduct the most difficult task in modern land warfare: a combined arms operation into the teeth of a dug-in enemy force that is prepared for an attack,” complicated by the shortage of artillery ammunition along with “limited airpower and minimal air defense.” Nevertheless, on the eve of battle, some Western analysts remained optimistic. Once the offensive began on June 5, however, that optimism quickly evaporated. In the first two weeks of the fighting, Ukraine’s spearhead brigades suffered massive losses in armor and personnel while capturing virtually no territory. By the end of the third week, they had lost an estimated fifth of their strike force, requiring Ukraine to dramatically change tactics. Instead of leading with tanks and other armored vehicles (which were predictably getting chewed up in minefields and by Russian anti-tank missiles and artillery shells), Ukraine moved to an infantry-centric attack system.

While this change did result in producing incremental gains, the cost was exorbitant. On Aug. 29, the BBC reported that new leaked reports suggested Ukrainian battle deaths exploded since the offensive started. Whereas Ukraine was reported to have lost 17,500 troops in the first year of the war, it is presently assessed to have lost a breathtakingly high 50,000 additional deaths, for a total of 70,000 dead and 120,000 wounded. If it wasn’t clear to Washington before the offensive started that the fundamentals of combat operations and principles of war indicated Ukraine would likely fail, it should now be crystal clear. Although Ukraine appears to have finally penetrated the first line of Russia’s main defense, the most difficult part of Russia’s defensive system has yet to be overcome: the hundreds of kilometers of dragon’s teeth, tank ditches, and yet more vast minefields.

It is unclear at this point whether Ukraine has enough striking power remaining in its offensive forces to reach, much less penetrate, Russia’s second main line—beyond which is a third main line followed by a fortress-defense at Tokmak, which is still 75 road kilometers from the Azov coast. Given these realities, the best Ukraine can likely do for the rest of the year is to hold what they have and prevent the possibility of losing more territory to a potential Russian counteroffensive this fall. [..] Rather than repeating over the next year and a half what has already not worked—potentially costing Ukraine yet additional hundreds of thousands of losses—it’s time to try something that has a chance to succeed. In other words, it’s time to acknowledge objective reality and employ policies that can work.

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Here’s the New York Times welcoming gift to Zelensky. While he’s at the United Nations, the paper calls him a liar, to his face.

I’ve seen quite a few comments on this, and not one ponders that perhaps this was a deliberate Ukraine attack. Would that be so far-fetched?

NYT Exposes Zelensky Lie About Donbass Missile Strike (RT)

A New York Times investigation revealed on Monday that Ukrainian forces were mostly likely responsible for a deadly missile strike at a market, which happened the same day US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited the country. The incident on September 6 in the Kiev-controlled Donbass city of Konstantinovka killed at least 15 civilians and injured scores of others. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky immediately accused Russia of launching the strike and claimed that any “attempts to deal with anything Russian” meant turning a blind eye to “the audacity of evil.” Many Western media outlets and some governments endorsed his statement.

The NYT said evidence pointed to a “tragic mishap” involving a Ukrainian anti-air Buk missile that apparently veered off course. The newspaper analyzed missile fragments, satellite imagery, witness accounts, and social media posts to come to the conclusion. It noted that Ukrainian authorities tried to prevent journalists from accessing the impact site. Some people unsympathetic to the Russian cause, including Bild journalist Julian Ropcke and the open-source intelligence analysis group CIT suggested Kiev’s responsibility shortly after the incident. The Ukrainian government indicated that it considered Russian guilt to be beyond any doubt.

“What would an investigation be needed for, if all is obvious for us?” Zelensky’s senior aide Mikhail Podoliak told the media at the time. He called any other scenario, including a Ukrainian error, “ridiculous.” The missile was apparently one of the two fired by Ukrainian forces from the outskirts of the town of Druzhkovka some 15 km to the northwest of Konstantinovka, NYT reported. The projectile was likely a 9M38 model used by the Buk system, the newspaper concluded based on forensic evidence. Considering the short distance from the presumed launch point, it probably crashed with much of its fuel unspent, and the subsequent explosion left scorch marks at the scene.

Russian Ambassador to the UN Vassily Nebenzia mentioned the incident in a speech last week, suggesting that Kiev may have orchestrated it deliberately to coincide with Blinken’s visit. He added that as the evidence clearly contradicts Zelensky’s accusation, “the Kiev regime and its sponsors are trying to hush up this story and keep it off radar.” At least one Kiev official has been forced to resign after attributing a strike to Ukrainian forces that his government had pinned on Russia. Aleksey Arestovich quit his post as an advisor to the president in January, amid pressure over an interview in which he suggested that an apartment block in the city of Dnepr was hit by a Ukrainian interceptor rather than a Russian cruise missile. The Russian military has maintained since the start of the conflict that it only targets military objectives in its operations.

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“What would an investigation be needed for, if all is obvious for us?”

NYT Spreading ‘Conspiracy Theories’ On Ukrainian Missile Strike – Podoliak (RT)

Claims that Ukraine was responsible for killing at least 15 civilians in a missile strike on a Donbass market are “conspiracy theories,” Mikhail Podoliak, a top adviser to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, has declared. The New York Times has suggested that the missile involved was Ukrainian, not Russian. “No doubt, the appearance of articles in foreign media with doubts about Russia’s involvement in the attack on Konstantinovka entail the growth of conspiracy theories,” Podoliak wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday. Promising that the incident would be investigated by Ukrainian authorities, Podoliak added that “society will surely receive an answer to the question of what exactly happened in Kostiantynivka, as in the thousands of other instances of Russian strikes on our country as part of an unprovoked war.”

The strike took place on September 6, while US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was visiting Kiev. A missile struck a market in the Kiev-controlled Donbass city of Konstantinovka, killing 15 civilians and injuring scores of others. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky immediately accused Russia of launching the strike and claimed that any “attempts to deal with anything Russian” meant turning a blind eye to “the audacity of evil.” Although many Western media outlets and some governments endorsed his statement, doubt soon crept in. The New York Times reported on Monday that evidence from the scene pointed to a “tragic mishap”involving a Ukrainian anti-air Buk missile.

The newspaper analyzed missile fragments, satellite imagery, witness accounts, and social media posts to come to the conclusion, and noted that Ukrainian authorities tried to prevent journalists from accessing the impact site. At the time, Podoliak ridiculed the notion of investigating the strike.“What would an investigation be needed for, if all is obvious for us?” he said. In his post on Monday, the official insisted that Ukraine “exclusively conducts defensive actions, defending itself and its territories.”

However, Ukrainian forces have fired missiles at civilian targets before. In addition to its regular shelling of the Donetsk People’s Republic since 2014, Ukrainian forces have used Western-provided missiles to strike the cities of Donetsk and Lugansk, and repeatedly struck Donetsk with cluster munitions and aerially-dispersed landmines. Last March, a Ukrainian Tochka-Umissile was allegedly fired at a residential area of Donetsk, killing at least 20 people after it was downed by Russian air defense systems. Despite evidence from the ground showing the missile was Ukrainian in origin, Zelensky nevertheless blamed Russia for attacking its own people, insisting it was “unmistakably a Russian rocket” and that “there’s no point talking about it.”

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“..you have this guy Zelensky, who’s billed as Mother Theresa… or reincarnation of Winston Churchill…And we’re learning more and more that this guy is a corrupt autocrat… He basically brought his own country to ruin, and he’s continuously begging for more and more weapons..”

Zelensky’s US Visit a ‘Dog & Pony Show’ to Plug Cracks in Ukraine Support (Sp.)

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is foraying to the United States for the second time since Russia’s special operation began, having last been there in December 2022. Zelensky was offered a hero’s welcome at the time, as he addressed Congress touting Kiev’s battlefield “successes” while angling for continued Western aid. But roll the clock forward, and “take two” of the Zelensky “show” now comes against a much-changed backdrop: the overly heralded Ukraine counteroffensive “debacle,” huge losses in manpower and destroyed NATO-gifted weaponry, and an ever-stronger chorus of voices among Republican lawmakers against sending more money down the Ukraine sinkhole. What kind of change in tone and rhetoric can we expect from the leader of the Kiev regime as he attends the UN General Assembly in New York, and meets with congressional leaders and President Joe Biden in Washington?

“It’s going to be an extremely difficult visit for Zelensky,” Daniel McAdams, executive director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, told Sputnik. “He [Zelensky] was hailed as the conquering hero… He was lionized in Congress… He gave a speech… He handed a flag to the vice president and then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi,” recalled Daniel McAdams, adding that the Ukrainian president had vowed “Bakhmut [Artemovsk] would be a turning point in the war.” “He was right about that, but not in the way he expected. No, it’s a very, very different world now,” said the pundit. “Antony Blinken was just out there [and] he gave him a heads up as to what to expect. And I think you can tell by his [Ukrainian president’s] subsequent interview in The Economist, where Zelensky was very glum and very dark, and he said something like, ‘Well, all of these leaders say that they support us, but when I look in their eyes, I can tell they’re not telling the truth…’ So it’s going to be an extremely difficult visit from Zelensky to New York in Washington,” Daniel McAdams said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a two-day surprise visit to Ukraine in early September, to announce more than $1 billion in aid for Kiev. However, the visit came as the third month of Ukraine’s botched counteroffensive ended with the Kiev regime unable to boast of any military gains. “Well, I think this dog and pony show is going to air. So, you know, you have this guy Zelensky, who’s billed as Mother Theresa… or reincarnation of Winston Churchill…And we’re learning more and more that this guy is a corrupt autocrat… He basically brought his own country to ruin, and he’s continuously begging for more and more weapons. You know, our societies are fraying, state legislatures are constantly saying they have no money for social programs, and yet they pull billions of dollars out of the hat for Ukraine,” Jeremy Kuzmarov, managing editor of the Covert Action magazine and the author of several books on US foreign policy, told Sputnik.

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“..the EU has implemented 11 sets of sanctions against Russia..” And not learned a single thing.

EU Seeking Something Russian To Sanction – Bloomberg (RT)

The European Union is in the final stages of crafting its 12th set of Ukraine-related sanctions against Russia, as reported by Bloomberg on Monday, citing sources familiar with the ongoing discussions. According to the news outlet, this forthcoming package of sanctions is expected to concentrate on further measures to hinder Russia’s capacity to circumvent previously imposed restrictions, particularly its efforts to import sanctioned goods through intermediary countries, such as Türkiye and the UAE. Sources claim that the EU’s sanctions list may be expanded to align with the upcoming G7 ban on purchasing Russian diamonds, anticipated to be announced in the coming weeks. It envisions direct and indirect prohibitions on acquiring Russian diamonds starting from January 1.

Additionally, the new EU package is said to include a proposal regarding the potential utilization of profits generated by frozen assets belonging to the Central Bank of Russia. Discussions concerning the legality of seizing these assets to support Ukraine have been ongoing for months, with sources indicating that they may be nearing a resolution. Furthermore, the European Commission is expected to propose implementing a windfall tax on the earnings generated by Russian central bank assets within EU clearing houses. Certain member states, including Poland and the Baltic nations, have reportedly proposed additional restrictions on Russia’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports and IT services. Specific details regarding these proposals remain undisclosed.

This group of states has also advocated for sanctions targeting Russia’s nuclear industry. However, past efforts to sanction this sector have been waived, primarily because many countries, including many within the EU, depend on Russian atomic fuels. The announcement of this new sanctions package is anticipated in either the first half of October or during an EU-US summit slated for the next month. Since the commencement of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine in February of the previous year, the EU has implemented 11 sets of sanctions against Russia, targeting various sectors of the Russian economy and its financial institutions. Some member states have reportedly expressed concerns that there is not much left to sanction while urging Brussels to enforce existing restrictions effectively.

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“..The categorical imperative was simple: as long as Pyongyang did not start any trouble, Moscow and Beijing would be by its side..”

Russia, North Korea Stage ‘Strategic Coup’ Against Western Hegemony (Pepe Escobar)

The genesis of Kim Jong Un’s train journey to the Russian Far East – coinciding with the Forum, no less – is a masterful strategic coup that was in the works since 2014, at the time of the Maidan. Xi Jinping was still in the beginning of his first mandate; he had announced the New Silk Road exactly ten years ago, first in Astana and then in Jakarta. The DPRK was not supposed to be integrated into this vast pan-Eurasian project that would soon become China’s overarching foreign policy concept. The DPRK then was on a roll against the Hegemon, under Obama, and Beijing was no more than a worried spectator. Moscow, of course, was always focused on peace in the Korean Peninsula, especially because its geopolitical priorities in 2014 were Donbass and Syria/Iran. The last thing Moscow could afford was a war in Asia-Pacific.

Putin’s strategy was to send Defense Minister Shoigu to Beijing and Islamabad to calm it all down. Pakistan at the time was helping Pyongyang to weaponize their nuclear arsenal. Simultaneously, Putin himself approached Kim, offering serious guarantees: we’ve got your back if ever there is an attack by the Hegemon supported by Seoul. Even better: Putin got Xi himself to double down on the guarantees. The categorical imperative was simple: as long as Pyongyang did not start any trouble, Moscow and Beijing would be by its side. A sort of calm before any possible storm then set in – even if Pyongyang continued to test their missiles. So over the years, Kim’s mindset changed; he became convinced that Russia and China were his allies. The DPRK’s geoeconomic integration into Eurasia was seriously discussed in previous, pre-Covid editions of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok.

That included the tantalizing possibility of a Trans-Korean Railway linking both North and South to the Far East, Siberia and the wider Eurasia. So Kim started to see the Big Eurasia Picture, and how Pyongyang could finally start to benefit geoeconomically from a closer association with the EAEU, SCO and BRI. This is how strategic diplomacy works: you invest during a decade, and then all the pieces fall into place when an armored train keeps-a-rollin’ across Primorsky Krai. From the perspective of a Russia-China-DPRK triangle, it’s no wonder the collective West has been reduced to the status of crying toddlers in a sandbox. The Hegemon’s puny US-Japan-South Korea axis to counter, simultaneously, China and the DPRK, is a joke compared to the DPRK’s brand-new role as a sort of Asia-Pacific Military District, adjacent to their immediate neighbor, the Russian Far East.

There will be military integration, of course, in missile defense, radars, ports, airfields. But the key vector, along the way, will be geoeconomic integration. Sanctions from now on are meaningless. No one in 2014 was seeing this all play out, except for a very sharp analyst who coined the precious Double Helix concept to define the still evolving, at the time, Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership. The Double Helix perfectly explains the full-spectrum geostrategic symbiosis between two civilization-states which happen to be former empires but since the middle of the previous decade willfully decided to accelerate their mutual drive to lead the Global Majority in the path towards multipolarity.

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Criminal, dictator,…

Biden Repeats ‘Unforgivable’ Remark About Putin (RT)

US President Joe Biden has described Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “dictator,” claiming that his main political opponent, former President Donald Trump, would “bow down to” him if elected in 2024. The Democrat also touted himself as a defender of US democracy. Speaking to supporters during a fundraiser at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater in New York City on Monday, Biden said, “I will not side with dictators like Putin. Maybe Trump and his MAGA friends can bow down, but I won’t.” The incumbent president claimed that “Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans are determined to destroy American democracy,” whereas he would always “protect and fight” for it. This recent comment made by the US head of state about President Putin is not the first instance of him referring to another foreign leader as a dictator.

Last March, Biden told attendees of the annual Friends of Ireland Luncheon that the US and its allies were standing together against a “murderous dictator, a pure thug who is waging an immoral war against the people of Ukraine.” A day prior, the US president said he considered Putin a “war criminal.” Commenting on Biden’s remarks at the time, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told TASS news agency that Moscow deemed “unacceptable and unforgivable such rhetoric from a head of state whose bombs have killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world.” He noted that the US leader had resorted to “personal insults,” a level that President Putin, a “thoughtful and wise leader,” would never stoop to. sLast month, several US media outlets also quoted President Biden as alleging that China is run by “bad folks.” In June, he described Chinese President Xi Jinping as a “dictator,” which Beijing characterized as a “political provocation.”

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The EU needs no help creating crises.

Putin Behind EU Migrant Crisis – Polish Diplomat (RT)

A senior Polish diplomat has suggested that the recent surge in illegal immigrants arriving on the Italian island of Lampedusa might be a component of a Russian hybrid operation designed to erode the European Union’s support for Ukraine. This concern comes in light of a recent report from the Italian Interior Ministry, which indicates that over 89,000 people have entered Italy illegally this year. Lampedusa, an overcrowded Mediterranean island, remains a prominent destination for these arrivals. “Someone is helping these people walk hundreds if not thousands of kilometers from Nigeria and Central African countries to the Mediterranean Sea,” Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Arkadiusz Mularczyk speculated in an interview with Polish Radio on Tuesday. “Someone who has an interest in it. And Russia undoubtedly has an interest in it,” he added.

He asserted that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s objective is to “destabilize the situation in Western Europe.” Mularczyk suggested that the current state of confusion and unrest brought on by illegal immigration serves as a means to divert attention away from the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. According to him, Putin is believed to be exerting influence “behind the scenes” in smuggling individuals into the EU, often facilitated by criminal groups. “And it was successful because today, the war in Ukraine is fading into the background, and the entire EU is talking about what is happening in Lampedusa,” the diplomat stated. Claims of Russia’s alleged involvement in facilitating illegal immigration into Europe have circulated for years. In November 2021, this issue gained prominence when certain EU member states, including Poland, accused Russia’s ally, Belarus – and, by extension, Russia – of exploiting migrants seeking asylum in the EU for political purposes.

At that time, President Putin addressed this ongoing challenge, stating that the “key link” of migrant smuggling networks was located within the EU. He argued that European officials were attempting to blame Russia for their own policy shortcomings. According to him, the root causes of the influx of migrants are Western military interventions abroad and the attractive welfare benefits EU nations offer asylum seekers. “Deal with your internal problems and don’t lay on other people [your domestic] issues,” the Russian leader suggested. The ruling conservative Polish government has been openly criticizing Brussels and Western European countries, particularly Germany, for their perceived inadequacies in addressing illegal migration issues and for imposing the burden of hosting migrants on other EU member states.

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US/NATO poking the bear some more.

Zakharova: Russia hopes Armenia will realize full danger of adventure started by Westerners.

Erdogan, in his address at the UN General Assembly: “Karabakh is Azerbaijan”.

Kremlin Calls on Armenia and Azerbaijan to Adhere to Trilateral Agreements (Sp.)

Russia calls on Armenia and Azerbaijan to adhere to trilateral agreements on Nagorno-Karabakh, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday after Baku launched a military operation in the breakaway region. “The only substantive basis is the trilateral documents of two and three years ago, which were signed between Russia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, so we urge everyone to follow the provisions of these documents and, naturally, taking into account those new realities, this means the fact of recognition by the Armenian side of the territory of Azerbaijan as of 1991,” Peskov told reporters. The spokesman added that the opportunity to reach a political and diplomatic solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict still “exists.” “The main thing is to convince both Yerevan and Baku to abandon use of force and sit down at the negotiating table,” Peskov said.

Earlier in September, Putin said that he received a letter from Pashinyan, and that Russia has no problems with Armenia.Russian President Vladimir Putin and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan did not have any contacts after Pashinyan’s letter, Peskov stated.”Indeed, there was a detailed letter stating the point of view of the Armenian side to what is happening. At that time, there was actually… work on resuming the delivery of humanitarian aid to Karabakh. And to our satisfaction, as of yesterday, this work was successful. The first batch went in two directions through the Aghdam and Lachin roads, but unfortunately this did not prevent the resumption of hostilities. There have been no other contacts since then,” the spokesman said in response to a question about whether there were any other contacts between Putin and Pashinyan besides the letter sent earlier by the Armenian politician.

The Russian military is in contact with the Armenian and Azerbaijani sides, and contacts at the highest level are also possible, Peskov stressed. “First of all, contacts are now being carried out through our military, through other departments. Communication at a higher level is also consistent. As soon as final agreements are reached, we will inform you immediately, including about possible contacts at the highest level,” the spokesman told reporters, commenting on whether contacts with Baku and Yerevan are planned in the coming hours. The Russian military is trying to return the process in Nagorno-Karabakh to a political and diplomatic track, Peskov emphasized.

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“..a much healthier security paradigm has emerged in recent years from Eurasia..”

The West Destroyed Africa, Eurasia Will Revive It (Ehret)

In Africa, injustice looms large, marked by poverty, warfare, and famine. Despite post-WWII political gains, economic independence, a vital component of true freedom as envisioned by Pan African leaders like Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, and Haile Selassie, remains elusive. After decades of restrictive IMF and World Bank loans, poverty, hunger, and conflict persist throughout the continent. While many attribute this to Africa’s governance challenges, in reality, a deliberate imperial agenda has hindered the continent’s development in all political, economic, and security sectors. But much has changed in the past few years. The growing clout of Eurasian institutions that fully embrace Global South countries as valuable, integral, and equal members – the BRICS+ and Greater Eurasian Partnership are examples – offer hope that old neo-colonial shackles will be broken and that Africa can enjoy an unfettered renaissance.

The rise of a new global pole to challenge the old unipolar order has had a notable impact across sub-Saharan West Africa which, in recent years, has seen a surge in military coups shifting power away from regimes that had long prioritized the interests of western corporations. These coups occurred in Chad (April 2021), Mali (May 2021), Guinea (September 2021), Sudan (October 2021), Burkina Faso (January 2022), Niger (July 2023), and Gabon (August 2023) – all resource-rich countries with abnormally poor living conditions. In Gabon, over 30 percent of its people live on less than $1 per day, while 60 percent of its regions have no healthcare or clean drinking water despite the abundance of gold, diamonds, manganese, uranium, iron ore, natural gas, and oil – mostly monopolized by French corporations like Eramat, Total and Ariva.

