Jul 022024
 
 July 2, 2024  Posted by at 9:14 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  48 Responses »


René Magritte Man in a bowler hat 1964

 

US Supreme Court Rules Trump Has Presidential Immunity (RT)
Trump Says Immunity Ruling ‘Big Win For Democracy’ (ZH)
Biden Reacts To Trump Immunity Ruling (RT)
Biden ‘United Democrats And Republicans’ With Debate Performance – Musk (RT)
Obama Telling People Biden Can’t Win – Tucker Carlson (RT)
Biden’s Family Urges Him To Fight On (ZH)
DNC Weighs Early Nomination For Biden To Quash Internal Party Dissent (ZH)
Surprise, Surprise! (Kunstler)
Too Clever By Half (Turley)
The Resurrection of French Nationalism? (Paul Craig Roberts)
The West – Indubitably – Has Lost Russia, And Is Losing Eurasia Too (Crooke)
‘Unipolar US Dollar’ Mutated Into ‘Politically Weaponized’ Tool (Sp.)
Charles Nenner Warns “Very Hard Times Are Coming” (USAW)

 

 

 

 


https://twitter.com/i/status/1807804054136856803
https://twitter.com/i/status/1807766810130796737

 

 

Tapper

 

 

Plan B
https://twitter.com/i/status/1807876540648047090

 

 

 

 

“The President is not above the law. But under our system of separated powers, the President may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers..”

US Supreme Court Rules Trump Has Presidential Immunity (RT)

American presidents have “absolute immunity” for their official actions, the US Supreme Court ruled on Monday, addressing a series of charges against former President Donald Trump. Federal prosecutors have charged Trump with four criminal counts related to the 2020 presidential election, alleging that he “conspired” to overturn the results by spreading “knowingly false claims” of fraud to obstruct the collection, counting, and certification of the results. “Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority,” the court said in a 6-3 decision. “And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is no immunity for unofficial acts.” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, which saw the six conservative-leaning justices opposed by the three liberal ones.

The decision favors the former president in terms of his tweets to the American public on January 6 and conversations with then-Vice President Mike Pence about his presiding over the certification of election results, as both of those clearly fell within the scope of official duties. However, the verdict allows lower courts to hold evidentiary hearings to determine which actions by Trump may have been unofficial, such as when he contacted state and local election officials about the 2020 vote. “In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives,” the court warned. “The President is not above the law. But under our system of separated powers, the President may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for his official acts,” said the ruling.

The Supreme Court saved the immunity case for the last day of its term. The long-awaited decision puts a dent in the plans for special counsel Jack Smith to prosecute Trump in the federal court in Washington, DC before the November election. Trump challenged the 2020 election – marked by a series of unusual procedures, ostensibly adopted due to the Covid-19 pandemic – as irregular and possibly tainted by fraud, pointing to delays in counting mail-in votes that suddenly went in Democrat Joe Biden’s favor after the polls closed in a handful of states. Democrats have insisted that the election was the most secure and legitimate ever and that any questioning of the result is an attack on democracy.

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“.. ‘all but ensures’ that a trial won’t happen in Trump’s classified documents case before the November election..”

Trump Says Immunity Ruling ‘Big Win For Democracy’ (ZH)

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled in a 6-3 vote that former presidents, including Trump, enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct involving official acts during tenure in office, but he’s not immune from unofficial acts. As Bloomberg notes, the decision – which kicks the ball back to the lower court – ‘all but ensures’ that a trial won’t happen in Trump’s classified documents case before the November election.The justices, voting 6-3 along ideological lines, said a federal appeals court was too categorical in rejecting Trump’s immunity arguments, ruling for the first time that former presidents are shielded from prosecution for some official acts taken while in office. The majority ordered the lower courts to revisit the case to decide the extent of the allegations that are off limits to prosecution.

“Just as former presidents have immunity from civil liability for official acts, they have immunity from criminal prosecution unless they are impeached and removed from office for the crime alleged. This decision is supported by the writings of the framers of the Constitution, the text of the Constitution and Supreme Court precedent,” wrote X user Martin Harry. As constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley notes, now “the issue is whether what constitutes official acts,” adding that the ruling will “further delay the lower court proceedings, but Trump will have to argue that his actions fall within these navigational beacons.” “The lower court judge has been highly favorable for Jack Smith in the past. Yet the court is arguing that there is a presumption of immunity for their official acts beyond the absolute immunity on core constitutional powers.” Meanwhile, Justice Thomas called into question the legality of Smith’s office:

In a blistering dissent, Justice Sotomayor writes that the ruling “makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our constitution and system of government, that no man is above the law.” “Relying on little more than its own misguided wisdom… the court gives former President trump all the immunity he asked for and more.” Special counsel Jack Smith is leading two federal probes against Trump, both of which led to criminal charges. In Washington, Trump has been targeted over alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election, while a Florida case revolves around the mishandling of classified documents – for which Trump has claimed presidential immunity. In response to the ruling, Trump said on Truth Social that it was a “”BIG WIN FOR OUR CONSTITUTION AND DEMOCRACY.”

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No president should attack the Supreme Court.

Biden Reacts To Trump Immunity Ruling (RT)

US President Joe Biden has attacked the Supreme Court, urging citizens to “dissent” against its ruling that American presidents have “absolute immunity” for their official actions. In a 6-3 decision on Monday, the highest US court ruled that under “our system of separated powers, the President may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for his official acts.” Biden criticized the decision in a brief statement, calling it “a fundamentally new principle” and a “dangerous precedent because the power of the office will no longer be constrained by the law.”

“There are no kings in America. Each, each of us is equal before the law. No one, no one is above the law, not even the president of the United States,” Biden claimed – even as the Supreme Court ruling specifically stated that “the President is not above the law” and that “there is no immunity for unofficial acts.” Federal prosecutors have charged former President Donald Trump with four criminal counts related to the 2020 presidential election, alleging that he “conspired” to overturn the results. The Supreme Court verdict allows lower courts to hold evidentiary hearings to determine which actions by Trump may have been unofficial. Trump called the ruling – which puts a dent in the Democrats’ plans to prosecute him in the federal court in Washington, DC before the November election – a “big win for our constitution and democracy.”

Biden warned Americans about a possible presidential return for Trump, saying that “people must decide if they want to entrust … the presidency to Donald Trump, now knowing that he’ll be even more emboldened to do whatever he pleases whenever he wants to do it.” Biden went on to quote Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent, in which she wrote: “In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law. With fear for our democracy, I dissent.” “So should the American people dissent, I dissent,” Biden added, concluding his prepared remarks and taking no questions from the press.

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Very presidential…

Biden ‘United Democrats And Republicans’ With Debate Performance – Musk (RT)

US President Joe Biden has united Democrats and Republicans in a common recognition of his cognitive decline, following a debate with Donald Trump last week, businessman Elon Musk has argued. The billionaire, who is a vocal critic of some Biden administration policies, such as on border security, supported an assessment made on Sunday by vlogger Farzad Mesbahi on X (formerly Twitter). The Spanish-born YouTuber and self-proclaimed troll said: “America seeing Biden’s cognitive decline at the debate feels like one of the most uniting things this country has experienced in a long, long time.” “True, first time I’ve seen Republicans & Democrats agree on something in a long time,” Musk responded, adding an emoji of a face with tears of joy. The entrepreneur also weighed in immediately following the debate after former 2024 GOP hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy said that Biden’s presentation made him wonder who runs the US government. Musk replied: “Maybe nobody.”

This election cycle’s first faceoff between Trump and Biden took place last Thursday in Atlanta, Georgia. Political observers have widely agreed that the incumbent failed to counter the perception that he has neither the energy nor mental acuity to lead the country for four more years. Some Democrats, either publicly or in private communications with journalists, have said Biden should stop his campaign after his dismal performance. By contrast, former President Barack Obama maintained his support for Biden’s bid despite the flop, posting on Friday: “bad debate nights happen” and that “last night didn’t change,” the stakes in the November election. Former President Bill Clinton echoed that sentiment, stating that he will relegate “the debate rating to the pundits.” The US president’s family, who reportedly are among the few who could convince him to quit, urged him to stay in the race during a meeting on Sunday, CNN sources have claimed.

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“Carlson also claimed that relations between Obama and Biden – who served as vice president between 2009 and 2017 – have never been warm, and were at times even “hostile.”

Obama Telling People Biden Can’t Win – Tucker Carlson (RT)

Former US President Barack Obama is telling Democrats that incumbent Joe Biden has no chance of being reelected after his recent debate against GOP frontrunner Donald Trump, American conservative journalist Tucker Carlson has claimed. According to Carlson, Obama’s recent public endorsement of Biden was not sincere. Biden and Trump faced off in an open debate on Thursday night, with the president’s performance widely seen as “incoherent” and “fumbling,” underscoring concerns about his age. Following the showdown, many Democrats and their donors reportedly scrambled to find a replacement for Biden as the party’s presumptive presidential nominee. Publicly, however, many Democratic heavyweights, including Obama, reaffirmed their support for Biden. While admitting that “bad debate nights happen,” the former president insisted that “this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself.”

Writing on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, Carlson said, citing an “unusually good source,” that Obama’s post had been “disingenuous.” “In private, Obama is telling people Biden can’t win, and he is therefore in favor of an open convention,” the journalist claimed. He added Obama is not saying whom he supports, but recently met with Biden in person to deliver the message. Carlson also claimed that relations between Obama and Biden – who served as vice president between 2009 and 2017 – have never been warm, and were at times even “hostile.” According to the journalist, those ties “recently… deteriorated further,” mostly due to First Lady Jill Biden, who allegedly “kept her husband cloistered away from anyone who might convince him to drop out” of the race for the White House after the disastrous debate.

Carlson added that Biden’s wife remains “the driving force behind her husband’s reelection campaign,” echoing a recent NBC report naming her as the only person who could convince the president to “change course.” However, CNN reported on Monday that Biden’s family, including Jill, had urged him not to end his campaign, blaming his poor performance on his team. While the Biden-Obama relationship has often been described as a “bromance” to the point of becoming meme material, numerous media reports indicated that things have been much more complicated. An Axios report in March suggested that Biden “often measures himself” against his predecessor, with a rivalry dynamic present in their relations. According to Politico, Obama also shared serious concerns about Biden’s ability to win the 2020 election.

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“..not telling Biden which camera would be on him as he blankly stared a thousand miles into space with his mouth agape..”

Biden’s Family Urges Him To Fight On (ZH)

At a Camp David gathering on Sunday, President Biden’s extended family urged him to ignore the growing number of voices asking him to quit the race — and many of his loved ones blamed his disastrous debate on his advisors. According to Politico, the two who most forcefully encouraged the 81-year-old Biden to continue were his wife Jill and his son Hunter — the two people whose opinion he reportedly values most. The reports will strengthen a growing sense that Jill Biden is putting her own interests above that of her humiliated and failing husband. As one Democratic advisor told the New York Post over the weekend, “Jill Biden likes being First Lady…she doesn’t want to give that up.”

Meanwhile, Hunter, who doesn’t exactly have strong reputation for sound judgment, is said to long for Americans to see a version of his father that — as paraphrased by the Times — is “scrappy and in command of the facts.” Much as he once was in denial about his drug problem, Hunter now seems incapable of admitting that that version of his father is gone forever: Biden family members are said to have blamed the debate debacle on three advisors: Anita Dunn, her husband Bob Bauer — who played the role of Trump in practice sessions — and Biden’s former chief of staff Ron Klain, who was in charge of the debate training. Aides to Biden denied these reports from multiple outlets.

With Biden having spent a full week at Camp David gearing up for the debate, his family members and others are claiming the team worked the 81-year-old too hard, and tried to pack him full of too many statistics. They even fault advisors for a debate-night makeup job that transformed his summer-tanned face to one that was pale and unhealthy-looking. Relatives also blamed debate-host CNN for not “fact-checking” Donald Trump and not telling Biden which camera would be on him as he blankly stared a thousand miles into space with his mouth agape.

Jill

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“Democrats had already planned to nominate Biden, 81, before the convention in order to ensure he appears on the ballot in Ohio..”

DNC Weighs Early Nomination For Biden To Quash Internal Party Dissent (ZH)

Bloomberg reports that the Democratic National Committee is considering formally nominating Joe Biden as early as mid-July to ensure that the president is on November ballots, while helping to stamp out intra-party chatter of replacing him after last week’s poor debate performance. Democrats had already planned to nominate Biden, 81, before the convention in order to ensure he appears on the ballot in Ohio, which had an Aug. 7 deadline for candidates to be certified. A potential date for Biden’s nomination is July 21, when the Democratic convention’s credentials committee meets virtually, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.nThe panel is meeting to finalize procedures before the party’s convention in Chicago starts on Aug. 19.

Interestingly, former President Trump’s sentencing hearing is set for July 11th, so he may well be in prison by then given the amount of pressure we assume is being placed on Judge Merchan’s shoulders to “lock him up”. Additionally, July 21 is just three days after Trump is scheduled to accept his party’s nomination at the Republican convention in Milwaukee. The desperate attempted message from all this narrative-shaping is simple – …nothing to see here, move along. Except we all saw the fireworks factory exploding with our own eyes. [..] At a Camp David gathering on Sunday, President Biden’s extended family urged him to ignore the growing number of voices asking him to quit the race — and many of his loved ones blamed his disastrous debate on his advisors. According to Politico, the two who most forcefully encouraged the 81-year-old Biden to continue were his wife Jill and his son Hunter — the two people whose opinion he reportedly values most.

The reports will strengthen a growing sense that Jill Biden is putting her own interests above that of her humiliated and failing husband. As one Democratic advisor told the New York Post over the weekend, “Jill Biden likes being First Lady…she doesn’t want to give that up.” Meanwhile, Hunter, who doesn’t exactly have strong reputation for sound judgment, is said to long for Americans to see a version of his father that — as paraphrased by the Times — is “scrappy and in command of the facts.” Much as he once was in denial about his drug problem, Hunter now seems incapable of admitting that that version of his father is gone forever: Biden family members are said to have blamed the debate debacle on three advisors: Anita Dunn, her husband Bob Bauer — who played the role of Trump in practice sessions — and Biden’s former chief of staff Ron Klain, who was in charge of the debate training. Aides to Biden denied these reports from multiple outlets.

With Biden having spent a full week at Camp David gearing up for the debate, his family members and others are claiming the team worked the 81-year-old too hard, and tried to pack him full of too many statistics. They even fault advisors for a debate-night makeup job that transformed his summer-tanned face to one that was pale and unhealthy-looking. Relatives also blamed debate-host CNN for not “fact-checking” Donald Trump and not telling Biden which camera would be on him as he blankly stared a thousand miles into space with his mouth agape. John Morgan, a top donor and friend of Biden’s brother Frank, was not at the family meeting, but joined the delusional pile-up on Biden’s advisers, telling the Times that the week-long debate prep — which involved rehearsals at various times of the day — was excessive: “It would be like if you took a prizefighter who was going to have a title fight and put him in a sauna for 15 hours then said, ‘Go fight.’ I believe that the debate is solely on Ron Klain, Bob Bauer and Anita Dunn.”

Unlike his family, the president is said to still hold confidence in the trio. Klain assured the Times that Biden will see the race through, saying, “He is the choice of the Democratic voters…We had a bad debate night. But you win campaigns by fighting — not quitting — in the face of adversity.” Of course, Biden is “the choice of Democratic voters” largely because the Democratic National Committee made sure he was the only choice available. A post-debate CBS News poll found that just 54% of registered Democrats think Biden should be in the race. The poll found 41% of Democrats think Biden lacks has the requisite mental and cognitive health. More importantly, 72% of all voters give him a failing grade on mental health. The family gathering at Camp David was reportedly scheduled before the debate, with the expectation that it would be a celebration of his performance and an opportunity for the extended Biden family — including his children and grandchildren — to be photographed by famed celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz.

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“The Bidens flew off to the Hamptons Saturday to milk the showbiz cows and hedge-funders for a campaign that might not still exist..”

Surprise, Surprise! (Kunstler)

Since his hiding-in-the-basement campaign in 2020 “Joe Biden’s” Party of Chaos has pretended that he is fit and alert for the job and now all of sudden they pretend to be shocked to see how far gone in the head he really is. The bullshit shovelers of the mainstream news media were especially rocked, not by the truth of the situation per se, but at being unmasked as the contemptible, confabulating tools that they’ve become. The New York Times wheeled around on a dime from their servile lionizing of the presidential hologram they helped create to its editorial board abjectly yelling for him to drop out and get gone. They were joined instantly by a long list of other opinion-shapers, campaign donors, political celebs, and Beltway players.

Right after the debate, First lady Dr. Jill led a cheerleading session before a roomful of partisans that went beyond cringeworthy into uncharted territory of mortification. (“You were great, Joe! You answered all the questions!”). By the time the entourage moved to a pre-planned event at a nearby Atlanta Waffle House, “JB” had gone full-on zombie. If all that was intended to be reassuring, the effect was the opposite. Someone handed the blank-faced old grifter a milkshake and they beat it out of there. The Bidens flew off to the Hamptons Saturday to milk the showbiz cows and hedge-funders for a campaign that might not still exist. “Everyone paid in advance. . .so it could be an opportunity to encourage him to drop out,” an invited guest told a New York Post reporter. “I wanted to go and see the train wreck,” another donor said. “I’d rather choose someone from a phone book than have Biden.”

That was generally the tone among the woke-gay-communist echelons all over the land — surprisingly vehement, considering that just forty-eight hours before they were all in on re-election. Some could probably see their lucrative hustles whirling around the drain, and others might fret about just how far and wide prosecutions under a Trump Attorney General might loom. “JB” and his family circle attempted to regroup over the weekend at Camp David where first son, Hunter (“the smartest man I know,” the president often says), led the buoying-up session, perhaps mindful of the many bank accounts set up by his lawyers in the name of Biden family members (including little grandchildren) for receipt of influence-peddling revenue gathered sedulously from entities abroad during “Joe Biden’s” post-veep high-earning years. The family emerged from that meet-up triumphantly, ready to forget the one bad evening and jump back into the election game.

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“Smith has long tended to push the law to the breaking point to bag defendants..”

Too Clever By Half (Turley)

The Supreme Court’s decision in Fischer v. United States rejecting the use of obstruction of legal proceedings against January 6th defendants will potentially impact hundreds of cases. For some, it may lead to dismissals or, in the cases with multiple charges, resentencings. One of those cases that will be impacted is the pending prosecution of former president Donald Trump who is facing four charges, including two obstruction counts. However, it is not clear if Special Counsel Jack Smith will yield to the decision or possibly take the dubious path laid out by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in her concurrence. Smith has long tended to push the law to the breaking point to bag defendants. That was the case when his conviction of former Virginia Governor Robert F. McDonnell was unanimously reversed as overextending another law.

It is doubtful that he will go quietly into the night after the Fischer decision. In most cases, a prosecutor would go back and secure a superseding indictment in light of the loss of the obstruction claims. Those claims were central to the narrative of the government under the current indictment. That is not Smith’s style. He may decide to push even harder for a trial before the election on the remaining counts. Smith has made the trial before the election an overriding priority throughout his appointment. He also has a very favorable and motivated judge in United States District Judge Tanya Chutkan. He could also take a not-so-subtle hint from Jackson in her concurrence. Jackson supported the majority in finding that the obstruction provision, Section 1512(c), was enacted after the Enron case to address the destruction of documents and records.

Section 1512(c)(1) prohibits corruptly obstructing an official proceeding by altering, destroying, mutilating, or concealing a record, document, or other object with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding. However, a second provision under subsection (c)(2) allowed for charges that would “otherwise” obstruct, influence, or impede an official proceeding. The Court held that the obstruction cases under Section 1512(c)(2) must be tied to impairing the integrity or availability of evidence. However, in a single justice concurrence, she added a way that Smith and other prosecutors might still be able to shoehorn January 6th into a Section 1512 offense:

“That official proceeding [Congress’s certification of the Electoral College vote] plainly used certain records, documents, or objects—including, among others, those relating to the electoral votes themselves. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 65–67. And it might well be that Fischer’s conduct, as alleged here, involved the impairment (or the attempted impairment) of the availability or integrity of things used during the January 6 proceeding “in ways other than those specified in (c)(1).” Ante, at 8. If so, then Fischer’s prosecution under §1512(c)(2) can, and should, proceed. That issue remains available for the lower courts to determine on remand.” Notably, no other justice joined Jackson in the concurrence. However, Smith and Chutkan could reason that it was not expressly rejected and presumably, the three justices in dissent would support the broader reading since they were willing to sign off on the ultimate extension of the obstruction of justice statute. That includes Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

However, that still leaves less than a majority and an application that runs against the grain of the opinion. Just saying that a proceeding involves “certain records” is transparently artificial and forced. Even the submission of an alternative slate of electors is not the destruction of electors certified by the secretaries of state. The federal law allows for challenges in Congress, which Democrats previously utilized without claims of insurrections or attacks on democracy. J6 Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), voted to challenge the certification of the 2004 results of President George W. Bush’s reelection; committee member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) sought to challenge Trump’s certification in 2016. Both did so under the very law that Trump’s congressional supporters used in 2020. And Pelosi and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) praised the challenge organized by then-Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) in 2004.

Those challenges under the same loose theory could have been viewed as attempting to negate or destroy certifications from the states. It would likely, in my view, result in another reversal. It is, in my view, too clever by half. That may not concern Smith who may still want to use the obstruction counts to increase the likelihood of convictions on the other counts. In such a circumstance, the overturning of the two obstruction convictions might still leave the conviction for conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy against the rights of citizens. We will see in the coming weeks, but Smith is likely waiting for the other shoe to drop in the Trump immunity case. That could add additional complications if the case is remanded by the Court for further proceedings. There is little time for a trial before November if the district court must hold hearings on claims that statements or actions were taken by Trump as part of his office.

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“If Putin does not immediately use sufficient force to terminate the conflict, World War Three seems certain..”

The Resurrection of French Nationalism? (Paul Craig Roberts)

France was the last European nation to lose its sovereignty, and France might be the first to recover its sovereignty. In the 1960s France was still a nation of ethnic French as contrasted with the tower of babel and a geographical entity that it is today. During the ten-year presidency of Charles De Gaulle (1959-69) France’s policy was one of national independence. DeGaulle refused to join NATO, and he opposed a supranational Europe in which nations would subordinate themselves to a European Union.French independence could be on the point of return judging from the success of Marine Le Pen’s party yesterday in the current French elections. Her nationalist party has in the first round of the parliamentary elections taken 34% of the votes with President Macron’s centrist coalition receiving only 21% support. If the second round produces similar results, a restoration of French independence is possible.

For many years European governments have worked consistently to overwhelm their ethnic populations with third world immigrant-invaders. It has reached the point where ethnic European women raped by immigrant-invaders fear to report the crime as it can result in a charge of racism or worse against the victim. For example, in response to a gang-rape of an ethnic German female, a 20-year old ethnic German female citizen called one of the gang rapists a “disgraceful rapist pig.” The German citizen was sentenced to jail for defaming an immigrant-invader, a protected species under German law, while the rapist was given a suspended sentence and served no jail time. For many years the European working class has experienced their living standards reduced in the name of economy. Not long ago the French were protesting the rise in the retirement age, which forces them to work longer for their pension.

The French have noticed that economy measures only apply to their living standards and not to the vast sums that Macron pours into the West’s war against Russia in Ukraine. Now all of Europe hears continually that they must prepare, and cough up money for, war with Russia. The French don’t want war with Russia. Nor do the Germans, or the Italians. Only “their” governments do, and war is what Washington’s puppets have put on the agenda. Europeans don’t want the high energy cost and lost profit and employment opportunities imposed on them by Washington’s “Russian sanctions.” It seems to Europeans that the purpose of Washington’s sanctions is to make Europe more dependent on Washington, essentially reducing them to serfs. Finally, after suffering decades of abuse, insult, and total disregard by their leaders, Europeans protested in the recent European Union parliamentary elections. The ruling parties were repudiated across the board.

The Belgian prime minister had to resign. The French president had to call national elections. I wrote that if the repudiation carries over into the national elections, we could see the unravelling of NATO, the European Union, and a return of sovereign European nations. World War II gave control of Europe to the US instead of to Germany. The Soviet collapse gave Washington control over the Warsaw Pact, placing NATO on Russia’s border. Washington’s policy was to de-Germanize Germany and to destroy a national awareness. Washington controlled German education and indoctrinated Germans that nationalism was racist, produced Hitler and the Holocaust. Legislation was passed essentially criminalizing a positive attitude toward German nationalism. It meant that you were a Nazi. It still does. It is unclear if a German state can ever be resurrected.

Rid of the Germans, Washington turned its efforts on France. De Gaulle’s departure weakened France. It took time, but eventually Washington controlled who the French president would be. With France, Germany, and the British in Washington’s pocket, the rest of Europe went along. Today European nations that shared the rule of the world are puppets of a criminal regime in Washington. The notion that there is any military power in these puppet states is laughable. The self-confidence that made the British the ruler of the world has long departed. It was destroyed at Oxford and Cambridge. No Western country has a positive opinion of itself. All are being keyed for war with Russia, China, Iran, while they themselves are being overrun by immigrant-invaders who are paid tribute for their support and permitted to rape European women as a form of restitution.

The Kremlin does not understand the hollowed out, empty, West where there is no support for any government. Western peoples are brainwashed into impotence and cannot even protect their constitutional rights. Why would anyone fight for these governments, and if forced, with what spirit? Putin sits there in his legalistic way accepting insult after insult, provocation after provocation, as his way of avoiding war with the West. It is not only Western provocations that are widening the Ukraine conflict into World War III. Putin has permitted the conflict to go on and on and on, and this has enabled Washington to get more and more and more involved, thus widening the conflict. If Putin does not immediately use sufficient force to terminate the conflict, World War Three seems certain. There is hope that if Le Pen wins France and does not sell out to Washington, the unravelling of NATO and resurrection of European independence will begin. But this can be a slow process, while the developments in Ukraine toward wider war are accelerating. The time is rapidly ending during which Putin can use sufficient force to end the conflict before it results in World War Three.

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“The West has ‘lost’ Russia much more profoundly than is understood..”

The West – Indubitably – Has Lost Russia, And Is Losing Eurasia Too (Crooke)

There perhaps was a momentary shrugging-off of slumber in Washington this week as they read the account of Sergei Lavrov’s démarche to the U.S. Ambassador in Moscow: Russia was telling the U.S. – “We are no longer at peace”! Not just ‘no longer at peace’, Russia was holding the U.S. responsible for the ‘cluster strike’ on a Crimean beach on last Sunday’s Pentecost holiday, killing several (including children) and injuring many more. The U.S. thereby “became party” to the proxy war in Ukraine (it was an American-supplied ATACM; programmed by American specialists; and drawing on U.S. data), Russia’s statement read; “Retaliatory measures will certainly follow”. Evidently, somewhere an amber light flashed hues of pink and red. The Pentagon grasped that something had happened – ‘No going around it; This could escalate badly’. The U.S. Defence Secretary (after a pause since March 2023) reached for the phone to call his Russian counterpart: ‘The U.S. regretted civilian deaths; the Ukrainians had full targeting discretion’.

The Russian public however, is plain furious. The diplomatic argot of ‘there now being a state of betweenness; not war and not peace’ is but the ‘half of it’. The West has ‘lost’ Russia much more profoundly than is understood. President Putin – in his statement to the Foreign Ministry Board in wake of the G7 sword-rattling – detailed just how we had arrived at this pivotal juncture (of inevitable escalation). Putin indicated that the gravity of the situation demanded a ‘last chance’ offer to the West, one that Putin emphatically said was to be “No temporary ceasefire for Kiev to prepare a new offensive; nor a freezing the conflict – but rather, needed to be about the war’s final completion”. It has been widely understood that the only credible way to end the Ukraine war would be a ‘peace’ agreement emerging through negotiation between Russia and the U.S. This however is rooted in a familiar U.S.-centric vision – ‘Waiting on Washington …’.

Lavrov archly commented (in paraphrase) that if anyone imagines we are ‘waiting for Godot’, and ‘will run for it’, they are mistaken. Moscow has something much more radical in mind – something that will shock the West. Moscow (and China) are not simply waiting upon the whims of the West, but plan to invert completely the security architecture paradigm: To create an ‘Alt’ architecture for the ‘vast space’ of Eurasia, no less. It is intended to exit the existing bloc zero-sum confrontation. A new confrontation is not envisaged; however the new architecture nevertheless is intended to force ‘external actors’ to curtail their hegemony across the continent. In his Foreign Ministry address, Putin explicitly looked ahead to the collapse of the Euro-Atlantic security system and to a new architecture emerging: “The world will never be the same again”, he said.

What did he mean? Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s principal Foreign Policy adviser (at the Primakov Readings Forum), clarified Putin’s ‘sparse’ allusion: Ushakov reportedly said that Russia increasingly has come to the view there is not going to be any long-term re-shaping of the security system in Europe. And without any major re-shaping, there will be no ‘final completion’ (Putin’s words) to the conflict in Ukraine. Ushakov explained that this unified and indivisible security system in Eurasia must replace the Euro-Atlantic and Euro-centric models that are now receding into oblivion. “This speech [of Putin at the Russian Foreign Ministry], I would say, sets the vector of further activities of our country at the international stage, including the building of a single and indivisible security system in Eurasia,” Ushakov said.

Read more …

“.. the United States has massively over-extended itself and damaged its own reliability as a global trade partner.”

‘Unipolar US Dollar’ Mutated Into ‘Politically Weaponized’ Tool (Sp.)

“In essence, the more the United States prints and spends USD, the more the rest of the world is expected to invest in US government paper, and subsidize this debt-spending. The BRICS nations and their adherents are advocating for the use of national currencies for cross-border trade, eventually de-linking from the increasingly unipolar and visibly unreliable US Dollar,” Goncharoff explained. Furthermore, analysts at the Russia’s Pivot to Asia website wrote that two “main global financial evolutionary events” are unfolding right now. These involve changes to the role of the US dollar, and “technology and the digitization of financial transactions.” America has itself to blame for the loss of the greenback’s credibility as a global currency, mainly due to the mind-boggling US-dollar issued debt – a whopping $32.72 trillion.

“It has created a scenario where foreign governments are increasingly wary of investing in additional US dollar debt until a management system is put in place that will be able to support such a load,” Goncharoff noted. He forecasts that the US dollar “will become prone to increasing shocks, leading to uncertainty and mistrust on the global financial markets.” If the US were to default on its debt, American bondholders would carry losses on their investments, and the negative impacts on global trade would be huge, he warned. He underscored that the US treasury norm of printing of more dollars to cover up the fiscal debt “debases the actual value of the currency and encourages inflation.”

While Moscow has effectively “inoculated” itself from looming future problems with the US economy, other countries, like China, are doing the same. The trade focus is shifting away from the United States, fueling a geopolitical evolution of trade blocs like BRICS, the Eurasian Economic Union and Shanghai Cooperation Organization, with some like BRICS discussing alternative currency platforms. “One proposal for a unified BRICS trade unit is the “BRICS Bridge” allowing the ten current members to exchange units based 60% of their sovereign currencies and 40% backed by their gold reserves,” noted Goncharoff, and summed up:. “For Russia, and most other nations, there is a far bigger picture – where non-US dominated, global trade opportunities beckon.” Furthermore, the US has used the dollar as a trade and geopolitical weapon, said the pundit, seeking to abuse economies of Venezuela, Iran, Turkey and Russia amongst others.

“It has done this in two main areas, firstly by manipulating the US dollar currency exchange rates in order to damage other national currencies when the US wants to inflict fiscal punishments or seek trade advantages,” remarked the analyst, adding that Washington “has also used the global SWIFT payment network as a switch to turn US dollar trade on and off according to its policies.” “Other governments are becoming concerned that these punishments could in future be meted out to them, which also creates mistrust and fear of US dollar over-exposure. Any one of these problems are serious. It appears ultimately unlikely the United States will be able to fend off the repercussions of them all. In short – the United States has massively over-extended itself and damaged its own reliability as a global trade partner.”

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“The children here have not gone to school for a year, and we are under rocket fire day and night. It is a very strange situation.”

Charles Nenner Warns “Very Hard Times Are Coming” (USAW)

This week, Nenner’s war cycle “turned straight up” and his economic cycle “turned straight down.” The next big conflict is not going to be in Ukraine or Taiwan–just yet. On Saturday, this headline: “Iran Threatens Israel With ‘Obliterating War’ If It Attacks Lebanon.” Nenner says all hell is about to break loose. Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran and Turkey are key players in an escalating war with Israel. Nenner, who lives on the border with Lebanon in Northern Israel, interviewed with USAW just after a barrage of 100 rockets hit near his location. Nenner reports, “The children here have not gone to school for a year, and we are under rocket fire day and night. It is a very strange situation. What I don’t understand is the Arab resistance, led by Iran, did not see what happened in Gaza. If this really goes, Lebanon is going to disappear from the map…

How do I know these things? I know these things because I work with several governments in the world… In the 1960’s, there was a war, and half of Cypress ended up Turkish and half of Cypress is Greek. Turkey never accepted that. . . . Israel is using airfields in Cypress. . . . If this really gets going, Turkey is going to take over Cypress because they support Hamas (and Hezbollah). Turkey will invade Cypress, and this will lead to a war between Greece and Turkey. Of course, Iran is going to be involved also. Big boats are heading to Israel, so America is going to be involved. Russia has its ideas too… I don’t think Americans have any clue what is going on there, and they have no background. They are only busy with trying to win the Election, and it’s going to lead to catastrophe. If there is a war, Turkey is going to be involved, Cypress is going to be involved, NATO is going to be involved, and it is going to be much more serious than people think.”

Nenner says, “We are already in the next big war cycle.” Nenner still thinks China is going to be a big problem and says, “I would say if the world is busy with all this nonsense, then this is a time for China to take Taiwan over. The war cycle is extra up, so we have to be very careful. A lot of my wealthy clients are busy trying to get visas . . . to Caribbean islands. I know many wealthy people busy trying to get visas and trying to get out of America. This is what is going on below the surface, and most small investors don’t know what is going on… They are worried about a nuke strike or terrorists blowing stuff up left and right because they came through the border. This is a very dangerous situation. They are not leaving right now, but they are preparing now… The war cycle has turned up, and it is going to be extra dangerous from the 3rd of July on.”

Nenner says his big clients are also leaving the cities and buying houses in rural locations. Nenner told me this is a trend that has been going on for about 5 years, but it has picked up speed in the last year and a half. Nenner says his economic cycles have turned straight down. In NYC, Nenner points out, “I have very wealthy clients that just got out of commercial real estate with a 67% loss. I also know the banks, they are holding all these bad loans.” “The banks have US bonds coming to maturity that they have lost a fortune on. So, the banks, especially the regional banks, are going to be in big trouble… The regional banks are very weak. A lot is burning below the surface, which nobody tells you about.” Nenner still likes gold, but it’s going to consolidate here. Inflation is getting ready to take off again, and Nenner says, “Layoffs are coming soon. . . . Very hard times are coming.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Macgregor
https://twitter.com/i/status/1807746047541694893

 

 

Thomas

 

 

Issa

 

 

Silicone

 

 

Wave

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

May 232024
 


Vincent van Gogh The sower 1888

 

Trump In The Bronx: Thousands Expected To Show Up For Massive Rally (ZH)
Trump Claims Biden Authorized FBI To Use Deadly Force In Mar-a-Lago (RT)
Election 2024: A Political Renaissance for America or the Path to Totalitarianism (AmG)
Judge Aileen Cannon to Hear Motions to Dismiss in Trump Documents Case (ET)
Alan Dershowitz Might Get Away With His Motto for Trump Case (Taft)
Raisi Led The Charge For Russia–Iran–China’s ‘New World Order’ (Pepe Escobar)
CIA Prevented Hunter’s Tax Sugar Daddy From Becoming Federal Witness (ZH)
Tucker Carlson Sets Record Straight on Claims of Hosting Russian TV Show (Sp.)
Germany Would ‘Abide’ By ICC Netanyahu Arrest Warrant (RT)
‘We’re Next!’ Lindsey Graham Warns About ICC (RT)
Ukraine Is Losing, Direct Intervention By The West Risks Nuclear Conflict (RT)
Musk Questions Ukrainian Democracy (RT)
Scientists Reveal Hidden Branch of the Nile, May Solve Pyramid Mystery (Sp.)
The Slow-Motion Execution of Julian Assange Continues (Chris Hedges)

 

 

 

 

Alina/Mechan
https://twitter.com/i/status/1793149492419588317

 

 

Tucker Prince
https://twitter.com/i/status/1793232602129727993

 

 

Not looking good, Bill..

 

 

“Biden presents as old and ancient. That [Trump] does not look old.”

 

 

Unified Reich

 

 

Volga

 

 

 

 

In Trump terms, “a crowd of up to 3,500 people” is not a massive rally. But it’s ‘lovely ironic’ that it is Alvin Bragg who brings Trump to Manhattan.

Trump In The Bronx: Thousands Expected To Show Up For Massive Rally (ZH)

With Donald Trump stuck in New York for his ‘hush money’ trial, which now rests in the hands of the jury (while having imploded in the court of public opinion), the former president is holding what’s expected to be a massive rally on Thursday in the Bronx amid huge gains in polling among black and latino voters. The Trump campaign expects a crowd of up to 3,500 people, according to the NY Post. It will mark the first time he’s campaigned in his home state since a 2016 event in Buffalo. Several polls suggest as many as 23% of black voters and 46% of latino voters could cast their ballot for Trump – a huge boost from the 6% of black and 28% of latino voters who supported him in 2016, which grew to 8% and 32% respectively in 2020. As the Epoch Times noted last month, support for the Democratic Party among black and Hispanic voters has been eroding for years.

The percentage of black voters who “lean Democrat” topped out at near 90 percent in 2008 but fell to 66 percent by 2023, the lowest level yet recorded according to data from Gallup’s annual polling on the subject. Meanwhile, the percentage of black voters who “lean Republican” rose from single digits to 19 percent over the same period. Of note, the Bronx hasn’t backed a Republican candidate for White House in 100 years when Calvin Coolidge won every single NY county in 1920 and 1924. Meanwhile, Trump’s Thursday rally comes weeks after a massive rally in the Jersey Shore town of Wildwood -drawing an estimated 100,000 supporters – and days after Trump supporters were seen marching in the South Bronx over the weekend. [..] Indeed, the Trump campaign has been making the best of the former president’s situation. “While he is in court, we are using New York City as a backdrop,” said Trump campaign spokesperson Danielle Alvarez in a statement to the Post. “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” another source close to the campaign told the outlet.

“President Trump is taking advantage of being stuck in New York by holding a rally that will surely highlight how Joe Biden has failed Bronx residents with inflation and the open border. The nation’s biggest outlets are headquartered in NYC. [Manhattan DA Alvin] Bragg has inadvertently given Trump a massive stage.” Staten Island Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, the only Republican member of Congress representing a New York City district, told The Post she thinks Trump’s Bronx rally is “a great start.” “It’s exciting for New York City to have President Trump rallying, and it’s important for him to reach out to, particularly minority communities. I think New York is in play,” she said.

“New York is desperate for a balance, and they’ve shown that … We flipped that City Council seat in the Bronx, right in the heart of AOC’s district. In my congressional district, we were able to flip multiple [state] Assembly seats Republican. “My district would love for President Donald Trump to make a stop, particularly Staten Island,” added Malliotakis, shouting out the only borough to back Trump in both 2016 and 2020. In future, the lawmaker added, she would “love to see him do something at Yankee Stadium, or take over the beach on Staten Island like he did in Wildwood.” -NY Post. This is a complete optics nightmare for Democrats.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1793255284711788854

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Garland/DOJ were desperate to see what was in the folder they thought Trump held… they overruled FBI agents who resisted the plan…

“..the FBI said in a statement that its agents had followed “standard procedure” during the raid. “The FBI followed standard protocol in this search as we do for all search warrants, which includes a standard policy statement limiting the use of deadly force..”

Look, there is no “standard procedure” for raiding a former President’s home. It never happened before.

Trump Claims Biden Authorized FBI To Use Deadly Force In Mar-a-Lago (RT)

Donald Trump has accused US President Joe Biden of authorizing the use of deadly force during the FBI’s raid on his estate in 2022, citing a law enforcement document released on Tuesday in the classified documents case against the former president. The document in question describes the FBI’s plans for a court-authorized search on August 8, 2022 at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. “Wow! I just came out of the Biden Witch Hunt Trial in Manhattan, the ‘Icebox,’ and was shown Reports that Crooked Joe Biden’s DOJ, in their Illegal and UnConstitutional Raid of Mar-a-Lago, authorized the FBI to use deadly (lethal) force,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social account on Tuesday.

Garland
https://twitter.com/i/status/1792981056158634423

The FBI’s operations order was revealed as part of the investigation into Trump’s alleged falsification of business records. During the search of Trump’s residence in connection with this probe it was supposedly discovered that the ex-president had retained classified documents. According to a court filing, the order contained a policy statement regarding the use of deadly force, which stated, for example, that “Law Enforcement officers of the Department of Justice may use deadly force when necessary,” Fox News reported on Tuesday, citing the document. The US Department of Justice and FBI agents “planned to bring ‘Standard Issue Weapons’, ‘Ammo’, ‘Handcuffs’, and ‘medium and large sized bolt cutters’, but they were instructed to wear ‘unmarked polo or collared shirts’ and to keep ‘law enforcement equipment concealed,” the filing revealed.

“Now we know, for sure, that Joe Biden is a serious threat to democracy. He is mentally unfit to hold office – 25th amendment,” said Trump, who is the current Republican frontrunner to challenge Biden in November’s presidential election. In a rare and apparently direct response to the former president’s post, the FBI said in a statement that its agents had followed “standard procedure” during the raid. “The FBI followed standard protocol in this search as we do for all search warrants, which includes a standard policy statement limiting the use of deadly force,” the statement read. “No one ordered additional steps to be taken and there was no departure from the norm in this matter.” The FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago found that dozens of classified documents remained in the residence. Trump, however, has claimed that he was within his rights as a former president to possess the documents.

