Aug 102025
 


John Waterhouse Diogenes 1882

 

Cold Hard Land, Cold Hard Bargain: Putin&Trump Head Off To Alaska (Poletaev)
Zelensky Rejects Trump-Putin Meeting to Formulate Ceasefire Terms (CTH)
Zelensky Trashes Trump’s Peace Terms (RT)
Zelensky Risks Angering Trump – NYT (RT)
Witkoff May Have Misunderstood Putin’s Demands – Bild (Pravda.ua)
Alaska Perfect Stage for Historic Summit: Putin Envoy Dmitriev (Sp.)
Risk of Sabotage of Putin-Trump Summit Is Real – Dmitriev (RT)
In Alaska Trump & Putin Could Lay Groundwork For End Of Ukraine Conflict (Sp.)
Trump Sending Vance To Discuss Ukraine With Europeans (RT)
European Backers Make Counter-Offer Ahead Of Alaska Talks – WSJ (RT)
NATO Targets Kaliningrad (Pacini)
Beijing Brushes Off Trump’s Tariff Threat (RT)
Tulsi Gabbard Is All Alone (CTH)
Bill Maher: Democrats Must Choose Sanity Over Wokeness (Margolis)
The Experts Bet Against Trump and Lost (Margolis)
Whistleblower Ties Clinton Campaign to Fake Russia Hack (Paul Sperry)
California Hospital Covered Up Surge In Stillbirths After Covid Shots (CHD)

 

 

https://twitter.com/officer_Lew/status/1953921928336400829

Jay
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/1953985193921970535

Solomon
https://twitter.com/WallStreetApes/status/1954134932026180057

Cartel
https://twitter.com/JesseBWatters/status/1953993015132852474

 

 

 

 

“Alaska showdown: Who really needs this summit more?”

Cold Hard Land, Cold Hard Bargain: Putin&Trump Head Off To Alaska (Poletaev)

Steve Witkoff’s visit to Moscow has marked a striking shift in American rhetoric. Just a couple of months ago, in June and July, Donald Trump was threatening the Kremlin with new sanctions and issuing ultimatums. Now the agenda includes a Putin-Trump summit scheduled for August 15 in Alaska. This 180-degree turn has been accompanied by leaks hinting at possible deals and a return to the “thaw” in relations we last saw in the spring. If the meeting goes ahead, the Russian president will come to it in a far stronger position than he did a few months ago. Back in the spring, Trump’s push for a peace deal looked like a personal whim, and the so-called ‘party of war’ and globalists still had cards to play: Senator Lindsey Graham’s sanctions package, fresh US arms deliveries to Ukraine, and the proposals floated by French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer about sending Western troops to Ukraine.

Now it looks as if Trump is the one coming back to Vladimir Putin – driven by the failure of his oil embargo. On top of that, there’s an appearance – an illusion, perhaps – that Putin is backed by a united BRICS front, something Trump’s own moves have helped bring about. Whether that front actually exists, or can survive for long, is another matter. But at this moment, one of Trump’s key pillars of leverage looks shaky, if not entirely knocked out from under him. The other pillar is the war itself. In February and March, the front lines were static, and Ukrainian forces were still holding a foothold in Russia’s Kursk Region. Kiev was touting its ‘drone wall’ project, billed as an impenetrable shield against the Russian army.

Since then, Ukraine has suffered a major defeat in the Kursk border area, and the summer offensive that followed has gone Moscow’s way – more decisively than at the same point last year. The much-hyped ‘drone wall’ turned out to be far less sturdy than promised. Kiev still clings to the hope of holding the line, but barely. Even the most pro-Ukrainian Western analysts now admit, in so many words: We don’t understand how they’re still hanging on. From the rhetoric of even the fiercest globalist hawks, it’s clear they know no amount of weapons shipments can reverse the battlefield trend – at best, they can slow it. That’s why the ‘party of war’ in the West, and Kiev itself, have suddenly taken up Trump’s earlier call for a cease-fire. Which means Trump now needs talks with Putin not because he personally wants peace, but because the battlefield realities are pushing him there.

Nobody knows how much longer the Ukrainian military can hold. From Trump’s point of view, the sooner he can lock in some kind of deal with Moscow, the better. And that urgency is another advantage for Putin. If the second round of talks collapses, he loses nothing: the Russian army can simply keep advancing until the Ukrainian front breaks – or until the next peace initiative with Washington, whichever comes first. Does Moscow have vulnerabilities? Yes – and the biggest is the economy. Even without the oil embargo, a surging ruble has blown a hole in the federal budget: by the end of July, the deficit had already reached 4.9 trillion rubles ($61.4 billion) – 1.1 trillion rubles more than the planned deficit for the entire year. But Russia’s financial buffer is strong enough that it can run shortfalls like this for years without crippling the economy.

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“No one will and no one can deviate from it. Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupier.”

Well, we saw a poll yesterday that said 69% (up from 20% in 2022) want peace talks. At least some of them must have been aware that could include giving up land.

Zelensky Rejects Trump-Putin Meeting to Formulate Ceasefire Terms (CTH)

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is once again rejecting any consideration for President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss terms for a ceasefire without his involvement. On a Twitter storm Saturday, Zelenskyy rejected the thought of giving any Ukranian territory to Russia in exchange for peace. “The answer to the Ukrainian territorial question already is in the Constitution of Ukraine. No one will deviate from this—and no one will be able to. Ukrainians will not gift their land to the occupier,” Zelenskyy said. President Trump announced that he would meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on August 15, in Alaska. Zelenskyy reacted, carrying the message from the global intelligence community who support the ongoing conflict, and does not like the idea of the USA and Russia determining the outcome for Ukraine.

Zelenskyy has banned opposition parties in Ukraine, taken control of media, targeted religious groups who he claims are subversive to his interests and cancelled elections in order to remain in power. Now Zelenskyy hides behind the claim of a constitution his regime modified in order to ensure he alone controls the pathways to peace. (Via NBC) – A defiant Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared Saturday that his countrymen “will not give their land to occupiers,” after President Donald Trump suggested that a peace deal would include some “swapping” of territories with Russia. “The answer to Ukraine’s territorial question is already in the constitution of Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said in a message on Telegram early Saturday. “No one will and no one can deviate from it. Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupier.”

It has been reported that Vladimir Putin’s ceasefire terms include Russia totally controlling the Donbas region. “WASHINGTON ‘ […] Under the proposal being floated by the Trump administration, Russia would agree to a freeze of the war along the contact line in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, where Moscow controls less land than in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, a person familiar with the matter told POLITICO. In return, Russia would be allowed to keep the Donbas, said the person, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy, as others in this article. U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff returned from a meeting with Putin earlier this week and told Trump that the Russian president had presented the terms under which the Kremlin would agree to stop hostilities in Ukraine, a White House official told POLITICO. The official declined to describe Russia’s terms, but Trump said land swaps between Russia and Ukraine are under discussion. (more)”

President Trump does not view a meeting with Putin as a concession.

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Zelensky yesterday:

“..the answer to the Ukrainian territorial question is already there in the Constitution of Ukraine”.

Hmm. Little birdie tells me that according to the same constitution, you are not the legitimate president of Ukraine.

Zelensky Trashes Trump’s Peace Terms (RT)

Vladimir Zelensky has rejected US President Donald Trump’s call for territorial concessions to Russia, claiming no such agreement would be accepted by the Ukrainian people. Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff visited Moscow this week and reportedly made significant progress toward a compromise aimed at ending the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The US president said the proposal includes “some swapping of territories to the betterment of both” sides and that Zelensky would need to find a way to approve such a deal under Ukrainian law. In his regular video address on Saturday, Zelensky stressed that Ukraine’s borders are defined by its constitution and that “nobody can or will” make concessions on the issue.

“The Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupiers,” he proclaimed. Zelensky added that Ukrainians will only respect a “real, living peace,” warning that “any decision taken against us and without us, without Ukraine, would be a decision against peace.” Earlier this week, Zelensky acknowledged that Ukraine is not in a position to forcibly retake Russian territories claimed by Kiev. The Ukrainian military relies heavily on Western weapons, funding and intelligence. The government is counting on sustained long-term support.

Russian officials have repeatedly accused Zelensky of denying reality and prolonging a conflict he cannot win. Moscow says it intends to achieve its core national security objectives, preferably through diplomacy. The Ukrainian Constitution, which Zelensky cited, also requires a president to hand power to either a newly elected successor or the parliament speaker when their term ends. Zelensky did neither when his term expired last year, retaining power under martial law. Last month, Zelensky clashed with Ukraine’s foreign backers after his administration pushed through legislation eliminating the independence of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, created in 2015 under Western pressure. However, he quickly reversed the measure after aid donors threatened to suspend assistance.

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“..Mr. Trump, who the newspaper noted previously criticized Kiev for being “not ready for peace.”

Zelensky Risks Angering Trump – NYT (RT)

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky could find himself on the wrong side of the US president after he publicly criticized Donald Trump’s remark about the potential need for Kiev and Moscow to swap territories in order to end the Ukraine conflict, the New York Times has claimed. Trump will be meeting with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Alaska next Friday in a bid to find a way out of the conflict. Russia insists that the Lugansk People’s Republic, the Donetsk People’s Republic, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions all became part of its territory following referendums held in 2022. However, Moscow currently controls only the former in its entirety, with active hostilities continuing in the neighboring DPR. Russian forces have so far secured only part of the other two regions.

Additionally, the Russian military is in control of patches of land along the border in the Ukrainian regions of Kharkov and Sumy. In an article on Saturday, the NYT conjectured that Zelensky’s “blunt rejection” of Trump’s suggestion “risks angering Mr. Trump,” who the newspaper noted previously criticized Kiev for being “not ready for peace.” In his regular video address on Saturday, Zelensky stressed that Ukraine’s borders are enshrined in its constitution and that “nobody can or will” make concessions on the issue. “The Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupiers,” he insisted.

Earlier this week Zelensky acknowledged, however, that Ukraine is not in a position to forcibly retake Russian territories it claims. On Friday, President Trump said that a peace agreement between the two belligerents would likely involve “some swapping of territories to the betterment of both” sides, but stopped short of providing any specifics. Following a meeting between President Putin and Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, in Moscow on Wednesday, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov told reporters that Washington had made an “acceptable” offer to Moscow, but declined to go into further detail. Moscow has long accused Zelensky of denying reality and unnecessarily prolonging a conflict he cannot win.

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“Russia is demanding the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from these oblasts, but Witkoff thought the proposal was for Russian troops to withdraw from there..”

Smells like Witkoff didn’t get it right. Russia can’t throw new territory to the wolves. Who would ever trust them after?

Witkoff May Have Misunderstood Putin’s Demands – Bild (Pravda.ua)

US President Donald Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff may have misrepresented Russia’s position on a possible ceasefire in Ukraine after he met with Vladimir Putin this week. Source: Bild, as reported by European Pravda

Details: Bild reports that Russia has not abandoned its demand for complete control over Crimea and Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk and Kherson oblasts prior to any ceasefire, and has only agreed to a “sectoral” ceasefire. However, in peace proposals leaked to the media Putin appeared willing to discuss a ceasefire after the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces only from Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.

Bild’s sources say this could have been the result of Witkoff misinterpreting what Putin said about a “peaceful withdrawal” from Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts: Russia is demanding the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from these oblasts, but Witkoff thought the proposal was for Russian troops to withdraw from there. “Witkoff doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” the German tabloid quotes an anonymous Ukrainian official as saying. According to Bild, it’s an assessment shared by “representatives of the German government”.

Background:
Amid news of the upcoming meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska on 15 August, as well as media claims that Washington and Moscow want to reach an agreement to end the war in Ukraine that would lock in Russia’s occupation of part of the territories seized during its full-scale invasion, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that “the answer to the Ukrainian territorial question is already there in the Constitution of Ukraine”.

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“Yesterday,” the other “Tomorrow”.

“..the U.S. and Russia are just 2.4 miles apart between the Diomedes islands, divided by the International Date Line..”

Alaska Perfect Stage for Historic Summit: Putin Envoy Dmitriev (Sp.)

Kremlin aid Yury Ushakov earlier confirmed that a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US counterpart Donald Trump will take place in Alska on August 15. The head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and Russian special presidential envoy for economic cooperation with foreign countries, Kirill Dmitriev, called Alaska a “perfect stage” for a historic summit of the leaders of Russia and the United States. “Historic [Russia-US] summit in Alaska on August 15. Perfect stage: the U.S. and Russia are just 2.4 miles apart between the Diomedes islands, divided by the International Date Line (one is “Yesterday,” the other “Tomorrow”). Let us go from yesterday to tomorrow in peace,” Dmitriev wrote on X. He also called for developing Arctic ties between Russia and the US.

“President Trump announces a [US-Russian] summit with President Putin in Alaska. Born as Russian America—Orthodox roots, forts, fur trade—Alaska echoes those ties & makes the US an Arctic nation. Let’s [Russia and the US] partner on environment, infrastructure & energy in Arctic and beyond,” Dmitriev stressed. The Kremlin and the White House previously said Russian and US presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump would meet in Alaska on August 15. Alaska’s authorities told Sputnik that they did not know the exact location of the upcoming meeting.

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“Putin has said he is willing to meet the Ukrainian leader to finalize – but not negotiate – a truce.”

Note: Kirill Dmitriev, for Putin, is a bit what Steve Witkoff is for Trump. Witkoff is a real estate billionaire, Dmitriev heads the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF): both come from the world of finance. And they seem to push the political guys, Kellogg and Ushkanov, to the background.

Risk of Sabotage of Putin-Trump Summit Is Real – Dmitriev (RT)

Countries with a vested interest in prolonging the Ukraine conflict will likely go to great lengths to derail the planned meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his American counterpart Donald Trump, Moscow’s senior negotiator Kirill Dmitriev warned on Saturday. The two leaders are set to meet next Friday in Alaska, with a possible resolution of the armed conflict between Kiev and Moscow at the top of the agenda. Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has already rejected any truce that would involve territorial concessions, despite Trump saying they would be part of the proposed deal. “Certainly, several nations that have a vested interest in prolonging the conflict will take titanic efforts (provocations and disinformation) to torpedo the planned meeting,” Dmitriev wrote on social media.

Dmitriev, who serves as Putin’s aide for international economic cooperation and heads Moscow’s efforts to normalize ties with Washington, was responding to remarks by former US Defense Department adviser Dan Caldwell. Caldwell said there was a “concerted effort to undermine” the summit, reacting to a Wall Street Journal article which he noted was based largely on Ukrainian and European sources. Earlier this week, US media claimed Trump was pressuring Putin to meet with Zelensky before agreeing to a face-to-face meeting with the Russian leader. Trump denied imposing such conditions, saying, “They would like to meet me, and I’ll do whatever I can to stop the killing.”

Moscow has called Zelensky’s continued claim to the presidency unconstitutional since his term expired last year. Putin has said he is willing to meet the Ukrainian leader to finalize – but not negotiate – a truce. He also suggested that the question of Zelensky’s disputed status needs to be addressed to ensure the legality of any future treaty. Dmitriev has previously described the upcoming summit as a historic opportunity and praised the venue, noting Alaska’s historical ties to Russia before its sale to the United States in the 19th century.

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‘Ok, everyone, listen up: this is the REAL meeting and as such the only two REAL actors with REAL power will be there..”

In Alaska Trump & Putin Could Lay Groundwork For End Of Ukraine Conflict (Sp.)

The upcoming Putin-Trump summit is going to be held in Alaska because it is a place with a “historical tie to both countries” and it is “out of the way’ enough to avoid inviting any third parties,” says Matthew Crosston, professor of national security and director of academic transformation at Bowie State University in the US. “To me, this is Putin and Trump saying, ‘ok, everyone, listen up: this is the REAL meeting and as such the only two REAL actors with REAL power will be there, namely Russia and the US’,” Prof. Crosston tells Sputnik. The choice of the summit’s location also highlights the recognition of Putin in the international arena, an acknowledgment of his “place on the world stage.”

As for the potential outcome of the summit, Prof. Crosston argues that any “immediate and substantial diplomatic achievement” should not be expected. “This does not mean, however, that the Alaska summit is a purely symbolic gesture carrying no real impact,” he points out. “More often than not in these situations the most significant outcomes appear publicly only some time later.” The Alaska summit will likely be the place where the groundwork for the resolution of the Ukrainian conflict is going to be laid out, so this is not just a formal ‘meet and greet’ event, he adds.

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Trump doesn’t want to talk to the Europeans. They don’t want peace.

Trump Sending Vance To Discuss Ukraine With Europeans (RT)

US Vice President J.D. Vance will meet UK Foreign Minister David Lammy and other European and Ukrainian officials in Britain as part of a renewed push for peace negotiations on the Ukraine conflict, Reuters reported on Saturday, citing a spokesperson for Downing Street. Vance’s trip seems intended to pave the way for a summit between the Russian and US presidents in Alaska on Friday, where resolving the conflict between Kiev and Moscow is expected to be at the top of the agenda. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has spoken to Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky ahead of the forum with Vance and the expected Putin-Trump meeting, according to the Reuters source.

Starmer and Zelensky discussed Trump’s proposals for a peace deal, the spokesperson said. “They agreed this [meeting in Britain] would be a vital forum to discuss progress towards securing a just and lasting peace,” he added. Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff visited Moscow earlier this week and reportedly made significant progress toward a compromise aimed at ending the fighting between Russia and Ukraine. The US president said the ideas under discussion include “some swapping of territories to the betterment of both” sides, adding that Zelensky would need to find a way to approve such a deal under Ukrainian law.

Zelensky has rejected any such agreement, claiming that “nobody can or will” make concessions on the issue. “The Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupiers,” he proclaimed. Moscow’s senior negotiator Kirill Dmitriev has also warned that countries trying to prolong the Ukraine conflict will likely go to great lengths to derail the planned meeting between Putin and Trump. Another warning came from former US Defense Department adviser Dan Caldwell, who said there was already a “concerted effort to undermine” the upcoming summit.

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“..the “counterproposal” advocated a strictly “reciprocal” exchange of territory, and on condition that “ironclad security guarantees [be provided to Ukraine,] including potential NATO membership.”

Want to sabotage? Come up with what you know will be rejected.

European Backers Make Counter-Offer Ahead Of Alaska Talks – WSJ (RT)

A number of European nations have joined Ukraine to present their own “counterproposal” for a resolution of the conflict with Russia, the Wall Street Journal has reported, citing anonymous European officials. The plan was hastily drawn up after US President Donald Trump confirmed that he would be meeting with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Alaska next Friday. The Journal said on Saturday that representatives of Ukraine, the UK, France, and Germany had “scrambled to respond” to a proposal reportedly floated following a meeting between US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Wednesday. According to media reports, Ukraine would be required to cede all of the Donetsk People’s Republic to Russia as part of a peace agreement.

Moscow considers the DPR, as well as the Lugansk People’s Republic, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, to be part of its territory following referendums held in 2022. However, Russia presently controls only the LPR in its entirety. During a meeting on Saturday in the UK, chief aides to European leaders presented the joint plan to US Vice President J.D. Vance, as well as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, with Trump’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg and Witkoff joining via video link, WSJ reported. Kiev’s European backers insisted that a “ceasefire must take place before any other steps are taken,” the newspaper claimed. Moscow has consistently stressed that any peace process should proceed the other way round.

The publication said that the “counterproposal” advocated a strictly “reciprocal” exchange of territory, and on condition that “ironclad security guarantees [be provided to Ukraine,] including potential NATO membership.” The Kremlin has repeatedly described such a scenario as a red line. Also on Saturday, Zelensky insisted that Ukraine’s borders are enshrined in its constitution and that “nobody can or will” make concessions on the issue. His remark came after President Trump said that a peace agreement between Kiev and Moscow would likely involve “some swapping of territories.”

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“The officer acknowledged that NATO’s expansion towards Russia’s borders took place in the absence of a symmetrical military expansion on the Russian side..”

NATO Targets Kaliningrad (Pacini)

In recent days, there has been an intensification of rhetoric from several NATO member countries, which have made new accusations against the Russian Federation, claiming that Moscow is planning a military attack against Europe, scheduled, according to these statements, for 2027. These statements, which appear surprisingly coordinated, seem to reflect more a Western communication strategy than a real alarm about imminent threats from Russia. A significant development concerns the hypothesis, put forward by some Western military authorities, of a possible simultaneous offensive conducted jointly by China and Russia: Beijing through an invasion of Taiwan, Moscow with a direct attack on Europe. This thesis was explicitly expressed by the new NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, General Alexus Grynkewich, and subsequently supported by Polish government officials, such as the deputy prime minister and defense minister.

The emphasis on 2027 as a reference date appears singular. According to some interpretations, this insistence stems from internal NATO simulations that predict a possible collapse of Ukraine in that year, which could require the opening of new fronts to contain the Russian advance. Alternatively, this narrative could reflect an attempt to generate a larger-scale military crisis in order to ease Russian military pressure on Ukraine. The Russian region of Kaliningrad, which has recently been the subject of increasing attention and hostile rhetoric from Atlantic Alliance officials, is of particular strategic importance. General Christopher Donahue, commander of the U.S. Army for Europe and Africa, has publicly stated that NATO would develop a detailed plan for the conquest of Kaliningrad “in unprecedented times” in the event of a large-scale conflict with Russia.

This announcement is part of the broader “eastern flank deterrence line” strategy, which aims to strengthen the Alliance’s land capabilities, harmonize industrial production in the defense sector, and introduce standardized digital systems to facilitate operational coordination. According to Donahue, land capabilities are now becoming increasingly important, to the point where they can effectively counter so-called A2/AD (anti-access/area denial) strategies and enable power projection in the maritime domain. The implicit message emerging from this strategic narrative is that some of NATO’s statements and postures seem designed to provoke an armed response from Russia, which would allow the Alliance to characterize that response as “aggression” and thus justify its own escalation.

The key factor is timing: the year 2027 plays a perhaps highly symbolic role and, above all, is close enough to the implementation of the war plans that NATO has developed in recent years. There is one significant problem: the EU has planned rearmament for 2030, not 2027… Who teaches math to the Alliance’s generals? NATO needs the EU to fight this war. There is a communication problem in the secretariat. Perhaps it is time to change the reception staff. However, there are also those who do not share this view, such as Admiral Rob Bauer, former chairman of NATO’s Military Committee, who recently stated that a limited Russian attack on a Baltic state would not automatically trigger a military response from the Alliance, but would instead trigger a consultation process among member states.

The officer acknowledged that NATO’s expansion towards Russia’s borders took place in the absence of a symmetrical military expansion on the Russian side and even admitted that Moscow is increasing arms production beyond operational needs in Ukraine, suggesting a military reserve capacity for future scenarios. This, let’s be clear, is the most logical thing a country can do when it has an entire military partnership threatening it for decades… but NATO’s high command is incapable of seeing this.

Another factor frequently cited as justification for the Western escalation is the so-called Russian ‘shadow fleet’, a group of ships used to transport energy resources in circumvention of sanctions. Former Lithuanian Foreign Minister Landsbergis has claimed that the Russian “ghost fleet” numbers around a thousand naval vessels. Some analysts also argue that the small Baltic states are seen as potential “sacrificial pioneers” in an attempt to drag Russia into a wider conflict and prolong Western hegemony through widespread militarization. Bauer’s own words seem to suggest that a limited Russian attack would not trigger an automatic response, but rather an opportunity to intensify propaganda, increase military spending, and gain time to manage internal crises.

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“We will continue to take energy supply measures that are right for China based on our national interests.”

Beijing Brushes Off Trump’s Tariff Threat (RT)

The Chinese Foreign Ministry has dismissed US threats of additional trade tariffs over its purchases of Russian oil, saying Beijing will continue to act in line with its national interests. US President Donald Trump has targeted major buyers of Russian crude, including India and China, claiming such trade helps sustain the conflict in Ukraine. His administration has also promoted tariffs as a way to counter what it considers unfair trade practices by other countries. Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said Friday that Beijing’s partnership with Moscow remains “consistent and clear.”

“It is legitimate and lawful for China to engage in economic, trade and energy cooperation with other countries, including Russia,” Guo told reporters at a regular briefing. “We will continue to take energy supply measures that are right for China based on our national interests.” China and Russia have described their relationship as an unprecedentedly close strategic partnership rooted in mutual respect and compromise toward shared goals. Both have accused Washington of pursuing unilateral gains at the expense of others and seeking to derail the emergence of a multipolar world order.

India has also rejected Washington’s tariff pressure, calling it “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable.” Brazil, another major economy hit by the US tariffs, has criticized the measures as well. Trump has linked his late July move against Brazil to the prosecution of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is accused of plotting to overthrow his successor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Brazil, China, India and Russia are the founding members of BRICS, a group of large non-Western economies. Trump has accused the organization of trying to undermine the US dollar’s role as the global reserve currency, and has threatened to introduce punitive tariffs against its members.

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“..those who control power within the Oval Office keep Tulsi isolated and away from the President.”

Tulsi Gabbard Is All Alone (CTH)

The least understood issue right now, is how isolated and alone Tulsi Gabbard is on her mission to bring sunlight to the Intelligence Community weaponization and corruption.…”There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things”… The IC uses various media leaks and narrative engineers as the tools against their enemy; in this case DNI Tulsi Gabbard. The most common arrow in their manipulative quiver is the term “sources and methods.” The Washington Post notes how the Intelligence Community is upset about DNI Tulsi Gabbard compromising their ‘sources and methods’ by releasing the House Intelligence Report that deconstructed the Russiagate Intelligence Community Assessment. What has them so upset is Tulsi’s release of the House Intel report. This is the report that drove the FBI to raid Mar-a-Lago in an effort to retrieve it from Trump. This is the report that outlines how the CIA fabricated the Russiagate claims. Tulsi is being targeted for releasing this specific report. That tells you how important it is to the CIA.

“WASHINGTON DC – […] The document that Gabbard ordered released on July 23 is a 46-page report stemming from a review begun in 2017 by majority Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee. It takes issue with U.S. intelligence agencies’ finding earlier that year that Russian President Vladimir Putin developed a preference for Trump over Democrat Hillary Clinton and aspired to help him win the election.
[…] The House report is the most sensitive document the Trump administration has yet released, and details of how its publication occurred have not been previously reported.
[…] The document contains multiple references to CIA human sources reporting on Putin’s plans. Such sources are among the agency’s most closely guarded secrets. After the report was completed in 2020, it was considered so sensitive that it remained in storage at the CIA rather than on Capitol Hill.
[…] as the Trump administration prepared to release the report publicly, there were multiple versions of it circulating, some with more redactions to protect sensitive information, current and former U.S. officials said. Gabbard, who has led the administration’s effort to relitigate the 2016 campaign, pushed to release as much as possible, they said. “CIA put forward their proposed redactions and edits to the document,” said a person familiar with the process. Gabbard “has greater declassification authority than all other intelligence elements and is not required to get their approval prior to release.” Trump then approved the publication of the version from Gabbard’s office “with minimal redactions and no edits,” this person said.
[…] It is unclear exactly how Trump gave his approval, or if he examined the competing versions of the House report beforehand. The White House did not respond to a request for comment. (READ MORE)”

The HPSCI report release is what is driving the CIA bananas. Despite efforts by Donald Trump to declassify the HPSCI report before leaving office, the CIA never released it. No one except the internal Intelligence Community (CIA/DNI) had seen the HPSCI report until Tulsi Gabbard released it on July 22nd. This is a key point, because the HPSCI report touches on all of the other declassified evidence recently released. The authors of the HPSCI report had reviewed all of the same information John Durham reviewed. The HPSCI report walks through the entire construct of the Intelligence Community Assessment ordered by President Obama on December 6, 2016.

Arguably, because of the underlying evidence reviewed to produce it, the HPSCI report is the most critical of the declassified release in the last few months. The HPSCI report walks through the timeline, as the ICA was created between early to late December 2016. Do NOT forget. Tulsi Gabbard is essentially all alone on this mission of sunlight. Tulsi’s isolation is the one issue people do not quite seem to understand. Pam Bondi (AG) isn’t with her. Director Kash Patel (FBI) and Director John Ratcliffe (CIA) are not with her. Susie Wiles (CoS) is not with her. In all of these efforts DNI Tulsi Gabbard is all alone. The Israel-First media and activist group is also aligned against her.

If you doubt that’s the scenario, show me a single voice from inside the administration who stood up to (even gently) defend her when Tulsi was attacked about her position on the Iran nuclear capabilities. Tulsi is all alone. She is all alone on this mission and even physically all alone when on task within the administration. Watch for it and you can clearly see it. Once you see it, you cannot unsee it. This is not about President Trump per se’. The Office of the President is not a significant participant at the moment, and those who control power within the Oval Office keep Tulsi isolated and away from the President. However, if DNI Tulsi Gabbard turns against Palantir, she will be removed. Full stop. We saw those Palantir boundary rails surface when DNI Gabbard was not fully behind the bombing of Iran.

People argue against the power of the ODNI, saying the office is a functionary only. These are historically old arguments by people who do not fully understand the nature of the silo system. Yes, this is the typical viewpoint; however, readers on these pages will note that I have said repeatedly for years now, the DNI position can be used for powerfully good purposes. The DNI can look at anything in Washington DC. Anything, inside any silo. As noted by the angered WaPo, “Gabbard has greater declassification authority than all other intelligence elements and is not required to get their approval prior to release.” The DNI can look at anything in any silo and put sunlight upon it. Yet, people claim the DNI has no power. lol The ability to bring sunlight is power. Go Tulsi!

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“..urging his side to choose sanity before it’s too late, warning that the alternative is a permanent descent into madness..”

Bill Maher: Democrats Must Choose Sanity Over Wokeness (Margolis)

Bill Maher continues to carve out a unique position as a leftist who openly challenges the woke left from within his own party. As I’ve pointed out before, Bill Maher may be a leftist, but he’s spoken out repeatedly against the woke left, and that’s a good thing that I hope helps move the party away from crazy. It’s not working yet, but dare to dream. His critiques have been sharp and unrelenting, exposing the destructive elements that have taken hold in portions of the Democratic Party. Yet Maher’s disdain for the woke left is not just comic disdain; it’s rooted in a deep frustration with how the progressive wing is unraveling the party and the nation. Whether it’s calling out the ridiculous outrage over the Sydney Sweeney ads or admitting that President Donald Trump was right about tariffs, Maher has shown an ability to be honest about the issues without blindly following the party line.

https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1951495192185368991

Yes, Maher may be a leftist who hates Trump, but he recognizes that woke activists are destroying his party. Maher is not just mocking woke excess; he’s demanding a serious reckoning. His most recent monologue challenged Democrats to confront a fundamental question: Do they support the values of Western civilization? “The world is a complicated place, and it’s not just about oppressor and oppressed,” Maher said recently. “They have a thought in their head that white people did some very bad things — and white people did some very bad things — but so did everybody else in the world. But they don’t know that. They just see the world through this one prism. And until they do, I don’t think you’re gonna get them off this issue, and I don’t think the Democratic Party is gonna be able to go forward until they make a decision. Whose side are you on here? Are you on the side of Western civilization and Western values, or are you on the side of the terrorists?”