Despite its abundance of rare earths, copper, uranium, and Gold, 70 percent of Malians still live in abject poverty. SImilarly, Sudan, with its riches in oil, fertile soil, and water, has 77 percent of the population living below the poverty line. In uranium-rich Niger, which provides over 35 percent of the fuel for France’s nuclear industry (accounting for 70 percent of France’s energy basket), mainly under the control of France’s Orano, only 3 percent of Nigerians have access to electricity. In the “former” French colony of Chad, that number is only a little higher at 9 percent, and a still-unacceptable 20 percent in Burkina Faso. While Altanticists desperately seek ways to keep their talons embedded into the African continent and its abundant riches, a much healthier security paradigm has emerged in recent years from Eurasia.

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“..to again steal an Election that their candidate, the WORST, MOST INCOMPETENT, & MOST CORRUPT President in U.S. history, is incapable of winning in a Free and Fair Election.”

California Lawmakers Push for Ruling on Booting Trump From State Primary Ballot (Sp.)

The movement to block former President Donald Trump’s 2024 election bid gained steam on Monday as California Democrats urged his removal from the state’s primary ballot. Nine lawmakers penned a letter to the state’s Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta advocating for Trump’s disqualification from the March 5 primary, arguing his ineligibility on grounds of inciting an uprising during the riots at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. The effort is one of several state-level initiatives arguing against Trump’s candidacy on constitutional grounds, citing the Fourteenth Amendment’s barring of candidates “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the United States from holding office. The California effort is notable in its attempt to resolve the question via the state’s attorney general, an approach which may lead to a faster resolution of the question.

“We all watched in horror Mr. Trump’s insurrection against the United States when he ordered a mob of his supporters to the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 to intimidate [then] Vice President [Mike] Pence and the United States Congress,” reads the letter, spearheaded by Silicon Valley assemblymember Evan Low. “There is no denying that Donald Trump has engaged in behavior that is unacceptable and unbecoming of any leader,” stated a spokesperson for Bonta, appearing to sympathize with some of the lawmakers’ claims. sHowever, whether Bonta intends to fully weigh in on the matter in his position as the state’s attorney general remains an open question. Various other state-level officials throughout the country have determined the matter would clearly violate precedent, if not their own jurisdiction. Others claim the issue would ultimately need to be resolved by the Supreme Court regardless.

“We have a constitutional republic of laws,” argued Georgia elections official Gabriel Sterling after a similar petition was lodged in Minnesota. “Anybody using an electoral scheme or a constitutional interpretation to remove anybody from the ballot is going to be a dangerous precedent.” Trump weighed in on the issue in a post on Truth Social, writing, “Almost all legal scholars have voiced opinions that the 14th Amendment has no legal basis or standing relative to the upcoming 2024 Presidential Election.” “Like Election Interference, it is just another ‘trick’ being used by the Radical Left Communists, Marxists, and Fascists, to again steal an Election that their candidate, the WORST, MOST INCOMPETENT, & MOST CORRUPT President in U.S. history, is incapable of winning in a Free and Fair Election.”

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Mr. Biden here is Hunter.

House Republicans Set Date for 1st Biden Impeachment Hearing (ET)

The U.S. House of Representatives will hold its first impeachment inquiry hearing this month, the House Oversight Committee confirmed on Sept. 19. The first hearing will take place on Sept. 28, a spokesperson for the House Oversight Committee told The Epoch Times. “The hearing will focus on constitutional and legal questions surrounding the president’s involvement in corruption and abuse of public office,” the spokesperson said. “The Committee also intends to subpoena Hunter and James Biden’s personal and business bank records as early as this week. The Oversight Committee will continue to follow the evidence and money trail to provide the transparency and accountability that Americans demand from their government.”

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) recently announced that the lower chamber would be investigating President Joe Biden, with a focus on his involvement in the business dealings of his son Hunter Biden and brother James Biden. “House Republicans have uncovered serious and credible allegations into President Biden’s conduct. Taken together, these allegations paint a picture of a culture of corruption,” Mr. McCarthy said. He said that the inquiry would help lawmakers obtain more evidence, including bank records. Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, is helping lead the probe. Ian Sams, a White House spokesman, said that Republicans have already been investigating the president and have “turned up no evidence of wrongdoing.”

President Biden recently told reporters, “The best I can tell, they want to impeach me because they want to shut down the government.” Mr. Comer and other Republicans have found that the president spoke repeatedly to business partners of Mr. Biden, including at dinners at Washington’s Cafe Milano. They also confirmed that President Biden sent emails under pseudonyms while vice president, including accounts that corresponded with Mr. Biden. Mr. Biden, other Biden family members, and associates received more than $21 million, primarily from foreigners, while President Biden was vice president. Mr. Biden was charged with tax violations, but those charges were withdrawn after a plea deal fell apart. He was also charged with several felony gun crimes this month. Mr. Biden sued the IRS on Sept. 18 for allegedly breaching his right to privacy by speaking publicly about the agency’s probe into him.

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“Speaker McCarthy needs to find a way to do his job, which is to pass a continuing resolution,” Yellen added.”

McCarthy Delays Vote on 30-Day Funding Resolution as Gov’t Shutdown Nears (Sp.)

US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has postponed a vote on a stopgap spending bill amid his attempts to appease a small but powerful right-wing faction of the Republican Party as a government shutdown looms. The procedural vote originally scheduled for Tuesday afternoon would have approved a 30-day government funding bill, moving it to the Senate and opening the door for wider talks. Some sort of funding bill must be passed by September 26 to avert a shutdown on September 30, but in lieu of agreement on larger appropriations bills, lawmakers have focused on passing a short-term funding bill to give them more time to negotiate. Reports in US media did not indicate when the vote would be held.

But even that has so far evaded federal lawmakers as a small faction of one dozen Republican Representatives aligned with former US President Donald Trump have used the GOP’s extremely narrow majority to position themselves as legislative kingmakers in the lower chamber since the new Congress was sworn in in January. Without their approval, McCarthy’s leadership over Republicans and the House of Representatives as a whole is effectively impossible. The most recent legislation, proposed by Republicans over the weekend, would fund the government until October 31 and includes a 1% cut in current spending levels across the entire federal government for that time, with some departments suffering worse than others. However, the dissident Republicans want to press for even deeper cuts, and are demanding more precise numbers on top-line budget items.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen took aim at McCarthy on Monday, telling US media the speaker “needs to find a way to do his job.” “There’s absolutely no reason why we should have a government shutdown,” she said. “Democrats in both the House and the Senate and Republicans in the Senate are ready to pass appropriations bills or a continuing resolution to keep the government open and operating for the American people.” “Speaker McCarthy needs to find a way to do his job, which is to pass a continuing resolution,” Yellen added.

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From Canada, land of vaccines. The mandates will just continue everywhere.

COVID-19 Vaccines Revealed as ‘Neither Safe, Nor Effective’: Watchdog (ET)

COVID-19 vaccines were authorized in Canada during 2020 and 2021 without being subjected to the country’s safety tests as required under established drug regulations, an accountability watchdog revealed. An investigation into COVID-19 vaccines found that they were “neither safe nor effective,” according to the nonprofit organization National Citizens Inquiry (NCI). The organization published a report on Sept. 14 detailing the flawed mechanism through which the vaccines were granted “approval” in Canada. “It is important to understand that the COVID-19 vaccines were never approved under the traditional approval process for drugs in Canada,” the report states. Instead, Health Canada, the federal agency responsible for national health policy, approved the vaccines through an alternative authorization process—an interim order.

“Under the alternative authorization process, the necessity to establish the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines through an objective manner appears to have been set aside,” the report states. Canada’s Food and Drug Regulations require that a drug can only be approved in the country after its safety and effectiveness are demonstrated to the minister of health. Then, the minister considers whether the benefits outweigh the risks, following which, approval is granted. Instead of following regulations, the minister of health sanctioned an interim order on Sept. 16, 2021, which exempted all COVID-19 vaccines from normal review and approval. This provision usually allows the minister to override normal regulations in situations of “significant risk” to health, safety, or the environment.

Desmet

In Canada, four COVID-19 vaccines were authorized by the health agency under an interim order—Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Janssen, and AstraZeneca. The report notes that under the order, vaccines were authorized under a “subjective test.” In this situation, authorization is granted by simply proving that the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks. “This cannot be an appropriate standard for approving a drug that the Government intends to administer to the entire population. It is difficult to conceive of a less-scientific test for drug authorization than that found in the Interim Order,” the report states. Moreover, the order made sure that the vaccine authorizations couldn’t be revoked even under evidence that they were unsafe and ineffective.

Once an interim order is issued, the typical Food and Drug Regulations don’t apply. The order thus exempted manufacturers from having to effectively demonstrate “objective evidence of safety and effectiveness” of their COVID-19 vaccines. “The result was that while chief medical officers across the country repeatedly assured Canadians that the COVID-19 vaccines were ‘safe and effective’—the general Canadian population had no understanding that their authorization process had not required objective proof of safety nor efficacy,” the report states. The NCI report was supported by cardiologist Dr. Peter A. McCullough. “Excellent work @Inquiry_Canada with exhaustive testimony and evidence review.

Conclusion: all COVID-19 vaccines unsafe for human use and must be removed from the Canadian market immediately to protect the public,” he wrote in a Sept. 16 post on X. Dr. McCullough recently asked European lawmakers to take COVID-19 vaccines off the market due to concerns about illnesses such as heart inflammation, blood clots, and neurological diseases. s“COVID-19 vaccines and all of their progeny and future boosters are not safe for human use. I implore you, as a governing body, European Medicines Agency, to apply all pressure and due urgency to remove the COVID-19 vaccines from market,” Dr. McCullough said in Sept. 13 testimony to the European Parliament.

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Peppers

 

 

 

 

Zeihan

 

 

Monastery

 

 


Guttation is the exudation of drops of xylem sap on the tips or edges of leaves of some vascular plants, such as grasses. It’s not dew ..

 

 

Baby bara
https://twitter.com/i/status/1704255369302716642

 

 

Fun with dogs

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Sep 192023
 
 September 19, 2023  Posted by at 8:35 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  56 Responses »


Paul Cézanne Les (Grandes) Baigneuses 1905

 

Boldly Into the Chaos (Kunstler)
How Biden Will Circle the Wagons (Hanson)
‘It Was My Decision’: Trump Defends 2020 Election Challenge (ET)
Trump to Skip Second GOP Debate, Address Detroit Auto Workers Instead (Sp.)
Hunter Biden Sues IRS for ‘Violating His Privacy’ (Sp.)
The Surgical Charging of Hunter Biden Ignores a Pattern of Concealment (Turley)
Hunter Biden Claims Whistleblowers Tried To ‘Target’ And ‘Embarrass’ Him (ZH)
European Elite’s Dream Of Power Crumbles (RMX)
Hungary, Poland and Slovakia Pull Out Of EU Grain Platform (RT)
Kiev Demands West Take Measures To Combat ‘War Fatigue’ (RT)
Clintons Look to Cash in on ‘Aid’ for Ukraine (Sp.)
US Sanctions War Is Good For Russian Shipping, Greeks Too (Helmer)
The BRICS Commodity Powerhouse: Can It Force a New Economic ‘Order’? (Crooke)
Biden Wants to Salvage US Hegemony by Reforming UN Security Council (Sp.)

 

 

 

 

Trump NBC

 

 

RFK Brand

 

 

 

 

Stoltenberg

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Much as the deck is stacked against Mr. Trump, his enemies have stupidly stuffed that deck full of jokers that are liable to shriek and giggle their way out of court when turned face-up..”

Boldly Into the Chaos (Kunstler)

The Ukraine war caper has pretty clearly lost its appeal as a supposed crusade for “democracy.” The yellow and blue flags vanished from the front porches and car bumpers months ago. It was a lie from the get-go that we have any national interest in that sad sack country. Our own government engineered the fiasco, and from every angle it has been a dead loss for all parties on our side. Ukraine has been reduced to a failed state in-waiting; Euroland has sacrificed its industrial economy for nothing; and the USA has squandered its last bits of prestige among other nations in this ignominious game of Lets You and Him Fight. Also, Americans have begun to notice that the billions funneled into Mr. Zelensky’s cadre of neo-Nazis and kleptocrats is money that is not going to places like East Palestine, Ohio, Lahaina, Maui, and the towns along our tortured southern border from Matamoros to Tijuana.

Even the people who supposedly elected “Joe Biden” are becoming a little concerned about blundering into World War Three over the mess created by Victoria Nuland & Company. How did we come to the point that it is now illegal to question the veracity of elections in America? And to charge a former president of the US for doing it? Much as the deck is stacked against Mr. Trump, his enemies have stupidly stuffed that deck full of jokers that are liable to shriek and giggle their way out of court when turned face-up. Judge Tanya Chutkan of the DC District Court is one of the jokers, having already branded Mr. Trump a seditious insurrectionist in the trails of many J-6 demonstrators she sent to jail on longer sentences than the prosecutors even asked for.

DA Fani Willis of Fulton County, Ga, is another joker who constructed a career-ending booby-trap for herself, and DA Alvin Bragg of New York County (Manhattan) will not be the one laughing when he’s finally bum-rushed out of his law license. An interesting fate awaits “Joe Biden” in the months ahead as the revenue stream of the Biden family foreign consulting firm gets audited in a House impeachment Inquiry. And an interesting-er fate awaits the Party of Chaos when it finally has to admit that it doesn’t have a candidate for the 2024 presidential election — at least a candidate anyone has ever heard of. The “president” stands (shakily) bestride a dilemma. He can gracefully bow out of office and avoid the historic humiliation of being unmasked as the crookedest chief executive ever — but if he does that, he loses the ability to pardon the son he so loves in any upcoming indictments, or pardon himself as CEO of Biden Consulting Inc.

Or, just maybe, the Blob will steal into the White House residence some gloomy pre-dawn morn, and settle its quivering, gelatinous endoplasm over “JB’s” face until his struggles with Congress and everything else on this plane of existence come mercifully (for us) to their end.

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“House Republicans will have to break through the labyrinth of Biden paywalls and find how much money was rerouted into Biden coffers.”

How Biden Will Circle the Wagons (Hanson)

The strategies of saving the Biden presidency from an impeachment and a Senate trial despite overwhelming evidence of his corruption are starting to emerge. The Family is confronted with damning evidence from the laptop, from the testimonies of Hunter’s business associates Bobulinksi and Archer, from Ukrainian oligarchs and Viktor Shokin, from IRS whistleblowers, from FBI writs, from a likely pseudonymous Biden trove of 4,000 emails to his son and associates, and from the absolute paranoia of a White House that must constantly change its narrative of denials to adjust to a growing portrait of utter corruption, bribery, and perhaps even the treason of warping U.S. policy to fit Biden family interests.

One of their strategies is to deny, then hedge, then ignore, then grow silent—and repeat the wash/rinse/spin cycle of stonewalling as many times as necessary to evade the mounting truth. Insidiously Joe Biden has retreated from his once loud protestations that he supposedly had no idea of what Hunter and his associates were doing. Such a patently dishonest denial set the model that the President would have no compunction about lying to the American people until the evidence of his wrongdoing becomes overwhelming. But this first line of defense did not crumble for years—only to be replaced by a second line of denial: Biden may have known of Hunter’s shenanigans, but he had no business interests with him. That was another blatant untruth.

And that additional stalling also allowed Biden to ignore the closing walls of incrimination for even more months. When these two forward lines of defense collapsed, as the Biden consortium knew they eventually would, a retreat to a third line of defense followed: yes, Joe knew, after all, of Hunter’s miscreant shakedowns; and, yes, Joe, after all, conceded that from time to time he did meet Hunter’s business associates, and upon requests made phone calls to Hunter’s clientele. But he did not profit from such knowledge and associations. Instead an upright old Joe from Scranton was playing along with the “illusion” of influence peddling: Scranton naiveté is not D.C. criminality. Biden’s tripartite lines of defense always got shorter and shallower as evidence mounted. But so far Biden has managed to consume 31 months of his presidency through these strategic retreats.

His fourth and final line of defense will likely be that he was involved, that he had rather than feigned contact, but that he did nothing other than what scores of other high-ranking politicians do who rub shoulders with would-be miscreants, sycophants, and crooks—and so did not knowingly take “loans” and “gifts” that had strings attached. To breach this fourth defense line, House Republicans will have to break through the labyrinth of Biden paywalls and find how much money was rerouted into Biden coffers. And then they must additionally compare what came into the Biden hands with a) what the family reported on their respective income tax returns, and b) whether their various properties and lifestyles were remotely possible without such massive hidden income. And getting bank records from the Bidens will be near impossible.

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“I was asked to speak, and I was the President of the United States. I’m allowed to do that.”

‘It Was My Decision’: Trump Defends 2020 Election Challenge (ET)

Special counsel Jack Smith is now prosecuting the Washington case against President Trump, alleging conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstructing an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and conspiracy against rights. They relate to Jan. 6 only in terms of his calls to delay the vote certification in Congress on that day. “First of all, I had very little to do with January 6th,” he said, referring to the Capitol breach. “I was asked to speak, and I was the President of the United States. I’m allowed to do that.” He said that “hundreds of thousands of people were there, and it was a beautiful, beautiful sight,” and that he spoke “peacefully and patriotically” at the event. He told Ms. Welker he had thought about going into the Capitol that day, but Secret Service advised him to go back to the White House.

“I wanted to go down peacefully and patriotically to the Capitol. Secret Service, who I have great respect for, said, ‘Sir, it’s better if you don’t do that. It could be unsafe,'” President Trump said. He clarified they didn’t mean they anticipated a riot, but because with such a large crowd, a single assailant would have significant cover. “So I didn’t have a dispute with them.” He further alleged that the breach happened because then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) turned down his offer of 10,000 additional National Guard. “She’s responsible for January 6th,” he alleged. “And the J6 Committee refused to interview her.” He noted that the treatment of those who were present was one reason he decided to run for reelection. “People that went [there], that didn’t even go into the building, have suffered gravely,” he said, pointing out that rioters in cities across the country calling to “defund the police” were not prosecuted in the same way.

The Department of Justice has thus far brought 1,100 cases against those who were present on Jan. 6, and efforts continue. “When you launched your campaign in March, you told the crowd, quote, ‘I am your retribution.’ What does that mean? What does that look like?” Ms. Welker asked President Trump. “I think retribution is talking in terms of I have to protect people,” he said. “What they’re doing to people is so horrible. They’re putting people in jail for long periods of time. Firemen, policemen, accountants, even lawyers. They’re in prisons for years now and don’t even have trials in some cases.” “I’m talking about fairness,” he said, adding he was open to pardoning those who were wrongly imprisoned, and dismissing rumors that he planned to fire or target his political opponents. “I’m looking to appoint an attorney general who’s going to be tough on crime and fair. Very simple.”

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The lion’s den?!

“Every fiber of our union is being poured into fighting the billionaire class and an economy that enriches people like Donald Trump at the expense of workers..”

Trump to Skip Second GOP Debate, Address Detroit Auto Workers Instead (Sp.)

Former US President Donald Trump is reportedly set to address current and former members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union in Detroit instead of participating in the upcoming Republican primary debate.An insider with the Trump reelection campaign relayed to US media that the former commander-in-chief is looking to speak with a crowd of current and former union members, as well as blue-collar workers in the plumbing and electrical industries. However, early reports of the speaking event have not been warmly accepted by the UAW union, whose president issued a statement noting Trump is part of the problem the agency is trying to combat. “Every fiber of our union is being poured into fighting the billionaire class and an economy that enriches people like Donald Trump at the expense of workers,” UAW President Shawn Fain said told US media.

“We can’t keep electing billionaires and millionaires that don’t have any understanding what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck and struggle to get by and expecting them to solve the problems of the working class.” Last week, some 13,000 workers from the auto industry initiated strikes following a call by the UAW. The strikes affected the so-called “Big Three” automakers in the United States – Ford, General Motors and Stellantis. The strikes commenced after negotiations failed to secure wage increases for workers by the deadline set for late Thursday night. Should Trump deliver on the speaking event, it would mark the second occasion in which he has decided to sidestep a Republican debate. The first instance took place in August and saw Trump participate in a pre-recorded interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that was released as the initial debate came underway. The second GOP debate is scheduled to take place on September 27 at the Reagan Library in California.

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“..the Biden camp argued that the indictment was politically motivated and “unconstitutional.”

Hunter Biden Sues IRS for ‘Violating His Privacy’ (Sp.)

Hunter Biden was indicted on September 14 on three charges related to his alleged false statements to purchase a firearm. The First Son faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted. Hunter Biden’s legal team filed a lawsuit against the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on Monday. The suit alleges that the privacy of the president’s son was violated by the two whistleblowers who went before Congress to testify against him. It adds that agents “targeted and sought to embarrass” the First Son. The filing, according to media reports, names IRS Agents Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, accusing them of having “mishandled” certain aspects of the investigation into Hunter Biden. According to the lawsuit, the IRS “willfully, knowingly, and/or by gross negligence, unlawfully disclosed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax information.”

But that is not all. The younger Biden is seeking $1,000 in damages for “each and every unauthorized disclosure of his tax returns.” A US federal court released a three-count indictment against the president’s son, Hunter Biden, on September 14. Two of the charges are related to the fact that Hunter Biden lied about not using illegal drugs when completing a gun purchase form for a Colt Cobra revolver. The third charge relates to the actual possession of a weapon while using narcotics. He faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted on the charges, according to court documents. According to the state prosecutors’ line of inquiry, the crimes were committed by the US president’s son in October 2018. In response, the Biden camp argued that the indictment was politically motivated and “unconstitutional.” The indictment came just weeks after an earlier plea agreement on tax and gun charges tied to Hunter fell apart in July after the presiding judge raised concerns about the terms of the deal.

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”The obvious value in not claiming income is to avoid taxes. However, claiming income also highlights not just the receipt of these funds but their sources..”

The Surgical Charging of Hunter Biden Ignores a Pattern of Concealment (Turley)

Thus far, the Justice Department has surgically avoided charges that would implicate the president. This may simply be a coincidence, and correlation does not constitute causation. However, the other charges (including those that the Justice Department effectively killed by slow-walking its investigation) have an obvious potential connection: They all worked to help conceal the influence-peddling operation. None of this means that this unifying theory is true, but it cannot be ignored by anyone investigating this corruption scandal. First, there are the tax violations. While Hunter may be charged with some tax violations, the statute of limitations has now run out on the most controversial payments in the 2014 and 2015 period for foreign sources such as Ukraine’s Burisma.