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“..Assuming the election’s fidelity—that this assumption must be made is an indication of how close the country is flirting with totalitarianism..”

Election 2024: A Political Renaissance for America or the Path to Totalitarianism (AmG)

It has been decades in the making, but the country is now on the precipice between its traditional ideology of political liberalism and a path that will lead, far sooner than Americans might think, to totalitarianism. The historical bulwarks of Americanism and the American political system—government of the people, freedom, and liberty—have been deliberately eroded. A citizenry steeped in republican virtue, cognizant of the political ideas and principles that made America a lasting and strong constitutional republic, and knowledgeable about the duties and obligations of American citizenship have been under daily assault for years from the foreign ideology of communism. That odious ideology has operated under synonyms such as “progressivism,” “multiculturalism,” or DEI to make its poison more palatable to American audiences.

The media—the so-called “Fourth Estate”—has been another layer of protection that has been peeled away. Today, they are activists advancing the left’s agenda in all but name. Great newspapers that were lively to read and informative are no longer. One reads them now the same way Soviet citizens used to read Pravda—only by knowing the lies that are printed and surmising what is left out of the story can one come close to knowing the truth. Compare the front page of the New York Times from fifty, forty, or thirty years ago to one today, and the change is telling and sad to see. Rather than a robust culture of free speech, censorship is pervasive by the legacy and social media, Big Tech, and by a ubiquitous and devilish culture of self-censorship.

American universities were once the envy of the world, as lively academies of intellectual debate and devoted to the pursuit of knowledge are now factories of indoctrination. Their law, medical, engineering, and business schools have also been transformed into political instruments that advance the “Party Line.” Unbelievably, thought control in K-12 is even worse. Popular culture fell a long time ago, and most of it is simply a contemporary version of Soviet entertainment where the heroic worker and peasant defeat the evil capitalist and priest. Worse still is the promotion of degeneracy and decadence with gender reassignment led by a teacher’s union that more resembles a Clockwork Orange ensemble than as the protectors of the most vulnerable in our society—our children.

As alarming as these developments are, what is worse is the permanent weaponization of government against political opponents. The raids, indictments, trials, and gag orders for a former president and leading 2024 candidate demonstrate that the Constitutional rights of the most prominent political figure in American politics in this century can have his rights violated, so too can all Americans. The lawfare employed against President Trump has been specifically designed by the left to consume his time and other resources away from his campaign for President in this critically important election year.

Of course, it is not only Trump. The imprisonment of former Trump official Peter Navarro and perhaps of Trump advisor Steve Bannon is an attempt to decapitate the Make America Great Again Movement through their imprisonment and to send a message to others about what will happen to anyone who opposes the state. The persecution of Trump’s legal advisor, John Eastman, is a similar tactic. The result is that law firms will be reluctant to accept the movement’s legal challenges. These actions are the first strike in the left’s campaign of “lawfare” to disarm Trump and to deter any Republican challenge to the parameters of the election and its aftermath. It is also political muscle flexing in an attempt to intimidate anyone who would assist Trump’s campaign and an effort to demoralize his base. After the British executed Admiral John Byng in 1757, Voltaire wrote it was “to encourage the others,” and so it is today.

The irony of the many steps taken by the left to advance a totalitarian agenda is that it is they who falsely proclaim that it is Trump and the MAGA movement that are the fascists. It is the left that is actually implementing such vile and anti-American practices against their political enemies and the American people. Recently, former 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton was once again on the Sunday news shows talking about how Donald Trump would arrest his political enemies, while in reality it is only the Democratic Party and the Biden administration that have put Peter Navarro in prison, may imprison Bannon, and indicted the former President 92 times.

This cannot stand if America is to survive as a constitutional republic. If it does, then the country is on the path to totalitarianism. Totalitarianism does not just show up one day, springing forth fully formed like Athena from the head of Zeus. But it does come quickly, more so than most Americans realize, as the ideology, laws, norms, and culture are eroded by the new revolutionary regime. When they seized power in 1917, the Bolsheviks did not know how far they could push the Russian people, but that was not for lack of intent or for a lack trying. Their ambition was to remake everything—culture, politics, economics, the arts, science, diplomacy, education, values, and thought. Every year, they tightened their grip until they crushed the people in the horrors of Stalinism. It took only twenty years from the time the Bolsheviks came to power to the show trials of mature Stalinism.

Nothing is decided and there will be many ups and downs, twists and turns, and surprises between now and Election Day. The election of 2024 is critical and as important as any in its history. Assuming the election’s fidelity—that this assumption must be made is an indication of how close the country is flirting with totalitarianism—it will provide Americans with the clearest choice in our history since the Civil War. When that choice is understood to be one between the continuation of the American Republic or to enter the hell of totalitarianism, the election will spark a renaissance of America’s traditional political ideology, institutions, values and culture. This election provides the opportunity to drive a stake through the heart of totalitarianism “with an American face,” as Americans, having seen into the abyss, will reject the totalitarian path. A re-birth of the understanding of the value of American citizenship—that spirit of 1776—and of our inalienable and universal freedoms can come from the 2024 election.

To ensure that positive outcome will require not only support for President Trump but also extraordinary vigilance by the American people through the election and its aftermath.

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“Judge Cannon postponed the trial indefinitely to consider additional motions to dismiss, including “indictment based on unlawful appointment and funding of Special Counsel” on June 21..”

Judge Aileen Cannon to Hear Motions to Dismiss in Trump Documents Case (ET)

After the prosecution and defense rested their cases in former President Donald Trump’s trial in Manhattan, his attorneys and those of co-defendant Walt Nauta will appear in southeast Florida on May 22 to argue for the dismissal of his classified documents case. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon will preside over back-to-back hearings that consider multiple motions to dismiss the case. Mr. Nauta’s attorneys will argue that the case should be dismissed based on selective and vindictive prosecution. Judge Cannon will then hear arguments from all defendants to dismiss the case on insufficient pleading. President Trump will be absent for both hearings in Fort Pierce, Florida, after Judge Cannon granted his “motion for leave to be excused” on May 14. The defendants have filed multiple motions to dismiss the case, including one citing the Presidential Records Act and another invoking “unconstitutional vagueness” that Judge Cannon heard during a March 14 hearing.

President Trump also filed a May 21 motion to dismiss, alleging prosecutorial misconduct when the FBI seized 15 boxes of documents during the Mar-a-Lago raid. Judge Cannon postponed the trial indefinitely to consider additional motions to dismiss, including “indictment based on unlawful appointment and funding of Special Counsel” on June 21. There are also partial evidentiary hearings scheduled for June 24–26 and a “defense reciprocal discovery” hearing on July 10. As a result of these pre-trial issues, Judge Cannon has indefinitely postponed the trial for this case, which experts say may not occur before the November election. The Justice Department charged Mr. Nauta with multiple counts, including: “participating in a conspiracy to obstruct justice,” after President Trump tasked him with moving some of the boxes containing classified documents at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort and residence in Palm Beach, Florida.

Mr. Nauta’s attorney, Stanley Woodward, Jr., argues that the Justice Department’s Special Counsel’s Office decision to prosecute the valet was “both selective and vindictive.” Mr. Woodward wrote that the legal standard for “selective prosecution” is that a prosecution “has a discriminatory effect” and that it was motivated by a “discriminatory purpose.” He also describes vindictive prosecution as when a prosecutor’s charging decision was “motivated by a desire to punish [the defendant] for doing something that the law plainly allowed him to do” while treating the defendant with “genuine animus.” Since others at the resort had moved the boxes “in the same or similar time, manner, and place as Mr. Nauta,” it would be discriminatory to charge him and no one else with this crime, Mr. Woodward argued in the motion to dismiss.

The Special Counsel’s Office rejected this argument and said it rests Mr. Nauta’s comparison to two other employees of President Trump “but whose conduct was not remotely similar to his own.” Therefore, it fails to prove that Mr. Nauta was selected for prosecution over those individuals for “improper reasons,” prosecutors say. As for vindictive prosecution, Mr. Woodward argued that Mr. Nauta was only prosecuted after he declined the Special Counsel’s Office’s request that he give “full cooperation in the investigation.” Mr. Woodward believes the indictment was “vindictive” because it appears that prosecutors targeted Mr. Nauta after he chose to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights and declined to testify in front of a grand jury. The Justice Department called this a “novel and unsupported claim” and wrote that if the court accepted it, that would imply that any defendant asked to provide “full cooperation” would be immune from charges by simply “declining the offer.”

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“..Alan Dershowitz Might Be the Only One..”

Alan Dershowitz Might Get Away With His Motto for Trump Case (Taft)

The Trump trial in New York has seen a meltdown by the judge, a “star” witness who predictably lied on the stand, a mattress actress who described in fanciful detail a likely apocryphal tryst with the TV star-turned-president, and now this goat rodeo has been branded. It’s not just any slogan, no sir. Legal scholar and Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz may be one of only four people in America with the standing to pull this motto out on national TV and not get laughed at. Dershowitz was in the Manhattan courtroom on Monday and was appalled at seeing in person the sloppy, one-sided, and outrageous conduct against former President Donald Trump. Furthermore, he wants the video of the trial, which he says the court has, to be preserved and seen “by every American… to see what this judge looked like when he shouted at [defense witness Bob] Costello… (see my story about this nearby) and strike this testimony… and not allow this defendant to put on a defense.”

Those are sharp words from Dershowitz who has been in some of America’s most august courtrooms, congressional halls, and venues and done some serious backroom brawling in defense of his clients. But this, he said, is “one of the most unfair trials I have ever seen in the 60 years of practicing, teaching, and writing about criminal law. It’s a scandal.” He told Sean Hannity of Fox News that in this trial Judge Juan Merchan expanded the use of irrelevant testimony by the prosecution and curtailed the use of exonerating evidence for Donald Trump. He claimed, as others do, that the judge has ignored Trump’s Sixth Amendment Rights. Dershowitz said that in the time he was in court on Monday, he personally witnessed multiple rulings and decisions by the judge that were reversible errors in Trump’s case. He was the only spectator allowed to remain in the courtroom when the judge cleared it when he yelled at Costello. Maybe Judge Merchan thought Dershowitz was on the case.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1793091599775445338

Back in the day, America got a look at another judge in a deadly serious case against a beloved and ubiquitous TV star and sports figure, OJ Simpson. Americans were riveted by the TV coverage of the double murder trial of the retired NFL great. Dershowitz was part of Simpson’s “dream team” of lawyers who won the sports star and actor an acquittal. He and Robert Shapiro and DNA specialists Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, who founded The Innocence Project, are the only members of the defense team still alive. Johnny Cochran, F. Lee Bailey, and the man who assembled them all, attorney Robert Kardashian have all died. But you know the motto that Cochran coined during the closing arguments of the trial. One of OJ’s bloody kid gloves was found at the scene of the murders. Police found the matching bloody glove behind OJ’s house. They were bagged by evidence teams and stayed locked up for months in a police evidence locker.

During the trial, a young prosecutor tried to pull off a dramatic courtroom moment when he asked OJ to put his gnarled and arthritic hands inside the dried-out leather gloves. Not surprisingly, they didn’t fit like a glove. Cochran seized on the moment and told the jury during closing arguments, “If the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit.” They did. Now one of the original dream team members has reworked the phrase to include his assessment of this Trump trial. Dershowitz told Hannity Tuesday night, “I have a motto for the defense: ‘If it’s not legit, you must acquit.’ And this is not a legitimate trial and there must be an acquittal… in the interest of all Americans.” Like the OJ case, DA Alvin Bragg may finally get down to the business of finding the real criminal in that Manhattan courtroom. All he’ll need to do is look in the mirror.

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“..none of the three Asian powers will allow the other partners to be destabilized by the usual suspects..”

Raisi Led The Charge For Russia–Iran–China’s ‘New World Order’ (Pepe Escobar)

Amidst all the sadness and grief over the loss of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, let’s take a moment to showcase the critical path he helped forge toward a new global order. In the nearly three years since Raisi ascended to the Iranian presidency, Eurasian integration and the drive toward multipolarity have become fundamentally conducted by three major actors: Russia, China, and Iran. Which, by no accident, are the three top “existential threats” to the hegemonic power. At 10 pm this past Sunday in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin invited Iran’s ambassador to Moscow, Kazem Jalali, to be at the table in an impromptu meeting with the cream of the crop of Russia’s Defense Team. That invitation reached far beyond the myopic media conjecture over whether the Iranian president’s untimely death was due to an “accidental crash” or an act of sabotage. It came from the fruits of Raisi’s tireless labor to position Iran as an east-facing nation, boldly forging strategic alliances with Asia’s major powers while sweetening Tehran’s relations with past regional foes.

Back to that Sunday night table in Moscow. Everyone was there – from Defense Minister Andrei Belousov and Secretary of the Security Council Sergei Shoigu to Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, Emergencies Minister Aleksandr Kurenkov and Special Assistant to the President, Igor Levitin. The key message portrayed was that Moscow has Tehran’s back. And Russia completely supports the stability and continuity of government in Iran, which is already fully guaranteed by Iran’s constitution and its detailed contingencies for a peaceful transition of power under even unusual circumstances. As we are now deep into total Hybrid War mode – bordering on Hot – across most of the planet, the three civilization states shaping a new system of international relations could not be more obvious. Russia–Iran–China (RIC) are already interlinked via bilateral, comprehensive strategic partnerships; they are members of both BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and their modus operandi was fully unveiled for the whole Global Majority to examine at Putin’s crucial summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing last week.

In short, none of the three Asian powers will allow the other partners to be destabilized by the usual suspects. Late President Raisi and his top diplomat, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, leave a stellar legacy. Under their leadership, Iran became a member of BRICS, a full member of the SCO, and a major stakeholder in the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU). These are the three key multilateral organizations shaping the road to multipolarity. Iran’s new diplomatic drive reached key Arab and African players, from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Egypt to Libya, Sudan, and Djibouti. Tehran, for the first time, conducted a sophisticated, large-scale military operation against Israel, firing a barrage of drones and missiles from Iranian territory. Iran–Russia relations reached the next level in trade and military-political cooperation. Two years ago, Putin and Raisi agreed on a comprehensive bilateral treaty. The draft of the core document is now ready and will be signed by Iran’s next president, expanding the partnership even further.

As a member of an Iranian delegation told me last year in Moscow, when the Russians were asked what could be on the table, they replied, “You can ask us anything.” And vice versa. So all interlocked declinations of Raisi’s “Look East” strategic shift coupled with Russia’s earlier “pivot to Asia” are being addressed by Moscow and Tehran. The Council of Foreign Ministers of the SCO is meeting this Tuesday and Wednesday in Astana, preparing for the summit in July, when Belarus will become a full member. Crucially, Saudi Arabia’s cabinet has also approved the decision for Riyadh to join, possibly next year. Iran’s continuity of government will be fully represented in Astana via interim Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani, who was Amir-Abdollahian’s number two. He’s bound to immediately enter the fray alongside Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Chinese counterpart Wang Yi to discuss the multi-layered multipolar path.

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Good question: “Why would the CIA protect Morris?”

CIA Prevented Hunter’s Tax Sugar Daddy From Becoming Federal Witness (ZH)

A trove of new whistleblower documents provided to House GOP investigators reveal, among other things, that the CIA prevented federal investigators from pursuing Hollywood lawyer Kevin Morris as a witness in their investigation of Hunter Biden. Morris, a Hollywood entertainment lawyer who has ‘long supported’ Hunter (and why?) has loaned the First Son more than $6.5 million, according to a January letter to the House oversight committee. We’ve known about the CIA connection since March, when the Chairmen of the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees, Jim Jordan (R-OH) and James Comer (R-KY) said that a whistleblower has brought them information that ‘seems to corroborate our concerns’ that the CIA directly interfered with DOJ and IRS investigations of Hunter Biden. According to a whistleblower, the CIA “intervened in the investigation of Hunter biden to prevent the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) from interviewing a witness,” the letter, addressed to CIA Director William Burns, reads.

Specifically, the Committees were concerned at how “the DOJ deviated from its standard processes to afford preferential treatment to Hunter Biden,” which they learned “after two brave whistleblowers testified to Congress” that the Justice Department had done just that. “DOJ officials restricted what investigative steps the investigators could pursue, tipped off Hunter Biden’s attorneys about investigative steps, and even prevented investigators from conducting witness interviews. The whistleblowers’ testimony about the preferential treatment provided to Hunter Biden has been corroborated by testimony from other witnesses and documents the Committees have received.” And now we know who that witness is… “In a Wednesday statement, the House Ways and Means Committee wrote that whistleblower documents indicate “In 2021, Assistant U.S. District Attorney Leslie Wolf told investigators they could not pursue Hollywood lawyer Kevin Morris as a witness based on information she received from the CIA. Investigators were never provided the same information that AUSA Wolf received.”

“From whistleblower-provided evidence, we know Hunter Biden and his business associates made millions from selling access to Joe Biden and the quote ‘brand’ that is Joe Biden around the world. We know President Biden’s denials of any knowledge or involvement are not true,” reads the letter. “We know the Department of Justice tried to undermine, stonewall, and block the investigation into the Biden family, including President Biden.” The letter also details several lies Hunter told to Congress: “Hunter Biden’s deposition is key to understanding the attempts to conceal how the family made millions from selling access. Yet, new documents provided by the whistleblowers show that Hunter Biden repeatedly lied to Congress in his February deposition to distance his involvement in what should be considered a clear scheme to enrich the Biden family.”

First, Hunter Biden lied about the recipient of a WhatsApp message sent with the apparent intention to threaten a business associate and demand payment. Second, Hunter Biden lied when he claimed he was not the corporate secretary of Rosemont Seneca Bohai and that the shell company he established with Devon Archer and its associated bank accounts were not under his control nor affiliated with him. Third, Hunter Biden lied during his deposition when he said he never helped individuals obtain U.S. visas. Why would the CIA protect Morris?

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Newsweek knows the claim is nonsense, but the outlet works for Biden’s DOJ.

“By claiming I work for a foreign government, Newsweek is trying to justify a FISA warrant that would allow the Biden administration to continue to spy on me. It’s disgusting,”

Tucker Carlson Sets Record Straight on Claims of Hosting Russian TV Show (Sp.)

Previously, Newsweek and several other outlets reported that Tucker Carlson had launched his own show on Russian television. Tucker Carlson has refuted reports that he has become a host on Russian television. This claim was unequivocally false, the journalist told Sputnik. “By claiming I work for a foreign government, Newsweek is trying to justify a FISA warrant that would allow the Biden administration to continue to spy on me. It’s disgusting,” he said. Similarly, in a post on X, Neil Patel, the CEO of the Tucker Carlson Network, said the network “has not done any deals with state media in any country.” He added that “Whoever is currently pretending to be the old Newsweek brand would know that if they had checked with us before printing like news companies are supposed to do.” Tucker Carlson’s representative Arthur Schwartz also dismissed such reports as “pure nonsense” in an an email to Forbes.

Earlier, Newsweek reported that the US journalist – a former Fox News anchor – was launching his own show on Russian state TV. The unsubstantiated claim that was then widely picked up by users on social media. Carlson was fired by Fox News in April 2023 after the outspoken anchor spent over two years using his popular prime time “Tucker Carlson Tonight” show to pillory the Biden administration, the military-industrial complex, and US warmongering. He has since launched a new media company and interview show on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. Earlier in the year, Carlson said that his lawyers warned him that the United States could arrest him on sanctions violations for conducting an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. However, the pundit said he was happy to face such a risk and rejected the premise of such charges.

On February 9, the American journalist released his interview with Putin, which garnered over 100 million views in 24 hours on X. The long-time TV news anchor said at the time that he organized the interview because he felt it was his journalistic duty to inform Americans about the realities of the conflict in Ukraine and its consequences. Needless to say, the hypocrisy of Western journalists and legacy media was laid bare in the attack they launched at Tucker Carlson, accusing him as a traitor after the sit-down with the Russian leader. Furthermore, in a series of clips posted to his internet channel about his experiences from his eight-day stay in Russia, Carlson attempted to debunk myths and stereotypes about Russia and life in the capital in the midst of the West’s sanctions ‘total war’.

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“..calling for “civilized nations” to boycott any arrest orders against its leaders..”

Germany Would ‘Abide’ By ICC Netanyahu Arrest Warrant (RT)

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government has made clear that it would cooperate with the International Criminal Court (ICC) if proposed arrest warrants are issued against Israeli leaders over alleged war crimes against the Palestinians. Speaking at a press briefing on Wednesday, government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit was asked whether Berlin would execute an ICC arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “Of course, yes, we abide by the law,” he responded, as cited by Die Welt. The statement came after Israel’s ambassador to Berlin, Ron Prosor, urged Scholz’s administration to defy the ICC. The court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, filed applications on Monday for arrest warrants against Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict.

Israel’s government responded by branding the proposed warrants as anti-Semitic and calling for “civilized nations” to boycott any arrest orders against its leaders. Prosor appealed to the Berlin government directly on Tuesday, saying the German “Staatsrason” – its vow to ensure Israel’s security as part of its own national interest – was being put to the test. “The public statement that Israel has the right to self-defense loses credibility if our hands are tied as soon as we defend ourselves,” the envoy said. “The chief prosecutor equates a democratic government with Hamas, thereby demonizing and delegitimizing Israel and the Jewish people. He has completely lost his moral compass.” Prosor added that Germany has a responsibility to “readjust this compass.” He called the warrant applications a “disgraceful political campaign,” saying they could become a “nail in the coffin for the West” and its institutions.

Hebestreit declined to comment directly on the Israeli government’s demands. Germany is a signatory to the ICC and has staunchly supported such multilateral organizations. France, which is also among the 124 countries that recognize the ICC’s authority, is in the same boat. The French Foreign Ministry affirmed its support for the tribunal on Tuesday, saying it would be up to the court’s pre-trial chamber to decide whether to order the arrests of Israeli and Hamas leaders – based on evidence submitted by the prosecutor. Neither Israel nor the US is a party to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC. US President Joe Biden denounced the proposed warrants as “outrageous,” and members of Congress have threatened to sanction the court.

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Would that be so crazy?

‘We’re Next!’ Lindsey Graham Warns About ICC (RT)

If the International Criminal Court is willing to go after the Israeli leadership, it won’t hesitate to go after US lawmakers, according to Senator Lindsey Graham. The South Carolina Republican has united with Democrats in calling for sanctions on the Hague court. ICC prosecutor Karim Khan has requested arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, arguing there were “reasonable grounds to believe” that they were guilty of “war crimes and crimes against humanity” in the Gaza conflict. Khan has also sought warrants for three senior members of Hamas. “We – hopefully, together – will find a way to register our displeasure with the ICC because if they’ll do this to Israel, we’re next,” Graham said on Tuesday, at a Senate appropriations subcommittee hearing where US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was testifying.

“Yeah, you can clap all you want,” Graham replied, as a group of protesters in the chamber began to applaud at his “we’re next” comment. He argued that the US needs to impose sanctions against the ICC “to not only help our friends in Israel but protect ourselves over time,” noting that the court “tried to come after our soldiers in Afghanistan, but reason prevailed.” Washington had sanctioned the ICC prosecutor who tried to investigate allegations of atrocities and war crimes committed by the US and its allies in Afghanistan. Earlier this month, a dozen senators wrote to Khan to remind him that a US law allows “all means necessary and appropriate” to defend any Americans – or allies – sought by the court. The 2002 law was nicknamed the “Hague Invasion Act.”

Graham was not signatory to that letter. On Tuesday, however, he issued a joint statement with seven other senators – three Republicans and four Democrats – pledging to “work in a bipartisan manner to strenuously object to the ICC’s actions against our ally, Israel, and take appropriate steps to help Israel and protect American personnel from future ICC action.” Washington has insisted that the ICC lacks jurisdiction over West Jerusalem, since Israel is not a signatory to the Rome Statute which established the court. Last year, however, the US praised Khan for seeking to charge Russian President Vladimir Putin – even though Moscow is not a party to the Rome Statute, either.

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Sergei Poletaev.

Ukraine Is Losing, Direct Intervention By The West Risks Nuclear Conflict (RT)

Western officials have been talking about sending troops to Ukraine since the beginning of the year. French President Emmanuel Macron said that he is ready to consider “any scenario,” including a ground operation. Government officials in Estonia and Lithuania (including Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte) were quick to support him. And the Leader of the House Democratic Caucus Hakeem Jeffries became the first US politician who didn’t exclude the possibility of sending troops. Formally, Ukraine hasn’t requested Western troops – Kiev has only demanded more weapons. But now, the New York Times reports that Kiev has officially asked the US and NATO to send military instructors to train 150,000 recruits on its territory, closer to the front line. Though the US has refused to comply with the request, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Charles Q. Brown Jr, has said that a NATO deployment of trainers appears inevitable, and that “we’ll get there eventually, over time.”

The subject of sending troops to Ukraine comes up quite often but, so far, Western countries have steered clear. Why? Is a full-fledged NATO intervention in Ukraine possible and what would happen if it took place? And how else might the West turn the course of the conflict in its favor? Western doctrine in regard to Russia was defined even before the start of the full-scale conflict: the idea was to fight Russia “with the hands of” Ukraine and on Ukrainian territory. The goal was to force Russia to play by Western rules (ideally, by defeating it on the battlefield) and reassert the US-led bloc’s shaky global hegemony. But, at the same time, officials wanted to minimize their own risks and avoid being drawn into a direct military confrontation that could result in a nuclear war. The second staple of this doctrine – a total trade war – has not yielded the desired results. In 2022, it became clear that the West overestimated the degree of its control not only over the international financial system, but even over its own financial flows.

Despite certain losses and additional costs, Russia has been able to replace old trade ties with new ones and to do so with a minimal loss of revenue. The severe sanctions imposed by the West on its own companies turned out to be quite useless, since for the most part Russia continues to receive the latest Western products and technologies. As for the idea of defeating Russia on the battlefield, the turning point occurred in the summer of 2023. After the failure of Ukraine’s counteroffensive, it became clear that the AFU would not be able to impose peace on its own terms. The problem is that in the conflict with Russia, the West has gone ‘all in’ and any military outcome that could be regarded as beneficial for Moscow – even negotiations on an equal footing – would now be regarded as a defeat. The whole world would realize that they can stand up to the hegemon and not just avoid becoming an outcast, but even gain some benefits. The West cannot allow this, since it could cause a chain reaction on a global scale.

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“..the Ukrainian president’s status could call into question any future treaties he may sign with Russia..”

Musk Questions Ukrainian Democracy (RT)

Elon Musk has cast doubt on Western involvement in the Ukraine conflict being described as upholding democracy, if the country’s leader has a questionable legal claim to power. Tuesday marked the first day after the expiration of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s five-year presidential term. His government declined to hold a new election, citing martial law put in place due to hostilities with Russia. The American billionaire entrepreneur responded to an X (formerly Twitter) post highlighting the deadline published by conservative journalist Jack Posobiec. Musk said: “But I thought we were there to ‘uphold democracy’?” Zelensky’s democratic bona fides were called into question before the fighting with Russia started in February 2022. His government had cracked down on critical media and opposition politicians, claiming that it was fighting Russian influence and the power of oligarchs. His remaining in power is based on the absence of a duly elected successor, who Zelensky’s office has argued cannot be produced during war time.

Kiev cited a constitutional restriction on voting under martial law as the reason for not organizing a presidential vote. The Ukrainian Constitution does explicitly forbid parliamentary elections and some kinds of referendums during national emergencies, but says nothing about presidential elections. The Constitutional Court has not ruled on how the current impasse should be resolved. The US and its allies have portrayed the arming and training of Ukrainian troops to fight Russia as a contribution to a global fight of democracies against autocracies. Conversely, Moscow has argued that the conflict is a US-initiated proxy war on Russia, in which Ukrainian soldiers serve as cannon fodder. Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that the issue of Zelensky’s legitimacy is something that the country itself has to sort out. However, the Ukrainian president’s status could call into question any future treaties he may sign with Russia, he added.

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“..was covered in sand when a major drought set in around 4,200 years ago..”

Scientists Reveal Hidden Branch of the Nile, May Solve Pyramid Mystery (Sp.)

Scientists have recently discovered a long-buried branch of the Nile river that once rushed with life alongside the country’s magnificent Giza pyramid complex. The river branch is about 40 miles long (64 km), but has been hiding under desert and farmland for millennia, according to a study that published the findings on Thursday in Communications Earth & Environment. Eman Ghoneim, a geomorphologist who was born and raised in Egypt, is a professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. She and her team analyzed batches of satellite images as well as sediment samples that were collected from beneath the desert’s surface. “We were looking at these meandering natural features closer to the [pyramid] field, like long depressions and troughs, now covered up entirely by farmlands and sand,” Ghoneim says. “It can be very hard to see if you don’t know what to look for.”

Radar gave the research team the “unique ability to penetrate the sand surface and produce images of hidden features including buried rivers and ancient structures,” said Ghoneim. And through this process, they found the long-lost ancient branch of the Nile that once ran through the foothills beside the Giza pyramid field – just a kilometer from the banks of the river. The team believes this hidden branch could be the answer to how builders transported heavy materials to the construction site of the now iconic pyramids – as heavy materials would have been easier to float down river than to carry across land. The ancient Egyptians built 31 pyramids along the now inhospitable desert strip between 4,700 and 3,700 years ago. Ghoneim adds that the branch could help researchers find potential sites of ancient human settlements that might be buried beneath the land’s surface.

While archaeologists have long suspected a waterway was responsible for helping to build the pyramids, Ghoneim says “nobody was certain of the location, the shape, the size or proximity of this mega waterway to the actual pyramids site.” The scientists believe the river, which they named Ahramat, was covered in sand when a major drought set in around 4,200 years ago. And the discovery of the river branch could also explain why the pyramids were built in different areas. Ghoneim explains that the water’s course and volume changed over time, so kings of later eras had to make different choices compared to those of earlier eras. She adds that she is hopeful of continuing to piece together a map of the Nile’s previous life.

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“The ruling by the High Court in London permitting Julian Assange to appeal his extradition order leaves him languishing in precarious health in a high-security prison. That is the point.”

The Slow-Motion Execution of Julian Assange Continues (Chris Hedges)

The extradition request is based on the 2010 release by WikiLeaks of the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs — hundreds of thousands of classified documents, leaked to the site by Chelsea Manning, then an Army intelligence analyst, which exposed numerous U.S. war crimes including video images of the gunning down of two Reuters journalists and 10 other unarmed civilians in the Collateral Murder video, the routine torture of Iraqi prisoners, the covering up of thousands of civilian deaths and the killing of nearly 700 civilians that had approached too closely to U.S. checkpoints. In February, lawyers for Julian submitted nine separate grounds for a possible appeal. A two-day hearing in March, which I attended, was Julian’s last chance to request an appeal of the extradition decision made in 2022 by the then British home secretary, Priti Patel, and of many of the rulings of District Judge Baraitser in 2021.

The two High Court judges, Dame Victoria Sharp and Justice Jeremy Johnson, in March rejected most of Julian’s grounds of appeal. These included his lawyers’ contention that the UK-US extradition treaty bars extradition for political offenses; that the extradition request was made for the purpose of prosecuting him for his political opinions; that extradition would amount to retroactive application of the law — because it was not foreseeable that a century-old espionage law would be used against a foreign publisher; and that he would not receive a fair trial in the Eastern District of Virginia. The judges also refused to hear new evidence that the CIA plotted to kidnap and assassinate Julian, concluding — both perversely and incorrectly — that the CIA only considered these options because they believed Julian was planning to flee to Russia.

But the two judges determined Monday that it is “arguable” that a U.S. court might not grant Julian protection under the First Amendment, violating his rights to free speech as enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights. The judges in March asked the U.S. to provide written assurances that Julian would be protected under the First Amendment and that he would be exempt from a death penalty verdict. The U.S. assured the court that Julian would not be subjected to the death penalty, which Julian’s lawyers ultimately accepted. But the Department of Justice was unable to provide an assurance that Julian could mount a First Amendment defense in a U.S. court. Such a decision is made in a U.S. federal court, their lawyers explained.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg, who is prosecuting Julian, has argued that only U.S. citizens are guaranteed First Amendment rights in U.S. courts. Kromberg has stated that what Julian published was “not in the public interest” and that the U.S. was not seeking his extradition on political grounds. Free speech is a key issue. If Julian is granted First Amendment rights in a U.S. court it will be very difficult for the U.S. to build a criminal case against him, since other news organizations, including The New York Times and The Guardian, published the material he released.

The extradition request is based on the contention that Julian is not a journalist and not protected under the First Amendment. Julian’s attorneys and those representing the U.S. government have until May 24 to submit a draft order, which will determine when the appeal will be heard. Julian committed the empire’s greatest sin — he exposed it as a criminal enterprise. He documented its lies, routine violation of human rights, wanton killing of innocent civilians, rampant corruption and war crimes. Republican or Democrat, Conservative or Labour, Trump or Biden — it does not matter. Those who manage the empire use the same dirty playbook. The publication of classified documents is not a crime in the United States, but if Julian is extradited and convicted, it will become one.

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What do we think of Terrance Howard? Fine actor, sure, but…

https://twitter.com/i/status/1793018427453432189
https://twitter.com/i/status/1792991155434533029

 

 

Happer

 

 

3 vs 1
https://twitter.com/i/status/1792709386017841329

 

 

Tesla water

 

 

Humpback

 

 

Baby condor

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

May 102024
 


Carl Spitzweg The raven 1845

 

Jack Smith Has Few Options in Trump Case, Say Former Prosecutors (ET)
Trump Announces ‘Major Motion’ Filed in New York Appeals Court (ET)
Democrats Attack Judge for Delaying Trump Florida Trial (Turley)
Putin Doesn’t Bluff (Jim Rickards)
US Defenseless Against Russian Hypersonic Missiles, Iranian Drones – DoD (Sp.)
Boeing’s Setbacks Show Why US Industries Lose Competitive Edge (Sp.)
Aging US Fleet and Drained Stockpiles No Match for China and Russia (Sp.)
Biden Denies Economic Reality In Car Crash CNN Interview (MN)
Tucker Carlson Interviews Biden Accuser Tara Reade (RT)
Whole West Is Working To Supply Ukraine – Putin (RT)
West ‘Trying To Distort’ History Of WWII – Putin (RT)

 

 

 

 

Fani more

 

 

Larry Johnson

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Democrats Attack Judge for Delaying Trump Florida Trial (Turley)

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

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

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

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

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

Putin Doesn’t Bluff (Jim Rickards)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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One major accident away from bankruptcy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Good thing he went to see her.

Tucker Carlson Interviews Biden Accuser Tara Reade (RT)

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

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

Tara Reade

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Who is the weak link?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Eva

 

 

17 million

 

 

1000s

 

 

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

 

 

Bees

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Apr 252024
 


Amedeo Modigliani Nu allongé 1917

 

US Sided With Evil And Fascism – Russian Envoy (RT)
Alvin Bragg Has His Trump Trial, All He Needs Now Is A Crime (Turley)
Romney and the Wrong Question (Turley)
Musk Concurs That Civil War Looming In West (TASS)
Musk Warns Australia Against ‘Controlling Entire Internet’ (Sp.)
Mitch McConnell Blames Tucker Carlson For Delaying Ukraine Cash (RT)
Future Of The World Will Be Decided In Ukraine – Lukashenko (RT)
All Ukrainian Presidents Are Thieves – Lukashenko (RT)
Poland Ready To Help Ukraine Hunt Down Military-Aged Men (RT)
Ukraine Conflict ‘A Bonanza’ For US Military – NYT (RT)
G7 Could Take 10 Years to Catch Up With Russian Nuclear Fuel Output (Sp.)
European Bureaucrats Serve America’s Economic Interests (Dionísio)
Iran’s Nuclear Plans Are Clear. Just Read Its Own Islamic Law (Juma)
Why Iran Decided Not To Attack Israel Again (Gurevich)
Netanyahu Should Resign – Nancy Pelosi (RT)
Unconventional Russian Warfare Threatening British Grannies – Wallace (RT)

 

 

 

 

Trump immunity
https://twitter.com/i/status/1782847341952729139

 

 

Watters trial

 

 

Alina
https://twitter.com/i/status/1782784975521120376

 

 

Tucker Weak men

 

 

 

 

Julie Kelly


https://twitter.com/i/status/1783175943831367849

 

 

Arizona

 

 

mask
https://twitter.com/i/status/1783164740459762075

 

 

 

 

“..the US government has effectively been funneling billions of dollars into its own defense industry through the aid scheme..”

US Sided With Evil And Fascism – Russian Envoy (RT)

The US government has made its choice in favor of war, siding with evil and supporting fascism, the Russian ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov has said, in comments on the latest massive American military aid package for Ukraine. On Wednesday, US President Joe Biden signed a long-stalled $95-billion foreign-aid package, including $61 billion for Ukraine. Biden said the US would start sending weapons and military equipment to Ukraine “in the next few hours.” Washington is balancing on the brink of a direct clash between nuclear powers, Ambassador Antonov told reporters following the news. The development strikes a severe blow to prospects for a hypothetical revival of Russian-American relations in the future, Antonov believes.

“For the sake of its greedy and insatiable defense industry, the [Biden] administration sacrifices the lives of ordinary people. With their decision, local politicians actually put an end to the fate of the entire state [of Ukraine], which is used as a ‘battering ram’ against Russia,” he stated. The high-ranking Russian diplomat accused the US administration of violating the UN Charter’s obligation to maintain ‘primary responsibility for international peace and security.’

“American aid will not save [Ukrainian President] Zelensky” he stressed, adding that any new weapons being sent by Washington to Kiev would be destroyed, and that the tasks and goals of Moscow’s military operation will be realized. The Kremlin has repeatedly warned that Washington’s lethal aid will not change the situation on the battlefield in Ukraine’s favor. According to Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, the US government has effectively been funneling billions of dollars into its own defense industry through the aid scheme.

Cheers

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“We’ve never seen a case like this one where a dead misdemeanor from 2016 could be revived as a felony just before the 2024 election..”

“Cohen will soon go on the stand and tell the jury it should send his former client to jail for following his legal advice.”

Alvin Bragg Has His Trump Trial, All He Needs Now Is A Crime (Turley)

For many of us in the legal community, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against former President Donald Trump borders on the legally obscene: an openly political prosecution based on a theory even legal pundits dismiss. Yet Monday the prosecution seemed to actually make a case for obscenity. It wasn’t the gratuitous introduction of an uncharged alleged tryst with a former Playboy Bunny or expected details on the relationship with an ex-porn star. It was the criminal theory itself that seemed crafted around the obscenity stan- dard Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously described in 1984’s Jacobellis v. Ohio: “I shall not today attempt further to define [it]. . . . But I know it when I see it. The prosecution must show Trump falsified business records in “furtherance of another crime.” After months of confusion on just what crime underpinned the indictment, the prosecution offered a new theory so ambiguous and undefined, it would have made Justice Stewart blush.

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told the jury that in listing Stormy Daniels payments as a “legal expense,” Trump violated this New York law: “Any two or more persons who conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means and which conspiracy is acted upon by one or more of the parties thereto, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.” So Trump committed a crime by conspiring to unlawfully promote his own candidacy, by paying to quash a potentially embarrassing story and then reimbursing his lawyer Michael Cohen with other legal expenses. Confused? You are not alone. It’s not a crime to pay for the nondisclosure of an alleged affair. It’s also not a federal election offense (the other underlying crime Bragg alleges) to pay such money as a personal or legal expense. Federal law doesn’t treat it as a political contribution to yourself. Yet somehow the characterization of this payment as a legal expense is an illegal conspiracy to promote one’s own candidacy in New York.

In New York, prosecutors are expected to have extreme legal myopia: They can see no farther than Trump to the exclusion of any implication for the legal system or legal ethics. Of course, neither Bragg nor his office has ever seen this type of criminal case in any other defendant. Ever. We’ve never seen a case like this one where a dead misdemeanor from 2016 could be revived as a felony just before the 2024 election, The statute of limitations for this case’s misdemeanors, including falsifying payments, has expired. But Bragg (with the help of counsel and former top Biden Justice Department official Matthew Colangelo) zapped it back into life by alleging a federal election crime the Justice Department itself rejected as a basis for any criminal charge. It’s not clear Trump even knew how this money was characterized in records. He paid it to his lawyer, who had put together the settlement over the nondisclosure agreement.

Cohen will soon go on the stand and tell the jury it should send his former client to jail for following his legal advice. Besides running for president, Trump was married and had hosted a hit television show. There were ample reasons to secure an NDA to bury the story. Even if it was done with the election in mind, it is not unusual or illegal. There is generally no need to list such payments as a campaign contribution because the federal government doesn’t see them as a campaign contribution. It’s not even clear how this matter was supposed to be noted in records. What if the Trump employee put “legal settlement in personal matter” or “nuisance payment”? The crime itself may not be clear or even comprehensible. But the defendant’s identity could not be clearer, and the prosecutors are hoping the jury, like themselves, will look no further

Read more …

A case about nothing.

Romney and the Wrong Question (Turley)

Yesterday, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) had a much covered interaction with CNN’s Manu Raju who asked him about Trump’s criminal trial and whether he was guilty of the underlying criminal conduct. Romney responded “I think everybody has made their own assessment of President Trump’s character, and so far as I know you don’t pay someone $130,000 not to have sex with you.” I have previously defended Romney in his votes on impeachment despite our disagreement on the constitutional standard. I also understand that he was making a more general comment on character. However, his response is precisely what Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is seeking from the jury: a verdict on Trump as a person rather than the underlying criminal allegations. Trump is currently facing 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree regarding payments made to Daniels during the 2016 presidential election.

As I discuss today in the New York Post, many of us (including liberal legal experts) still question whether there is any crime alleged by Bragg. Raju reasonably asked Romney for his own view. Romney is an interesting person to ask. He is not only a critic of the President from within his own party but he is a former businessman who has had to deal with complex reporting and business obligations. Romney’s response must be encouraging for Bragg. Rather than address the ambiguous criminal allegation, Romney suggested that Trump was guilty as charged in having a tryst with a former porn star. The defense is not contesting the payment and the fact of the affair is not central to the allegations. The question is whether the payments were unlawfully denoted as legal expenses with the intent to somehow steal the 2016 election.