Maher zeroed in on intersectionality as the first wave of the woke “infection,” an idea that repackages historical grievances into racial hierarchy dogma that unfairly demonizes white people alone. Maher’s challenge to Democrats is radical in its clarity: it’s time to decide if you stand with the values that built the West or if you side with terrorists. He warned chillingly that many Democrats are only a step away from aligning with Hamas, with some already there. That is the stark reality Maher is laying bare. In his words, “Are you with those kids because, you know, Mandami, he’s the perfect candidate for them?” The warning here is not subtle. If Democrats continue to embrace the woke core that sympathizes with radical ideologies over patriotism and Western values, their collapse is assured.

Bill Maher cuts through the absurdity of the woke left’s claims. Whether you agree with his broader politics or not, Maher is signaling that the battle for the soul of the Democratic Party and America is no longer a game. It’s a choice between sanity and self-immolation. And so far, Bill Maher is shouting for sanity to prevail. Bill Maher slices right through the woke left’s nonsense with the kind of blunt honesty that’s becoming rare in his party. Whether you agree with his broader politics or not, he couldn’t be clearer: the fight for the soul of the Democratic Party and the future of the country are no longer a sideshow. We’ve reached a crossroads between common sense and political self-destruction. And right now, Maher is one of the loudest voices urging his side to choose sanity before it’s too late, warning that the alternative is a permanent descent into madness.

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“..nothing’s more dangerous than bad advice from people who never face the consequences.”

The Experts Bet Against Trump and Lost (Margolis)

For years, the self-anointed experts in economics have been catastrophically, almost comically wrong about Donald Trump’s tariff strategy. They were wrong during his first term, and he is proving them wrong again in his second. They didn’t just miss the mark; they weren’t even aiming at the right target. Now, with new data and landmark trade agreements in hand, the world has every reason to demand accountability from the academic class that branded Trump’s trade policies as reckless economic self-sabotage. Remember the parade of Nobel laureates and Ivy League economists lining up to denounce Trump’s tariffs as a singular threat to American prosperity? All those economic apocalyptic predictions that they repeated endlessly like gospel. They were wrong, and it’s about time they all admit it, don’t you think?

Economist John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, explained in the New York Post how the orthodoxy went from smug certainty to stunned confusion. And as he makes clear, it’s time those so-called experts learn to eat a little crow. As Lott notes, the anti-tariff hysteria never made logical sense. Experts from the right and left were quick to denounce Trump’s trade policy.

“On the left, Nobel laureate and Columbia professor Joseph Stiglitz declared in January that Trump’s policy was “very bad for America and for the world,” while University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers called it “impressively destructive.” On the right, prominent free-market advocates like George Mason’s Donald Boudreaux also voiced strong opposition. Yet their arguments against tariffs revealed a fundamental misunderstanding: They decried tariffs as uniquely harmful, while ignoring that the same logic applies to all taxes.

Take the common critique that tariffs, as a tax on trade, reduce trade overall. Phil Gramm and Larry Summers — one conservative, one liberal — jointly argued that tariffs “distort domestic production” by pushing resources toward less efficient uses. They warned that tariffs would slow economic growth.”

Critics love to warn that tariffs slow growth and hurt consumers. Fair enough, but so do all taxes. Sales taxes discourage spending, income taxes discourage work, and corporate taxes drive away investment. Every tax distorts the economy, and tariffs are no different. If you oppose tariffs just because they raise prices, you’d have to oppose every tax. With Washington spending $7 trillion this year, taxes aren’t going anywhere. The real goal should be minimizing the damage, and Trump understood that. Before his policies, the average U.S. tariff rate was just 2.5% — tiny compared to top personal income tax rates over 43% and corporate taxes around 27.5%. If tariffs can offset other taxes, they might lower the overall burden.

Experts painted tariffs as economic sabotage, ignoring that all taxes chip away at prosperity. They also swore that Trump’s tough tactics would kill trade deals. Instead, he opened markets once thought unreachable. Trump played hardball, and other countries blinked. The refusal to admit America’s leverage isn’t analysis; it’s just laziness. “Trump began with aggressive tariff threats, horrifying many economists — but the results speak for themselves. The United States has secured deals that dramatically opened foreign markets representing 55% of global GDP. Even critics have had to acknowledge the shift. “To avoid worst of Trump tariffs, [the European Union] accepted a lopsided deal,” the Washington Post conceded, while the London-based Financial Times described how the EU “succumbed to Trump’s tariff steamroller.”

The evidence shows that it’s time for a reckoning. The doomsaying economists who swore tariffs would trigger disaster were wrong: not just on the math but on the realities of power and negotiation. When tariffs can cut other taxes, open markets, and give America leverage, it’s worth reevaluating instead of parroting outdated talking points. But expecting these “experts” to admit it is like expecting the media to apologize for the Russian collusion hoax; it’s not going to happen. The lesson is simple: don’t outsource your common sense to the ivory tower. Trump’s tariffs weren’t a gamble; they were a masterclass in real-world leadership. And nothing’s more dangerous than bad advice from people who never face the consequences.

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“..It seemed only brief interaction was occurring – in some cases, no unauthorized access, or even attempted access, was detected on ‘victim’ systems.”

Whistleblower Ties Clinton Campaign to Fake Russia Hack (Paul Sperry)

A whistleblower report declassified last week suggests that Hillary Clinton’s campaign efforts to manufacture evidence tying Donald Trump to alleged Russian hacking in 2016 were deeper than previously known – as were Obama administration efforts to conceal them. According to the report, a former senior U.S. intelligence analyst who investigated alleged Russian attempts to breach state voting systems during the 2016 election suspected the breaches may have been “related to activities” of the computer contractors involved in the Alfa Bank hoax, who were accused of manipulating Internet traffic data. In that well-publicized case, a Clinton campaign lawyer worked with federal computer contractors and the FBI to create suspicions that Russia was communicating with Donald Trump through a secret server shared by Alfa Bank of Russia and Trump Tower in Manhattan.

The anonymous whistleblower – who served as the deputy national intelligence officer for cyber issues in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence from 2015 to 2020 – told Special Counsel John Durham he stumbled onto “enigmatic” data while leading the investigation of alleged Russian cyber activity for the Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian meddling in the 2016 election. He said that his discovery took place in December 2016 when President Obama ordered the ICA. After examining state-reported breaches of election networks, the whistleblower said, “It seemed only brief interaction was occurring – in some cases, no unauthorized access, or even attempted access, was detected on ‘victim’ systems.” Though the suspicious activity initially was attributed to Russian actors, further analysis raised doubts.

But when he brought his findings to his boss, ODNI’s national intelligence officer for cyber issues, he was ordered to stop investigating and not include his findings in the final ICA draft. “After being directed to conduct analysis of Russian-attributed cyber activity for the ICA, I had been abruptly directed to abandon further investigation,” the whistleblower analyst said. He added that his boss, whose name was blacked out in the whistleblower statement, “directed me to abandon analysis of these events, stating reports of Russia-attributed cyber activity were ‘something else.'” While the names of the whistleblower and his boss are blacked out in the report, a RealClearInvestigations search of federal records shows Vinh Nguyen was the national intelligence officer for cyber issues at the time. The whistleblower would have been Nguyen’s deputy.

The whistleblower’s 2023 complaint, declassified last week by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, also seems to contradict the recent claims of Obama’s director of national intelligence, James Clapper, and his CIA Director, John Brennan, among others that the ICA was a neutral document prepared according to the highest standards whose conclusions were widely supported by the intelligence community. The whistleblower said his supervisor also “pressured me to accept the ICA’s judgment of a decisive Russian preference for then President-elect Trump, and stated to me that he sought my concurrence as means to sway the position of” another intelligence agency. “I was pressured to alter my views on the key judgment,” he said. But, he added, “I could not concur in good conscience based on information available, and my professional analytic judgment.”

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“..the hospital averaged one fetal death per month, she said in the lawsuit. However, beginning in spring 2021, the number of stillbirths skyrocketed to about 20 per month, and remains at that level today..”

California Hospital Covered Up Surge In Stillbirths After Covid Shots (CHD)

A California hospital concealed data linking a “catastrophic surge” in stillbirths among women who received COVID-19 vaccines, according to a lawsuit filed last week in the Superior Court of California, Fresno County. Michelle Spencer, a nurse at Community Medical Centers’ (CMC) Community Regional Medical Center, said the hospital “deliberately and selectively” concealed from staff, patients and regulators a spike in unborn baby deaths that began in spring 2021, and retaliated against her when she publicized the information. The lawsuit also says the hospital concealed medical data related to the fetal deaths that showed a link to COVID-19 vaccination of pregnant mothers. The data include hospital-wide medical records documenting the number of stillbirths and the vaccination histories of those babies’ mothers.

One managing nurse at the hospital told a staff member that nearly all of the stillbirths occurred among vaccinated mothers. According to the complaint, Spencer “witnessed firsthand the exponential increase in unborn baby deaths directly correlating with pregnant women who received a Covid vaccine and then would deliver a dead baby a close number of days or weeks following their injection.” Spencer’s attorney, Greg Glaser, said: “The essence of this case is that the truth shall set you free. The hospital possessed vaccinated versus unvaccinated comparison data. The numbers proved the vaccines were causing miscarriages and more in the vaccinated group. “We know hospital management analyzed the data because they said so, and we see they concealed it from regulators because that file [requested by regulators] is empty.”

Children’s Health Defense is funding the lawsuit, which accuses the hospital of fraud, retaliation and unethical business practices. Spencer, who has been employed with the hospital since 2017, works in the antepartum, postpartum and labor and delivery units, all located on the hospital’s third floor. Before the COVID-19 vaccination rollouts, the hospital averaged one fetal death per month, she said in the lawsuit. However, beginning in spring 2021, the number of stillbirths skyrocketed to about 20 per month, and remains at that level today, Spencer said. The number is an estimate because Spencer can’t access the hospital’s full medical records.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Aphasia

IVM

Every dog needs this.

Bellamy

Click for the whole photo- worth it.

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

May 172025
 


Marc Chagall The painter to the moon 1917

 

Secretary Rubio Begins the Process for a Trump and Putin Summit (CTH)
Rubio and Trump: This Is the ‘Only Way’ to End the War in Ukraine (PJM)
Trump Still Pressing Forward On Meeting Putin ‘As Soon As We Can’ (ZH)
Trump Quips, ‘I Should’ve Asked For More’ After Securing $2T, Qatar jet (NYP)
Tulsi Gabbard Calls for Jailing Comey (Victoria Taft)
What’s Next for James Comey in Secret Service Investigation (Susan Crabtree)
Cool? (James Howard Kunstler)
Ukraine Conflict Could Have Ended In Weeks – Russia’s Top Negotiator (RT)
Trump Says Zelensky ‘Pissed Away’ Ukraine Aid (NYP)
Trump Threatens Russia With ‘Crushing’ Sanctions (RT)
Russia Hits Out At British PM (RT)
Trump Bashes Supreme Court For Blocking Use of Alien Enemies Act (Allen)
The Real First 100 Days (Victor Davis Hanson)
Conservative Holdouts Vote Down ONE, BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL (ZH)
Biden/Hur Tapes Released: Question is, Who Was Running the Country? (CTH)
The NY Times Runs Video of Yale Professors Fleeing to Canada (Turley)
Rickards to Bannon: Petrodollar 2.0 Is Coming (DR)

 

 

8647 days
https://twitter.com/tehterminator/status/1923218132992393269

 

 

Trump Qatar
https://twitter.com/iAnonPatriot/status/1923369862082048228

Oren Cass

Chemtrails

We didn’t say five. We said eight.

Qatar deal
https://twitter.com/KAGdrogo/status/1923442698888892824

 

 

 

 

“There’s quite literally almost no place on the planet where President Trump and Vladimir Putin could meet without hearing the drumbeat of opposition against their assembly. Almost….”

“Keep in mind that President Trump has been speaking to Vladimir Putin directly via phone, and consequentially through his emissary Steven Witkoff. Vladimir Putin has been speaking to President Trump through the same channel.”

Secretary Rubio Begins the Process for a Trump and Putin Summit (CTH)

A meeting between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin brings with it the focus of the entire world. For a myriad of geopolitical reasons both domestically and abroad, there are ‘trillion-dollar’ interests who want to keep them apart. Earlier today, fearing that President Trump might actually travel to Turkey, NATO Secretary Mark Rutte and Senator Lindsey Graham quickly arranged dispatch to intercept and participate. The global intelligence apparatus wants to keep Trump and Putin apart, so too does the NATO alliance, the CIA, the U.K and every other influence agent in partial control of the USA proxy war against Russia using Ukraine.

A decade of carefully scripted narratives against President Trump and any forward leaning Russian foreign policy sits in the background, with an almost incalculable number of opposition elements aligned against President Trump forming any positive USA-Russia relationship. There’s quite literally almost no place on the planet where President Trump and Vladimir Putin could meet without hearing the drumbeat of opposition against their assembly. Almost….

For President Trump and Vladimir Putin to join in strategic interest is to disrupt the global order of things, and I do mean everything. The military industrial complex, the global banking system, the World Economic Forum assembly, the multinational stock markets, the world trade system, the entire European continent, Asian continent, Australian continent, African continent and North American continent, as well as every conflict therein, could be impacted by joint decisions between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. To say the stakes are high, would be to understate the scale of the dynamic.

In this interview, Secretary of State Marco Rubio seems to nurture the seeds placed by President Trump in his earlier remarks about sitting down with Vladimir Putin to hammer out the details of a ceasefire agreement between Ukraine and Russia. The entire world pretends not to know that all of the military engagement within Ukraine and around Ukraine, is essentially a proxy war between the USA and Russia. A potential meeting between President Trump and Vladimir Putin destroys that framework. This is heavy stuff. WATCH:

Keep in mind that President Trump has been speaking to Vladimir Putin directly via phone, and consequentially through his emissary Steven Witkoff. Vladimir Putin has been speaking to President Trump through the same channel. A face-to-face meeting was always going to happen, the only part of the dynamic we were awaiting was how the two presidents were going to coordinate the meeting of consequence, and how would President Trump ditch the U.S. control elements.

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“..we could spend it instead on creating wealth and prosperity and human development. Obviously, that’s not the way the world works, but that’s what he hopes we can achieve.”

Rubio and Trump: This Is the ‘Only Way’ to End the War in Ukraine (PJM)

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been traveling with Donald Trump to the Middle East this week. He’s currently in Turkey, working to build a stronger NATO by pushing for increased defense spending and fairer burden sharing, among other things. On Friday, he met with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Ukrainian Presidential Administration Head Andriy Yermak. There have been some rumors that Vladimir Putin himself would show up in Turkey to meet with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky this week, but in the end, Putin declined. Both Rubio and Trump now believe there is only one way to get the two leaders together and end the war once and for all.

On Thursday night, Rubio explained the situation to Sean Hannity on Fox News who asked about the situation: “And you also went into detail – there had been some hope, maybe, in the background – was never any full commitment – that Vladimir Putin might show up at this and have a meeting with Zelensky. And then you were pretty clear today that you believe if that’s going to happen, it would take Donald Trump sitting down with Vladimir Putin. What exactly did you mean by that?” Rubio went on to explain that he believes the only way the Russia-Ukraine War will finally come to an end is if Trump and Putin sit down at a table together, face-to-face, and talk.

“Yeah, it’s my assessment and I think it’s the President’s assessment. By the way, I think he said publicly today that the only way we’re going to have a breakthrough here – nothing is going to happen at this point – given everything we know, after months of working on this, nothing is going to happen until President Trump sits across the table from Vladimir Putin and puts it on the line and puts it on the table. I think that’s the only chance we have at peace at this point given everything we’ve seen over the last few weeks. There’s been talks, there’s been negotiations, there’s been trips and meetings. But in the end, I think we’ve reached the conclusion, and rightfully so, as the President has, that the only way this is going to happen – if it has a chance to happen, the only way it happens is – is the President directly engages with Vladimir Putin. So I don’t know what the date or the place of that is yet, but that’s really the only chance at this point. And I think there are a lot of countries here that would privately share that assessment as well.”

On Friday, Trump echoed the sentiment, telling reporters in Abu Dhabi that he’s ready for the meeting “as soon as we can set it up,” adding, “I think it’s time for us to just do it.” Trump also asserted on Thursday that the reason Putin refused to meet in Turkey this week is that Trump himself wasn’t there. “Nothing is going to happen until Putin and I get together,” he said. Rubio has made it clear in recent weeks that this war will require a diplomatic solution, and as we’ve seen over the last week in the Middle East (with apologies to Rubio), there may be no better diplomat in the world than Donald Trump right now. Rubio, who called the president a “lover of peace,” seems to agree. He told Hannity:

” I think the President the other night or the other day in Saudi Arabia gave perhaps one of the most impressive speeches of his presidency and one of the most meaningful speeches by an American president overseas in decades. And in it, one of the things he talks about is how he wants to see more building and less bombing. In essence, he wants to see us building things up, not destroying things. The President, frankly, is a lover of peace. He… wants to stop wars and prevent wars and end wars. That’s what the President endeavors to do. In fact, he openly has said – and he said it in the speech – that he wishes we didn’t have to spend all this money on the military; we could spend it instead on creating wealth and prosperity and human development. Obviously, that’s not the way the world works, but that’s what he hopes we can achieve. And that’s what he’s trying to achieve here. That’s it.”

I was just asked a question by the media here about this a few minutes ago, and I said I still don’t understand why some would be critical of the President – they should be happy that the President of the most powerful nation on earth is a peacemaker who seeks to prevent wars, seeks to end wars, and seeks to stop existing wars. I think this is something we should be very proud of, that we have a President that seeks peace, seeks the end of death and destruction – in this case, in the Russia-Ukraine war which has gone on far too long, destroyed thousands and thousands of lives, and really is going to cost billions of dollars to rebuild from. ”

Meanwhile, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin also stated on Friday that Pope Leo XIV plans to offer up the Vatican as a place where Putin and Zelensky can sit down and talk. Parolin also said the fact that Putin failed to show up in Turkey this week is “tragic because we hoped that a process could be started, perhaps slow but with a peaceful solution to the conflict, and instead we are back at the beginning.” I’m not sure if that invitation would extend to Trump as well, but I hope it does. The more I hear Trump and Rubio talk, the more it sounds like a resolution to the war could be imminent.

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On Putin’s absence for the meeting, which was to be expected, Trump described, “He didn’t go, and I understand that..”

Trump Still Pressing Forward On Meeting Putin ‘As Soon As We Can’ (ZH)

President Donald Trump said Friday as he wrapped up his four-day visit to the Middle East that the White House is still moving forward on setting up direct talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and that this will happen as soon as possible.”I think it’s time for us to just do it,” Trump told reporters, addressing whether an in-person meeting will still happen. He added that a meeting with Putin will happen “as soon as we can set it up”. He suggested that peace will ultimately only be possible if the two leaders sit at the same table. That’s when he said, interestingly that “I would actually leave here and go” – an apparent reference to Istanbul where rare Russia-Ukraine talks are being held Friday. But he referenced his daughter Tiffany having given birth to her first child. “I do want to see my beautiful grandson,” he said.

“I don’t believe anything’s going to happen whether you like it or not, until he and I get together,” Trump said further, in reference to his Russian counterpart. “But we’re going to have to get it solved because too many people are dying.” As we reported earlier, there are no signs of any breakthrough toward peace coming from the Istanbul meeting, which lasted less than two-hours; however, each side is signaling that it could lead to more talks. On Putin’s absence for the meeting, which was to be expected, Trump described, “He didn’t go, and I understand that,” and that “We’re going to get it done. We got to get it done. Five thousand young people are being killed every single week on average, and we’re going to get it done.”But Ukraine is now trying to make the case that Putin was never interested in peace talks, and is using the process to string Washington along as its forces try to solidify greater hold over Ukraine’s east.

https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1923095289654591909?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1923095289654591909%7Ctwgr%5E19687c7f83734018079e2cfa88339f0e2e9f86dd%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fgeopolitical%2Ftrump-still-pressing-forward-meeting-putin-soon-we-can

One Amsterdam-based publication and Russia monitor writes of the less than prominent man Putin tapped to head Russia’s delegation–Medinsky was joined by Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin, Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin and Igor Kostyukov, the head of Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency. Experts have described Moscow’s revival of direct talks within the Istanbul framework as a symbolic gesture not intended to seek a real solution to the war. Meanwhile, Trump has said while en route back to the United States from the Middle East that he’ll likely phone Putin soon.

Trump later told reporters after boarding Air Force One to begin the journey back to Washington that he may call Putin soon. “He and I will meet, and I think we’ll solve it or maybe not,” Trump said. “At least we’ll know. And if we don’t solve it, it’ll be very interesting.” An actual Putin-Trump sit-down would be bad news for Kiev, which has seethed at being cut out of US-Russia bilateral engagement, given much of this engagement is related to the fate of Ukraine. With the minerals deal signed, Zelensky is attempting to reset the rocky relationship with Trump. A lot of pressure has been coming from the US administration, urging Kiev to be willing to negotiate peace, which would require some level of significant concessions.

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“They were being coaxed very strongly by China,” Trump continued. “That solves China’s fuel problems forever. “It wasn’t their preference, but they were on their way.”

Trump Quips, ‘I Should’ve Asked For More’ After Securing $2T, Qatar jet (NYP)

President Trump joked Friday that he regretted not asking “for more” from the Gulf states during his visit to the Middle East, where he secured more than $2 trillion in US investments and even scored a potential replacement for Air Force One. “There’s never been a trip like this by any president or anybody ever before,” Trump told Fox News’ “Special Report” host Bret Baier about his four days in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The president sealed deals throughout his Middle East swing, including a $600 billion investment commitment from Saudi Arabia, a $1.2 trillion economic exchange agreement and a $243.5 billion commercial and defense pact with Qatar and $200 billion in UAE commercial investment agreements. “I should’ve asked for more,” Trump said of the four-day windfall.

Ahead of his voyage — Trump’s first official foreign trip of his second term — the president was also gifted a luxuriously upgraded Boeing 747-8 worth an estimated $400 million from a member of Qatar’s royal family. Trump plans to use the so-called “flying palace” as a temporary replacement for the 40-year-old Air Force One planes currently in use after the Department of Defense makes the necessary upgrades to bring the jet up to presidential standards. The jet, currently parked in the US, was not presented to Trump by Qatar during the visit. The president has been critical of Boeing for being slow to deliver new Air Force One aircraft. “You know, until you bring this up now, I haven’t heard about it for three days,” Trump, sounding annoyed, told Baier when he brought up the jet. “I mean, we can talk about it again. You ready?”

“They’re giving it to the United States Air Force/Defense Department of the United States and not giving it to me,” the president asserted. “I made a good deal,” Trump continued. “We need a plane for a couple of years before we get the other ones, because Boeing is very late.” The president argued that previous administrations had not shown the Gulf states, which he described as “very important,” enough regard — pushing them closer to China. “It was never treated properly,” Trump said of the Middle East, “and it was certainly not treated well by Biden, who didn’t know he was alive, frankly.”

“He didn’t treat this group well,” the president continued, referring to former President Joe Biden’s handling of relations with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE. “They were being coaxed very strongly by China,” Trump continued. “That solves China’s fuel problems forever. “It wasn’t their preference, but they were on their way.” Trump was adamant that under his administration, close ties between the Gulf nations and China would not happen. “We’re closer to them than ever before,” the president said of US relations with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE as he wrapped up his trip.

Full interview

Read more …

Note: Comey has a new book to sell. He needs the publicity.

Tulsi Gabbard Calls for Jailing Comey (Victoria Taft)

Could the feds find an orange jumpsuit to fit a 6’7″ former FBI director? They may have to. FBI Director James Comey thought it would be great fun to post what appeared to be a death threat against the president of the United States, Donald Trump, on Instagram on Thursday. Federal law enforcement wasn’t laughing. It’s supposed to be bad form to issue death threats when a president is out of town. We suppose those days are over. Trump’s been overseas in Jihadi Kingdom, where one guy with C4, a vest, and ball bearings could change the course of history. The feds, however, take a dim view of death threats against a president who’s already been shot in one of three assassination plots.

The Secret Service, Trump family, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard don’t find the message to get rid of POTUS all that humorous. In fact, Gabbard is calling for the former FBI cirector to be arrested and jailed for his threat against President Trump. Yes, she said it. As I reported in “Did Former FBI Director James Comey Just Call for Trump To Be Murdered?” Comey posted on his Instagram page a collection of seashells spelling out “86 47.” Anyone above a certain IQ has heard the term 86—a call to get rid of someone—and knows that 47 refers to Trump 47. As I wrote, “The message was received loudly and clearly by the Trump family.” On Jesse Watters’ Fox News show Thursday evening, a usually serene Tulsi Gabbard showed a seldom seen anger while discussing how incredibly unfunny the former top U.S. lawman’s threat was. She also said that she wasn’t buying for one second Comey’s lame excuse that he didn’t know what it meant. Here’s how her conversation with Jesse Watters went. Read all her comments because there’s a surprise in there.

https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/1923180004738781466

“Gabbard: A guy who had a career out of prosecuting mobsters and gangsters; people who know and execute other humans and use this exact lingo of “86.” Comey himself admitted in his follow-on message that he knew this was a political statement. Well, the only reason he knew that, Jesse, is because a little over a month ago, a bunch of anti-Trump, anti-Elon Musk protesters were proliferating the use of this 86-47 slogan, which was a veiled call to action to murder the sitting president of the United States. So, for Comey to think, that we, the American people are so stupid as to think that as a former FBI Director, former prosecutor, and to someone who clearly pays attention to what’s going on would believe his lie that he didn’t know what this actually was calling for, the dangerousness of this, Jesse, cannot be underestimated when we have two assassination attempts on the president’s life.

When we have people who look to guys like Comey celebrated by MSNBC, the Democratic elite, CNN as the beacon of integrity, the law and order guy, the guy who tells the truth no matter what the consequences. This is the guy who is issuing a hit on President Trump, the president the American people voted for. So it’s guys like Comey and others to call the president the modern day Nazi, people who are in great positions of influence who are saying that President Trump poses an existential threat to our country. These are people who hate democracy and hate the American people and cannot stand that the people who overwhelmingly chose to elect Donald Trump and send him back to the White House, so they are seeking other means to get their way and to try to remove him from that position.

Watters: How serious is the administration taking this and what are the next steps going to be?

Gabbard: We’re taking this very seriously. As you mentioned, the Department of Homeland Security and specifically Sean Curran, the current Secret Service Director, the man who has been willing to lay down his life as the lead of President Trump’s Secret Service detail for years now, he takes this seriously and is leading the investigation into this threat. There has to be accountability for this. There was a Rutgers study that came out over a month ago, Jesse, that asked respondents their view on these calls to assassinate President Trump and over 55% of respondents felt that murdering Donald Trump would be quote, unquote somewhat justified. This is the effect of people like James Comey doing this kind of stuff. This study also pointed out that there is a quote unquote assassination culture that is starting to take over the views of what they call the extreme left. We, the American people, cannot take this lightly. Whatever your politics, we cannot allow people to get by without being held accountable for this kind of public call to assassinate the president of the United States.

Watters: Do you believe that Comey is goading you guys to come after him because he wants to be a political matyr; he wants to be set up so he can say, ‘Oh, you’re right! Donald Trump is a dictator. They’re coming after me. They’re arresting me. They’re interrogating me. I was just using my free speech.’

Gabbard: You know, whatever his intent, I will tell you that there’s a guy in Georgia issuing threats on my life about a month ago and he’s in jail today. He has been in indicted with a crime, as he should have been, and he is in jail as we speak. Whatever James Comey[‘s] intent, the rule of law is that people like him need to be held to account according to the law which is something he claims to have given his life for and stand by the rule of law. Fantastic. The rule of law says that people like him who issue direct threats against the president of the United States—essentially issuing a call to assassinate him— must be accountable under the law.

Watters: Do you think he should be in jail?

Gabbard: I do. Any other person with a position of influence that he has, people who take very seriously what a guy of his stature, his experience, and what the propaganda media has built him up to be, I’m very concerned for the president’s life. I’m very concerned about these assassination attempts. I’m very concerned for his life. And James Comey, in my view, should be held accountable and should be behind bars for this.”

Lawbreaking isn’t new for James Comey. He has done far worse with his attempted blackmail and framing of Donald Trump for being a Russian secret agent in the fake Russia collusion information operation. That operation was a conspiracy between Comey’s FBI, the CIA, the Hillary Clinton campaign, the DOJ, and the Obama/Biden administration. It is the biggest scandal in American political history. Nobody’s gone to jail for it. The Secret Service has taken point on the threat investigation, but FBI Director Kash Patel weighed in on social media about it late Thursday afternoon. We are aware of the recent social media post by former FBI Director James Comey, directed at President Trump. We are in communication with the Secret Service and Director Curran. Primary jurisdiction is with SS on these matters and we, the FBI, will provide all necessary support. He wrote the message on X.

Department of Homeland Security head Kristi Noem was also fired up about the threat by a person who should have known better. This “86 47” messaging has been popular on TikTok and other social media for a while. Governor Gretchen Whitmer toyed with a version of it, “86 45,” when Trump ran for re-election in 2020. But that was before the assassination attempts. But when a president has been nearly assassinated twice, the last thing a former law man should be doing is calling for more. Comey later pretended he didn’t know what it meant and took the post down. The left worships the former FBI man as a pillar of moral rectitude. He’s a pillar of something, alright. I can’t wait for the part where the Secret Service says, “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.” That should make Comey’s book tour quite entertaining.

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“These threat investigations are immediate,” he said. “There’s no delay in these types of investigations, they are going to seek to speak to him as soon as possible.”