The obvious value in not claiming income is to avoid taxes. However, claiming income also highlights not just the receipt of these funds but their sources. Likewise, falsely claiming income as a “loan” can keep the money off the books or make it less likely to trigger scrutiny on the source and purpose of payments. Second, there are the money transfers. The House has now detailed millions in transfers to Biden family members from a dizzyingly array of dozens of companies and accounts. The use of a complex labyrinth raises obvious concerns that it is a tactic used by individuals to conceal money transfers. Third, many of us have noted that there seems ample basis for charging Hunter Biden under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, particularly given previous charges against such defendants as Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort.

Registering as a foreign agent obviously invites much greater scrutiny over foreign dealings and the specific nations involved in lobbying efforts. Again Hunter could still eventually face charges for avoiding taxes. But there is little evidence that the Justice Department has actively pursued these broader implications or motivations. For many, the marginalization of these charges raises troubling concerns, particularly in light of the failed sweetheart deal and the allegations from the whistleblower. Even if the tax charges are brought, the framing of the investigation has been on the income rather than the influence sought in these dealings.

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“..under a presumption that the rights that apply to every other American citizen do not apply to Mr. Biden..”

Hunter Biden Claims Whistleblowers Tried To ‘Target’ And ‘Embarrass’ Him (ZH)

Fresh off his felony indictment for gun charges, Hunter Biden is suing the IRS, alleging that agents have “targeted and sought to embarrass” him. Yes, the same Hunter who tried to deduct hookers from his tax return. And the same IRS that let him ‘call in’ for interviews (so he never did), and abruptly swapped out the team investigating him in May – leading to several whistleblowers coming forward to allege not just slow-walking the case, but a coverup involving (obviously) preferential treatment. So, on Monday morning, with Hunter in congressional crosshairs, Hunter’s lawyers filed a lawsuit Monday morning which cites two major examples in IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, who claimed that the agency mishandled aspects of the Biden investigation.

Biden’s lawyers allege that the IRS “willfully, knowingly, and/or by gross negligence, unlawfully disclosed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax information,” and have demanded $1,000 in damages for “each and every unauthorized disclosure of his tax returns,” Fox News reports. “Biden is the son of the President of the United States. He has all the same responsibilities as any other American citizen, and the IRS can and should make certain that he abides by those responsibilities,” reads the filing. “Similarly, Mr. Biden has no fewer or lesser rights than any other American citizen, and no government agency or government agent has free rein to violate his rights simply because of who he is.” “Yet the IRS and its agents have conducted themselves under a presumption that the rights that apply to every other American citizen do not apply to Mr. Biden,” the filing continues.

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How much longer can the EU exist?

European Elite’s Dream Of Power Crumbles (RMX)

For a long time, the major capitals of Western Europe dreamed their beautiful dream about how the EU, as a power, would become an increasingly important actor in building security policy after the end of the Cold War. In this dream, Great Britain was supposed to be the European anchor in transatlantic relations with America. Somewhere at the turn of the first and second decade of the 21st century, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel established a key division of labor between themselves. According to this, Paris was responsible for the security of the Mediterranean basin and West Africa, while Germany, due to its relations with Russia, was supposed to “take care” of the security of Eastern Europe and the Black Sea basin. However, recent years have shown the complete failure of these plans. One by one, elements of the beautiful dream of power fell apart.

Brexit ejected Great Britain from the orbit of European integration. With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Germany’s Eastern policy collapsed. The disastrous intervention in Libya, followed by subsequent military coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, as well as the entrenchment of Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group there, clearly indicate that French leadership in European security policy toward Africa has ended in complete disaster for the time being. One might think that all these events would be enough for the European elite to realize the need to abandon dreams and return to reality. However, the only reaction to the geopolitical crisis in Europe is the proposal to establish majority decisions in the area of the EU’s foreign and security policy, which de facto means accepting the dominance of Paris and Berlin.

The current situation, however, requires a fundamental change in Europe’s thinking and action. Some time ago, there was an idea circulating to create a European Security Council by EU countries. Perhaps it is worth returning to it, provided it would establish a mechanism based on the real military resources of states and their competencies in the field of international policy. The current way of thinking about Europe’s security policy is still, unfortunately, some kind of mirage growing out of the old imperial and colonial ambitions of powers. It ignores the growing potential of Central and Eastern European countries, mainly Poland, but also the Baltic and Scandinavian states. Above all, however, it has proven to be completely ineffective.

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“..after Kiev announced that it would sue the three nations for banning the import of Ukrainian produce..”

Hungary, Poland and Slovakia Pull Out Of EU Grain Platform (RT)

Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia are withdrawing from an EU platform coordinating Ukrainian grain imports after Kiev announced that it would sue the three nations for banning the import of Ukrainian produce, Polish media reported on Monday. The Ukrainian government announced on Monday that it would bring a case against the three countries at the World Trade Organization (WTO), after they announced unilateral bans on the import of Ukrainian seeds and grains. Earlier this summer, the EU allowed five Eastern European nations to block the import of these products for domestic sale, but refused to reauthorize the ban on Friday. As a result, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia imposed bans of their own.

Citing an anonymous source in Brussels, Poland’s PAP news agency said that these countries would withdraw from the EU platform that coordinated the first ban. The decision was made “out of caution and the fact that Ukraine could use information provided within the framework of the coordination platform against these three countries during WTO proceedings,” the source said. Officials in Budapest, Warsaw, and Bratislava argue that Ukrainian agricultural imports undercut domestic prices and threaten the livelihoods of local farmers. Speaking to Politico on Monday, Ukrainian trade representative Taras Kachka dismissed these concerns, arguing that “prices are global.”

Bulgaria and Romania have not imposed unilateral bans. In response, Bulgarian farmers staged a nationwide protest on Monday, causing blockades at dozens of highways and border crossings. In Bucharest, Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said that he would consider a ban if Ukrainian produce began to flow into the country. The EU has condemned the unilateral bans, as has Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. The decision by Brussels not to extend the ban “is an example of true unity and trust between Ukraine and the EU. Europe always wins when the rules work and the treaties are fulfilled,” he said on Friday.

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” Western nations should create their own “agreed formula for … the vision of Ukraine’s victory” and also “enshrine military assistance to Ukraine in … legislation..”

Kiev Demands West Take Measures To Combat ‘War Fatigue’ (RT)

Ukraine faces the threat of its “carefully woven web of foreign assistance” being slowly unraveled due to waning optimism and growing disappointment among its Western backers, the head of the National Security and Defense Council, Aleksey Danilov, wrote in an opinion piece published on Saturday in the newspaper Ukrainskaya Pravda. The security chief accused “reputable and influential” Western media outlets of publishing materials suggesting Ukraine’s much-hyped summer counteroffensive is failing, Kiev’s troops are unable to take back territory from Russia, and Moscow’s resources are “limitless.” These sentiments slow down the Western military assistance to Kiev and stand in the way of Ukraine’s “peace formula,”Danilov added. He stated that the only solution to the conflict between Moscow and Kiev, which has been going on for more than a year and a half, is a military solution.

“The peace formula is the weapons formula,” he said in the article. Danilov urged the West to combat its own growing skepticism about Ukraine’s prospects in the conflict. Western nations should create their own “agreed formula for … the vision of Ukraine’s victory” and also “enshrine military assistance to Ukraine in … legislation,” he said, adding that election cycles might affect “the stability of the partnership” between Ukraine and the West. The US and its allies should also “develop and implement a set of measures to neutralize so-called ‘war fatigue,’” Danilov maintained. He also admitted that “a sprint” – i.e. a short conflict – had been “replaced by a long run.” His words came more than three months into the Ukrainian counteroffensive, which has so far failed to bring about any meaningful changes to the front lines but has seen Kiev’s troops suffer heavy losses in attempts to penetrate Russian defenses.

Numerous Western media outlets have reported on the growing skepticism among Western officials about the prospects for the operation. The New York Times reported in August that US and UK officials were “perplexed” by Kiev’s tactics, while the Wall Street Journal said Washington would reduce military aid to Ukraine in 2024. Moscow has repeatedly expressed its willingness to engage in peace talks as long as its interests are taken into account and the “reality on the ground” is respected. However, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has imposed a legal prohibition on all discussions with Russia. He also insisted on his own “peace formula” – the one Danilov was referring to – which includes the withdrawal of Russian troops from all territories claimed by Kiev, reparations from Moscow, and a criminal tribunal for the members of Russian government.

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“The Clinton Foundation has been illegally raising money, in theory, for HIV/AIDS projects in Ukraine since 2004, without seeking or obtaining approval for these efforts, as is required in advance..”

Clintons Look to Cash in on ‘Aid’ for Ukraine (Sp.)

The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) has announced plans to launch a “Ukraine Action Network,” ostensibly to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to Ukrainians amid the West’s ongoing proxy war against Russia in the troubled Eastern European country. The campaign, set to be formally unveiled Tuesday at the CGI’s annual conference in New York, is said to be the outcome of a collaborative effort between former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and current First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenskaya that began a year ago. The Ukraine Action Network is expected to help “mobilize existing CGI partners, as well as new leaders from around the world, to create and finance new commitments for Ukrainians.” The details of the program, including which “Ukrainians” specifically are expected to benefit, have yet to be elaborated.

The Clintons shut down the CGI component of their Clinton Foundation non-profit in 2017, firing dozens of employees and shuttering the CGI’s New York office after donations by businesses and foreign nations dried up following Mrs. Clinton’s surprise loss in the 2016 presidential election. The Clintons revived the CGI in 2022, with thousands of donors and hundreds of partnering organizations announcing the launch of over 140 different projects at last year’s conference. In a letter to attendees of the upcoming Tuesday gathering, the foundation indicated that the 2023 meeting would “hear from those who are tackling some of today’s most pressing issues, including climate change, health inequities, food insecurity, economic inequality, threats to democracy around the world, and record-breaking refugee displacement.”

Officials, business leaders, and celebrities expected to attend include Bill Clinton, Biden Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, California Governor Gavin Newsom, former Obama and Biden Press Secretary Jen Psaki, Pope Francis, NBA Hall-of-Famer Dwayne Wade, Google President Ruth Porat, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and others. Charles Ortel, a Wall Street analyst who has been investigating the Clintons’ charity-related activities for about eight years, told Sputnik last month that the foundation’s plans to incorporate Ukraine into its agenda may be a sign that they’re hoping to cash in on some of the potentially vast package of reconstruction support for Kiev by Western countries. “The Clinton Foundation has been illegally raising money, in theory, for HIV/AIDS projects in Ukraine since 2004, without seeking or obtaining approval for these efforts, as is required in advance, from numerous domestic and foreign government authorities. No outsider actually knows exactly what they have been doing for nearly 20 years in that ransacked remnant of a country,” Ortel said.

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“The war is good, very good for the oil tanker companies which can run the gauntlet of the Americans”, says a Greek source. The international shipping media are fearful of reporting this publicly..”

US Sanctions War Is Good For Russian Shipping, Greeks Too (Helmer)

The US-led sanctions war against Russian fossil fuel exports, especially oil, has been the best thing to have happened to Sovcomflot, Russia’s leading shipping company and operator of the world’s largest oil and gas tanker fleets. Revenues are up, earnings and profits are multiplying; Sovcomflot has never had so much cash in the bank; its debt is down to the lowest level in more than twenty years – and none of it is in American or European bank hands. Released on August 28 and expressed in discreet language, the new company financial report says: “Revenues from tanker business segments (transportation of crude oil and petroleum products) are supported by favourable market conditions against the background of increased demand for tanker tonnage, taking into account the changing geography of international trade in oil and petroleum products.

Despite the presence of a seasonal reduction in freight rates in the summer, the company believes that the market fundamentals, including the limited growth of the global tanker fleet due to the small number of orders for the construction of new vessels, suggests a high probability of stability in the medium term of freight rates at a level above the historically average.” “Favourable market conditions” is Sovcomflot’s phrase for the US and NATO sanctions, first imposed on Sovcomflot’s financing and payment operations in February 2022, and escalated this year in EU and UK sanctions targeting Dubai and Hong Kong fleet management companies. The reference to “changing geography” means what shipping experts and analysts from London to Oslo, Piraeus to Singapore acknowledge privately:

“The war is good, very good for the oil tanker companies which can run the gauntlet of the Americans”, says a Greek source. The international shipping media are fearful of reporting this publicly. London-based shipping publications like Lloyds List, sold by the London-listed Informa group to the Montagu investor group, are not reporting what their industry sources agree is happening. “Some people tend to close doors behind them”, a veteran maritime news reporter coyly describes the news blackout. Seatrade, another Informa outlet, is restricting its reporting to NATO tracking of sanctions busting.

US maritime media like GCaptain (California) and Marine Money (Connecticut) refuse to respond to questions about their news blackout. Equally quiet, although for different reasons, are the Indian, Chinese and Singaporean shipping press. Sovcomflot is now confidently predicting the worldwide split between the Russian and US- NATO fleets will continue for the foreseeable future. “Despite the presence of a seasonal reduction in freight rates in the summer, the company believes that the fundamental market fundamentals, including the limited growth of the global tanker fleet due to the small number of orders for the construction of new vessels, suggests a high probability of stability in the medium term of freight rates at a level above the historically average.”

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“The newly expanded BRICS, after all, is now a Commodity Powerhouse. So, who now controls inflation in the U.S.: A trapped Fed, or the new commodity king?”

The BRICS Commodity Powerhouse: Can It Force a New Economic ‘Order’? (Crooke)

Although many in the West think everything ‘is fine’ – that the U.S. Fed likely will bring inflation under control, and soon will be cutting interest rates. Yet oil prices are up 37% and rising. This has been the case since the price bottomed out a few months ago. “People forget oil prices fell almost 50% from their peak, and that fall ended in May of this year. And that big decline in oil prices was the major factor in bringing headline inflation [down] from 9% to 3%”. Energy is a major cost input that needs to be passed on to consumers. And so is interest on debt, which increases as interest rate rises cut across the economic spectrum. Everybody is waiting for the Fed to cut rates, because the only way for the U.S. government, American consumers, and businesses to manage their present debt (on which they loaded-up – at zero rates) is if interest rates drop.

People may understand this, but they just assume that it’s not going to be an issue because, of course, the Fed ‘is going to cut rates’. It is very unlikely however, that the western authorities will be able to get rates down again to zero. Selling further oil from the U.S. Strategic Reserve just isn’t going to happen: At this point, the U.S. economy can only run for 20 days on its current oil reserves. And the Fed is not going to be able to launch much of another round of money-printing, should the economy drop into recession. The Fed may try to rescue the economy in this way, though when inflation is the problem, it is not possible to solve an inflation problem by creating more inflation. Inflation (and interest rates), after a short lag, would again rise.

The point is that much of the ruling strata still do not ‘get it’: the decades-long experience of near-zero inflation that the West has experienced has imprinted itself on the collective mindset – but that world of effortless money-making was an aberration, not a norm. Plainly put, the West now is somehow trapped in various diverse financial ways, such as fiscal exhaustion (i.e. U.S. deficit spending has reached 8.5% of GDP). Whilst true, that many in the West do not understand that the zero-inflation era was an aberration, caused by factors that no longer pertain – for sure, the aberration is well understood in Beijing and Moscow. Liam Halligan notes similarly that oil prices are up almost a third over the last three months: “It’s a hugely significant increase that could seriously aggravate the cost of living crisis. Yet the surge seems to have barely been noticed by much of our political and media class”.

Crude markets began to tighten earlier this summer after the Opec exporters’ cartel agreed to withhold oil supplies in a bid to raise prices, and Halligan tartly observes: “Anyone who downplays the power of Opec knows nothing about worldwide energy markets and even less about geopolitics”. Is it happenstance that a quiet financial war, triggered by the drip-drip of de-dollarisation and higher energy costs, might finally give BRICS the leverage to coerce a change of policy in the West? And should western reluctance to re-structure persist, might the BRICS leadership ratchet higher? The newly expanded BRICS, after all, is now a Commodity Powerhouse. So, who now controls inflation in the U.S.: A trapped Fed, or the new commodity king?

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“The US can’t win the geopolitical chess game anymore without trying to change the conditions of the test or the rules, or by cheating..”

Biden Wants to Salvage US Hegemony by Reforming UN Security Council (Sp.)

US President Joe Biden will urge the UN to expand the Security Council to water down Russia and China’s influence in the body, the Western press says. Could Biden succeed? Joe Biden “will take a look at the architecture of the Security Council,” US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby announced ahead of the UN General Assembly meeting. Still, the British media assumes that the US president will advocate adding new members to the United Nations Security Council in order to weaken Russia and China’s role. Reportedly, Biden wants to add India, Brazil, Germany, South Africa, and Japan to the international body. Currently, the Security Council has 15 members: five of them are “permanent” (P5) and enjoy veto powers (Russia, China, France, the UK, and the US); and 10 are “non-permanent,” with five of them being elected each year by the General Assembly for a two-year term.

“It is empty posturing, because Biden knows that the UNSC can only be expanded by an amendment to the Charter, and any of the P5 can veto it,” Professor Alfred de Zayas, former UN independent expert on international order and author of 10 books, including The Human Rights Industry and Building a Just World Order, told Sputnik. “One can surmise that Biden is joining the ‘bandwagon’ of many countries and academics who are similarly asking for expansion. Perhaps Biden’s noises will be well received in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, where the prestige of the US has been in decline, and the US could score points at low cost,” the former UN independent expert continued.

Biden is by no means an innovator: at the 15th BRICS Summit, which convened in August in Johannesburg, the core nations of the group (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) stated in their final declaration that they are in favor of reforming the UN Security Council and expanding developing countries’ representation. The BRICS declaration named Brazil, India, and South Africa as potential new members of the UNSC. Thus, the US president de facto wants to add two of Washington’s ardent allies to the list – Germany and Japan. The two weren’t added to the original composition of the UNSC (which was formed immediately after the Second World War) since they were the two major WW2 aggressors. In addition, Team Biden seemingly wants to curry favors with major powers of the Global South in an apparent bid to drag them to Washington’s side.

“Since [the West’s] desperate efforts to expel Russia, a permanent member, from the principal organ of the UN have failed thus far, they are trying a different tactic of overhauling the P5 to salvage Western decline and one that only further demonstrates how disconnected the foreign policy establishment is from reality. The US can’t win the geopolitical chess game anymore without trying to change the conditions of the test or the rules, or by cheating,” Max Parry, a US independent journalist and geopolitical analyst, told Sputnik. According to Parry, “the reasons surrounding the timing of this attempt to propose changes could not be more clear, with Washington striking out virtually everywhere in proxy theaters of conflict and spheres of influence.”

“US hegemony is shrinking with more and more countries throughout the global south shifting away from the West toward Moscow and Beijing’s camps and the Ukraine proxy war has been yet another foreign policy disaster that has geostrategically backfired,” the journalist said.

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Bowie America

 

 

Water ant
https://twitter.com/i/status/1703836863847366841

 

 

Starling
https://twitter.com/i/status/1703840569716269160

 

 

Platypus

 

 

Wait for it

 

 

Fairy tale

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Sep 182023
 
 September 18, 2023  Posted by at 9:26 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  38 Responses »


Hugo Simberg The Wounded Angel 1903

 

Gagging Donald Trump (Turley)
Trump Likes The ‘Concept’ Of A Woman As 2024 VP Candidate (Sp.)
Ukraine Could Have Avoided Conflict – Trump (RT)
The Nazi Biden Regime Takes Its Censorship Claim To The Supreme Court (PCR)
Jeffrey Sachs: Western Neocolonialism Cannot Stop Africa’s Rise (Sp.)
Anti-American Sexual Perverts Dominate California State Assembly (PCR)
US Helped Pakistan Get IMF Bailout With Secret Arms Deal For Ukraine (IC)
‘Prepare For Long War’ – NATO Chief (RT)
Milley Doubts Ukraine’s Counteroffensive to Achieve Its Goals Quickly (Sp.)
Kiev Fails to Attract Neutral Countries to Its ‘Peace Formula’ – Envoy (Sp.)
US Using NATO To ‘Absorb’ Countries – Patrushev (RT)
Erdogan Discusses ‘Opportunities For Collaboration’ With Elon Musk (RT)
‘How Do You Lose An F-35 Jet?’ (Sp.)

 

 

 

 

What emergency?

 

 

 

 


The U.S. appeals court said that the FDA’s statements, including one telling people to ‘stop’ using ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment, went beyond the authority conferred on the agency by Congress.”

 

 

Kadyrov

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gagging a entire Presidential Election. The US is close to the edge.

“..Trump could “present a serious and substantial danger of prejudicing” his 2020 federal election interference case.”

Gagging Donald Trump (Turley)

Ronald Reagan once said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.” After Friday night, we can add nine more: “a narrowly tailored order that imposes modest, permissible restrictions.” Those words were used by Special Counsel Jack Smith to propose a gag order that would sharply curtail the ability of former President Donald Trump to criticize Smith and his prosecution. The Smith motion is anything but “narrowly tailored.” Indeed, short of a mobile “Get Smart” Cone of Silence, it is chilling to think of what Smith considered the broader option. Smith told District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, D.C., that Trump could “present a serious and substantial danger of prejudicing” his 2020 federal election interference case.

Smith compared Trump’s comments on the trial to the “disinformation” spread by Trump after the 2020 election — the subject of the indictment. The motion states that Trump’s “recent extrajudicial statements are intended to undermine public confidence in an institution — the judicial system — and to undermine confidence in and intimidate individuals — the Court, the jury pool, witnesses, and prosecutors.” I have long criticized Trump’s inflammatory comments over these cases, but Smith’s solution veers dangerously into core political speech in the middle of a presidential election. Ironically, Smith’s move will likely be seen as reinforcing Trump’s claim of intentional election interference by the Biden Administration.