It is not a crime to use a NDA or other means to quash an embarrassing story. Bill Clinton had a host of lawyers quashing allegations of affairs and sexual assaults throughout his presidency. He ran into trouble when he committed perjury in the effort to hide what Hillary Clinton called one of his “bimbo eruptions.” Moreover, denoting this as a legal expense, on the advice of counsel, is not necessarily wrong. It is not clear how it should have been to be denoted as, according to Bragg. A “nuisance payment”? The campaign of Hillary Clinton and its general counsel Marc Elias hid the funding of the Steele dossier as a legal expense and was fined by the government for doing so. They litigated the question and insisted that that is precisely what it was. Romney is precisely what Bragg is looking for in these jurors. Smart and savvy, he still viewed the question of the trial as whether Trump had an affair with Stormy Daniels.

If so, it was not a legal expense. Yet, quashing the story and avoiding any litigation was a legal matter with the eventual crafting of the NDA. There are a lot of motivations for NDAs of this kind. Trump was married. He was the host of a hit television show (with a clause on termination for scandalous conduct). And, yes, he was also seeking to be president. He wanted these stories killed and friends like David Pecker were helping in that effort. What those facts say about the former president’s “character” will remain a matter of public debate and, as Romney said, most long ago reached their own conclusions. Yet, it is the crime not the character of Trump that is at issue in Manhattan.

Alvin Bragg would like the trial to remain a verdict on character, which is why he started the trial discussing not the Daniels matter but an uncharged affair and settlement with a former Playboy bunny. It is why he fought hard (and succeeded) in being able to question Trump about past cases involving an alleged assault and fraudulent conduct. As legal experts continue this week to debate if there is even a crime alleged in the indictment, Bragg is making a case that Trump’s lack of character is beyond a reasonable doubt. To be fair, Romney was not giving a full interview on the case in his statement to CNN and may well have some reservations about the Bragg indictment. However, Bragg is likely hoping that “everybody has made their own assessment of President Trump,” including twelve jurors currently sitting in the Manhattan courtroom.

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“Musk said that migration issues in the US are threatening the very existence of the American state..”

Musk Concurs That Civil War Looming In West (TASS)

US entrepreneur and one of the world’s wealthiest people Elon Musk has asserted that a civil war will break out in the West over the situation around migrants. “War will come whether we want it or not,” he wrote on the X social network commenting on remarks by Gad Saad, a Canadian professor of Lebanese origin, who insisted that “the path that the West is taking will result in civil war.” Saad said that Western countries are committing “civilizational suicide.” “Many Western men who are currently asleep at the wheel will wake up, and realize that they don’t like being pushed around in their homelands; they don’t like their women attacked; they don’t like their freedoms curtailed; they don’t like their faiths disrespected,” he noted. Earlier, Musk said that migration issues in the US are threatening the very existence of the American state. He also branded the US migration policy as insane because over the past three years it allowed more than 7 mln illegal migrants enter the country.

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Australia is just a little country. With little brains.

Musk Warns Australia Against ‘Controlling Entire Internet’ (Sp.)

The X chief executive earlier denounced that a video of a stabbing attack on an orthodox bishop had been censored in Australia, with Canberra threatening X with a daily fine of $510,000 over the company’s reluctance to completely remove the footage. Elon Musk has made it clear he will not comply with Australia’s order to remove a video of a terror attack against a Sydney cleric from X (formerly Twitter). “Our concern is that if any country is allowed to censor content for all countries, which is what the Australian ‘eSafety Commissar’ is demanding, then what is to stop any country from controlling the entire Internet?” the tech billionaire tweeted. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO added that X has “already censored the content in question for Australia, pending legal appeal, and it is stored only on servers” in the US.

Per X, Canberra threatened it with a daily fine of $510,000 over the company’s unwillingness to remove the video across the globe. Musk’s remarks came after Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese slammed the X owner as an “arrogant billionaire who thinks he’s above the law, but also above common decency.” Speaking to broadcaster ABC, Albanese added that “the idea that someone would go to court for the right to put up violent content on a platform shows how out-of-touch Mr. Musk is.” This followed Australia’s eSafety Commission calling for X to completely remove the video from its platform for all users rather than just block the footage in the world’s sixth-largest country.

According to Australia’s eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, “Every minute counts, and the more this content is up there, the more it is reshared, the more the velocity and the virality continues and we need to stem that.”
In the video, Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel of the Assyrian Orthodox Church is seen being stabbed during a church service in the suburbs of Sydney that was being livestreamed on April 15. The non-fatal attack, which the authorities said was a terrorist act motivated by suspected religious extremism, quickly garnered multiple views online and reportedly led to protests near the crime scene.

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“I think the demonization of Ukraine began by Tucker Carlson..”

Mitch McConnell Blames Tucker Carlson For Delaying Ukraine Cash (RT)

The top-ranking Republican in the US Senate, Mitch McConnell, has claimed Tucker Carlson’s interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin convinced too many “rank-and-file Republicans” that spending billions of taxpayer dollars on arming Kiev against Moscow was harming Americans and wrecking the economy. As a new multibillion-dollar US aid package to Ukraine was clearing the last procedural hurdles on Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader McConnell attempted to pin the blame for months of delays on former Fox News anchor Carlson and former President Donald Trump. “I think the demonization of Ukraine began by Tucker Carlson, who in my opinion ended up where he should have been all along, which was interviewing Vladimir Putin,” McConnell told a press briefing.

“He convinced a lot of rank-and-file Republicans that maybe this was a mistake,” he added, arguing that Trump’s “mixed views” on Ukraine aid further fueled confusion over the official narrative in Washington. “And then our nominee for president didn’t seem to want us to do anything at all,” McConnell claimed. “That took months to work our way through it.” Carlson recorded a lengthy interview with Putin in February, a first by a Western reporter since the conflict with Ukraine began. The pair discussed the ongoing hostilities and Moscow’s standoff with NATO. The exchange went viral globally, garnering over 200 million views on X (formerly Twitter) alone, yet critics accused Carlson of not being confrontational enough with the Russian leader. The American journalist argued that most Western media outlets lie to their audiences, mainly by omission, and that the point of his interview was “to have more information brought to the West so people could make their own decisions.”

“I reject the whole premise of the war in Ukraine from the American perspective,” Carlson said in February, looking back at his conversation with Putin. “There’s a war going on that is wrecking the US economy in a way and at a scale that people do not understand.” US President Joe Biden requested additional cash for Ukraine last October after burning through $113 billion in previously approved spending bills. However, the request had been stalled until this week due to opposition from Republican lawmakers, who argued that Biden was merely prolonging Kiev’s conflict with Russia while offering no clear strategy for victory or a peace agreement. Most Republicans voted against the aid bill on Saturday, but House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) overrode his own party by enabling a vote and pushing it through with unanimous Democrat support.

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“Everyone understands that today’s Ukraine is a military range, where the future of the world order is partially decided..”

Future Of The World Will Be Decided In Ukraine – Lukashenko (RT)

The Ukraine conflict is among the major events that will determine the future of the world, and the West is emerging weaker from it, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko claimed on Wednesday. The leader of Belarus, a close Russian ally, addressed the situation in Ukraine during a keynote speech to the All-Belarusian People’s Assembly, a gathering of officials and public figures. He contrasted Kiev’s policies with those of Minsk, arguing that unlike its southern neighbor, his nation has preserved its independence under Western pressure. “Everyone understands that today’s Ukraine is a military range, where the future of the world order is partially decided. The largest nuclear powers indirectly, and now even directly, are waging a war on its territory,” Lukashenko stated.

“Meanwhile its authorities have sunk to the level of striking a bargain with the West to exchange weapons for the lives of Ukrainians. Watching this is painful,” he added. Kiev has miscalculated, Lukashenko argued, because “whoever is willing to serve a master for scraps will sooner or later lose.” Ukraine is risking its statehood after betraying its past and traditions, he also warned. The Belarusian leader described the entire conflict as the latest clash “between the West and the East,” and suggested that neither side has become stronger. The outcome of the confrontation “will not save the existing order,” Lukashenko further predicted. He urged the US and its allies to accept that their future role will be restricted as one of several centers of power that determine world affairs.

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“And they grew rich, but only very few, in the very ‘best’ traditions of Western European democracies..”

All Ukrainian Presidents Are Thieves – Lukashenko (RT)

Ukraine has devolved into a Western-style oligarchy where all of its leaders are only interested in “plundering” the country and getting rich, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has claimed. The president made the remarks on Wednesday during an address to the All-Belarusian People’s Assembly, a gathering of high-profile officials and public figures. Lukashenko fired a broadside at the neighboring country, accusing its presidents and “oligarchs” of stealing Ukraine’s riches. The process began immediately after Ukraine became an independent state following the collapse of the Soviet Union and has worsened over time, Lukashenko argued. “Just think – a prosperous country. The land is fertile, half of the periodic table in its soil, two seas, mines, industrial giants. The people are creative, hard-working. Live, be happy and grow rich. And they grew rich, but only very few, in the very ‘best’ traditions of Western European democracies,” the Belarusian leader said.

Every Ukrainian president, from “the first to the last one,” has been “plundering and stealing,” Lukashenko asserted, claiming that this inevitably led to political infighting and enduring unrest. “The oligarchs and those in power have gathered all the resources under their control. The oligarchs, having received the wealth created by the people, wanted power. They went into politics and began to drag bandits and people into their squabbles. The Maidans have begun,” Lukashenko stated. Ukrainian leaders, however, have consistently blamed the internal turmoil they created on foreign powers, primarily Russia and to a lesser extent Belarus, Lukashenko alleged. “They created the necessary image of the enemy, ‘the culprit behind the hardships and poverty of the people’ – Russia, as well as us, Belarusians. We, you see, are now somehow to blame,” the leader said.

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Hunt Them Down

Poland Ready To Help Ukraine Hunt Down Military-Aged Men (RT)

Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz has said Warsaw is willing to “help” Kiev repatriate men of fighting age, an unspecified portion of some 950,000 Ukrainians granted temporary sanctuary in Poland. Earlier this week, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry banned all men between the ages of 18 and 60 from receiving or renewing their documents, including passports, at consular offices outside the country. The Polish defense chief told the Polsat broadcaster on Wednesday that he was “not surprised” and supports Kiev’s move. “The Ukrainian authorities are doing everything to provide new soldiers to the front, because the needs are huge,” Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said. The Polish official said that Warsaw had previously offered to help Kiev track down those who dodge their “civic duty,” but noted that “the form of assistance depends on the Ukrainian side.”

“I think that many of our compatriots were and are outraged when they see young Ukrainian men in cafes and hear about how much effort it takes us to help Ukraine,” he added. Kosiniak-Kamysz also echoed Kiev’s official narrative that Ukrainians who could not avoid the draft have “justified grievances against their peers who have scattered around the world.” Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba claimed on Tuesday that the decision to strip Ukrainian men of their rights was “fair” and in line with controversial military mobilization reforms, which President Vladimir Zelensky signed into law this month. Zelensky’s reforms, set to take effect next month, will lower the draft age from 27 to 25, tighten exemptions, and oblige all men, regardless of eligibility, to report to a conscription office to “update” their personal data. According to EU officials, an estimated 650,000 Ukrainian men of fighting age are living in the bloc. Kiev has identified that pool as a significant untapped source of manpower for the armed forces. However, asked in early April how many troops Kiev intended to mobilize, Zelensky dodged the question.

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“When new technology meets the brutality of old-fashioned trench warfare, the results are rarely what Pentagon planners expected..”

Ukraine Conflict ‘A Bonanza’ For US Military – NYT (RT)

The US military is reportedly using the Ukraine conflict to test a new artificial intelligence technology that helps detect targets on the battlefield using drone footage, the New York Times reported on Tuesday. Dubbed Project Maven, research into the technology was initially picked up as a government contract by Google six years ago, according to the outlet. However, after pushback from engineers and employees, who did not want to take part in building an AI tool for military use, the tech giant stepped away from the project, which was picked up by other contractors. Now, the technology is being tested on the front line in Ukraine, the NYT claims, as Western and Ukrainian officers, along with some of Silicon Valley’s top military contractors, are “exploring new ways of finding and exploiting Russian vulnerabilities.”

So far, the results of the testing have reportedly been “mixed.” While Project Maven allows commanders to identify the movements of Russian forces and use AI algorithms to predict their next steps, it has apparently been “difficult” to bring “21st-century data into 19th-century trenches.” One of the main barriers, the Times said, is that due to restrictions imposed by US President Joe Biden, the US military can only provide Ukrainians with a “picture of the battlefield” without giving precise targeting details. It is also unclear if the new technology would even be able to change the course of the conflict, given Russia’s ability to quickly adapt to technologies being used by the Ukrainian side.

“When new technology meets the brutality of old-fashioned trench warfare, the results are rarely what Pentagon planners expected,” the outlet said. Nevertheless, the Ukraine conflict remains “a bonanza for the US military” in the minds of American officials, and a testing ground for rapidly evolving technologies. “At the end of the day this became our laboratory,” Lt. Gen. Christopher T. Donahue, who commands the US Army’s 18th Airborne Division, told the NYT. Russia, meanwhile, has repeatedly decried increasing US involvement in the conflict. Moscow describes it as a proxy war being waged by Washington and its partners, using Ukrainians as “cannon fodder” to further Western interests.

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“..it’s almost impossible to immediately make them as economically efficient as those in Russia. It had taken decades for Russia to set up its [nuclear fuel] production.”

G7 Could Take 10 Years to Catch Up With Russian Nuclear Fuel Output (Sp.)

US President Joe Biden and his G7 have vowed to end imports of Russian nuclear fuel, but leading Western economies still lag behind Moscow in innovative atomic technologies, nuclear expert Valery Menshikov told Sputnik. The US Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) asserted in a recent press release that the Biden-Harris administration is doing whatever it takes to ensure the nation’s independence in terms of secure nuclear fuel supplies as well as to “re-establish US leadership in nuclear energy more broadly.” The agency stressed that President Joe Biden’s government is leading the “Sapporo 5” group, consisting of the US, the UK, France, Japan and Canada to support the growth of nuclear energy deployment around the world “free of Russian influence.” But the NE was forced to admit that Russia presently supplies around 44 percent of global uranium enrichment services and 20 to 30 percent of enriched uranium products used in the US and Europe.

To complicate matters further for the Sapporo 5, Russia is the only country selling high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU), which is indispensable for advanced nuclear reactors, on a commercial scale. President Joe Biden stated on April 19 that a US plant had managed to produce the first 200 lbs (90 kg) of HALEU and would make nearly a ton of the “powerful” nuclear fuel by the end of 2024. Given that in 2020 the US Department of Energy (DoE) projected that more than 40 metric tons of HALEU will be needed before the end of the decade to meet Washington’s pressing climate goals, those amounts are a drop in the ocean. “Undoubtedly, the speeches that Biden is now delivering are just another contribution to his collection of campaign promises. And since, the United States still depends on the supply of fresh enriched fuel for nuclear power plants, this task is one of the most important, including in political terms,” Valery Menshikov, member of the Public Council of Rosatom Corporation and member of the Council of the Center for Russian Environmental Policy, told Sputnik.

Russia maintains leadership in global uranium enrichment services, Sputnik’s commentator stressed, adding that neither US nor European scientists have been able to achieve enrichment capacities matching those of their Russian peers. Russian nuclear fuel is also comparatively cheaper, Menshikov pointed out. The expert recalled that the Russo-US nuclear fuel trade started immediately after the collapse of the USSR: the 1992 Megatons to Megawatts Program envisaged the recycling of weapons-grade uranium from dismantled Russian nuclear warheads into low-enriched uranium used to produce fuel for American nuclear power plants. Over the decades, Russia routinely delivered large volumes of enriched uranium to the US.

The expert expressed doubts that the US will be able to completely stop purchases of Russian nuclear fuel by 2028, as Biden has pledged. “The problem is that the process [of making nuclear fuel] is very complex,” Menshikov said. “The most important thing is that while it is possible to launch such productions, it’s almost impossible to immediately make them as economically efficient as those in Russia. It had taken decades for Russia to set up its [nuclear fuel] production.” When it comes to the European Union (EU), the situation is complicated by the fact that there are 19 Russia-designed reactors within the bloc. The list of countries which have Russian-made nuclear equipment includes Slovakia, Hungary, Finland, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic. Although some European countries, such as Finland, have recently halted cooperation with Russia, others — like Hungary — are proceeding with new projects.

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“What appears on the horizon, without any in-depth national discussion, after being approved by the Council and the European Parliament, is a global austerity package, on a European scale..”

European Bureaucrats Serve America’s Economic Interests (Dionísio)

Once again, the European bureaucracy is living up to the saying that “what has born crooked, late or never is straightened out”. This is the case with the European Union, which was built as a political response to a reality that is no longer there — the socialist bloc — and which, when faced with the absence of its vital force, embarked on an erratic process of enlargement, aimed above all at provoking Russia, creating the conditions for NATO expansion and responding to the monopolies’ growing need for new markets and new sources of skilled and cheap labor, as is the case in Eastern Europe.

Within this framework and in response to the same needs, the EU is once again reissuing a recipe already widely known to the peoples of the South. While there is widespread recognition that the budgetary criteria contained in the Stability and Growth Pact constitute a stranglehold on public investment and is responsible for the short-term vision that has left the member states hostage to the financial authoritarianism of Brussels, at a time when the European bloc is losing more and more ground to the economies with which it has to compete, the unelected supranational power of the EU is once again proposing, this time to all Europeans, something that none of these peoples would ever vote for: austerity for the next four years (at least).

What appears on the horizon, without any in-depth national discussion, after being approved by the Council and the European Parliament, is a global austerity package, on a European scale, applicable to almost all the countries of the Union, which has been given the pompous name of “New Economic Governance Framework” and which is based on instruments such as the “Debt Sustainability Analysis” and “Specific Fiscal Plans” per member state, which will be developed within the framework of a 4-year adjustment period, which can be extended to 7. If the Stability Pact was not enough to bring most of the countries to austerity, this time EU autocracy is working to leave no one behind. Every country must bring to an end every evidence or memory that a social state has once worked with huge success.

That’s why we have to say that “it’s coming in handy”! At a time when countries should be investing absolutely decisively in industrialization, innovation and conquering a place at the top of the future technological chain, as China and Russia are doing and the US is going into brutal debt to do, what do the accountants in Brussels decide to do? Postpone the race, calling into question the targets they themselves have set for 2030 and 2050. Once again, the story of the well-behaved and thrifty countries versus those that don’t know how to govern themselves is being repeated. But this time, with the exception of five countries (Cyprus, Sweden, Estonia, Denmark and Ireland), all the others will have to tighten their belts and cut 100 billion from their public budgets right in the first year of adjustment. Incidentally, 100 billion is more or less what the EU has offered the Kiev regime to date (in January 2024 it was 85 billion euros according to the Kiel Institute). And any of those lucky countries is important for the financing of the pluriannual European budget.

Assuming that this mass economic destruction is the continuation of a process that began with subprime, from which European economies had to pay for the losses of American banks, and continued with the NATO/Russia conflict in Ukraine, which has not only deprived European countries of important production factors, at a low price and with guaranteed quality and quantity… How should the European Union act, especially knowing that in Biden’s USA, the implementation of Inflation Reduction Act is well underway, with a vast investment program in key technological areas such as electric vehicles, lithium batteries, photovoltaic panels and semiconductors?

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“..Iran’s nuclear doctrine is based on a fatwa (a ruling based on Islamic law) issued by the country’s Supreme Leader..”

Iran’s Nuclear Plans Are Clear. Just Read Its Own Islamic Law (Juma)

In light of the direct conflict that broke out between Israel and Iran, rumors that the Islamic Republic could produce nuclear weapons began circulating again. In addition, just a few days ago Reuters and other media outlets quoted a senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) saying that Iran may review its nuclear doctrine following Israeli threats. The US, EU, and Israel have long feared that Iran may produce nuclear weapons, and have used this threat to justify their actions against the Islamic Republic. However, it is important to understand that Iran’s nuclear doctrine is based on a fatwa (a ruling based on Islamic law) issued by the country’s Supreme Leader. According to this fatwa, the production of nuclear weapons is a sin. However, Iran’s opponents do not believe in the sincerity of this ruling and, they suggest, it can be renounced at any time.

On April 17 and 18, the first Tehran International Conference on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation took place. The motto of this conference was “Nuclear energy for everyone, nuclear weapons for no one.” There, Ali Akbar Velayati, adviser to the Supreme Leader of Iran, read Ayatollah Khamenei’s message in front of officials and members of various international delegations and organizations. “All of you know that, in the absence of the Imam Mahdi, whose coming is expected by the Shiites, the Shiite legal system is based on the opinion of authoritative and highly competent experts in the field of Islamic law (which Iran’s decisions are based on). These religious scholars issue fatwas which clearly indicate whether any action is permissible or not. One [important] issue is the permissibility of the production and use of weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons) …”.

Ayatollah Khamenei had carefully analyzed the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons by the Americans in Japan as well as the use of chemical weapons against Iran during the Iran-Iraq war, and stated his position on this issue: “We believe that, besides nuclear weapons, other types of weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical and biological weapons, also pose a serious threat to humanity. The Iranian nation, which is itself a victim of chemical weapons, feels more than any other nation the danger that is caused by the production and stockpiling of such weapons, and is prepared to make use of all its facilities to counter such threats. We consider the use of such weapons as haraam [forbidden] and believe that it is everyone’s duty to make efforts to secure humanity against this great disaster.” In the period from 2010 to 2015, other religious authorities, such as ayatollahs Makarem Shirazi, Jafar Subhani, Noori-Hamedani, and Javadi Amoli, also issued fatwas that prohibited the production and use of weapons of mass destruction.

But can the issued fatwas be changed or canceled? Can Iran’s position in this regard change? From a theological point of view, certainly not. Islamic law states clear reasons for this. Nuclear weapons and the radiation which results from their use threaten the environment, causing the destruction of crops and the death of offspring. Verse 205 of Surah al-Baqarah says: “And when he goes away, he strives throughout the land to cause corruption therein and destroy crops and animals. And Allah does not like corruption.” The protection of the environment, the preservation of the life of living beings and plants is every Muslim’s obligation under Sharia, Islamic law. The production and stockpiling of nuclear weapons, even if they are never used, may endanger the lives of people on the planet as a result of human error. According to Islamic law, this is unacceptable. Islam believes that a victory must be achieved by reasonable, lawful, and humane means. As for the rules of warfare, Islam strictly prohibits the killing of civilians, women, children and the elderly, as well as attacks on civilian infrastructure.

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“..they prefer to pretend that they are fighting for peace. The very peace for which no stone should be left unturned on this planet. But that will come later..”

Why Iran Decided Not To Attack Israel Again (Gurevich)

Iran has again threatened Israel with a harsh response to aggression. The army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps will make those who cross red lines regret it, said the Deputy Chief of the Army for Coordination, Habibollah Sayyari.Meanwhile, Israel has refrained from speaking out against Tehran. Politicians have focused their rhetoric on Hamas. In particular, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised to increase military and political pressure on the Palestinian group in the near future in order to motivate it to release hostages, writes the Times of Israel. The good news is that there will be no Iran-Israel war. At least not at this stage. Tehran has chosen not to react vociferously to the Israeli air force’s retaliatory strike, dismissing all reports of the destruction of the radar protecting the Natanz nuclear centre as Zionist intrigues.

Well, the bottom line is that we have two air raids attributed to Israel and one very large Iranian strike. In the latter case, everything was official and the Islamic Republic can therefore claim an entry in the Guinness Book of Records with an article on the largest number of UAVs and ballistic missiles involved in a single offensive operation. Incidentally, we do not know what the real effect of the large-scale attack was. Iran, like Israel, is carefully hiding data on the damage. However, the political consequences of such events are far more important. And, as usual in the Middle East, a dozen seemingly unrelated problems have become intertwined. After the Iranian strike, for example, Western countries began to advise Israel not to react, and rumour has it that the Jewish State was negotiating for the right to launch a military operation in Rafah, the last Hamas stronghold in Gaza.

Then in the end, it could no longer remain patient and responded. The Iranians had options. The Ayatollahs could have said that Israel had again crossed all the red lines. This would have led to further escalation, but might have protected Hamas. But Iran, for its own reasons, ignored the Palestinians and reported through the press that nothing serious had happened. The reason for this peacefulness is probably that they saw a working alliance between Israel, Jordan and the Sunni monarchies of the Persian Gulf. This is precisely the nightmare that the Iranians have done their utmost to prevent. They even restored diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia in 2023. But apparently confrontation with the Shiites is more important to moderate Sunnis than dislike of the Jews.

According to military analysts, if the Israeli Air Force did attack Iranian air defences, it means that the Israelis probably flew over Jordan or the Arabian Peninsula to carry out the task, and it is unlikely that this was done without the consent of the Hashemite Kingdom or the Saudis. As a result, the military alliance is not only defensive, which means that virtually all of Iran’s proxies in the region, including Hezbollah, the Houthis and the Shia militias in Iraq and Syria, are at risk. For now, however, this is all a hypothetical picture. Its implementation requires the normalisation of Israel’s relations with Riyadh and, as part of the deal, the signing of a defence agreement with the US, as well as American-Israeli goodwill for the establishment of a nuclear capability in Saudi Arabia. And all this has to happen before the end of June. Otherwise, Washington will not be able to get the relevant decisions through Congress because of the upcoming election. Obviously, the Iranians believe that further escalation will only accelerate the process described above. That is why they prefer to pretend that they are fighting for peace. The very peace for which no stone should be left unturned on this planet. But that will come later.

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“..she doesn’t know whether the Israeli leader is “afraid of peace, incapable of peace, or just doesn’t want peace.”

Netanyahu Should Resign – Nancy Pelosi (RT)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is an obstacle to peace in Gaza and “should resign” from his position, former US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said. She made the remarks on Monday in an interview with Irish public broadcaster Raidio Teilifis Eireann (RTE) during her visit to the country. Pelosi criticized the Israeli leader’s response to the October 7 Hamas attack which saw Palestinian militants kill over 1,100 people on Israeli territory and take around 250 hostages. The former House speaker cited the recent resignation of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) intelligence chief Major General Aharon Haliva over the failure to prevent the attack, before pointing the finger at Netanyahu.

“We recognize Israel’s right to protect itself. We reject the policy and the practice of Netanyahu – terrible. What could be worse than what he has done in response?” Pelosi told the outlet. “He should resign. He’s ultimately responsible,” she added. When asked if Netanyahu is a “block” to peace, Pelosi replied that “he has been for years,” adding that she doesn’t know whether the Israeli leader is “afraid of peace, incapable of peace, or just doesn’t want peace.” She went on to argue that Netanyahu been an “obstacle to the two-state solution, I emphasize the word, ‘solution.’”

Health authorities in Gaza have estimated that more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed amid Israel’s siege of the enclave, which has included extensive bombardment as well as a ground incursion. Earlier this month, Pelosi joined more than 30 US Congress members who signed a letter urging President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to halt weapons transfers to Israel. The change of tune in Washington, Israel’s key ally, followed the killing of six aid workers from the World Central Kitchen humanitarian organization. The IDF targeted the group’s convoy in what it claimed to be a tragic mistake, despite the food supply mission being closely coordinated with the military.

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Cyber crime is part of Russian warfare, apparently. Impoverishing grannies…

Unconventional Russian Warfare Threatening British Grannies – Wallace (RT)

The UK is facing certain forms of “unconventional warfare” waged by its enemies, potentially including Moscow-backed online scams that target the elderly, former British Secretary of Defence Ben Wallace has claimed. The Conservative MP, who resigned from the cabinet last August, told Sky News on Wednesday that the world today reminded him of the interwar periods during the last century. The situation, Wallace explained, is similar to “the 1930s, but with an added challenge of terrorism and a challenge of unconventional warfare.” As examples of the latter, he cited “disinformation campaigns, the enemies in this country using cyber to divide us, to rob from us, to spy on us, and to create frictions in our society.”

When asked by host Kay Burley which nation posed the biggest threat to the UK, Wallace said it was Russia. ”Many of the big cyber-crime syndicates are based in Russia, curiously protected by the Russian state,” he claimed. “They are the ones robbing your granny and my parents with phishing emails. So, Russia is directly challenging us at all levels.” Earlier this month, British police reported busting a UK-founded international ring of scammers, which since 2021 alone has stolen from some 70,000 victims in the country. Thirty-seven people were arrested around the world in the LabHost case, the force reported. The statement didn’t mention Russia.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Climate Emergency

 

 

Wealth
https://twitter.com/i/status/1783136306400497981

 

 

Your value
https://twitter.com/i/status/1783165842433474992

 

 

 

 

Cub


https://twitter.com/i/status/1782896073578582350

 

 

Baby Hippo
https://twitter.com/i/status/1782886328171905240

 

 

Scratch

 

 

Healed

 

 

Adrenochrome

 

 

Robotina
https://twitter.com/i/status/1783391212558262482

 

 

Cabal full movie

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Apr 042024
 


Edward Hopper Rooms By The Sea 1951

 

Deep State Goes After Trump and Musk’s Financial Assets-Who’s Next? (ET)
Wife of Judge In Trump ‘Hush Money’ Trial Worked for AG Letitia James (ET)
Trump Lawyers Reveal He Kept Classified Documents in Trump Tower (ET)
Jack Smith Urges Federal Judge to Change Course in Trump Case (ET)
In America the Legal Process Is the Punishment (Paul Craig Roberts)
Zelensky Ignored Interview Requests – Tucker Carlson (RT)
NATO Seeking To Insulate Kiev From Trump Pressure (RT)
Ukraine Can’t Win On The Battlefield, Military Intel Admits (RT)
Ukraine’s Starting to Get Dangerous (James Rickards)
A New Russia Has Emerged (Paul Craig Roberts)
Russia Is Undergoing A New, Invisible Revolution (Trenin)
WaPo Report About Crocus City Hall Attack Is a “Hoax” – Zakharova (RT)
Crocus Terror Attack Well-Organized, With Pre-Orchestrated Media Blitz (Sp.)
Biden Calls For Swift Probe in Israel Attack on WCK Workers (Sp.)
Scottish Minister Doubles Down on Anti-Free Speech Law (Turley)
White House Flack Raises Legal Concerns Over Biden Corruption Scandal (Turley)

 

 

 

 

NATO

 

 

 

 

Sickos

 

 

 

 

Neilsen
https://twitter.com/i/status/1775307290289061994

 

 

2001

 

 

 

 

Let’s check our terminology. Is this the Deep State or just the Democratic party? Or is that now the same? And moreover:

“It is becoming difficult to argue that the U.S. judicial system has not become a political arm of the Democratic Party..”

“Nations are either based on the rule of law or the rules dictated by the powerful.”

Deep State Goes After Trump and Musk’s Financial Assets-Who’s Next? (ET)

Is America as we know it over? Are we in the middle—or perhaps the end—of the transition from a national republic to a single-party regime that rules by fiat instead of law? If we look at what’s happening to two, high-profile cases, the answer is less than comforting. It is becoming difficult to argue that the U.S. judicial system has not become a political arm of the Democratic Party. Nations are either based on the rule of law or the rules dictated by the powerful. The former is meant to restrain, or better said, eliminate the possibility of the latter. But, as we’ve witnessed with the relentless political persecution of former President Donald Trump and, lately, of Elon Musk, laws only work when they’re fairly applied and enforced. Neither of those things are happening with President Trump or Mr. Musk. President Trump was found guilty of fraud by a left-wing judge who determined this without considering, or despite, mountains of evidence to the contrary.

The New York Attorney General Letitia James accused President Trump of over-valuing his real estate to obtain loans. Coincidentally, Ms. James ran for the office of attorney general in 2018 with the campaign pledge to go after Trump, showing clear political animus toward President Trump. What’s more, Judge Arthur Engoron has been accused by Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York of violating “political giving rules with financial contributions to Democrats as recently as 2018, and ignored a decision on the appropriate statute of limitations in the case,” according to NBC News. Ms. James prosecuted President Trump in a civil trial, which was by design; criminal court cases require a trial by jury and proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Somehow, Deutsche Bank was “defrauded” by President Trump into lending him hundreds of millions of dollars on a property, the value of which the bank determined by their own analysis. Talk about shifty business dealings.

Then, after a period of time, the former president had the audacity to sell the property at over $130 million profit and then pay the loan back, with interest. Despite all of this exculpatory evidence that showed no fraud and no money loss or any other determinable damages, the judge refused to allow President Trump to give his closing argument in his own defense and found him guilty of fraud, fined him $354 million plus interest, and forced him to forfeit the profit he made on the deal with Deutsche Bank. President Trump was also ordered to pay $111,000 per day in interest. The financial penalty is excessive under the Eighth Amendment, which disallows “excessive fines,” which is the case because it doesn’t reflect the value of the “damages,” which are nil, nor the profits he made. What’s more, President Trump is barred from doing business or getting loans in New York for three years, and two of his children are also barred from their executive roles in the Trump Organization for two years. All of this for paying back loans on properties that the bank made willingly, according to its own value assessments, and profited from.

Meanwhile, a Delaware judge voided Elon Musk’s $56 billion Tesla payout. The judge arbitrarily determined that the record-breaking compensation granted by the Tesla board was an “unfathomable sum” and was “unfair” to shareholders. The payout was the result of a 10-year pay plan that the board agreed to with Mr. Musk back in 2018. Mr. Musk is not only an entrepreneur extraordinaire, he’s also a fan of America and our constitutional right of free speech. He attracted the left’s wrath after acquiring Twitter (renamed X) and making it a bastion of free speech for conservatives who were formerly censored by Twitter and other social media outlets. In short, Mr. Musk single-handedly broke the stifling monopoly on speech and thought control the left had allegedly in close coordination with the federal government, prior to the acquisition.

The rationale for the judge’s unlawful decision was that the board was, in some way, “beholden” to Mr. Musk. Kathaleen McCormick of Delaware’s Court of Chancery speculated if the payout plan was necessary in order to keep Mr. Musk involved in Tesla and achieve the EV maker’s business goals. By that logic, the entire EV market is “beholden” to Mr. Musk since he is the single biggest influencer in the industry. There is no indication that the judge has a seat on the Tesla board or possesses expertise in the Tesla business model or investing strategies. So far, Mr. Musk’s response has been to begin moving his companies out of Delaware to the business-friendly states of Texas and Nevada.

Read more …

“He has to recuse himself now. There’s clearly at least an appearance of a conflict here. That’s enough in itself.”

Wife of Judge In Trump ‘Hush Money’ Trial Worked for AG Letitia James (ET)

Lara Merchan, the wife of the judge presiding over former President Donald Trump’s “hush money” case in Manhattan, once worked for New York Attorney General Letitia James, who brought the massive $350 million civil fraud case against the former president, with the revelation reviving claims of bias and calls for the judge’s recusal. Records reviewed by The Epoch Times show that Ms. Merchan worked for 21 years as a Special Assistant to the AG in New York, including three years under Ms. James. She changed jobs over two years ago. Ms. James is a Democrat who fixated on President Trump as she campaigned for New York attorney general, calling him a “con man” and vowing to shine a “bright light into every dark corner of his real estate dealings.” She began investigating the former president soon after taking office, eventually suing him for allegedly misleading banks and others about the value of his assets.

Ms. James eventually won the case on Feb. 16, with New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron ordering President Trump and Trump Organization executives to pay $350 million in damages, and barring the former president from doing business in the state for three years. Judge Juan Merchan is presiding over a separate criminal trial involving President Trump in New York, in which the former president is accused of falsifying business records in order to conceal a $130,000 “hush money” payoff to an adult performer to stay quiet about their alleged affair. President Trump on his Truth Social platform accused Judge Merchan of bias and corruption, while labeling the case against him “election interference” and also demanding the judge’s recusal. The former president has also alleged that the judge’s daughter, Loren Merchan, has a partisan interest in the case because she leads a political marketing firm and has represented President Trump’s political opponents, receiving millions from them.

Judge Merchan imposed a gag order against President Trump in the case and, on April 1, expanded it to include family members of the judge and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. The judge wrote in the order that President Trump’s speech “injects fear in those assigned or called to participate in the proceedings that not only they, but their family members as well, as ‘fair game’ for Defendant’s vitriol.” Laura Loomer, an independent journalist and popular conservative commentator who on social media shared records that Judge Merchan’s wife worked for Ms. James, wrote in a post on X that this fact represents “another major conflict of interest!”

Various conservative accounts reacted to Ms. Loomer’s post, arguing that the revelation adds to evidence that the judge should recuse himself from the case. “And this is why they expanded the gag order on Trump,” Paul A. Szypula, a popular conservative commentator on X with over 140,000 followers, said in a post. “It’s even more obvious how biased Judge Merchan is. He has to recuse himself now. There’s clearly at least an appearance of a conflict here. That’s enough in itself.”

Read more …

“President Trump acted as an ‘original classification authority’ while he was President of the United States” to declassify the records..”

Trump Lawyers Reveal He Kept Classified Documents in Trump Tower (ET)

Lawyers for former President Donald Trump revealed in new court filings that the former president kept classified materials at his Trump Tower in New York City and his estate in New Jersey. The former president kept the classified documents at those two locations as well as his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida while he was in office, and also during the months before he was inaugurated in 2017, the filings revealed. His lawyers were responding to a deadline to support U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s proposed jury instructions. “You may consider evidence that government officials discussed classified information with President Trump and provided classified briefings and documents to President Trump before and during his Presidency—including inside President Trump’s private offices and residences, such as at Bedminster, New Jersey, and Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida, as well as at Trump Tower in New York City,” they wrote to the judge.

President Trump, the GOP presumptive presidential nominee for 2024, is facing dozens of felony counts related to alleged mishandling of classified documents, according to an indictment. Part of his defense centers around how he personally designated presidential files as his personal items before he left the White House in early 2021. In Tuesday’s court filing, his attorneys said that jurors could be told that President Trump had the legal power as president to make those documents his personal belongings. “President Trump acted as an ‘original classification authority’ while he was President of the United States” to declassify the records, it said, adding that it “means that all classification decisions during his term as President were based on his authority, and that he also had absolute and unreviewable authority to declassify documents and information.”

There also is “evidence relating to former Presidents, Vice Presidents, and other public officials being authorized to possess documents containing classified information without criminal prosecution by the government after they left their positions,” his attorneys continued to say. “You heard evidence during the trial that President Trump exercised that authority, at times verbally and at times without using formal procedures, while he was President,” the proposed Trump jury instructions read. “I instruct you that those declassification decisions are examples of valid and legally appropriate uses of President Trump’s declassification authority while he was President of the United States.”

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“..the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the document you are considering is a ‘presidential record’ and not a ‘personal record.’”

Jack Smith Urges Federal Judge to Change Course in Trump Case (ET)

The federal judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case in Florida needs to clarify recent instructions to parties so the government can seek a higher court ruling, special prosecutor Jack Smith said late April 2. In March, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed by President Trump, ordered prosecutors and the defendant’s lawyers to file proposals for jury instructions. The parties must offer “alternative draft text” that assumes two “competing scenarios” are “a correct formulation of the law to be issued to the jury,” she wrote. The scenarios are former presidents being able to retain personal records under the Presidential Records Act (PRA), and presidents being able to designate records as personal. But both scenarios rest on a “fundamentally flawed legal premise,” Mr. Smith and his team wrote in the new filing.

The distinction in the PRA between personal and presidential records is irrelevant because President Trump has been charged under the Espionage Act, prosecutors said. “Based on the current record, the PRA should not play any role at trial at all,” they wrote, urging Judge Cannon to “decide whether the unstated legal premise underlying the recent order does, in the Court’s view, represent ‘a correct formulation of the law.’” If Judge Cannon wrongly decides that it does, the filing states, then the government may seek intervention from a higher court. They cited a ruling by an appeals court in a separate case that concluded, “the adoption of a clearly erroneous jury instruction that entails a high probability of failure of a prosecution—a failure the government could not then seek to remedy by appeal or otherwise—constitutes the kind of extraordinary situation in which we are empowered to issue the writ of mandamus.”

A writ of mandamus is an order to a lower court. “The question of whether the PRA has an impact on the element of unauthorized possession … does not turn on any evidentiary issue, and it cannot be deferred,” prosecutors said. “It is purely a question of law that must be decided promptly. If the court were to defer a decision on that fundamental legal question it would inject substantial delay into the trial and, worse, prevent the government from seeking review before jeopardy attaches.” President Trump, charged with 32 counts of violating the Espionage Act for retaining what the government described as national defense documents and other sensitive materials after his presidency, has stated that under the PRA, he could designate even classified records as personal and retain them upon leaving office.

“There is no basis for the special counsel’s office, this court, or a jury to second-guess President Trump’s document-specific PRA categorizations,” his lawyers wrote in a separate filing on April 2. Proposed jury instructions from President Trump said that to establish unauthorized possession of the records in question, “the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the document you are considering is a ‘presidential record’ and not a ‘personal record.’”

Read more …

There’s Letitia James again. And New York State Supreme Court Judge Sabrina Kraus.

In America the Legal Process Is the Punishment (Paul Craig Roberts)

The white-hating blacks to whom insouciant New Yorkers turned over the prosecutorial system have made it impossible to support the existence of, or advocacy for, a white ethnic nation. The First Amendment is also a victim of “black justice.” In New York today, speech is free only for sexual deviants and “preferred minorities.” Peter Brimelow, founder of VDARE and a former Forbes editor, writes: “I launched VDARE.com on Christmas Eve 1999. So it is perhaps appropriate that, on Good Friday 2024, the anniversary of Christ’s death, I must announce VDARE.com’s crucifixion by New York State’s communist Attorney General Letitia James.

On March 27 2024, in another of her lightning-fast NYAG James-compliant rulings, New York State Supreme Court Judge Sabrina Kraus held us in Contempt Of Court because we have not yet complied (because we were fighting it) with her January 23 2023 order that we meet NYAG James’ massive and crippling subpoena demands. Judge Kraus did modify her earlier order to reflect the intervention (much appreciated) of the Institute for Free Speech. So now we no longer have to reveal, explicitly, the names of our pseudonymous writers, some of whom would certainly be fired from their jobs if their identities leaked. But we are still required to review 40 gigabytes of emails, an enormous amount.