What’s Next for James Comey in Secret Service Investigation (Susan Crabtree)

The Secret Service may try to force former FBI Director James Comey to answer pointed questions about a social media post he issued depicting an image of “8647,” but a U.S. attorney whom President Donald Trump appointed will determine whether to prosecute Comey over the post.If Comey refuses to comply with their request for what’s known as a protective intelligence interview, the Secret Service leading the investigation into the Instagram post can apply for a subpoena through an assistant U.S. attorney. It’s that prosecutor who will determine whether the former FBI director is legally required to answer their questions and the full U.S. attorney in the office ultimately will decide whether to bring charges against him for threatening the president, Secret Service sources tell RealClearPolitics.

As an attorney and former top law enforcement official in the nation, Comey is well aware that he can decline an interview without having an attorney present, so he may refuse to cooperate with Secret Service agents’ questioning until he can hire a lawyer to represent him. On the other hand, Comey could agree to demonstrate how open and transparent he is and immediately cooperate and sit down for an interview. Top law enforcement and intelligence officials on Thursday said they were investigating Comey’s viral social media post, which many Trump supporters viewed as a threat against the president. Just hours after Comey, who Trump fired in 2017, took down the post, claiming he was unaware the message has violent connotations, Homeland Security Department Secretary Kristi Noem announced that her agency and the Secret Service are investigating “this threat and will respond appropriately.”

FBI Director Kash Patel and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard also weighed in, arguing that the FBI is ready to assist the Secret Service with “all necessary support,” while Gabbard stressed that the administration and the Secret Service are taking the incident “very seriously.” “There has to be accountability for this,” she told Fox News host Jesse Watters. “The Department of Homeland Security and Sean Curran, the current Secret Service director—a man who has been willing to lay down his life as the lead of President Trump’s Secret Service detail for years now—he takes this seriously and is leading the investigation into this threat.” The Secret Service, however, declined to disclose its exact activities. Asked if agents had already try to contact Comey or located him or had plans to do so, agency spokesman Anthony Guglielmi declined to specify.

“The Secret Service vigorously investigates anything that can be taken as a potential threat against our protectees,” he said in an emailed statement. “We are aware of the social media posts by the former FBI director, and we take rhetoric like this very seriously. Beyond that, we do not comment on protective intelligence matters.”The Secret Service treats social media threats to all presidents as a top priority requiring immediate attention and have likely tried to locate Comey and may try to conduct what’s known as a protective intelligence interview to determine the motivations behind the post and whether anyone else was involved in the decision to release it on Instagram, where Comey first posted it. Charles Marino, a former Secret Service agent and national security expert, late Thursday predicted that Comey was “gonna have a very, very, very long night.”

From his experience in the Secret Service, Marino predicts the Washington field offices for the Secret Service and the FBI have already been activated and either already have or are planning to pay Comey a visit tonight to interview him about the threatening social media post against Trump. “Look, here’s the deal: They’re sending agents out, and they’re going talk to him, and he’s not going to have a choice,” Marino said. “He’s going to have to talk to them, because this stuff about, well, you know, I found this on the beach. I didn’t know what it meant. None of that makes sense.” “These threat investigations are immediate,” he said. “There’s no delay in these types of investigations, they are going to seek to speak to him as soon as possible.” Marino also noted Comey can be prosecuted for the threatening social media post under 18 USC 871, which governs threats against presidents.

The Secret Service closes out a high percentage of these investigations into online social media threats after determining that the people are either incapable of formulating an actual attack or don’t have the means to do so, according to two sources in the Secret Service community. But if the Secret Service agents investigating Comey uncover information undermining his explanation that he didn’t know that “86” has a violent connotation or evidence of a conspiracy of any kind, then they can forward their findings and recommendations to the U.S. attorney for prosecution. Because the probe is focused on a social media post with an impact across jurisdictions throughout the United States, there is more flexibility in determining which U.S. attorney to submit any evidence uncovered. Marino confirmed that Jeanine Pirro, a fiery former Fox News host whom Trump recently appointed to the position of U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., could be in the mix of potential prosecutors determining whether to charge Comey with a crime for issuing the Instagram post.

It would be the case of a lifetime for Pirro, a former New York judge and district attorney who vigorously and regularly defended Trump on Fox News. But critics would no doubt impugn her obvious bias in favor of the Trump administration should she take on the case. “Comey is going to have some ‘splainin’ to do,” Marino added. “In this current political climate …This case has to be presented to a United States attorney for acceptance of the case or declination.” Several celebrities have made threatening remarks or posted about wanting to see Trump die on social media, while only one suffered a notable career setback for doing so. Comedian Kathy Griffin faced backlash in 2017 for circulating a photo of herself holding a bloody severed Trump head. CNN fired Griffin from her long-running gig co-hosting the network’s New Year’s Eve special with Anderson Cooper, and two departments within the Justice Department investigated her for a conspiracy to assassinate the president.

Griffin argued the photo was protected speech but later apologized as the harsh criticism continued among even some fellow left-leaning comedians, including Stephen Colbert. Also in 2017, Madonna, during a surprise appearance at the anti-Trump Women’s March on Washington, said she “thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House.” The Secret Service opened an investigation and tried to interview Madonna, but she referred them to an attorney. Ultimately, the Secret Service did not press for a subpoena, according to one Secret Service source familiar with the case. Madonna at the time said her comment was a metaphor and was taken out of context. But for average Americans, threats to “blow up” a person’s house or a place of business are usually taken very seriously by police. At the very least, it’s commonplace for police to conduct cursory investigations of these types of comments, whether they are made publicly or privately and reported to police.

Late into Thursday night, Comey’s name was still trending on X.com as a debate raged over whether his tweet amounted to a threat to Trump, and if so, how serious it was. Meanwhile, copycat social media influencers released their own “8647” memes and defended them as free speech. Ed Krassenstein, a left-wing anti-Trump social media creator with more than a million followers, posted four billiard balls lined up to form “8647.” Therein lies the rub that makes Comey’s tweet so dangerous, according to Marino.“Do I personally think that James Comey has an intention to do harm in a physical manner to the president? No, I don’t,” he said. “Do I think that what he just posted has the ability to incite others? Absolutely.” Others on social media and cable news Thursday night questioned whether Comey was trying to gin up publicity in advance of the release of his new book “FDR Drive,” a legal thriller, which will be out May 20.

Watters asked Gabbard whether she thought Comey was trying to “goad” the Trump administration into investigating and prosecuting him to make him a legal martyr so he can regain political relevance. After two assassination attempts against Trump, it doesn’t matter, Gabbard said. She pointed out that Comey made a career out of prosecuting mobsters, who regularly use the term “86” as code for murder, and that the phrase had already been circulating among anti-Trump and anti-Elon Musk protesters as calls to assassinate the 47th president. “This is a guy issuing a hit on President Trump,” she said.

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“By the time this blog is up, officers of the Secret Service may be visiting Mr. Comey at home. No need to batter down the front door with guns drawn, though. That would be so un-cool.”

Cool? (James Howard Kunstler)

“Cool shell formation on my beach walk,” Jim Comey, former FBI Director wrote on Instagram about the message “86 47” laid out in seashells on the sand that he came across, innocently. You’d have to ask yourself: what was “cool” about that, exactly? Especially if, as Mr. Comey claimed on X soon after, that he didn’t know what it meant. Are things that you don’t understand “cool”? Is it just “cool” to learn that you can spell stuff out with seashells? (Who knew?)

Maybe he was surprised to learn that people other than Jim Comey fans might see his cute coded clip and conclude that it wasn’t such an innocent little gag. “47,” of course, refers to Donald Trump in the cavalcade of US presidents. Among the not-strrictly-fans was DNI Tulsi Gabbard, who went on TV hours later and said that Mr. Comey should go to prison for it — in so many words. You must suppose she meant after the appropriate procedures: an FBI deposition, a grand jury, an indictment, a trial. After all that, we’d probably get to the bottom of what JC meant by “cool.”

Now, it happens that in this new milieu of memes flying around every which way, the code “86 47” is not a complete mystery. It is apparently employed casually in settings where angry citizens gather to denounce the president. “86” is a term in restaurant kitchens when there is no more of an item that a waiter just brought in an order for. “Eighty-six on the monkfish, Carla,” the line-cook might yell. Apparently, mobsters like the phrase, too, for its pithiness: “Ay, somebody, go eighty-six that stronzo Rocco Vaselino, already! He ain’t paid da vig in a munt.” Soon, there will be no more of Rocco, you see. He will be food for the hellgrammites in the soil of the Jersey pine barrens. . . .

As DNI Gabbard pointed out — in case no one noticed — there have been two recent assassination attempts on Mr. Trump. It is a fact well-known to police psychologists that would-be assassins are curiously suggestible to prompts floating around in the zeitgeist. They tend to take them as commands. Go do this. And if anyone was a commanding figure, it would be Jim Comey, towering hero of the early anti-Trump resistance. Thus, it appears that Mr. Comey called for there to be no more of Mr. Trump. Not cool.

Also, not so cool, in the grand annals of the resistance, is the new book Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, by journalists (cough cough) Jake Tapper (of CNN) and Alex Thompson (Axios). The book purports to explain how the entire governance apparatus of the USA hid the mental decline of “Joe Biden,” the phantom president. Realize, please, that the news media is a vital part of that apparatus, and has been since the invention of the printing press, with its crucial role (until lately) as a regulating mechanism on the engine of public affairs.

In fact, it is precisely the role of the news media to notice things that public officials try to hide, so as to keep citizens apprised of what is really going on. And that is exactly what the news media intentionally declined to do during the four years of “Joe Biden.” But then, at least half the country, seeing “Joe Biden” in action on video, did not fail to notice his ever-worsening feeble bewilderment. Tapper and Thompson seek to shift the blame for this game of Pretend onto the gremlins behind the scenes in the White House who ran the “Joe Biden” show.

Tapper and Thompson are lying, of course, and in exactly the same brazen way as the bigwigs in the Democratic Party who sponsored this treasonous fraud. Jake Tapper, for one, stated repeatedly on-the-air from 2021 onward that “Joe Biden” was a capable and effective chief executive and denounced anybody who tried to argue otherwise. Just as Thompson, while accepting the Award for Overall Excellence at the White House Correspondents’ Annual Dinner in April, lied saying, “We, myself included, missed a lot of this story.” Really? Then what, exactly, was “excellent” about his reporting?

They also missed the story as to how the White House gremlins behind “Joe Biden” were wrecking the country with open borders, election fraud, drag queens in kindergarten, censorship, lawfare, and a colossal stream of secret grift from taxpayers through USAID-linked NGO’s to Democratic Party foot-soldiers like Stacey Abrams. The more plausible story — the truth, actually — is that the companies many reporters worked for, the old big newspapers like The New York Times and the WashPo, and the cable-news channels such as (especially) CNN and MSNBC were losing their audiences until they discovered that Trump Derangement was the only way to stave off complete failure.

Once they got going with that business model in 2016, they wrecked the news media’s credibility. And virtually everything after that has been an ongoing cover-up for their dishonorable malfeasance and the crimes of the party they fronted for. But the levers of power are in other hands now. There will be consequences for government officials who go to war against the people of this land, committing sedition and treason. Suggesting the murder of a president on social media is no light matter. By the time this blog is up, officers of the Secret Service may be visiting Mr. Comey at home. No need to batter down the front door with guns drawn, though. That would be so un-cool.

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Ukraine and Europe want us to think that Putin sent some low-level lackey. But historian/diplomat Medinsky is not that. He doesn’t need to read up or talk to people: he was there 3 years ago, in the same function.

Ukraine Conflict Could Have Ended In Weeks – Russia’s Top Negotiator (RT)

The Ukraine conflict could have ended very quickly if Kiev had chosen to negotiate from the beginning rather than heed its Western backers and fight Russia, Vladimir Medinsky, head of Moscow’s delegation at the Istanbul talks, said in wake of the negotiations. Medinsky made the comments after nearly two hours of talks between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul on Friday. The two nations agreed upon a major prisoner swap involving 1,000 POWs from each side, as well as to continue contacts once each side has prepared a detailed ceasefire proposal, the Russian delegation said.After the meeting, the presidential aide and professional historian sat down for a major interview with the Russia’s Rossiya 1 broadcaster.

The hostilities between Moscow and Kiev, which have already dragged on for more than three years, could have ended in mere weeks, Medinsky believes. Ukraine just needed to stick to the arrangements it had reached with Russia during the initial rounds of peace talks in the Belarusian city of Gomel in late February, he stated. Kiev could have “agreed to a peace in late February [2022], but they did not and dragged their feet instead,” the official said. The Russian peace proposal presented at the following round of talks, which was held in Istanbul in the spring of 2022, was already less favorable to Ukraine, as it already reflected some “changes on the ground,” he added.“The Istanbul process was also regrettably disrupted because of the West’s direct involvement,” Medinsky stated, blaming then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s visit to Kiev in May of 2022 for scuttling the initial peace negotiations.

According to David Arakhamia, who headed the Ukrainian delegation at that time, Johnson told Kiev to “just fight.” Attempts by Western nations to influence other countries’ policies have historically brought catastrophic consequences to the European continent, Medinsky warned. As a vivid example, he took the Berlin Congress held in 1878, which was called by a coalition of Western countries to revise the results of the Russian-Turkish war that had ended earlier the same year. Western nations, including the UK, France, Italy, and Germany, thought the peace treaty, which led to the liberation of a host of Balkan nations from Ottoman control, was too favorable to the Russian Empire, as they thought it would give it too much clout over the Balkans.

As a result of the West’s interference, the borders of the newly-liberated states were redrawn, thus laying the foundation for the territorial disputes that ultimately triggered World War I, Medinsky said. “Unregulated problems in the Balkans led to WWI,” he stated. “This was a direct consequence of interference by Western nations.” Medinsky has dismissed Ukraine’s demand for a ceasefire as a precondition for any peace talks as unnecessary and excessive. “A war and talks are being conducted simultaneously,” he said. “Only people who know nothing about history” can claim that a ceasefire has always preceded peace talks, the official maintained. Kiev has repeatedly demanded that Moscow agree to a 30-day ceasefire before any talks take place. Russia has rejected that demand, arguing Ukraine would merely use the pause to rearm and regroup its troops.

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All the money went to the most corrupt country in the western hemisphere and you wonder where it went?!

Trump Says Zelensky ‘Pissed Away’ Ukraine Aid (NYP)

President Trump accused his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky of having “pissed away” billions of dollars in US aid for the war-torn country. Trump, in a Friday interview with Fox News’ “Special Report” host Bret Baier, insisted that Kyiv’s management of US-provided funds bothered him more than the amount of money Washington has doled out to Ukraine since Russia’s February 2022 invasion. “The money is the money,” the president said. “What bothered me — I hated to see the way it was, you know, excuse me, pissed away.” Trump vented his frustrations with Zelensky’s handling of US aid in response to a question from Baier on whether he’s considering additional sanctions against Russian President Vladimir Putin. “I hated to see that checks were sent for $60 billion every time Zelensky [traveled to Washington],” he fumed. “I think he’s the greatest salesman in the world. Far better than me,” Trump said of the Ukrainian president.

“Where is all this money going?” he added. Trump continued to voice his displeasure with Kyiv even after Baier interjected, “But I’m focused on Putin.” “We send checks. We don’t always send equipment. We send — just checks. We send — just cash,” the president claimed. “Where is it?” When Trump started to argue that European nations should’ve contributed more than the US to the war effort, Baier once again tried to redirect him to his Putin question. “Wait,” Trump responded, before arguing that the US has been “treated worse” than Europe by Ukraine.“We inherited this mess, but I think it’s going to get solved.”Trump’s response comes as officials estimate that the US will have spent through all its congressionally approved funds to support Ukraine by June.

The US has approved some $175 billion in aid for Ukraine since the war broke out. The president, however, indicated that he hopes to schedule a meeting with Putin, which he believes will result in a peace agreement. “I think we’ll do it fast,” Trump said of meeting with the Russian president and hammering out a deal. “I think he’s tired of this whole thing. He’s not looking good, and he wants to look good.”

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27,000 sanctions so far, or was that 37?! Empty threat.

Trump Threatens Russia With ‘Crushing’ Sanctions (RT)

US President Donald Trump has said Washington will impose new sanctions on Russia if it fails to reach a peace settlement with Ukraine. His remarks came shortly after the two countries held their first direct negotiations since 2022. In an interview aired on Friday, Fox News anchor Bret Baier asked Trump whether he would introduce new sanctions on Moscow. “Honestly, I will if we’re not going to make a deal,” the president said. “Nobody uses leverage better than me.” Trump added that the US would assess the outcome of Friday’s Russia-Ukraine talks in Istanbul. “We’ll see what happens. It will be crushing for Russia because they’re having a hard time with the economy,” he claimed. He also argued that his plan to boost domestic oil production would lower global prices, undermining Russia’s energy exports.

Trump claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “tired” from the conflict and said he would schedule a meeting with him sometime in the future. “I have a very good relationship with Putin. I think we’ll make a deal. We have to get together.”As Trump has been trying to broker a deal between Russia and Ukraine, a group of senators led by Lindsey Graham has drafted a bill to impose sanctions on Moscow and levy tariffs on countries that purchase Russian oil, gas, and uranium. The head of Russia’s negotiating team in Istanbul, Vladimir Medinsky, said the two sides had agreed upon a major prisoner swap involving 1,000 POWs from each side, as well as continuing contacts once each side has prepared a detailed ceasefire proposal.

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“Who is it unacceptable to? We are not negotiating with London.”

Russia Hits Out At British PM (RT)

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s ultimatums and sanctions threats just demonstrate that the UK wants to undermine the settlement of the Ukraine conflict, the Russian Embassy in the UK has said. Last week, the leaders of the UK, France, Germany, and Poland met in a Kiev and threatened to impose more sanctions on Russia if Moscow did not agree to a 30-day unconditional ceasefire by Monday. That date has come and gone, and no truce was agreed upon during Friday’s direct Russian-Ukrainian talks. “Now, having issued that ultimatum, we must be prepared to follow through, because if Russia won’t come to the negotiating table, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin must pay the price,” Starmer said at a security meeting in Albania on Friday. “The Russian position is clearly unacceptable, and not for the first time.”

The Russian Embassy in London has pointed out that Downing Street is not part of the talks between the belligerents. “The British Prime Minister hasty statement claiming that Russia’s position at the talks in Istanbul is unacceptable and that a response is being prepared causes outright bewilderment,” the embassy said in a statement on Friday. “The British have been behind all the escalatory moves by the West, from supplying offensive weapons to Kiev’s military and to using Western long-range missiles against civilians deep in Russian territory,” the embassy wrote. London was the first of Kiev’s Western sponsors to send domestic long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine.

“Now, such ultimatums, made against the backdrop of the negotiation process, are obviously aimed at complicating or undermining the settlement,” the statement said. “It seems Downing Street is not aware of the self-incriminating nature of its actions.” The UK has also scuttled previous peace talks, the embassy noted. “It was London that made a considerable effort to disrupt the first negotiation process in 2022, and to subsequently keep the conflict hot,” it wrote. The unsuccessful 2022 negotiations in Istanbul were torpedoed by then UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who convinced Ukraine to pull out, according to the Ukrainian delegation’s top negotiator at the talks, David Arakhamia.

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This comes mere days after: “U.S. District Judge Stephanie Haines in Pennsylvania has ruled that President Donald Trump validly invoked the Alien Enemies Act in March as part of an effort to deport Venezuelan gang members.”

Trump Bashes Supreme Court For Blocking Use of Alien Enemies Act (Allen)

The Supreme Court has extended its block on the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport illegal alien gang members from Venezuelan. “The Supreme Court has just ruled that the worst murderers, drug dealers, gang members, and even those who are mentally insane, who came into our country illegally, are not allowed to be forced out without going through a long, protracted, and expensive legal process,” President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social Friday evening. In an unsigned opinion Friday, the justices sent the case back down to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit and asked the lower court to determine the procedural specifics the illegal aliens are legally entitled to before they are removed.

The appeals court needs to determine “whether the Alien Enemies Act … authorizes removal of these detainees and if so, what notice is due before removal,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in his concurring opinion. Trump warned that the result of the Supreme Court’s “decision will let more criminals pour into our country, doing great harm to our cherished American public. It will also encourage other criminals to illegally enter our Country, wreaking havoc and bedlam wherever they go.”

The case before the court specifically pertains to a group of Tren de Aragua gang members who are being held in Texas. After designating Tren de Aragua as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, the White House announced in March that Trump would use the powers of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to remove members of the gang from America. On April 19, the Supreme Court ordered the administration to pause the deportation of a group of criminal illegal aliens until the court could rule further. The order followed an emergency appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of the illegal aliens the administration was preparing to deport.

Following the court’s ruling to extend the ban on the removal of the gang members, Trump said the Supreme Court “is not allowing me to do what I was elected to do,” referring to his campaign promise to deport criminal illegal aliens. More than 10 million illegal aliens entered the U.S. under the Biden administration, according to Customs and Border Protection, and “in order to get them out of our country, we have to go through a long and extended process,” Trump said, adding that the court’s order represents “a bad and dangerous day for America!” Trump thanked Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas for dissenting from the court’s order. The Supreme Court had “no authority to issue any relief,” Alito argued in the decant.

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“Almost everything the vast majority of Americans and their elected representatives did not want—far-left higher education, a Pravda media, biological men destroying women’s sports, an open border, 30 million illegal aliens, massive debt, a weaponized legal system, and a politicized Pentagon—became the new culture of America.”

The Real First 100 Days (Victor Davis Hanson)

Pundits are confused about what to make of the first 100 days of the second Trump administration. Supporters talk of “flooding the zone,” believing President Donald Trump is making so many changes so quickly that his opposition is reduced to deer-in-the-headlights infancy. They must be right when the nation suffers daily Democrat pottymouth videos, vandalism of Teslas, infantile meltdowns at congressional witnesses, rioting against federal agents to protect illegal alien felons, protesting on behalf of women beaters, M-13 gangbangers, human traffickers, and assaulters, and visa-holding violent students praising Hamas terrorists. In contrast, opponents either claim that Trump’s first three months are either directionless chaos or a Hitlerian nightmare or both. But what is really happening?

One, Trump is finally addressing the problems that proverbially “cannot go on forever, and so they won’t go on.” When, if ever, would the Left have closed the southern border? After 10, 30, 50 million illegal aliens? How many more criminal illegal entrants was the Biden administration willing to allow into American neighborhoods—500,000? One million? Three million? How long was the world simply going to ignore the human destruction on the doorstep of Europe? Would former President Joe Biden or former Vice President Kamala Harris have sought a ceasefire? Or would it have taken another 1.5, 3, or even 5 million more dead, wounded, and missing Ukrainians and Russians? Nor did past administrations ever seek a solution to the massive national debt, much less the uncontrollable budget and trade deficits.

All prior presidents passed the day of judgment on to some vague future presidency, assured that their money printing would at least not blow up on their watch. All moaned that China was piling up huge trade surpluses while denying its own population the usual modern safety net. They knew Beijing’s aim was to use the trillions of dollars in trade surpluses to build a new massive military, a greater arsenal of nuclear bombs, and a new imperial Belt and Road overseas empire. Yet no administration did anything but greenlight American outsourcing and offshoring while ignoring Chinese trade cheating and technology theft. Indeed, prior presidencies appeased and enriched China on the foolish belief that such indulgence would lead to Chinese prosperity, and with such Western-style affluence, soon a globalized, democratic, and supposedly friendly China. In sum, we just witnessed all at once a 100-day, 360-degree effort to address all the existential challenges that we knew were unsustainable but were either afraid or incompetent to address.

Second, the administration apparently wants to confront the source of these crises and believes it is the progressive project. The Left maintains real political power not by grassroots popularity, but rather by unelected institutional clout. The party of democracy uses antidemocratic means to achieve its ends of perpetual control. It wages lawfare through the weaponization of the state, local, and federal courts. It exercises executive power through cherry-picked federal district and circuit judges and their state and local counterparts. The permanent bureaucracies and huge federal workforce are mostly left-wing, unionized, and weaponized by a progressive apparat. Their supreme directive is to amalgamate legislative, judicial, and executive power into the hands of the unelected Anthony Faucis, Jim Comeys, and Lois Lerners of the world—and thus to override or ignore both popular plebiscites and the work of the elected Congress.

Over 90% of the media—legacy, network, social, and state—are left-wing. Their mission is not objectivity but, admittedly, indoctrination. Academia is the font of the progressive project. Ninety percent of the professoriat are left-wing and activist—explaining why campuses believe they are above the rules and laws of the Constitution, the Supreme Court, and the U.S. Congress. Add into the mix the blue-chip Accela corridor law firms and the globalized corporate and revolving-door political elite. The net result is clear: Almost everything the vast majority of Americans and their elected representatives did not want—far-left higher education, a Pravda media, biological men destroying women’s sports, an open border, 30 million illegal aliens, massive debt, a weaponized legal system, and a politicized Pentagon—became the new culture of America.

So, Trump is not just confronting unaddressed existential crises but also the root causes of why, when, and how they become inevitable and nearly unsolvable. His answer is a messy, knock-down-drag-out counterrevolution to reboot the country back to the middle where it once was and where the Founders believed it should remain. His right and left opponents call such pushback chaotic, disruptive, and out of control. But the counterrevolution appears disorderly and upsetting, mostly to those who originally birthed the chaos; it certainly does not to the majority of Americans who finally wanted an end to the madness.

Read more …

Before you know it, the bill gets too big. But there’ll be another vote.

Conservative Holdouts Vote Down ONE, BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL (ZH)

Update (1210ET): The House Budget Committee has voted down the reconciliation bill by a vote of 16-21 – with GOP Reps. Clyde, Roy, Breechen, Norman and Smucker (who flipped his vote) all voting “no”. “This bill falls profoundly short. It does not do what we say it does with respect to deficits,” said Rep. Chip Roy. Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) said “I am unable to support this package in its current form, but I look forward to strengthening this bill to ensure that it does pass, so that we full all of our America First promises to the American people.” Whilst Ralph Norman (R-SC) said “Sadly, I’m a hard no until we get this ironed out.” According to Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman, Smucker likely flipped “no” to preserve the ability to reconsider the bill at a later time. House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Jody Arrington (R-TX) said after the vote “I do not anticipate us coming back today.”

* * *
A fiery intra-party fight exploded on Capitol Hill Friday as House Republicans clashed over President Donald Trump’s mammoth “One Big Beautiful Bill,” with Trump himself jumping into the fray to torch conservative holdouts as attention-hungry “grandstanders.” As the House Budget Committee met to advance the 1,116-plus-page megabill – packed with Trump’s signature proposals on taxes, Medicaid, and immigration – chaos broke out behind the scenes, and in front of the cameras, as hardline conservatives threatened to blow up the entire process. “Republicans MUST UNITE behind ‘THE ONE, BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL!’” Trump posted on Truth Social. “We don’t need ‘GRANDSTANDERS’ in the Republican Party. STOP TALKING, AND GET IT DONE!”

The scorched-earth post came as the House Budget Committee met down to mark up the massive reconciliation bill, which bundles together much of Trump’s second-term policy wishlist: tax cuts, welfare reform, immigration crackdowns, and the death of Biden’s green energy subsidies. But what was supposed to be a legislative victory lap turned into a high-stakes hostage crisis, with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) caught between warring GOP factions, each demanding major changes and threatening to sink the bill if they don’t get their way. Conservatives on the committee – Reps. Chip Roy, Ralph Norman, Andrew Clyde, and Josh Brecheen – signaled they were ready to vote against the bill unless major changes were made. Their demands include a faster phase-in of Medicaid work requirements, a ban on undocumented immigrants receiving federal benefits, and immediate termination of Inflation Reduction Act clean energy provisions. “If they don’t [change it], I’m gonna vote no. We’ll kill it,” Norman warned Thursday. “I don’t want to. But I will.” The vote is ongoing, with Roy and Norman both using their time during committee to voice their opposition, CNN’s Sarah Farris reports.

The tension spilled into full view Friday morning when Norman, Roy, and Clyde abruptly left the committee room moments before the markup was scheduled to begin, prompting immediate speculation they were staging a walkout. All three returned shortly afterward, saying little, but still signaling deep frustration. Norman told reporters the situation was “very disappointing,” adding “I hope they recess.” Johnson, for his part, is trying to keep the circus moving. He has pledged to make some concessions – such as speeding up work requirement timelines and possibly harmonizing those across both Medicaid and SNAP – but every adjustment risks triggering a backlash from the other side of the GOP spectrum. “If you push too hard on one side, the other side bulges out,” opines Punchbowl News. “That’s exactly what’s happening here.”

Moderates are already howling over cuts to safety net programs and demanding changes of their own. Blue-state Republicans want the SALT deduction cap raised above the $30,000 ceiling currently in the bill. Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) wants to remove language that would block legal refugees from getting food aid. And Florida Republicans are furious over a provision that clamps down on provider taxes – a method states use to draw more federal Medicaid dollars. The markup itself became a theater of dysfunction – with Rep. Blake Moore (R-UT) joking about the fact that he went viral earlier this week for falling asleep during a late-night hearing. “I also appreciate that you schedule the markup during daylight hours,” he said. Chair Jodey Arrington (R-TX) fired back: “Some of the staff decided to chip in and equip your chair with an electric shocking mechanism… I hope that is also a bipartisan proposal.”

Read more …

‘sundance’ says Tony Blinken, Victoria Nuland and Samantha Power. And Susan Rice.

Biden/Hur Tapes Released: Question is, Who Was Running the Country? (CTH)

Axios obtained the audio of former President Biden’s October 2023 interviews with special counsel Robert Hur. In the first segment below, recorded on the first day of interviews, former President Biden was questioned about where he kept documents. Biden had difficulty recalling that it was 2015 when his son Beau died. Biden also shared that President Obama discouraged him from running for president. The interview tapes reveal the scope of cognitive decline the control agents around Joe Biden were trying to keep hidden from the country. As the tapes reveal, Joe Biden was not in any capacity to be in office. The question remains, who was running the country? Listen:

Biden’s mental capacity was severely compromised. It is obvious everyone around him knew the problem. We all saw it even before he took office and the answer to the question is the same today as we discussed in 2020, 2021 and beyond. These tapes only confirm what we already knew. The State Dept was being run by Tony Blinken, Victoria Nuland and Samantha Power. The Clinton and Obama networks, along with their allies in congress and in various political organizations, were being paid and financed through various NGOs and stood up non-profits organized by the beneficiaries of the funding. All of those connections were revealed by the DOGE audits of USAID and other agencies.