I do not view it that way, but I do believe Smith is showing his signature lack of restraint in high-profile cases, a tendency that led to the unanimous overturning of his conviction of former Virginia Republican Gov. Robert McDonnell. Smith seeks to bar comments “regarding the identity, testimony, or credibility of prospective witnesses” and “statements about any party, witness, attorney, court personnel, or potential jurors that are disparaging and inflammatory, or intimidating.” Gag orders have become commonplace in federal trials, particularly high-profile cases. I have criticized the increasing use of gag orders for years due to concerns over free speech. Typical orders often seek to shutdown public comments in the interests of protecting jury pools.

Even “narrower” orders are written with vague terminology like “disparaging” and “intimidating” that expose defendants to punitive action if they cross uncertain lines in public defending themselves. No one seriously questions the ability of courts to limit the release of sealed material or to bar threatening comments directed at jurors, witnesses, or court staff. However, there are laws on the books allowing for the prosecution of such cases. More importantly, this is no typical case. Smith has pushed for a trial before the election and the court inexplicably shoehorned the trial into a crowded calendar just before the Super Tuesday election. Judge Chutkan previously stated that “I cannot and I will not factor into my decisions how it will factor into a political campaign.” This motion, however, would impose substantial limits on a national political debate and begs the question of whether the court is failing to balance the rivaling constitutional interests in this unprecedented situation. It could not only test Chutkan’s position but prompt an early appeal.

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“..some of the greatest world leaders have been in their eighties.” However, what candidates needed to be checked for, in Trump’s opinion, was “competency”..

“Biden ended his speech at the University of Hartford in June with “God save the Queen, man”

Trump Likes The ‘Concept’ Of A Woman As 2024 VP Candidate (Sp.)

Donald Trump, indicted four times in the past few months, has turned his legal troubles to his advantage, as his poll ratings testify. The 45th POTUS has swept ahead in the GOP presidential primary race, with his fundraising campaign also making an impressive haul since the Trump “mug shot” taken at Georgia’s Fulton County Jail in August. The Republican nomination frontrunner for the 2024 US presidential elections, Donald Trump, might not be averse to choosing a woman as his running mate. That, at least, is what the former POTUS told the host of ‘Meet the Press’ in an interview. “I like the concept, but we’re going to pick the best person… But I do like the concept, yes,” the 45th US President told the moderator, while indicating that he was not yet focused too much on picking a potential Vice-President.

Trump also took a moment to single out Kristi Noem as “one of the people I’d consider”, adding that the South Dakota Governor had given him a “full-throated endorsement, a beautiful endorsement”. Earlier in the month, the 51-year-old when asked if she would consider an offer from Trump to be his running mate, responded: “I would in a heartbeat,” adding: “Trump needs a strong partner if he’s going to take back the White House and he’s going to need somebody who knows what it’s like to run a business, to be an employee, earn a paycheck. But also having [someone who has been] a wife, mom, and grandma isn’t bad either.” As for the other women that have been mooted as potential Trump running mates, the list includes Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake.

Elsewhere in the interview, airing on Sunday, the 77-year-old Trump, weighed in on the US presidency age limit debate. In his opinion, it’s not age that is the problem, quipping that, “some of the greatest world leaders have been in their eighties.” However, what candidates needed to be checked for, in Trump’s opinion, was “competency”. “I’m all for the tests,” said Trump, recalling how he “aced” his own cognitive test in 2020 at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. As for 80-year old Joe Biden, Trump suggested that the problem with him was not age. “I don’t think Biden is too old, but I think he is incompetent. And that’s a bigger problem.”

The Democratic incumbent himself has repeatedly dismissed concerns that he will be 82 should he have another stint in the Oval Office, and has made much of the “hell of a lot of wisdom” he has acquired throughout his political career but American voters are not entirely convinced. In fact, just recently a new poll by Quinnipiac University showed that approximately six in 10 US voters – 61 percent – are in favor of a maximum age being introduced for presidential candidates. Furthermore, 68 percent of voters think Biden, famously known for blunders and mispronouncements during public appearances, is too old to serve for a second term, according to the Quinnipiac poll. In one of a long line of gaffes, Biden ended his speech at the University of Hartford in June with “God save the Queen, man”. The clip went viral on social media, as Biden’s slip-ups tend to, with netizens puzzled since Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II died in September 2022.

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“They could have made a deal where nobody was killed…they would have had a Ukrainian country. Now nobody even knows if Ukraine is going to be totally taken over.”

Ukraine Could Have Avoided Conflict – Trump (RT)

Ukraine could have avoided hundreds of thousands of deaths and lost less land if it had reached a peace deal with Russia before the conflict began last February, former US President Donald Trump told NBC News in an interview aired on Sunday. The loss of Ukrainian territory to Russia is “something that could have been negotiated,” Trump told NBC host Kristen Welker, adding that “a lot of people expected”Kiev to abandon its claims to “Crimea and other parts of the country” in exchange for peace. “So they could have made a deal where there’s less territory [lost] than Russia has already taken,”Trump continued. “They could have made a deal where nobody was killed…they would have had a Ukrainian country. Now nobody even knows if Ukraine is going to be totally taken over.”

By “other parts of the country,”Trump was likely referring to the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, whose sovereignty Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized three days before Russia’s military operation in Ukraine began. Following referendums last September, both regions have now joined the Russian Federation, along with the formerly Ukrainian territories of Kherson and Zaporozhye. Crimea voted to rejoin Russia in 2014. Trump then repeated his claim that if elected next year, he would have a peace deal worked out within 24 hours. “I’d get [Russian President Vladimir Putin] into a room, I’d get [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky into a room, then I’d bring them together and I’d have a deal worked out,” he told Welker. “It would have been easier if the war didn’t start, and you’d have hundreds of thousands of people living, most importantly,” he noted. “But I can get it done and I can get it done quickly.”

Trump then claimed that he kept Ukraine and Russia “from doing anything” during his presidency, arguing that the low oil prices that characterized his term in the White House would have made it too costly for Russia, a leading oil exporter, to finance a military operation. Trump’s position on Ukraine is diametrically opposed to that of President Joe Biden, who has vowed to bankroll Kiev’s military “for as long as it takes” to defeat Russia on the battlefield. With the exception of businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, all of Trump’s opponents in the Republican primary field support some sort of continued military aid to Ukraine. Among them is Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence. Speaking to CNN on Sunday, Pence accused Trump of “embracing the politics of appeasement,” and “letting Vladimir Putin have what he wants.”

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“Take a few minutes and try to identify any institution, public or private, that supports American values. Trump’s goal of taking back our country might be a task too large.”

The Nazi Biden Regime Takes Its Censorship Claim To The Supreme Court (PCR)

There is no doubt whatsoever that the Biden Regime is a Fascist Censor controlling information in the interest of its criminal agendas. A Federal Appeals Court spelled out the censorship and banned it: “Defendants, and their employees and agents, shall take no actions, formal or informal, directly or indirectly, to coerce or significantly encourage social-media companies to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce, including through altering their algorithms, posted social-media content containing protected free speech. That includes, but is not limited to, compelling the platforms to act, such as by intimating that some form of punishment will follow a failure to comply with any request, or supervising, directing, or otherwise meaningfully controlling the social-media companies’ decision-making processes.”

The Biden Regime hopes to convince the Supreme Court that “national security” requires abandoning the US Constitution and to coerce the court into reinstating the Biden regime’s cancellation of the US Constitution. It is impossible for a country to survive when the values on which the country is founded are abandoned by its leaders. America is so far gone that not even the media believes in free speech and has happily accepted the role as Ministry of Propaganda. Certainly corporations do not respect the First Amendment. Employees must take “harassment training” to remain employed. Failure to use “Woke pronouns” constitutes harassment and grounds for firing. In other words, employees do not have freedom of speech.

A coerced Woke policy has control of their tongues and forces the use of words they do not voluntarily use and to which they object. Employees are forced to lend their validation to the preferences of a tiny perverse collection of confused people. Why do the non-normal minority have this power over the normal majority? Take a few minutes and try to identify any institution, public or private, that supports American values. Trump’s goal of taking back our country might be a task too large.

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Coup in progress in Congo.

Jeffrey Sachs: Western Neocolonialism Cannot Stop Africa’s Rise (Sp.)

Africa has witnessed a wave of military takeovers in the past few years, with new governments, like in the more recent cases of Gabon and Niger, positioning themselves as forces eager to shed vestiges of European neo colonialism. The African continent currently presents a complex and contradictory scene, but one thing is undeniable: if Africa were to attain more unity, it would be able to achieve an economic breakthrough in 20 years just like China or India did, renowned economist and Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs told Sputnik. “Africa was divided by the European imperial powers into 55 countries, many of which are quite small… But the continent as a whole is 1.4 billion people, and that is comparable to the single country of China and the single country of India.

So if Africa were to get its act together, to have more unity, and to have a unified continental scale economy, Africa will be able to follow along roughly 20 year cycles: China started first (around 1980), India started its rapid growth (around 2000),” the Columbia University Professor stated. He added: “Africa as a unified economic space could achieve consistent 7 to even 10% economic development over the coming decades from 2020 onward. This is quite interesting. So this is the positive side of the story for Africa.” The recent admission of Africa as a union – the African Union (AU) – as the 21st member of the G20 was a very significant event, the economist noted.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the inclusion of the 55-member African Union, one of the largest regional blocs in the world, established in 2002 as a successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), as a permanent member during the first session of the G20 leaders’ summit in New Delhi. According to Jeffrey Sachs, the move is important for the G20 as it “brings in other 1.4 billion people to the table with one seat, the AU seat.” But it may also have the “powerful effect of reinforcing the unification of the continental-scale economy in Africa.” This, in turn, would boost Africa’s economic advance during the coming several decades, Sachs underscored.

As for the spate of recent military takeovers, diverse economic factors are driving this political wave, said the economist. “Africa remains the poorest part of the world… And the Sahel of Africa, which is the region of the semi to hyper arid region neighboring the Sahara Desert, places like Senegal, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Chad, Niger, Mali, Sudan…this is the poorest single stretch on the planet because it’s mostly landlocked, it’s largely bereft of infrastructure… often sparsely populated and landlocked at the same time. It’s poor,” Jeffrey Sachs pointed out. The recent military takeovers have been taking place in these very poor countries, in Guinea, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger, with poverty “part of the underlying substrate of all of this,” said the economist.

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“Is it possible to imagine a worst dystopia than California?”

“California Democrats no longer even think like Americans. They are not Americans. They are dangerous aliens among us.”s

Anti-American Sexual Perverts Dominate California State Assembly (PCR)

California public schools supported by taxes on property owners teach California kids that it is possible to be born into the wrong body, and the schools implant the idea that many girls are really boys and many boys really girls that ended up in the wrong physical configuration. Consequently, an entire industry has grown up to change the sex of children. Boys are chemically castrated and given female hormones. Girls have their breast cut out and are given male hormones. Quack “transgender science” against nature proceeds apace. The public schools have created a fad among children that the thing to do is to change one’s sex. This brings the child attention the child might not get from a two-parent earner family created by taxes and feminism. By the time busy parents working to stay ahead of mortgage and car payments catch on to what is going on, it is too late.

To prevent any intervention by parents the California State Assembly has passed a bill that gives the state the right to seize kids from parents who don’t support the “transition” of their kids into the opposite sex. The bill says that if a parent objects to the sex change of a child, the child is endangered and can be seized into the state’s protection. There you have it–“freedom in America.” All authority of parents has been taken away in California by people who have ceased to be moral Americans. Whites are fleeing California, even the dumbshit liberal ones. Consequently, California which was a Reagan state only a short time ago is today only 33% white. Today Republicans hold only 18 seats in the 80 member assembly.

God speed the legal and illegal Hispanic and Asian immigration into California. Hopefully, the immigrants will use their immense majority to take the government away from the crazed governor Newsom, Nancy Pelosi, and Adam Schiff, the worst kind of anti-Americans who are destroying our country. Listen to Democrat state representative Lori Wilson who declares that it is the duty of parents to affirm their brainwashed children by endorsing their sex change. Lori Wilson says since parents fail their duty “to affirm our children”–by which she means by “our” your children which become the state’s children–the state has to intervene, take your kids, and perform the role of affirmation that parents fail to do.

Clearly, California Democrats no longer even think like Americans. They are not Americans. They are dangerous aliens among us. Let’s pray that Mexico reclaims California and Arizona and cuts out the metastasizing cancer. After all, California and the southwest represent lands stolen from Mexico. If we have to make amends to blacks because they were enslaved by blacks, we should pay reparations for stealing the southwest from Mexico. In California a child can be secretly transitioned without the knowledge or consent of parents. The California public schools actually teach the children that they cannot trust their parents. Is it possible to imagine a worst dystopia than California?

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Why Imran Khan had to go.

“Since Khan’s ouster, Pakistan has emerged as a useful supporter of the U.S. and its allies in the war, assistance that has now been repaid with an IMF loan.”

“Pakistan is known as a production hub for the types of basic munitions needed for grinding warfare..”

US Helped Pakistan Get IMF Bailout With Secret Arms Deal For Ukraine (IC)

Secret Pakistani arms sales to the U.S. helped to facilitate a controversial bailout from the IMF earlier this year, according to two sources with knowledge of the arrangement, with confirmation from internal Pakistani and American government documents. The arms sales were made for the purpose of supplying the Ukrainian military — marking Pakistani involvement in a conflict it had faced U.S. pressure to take sides on. The revelation is a window into the kind of behind-the-scenes maneuvering between financial and political elites that rarely is exposed to the public, even as the public pays the price. Harsh structural policy reforms demanded by the IMF as terms for its recent bailout kicked off an ongoing round of protests in the country. Major strikes have taken place throughout Pakistan in recent weeks in response to the measures.

The protests are the latest chapter in a year-and-a-half-long political crisis roiling the country. In April 2022, the Pakistani military, with the encouragement of the U.S., helped organize a no-confidence vote to remove Prime Minister Imran Khan. Ahead of the ouster, State Department diplomats privately expressed anger to their Pakistani counterparts over what they called Pakistan’s “aggressively neutral” stance on the Ukraine war under Khan. They warned of dire consequences if Khan remained in power and promised “all would be forgiven” if he were removed. Since Khan’s ouster, Pakistan has emerged as a useful supporter of the U.S. and its allies in the war, assistance that has now been repaid with an IMF loan.

The emergency loan allowed the new Pakistani government to put off a looming economic catastrophe and indefinitely postpone elections — time it used to launch a nationwide crackdown on civil society and jail Khan. “Pakistani democracy may ultimately be a casualty of Ukraine’s counteroffensive,” Arif Rafiq, a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute and specialist on Pakistan, told The Intercept. Pakistan is known as a production hub for the types of basic munitions needed for grinding warfare. As Ukraine grappled with chronic shortages of munitions and hardware, the presence of Pakistani-produced shells and other ordinances by the Ukrainian military has surfaced in open-source news reports about the conflict, though neither the U.S. nor the Pakistanis have acknowledged the arrangement.

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“Stoltenberg insisted that he still supports President Vladimir Zelensky’s goal of a military victory over Russia..”

‘Prepare For Long War’ – NATO Chief (RT)

The West must prepare for “a long war” in Ukraine, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg declared on Sunday. Despite claiming to want a “quick peace” in Ukraine, Stoltenberg insisted that he still supports President Vladimir Zelensky’s goal of a military victory over Russia. “Most wars last longer than expected when they first begin,”Stoltenberg said in an interview with Germany’s Funke media group. “Therefore we must prepare ourselves for a long war in Ukraine.” According to media reports over the last two months, Western officials and military planners have conceded that Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive against Russian forces is unlikely to succeed, leaving the front lines mostly unchanged as winter sets in. According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukraine has lost upwards of 71,000 men since the counteroffensive began in June.

Despite this stark attrition rate – with some units losing 90% of their manpower, according to Ukrainian sources, Stoltenberg insisted that NATO will continue to push for a military, not a diplomatic, solution. “We are all wishing for a quick peace,” Stoltenberg said. “But at the same time we must recognise: if President Zelensky and the Ukrainians stop fighting, their country will no longer exist. If President Putin and Russia lay down their weapons, we will have peace.” After walking away from a Turkish-brokered peace deal last April, Zelensky issued a decree forbidding all negotiations with Russia. Furthermore, he has repeatedly vowed to retake the former Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye, as well as Crimea, the latter of which voted overwhelmingly to join the Russian Federation in 2014.

Zelensky’s stance is backed by Washington, where officials have repeatedly insisted that only the Ukrainian president can decide when to seek peace. At the same time, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has condemned Putin for supposedly rejecting “meaningful diplomacy.” Russia maintains that it is open to a diplomatic solution to the conflict, but that any peace deal would have to take into account the “new territorial reality” – that Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, Zaporozhye, and Crimea will never be ceded back to Ukraine. Furthermore, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said negotiations would be held “not with Zelensky, who is a puppet in the hands of the West, but directly with his masters.”

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Milley parrots Stoltenberg. Or is it the other way around?

Milley Doubts Ukraine’s Counteroffensive to Achieve Its Goals Quickly (Sp.)

In an exclusive interview with an American broadcaster, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said that Ukraine’s counteroffensive “will take a considerable length of time,” refusing to speculate on how long it might take for Kiev to achieve its goals. “This offensive, although significant, has operational and tactical objectives that are limited in the sense that they do not, even if they are fully achieved, they do not completely kick out all the Russians, which is the broader strategic objective that [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelensky have” Milley said in an interview with a American broadcaster.

The military official refused to speculate on how long it might take Ukraine to achieve its goals, noting that it “will take a considerable length of time.” In addition, Milley described Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive as “long, hard, bloody.” Russia began its military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. Ukraine launched its latest counteroffensive in early June. Three months later, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Ukrainian counteroffensive had failed, with Ukraine suffering 71,000 casualties. Several Western officials also admitted that the Ukrainian counteroffensive had not been successful.

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“Zelensky’s formula” is insane..

Kiev Fails to Attract Neutral Countries to Its ‘Peace Formula’ – Envoy (Sp.)

Kiev has failed to “pull” neutral countries and international organizations to implement its peace formula, Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia told Sputnik. “As for the meetings on Zelensky’s peace formula, as far as we know, Kiev is still unsuccessfully trying to pull neutral countries and international organizations to implement the points of its plan,” Nebenzia said in an interview. He called for an objective approach to anything the Ukrainians say about international support for Zelensky’s formula, including a recent G20 statement. “We see no signs of UN involvement in these discussions, especially since [UN Secretary-General] Antonio Guterres has repeatedly spoken in this context about his commitment to the principle of impartiality and centrality,” Nebenzia said.

Nebenzya urged that “everything the Ukrainians say about international support for the so-called ‘Zelensky Plan’ should be checked against the facts,” including “the recent section of the G20 statement on the Ukrainian crisis.” “Everything else is ‘from the evil one’,” he concluded. Earlier, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the adoption of the New Delhi Declaration of the G20 summit. It states in connection with the events in Ukraine that all countries should refrain from the threat or use of force to acquire territory. The Russian Foreign Ministry said that the G7 countries were putting pressure on India to reflect their unilateral approaches to the situation around Ukraine in the final documents of the G20.

The ministry noted that against this background the Indian side tried to stick to a neutral course based on the strictly economic mandate of the G20. In late June, talks on Ukraine were held in Copenhagen with the participation of the G7 countries, some BRICS countries and Ukraine itself. The participants discussed the ways of implementing the peace formula of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. After that, Saudi Arabia held its own meeting on the issue in Jeddah. Moscow considers the formula to be completely detached from reality.

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“..Washington regards the armies of allies as “colonial” troops and would eagerly use them as “cannon fodder” if necessary without putting its own “exceptional people” in harm’s way..”

US Using NATO To ‘Absorb’ Countries – Patrushev (RT)

The never-ending expansion of NATO has enabled the US to turn many nations into its puppets, helping Washington to cling to its hegemony, Nikolay Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s National Security Council, has said. In an op-ed for the Razvedchik magazine issued by Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) and published on Friday, Patrushev claimed that the West often resorts to military force, coercion, ‘privatization’ of elites, and color revolutions to achieve global domination. The constant expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance basically provides the US with the opportunity to absorb states and deprive them of their independence in terms of defending their national interests.

The official also blasted the US-led military bloc for what he called “duplicity,” arguing that while NATO has always claimed to stand for peace, it has waged war or threatened military action against countries that oppose Washington’s policies. “NATO’s military power is used to maintain Western hegemony, economic enslavement, and political pressure on states that pose no military threat to the alliance,” Patrushev stated, adding that members of the bloc have taken part in more than 200 conflicts across the world over the past seven decades. Meanwhile, Patrushev continued, Washington regards the armies of allies as “colonial” troops and would eagerly use them as “cannon fodder” if necessary without putting its own “exceptional people” in harm’s way.

The West “perceives Russia as a constant threat” because it remembers that it was the Soviet Union that played a crucial role in dismantling the colonial system, according to Patrushev. As a result, he said, the West is using the full range of tools at its disposal against Russia, including sanctions and its massive system of media resources that help it concoct “information frenzy campaigns” across the globe. Moscow has repeatedly protested NATO expansion, seeing it as a major national security threat and arguing that the increased military build-up on its borders leads to heightened tensions in Europe. Russian President Vladimir Putin has named the risk of Kiev joining the military bloc as one of the key reasons behind the Ukraine conflict.

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“..across the street of the UN headquarters..” Like the photo.

Erdogan Discusses ‘Opportunities For Collaboration’ With Elon Musk (RT)

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has asked Tesla CEO Elon Musk to pick Türkiye as a location for his electric vehicle company’s next factory, according to the Turkish state-owned news agency Anadolu. During the meeting on Sunday, Erdogan described Ankara’s “technological breakthroughs as well as the ‘Digital Türkiye’ vision and the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy,” the country’s communications directorate said in a statement cited by Anadolu. Besides urging Musk to establish Tesla’s seventh factory in Türkiye, Erdogan also described other “opportunities for collaboration with SpaceX may arise through the steps taken and to be taken as part of Türkiye’s space program.”