And of course these would in fact reveal the names of those pseudonymous writers, as well as our donors, privileged communications with lawyers etc. Judge Kraus has also now allowed us to redact these emails. But this is a huge task, which our lawyers estimate could cost as much as $150,000. An observer tells us this order is more typical of major corporate litigation, not a tiny charity. And, perversely, although Judge Kraus has now modified her January 23 2023 order, she is nevertheless now fining us $250 a day for not complying with it. We have fought NYAG Letitia James, at a cost of up to $1 million, for nearly three years. But now we are literally hanging on the cross. REMEMBER, VDARE.com HAS NOT BEEN CHARGED WITH ANYTHING—BECAUSE IT IS NOT GUILTY OF ANYTHING.

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“..invited House Speaker Mike Johnson to explain why he would want Congress to “fund a doomed war.” “Of course, he hasn’t responded,” the journalist said. “We also sent multiple requests to Zelensky himself for an interview to explain his position. Of course, he ignored that as well.”

Zelensky Ignored Interview Requests – Tucker Carlson (RT)

American journalist and political commentator Tucker Carlson has said that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky snubbed multiple invitations for an interview. Carlson had previously recorded a lengthy interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin, where they discussed the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and Russia’s standoff with NATO. The journalist revealed his attempts to contact Zelensky in a video on X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday. In a monologue before his interview with Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, Carlson said that he had invited House Speaker Mike Johnson to explain why he would want Congress to “fund a doomed war.” “Of course, he hasn’t responded,” the journalist said. “We also sent multiple requests to Zelensky himself for an interview to explain his position. Of course, he ignored that as well.”

The conservative commentator went on to argue that, no matter how much foreign money Kiev will receive, it cannot defeat Moscow on the battlefield, given Russia’s bigger population and industrial capacity. “It’s not working. Two years in, the war is still going,” Carlson told his viewers. “Ukraine can’t win. Everybody knows that around the world. People are very clear on that. There is not one informed person outside the United States who thinks that somehow Ukraine is going to beat Russia.” A vocal critic of Zelensky, Carlson has accused US news organizations of not being truthful about the origin and nature of the ongoing conflict. He stated that the media bias was one of the reasons he had sought an interview with Putin.

During a conversation in Moscow in February, Putin reflected on the centuries of shared history between Russia and Ukraine, and stressed that he has no intention of attacking NATO unless Russia is attacked first. Zelensky, however, dismissed Tucker’s interview with Putin as “more than two hours of bull***t.” The Ukrainian leadership has been increasingly pressuring the Western countries to provide more military aid in an effort to reverse the tide after a string of battlefield losses. Kiev has been particularly frustrated by House Republicans who refused to back President Joe Biden’s $61 billion aid package that has been stuck in Congress for several months.

Read more …

They’re afraid Trump will win. So they think up schemes he can’t stop.

NATO Seeking To Insulate Kiev From Trump Pressure (RT)

NATO leaders are devising ways to limit Donald Trump’s potential leverage over Ukraine by ensuring the continued supply of arms to Kiev does not depend on Washington, according to Western media reports. Trump has suggested he would reassess aid to Ukraine, should he be reelected to the White House later this year. The plans are set to be discussed at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels this week, sources have told news outlets including Politico, the Financial Times, and Euractiv. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for the November US presential election, has claimed on his campaign trail that he could end the Ukraine conflict in 24 hours by making phone calls to Kiev and Moscow. He has declined to explain the specifics of his scheme, but presumably intends to pressure both sides of the hostilities to force a compromise.

Ukraine has declared a full military victory as the only acceptable outcome, but its army is heavily dependent on Western aid. One of the proposed shifts in assistance to Kiev would affect the so-called Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which holds monthly meetings at the US Ramstein Air Base in Germany to coordinate weapons deliveries to Ukraine. It is currently led by Washington and includes non-NATO states that follow the US lead in the conflict. The idea is to formally incorporate the group into NATO structures, according to the reports. “There’s a feeling among, not the whole group but a part of the NATO group, that thinks it is better to institutionalize the process just in case of a Trump reelection,” Jim Townsend, a former Pentagon and NATO official, told Politico.

Outgoing NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has reportedly suggested the creation of a fund to pay for arms supplies over the next five years. Dubbed Mission for Ukraine, the war chest would amount to up to $100 billion or €100 billion ($108 billion), conflicting reports have said. In addition to “Trump-proofing” and entrenching arms deliveries, giving NATO a formal role would supposedly allow it to push Ukraine into implementing reforms required for its eventual accession to the bloc, according to justifications cited by Euractiv. Moscow considers the Ukraine conflict to be part of a US-led proxy war against Russia, in which Kiev and NATO serve as tools of American hegemony. The US-led bloc’s expansion in Europe and its intention to absorb Ukraine were among the key triggers of the hostilities, according to the Russian leadership.

Read more …

Luke Harding still works at the Guardian. What a disgrace.

Ukraine Can’t Win On The Battlefield, Military Intel Admits (RT)

Kiev has no other option but to launch attacks inside Russia, including on oil infrastructure, as its army faces continued setbacks on the battlefield, The Guardian has reported, citing the leadership of Ukraine’s military intelligence service, GUR. Officers who spoke to the British newspaper’s Luke Harding were candid about Ukraine’s desperate military situation. Brigadier-General Dmitry Timkov said his country was like a patient on life support. ”We are attached to a drip. We have enough drugs to stay alive. But, if the West wants us to win, we need the full treatment,” he said, referring to dwindling military aid. Major General Vadim Skibitsky, the deputy head of GUR, said Kiev’s wished-for battlefield victory was impossible at the moment, which is why the agency had “no choice” but to launch strikes deep inside Russia. He described this as a “NATO-standard procedure, known as center of gravity, or COG.”

The concept was first developed by Carl von Clausewitz, the famous Prussian general and military theorist, and essentially refers to targets that have the most value for the enemy, physically or morally. The GUR officials that spoke with the outlet claimed credit for a recent string of Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian oil infrastructure. This contradicts public statements by the head of SBU, the Ukrainian civilian security agency, who said it was his agents who were responsible for the operations. Both branches have been overhauled in the years since the 2014 armed coup in Kiev with the CIA’s help, according to reports in the Western media. Both were allegedly involved in targeted assassinations of persons deemed to be enemies of Ukraine, since before the hostilities with Russia escalated in 2022.

The newspaper said GUR intends to launch a new major attack on the Crimean Bridge –and to disable it– “in the first half of 2024.” Ukraine has previously targeted the structure, twice in 2022 and 2023. The first plot involved a powerful bomb hidden in a truck, which killed the vehicle’s driver and four other civilians in nearby cars. Moscow said GUR masterminded this attack. The second strike involved naval kamikaze drones that SBU said were deployed by its agents. That bombing killed two civilians. Moscow has accused Kiev of engaging in terrorism as a method of war. The regime in Kiev has adopted the tactics, Russian officials are claiming, because it is unable to score victories on the battlefield.

Read more …

“Putin has absolutely no incentive to invade any of these nations, which are NATO members. What do they have that he wants?”

Ukraine’s Starting to Get Dangerous (James Rickards)

A lot of people seem to have forgotten about the war in Ukraine. That’s a mistake. Russia is slowly but steadily defeating Ukraine, which is becoming increasingly obvious to everyone except the most anti-Russian diehards. That’s leading to desperation in elite Western circles determined to stop Russia one way or the other. In their minds, they simply can’t let Putin win. They think that if Putin wins in Ukraine, he’ll next move on to the Baltic states, Poland and elsewhere. You know the West is getting desperate based on recent threats by France’s Emmanuel Macron to send troops to Ukraine. The vice president of the Russia Duma, Pyotr Tolstoy (descendant of the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy), warned that French troops would be priority targets for Russian forces if they entered Ukraine.

Even though France would send troops independent of NATO, that puts us on a very dangerous path that ultimately leads to direct conflict between NATO and Russia. And that path ends in nuclear war ultimately. Tolstoy added that it would take “just two minutes to nuke Paris.” It’s not hard to envision how quickly things could escalate if France decided to send troops to Ukraine. Meanwhile, NATO is preparing to send F-16s to Ukraine. Airfields in Ukraine are highly vulnerable to Russian attack, especially since Ukraine’s air defenses are heavily depleted at this point and the Russian air force is becoming increasingly active in Ukraine. But if NATO allows the F-16s to be based on its own airbases, Putin has warned that these airfields would become a “legitimate target” if strikes against Russian forces were launched from them.

By the way, Russia has hypersonic missiles that NATO has no practical ability to shoot down, so these attacks would likely be successful. Of course, NATO would have to retaliate in kind. You can imagine where all this could lead. We’re already well along the escalation ladder. And the higher you go, the more face you stand to lose if you back down. I warned about that from the outset of the war. But the entire notion that Russia poses some existential threat to NATO or Europe is absurd. First off, the theory that Putin will invade other countries if he wins in Ukraine is nonsense. The Russian army lacks the men and materiel to occupy Ukraine while simultaneously invading other countries.

This isn’t the Soviet Union with its massive tank armies poised to roll over Western Europe. And Soviet communism is long dead, so there’s no ideological basis for Russia to invade Europe. These days Russia is a conservative, Orthodox Christian nation. But more importantly, Putin has absolutely no incentive to invade any of these nations, which are NATO members. What do they have that he wants? All it would do is trigger Article 5 of the NATO Charter, which stipulates that an attack on one member is an attack on all, inviting a massive NATO response. At that point, you’re on the fast track to nuclear war. Putin is fully aware of that.

Read more …

“..It is difficult to believe that 20 years ago Russia looked to the West with hope..”

A New Russia Has Emerged (Paul Craig Roberts)

Dmitry Trenin reports that Russia has come to its senses and, as I have long recommended, turned her back on the West, a morally debauched, socially dysfunctional, and politically disunited and disintegrating polity. For years Russia was handicapped by its pro-Western intellectuals, but the West’s demonization of Russia has forced them to change their spots or to leave. Free of the former influence of these Russian traitors, everyone of whom Stalin or Lenin would have shot, Russia has emerged as the leader of the world majority that is tired of Western bullying. The fools in Washington, instead of undermining Russia in the interest of US hegemony, have created their replacement by Russia as world leader.

The fools in Washington fail to comprehend that a country blinds itself when it curtails freedom of speech, discredits truth in the interest of self-serving agendas, and destroys the patriotism and security of its ethnic base. All across America and its empire everything is failing. Schools and universities are propaganda centers against white Americans, the military is a disunited tower of babel, massively expensive weapons systems are problem-plagued, the social and economic infrastructure is disintegrating, health care has been turned into a profit machine–at the public’s expense–for Big Pharma. Both water and food are polluted. Government bureaucracies have taken control over children away from parents. Economic opportunity is shrinking. Integrity cannot be found. People who insist on truth in place of propaganda are persecuted. It is difficult to believe that 20 years ago Russia looked to the West with hope.

Read more …

“In just two years, the European Union, which only recently accounted for 48% of foreign trade, is down to 20%, whereas Asia’s share has soared from 26% to 71%.”

Russia Is Undergoing A New, Invisible Revolution (Trenin)

When President Vladimir Putin, back in February 2022, launched Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, he had specific, but limited objectives in mind. It was essentially about assuring Russia’s security vis-à-vis NATO. However, the drastic, expansive and well-coordinated Western reaction to Moscow’s moves – the torpedoing of the Russo-Ukrainian peace deal and the mounting escalation of the US-led bloc’s involvement in the conflict, including its role in deadly attacks inside Russia – have fundamentally changed our country’s attitude towards our former partners. We no longer hear talk about “grievances” and complaints about “failures in understanding.” The last two years have produced nothing less than a revolution in Moscow’s foreign policy, more radical and far-reaching than anything anticipated on the eve of the Ukraine intervention. Over the past 25 months, it has been quickly gaining in strength and profundity.

Russia’s international role, its position in the world, its goals and methods of reaching them, its basic worldview – all are changing. The national foreign policy concept, signed by Putin just a year ago, represents a major departure from its predecessors. It establishes the country’s identity in terms of it being a distinct civilization. In fact, it is the first official Russian document to do so. It also radically transforms the priorities of Moscow’s diplomacy, with the countries of the post-Soviet ‘near abroad” on top, followed by China and India, Asia and the Middle East, and Africa and Latin America. Western Europe and the United States rank next to last, just above the Antarctic.

Unlike in previous decade, when Russia’s “turn to the east” was first announced, these are not just words. Our trade partners, not just political interlocutors, have also switched places. In just two years, the European Union, which only recently accounted for 48% of foreign trade, is down to 20%, whereas Asia’s share has soared from 26% to 71%. Russia’s use of the US dollar has also plummeted, with increasingly more transactions being conducted in Chinese yuan and other non-Western currencies: such as the Indian rupee, the UAE dirham, as well as the instruments of our partners in the Eurasian Economic Union, and the ruble itself.

Russia has also ended its long and tiresome efforts to adapt to the US-led world order – something which it enthusiastically embraced in the early 1990s, grew disillusioned about in the following decade, and unsuccessfully tried to establish a modus vivendi with in the 2010s. Instead of surrendering to a post-Cold War set-up, in which it was left with no say, Russia has begun pushing back more and more against the hegemonic US-centered system. For the first time since the Bolshevik Revolution, albeit in a very different way from then, the country has de facto become a revolutionary power. While China still seeks to improve its position in the existing world order, Russia sees that state-of-affairs as being beyond repair, and is instead seeking to prepare for a new alternative arrangement.

For the time being, instead of the “one world” concept, which the Soviet Union even accepted in 1986, under Gorbachev, Moscow’s contemporary foreign policy has now split into two. For Russian policymakers, the post-2022 West has turned into a “house of adversaries,” while partners for Russia can only be found in the countries of the non-West, for whom we have coined a new description, “the World Majority.” The criterion for being included the group is simple: non-participation in the anti-Russia sanctions regime imposed by Washington and Brussels. This majority of over 100 nations is not considered a pool of allies: the depth and warmth of their relations with the Russia vary greatly, but these are the countries that Moscow can do business with.

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The West is pushing the narrative hard.

WaPo Report About Crocus City Hall Attack Is a “Hoax” – Zakharova (RT)

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has rejected the Washington Post’s claim that the US alerted Russia that the Crocus City concert hall could be attacked by terrorists two weeks before the tragedy, calling it completely false. On Tuesday, the paper reported, citing unnamed US officials, that Russian authorities had received an alert with a “high degree of specificity” that the popular venue could be targeted by terrorists. According to the news outlet, the notice came one day before the US Embassy in Moscow warned Americans on March 7 to stay away from public gatherings for the following 48 hours because of the heightened threat. At a press briefing on Wednesday, Zakharova dismissed the report, noting that Moscow has grown “accustomed to American misinformation” as well as the Western media’s repeated attempts to retract their own assertions.

“I would really like… to receive factual material on this topic from the American side. That is, to whom and when did they give this information?” she added. In the aftermath of the Crocus City Hall massacre, the White House said that the US had shared data with Moscow about a potential terrorist attack. The head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin, has confirmed this, but noted that “the information was too general and did not allow us to fully identify those who participated in this terrible crime.” On March 22, a group of armed men stormed the venue, killing at least 144 people, including six children, and injuring over 500 others. The terrorist act was the deadliest on Russian soil since the early 2000s.

Russian law enforcement agencies arrested several suspects in the aftermath of the attack, including four suspected gunmen who were caught fleeing towards Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin has described the culprits as radical Islamists, saying that a “window” was arranged for them on the Ukrainian border. Moscow has suggested that the Ukrainian intelligence services may have been involved in the attack, a claim vehemently denied by Kiev. The US and its allies have insisted that the atrocity was orchestrated by Islamic State terrorists. Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has accused the West of obsessive attempts to clear Ukraine of any culpability. He also advised against jumping to conclusions before the investigation is over.

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“..We should also bear in mind that ISIS*, Al-Qaeda* and other terrorist organizations were created by Washington..”

Crocus Terror Attack Well-Organized, With Pre-Orchestrated Media Blitz (Sp.)

The terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall was well organized, it was accompanied by extensive and pre-orchestrated media coverage in the West, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said on Wednesday. *”The terrorist attack was well organized and was accompanied by extensive, pre-orchestrated coverage by Western media in the right tone for them,” Patrushev said at the 19th annual meeting of security council heads of Shanghai Cooperation Organization member states.= On March 22, several armed men broke into Crocus City Hall and started shooting at people. They also started a fire in one of the auditoriums, which was full of people ahead of a concert. The attack left 695 casualties, including 144 dead, according to the latest data from the Russian Emergencies Ministry.

The Islamic State – Khorasan Province* (ISKP, also known as ISIS-K) terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the attack. The four main suspects in the case — all citizens of Tajikistan — tried to flee the scene in a car but were detained and charged with terrorism. Russian authorities believe their plan was to flee to Ukraine, where the masterminds of the attack had arranged a safe haven for them. An investigation is underway. “It is well known that the Kiev regime is not independent and is completely controlled by the United States. We should also bear in mind that ISIS*, Al-Qaeda* and other terrorist organizations were created by Washington,” Patrushev noted, commenting on the alleged role of ISIS* in the terrorist attack on Crocus in Moscow.

The reaction of Volodymyr Zelensky who said that the Russian authorities were responsible for the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack is inadequate, Patrushev pointed out. “The inadequate reaction of Zelensky, who accused the Russian authorities of organizing the terrorist attack, is also typical. At the same time, Slovakia directly says that the Kiev regime has been sheltering ISIS* militants on its territory for a long time and is using them for its own purposes,” Patrushev stressed. Immediately after the terrorist attack, phone calls from Ukraine to the Russian emergency services with false reports of mining of buildings began en masse, the official added.

Patrushev highlighted that terrorist groups are increasingly being used for geostrategic purposes, and they are given modern weapons and intelligence equipment, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said on Wednesday. “Terrorist groups are increasingly being used for geostrategic purposes. Terrorists are given modern weapons, advanced types of tracking and reconnaissance equipment are provided, and intelligence information is supplied,” Patrushev said at the 19th annual meeting of security council heads of Shanghai Cooperation Organization member states. The official called for resolutely and harshly condemning terrorism in all its manifestations and the actions of countries that support or condone it.

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“Israel has pledged to conduct a thorough investigation..” Pretending it was a accident…

Biden Calls For Swift Probe in Israel Attack on WCK Workers (Sp.)

US President Joe Biden in a statement called for a swift probe into the incident that killed seven humanitarian workers from World Central Kitchen in Gaza. “Israel has pledged to conduct a thorough investigation into why the aid workers’ vehicles were hit by airstrikes. That investigation must be swift, it must bring accountability, and its findings must be made public. Even more tragically, this is not a stand-alone incident. This conflict has been one of the worst in recent memory in terms of how many aid workers have been killed,” said Biden in a White House release. The president added that Israel has not done enough to protect civilians and that the United States will continue its humanitarian efforts in Gaza while urging Israel to do more to facilitate the aid.

On Monday, WCK staff were traveling “in a deconflicted zone” in two armored cars branded with the organization’s logo, and a soft skin vehicle, the NGO said. The humanitarian convoy was attacked as it left the Deir al Balah warehouse, where the team had unloaded more than 100 tonnes of food aid brought to Gaza by sea. The organization said that its convoy had coordinated its movements with the IDF. The Israeli strike against the staff of the WCK killed seven employees from Australia, Poland, the United Kingdom and Palestine, as well as a dual citizen of the United States and Canada. The organization suspended its operations in the Gaza Strip after the deadly incident.

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“The rewrite of Braveheart is going to be a real disappointment..”

Scottish Minister Doubles Down on Anti-Free Speech Law (Turley)

There is global criticism of the new anti-free speech law in Scotland, including a dare from author J.K. Rowling to arrest her for her criticism of transgender policies. The law is so bad that even the British Prime Minister, in a country widely denounced for attacks on free speech, has demurred from supporting the Scottish law. Now Humza Yousaf, first minister of Scotland, has doubled down in supporting the draconian law while misrepresenting its language. Yousaf bizarrely claimed that critics have ignored that the legal threshold of “the new offences is very, very high indeed. Your behaviour has to be threatening or abusive and intended to stir up hatred.” It is almost comical in its absurdity. No, a standard based on “stirring up hatred” is not very very high. Moreover, the showing can be based on a showing that stirring up hatred was “likely” rather than “intended.”

In signature form, Yousaf reportedly then lashed out at critics like Rowling and Joe Rogan as “right-wing actors” who have “[no] sympathy for the fact we are bringing in legislation that is clamping down on hatred.” He insisted that this is merely an extension of the fight against “disinformation.” The critics include virtually the entirety of the free speech community. Rowling’s objections to transgender policies are rooted in her feminist principles and the concern over the erasure of the gains of women generally.

By declaring opposing views as hateful, many on the left like Yousaf seek to shutdown any debate through a chilling effect on speech. Many do not want to face the cancel campaign or abuse directed against Rowling, who has the means and the following to weather this storm. The Scottish law is a disgrace to the nation, which once distinguished itself in the Scottish Enlightenment as a haven for free thought. The rewrite of Braveheart is going to be a real disappointment when Wallace asks what Scots will do without their freedom and Yousef steps forward to accuse him of “disinformation” and delivers him over to the English:

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“.. it is the type of posting that one would expect from the DNC, not the WHC.”

White House Flack Raises Legal Concerns Over Biden Corruption Scandal (Turley)

In a city of flacks, Ian Sams is prototypical. Quotable, punchy, and fast on social media, he stays ahead of the news cycle. Those traits are greatly valued by clients in this city where losing control of a narrative can allow a controversy to metastasize into a full fledge scandal. What is different is the client. Sams, a well–known Democratic operative, is not working for a Democratic campaign, but a Democratic president and speaks for the White House Counsel. That position continues to raise eyebrows, as it did this week when Sams issued insulting and taunting postings after the House Oversight Committee asked the President to answer ten questions from its impeachment inquiry. Sams posted images of signs mocking the inquiry next to his title reading “White House spokesman for oversight and investigations. Deputy Assistant to the President & Senior Advisor to WH Counsel’s Office.”

The White House Counsel’s office has historically avoided engaging in political spin and attacks. It prides itself on representing the office of the Presidency, not the president as a person. President Biden has personal counsel to look after his interests as an individual. What is striking is that his personal counsel has shown far more circumspection and restraint in responding to such inquiries. Sams has been previously questioned by the White House press corp over the accuracy of his statements and that fact that he is routinely cited as speaking for White House Counsel’s office on a variety of legal questions, but lacks any law degree. He was also the subject of a complaint from the head of White House press corps over his giving them “marching orders” on how to control the allegations against the President.

[..] I have previously raised concerns over the role of Sams in the impeachment inquiry. In my testimony in the first Biden impeachment hearing, I noted that the Biden White House was approaching a dangerous line in pushing false claims on the corruption scandal, including repeating President Biden’s past denials that he never spoke to his son or had knowledge of his son’s foreign dealings. It can lead to the same blurred lines that led to not just the impeachment articles but the criminal charges in the Nixon Administration. Those concerns became magnified this month when the House send the ten questions to the President to address glaring contradictions in his past public statements. Sams immediately responded on behalf of the White House Counsel:

“LOL. Comer knows 20+ witnesses have testified that POTUS did nothing wrong. He knows that the hundreds of thousands of pages of records he’s received have refuted his false allegations. This is a sad stunt at the end of a dead impeachment. Call it a day, pal.” Again, it is the type of posting that one would expect from the DNC, not the WHC. Yet, Siskel clearly approves of this type of taunting, sarcastic response from an office that has fought to maintain its image of professionalism and prudence. Sams, not Siskel, is now the face of the White House Counsel’s office. That is certainly welcomed by the Biden campaign, but it is often difficult to distinguish postings between the two operations. With an impeachment inquiry in the field, that aggressive media role can produce more than favorable media articles. It can become the basis for actual impeachment articles.

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17

 

 

Whacker
https://twitter.com/i/status/1775532073593528558

 

 

 

 

Wild crazy

 

 

Frens
https://twitter.com/i/status/1775572374248689794

 

 

Otter

 

 

 

 

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Feb 282024
 
 February 28, 2024  Posted by at 9:58 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  40 Responses »


Paul Gauguin Yellow haystacks (Golden harvest) 1889

 

Ukraine Conflict Weakening US – Tucker Carlson (RT)
Tucker Carlson Makes Shocking Revelation About Moscow Trip (RT)
Navalny Organization Splits Into Whites And Reds (Helmer)
Big Four Leave Oval Office Without Plan to Avert Shutdown (Sp.)
US Border A Bigger Priority Than Ukraine – Speaker Johnson (RT)
US House Panels Subpoena AG on Biden’s Mishandling of Classified Docs (Sp.)
How Russia Could Hit Back If West Seizes Assets (Sp.)
Ukraine Set to Lose More Territory in 1-2 Months Without US Support – WH (Sp.)
Catastrophic Scenario If NATO Troops Deploy To Ukraine – Russian Senator (RT)
Trump Plans To ‘Reform’ CIA and FBI – Politico (RT)
Former NY Times Editor Blasts the “Gray Lady” for Bias and Activism (Turley)
Putin’s Reasons (Vasco)
Macron’s Bid to Undermine NATO and the EU Hit the Bullseye (Jay)
Leaked Gaza Ceasefire Proposal US ‘Psychological Warfare’: Hamas (Cradle)
The Death of Justice in the Western World (Paul Craig Roberts)

 

 

 

 

Trump ad
https://twitter.com/i/status/1762535418661154964

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poso
https://twitter.com/i/status/1762677522922086625

 

 

Biden

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..the world is “resetting to the great disadvantage of the US..”

Ukraine Conflict Weakening US – Tucker Carlson (RT)

Most Americans naively believe that Ukraine could defeat Russia because the media has told them so, independent journalist Tucker Carlson said on Tuesday. What the US has done has harmed both Ukrainians and Americans, he added. Carlson spent eight days in Moscow earlier this month and interviewed Russian President Vladimir Putin on February 8. He looked back at that conversation during a three-hour podcast hosted by Lex Fridman. “I reject the whole premise of the war in Ukraine from the American perspective,” Carlson added. “There’s a war going on that is wrecking the US economy in a way and at a scale that people do not understand.” The current policy of the American government is only accelerating the demise of the dollar and the world is “resetting to the great disadvantage of the US,” Carlson said.

According to him, for the past two years the US media have insisted that Kiev can win – and it took an encounter with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, last August, to jolt him into reality. “It doesn’t even matter what I want to happen… that’s a distortion of what is happening,” Carlson told Fridman. Russia has 100 million more people and more industry “than all of NATO combined,” he added. Carlson revealed that he feels “sorry” for Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, because “ he’s caught between these forces that are bigger than he is.” A “victory” for Kiev would be to not get obliterated, he added, and that almost happened in March 2022 when Zelensky almost made peace with Russia. Then the US dispatched British PM Boris Johnson to stop it, Carlson noted.

The US journalist again confirmed that Johnson demanded $1 million to do an interview, calling the former PM a “sad, rapacious fraud.” The point of interviewing Putin wasn’t to show the world how smart or good Tucker Carlson was, but “to have more information brought to the West so people could make their own decisions about whether this is a good idea,” he told Fridman, referring to the Ukraine conflict. Every Western journalist so far has tried to make an encounter with Putin about themselves, which Carlson described as “the most tiresome, fruitless kind of interview.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1762599403548803265

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“If you have a media establishment that acts as employees of the national security state, you don’t have a free country. And that’s where we are..”

Tucker Carlson Makes Shocking Revelation About Moscow Trip (RT)

Tucker Carlson said on Tuesday that US spies had monitored him while he was in Russia earlier this month, and leaked to a ‘friendly’ outlet that he had met with Edward Snowden. This is despite the American journalist’s claim that he had tried to keep his meeting with the NSA whistleblower a secret. Carlson went to Russia to interview President Vladimir Putin. During his eight days in Moscow, he also met with Snowden – and US spies found out about it, he told podcaser Lex Fridman in the course of a three-hour conversation. “I was being intensely surveilled by the US government,” Carlson told Fridman, noting that US spies had thwarted his plans to interview Putin in 2021 and that he received confirmation that he was being intensely monitored ahead of his Moscow trip. “Then, I’m over there, and of course I want to see Snowden, whom I admire.”

Snowden allegedly accepted Carlson’s invitation to have dinner at the Four Seasons Hotel, but declined the interview as well as a photo request, saying that it would be better to tell no one. “I didn’t tell anybody,” Carlson told Fridman, however the meeting was leaked. “Semafor runs this piece – reporting information they got from the US intel agencies, leaking against me, using my money, in my name, in a supposedly free country – they run this piece saying I met with Snowden, like it was a crime or something.” “If you have a media establishment that acts as employees of the national security state, you don’t have a free country. And that’s where we are,” Carlson added. Carlson revealed that he did not fear getting arrested in Russia at any point, but was warned by his lawyers that the US might arrest him depending on the content of the Putin interview.

“I felt not one twinge of concern for the 8 days that I was there,” he told Fridman about being in Moscow. Before he left for Russia, his team of attorneys counseled him to “not do this… A lot will depend on the questions you ask of Putin. If you’re seen as too nice to him you could be arrested when you come back,” Carlson quoted the lead lawyer as saying, to which he said he replied, “You’re describing a fascist country, OK?”

In 2013, Snowden revealed that the NSA was systematically engaged in mass illegal spying on American citizens. Fearing for his safety, he fled to Hong Kong with the intent to reach Ecuador, which did not have an extradition treaty with the US, but was stopped during a layover in Moscow after Washington canceled his passport. Russia ended up granting him asylum and reportedly, eventual citizenship. One of the founders of Semafor, the outlet to which Carlson claims US spies leaked his dinner with Snowden, is Ben Smith, a former editor-in-chief of the now defunct BuzzFeed newsroom. In 2017, Smith notoriously published the ‘Steele Dossier,’ a sham document leaked by US spies to discredit incoming President Donald Trump.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1762572926295929019

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“The Reds are holding the evidence that Navalny was not murdered and that everything the Whites are saying is false.”

Navalny Organization Splits Into Whites And Reds (Helmer)

Alexei Navalny’s organization outside Russia is now repudiating Lyudmila Navalnaya, Navalny’s mother, for having accepted the medical evidence and official certification that the cause of his death was an embolism, or blood clot, which stopped his heart. On Monday, several days after the release of the post-mortem documents and of Navalny’s body to his mother’s custody, Maria Pevchikh, Navalny’s script writer, and Kira Yarmysh, Navalny’s press secretary, have repeated their allegations that Navalny had been murdered. In their revised version of the story on Monday, Pevchikh claimed in a self-produced video that “on February 16, 2024, Vladimir Putin killed Alexei Navalny”. Reuters, the New York-based news agency, reported Pevchikh’s claim, adding that “Maria Pevchikh, who is based outside Russia, did not present documentary evidence for her assertion.” The New York Times amplified Pevchikh’s allegations, but omitted the Reuters qualifier.

The newspaper did not report attempting to make contact with Lyudmila Navalnaya but added this innuendo: “it remained unclear whether his family would seek to conduct an independent autopsy before his burial.” “Alexei Navalny could be sitting in this seat right now, right today,” Pevchikh broadcast. “That’s not a figure of speech, it could and should have happened…Navalny was supposed to be free in the coming days.” Pevchikh then recited details of a purported exchange of Russian spies in prison outside Russia in exchange for Navalny and Americans in Russian prisons. The NATO-funded Bellingcat organization was involved, Pevchikh said. “Investigator Hristo Grozev helped us devise and implement this plan.” Negotiations took place with American and German officials, she said, but “they did nothing.”

She then said: “Roman Abramovich was the one who delivered the proposal to swap Navalny to Putin. As an informal negotiator communicating with American and European officials, and at the same time representing Putin; an unofficial channel of communication with the Kremlin.” Pevchikh claims she asked Abramovich for details of what had been told to Putin and what the president replied. “Unfortunately”, Pevchikh said, “Abramovich did not answer these questions but he did not deny anything either.” Yarmysh followed Pevchikh with a 3-line tweet: “We know why Alexei was killed right now. He should have been exchanged literally these days. An offer was made to Putin.”

The evidence of prisoner swaps between the US, Germany, and Russia is no news and corroborated officially, although the identities of the swap candidates keep changing, as do the names of the reported go-betweens. Abramovich’s role as the intermediary in the abortive Istanbul negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian officials of March 2022 has not been followed with any report of subsequent intermediation by Abramovich, except to save himself from sanctions. All that is missing from the new Pevchikh-Yarmysh announcements is the medical evidence of the cause of Navalny’s death. That is being closely held by Navalny’s mother, and she is in charge of the arrangements for his funeral.

In her latest tweet, Yarmysh implies this too is no longer under the outside organization’s control, as it proposes an alternative, parallel ceremony. “We are looking for a hall for a public farewell to Alexei,” Yarmysh said yesterday. “Time: end of this work week. If you have suitable premises, please contact us.” Pevchikh is based in London; Yarmysh left Russia in 2021 and is also abroad. They are the Whites now. The Reds, Navalny’s mother and Anatoly Navalny, his father, remain in Moscow. The Reds are holding the evidence that Navalny was not murdered and that everything the Whites are saying is false.

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Kamala is part of the “Big Four”? Get serious.

Big Four Leave Oval Office Without Plan to Avert Shutdown (Sp.)

US President Joe Biden summoned four congressional leaders on Tuesday in an effort to avoid a government shutdown that is predicted to occur on March 8, including: Vice President Kamala Harris, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and House Speaker Mike Johnson. US legislators must come up with a spending plan that both sides of the aisle can agree on, in order to avoid the shutdown. At the beginning of the year, the short-term continuing resolution (CR) established a phased, two-step deadline to fund the government, which extended funding through March 1 for about 20% of the federal government that is responsible for military construction, as well as the departments of veterans affairs, agriculture, housing and urban development, transportation and energy. The remaining 80% of the government is funded until March 8.

Aquiles Larrea, the CEO of Larrea Wealth Management, spoke to Sputnik’s The Final Countdown on Tuesday, and sounded hopeful congressional leaders still have enough time to avoid a shutdown, but stressed that time is slipping away. “I think that the appearance of having to try to do something, getting something done with the congressional leadership is very important at this point, especially since we’ve gone past a few stopgap measures at this point. But I think, we’re not going to have any choice but to put another one in there unless we can get people to agree overnight,” said Larrea. “Let’s just say, in a perfect world, that the Congress agrees overnight, the Senate has to look over the bill over the weekend and hopefully before the March 8th deadline comes to some accord. That way they can get it to the president, but that time is quickly slipping away. So, something the president has probably taken it upon himself, whether it’s appearance, whether it be true, whether it be magic to come out and say, ‘guys, let’s do something, let’s figure this out, we have to agree on something,’” he continued. “The only wild card in the bunch right now is the caucus within the House Republican Party.”

Sputnik’s Angie Wong commented on what she views as political posturing by the four congressional leaders and Biden, noting that the US president plans to go to the southern border ahead of the potential shutdown. Former President Donald Trump will also visit the border on Thursday. US Democrats have been fighting for more money to fund Ukraine and Israel, while Republicans have been working to send money to the US-Mexico border, because they believe that will help secure it. Wong then asked Larrea why Biden had not issued an executive order to close the US-Mexico border. “I think he’s trying to give Congress a fair chance to come up with some solutions because just the president invoking an executive order seems more tyrannical than anything. You know, ‘oh, this guy, he just came in, he did this,’. I think it gives plenty to chew on opponents to say, ‘well, he had to do this because it was out of control,’ and it won’t be a positive thing,” Larrea explained.

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“..get it done” and “do the right thing,” adding that “history is looking over your shoulder.”

US Border A Bigger Priority Than Ukraine – Speaker Johnson (RT)

Congress will not pass a new aid package for Ukraine without reforms to US immigration policy, House Speaker Mike Johnson has said, arguing that America’s own security takes priority over Kiev’s conflict with Russia. Speaking after a contentious meeting with President Joe Biden and congressional leaders earlier on Tuesday, Johnson insisted that House Republicans would not budge on the foreign aid if Democrats did not compromise on the border. GOP lawmakers are “actively pursuing and investigating all the various options” for the Ukraine legislation, but “The first priority of the country is our border and making sure it’s secure,” Johnson told reporters.

The Republican speaker has faced increased pressure from congressional Democrats, the White House and even fellow GOP members in the Senate over the aid bill, with President Biden warning that the “consequences of inaction every day in Ukraine are dire” ahead of his meeting with Johnson. Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who attended the sit-down with Biden, also said he urged Johnson to “get it done” and “do the right thing,” adding that “history is looking over your shoulder.” He described the discussion around the Ukraine bill as “intense,” stating “Everyone in that room was telling Speaker Johnson how vital” the military assistance was.

While the Senate previously passed a $95 billion aid package – including $60 billion for Kiev in addition to funding for Israel and Taiwan – House Republicans have refused to back companion legislation unless it includes significant reforms at the US-Mexico border. Citing a surge in illegal immigration since Biden took office in 2021, Johnson called the situation a “catastrophe” and stressed that the White House could “take executive authority right now, today, to change that.” Ukrainian officials have repeatedly urged for additional aid, as US assistance has waned following a lackluster summer counteroffensive. President Vladimir Zelensky made his latest appeal last week during a meeting with Schumer and other Democrats, where he reportedly warned that Kiev would “surely lose the war” without further cash injections from Washington.

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“..provide all documents on Special Counsel Robert Hur’s investigation of President Joe Biden’s “willful” mishandling of classified information..”

US House Panels Subpoena AG on Biden’s Mishandling of Classified Docs (Sp.)

The chairmen of the House Judiciary Committee and Oversight Committee on Tuesday issued a subpoena demanding that US Attorney General Merrick Garland provide all documents on Special Counsel Robert Hur’s investigation of President Joe Biden’s “willful” mishandling of classified information. According to the cover letter accompanying the subpoena and signed by Congressmen James Comer and Jim Jordan respectively, the US Justice Department to date has not provided either records related to Hur’s investigation or a deadline when it expects to produce all of the requested material. The initial request to provide the documents was made on February 12, according to the letter. The Judiciary and Oversight Committees are leading an investigation into business dealings and other activities of the Biden family to determine whether there are sufficient grounds to draft articles of impeachment against Biden.

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“We have more than 50 decently-sized American firms alone working here, and plenty of European companies..”

How Russia Could Hit Back If West Seizes Assets (Sp.)

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has called on nations of the Western “coalition” against Moscow to “find a way to unlock the value of [Russia’s] immobilized assets to support Ukraine’s continued resistance and long-term reconstruction.” “I believe there is a strong international law, economic and moral case for moving forward. This would be a decisive response to Russia’s unprecedented threat to global stability,” Yellen said at a meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors in Sao Paulo, Brazil on Tuesday. Tackling the question of the potential threats to the dollar’s status as the de facto world reserve currency that such an unprecedented move would entail, Yellen said that it it’s “extremely unlikely” that the greenback would be negatively affected. “Realistically there are not alternatives to the dollar, euro and yen,” she assured.

Yellen is the latest senior Western official to propose moving forward with the seizure of Russian assets as Western countries’ own desire to continue fueling the Ukrainian proxy war against Russia falters. Earlier this month, the European Union adopted a law allowing Brussels to bank windfall profits from Russian assets trapped in European banks and use them in Ukraine, a move characterized by Moscow as blatant “theft” which will be met with legal action. Russian officials and independent economic observers alike have warned of the possible consequences stemming from what Yellen is proposing, with Russian finance minister Anton Siluanov saying Moscow has the means to issue a “symmetrical” response to this form of Western financial aggression. “We have no fewer frozen [assets than Western countries],” Siluanov said in an interview with Sputnik on Monday. “Any actions taken against our assets would receive a symmetrical response.”

“Russia has already taken conservatorship of assets of a number of foreign companies which refused to operate in Russia,” Dr. Andrei Kolganov, a professor of economics at Moscow State University and chief researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Economics, told Sputnik, commenting on the folly of the West’s asset seizure plans. This instrument was already used against foreign investors with an ownership stake in the Baltika Beer Company, as well as the assets of Finnish energy concern Fortum, the professor noted. “So in principle, the mechanism for the confiscation of foreign assets has already been worked out. Moving from conservatorship to confiscation is, in principle, a fairly simple technical procedure. The amount of assets that are ‘frozen’ on the territory of the Russian Federation, or which may be frozen, is now estimated at approximately $288 billion,” Kolganov explained.

In other words, the professor said, Russia has control over a big chunk of Western assets which, if the US and its allies proceed with confiscation, “will not escape to the West, but will work here in Russia, because we are talking about investment, first and foremost, in the manufacturing sector.” From there, these assets could become the property of the Russian state, or be transferred to Russian private owners and continue to work as before. Confiscation of assets of Western companies in Russia would seriously impact their respective bottom lines, meaning they could try to put pressure on governments, both in their home countries and in Russia, to try to avoid having their capital seized. “We have a lot of foreign companies working in Russia, including those from so-called unfriendly countries. We have more than 50 decently-sized American firms alone working here, and plenty of European companies,” Dr. Georgy Ostapkovich, director of the Center for Market Research at the Institute of Statistical Research and Economics of Knowledge at Russia’s Higher School of Economics, told Sputnik.

Kolganov says that as unpleasant as a seizure of Russia’s assets abroad might be it would not serve to tank the country’s economy, with Moscow able to continue its international payments using its sizable and healthy foreign exchange earnings after reorienting its trade toward developing countries. The money frozen in Western banks constitutes reserves, which “were not actively used for international trade and international payments” anyway, the professor explained. “For private businesses, the confiscation of assets would create a pretty big hole in their earnings and budgets. Therefore, it would be a rather sensitive measure if Russia had to resort to it in response to the confiscation of its assets,” the economist added. Dr. Ostapkovich emphasizes that Moscow will have to be strategic and precise in the foreign assets it may choose to seize, to avoid the risk of friendly countries and companies doing business in Russia feeling threatened.

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Kiev.

Ukraine Set to Lose More Territory in 1-2 Months Without US Support – WH (Sp.)