Keep in mind that Susan Rice was part of the White House network up to the day Biden announced his intent to run again in 2024; so, she obviously knew his mental state. Others in the White House, again part of the Obama and Clinton networks were running the day-to-day operations. Biden was a figurehead, an avatar for the handlers operating in the background. The DOJ, Main Justice and the FBI were being run by Lisa Monaco, again an Obama operative. The job at Main Justice was to use their Lawfare strategy to protect the fake and corrupt administration, keep everyone in line and attack all of their political opposition. Obviously, Jill Biden was/is a power-hungry enabler for the entire dynamic. Sick and twisted people operate like this.

Think of all the COVID-19 nonsense this crew carried out in 2021 and 2022, including the vaccine mandate and all of the authoritarian rules that came with the “Biden” COVID response stuff. These are sick people. Congress, both parties, knew all of this. In fact, the entire Washington DC system was well aware of the cognitive state of mind behind the false presidency. Biden wasn’t in control of anything – that’s transparently obvious when you listen to the tapes.The media covered for all of it. They all knew, yet they attacked anyone who dare question the obvious. There is no one associated with the preceding four or five years around the 2020 campaign and administration that followed who did not know of the mental issues. Additionally, they all knew who was running things and they lied to the American people because these are power-hungry psychopaths.


.
There are not enough words to listen to these tapes and express the level of disgust that comes to mind. The damage done to our country is horrific. However, at the end of that review we must remember all of the economic pain and suffering that accompanied the anxiety the handlers of Joe Biden willfully delivered to our nation. These people are sick!

Read more …

“We Study Fascism…We’re Leaving the U.S.”

Don’t let the door hit you on the way.

The NY Times Runs Video of Yale Professors Fleeing to Canada (Turley)

The New York Times continues to work tirelessly to maintain the narrative that the United States is now a fascist regime. Earlier, the Times demonstrated its view of balanced analysis by running a collection of legal opinions titled “A Road Map to Trump’s Lawless Presidency.” Now, it is featuring three Yale professors fleeing fascism for the safety of Canada, making direct references to the rise of the Nazis. The video is titled “These Yale Professors Study Fascism.” All three professors are going permanently to Canada to teach at the University of Toronto. It appears that the systemic rollback of free speech for conservatives in Canada is not a deterrent for Yale professors longing to be free. The seven-minute opinion video features the three scholars: Yale philosophy Professor Jason Stanley and history professors Marci Shore and Timothy Snyder (who are married).

Shore insisted that the United States is now a fascist country replicating the Nazi takeover. Indeed, she mocks those of us who believe that our constitutional system has proven itself for centuries as a guarantor of civil liberties, including our system of checks and balances. Shore dismisses such assurances while suggesting that the American people are a virtual ship of fools in not recognizing the fascists all around them: “The lesson of 1933 is that you get out sooner rather than later.” She added that Americans are“like people on the Titanic saying, ‘Our ship can’t sink.’ We’ve got the best ship. We’ve got the strongest ship. We’ve got the biggest ship. Our ship can’t sink,” she said. “And what you know as a historian is that there is no such thing as a ship that can’t sink.” Professor Snyder declared that Americans are deluding themselves:

“If you think there is this thing out there called ‘America,’ and it’s exceptional, that means that you don’t have to do anything. Whatever is happening, it must be freedom. Soon, you are using the word freedom, what you are talking about is authoritarianism.” The New York Times splices in ominous images of migrants being detained, children crying, and anti-Israel protesters being arrested. It also shows the image of Elon Musk’s alleged Nazi salute, a ridiculous claim fostered by the media.

Previously, Snyder did interviews claiming an oligarchic conspiracy led by Musk:“we’re shifting from a democracy, which had some pretty heavy oligarchical streaks running through it, toward something like an oligarchy, in which I think it’s fair to say that it’s not Trump who’s the most important person. It’s Musk. Trump has debts. Musk has money. Trump has debts specifically to Musk for getting him elected. And I think the burden of proof is actually on Trump to show that he has any room for maneuver in this system. And it’s going to be interesting to see how congressional Republicans react, because what this particular oligarch wants is to break the federal government. And whatever their views might be, not — many of them don’t actually want the United States of America to cease to exist so that oligarchs can pick up the pieces.”

That is who the New York Times featured in its latest apocalyptic diatribe. What is interesting about one interview is how Snyder predicts Trump will engage in censorship through litigation, noting that it will not involve direct censorship barred by the First Amendment. He entirely ignores the massive censorship system of conservatives fostered by the Biden Administration on social media. That was apparently not something that you would speak out against, let alone leave the country over. Professor Stanley’s past contributions to the political debate include his condemnation of “the right-wing hateosphere” in a diatribe that he later reaffirmed: I am really, truly, embarrassed by the fact that my mild comment ‘F[**]k those assholes’ is being spread. This wildly understates my actual sentiments towards homophobic religious proponents of evil like Richard Swinburne, who use their status as professional philosophers to oppress others with less power. I am SO SORRY for using such mild language.

In the New York Times video, Stanley clinically explains that “you know you’re living in a fascist society when you’re constantly going over in your head the reasons why you’re safe. What we want is a country where none of us have to feel that way.” It is a curious statement. Most of us fight to preserve our civil liberties to maintain a country that remains the longest, most stable, and most successful constitutional system in history. We do not dramatically pick up our things and stomp out of the country in a self-aggrandizing huff. Losing elections can certainly make some “feel that way,” but for the rest of the country, it seemed like democracy at work. In the meantime, our courts are sorting out challenges to Trump executive orders, with many judges, including Trump appointees, ruling against the Administration. Those are the pesky “checks and balances” that Professor Shore blissfully dismissed in the New York Times video.

What is truly striking is that even Yale (which has purged virtually all conservatives from its faculty ranks) is not sufficiently “safe” for these three academic émigrés. They are going to the University of Toronto and Ontario to feel truly safe. Of course, Ontario is not viewed as a safe space for many conservatives or contrarians. It proved hardly protective for University of Toronto professor emeritus Jordon Peterson when he was ordered to take mandatory training classes to curb his controversial writings. That order was upheld by successive Canadian courts. So now these three academics will relocate to Toronto to teach Canadian students about fascism. They may, however, want to tread lightly on the subject of free speech.

Read more …

“The U.S., by strengthening its relationship with Saudi Arabia, and creating Petrodollar 2.0, puts the pressure on China to reduce their tariffs and meet Trump’s requirements. Otherwise they don’t have a source of dollars.”

Rickards to Bannon: Petrodollar 2.0 Is Coming (DR)

Our friend and colleague Jim Rickards was on Steve Bannon’s War Room show Tuesday, and it may be the most important interview Jim has done this year. In this fascinating discussion, Jim starts with the history of the original petrodollar system. And he knows the subject well, having helped create it. The premise of the 1974 petrodollar agreement was that Saudi Arabia would only sell oil in dollars, which would stimulate demand for greenbacks as a reserve currency. Here’s Jim explaining the basics to Steve Bannon’s audience: “We had a carrot and stick approach. Bill Simon, who was Secretary of the Treasury, went to the Saudis and said ‘everybody in the world needs oil, and if you price oil in dollars, then everybody needs dollars.’ And that basically underpins the role of the dollar today as the world’s reserve currency.

The stick was, if you don’t do it we’re going to invade Saudi Arabia and take over oil production. The carrot was, if you price oil in dollars, we’ll give you a security umbrella. It’s rare to hear such candor coming from someone who was directly involved in the formation of the petrodollar system. Needless to say, the petrodollar system was successful and led to a resurgence in the American dollar as the world’s key reserve currency (despite Nixon ditching the gold standard just 3 years earlier). At this point, Steve Bannon interrupted with an insightful question (paraphrased): “Wait, you say the petrodollar system is still in place, but the Saudis are now selling oil to China for yuan. Aren’t cracks showing in the petrodollar system?”

Jim responded that yes, cracks are starting to show in the system, and that’s why Trump was in Saudi Arabia, to seal a “Petrodollar 2.0” agreement. Jim also points out that, at least for now, the amount of oil Saudi Arabia is selling for yuan and other currencies is miniscule compared to dollar-based sales. Jim proceeds to lay out the purpose of Petrodollar 2.0: “The U.S., by strengthening its relationship with Saudi Arabia, and creating Petrodollar 2.0, puts the pressure on China to reduce their tariffs and meet Trump’s requirements. Otherwise they don’t have a source of dollars.” This time around, Trump is using a strictly carrot-based approach. He’s on a charm offensive and looking to build strong, lasting ties with Saudi Arabia and the broader Middle East. This is a smart approach and we expect it will bear fruit in the near future. Had President Trump taken a threatening approach to Saudi Arabia, it almost certainly would have driven the country into China’s waiting arms. And America can’t afford to let that happen.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yeadon

Statins

Gold

Ice

Smell
https://twitter.com/gunsnrosesgirl3/status/1923334642423173150

Freedom
https://twitter.com/TheFigen_/status/1923360725621244351

Dogs

 

 

 

 

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May 102025
 


Samuel Peploe Beach scene 1907

 

America Humbled (Arthur Schaper)
Hyperbole, Lies, and Delusions (Richard Porter)
Trump Says “80% Tariffs On China Seems Right” (ZH)
Fear Of Economic Collapse Forced China To Negotiate With Trump (ZH)
Trump Delinks Saudi Nuclear Energy Deal From Israel Normalization (ZH)
Putin and Trump Exchange Greetings On Victory Day – Moscow (RT)
Germany To Declare Immigration Emergency (RT)
Hungary Prepares for Battle Over EU’s Plan to Phase Out Russian Energy (Sp.)
Putin ‘Doing Whatever Possible’ For Ukraine Peace – Kremlin (RT)
Slovak PM Fico Slams Western ‘Iron Curtain’ In Talks With Putin (RT)
UK Hits Russia With ‘Largest Ever’ Sanctions Package (RT)
Poetic Justice Came for Letitia James, and It’s Glorious (Margolis)
Going Around. . . Coming Back Around (James Howard Kunstler)
Chris Cuomo Nails Why Dems Are Trying to Destroy John Fetterman (Matt Vespa)
Ric Grenell Drops Some Reality on Kennedy Center Performers (Lower)
Sources Say the Biden Crime Family Is Going Broke (Margolis)
DNI Tulsi Gabbard Discusses Intel Community Leaks to Media Allies (CTH)

 

 

 

 

“He looks very old. He looks as if his first pet could have been a dinosaur.”
https://twitter.com/LangmanVince/status/1920594476948496894

Stock

Patterson

RFK


https://twitter.com/AutismCapital/status/1920607028852240726

We’re talking pedophilia now, child porn.

JD walk away

 

 

 

 

The first two pieces would usually be more background, but I brought them forward- for good reasons.

“After decades of drift and decline, a humbled America turns to Trump—renewed, resolute, and ready to reclaim its purpose under God.”

“Ulysses has come home. He has finished off all the suitors, he has his wife Penelope, and the gods are smiling at him. He learned his lesson. He gets it.”

America Humbled (Arthur Schaper)

The United States, the American people, Donald Trump, and even myself: we have all been humbled over the last four years—or the last sixteen years … or even thirty years. And we needed it. More than thirty years ago, following the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall, the United States emerged as the leader of the pack in a once-bipolar world. The Soviet Union collapsed, socialism sloughed off, free enterprise became commonplace as the solution to all our problems, and the liberal democratic process was winning. “It is the End of History,” Francis Fukuyama (arrogantly, short-sightedly) prophesied.Of course, history didn’t stop, and we had lessons to learn. Some suggest that this fantasy of global liberalism came crashing down on September 11, 2001. Let’s not forget February 26th, 1993, when Islamic terrorists attempted to topple the World Trade Center by detonating the foundation of one tower to crash into the other.

Islamic terror replaced the adversarial communist regimes as our enemies. America was complacent, prosperous, and secure in its secular liberalism. Instead of remembering what made the West the best—the Gospel, our Judeo-Christian heritage, Biblical truth, our reliance on a Living Savior instead of humanist self-reliance—we got self-righteous and self-satisfied. “We beat the Russians! We are the only player on the world stage!” Thus, it seemed that there was nothing left to fight but ourselves. But that was never the case. Marxism’s vision of a stateless world dominated by class conflict never emerged, but Pan-Americanism would never work, either. An America-defined globalism not only offended other nations, but it also undermined the American citizen and the American experiment.

With an obsessive focus on free trade, cheap labor, and making money while ignoring national identity—borders, language, culture, faith, family, and freedom—Americans witnessed the wonders of the American dream turn into an elite fantasy that only the rich and politically connected could enjoy. We got arrogant, then fearful and angry; we stopped believing in what really made America great. We forgot who we are. We needed to be humbled. And what is humility? A biblical definition is apropos, I think: “For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.” (Romans 12:3)

American exceptionalism is a real thing. We the People of the United States should be proud of our heritage. That recognition does not justify American supremacism, however. Nor does it mean our safety, security, or sovereignty depends on what other countries do and believe. The United States embraced some humiliating defeats not just on September 11, 2001, but in the waning year of the George W. Bush administration, when risky financing and overextended loans inflated housing prices and unleashed the Great Recession. Instead of taking stock of where we were wrong, we went with a false messiah, Barack Obama, who chimed, “We are the change we have been waiting for.” But we were the ones who caused our own downfall. How could we make changes if we did not change?

From this self-righteous refusal to own our failures came the Occupy Movement, Black Lives Matter, and the re-radicalization of race. Obama long harbored bitter disgust for the United States, and he seduced the American public. Under the Obama Administration, humility was minimized and disparaged, for sure. One of the most repeated words in the 44th president’s speeches was “I.” It was all about him, and to hell with America. And the country was humbled for the worse. Obama called us all racist and insisted that we needed the government to run our healthcare. He exhorted us to flood our country with “undocumented immigrants” so that we could pay back for all the wrongs that American imperialism had caused. America fell into decline. Then came Trump, and with him the mantra “Make America Great Again.”

He talked about God restoring America’s previous glory. But was that something he could do himself? Not at all. In too many ways, his first term had some of the hallmarks of amateur hour. He surrounded himself with bad advisors, went with tired ideas, and didn’t transform the Art of the Deal into the Art of Governing. Election 2020, with COVID, George Floyd, massive spending, and a frustrating Congress, did not help matters. Americans still had not learned their lesson. We need God. We need biblical truth. We need to restore our Judeo-Christian heritage, our Anglo-American legal traditions, and our revolutionary legacy. America’s further humbling came under bumbling Joe Biden. Defined by Biden-Harris’ arrogant incompetence, suffused with dementia and DEI, America became weaker, worn out, and adrift, all while witnessing the left’s culmination of all their wishes. Obama got his third term.

Then Trump ran again. He faced challenges from the right because he hadn’t gotten the job done. Perhaps those challenges shaped his second-term determination. Then came a would-be assassin’s bullet, which changed the course of history in our favor. Trump has acknowledged, “God saved my life.” And why? “To Make America Great Again.” His second inaugural speech was all business, with a clear reliance on where his—and our—power comes from: God. Trump is a different man, acting like the president I wanted in 2016, whom I had anticipated DeSantis would be. Like Homer’s eponymous hero, Trump is a man of many turns, and he’s turning out real results. Ulysses has come home. He has finished off all the suitors, he has his wife Penelope, and the gods are smiling at him. He learned his lesson. He gets it.

President Trump 2.0 has accomplished much of what we had expected in 2017, and more. Trump now knows his limits, and he knows what he can—and must—do. That is true humility. If his supercharged successes continue, it makes all the disappointments, frustrations, and confusions of the previous six years worth the aggravation.

Read more …

This is important because so many people claim Trump “lies all the time”. He doesn’t. He speaks in hyperbole all the time, but that’s not the same as lying. “Like the country’s never seen..”, “Better than anyone’s ever imagined..” or “I’ll end it in 24 hours..”, that’s just a way of talking (“exaggerated claims not meant to be taken literally”). And a 78-year old real estate developer will not change his way of talking. His vast majority of American voters didn’t demand it of him.

Hyperbole, Lies, and Delusions (Richard Porter)

Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s speech in New Hampshire last week was greeted by the media as yet another stirring call to arms for the rudderless Democratic Party. “Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption – but I am now,” Pritzker thundered. “These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace. They have to understand that we will fight their cruelty with every megaphone and microphone that we have. We must castigate them on the soapbox and then punish them at the ballot box.” Republicans protested that the governor came close to inciting political violence – and they have a point, given the attempts to assassinate Donald Trump, the dangerous attacks on Tesla, and the near-kidnapping of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

However, what Pritzker had to say in his speech before channeling Maxine Waters’ infamous call to harass Republicans should not be overlooked. It raises an important question: Is Pritzker delusional, a liar, or merely hyperbolic? Hyperbole, lies, and delusions are all forms of falsehoods, but of different magnitudes. The first are exaggerated claims not meant to be taken literally. Trump himself is no stranger to this oratorical device. Lies are exaggerations or falsehoods the speaker wants others to believe – and, while shameful, are a too-frequent feature of modern political discourses. Delusions are false beliefs at odds with observable reality. Jerry Seinfeld’s “Soup Nazi” is an example of hyperbolic name calling. Seinfeld and his audience understood it was an exaggeration so grotesque that it was funny. No one thought the soup guy was actually a member of the SS. Jussie Smollett’s claim that MAGA bros assaulted him was a lie, albeit a calculated, elaborate, and harmful hoax. The Salem witch trials were the terrible consequence of a mass delusion.

So, is Pritzker channeling Seinfeld, Smollett, or Cotton Mather? “It’s wrong to snatch a person off the street and ship them to a foreign gulag with no chance to defend themselves in a court of law,” Pritzker said. “Standing for the idea that the government doesn’t have the right to kidnap you without due process is arguably the most effective campaign slogan in history,” he said before adding, “Today it’s an immigrant with a tattoo, tomorrow it’s a citizen whose Facebook post annoys Donald Trump.” He went on in this vein for a while: “Our retirees don’t deserve to be left destitute by a Social Security Administration decimated by Elon Musk.” “Our citizens don’t deserve to lose health care coverage because Republicans want to hand a tax cut to billionaires.” “Our federal workers don’t deserve to have, well, a 19-year-old DOGE bro called Big Balls destroy their careers.”

“Autistic kids and adults who are loving contributors to our society don’t deserve to be stigmatized by a weird nepo baby who once stashed a dead bear in the back of his car.” This is all absurd. Activists have brought hundreds of lawsuits on behalf of illegal migrants, as Democrats fight to keep criminals and gang members from being deported. Long-standing immigration laws set forth the process that’s due to non-U.S. citizens before they are deported – processes pursuant to which prior presidents of both political parties deported millions of non-citizens. There’s not the slightest suggestion that Republicans (who have been fighting Big Tech censorship) support criminalizing Facebook posts. To the contrary, Vice President J.D. Vance was widely criticized by Democrats for condemning Britain and Germany for criminalizing Facebook posts.

Not a single person receiving Social Security payments legally is losing their government pension. Improving efficiency, eliminating waste, and rooting out fraud protects retirees and strengthens the system. No American receiving health care legally will lose health care coverage. And preventing states (like Illinois) from providing health care to noncitizens under Medicaid will result in more funding to cover health care for U.S. citizens. There will be no tax cut for high earners in the budget reconciliation; the existing rate structure will be maintained. Trump is reducing federal employment through buyouts, layoffs, and dismissals to improve government efficiency (i.e., doing more with fewer workers) and to redirect government policy (i.e., eliminating DEI). In his speech, Pritzker also accused Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of nepotism.

That’s rich coming from the heir to the Hyatt hotel fortune who used inherited money to buy his way into office. In any case, it’s the opposite of nepotism for the scion of Democrat royalty to become a Republican leader. And Kennedy is trying to stop the autism epidemic, not shame autistic people. So, everything Pritzker said in New Hampshire was obviously false. What’s interesting to consider is: What does he, and what does his audience, actually believe about these topics? When asked by Jen Psaki on MSNBC about his speech, Pritzker replied with yet another apocalyptic fantasy: “We are in a perilous moment in this country,” he replied. “There is, I mean, tumult around everyone in this country. We have had our economic rights taken away, we have had our civil rights taken away, and it’s only been a hundred days.”

Consider further that in February, Pritzker – who helped build the Illinois Holocaust Museum – compared the new Trump Administration to the Third Reich, volunteering that he didn’t make the comparison to Nazis lightly. Put it all together, and it sounds like Pritzker is channeling Jussie Smollett, not Jerry Seinfeld. He’s not trying to entertain, and I think he knows better. He wants to frighten and anger people. He wants outrage, not knowing smiles. There’s a worst-case scenario, however. What if the governor of Illinois, and apparent 2028 presidential candidate, is delusional and believes his falsehoods? He wouldn’t be alone – and that’s even more scary. In a world in which many progressives believe Luigi Mangione is a hero, Pritzker’s lies in the cause of his ambition to be the Democratic Party’s nominee for president are more outrageous – and more perilous – than Smollett’s lies to make himself a civil rights icon.

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Consensus appears to be the 50%-to-54% range. Trump leaves himself space with 80%. Because negotiations are ongoing. And 80 is way down already from 145.

Trump Says “80% Tariffs On China Seems Right” (ZH)

President Trump posted on Truth Social, “80% Tariff on China seems right!” while noting that the final decision rests with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.The comment lends credibility to an earlier New York Post report suggesting the administration is considering cutting tariffs on Chinese imports from 145% to a significantly lower baseline.Trump also said: “CHINA SHOULD OPEN UP ITS MARKET TO USA — WOULD BE SO GOOD FOR THEM!!! CLOSED MARKETS DON’T WORK ANYMORE!!!” In markets, S&P 500 futures puked, then recovered some losses. Most of the overnight gains have been erased. Perhaps traders were expecting a higher percentage of tariffs to be removed ahead of Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer’s meeting on Saturday with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in Switzerland.

* * *
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and his Chinese counterpart are set to begin the first round of trade talks in Switzerland on Saturday. Traders and analysts are looking to yesterday’s “breakthrough” U.S.-U.K. trade deal as a potential preview of what may be announced over the weekend or early next week—possibly signaling a peak in the ongoing trade war. According to a source familiar with the discussions, the New York Post reports that the Trump administration is weighing a plan to slash tariffs on Chinese imports from 145% to between 50% and 54%. The same source said levies on neighboring South Asian countries would also be reduced to 25%. “They are going to be bringing it down to 50% while the negotiations are ongoing,” the source said, referring to tariffs on China.

Here’s more color from NYPost: Insiders said the 50%-to-54% range — down from the triple-digit level that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said this week “isn’t sustainable” this week — is in keeping with rates that were discussed last month when President Trump met with the bosses of the three biggest retailers in the U.S. Market participants are considering Thursday’s U.S.-U.K. trade framework as a potential preview of what to expect in upcoming trade announcements—not just with China but with dozens of other countries. The deal hints at broad tariff reductions and expanded market access for American exports, particularly in agriculture, energy, and industrial goods. However, as with the U.K. framework, a baseline 10% tariff appears likely to remain in place. Last week, Goldman offered some good news: peak trade war.

Earlier this week, Goldman chief economist Jan Hatzius told clients, “The mood music with China has improved, and we expect the U.S. tariff rate on China to drop from around 160% to around 60% relatively soon. (China is likely to reduce tariffs on the U.S. by a similar amount.)”

Plus, the Milken Institute Global Conference attendees in Beverly Hills on Monday “warmed up” to the tariff environment. Jay Foreman, CEO of Basic Fun—which manufactures retro toys like Tonka Trucks, Care Bears, and My Little Pony in China—told NYPost that “there will be an adjustment” in tariff policy “by the end of this week or next,” adding that it could begin a surge in orders from China. “We are hearing China at 50% to 54% and [other] Asian countries at 25%,” said Lawrence Rosen, chairman of New Jersey-based arts-and-crafts distributor Cra-Z-Art. During the US-UK trade deal, Trump told investors, “Better buy stocks now.”

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Not suprising. China maxed out its production capacity, and then lost its no. 1 client.

Fear Of Economic Collapse Forced China To Negotiate With Trump (ZH)

Three weeks ago, when we first reported that as a result of the ongoing Trump trade war with China, “chinese factories are shutting down, laying off workers”, we said that as a result of this war of attrition in which the outcome of every incremental clash and battle will be used just as aggressively for media propaganda, “the fact that any marginal pain will be amplified as trade war weakness will mean that Beijing will do everything in its power to prevent the full extent of the shutdowns from being revealed.” Sure enough, last week the WSJ reported that whereas “not long ago, anyone could comb through a wide range of official data from China… then it started to disappear.” We detailed the unprecedented disappearance of Chinese “data”, fake as it traditionally may have been, earlier this week.

But while we had our theories why China quietly vaporized hundreds of data sets – naturally one wouldn’t be deleting the data if it was good, or could at least be massaged in a credible way – it was not until today when a Reuters report confirmed what we said from day one, namely that in the long run China’s economy has more to lose than the US, where the hit would be faster but would focus primarily on the market, and once the initial selloff shock wears off leverage would swing to benefit the White House. And just as we supposed, Beijing’s unprecedented propaganda campaign, it was the cracks in the economy that forced Xi to the negotiating. According to the Reuters report, “since U.S. President Donald Trump imposed steep tariffs on China last month, Beijing had responded in kind. On state and social media, it posted images of Mao Zedong, lambasted “imperialists,” and sent a message: capitulation to bullies is dangerous, and it wouldn’t back down.”

But behind closed doors, China was quietly preparing to do just that, and Reuters reports that according three sources, officials had grown “increasingly alarmed about tariffs’ impact on the economy and the risk of isolation as China’s trading partners have started negotiating deals with Washington.” China’s reasons for deciding to negotiate, Washington’s letter on fentanyl, U.S. diplomatic challenges in Beijing, and the early outreach between the two sides are reported by Reuters for the first time, based on interviews with nearly a dozen government officials and experts on both sides. As usual, China’s diplomatic efforts had two faces, one for popular domestic consumption, and one for private engagement with the adversary, in this case the US. Sure enough, China’s foreign ministry said in a statement to Reuters that it reiterated that “China’s firm opposition to the U.S. abuse of tariffs is consistent and clear, and there is no change.”

It added that “the U.S. has ignored China’s goodwill and unreasonably imposed tariffs on China under the pretext of fentanyl. This is a typical act of bullying, which seriously undermines dialogue and cooperation between the two sides in the field of drug control.” In retrospect, the pretext may have been “fentanyl” but as we learn in a follow up report today from the WSJ, it was anything but a facade: according to the Journal, Xi Jinping is sending his top public-security aide to Switzerland as part of Beijing’s trade talks with Washington, signaling the importance of the fentanyl issue to bilateral relations. Wang Xiaohong, who is the minister of public security and a senior leader within the State Council, China’s cabinet, will be part of the Chinese delegation led by Vice Premier He Lifeng, a trusted aide to Xi and a gatekeeper to the world’s second-largest economy….

Xi has designated Wang, a close lieutenant, as the point person in Beijing’s recent discussions with Washington over how to address President Trump’s concerns about China’s role in the fentanyl trade, The Wall Street Journal has reported, helping pave the way for the weekend trade talks. So no, the US had not “ignored China’s goodwill”, and judging by Xi’s response, clearly the issue of fentanyl is a very serious one, and more importantly, one which will allow Trump to score a quick and easy victory over the weekend, one which will further demonstrate the Trump admin’s growing leverage in the ongoing negotiations. But back to the Reuters report, according to which China’s Vice Foreign Minister Hua Chunying said on Friday that China has full confidence in its ability to manage U.S. trade issues, adding that “the Trump administration’s approach cannot be sustained.” Once again, however, we learn that it was China’s approach which was far more unsustainable.

The trade war between the world’s two largest economies, combined with Trump’s decision last month to impose duties on dozens of other countries, has disrupted supply chains, unsettled financial markets and stoked fears of a sharp downturn in global growth. After Trump’s tariff salvo last month, China took a hard line in its public messaging. Beijing posted footage on its official social media feeds of a Chinese MiG-15 fighter shooting down a U.S. jet in the Korean War, with commentary: “China won’t kneel down, because we know standing up for ourselves keeps the possibility of cooperation alive, while compromise snuffs it out.” The tone began to shift on April 30, when a state media-affiliated blog said the U.S. had “proactively reached out to China through multiple channels, hoping to discuss tariffs”, commentary which according to the White House was a lie.

Meanwhile, China was adamantly denying that there were any discussions taking place about trade talks, which was also a lie as just a day later we learned that discussions were in fact taking place ahead of this weekend’s trade talks. CSIS’s Kennedy said contacts between Chinese agencies, Beijing’s embassy in Washington and the Trump administration had been increasing in frequency in recent weeks. Some in-person interactions took place at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in late April, including with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, which paved the way for the Swiss meeting, said Kennedy, confirming what we reported two weeks ago (see “Chinese Delegation Spotted Entering Treasury Department, Demands Photos Be Deleted: Report”.) More importantly, we also learn today that it was China that first reached out, more than a month ago.

After Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, Reuters reports that Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao quietly reached out to his U.S. counterpart, Howard Lutnick, but was rebuffed as not senior enough, according to one official familiar with the exchanges. While Trump has been pushing for direct talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, China had originally rejected that idea as not in keeping with its traditional approach of working out the details first before the leaders sign any deal, according to public statements by both sides. Which is why after the original Chinese overture was shut down, both sides engaged in unprecedented diplomatic jingoism to deflect attention from the failure to pursue a diplomatic solution.

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Major development. Maybe Trump can show that Bibi is not the same as Israel. Bibi stands in the way of peace. Just like Zelensky.

Trump Delinks Saudi Nuclear Energy Deal From Israel Normalization (ZH)

The United States is no longer linking negotiations for a Saudi nuclear energy program with a normalization deal for Riyadh to recognize Israel based on the Abraham Accords. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright in April while on a visit to Saudi Arabia mentioned a “pathway” to a civil nuclear agreement, even though the Saudis were insisting that there would be no normalized ties with Israel until it ceases Gaza military action, and allows for a Palestinian state. This was a first strong hint that the new administration was ready to delink the two issues. “Dropping the demand that Saudi Arabia establish diplomatic relations with Israel would be a major concession by Washington,” Reuters now reports. “Under former President Joe Biden, nuclear talks were an element of a wider U.S.-Saudi deal tied to normalization and to Riyadh’s goal of a defense treaty with Washington.”