The US entrepreneur has yet to comment on the results of the talks. He was seen entering the Turkish House skyscraper across the street of the UN headquarters on Sunday, carrying his young son on Sunday. Tesla currently has six so-called gigafactories in the US, Germany and China and is building a seventh in Mexico. The automaker could pick a location for its next major production facility by the end of 2023, Musk indicated earlier this year Last month the company “expressed interest” in building a factory in India to produce a low-cost EV model, after Musk pledged significant investment in India following a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the US in June.

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Oh sweet Jesus…

‘How Do You Lose An F-35 Jet?’ (Sp.)

The F-35 Lightning II is a family of fifth-generation, low-observable, multi-role fighter-bomber aircraft developed by US company Lockheed Martin. Social media users are wondering how the F-35 Lightning II jet could be missing after US military officials lost track of it somewhere over South Carolina after the pilot ejected. Earlier, the US authorities said that they were searching for an F-35B stealth fighter jet after a crash in South Carolina that forced the pilot to eject. “We are working with Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort to locate the F-35 aircraft involved in a mishap this afternoon. The pilot ejected safely. If you have any information that may help our recovery teams locate theF-35, please call the Base Defense Operations Center,” Joint Base Charleston said on X (formerly Twitter).

The US Marine Corps told local media that the accident involved an F-35B aircraft from the 501st Fighter Training Squadron, 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing. The pilot was taken to hospital in stable condition. The search is focused on the Moultrie and Marion Lakes area in the central part of the state. Recently, two aircraft collided during a race over the state of Nevada. As a result of the crash, two pilots were killed. Both planes were completely destroyed.

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https://twitter.com/i/status/1703403206837928386

 

 

 

 

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Hugo Simberg The Wounded Angel 1903

 

Gagging Donald Trump (Turley)
Trump Likes The ‘Concept’ Of A Woman As 2024 VP Candidate (Sp.)
Ukraine Could Have Avoided Conflict – Trump (RT)
The Nazi Biden Regime Takes Its Censorship Claim To The Supreme Court (PCR)
Jeffrey Sachs: Western Neocolonialism Cannot Stop Africa’s Rise (Sp.)
Anti-American Sexual Perverts Dominate California State Assembly (PCR)
US Helped Pakistan Get IMF Bailout With Secret Arms Deal For Ukraine (IC)
‘Prepare For Long War’ – NATO Chief (RT)
Milley Doubts Ukraine’s Counteroffensive to Achieve Its Goals Quickly (Sp.)
Kiev Fails to Attract Neutral Countries to Its ‘Peace Formula’ – Envoy (Sp.)
US Using NATO To ‘Absorb’ Countries – Patrushev (RT)
Erdogan Discusses ‘Opportunities For Collaboration’ With Elon Musk (RT)
‘How Do You Lose An F-35 Jet?’ (Sp.)

 

 

 

 

What emergency?

 

 

 

 


The U.S. appeals court said that the FDA’s statements, including one telling people to ‘stop’ using ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment, went beyond the authority conferred on the agency by Congress.”

 

 

Kadyrov

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gagging a entire Presidential Election. The US is close to the edge.

“..Trump could “present a serious and substantial danger of prejudicing” his 2020 federal election interference case.”

Gagging Donald Trump (Turley)

Ronald Reagan once said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.” After Friday night, we can add nine more: “a narrowly tailored order that imposes modest, permissible restrictions.” Those words were used by Special Counsel Jack Smith to propose a gag order that would sharply curtail the ability of former President Donald Trump to criticize Smith and his prosecution. The Smith motion is anything but “narrowly tailored.” Indeed, short of a mobile “Get Smart” Cone of Silence, it is chilling to think of what Smith considered the broader option. Smith told District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, D.C., that Trump could “present a serious and substantial danger of prejudicing” his 2020 federal election interference case.

Smith compared Trump’s comments on the trial to the “disinformation” spread by Trump after the 2020 election — the subject of the indictment. The motion states that Trump’s “recent extrajudicial statements are intended to undermine public confidence in an institution — the judicial system — and to undermine confidence in and intimidate individuals — the Court, the jury pool, witnesses, and prosecutors.” I have long criticized Trump’s inflammatory comments over these cases, but Smith’s solution veers dangerously into core political speech in the middle of a presidential election. Ironically, Smith’s move will likely be seen as reinforcing Trump’s claim of intentional election interference by the Biden Administration.

I do not view it that way, but I do believe Smith is showing his signature lack of restraint in high-profile cases, a tendency that led to the unanimous overturning of his conviction of former Virginia Republican Gov. Robert McDonnell. Smith seeks to bar comments “regarding the identity, testimony, or credibility of prospective witnesses” and “statements about any party, witness, attorney, court personnel, or potential jurors that are disparaging and inflammatory, or intimidating.” Gag orders have become commonplace in federal trials, particularly high-profile cases. I have criticized the increasing use of gag orders for years due to concerns over free speech. Typical orders often seek to shutdown public comments in the interests of protecting jury pools.

Even “narrower” orders are written with vague terminology like “disparaging” and “intimidating” that expose defendants to punitive action if they cross uncertain lines in public defending themselves. No one seriously questions the ability of courts to limit the release of sealed material or to bar threatening comments directed at jurors, witnesses, or court staff. However, there are laws on the books allowing for the prosecution of such cases. More importantly, this is no typical case. Smith has pushed for a trial before the election and the court inexplicably shoehorned the trial into a crowded calendar just before the Super Tuesday election. Judge Chutkan previously stated that “I cannot and I will not factor into my decisions how it will factor into a political campaign.” This motion, however, would impose substantial limits on a national political debate and begs the question of whether the court is failing to balance the rivaling constitutional interests in this unprecedented situation. It could not only test Chutkan’s position but prompt an early appeal.

More importantly, this is no typical case. Smith has pushed for a trial before the election and the court inexplicably shoehorned the trial into a crowded calendar just before the Super Tuesday election. Judge Chutkan previously stated that “I cannot and I will not factor into my decisions how it will factor into a political campaign.” This motion, however, would impose substantial limits on a national political debate and begs the question of whether the court is failing to balance the rivaling constitutional interests in this unprecedented situation. It could not only test Chutkan’s position but prompt an early appeal.

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“..some of the greatest world leaders have been in their eighties.” However, what candidates needed to be checked for, in Trump’s opinion, was “competency”..

“Biden ended his speech at the University of Hartford in June with “God save the Queen, man”

Trump Likes The ‘Concept’ Of A Woman As 2024 VP Candidate (Sp.)

Donald Trump, indicted four times in the past few months, has turned his legal troubles to his advantage, as his poll ratings testify. The 45th POTUS has swept ahead in the GOP presidential primary race, with his fundraising campaign also making an impressive haul since the Trump “mug shot” taken at Georgia’s Fulton County Jail in August. The Republican nomination frontrunner for the 2024 US presidential elections, Donald Trump, might not be averse to choosing a woman as his running mate. That, at least, is what the former POTUS told the host of ‘Meet the Press’ in an interview. “I like the concept, but we’re going to pick the best person… But I do like the concept, yes,” the 45th US President told the moderator, while indicating that he was not yet focused too much on picking a potential Vice-President.

Trump also took a moment to single out Kristi Noem as “one of the people I’d consider”, adding that the South Dakota Governor had given him a “full-throated endorsement, a beautiful endorsement”. Earlier in the month, the 51-year-old when asked if she would consider an offer from Trump to be his running mate, responded: “I would in a heartbeat,” adding: “Trump needs a strong partner if he’s going to take back the White House and he’s going to need somebody who knows what it’s like to run a business, to be an employee, earn a paycheck. But also having [someone who has been] a wife, mom, and grandma isn’t bad either.” As for the other women that have been mooted as potential Trump running mates, the list includes Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake.

Elsewhere in the interview, airing on Sunday, the 77-year-old Trump, weighed in on the US presidency age limit debate. In his opinion, it’s not age that is the problem, quipping that, “some of the greatest world leaders have been in their eighties.” However, what candidates needed to be checked for, in Trump’s opinion, was “competency”. “I’m all for the tests,” said Trump, recalling how he “aced” his own cognitive test in 2020 at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. As for 80-year old Joe Biden, Trump suggested that the problem with him was not age. “I don’t think Biden is too old, but I think he is incompetent. And that’s a bigger problem.”

The Democratic incumbent himself has repeatedly dismissed concerns that he will be 82 should he have another stint in the Oval Office, and has made much of the “hell of a lot of wisdom” he has acquired throughout his political career but American voters are not entirely convinced. In fact, just recently a new poll by Quinnipiac University showed that approximately six in 10 US voters – 61 percent – are in favor of a maximum age being introduced for presidential candidates. Furthermore, 68 percent of voters think Biden, famously known for blunders and mispronouncements during public appearances, is too old to serve for a second term, according to the Quinnipiac poll. In one of a long line of gaffes, Biden ended his speech at the University of Hartford in June with “God save the Queen, man”. The clip went viral on social media, as Biden’s slip-ups tend to, with netizens puzzled since Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II died in September 2022.

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“They could have made a deal where nobody was killed…they would have had a Ukrainian country. Now nobody even knows if Ukraine is going to be totally taken over.”

Ukraine Could Have Avoided Conflict – Trump (RT)

Ukraine could have avoided hundreds of thousands of deaths and lost less land if it had reached a peace deal with Russia before the conflict began last February, former US President Donald Trump told NBC News in an interview aired on Sunday. The loss of Ukrainian territory to Russia is “something that could have been negotiated,” Trump told NBC host Kristen Welker, adding that “a lot of people expected”Kiev to abandon its claims to “Crimea and other parts of the country” in exchange for peace. “So they could have made a deal where there’s less territory [lost] than Russia has already taken,”Trump continued. “They could have made a deal where nobody was killed…they would have had a Ukrainian country. Now nobody even knows if Ukraine is going to be totally taken over.”

By “other parts of the country,”Trump was likely referring to the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, whose sovereignty Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized three days before Russia’s military operation in Ukraine began. Following referendums last September, both regions have now joined the Russian Federation, along with the formerly Ukrainian territories of Kherson and Zaporozhye. Crimea voted to rejoin Russia in 2014. Trump then repeated his claim that if elected next year, he would have a peace deal worked out within 24 hours. “I’d get [Russian President Vladimir Putin] into a room, I’d get [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky into a room, then I’d bring them together and I’d have a deal worked out,” he told Welker. “It would have been easier if the war didn’t start, and you’d have hundreds of thousands of people living, most importantly,” he noted. “But I can get it done and I can get it done quickly.”

Trump then claimed that he kept Ukraine and Russia “from doing anything” during his presidency, arguing that the low oil prices that characterized his term in the White House would have made it too costly for Russia, a leading oil exporter, to finance a military operation. Trump’s position on Ukraine is diametrically opposed to that of President Joe Biden, who has vowed to bankroll Kiev’s military “for as long as it takes” to defeat Russia on the battlefield. With the exception of businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, all of Trump’s opponents in the Republican primary field support some sort of continued military aid to Ukraine. Among them is Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence. Speaking to CNN on Sunday, Pence accused Trump of “embracing the politics of appeasement,” and “letting Vladimir Putin have what he wants.”

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“Take a few minutes and try to identify any institution, public or private, that supports American values. Trump’s goal of taking back our country might be a task too large.”

The Nazi Biden Regime Takes Its Censorship Claim To The Supreme Court (PCR)

There is no doubt whatsoever that the Biden Regime is a Fascist Censor controlling information in the interest of its criminal agendas. A Federal Appeals Court spelled out the censorship and banned it: “Defendants, and their employees and agents, shall take no actions, formal or informal, directly or indirectly, to coerce or significantly encourage social-media companies to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce, including through altering their algorithms, posted social-media content containing protected free speech. That includes, but is not limited to, compelling the platforms to act, such as by intimating that some form of punishment will follow a failure to comply with any request, or supervising, directing, or otherwise meaningfully controlling the social-media companies’ decision-making processes.”

The Biden Regime hopes to convince the Supreme Court that “national security” requires abandoning the US Constitution and to coerce the court into reinstating the Biden regime’s cancellation of the US Constitution. It is impossible for a country to survive when the values on which the country is founded are abandoned by its leaders. America is so far gone that not even the media believes in free speech and has happily accepted the role as Ministry of Propaganda. Certainly corporations do not respect the First Amendment. Employees must take “harassment training” to remain employed. Failure to use “Woke pronouns” constitutes harassment and grounds for firing. In other words, employees do not have freedom of speech.

A coerced Woke policy has control of their tongues and forces the use of words they do not voluntarily use and to which they object. Employees are forced to lend their validation to the preferences of a tiny perverse collection of confused people. Why do the non-normal minority have this power over the normal majority? Take a few minutes and try to identify any institution, public or private, that supports American values. Trump’s goal of taking back our country might be a task too large.

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Coup in progress in Congo.

Jeffrey Sachs: Western Neocolonialism Cannot Stop Africa’s Rise (Sp.)

Africa has witnessed a wave of military takeovers in the past few years, with new governments, like in the more recent cases of Gabon and Niger, positioning themselves as forces eager to shed vestiges of European neo colonialism. The African continent currently presents a complex and contradictory scene, but one thing is undeniable: if Africa were to attain more unity, it would be able to achieve an economic breakthrough in 20 years just like China or India did, renowned economist and Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs told Sputnik. “Africa was divided by the European imperial powers into 55 countries, many of which are quite small… But the continent as a whole is 1.4 billion people, and that is comparable to the single country of China and the single country of India.

So if Africa were to get its act together, to have more unity, and to have a unified continental scale economy, Africa will be able to follow along roughly 20 year cycles: China started first (around 1980), India started its rapid growth (around 2000),” the Columbia University Professor stated. He added: “Africa as a unified economic space could achieve consistent 7 to even 10% economic development over the coming decades from 2020 onward. This is quite interesting. So this is the positive side of the story for Africa.” The recent admission of Africa as a union – the African Union (AU) – as the 21st member of the G20 was a very significant event, the economist noted.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the inclusion of the 55-member African Union, one of the largest regional blocs in the world, established in 2002 as a successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), as a permanent member during the first session of the G20 leaders’ summit in New Delhi. According to Jeffrey Sachs, the move is important for the G20 as it “brings in other 1.4 billion people to the table with one seat, the AU seat.” But it may also have the “powerful effect of reinforcing the unification of the continental-scale economy in Africa.” This, in turn, would boost Africa’s economic advance during the coming several decades, Sachs underscored.

As for the spate of recent military takeovers, diverse economic factors are driving this political wave, said the economist. “Africa remains the poorest part of the world… And the Sahel of Africa, which is the region of the semi to hyper arid region neighboring the Sahara Desert, places like Senegal, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Chad, Niger, Mali, Sudan…this is the poorest single stretch on the planet because it’s mostly landlocked, it’s largely bereft of infrastructure… often sparsely populated and landlocked at the same time. It’s poor,” Jeffrey Sachs pointed out. The recent military takeovers have been taking place in these very poor countries, in Guinea, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger, with poverty “part of the underlying substrate of all of this,” said the economist.

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“Is it possible to imagine a worst dystopia than California?”

“California Democrats no longer even think like Americans. They are not Americans. They are dangerous aliens among us.”s

Anti-American Sexual Perverts Dominate California State Assembly (PCR)

California public schools supported by taxes on property owners teach California kids that it is possible to be born into the wrong body, and the schools implant the idea that many girls are really boys and many boys really girls that ended up in the wrong physical configuration. Consequently, an entire industry has grown up to change the sex of children. Boys are chemically castrated and given female hormones. Girls have their breast cut out and are given male hormones. Quack “transgender science” against nature proceeds apace. The public schools have created a fad among children that the thing to do is to change one’s sex. This brings the child attention the child might not get from a two-parent earner family created by taxes and feminism. By the time busy parents working to stay ahead of mortgage and car payments catch on to what is going on, it is too late.

To prevent any intervention by parents the California State Assembly has passed a bill that gives the state the right to seize kids from parents who don’t support the “transition” of their kids into the opposite sex. The bill says that if a parent objects to the sex change of a child, the child is endangered and can be seized into the state’s protection. There you have it–“freedom in America.” All authority of parents has been taken away in California by people who have ceased to be moral Americans. Whites are fleeing California, even the dumbshit liberal ones. Consequently, California which was a Reagan state only a short time ago is today only 33% white. Today Republicans hold only 18 seats in the 80 member assembly.

God speed the legal and illegal Hispanic and Asian immigration into California. Hopefully, the immigrants will use their immense majority to take the government away from the crazed governor Newsom, Nancy Pelosi, and Adam Schiff, the worst kind of anti-Americans who are destroying our country. Listen to Democrat state representative Lori Wilson who declares that it is the duty of parents to affirm their brainwashed children by endorsing their sex change. Lori Wilson says since parents fail their duty “to affirm our children”–by which she means by “our” your children which become the state’s children–the state has to intervene, take your kids, and perform the role of affirmation that parents fail to do.

Clearly, California Democrats no longer even think like Americans. They are not Americans. They are dangerous aliens among us. Let’s pray that Mexico reclaims California and Arizona and cuts out the metastasizing cancer. After all, California and the southwest represent lands stolen from Mexico. If we have to make amends to blacks because they were enslaved by blacks, we should pay reparations for stealing the southwest from Mexico. In California a child can be secretly transitioned without the knowledge or consent of parents. The California public schools actually teach the children that they cannot trust their parents. Is it possible to imagine a worst dystopia than California?

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Why Imran Khan had to go.

“Since Khan’s ouster, Pakistan has emerged as a useful supporter of the U.S. and its allies in the war, assistance that has now been repaid with an IMF loan.”

“Pakistan is known as a production hub for the types of basic munitions needed for grinding warfare..”

US Helped Pakistan Get IMF Bailout With Secret Arms Deal For Ukraine (IC)

Secret Pakistani arms sales to the U.S. helped to facilitate a controversial bailout from the IMF earlier this year, according to two sources with knowledge of the arrangement, with confirmation from internal Pakistani and American government documents. The arms sales were made for the purpose of supplying the Ukrainian military — marking Pakistani involvement in a conflict it had faced U.S. pressure to take sides on. The revelation is a window into the kind of behind-the-scenes maneuvering between financial and political elites that rarely is exposed to the public, even as the public pays the price. Harsh structural policy reforms demanded by the IMF as terms for its recent bailout kicked off an ongoing round of protests in the country. Major strikes have taken place throughout Pakistan in recent weeks in response to the measures.

The protests are the latest chapter in a year-and-a-half-long political crisis roiling the country. In April 2022, the Pakistani military, with the encouragement of the U.S., helped organize a no-confidence vote to remove Prime Minister Imran Khan. Ahead of the ouster, State Department diplomats privately expressed anger to their Pakistani counterparts over what they called Pakistan’s “aggressively neutral” stance on the Ukraine war under Khan. They warned of dire consequences if Khan remained in power and promised “all would be forgiven” if he were removed. Since Khan’s ouster, Pakistan has emerged as a useful supporter of the U.S. and its allies in the war, assistance that has now been repaid with an IMF loan.

The emergency loan allowed the new Pakistani government to put off a looming economic catastrophe and indefinitely postpone elections — time it used to launch a nationwide crackdown on civil society and jail Khan. “Pakistani democracy may ultimately be a casualty of Ukraine’s counteroffensive,” Arif Rafiq, a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute and specialist on Pakistan, told The Intercept. Pakistan is known as a production hub for the types of basic munitions needed for grinding warfare. As Ukraine grappled with chronic shortages of munitions and hardware, the presence of Pakistani-produced shells and other ordinances by the Ukrainian military has surfaced in open-source news reports about the conflict, though neither the U.S. nor the Pakistanis have acknowledged the arrangement.

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“Stoltenberg insisted that he still supports President Vladimir Zelensky’s goal of a military victory over Russia..”

‘Prepare For Long War’ – NATO Chief (RT)

The West must prepare for “a long war” in Ukraine, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg declared on Sunday. Despite claiming to want a “quick peace” in Ukraine, Stoltenberg insisted that he still supports President Vladimir Zelensky’s goal of a military victory over Russia. “Most wars last longer than expected when they first begin,”Stoltenberg said in an interview with Germany’s Funke media group. “Therefore we must prepare ourselves for a long war in Ukraine.” According to media reports over the last two months, Western officials and military planners have conceded that Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive against Russian forces is unlikely to succeed, leaving the front lines mostly unchanged as winter sets in. According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukraine has lost upwards of 71,000 men since the counteroffensive began in June.

Despite this stark attrition rate – with some units losing 90% of their manpower, according to Ukrainian sources, Stoltenberg insisted that NATO will continue to push for a military, not a diplomatic, solution. “We are all wishing for a quick peace,” Stoltenberg said. “But at the same time we must recognise: if President Zelensky and the Ukrainians stop fighting, their country will no longer exist. If President Putin and Russia lay down their weapons, we will have peace.” After walking away from a Turkish-brokered peace deal last April, Zelensky issued a decree forbidding all negotiations with Russia. Furthermore, he has repeatedly vowed to retake the former Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye, as well as Crimea, the latter of which voted overwhelmingly to join the Russian Federation in 2014.

Zelensky’s stance is backed by Washington, where officials have repeatedly insisted that only the Ukrainian president can decide when to seek peace. At the same time, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has condemned Putin for supposedly rejecting “meaningful diplomacy.” Russia maintains that it is open to a diplomatic solution to the conflict, but that any peace deal would have to take into account the “new territorial reality” – that Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, Zaporozhye, and Crimea will never be ceded back to Ukraine. Furthermore, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said negotiations would be held “not with Zelensky, who is a puppet in the hands of the West, but directly with his masters.”

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Milley parrots Stoltenberg. Or is it the other way around?

Milley Doubts Ukraine’s Counteroffensive to Achieve Its Goals Quickly (Sp.)

In an exclusive interview with an American broadcaster, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said that Ukraine’s counteroffensive “will take a considerable length of time,” refusing to speculate on how long it might take for Kiev to achieve its goals. “This offensive, although significant, has operational and tactical objectives that are limited in the sense that they do not, even if they are fully achieved, they do not completely kick out all the Russians, which is the broader strategic objective that [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelensky have” Milley said in an interview with a American broadcaster.