Ukraine is on track to lose additional territories in the coming months due to a lack of military support from the US, White House National Security Communications adviser John Kirby said on Tuesday. “If they continue to get no support from the US, in a month or two, it is very likely that the Russians will achieve more territorial gains and have more success against Ukrainian frontlines in terms of just territory gain,” Kirby told reporters He pointed out that such a situation could happen in eastern Ukraine, but also potentially in the south of the country. Kirby stressed that the situation on the ground is dire. US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that the need to provide additional support to Ukraine is urgent. Russia has repeatedly warned NATO countries that arms supplies to Ukraine would be considered legitimate targets. Moscow has accused NATO countries of “playing with fire” by arming Ukraine, emphasizing that such actions hinder the possibility of Russia-Ukraine negotiations.

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“This is the line beyond which it’s no longer just NATO’s involvement in the war..”

Catastrophic Scenario If NATO Troops Deploy To Ukraine – Russian Senator (RT)

The potential deployment of NATO troops to Ukraine will lead to a “catastrophic scenario,” and could be interpreted as a “declaration of war” on Moscow, top Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev has said.The Vice Speaker of Russia’s upper chamber, the Federation Council, offered his take on remarks by French President Emmanuel Macron on the possibility of sending troops in a Telegram post on Tuesday. The approach exhibited by the French leader carries a risk of the situation devolving into a “catastrophic scenario,” Kosachev warned, stating that the move would not be tolerated by the Kremlin. “This is the line beyond which it’s no longer just NATO’s involvement in the war – this has been happening for a long time, but can be interpreted as the alliance entering direct hostilities, or even as a declaration of war,” Kosachev wrote.

The senator’s comments echoed a statement made by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who said the move would make a direct collision between the US-led bloc and Moscow not only “possible,” but actually “inevitable.” The idea of sending ground forces to Ukraine was raised by Macron on Monday while he was speaking to reporters after a meeting of European leaders in Paris. The president suggested that any scenario, including sending in troops, could not be ruled out, arguing that the West should stop at nothing to prevent Russia from prevailing over Ukraine. “In terms of dynamics, we cannot exclude anything. We will do everything necessary to prevent Russia from winning this war,” he stated, while admitting that there was no consensus among NATO members on the troop issue.

The remarks prompted NATO allies to publicly reject the suggestion, with the bloc’s leadership insisting no preparations to send forces to Ukraine actually exist. Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg stated there were “no plans for NATO combat troops on the ground in Ukraine,” and several members of the alliance, including the US, offered separate statements denying any such intent.

Putin NATO
https://twitter.com/i/status/1762445822137127039

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“There are thousands of people busting their ass, often in dangerous places, sacrificing a lot for the country. And to have their work just dismissed by a commander in chief, is really just discouraging..”

Trump Plans To ‘Reform’ CIA and FBI – Politico (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump is “likely” to launch sweeping reforms of the US intelligence community if he is re-elected in November, prompting concerns from the agencies that once baselessly accused him of ties to Russia. Politico interviewed 18 intelligence officials – including several former Trump appointees who later came out as his outspoken critics – in an article published on Monday, warning that the possible purge could “undermine the credibility of American intelligence.” “Trump intends to go after the intelligence community,” said one former senior intelligence official. “He started that process before and he’s going to do it again. Part of that process is to root out people and to punish people.” The new president would replace “people perceived as hostile to his political agenda with inexperienced loyalists,” Politico summarized the claim by Trump critics.

The two people specifically named were former acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Richard Grenell and aide Kash Patel, who played a key role in declassifying materials about the origins of ‘Russiagate’. Politico acknowledged that Trump’s hostility to the intelligence community was related to the infamous document claiming that Russia “interfered” in the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton. It quoted former FBI official Andrew McCabe defending the inclusion of the so-called Steele Dossier – produced by a former British spy paid by the Clinton campaign via cut-outs – in the appendix as merely due diligence. Though the FBI quickly found out that the dossier was false and who funded it, they continued to use it to spy on Trump’s campaign and presidency.

When Trump challenged the intelligence assessment – authored not by all 17 agencies, but a hand-picked group of Obama administration loyalists – at the July 2018 summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the spies felt that “never before had a commander in chief so publicly delegitimized their work.” Trump’s DNI Dan Coats told Politico that this prompted him to offer his resignation in February 2019 – which was eventually accepted that August. Other Trump appointees turned critics interviewed in the article were former National Security Advisor John Bolton and Fiona Hill, a top Russia adviser on the National Security Council – and witness against Trump at his Ukraine impeachment trial. “He wants to weaponize the intelligence community,” lamented Hill. “If he guts the intel on one thing, he’ll be partially blinding us.”

Several unnamed officials said Trump’s possible purges could jeopardize “sources and methods” used by US spies and undermine the trust American allies have in Washington, which the Biden administration has tried so hard to rebuild. Back in December, a diplomat from an unnamed NATO member country described Trump getting re-elected and actually purging the US administrative apparatus as a “doomsday option.” Others worried that appointments of “controversial” figures could lead competent junior officials and staff to resign. “There are thousands of people busting their ass, often in dangerous places, sacrificing a lot for the country. And to have their work just dismissed by a commander in chief, is really just discouraging,” Jon Darby, former director of operations at the National Security Agency (NSA), told Politico.

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“The state of Israel makes me very uncomfortable,” a colleague once told me. This was something I was used to hearing from young progressives on college campuses, but not at work.”

Former NY Times Editor Blasts the “Gray Lady” for Bias and Activism (Turley)

Former New York Times editor Adam Rubenstein has a lengthy essay at The Atlantic that pulls back the curtain on the newspaper and its alleged bias in its coverage. The essay follows similar pieces from former editors and writers that range from Bari Weiss to Rubenstein’s former colleague James Bennet. The essay describes a similar work environment where even his passing reference to liking Chik-Fil-A sandwiches led to a condemnation of shocked colleagues. An opinion-section editor, Rubenstein was involved in the controversy over publishing Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R., Ark.) op-ed where he argued for the possible use of national guard to quell violent riots around the White House. It was one of the lowest points in the history of modern American journalism. Cotton was calling for the use of the troops to restore order in Washington after days of rioting around the White House.

While Congress would “call in the troops” six months later to quell the rioting at the Capitol on January 6th, New York Times reporters and columnists called the column historically inaccurate and politically inciteful. Reporters insisted that Cotton was even endangering them by suggesting the use of troops and insisted that the newspaper cannot feature people who advocate political violence. One year later, the New York Times published a column by an academic who had previously declared that there is nothing wrong with murdering conservatives and Republicans. Rubenstein noted: “On January 6, 2021, few people at The New York Times remarked on the fact that liberals were cheering on the deployment of National Guardsmen to stop rioting at the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., the very thing Tom Cotton had advocated.” Instead, he describes an environment in which the staff routinely rejected conservative viewpoints, subjected conservatives to added demands and editing, and faced staff opposition to working on such pieces. He noted:

“Being a conservative—or at least being considered one—at the Times was a strange experience. I often found myself asking questions like “Doesn’t all of this talk of ‘voter suppression’ on the left sound similar to charges of ‘voter fraud’ on the right?” only to realize how unwelcome such questions were. By asking, I’d revealed that I wasn’t on the same team as my colleagues, that I didn’t accept as an article of faith the liberal premise that voter suppression was a grave threat to liberal democracy while voter fraud was entirely fake news. Or take the Hunter Biden laptop story: Was it truly “unsubstantiated,” as the paper kept saying? At the time, it had been substantiated, however unusually, by Rudy Giuliani. Many of my colleagues were clearly worried that lending credence to the laptop story could hurt the electoral prospects of Joe Biden and the Democrats. But starting from a place of party politics and assessing how a particular story could affect an election isn’t journalism. Nor is a vague unease with difficult subjects. “The state of Israel makes me very uncomfortable,” a colleague once told me. This was something I was used to hearing from young progressives on college campuses, but not at work.”

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“Let us analyze the history of relations between the so-called “West” and Russia over the last 30 years and we will see that, in fact, Russia was forced to defend itself against a war that was already underway against it..”

Putin’s Reasons (Vasco)

This February 24th marked two years since the beginning of Russia’s intervention in the war in Ukraine. All major Western media — monopolized by billionaires who use the press to maintain their domination — call the Special Military Operation, the official name of the Russian campaign, “war”. With this, they propagate the idea that it was Russia that started the war. A lie that (purposefully) covers up the guilt, not only of the government that is today headed by Vladimir Zelensky, but, mainly, of the great Western powers. The propaganda disseminated by this gigantic press monopoly attempts to brainwash ordinary citizens, accusing evil Russia of invading defenseless Ukraine in a criminal war of conquest. The truth is that the war started not two years ago, but ten years ago! And the one who started it was not Russia, but Ukraine itself. Russia was not even directly involved in the conflict. Those who played a fundamental role in the outbreak of this war were precisely those who accuse Russia today.

Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, in his interview with American reporter Tucker Carlson, recapped the dramatic events that led to the war. Let us analyze the history of relations between the so-called “West” and Russia over the last 30 years and we will see that, in fact, Russia was forced to defend itself against a war that was already underway against it. The dismantling of the Soviet Union weakened Russia as never before in history. Practically overnight, the peripheral territories that had belonged to it for centuries became independent. The great objective of the imperialist powers since the beginning of the 20th century had been achieved. The wave of separations also encouraged two wars in Chechnya in the 90s and 2000s, at the same time that the neoliberal shock policy was devastating its economy. In addition to having lost much of the territory of the former Soviet Union, Russia saw these new countries being completely dominated by imperialism.

In 2004, a “color revolution”, known as the Orange Revolution, prevented the election of a neutral president in Ukraine to ensure a U.S. puppet — Viktor Yushchenko — in power. In 2008, it was Georgia’s turn to be captured by Western nations, which made Russia outline its first response to this suffocation that they sought to impose on it, in what became known as the Ossetian War. All of Russia’s former allies were being wiped off the map. The NATO bombings in Libya, with the execution of Muammar Gaddafi, in 2011, once and for all raised the alarm for Moscow. When the United States, England and France tried to do the same in Syria, soon after, Putin learned the Libyan lesson and vetoed in the UN Security Council an identical operation to overthrow the regime of Bashar al-Assad, in addition to supporting it militarily.

The last straw for the Russians was the second coup in Ukraine, which began at the end of 2013. Viktor Yanukovych, who had been prevented from being elected in 2004, was in power. He conducted a friendly policy with Moscow, although he was hesitant and negotiated with the European Union. However, in the end, he did not adhere to the latter, preferring the greater advantages that his country would have by maintaining privileged relations with its sister nation. The EU and the U.S. did not accept this modest demonstration of sovereignty by Ukraine and used, as in 2004, NGOs paid by George Soros and the CIA to execute a new “color revolution” in Kiev. This time, however, avowedly neo-Nazi groups were the shock troops of the demonstrations on Maidan Square.

The result of the coup d’état, consolidated at the beginning of 2014, was not just the fall of a government that was in dialogue with Russia to replace it with one aligned with the West. It was more than that: a regime came to power supported by the same fascist organizations that led the Maidan. Ukrainian fascism has always been strongly anti-Russian and its influence on the new regime led to the persecution of all Ukrainians of Russian origin — who represent the majority of the population in around 40% of the country’s territory. The regions of Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea, where 75% of voters had elected Yanukovych in 2010 and were of Russian origin, were the most persecuted and rebelled. Crimea held a referendum where the overwhelming majority of the population chose to reincorporate into Russia (to which it had always belonged), resulting in an annexation carried out shortly thereafter by the Russian Federation.

Putin, however, did not do the same in Donetsk and Lugansk. The people of these two regions declared independence from Ukraine and formed two self-styled people’s republics. Armed with arms, they resisted the military invasion ordered by the new Kiev authorities, spearheaded by fascist paramilitary militias such as the infamous Azov, Aidar and Right Sector battalions. This was the true beginning of the current war in Ukraine, which, until the beginning of the Russian intervention, had claimed the lives of more than 14,000 people — most of them killed by the invading Ukrainian forces.

Kujat

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“Was all this part of Rutte’s plan to put himself as the main candidate for Biden to support?”

Macron’s Bid to Undermine NATO and the EU Hit the Bullseye (Jay)

A recent meeting of over 20 EU member states in Paris, organised by French President Emmanuel Macron raised eyebrows for many reasons. True, he managed to cajole these EU countries to agree to sending more money to Ukraine but many will ask whether Macron’s meddling comes with a much higher price. It is hardly a secret that he wants to create a fast track EU, which is made up of most EU countries – which excludes those who block big decisions like Hungary – who think of an EU which is stronger, which has its own army and can think independently of NATO. Last year he even went as far as organising a conference where all EU member states were invited, as well as the UK and Turkey, to test the waters as to the creation of a new, in formal EU-NATO pillar.

And now it is happening. Macron just recently held a meeting in Paris which agreed a higher level of funding to Ukraine with talks of even boots on the ground in Ukraine. The problem of course for NATO is that it has an identity crisis as more and more Americans and Europeans see it as a defence organisation which can only threaten and escalate in the Ukraine war – while being the leader of a proxy operation where not one NATO soldier can ever get killed – while not actually going the full nine yards. For over three years, with the war in Ukraine specifically going badly for the West in the last year, NATO’s role becomes compromised and more opaque. The very fact that Macron took this recent initiative is testimony to this and Biden is surely worried about NATO’s role now, as he throws his weight behind the Dutch Prime Minister’s bid to take over its helm.

The transition though from the bumbling, buffoonish Jens Stoltenberg to Mark Rutte will be seamless if it happens at all. Rutte will need to convince all 31 members of NATO and there are questions whether Hungary and Turkey will back the Dutchman’s bid to run the outfit. European nations might want a new face, a fresh voice and might push for a woman to run NATO, throwing their weight behind Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas. The point about Rutte is that he is a keen advocate of much bigger military spending which will be welcomed by Trump if he were to win the U.S. elections this year, just a matter of days after the NATO boss will take office. Rutte has really stepped up to the mark when it comes to sending military hardware to the Ukrainians.

The long-serving Dutch prime minister and one of Europe’s longest-serving leaders, he has already committed to send Ukraine 24 of its F-16 fighters — the most of any country — and is helping train Ukrainian pilots. The Dutch military has also sent tanks, artillery systems, ammunition and Patriot air defence systems to Kiev over the past two years. According to Politico, the government itself has also pledged another $2.1 billion in military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine over the coming year. Was all this part of Rutte’s plan to put himself as the main candidate for Biden to support?

NATO

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“..a US and Israeli attempt to give the public an illusion that Hamas had approved of them..”

Leaked Gaza Ceasefire Proposal US ‘Psychological Warfare’: Hamas (Cradle)

Hamas official Ahmad Abdul Hadi stated on 27 February that a leaked proposal for a ceasefire deal in Gaza is part of a “psychological warfare” campaign being carried out by the US. Details of the alleged proposal were leaked to Reuters on Monday, the same day US President Joe Biden said he hoped a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas could be reached by 4 March. “My national security adviser tells me that they’re close. They’re close. They’re not done yet. My hope is by next Monday we’ll have a ceasefire,” Biden claimed during an appearance on a late-night US talk show. But Abdul Hadi, the Hamas representative in Lebanon, stated that the resistance movement is not satisfied with the proposal and will not compromise on any of its demands, particularly “on a ceasefire and reaching an honorable, serious deal.”

Hamas is seeking a permanent end to the war and the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Israel is seeking the release of the 136 captives held by Hamas in Gaza and a temporary ceasefire that would allow it to resume the war after a pause. “We are open to any ideas posed by mediators but are also keen on preserving our key demands,” Abdul Hadi told Al-Mayadeen, adding that Israel is “seeking to hold Hamas accountable for any later failures in talks, planning to use this as an excuse to pave the way for the invasion of Rafah.” He said the leaks were not part of the Paris negotiations but a US and Israeli attempt to give the public an illusion that Hamas had approved of them. He reiterated that “everything being shared is not serious, but a ploy to maneuver and press on the Resistance.”

The proposal leaked to Reuters outlined plans for a 40-day truce during which Hamas would free around 40 captives – including female soldiers, those under 19 or over 50 years old, and the sick – in return for about 400 Palestinians held captive in Israel. Israel would withdraw its troops from populated areas of Gaza. Displaced Gaza residents, excluding men of fighting age, would be permitted to return to their homes. Israel would be required to allow additional humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the strip are on the verge of starvation. Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) also responded to leaked Paris proposal. “The leaks are an attempt to pressure the Palestinians and incite them against the resistance. They are pushing for a ceasefire before Ramadan in anticipation of what might happen in Al-Quds. The enemy believes that it can deceive the resistance with different methods in order to achieve a victory it has failed to achieve on the ground,” PIJ Political Bureau member Ihsan Ataya told Al-Mayadeen.

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“That is what the Assange case is about. Justice along with truth is being eliminated from the Western world.”

The Death of Justice in the Western World (Paul Craig Roberts)

British courts have cooperated with Washington’s police state for years by keeping Julian Assange in captivity while pretending to give him every benefit of the doubt in the extradition case. Of course, the law is clear that he should not be turned over to revengeful Washington, but Britain is not independent of Washington and is merely going through motions that keep Assange in captivity. It seems clear that Washington and London are conspiring to break the spirit of those Americans and British who still hope that their governments are capable of delivering justice. A demoralized people are easier coerced into tyranny, which is where the entirety of the Western world is headed. So much is already lost. One would have thought that the US and British media would have been fierce in Assange’s defense if only in order to protect its power to hold government accountable and to protect itself.

After all, the New York Times and The Guardian and other news organizations published the documents that Wikileaks released, for which Assange is in captivity. Yet until recently when the New York Times, Guardian, and a few other news organizations made a weak request that the extradition case against Assange be dropped, the US and British media were faithful carriers of the official narrative that Assange was a rapist, a Russian spy, and a hacker of US national security secrets, such as Washington’s hidden war crimes and deceit of its allies. Washington is after Assange for more than revenge. They are teaching journalists a lesson that they are no longer allowed to hold government accountable when the government commits crimes. In other words, the criminalization of government is being institutionalized. That is what the Assange case is about. Justice along with truth is being eliminated from the Western world.

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Plimer

 

 

 

 

Bender

 

 

Cats toasters

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Feb 152024
 


Jean-Michel Basquiat Irony of the Negro Policeman 1981

 

US Spies Behind ‘Russiagate’ Conspiracy (RT)
Part 2: US Government Hides Documents That Incriminate Intel Community (Public)
Biden’s Dual ‘Big Guy’, Memory Scandals Will End His Presidency (Sp.)
Biden Must Be Removed – West Virginia AG (Sp.)
Biden Associates Testify on the Influence Peddling of President, Family (Turley)
Speaker Requested Meeting With Biden About Border, White House Rejected (Sp.)
Supreme Court Orders Special Counsel To Respond To Trump Immunity Appeal (ZH)
2024: The Year America Ceases to Exist (Paul Craig Roberts)
Tucker Carlson ‘Is Dangerous’ – Putin (RT)
Old Sick Men Control US Nuclear Chain Of Command – Moscow (RT)
The World’s Gyre (Alastair Crooke)
Russia and Hamas: a Strategic Alliance Of Convenience (Sweidan)
Houthis Claim to Have Stopped Ship Traffic to Israeli Ports (Sp.)
‘No One Left to Have Children’ (Sp.)
West Used Ukraine as ‘Guinea Pig for Human Testing’ After 2014 Coup (Sp.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ron Paul

 

 

 

 

Dugin Pepe
https://twitter.com/i/status/1757773972618223949

 

 

Rickards gold

 

 


Kim Dotcom: Zelenskyy released a helpful guide on who to follow if you want to learn the truth about the failing US proxy war in Ukraine. He calls it pro-Russian disinformation but he’s just angry that these experts constantly reveal the truth about how badly Ukraine and the West are losing.

 

 

Elon

 

 

 

 

This is an existential threat to the US. If this cannot be solved according to the law(s), the Union will dissolve.

Start with Obama, he is behind it all. But he hardly gets mentioned.

US Spies Behind ‘Russiagate’ Conspiracy (RT)

The US intelligence community inappropriately used foreign allies to target Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign to set up the ‘Russiagate’ conspiracy ahead of the 2016 election, according to a trio of investigative journalists. Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi and Alex Gutentag – of ‘Twitter Files’ fame – published the first part of an investigation on Tuesday, in which they claim the so-called ‘Five Eyes’ were operationalized against Trump staffers, citing anonymous sources close to the House Intelligence Committee. According to their report, President Barack Obama’s CIA Director, John Brennan, had sent America’s partners – the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand – a list of 26 Trump associates to target with data collection, misinformation and manipulation. The Russiagate conspiracy involved multiple failures across western media networks to critically assess US intelligence claims that Russia had interfered in the 2016 US presidential election.

A 2018 Pulitzer prize was awarded to Washington Post and New York Times journalists for their reporting on what was later to exposed as a false story. “They were making contacts and bumping Trump people going back to March 2016,” said a committee source. “They were sending people around the UK, Australia, Italy — the Mossad in Italy. MI6 was working at an intelligence school they had set up,” the journalists claim. Officially, the FBI only started looking into the Trump campaign that summer, after an Australian diplomat reportedly overheard an aide mention Russia. If confirmed, these findings would demonstrate that the US intelligence community had worked for months before that to set up just such a pretext. In a statement to the investigative journalists, the FBI said it had made “missteps” in the 2016 and 2017 investigation of the Trump campaign, but has since implemented reforms to prevent it from happening again.

“The allegations that GCHQ was asked to conduct ‘wiretapping’ against the then president-elect are nonsense,” a spokesman for the British surveillance agency said. “They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored.” Shellenberger, Taibbi and Gutentag said they had never asked the GCHQ about “wiretapping.” According to Shellenberger, there is a “10-inch binder” containing previously unknown documents about the intelligence community’s surveillance of the Trump campaign. The 45th US president had ordered these documents declassified, but they went missing instead. In a Fox News appearance on Tuesday evening, Shellenberger suggested the FBI’s August 2022 raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort may have been related to the missing binder.

After the US intelligence community created a pretext for investigating Trump for ‘ties to Russia,’ they spied on his campaign – and then his presidency – using a falsely obtained FISA warrant. The warrant was based on the ‘Steele dossier,’ a file compiled by a British spy in the pay of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, through several intermediaries. The FBI knew the dossier was false as early as January 2017, but continued using the FISA warrant for almost a year thereafter. The FBI lawyer who altered evidence to obtain the warrant, Kevin Clinesmith, ended up sentenced to probation and his law license has since been restored.

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“He was very concerned about having it and taking it with him because it was the road map” of Russiagate..”

Part 2: US Government Hides Documents That Incriminate Intel Community (Public)

Part 2: U.S. Government Is Hiding Documents That Incriminate Intelligence Community For Illegal Spying And Election Interference, Say Sources. Authored by Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi, and Alex Gutentag via Public substack,

Former CIA Director Gina Haspel blocked the release of “binder” with evidence that may identify her role in the Trump-Russia collusion hoax.

Last December 15th, as Americans decorated trees, lit Menorahs, and prepared to tune out for winter holidays, CNN ran an extraordinary article titled, “The mystery of the missing binder: How a collection of raw Russian intelligence disappeared under Trump.” Co-authored by Natasha Bertrand, the gargantuan expose claimed a mysterious “binder” of “highly classified information related to Russian election interference” went “missing” in the chaotic waning days of Donald Trump’s presidency in January 2021, raising concerns that some of America’s most “closely guarded national security secrets… could be exposed.” CNN and its intelligence sources meant “exposure” in a bad way. Sources have told Public and Racket, however, that the secrets officials worry might be “exposed” are ones that would implicate them in widespread abuses of intelligence authority dating back to the 2015-2016 election season.

“I would call [the binder] Trump’s insurance policy,” said someone knowledgeable about the case. “He was very concerned about having it and taking it with him because it was the road map” of Russiagate. Transgressions range from Justice Department surveillance of domestic political targets without probable cause to the improper unmasking of a pre-election conversation between a Trump official and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to WMD-style manipulation of intelligence for public reports on alleged Russian “influence activities.” The CNN report claimed intelligence officials were concerned about the disclosure of “sources and methods that informed the U.S. government’s assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to help Trump win the 2016 election.” They should be concerned.

The story of how a team “hand-picked” by CIA Director John Brennan relied on “cooked intelligence” to craft that January 6th, 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment is the subject of tomorrow’s story, the last in this three-part series. Corruption, not tradecraft, is what officials are desperate to keep secret. The ”missing binder” story has several variants. Sources offer differing answers on the question of whether anything of consequence is missing. They give mixed accounts of Trump’s frantic last efforts to declassify Russia-related material. But nearly everyone Public and Racket spoke to agreed that the tale obscured a broader and more important story. Dating back to the release of the so-called “Nunes memo” in 2018 exposing the corruption of the FISA application process, senior intelligence officials, including Trump’s CIA Director, Gina Haspel, have repeatedly blocked attempts to declassify information about the Trump-Russia investigation.

They had good reason to obstruct the release of these documents. The documents in question are said to contain information about the legal justification for those investigations, or more specifically, the lack of justification, among other things. Should more of that information be made public, it might implicate a long list of officials in serious abuses. Questions like these may be answered if the 10-inch thick binder of sensitive documents about the origins of the Russia probe is made public. Fear for reputations and careers, not national security, is what has intelligence officials panicked. [..] Investigators wanted to declassify their findings before Trump left office, but the CIA “would not cooperate.” Investigators, a source told Public and Racket, “created a binder that blew up the assessment but couldn’t get it out because the CIA controlled it.”

Gorka

Obama

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“It’s election interference from one side that has been covered up and promoted as some kind of search for justice,” Kavanaugh asserted. “Now you have that side actually trying to prevent the same candidate […] from running again, and they get away with it.”

Biden’s Dual ‘Big Guy’, Memory Scandals Will End His Presidency (Sp.)

On Tuesday, Hunter Biden’s ex-business associate Tony Bobulinski testified to Congress that US President Joe Biden is “the Big Guy” who was mentioned in an email that discussed “remuneration packages” for six people as part of a business deal with a Chinese energy company. The email included a line that said “10 held by H for the big guy?” According to US media, citing people familiar with the testimony, Bobulinski also said that he “personally met” Joe Biden in 2017 during the Milken Conference, just days before the email was sent. It has long been suspected that President Biden was “the big guy” referred to in the email, but Bobulinski’s testimony adds further evidence to back up that presumption. The elder Biden has repeatedly insisted that he did not discuss business with his son or his associates.

“It’s hard to fathom who the big guy could be but Joe Biden. So we’ve known about this,” independent journalist Dr. Jim Kavanaugh told Sputnik’s The Critical Hour on Wednesday. “[Bobulinski] confirms that the big guy is Biden, which means […] [Joe] Biden was getting paid from his son’s activities with [these Chinese businesses].” This, combined with the President’s cognitive problems that have become “impossible to deny” will cause him to step aside before this November’s Presidential elections. “He’s not going to be the Democratic nominee,” Kavanaugh asserted, adding that the only question left is “How much longer is he going to last as president?” Kavanaugh noted that Bobulinski’s testimony validates the IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, who claimed that politics caused the FBI to slowwalk the investigation into Hunter Biden. “It’s a mess,” he said. “But I don’t know where the Democrats think they can go with this, and how they think they can hang on.”

The election season with Biden will be a “fun ride” Kavanaugh said “trying to keep Biden out of the public spotlight enough so he won’t make a fool of himself, but in the public spotlight enough to make it seem like he’s still running the show,” adding that all the while Democratic leadership will be “trying to figure out what they’re going to go and with whom they’re going to replace him with.” Kavanaugh also discussed reports from independent journalists Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger that the CIA allegedly used foreign intelligence agencies to illegally spy on people working for the Donald Trump 2016 Presidential campaign. “It’s election interference from one side that has been covered up and promoted as some kind of search for justice,” Kavanaugh asserted. “Now you have that side actually trying to prevent the same candidate […] from running again, and they get away with it.”

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“..A recent poll by NBC revealed that only 28% of registered voters have a positive opinion of Harris..”

Biden Must Be Removed – West Virginia AG (Sp.)

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey has called on US Vice President Kamala Harris to declare Joe Biden physically unable to perform his duties as president. The demand was issued in a letter sent to Harris on Tuesday. Last week, a report by US Department of Justice special counsel Robert Hur described the 81-year-old president as an “elderly man with poor memory,” although he advised against prosecuting Biden over the mishandling of classified documents. Morrisey has now called on Harris to invoke the 25th Amendment against Biden and take over his role, arguing that Hur’s report “paints a clear picture of a President who is not up for the job” and stressing that his “cognitive decline is of great concern to Americans, especially during these times that our nation is falling crisis after crisis both here and abroad.”

“We need a president who is mentally fit,” the attorney general wrote, noting that over the past few months alone, Biden has repeatedly mixed up world leaders and political figures and has appeared to have difficulty speaking on basic issues. The 25th Amendment, adopted in 1965 following the assassination of President John. F. Kennedy, clarifies the succession in the event of the US leader’s sudden death or resignation, and allows the vice president to assume their responsibilities. Under Section 4 of the amendment, the vice president and the cabinet are also allowed to remove the president if he is deemed physically incapable of performing his duties but refuses to leave office. That power has thus far never been used.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published on Monday, Harris stated she is “ready to serve” and replace Biden if necessary, adding that she does not need to convince anyone of her ability to lead the country. A recent poll by NBC revealed that only 28% of registered voters have a positive opinion of Harris, compared to 53% with a negative view. Biden has vehemently denied concerns over his mental and physical health, and issued an angry rebuke of Hur’s description of him. “I am an elderly man and I know what I am doing,” Biden insisted at a press conference last week. Shortly afterwards during the same conference, he confused Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi with the leader of Mexico. The president’s age has become a major concern among voters ahead of this year’s presidential election. According to ABC News/Ipsos poll published on Monday, as many as 86% of US voters believe that Biden is too elderly to serve another term in office.

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“Neither Hunter nor James Biden have demonstrated any particular skill beyond an absence of inhibition and an abundance of appetite. What they have is “an interesting name,” and in Washington, that is enough.”

Biden Associates Testify on the Influence Peddling of President, Family (Turley)

“An interesting name.” Those three words by Biden family associate Rob Walker could well be the epitaph for Hunter Biden and his uncle James Biden. Walker was explaining why Hunter was repeatedly pushed forward as the face of their pitches to the Chinese and other countries. In his interview with House investigators, Walker struggled to protect President Biden while confirming critical aspects of earlier testimony from associates such as Devon Archer that they were selling the “Biden brand.” That brand included Uncle James Biden, whom Walker described as “a snake.” Walker and his associates had a letter to the Chinese come from Hunter because that is what he thought the Chinese expected. He admitted that the Chinese were led to believe that they all worked for Hunter Biden. After all, he “had an interesting last name that would probably get people in the door.”

That “interesting name” is how a Beltway bandit avoids saying “influence peddler.” You are peddling the name — an effort that is reinforced when you repeatedly produce Joe Biden on speakerphone or he drops by lunches. It’s also the same name dropped when Hunter wanted to make sure the Chinese paid up, as revealed in the infamous WhatsApp message: “I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”

Yet whenever questions turned to the most incriminating messages, Walker shrugged. When asked about a reference to “the big guy” receiving 10% of a deal (an apparent reference to Joe Biden), Walker declined to say who the big guy was. When he was asked about Hunter’s repeated references to his father and calling his father “my chairman,” Walker insisted that “I don’t think that Hunter was healthy at the time.” Likewise, when Hunter says his father “vetoed the deal” on a proposed SinoHawk deal structure, Walker again said Hunter was not well. So Hunter was a legitimate businessman “with an interesting name” all the way up to the point that he made admissions on alleged influence peddling. He was then interesting but unhealthy.

Walker repeatedly emphasized that Joe Biden was not a direct part of these deals. While that is a political defense, however, it is not a legal one. As I have previously written, federal courts have long treated payments to family members as evidence of bribery and corruption. Indeed, I was lead counsel in the last judicial impeachment trial in the Senate, when Democratic senators voted to convict a judge on payments and gifts going to the children of a judge. Neither Hunter nor James Biden have demonstrated any particular skill beyond an absence of inhibition and an abundance of appetite. What they have is “an interesting name,” and in Washington, that is enough.

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“.. Johnson said he will continue to insist on a meeting, adding that it is a “problem” if the Speaker of the House cannot sit down with the president.”

Speaker Requested Meeting With Biden About Border, White House Rejected (Sp.)

US House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Wednesday that he has requested a meeting with President Joe Biden about border security, but that the White House has rejected his request. “I’ve been requesting a meeting with the president for weeks now, a month. I’ve been asking to sit down with the president to talk about the border and talk about national security, and that meeting has not been granted,” Johnson said during a press conference. Johnson said he will continue to insist on a meeting, adding that it is a “problem” if the Speaker of the House cannot sit down with the president.

House Republicans will insist on addressing the United States’ border security before sending aid to foreign countries, Johnson said. Earlier this week, Johnson said that he has no plans to bring a $95 billion supplemental funding bill passed by the US Senate to the House floor. The bill provides approximately $60 billion for Ukraine and $14 billion for Israel. However, a congressional source told Sputnik on Tuesday that House lawmakers may divide the legislation into separate portions in an effort to pass the measures.

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“..in 1982, the Supreme Court held in Nixon vs. Fitzgerald that the president has “absolute immunity” from civil liability which extends to the “outer perimeter” of his official duties..”

Supreme Court Orders Special Counsel To Respond To Trump Immunity Appeal (ZH)

US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has ordered the Department of Justice to respond to former President Trump’s claim that he has presidential immunity in his ongoing Jan. 6 election case in Washington D.C. The move comes after the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit rejected Trump’s attempt to overturn Judge Tanya Chutkan’s refusal to dismiss the case based on Trump’s immunity claim – and less than a week after the Supreme Court heard Trump’s appeal to the Colorado Supreme Court, which ruled that he was disqualified from appearing on the state’s ballot. Roberts gave Special Counsel Jack Smith until Feb. 20 to respond, pointing to a broader urgency for the Court to address relatively untested legal issues that could have a significant impact on the 2024 presidential election.

“[A] panel of the D.C. Circuit has, in an extraordinarily fast manner, issued a decision on President Trump’s claim of immunity and ordered the mandate returned to the district court to proceed with President Trump’s criminal trial in four business days, unless this Court intervenes (as it should),” reads Trump’s Feb. 12 filing, requesting that the appellate court’s decision be stayed. Jack Smith, meanwhile, has asked the Supreme Court to skip appellate proceedings and fast-track the case, claiming that “only” the Supreme Court could “definitively resolve” the immunity claims, The Epoch Times reports. President Trump is asking for the Supreme Court to halt the appellate decision because it incorrectly ruled that presidential immunity didn’t apply to Mr. Smith’s prosecution of him.

His attorney, D. John Sauer, had argued in January that the Constitution required presidents first face impeachment and trial by Congress before they could be criminally prosecuted within Article III courts. A three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit unanimously rejected his arguments, stating that” ‘[c]oncerns of public policy, especially as illuminated by our history and the structure of our government’ compel the rejection of his claim of immunity in this case.” The judges also ruled that “any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution.”

The issue of presidential immunity is a relatively untested area of law – however in 1982, the Supreme Court held in Nixon vs. Fitzgerald that the president has “absolute immunity” from civil liability which extends to the “outer perimeter” of his official duties. The appellate court, however, held that Trump exceeded these bounds. “Former President Trump’s claimed immunity would have us extend the framework for Presidential civil immunity to criminal cases and decide for the first time that a former President is categorically immune from federal criminal prosecution for any act conceivably within the outer perimeter of his executive responsibility,” reads the lower court’s opinion.

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“..a border conflict and possible “civil war” threat that justifies martial law and the suspension of the presidential election..”

2024: The Year America Ceases to Exist (Paul Craig Roberts)

In 234 years of American history, no president has been criminally prosecuted. The entire world knows that the felony and civil charges against Trump are fabricated and concocted. It is obvious that the Democrat Party uses law as a weapon against political opponents just as Stalin did. Democrats are the worst and most dangerous enemy the Constitution and American citizens have ever had. The Democrats , focused on maintaining and expanding their one-party state, have a problem. Biden’s own Justice (sic) Department has ruled Biden mentally unfit to stand trial for compromising US security by having possession of unauthorized national security documents and leaving US national security documents in unsecured locations. So how can Biden be allowed to run for president if he is mentally incompetent to stand for trial for a felony because of mental incapacity?

As I have written on this website and said in interviews, one way out for the Democrats, America’s worst enemies who are legitimizing sexual perversion, maintaining open borders so Americans can be over-run with taxpayer supported immigrant-invaders, and maintaining hostility toward Russia, China, and Iran, thus inviting America’s destruction, is to replace Biden with Hillary. The other way, and perhaps both will be used together, is for the White House puppet of the ruling elite to orchestrate with the World Economic Forum member, the Governor of Texas, a border conflict and possible “civil war” threat that justifies martial law and the suspension of the presidential election. It doesn’t take much intelligence to see that both outcomes are already being set in place. Everywhere in the white Western world we see that the white governments discriminate against white citizens in favor of the Ukrainian refugees and third world immigrant invaders.

I learned today that the living standard in Ireland of the Ukrainian refugees and immigrant-invaders, paid for by the Irish people is higher than the average living standard of Irish citizens. Irish farmers are faced with a wipeout of their assets as the government intends to destroy one million sheep and 200,000 cows to please the global warming agenda. Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians is not the only genocide being committed today. The white governments of the Western countries are committing genocide against their own white citizens. The United States, Europe, Canada have open borders not for white people but for people of color who are outside the Western tradition. Try bringing in a European girlfriend, and you will see that immigration is not for white people. Every Western government is busy at work erasing white civilization. These governments are our deadly enemies. But the indoctrinated populace will never see it.

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“While the US has tried to accuse Assange of revealing state secrets, which is more difficult to pin on Carlson, “anything is possible in today’s US, Putin said..”

Tucker Carlson ‘Is Dangerous’ – Putin (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted on Wednesday that X host Tucker Carlson caught him by surprise during their interview last week. The final interview was two hours long and has been seen by hundreds of millions of people. Before it, Carlson was criticized for speaking to Putin at all – and afterwards, for not asking the Russian president certain things. “I think your Carlson – I say yours, since he’s a member of your profession – is a dangerous man,” Putin told journalist Pavel Zarubin on the sidelines of the Future Technologies Forum in Moscow. “I thought he would be aggressive, ask me sharp questions. I was not just ready for that, I wanted that, so I could give equally sharp answers,” Putin explained. “But he chose a different tactic.” Carlson ended up patiently sitting through Putin’s lengthy digression into history and “did not give me an occasion to do something I had prepared for,” Putin said.

“Frankly speaking, I did not get the full satisfaction from this interview.” Commenting on reactions to the interview from the West, Putin said it was a good thing that the leaders there watched and listened to what he had to say – but bad that they felt the need to twist his words. Asked if Carlson could face reprisals in the West, the Russian president pointed out that WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange “still sits” in a British prison. While the US has tried to accuse Assange of revealing state secrets, which is more difficult to pin on Carlson, “anything is possible in today’s US,” Putin said. While this kind of persecution would certainly be a bad thing for Carlson himself, it would be good for the world, because it would reveal the true face of the “liberal-democratic dictatorship” embodied by the ruling class in the US, the president concluded.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1758007262139048402

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“..diminished faculties in advancing age.”

Old Sick Men Control US Nuclear Chain Of Command – Moscow (RT)

A high-ranking official in Russia’s Security Council has voiced alarm over the risk of a nuclear “catastrophe” arising from the Pentagon chief’s health problems and the declining faculties of US President Joe Biden, warning of a possible “management mistake” by America’s leadership. Speaking to the Izvestiya newspaper for an interview published on Wednesday, Russian Security Council Deputy Secretary Mikhail Popov said Washington’s political instability could trigger an accidental escalation. ”In the overall difficult and nervous internal political situation in the US that has emerged recently, the price of a management mistake, committed by the national leaders, either deliberately or involuntarily, has increased significantly,” he said. “And there won’t be much distance to a global catastrophe.”

Popov stressed that he was not referring to “a banana republic,” but rather “a state that has nuclear weapons and constantly claims to be the world hegemon.” He added that US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s cancer diagnosis and Biden’s old age “have raised questions about the global security system” and the US chain of command, asking “How is the decision to use nuclear weapons generally made in the United States?” “The secretary of defense is not there, and no one knows where he is or who is replacing him. The press writes that some of his responsibilities were assigned to Deputy Minister Kathleen Hicks. But she was on vacation in Puerto Rico at the time,” he said. The official went on to observe an episode during the Cold War, when a US Air Force major was dismissed for questioning how he could know whether a nuclear launch order “came from a sane president,” as the commander in chief is responsible for employing America’s nuclear arsenal.

Austin’s prostate cancer diagnosis came as a surprise not only to the US public, but to Biden himself, with the Pentagon chief acknowledging that his team did not inform the White House of the news. He has since been re-hospitalized with a bladder issue, for which he was reportedly treated with undisclosed “non-surgical procedures.” As the oldest president in US history at 81, Biden’s fitness is among the most pressing issues for American voters as they look ahead to the 2024 election. In a recent NBC News poll, 76% of respondents voiced major or moderate concerns over the president’s “mental and physical health,” while even special counsel Robert Hur – who was tapped to probe alleged mishandling of classified documents by Biden – concluded that the president has “diminished faculties in advancing age.”

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“..How to maintain special rights for Jews on territory in which there is an approximately equal number of non-Jews?”

The World’s Gyre (Alastair Crooke)

The wrongheadedness of U.S. policy is astonishing – and now has claimed the most central tenet in the ‘Biden strategy’ for resolving the crisis in Gaza. The ‘dangle’ of Saudi normalisation with Israel was viewed in the West as the pivot – around which Netanyahu would either be forced to give up on his maximalist security control from the River to the Sea mantra, or see himself pushed aside by a rival for whom the ‘normalisation bait’ held the allure of likely victory in the next Israeli elections. Biden’s spokesperson was flagrant in this respect: “[We] … are having discussions with Israel and Saudi Arabia … about trying to move forward with a normalization arrangement between Israel and Saudi Arabia. So those discussions are ongoing as well. We certainly received positive feedback from both sides that they’re willing to continue to have those discussions”.