This could pave the way for a Saudi nuclear deal breakthrough during President Trump’s visit next week. Wright explained, “For a US partnership and involvement in nuclear here, there will definitely be a 123 agreement … there’s lots of ways to structure a deal that will accomplish both the Saudi objectives and the American objectives.” As we detailed previously, US involvement in Saudi Arabia’s nuclear program would require a so-called “123 Agreement,” referring to Section 123 of the US Atomic Energy Act of 1954. This section outlines nine non-proliferation requirements designed to prevent the use of civil nuclear technology for weapons development or the transfer of sensitive materials. Washington appears to be readying an issuance of official permission regarding this key restriction. After all, Trump typically visits the Gulf while bearing ‘gifts’.

While the Joe Biden White House had sought a broader deal involving nuclear cooperation, security guarantees for the kingdom, and normalization with Israel, Wright’s April remarks focused narrowly on energy partnership. Saudi Arabia aims to expand renewable and nuclear energy as part of its Vision 2030 reforms. In addition to dropping the demand to normalize with Israel, the US has also nixed efforts to ink a US-Saudi mutual defense treaty with Riyadh. And crucially, these talks to approve a Saudi nuclear program are being advanced without consulting Israel. The Netanyahu government will no doubt reject the possibility of a future nuclear-capable Saudi Arabia.

Israel Hayom has written that “The president won’t be able to get approval to push forward a civilian nuclear program for Saudi Arabia without the Israeli component,” according to an Israeli official. “He doesn’t have a Senate majority for any agreement that doesn’t include Israel or that moves forward without its consent.” As for other things Trump is expected to announce on his Gulf tour next week, he will likely to announce a series of new major arms deals with the kingdom. While during his first administration he visited Saudi Arabia very early on, the Saudis have appeared to be lower on the list of priorities this time around.

Bibi
https://twitter.com/MarioNawfal/status/1920594558636999134
https://twitter.com/Megatron_ron/status/1920559405411786795

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Via aides… Both have felt the irony of that. They should be able to just pick up a phone.

Putin and Trump Exchange Greetings On Victory Day – Moscow (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump have congratulated each other on Victory Day, an aide to the Russian president, Yury Ushakov, told journalists on Friday. The two leaders extended the greetings through aides, according to the official. The presidents shared “heartfelt words, mutual greetings on a common holiday, great holiday,” Ushakov told the Russian Channel 1 broadcaster. Washington has not officially commented on the matter. On Friday, Russia celebrated the 80th anniversary of the Soviet triumph in the World War II against Nazi Germany. The day was packed with military parades and other ceremonial events across the nation that paid tribute to the valor and sacrifice of the Soviet people during the war.

The celebrations in Moscow, including the military parade on Red Square, were attended by upwards of 30 foreign leaders, including those of China, Brazil, Egypt, Slovakia, Serbia, and Uzbekistan. US Ambassador to Moscow Lynne Tracy skipped the event despite receiving an invitation, according to TASS. The Moscow parade was still attended by several US WWII veterans, who were invited alongside other foreign veterans, including from Mongolia, Israel and Armenia. On Thursday, Trump issued a public statement on the ‘Victory Day for World War II’. He described the victory over Nazism as “the Allied Powers’ triumph,” highlighting the role of the US and never mentioning the Soviet Union.

Earlier this month, similar statements by the US president drew criticism from Moscow. On Friday, during his speech at the annual military parade in Moscow, Putin stressed that Russia remembers the lessons of World War II and “will never accept the distortion of its events.” Since returning to office in January, Trump has pushed both Moscow and Kiev toward a truce in the ongoing conflict between the two nations but has recently voiced frustration over the lack of progress. On Thursday, he called for a month-long “unconditional ceasefire” amid a 72-hour Victory Day truce unilaterally declared by Russia. He expressed his hope that “an acceptable ceasefire will be observed” but warned that both sides would be held accountable if a ceasefire is reached but not respected.

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10+ years after Merkel f*cked it up.

Germany To Declare Immigration Emergency (RT)

New German Chancellor Friedrich Merz will declare a national emergency to tackle the country’s issues with migration, Die Welt has reported. Merz, who was elected chancellor on Tuesday, said on his first day in office that his government would begin turning back illegal migrants at the border. Germany remains the top destination for asylum seekers in the EU. Last year, it received a quarter (over 237,000) of all asylum applications across the 27-member bloc. Berlin has already informed the ambassadors of neighboring countries about the chancellor’s decision to impose a national emergency, the paper said in an article on Thursday. The move would allow the German government to prioritize its own decisions over EU regulations, according to Die Welt.

In order to turn away migrants, Berlin will invoke Article 72 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), which provides for “the maintenance of law and order and the safeguarding of internal security” by member states. Germany has a 3,700km land border with nine countries, including Poland, Austria, France, and the Netherlands. They are all part of the EU’s Schengen area, which allows passport-free travel for most EU citizens and many non-EU nationals.

On Wednesday, Germany’s newly appointed interior minister, Alexander Dobrindt, told journalists: “we will control the borders more strictly,” which will lead “to a higher number of rejections” of asylum applications. The goal is to “send a clear signal to the world and to Europe that the policy in Germany has changed,” he explained. In a letter seen by Bild, Dobrindt instructed the head of the Federal Police to disregard a 2015 directive from then-Chancellor Angela Merkel, who allowed more than a million migrants into the country at the height of Europe’s 2015-16 refugee crisis.

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This can’t go on forever. The EU must go.

Hungary Prepares for Battle Over EU’s Plan to Phase Out Russian Energy (Sp.)

The EU executive is considering bypassing Hungary in the vote on its plan to phase out Russian energy imports by relying on a “qualified majority,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday. “We need to gather allies, to prepare legally. There really is a plan to bypass a unanimous decision and pass it by a qualified majority,” Orban told Kossuth Radio. Hungary is gearing up for an uphill battle in the coming weeks and months to ensure that Hungarian households are not forced to pay twice as much for power and utilities, Orban said. Orban estimated that Hungary would have to pay about 2 billion euros ($2.23 billion) more for energy than it does now if the European Commission gets its plan to abandon Russian energy imports adopted by the Council of the European Union.

A qualified majority requires at least 15 out of 27 EU member states representing at least 65% of the total EU population to support the proposal. On Tuesday, the Commission presented a project on ending Russian energy imports to the EU by the end of 2027. The Commission intends to submit a legislative proposal in June to ban all imports under new Russian gas contracts and existing spot contracts. This ban could come into effect by the end of 2025. Remaining imports of pipeline gas and LNG from Russia under long-term contracts could stop by the end of 2027.

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Vance et al may pretend that the past 3 years never happened, but they did. Putin does what he can inside the new paradigm, not some old one. He can’t, it would be like time travel.

Putin ‘Doing Whatever Possible’ For Ukraine Peace – Kremlin (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin is “doing whatever is possible” to pursue peace in the Ukraine conflict, but has no other choice than to continue its military operation as long as Kiev refuses to hold talks with Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. In an interview with ABC News on Friday, Peskov said Ukraine “is trying to escape from negotiations” despite declaring that it is ready for a ceasefire. However, Moscow believes a truce will only give Kiev the opportunity to regroup its battered troops. ”Ukraine will continue their total mobilization, bringing new troops to [the] front line. Ukraine will use this period to train new military personnel and to give a rest to their existing ones. So why should we grant such an advantage to Ukraine?”

Another issue, he said, is arms shipments from the West, which should be ceased during a truce. “Otherwise, it will be [an] advantage for Ukraine.” “President Putin is doing whatever is possible to solve the problem, to achieve a settlement through peaceful and diplomatic means,” Peskov said. “But having no peaceful and democratic means at hand, we have to continue [the] military operation.” The Kremlin spokesman went on to say Moscow is hopeful that US President Donald Trump could play a role in mediating the conflict. Trump, he suggested, could help “bring a little bit more flexibility and a little more political will and wisdom to [the] Kiev regime.”

Russia offered a 72-hour ceasefire from midnight May 8 to midnight May 11 to mark the 80th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany. Moscow described the offer as a humanitarian gesture aimed at paving the way for direct peace talks without preconditions.Ukraine has dismissed the overture as “manipulation” and demanded a 30-day ceasefire instead. Russian officials have said the pause would allow Ukraine to regroup and strengthen its military. The Russian Defense Ministry said Ukraine has launched thousands of attacks of various kinds, including four cross-border incursions into the Russian regions of Kursk and Belgorod.

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“There is a huge desire to build a new Iron Curtain in various forms..” “We will do everything to ensure that we can shake hands through this curtain.”

Slovak PM Fico Slams Western ‘Iron Curtain’ In Talks With Putin (RT)

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin after attending the Victory Day parade on Red Square and other festivities marking the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. During talks at the Kremlin on Friday evening, Fico criticized what he described as a new “Iron Curtain” being imposed by Western nations, calling the obstacles he faced en route to Moscow due to airspace restrictions by some EU member states “a childish joke.” “There is a huge desire to build a new Iron Curtain in various forms,” Fico said, according to a Kremlin transcript. “We will do everything to ensure that we can shake hands through this curtain.”

Amid systematic desecration and destruction of World War II memorials in the Baltic states and Eastern Europe, Fico reaffirmed Slovakia’s commitment to preserving Soviet memorials – and proposed erecting a monument to Marshal Ivan Konev, a Soviet commander involved in the liberation of Czechoslovakia during the war. Putin welcomed Fico’s efforts to restore “long-standing ties between Russia and Slovakia that were effectively frozen” by the previous government in Bratislava, “which strictly followed the collective line of the West.” The Russian president noted that those in the EU who tried to prevent Fico from attending the event in Moscow “have once again been convinced that it is better not to do this… You achieve your goals no matter what.” Fico also expressed skepticism about the EU sanctions on Russia, arguing they harm the bloc more than Moscow. He stressed Slovakia’s interest in maintaining pragmatic relations with Russia, particularly in the energy sector. He noted that Slovakia’s nuclear power plants are not compatible with fuel from Western suppliers and warned that halting Russian gas and oil imports could destabilize the country’s energy infrastructure.

The Slovak prime minister’s visit drew condemnation from Brussels, with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen describing his attendance as “regrettable.” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk called it “unthinkable” for an EU leader to stand alongside Putin at the celebration of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany. Fico maintained that his presence in Moscow was a gesture of respect for the Soviet soldiers who sacrificed their lives to defeat fascism. “For me, it was a moral obligation to come here and commemorate,” he said. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov praised Fico and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic as heroes for defying EU pressure. “These days… it is simply an act of heroism – showing one’s sovereign will to pay tribute to the memory of Victory Day, despite blatant, frenzied pressure,” Peskov said.

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Feels like it’s from 1999 or thereabouts.

UK Hits Russia With ‘Largest Ever’ Sanctions Package (RT)

The British government has announced its “largest-ever” sanctions package against Russia, according to an official statement. The measure aim to deal a blow to the Russia’s oil transportation network and reduce Moscow’s energy revenues. The announcement was timed to coincide with Russia’s celebration of the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany on Friday. London, one of Kiev’s staunchest supporters – providing it with military and tactical support and billions in cash – has long claimed that Moscow poses a threat to the UK’s national security. Various British governments have implemented over 2,000 sanctions against Russian individuals and entities, since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict over three years ago. “The threat Russia poses to our national security cannot be underestimated. To ramp up the pressure on Putin, I’m announcing the largest package of sanctions yet,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer wrote on X.

The new measures blacklist up to 100 oil tankers that the West claims are part of a Russian “shadow fleet,” older vessels operating outside Western insurance systems. According to London, the vessels have carried more than $24 billion worth of cargo since the start of 2024. The EU and the US have also targeted Russian shipping and a 17th European sanctions package that would blacklist another 150 ships is expected to be approved later this month. Moscow has dismissed the restrictions as a “futile” gesture that will not harm the Russian economy, but instead drive-up energy costs and inflation across Europe. Russia’s oil revenues have remained robust thanks to non-Western buyers, such as China and India. Last month, the Russian Embassy in London urged the British government to stop “theatrical and short-lived gestures of hostility towards Russia.”

The UK has also accused the vessels of posing a threat to critical undersea infrastructure, such as telecommunications cables and oil and gas pipelines, dismissed by Moscow as “hastily concocted fantasy stories.” London’s tough sanctions rhetoric comes as Britain, along with the EU, is being sidelined from the peace process around Ukraine. A key London meeting on the conflict was downgraded last month after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio canceled his attendance. US President Donald Trump has also floated the idea of a possible partial lifting of restrictions on Moscow as part of a possible peace settlement.

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“She campaigned on a promise to bag Donald Trump on something. She didn’t even bother to name what it was. She literally campaigned… on the promise that she would nail him on anything, and then she filled in the violation later.”

Poetic Justice Came for Letitia James, and It’s Glorious (Margolis)

On Thursday, we reported that federal authorities have launched a criminal investigation into New York Attorney General Letitia James over allegations of mortgage fraud. Later, during a Fox Business interview about these charges, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley told host Elizabeth MacDonald that “the karma is crushing here.” During the segment, Turley pointed to contradictions in James’ defense strategy that he believes mirror accusations she previously made against former President Donald Trump. “These all have to be combed out,” Turley explained when asked about the seriousness of the charges. “The James defense team is saying that there were contradictions that were corrected, that, for example, that home was the primary residence of the other signatory.”

According to the referral from Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte, James is accused of falsifying records to obtain favorable loan terms on two properties: a Brooklyn brownstone she’s owned since 2001 and a Virginia home purchased in 2023. The case is now being handled by U.S. Attorney John Sarcone III, whose office in New York’s Northern District is leading the investigation. Pulte stated that James “appears to have falsified records” to meet lending requirements and secure better mortgage terms. Turley noted that James’ defense relies on an argument that financial institutions should have conducted their own due diligence, a standard she outright refused to grant Trump in her own case against him. “It’s an ironic defense because they’re saying, ‘Look, if the bank simply looked into this on their own, they could see that these were more units than just four, that this was not the primary residence of James,'” Turley stated.

He continued, “That’s a type of understanding and leeway that she refused to allow to Donald Trump. She insisted that everything that was… signed in his name… really are bound legally to him. And so, they said you have an obligation to make sure everything filed was absolutely accurate.” Turley did not hold back in his assessment of the situation, suggesting a certain poetic justice was at play. He reserved his strongest criticism for what he characterized as the most significant contradiction in James’ position. “The greatest irony, of course, is to hear her counsel and her spokesperson say, ‘You know, this is just wrong because Trump campaigned on moving against his enemies,'” he said.

This defense strategy particularly struck Turley as hypocritical, given James’ own campaign rhetoric when running for attorney general. “For those of us who have covered this litigation for years, having those words come out of the mouths of James’ staff really is breathtaking,” he emphasized. Turley recalled James’ previous statements during her campaign, noting, “She campaigned on a promise to bag Donald Trump on something. She didn’t even bother to name what it was. She literally campaigned… on the promise that she would nail him on anything, and then she filled in the violation later.” Naturally, we’ve come to expect that Democrats have one set of rules for themselves and another for everyone else. In their version of justice, Democrats commit the crimes—and Republicans serve the time.

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“I hope Ed Martin’s 1st assignment at DOJ is to investigate Thom Tillis’ corruption.” — Rogan O’Handley (aka’ DC Draino’ on X)

Going Around. . . Coming Back Around (James Howard Kunstler)

The funny part is that this swarm of Jacobin botflies from Norm Eisen to Sen. Thom Tillis thought (and acted) as if Ed Martin was the only MAGA lawyer capable of uncovering the steaming pile of seditious poo festering, lo these many years, in the DC federal district (i.e., the Swamp). Like, get rid of Ed and our troubles are over. Really? Don’t you suppose that there are dozens of other capable, patriotic, seasoned lawyers, seething over the corruption that is Swamp crime, who can effectively occupy the office of US Attorney for the District of Columbia?

The second funniest part is apparently the Jacobins thought that Ed Martin would just skulk off into the gloaming like a whipped dog and be gone — when, in fact, Mr. Trump folded him at once into three jobs in the Department of Justice that don’t require confirmation by the Senate, and will allow him to attend to exactly the same set of grave problems afflicting this republic from a position of power. Mr. Martin will now serve as Director of the DOJ’s Weaponization Working Group, Associate Deputy Attorney General, and Pardon Attorney reviewing the legitimacy of “Joe Biden’s” auto-pen signing of important documents — meaning, he’ll have the power to bring cases on his own and make criminal referrals to the US Attorney for DC.

You must also imagine that in his 100-plus days as Interim US Attorney for DC, Mr. Martin assembled quite a portfolio of evidence around the manifold blob wrong-doings of the past decade, but especially the treachery of the J-6 / 2021 blob operation at the US Capitol, and the ensuing cover-up of all that, including the intel community’s role in it, the perfidy and perjuries of Chris Wray, Merrick Garland, Nancy Pelosi and others, and the gong show of lies and villainy that was the House J-6 committee chaired by Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), (with remedial support from Adam Schiff, Liz Cheney, Jamie Raskin, and, backstage as always, lawfare ninjas Norm Eisen, Mary McCord, Marc Elias, Ben Wittes, and Andrew Weissmann).

On the ostensible defeat of Ed Martin’s nomination, the president instantly turned around and installed Jeanine Pirro as Interim US Attorney for DC. Before retiring into a career as a TV talking head, Ms. Pirro was a Westchester County, New York, judge, and then elected District Attorney, so she knows how to work criminal cases. The interim appointment runs 120 days. In theory, Mr. Trump can appoint a new Interim US Attorney every 120 days, and keep rotating them until the cows come home — each successive one with the same support staff of assistant US attorneys underneath, the same cases ongoing, and the same trove of evidence catalogued.

All of which is to say, the blob officials and lawfare stormtroopers are mistaken to think that their ongoing circus of legalistic monkey business has somehow gained immunity from appraisal, investigation, and prosecution by de-railing Ed Martin. The cases themselves are bigger than any one particular US attorney and have a momentum of their own as the nation struggles to overcome the organized assault on the law itself that lawfare represents.

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“He’s someone we can work with, and that makes him MAGA in the eyes of the Left, which is insane.”

Chris Cuomo Nails Why Dems Are Trying to Destroy John Fetterman (Matt Vespa)

I’m not a fan of Chris Cuomo, but he has become more sensible since he left the confines of CNN. It’s funny how he, Chuck Todd, and others seem to be making more sense now that they don’t have to kowtow to the hyper-left-wing sensibilities of their former employers. They’re not red-pilled, but they dish out some decent takes now and then. Cuomo nailed why Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) is being targeted for destruction. He’s not a crazy person. He’s pro-Israel, focused on working Americans, and understands the realities of the 2024 election. You can’t scream about Trump 24/7 and block all his nominees. His side lost, and there were consequences. The former CNN host pointed out that’s the irony here: that Fetterman is being ‘canceled’ for trying to rebuild the party into one that can win elections:

Fetterman has been reaching across the aisle too much for them. The senator crushes Hamas and campus protests, which, as we all know, is a pet project of the radical left. He met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago — that’s a huge sin. And he worked with Republicans on passing the Laken Riley Act and voted for 10 of Trump’s cabinet picks. And now the senator is saying that Trump has keyed in correctly on the most important concern in our country: Helping the majority do better when it comes to workers and economic benefits. New York Magazine released a lengthy article that attacked the Pennsylvania Democrat, describing him as reckless, a quasi-conspiratorial thinker, and one who is not taking his mental health seriously. It was a textbook case of character assassination.

“Democrats, this is why you lost. You can’t cancel everyone who doesn’t hate the right and play by your stilted rules of purity,” Cuomo added. He’s right. I’m not going to endorse Fetterman. I wouldn’t vote for him if I were a Pennsylvania resident, but should he survive, it’s not a devastating loss. He’s someone we can work with, and that makes him MAGA in the eyes of the Left, which is insane.

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Trump’s envoy for the hardest cases. “Warn them that there are real-world consequences for their emotional virtue signaling–and let the chips fall where they may.”

Ric Grenell Drops Some Reality on Kennedy Center Performers (Lower)

To paraphrase something my colleague Susie Moore stated in an earlier piece about the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals providing much-needed guidance to lower courts on a miniscule group of the barrage of cases against President Trump and his administration, we continue to follow the saga of the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Readers likely remember the brouhaha by progressives near the beginning of Trump’s new term when he announced he was kicking off some of the board members and appointing himself the new chair of the famed arts venue. Although a few days later, the president named former U.S. ambassador to Germany and U.S. Envoy for Special Missions, Ric Grenell, as interim executive director.

During CPAC 2025, Grenell addressed the poor state of the Kennedy Center’s finances, sharing that Pres. Trump likely has the same concerns about the organization’s ability to “Make Art Great Again,” as Grenell put it in the interview with Politico’s Dasha Burns. I think, I don’t know for sure, but I think the frustration President Trump has is that the Kennedy Center has no cash on hand. No reserves. And they have been paying for the salaries with the debt reserves. While taking around more than 40 million dollars in public money. You can’t have that. If you’re going to take public money, then you get to have public input.

So, what we’re gonna say at the Kennedy Center, first of all, we gotta clean up the financial situation. We have to do the big productions that the masses and the public want to see. We want to have really big programming. And my colleague Jennifer Oliver O’Connell included one tidbit that leftists went wild over before Grenell cleared it up–and it relates to Thursday’s story: Grenell also cleared up some misinformation about an artist who supposedly dropped out from performing on the Kennedy Center stage because Trump took over the center and installed Grenell. Grenell made it known that some of these decisions were made before Trump took over, and the decision to drop the act was based on the performance not producing adequate ticket sales.

He also hinted that the Center will have a special Christmas show. Maybe we’ll get more details on that in the coming months. Anyway, earlier this week, some performers in the traveling cast of “Les Misérables” who were slated to take part in an upcoming charity fundraiser/performance at the Center threatened to boycott it … because Pres. Trump is set to appear. On Wednesday, while speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Ric Grenell just laid out the “Les Miz” performers, according to industry publication Variety. First, it seemed this was the first time he had heard the “rumor” about the controversy, then he added, “But the Kennedy Center will no longer fund intolerance.” He stated that it shows who isn’t “professional” in the performance company, and that any producer thinking of hiring any of these performers might be inspired to think again. Here’s his full quote:

“Any performer who isn’t professional enough to perform for patrons of all backgrounds, regardless of political affiliation, won’t be welcomed,” Grenell added. “In fact, we think it would be important to out those vapid and intolerant artists to ensure producers know who they shouldn’t hire — and that the public knows which shows have political litmus tests to sit in the audience.” He continued, “The Kennedy Center wants to be a place where people of all political stripes sit next to each other and never ask who someone voted for but instead enjoy a performance together.” This is exactly how Republicans need to handle this sort of childish wokeness from the “resistance” to America First principles and all things Trump. Let’s keep on this path. Warn them that there are real-world consequences for their emotional virtue signaling–and let the chips fall where they may.

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The whole family lived large. Now income has dried up.

Sources Say the Biden Crime Family Is Going Broke (Margolis)

Aww, now isn’t this nice? The Biden crime family is facing a serious cash crunch now that its patriarch is out of power and the influence-peddling machine has ground to a halt. As we previously reported, on Thursday, Joe and Jill Biden made a live appearance on “The View” in New York City, and according to Mark Halperin, the move is part of a broader effort to rehabilitate Joe Biden’s image after a disastrous first 100 days back in private life. “There’s a story in Politico today that says they’ve hired the former Pentagon spokesperson to manage the Biden comeback,” Halperin said. “Joe Biden wants to be out there… He wants to speak out against Donald Trump. He wants to defend his reputation.” Halperin also noted that Politico is reporting the Trump administration plans to release audio of Biden’s interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur, the one that led Hur to describe Biden as “an elderly man with a poor memory.”

]But Halperin offered a blunt insight from someone close to the family: “I talked to someone very familiar with the Bidens, and I think they’ve pointed out something that I’m gonna say now, that to me, is the explanation, or at least part of the explanation, which is Biden Inc. has collapsed.” He didn’t sugarcoat the financial rot. “All those Biden grandkids had a lavish lifestyle, which they very much liked. Hunter made hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars. Joe, as a former president, is not in a position to get the same kind of paid speeches, corporate boards, book deals.” “Wait, wait, wait! The paintings aren’t worth a lot?” Sean Spicer quipped. “The grift is over,” Spicer observed. “The big guy’s not getting his cut anymore, and that’s a problem. I get it; they’ve lived a very lavish lifestyle. There’s the beach house. I gotta imagine the property taxes aren’t cheap. Uh, they’re used to a certain lifestyle, but not just them. To your point, the whole family was coming from one source and they lost their USAID funding basically.”

Of course, we all know the “source” was the global network of influence built while Joe Biden was vice president and continued into his presidency. But that operation doesn’t function without power, and now, without it, the Bidens are scrambling to find new income. “They were pulling in $10 million a year, maybe more,” Halperin estimated. “What’s Biden Inc. pulling in today?” That really puts Biden’s decision to seek a second term into perspective, doesn’t it? Spicer was just as candid: “No one wants to know what he thinks. Number two, he doesn’t know what he thinks, and that’s a bigger problem.” Even Biden’s future prospects as a paid speaker are bleak. “You don’t think the Washington Speakers Bureau looked at him and said, ‘That guy needs to be flown all over the country giving $800,000 speeches’?” Halperin asked sarcastically.

Spicer replied, “No. I think they looked at him and said, ‘We’ll get back to you after the company retreat.’” As for the prospects of a presidential library — a traditional source of prestige and fundraising — Halperin was blunt: “He’s not a good fundraiser, and the donors are not currently in love with him.” So the Biden crime family is out of gas, out of influence, and running on fumes. The free ride is over — and the scramble for relevance (and revenue) has begun.

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“.. the politicization of our intelligence community needs to end—to even begin to start to earn the trust of the American people..”

DNI Tulsi Gabbard Discusses Intel Community Leaks to Media Allies (CTH)

One of the least understood dynamics about how the DC silos operate, pertains to review and investigative work done by government officials into government misconduct. In essence, special counsels, special investigators and appointed special prosecutors do not look at government activity if that activity can be framed as political. The silos protect themselves from external review. As a consequence, the only administrative review of government misconduct happens when the silos look internally at their own agency. In this short video below Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard outlines that 11 internal investigations are ongoing to target Intelligence Community officials, staff and employees who are leaking classified information to the media. After the internal review, the DNI then sends (criminal) referrals to Main Justice and the FBI if warranted. Currently three criminal referrals have been sent to the FBI/DOJ as eleven investigations continue. WATCH:

TRANSCRIPT … […] “as I said, the politicization of our intelligence community needs to end—to even begin to start to earn the trust of the American people. The actions that we’ve taken—unfortunately—there continue to be significant leaks coming out of the intelligence community. Not only my organization, but the CIA and others—again, by those who are very directly trying to undermine the agenda and actions of President Trump. Once again, the President who was elected by the American people with an overwhelming mandate. The way that we start to end this is by bringing about transparency and accountability. In these cases, we conducted our own internal investigation.

In three cases, we referred them to the Department of Justice. As you know well, Matt, sometimes—or historically—we could refer things to the Department of Justice, and they would sit on a desk somewhere or get lost in the paper shuffle. And you end up having to wait and you wonder, Well, is anything ever going to happen? Well, I can tell you, with the leadership we have there now, not only has there been action taken, but they have been actioned by the FBI and are going through immediately to investigate these cases with the intent of bringing about prosecution. We have 11 other internal investigations ongoing now within ODNI, and we intend to continue to carry them out to completion—to hold those who are illegally leaking classified information, trying to undermine the President, politicizing intelligence—hold them accountable. Because this has got to end.”

DNI Tulsi Gabbard is following a frustratingly slow process. However, if she is successful the DC apparatus will target her for removal.

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https://twitter.com/NicHulscher/status/1920925406829703262

Fauci

EPIC
https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/1920899852776489123

Burkina


https://twitter.com/Joe__Bassey/status/1920244279655481686

Jews

Greenwald

Solar
https://twitter.com/ryankatzrosene/status/1920683016583520573

Throw
https://twitter.com/buitengebieden/status/1920830164415447378

Lamp
https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1920859565396009418

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Sep 012024
 


M. C. Escher Order and chaos 1950

 

Harris Can’t Beat The Dream Team (Flores)
Ukraine Conflict Can Lead to ‘Global-Ending’ Nuclear War – Ritter (Sp.)
‘Getting Along With Russia Is Good’ – Trump (RT)
Lavrov Warns Russia-Ukraine Talks Will Get Harder With Time (Sp.)
Lavrov Draws Parallels Between Israel And Ukraine (RT)
Nancy Pelosi Says The Quiet Part Out Loud To Bill Maher (ZH)
Switzerland Urged To Rethink Its 500-Year Neutrality (RT)
US Not Sending Contractors To Service Ukrainian F-16s – WSJ (RT)
West Knew About The “Surprise” Invasion of Kursk (Van den Ende)
US Advancing Police State Measures (SCF)
Musk Vows to Expose Top Brazilian Judge’s Crimes After Suspension of X (Sp.)
Kamala Is Going To Drive Gold To $10,000 (Hickman)
End the US Dollar Chokehold on the World (Nomi Prins)
“France Unbowed” Party Moves to Impeach Macron (Sp.)

 

 

 

 

Finish the story

 

 

 

 

8min

 

 

RFK
https://twitter.com/i/status/1829709020808044898

https://twitter.com/i/status/1830025062352908506

 

 

Trump Elon
https://twitter.com/i/status/1829692483099640145

 

 

Tulsi

 

 

Sacks

 

 

Aykroyd
https://twitter.com/i/status/1829707646540112338

 

 

 

 

“We may arrive at the equation that cringe (C) is equal to the value of vacuity (vac) multiplied by the insincerity (i), squared. Or C = vac(i)2..”

Harris Can’t Beat The Dream Team (Flores)

Vice President Kamala Harris has become the subject of an ongoing joke in political circles because her speech writers insist on burdening her with trite aphorisms aimed at highlighting her inspirational wisdom, but instead miss the mark so severely that the word ‘backfire’ is more appropriate. In part one, we established that the coup against Biden did not establish the overthrow of his regime of war and dementia, because he was not the central character or mover of the plot which his administration had been (and still is) executing. But in the wake of the failed assassination of Trump – which the FBI has still been silent about (or not; the mach speed cremation of Thomas Crooks’ body speaks quite loudly) – provided the true predicate that led to Biden’s decision to step down.