The military official refused to speculate on how long it might take Ukraine to achieve its goals, noting that it “will take a considerable length of time.” In addition, Milley described Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive as “long, hard, bloody.” Russia began its military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. Ukraine launched its latest counteroffensive in early June. Three months later, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Ukrainian counteroffensive had failed, with Ukraine suffering 71,000 casualties. Several Western officials also admitted that the Ukrainian counteroffensive had not been successful.

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“Zelensky’s formula” is insane..

Kiev Fails to Attract Neutral Countries to Its ‘Peace Formula’ – Envoy (Sp.)

Kiev has failed to “pull” neutral countries and international organizations to implement its peace formula, Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia told Sputnik. “As for the meetings on Zelensky’s peace formula, as far as we know, Kiev is still unsuccessfully trying to pull neutral countries and international organizations to implement the points of its plan,” Nebenzia said in an interview. He called for an objective approach to anything the Ukrainians say about international support for Zelensky’s formula, including a recent G20 statement. “We see no signs of UN involvement in these discussions, especially since [UN Secretary-General] Antonio Guterres has repeatedly spoken in this context about his commitment to the principle of impartiality and centrality,” Nebenzia said.

Nebenzya urged that “everything the Ukrainians say about international support for the so-called ‘Zelensky Plan’ should be checked against the facts,” including “the recent section of the G20 statement on the Ukrainian crisis.” “Everything else is ‘from the evil one’,” he concluded. Earlier, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the adoption of the New Delhi Declaration of the G20 summit. It states in connection with the events in Ukraine that all countries should refrain from the threat or use of force to acquire territory. The Russian Foreign Ministry said that the G7 countries were putting pressure on India to reflect their unilateral approaches to the situation around Ukraine in the final documents of the G20.

The ministry noted that against this background the Indian side tried to stick to a neutral course based on the strictly economic mandate of the G20. In late June, talks on Ukraine were held in Copenhagen with the participation of the G7 countries, some BRICS countries and Ukraine itself. The participants discussed the ways of implementing the peace formula of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. After that, Saudi Arabia held its own meeting on the issue in Jeddah. Moscow considers the formula to be completely detached from reality.

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“..Washington regards the armies of allies as “colonial” troops and would eagerly use them as “cannon fodder” if necessary without putting its own “exceptional people” in harm’s way..”

US Using NATO To ‘Absorb’ Countries – Patrushev (RT)

The never-ending expansion of NATO has enabled the US to turn many nations into its puppets, helping Washington to cling to its hegemony, Nikolay Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s National Security Council, has said. In an op-ed for the Razvedchik magazine issued by Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) and published on Friday, Patrushev claimed that the West often resorts to military force, coercion, ‘privatization’ of elites, and color revolutions to achieve global domination. The constant expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance basically provides the US with the opportunity to absorb states and deprive them of their independence in terms of defending their national interests.

The official also blasted the US-led military bloc for what he called “duplicity,” arguing that while NATO has always claimed to stand for peace, it has waged war or threatened military action against countries that oppose Washington’s policies. “NATO’s military power is used to maintain Western hegemony, economic enslavement, and political pressure on states that pose no military threat to the alliance,” Patrushev stated, adding that members of the bloc have taken part in more than 200 conflicts across the world over the past seven decades. Meanwhile, Patrushev continued, Washington regards the armies of allies as “colonial” troops and would eagerly use them as “cannon fodder” if necessary without putting its own “exceptional people” in harm’s way.

The West “perceives Russia as a constant threat” because it remembers that it was the Soviet Union that played a crucial role in dismantling the colonial system, according to Patrushev. As a result, he said, the West is using the full range of tools at its disposal against Russia, including sanctions and its massive system of media resources that help it concoct “information frenzy campaigns” across the globe. Moscow has repeatedly protested NATO expansion, seeing it as a major national security threat and arguing that the increased military build-up on its borders leads to heightened tensions in Europe. Russian President Vladimir Putin has named the risk of Kiev joining the military bloc as one of the key reasons behind the Ukraine conflict.

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“..across the street of the UN headquarters..” Like the photo.

Erdogan Discusses ‘Opportunities For Collaboration’ With Elon Musk (RT)

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has asked Tesla CEO Elon Musk to pick Türkiye as a location for his electric vehicle company’s next factory, according to the Turkish state-owned news agency Anadolu. During the meeting on Sunday, Erdogan described Ankara’s “technological breakthroughs as well as the ‘Digital Türkiye’ vision and the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy,” the country’s communications directorate said in a statement cited by Anadolu. Besides urging Musk to establish Tesla’s seventh factory in Türkiye, Erdogan also described other “opportunities for collaboration with SpaceX may arise through the steps taken and to be taken as part of Türkiye’s space program.”

The US entrepreneur has yet to comment on the results of the talks. He was seen entering the Turkish House skyscraper across the street of the UN headquarters on Sunday, carrying his young son on Sunday. Tesla currently has six so-called gigafactories in the US, Germany and China and is building a seventh in Mexico. The automaker could pick a location for its next major production facility by the end of 2023, Musk indicated earlier this year Last month the company “expressed interest” in building a factory in India to produce a low-cost EV model, after Musk pledged significant investment in India following a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the US in June.

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Oh sweet Jesus…

‘How Do You Lose An F-35 Jet?’ (Sp.)

The F-35 Lightning II is a family of fifth-generation, low-observable, multi-role fighter-bomber aircraft developed by US company Lockheed Martin. Social media users are wondering how the F-35 Lightning II jet could be missing after US military officials lost track of it somewhere over South Carolina after the pilot ejected. Earlier, the US authorities said that they were searching for an F-35B stealth fighter jet after a crash in South Carolina that forced the pilot to eject. “We are working with Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort to locate the F-35 aircraft involved in a mishap this afternoon. The pilot ejected safely. If you have any information that may help our recovery teams locate theF-35, please call the Base Defense Operations Center,” Joint Base Charleston said on X (formerly Twitter).

The US Marine Corps told local media that the accident involved an F-35B aircraft from the 501st Fighter Training Squadron, 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing. The pilot was taken to hospital in stable condition. The search is focused on the Moultrie and Marion Lakes area in the central part of the state. Recently, two aircraft collided during a race over the state of Nevada. As a result of the crash, two pilots were killed. Both planes were completely destroyed.

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Sep 172023
 


Henri Cartier Bresson Paris 1952

 

BLM vs Proud Boys: The Shocking Hypocrisy Of US Law (Robert Bridge)
Trump Decries ‘Double Standard’ in Documents Case (ET)
Court Documents Reveal Number Of Trump Private Messages Disclosed By X (RT)
Jeffrey Sachs: US Sanctions Against Russia and China Destined to Fail (Sp.)
‘Ground War’ in Ukraine May Be Over – Macgregor (Sp.)
Kiev’s Requests for Arms Exceed NATO’s Production Capacity (Sp.)
Ukrainian Army Lost 9 Out Of Every 10 Troops – Conscription Officer (RT)
NATO Says It Can Deploy 3.5 Million Soldiers If Attacked (RT)
Zelensky Issues Warning To EU Neighbors (RT)
Zelensky Political Rival Charged With Treason (RT)
Orban Explains What Might Force West To Want Peace In Ukraine (RT)
Currency Wars Versus Gold Standards (Macleod)
Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger Sign Charter to Create Defense Alliance (Sp.)

 

 

 

 

Obama Bush
https://twitter.com/i/status/1703116084801413435

 

 

 

 

Tucker Carlson: “Criticize the drug companies, question the war in Ukraine, and you can be pretty sure this is going to happen.”

 

 

Russell

 

 

 

 

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I’ve come to the conclusion that America today is the living manifestation of “Universe 25”. Russia is not. Unless we change course, and get back to basics, we’re screwed. Russia wins by default—meaning that they’re not even trying to win. We’re just losing on our own.
– Scott Ritter

 

 

 

 

“America is looking more like a bona-fide banana republic than ever before.”

BLM vs Proud Boys: The Shocking Hypocrisy Of US Law (Robert Bridge)

Between May 2020 and January 6, 2021, the United States experienced two tumultuous events – one at the hands of liberals, the other of conservatives – that resulted in many millions of dollars in property destruction, as well as injuries and loss of life. Yet just one side in those battles suffered severe legal consequences for its actions. During the Black Lives Matter/Antifa riots that swept the US in the summer of 2020 following the police killing of George Floyd, protesters went on a rampage and stormed various government buildings in Portland, Oregon. One of the attackers, Kevin Benjamin Weier, 35, was arrested for setting fire to the federal courthouse. Many (right-wing) commentators have described that willful destruction of government property, and the assorted acts of violence by other protesters, as seditious acts against the US government.

For over 100 days the protesters kept Portland residents under a state of siege, as Democratic Mayor Ted Wheeler seemed unwilling or unable to halt the violence. That should come as no surprise considering that the Portland City Council slashed millions from the police budget, and even ordered the police to stop using tear gas in a futile attempt to appease the mob (Note to Portland: it’s impossible to appease a mob). Finally, President Donald Trump shocked liberal sensitivities by sending in federal agents to help restore order and arrest the perpetrators. So what happened to Antifa member Kevin Benjamin Weier and his motley crew of anarchists? While many protesters around the country had their prison bail paid by Hollywood celebrities, Mr. Weier, whose felony charge made him eligible for 10 years in the slammer, together with a hefty $250,000 fine, was ultimately sentenced to two years’ probation and a $200 fine. In other words, about the same slap on the wrist that a Los Angeles shoplifter could expect to receive.

Just six months after the BLM/Antifa protests had subsided, the American people were treated to yet another historic display of pent-up passions as thousands of disaffected Trump supporters descended upon the Capitol Building in Washington, DC to express their outrage over an election they believed had been stolen. While there were many scenes of chaos and pandemonium, with rioters breaching the entrance and carrying out acts of vandalism and looting, everything was not quite as it had seemed. Two years after the storming of the Capitol Building, 40,000 hours of surveillance videotape from that day were finally released, and the images show that the establishment media had been cherry-picking the worst scenes for public consumption.

“Taken as a whole, the video record does not support the claim that January 6th was an insurrection,” remarked Tucker Carlson, the first journalist to expose the tapes in their entirety. “In fact, it demolishes the claim.” Although there was undoubtedly a group of hooligans among the thousands of January 6th protesters responsible for wreaking a lot of havoc, the overwhelming majority of the participants “were not insurrectionists,” Carlson continued. “They were orderly and meek. They were sightseers.” Such a conclusion will be very difficult for most people to believe, but that’s only because the media continually broadcasted the most damning images from the Capitol Building, reinforcing the narrative of seditious rioters.

Now compare that harsh ‘made for television’ portrayal of January 6 with CNN’s “Fiery But Mostly Peaceful Protests” style of reporting it used to downplay the severity of the George Floyd protests. And while the Democrats and aligned media continue to sell the January 6 riot as a violent right-wing insurgency, as they pursue their primary goal of putting ‘dictator’ Donald Trump behind bars, the only person to suffer a violent death on January 6 was a protester named Ashli Babbitt, a 36-year-old military veteran. A Capitol Police officer shot her in the neck, with a later explanation by the department stating that he had “potentially saved Members [of Congress] and staff from serious injury and possible death.”

All things considered, the damage done by left-wing protesters during the George Floyd protests were far worse than the crimes committed by the Trump supporters on Capitol Hill. That becomes more evident when it is considered that acts of arson, vandalism, and looting that occurred between May 26 and June 8 caused approximately $1-2 billion in damages nationally, the highest recorded amount from civil disorder in US history. Meanwhile, the monetary damage caused by the Capitol Building protesters was just over $2.7 million. Meanwhile, as we have already discussed, there have been no serious criminal charges filed against the members of Black Lives Matter and Antifa, which brings us to the most hypocritical part of this story.

This week, Enrique Tarrio, the former chairman of the far-right organization Proud Boys, who wasn’t even in Washington, D.C. on January 6, was sentenced to 22 years in prison for plotting to keep Trump in power by force after he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden. Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the similar-minded group the Oath Keepers, and one-time Proud Boys leader Ethan Nordean, were both handed 18-year sentences. The three men were found guilty of breaking the seditious conspiracy law, which was enacted after the Civil War to arrest Southerners who continued to take up arms against the US government.

In order for prosecutors to win a seditious conspiracy case, they must prove that two or more people conspired to “overthrow, put down or to destroy by force”the US government, or that they plotted to use force to challenge government authority. Although the case has already been settled, the jury is still out for many political pundits who, pointing to the January 6 surveillance videos, argue that the case for violent insurrection is weak at best. Now, with former President Donald Trump heading for court on March 4, 2024, just eight months before the presidential election, America is looking more like a bona-fide banana republic than ever before.

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“This is all about the Presidential Records Act,” President Trump said. “I’m allowed to have these documents. I’m allowed to take these documents, classified or unclassified. And frankly, when I have them, they become unclassified. “People think you have to go through a ritual—you don’t. At least, in my opinion, you don’t.”

“Hillary Clinton destroyed documents while under subpoena—while under subpoena—and wasn’t even charged. … Does it make you angry?” “Yeah,” he replied. “Yeah, it makes me angry.”

Trump Decries ‘Double Standard’ in Documents Case (ET)

President Trump is facing criminal charges in two federal cases relating to his handling of classified documents and his challenge of the 2020 presidential election results. Two additional cases have been brought by Democrat prosecutors in New York and Atlanta, though the former president holds that those cases were also brought in coordination with the Biden Department of Justice. “These are Biden indictments,” he said. “This is a guy that is grossly incompetent—I don’t even believe it’s him. It’s the people, the fascists that’s around him. Because I don’t believe he’s smart enough to do this, if you want to know the truth.” In the documents case, brought by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, President Trump stands accused of willful retention of national defense information, obstruction, and making false statements.

But the case, according to the former president, revolves around a “fake crime.” “They create a fake crime, and then they say, ‘Oh, you obstructed.’ This is a fake thing that they’ve done,” he said. Pointing to the Presidential Records Act of 1978, he contended that the law gives him the authority to decide which records he can keep. As support for those claims, President Trump cited a similar case involving audio recordings that President Bill Clinton kept in a sock drawer. The recordings were made during President Clinton’s time in office, but when government watchdog group Judicial Watch sued to obtain access to them, a federal judge dismissed the case. The 42nd president, the judge ruled, had the authority to decide which records qualified as personal and which were presidential.

“This is all about the Presidential Records Act,” President Trump said. “I’m allowed to have these documents. I’m allowed to take these documents, classified or unclassified. And frankly, when I have them, they become unclassified. “People think you have to go through a ritual—you don’t. At least, in my opinion, you don’t.” Further noting that the statute in question is civil rather than criminal, he asserted, “I did absolutely nothing wrong.” President Trump has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges filed against him. But while he may not be worried about a conviction, one emotion he admitted to feeling was anger. Ms. Kelly, noting that he had not been accused of destroying classified documents, said: “Hillary Clinton destroyed documents while under subpoena—while under subpoena—and wasn’t even charged. … Does it make you angry?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “Yeah, it makes me angry.” President Trump noted that Ms. Clinton smashed her cell phones and destroyed tens of thousands of emails after receiving a congressional subpoena, yet former FBI Director James Comey concluded that “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring charges against her. “Yeah, there’s a double standard in this country, and the people aren’t standing for it,” he said. “People get it.”

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“X lost its appeal and was found to be in contempt of court for delaying its compliance with the search warrant, leading to the $350,000 fine being imposed.”

Court Documents Reveal Number Of Trump Private Messages Disclosed By X (RT)

X, the social media network formerly known as Twitter, provided access to at least 32 of Donald Trump’s private messages as part of an investigation into the former US president’s alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, according to recently unsealed court filings. Separate court documents from August previously stated that federal prosecutors had received“some volume” of Trump’s private messages. The exact number – 32 – was revealed on Friday as part of a court filing submitted by X, in which it is seeking to appeal a $350,000 fine for failing to comply with the terms of a search warrant. The content of the messages remains unclear. The warrant, which was served on the social media giant in January, gave X ten days to submit Trump’s data from between October 2020 and January 2021, a time span which the filing noted “includes the November 2020 presidential election and the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol.”

In addition to the search warrant, X was also issued with a so-called nondisclosure order designed to ensure that Trump was not aware that prosecutors had gained access to his private messages. This was, the court filing said, to prevent “destruction of or tampering with evidence, intimidation of potential witnesses or serious jeopardy to this investigation.” However, X told the investigation that it would be unable to comply with the search warrant as it had not been given enough time to do so. The company also objected to the nondisclosure order due to what it said was the “intense publicity around the investigation.” “Indeed, the materials Twitter produced to the government included only 32 direct-message items, constituting a minuscule proportion of the total production,” prosecutors said.

They added that the nondisclosure request was not a “hypothetical consideration” given alleged attempts by Trump to obstruct another federal investigation into his supposed mishandling of classified government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Trump denies all wrongdoing in each of the cases against him. “The former president propagated false claims of fraud (including swearing to false allegations in a federal court filing),” prosecutors wrote in a legal brief, adding that he had “pressured state and federal officials to violate their legal duties, and retaliated against those who did not comply to his demand, culminating in violence at the US Capitol on January 6.” X lost its appeal and was found to be in contempt of court for delaying its compliance with the search warrant, leading to the $350,000 fine being imposed.

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“The more energetic and dynamic part of the world, the faster growing part of the world quantitatively, is not on the US-European side of the story..”

Jeffrey Sachs: US Sanctions Against Russia and China Destined to Fail (Sp.)

Sanctions have failed to bring Russia to its knees, as the nation’s economy has proved to be far more resilient than Western policymakers ever imagined. Back in March-February 2022 they projected that a bunch of restrictions would be effectively a knockout punch against the Russian economy, that they would bring military production to a halt and that they could even potentially cause mass political unrest. None of that has materialized. Why did Western analysts get Russia so wrong? “When it comes to Russia, the idea that this would be some kind of a ‘knockout blow’ for the conflict in Ukraine was utterly naive and predictably a failure,” renowned economist and Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs told Sputnik. “But I think the Russian economy also was clearly vastly underestimated. And what the West gets wrong on all aspects of the Ukraine crisis is that the world is not united with the West. The West is just a small part of the world. Most of the world wants to stay clear of this crisis.”

[..] While Western sanctions have failed to cripple Russia’s economy and hinder China’s rise, they at the same time have given a boost to the development of the two countries, prompting them to explore new markets, develop new technologies and forge new partnerships. For instance, over the past two years, one has seen Chinese auto companies become major players on the international market, even overtaking German car producers. And one of the major markets for Chinese cars has been the Russian market, in large part because last year a lot of Western brands, a lot of Japanese brands left the Russian market, which created a void that the Chinese companies could fill.
“Well, I think certainly there is a huge boomerang effect of these sanctions. Europe is the biggest loser of the sanctions, this is for sure, because Russia’s low-cost production, both of primary energy certainly, but also of fertilizers and many other commodity-based manufactured goods going to Europe are now going to China and going to the rest of Asia. And Europe is in outright recession,” said Sachs.

“If there is a particular loser from all of this, it’s the German industry which had probably the closest symbiotic relationship with the Russian economy over the last 30 years,” added the professor. Germany is the only G7 nation that will see economic contraction this year, according to the IMF. The IMF attributes the trend to weak production output as well as a contraction in two consecutive quarters (Q4 in 2022 and Q1 in 2023). The latter factor prompted international economists to conclude in mid-July that the country had fallen into a technical recession. The destruction of the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines, as well as Berlin’s decision to follow in Washington’s footsteps and slap energy sanctions on Russia, backfired on German manufacturers, leading to relocation of businesses and, eventually, deindustrialization.

“All of the fervor against Nord Stream, for example, was a part of the US desire to ensure that Germany and Russia never got too cozy economically,” Sachs remarked. “And as Russia therefore turns to the broader BRICS world and the rest of the world, it’s those countries that benefit from these linkages,” the professor continued. “And it’s Europe that is absolutely left behind. One of those beneficiaries is China. Clearly. Because China is a crowded, densely populated economy with natural resources, but on a per capita basis, relatively low. So it’s very complementary with Russia. Add in the common shared high-tech element, and that’s an added benefit of this increasingly strong relationship between China and Russia on the economic side, because there is a lot of technology transfer that can go in both directions.

Add in the building of infrastructure across Eurasia, connecting Russia and China in a number of ways. That also is of great strength.” So, in the end, the Western sanctions policy has not led to any kind of a deep, prolonged crisis for either Russia or China. Quite the contrary, according to the professor. “The more energetic and dynamic part of the world, the faster growing part of the world quantitatively, is not on the US-European side of the story,” Sachs concluded.

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Terror strikes and long-range missiles do not win a war….

‘Ground War’ in Ukraine May Be Over – Macgregor (Sp.)

The ongoing conflict in Ukraine may be about to move to a new phase amid the severe losses sustained by the Kiev regime forces, warns former senior Pentagon adviser Col. Douglas Macgregor. With thousands of Ukrainian losses during the ongoing “counteroffensive”, Kiev appears to be “desperate for manpower” and is trying to rectify this problem by “forcing people into uniform inside the country that are not really capable of fighting” and attempting to repatriate Ukrainians of military age from overseas, Macgregor said during an interview with Norwegian political scientist Glenn Diesen. “So I think the Ukrainian ground war, for all intents and purposes, is either at a standstill or perhaps even over,” he remarked.

Macgregor did point out, however, that Kiev may instead resort to attacking Russia with long-range weapons acquired from Western sponsors, such as Storm Shadow and Taurus missiles, with the colonel suggesting that the recent Ukrainian attack on Sevastopol was an example of such a strike. He noted that this course of actions does not bode well for Ukraine as it essentially helps convince Moscow that the Ukrainian conflict can only be resolved through military means. Macgregor also lamented that the US leadership mulls what other armaments “short of a nuclear weapon” they can use via the Ukrainians instead of attempting to negotiate a peaceful solution to the Ukrainian conflict with Russia. “The Russians would love to sit down and talk to somebody who is willing to examine where we stand – no one will do it,” he said. “So this is why I call this phase of the war, it’s no longer the Ukrainian phase, it is now the Biden phase of the war. And the Biden phase of the war is long range strikes.”