The Saudi Government – possibly angry at the U.S. recourse to such deceptive language – duly kicked the plank out from beneath the Biden platform: It issued a written statement confirming unequivocally that: “there will be no diplomatic relations with Israel unless an independent Palestinian state is recognized on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and that the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip stops – and all Israeli occupation forces are withdraw from the Gaza Strip”. The Kingdom stands by the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, in other words. Of course, no Israeli could campaign on that platform in Israeli elections! Recall how Tom Friedman set out how the ‘Biden Doctrine’ was supposed to fit together as a interlinked whole: First, through taking a “strong and resolute stand on Iran” the U.S. would signal to “our Arab and Muslim allies, that it needs to take on Iran in a more aggressive manner … that we can no longer allow Iran to try to drive us out of the region; Israel into extinction and our Arab allies into intimidation by acting through proxies — Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Shiite militias in Iraq — while Tehran blithely sits back and pays no price”.

The second strand was the Saudi dangle that would inevitably pave the path into the (third) element which was the “building of a credible legitimate Palestinian Authority as … a good neighbour to Israel …”. This “bold U.S. commitment to a Palestinian state would give us [Team Biden] legitimacy to act against Iran”, Friedman foresaw. Let us be plain: this trifecta of policies, rather than gel into a single doctrine, are falling like dominoes. Their collapse owes to one thing: The original decision to back Israel’s use of overwhelming violence across Gaza’s civil society – ostensibly to defeat Hamas. It has turned the region and much of the World against the U.S. and Europe. How did this happen? Because nothing changed by way of U.S. policies. It was the same old western bromides from decades ago: financial threats, bombing and violence. And the insistence on one mandatory ‘stand with Israel’ narrative (with no discussion). The rest of the world has grown tired of it; even defiant towards it.

So to put it bluntly: Israel has now come face-to-face with the (self-destructive) inconsistency within Zionism: How to maintain special rights for Jews on territory in which there is an approximately equal number of non-Jews? The old answer has been discredited. The Israeli Right argues that Israel then must go for broke: All or nothing. Take the risk of wider war (in which Israel, may or may not, be ‘victorious’); tell Arabs to move elsewhere; or abandon Zionism and themselves move on. The Biden Administration, rather than help Israel look truth in the eye, has discarded the task of obliging Israel to face up to the contradictions in Zionism, in favour of restoring the broken status quo ante. Some 75 years after the founding of the Israeli state, as former Israeli negotiator, Daniel Levy, has. noted: ‘[We are back to] “the “banal debate” between the U.S. and Israel over “whether the bantustan shall be repackaged and marketed as a ‘state’”. Could it have been different? Probably not. The reaction comes from deep in Biden’s nature.

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“The Russian leadership considers the current conflict to be as much Washington’s battle as Tel Aviv’s..”

Russia and Hamas: a Strategic Alliance Of Convenience (Sweidan)

Hamas has asked Moscow to act as guarantor to a Gaza ceasefire. Growing Russian ties with West Asia’s resistance actors should be no surprise; within the context of the global power standoff, they share common enemies. In the past few years, Russia’s expanding ties with the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas have contributed to the growing list of issues that muddy relations between Moscow and Tel Aviv. After Hamas’ 27 October visit to Moscow following the Al-Aqsa Flood operation, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared the trip “sends a message of legitimizing terrorism against the Israelis.” Yet Hamas officials have continued to flock to the Russian capital, most recently in late January. Since the onset of Israel’s brutal military assault on Gaza, Russia’s official stance has been closer to the Palestinian position, evident by Moscow’s various UN Security Council activities: calling for a ceasefire, statements by Russian officials criticizing Israeli criminality, repeat meetings with Hamas in Moscow, and the country’s official media’s focus on human rights violation in the Gaza Strip.

Despite the long-term collaborative nature of Russo-Israeli relations, the Ukraine war has rejigged Moscow’s geopolitical calculations significantly. Today, Russia views the Gaza war and its regional implications from the perspective of its competition with the US and, therefore, considers Israel a critical tool of American influence in West Asia. The Russian leadership considers the current conflict to be as much Washington’s battle as Tel Aviv’s – a weakened Israel would mean the further disintegration of US power projection from the Levant to the Persian Gulf, a strategic Russian objective. Although Tel Aviv and Moscow still retain common interests of value to both, it is the US–Russian strategic competition that currently holds the most sway over the Kremlin’s decision-making.

This can be seen in a flurry of harshly worded Russian statements criticizing Washington’s role in prolonging and exacerbating the Gaza war. Russian President Vladimir Putin voiced the sentiments of most West Asians when he declared: “Many people would agree that this is a vivid example of the failure of US policy in the Middle East.” His Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov went the extra mile: The United States bears primary responsibility for this dramatic and dangerous crisis, since it has sought for many years to monopolize the settlement process and ignore relevant Security Council resolutions, and has now obstructed efforts to reach an appropriate solution.

There is no doubt that the events of the past two years in Ukraine played a major role in calibrating the Russian response to Gaza. During his recent interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson, Putin spent an inordinate amount of time unraveling the historical context behind Ukraine’s existence as a state, before boldly declaring: “Ukraine is an artificial state created at Stalin’s will and did not exist before 1922.” Of course, the Russian president understands that his invocation of Ukraine’s weak historical justification for statehood allows him to adopt the same context-rich approach when discussing protracted conflicts in other regions. His history-based formula for tackling the root of conflict applies equally to the establishment of the Israeli state against the objections of Palestinians and their neighboring nations, which likely will play a role in Putin’s position on how to move forward with the Palestine–Israel problem.

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“It is a great victory and a real achievement, as well as proof of the effectiveness of Yemen’s maritime operations..”

Houthis Claim to Have Stopped Ship Traffic to Israeli Ports (Sp.)

Naval forces of the Ansar Allah movement, also known as the Houthis, have prevented the passage through the Gulf of Aden of all ships that have been heading to Israeli ports recently, the movement’s leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said on Tuesday. “Operations of Yemen’s naval forces have resulted in a great victory – a complete halt to the passage of Israeli-affiliated ships to Israeli ports. During these weeks, not a single ship related to the Israeli enemy has been able to pass through the Gulf of Aden. It is a great victory and a real achievement, as well as proof of the effectiveness of Yemen’s maritime operations,” the leader said in a video message aired by the Al-Masirah broadcaster.

The Houthi movement, which controls large parts of northern and western Yemen, vowed in November 2023 to attack any ships associated with Israel until it halts military actions in the Gaza Strip. This led US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to announce the creation of a multinational operation to secure navigation in the Red Sea. US and UK forces later launched major strikes against Houthi positions in a bid to degrade the rebels’ ability to target commercial vessels.

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“Syrsky […] is stripping troops from every other front, pulling the very last strategic reserves from the country..”

‘No One Left to Have Children’ (Sp.)

Ukraine cannot afford to lose more young people to the frontlines, otherwise, there won’t be enough to have children and replenish the population, international relations and security analyst Mark Sleboda told Sputnik’s Fault Lines on Tuesday. While discussing the state of the Ukrainian frontline and the mass conscription law being considered by the country’s Parliament, Sleboda explained that Ukraine already had a declining population before NATO’s proxy war launched in the country. “Once you got into the ’90s and particularly the mid-’90s, people were not having children. The result of that is a demographic narrowing at the lower age group,” Sleboda explained. “There are four times as many people in the 35 to 45 age bracket, [and more in] the 45 to 55 age bracket, than in the 18 to 30 age bracket,” the analyst clarified.

There are roughly 3.5 times more Ukrainians in the 35-55 age groups combined than the 18-30 age group and 2.3 times more in the 35-45 group alone, according to the CIA data. Additionally, the number of 18 and 19-year-olds were estimated as 2/5 of the 15-19 group in that calculation. “[Ukraine] can literally not afford to lose any more young people because then there will be no one left to have children,” Sleboda stated. “And I hate to tell you, large numbers of their women went to Europe and are going to have European babies and are not coming back,” he noted, adding that it was “a bit distasteful” but “true.”

Nonetheless, Ukraine has to go forward with the mass conscription plan if it wants to replace its massive losses, particularly in Avdeyevka, according to the analyst. “However bad you think [Avdeyevka] is, it’s much worse,” Sleboda emphasized, saying that newly-appointed Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Alexander Syrsky is repeating Ukraine’s failed strategy in Artemovsk (Bakhmut) and is doubling down on the increasingly encircled city. “Syrsky […] is stripping troops from every other front, pulling the very last strategic reserves from the country […] and is sending them into Avdeyevka, which means it’s not just about keeping the troops that are there, it is about throwing, at least I would say 10,000, reinforcements into the situation.

Sleboda noted that even without the latest conscription law being adopted, Ukraine is already forcing men to the front, focusing on the villages in Western Ukraine. “The conscription has focused on small villages rather than Kiev and other big cities to try to limit the potential for political protests,” he explained. “That is why you’re starting to see videos now of locals, even in West Ukraine, trying to fight in the streets [against] the conscription officials.” Earlier this week, videos appeared on Telegram showing villagers in a town in the Odessa region fighting against conscription officers.

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Biolabs.

West Used Ukraine as ‘Guinea Pig for Human Testing’ After 2014 Coup (Sp.)

Sputnik has obtained a trove of documents indicating that rheumatological drugs had been allegedly tested for several years on psychiatric patients of a hospital in the city of Mariupol at the request of major Western pharmaceutical corporations and with the assistance of Ukrainian officials. The documents contain information pertaining to such companies as Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Celltrion, Novatris International AG, Merck KGaA, and a branch of Samsung that produces medical equipment. The tests were carried out while the Kiev regime held Mariupol until May 2022, when Russia took over the city. Patients of the Mariupol hospital’s psychiatric ward were most likely used as vulnerable “guinea pigs” in experiments that would not have been permitted in the countries where these pharmaceutical firms are located, William Jones, a former White House correspondent for Executive Intelligence Review and a non-resident fellow of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China, told Sputnik.

“It has generally been a practice to use some of the developing countries which don’t have such rigorous controls for these types of experiments,” Jones noted, hinting at Ukraine. After the 2014 Maidan coup in Kiev, the country “effectively became a ‘guinea pig’ for whatever experiments the forces of the Western elites had in store for them, as we see most dramatically in the way in which the ‘nation’ of Ukraine is being whittled down to nothing for the sake of NATO’s surrogate war against Russia,” according to the expert. He also touched upon the issue of “the extensive network of biological labs that have been set up in Ukraine over the twenty years, largely with the help, and no doubt at the behest, of the United States,” something that Jones recalled had repeatedly been pointed out by Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the head of the biological and chemical warfare department of the Russian Defense Ministry.

“Given the present situation in Ukraine with the growing understanding that Ukraine – or NATO – cannot ‘win’ this conflict using conventional weapons, as well as the determination of NATO not to accept a peaceful resolution unless Russia is soundly defeated, it could well lead to the utilization of some form of biological warfare on the part of NATO to ‘even the playing field’,” Jones warned. In the spring of 2022, Russia’s Radiological, Chemical, and Biological Defense Troops brought to light the alarming scope of US military-biological activities taking place at numerous locations in Ukraine. These investigations revealed the collaboration between Washington and Kiev in researching and handling various highly dangerous pathogens. Subsequently, several of these findings have been independently corroborated.

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Assange

 

 

Hero

 

 

Sledding
https://twitter.com/i/status/1757732842862211297

 

 

Dragonfly

 

 

Boop
https://twitter.com/i/status/1757800859466191280

 

 

Bird spikes

 

 

Monkey parrot

 

 

Live action Simpsons

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Feb 132024
 
 February 13, 2024  Posted by at 9:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  79 Responses »


Giorgione The Tempest1508

 

I Am Ready To Lead America – Kamala Harris (RT)
What is the Democrats’ Playbook? (Paul Craig Roberts)
Too Old For The Court, But Not For The White House (Tony Cox)
Over 80% of US Citizens Deem Biden Too Old for Another Presidential Term (Sp.)
‘Ground is Shifting Under Biden’s Feet’ After Hur Report (Sp.)
Trump Asks Supreme Court To Intervene In Immunity Appeal (ZH)
Ukraine Aid Bill Is A Trump Impeachment ‘Time Bomb’ – US Senator (RT)
Western Diplomacy ‘Primitive’ – Moscow (RT)
Tucker Carlson Reviews Putin Interview And Reveals What ‘Radicalized’ Him (RT)
Putin Wants To End Ukraine Conflict – Tucker Carlson (RT)
Putin and Trump Seen as ‘Threat’ by Davos Globalists (Sp.)
“Vladimir Putin Will Not Lose This War” (ZH)
Fani Willis Could Be Disqualified, Judge Says (ET)
Israel’s Ever-widening War (Paul Craig Roberts)
Descent into Madness: Dostoevsky and the End of the West (Boyd)
The Crisis at The New York Times (Patrick Lawrence)

 

 

 

 

KJP

 

 

 

 

Campaign ad wars
https://twitter.com/i/status/1756754032108900694

 

 

Musk

 

 

 

 

Ritter Larry

 

 

 

 

Bring it on!

I Am Ready To Lead America – Kamala Harris (RT)

Vice President Kamala Harris is ready to replace President Joe Biden if necessary, she told the Wall Street Journal, amid growing concerns about his advanced age and apparent memory problems. The remarks by Harris were first reported by the WSJ on Monday, a week after the VP had made them to the daily during a flight on Air Force Two. Harris was asked whether concerns over Biden’s memory meant she must convince the public she was ready to serve. “I am ready to serve. There’s no question about that,” Harris stated boldly, brushing off the suggestion she actually needs to convince voters of anything. Anyone who sees her doing her job, “walks away fully aware of my capacity to lead,” she claimed.

Despite showing confidence about her leadership skills, Harris might still need to convince some voters, given her plummeting approval ratings. According to a fresh poll by NBC, the VP’s rating reached a new low, with a combined 53% of registered voters viewing her negatively. A vast majority of those holding such an opinion of her – some 42% of all the respondents interviewed during the poll – said they were actually “very negative” about the VP. At the same time, only a combined 28% of them held a positive view of Harris.

The remarks by Harris, despite being publicized only now, came ahead of a bombshell report compiled by US special counsel Robert Hur on Biden’s handling of classified documents, which only reinforced concerns over the president’s health. The Hur report described Biden as an “elderly man with a poor memory” and noted that the president had exhibited “diminished faculties” in public. The assessment prompted strong denial from the US administration, with Biden staging an extraordinary press conference to assure the public his memory was just fine and to angrily deny any suggestions to the contrary. During the event, however, the president managed to erroneously call his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah el-Sisi the leader of Mexico while discussing the situation in Gaza.

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“..As Kamala is not a viable candidate, she in turn would have to be moved aside. Her resignation would follow her choice of Hillary Clinton as her vice president..”

What is the Democrats’ Playbook? (Paul Craig Roberts)

I raised this question in a column or an interview as polls revealed declining public confidence even among Democrats that Biden was fit to serve a second term. I suggested that one possibility would be that a deal would be worked whereby Biden would be moved aside, Kamala would become President, choose Hillary as her Vice President and then resign, having been promised a cabinet or judicial appointment. This would place in the White House a candidate that Democrats and the presstitutes claim won the 2016 election before Putin allegedly stole the election for Trump by hacking Hillary’s email. Evidence that something of this sort might be in the works emerges from the way Biden’s Justice (sic) Department cleared Biden of charges of possession of classified documents more serious than those for which President Trump is being prosecuted.

Biden was vice president with no power to declassify documents. Moreover, unlike Trump’s documents, which were stored in a secured room in a house in which US Secret Agents were present, Biden’s were scattered about in various insecure locations, including in the trunk of his Corvette in a garage. Special Counsel Robert Hur cleared Biden from prosecution by finding that Biden was not mentally competent to stand trial. So how is Biden mentally competent to be President of the United States and to have the nuclear briefcase in his hands? This is the Democrats’ dilemma. If Biden is judged capable of continuing as President, Robert Hur’s report comes across as more double standards in which a Democrat president is cleared of charges while a Republican is prosecuted for the same offense. The Democrats might bank on the presstitutes obfuscating the matter, but even insouciant Americans are likely to notice.

The rest of the world will conclude that Putin was correct when he said he doubted the president was the one really in charge. As Kamala is not a viable candidate, she in turn would have to be moved aside. Her resignation would follow her choice of Hillary Clinton as her vice president. Under the 25th Amendment, when a vice president ascends to the presidency, the vacant office of vice president is filled by the president nominating a candidate, who is then confirmed by the House and Senate. As the Senate is under Democrat control, and as the House Republicans are filled with Rinos who would confirm Hillary, it is an easily done deal. Trump himself might prefer the rematch in order to demonstrate a second victory over Hillary, one that the Democrats and media whores can’t again assign to Putin. Anyhow, this is my take for now. I will stick with it unless counter-evidence emerges.

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“In a nutshell: It’s about who you are, not whether you broke the law..”

Too Old For The Court, But Not For The White House (Tony Cox)

A US prosecutor’s report rationalizing why President Joe Biden won’t face justice for his mishandling of classified documents contained an excuse that ought to trigger some major soul-searching about the state of America’s leadership and how it got there. It won’t. Instead, in a nation where gaslighting and thick-faced contempt take the place of serious political discussion, Americans are expected to accept that Biden shouldn’t be prosecuted partly because he’s a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” If that explanation – proffered in a report released on Thursday by US Department of Justice (DOJ) special counsel Robert Hur – isn’t absurd enough, citizens are also told to accept that the same guy who’s too addled for a jury to convict him is perfectly competent to serve as president and commander-in-chief.

The whole episode says a lot about how unjust, corrupted and broken Washington has become. For starters it comes at the same time Biden’s DOJ is prosecuting his chief political rival, ex-President Donald Trump, for mishandling classified documents. For another, as in the case of former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, a prominent Democrat is being let off the hook for exposing state secrets despite investigators admitting that they found evidence of criminal conduct. This isn’t a minor violation of protocol, either. Hur found evidence that Biden “willfully retained and disclosed” classified materials from his two terms as vice president. As pictures included in Hur’s 345-page report showed, the documents were stashed in multiple locations, including cardboard boxes stacked in the garage of one of Biden’s homes. The special counsel also found that Biden’s conduct “presented serious risks to national security, given the vulnerability of sensitive information to loss or compromise to America’s adversaries.”

The mishandled documents contained information “implicating sensitive intelligence sources and methods,” including White House deliberations on the US occupation of Afghanistan. Biden’s defenders argue that his case wasn’t as bad as Trump’s because unlike Bad Orange Man, the president cooperated with investigators and surrendered his documents when they were discovered. That’s both unmitigating and untrue. Being cooperative after committing a criminal offense doesn’t make one less guilty of the crime. Moreover, Hur found a recorded conversation with the ghostwriter of Biden’s memoirs in which the former VP said he had “just found all this classified stuff downstairs.” That was in 2017, five years before one of Biden’s lawyers reported the discovery of classified materials at his think-tank office in Washington.

Incidentally, Biden’s ghostwriter deleted some of his recordings after learning of the special counsel’s investigation, but unlike the resort employees who allegedly helped hide Trump’s documents, he won’t be prosecuted. Another key difference in the cases was that Trump retained documents from his time as president and therefore had the authority to declassify such materials. Biden had no such power as vice president at the time his state secrets were retained. On the other hand, some of Trump’s charges concern alleged obstruction of justice, which could apply even if he were exonerated for keeping sensitive documents. The more preposterous wrinkle in the case is Hur’s commentary about Biden’s mental state, as well as the White House’s reaction. During interviews with investigators, the president couldn’t even remember such details as when he served as VP and roughly when his son Beau died, the special counsel said. The recorded 2017 conversations with the ghostwriter were “painfully slow, with Mr. Biden struggling to remember events and straining at times to read and relay his own notebook entries.” Biden displayed “diminished faculties and faulty memory.”

At 81, Biden is already the oldest president in US history. “Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt,” Hur said. “It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him – by then a former president well into his 80s – of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.” In a nutshell: It’s about who you are, not whether you broke the law. Never mind that crimes were probably committed, and that national security was jeopardized, Biden’s DOJ concluded. The president is so scatterbrained and demonstrably old that jurors wouldn’t feel comfortable sending him to prison. But like the FBI’s then-director, James Comey, said in sparing Clinton prosecution in 2016, a criminal indictment wouldn’t be the “appropriate” remedy for this particular wrongdoing. Biden, who has been getting away with serious misconduct since he plagiarized his work as a college student nearly 60 years ago, will face no consequences.

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“..considered by 86% of Americans too old to serve another presidential term..”

Over 80% of US Citizens Deem Biden Too Old for Another Presidential Term (Sp.)

The incumbent 81-year-old US President, Joe Biden, is considered by 86% of Americans too old to serve another presidential term, a fresh ABC News/Ipsos poll showed. That includes 59% of the people polled who said that both Biden, 81, and the 77-year-old former US president, Donald Trump, are too old to be the head of state and 27% who said that it was exclusively Biden who is too old for the second term in the White House. As for Trump, 62% think that he is too old for the job. That includes 3% who think that only the Republican front-runner is too old. Only 11% of the respondents said neither of the presidents, Biden and Trump, was too old to go for another term. The poll was conducted from February 9-10 among 528 adult US citizens with a margin of sampling error of 4.5%. Biden is the oldest sitting US president. If he wins the election in 2024, he will be 82 when he takes office, and 86 when he completes his second term.

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“..the idea of calling on Kamala Harris to take over makes a great deal of sense because her poll ratings are abysmal..”

‘Ground is Shifting Under Biden’s Feet’ After Hur Report (Sp.)

Last week, special counsel Robert Hur released a bombshell report, declining to press charges against US President Joe Biden partially because his report said, the president would appear to the jury as an “elderly man with a poor memory” and therefore would have trouble convincing the jury of his intent. The report also noted that he forgot when his term as Vice President ended and started, and couldn’t remember what year his son died. Biden attempted to quell concerns about his age by calling a press conference addressing the report but proceeded to confuse Mexico and Egypt while speaking to reporters. While Democratic leaders and administration officials were quick to defend the President, the cracks have started to show. Independent journalist and author Dan Lazare told Sputnik’s The Final Countdown on Monday that the “Biden administration is in real trouble,” and that “the ground is shifting beneath Biden’s feet.”

On Monday, Vice President Kamala Harris told a US media outlet she is “ready to serve” while slamming the report as “wrong” and “politically motivated.” Earlier in the week, former First Lady and 2016 democratic nominee Hillary Clinton admitted that Biden’s age is an issue. Finally, the New York Times editorial board released its opinion that Biden “needs to do more to show the public that he is capable of holding office until age 86” when his potential second term would end. It called on him to “hold regular news conferences” and said it looks like he is hiding “or worse, being hidden.” Lazare argued that is impossible for the Biden campaign. “Biden cannot go on that kind of tour,” he said. “He can’t sit down with Hannity or go on Fox News or do anything like that because he’ll only make things worse.[…] It’ll become completely clear that he doesn’t know what’s going on around him.”

Co-host Ted Rall asked how Republicans should tread the line between criticizing the president and being sensitive to people who have experienced dementia in their own families. “They can say, ‘look, that guy’s too old, he’s senile.’ and jump up and down […] [Or] is the best tactic to basically express sympathy and say, ‘look this can happen to any of us. We have sympathy for the president and his family […] but the needs of the country come first,’ and maybe they should call for Harris to take over knowing full well [that] politically she is unpopular.” That doesn’t sound like something former US President and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump would do, Lazare said, “But I think the idea of calling on Kamala Harris to take over makes a great deal of sense because her poll ratings are abysmal.” However, co-host Angie Wong, a Republican, argued that she “would love Biden to remain on the ticket in November. That’ll be fantastic for Donald Trump and [in down-ballot races].”

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No immunity, no US president as we’ve known them. It becomes a whole new job description.

Trump Asks Supreme Court To Intervene In Immunity Appeal (ZH)

Former President Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Monday to step in and weigh in on his claim of presidential immunity after the DC Circuit Court of Appeals sided with special counsel Jack Smith – ruling that Trump is not immune from prosecution. The lower court held off on issuing the mandate until Monday in order to allow Trump’s legal team time to approach the Supreme Court. Trump is specifically asking the Supreme Court to pause the lower court’s ruling until he can formally appeal, which will further delay his trial in front of District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan. The trial was originally scheduled for March 4, however Chutkan vacated the date in early February amid Trump’s immunity defense, and noted that the court would “set a new schedule if and when the mandate is returned.” Chutkan’s decision also denied Trump’s bid to toss the case in December based on the immunity claim.

“Smith sought to keep the trial on schedule in December by asking the Supreme Court to take up the question before the appeals court had a chance to consider it, but the justices rejected his request. “President Trump’s claim that Presidents have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for their official acts presents a novel, complex, and momentous question that warrants careful consideration on appeal,” the application states. “The panel opinion below, like the district court, concludes that Presidential immunity from prosecution for official acts does not exist at all. This is a stunning breach of precedent and historical norms.” -Daily Caller

In January, Trump’s legal team presented oral arguments to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, which Trump attended. The Judge, Biden appointee Florence Pan, questioned whether presidential immunity extended to such examples as a president ordering SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival without facing criminal charges. “For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant. But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution,” the panel wrote in its Feb. 6 ruling. “Former President Trump lacked any lawful discretionary authority to defy federal criminal law and he is answerable in court for his conduct.” In short, to be continued…

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Booby-trapping the law.

Ukraine Aid Bill Is A Trump Impeachment ‘Time Bomb’ – US Senator (RT)

Republican Senator JD Vance has argued that a new bill proposing additional military aid for Kiev could spell another impeachment case against Donald Trump should he win reelection in November, calling the measure a “time bomb.” In a memo circulated on Monday, Vance noted that the latest Ukraine bill calls for funding which would expire “nearly a year into the possible second term of President Trump,” suggesting that Democrats could ultimately impeach him if he chose not to renew the aid. “If President Trump were to withdraw from or pause financial support for the war in Ukraine in order to bring the conflict to a peaceful conclusion… it would amount to the same fake violation of budget law from the first impeachment,” Vance wrote, adding that “Partisan Democrats would seize on the opportunity to impeach him once again.”

He went on to say that the aid bill “represents an attempt by the foreign policy blob/deep state to stop President Trump from pursuing his desired policy,” as the former president has repeatedly questioned American largesse to Ukraine throughout the conflict with Russia. Democrats voted to impeach Trump in late 2019, accusing him of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress after he threatened to withhold US aid to Ukraine during a call with his counterpart Vladimir Zelensky. Part of a larger funding package worth more than $95 billion, the bill would devote $60 billion for Kiev, as well as additional aid for Israel and US allies in Asia. It has been subject to political deadlock for months. Trump himself has slammed the legislation, recently telling an audience in South Carolina that such foreign aid should be repaid to the US government.

“They want to give, like, almost $100 billion to a few countries, $100 billion. I said, ‘Why do we do this? If you do, you give them, not $100 billion, you give it to ‘em as a loan,’” he said. Following lengthy negotiations over the new military package in Washington, a final vote to pass the Senate’s version of the bill could come as soon as this week, according to multiple reports. Trump has said on multiple occasions that he would somehow resolve the two-year-old conflict “in one day” if he were to return to the White House. His eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., suggested that “the only way” to persuade Zelensky to engage in talks with Russia was to “cut off the money” that’s being provided to Kiev by Washington.

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“Moscow’s representatives are not certain what caused this, but have simplified their messaging in response..”

Western Diplomacy ‘Primitive’ – Moscow (RT)

Russian diplomats perceive their Western counterparts’ approach to international affairs to be “quite primitive,” Moscow’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, has said. Moscow’s representatives are not certain what caused this, but have simplified their messaging in response, he added. Polyansky made remarks about the quality of the Western diplomatic corps in an interview with RIA Novosti published on Monday, based on his personal experience at the UN. He expressed concern about Anglophone speakers at the forum selectively ignoring the context of particular situations for their own benefit. ”They pick an arbitrary point in time and claim nothing happened before it. They try to blame a nation for its actions regardless of prior events or the general context,” he explained.

The diplomat cited the Ukraine conflict as an example. The US and its allies have been describing Moscow’s military action against Kiev as “unprovoked” and supposedly motivated by “imperial ambitions,” and have pressured other nations to frame it in the same way. As they learn more about the conflict, however, those parties realize how much the general context and Western actions since Ukraine gained its independence matter, he added. ”This trick does not always work, but it is a trend. I don’t know if it’s some deeper trend or just something typical for some people coming from [Western] schools of diplomacy,” Polyansky said. “Having a dialogue with them is challenging because they show certain superficiality, tunnel vision, and unwillingness to seek the core causes of conflicts. No solutions can be found without [such analysis].”

The office of the Russian envoy to the UN has been simplifying its addresses due to uncertainty over how their words are understood, he said. Russian diplomats used to quote foreign and Russian classics in speeches, but are no longer using this rhetorical device as much, Polyansky said. ”Times dictate things. Our partners may now be less well-read individuals, so occasionally we want to speak in plainer terms to make sure our signal comes through,” he explained.

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“..Hillary Clinton calling him a “useful idiot” for Russia, Carlson laughed it off. “She’s a child, I don’t listen to her,” he said. “How’s Libya doing?”

Tucker Carlson Reviews Putin Interview And Reveals What ‘Radicalized’ Him (RT)

Following his two-hour interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, US journalist Tucker Carlson opened up about his experience at the World Government Summit in Dubai. In an hour-long interview with TV presenter Emad Eldin Adeeb, Carlson addressed why the conversation with Putin did not touch on certain topics, how the US political establishment had reacted to it, and why Washington has failed to understand Moscow, among other things. According to Carlson, he had an off-the-record conversation with Putin after their recorded interview was over. He would not reveal what was discussed, however. Carlson did say that Putin seemed willing to negotiate with the West about both the end of the Ukraine conflict and a new balance of power in the world. Diplomacy is the art of compromise, and almost everyone “other than maybe the United States during the unipolar period” understands this, Carlson said.

But while Putin wants the conflict to end, his position will only harden the longer it goes on, he added. One of the major revelations in the interview for Carlson was that Russia had asked to join NATO – and while then-US President Bill Clinton seemed receptive, his aides pushed against the idea and it ultimately failed. Since the entire point of NATO was to keep the Soviet Union out of Western Europe, Carlson said in Dubai, “if the Russians ask to join the alliance, that would suggest you have solved the problem and you can move on to do something constructive with your life. But we refused.” “Go sit in the sauna for an hour and think about what that means,” he added. Politicians in the West aren’t setting themselves “achievable” goals, Carlson has argued. “I have heard personally US government officials say well we just have to return Crimea to Ukraine,” he said. “That’s not going to happen, short of a nuclear war. That’s insane, actually.”

Even bringing up this kind of idea “shows you are a child, you don’t understand the area at all, and you have no real sense of what’s possible,” the journalist concluded. According to Carlson, one of the biggest issues in the US and the West in general is the tendency to reduce everything to the 1938 Munich conference, at which Britain and France sought to “appease” Nazi Germany by giving it a portion of Czechoslovakia. “The American policymaker historical template is tiny – in fact there’s only one – and it’s a 2-year period in the late 1930s, and everything is based on that understanding of history and human nature. That’s insane,” Carlson said. Carlson pointed out that he’s 54 and grew up in an America that had nice, safe and beautiful cities, “and we no longer have them.”

It was “radicalizing” to see Moscow “cleaner, safer and prettier” than American cities, he said, or be reminded of that in Dubai and Abu Dhabi – while in the US, one can’t ride the subway in New York City because it’s dirty and unsafe. “That’s a voluntary choice,” he said. “You don’t have to have crime, actually.” Asked why he hadn’t raised certain topics with Putin, Carlson said he wanted to do the interview because he was interested in how the Russian leader saw the world – and not to inject himself into the discussion. Most journalists who interview leaders the US dislikes tend to make it about themselves, Carlson added, and since he only cared about the approval of his wife and their children, he didn’t need to virtue-signal. Asked to comment on former US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton calling him a “useful idiot” for Russia, Carlson laughed it off. “She’s a child, I don’t listen to her,” he said. “How’s Libya doing?”

Tucker Moscow

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“Leaders of any country on the planet, other than maybe the United States during the unipolar period, are forced by the nature of their jobs to compromise. That’s what diplomacy is..”

Putin Wants To End Ukraine Conflict – Tucker Carlson (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin is willing to engage in diplomacy to end the fighting in Ukraine, but the longer it continues the less likely he will be to compromise, US journalist Tucker Carlson warned on Monday. Carlson spoke at the World Government Summit in Dubai, where he flew after interviewing Putin in Moscow last week. The video of the discussion has been viewed hundreds of millions of times. “Putin wants to get out of this war. He’s not going to become more open to negotiation the longer this goes on,” Carlson said in response to a moderator’s question. The West needs to keep in mind that “Russia’s industrial capacity is a lot more profound than we thought it was,” and that Moscow is having a far easier time manufacturing weapons and ammunition than NATO countries that have been supplying Ukraine, the journalist continued.

There are competent people in US President Joe Biden’s administration, Carlson noted, but they lack perspective and see international relations through a very narrow lens in which every foreign leader is Adolf Hitler and every day is Munich 1938. As a result, Western governments have no real sense of what is possible or achievable, he claimed. “Leaders of any country on the planet, other than maybe the United States during the unipolar period, are forced by the nature of their jobs to compromise. That’s what diplomacy is,” Carlson told the crowd in Dubai. Putin practices diplomacy just like everyone else, but “his position is hardening,” he added.

Following Carlson’s two-hour interview with Putin, the Kremlin said that Russia has communicated its stance to the US quite clearly, but that Washington did not appear interested in talks. “The US authorities know our position very well, they are perfectly aware of all of Putin’s main points,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told TASS news agency on Saturday. However, the American leadership apparently lacks the “political will” for negotiations. “This is not an issue of knowledge, but an issue of desire. The desire to do something to get on to the track of negotiations. We have not yet seen such a desire or the political will for this [in the US],” Peskov noted.

Tucker Russia

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“..a world leader for a quarter century with the lack of gravitas — to put it politely of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and many others in both parties who are surface-level, donor-captured, soundbite specialists..”

Putin and Trump Seen as ‘Threat’ by Davos Globalists (Sp.)

Tucker Carlson’s interview with Vladimir Putin has attracted over 190 million views on X (formerly Twitter) as of February 11. “I think it was fortunate that the interview occurred well before the heart of the primary season so that voters got a fair chance to see the interaction for themselves in a long format forum that was, fortunately, not interrupted by pesky commercials,” Charles Ortel, a Wall Street analyst and investigative journalist, told Sputnik. “My guess is that getting on Putin’s calendar for such a long interview was a challenge, so I imagine it suited both parties to have this video out well in advance of the nominating convention for Democrats and of the general election. It would be great to have one or even more follow-ups in coming months,” he added.

“I also think the contrast between Putin’s measured and thoughtful perspectives, having been a world leader for a quarter century with the lack of gravitas — to put it politely of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and many others in both parties who are surface-level, donor-captured, soundbite specialists was stunning. This contrast was remarkable considering Biden’s post-interview meltdown before what remains of the ‘press’,” Ortel continued. The Wall Street analyst noted that judging from viewership statistics, the corporate — and political donor-controlled — media is destroying itself. He stressed that “no political interview has garnered nearly as much coverage as Putin’s recent sit down with Tucker,” adding that he expects “it will, in the end, change the thinking of most open minds.” Prior to the historic interview, US corporate media pundits and Democratic political figures urged Americans to ignore Carlson’s show.

Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton called Tucker a “useful idiot”, claiming that the US journalist “parrots Vladimir Putin’s pack of lies about Ukraine.. Clinton’s remarks before the interview echoed those of Soviet-era apparatchiks who said of Nobel Prize-winning novel Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak: “I haven’t read Pasternak, but I condemn him.” “Hillary Clinton’s star set long ago while Tucker Carlson is, today, one of the most followed and fair-minded voices on earth,” Ortel said, commenting on Clinton’s rant. “Certainly, the Clinton family has much to fear as 5 November 2024 looms.” The Wall Street analyst, who has carried out a private investigation into allegations of fraud by the Clinton Foundation over several years, noted that “there are serious unanswered questions over how much foreign government and oligarch money may have funded Hillary’s political campaigns in 2005-6, 2007-8, and 2015-16, including donations from Ukraine’s [oligarch] Victor Pinchuk and his wife.”

He added that there are also “reasonable concerns as in the case of the Bidens, that the Clinton family exploited their offices to enrich themselves for decades, illegally.” “Hillary Clinton will not be remembered well in history,” Ortel said. “She coasted into national politics, at first, in sympathy over the Lewinsky affair as she had no actual ties to my home state of New York. As Senator, she promoted foreign adventurism in Afghanistan and Iraq that clearly failed. Meanwhile her husband advanced a boldly crooked set of scam charities we have previously covered that bilked governments and other donors of billions of dollars, for which there has never been honest accounting.”

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“Musk echoed Johnson’s sentiment, saying “As you said, there’s no way Putin is going to lose. If he backs off, he will be assassinated..”

Really?

“Vladimir Putin Will Not Lose This War” (ZH)

During today’s Twitter Spaces, Elon Musk and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) discussed their opposition to the ongoing war in Ukraine. “We all have to understand that Vladimir Putin will not lose this war… Losing to Vladimir Putin is existential to Vladimir Putin. Russia has four times the population and a much larger industrial base,” said Johnson, adding “Russia can produce 4.5 million artillery shells per year. We’re not even up to 1 million per year. The average age of a Ukrainian soldier right now is 43 years old.” “If you’re worried about the people of Ukraine, you have to understand that probably 100,000 of their soldiers have been killed,” Johnson continued, adding “The only way this war ends is in a settlement, and every day that the war goes on, more Ukrainians and more Russian conscripts die, more civilians die, and more of Ukraine gets destroyed. Again, sending $60 billion as added fuel to the flames of a bloody stalemate makes no sense.”

Musk echoed Johnson’s sentiment, saying “As you said, there’s no way Putin is going to lose. If he backs off, he will be assassinated. And for those who want regime change in Russia, they should think about who is the person that could take out Putin?” He also defended his record – saying “My companies have probably done more to undermine Russia than anyone. Space X has taken away two-thirds of the Russian launch business. Starlink has overwhelmingly helped Ukraine.”

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“I think it’s clear that disqualification can occur if evidence is produced presenting a conflict or the appearance of one..”

Fani Willis Could Be Disqualified, Judge Says (ET)

Fulton County Superior Judge Scott McAfee confirmed on Feb. 12 that the hearing about misconduct claims against Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade “must occur” on Feb. 15 and could lead to disqualification. Ms. Willis is presiding over the high-profile racketeering case that names former President Donald Trump and 14 others. “I think it’s clear that disqualification can occur if evidence is produced presenting a conflict or the appearance of one, and the filings submitted on this issue so far have presented a conflict of interest that can’t be resolved as a matter of law,” Judge McAfee said. Ms. Willis will be called as the first witness, the judge said after hearing some of the prosecutors’ arguments. “I don’t see how quash can be imposed here,” he said, referring to the district attorney’s effort to dismiss the subpoenas.

On Feb. 12, the judge held a hearing regarding the district attorney’s motions to quash the nine subpoenas issued on Ms. Willis herself and her staffers ahead of this week’s anticipated hearing in which the district attorney will have to respond to allegations of an “improper” relationship. On Jan. 8, defendant Michael Roman filed a lengthy motion that alleged that Ms. Willis was in a personal relationship with Mr. Wade, an attorney with a private law firm whom she had contracted to take a lead position in the racketeering case. He alleged that Mr. Wade took Ms. Willis on “lavish” vacations, including a cruise, and that she financially benefited from the situation. He also made several other allegations, including that Mr. Wade wasn’t qualified for the position and that Ms. Willis used funds improperly, which the judge indicated would not be the focus of the Feb. 15 evidentiary hearing. After the huge claims were made, several co-defendants filed their own motions to disqualify Ms. Willis based on “prejudicial” actions.

“Specifically looking at defendant Roman’s motion, it alleged a personal relationship that resulted in a financial benefit to the district attorney that is no longer a matter of speculation,” the judge said. “The state has admitted a relationship existed, and so what remains to be proven is the existence and extent of any financial benefit, again if there even was one.” Judge McAfee said the claims of prejudice were based on public statements—a speech Ms. Willis gave at an Atlanta church where she invoked God and said her critics were playing the “race card”—and did not warrant a hearing meant to produce evidence for the record. Other issues such as Mr. Wade’s resume also did not warrant an evidentiary hearing, according to the judge. The district attorney had filed a motion arguing that no evidentiary hearing was necessary because no conflict of interest had occurred, but the judge rejected the argument.

“Because I think it’s possible that the facts alleged by the defendant could result in disqualification, I think an evidentiary hearing must occur to establish a record on those core allegations,” Judge McAfee said. He said that the hearing will focus on “whether a relationship existed, whether that relationship was romantic or not in nature, when it formed, and whether it continues.” “I think that’s only relevant because it’s in relation to the question of the extent of any personal benefit conveyed as a result of the relationship,” Judge McAfee said. Mr. Roman’s attorney, Ashleigh Merchant, alleged that the relationship began as early as 2019 and that the couple cohabited at one point and claimed in a court filing that she could produce witnesses to testify to these allegations.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1757133934633386223

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“What is unclear is why Putin, Xi, and Iran think they can reach an agreement with immoral governments. How many times will Putin purchase a Minsk Agreement?”

Israel’s Ever-widening War (Paul Craig Roberts)

Rafah is the town that borders Egypt and the Sinai desert, where one million Palestinian refugees have fled to escape the merciless Israeli attacks against them. More than 100,000 Palestinian civilians, including 70,000 Palestinian women and children, have already been killed and wounded. Most of these poor refugees are literally starving to death because of the 3-month long Israeli blockade of water, food, electricity, and medicine to Gaza. If Israel launches this attack on Rafah, with the aim of driving one million Palestinians into the desert — and killing all those who refuse to leave Gaza– Egypt warns that a regional war will likely result, one which could conceivably become a World War. Biden could prevent this with a single phone call. If the US cut off all military and financial aid to Israel, the Israelis could not continue to prosecute its genocidal ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians from Gaza. However, just the opposite seems to be happening, with the full support and complicity of the United States.