Had the assassination succeeded, it’s far more likely that Biden would have remained the candidate, and any transfer of nominal authority to Harris would have concluded sometime in 2025 after the presumed victory. But the notion that Harris provides a solution or even a bearable trade-off in the deep-state’s electoral ambitions is furthermore questionable. This attempt has backfired, and it is hard not to connect the near-miracle which was Trump somehow turning his head at just the right time, to the panic which swept across the DNC in the aftermath. Initial MSM headlines sought to question whether an attempt was even made. The subsequent endorsements by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard have turned the panic into a hysteria.

Harris has a knack for mixing metaphors and results in some incomprehensible word salad which had been intended to inspire us. Unlike Trump, Bill Clinton, or Obama, all who could effortlessly speak in a conversational tone, Harris seems unable to communicate plainly. We should also add that even if these failed attempts at profundity had succeeded in the sense of basic syntax and normal human speech, they would still evoke a high degree of relative cosmological cringe equivalent to their vacuity.

We may arrive at the equation that cringe (C) is equal to the value of vacuity (vac) multiplied by the insincerity (i), squared. Or C = vac(i)2. And who said political science was a soft one? But jokes aside, (or not) this has put her handlers in a difficult position. They must choose between two unappealing options: allowing her to struggle with reading the teleprompter or attempting to memorize lines with little success, or letting her ad-lib and risk a complete flop. The coming debate between Harris and Trump – should there still be one coming – will no doubt highlight Harris’ inability across multiple vectors.

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“Russia has made it clear that as a nuclear power, it not only will not, but cannot be defeated strategically..”

So why go to war? Start a forever war. While betting that Russia won’t nuke the US.

Don’t be surprised if they start this before the elections.

Ukraine Conflict Can Lead to ‘Global-Ending’ Nuclear War – Ritter (Sp.)

Ukraine attacking Russia using long-range weapons provided by the US “might be interpreted by Russia as a direct attack by the US, by NATO, on Russian territory,” former US Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter tells Sputnik. Such an attack, Ritter explains, might be regarded as a prelude to a “larger military incursion” meant to accomplish the US’ ultimate goal, “the strategic defeat of Russia.” “Russia has made it clear that as a nuclear power, it not only will not, but cannot be defeated strategically – because if such a possibility manifested itself, Russia would be required to use its nuclear arsenal to ensure that outcome would never, never occur. This means general nuclear war,” he says. Ritter also recalls the warnings made by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov who questioned the US’ apparent belief that a Russia-NATO conflict would be limited to Europe and who said that a Russian retaliatory strike against the United States is possible if such a conflict were to break out.

“This is a very dangerous escalation, one that could rapidly create the conditions conducive for not limited nuclear conflict, but a general nuclear war, a global-ending global disaster, the destruction of the US, the destruction of Russia, the destruction of Europe, the destruction of the world. Why? Because the US and NATO will not be honest about the state of affairs in Ukraine today,” laments Ritter. Ukraine has already “lost the war,” he adds, and nothing that Kiev might do to try and “tip the scales” in its favor is going to change that. “All it will do is provoke Russia into enlarging this conflict so that it’s not just Ukraine that pays the price, but Europe, the US, and the rest of the world,” Ritter says. “Hopefully, the Ukrainian Defense Minister Andrei Yermak will be received by the US, and have their recommendations regarding using long-range weapons to strike deep inside Russia rejected. Because there’s only one outcome if the US greenlights this escalation, and that is total nuclear war.”

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“Getting along with Russia is good, not bad. Remember, getting along with these people is smart.”

‘Getting Along With Russia Is Good’ – Trump (RT)

Engaging and “getting along” with Russia and North Korea would be a “good thing,” former US President Donald Trump has argued. Speaking at an election rally in Pennsylvania on Friday, the Republican nominee touted his diplomatic efforts to fix Washington’s ties with Pyongyang, referring to his 2019 meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas. “I got along with Kim Jong-un of North Korea. Remember I walked over… the first person to ever walk over from this country,” Trump claimed. “We also looked at his nuclear capability. It’s very substantial,” he added. “You know, getting along is a good thing. It’s not a bad thing.”

“Getting along” with Moscow is also not “a bad thing,” Trump said. He went on to harshly criticize the incumbent administration, claiming President Joe Biden has a very low IQ “and maybe now it’s nonexistent,” as he has “completely lost his mind.” The Republican nominee repeated his claim that “what is happening now in relations with Russia would not have happened” if he were still in office. Trump’s remarks came in response to accusations from his election rival, Vice President Kamala Harris. In her Democratic nomination acceptance speech in Chicago last week, she criticized the former president for his relations with the North Korean leader – claiming she would not “cozy up to tyrants and dictators like Kim Jong-un who are rooting for Trump.”

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“It was easy to agree in Istanbul, less than a month after the start of our special military operation. But Ukraine did not want it..”

Lavrov Warns Russia-Ukraine Talks Will Get Harder With Time (Sp.)

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has warned those who are trying to hinder peace talks between Russia and Ukraine that negotiations would become tougher as time passed. “Russian President Vladimir Putin mentioned potential negotiations a year and a half ago. He said we had nothing against them… Opponents must understand that the longer they take, the harder it will be to agree on anything. It was easy to agree in Istanbul, less than a month after the start of our special military operation. But Ukraine did not want it,” Lavrov said in an interview to the RT broadcaster for the documentary Bridges to the East.

The top Russian diplomat stressed that Ukraine’s joining NATO was non-negotiable. Turkiye hosted several rounds of Russian-Ukrainian peace talks in Istanbul in March 2022, which ultimately failed. It also helped mediate the UN-backed Black Sea Grain Initiative in July 2022, which provided for safe maritime exports of Ukrainian food until it expired the following summer. Russian President Putin said in June that Russia would cease fire and start talks with Ukraine as soon as Kiev withdrew troops from regions that Russia saw as its own and abandoned plans to join NATO.

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Both want to create a huge war.

Lavrov Draws Parallels Between Israel And Ukraine (RT)

Both Ukraine and Israel are trying to spark major regional wars to solve their own problems at the expense of others, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. The country’s senior diplomat made the remarks in an exclusive interview with RT’s Anna Knishenko, aired on Saturday. Asked about the prospects of the ongoing crisis in the Middle East devolving into a major regional war, Lavrov suggested Israel was effectively the only party seeking such conflict. “It seems that the only one who wants such a development is Israel. Probably the Israeli government, which is rather hard politics-wise, and they do not even hide that,” Lavrov stated. “Probably, they want to take advantage of this situation to once and for all try to solve all their problems with Hamas and with Hezbollah, and with pro-Iranian groups in Syria and Iraq,” the minister suggested, adding that Tehran seems to be avoiding such a conflict and “does not want to get involved in any large-scale military actions.”

Israel’s behavior shares striking similarities to Ukraine’s, with Kiev apparently seeking to drag its Western backers into a direct conflict with Moscow, Lavrov pointed out. “I’m seeing an interesting parallel there, [Vladimir] Zelensky too, who is fully controlled by the US as well, he wants roughly the same thing, only around Ukraine – to unleash a major war here, and to step aside himself, so that the Americans and other NATO members would start fighting for him,” the minister added. These are very similar situations when they want to provoke a big war in the Middle East and on the territory that is directly adjacent to us, and now part of [Russia’s] Kursk Region is under the control of Zelensky’s Nazi regime, with weapons supplied to him by NATO.

The ongoing Ukrainian incursion into Kursk Region, launched by Kiev early this month, was likely approved by its Western handlers, Lavrov suggested. A “large number of Nazi units” as well as foreign mercenaries – who might actually be “regular troops” – are taking part in the hostilities, he noted. “It is difficult for me to tell what the idea was behind this situation, because our Western colleagues have very convoluted minds, they sometimes bend everything in their own way, and then nothing comes of it,” Lavrov stated, invoking questionable results the collective West has achieved in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.

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They are dead set on changing the country beyond recognition. Maybe that should be Trump’s no. 1 focus: They want to take your country away. How many democrat voters want that?

Nancy Pelosi Says The Quiet Part Out Loud To Bill Maher (ZH)

The southern border invasion, fueled by the Biden-Harris administration’s disastrous open border policies, has been a devastating blow to this nation. Our borders have been flooded with millions of unvetted, unvaccinated illegal aliens (remember, ‘trust the science’ Democrats wanted to jail people for not being Covid vaccinated just a few years ago…), including ISIS terrorists. Iranian assassins are roaming freely, hunting ex-Trump admin officials, while cartel criminals and the Chinese Communist Party wage ‘reverse opium wars’ with fentanyl that has sent the drug death overdose catastrophe just north of 100,000 Americans per year.

In Colorado, armed Venezuelan prison gangs have seized control of entire apartment complexes, and the overwhelming number of illegal aliens across the country has pushed some local governments to the brink of chaos. What’s evident is that Democrats have abandoned the American people (hence why former Democrats, such as Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., jumped ship and now support Trump). Their top priority is to give amnesty to more than ten million illegal aliens. This amnesty program allows illegal aliens to get citizenship and vote in future elections. It potentially ensures Democrats can fulfill their Marxist agenda of pushing forward with a socialist reconstruction of America.

Not happy with the first-world conditions, Democrats have imported the third world to neighborhoods across America – much of which was done against the wishes of their political constituents. Don’t believe the misinformation VP Kamala Harris spews about securing the border. She had 3.5 years to do so (or at least care) under the Biden admin. On the contrary, Democrats want more illegal aliens and offer mass amnesty. On Friday, elderly Nancy Pelosi said the quiet part out loud on “Real Time with Bill Maher,” openly stating her desire to turn all ‘undocumented’ migrants into ‘documented’ ones. She also supported the idea of providing subsidized housing for illegal aliens.

Let’s travel back about 16 years to 2008, when she said, “We certainly don’t want any more coming in.”

So what changed in the last 16 years with some folks in the Democratic Party that support communist price controls, nation-killing open borders, anti-American rhetoric, and mass censorship? Well, the number of high-profile Democrats jumping ship to support Trump is evident that this party is no longer the Democratic Party your parents voted for.

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“It is an open secret that… Amherd wants to destroy Swiss neutrality and throw herself into the arms of NATO and the EU..”

Switzerland Urged To Rethink Its 500-Year Neutrality (RT)

It is time for Switzerland, which has been neutral since 1515, to redefine its non-alignment status, a group of Swiss experts have said, in a report ordered by the defense ministry in Bern. Critics, in response, have accused the panel behind the paper of bias and insist that neutrality is forever enshrined in the country’s constitution. The study committee, which was set up a year ago, presented a paper on Thursday with 100 recommendations on how to boost the Alpine nation’s security. “The neutrality policy needs to be revised, more focused on its security function and applied more flexibly,” the members of the panel, which is said to include politicians, economists and scientists representing different age groups and regions, suggest in the report. Another key recommendation in it is that Switzerland’s “cooperation with NATO and the EU must continue to be deepened with a view to achieving a common defense capability and becoming a genuine defense cooperation.”

Among other things, the commission urged that the country’s defense budget be increased from 0.75% of GDP to 1% by 2030. It also said that the majority of the members of the panel spoke in favor of lifting the 1998 ban on the re-export of arms to countries that are at war. This legislation previously caused complications for EU states looking to supply Kiev in its conflict with Moscow with weapons that had Swiss-made parts in them. The changes to Swiss neutrality policy are needed due to a “sharp deterioration in the situation in Europe, marked by power politics, increasingly destabilized crisis regions and, above all, the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine,” the paper claims.

The recommendations by the commission are going to be taken into account during work on Switzerland’s new security policy, to be unveiled in 2025. The expert group’s paper had caused controversy even before it came out, with critics claiming that the head of the Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport (DDPS), Viola Amherd, had deliberately formed the panel using experts who are against neutrality. On Thursday, the opposition Swiss People’s Party (SVP) again slammed the report, saying that the “politically one-sided” commission behind it has shown “disregard of the constitutionally guaranteed perpetual… neutrality of our country.” “It is an open secret that… Amherd wants to destroy Swiss neutrality and throw herself into the arms of NATO and the EU,” the statement by the SVP read.

Despite not being a member of the EU or NATO, Switzerland has joined nearly all of the Western sanctions imposed on Russia over the Ukraine conflict and has frozen billions of dollars worth of Moscow’s assets. In early 2024, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that, because of this, Moscow does not consider Switzerland to be a neutral country anymore. In June, the Swiss authorities hosted the so-called Ukraine peace conference, to which Russia was not invited. Moscow described the summit, which focused solely on Kiev’s proposals to settle the conflict, as a “parody of negotiations” and insisted that it would not have attended the event if Bern had asked for a Russian delegation to come.

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“The Biden administration has not ruled out sending US contractors to Ukraine completely, but it is not going to happen any time soon, the report read.”

US Not Sending Contractors To Service Ukrainian F-16s – WSJ (RT)

The administration of US President Joe Biden has rejected a Pentagon plan to send American contractors to Ukraine to maintain Western hardware, including F-16 fighter jets, the Wall Street journal has reported, citing officials in Washington. The longstanding debate about deploying US civilians to Ukraine to service the hardware supplied to Kiev by its foreign backers has intensified since the delivery of the first batch of six F-16s to Ukraine in late July, the outlet said in an article on Friday. The White House National Security Council looked into the proposal coming from the military, but deemed it to be too risky, officials familiar with the discussion told the WSJ. “The intelligence community raised concerns over the prospect of Russia targeting American contractors in Ukraine,” one of the sources told the outlet. The Biden administration has not ruled out sending US contractors to Ukraine completely, but it is not going to happen any time soon, the report read.

For now, Washington expects its NATO allies in Europe to take responsibility for servicing the US-designed jets, it added. The Netherlands, which together with Norway, Denmark and Belgium promised to supply Kiev with more than 80 F-16s, has already announced that it will fund a private contract between a civilian maintenance company and the Ukrainian Air Force. “We support the Ukrainian government financially to make those contracts with private partners to see if they can hold the aircraft up and running in the future,” General Onno Eichelsheim, the Dutch chief of defense, said on Wednesday. The WSJ noted that Ukraine had previously struggled to maintain other US-supplied weapons, such as the Abrams M1 tank, which had to be shipped outside the country for repairs. The outlet pointed out that an F-16 requires “hours of service for every hour of flight time,” with dozens of support personnel usually working on each plane.

Earlier this week, Kiev confirmed the loss of its first F-16, which reportedly crashed on Monday, killing its pilot. The Ukrainian media said the investigators were looking into technical problems and pilot error as the possible reasons for the accident. However, MP Mariana Bezuglaya claimed that the jet was shot down as a result of “friendly fire” from one of Ukraine’s US-donated Patriot air defense systems. Russian reports said that the F-16 could have been destroyed on the ground by an Iskander missile during a strike on an airfield in western Ukraine. In March, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the use of F-16s in the conflict will make them “a legitimate target” for Russian forces, warning that the planes will be struck even at airfields inside NATO countries if they operate from there.

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“..it has violated the Russian soul and there we have landed in a totally different dimension. Perhaps one might say, the “road of no return.”

West Knew About The “Surprise” Invasion of Kursk (Van den Ende)

In late June 2024, U.S. media reported that American military contractors would be sent to Ukraine, just weeks before the Kursk attack on August 6, 2024. After the attack on the Kursk region of the pre-war Russian Federation, the U.S. and its NATO proxies claimed that the incursion was a surprise offensive by Ukraine alone. The Forward Observation Group, the private U.S. paramilitary company that posted photos of its fighters involved in the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ offensive against the Kursk region, refused to comment on its involvement in the attack on August 6. “The Biden administration is moving toward lifting a de facto ban on American military contractors deploying to Ukraine,” four U.S. officials familiar with the matter told CNN, “to help the country’s military maintain and repair U.S.-provided weapons systems.”

According to CNN, “The change would mark another significant shift in the Biden administration’s Ukraine policy, as the U.S. looks for ways to give Ukraine’s military an upper hand against Russia.” CNN and other U.S. and European news outlets reported in late June about the possible deployment of this private military group. The U.S. has a long history of using mercenaries as cover for official American military troops. Think of Blackwater and the mercenaries in Syria and Iraq, the White Helmets (trained in Jordan), and I even go so far as to say that ISIS (Daesh in Arabic) is a private mercenary army, trained by the CIA and Mossad in Camp Bucca, Iraq. The Foreign Observation Group (ironically, the acronym is FOG) is said to be a private group that claims to have traveled to Ukraine, Iraq and Syria to contact local fighters (jihadists) and take photos and videos of what they and the West call the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Syrian “civil war”.

All those conflicts are in reality proxy wars incited by the West, which is now resulting in a “hot war” between Russia and the U.S. and its criminal NATO partners. Even before Russia’s Special Military Operation (SMO) began in February 2022, Western media published photos sourced from the likes of FOG from the Donbass region of then-eastern Ukraine. The images attracted limited criticism for interviewing (extolling) members of the NeoNazi Azov Battalion. The Nazi insignia of the Azov troops were blatantly displayed and their Nazi affiliation was irrefutable. Western media association with the NeoNazi paramilitaries raised questions at the time about whether they were so-called documentary journalists or a party to the conflict. After the start of the SMO, the Western media whitewashed the NeoNazi image of the Azov Battalion and labeled them as the “good guys” fighting for the liberation of Ukraine.

The FOG group and other NATO private contractors are also active in obtaining medical supplies, equipment and money for Ukrainian fighters and foreign volunteers who have joined the International Legion for the Defense of Ukraine. To be sure, we heard from the Kremlin that many red lines have been crossed. Think of the recent attack with American ATACMS missiles on the beach in Crimea. The day that the U.S. announced that it would give private contractors a free hand, there was the attack on Crimea. Coincidence? No, I don’t think so! Since the attack on Kursk, the battlefield has an extra dimension and we can accurately talk about a tangible confrontation or war between America, its NATO proxies and Russia. One could even argue that the proxy war is over and there is a new phase of direct confrontation going on.

The U.S. government has so far gradually increased its military support to Ukraine. The purpose of this approach is to test the Russian red lines, to see how Moscow reacts to the deployment of each new weapons system or each new Western sanction and, most recently, of course, the donation of frozen Russian assets, mainly in Europe, to Ukraine. The situation has come to a head, in my humble opinion. Regarding Kursk, there has actually been an attack on Russia; Russian people have been killed, and slaughtered whereby civilians have been taken from their homes in trucks and executed. There is even footage of Ukrainian soldiers with SS helmets and with the detachment of Adolf Hitler’s Leibstandarte Regiment on their sleeves, harassing an old man, who was later killed.

The West is trying to push Russia to the limit, knowing that the Second World War is an extremely sensitive subject for Russian society where every family is related to a victim, a fallen soldier, a grandfather, an uncle, a cousin, or aunt who was killed during the Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany, in which more than 26 million people died. The recent action in the Kursk region, where most Russians perceive that the U.S. and its NATO accomplices are involved, is a brazen provocation. Indeed, more than a provocation, it has violated the Russian soul and there we have landed in a totally different dimension. Perhaps one might say, the “road of no return.”

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“Ritter’s case is a clear example that there is no democracy on American soil, as Washington is very close to revealing an open fascist face – similar to that of its Ukrainian proxy.”

US Advancing Police State Measures (SCF)

According to recent rumors spread by Western media, the U.S. Department of Justice is preparing a series of investigations and legal measures against American citizens who have cooperation ties with Russian TV channels. Like Ritter, several other American analysts have a dissenting opinion on the conflict in Ukraine and other world events, and are constantly invited by the Russian press to speak to the public and present arguments that would be easily censored in mainstream newspapers. Apparently, from now on, all these analysts will be targeted by the American “Justice”. The Justice Department’s decision to initiate criminal proceedings against American collaborators of Russian media outlets is yet another authoritarian move amid a recent wave of dictatorial actions in the U.S. and several Western countries.

The myth of Western democracy, which would be based on liberal principles and individual freedoms, is crumbling, with the authoritarian nature of the American regime becoming clear to the entire global public. Censorship has always been a common practice in Western countries. However, this reality was constantly disguised through the irresponsible actions of big propaganda newspapers. In the era of social networks, alternative media and citizen journalism, it is no longer possible to disguise the criminal actions of the authorities, as various critics emerge willing to show the reality and contradict the semi-state propaganda services provided by the hegemonic media.

However, it is precisely this reality of multiple sources of information that makes Western actions even more aggressive – especially in the American case. The U.S. is extremely reactive to all forms of dissenting opinion, toughening persecutory measures whenever opposing individuals and groups begin to gain ground in public opinion. Social platforms have made the work of people like Scott Ritter even more relevant, reaching an audience that would have been impossible until years ago – when the mainstream media held a monopoly on information (and thus on “truth”). This broad space for informational dissent is causing despair among American authorities, who are reacting with censorship and persecution.

The role of the Russian media in this scenario is extremely important. After being censored in the West, the Russian press began to attract even more attention from the Western public – who understood the censorship as what it really is: a failed attempt to hide the truth. More than that, the Western public began to understand that Russians, unlike the American and European authorities, do not use their media to unilaterally express opinions previously authorized by the state. On the contrary, the Russian press gives space to American and European citizens to express opinions that are censored in the liberal “democracies” of the West. All of this further increased the desperation of the anti-Russian authorities, leading to the current scenario of persecution.

Amid the currently tense domestic political scene, Washington is using the rhetorical excuse of preventing alleged “Russian influence” on the election result. As expected, U.S. officials are claiming that American analysts cooperating with Russian TV could have a negative impact on the elections – favoring Russian interests in the U.S. (as if such interests actually existed). Unfortunately, the persecution is only expected to increase. No American citizen who holds critical views on U.S. foreign policy is truly safe in his or her own homeland. Ritter’s case is a clear example that there is no democracy on American soil, as Washington is very close to revealing an open fascist face – similar to that of its Ukrainian proxy.

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“..he does not need to abide by US law, but he does need to abide by his own country’s laws..”

Musk Vows to Expose Top Brazilian Judge’s Crimes After Suspension of X (Sp.)

US billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk said on Saturday he would expose the alleged crimes of Brazilian Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes, who had ordered the nationwide suspension of the X social media network. “We will begin publishing the long list of [de Moraes’] crimes, along with the specific Brazilian laws that he broke tomorrow. Obviously, he does not need to abide by US law, but he does need to abide by his own country’s laws,” Musk wrote on X. Judge Alexandre de Moraes told internet providers in the nation of 200 million to block access to X, saying the platform lacked a “necessary legal representative” in Brazil — a key requirement tied to the suspension of accounts, which X had refused to comply with. In mid-August, X published a letter from de Moraes with demands for censorship and user account information that it said could affect users not only in Brazil, but also in the United States and Argentina.

X is the #1 news app on the AppStore in Brazil, leading both the free and grossing categories. Despite this, the Supreme Court has ordered the AppStore to remove X within 5 days.

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Make inflation go through the roof…on purpose. It’ll make people poor and docile.

Kamala Is Going To Drive Gold To $10,000 (Hickman)

Gold recently hit $2,500 marking an all time record high. The reality is, there’s a very good case to be made that gold is still quite cheap compared to its trajectory. It’s possible that in a few years, $2,500 gold could look remarkably inexpensive. Not to be overly dramatic, but Kamala Harris is a big reason why. I’m not a D or R kind of guy, but it’s impossible to ignore the impact of the upcoming election on the future of the US. At a press conference a few weeks ago, reporters asked Jerome Powell, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, about the upcoming Presidential election and whether or not the Fed was modeling any potential policy changes depending on the outcome. But the Fed Chairman was almost proud of the fact that the election outcome didn’t factor into their planning at all.

The Fed considers itself apolitical. Powell seemed to think it was somehow wholesome and responsible to completely ignore perhaps the single most important factor that could drive the economy in the coming years—the outcome of the Presidential election. Two people with diametrically opposed views will clearly make a massive difference on the economy. I saw a report yesterday that, since she stole the nomination exactly one month ago, Kamala has raised $500 million. That brings her total campaign war chest to a massive $1 billion. It’s funny because I seem to remember Rep. AOC saying that, “No one ever makes a billion dollars. You take a billion dollars.” In this case, I’m inclined to agree with AOC.

Kamala took a half billion from Biden— the legitimate nominee— and raised another half billion by making the most outrageous claims and lying her ass off, without even bothering to sit for basic interviews or take legitimate questions. She’s been coronated without scrutiny, and only now are we starting to see how she views the economy. She seems to understand that a lot of people are suffering, and she at least partially diagnoses it accurately as the result of inflation. But she has no understanding of where the inflation comes from. There’s no discussion of the government’s role in running multi-trillion dollar deficits, the unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimulus, and continuing to rack up trillions of dollars in debt every year, even though there’s no longer a national emergency.

Her plans will undoubtedly cause higher deficits and more inflation. For example, subsidizing housing is obviously only going to make everything cost more. Giving new home buyers a free $25,000 just means houses will become $25,000 more expensive. It’s exactly what happened during the pandemic when they started handing out stimmy checks— there was no increase in goods and services, just more money floating around, so prices went up. The same thing will happen with housing and everything else the government pours “free money” into. But they have no understanding of this. None of that factors into her thinking. To her, inflation is always and everywhere the result of corporate greed. And her solutions to inflation involve essentially criminalizing “greed” and throwing the full force and weight of the federal government into attacking the private business sector.

Now she’s talking about using the government and the legal system to go after private businesses. She’s attacking grocery store chains, accusing them of being greedy when their profit margins are a measly 2-3%. Apparently, that’s greedy. The Biden Administration has gone out of its way to destroy competition, even though competition is one of the most important factors in keeping prices low. They attack oil companies and prevent the expansion of US energy production. Of course that makes energy prices higher, which in turn makes the price of everything else higher. This is why it’s ultimately very difficult to see the dollar surviving as the global reserve currency through a single term of a Kamala administration. Her policies will create higher deficits, balloon the national debt, and drive up inflation.

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Part of an interview Nomi had with Robert Scheer. Train of thought.

End the US Dollar Chokehold on the World (Nomi Prins)

[..] central banks outside of the US centric system, China, India, Brazil, to an extent, Turkey etc, are trying to effectively grow their gold reserves again. Why are they trying to grow their gold reserves again? Because they’re looking at any way possible to diversify against the supremacy of the dollar in order to have that autonomy within the global system. It used to be the US, yes, and now China’s saying, Look, we’re developing more quickly the United States, we’re have more technological patents in the United States. We have more nuclear energy and advanced power plants and other forms of energy, and they’ve got negatives on cleanliness, but also are developing, and we’re just moving more quickly in terms of just the general move forward, and we’re going to do that with partners.

And what’s happened is the alliance of nations that needed the US and needed the dollar to trade don’t need it anymore. Saudi Arabia doesn’t need to value petroleum in dollars anymore. They can value it in a block that is continuing to strengthen. I was in Brazil in April, and I’ve done a lot of I did my page down the triangle between Brazil being in the middle of China in the US, and how that’s moving more towards China with, of course, diplomacy with the US still intact, but still from the standpoint of production, of workers, of partnerships. And I was in the capital actually talking about the g20 which is going to be happening in Rio in November. And what was going to be discussed at the g20 it’s going to be big on energy. It’s going to be big on digital platform, currency.

Why? Because it wants to create a digital way of of de dollarization and of creating more, whether it’s a world currency or what’s the currency amongst BRICS and other nations, as simply a method of payment, of securing flows of funds for products and services and trade across these nations. And what was interesting to me, just on a real sort of like basis, is, you know, you take Ubers, we do everywhere, and in the capital of Brazil, Brasilia, the only car that that Uber drivers were driving was a BYD and an EV BYD. It’s called Build. You build your dream. It’s a Chinese company. They’re manufacturing now in the center of or trying to build a plant in the center of Brazil, and Teslas are nowhere to be found. And while I was there, Elon Musk was having a pretty strident argument with Lula, the president of Brazil, about the fact that he was favoring, in his opinion, a Chinese car company. And then you sort of flash back out of that. And the reality is these cars are not just going into Brazil, they’re going into Italy, they’re going into France, they’re going into Germany.

They’re outpacing in trade. Some of what’s happening with with a key new development, key new product that the United States is also competing on through Tesla, and it doesn’t need to have the United States market in order to be successful, and that has been a significant development in de dollarization as well, is that trade and movement and currency has all been shifting, but also there isn’t as much of a need, because the economies are growing so quickly, the alliances are growing so quickly for the United States, and that just diminishes the United States power from from a trade and currency perspective, perhaps not a military perspective, but it, but just it just eat away at that power base.

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The entire New Popular Front alliance (NFP) is joining in.

“France Unbowed” Party Moves to Impeach Macron (Sp.)

The left-wing France Unbowed party moved on Saturday to initiate the the impeachment of French President Emmanuel Macron after he rejected the candidacy of the New Popular Front’s Lucie Castets for prime minister. “The draft resolution to initiate impeachment proceedings against the President of the Republic, in accordance with Article 68 of the Constitution, was sent to the members of Parliament today for joint signature,” Mathilde Panot, the leader of the France Unbowed group in the parliament, said on X. The party lashed back at Macron for turning down its pick for prime minister despite the leftist coalition winning the most seats in the parliamentary runoff in July.

Under Article 68, the president can only be removed from office over a breach of duties that is clearly incompatible with the exercise of the presidential mandate. France Unbowed has enough seats to initiate the procedure, but it needs the approval of a two-thirds majority in both chambers of parliament. Macron met with parliamentary factions and party leaders in August in a bid to negotiate a new government after the election resulted in a hung parliament. He excluded the New Popular Front, which secured 182 out of 577 seats, from the talks citing concerns about “institutional stability.”

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Ivermectin

 

 

Lion

 

 

Cowgoats
https://twitter.com/i/status/1829587620109664750

 

 

Caracal
https://twitter.com/i/status/1829826504781623762

 

 

Teamwork

 

 

Family
https://twitter.com/i/status/1829969171238822320

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Aug 312024
 
 August 31, 2024  Posted by at 8:50 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  38 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Five women 1907

 

Trump Threatens Zuckerberg With Life In Prison (RT)
Nuclear War Is World’s Biggest Threat – Trump (Sp.)
World Leaders, Even Macron, Still Use Telegram Despite Durov Arrest (Sp.)
Kremlin Affirms Putin, Durov Never Held Any Meetings (Sp.)
France Stoops To Hostage-taking of Pavel Durov (SCF)
3 Key Battlegrounds May Still Omit Kamala (HUSA)
Tulsi Gabbard About Endorsing Trump: ‘This Is Personal For Me’ (ZH)
The Significance of the Passage of Time (Kunstler)
Judge Bans X In Brazil For Refusing To Comply With Demands (ZH)
Musk’s X Lawsuit Against Media Matters Can Proceed To Trial: Judge (ZH)
US To Give Zelensky ‘Free Hand’ On Deep Strikes Into Russia – Moscow (RT)
Ukraine Says Its Biggest Problem Is Western Concern for Escalation (Antiwar)
Medvedev Believes He Knows Why Kiev Wants Donbass (RT)
Putin ‘Not Worried’ About ICC Warrant On Mongolia Trip – Kremlin (RT)
Look, If You Guys Have To Go, We’re Behind You All The Way (Alastair Crooke)
“That Little Piece of Paper” of the Founders (Turley)

 

 

 

 

Death machine
https://twitter.com/i/status/1829454153401155836

 

 

CNN
https://twitter.com/i/status/1829344582146183408

 

 

Arlington

 

 

Zack

 

 

Shanahan

 

 

Alina

 

 

 

 

“We already know who you are. Don’t do it! Zuckerbucks, be careful..”