He warned that such long range strikes into the Russian territory will not convince the Russians to acquiesce to the US’ demands, as the strategists in Washington apparently believe. “If anything, it is going to persuade the Russians that they must attack and attack decisively to the west,” Macgregor stated. Finding itself unable to defeat the Russian forces on the battlefield, the regime in Kiev has resorted to carrying out terror strikes against population centers and civilian infrastructure in Russia. While so far these attacks were mostly conducted using drones and Soviet-era ordnance, as well as by sending teams of Ukrainian terrorists across the border, odds are high that Kiev may also start actively using for these purposes the long-range missiles provided by its NATO sponsors.

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Again, this would take years to address.

Kiev’s Requests for Arms Exceed NATO’s Production Capacity (Sp.)

Chair of the NATO Military Committee Adm. Rob Bauer on Saturday admitted that Ukraine’s requests for weapons and ammunition, as well as the volume of defense production used in Ukraine, are “huge” and exceed the production capabilities of the alliance. “The volume of the weapons and the ammunition that Ukraine requires is huge … The scale and the volume of what is used is going beyond our production capacity,” Bauer said at a press conference in Norway. The Military Committee Chair also said that NATO countries that decide to supply weapons and ammunition to Ukraine have to think about the risks for their own security.

“When they think about giving away weapons or ammunition, they have to think on the decision itself, ‘Am I giving away?’. Second, what is the risk that I take against my own readiness in NATO, in my own country,” Bauer said. In this regard, the military official called on the NATO countries to address issues of increasing production capacity in the defense sector more quickly and efficiently. Moscow has condemned foreign military supplies to Ukraine. In April 2022, Russia sent a diplomatic note to all NATO countries on the issue of arms supplies to Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has warned that any cargo containing weapons for Ukraine will become a legitimate target for Russia.

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… and we’re out of soldiers.

“..out of 100 people who joined the units last fall, 10-20 remain, the rest are dead, wounded or disabled.”

“..conscription of people with such severe conditions as hepatitis, HIV without symptoms, and clinically treated tuberculosis..”

Ukrainian Army Lost 9 Out Of Every 10 Troops – Conscription Officer (RT)

Up to nine out of ten Ukrainian draftees who joined the army a year ago were either killed or wounded in action, a senior conscription officer in the Poltava Region said on Friday, according to local media. Speaking at a meeting of Poltava City Council, Lt. Colonel Vitaly Berezhny, who serves as acting head of the territorial center of recruitment and social support, admitted that local authorities are struggling with their conscription campaign, having fulfilled the mobilization plan by only 13%, which puts the city in last place in the whole region. Berezhny was quoted by local media outlet Poltavshina as saying the military urgently needs reinforcements, as “out of 100 people who joined the units last fall, 10-20 remain, the rest are dead, wounded or disabled.”

To remedy the manpower shortage, the officer suggested rolling out draft notification posts in a bid to “establish the presence of conscripts.” He added that the region was also planning to create a large mechanized brigade, and urged local deputies to assist in the effort. Ukraine announced a general mobilization shortly after the start of Russia’s military campaign in February 2022, banning most men aged 18 to 60 from leaving the country. In August, former Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexey Reznikov said Kiev had not yet fulfilled its existing mobilization plan, suggesting there was no need for another draft drive. However, earlier this month, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry issued a decree allowing the conscription of people with such severe conditions as hepatitis, HIV without symptoms, and clinically treated tuberculosis.

At the same time, Ukrainian authorities embarked on a massive campaign against corruption in the country’s conscription system, with President Vladimir Zelensky recently firing all regional military conscription officials. Berezhny’s acknowledgment comes amid Ukraine’s counteroffensive that has been underway for more than three months but has failed to gain significant ground. Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin estimated Ukraine’s losses at more than 71,000 troops. He also suggested that Kiev could enter into negotiations with Moscow only when it comes close to running out of resources to throw at Russian defences, but concluded that Ukraine would need those talks only to restore its battered military potential.

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Please don’t ask how battle-ready those troops would be… Good thing nobody is planning to attack NATO.

Logos: “.. you do not have the time to prepare for an attack if the attack happens. And it is not us planning the attack, it is the opponent planning the attack. If they attack, you have to be ready..”

NATO Says It Can Deploy 3.5 Million Soldiers If Attacked (RT)

NATO, in accordance with its new defense plans, can deploy 300,000 soldiers in the first month of a potential attack on the bloc, while the total number of the alliance’s military personnel could reach 3.5 million people, Chair of the NATO Military Committee Adm. Rob Bauer said, Report informs via Sputnik. “If we are talking about collective defense, you do not have the time to prepare for an attack if the attack happens. And it is not us planning the attack, it is the opponent planning the attack. If they attack, you have to be ready. Therefore, we need more soldiers at high readiness … We are talking, in NATO as a whole if Finland and Sweden have joined, of about 3.5 million soldiers in the alliance. So the 300,000 is the number … that we foresee at high readiness available for basically the first 30 days if it is necessary,” Bauer told reporters at a press conference with Norwegian Chief of Defense Gen. Eirik Kristoffersen.

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“We won’t listen to Berlin, von der Leyen… because it’s in the interest of the Polish farmers.”

Zelensky Issues Warning To EU Neighbors (RT)

Kiev will respond if EU countries decide to impose unilateral restrictions on Ukrainian grain in contravention of decisions made in Brussels, President Vladimir Zelensky has said. On Friday, the European Commission opted not to extend a ban on deliveries of Ukrainian wheat, maize, rapeseed, and sunflower seeds to Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia. The curbs, which were introduced in May, expired on September 15. While the Bulgarian authorities supported the move, the other four EU member states said they would now introduce restrictions at national level due to the need to protect their agricultural industries. Zelensky wrote on Telegram that he had talked to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on the phone, telling her that he was “deeply grateful” to her for “keeping her word and maintaining the rules of the free market.”

The decision by Brussels not to extend the ban “is an example of true unity and trust between Ukraine and the EU. Europe always wins when the rules work and the treaties are fulfilled,” he said. However, the Ukrainian leader added that “now it’s important [to make sure] European unity also works on a bilateral level; that the neighbors support Ukraine” amid its conflict with Russia. If Poland, Hungary, Romania or Slovakia make decisions that “violate EU law, Ukraine will respond in a civilized way,” Zelensky warned, without specifying the countermeasures to which Kiev may resort to protect its interests. After learning about the ruling by the European Commission on Friday, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said Warsaw would “extend the ban on Ukrainian grain. We won’t listen to Berlin, von der Leyen… because it’s in the interest of the Polish farmers.”

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban announced a similar plan, saying he was preparing for “a serious fight in Brussels” over the grain issue. Warsaw and Budapest have vigorously resisted deliveries of Ukrainian grain, despite having quite opposite views on the conflict between Moscow and Kiev. Poland has been one of the main backers of Ukraine in the EU, providing the country with weapons and insisting on increasingly harsh measures against Russia, while the Hungarian authorities have consistently criticized the bloc’s sanction on Moscow as ineffective, and insist on a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

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He banned almost all opposition. And the one he didn’t touch now turns out to be a Russian collaborator?!

Zelensky Political Rival Charged With Treason (RT)

Member of the Ukrainian parliament and former emergency-services minister Nestor Shufrich has been arrested and is being held on charges of treason issued by a court in Kiev, the country’s capital. According to footage from Friday’s hearing published by outlet RBK-Ukraine, the judge has ruled that Shufrich will stay behind bars for the next two months. The politician, who was a member of the Opposition Platform-For Life party before it was banned as pro-Russian on the orders of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky last summer, has also been denied bail. Earlier in the day, masked operatives from Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) arrived at the MP’s home, informing the 56-year-old that he’s suspected of treason and searching the premises.

The SBU said in a statement that its investigators have “collected a well-argued evidence base about the anti-Ukrainian activities” of Shufrich. According to the agency, the parliamentarian was an agent of Moscow whose main task was to promote pro-Russian sentiment in Ukraine through his media appearances. “He systematically disseminated the Kremlin’s narratives, that the Ukrainian state is allegedly an artificial entity, that Ukraine and Russia have a single history, and that Ukrainians and Russians are supposedly ‘one nation,’” the SBU claims. According to local media, items with Soviet and Russian symbols, including medals, ID cards and the Saint George’s ribbons with which Russians celebrate World War II victory, were found in the search of Shufrich’s home.

The lawmaker also allegedly owned a collection of Russian military uniforms. The investigators also reportedly found a 2014 document that details a plan for the autonomy of Donetsk and Lugansk Regions. Both territories, as well as Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions, officially became part of Russia last year after referendums. Kiev and its Western backers have labeled the votes a “sham.” Shufrich has been an MP since 1998, appearing in six iterations of the Verkhovna Rada. He also held the post of Ukraine’s Emergency Services Minister in 2006-2007, and in 2010, and was also deputy head of the country’s National Security and Defense Council, from 2010 to 2012.

Russian political analyst and former MP Sergey Markov suggested that Shufrich’s arrest might be a sign that Ukraine is preparing to stage a presidential election next year after all. President Zelensky said earlier that the vote will not be held as the country is under martial law. Shufrich used to be “one of the most pro-Russian MPs and one of most vivid critics of Zelensky,” but amid the conflict between Moscow and Kiev he “fully backed” the president, Markov wrote on Telegram. The analyst said that the MP is being detained by Ukrainian authorities over concerns that he “could suddenly run [in the election] and steal some of the Zelensky’s former voters,” who are disappointed in the president.

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“If there is something that might force European capitals to reconsider their position on the conflict, it is the further deterioration of the economic situation on the continent..”

Orban Explains What Might Force West To Want Peace In Ukraine (RT)

European nations might eventually forgo their support for Kiev’s military efforts in the ongoing conflict with Russia due to their own economic hardships, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told nationwide Kossuth Radio on Friday. The conflict that has lasted for more than a year and a half is affecting the European economy, which “will not be like we want it to be” for as long as it goes on, Orban told the radio’s ‘Good Morning, Hungary!’ show. Yet, “war supporters are in the overwhelming majority” among EU governments, he pointed out. If there is something that might force European capitals to reconsider their position on the conflict, it is the further deterioration of the economic situation on the continent, the prime minister believes.

Most people in Europe already share Hungary’s position on the issue, which is anti-war, he claimed. Economic setbacks could force these people to “exert pressure” on their governments, he added. “Deterioration of the economic situation in the West will force countries to stand up for peace,” Orban said. According to the Hungarian prime minister, the outcome of next year’s US presidential elections might also heavily affect the West’s general position on the issue. “There are two possibilities: … the presidential candidates will either support the war or announce the end of the war,” he said. Orban said he believes that a US president is fairly capable of “putting an end” to the conflict.

That does not mean that Europe should just “wait for a fairy to end the war with a magic wand,” he added. The prime minister criticized the European approach to the conflict so far by saying that “181 billion of European money” has been spent on supporting Kiev but “we have not come any closer to peace.” It is unclear if he referred to dollars or euros. According to Ukraine Support Tracker data regularly published by Germany’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy, the EU institutions and EU nations together pledged a total of €131.9 billion ($139.8) for Ukraine between January 2022 and July 2023.

The UK, Norway and Switzerland, which are not part of the EU, together pledged an additional €23.31 billion ($24.8 billion) over the same period, bringing the total amount of European commitments to €155.21 billion ($165.66), data provided by the Kiel Institute showed. Viktor Orban has long maintained that the West was making a mistake by pursuing military confrontation with Russia in Ukraine. He has repeatedly stated that there could be no military solution to the conflict, adding that the US and its allies need to stop arming Kiev and seek peace with Russia instead.

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“It allows for the creation and destruction of credit determined solely by the needs of the Russian people, both as businessmen and consumers.”

Currency Wars Versus Gold Standards (Macleod)

In the middle of a war, usually a government suspends its gold standard. This would suggest that Russia can only consider a gold standard after its special operation in Ukraine is over. But the modern equivalent of a gold standard, the currency board, has been successfully established in modern times in nations with far worse budget deficits than Russia. Russia was in the fortunate position of a budget deficit of only 2.3% of GDP last year, despite military spending. This year, military spending has soared, and at a guess the deficit will be about 5% of GDP this year, but government debt to GDP will still be about 20%.

Anything other than ball-park numbers for the Russian economy are difficult to come by, and the volatility of the rouble is a further analytical hazard. But some of these numbers are not substantially different from where Britain was economically in 1816, when a return to the gold standard was planned — the exception being her estimated debt to GDP number, which at nearly 200% was ten times that of Russia today. Therefore, there is no reason why Russia cannot put the rouble onto a gold standard immediately.

In doing so, the objective is simple: to ensure that the purchasing power of circulating credit retains its value in terms of goods and services with as little fluctuation as possible. It would allow savers to accumulate credit balances in their bank accounts, and for businessmen to calculate the profitability of their investments with greater certainty. With income tax currently at a flat 13% rate and corporation tax at 20%, in these conditions economic progress will advance surprisingly rapidly. And there is every reason to expect Russia would quickly become an economic counterweight to the sheer power of China, rather than living off the depletion of her natural resources. It is necessary not just for Russia to distance herself from the fate of the western fiat currency system, but also for President Putin’s legacy.

The method of ensuring monetary stability is equally simple: to bind credit denominated in roubles to gold, which both in law and naturally is the money of the people. It is the highest form of credit, there being no counterparty risk. Its purchasing power in the general sense has held steady through millennia. Importantly, it removes the currency from political control and dollar influences. It allows for the creation and destruction of credit determined solely by the needs of the Russian people, both as businessmen and consumers.

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Message to Macron.

Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger Sign Charter to Create Defense Alliance (Sp.)

The leaders of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have signed a charter establishing an alliance of Sahel states to create a collective defense architecture, Mali’s interim president for the transitional period, Assimi Goita, said on Saturday. “I have signed today with the leaders of Burkina Faso and Niger the Liptako Gourma Charter, establishing the Alliance of Sahel States to create an architecture of collective defense and mutual assistance for the benefit of our people,” Goita said on X. An attack on the sovereignty or territorial integrity of one or more parties to the charter will be regarded as aggression against the other parties and will require their assistance, including the use of military force, the document read. The parties also commit to fighting terrorism and organized crime on the territory of Sahel states, the charter added.

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In 1913 Hitler, Trotsky, Tito, Freud and Stalin all lived together in Vienna

 

 

 

Gorilla babies

 

 

 

 

Buffalo

 

 

Flik flak
https://twitter.com/i/status/1702752462971572660

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Sep 162023
 


Pablo Picasso TheBull state VII 1945

 

US Is ‘Going To Hell’ – Trump (RT)
Prosecutors Want To Silence Trump With Gag Order (RT)
Judge Halts New York Attorney General’s Fraud Trial Against Trump (ET)
Judge Delays Trial For Trump, Others In Georgia 2020 Election Case (Pol.)
Trump To Be ‘Imprisoned With Ivanka’ Says Maxine Waters As Trials Delayed (ZH)
Trump Ready to State Under Oath He Didn’t Order Mar-a-Lago Tapes Deleted (Sp.)
Trump ‘Liked’ What Putin Said About Him (RT)
The Conundrum (James Howard Kunstler)
Bidengate: Why Joe’s 2024 Bid Seems Doomed (Sp.)
Opposition to Further Ukraine Aid Growing Among US House Republicans (Sp.)
Russia Attracting Those Ready To Stand Up Against Parasitical West (TASS)
Poland Threatens Permanent Ban On Ukrainian Grain (RT)
Russia Doesn’t Need Mercenaries – Putin (RT)

 

 

And just like that, everything’s about Trump again. How does he do it?

 

 

 

 

Megyn Trump

 

 

Biden 2005

 

 

 

 

Tulsi

 

 

Maersheimer

 

 

Macgregor

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I watched him yesterday, he couldn’t put two sentences [together], he can’t talk,” he said of Biden. “It’s not an age thing, it’s a competence thing.”

US Is ‘Going To Hell’ – Trump (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump has said America is in rapid decline, and re-electing him would give the country a last chance to turn things around. “Our country’s going to hell. Our country’s going down,” Trump told journalist Megyn Kelly in an interview for the SiriusXM satellite radio station, aired on Thursday. The US “has one last chance,”which makes the presidential vote in 2024 “the most important election we’ve ever had,” he claimed. The former leader acknowledged that he said the same about his victorious presidential race of 2016, but insisted that the next year’s vote will be even more crucial. “Our country is going bad, our country is being destroyed” under the Biden administration, he insisted, adding: “We’re a nation in serious decline, and I think I can turn it around very fast.”

With Trump currently indicted in four separate cases, Kelly asked how concerned he was about potentially ending up behind bars. “I have a great attitude, it doesn’t affect me at all because I’m fighting for the country, I’m fighting for the people,” the Republican candidate replied. The 77-year old said the “good”polling numbers make him confident he is “going to win the election no matter what happens ”because the people know the charges are “fake.” A survey, published by Quinnipiac University on Wednesday, suggested that 62% of Republican voters want Trump to be their party’s nominee in 2024. The poll also said Trump is currently trailing the incumbent President Joe Biden by just 1%.

Trump reiterated his earlier claim that he does not believe Biden will stand for re-election in 2024 due to the 80-year-old’s apparent poor health. “I watched him yesterday, he couldn’t put two sentences [together], he can’t talk,” he said of Biden. “It’s not an age thing, it’s a competence thing.” In August, a Wall Street Journal poll found that 73% of US voters think Biden is too old to seek a second term, while only 36% described him as mentally fit to fulfil his duties. However, Trump’s age, at just three years younger than Biden, is apparently also an issue for many Americans. A study by the NBC in June said that 55% of those surveyed had concerns about his physical and mental health.

Poso Trump

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I can hear the media bosses going: gag order? Are you nuts? He’s our bread and butter!

“How else would I explain that Jack Smith is DERANGED, or Crooked Joe is INCOMPETENT?”

Prosecutors Want To Silence Trump With Gag Order (RT)

US District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan has unsealed a redacted copy of a government filing in which special counsel Jack Smith asked for a “narrow, well-defined”gag order against former President Donald Trump in a criminal case related to an alleged conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The special counsel’s office claimed that Trump has been spreading “disparaging and inflammatory public posts on Truth Social on a near-daily basis regarding the citizens of the District of Columbia, the Court, prosecutors, and prospective witnesses.”

Trump’s statements are “intended to undermine public confidence in an institution—the judicial system—and to undermine confidence in and intimidate individuals—the Court, the jury pool, witnesses, and prosecutors,” they wrote in last week’s filing released on Friday, drawing parallels to “his previous public disinformation campaign regarding the 2020 presidential election.” Trump lashed out against the unsealed request, arguing that he is “campaigning for President against an incompetent person,”who has “weaponized” the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to silence his political opponent. “How else would I explain that Jack Smith is DERANGED, or Crooked Joe is INCOMPETENT?”he fumed. A spokesperson for the Trump campaign, Steven Cheung, also accused Biden of “corruptly and cynically continuing to attempt to deprive President Trump of his First Amendment rights.”

Trump is set to be tried on federal conspiracy charges related to his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election on March 4 of next year, Judge Tanya Chutkan announced last month, rejecting the former president’s legal team’s request to postpone the federal case until April 2026. The ex-president has slammed the case as politically motivated, claiming he was unfairly targeted to remove him as a contender in the 2024 presidential race. The former president’s supporters have argued Judge Chutkan is not impartial and should recuse herself. Chutkan has famously doled out even harsher sentences to January 6 protesters than prosecutors demanded, sending dozens of them to prison. She has made no secret of her belief that the ‘Stop the Steal’ protest-turned-riot was an assault on US democracy directed by Trump.

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You can only know what a property is worth when it’s actually sold. Which makes me wonder what Letitia James bases her claim on.

“Do you know I don’t believe I ever got even a default notice, and even during COVID, the banks were all paid? And yet you’re suing on behalf of banks, I guess. It’s crazy. The whole case is crazy.”

Judge Halts New York Attorney General’s Fraud Trial Against Trump (ET)

A New York appeals court judge halted the scheduled Oct. 2 trial in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ fraud lawsuit against former President Donald Trump and the Trump Organization, a spokesman for the court confirmed Thursday. State Justice David Friedman, with the 1st Department of the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division, granted an interim stay of the trial—slated to start Oct. 2—and referred the matter to a five-judge panel, which expects to rule in the last week of September, a spokesperson said. He also ordered the full appeals court to consider a reported lawsuit that President Trump had filed against the trial judge, Arthur Engoron, on an expedited basis.

President Trump’s lawyers had raised issue with Judge Engoron’s refusal to grant a request for a three-week trial delay, which he said was “completely without merit.” They also asked the judge to pause the trial until he issues a ruling on the statute of limitations regarding certain claims in Ms. James’s lawsuit, it was reported. First reported by the Daily Beast, the lawsuit against Judge Engoron also asserted that the jurist is overstepping his authority. A state appellate court issued a ruling several months ago that asked the judge to determine which Trump Organization real estate deals are too old and beyond the statue of limitations.

The judge declined to issue a comment on the matter via a court spokesperson. Meanwhile, Ms. James’ office issued a statement on Thursday ruling, telling multiple news organizations that “we are confident in our case and will be ready for trial.” The lawsuit filed by Ms. James, a Democrat, alleges President Trump defrauded banks, insurers, and others with annual financial statements that inflated the value of his skyscrapers, golf courses, and other assets and boosted his net worth by as much as $3.6 billion. Her lawsuit seeks $250 million in penalties and a ban on the former president doing business in New York.

The front-runner for the Republican nomination in next year’s presidential election, President Trump has denied wrongdoing. He’s noted that Ms. James pledged to go after him while she was campaigning for attorney general. In sworn testimony given for the lawsuit in April, the former commander-in-chief said he didn’t think his financial statements would be taken seriously because they have a disclaimer that says they shouldn’t be trusted. He told Ms. James: “You don’t have a case and you should drop this case.” “Do you know the banks were fully paid? Do you know the banks made a lot of money?” President Trump testified. “Do you know I don’t believe I ever got even a default notice, and even during COVID, the banks were all paid? And yet you’re suing on behalf of banks, I guess. It’s crazy. The whole case is crazy.”