Putin, Xi, and the Iranians are extraordinarily mistaken thinking that they can sit aside from the conflict as the conflict is directed against them. The Israeli offensive has left 85% of Gaza’s population internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure was damaged or destroyed, according to the UN. And the Great Moral Western Democracies continue to support the Israeli Genocide of the Palestinians even as Egypt warns of a widening war. What is clear is that the West can no longer in any way be considered to be moral. What is unclear is why Putin, Xi, and Iran think they can reach an agreement with immoral governments. How many times will Putin purchase a Minsk Agreement?

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“..where we are cajoled to accept a “great reset” and a “new world order” controlled by unseen elites..

Descent into Madness: Dostoevsky and the End of the West (Boyd)

Our society is coming to resemble a dystopian “peoples’ paradise” in its darkly disturbing features. Think back to iconic works of literature like Arthur Koestler’s Darkness At Noon and George Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty-Four. Are we not living in a society which is little more than a cross between the nightmare visions of Koestler and Orwell? Do we not live in a society where dissidents are branded as “domestic terrorists,” “insurrectionists,” or “racists,” and face imprisonment for heretofore unimaginable thought crimes, all in the name of “defending our democracy”? –where our children have become wards of the state and are indoctrinated daily by mountains of fetid radical ideology? –where television and the Internet are employed to fashion a particular jaundiced view of life?—where science is now used to tell us the world will end in, what, ten years, if we don’t take immediate action to curb “the climate crisis”?—where we are cajoled to accept a “great reset” and a “new world order” controlled by unseen elites?

Far too many citizens do not fathom what has occurred and is happening in our society. And those who do understand, whether here in the US or in Europe, are swatted down by the long arm of “Big Brother,” turned into “non-persons,” their reputations destroyed, awakened by armed-to-the-teeth FBI agents before dawn and imprisoned for months or years without trial or the benefit of counsel—“enemies of the regime.” Is this not reminiscent of what occurred in Eastern Europe immediately after the conclusion of World War II, when the Soviets progressively installed socialist dictatorships by successfully eliminating and suppressing any real opposition, all happening why the benevolent USA looked on?

But in some ways our situation is worse than that of those Soviet-occupied countries in the aftermath of the world war. For while the post-war Communists essentially maintained certain inherited standards of behavior, for instance, supporting large families and traditional marriage, our elites continue to push the boundaries of what was once thought normative and acceptable in every area of human endeavor, even under Communism. And the disruption or rejection of the laws of nature and those well-established and valid millennia-old norms of behavior and belief leads to gross and grotesque imbalances and vicious infections in society which distort and eventually destroy it—what I have called in an earlier essay, “the zombification of our culture.”

It’s as if significant portions of American (and European) culture have been possessed by frenetic Evil incarnate…in academia and education, in our media and communications, in politics, and in our entertainment and sports industries. We are now supposed to be like Pavlov’s dog, trained to bark when prompted, to sit when told, in short, to be obedient and receptive subjects of the latest ukase or dogmatic proclamation of government or revelation of its satraps and lapdogs at some formerly-prestigious university or from fashionable glitterati.

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” We now have a usefully intricate anatomy of an undeservedly influential newspaper as it abjectly surrenders to power the sovereignty it is its duty to claim and assert in every day’s editions..”

The Crisis at The New York Times (Patrick Lawrence)

It has been evident to many of us since the genocide in Gaza began Oct. 7 that Israel risked asking too much of those inclined to take its side. The Zionist state would ask what many people cannot give: It would ask them to surrender their consciences, their idea of moral order, altogether their native decency as it murders, starves and disperses a population of 2.3 million while making their land uninhabitable. The Israelis took this risk and they have lost. We are now able to watch videos of Israeli soldiers celebrating as they murder Palestinian mothers and children, as they dance and sing while detonating entire neighborhoods, as they mock Palestinians in a carnival of racist depravity one would have thought beyond what is worst in humanity—and certainly beyond what any Jew would do to another human being. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports, as American media do not, that the Israel Defense Forces covertly sponsor a social media channel disseminating this degenerate material in the cause of maintaining maximum hatred.

It is a psychologically diseased nation that boasts as it inflicts this suffering on The Other that obsesses it. The world is invited—the ultimate in perversity, this—to partake of Israel’s sickness and said, in a Hague courtroom two weeks ago, “No.” Post–Gaza, apartheid Israel is unlikely ever to recover what place it enjoyed, merited or otherwise, in the community of nations. It stands among the pariahs now. The Biden regime took this risk, too, and it has also lost. Its support for the Israelis’ daily brutalities comes at great political cost, at home and abroad, and is tearing America apart—its universities, its courts, its legislatures, its communities—and I would say what pride it still manages to take in itself. When the history of America’s decline as a hegemonic power is written, the Gaza crisis is certain to figure in it as a significant marker in the nation’s descent into a morass of immorality that has already contributed to a collapse of its credibility.

We come to U.S. media — mainstream media, corporate media, legacy media. However you wish to name them, they have gambled and lost, too. Their coverage of the Gaza crisis has been so egregiously and incautiously unbalanced in Israel’s behalf that we might count their derelictions as unprecedented. When the surveys are conducted and the returns are in, their unscrupulous distortions, their countless omissions, and—the worst offense, in my view—their dehumanization of the Palestinians of Gaza will have further damaged their already collapsing credibility. We come, finally, to The New York Times. No medium in America has had further to fall in consequence of its reporting on Israel and Gaza since last October. And the once-but-no-longer newspaper of record, fairly suffocating amid its well-known hubris, falls as we speak. It has erupted, by numerous accounts including implicitly its own, in an internal uproar over reportage from Israel and Gaza so shabby—so transparently negligent—that it, like Israel, may never fully restore its reputation.

Max Blumenthal, editor-in-chief of The Grayzone, described the crisis on Eighth Avenue better than anyone in the Jan. 30 segment of The Hill’s daily webcast, Rising. “We’re looking at one of the biggest media scandals of our time,” he told Briahna Joy Gray and Robby Soave. Indeed. This well captures the gravity of The Times’s willful corruptions in its profligate use of Israeli propaganda, and Blumenthal deserves the microphone to say so. Since late last year The Grayzone has exhaustively investigated The Times’s “investigations” of Hamas’s supposed savagery and Israel’s supposed innocence. This is more than “inside baseball,” as the saying goes. We now have a usefully intricate anatomy of an undeservedly influential newspaper as it abjectly surrenders to power the sovereignty it is its duty to claim and assert in every day’s editions. It would be hard to overstate the implications, for all of us, of what The Grayzone has just brought to light. This is independent journalism at its best reporting on corporate journalism at its worst.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Assange

 

 

Elbalmer

 

 

Sunak vax
https://twitter.com/i/status/1757186168507052239

 

 

Silverback

 

 

Tree planting
https://twitter.com/i/status/1757059356535804164

 

 

Longest truck
https://twitter.com/i/status/1756952347735921042

 

 

Milky Way
https://twitter.com/i/status/1756949552953778634

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Feb 122024
 


Vincent van Gogh Snowy landscape with Arles in the background 1888

 

How Ball Got Rolling With Tucker Carlson’s Putin Interview Proposal (Sp.)
Egypt Warns Israel: Rafah Invasion Could Negate ’79 Peace Treaty (ZH)
Ukraine Should Be A ‘Buffer Zone’ – Orban (RT)
EU Openly Threatened Orban For His Reluctance To Finance Kiev (TASS)
Ukraine ‘Must Accept New Reality’ – Kremlin (RT)
10 Million More Refugees Could Flee To Germany If Ukraine Falls – Welt (RT)
Zaluzhny’s Photo With Banderite a ‘Threat’ to Zelensky (Sp.)
Russia Must Permanently Abandon Europe And Turn Fully To Asia (Karaganov)
Farmers Bring Poland To Standstill (RT)
“That is Not the Judgment of the Press” (Turley)
“Oh What a Tangled Web Biden Weaves, When He First Practices to Deceive” (VDH)
Could Trump Win By Simple Attrition Rather than Vindication? (Turley)
Soaring Debt Pushing Wealthy Nations To ‘Fiscal Death’ – Economist (RT)
Peaceful Protests Are a Waste of Time and Energy (Paul Craig Roberts)
The Crime Of The Century: Midazolam Murders – Euthanizing The Elderly (Kelly)

 

 

 

 

Liberal tears
https://twitter.com/i/status/1756706512540499971

 

 

Ads
https://twitter.com/i/status/1756692976426701093

 

 


Maria Zakharova: “After watching Putin’s interview, Scholz and Sunak disobeyed the orders of the USA.

“Scholz disobeyed the order of the USA not to watch the interview. If he continues to violate the instructions of the White House, he may lead Germany out of the crisis. The recent Prime Ministers of Britain, weak-willed individuals, they carried out the will not of the British people or even their own personal will, but obediently waltzed, led by Washington towards the boudoir.”

 

 

Nikki Haley

Trump Haley
https://twitter.com/i/status/1756832137980838180

 

 

Biden Superbowl
https://twitter.com/i/status/1756726329695973841

 

 

Sure this is not a Trump ad?!

 

 

 

 

“..the Kremlin had concerns even before the interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin that there would be a “persecution” of Tucker Carlson. ”

How Ball Got Rolling With Tucker Carlson’s Putin Interview Proposal (Sp.)

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin, released Thursday, lasted more than two hours and covered a range of topics, including the Ukraine conflict, sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline, and Russia-NATO relations. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has told reporters that Tucker Carlson himself proposed the interview with Vladimir Putin and that the president quickly agreed. He also noted that the West is becoming more and more unpredictable, and that the Kremlin had concerns even before the interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin that there would be a “persecution” of Tucker Carlson.

Peskov believes that Tucker Carlson foresaw the heated sentiments around the interview with Vladimir Putin, but that it added to the popularity of the American journalist. “He’s still having a hard time, as far as I’m aware. But he is a clever enough man, I think he foresaw things would get heated. It’s fair to say that this interview has greatly raised his popularity,” Peskov said. On Thursday night, Carlson published his interview with the Russian president, which lasted for over two hours. Prior to that, the journalist faced criticism from his Western colleagues just for sitting down with the Russian leader. The interview sparked huge interest around the world, and has received more than 180 million views on X and 12 million on YouTube.

Oz dub
https://twitter.com/i/status/1756802067711115605

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“..if past is prologue, watch for the Israeli government to disregard the protests of its partners and benefactors — protests that may be offered primarily for domestic consumption..”

Egypt Warns Israel: Rafah Invasion Could Negate ’79 Peace Treaty (ZH)

With Israel on the verge of invading Gaza’s southernmost city, Egypt is warning that such a move could trigger a suspension of the treaty that has maintained peace between the two countries since 1979, the Wall Street Journal reports. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday directed the Israeli Defense Forces to plan the evacuation of the city of Rafah, which lies on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt and reportedly holds more than a million refugees already forced from their homes elsewhere in the 25-mile-long strip. One particularly sensitive slice of real estate is the so-called Philadelphi Route or Philadelphi Corridor, which stretches nine miles along the Gaza-Egypt border. Diplomatic accords establish limits on the number of troops that either Israel or Egypt can position in several delineated zones along and near the border, and certainly don’t authorize large numbers of Israeli troops and armored vehicles.

In late December, Netanyahu said the Philadelphi Route “has to be in our hands” if Gaza is to be effectively and permanently demilitarized. In January, an Egyptian official said, “It must be strictly emphasized that any Israeli move in this direction will lead to a serious threat to Egyptian-Israeli relations.” While an Egyptian diplomatic delegation visited Tel Aviv on Friday to discuss the situation in Gaza, Mexican Egyptian President Sisi has rejected several phone calls from Netanyahu over recent weeks, sources tell the Journal. The threat that large numbers of Palestinian refugees could soon be pouring across the border raises many deep concerns for Egypt. Perhaps more than the challenge of managing a humanitarian crisis, if displaced Palestinians launch attacks on the IDF from Egypt, that could trigger Israeli retaliatory strikes across the border. If Israel doesn’t allow the Palestinians to return, tensions between Israel and Egypt would be sharply increased for years to come.

Since the war began, Egypt has been reinforcing its border with Gaza, building a concrete, barbed-wire-topped wall that extends six meters into the ground below it, while also boosting surveillance capabilities, and moving tanks and armored vehicles into the vicinity. The Israel-Hamas war is proving costly for Egypt in other ways, as Suez Canal traffic has plummeted some 30%. Egypt’s warning comes alongside expressions of concern by a variety of countries both inside and outside of the region: “Military operations right now would be a disaster for those people, and it’s not something that we would support,” said US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.

“Invading Rafah… which is the last refuge for hundreds of thousands of civilians whom the brutal Israeli aggression displaced will have [grave] consequences,” said the Saudi foreign ministry. “Deeply concerned about the prospect of a military offensive in Rafah – over half of Gaza’s population are sheltering in the area,” tweeted UK foreign secretary David Cameron. “The people of Gaza cannot disappear into thin air…[it is a] “humanitarian catastrophe in the making,” said German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. A Rafah invasion would create an “unspeakable humanitarian catastrophe,” said EU Foreign Minister Joseph Borrell. Israel’s plan “threatens to cause the loss of more innocent life and exacerbate the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip,” said the United Arab Emirates foreign ministry. However, if past is prologue, watch for the Israeli government to disregard the protests of its partners and benefactors — protests that may be offered primarily for domestic consumption.

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“Ukraine offers Europeans no additional security because most of us are already members of NATO, which is much stronger than Russia..”

Ukraine Should Be A ‘Buffer Zone’ – Orban (RT)

Ukraine’s best geopolitical bet would be to become a “buffer zone” between Russia and the West, under arrangements made to guarantee the country’s future security, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said. The Hungarian premier made the remarks while debating former Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schussel, with excerpts from the exchange published by the Vienna daily Die Presse. Orban disagreed with Schussel’s contention that the Ukraine crisis could be solved only if the immediate start of negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the EU and NATO coincided with the start of ceasefire talks. [BQ] Whether we like it or not, whether Ukrainians like it or not, Ukraine is on the map where it is. The best prospect for it would be to form a buffer zone between Russia and the West – with security guarantees, of course.

In any other case, according to the prime minister, “Ukraine will lose its land,” and “the Russians will destroy Ukraine again and again.” He stressed that Moscow would “never accept an EU and NATO member like Ukraine on its doorstep.” Orban also rejected claims by officials in Brussels and Kiev that Ukraine is “defending” Europe. “Ukraine offers Europeans no additional security because most of us are already members of NATO, which is much stronger than Russia,” he stated, adding that there is “no risk” that Russia could attack a bloc member. He also pushed back against Schussel’s argument that a ceasefire would mean a de facto defeat for Ukraine, saying that this depends on how a person sees the future as Kiev could potentially lose more territory.

According to Orban, the EU is also in no position to provide Ukraine with an adequate amount of weapons and money, adding that the bloc’s citizens are “dissatisfied because their governments are giving Ukraine more and more financial support”. Russia has repeatedly voiced concerns about NATO’s unchecked expansion towards its borders after the collapse of the Soviet Union, with President Vladimir Putin citing Ukraine’s push to join the alliance as one of the key reasons for the current conflict. In December 2021, weeks before the start of the hostilities, Moscow submitted a draft of security guarantees to the US and NATO, demanding that the West ban Kiev’s accession to the military bloc and retreat to its borders as of 1997. The overture, however, was rebuffed.

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Nice club to be a member of…

EU Openly Threatened Orban For His Reluctance To Finance Kiev (TASS)

Leaders of the European Union openly threatened to undermine the Hungarian economy if its government refuses to approve financial aid to Ukraine, said Balazs Orban, the political director of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Financial Times reported on January 29, citing an internal EU document, that Brussels was drawing up a confidential plan to undermine Hungary’s economy if it continued to refuse to approve funding for Ukraine. According to the article, the EU threatened to completely freeze Hungary’s outstanding funds and collapse the exchange rate for the national currency, the Hungarian forint, in order to harm the Central European country’s economy and impair its investment attractiveness. “When the heads of EU states and governments talked to the prime minister by phone, they openly threatened him with these particular consequences,” the official told Austria’s Exxpress news portal.

At the EU summit in Brussels on December 14-15, 2023, the Hungarian prime minister blocked amendments to the community’s budget for 2024-2027 that called for allocating 50 bln euros to Ukraine. Instead, Viktor Orban proposed providing financial aid to Kiev on an annual basis with strict controls over expenditures. On February 1, the European Union summit approved the allocation of 50 billion euro from the EU budget to Ukraine spread out over the next four years. At the same time, they accepted Hungary’s proposal and established a mechanism to control the spending of funds. In a year from now, the EU will discuss this issue again, and in two years, it will revise the amount of financial aid to Ukraine in light of its own new budget drafting.

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“Should we begin the same negotiations, there’s a completely different reality now. And this new reality, no matter how painful it may be for the Kiev regime, must be recognized..”

Ukraine ‘Must Accept New Reality’ – Kremlin (RT)

Ukrainian authorities must accept the “new reality” no matter how “painful” it might be for them, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. He was responding to a question on the prospects of new talks between the two warring countries. Peskov made the remarks in an interview released by Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin on Sunday. Should Russia and Ukraine ever actually get back to the negotiating table, the potential talks will not be the same as those held early in the ongoing conflict, Peskov suggested. “Should we begin the same negotiations, there’s a completely different reality now. And this new reality, no matter how painful it may be for the Kiev regime, must be recognized,” he stressed.

While Peskov did not elaborate, he presumably referred to the territorial changes, namely incorporation of the four formerly Ukrainian regions, Zaporozhye and Kherson, as well as Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics into Russia following referendums in late 2022. Kiev, however, has repeatedly vowed to seize all its former territories from Moscow, including Crimea which broke away from Ukraine in the aftermath of the 2014 Maidan coup and subsequently joined Russia. The March 2022 negotiations between Moscow and Kiev culminated in the signature of a preliminary agreement between the two nations, signed in Istanbul. The deal obliged Russia to withdraw its troops from around the Ukrainian capital, but Kiev violated the agreement almost immediately after it had been signed.

According to recent revelations by David Arakhamia, the leader of president Vladimir Zelensky’s party in the Ukrainian parliament, and a key negotiator at the botched talks, then-UK PM Boris Johnson played a pivotal role in orchestrating the failure of the talks. As Arakhamia put it, Johnson at the time simply told the Ukrainians “let’s just continue fighting” and urged them not to sign anything with Russia. Moscow has repeatedly insisted it was ready to settle the hostilities through negotiations, blaming the lack of any diplomatic effort on the matter on Kiev. The stance was reiterated by the Russian President Vladimir Putin during the conversation with the American journalist Tucker Carlson last week. “The President of Ukraine [Vladimir Zelensky] has legislated a ban on negotiating with Russia. He signed a decree forbidding everyone to negotiate with Russia. But how are we going to negotiate if he forbade himself and everyone to do this? We know that he is putting forward some ideas about this settlement. But in order to agree on something, we need to have a dialogue,” Putin stated.

RFK Ukraine

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EU governments would be overthrown.

10 Million More Refugees Could Flee To Germany If Ukraine Falls – Welt (RT)

As many as 10 million more refugees could flood into Germany if Ukraine disintegrates, Welt am Sonntag has said, citing estimates from officials. Despite the worsening situation regarding the conflict with Russia, the German government still believes this worst-case scenario is not likely to materialize this year, the media outlet added. Since the conflict between Kiev and Moscow flared up almost two years ago, 1.1 million Ukrainians have fled to the country, according to the German Interior Ministry. Meanwhile, the flow of newcomers from other countries, including Syria, Afghanistan, and African nations, shows no sign of abating. In 2023, more than 350,000 people applied for asylum in Germany, the highest number since 2016, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) reported last month.

The German government estimates that approximately 10 million people would flee Ukraine if the country falls apart, Die Welt, citing anonymous security officials and a lawmaker, said in an article on Saturday. The vast majority of these people would head westward in hopes of reaching Germany, the media outlet claims. Roderich Kiesewetter, an MP from the opposition Christian Democratic Party, told reporters that European nations should pick up the slack as US President Joe Biden’s aid package remains deadlocked in Congress. “If we don’t change our strategy on support for Ukraine, the worst-case scenario of a massive exodus from Ukraine and a spread of the war to NATO states will be much more likely,” the lawmaker predicted. Kiesewetter went on to warn that in this case, “ten million refugees are a rather lowball assumption.” Last week, the governor of the German state of Hesse, Boris Rhein, announced that the federal government and all 16 states of the country had agreed to issue special debit cards to refugees, which are supposed to supersede cash payments during the course of the year.

According to the official, the cards will “prevent the possibility of transferring money from state subsidies to countries of origin, and thus combat… human-trafficking.” Pre-paid cards will apparently have limited functionality, with features such as free cash withdrawal and transfers to recipients inside and outside of Germany disabled. They will also not work outside of the country, or even a designated municipality within it. Last month, the German parliament passed legislation that facilitates the deportation of failed asylum seekers and grants additional powers to the police. The new rules considerably extend the custody period pending deportation, in order to prevent situations in which failed applicants simply abscond around the time they are supposed to be sent home.

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“..while Zaluzhny was respected by his troops and liked by the civilian population, Syrsky evokes the opposite reaction..”

Zaluzhny’s Photo With Banderite a ‘Threat’ to Zelensky (Sp.)

Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky fired the top General for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valery Zaluzhny, after weeks of speculation and conflicting reports. The weekend before, after media outlets reported on his imminent firing but before it became official, the Ukrainian commander of the 67th Mechanized Brigade Andriy Stempitsky posted an image of himself smiling next to Zaluzhny with a portrait of former Nazi Stepan Bandera and a red and black Banderaite flag. Mark Sleboda, an international relations and security analyst told Sputnik’s Fault Lines on Friday that the image was an “explicit threat against Zelensky.” “We saw Zaluzhny pose over [the] last weekend for a photo with a commander of the Right Sector*, the Banderite fascist, neo-Nazi battalion that is now an official part of the military,” Sleboda recounted. “In front of his giant portrait of Stepan Bandera, the West Ukrainian genocidal Nazi collaborator […] and next to a red and black Banderite flag with the inscription ‘victory without negotiations.’ So, I saw that as a pretty explicit threat against Zelensky.”

Sleboda noted unconfirmed reports that the Ukrainian intelligence agencies were given orders to watch for soldiers leaving the front but also noted that any potential unrest depends largely on Zaluzhny’s next move. “Does he do anything to incite this? Does he maneuver behind the scenes with other political figures against Zelensky? Does he stay quiet and actually put the interest of the regime above his personal ego for the time being?” Sleboda asked. “I don’t know about that because he refused to resign and decided to make, obviously, a political issue out of this,” he concluded, referring to Zaluzhny’s reported refusal to resign. March 15, will be a date to watch, Sleboda said. March 15 is when Zelensky’s current presidential term should end but likely won’t because of a martial law declaration that has been in place in Ukraine since the start of Russia’s special military operation, but Sleboda thinks forces in Ukraine may use that date to make a move against the president.


Zaluzhny with Ukrainian 67th Mechanized Brigade commander Andriy Stempitsky post with a metal in front of a portrait of Stepan Bandera.

“There may be political forces unhappy with Zelensky within the regime that will use that as the point to say that he is not a legitimate leader after that and seek to seize control,” Sleboda speculated. Sleboda also explained that he does not believe Zaluzhny’s dismissal was based on bad strategy but for personal reasons. “This was all personal,” Sleboda explained. “He made mistakes, there’s no question there but most […] on both sides, seem to regard Zaluzhny as more intelligent, more competent and more, shall we say, [an] out of the box thinker than [Zaluzhny’s replacement General Oleksandr] Syrsky.” Earlier in the interview, Sleboda explained that while Zaluzhny was respected by his troops and liked by the civilian population, Syrsky evokes the opposite reaction.

“He was the commander of the ground forces, he was responsible for the unsuccessful defenses of [Artemovsk] and […] Soledar,” Sleboda explained. “They call him General Butcher and General 200 (ed. note: ‘Cargo 200’ – military slang used in the Soviet and post-Soviet states referring to the transportation of the deceased soldiers) and neither one of those are favorable,” Sleboda continued. “It is in reference to his seemingly casual way of throwing away the lives of his own men.” Despite his Russian background, Syrsky was picked because of his loyalty to Zelensky, Sleboda explained. He also speculated that Syrsky would be more willing to commit reinforcements to Avdeyevka than Zaluzhny was, just like Syrsky did in the failed defense of Artemovsk. “This is evidently where we’re going, and General Butcher […] is going to be throwing more Kiev regime lives away,” he predicted.

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Professor Sergey Karaganov, honorary chairman of Russia’s Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, and academic supervisor at the School of International Economics and Foreign Affairs Higher School of Economics (HSE) in Moscow.

Russia Must Permanently Abandon Europe And Turn Fully To Asia (Karaganov)

At the end of the 2000s, with a group of young colleagues, we began to argue the merits and necessity of Russia’s “eastern pivot” (at the same time, current Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu – and his colleagues – were working in the same direction). The concepts and development focus of this challenge included the whole of Siberia and the Urals – a single historical, economic and human region. However, it turned out differently – pivot to Asia and its markets went administratively mainly through the Pacific Far East, and then the Arctic was added to it. The turn that began in the 2010s was successful, but only partially, largely because the Far East was artificially disconnected from the much more populous, industrialized and resource-rich eastern and western Siberia. It also continued to suffer from the “continental curse” – remoteness from markets.

Now, the new geostrategic situation urgently requires a return to the original idea – the eastward turn of all of Russia through the primary development of all of Siberia, including, of course, the Urals. In other words, we are talking about the “Siberization” of the whole country. Western Europe will be closed for many years and should never again become a first-class partner, while Asia is developing rapidly. The war provoked and unleashed by the West in Ukraine should not distract us from the movement towards the south and the east – where the center of human development is shifting. This new, but long foreseen, situation calls us to return to our “home.” A European journey of more than 300 years has given much, but long ago – a century ago, in reality – and has exhausted its usefulness.

Without this journey, initiated by Peter the Great, Russia would not have had many achievements. Foremost among them is the world’s greatest literature – the result of combining Russian culture, religion and morals with Western European culture. Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Pushkin, Gogol, then Blok, Pasternak, Solzhenitsyn – and other giants of the mind who have shaped our modern identity – would hardly have emerged without the “European injection.” During these three centuries, we have half-forgotten the eastern roots of our state and our people. The Mongols plundered, but they also promoted development. Finally, in opposition and cooperation with them, we learned from many elements of their statehood, which allowed us to build a powerful centralized state and continental thinking. From Genghis Khan’s empire we also seem to have inherited our cultural, national and religious openness. The Mongols did not impose their culture or their beliefs. Indeed, they were religiously open. That is why, in an effort to preserve Russia, Holy Prince Alexander Nevsky made an alliance with them.

Great Russia would not have come into being, and probably would not have survived on the Russian plain, besieged by rivals and enemies from the west and south, if our people had not moved en masse “behind the stone” (the Urals) “to meet the sun” from the 16th century onwards. Inexplicable, apart from the intervention of God’s will, is the speed of their impulse. The Cossacks reached the Great Ocean in six decades. The development of Siberia made the ancient Rus’, the Russian kingdom, into Great Russia. Even before it was proclaimed an empire, the resources of Siberia – first “soft gold,” then silver, gold, and other minerals – allowed us to create and equip a powerful army and navy. The caravans of the Northern Silk Road, carrying Chinese goods in exchange for furs to Russia and beyond, played an important role in this. There in Siberia, the Russians, competing and trading, began to work closely with the Central Asians, the ‘Bukharans’ as our people called them at the time.

Read more …

More protests to come.

Farmers Bring Poland To Standstill (RT)

Traffic in cities and town across Poland was severely obstructed on Friday as farmers staged protests over what they consider to be unfair competition from cheap Ukrainian produce, as well as the EU’s green policies. Over the past few months, Polish agricultural workers have also repeatedly blocked the border with Ukraine. The month of January saw similar demonstrations in other EU nations, including Germany, France, and the Netherlands, over Brussels’ climate policies which have led to fuel price hikes. German farmers have been demanding that Chancellor Olaf Scholz reverse the proposed scrapping of a diesel fuel subsidy worth as much as €3,000 ($3,260) annually. The authorities in neighboring France withdrew plans to cut similar subsidies after farmers blocked a major highway near Paris last month.

Organized by the Solidarity trade union, Friday’s protest affected around 260 localities across Poland, with thousands of farmers blocking or slowing down traffic with tractors and other heavy machinery. They also blocked several border crossings with Ukraine. Several highways leading to the capital, Warsaw, were congested as a result of the demonstration, local police reported. In a statement released ahead of the protest last week, Solidarity said it was planning to set up road blockades until March 10. The trade union called out the Polish government for readily accepting the EU’s guidelines on the “import of agricultural produce and food products from Ukraine.” The protesters also called the position adopted by Brussels at the latest EU summit “unacceptable.”

Similar rallies were held across Poland in January. A separate protest by another group of farmers and truckers blocking a key border crossing with Ukraine saw Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government capitulate to the protesters’ demands, which included reinstating a permit system for Ukrainian truckers, adopting government subsidies for Polish corn, and a moratorium on tax hikes. Last Thursday, the European Commission proposed extending the suspension of customs duties on agricultural goods from Ukraine and Moldova through 2025. The measure was originally scheduled to expire this year. Thousands of farmers from across the bloc descended on Brussels ahead of that summit, throwing eggs, rocks, and fireworks at the EU Parliament building and setting huge piles of manure on fire.

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“The problem is Hur, not a President who not only appeared confused in the press conference but openly lied about various established facts…”

“That is Not the Judgment of the Press” (Turley)

“That is not the judgment of the press.” Those words from President Joe Biden were a telling moment after a reporter noted that there is widespread concern that he is mentally diminished. Biden’s cranky response was overshadowed by his confusion on other points during the press conference, including mixing up the presidents of Egypt and Mexico. However, it captured the sense of license and expectation of the Biden White House that the press is supposed to toe the line, as it has for three years. In the disastrous press conference, CNN correspondent MJ Lee reminded Biden that he had urged Americans to “watch me” when he was confronted over his age: “Many [of the] American people have been watching, and they have expressed concerns about your age.” The President angrily responded: “That is your judgment!. That is your judgment! That is not the judgment of the press.”

The next day, many in the media came to Biden’s defense and attacked the Special Counsel report which detailed his “diminished faculties.” Others cleaned up the remark about the press. Biden clearly stated “That is your judgment! That is your judgment. That is not the judgment of the press.” NBC did not include the line in articles on the press conference despite showing it on the live coverage. Roll Call actually edited the President’s remarks to insert “for” in the key line: “That is not the judgment [for] the press.” That changed the line from questioning the right of the press to make such judgments to telling a reporter what the press view should be. Even if it was a Freudian slip, it was a telling slip. Other media inserted or suggested “public” rather than the press in the line. The obvious exasperation of the President reflects years of a passive, enabling media that shielded Biden from difficult questions on various scandals, including the corruption scandal.

What was striking, however, was the degree to which President Biden and his staff spent this week putting out clearly false statements. In an administration that has pushed for the censorship of citizens accused of disinformation, misinformation, and malinformation, the President openly lied about his conduct and the report. President Biden, for example, stated that the Special Counsel report found that he did not willfully retain material. It found the opposite . . . repeatedly. He stated that he did not disclose classified material to his ghostwriter. Special Counsel Hur found precisely the opposite. Biden stated that the material was not highly classified with “that red stuff…around the corners.” In fact, Hur found that the material was “highly sensitive,” including an Afghanistan-related memo from the National Security Adviser to President Barack Obama in 2009 marked “TOP SECRET/SCI” (Sensitive Compartmented Information).

Biden stated that all of the material was kept in locked or lockable filing cabinets. That was a lie. As the pictures vividly demonstrated, Hur found material in unlocked areas and virtually spilling out of torn boxes in his garage. What is notable is that Biden works almost entirely off teleprompters, reading statements clearly crafted by his staff. That would indicate that some of these comments were promulgated by staff. Even in the press conference on Friday, Ian Sams, spokesman for the White House Counsel’s Office ran into a skeptical reporter in the form of Jon Decker, the White House correspondent for Gray Television. Decker is the former head of the White House Correspondents Association and one of my former students. Decker is the gold standard for reporters and has always been objective, tough, and fair. His approach has not changed from the Trump to the Biden Administration.

Decker challenged Sam on coming to the podium to address the President’s statements and proceeding to make a false claim that this is the first Special Counsel to end his investigation without charges. So why would the White House risk looking like it is going full “Baghdad Bob” in denying readily observable facts? Because this is no real risk. The reason was evident the day after the report. While usually supportive outlets had to acknowledge the President’s false claims, media figures from MSNBC and CNN quickly fell into line and launched a full attack on Hur, often repeating identical words used by the White House about his observations being “gratuitous.” The problem is Hur, not a President who not only appeared confused in the press conference but openly lied about various established facts.

5 minutes

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“..who exactly had serially lied about Beau Biden’s demise, by claiming that he had died while on duty in Iraq, serving in the Delaware National Guard as a Judge Advocate? Joe Biden.”

“Oh What a Tangled Web Biden Weaves, When He First Practices to Deceive” (VDH)

Joe Biden and his White House handlers continue to peddle misinformation if not lies about his removal of classified files. The worst is that Biden—supposedly so unlike Trump—came forward willingly as soon as he realized that he had unlawfully, but inadvertently, removed and possessed classified files. And thus he cooperated fully and promptly with federal authorities. The truth is far, far different. Biden removed files improperly both as a Senator and Vice President. He held some of them in his unlawful possession for perhaps at least 14 years without a word to authorities, dating back at least to his departure from the Senate on January 15, 2009 when he resigned to become Vice President—or if not longer over his some 36-year Senate career. In fact, in 2017 Biden was fully aware that he had wrongly removed these classified files. As Hur noted, there is a taped conversation on record between Biden and his ghostwriter to just that effect.

Biden, at home in Virginia, was recorded as remarking, “I just found all the classified stuff downstairs”. And yet Biden apparently did nothing. He never came forward to any federal authorities for nearly the next five years. So given that knowledge, why did the attorneys belatedly disclose Biden’s possession of the files on November 2, 2022? Civic virtue? Altruism? Respect for the law? Hardly. Otherwise, Biden would have disclosed his unlawful possession at any time during either the intervening prior years when he was a private citizen or during the first 18 months of his presidency, when he knowingly still possessed classified files and still did nothing about it. In truth, Biden would likely never have come forward, save for one insurmountable problem: Merrick Garland had likely decided to appoint Jack Smith as a special prosecutor to investigate the Trump files that the FBI had swooped into Mar-a-Lago looking for 3 months earlier on August 8, 2022.

In other words, knowing that Smith or a generic special counsel would very quickly be appointed (Smith was sworn in a little over two weeks later, on November 18, 2022), suddenly Biden and Co. preempted that announcement, in fear that Biden had done virtually the same thing as Trump—albeit without presidential declassification power and for at least 14 years in possession of classified files. Had the attorneys and Biden not come forward, Trump and others would have asked whether Biden had not also removed files. So to get out in front of the formal announcement of the Smith appointment, they preempted, misleadingly and disingenuously, preening that civic virtue had prompted Biden’s “voluntary” disclosures and “cooperation”.

A final note: one of the more disturbing moments in Biden’s catastrophic press conference was his flare up at Hur’s revelation (“How dare he bring up that!”) that in formal interviews an enfeebled Biden had not remembered the general date of his son’s tragic death from a glioblastoma brain tumor on May 30th, 2015 at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington DC. Biden went on to vent at Hur. But Hur was simply documenting his analysis that Biden was severely cognitively impaired, and not as VP Kamala Harris claimed, gratuitously smearing Biden. But who exactly had serially lied about Beau Biden’s demise, by claiming that he had died while on duty in Iraq, serving in the Delaware National Guard as a Judge Advocate? Joe Biden.

Mayorkas

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“Trump has a curious fortune in critics who seem over time to combust in rather spectacular fashion..”

Could Trump Win By Simple Attrition Rather than Vindication? (Turley)

While Woody Allen once said that “80 percent of success is showing up,” former president Donald Trump proved this week that the same could be said about “just sticking around.” Trump had one of the best weeks as cases and critics seemed to implode from the disqualification effort in Washington to the scandal in Georgia. Yet, Trump is not out of the woods and is facing significant threats in what is becoming a war of attrition. In Washington, the Supreme Court gave a chilly reception to the disqualification effort that bordered on the glacial. While law professors like Harvard’s Laurence Tribe insisted that the basis for barring Trump from office under the 14th Amendment was “unassailable,” the justices seemed utterly unconvinced and there is the possibility that the entire effort could now be defeated unanimously. Even liberal justice Ketanji Onyika Brown Jackson called the effort anti-democratic.

In Georgia, the case against Trump is floundering as allegations mount against Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis over her intimate relationship with her subordinate special prosecutor Nathan J. Wade. This week, a court filing alleged that Willis and Wade filed false claims in court on when their relationship began. The two prosecutors have insisted that they only became intimate after Willis hired Wade. Wade’s former lawyer has reportedly come forward to contest that claim. That allegation, if true, could make the continuation of Willis and Wade in the case untenable. Various defendants being prosecuted in Georgia are accused of false statements and filings in court. Of course, the removal of Willis and Wade will not necessarily end the case, but it will present logistical and optical problems for the office. There are also calls for the removal of Alvin Bragg in New York, who is accused of being lax on crime overall despite his determined effort to convict Trump.

Trump has a curious fortune in critics who seem over time to combust in rather spectacular fashion. Michael Cohen, his former lawyer, went to jail and lost his law license. At the Justice Department, various FBI officials from the Russian investigation were accused of wrongdoing and forced out of the Justice Department. That included James Comey who was found to have removed FBI material after Trump fired him and gave it to a friend who leaked it to the press. Another official pleaded guilty to criminal conduct associated with the Russian investigation. In politics, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who attacked Trump for his treatment of women, was forced out of office for sexual harassment. Michael Avenatti was sentenced to a long prison term for fraud and other crimes. Senator Robert Menendez (D., N.J.) who voted for Trump to be convicted in the Senate is now under indictment for corruption.

Even in the arts, Trump critics have fallen from great heights. Comedian Kathy Griffin has not only become persona non grata after her gory depiction of a beheaded Trump but she is now beseeching people to buy tickets for a languishing come-back tour. Alec Baldwin, who scathingly played Trump, has been criminally charged after shooting a movie crew member. Of course, it is fair to note that some of Trump’s allies have fared equally badly, including those convicted or facing trial such as Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and others. Yet, there is no question that time has worked in Trump’s favor in fulfilling certain narratives. He has accused the Democrats of trying to rig elections. While debunking claims in 2020, Democrats like Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold bulldozed any high ground by trying to prevent citizens from voting for Trump as he leads in the polls.

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“Global debt has surged by $100 trillion from a decade ago and hit a record of $307.4 trillion last September..”

Soaring Debt Pushing Wealthy Nations To ‘Fiscal Death’ – Economist (RT)

Major economies that fail to address their mounting debt issues will die a “fiscal death,” the head of investment and wealth advisory Laffer Tengler Investments, Arthur Laffer, has warned. In an interview with CNBC this week, he predicted a “decade of debt,” adding that the borrowing crisis has embraced both developed and emerging countries, and it is not going to “end well.” Global debt has surged by $100 trillion from a decade ago and hit a record of $307.4 trillion last September, amid the biggest surge in global interest rates in 40 years, according to the economist. Wealthy countries such as the US, UK, France, and Japan account for more than 80% of that increase due to their uncontrolled accumulation of debt.

China, India, and Brazil saw the most pronounced growth of borrowings among emerging markets. “I would expect that some of the bigger countries that don’t address their debt issues will die a slow fiscal death,” Laffer said, adding that some emerging economies “could quite conceivably go bankrupt.” While low-income countries are at high risk of debt distress, repaying debt would be particularly problematic for high-income countries due to an aging population and a lack of workforce, the economist warned. The most recent report by the Institute of International Finance shows that the share of debt has hit a staggering 336% of global GDP compared to an average debt-to-GDP ratio of 110% in 2012 for advanced economies, and 35% for emerging markets.

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“If Putin and Xi and the Iranians think that they can sit out the conflict, they are mistaken. You cannot sit out a conflict that is directed at you.”

Peaceful Protests Are a Waste of Time and Energy (Paul Craig Roberts)

Will protesters ever learn that peaceful protests do not work when governments care not what people think and represent private agendas and not the people? The protests that work are the violent ones by Black Lives Matter and Antifa. It appears that one-tenth of a million Gazans have already been killed or maimed by the American-financed and militarily-supplied Israeli intended genocide of the remnants of the Palestinian population, a people who have been evicted from their lands and villages bit by bit since 1947. This time the violence is massive, and only the Houthis, a poor population in Yemen that survived years of Washington-inspired attacks from Saudi Arabia, has lifted a hand to help the Palestinians. The “civilized West” responded to the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians by cancelling their contributions to the UN agency that provides Palestinians with humanitarian aid.

Consequently, now 1,000,000 Palestinians are facing starvation as Israel has blocked food deliveries and medicines, knocked out the water supply, hospitals, sanitation, and intends to drive any surviving Palestinians into Egypt. So what do we hear from the governments of the “great moral West”? We hear about Israel’s right of “self-defense.” The Western governments, immoral to the hilt and all enthralled to Israel, have redefined genocide as self-defense. The West’s citizens are so successfully propagandized by Israeli disinformation over decades and generations that the subservience of Western “democracies” to Israel goes unremarked among the small part of the world that is considered to be the West. But not in the rest of the world. The United States and Israel have achieved the status of pariah states, the agents of Satan.

Why, despite this realization, does the rest of the world sit watching the destruction of a people, as Romans watched for entertainment lions devouring Christians in the Colosseum? Russia, China, Iran, and the rest with the exception of South Africa, which took Israel to the International Court of Justice, have not lifted a finger to help the Palestinians. Washington claims to protest but keeps sending Israel the weapons. This despite the fact that the governments of Russia, China, and Iran know that the real target is them. Israel and the neoconservatives intend the destruction of Iran, which will release “jihadists” into the Russian Federation and deprive China of oil. It is Japan in the 1930s all over again, and yet the targeted countries do nothing. If Putin and Xi and the Iranians think that they can sit out the conflict, they are mistaken. You cannot sit out a conflict that is directed at you.