Trump Threatens Zuckerberg With Life In Prison (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump has accused Mark Zuckerberg of plotting against him during the 2020 election and has warned the Meta CEO against doing it again in the vote this November, according to an excerpt from his soon-to-be released book seen by Politico. Titled ‘Save America’ and set to be published next week, Trump’s book features a photograph of himself meeting with Zuckerberg in the White House when he was president. Under the photo Trump wrote a caption stating that the Meta chief “would come to the Oval Office to see me. He would bring his very nice wife to dinners, be as nice as anyone could be, while always plotting to install shameful Lock Boxes in a true plot against the president.” Trump, Politico’s report says, appears to be referring to a $420-million contribution that Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan made during the 2020 presidential election to fund voting infrastructure.

The former president went on to claim that Zuckerberg had told him that there was “nobody like Trump on Facebook” but at the same time had “steered it against me.” “We are watching him closely, and if he does anything illegal this time he will spend the rest of his life in prison – as will others who cheat in the 2024 Presidential Election,” Trump reportedly warns in the book. The excerpt examined by Politico follows similar statements made by Trump in the past. In July, the Republican presidential candidate also wrote on his Truth Social platform that, if elected, he would pursue “election fraudsters at levels never seen before” and would send them to prison for “long periods of time.” “We already know who you are. Don’t do it! Zuckerbucks, be careful,” Trump wrote.

While Meta has not commented on the former president’s allegations and warnings, earlier this week Zuckerberg sent a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, confessing that senior officials from US President Joe Biden’s administration had “repeatedly pressured” Facebook to “censor” Covid-19 content back in 2021. The Meta CEO noted in the letter that he believed that “government pressure was wrong” and expressed regret for not speaking out about it at the time. Zuckerberg went on to declare that he will no longer compromise Facebook’s content standards due to pressure “from any administration in either direction.” He pledged to “push back if something like this happens again,” and will remain politically “neutral” ahead of the November election.

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“..help maintain stability around the world by keeping lines of communication open..”

Nuclear War Is World’s Biggest Threat – Trump (Sp.)

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said during a town hall event in the state of Wisconsin that the biggest challenge the United States and the international community face is preventing a nuclear war in the near future. “In my opinion, the biggest problem our country has, the biggest problem the world has, is nuclear weapons,” Trump said on Thursday. “They are a destructive force, the likes of which nobody has ever seen before, and we have to make sure they’re never used.” Trump said he’d be able to help maintain stability around the world by keeping lines of communication open, adding “I could do it with telephone calls, by being smart.”

Trump mentioned that the United States and Russia are the biggest nuclear powers, but expects that China will catch up in about five years as it builds up its nuclear arsenal. Trump is expected to enter arms control talks with Russia if he returns to the White House after the November election.

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“The list could go on indefinitely..”

World Leaders, Even Macron, Still Use Telegram Despite Durov Arrest (Sp.)

Despite recent allegations that Telegram is being used for criminal activities, leaders from around the world, including French President Emmanuel Macron, continue to actively utilize the encrypted messaging service. Earlier this week, Pavel Durov, the CEO of Telegram, faced preliminary charges for allegedly facilitating criminal activities on his encrypted platform. These charges include accusations of enabling drug trafficking and the sharing of sexual images of minors due to inadequate moderation. Durov’s arrest has not deterred President Macron from using the messaging app. According to European press reports, on August 26, the head of state was indicated to have logged into Telegram “recently.” Additionally, French lawmakers, cabinet members, and presidential advisers frequently use the messaging platform, as revealed by the media.

Macron has been active on the platform since the early days of his first presidential campaign. He has over 112,000 followers and his latest post is dated August 12. Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who boasts over 1.6 million followers, shares posts on Telegram practically on a daily basis. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is also active on Telegram, with his most recent post dated August 28. A verified account belonging to Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador also exists on the platform. On August 30, he began sharing a series of posts about the Tren Maya, a renowned railway project in Mexico. Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s account, which boasts almost 200,000 followers, makes use of Telegram for official announcements. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu runs an official account on the messaging service in Russian. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali takes to Telegram regularly to shed light on the African nation’s urgent issues. The list could go on indefinitely. The platform has evolved into a convenient means for world leaders to engage with their constituents.

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“No, as far as I know, they never met..”

Kremlin Affirms Putin, Durov Never Held Any Meetings (Sp.)

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Telegram founder Pavel Durov have never held meetings, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday. On August 24, Durov, the Russian-born founder of Telegram, was detained at a Paris airport on charges related to the criminal use of his messaging app, including terrorism, child pornography, drug trafficking, money laundering and fraud. The 39-year-old billionaire holds citizenship of several countries, including France. On Wednesday, Durov was released under judicial supervision, banned from leaving France and ordered to pay a 5 million euro ($5.5 million) bail. “No, as far as I know, they never met,” Peskov told reporters. Durov had not held any negotiations with the Kremlin, the official said, adding that there were no agreements.

Peskov on also refused to comment on the detention of two Colombian citizens in Russia, redirecting the question to the relevant departments. “I have no information at all about the detention of Colombian citizens. I suggest you contact the relevant services — the Ministry of Internal Affairs or the FSB. This is not a topic for the Presidential Administration,” Peskov told reporters. Earlier in the day, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said that it had detained two Colombian citizens suspected of participating in military operations on Ukraine’s side as mercenaries.

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“Why not arrest the owners of telephone companies based on the same logic..”

“Why shouldn’t Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk be arrested next ..?

France Stoops To Hostage-taking of Pavel Durov (SCF)

The charges against Durov are not only draconian but also absurd. The notion of holding the owner of a social network platform as being responsible for or complicit in the content of the network is preposterous. Why not arrest the owners of telephone companies based on the same logic? It’s ridiculous and indicates an ulterior motive. Telegram was founded in 2013-2014 by Durov (and his older brother). He left Russia in 2014 because he refused to comply with Russian authorities on allowing access to the privacy of users. Over the years, Telegram has grown worldwide to become one of the major messaging apps with nearly one billion monthly users. It has gained a reputation for secure communications and fierce independence from governments.

Pavel told American journalist Tucker Carlson in an interview earlier this year that he has routinely been harassed by U.S. authorities to hand over the encryption keys of Telegram, which he has refused to do. By contrast, Western-based competitor apps such as WhatsApp and Western-controlled internet companies are known to have relented to pressure from the U.S. and European authorities on allowing “backdoor access” to supposedly private communications between individuals and groups. Having said that, however, the content of these Western apps is also tainted with crime networks and horrendously sordid material. Why shouldn’t Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk be arrested next on similar charges to those leveled at Pavel Durov? The difference is that Telegram has refused to comply with Western state intelligence services as it previously did with Russian counterparts. A case can be made that the Telegram owner is a “free speech absolutist”.

Much more important than the marginal criminal use of Telegram (as all apps are prone to), is the preponderant use of the platform for disseminating independent news and analysis. Telegram has gained an enviable reputation for its accurate information on the war in Ukraine. Numerous independent news channels have flourished on Telegram to bring reliable and critical information about the conflict. Unlike Western media and social network platforms that kowtow to Western governments and NATO propaganda, Telegram has enabled a much more informed view of the war that exposes the Western narratives as a sham. Defense of Ukrainian democracy? More like defense of a NeoNazi regime and defense of Western war economies. The fact is Telegram has become a globally important independent media network that is not controlled by Western regimes.

It is for this reason that it is in the cross-hairs for repression, not because of alleged criminal activity by its owner. The latter reason is a pathetic pretext. At a time when the U.S.-led NATO proxy war in Ukraine against Russia has entered a disastrous phase of defeat, the Western elite must shut down all and every critical media. It is no coincidence that following the outrageous persecution of Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange (five years in solitary confinement in a British dungeon) for exposing U.S. and NATO war crimes, we now see a surge in cases of cracking down on free media. American commentator Scott Ritter who has been a valued critic of the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine, recently had his home raided by the FBI. Other independent journalists have been arrested or harassed in Britain, France, Germany and across Europe for their critical views on the war in Ukraine or the Western-supported Israeli genocide in Palestine.

Western so-called democracies are increasingly using fascist jackboot attacks on independent journalism and freedom of thought. The Western elites and their fascistic power cannot abide any criticism or dissent that is fatal to their charade of authority. Emmanuel Macron, with his pretensions of grandeur and brittle egotism, embodies the Western elite. Pavel Durov is awaiting the outcome of a vague and nebulous cybercrime investigation that may take years to complete. After which he may be imprisoned for another 10 years and pay huge financial fines. France which claims to uphold the highest principles of free speech has just descended to hostage-taking of innocent people for the vile purpose of killing free speech and independence of thought.

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“..the deadline for removing Biden from the ballot has already long since passed in Georgia, Wisconsin and Nevada.”

3 Key Battlegrounds May Still Omit Kamala (HUSA)

Earlier this month, leftist secretaries of state pounced at the opportunity to attack Trump-backing billionaire Elon Musk over allegations that his artificial intelligence chatbot had errantly suggested that Vice President Kamala Harris would not make the ballot in several states. Curiously enough, the complaint appeared to ignore three major battleground states where the law still stipulates that President Joe Biden will appear on the ballot as the Democrat candidate, according to a leading conservative think-tank, which suggested that claims of Harris being eligible to appear in all 50 states may be the real disinformation. Grok—which is available only to subscribers of the premium versions of X—debuted last year and was touted by Musk as a “rebellious” AI chatbot that would answer “spicy questions that are rejected by most other AI systems.” However, not all of its responses may be entirely accurate.

Top election officials from Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Washington sent a letter to Musk on Aug. 5 complaining that the chatbot had produced false information about state ballot deadlines shortly after President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race. According to the letter, Grok had indicated that the deadline for replacing Biden had already passed in nine states states where it had not: Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington. “In all nine states the opposite is true: The ballots are not closed, and upcoming ballot deadlines would allow for changes to candidates listed on the ballot,” the secretaries wrote. Following the fix, the chatbot now says, “For accurate and up-to-date information about the 2024 U.S. Elections, please visit Vote.gov” before listing responses to election-related questions.

“We appreciate X’s action to improve their platform and hope they continue to make improvements that will ensure their users have access to accurate information from trusted sources in this critical election year,” the secretaries of state wrote. Even while Biden was in the race, ballot eligibility in Ohio, Alabama and Washington was a source of concern since all three initially had ballot deadlines that took effect prior to last week’s Democrat convention in Chicago. In each case, however, the state legislature or the secretary of state worked to resolve the loophole and ensure that the Democrat nominee would be on the ballot. That nominee, of course, proved not to be Biden but rather Harris, his former running mate, after party elites forced the incumbent president out of the race. To play it safe, Democrats conducted a virtual nominating process that took place prior to Harris’s ceremonial nomination and acceptance speech at last week’s convention.

Yet, despite the focus on states where Harris is now assured her spot on the ballot, major questions remain as to whether she will be eligible to appear in at least three other crucial swing states. According to the Heritage Oversight Project, an election-integrity watchdog launched by prominent conservative think-tank the Heritage Foundation, the deadline for removing Biden from the ballot has already long since passed in Georgia, Wisconsin and Nevada. [..] Mike Howell, the executive director of the Oversight Project, told Headline USA in an email that its researchers “were not mistaken at all” about their read on the state laws. Democrats are “not out of the woods yet … and I’m wondering why no one with standing is suing,” Howell said. “The DNC and Biden claimed that Biden was already the nominee before he was taken out, Howell added. “So now they have two nominees, without formally withdrawing and substi[tu]ting one of them, and I’m not sure why Secretaries of State are okay with that process.”

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“He would meet with whoever he needed to pursue peace. Kamala Harris criticized Donald Trump for doing exactly that.”

Tulsi Gabbard About Endorsing Trump: ‘This Is Personal For Me’ (ZH)

Former Democrat Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (HI) offered a detailed explanation for her endorsement of former President Donald Trump’s 2024 White House bid earlier this week on Fox Business’s “Kudlow.”

DAVID ASMAN: since you and RFK are part of the Trump campaign, explain why did you go with Trump?

TULSI GABBARD: The choice in this election is very clear and the differences between President Trump and Vice President Harris couldn’t be more stark. Frankly, to put it simply, the choice for the American people is a choice with Donald Trump, a man who values peace, prosperity, and freedom. He has a record that proves that. And Vice President Kamala Harris, whose record shows an increasingly tyrannical government undermining our freedoms. We are embroiled in multiple wars and the world is closer to the brink of nuclear war than ever before, with increasing economic hardship for Americans throughout the 3Ω years she served as Vice President of the United States. The contrast couldn’t be more clear.

This is personal for me, the endorsement of President Trump. As a soldier for over 21 years, I deployed to multiple war zones in different parts of the world, putting my life on the line for the safety, security, and freedom of the American people. It is important to me and every one of my brothers and sisters in uniform that we have a Commander-in-Chief who values every one of our lives, who carries that responsibility as Commander-in-Chief very seriously, and who will exhaust all diplomatic avenues before seeing war truly as a last resort.

The last point that I will make on this—another point of contrast—is that President Trump showed through his last administration that not only did he not start any new wars, but he took action to prevent them by courageously meeting with adversaries, allies, partners, dictators. He would meet with whoever he needed to pursue peace. Kamala Harris criticized Donald Trump for doing exactly that. That shows if she is elected President, she will not do what is necessary in the pursuit of peace, and I’m certain she will lead us very quickly into a war to mask the weakness and insecurity that she feels and try to project strength using the lives of my brothers and sisters in uniform to do so.

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Zero Hedge is right: the title should have been “Why Haven’t You Done That Already?”. Jim is one round behind.

The Significance of the Passage of Time (Kunstler)

Did you think Kamala would still be rising on the joyful billows of hot air that blew out of the Democratic Convention? Like so many of the magic tricks in the party’s repertoire, that one was a spoof of artificial levitation, to give the appearance of something holding up, like, say, the US economy, when there is actually nothing underneath. Nothing real, that is. What’s giving the economy its appearance of loft has been “Joe Biden” pouring government money into scores of party-connected NGOs as pure grift. The main effect of that is the inflation that everybody notices. Meanwhile, nobody gets hooked up to promised broadband and only eight EV charging stations get built for $7.5-billion allocated to the Department of Transportation.

The current prank, though, is to artificially pump-up Ms. Harris in the polls in the attempt to justify the coming ballot fraud to be executed two months from now, as engineered by election lawfare maestro Marc Elias, now on the Harris campaign payroll. That is, an effort to obviate any apparent discrepancies between actual poll numbers and harvested ballots flooding in at two o’clock in the morning on Nov 6. As it happens, Ms. Harris’s poll numbers have begun to sink the past week, as the tactic of hiding the candidate from the press has backfired. As of August 29, Nate Silver has her chance of winning down at 42.7 to Mr. Trump’s 56.7. Voters have begun to notice that the candidate represents nothing except whatever happened the past four years in Biden-Land — which is to say, open borders, war for the sake of arms profiteers, flagrant censorship, inflation, cratering business activity, and overt DOJ political persecutions. Martin Armstrong, for instance, has estimated Kamala Harris’s true polling number in the ten percent range. Yikes.

So, what was the net effect of the CNN interview with Ms. Harris? It couldn’t have helped. They had to get her out of hiding, considering the significance of the passage of time in an election campaign. Even the in-the-tank news media was starting to complain about her holing-up on the bus. Dana Bash was surprisingly harsh at times when the veep confabulated about her plans to “fix” America’s problems, like asking, “Why haven’t you done that already?” The answer was the bizarre, “We can do what we’ve accomplished so far.” Roger that. You’re probably wondering: how Mr. Trump will play this? He’d best be polite about it and assume that the voters can see and understand the obvious: that the Democrats have put up an especially inadequate candidate who can’t explain away the fiascos of the past four years. He doesn’t have to rub in so hard that it seems cruel.

His own policy intentions are a quite clear alternative to four years of hoaxes, pranks, trips, gaslighting, and grift. Installing Ms. Harris without any input or votes from the party rank-and-file was about as desperate an affront to “our democracy” as anyone could imagine, like something straight out of the old Soviet politburo, picking an Andropov or a Chernenko. Mr. Trump should remind audiences of this at every opportunity if the Democrats keep yapping about “our democracy,” which seems to be all they’ve got. Something is slip-sliding out there, perhaps the solidarity of the news media. Even The New York Times dissed Kamala Harris — Bret Stephens called her interview “vague and vacuous” the day after. One thing you have to give CNN credit for: they didn’t show a whole lot of Kamala Harris cackling in her trademark manner — to cover that mental vacuum. The cackle has been getting very mixed reviews, anyway, when you disconnect it from the fake “joy” trope. Maybe a laugh-riot is what’s in the missing 23-minutes that CNN edited out of the 41-minute recording.

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“..In the days to come, we will publish all of Judge de Moraes’ illegal demands and all related court filings..”

Judge Bans X In Brazil For Refusing To Comply With Demands (ZH)

As we previewed overnight, Elon Musk’s X has been ordered ‘immediately suspended’ by Brazilian Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes, citing the company’s refusal to comply with a legal order to censor the judge’s political opponents, Bloomberg reports. Officially, the ruling was due to Musk’s refusal to name a legal representative for the social network (after the judge froze his last attorney’s bank accounts). On Thursday, X’s global government affairs account said that it would “not comply in secret with illegal orders,” and said that it would publish Moraes’ demands and related court documents for transparency.

More: “When we attempted to defend ourselves in court, Judge de Moraes threatened our Brazilian legal representative with imprisonment. Even after she resigned, he froze all of her bank accounts. Our challenges against his manifestly illegal actions were either dismissed or ignored. Judge de Moraes’ colleagues on the Supreme Court are either unwilling or unable to stand up to him. We are absolutely not insisting that other countries have the same free speech laws as the United States. The fundamental issue at stake here is that Judge de Moraes demands we break Brazil’s own laws. We simply won’t do that. In the days to come, we will publish all of Judge de Moraes’ illegal demands and all related court filings in the interest of transparency. Unlike other social media and technology platforms, we will not comply in secret with illegal orders. To our users in Brazil and around the world, X remains committed to protecting your freedom of speech.”

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The judge in Brazil wants to bring in Starlink in a suit vs X. Media Matters wants to bring in Tesla. But these are all separate companies, in completely different industries. You can’t hold the shareholders of one company responsible for what happens at another.

Musk’s X Lawsuit Against Media Matters Can Proceed To Trial: Judge (ZH)

A federal judge in Texas has ruled that a lawsuit brought by Elon Musk’s X against Media Matters can proceed to trial, after dismissing a request by the Democrat-run enterprise. “Because the Court has personal jurisdiction over Defendants, venue is proper, and Plaintiff has properly pled its claims, Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss is denied,” wrote Judge Reed O’Connor in his ruling. X, formerly known as Twitter, filed the suit in November after Musk threatened to bring a “thermonuclear lawsuit” against the left-leaning nonprofit and “all those who colluded” for “completely misrepresenting” the real user experience on X.” According to the lawsuit, Media Matters – founded by Democratic operative David Brock, who left the organization in 2022, used manipulative and deceptive tactics to convince advertisers like Apple, IBM and Disney that ‘hateful’ content was being displayed next to their brands – leading them to pause their X advertising campaigns. X claims Media Matters fabricated the results. From the original complaint:

“Media Matters has opted for new tactics in its campaign to drive advertisers from X. Media Matters has manipulated the algorithms governing the user experience on X to bypass safeguards and create images of X’s largest advertisers’ paid posts adjacent to racist, incendiary content, leaving the false impression that these pairings are anything but what they actually are: manufactured, inorganic, and extraordinarily rare. Media Matters executed this plot in multiple steps, as X’s internal investigations have revealed. First, Media Matters accessed accounts that had been active for at least 30 days, bypassing X’s ad filter for new users. Media Matters then exclusively followed a small subset of users consisting entirely of accounts in one of two categories: those known to produce extreme, fringe content, and accounts owned by X’s big-name advertisers.

The end result was a feed precision-designed by Media Matters for a single purpose: to produce side-by-side ad/content placements that it could screenshot in an effort to alienate advertisers. But this activity still was not enough to create the pairings of advertisements and content that Media Matters aimed to produce. Media Matters therefore resorted to endlessly scrolling and refreshing its unrepresentative, hand-selected feed, generating between 13 and 15 times more advertisements per hour than viewed by the average X user repeating this inauthentic activity until it finally received pages containing the result it wanted: controversial content next to X’s largest advertisers’ paid posts.”

Andrew Carusone, president of Media Matters and one of the defendants, said that it was a “frivolous lawsuit” that was “meant to bully X’s critics into silence.” Judge O’Connor didn’t buy it, and denied the nonprofit’s effort to have the case dismissed, ruling that X “had properly pled its claims.” In August, O’Connor dismissed a request by Media Matters to force Musk to list Tesla as an interested party in X’s lawsuit against the nonprofit. O’Connor said at the time in a legal filing that “there is no evidence that shows Tesla has a direct financial interest in the outcome of this case.” O’Connor was also overseeing a recently filed antitrust lawsuit by X against a global advertising association and its member companies like Unilever, Mars and CVS Health. O’Connor then recused himself from the lawsuit. Although he didn’t provide a reason for the recusal, a recent financial disclosure showed that the judge invests in Unilever.” -CNBC

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“..Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov compared the US and their allies to “children playing with matches” over their continued speculations about greenlighting Ukrainian strikes..”

US To Give Zelensky ‘Free Hand’ On Deep Strikes Into Russia – Moscow (RT)

Washington is prepared to lift its ban on Ukrainian strikes deep inside Russia’s territory with the use of US-supplied weapons, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said. Last week, Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said that US “policy does allow for Ukraine to conduct counter fires to defend itself from Russian attacks coming over that border region,” including Kursk Region, where an incursion by Kiev’s forces has been ongoing since early August. On Monday, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters that Washington was aware of Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s “desire” to be allowed to fire US weapons such as ATACMS missiles, which have a range of up to 300km (186 miles), deep into Russia. “We will keep the conversations with the Ukrainians going [on the issue], but we are going to keep them private,” he said.

“Extremely serious conclusions” can be drawn from the latest statements coming from Washington, Zakharova said on Friday. “Ukraine has been given a carte blanche for operations in Russian regions,” she added. “Furthermore, the administration of [US President] Joe Biden is obviously getting ready to make new concessions to Zelensky and give him a free hand to use virtually any type of American weapons, including [for attacks] deep into Russian territory,” the spokeswoman stressed, as cited by RIA Novosti. Through its continued support for Kiev, Washington “has effectively become a party to the armed conflict over Ukraine,” she insisted.

“The US course towards escalation is becoming increasingly outrageous. It seems that the American elites have cast aside the last vestiges of common sense and believe that anything is allowed to them,” Zakharova said. Earlier this week, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov compared the US and their allies to “children playing with matches” over their continued speculations about greenlighting Ukrainian strikes deep inside Russian territory. “It is a very dangerous thing to do for grown-ups, who are entrusted with nuclear weapons in one or another Western country,” he said. Russian President Vladimir Putin warned earlier that Moscow might engage in an asymmetrical response to the US supply of long-range systems to Ukraine, by arming groups or countries hostile to Washington – such as North Korea – with advanced weaponry.

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We should welcome nuclear war.

Ukraine Says Its Biggest Problem Is Western Concern for Escalation (Antiwar)

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Wednesday that the biggest problem Kyiv has faced in its war against Russia is the Western concern for escalation and the risk of provoking Moscow. “Ever since the beginning of the large-scale invasion, the biggest problem Ukraine has been facing is the domination of the concept of escalation in the decision-making processes among our partners,” Kuleba said, according to Reuters. The foreign minister’s comments come as Ukraine is pushing hard for the US to allow long-range strikes inside Russian territory using US-provided missiles. Russia has strongly warned against the move and suggested that it would risk World War III. “The war is always about a lot of hardware: money, weapons, resources but the real problems are always here, in the heads,” Kuleba said.

“Most of our partners are afraid of discussing the future of Russia… This is something that is very upsetting because if we do not speak about the future of the source of threat, then we cannot build strategy.” Throughout the war, the US and NATO have taken steps that they previously ruled out over escalation concerns, such as providing tanks and fighter jets. The most recent significant escalation was President Biden’s decision to give Ukraine the greenlight to use US weapons in attacks on Russian border regions. A few months later, Ukraine launched its invasion of Kursk. Kuleba made the comments during a conversation with Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, who expressed support for allowing Ukraine to launch long-range strikes with NATO weapons. Sikorski said NATO should “let Ukraine fight with whatever it has, with whatever we have delivered them, and let’s deliver them more.”

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“..the natural resources located in Donbass are estimated to be worth $7.3 trillion..”

Medvedev Believes He Knows Why Kiev Wants Donbass (RT)

Ukraine is fighting for Donbass because of the region’s vast natural resources, which Kiev and its foreign backers want to exploit, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday. The Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, which officially joined Russia together with Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions in the fall of 2022, are “completely alien” to Ukraine in terms of culture, Medvedev wrote on Telegram. The reason why the Kiev authorities are trying to get them back so desperately, he explained, “is trivial: money is needed.” “The criminal clique” of Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, which “has stolen so heavily,”has led the country’s economy to “disaster,” while Kiev’s backers in the US and the EU have also “spent a lot” on aiding Ukraine during conflict, which “irritates” their populations, Medvedev, who serves as deputy chair of the Russian Security Council, also pointed out.

The West needs a “payback” from Ukraine, he said, adding that it has nothing to do with Zelensky personally. “This kid will be gone soon, but the debt will remain. And it must be paid off, with interest,” the former president noted. Medevdev reminded readers that, according to open-source data, the natural resources located in Donbass are estimated to be worth $7.3 trillion. The area is rich in coal, metals, rare-earth elements and other valuable materials, including lithium, he added. “To get access to the coveted minerals, the Western parasites shamelessly demand that their wards [in Kiev] wage war to the last Ukrainian,” he wrote. Western politicians are “directly voicing” their plans, the official said, referring to a statement made by South Carolina’s Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.

In June, the Republican lawmaker called Ukraine a “gold mine” due to its vast reserve of “critical minerals.” Graham argued that Washington should keep helping Kiev in the conflict with Moscow to make sure those “assets could be used by Ukraine and the West, not given to Putin and China.” With the Russian military making steady gains in Donbass since the start of the year and now approaching the strategic town of Pokrovsk, “the fact remains that the economic basis of Ukrainian statehood has been undermined,” Medvedev wrote. The resource base that had been “illegally obtained” by Kiev after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 “has returned to its native country,” which is Russia, he said. As for Ukraine, the Western aid it gets “will soon dry up” and all that awaits the country is “rapid decomposition and imminent disintegration,” the former president concluded.

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The ICC has now “ordered” Mongolia to arrest Putin.

Putin ‘Not Worried’ About ICC Warrant On Mongolia Trip – Kremlin (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin is not concerned that Mongolia might arrest him on International Criminal Court charges during his upcoming trip, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. Putin is scheduled to visit Mongolia on Monday for a World War II commemoration. This would theoretically put him at risk of arrest on the ICC’s “war crimes” warrant, as Ulaanbaatar recognizes the court’s jurisdiction. “We have excellent relations with our friends from Mongolia,” Peskov told reporters on Friday. All issues concerning Putin’s visit have been “worked out separately” he added, noting that Moscow “has no concerns” about the ICC warrant. Putin is expected to attend a ceremony commemorating the 1939 Battle of Khalkhin Gol. The Soviet-Mongolian victory over the Imperial Japanese Army secured the USSR’s eastern flank until 1945. The Russian president received assurances from the Mongolian government that he will not be arrested, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing two sources familiar with the matter.

The ICC issued a warrant for Putin’s arrest in March 2023, accusing the Russian president of “unlawful deportation of population (children)” and “unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.” Moscow has rejected the claims as ridiculous, noting that evacuation of civilians from combat zones – where they were targeted by Ukrainian artillery and drones – was not a crime. Moreover, neither Russia nor Ukraine signed the Rome Statute, so the ICC has no jurisdiction in the matter. Mongolia, however, ratified the ICC’s founding document in 2002. Six months ago, one of its judges was appointed to sit on the court in a historic first for the Central Asian nation. Mexico has rejected Ukraine’s demand to detain the Russian leader should he travel there later this year for the inauguration of the new Mexican president.

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“..it sets up expectations of available military success from which wrong conclusions will be drawn. We have been here before. It didn’t go well …”

Look, If You Guys Have To Go, We’re Behind You All The Way (Alastair Crooke)

“The successful thwarting of Hizbullah’s attack on Sunday, symbolized Israel’s intelligence and operational edge”: According to the IDF spokesman, the Hezbollah attack was thwarted for the most part – thanks to 100 Israel aircraft carrying out around the clock – pre-emptive strikes that destroyed “thousands of missile launchers”. “The group [Hizbullah], did manage to fire hundreds of rockets at northern Israel, but the damage they caused was quite limited”, the Israeli spokespersons disdainfully suggested (amidst a complete blackout on publication, under full censorship, in Israel of any reporting on damage caused to strategic Israeli infrastructure or to military sites). In effect, it was ‘theatre’ mounted by both sides: By limiting their 20 minute strike to within 5 kms of the border – and by Hizbullah staying within the ‘equations’ of war – both sides signalled plainly to each other they were not looking for all-out war.