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“The judge noted that five of the co-defendants are seeking to transfer their charges to federal court, a challenge that could take months to resolve and raise extraordinary complications if any of their motions are granted.”

Judge Delays Trial For Trump, Others In Georgia 2020 Election Case (Pol.)

The Georgia judge overseeing the massive, 2020 election-related racketeering case against former President Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants has ruled that the former president will not go on trial next month alongside attorneys Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, both of whom demanded an expedited schedule. In an order Thursday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee called the decision to split the sprawling case into multiple trials an “absolute necessity,” given the complexity of the case and the burden it would create for the state’s court system. McAfee said he doubted the Fulton County courthouse could handle a trial for all the defendants at once. He also worried that such a sprawling case would create an unmanageable process for selecting a jury and exacerbate the risk of delays if any defendant or attorney is unexpectedly absent.

Prosecutors had claimed they were prepared to put all 19 defendants on trial together on Oct. 23, but McAfee scoffed at that possibility. “The Fulton County Courthouse simply contains no courtroom adequately large enough to hold all 19 defendants, their multiple attorneys and support staff, the sheriff’s deputies, court personnel, and the State’s prosecutorial team. Relocating to another larger venue raises security concerns that cannot be rapidly addressed,” the judge wrote. McAfee’s order underscored the significant uncertainties hanging over the case, which charges Trump and 18 co-defendants with conspiring to subvert Georgia’s election. The judge noted that five of the co-defendants are seeking to transfer their charges to federal court, a challenge that could take months to resolve and raise extraordinary complications if any of their motions are granted.

“How a grant of removal midtrial would impact this case, particularly on the issue of double jeopardy … and overlooking or wrongly adjudicating these legal uncertainties risks automatic acquittal,” McAfee wrote. Though McAfee has not yet set a trial date for Trump, it appears likely to extend deep into 2024 or later. The judge has set a Dec. 1 deadline for the defendants — other than Chesebro and Powell, who are on an expedited timeline — to file any pretrial motions. The judge must also contend with the fact that Trump has two federal criminal trials scheduled for next year, one beginning on March 4 in Washington, D.C. and the other beginning on May 20 in Fort Pierce, Fla.

McAfee said there’s a possibility more than two trials will be required to handle all the defendants and he raised the specter of enlisting another state judge, should the necessary timelines intersect. If any defendants opt for a speedy trial this month, McAfee ruled, they will be joined with Chesebro and Powell. However, if any opt for an expedited timeline next month or later, he said he has “received assurances that other members of the Fulton County bench stand ready.”

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“Prosecutors wanted to put all 19 defendants in the case on trial at the same time, which Judge Scott McAfee laughed out of the courtroom.”

Out of curiosity: What exactly would Ivanka be jailed for?

Trump To Be ‘Imprisoned With Ivanka’ Says Maxine Waters As Trials Delayed (ZH)

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), who hooked her Daughter up with $750,000 in campaign funds over a decade with minimal repercussions, lashed out on X after former President Trump’s trial date in his Georgia RICO case was delayed – the first of two such delays issued late in the week. On Thursday, the Florida judge overseeing Trump’s 2020 election-related case ruled that the former president will not go on trial next month along with attorneys Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesbro, both of whom asked for an expedited schedule, Politico reported. Prosecutors wanted to put all 19 defendants in the case on trial at the same time, which Judge Scott McAfee laughed out of the courtroom. “The Fulton County Courthouse simply contains no courtroom adequately large enough to hold all 19 defendants, their multiple attorneys and support staff, the sheriff’s deputies, court personnel, and the State’s prosecutorial team.

Relocating to another larger venue raises security concerns that cannot be rapidly addressed,” he wrote. “Many are worried that the Judge has extended Trump’s trial date,” Waters posted Thursday night on X. “Not to worry! TRUMP CAN’T RUN. TRUMP CAN’T HIDE.” she continued, adding “He will be imprisoned with Ivanka by his side!” This is the same Maxine Waters that told Democrats in 2018 “wherever we have to show up. If you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd, and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere!” On Friday, a New York appeals court judge halted a trials scheduled for Oct. 2 in NY Attorney General Letitia James’ fraud lawsuit against Trump and the Trump Organization.

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“And they were my tapes. I could have fought them. I didn’t even have to give them the tapes, I don’t think..”

Trump Ready to State Under Oath He Didn’t Order Mar-a-Lago Tapes Deleted (Sp.)

Former US President Donald Trump has confirmed his readiness to testify under oath that he did not order Mar-a-Lago security video linked to the investigation into his documents handling be deleted. “Sure, I’m going to — I’ll testify,” Trump told an American news agency in an interview. He further insisted that the tapes were not deleted, highlighting that he voluntarily shared them with investigators even though they are his property “In other words, there was nothing done to them. And they were my tapes. I could have fought them. I didn’t even have to give them the tapes, I don’t think,” Trump stated.

The allegation that Trump ordered the video tapes be deleted was the basis of a superseding indictment filed in July against Trump, his aide, Walt Nauta, and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira. The indictment added another three charges against Trump in the case related to obstruction and willful retention of national defense information, bringing the total number of counts against Trump in the case to 40.

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“[Trump] was accused of having a special relationship with Russia, which is total nonsense. But he was the president who introduced the most sanctions against Russia,” Putin noted..”

Trump ‘Liked’ What Putin Said About Him (RT)

Donald Trump has said he welcomed friendly comments by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who stated that Moscow would be glad if the former US president were to make good on his vow to resolve the Ukraine crisis within a matter of days. Speaking to NBC News’ Kristen Welker for an interview published on Friday, Trump was asked about the recent praise from the Russian leader, who said last week that “Mr. Trump keeps saying he will resolve all burning issues within several days, including the Ukrainian crisis… Well, that would be good.” “I like that he said that because that means what I’m saying is right,” Trump replied, referring to his stance on Ukraine, adding “I would get him into a room, I would get [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky into a room and I would get a deal worked out.”

However, in his remarks on Tuesday Putin actually went on to say that Moscow does not expect any substantial change in US foreign policy vis-a-vis Russia, regardless of who takes the White House after next year’s election. “[Trump] was accused of having a special relationship with Russia, which is total nonsense. But he was the president who introduced the most sanctions against Russia,” Putin noted. The former US president went on to reiterate vows to negotiate an end to the Ukraine conflict within “24 hours” should he win reelection next year, having previously stated, “I know Zelensky very well, I know Putin very well – even better – and I had a very good relationship with both of them.” He has also been critical of the billions of dollars in US military support to Kiev, urging Zelensky to “make a deal” with his Russian counterpart to bring an end to the fighting.

When pressed on how he would find a solution to the conflict, Trump declined to elaborate, only saying he would “make a fair deal for everybody.” “If I tell you exactly, I lose all my bargaining chips. I mean, you can’t really say exactly what you’re going to do. But I would say certain things to Putin. I would say certain things to Zelensky,” he continued. Though Trump faced near-constant criticism during his time in office for alleged “collusion” with the Kremlin to win the 2016 election, he insisted “there was nobody tougher than me with Russia.” He nevertheless stated that he “got along” with Putin “really well” during his presidency, saying “that’s a good thing, not a bad thing. He’s got 1,700 nuclear missiles. And so do we.”

Despite a string of criminal cases in multiple states over the alleged mishandling of classified documents, a purported hush-money scheme with porn actress Stormy Daniels and interference in the 2020 election, Trump is currently the front-runner for the Republican 2024 presidential nomination, consistently polling well ahead of his main competitor, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Trump has denied all wrongdoing in each of the cases, while President Putin also recently weighed in on the matter, saying the criminal charges amount to the “persecution of a political competitor.”

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“..an odor of rot and sulfur trails his every bumbling misstep while his maunderings from the podium set off alarms in party HQ. What to do, indeed…?”

The Conundrum (James Howard Kunstler)

Just as a janky investment can turn catastrophically ruinous in the finance world, “Joe Biden” has transmuted from an asset to a liability for the Party of Chaos as we enter the season when things get real. Just weeks ago, the phantasm in the White House could do nothing wrong, despite doing absolutely everything wrong in the thirty-two months he’s haunted the Oval Office. But now, an odor of rot and sulfur trails his every bumbling misstep while his maunderings from the podium set off alarms in party HQ. What to do, indeed…? As of five minutes ago, “JB” was still pretending to run for reelection, which, of course, was a bamboozle that only the Wokester rank-and-file, hoaxed into an epic psychotic rapture, might swallow.

The “president’s” stage managers run a “campaign committee” on next-to-zero contributions, you see, but all it really does is send out millions of algo-concocted, drivel-filled emails five times a day to keep the big pretend going while the DC Blob desperately looks for a way out. Ever since the fabled Laptop from Hell entered stage left, the un-raptured of the land have been exposed to gales of evidence that “Joe Biden” ran a family influence-peddling racket as veep, and that it likely has something to do with the extravagant mess spawned in Ukraine. The crude and lawless labors of the DOJ and the FBI to cover all that up have been failing lately as a harsh music of blown whistles ominously cleaves the dank night air over the Potomac swamp.

The coming House impeachment inquiry, with its extraordinary subpoena powers, can easily un-confuse these matters as Rep Comer (R-KY) goes after the Biden family bank records. The equation is pretty straightforward: Millions of dollars rattling around the coffers of “Joe” and Jill, and Jim and Frank, and the Biden kids and grand-kids divided by the low six-figure salaries of a senator and vice-president, times, say, the $20 to $50-million inflows of revenue (for no discernible services rendered) from Ukraine, Russia, China, Kazakhstan, and Gawd-knows how many other entities arguably hostile to the USA’s interests through Hunter Biden’s multitudinous shell companies. It’s called money-laundering.

Meanwhile, mirabile dictu, Special Counsel David Weiss goosed three counts of illegal gun possession against Hunter Biden out of a federal grand jury Thursday. Somehow, a loaded garbage barge of tax evasion charges that was last seen a few weeks ago steaming into Indictment Central happened to sail off into the Bermuda Triangle and vanish from the docket. Also in question: what about that “diversion agreement” sneakily embedded in the plea deal that blew up a month ago in Judge Maryellen Noreika’s courtroom? That little gem would have let Hunter B off the hook for any other past federal crime imputed in the many reams of evidence about Biden family moneygrubbing already made public. If the plea deal evaporated, did not the diversion agreement go up in a vapor with it? Hunter’s lawyers apparently say it’s still in force. How does that work?

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“That’s the tragedy of America in 2023, is that we would never have allowed Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln to get away with this stuff..”

Bidengate: Why Joe’s 2024 Bid Seems Doomed (Sp.)

The White House insists that the US president did nothing wrong and that GOP lawmakers don’t actually have any basis for the impeachment inquiry. Moreover, US legal observers have drawn attention to the fact that conviction is unlikely in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Republicans also don’t seem that united to bring the investigation to its logical end, per Steven Abramowicz, the owner and CEO of the Mill Creek View and the host of the Mill Creek View podcast. “An impeachment inquiry would do nothing but tell us what we’ve already known for over a year, and that is that there were crimes committed,” Abramowicz told Sputnik’s Fault Lines podcast. “Okay, great. We know about the Teapot Dome. We know about Watergate. We know everything we need to know from the history books.

But what we don’t know is will [House Speaker] Kevin McCarthy get a backbone, stand up to the Republicans who have maybe some vested interest and actually bring this guy to the floor for an impeachment for the history books? And the answer is, you know what? It doesn’t matter.” “This is September 20, 2023. There’s an election in just over a year from now. It would take way too long. And the Senate, filled with people like Mitt Romney, will never vote to remove [Joe Biden]. So I will know exactly what we already know, but it’ll be in the official record and nobody’s going to be removed from office. And the next five presidents are going to be able to say: ‘Oh, I don’t have to follow the rules because those guys did’. Whether you think Trump was a criminal or Biden’s, it doesn’t matter. We’ve had two presidents now under a cloud and no controlling legal authority, as Al Gore said, to do a darn thing about it. And I think that’s why we call it the swamp,” he continued.

What’s especially frustrating, according to Abramowicz, is that there is reportedly a vast number of genuine documents implicating the Biden family, and still, the Democratic Party and the White House claim that there is nothing there. “That’s the tragedy of America in 2023, is that we would never have allowed Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln to get away with this stuff. And so here we are in our new era with our current batch of leaders,” the US observer emphasized. Meanwhile, prominent American legal scholar Jonathan Turley argued in one of his recent blog posts that even though the House GOP impeachment inquiry is unlikely to be supported by the US Senate, it is still worth trying. “An impeachment inquiry does not mean that an impeachment itself is inevitable. But it dramatically increases the chances of finally forcing answers to troubling questions of influence-peddling and corruption,” Turley underscored.

To add insult to injury, the first son was indicted at the time when the GOP was closing in on the US president. Having been indicted by Weiss, Hunter faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted. Still, some US observers argue that the indictment may turn out to be a “ruse”. In particular, they suggest that the probe would be used by the DoJ as an excuse for declaring all evidence “sub judice” and off-limits to journalists (and even Republican lawmakers). In addition, the special counsel can stretch the investigation until long after the 2024 election, they say. “Well, I’m highly skeptical. I think this sort of reeks of BS,” journalist and author Daniel Lazare told Sputnik’s Critical Hour podcast, when asked what he thinks about the Hunter Biden’s indictment outcome.

“What I suspect is that the DoJ is throwing a bone and not even a very good bone at that in order to get people off the really important charge,” the journalist stressed, suggesting that Hunter’s alleged tax crimes were “really important” but neither the Justice Department nor Weiss appeared to have any appetite to catch the first son red-handed. As was previously suggested by a couple of IRS whistleblowers in Hunter’s case, the Justice Department simply let some damning cases expire.

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“Congress is set to vote on a continuing resolution before the end of September to temporarily fund the US government and avoid a shutdown..”

Opposition to Further Ukraine Aid Growing Among US House Republicans (Sp.)

Opposition to providing more US aid to Ukraine is growing among Republican members of the House of Representatives, an American news agency reported on Friday. An increasing number of Republican lawmakers, including some so-called moderates, are opposing the addition of further aid to Ukraine as part of a government funding measure slated for a vote later this month, the report stated, citing several Republican lawmakers. Not just the Freedom Caucus of conservative Republicans, but there are many lawmakers who are concerned with potential additional funding, the report cited US Congresswoman Lisa McClain as saying. Congress is set to vote on a continuing resolution before the end of September to temporarily fund the US government and avoid a shutdown. The Senate is seeking to include additional aid for Ukraine in the legislation.

Meanwhile, more and more House Republicans come out against further transfers of taxpayer dollars and military equipment to Ukraine. US Congressman Andy Biggs vowed not to support a new Ukraine aid package and expressed doubt that any such measure would reach the House floor soon, the report said. Biggs pointed out, however, that there still may be enough votes to advance additional aid to Ukraine given the presence of many “war hawks” in Congress, the report said. US Congresswoman Nancy Mace emphasized that the US House has many other issues to address ahead of further Ukraine funding, the news agency stated.

US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has previously vowed to stop writing “blank checks” to Ukraine and is seeking to detach aid for Ukraine from the spending bill as well as hold a separate vote on it instead, media reported earlier. In addition to working on passing a spending measure by the end of the month, McCarthy also recently announced an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. The Biden administration has repeatedly expressed confidence in lasting bipartisan support for Ukraine in Congress and in the lawmakers’ ability to pass more aid packages.

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Patrushev.

Russia Attracting Those Ready To Stand Up Against Parasitical West (TASS)

Russia has become a magnet drawing all those who wish to confront the West’s parasitical ways, an endeavor in which the majority of countries stand ready to lend a hand, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev said in an interview with the Razvedchik (Intelligence Officer) magazine. “Russia has become a center of attraction for all those who are ready to oppose the parasitical practices of the West, because we are offering an alternative path,” he said. According to him, the main contours of this path are outlined in the latest edition of Russia’s official Foreign Policy Concept. Patrushev pointed out that Russia is open to cooperation with all constructively minded countries, and social and political forces that are ready to move forward together on the path of development and to lay the foundations for a new, truly democratic, multipolar world order.

“Most countries stand ready to cooperate in [moving] this trend [forward],” he stressed. According to the top security official, humanity has now entered a critical era, a new period in world history: We are witnessing the final disintegration of the “Western-centric colonialist world order,” at the core which is an inherently rapacious civilizational model. “Within the framework of this model, a narrow group of countries has built a pyramid, ensconced themselves at its pinnacle and self-endowed themselves with exceptional powers,” he said. “In essence, we are dealing with a multi-level parasitical superstructure on a global scale.” Patrushev highlighted the fact that the word “parasite” translates from the Greek as “sponger.”

“In ancient Greece, this was the name given to swindlers who preyed on the trust of wealthy fellow citizens and used cunning and guile, and often resorted to violence, to seize control over their [victims’] homes. This is exactly how the Western powers have acted, ensuring their dominance and employing the most brutal and inhumane methods,” he said. According to the Security Council Secretary, the 11th International Meeting of High Representatives on Security Issues, held in Russia on May 23-25, 2023, provided direct proof of this growing global disposition against the dominance of an overweening West. Even though the gathering took place in a difficult international environment, in conditions of open pressure, with the ambassadors of the US, the UK and France attempting to compel its participants to cancel their plans to travel to Russia, in the end it was attended by delegations from 101 countries and six international organizations.

At the same time, “such hostile actions [of the West] did not surprise anyone,” Patrushev pointed out, highlighting the fact that “the West does not recognize any [international meeting] formats that are organized without it taking the leading role, [nor does it recognize] bilateral and multilateral interaction based on equality [among nations] and international law.” Patrushev underscored that the meeting participants emphasized in their speeches and presentations that the turbulence now being seen in processes throughout the contemporary world is a direct consequence of the desire of the West and global transnational corporations to reverse the process of restoring balance and justice. In addition, the most important thesis of the meeting was that the main principle of international relations should be mutual respect and unconditional recognition of the right of others to choose their own development path, and their social, political and economic structures, Patrushev added.

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“..Ukrainian agricultural products should be sent to the destinations they were typically delivered to before the conflict with Russia broke out last year, adding that they “cannot constantly flood Europe.”

Poland Threatens Permanent Ban On Ukrainian Grain (RT)

Poland has threatened to introduce an indefinite embargo on supplies of Ukrainian grain if the EU does not extend its own bloc-wide import ban. Warsaw’s minister of economic development and technology, Waldemar Buda, said the measure could enter force at midnight on Friday. A temporary EU ban on Ukrainian grain imports, introduced after Poland and four other Eastern EU countries complained about cheap Ukrainian produce flooding the market, is set to expire on September 15. “If the European Commission does not make a decision on the issue of [banning imports of] Ukrainian grain, Poland will make its own at midnight. It [the ban] will be indefinite,” the minister said.

Echoing the remarks, Polish Minister for EU Affairs Szymon Szynkowski vel Sek stressed that his country would protect the interests of its farmers “one way or another,” regardless of whether a decision was made at EU or national level. “The decision [to ban Ukrainian agriculture produce] was made by the Council of Ministers. On Tuesday, the resolution was unanimously adopted. We intend to introduce a national import ban if such a measure would not be introduced at the EU level,” Szynkowski vel Sek warned. Poland would not be satisfied with another temporary extension of the embargo on Ukrainian grain, and is expecting “structural decisions” from the European Commission, Agriculture Minister Robert Telus warned earlier on Friday. “We should resolve this for the future. We need tools for future cooperation between Ukraine and the EU,” the minister urged.

In May, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Slovakia imposed a sweeping ban on Ukrainian grain imports. The move came after Brussels suspended customs duties on all agricultural produce from Ukraine for one year, to support the nation’s economy. However, a glut of cheap Ukrainian grain left EU producers struggling against what they viewed as unfair competition. Telus said Ukrainian agricultural products should be sent to the destinations they were typically delivered to before the conflict with Russia broke out last year, adding that they “cannot constantly flood Europe.” Farmers in the five EU countries most affected claim they have suffered substantial losses due to the surge in imports of Ukrainian agricultural produce, which was initially destined for Africa and the Middle East.

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”With 300,000 Russians signing military contracts just this year, Moscow has no need for foreign fighters..”

Russia Doesn’t Need Mercenaries – Putin (RT)

With 300,000 Russians signing military contracts just this year, Moscow has no need for foreign fighters, President Vladimir Putin said on Friday. As media speculated on mercenary recruitment he told reporters in Sochi, after meeting with President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, that “this is total nonsense.” Russia “has no such need to invite people from abroad for combat operations,” he added. The Russian president was addressing a question about speculation in the West that North Korea might have pledged to send soldiers when Putin met with Kim Jong-un earlier this week. Putin reminded journalists of the 270,000 voluntary enlistments so far this year, then noted that this number was already obsolete.

“As of this morning, there are 300,000 contracts,” he said, praising the “highest patriotic considerations” that motivated Russians to volunteer for military service. The soldiers were also equipped with “state-of-the-art weapons and hardware,” he added. Lukashenko chimed in to note that American mercenaries are “fighting for Ukrainians already” and accused the US and some of its NATO allies – starting with Poland – of wanting to send regular troops as well. In early July, the Russian Foreign Ministry estimated that almost 12,000 foreign fighters had joined the Ukrainian armed forces since the conflict escalated in February 2022, but only 2,200 or so remained active.

The rest had either died or left the country, according to Moscow, as Kiev used them “mostly as cannon fodder for meat assaults” with no regard for their lives. The US outlet ABC News reported in mid-August that casualty rates in some units of foreign fighters had reached 85% during the summer offensive, citing two Americans and several other Western mercenaries. Earlier this week, Putin estimated that Ukraine had lost 71,000 men in just the three months of the “summer counteroffensive,” along with much of the armor and vehicles provided by the West.

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Strijdom

 

 


This is the OmniVision OV6948, the world’s smallest camera, measuring just 0.575 x 0.575 x 0.232mm: it’s good for 40,000-pixel color images using an RGB Bayer back-side-illuminating chip

 

 

 

 

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