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“The widespread and persistent use of Midazolam in UK suggests a possible policy of systemic euthanasia.”

The Crime Of The Century: Midazolam Murders – Euthanizing The Elderly (Kelly)

If the data is correct, the only conclusion is that tens of thousands of elderly English were murdered with an injection of the end of life drug Midazolam. These deaths were then falsely blamed on Covid, which was the basis of the public fear campaigns used to justify the lockdowns and mass mandated injections of the public (including children) with an experimental medical intervention that had zero long term safety data. And along the way, a small group pushing the need for mass mandated injections made billions.

https://researchgate.net/publication/377266988_Excess_Deaths_in_the_United_Kingdom_Midazolam_and_Euthanasia_in_the_COVID-19_Pandemic

This paper shows that the UK spike in deaths, wrongly attributed to COVID-19 in April 2020, was not due to SARS-CoV-2 virus, which was largely absent, but was due to the widespread use of Midazolam injections which were statistically very highly correlated (coefficient over 90 percent) with excess deaths in all regions of England during 2020. The widespread and persistent use of Midazolam in UK suggests a possible policy of systemic euthanasia.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

SolarActivity

 

 

RFK vaccines

 

 

Biolabs
https://twitter.com/i/status/1756606702634348580

 

 

 

 

Model X

 

 

CO2

 

 

Fish
https://twitter.com/i/status/1756426580446834935

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Feb 102024
 
 February 10, 2024  Posted by at 9:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  66 Responses »


Edward Hopper Christmas card 1928

 

Eventful Events (James Howard Kunstler)
Biden’s Angry Press Conference Made Hur’s Memory Report Infinitely Worse (Sp.)
Putin Interview May Help Stop West From Committing Suicide – Scott Ritter (Sp.)
Tucker-Putin Interview to Erode Funding Crusade for US in Ukraine (Sp.)
Putin Interview Helps Americans Understand Ukraine Conflict – Kwiatkowski (Sp.)
The Biden-Schumer Plan to Kill More Ukrainians (Jeffrey Sachs)
Ukraine’s Top General Fired For Disobeying US – Politico (RT)
Nuland Told Zelensky Not To Fire Top General – The Times (RT)
Ukraine’s New Commander-in-chief Is An Unpopular ‘Butcher’ – Politico (RT)
General Syrsky, Hero of Kiev or Butcher of Bakhmut? (Sp.)
Houthis Say All Warships Must Leave Red Sea (Sp.)
Any Gaza Deal Could Break Netanyahu’s Coalition (Harb)
German Foreign Minister’s Grandfather Was ‘Ardent Nazi’ – Bild (RT)
The “Unassailable” Theory Faces a Potential Unanimous Rejection (Turley)
Biden’s Eulogy Will Be ‘Journalism RIP’. How He Destroyed the 4th Estate (Jay)

 

 

 

 

Tenney
https://twitter.com/i/status/1756024349239246939

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1755830142910566427

https://twitter.com/i/status/1756011968115220878

 

 

Obama3rd

 

 

 

 

RFK Biden

 

 

Mamet
https://twitter.com/i/status/1755767014876926374

 

 

 

 

“Mr. Biden’s charade of running for reelection must come to an end. What will the Democratic party do about that?”

Eventful Events (James Howard Kunstler)

This Friday morning, the USA is fraught with events unspooling. As I write, with dawn just breaking, there is almost zero opinion yet formed about these troubling matters on the vast Internet — but it will probably come in hot-and-heavy as the day ticks on. If Mr. Biden is truly mentally incompetent, as established more-or-less legally by Special Counsel Hur, then there is the obvious remedy of the 25th amendment — removal of a president for reason of disability. A debate over this would seem unavoidable now. The question also implies that Mr. Biden’s charade of running for reelection must come to an end. What will the Democratic party do about that?

A not inconsiderable part of our Ukraine problem has been that our chief executive was for years engaged in bribery and money-laundering misadventures there, for which there is abundant and powerful evidence, meaning he may have had very personal interests in keeping that country disordered — and sending billions of dollars there, some of it surely embezzled among the Zelensky government. You’d have to also be aware that the bag-man in those operations, the President’s son, Hunter, might well have misbehaved with drugs and prostitutes on his many trips to Ukraine as a board member of Burisma. Hunter’s self-compiled archive of round-the-world drug-fueled porn recordings on the laptop that (the FBI confirmed recently) was unquestionably his own, suggests that the Ukraine authorities may have their own recordings of him behaving similarly, or worse, and are using them to blackmail “President Joe Biden.”

We will also learn the judgment, probably with remarkable dispatch, of the Supreme Court in the matter of Colorado kicking Donald Trump off the election ballot. Meanwhile, the case against Mr. Trump in Fulton County, Georgia, is falling apart in DA Fani Willis’s pathetically comical scandal, now with a new “love nest” twist (paid for with public money). And Judge Engoron and AG Letitia James might be weighing the fates of their reputations in the shabbily-conducted and bogus real estate valuation fraud case against Mr. Trump, which will eventually be vivisected at some level of appeal. The old saying remains powerful: There are decades when nothing happens, and weeks when decades happen.

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“If Obama came out and said, ‘I’ve had enough. I’ve seen enough. This has to stop,’ then maybe.”

Biden’s Angry Press Conference Made Hur’s Memory Report Infinitely Worse (Sp.)

Biden’s press conference was held in response to the report issued by special counsel Robert Hur concluding that the President should not be charged for his handling of classified documents during and after his time as Vice President. Among the reasons Hur decided against prosecution was that he felt Biden’s defense would present him as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” noting that during their interview the President’s memory was “significantly limited” and that “He did not remember when he was vice president.” The report quoted the President in a conversation that was recorded asking “If it was 2013 – when did I stop being Vice President?” and “In 2009, am I still Vice President?.It also notes that he couldn’t remember “even within several years” when his son Beau Biden died. During the press conference, Biden slammed the report for containing “extraneous commentary” that has “no place in this report.”

Hur

However, moments earlier he stopped midway through a sentence explaining where his deceased son got a rosary for him. “I wear, since the day he died, every single day, the rosary he got from our Lady of–” he said before abruptly pausing for a few seconds and then changing the subject to an annual Memorial Day service he and his family holds for Beau Biden. Biden also snapped at reporters, when one asked him how bad his memory was, Biden shot back “My memory is so bad, I let you speak.” The decision to hold a press conference was motivated by anger, Martin argued, “He couldn’t control it because he was so angry […] he made it infinitely worse.” While Martin disagreed with co-hosts Ted Rall and Angie Wong that Biden may step down or be removed from office due to the report and subsequent press conference, he agreed that it may cause him to drop his bid for reelection. “I don’t see how he runs for reelection. He may stay in office to the end, but now there’s a real specific case to try to say, ‘It’s over, Joe.’ But I don’t think he thinks it is. I don’t think his wife [thinks it is.]”

Wong asked if the 25th Amendment, which allows a President’s cabinet to remove the President from power if he or she is incapacitated, could be invoked in Biden’s case. Martin said he does not believe it will happen but that Democrats know how bad it looks “I do think Democrats believe that they’re in big trouble because of this, but I don’t know the path [to removal,]” he speculated. “Both parties[…] set up a system where the President is so darn powerful […] if he doesn’t step away, and I don’t think he will, I think he is going to stay there.” Martin later added that it is a “tragedy” that his family is allowing him to continue on in his current state. When pressed, Martin did come up with one scenario that Democrats could use to convince Biden to drop out of the race: his former boss.

“If Obama came out and said, ‘I’ve had enough. I’ve seen enough. This has to stop,’ then maybe. But I can’t imagine Obama doing that. [Or] maybe I can, I don’t know. That might be the Hail Mary.”Martin also speculated that the Democratic convention could be a place to make the change. “The Democrats [could] go in and say ‘You know what? We don’t have a path forward here.’ But they’re out of time.” Martin argued. “Any move they make will look desperate, and part of the problem will be, [Biden] didn’t get this way yesterday, he’s been this way for […] two years or three years. How could you do this to this country? And I think that’s how voters will feel.”

MSNBC

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“Tucker Carlson opened a door into modern day Russia, opened a door into the personality of Vladimir Putin, opened a door into the history of Russia, opened a door into the Russian soul..”

Putin Interview May Help Stop West From Committing Suicide – Scott Ritter (Sp.)

Tucker Carlson’s interview with Vladimir Putin has gone viral almost immediately after being posted online on February 8, having been viewed over 50 million times on social media platform X alone mere hours after the upload. The interview in question turned out to be a “very much a tour de force” where Putin introduced American audience “to the nuances of Russian history” and “into the complexities of the Russian soul,” said former US Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter. “This really isn’t about the content, although there is some interesting information that came out. This is about the process. Tucker Carlson opened a door into modern day Russia, opened a door into the personality of Vladimir Putin, opened a door into the history of Russia, opened a door into the Russian soul,” he said. According to Ritter, during the course of the interview Putin, metaphorically speaking, “helped create a map” that can guide viewers “through the complexities of what makes Russia tick”

While it remains to be seen “how many millions of people” will watch Putin’s interview, Ritter argued that it is “one of the most important interviews of the modern era” because it “has the ability to stop the West and Russia from going to war, to stop the West from committing suicide. “All of the answers to all of the problems that face Russia and the West today were laid out by the Russian president. There’s no hidden agenda. There’s no, you know, secret code that has to be known,” he explained. “You just have to know Russia. You have to understand what makes Russia tick. You have to understand the thinking behind the Russian president’s decisions, the motives behind Russia. You have to understand Russia.” Though it appears unlikely that Carlson “understood Russia” when he set off to take this interview, he “knows that he was given a toolbox complete with tools, and now he has to go out and finish the job,” Ritter added.

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“..they really bring a different historical perspective to life that is very different from what Americans do. Americans don’t remember much.”

Tucker-Putin Interview to Erode Funding Crusade for US in Ukraine (Sp.)

American journalist Tucker Carlson has come under a barrage of verbal attacks and denunciation from the Washington elite for interviewing Russian President Vladimir Putin. Among those going into meltdown mode and vilifying the renowned ex-Fox News host, were the US mainstream media, Team Biden officials and disgruntled, two-time failed presidential contender Hillary Clinton who branded him as a “useful idiot”, claiming that everything that Putin would say would be a “pack of lies”. Meanwhile, millions took to Twitter and Carlson’s website to watch the history-making interview. “The media freak out,” Larry Johnson, a retired CIA intelligence officer, told Sputnik. “The media has been losing credibility with each passing week. They are seen as dishonest and propagandists. So, what they think is really of little importance, I don’t see a groundswell developing to try to attack Tucker. The irony is, if you take the Fox News Network and MSNBC and CNN combined, Tucker has more viewers, more people following him, than those networks do. They’re just jealous.”

“Tonight, Fox News Network and CNN and MSNBC combined may have had a total of 8 million viewers. Tucker is already three times the size of whatever they saw. Now he also has a global audience, but, you know, this thing is going to spread. I would anticipate that before this is done, well over 100 million people, maybe 200 million, will have watched it worldwide,” he predicted. The now-retired CIA official believes that Putin’s interview could end up eroding support for the Kiev regime among American conservatives and make it even more difficult for US lawmakers to funnel billions into Washington’s Ukraine proxy conflict. While speaking to Carlson, Putin briefly recounted Russia’s history to illustrate the strong cultural, religious, and ethnic bonds shared between Russians and Ukrainians.

The Russian president shed light on the post-Cold War period and US schemes to pull Ukraine away from Russia’s fold by promising to admit it into NATO and later fomenting a coup in 2014 with the active participation of neo-Nazi paramilitary groups which soon morphed into an eight-year war by the Kiev regime against Donbass. Putin underscored that Russia did not start the Ukraine conflict in 2022 but moved to end the Kiev regime’s war against its own people. “Putin believes, as I do, that history helps shape the present,” Johnson explained. “And if you don’t understand where you’ve been, you’ll have a tough time to understand where you’re going. And so understanding the history that’s inherent in all of this and particularly people in Russia, in the Caucasus, down into the Middle East, they really bring a different historical perspective to life that is very different from what Americans do. Americans don’t remember much.”

If Americans want to comprehend why Russia rushed to the rescue of Donbass in 2022 and declared the denazification of Ukraine to be one of its key goals, they must remember that the wounds of WW2 that are still fresh in Russia, the ex-CIA official stressed. “Whereas, as you see today, with respect to the Russian people remembering the Great Patriotic War [WW2], they remember,” Johnson noted. “They carry pictures. So it’s still fresh. And the damage inflicted upon the Russian people by the Germans, the Nazis, is something they have not forgotten and won’t easily forget. So I think that’s part of why Putin goes back to history, to drive home the point that Russians have a different timeline, different perspective from Americans. And it’s important for Americans to understand that.”

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“Because it is an election year, and Biden is standing for re-election, his backers in the administrative state are very afraid of any presentation of ‘a loss’ in Ukraine..”

Putin Interview Helps Americans Understand Ukraine Conflict – Kwiatkowski (Sp.)

Tucker Carlson’s interview with Vladimir Putin has shed light on the causes of the Ukrainian conflict which is “in many ways not normal” given Ukraine’s deep historic, cultural and ethnic ties to Russia, as per retired US Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, a former analyst for the US Department of Defense. Putin’s historic remarks have clearly shown to what extent the West meddled in Ukrainian affairs after the collapse of the USSR, fanned nationalist sentiment in the Eastern European state and eventually fomented a coup d’etat in 2014 which was completely unnecessary given that the legitimate Ukrainian leadership at the time sat down with the opposition and was ready to hold snap elections.Per Kwiatkowski, this interview actually helps drive home the message that the US arming of the Kiev regime and prolonging of the Ukraine conflict must be stopped, because it is unpopular, unaffordable and destroys the Eastern European country.

“Most public opinion here opposes sending money to Kiev,” the former Pentagon analyst pointed out. “Because it is an election year, and Biden is standing for re-election, his backers in the administrative state are very afraid of any presentation of ‘a loss’ in Ukraine. Hearing directly from President Putin and via his many incisive soundbites that will be replayed and discussed later for wider audiences will help Americans, although not the Biden administration. It will help the discussion that goes on in the US, and also Europe.”She noted that “members of Congress, especially Republicans, will be watching this in order to see how it may inform them as to how this conflict is going, and what it is about.” Most recently, the Senate voted to begin debate on a $95 billion aid package to fund Ukraine, Israel and other US allies.

However, the US mainstream press admitted that the bill faces an “uphill battle” given that the debate will begin just days before the Senate’s two-week recess and just a few weeks before government shutdown deadlines in March. The legislation is a variant of the $118 billion bill earlier blocked by Republican senators and stripped of its border provisions. Previously, House Speaker Mike Johnson made it clear that the “compromise” bipartisan bill will be dead on arrival in the lower chamber. He and other conservative Republicans also signaled that the foreign aid package should not be rammed through the US Congress until measures to tackle the US border crisis are adopted.

Putin touched on US domestic issues during his interview with Carlson, explaining “what many people here also know, and that is the damage we are doing to our US dollar, and our own ability to be a strong, healthy, economically productive economy,” said Kwiatkowski. The US’ deeper engagement in its proxy war in Ukraine is fraught with a risk of a direct conflict with Russia. When asked about the prospect of NATO-Russia war, Putin said: “If someone has the desire to send in American troops that would certainly bring humanity to the brink of a very serious global conflict… This conflict is taking place thousands of kilometers away from your national territory! Don’t you have anything better to do?” Kwiatkowski believes this message will resonate in the United States.

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“The 2014 Ukraine team, including Biden, Nuland, Jake Sullivan (then and now Biden’s national security advisor), Geoffrey Pyatt, and Antony Blinken (then the deputy national security advisor), remains the Ukraine team today. It is a team of bunglers..”

The Biden-Schumer Plan to Kill More Ukrainians (Jeffrey Sachs)

President Joe Biden is refusing to fold a losing hand as he bets with Ukrainian lives and U.S. taxpayer money. Biden and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer propose to squander the lives of tens of thousands more Ukrainians and $61 billions of federal funds to keep Biden’s disastrous foreign policy failure hidden from view until after the November election. The $61 billion will make no difference on the battlefield except to prolong the war, the tens of thousands of deaths, and the physical destruction of Ukraine. It will not “save” Ukraine. Ukraine’s security can only be achieved at the negotiating table, not by some fantasized military triumph over Russia. $61 billion is not nothing. This worse-than-useless outlay would exceed the combined budgets of the U.S. Department of Labor, Environmental Protection Agency, National Science Foundation, and the Women, Infant, and Children nutrition program.

Almost exactly 10 years ago this month, Biden did much to put Ukraine on the path to disaster. This is well known to those who have looked carefully at the facts but is kept hidden from view by the White House, the Senate Democrats, and the mainstream media that back Biden. I have previously provided a detailed chronology, with hyperlinks, here. Ukraine’s security can only be achieved at the negotiating table, not by some fantasized military triumph over Russia.In 1990, President George H. W. Bush, Sr. and his German counterpart Chancellor Helmut Kohl promised Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not expand eastward if the Soviet Union accepted German reunification. When the Soviet Union disbanded in December 1991, with Russia as the successor state, American leaders decided to renege.

President Bill Clinton began NATO expansion over the vociferous opposition of top diplomats like George Kennan and the opposition of his own Secretary of Defense, William Perry. In 1997 Zbigniew Brzezinski upped the ante, with a plan for NATO to expand all the way to Ukraine. He famously wrote that without Ukraine, Russia would cease to be a great power. Russian leaders have repeatedly made clear that NATO expansion to Ukraine is understandably the reddest of Russian redlines. In 2007, President Vladmir Putin stated that NATO enlargement to that date was a cheat on the 1990 promise, and that it must go no further. Despite these clear warnings, including by his own diplomats, George W. Bush Jr. committed in 2008 to expand NATO to Ukraine and Georgia in order to surround Russia in the Black Sea.William Burns, now CIA director, and then the U.S. Ambassador to Russia, wrote a famous memo entitled “Nyet means Nyet,” explaining that Russia’s opposition to NATO enlargement was across Russia’s political spectrum.

Most Ukrainians themselves were also firmly against the plan, favoring neutrality over NATO membership. The Ukrainian Rada declared Ukraine’s state sovereignty in 1990 on the basis of becoming “a permanently neutral state.” In 2009, the people of Ukraine elected Viktor Yanukovych, who ran on a platform of neutrality.In early 2014, the U.S. decided to help bring down Yanukovych in a coup. This was standard U.S. deep-state operating procedure, one used on dozens of occasions around the world. The CIA, National Endowment for Democracy, USAID, and NGOs like the Open Society Foundation went to work in Ukraine. The point person was Victoria Nuland, who was first Richard Cheney’s principal deputy foreign policy advisor, then George Bush Jr.’s ambassador to NATO, then Hillary Clinton’s spokesperson, and by 2014 Assistant Secretary of State.

This time, the Russians caught the conspiracy on tape, in an intercepted call between Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt (now Assistant Secretary of State). Nuland explains to Pyatt that Vice President Joe Biden will help choose and cement the post-coup government. The 2014 Ukraine team, including Biden, Nuland, Jake Sullivan (then and now Biden’s national security advisor), Geoffrey Pyatt, and Antony Blinken (then the deputy national security advisor), remains the Ukraine team today. It is a team of bunglers. They thought that Yanukovych’s overthrow would quickly usher in NATO expansion. Instead, ethnic Russians in Ukraine virulently rejected the Russophobic post-coup government that was installed by Nuland, and called for autonomy of the ethnically Russian regions. In a referendum, Crimea voted overwhelmingly to join Russia.

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“..Syrsky, who is widely unpopular in the military, is reportedly seen as politically safe as he is an ethnic Russian with no political ambitions..”

Ukraine’s Top General Fired For Disobeying US – Politico (RT)

General Valery Zaluzhny was dismissed as the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces partly because he had clashed with the Pentagon about how to conduct the counteroffensive against Russia last summer, Politico EU reported on Friday. President Vladimir Zelensky sacked Zaluzhny on Thursday, even as the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) warned this might trigger riots or a mutiny. General Aleksandr Syrsky has since been announced as Zaluzhny’s replacement. Officially, the US has neither supported nor opposed Zaluzhny’s firing, with National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan telling the media last weekend that “we’re just not going to get embroiled in that particular decision.” Unofficially, Zaluzhny was blamed for the Ukrainian disagreements with the Pentagon during the 2023 counteroffensive, a source who has “advised the White House on military matters” told Politico.

British and American generals helped plan and wargame Ukraine’s big offensive push to the Azov Sea, but Zaluzhny “tossed aside” the plan after just four days of brutal fighting and opted for tactics the Ukrainians were more familiar with, according to a Washington Post postmortem published in December. The anonymous adviser told Politico that the Ukrainians “just weren’t interested in US advice, and they generally concluded that we have nothing to offer them advice-wise,” noting that many of the Pentagon’s suggestions ended up “tone-deaf” as the Americans had no experience in this kind of warfare.

While Zaluzhny bore the brunt of the blame for this, the US “kept yelling at the wrong person,” Politico’s source claimed, because he was “hamstrung by Zelensky” and the president had the final say on military matters. The much-heralded offensive resulted in “staggering manpower losses,” according to Politico, while failing to achieve any of its objectives. Since then, disagreements between Zelensky and Zaluzhny have gone public. The leader also suspected the general of wanting to run for president, to the point where his sacking was seen as a political necessity, one Ukrainian analyst told the outlet. Syrsky, who is widely unpopular in the military, is reportedly seen as politically safe as he is an ethnic Russian with no political ambitions.

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“Nuland flew there for a good reason, apparently to sort things out and clear up this conflict between Zelensky and Zaluzhny and to find out what is really happening and how it might all end..”

Nuland Told Zelensky Not To Fire Top General – The Times (RT)

US Acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland was unhappy with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s plan to fire General Valery Zaluzhny and offered to “smooth over” the differences between the two, The Times reported on Friday. Zelensky fired Zaluzhny as commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces on Thursday. Nuland was in Kiev at the end of January, as rumors of Zaluzhny’s impending dismissal began to gain traction. In a meeting with the US ambassador to Kiev, Bridget Brink, and Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, she supposedly offered to help bridge the gap between the president and his top military leader. Citing a source privy to the meeting, The Times reported that Nuland was “unhappy to see Zaluzhny go” and offered to “smooth over misunderstandings.”

Umerov reportedly told Nuland that Zaluzhny had “reacted with skepticism” to Zelensky’s public statements and direct orders, going so far as to negotiate directly with Western countries about weapons deliveries behind the Defense Ministry’s back. Zelensky was unhappy that the general would not provide any plans for his 2024 military campaigns, Umerov is said to have told Nuland. Russia’s chief delegate to the military security and arms control talks in Vienna, Konstantin Gavrilov, had identified the Zaluzhny affair as the reason for Nuland’s visit long before the Times. “Nuland flew there for a good reason, apparently to sort things out and clear up this conflict between Zelensky and Zaluzhny and to find out what is really happening and how it might all end,” Gavrilov told the Rossiya-24 TV channel on February 1. He also predicted that a reconciliation is “unlikely” because things between the two have “gone too far.”

Officially, the US has neither supported nor opposed Zaluzhny’s replacement. Within days of Nuland’s visit, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told American media that “we’re just not going to get embroiled in that particular decision.” Currently the acting deputy to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Nuland was previously in charge of European and Eurasian affairs at the State Department. In December 2013, she visited Ukraine to hand out pastries to the armed protesters in Kiev’s central square. She was then taped discussing how to “midwife this thing” just days before the February 2014 coup that overthrew the elected Ukrainian government and triggered a conflict with Russia over Crimea and Donbass.

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“In a group chat of Bakhmut/Artyomovsk veterans, one soldier wrote “we’re all f**ked” upon learning of Syrsky’s appointment..”

Ukraine’s New Commander-in-chief Is An Unpopular ‘Butcher’ – Politico (RT)

Ukraine’s new armed forces chief, General Aleksandr Syrsky, is deeply unpopular among the rank and file of the Ukrainian military, who view him as a “butcher” willing to sacrifice waves of troops, Politico reported on Thursday. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky named Syrsky as the new head of the armed forces on Thursday, after firing General Valery Zaluzhny from the post. The switch had been the subject of media rumors for several weeks, and Zelensky hinted in an interview last week that it would form part of a wider “reset” of the country’s military and civilian leadership. Syrsky is a controversial choice, best known for “leading forces into a meat grinder in Bakhmut [called Artyomovsk in Russia], sending wave after wave of troops to face opposition fire,” Politico said.

The unsuccessful defense of Artyomovsk/Bakhmut last year cost Ukraine dearly, and earned Syrsky the nickname ‘butcher’, an anonymous source within the Ukrainian military told the news site. A captain told the outlet that Syrsky’s appointment is a “very bad decision,” adding that soldiers refer to him as ‘General200’, a nickname that Politico said refers to 200 of his men dying, but could also refer to ‘Cargo 200’, a Soviet and Russian military code used to describe corpses being removed from the battlefield. “General Syrsky’s leadership is bankrupt, his presence or orders coming from his name are demoralizing, and he undermines trust in the command in general,” an anonymous Ukrainian military officer and frontline intelligence analyst posted on X. “His relentless pursuit of tactical gains constantly depletes our valuable human resources, resulting in tactical advances such as capturing tree lines or small villages, with no operational goals in mind.”

“This approach creates a never-ending cycle of fruitless assaults that drain personnel,” the officer said. In a group chat of Bakhmut/Artyomovsk veterans, one soldier wrote “we’re all f**ked” upon learning of Syrsky’s appointment, Politico stated. Syrsky takes over command of a depleted military, with Kiev having lost more than 383,000 men since the hostilities started in February 2022, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. Prior to his dismissal, Zaluzhny warned Zelensky that a rapid improvement in Ukraine’s position on the battlefield was unlikely, regardless of who took his place, the Washington Post reported last week. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that Russia’s campaign against Ukraine will not be affected by Syrsky’s appointment, and that Moscow will continue until its objectives are achieved.

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“After we withdrew the troops from Kiev, as we promised to do, the Kiev authorities, as their masters usually do, threw [the peace deal] in the dustbin of history..”

General Syrsky, Hero of Kiev or Butcher of Bakhmut? (Sp.)

The mainstream media have spent the better part of a day pumping up newly appointed Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky as a modern-day von Clausewitz, hailing him as the commander almost singlehandedly responsible for the defense of Kiev during the first weeks of the conflict with Russia. Here’s what such reports are hiding. The recent decision by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to oust his top general and to replace him with Ground Forces commander Oleksandr Syrsky sent shockwaves throughout the media establishments of Kiev’s NATO patrons. Legacy outlets’ reactions included fears that the political leadership in Kiev may have undermined confidence among the military by swapping General Valery Zaluzhny with Syrsky, and concerns that President Zelensky’s new pet general may not be able to “resist political interference in operational matters.”

Other outlets attempted a positive spin on things, pumping up Syrsky’s ego as a brilliant strategist, with Bloomberg pointing to his supposed key role in the defense of Kiev “against all odds” at the start of Russia’s military operation in 2022, and Business Insider hailing his command as a “shocking upset that surprised many who assumed the capital would fall quickly.” AFP went so far as to suggest that it was Syrsky who scuppered “the Kremlin’s” purported “plans to bring the country to its knees within days.” President Zelensky awarded Syrsky the “Hero of Ukraine” title for the operation. In reality, as many of these same outlets have previously admitted, Russia’s withdrawal of troops from areas around the Ukrainian capital at the start of the conflict was politically motivated.

Specifically, it was based on the expectation that the “gesture of goodwill,” as Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called it, would help end the crisis before it escalated into a bloody, full-scale proxy war in the heart of Europe. Syrsky had nothing to do with it. Russia began withdrawing troops from Kiev region on March 29, 2022. The same day, peace talks resumed in Istanbul, Turkiye. Ahead of the negotiations, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkiye confirmed that Russian and Ukrainian negotiators were close to reaching a deal, with Kiev accepting neutrality and non-bloc status. But after Russian troops were gone and Syrsky’s forces came in to replace them without a shot being fired, Zelensky immediately went back on his word and scuppered talks.

“After we withdrew the troops from Kiev, as we promised to do, the Kiev authorities, as their masters usually do, threw [the peace deal] in the dustbin of history,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with African leaders last June, holding up the text of an agreement with Kiev which included “permanent neutrality” enshrined in Ukraine’s constitution, security guarantees, and even details on the size of its standing army in peacetime. In his bombshell interview with Tucker Carlson on Thursday, President Putin reiterated that Russia made the decision to bull back from the Ukrainian capital in the expectation that it would result in a peace deal. “My counterparts in France, in Germany, said ‘how can you imagine them signing a treaty with a gun to their heads? The troops should be pulled back from Kiev.’ I said, ‘alright.’ We withdrew the troops from Kiev.

As soon as we did so, our Ukrainian negotiators almost immediately threw all our agreements reached in Istanbul into the bin and prepared for a long-running armed confrontation with the help of the United States and its satellites in Europe,” Putin recalled. In other words, far from saving Kiev “against all odds” during the chaotic first week’s of Russia’s special military operation, Syrsky “won” his first major battle in NATO’s proxy conflict against Russia exclusively due to geopolitical considerations, and specifically to Moscow’s peacemaking efforts. Syrsky’s fortunes would continue along the same vein through the autumn of 2022, when, during an operational regrouping of Russian forces to concentrate troops along a smaller front as additional troops were called up during Russia’s partial mobilization, the commander was hailed, again without any particular skilled maneuvers on his part, for the so-called “Kharkov counteroffensive,” which saw Ukrainian forces reoccupying much of the region with almost no resistance as Russian forces pulled back.

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“..the goal being to force all foreigners out of the region ..”

A major change. So far they have only targeted ships linked to Israel.

Houthis Say All Warships Must Leave Red Sea (Sp.)

The Houthis will continue to fire on Western warships operating in the Red Sea, with the goal being to force all foreigners out of the region, Yemeni Supreme Political Council member Mohammed Ali al-Houthi has announced. “Our message is that just as the British warship has left the region for overhaul, the other warships will likewise leave the region…All [foreign] warships must leave the Red Sea, stop their attacks on Yemen, and end their blockade of the country,” al-Houthi said Thursday, in the wake of reports that the HMS Diamond guided missile destroyer would be “temporarily” pulled out of the Red Sea for refit following repeated attacks by the militia. Houthi-affiliated media released footage earlier in the week showing what appeared to be a cruise missile appearing to strike a warship, later said to be the HMS Diamond, and setting it ablaze.

Britain’s Ministry of Defense did not comment on the footage, but did confirm Tuesday that the Royal Navy’s HMS Richmond frigate would be taking the HMS Diamond’s place to continue “to ensure freedom of navigation in the Red Sea” as the latter is taken out of service for refit. “HMS Diamond joined Operation Prosperity Guardian…in December and has maintained a near constant presence in a ‘high threat area’ of the Red Sea,” the MoD said in a statement. “The destroyer came under fire in three separate attacks by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, successfully destroying nine drones using her world-class Sea Viper missile system and guns,” the ministry added. The warship is now expected to “undergo a period of maintenance and resupply as HMS Richmond takes over her important mission,” the MoD said. “The situation in the region is fraught, and ships in the force are firing on a daily basis – we hand over the baton with our best wishes to the fantastic team in Richmond who we know will do a great job,” HMS Diamond Commander Peter Evans said of the rotation, offering no further details about its nature.

Coalition forces have been extremely sensitive in discussing Houthi attacks, possible casualties or injuries in the Red Sea mission. Last week, US authorities revised their story about the deaths of two Navy SEALs, who were lost at sea in the Red Sea, indicating that the troops perished while trying to board a ship suspected of trying to smuggle weapons to Yemen. Separately this week, the Houthis reported an attack on the Morning Tide, a Barbados-flagged, British-owned cargo ship, and the Star Nasia, a Marshall Islands-flagged American ship. The company operating the Morning Tide confirmed that its vessel had been struck in a drone attack on February 6, causing minor damage to the port side of the vessel. No injuries were reported.

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“..Joe Biden, the official sponsor of Israel’s four-month-long massacre..”

Any Gaza Deal Could Break Netanyahu’s Coalition (Harb)

There are two words that sum up all the noise around the Paris negotiations over a Gaza war settlement today: “temporary” and “sustainable.” The truce envisaged by the parties present in Paris – Qatar, Egypt, Israel, the US, and France – is a “framework agreement.” The Israeli occupation authorities want any deal to deliver only a “temporary cessation of military operations,” which augurs an eventual resumption of its massacre in Gaza. Hamas and other Palestinian resistance factions, meanwhile, are proposing, through various amendments, a complete cessation of military operations as a prelude to a “sustainable calm.” It is not yet clear why the US administration of Joe Biden, the official sponsor of Israel’s four-month-long massacre, insists on dealing with the “Gaza war” file as if its core issue is the release of Israeli prisoners held in Gaza – rather than the resolution of a decades-long occupation of Palestinian lands and people that led to the state of affairs today.

Any treatment or settlement of this war must start with the occupation and its vast repercussions – the very essence of the conflict. Instead, the White House’s stance reflects an American view that Washington does not bear sole responsibility for now, and raises questions about the nature and effectiveness of the role of the Qatari and Egyptian “mediators.” The latter two Arab states were part of the Paris discussions to draft the agreement over a week ago, with US–Israeli intelligence agencies represented by CIA Chief William Burns, Mossad Chief David Barnea, and the head of the Israeli Shin Bet Ronen Barr. Hours after Hamas announced the submission of its “framework agreement” response to the Qatari and Egyptian mediators, statements issued by the Israelis and Americans revealed their intent to sabotage a genuine peace or a halt to military conflict.

US President Biden commented prematurely by saying that Hamas’ remarks were “exaggerated,” while Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant – fresh out of talks with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken – said the response presented by Hamas was “negative,” and was intentionally drafted to be rejected by Israel. From his perspective, Gallant isn’t exactly wrong. What Israel seeks from the agreement is a US–Arab mandate to restart its war once Israeli prisoners have been released by Gaza’s resistance. The bottom line is fairly unambiguous: Israel wants a continuous war. Gallant concedes publicly that “the war is far from over.” Netanyahu, after meeting Blinken, said, “We have to end the war with a landslide victory, and it is a matter of time. Our army is advancing systematically, and we have ordered the army to work in Rafah,” where the occupation army has for days been threatening a major offensive along the border with Egypt. This will mean the re-displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians already displaced to the border area over the past weeks.

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Russia pays attention.

German Foreign Minister’s Grandfather Was ‘Ardent Nazi’ – Bild (RT)

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock’s grandfather was “an unconditional National Socialist” who had read ‘Mein Kampf’ and fully stood with the Nazi regime, according to documents seen by the tabloid Bild. Baerbock has spoken publicly about her grandfather’s wartime experiences, telling an audience in 2022 that Waldemar Baerbock returned to Germany from the east in early 1945 “as a defeated soldier.” What Baerbock did not mention was that her grandfather was an officer in the Wehrmacht, and had been awarded one of the Third Reich’s highest military honors, the War Merit Cross with Swords in 1944, Bild reported on Thursday. The cross was bestowed on soldiers for “special services when deployed under enemy weapons or for special services in military warfare.”

According to the newspaper, Waldemar Baerbock’s military records describe him as “an unconditional National Socialist,” who had read Adolf Hitler’s book ‘Mein Kampf’ and whose character was “completely rooted in National Socialism.” Asked for comment, Baerbock’s office said that “the foreign minister was not aware of the documents.” Germany’s Federal Archives note that military records from the time “almost always” describe officers with phrases like “stands firmly on the basis of the National Socialist worldview,” and praise their “impeccable National Socialist attitude.” According to Bild, Waldemar Baerbock told his family in the late 1990s that he had served in the Wehrmacht. Before he died in 2016, he wrote down his war memoirs in a notebook, which he passed to his family. Baerbock mentioned her grandfather in her 2021 autobiography, but did not state whether his notebook contained any references to his supposed Nazi ideology.

During a 2022 speech marking the 80th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference, where Nazi officials formulated and planned the so-called ‘final solution’ for Europe’s jews, Baerbock declared that even low-level government functionaries of the Third Reich were responsible for “the crimes and genocide of the Nazi regime.” Annalena Baerbock was a co-leader of Alliance90/The Greens in Germany before becoming foreign minister in late 2021. An ardent interventionist, Baerbock has steered the party away from its long-standing policy of pacifism, and reportedly pushed Chancellor Olaf Scholz to approve shipments of heavy weapons to Ukraine. While her party’s 2021 manifesto explicitly stated that it wanted to “end European arms exports to war and crisis zones,” Germany has become the second-largest supplier of arms to Kiev after the US.

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SCOTUS to the rescue.

The “Unassailable” Theory Faces a Potential Unanimous Rejection (Turley)

This week, the argument before the Supreme Court in Trump v. Anderson captivated the nation as the justices considered the disqualification of former President Donald Trump from the 2024 presidential ballot. For some of us, the argument brought back vivid memories of covering Bush v. Gore almost 25 years ago. While one justice (Clarence Thomas) remains on the Court, the last major intervention of the Court into a close presidential election is a matter of distant history. As someone who covered both cases, much is regrettably familiar: the deep division in the country and rage of many advocates. However, unlike 2000, the Court itself appears virtually unanimous in this case. The biggest difference is not the Court but the coverage. The Trump case exposed the erosion of legal coverage in the media. For millions of Americans, the cold reception of all of the justices to the novel theory under the 14th Amendment came as a surprise.

Networks and newspapers have been featuring experts who assured the public that this theory was well-based and disqualification well-established. The only barrier, they insisted, was the blind partisanship of the six conservative justices on the Court. Twenty-four years ago, I was covering the Bush v. Gore case for CBS. I had just left NBC as an analyst when the election controversy exploded. While there were the usual partisans and some outlets slanted the merits, the coverage was overall balanced and informative. This is not a case of the Court changing. We have changed as legal analysts. The Court itself is deeply divided on some issues. However, the justices gave a fair hearing to both sides. That is not the case with the coverage. Looking back at the coverage, most legacy media called upon the same legal experts who have previously endorsed virtually every claim made against Trump. They predictably declared Trump as clearly disqualified despite the fact that this theory has never been embraced by the federal courts.

Figures like federal court Judge J. Michael Luttig who called these arguments against disqualification as “revealing, fatuous, and politically and constitutionally cynical.” Others insisted that the argument that the provision might not apply to presidents as “absurd.” That was the argument pushed by Justice Ketanji Onyika Brown Jackson. Many of the media turned to Professor Laurence Tribe despite a long record of constitutional claims rejected by the Court, in some cases unanimously. Tribe assured the public that the theory was “unassailable” and also insisted that the theory (later voiced by Jackson) is “an absurd interpretation.” It is important that such views are heard in the coverage. The problem is that the media has, once again, pushed this novel (and in my view unfounded) theory to the point that many assumed that it was indeed unassailable.

What was most troubling is the repeated attacks on the Court by legal experts who suggested that the only thing keeping Trump on the ballot was the bias of conservative justices. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D. Md.) declared “This is their opportunity to behave like real Supreme Court justices.” It appears that both Justices Kagan and Jackson did not behave like “real Supreme Court justices” in oral argument by objecting to core aspects of this theory. We will have to wait for the final opinion but most of us are predicting a reversal of Colorado and the possibility of a unanimous or near unanimous decision. The question is whether such a result will change how media outlets frame these disputes in the future. After weeks of portraying the opposition as only resting with the right of the Court, the coverage had a weird disjointed feel as some of the same commentators reported that the justices appeared uniformly unconvinced by this “unassailable” theory.

Turley Kagan

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“The fourth estate has literally died and has been replaced by phalanx of corrupt young men and women who have redefined the profession entirely as an extension of the state and its craven objectives..”

Biden’s Eulogy Will Be ‘Journalism RIP’. How He Destroyed the 4th Estate (Jay)

The Biden administration is inventing a phoney war and journalists are supporting the narrative without even missing a heartbeat. The fourth estate has literally died and has been replaced by phalanx of corrupt young men and women who have redefined the profession entirely as an extension of the state and its craven objectives. In the UK, the odious Douglas Murray who has shown Britain from day one of the recent conflict in Gaza that he is more than happy to replicate every item of fake news that Israel’s IDF is happy to hand him – without even acknowledging the bigger picture of a brutal occupation. He is, essentially, a pro-Zionist fanatic and it beggars belief that he is even allowed to go on air and report, when he has shown his almost cult-like following of the Netanyahu government and its objectives to wipe out the civilian population of Gaza. He is a genocide denier and yet he is allowed to continue his work as a journalist. Should we be shocked though to learn that just recently his diatribe of on air lies about the Gaza genocide, which always paints the Israelis as the victims and the Palestinians as savages, has been taken to the next level?

Murray now is in London trying to help Israel with its fundraising. Thirty years ago, this would have been unthinkable. A wall of resistance from professionals which would have blocked him in the media industry would have prevailed. “Unethical” would be the key word which would have put this vile Israeli apologist back in his box. But in modern Britain, media has become so corrupt, that few, if any are shocked that a journalist can work openly as an activist as well. One could argue that one role is merely an extension of the other, both of them dripping with the blood of Palestinian children. Real journalism is being shut down at an alarming rate. Partisan journalism, which even allows hacks to be activists at the same time, is the new norm. To give you an idea just how far this has advanced, any kind of criticism of how the state handles or reports on the Gaza genocide is met with a steel hand in a steel glove in both the UK and U.S. Pity the young students at Northwestern University who have obscure anti Klu Klux Klan federal laws levelled against them by the FBI for producing a parody newspaper which mocked U.S. policy of Israel and Gaza. You couldn’t make it up.

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AI

 

 

 

 

Kiwi

 

 

Baby hippo

 

 

Dinosaur

 

 

Belly Rubs
https://twitter.com/i/status/1755600174536360156

 

 

Beetle Frogs

 

 

Illusion

 

 

Stick

 

 

 

 

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