The ‘winner narrative’ from Israel was to be expected in today’s psy-war atmosphere. Yet it comes at a cost: Amos Harel in Haaretz suggests that “there’s a tendency in Israel [as a result] to view the success in foiling Sunday’s attack as renewed evidence of the consolidation of regional deterrence and [of western] strategic supremacy. But such an assessment” he concedes, “appears to be far from accurate”. Indeed it is (far from accurate). The Sunday theatre concluded with no change to the strategic situation in the north of Israel: Daily attrition continues from across the frontier of Lebanon, down to the new 40 km border defining the extent of Israel’s loss of territory to the Hizbullah no-go zone. The strategic point is not that this narrative of a successful thwarting of Hizbullah’s capabilities is highly misleading. Rather, it sets up expectations of available military success from which wrong conclusions will be drawn. We have been here before. It didn’t go well …

Seymour Hersh, doyen of U.S. investigative journalism, this week re-posted a piece that he wrote in August 2006 about U.S. thinking in the context of an Israeli war on Hizbullah – and on its intended role as a pathfinder-project for a subsequent U.S. strike on Iran. What Hersh wrote then represents a striking déjà vu of today’s situation. It remains to the point because U.S. neocon thinking rarely evolves, but remains constant.

“The big question for our [U.S.] Air Force”, Hersh noted in 2006, “was how to hit a series of hard targets in Iran successfully”, the former senior intelligence official said. “Who is the closest ally of the U.S. Air Force in its planning? It’s not Congo—it’s Israel”. The official continued: “Everybody knows that Iranian engineers have been advising Hezbollah on tunnels and underground missile emplacements. And so the USAF went to the Israelis with some new tactics and said to them: ‘Let’s concentrate on the bombing and share what we have on Iran – and what you have on Lebanon.’”. “The Israelis told us [that Hesballah] would be a cheap war with many benefits,” a U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel said: “Why oppose it? We’ll be able to hunt down and bomb missiles, tunnels, and bunkers from the air. It would be a demo for Iran”. “I was told by the consultant that the Israelis repeatedly pointed to the war in Kosovo as an example of what Israel would try to achieve.

“The NATO forces … methodically bombed and strafed not only military targets but tunnels, bridges, and roads, in Kosovo and elsewhere in Serbia, for seventy-eight days …“Israel studied the Kosovo war as its role model … The Israelis told Condi Rice: You did it in about seventy days, but we need half of that—thirty-five days’ [to finish off Hizbullah]””. “The Bush White House”, a Pentagon consultant said, “has been agitating for some time to find a reason for a preëmptive blow against Hizbullah”; adding, “It was our intent to have Hezbollah diminished, and now we have someone else doing it … According to a Middle East expert, with knowledge of the current thinking of both the Israeli and the U.S. governments: Israel had devised a plan for attacking Hezbollah—and shared it with Bush Administration officials—well before the July 12th [2006] kidnappings: “It’s not that the Israelis had a trap that Hezbollah walked into,” he said, “but there was a strong feeling in the White House that sooner or later the Israelis were going to do it”, Hersh wrote.

“The White House was more focussed on stripping Hezbollah of its missiles, because – if there were to be a military option against Iran’s nuclear facilities – it had to get rid of the weapons that Hezbollah could use in a potential retaliation at Israel. Bush wanted both”, Hersh was told”. “The Bush Administration was closely involved in the planning of Israel’s retaliatory attacks. President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney were convinced … that a successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign against Hezbollah’s heavily fortified underground-missile and command-and-control complexes in Lebanon could ease Israel’s security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American preëmptive attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations – some of which are also buried deep underground”.

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“..Americans becoming “slaves” to the U.S. Constitution and that the Constitution itself is now the problem for the country..”

“That Little Piece of Paper” of the Founders (Turley)

We have been discussing Democratic leaders and activists who have been calling for revolutionary change and a rejection of the foundation of the American constitutional system. The latest is Human Rights Campaign president Kelley Robinson, who spoke at the National Democratic Convention. In an earlier speech, Robinson rejected what she referred to as the Founders’ “little piece of paper” and called for the reimagining of our constitutional system. The voices calling for radical change have been growing for years, including among law professors and legal commentators. Viewers now get a steady diet of figures like MSNBC commentator Elie Mystal who called the U.S. Constitution “trash” and argued that we should simply just dump it. In a New York Times column, “The Constitution Is Broken and Should Not Be Reclaimed,” law professors Ryan D. Doerfler of Harvard and Samuel Moyn of Yale called for the Constitution to be “radically altered” to “reclaim America from constitutionalism.”

Georgetown University Law School Professor Rosa Brooks went on MSNBC’s “The ReidOut” to lash out at Americans becoming “slaves” to the U.S. Constitution and that the Constitution itself is now the problem for the country. I was recently called for a response to Robinson’s call. Yet, it is not clear if Robinson is speaking about the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution as that “little piece of paper.” However, she insists that “[i]n this moment, we’ve got to reimagine it with people that look and love like us at the center.” Robinson added: “And I think for us right now is about reimagining freedom and this American story in a way that is more revolutionary than what our Founders actually put down on that little piece of paper, but instead is the type of democracy that is by and for all of the people in this country. That’s the opportunity that we have.” Her comments did include positive views of the progress made under the current system:

“The story of America is the story of progress towards freedom. In just a few generations, my family went from being enslaved in Mississippi to the first free Black family in Muscatine, Iowa, to preparing to elect President Kamala Harris. Progress is happening my friends!” As someone who has supported LGBT rights for over four decades, I have nothing but admiration for those who fight for equal rights for everyone to be able to live their lives according to their own values and associations. However, a radical “reimagining” of our constitutional system is a popular and growing call on the left. It is often left vague in terms of what such a reimagination would entail, but suggests structural, not just policy, changes. It is that “little piece of paper” that has secured the equal rights for members of this community. Assuming that the “little piece of paper” is a reference to the Madisonian constitution, it is a “type of democracy” that has proven the oldest and most successful constitutional system in the history of the world.

It has survived precisely because it was designed for the most pluralistic nation in the world. It allows for tremendous social and political changes but does so within a framework that protects individual rights. Before we start “reimagining” our way out of the most stable constitutional system in history, we may want to consider how the alternatives have been faring around the world. It is that “little piece of paper” that introduced a revolutionary concept of governance that permits a nation of rivaling factions and values to govern as one. That does not mean that we do not have deep and at times bitter divisions. However, we are joined in a common article of faith in the Constitution. While he spoke more about democracy in general, Churchill’s famous comment could as easily refer to the Madisonian system: it may be “the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

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Trick
https://twitter.com/i/status/1829471131893399937

 

 

Puppy
https://twitter.com/i/status/1829470542186885245

 

 

Tai chi

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Jan 252021
 


Amedeo Modigliani Jeanne Hebuterne 1919

 

Israel: 60% Drop In Hospitalizations For Age 60+ 3 Weeks After 1st Shot (ToI)
Nevada District To Partially Reopen Schools As Student Suicides Surge (Hill)
California Refuses To Disclose COVID19 Data Used To Drive Lockdowns (ZH)
Covid-19 Variant In California May Explain Sharp Rise In Cases (F.)
Tulsi Gabbard: Domestic-Terrorism Bill Targets Almost Half The Country (NR)
Biden 2020 Run Backed By $145 Million In ‘Dark Money’ (ZH)
Rubio: Trump Impeachment Trial Is ‘Stupid’ (Hill)
Impeachment Trial To Keep National Guard Troops At Capitol (Pol.)
UN Agency: China Surpassed US In Foreign Direct Investments In 2020 (Hill)
Boeing 737 Max Cleared To Fly Again ‘Too Early’ (BBC)
Australia Says ‘Inevitable’ That Facebook & Google Will Pay For Content (RT)
Facebook Feeds Private Messages of Its Users Directly to the FBI (TFTP)
Toxic Chemicals Threaten Humanity’s Ability To Reproduce (IC)

 

 

 

 

Build Back Better
https://twitter.com/i/status/1351507371386949639

 

 

Could be good news. But I’m a bit reluctant to attach too much meaning to 6 vs 18 infections among 50,777 people. Once you apply normal procedures like margin of error to this, then what are you left with? What would a bookmaker make of it?

Israel: 60% Drop In Hospitalizations For Age 60+ 3 Weeks After 1st Shot (ToI)

Vaccines are quickly averting serious cases of COVID-19 among the most vulnerable members of society, an Israeli healthcare provider has indicated. The full effects of Pfizer’s vaccine are only slated to kick in around a month after the first shot, but data from Israel, home to the world’s fastest vaccination drive, has already shown that there is a stark drop in infections even before this point. Attracting widespread international interest by sharing early data, Maccabi Healthcare Services reported earlier this month that it has seen a 60 percent reduction in coronavirus infections three weeks after the first shot is administered. But it wasn’t clear if the benefits were being felt equally by those who have a propensity to mild infection and those who would be likely to take COVID-19 badly.

Now, Maccabi is starting to answer the question that hospitals and health ministers around the world are anxiously asking, amid fears of health service meltdowns: How quickly will COVID-19 wards start to see the benefits of vaccination? The decrease in hospital admissions is swift after vaccination, Maccabi suggests in its latest data, finding that hospitalizations start to fall sharply from Day 18 after people receive the first shot. Galia Rahav, head of infectious diseases at Israel’s largest hospital, Sheba Medical Center, described the data as “very important.” By Day 23, which is 2 days after the second shot, there is a 60% drop in hospitalizations among vaccinated people aged 60-plus, Maccabi revealed after monitoring 50,777 patients. It compared their hospitalization rate at that point with their hospitalization rate soon after receiving the vaccine, using 7-day moving averages.

“This is very important data,” Rahav, who is unconnected to the study, told The Times of Israel. “It has an impact because amid high infection rates and the spread of variants it’s hard to see from general figures how vaccination is influencing things. “By giving an insight into hospitalizations among just those elderly people who were vaccinated, this data is valuable.” However, she cautioned that some of the drop may be due to a tendency of newly vaccinated people to adhere to lockdown rules, which causes a drop in infection and hospitalization.The new data also supports Maccabi’s earlier claim of a 60% infection rate drop after three weeks, reporting that it saw the same drop with a new sample comprising only the 60-plus age group. Maccabi’s graph gives a real picture of infection in Israel, showing that until Day 13, vaccinated over-60s had similar infection rates as the overall 60-plus population. Then, a gap opens, and by Day 23, there were 18 daily infections among the 50,777 overall, but just six among the vaccinated.

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One dimension is not enough.

Nevada District To Partially Reopen Schools As Student Suicides Surge (Hill)

The Clark County School District in Nevada is moving to partially reopen schools in response to a surge of student suicides, The New York Times reports. Eighteen students in the county took their own lives in the final nine months of 2020, the Times reports, leading the Clark County school board to approve returning some elementary school grades and struggling classes back to in-person learning despite the continuing spread of the coronavirus. “When we started to see the uptick in children taking their lives, we knew it wasn’t just the COVID numbers we need to look at anymore,” said Clark County superintendent Jesus Jara. “We have to find a way to put our hands on our kids, to see them, to look at them. They’ve got to start seeing some movement, some hope.”

According to Jara, the 18 suicides in the nine months that schools have been closed is double the number of suicides recorded in the school district in the entire previous year. The youngest student to kill themselves was nine years old. The pandemic has had a devastating effect on students’ mental health, grades and attendance around the world and health and education experts have struggled with the best way to protect students – and the faculty, staff and family members who may be more vulnerable – while tending to their mental health and education. In Virginia’s largest school district, the number of F’s nearly doubled among middle school and high school students.

Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, has called for schools to remain open if at all possible, saying there is a way for them to do so safely. The Times reports that Clark County, which includes the city of Las Vegas, invested in the GoGuardian Beacon alert system following the sixth student suicide. The system monitors student writing on iPads provided by the school district, looking for suicide risks. More than 31,000 alerts were made between the months of June and October.

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“..they won’t answer why indoor religious services are strictly forbidden while other venues where people gather are just fine..”

California Refuses To Disclose COVID19 Data Used To Drive Lockdowns (ZH)

California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) promised months ago that the state’s COVID-19 policy decisions would be driven by transparent data that would be shared with the public. Now, his administration is refusing to disclose key information used to determine when lockdown orders are implemented or rescinded – and has denied a public records request filed with the California Health and Human Services (CHHS) Agency on May 28 by the Center for American Liberty (CAL) seeking both the data and science behind the state’s lockdown decisions, according to Fox News. State health officials now say they rely on a ‘very complex set of measurements that would confuse and potentially mislead the public,’ AP reports.

In short, California says you’re too stupid to understand their rationale for mandating thousands of businesses into financial ruin through what appear to be arbitrary and unscientific decisions. To wit, at least two California judges have struck down the state’s draconian mandates over lack of scientific evidence to support lockdowns and restaurant restrictions. Not only that, according to SFGATE, there’s growing speculation that California’s ban on outdoor dining may have contributed to the state’s COVID-19 surge. Not the best of optics as as a GOP effort to recall Newsom continues to gain momentum. According to CAL executive director Mark Trammel, the Golden State won’t answer why, for example, they won’t answer why indoor religious services are strictly forbidden while other venues where people gather are just fine.

“If it’s safe enough to go to a marijuana dispensary or Macy’s or Costco that same standard should apply to parishioners in our congregation they should be able to sep in pews and wear a mask,” Trammel told Fox News in a recent interview. Dr. Lee Riley, chairman of UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health infectious disease division thinks the state’s lack of transparency is troubling. “There is more uncertainty created by NOT releasing the data that only the state has access to,” he told the Associated Press in an email.

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Get your own variant!

Covid-19 Variant In California May Explain Sharp Rise In Cases (F.)

The post-Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s surge of Covid-19 cases has been felt in nearly all 50 states, but perhaps none more so than California. More specifically, Southern California, and even more specifically, Los Angeles County, have been experiencing daily case counts never before seen in the past 11 months. Hospitals have been in surge mode since the week before Christmas, with ICU capacity down to 0% in many facilities. Reminiscent of New York City back in April 2020, refrigerated trucks for deceased bodies of those who succumbed to complications due to Covid-19 infections were seen outside of many hospitals, where morgues became full in recent weeks. Some hospitals have been using tents, hallways, and even hospital gift shops as patient care areas. Some hospitals were operating at 200% capacity.

Most have canceled non-emergency surgeries, procedures, and admissions. Death rates of hospitalized patients have risen, in part due to stresses on personnel and equipment availability, and in part due to the fact that only the very sickest patients would be provided an inpatient hospital bed. Initial thoughts that the relatively cooler weather, even for Southern California, combined with pandemic fatigue and complacency, all in the midst of holiday gatherings and travel, would explain the remarkable uptick in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. By early January 2021, test positivity in Los Angeles County was in the 20% range, and one Angeleno was dying from Covid every six to eight minutes. But just as the U.K. has identified a more transmissible variant, termed B.1.1.7, South Africa has identified another highly transmissible variant, and a third variant has arisen in Japan and Brazil, California has found one of its own.

The California strain, known as Cal.20C, has been identified in 35-50% of recently diagnosed cases in Los Angeles. And as has been the case for the other variants across the world, all of which have crossed oceans and borders, the Cal.20C variant is more infectious than the prior forms of coronavirus, or SARS-CoV2. In addition, this and the previously identified variants are not necessarily more deadly, nor do they necessarily cause more significant illnesses. The variant, although named for the western-most state, has also been found in other states in the Southwest as well as the Northeast.

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“You start looking at obviously, have to be a white person, obviously likely male, libertarians, anyone who loves freedom, liberty, maybe has an American flag outside their house..”

Tulsi Gabbard: Domestic-Terrorism Bill Targets Almost Half The Country (NR)

Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic representative from Hawaii, on Friday expressed concern that a proposed measure to combat domestic terrorism could be used to undermine civil liberties. Gabbard’s comments came during an appearance on Fox News Primetime when host Brian Kilmeade asked her if she was “surprised they’re pushing forward with this extra surveillance on would-be domestic terror.” “It’s so dangerous as you guys have been talking about, this is an issue that all Democrats, Republicans, independents, Libertarians should be extremely concerned about, especially because we don’t have to guess about where this goes or how this ends,” Gabbard said. She continued:

“When you have people like former CIA Director John Brennan openly talking about how he’s spoken with or heard from appointees and nominees in the Biden administration who are already starting to look across our country for these types of movements similar to the insurgencies they’ve seen overseas, that in his words, he says make up this unholy alliance of religious extremists, racists, bigots, he lists a few others and at the end, even libertarians.” She said her concern lies in how officials will define the characteristics they are searching for in potential threats.

“What characteristics are we looking for as we are building this profile of a potential extremist, what are we talking about? Religious extremists, are we talking about Christians, evangelical Christians, what is a religious extremist? Is it somebody who is pro-life? Where do you take this?” Gabbard said. She said the proposed legislation could create “a very dangerous undermining of our civil liberties, our freedoms in our Constitution, and a targeting of almost half of the country.” “You start looking at obviously, have to be a white person, obviously likely male, libertarians, anyone who loves freedom, liberty, maybe has an American flag outside their house, or people who, you know, attended a Trump rally,” Gabbard said.

Tulsi Liberty
https://twitter.com/i/status/1353403241820635136

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We’ll never know how much. Would it be an idea to just stop this? So a billionaire gets one vote, just like a plumber?

Biden 2020 Run Backed By $145 Million In ‘Dark Money’ (ZH)

President Biden’s campaign received a record-breaking amount of anonymous donations to outside groups backing him, which means the public “will never have a full accounting of who helped him win the White House,” according to Bloomberg. In total, $145 million in so-called dark money donations, “a type of fundraising Democrats have decried for years,” backed the Biden campaign – and combined with his $1.5 billion record-breaking haul. Of note, Biden’s campaign called for banning certain types of nonprofits from spending money to influence elections, and that any organization spending over $10,000 to benefit a candidate register with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and disclose its donors. They didn’t specifically call on their own supporters to do so, however.

“That amount of dark money dwarfs the $28.4 million spent on behalf of his rival, former President Donald Trump. And it tops the previous record of $113 million in anonymous donations backing Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012. Democrats have said they want to ban dark money as uniquely corrupting, since it allows supporters to quietly back a candidate without scrutiny. Yet in their effort to defeat Trump in 2020, they embraced it.” -Bloomberg. One such dark money recipient, Priorities USA Action Fund designated by Biden as his preferred vehicle for outside spending, backed Biden with $26 million originally (and anonymously) donated to its nonprofit arm, Priorities USA.

Priorities USA Chairman Guy Cecil deflected when asked about the funds, saying in a statement “We weren’t going to unilaterally disarm against Trump and the right- wing forces that enabled him.” Another entity funneling dark money to benefit Biden was the Future Forward PAC, which spent $104 million backing Biden. While they received tens of millions from known sources, such as $46.9 million from Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, $3 million from Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson, and $2.6 million from Alphabet’s Eric Schmidt – they received $61 million from Future Forward USA Action – none of which requires disclosure of sources.

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“I don’t own the Senate seat, it doesn’t belong to me,” he added. “If I want to be back in the U.S Senate, I have to earn that every six years.”

Rubio: Trump Impeachment Trial Is ‘Stupid’ (Hill)

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said Sunday that he would vote to dismiss the article of impeachment against former President Trump at the earliest opportunity, calling the upcoming Senate trial detrimental to national unity. “I think the trial is stupid,” Rubio said on “Fox News Sunday.” “We already have a flaming fire in this country,” he added, saying the trial would be “a bunch of gasoline.” “The first chance I get to vote to end this trial I’ll do it,” the Florida senator told Fox News’s Chris Wallace. Rubio went on to say that then-President Ford’s pardon of former President Nixon after his resignation was “in hindsight important” for “moving the country forward” despite widespread consensus that Nixon had committed criminal offenses. “I think [Trump is] entitled to due process,” Rubio added.


“The House doesn’t have much of a record of witnesses because they rammed it through very quickly … I think this is going to be very bad for the country.” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) earlier in the show pushed back on claims that convicting a former president was unconstitutional, saying the “preponderance of opinion” allowed for such a conviction. Romney was the only Republican to vote for conviction in the president’s early 2020 impeachment trial. Wallace went on to ask Rubio, who is up for reelection in 2022, about rumors that former White House adviser Ivanka Trump is considering a primary challenge for the Senate seat. “I don’t really get into the parlor games of Washington,” Rubio said. “I don’t own the Senate seat, it doesn’t belong to me,” he added. “If I want to be back in the U.S Senate, I have to earn that every six years.”

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“Morale is low among the troops, who described having to stand guard for hours at a time in full gear with limited access to food and water..”

Impeachment Trial To Keep National Guard Troops At Capitol (Pol.)

Former President Donald Trump’s upcoming Senate impeachment trial poses a security concern that federal law enforcement officials told lawmakers last week requires as many as 5,000 National Guard troops to remain in Washington through mid-March, according to four people familiar with the matter. The contingency force will help protect the Capitol from what was described as “impeachment security concerns,” including the possibility of mass demonstrations coinciding with the Senate’s trial, which is slated to begin the week of Feb. 8. Despite the threat, the citizen soldiers on the ground say they have been given little information about the extension and wonder why they are being forced to endure combat-like conditions in the nation’s capital without a clear mission.

“Quite frankly this is not a ‘combat zone,’ so combat conditions shouldn’t apply,” said one Guard member on the ground in D.C. who has deployed twice to Afghanistan. Several National Guard units have seen their deployments extended involuntarily, though a majority of Guardsmen remaining in Washington will do so on a volunteer basis. Around 7,000 troops will continue to provide riot security through the beginning of February, with that number decreasing slightly to 5,000 by the time Trump’s impeachment trial begins. “We are not going to allow any surprises again,” said one Guard member, referring to the widespread lack of preparedness for the insurrection on Jan. 6. There is also some concern over potential unrest surrounding March 4, the date some QAnon conspiracy theorists believe Trump will be inaugurated for the second time.

[..] Now, thousands of Guard members will remain in Washington far longer than they initially expected when they packed their suitcases for what they believed to be a short-term mission on Jan. 6. The rank-and-file have so far been given no official justifications, threat reports or any explanation for the extended mission, said two Guard members — nor have they seen any violence thus far. “There is no defined situation, or mission statement. … This is very unusual for any military mission,” said one member, who has deployed twice to Afghanistan. “We are usually given a situation, with defined mission perimeters, and at least a tentative plan on how to execute those objectives.”

[..] Morale is low among the troops, who described having to stand guard for hours at a time in full gear with limited access to food and water, waiting for hours to be transported to and from their hotels, and very little sleep. Many are washing socks and cold-weather undergarments in hotel bathroom sinks because they do not have access to laundry facilities. Some have been forced to purchase their own food out of pocket to supplement the sparse meals they have been provided, which do not provide enough calories to sustain the long days. Even meals ready to eat are hard to come by due to logistical and transportation issues. “Even if they do arrive all on time, the calories are just not there for the amount of work we put in and time we’re spending on our feet, in the cold, in full gear,” one Guard member said.

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Western stimulus money being transferred out of originating countries because their interest rates are too low.

UN Agency: China Surpassed US In Foreign Direct Investments In 2020 (Hill)

A United Nations trade agency reported that China surpassed the U.S. as the largest recipient of foreign direct investments (FDI) in 2020. The UN Conference on Trade and Developments (UNCTAD) concluded that China became the largest FDI receiver last year over the U.S., with flows increasing by 4 percent to $163 billion, Bloomberg News reported. Most countries saw decreases due to the coronavirus pandemic, including the U.S., which saw its flow drop by 49 percent to $134 billion, according to UNCTAD’s Investment Trends Monitor. The U.S.’s decrease was seen in wholesale trade, financial services and manufacturing. China’s return to positive GDP growth and targeted investment facilitation program assisted in the country’s FDI levels, the agency noted in a release.


Globally, flows fell by 42 percent to $859 billion due to the coronavirus pandemic, compared to $1.5 trillion in 2019. The global foreign direct investment reached its lowest level since the 1990s, including 30 percent lower than investments after the 2008-2009 financial crisis. North American flows dropped by 46 percent to $166 billion, but Europe saw declines of about 66 percent to negative $4 billion. The decreases were found to be concentrated in developed countries, where flows dropped 69 percent. Meanwhile, developing countries accounted for 72 percent of the global FDI, the highest percentage recorded.

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And there’s Sully.

Boeing 737 Max Cleared To Fly Again ‘Too Early’ (BBC)

A former senior manager at Boeing’s 737 plant in Seattle has raised new concerns over the safety of the company’s 737 Max. The aircraft, which was grounded after two accidents in which 346 people died, has already been cleared to resume flights in North America and Brazil, and is expected to gain approval in Europe this week. But in a new report, Ed Pierson claims that further investigation of electrical issues and production quality problems at the 737 factory is badly needed. Regulators in the US and Europe insist their reviews have been thorough, and that the 737 Max aircraft is now safe. In his report, Mr Pierson claims that regulators and investigators have largely ignored factors, which he believes, may have played a direct role in the accidents. He explicitly links them to conditions at the company’s factory in Renton, near Seattle at the time. Boeing says this is unfounded.

Lion Air flight JT610 crashed into the sea off Indonesia in October 2018. Five months later, Ethiopian Airlines flight ET302 came down minutes after take-off from the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. Investigators believe both accidents were triggered by the failure of a single sensor. It sent inaccurate data to a piece of flight control software, called MCAS. This automated system then repeatedly forced the nose of the aircraft downwards, when the pilots were trying to gain height. Ultimately each aircraft was pushed into an unrecoverable dive. Efforts to make the 737 Max safe have focused on redesigning the MCAS software, and ensuring it can no longer be triggered by a single sensor failure.

For Ed Pierson, this does not go nearly far enough. A US Navy veteran, who had a senior role on the 737 production line from 2015-2018, he was a star witness during congressional hearings into the disasters involving the Max. He told lawmakers he had become so concerned about conditions at the factory, he had told his bosses that he was hesitant about taking his own family on a Boeing plane. [..] Mr Pierson’s concerns are supported by the celebrated aviation safety campaigner Captain Chesley Sullenberger. Best known as “Sully”, one of the pilots who safely ditched a crippled and engineless Airbus plane in the Hudson river off Manhattan in 2009, he too believes that modifications to the Max do not go far enough. He believes changes are needed to warning systems aboard the plane, which were carried over from a previous version of the 737 and are “not up to modern standards”.

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One member of the Five Eyes defies the others.

Australia Says ‘Inevitable’ That Facebook & Google Will Pay For Content (RT)

Australia’s treasurer has advised the tech giants to accept that their platforms will have to start paying for content, amid threats from Facebook and Google to limit services in the country if such a policy is enacted. Canberra is finalizing legislation that would require the internet behemoths to obtain licenses to use content created by Australian news outlets. Both companies have warned that they would retaliate over the revenue-sharing scheme, with Google saying last week that it would remove its search engine from Australia, and Facebook declaring that it would strip news from the feeds of all Australian users. On Sunday, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg pushed back on the ultimatums, signaling that the Australian government wouldn’t reverse course.

“My view is that it is inevitable that the digital giants will be paying for original content,” he said, suggesting that Australia was leading the way in what would soon become a worldwide norm. He also admonished Facebook and Google for their hostility towards the proposed regulation, describing their threats to pull out of Australia as a “big disservice.” Google has been particularly unreceptive to the proposed legislation. Earlier this month, it was revealed that the Silicon Valley giant has been experimenting with blacklisting some Australian news sites from its search results, apparently as a future strategy to avoid having to pay for hosting the content. The move shocked Australian media outlets, which accused Google of carrying out a flagrant show of force to stop the revenue-sharing code from becoming law.

A spokesman for Nine, the corporate owners of the Sydney Morning Herald, described the tech behemoth’s “experiment” as a “chilling illustration of their extraordinary market power.” The proposed law was drafted last July following an inquiry by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). The commission concluded that a large proportion of the country’s media are reliant on referrals from Google and Facebook, despite the fact that news outlets have little or no influence over the powerhouse corporations.

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They’re US intelligence pure and simple.

Facebook Feeds Private Messages of Its Users Directly to the FBI (TFTP)

Deferring all responsibility for the planning of the raid on the capitol, Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg had stated shortly after the incident that the protests were largely organized off Facebook. However, she was not telling the truth, and likely knew that large portions of the pro-Trump protests were talked about and organized on Facebook. But was Facebook wiped off the internet like Parler? No, no it was not. Here’s why. This week, Facebook began furnishing the Federal Bureau of Investigation with data on Trump supporters who discussed the events at the capitol on their platform — up to and including their private messages. Through this action the social media giant is acting as a de facto intelligence collecting arm of the US government.

In contrast, when Syed Farook, otherwise known as the San Bernardino mass shooter, wouldn’t unlock his iPhone for the feds, Apple refused to create a backdoor for them to access it acting as an actual private company supporting the privacy rights of its customers. But Facebook is more than willing to open up its data mining services for their friends in the federal government — because, as we have stated numerous times, Facebook is not private. As TFTP reported in 2018, Facebook announced that it partnered with the arm of the government-funded Atlantic Council, known as the Digital Forensic Research Lab that was brought on to help the social media behemoth with “real-time insights and updates on emerging threats and disinformation campaigns from around the world.”

The Atlantic Council is the group that NATO uses to whitewash wars and foster hatred toward Russia, which in turn allows them to continue to justify themselves. It’s funded by arms manufacturers like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing. It is also funded by billionaire oligarchs like the Ukraine’s Victor Pinchuk and Saudi billionaire Bahaa Hariri. The list goes on. The highly unethical HSBC group — who has been caught numerous times laundering money for cartels and terrorists — is listed as one of their top donors. They are also funded by the pharmaceutical industry, Google, Goldman Sachs and others. However, the funding that comes from the United States, the US Army, and the Airforce directly negates the “private” aspect of the partnership. The “think tank” Facebook partnered with to make decisions on who they censor is directly funded by multiple state actors — including the United States — which voids any and all claims that Facebook is a wholly “private actor.”

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It’s scary stuff, and it makes you wonder how it links to all the talk of erasing gender-specific words etc.

Toxic Chemicals Threaten Humanity’s Ability To Reproduce (IC)

Shanna Swan is the senior author of a 2017 study that documented a dramatic drop in sperm counts in Western countries over the past half-century. That meta-analysis of 185 studies involving 42,935 men found that total sperm count fell 59 percent between 1973 and 2011. Swan, a reproductive epidemiologist, pointed to the role of environmental chemicals in that trend. Now she has written “Count Down: How Our Modern World Is Threatening Sperm Counts, Altering Male and Female Reproductive Development, and Imperiling the Future of the Human Race,” a book that ties industrial chemicals in everyday products to a wide range of changes taking place in recent years, including increasing numbers of babies being born with smaller penises; higher rates of erectile dysfunction; declining fertility; eroding sex differences in some animal species; and potentially even behaviors that are thought of as gender-typical.

Your study showed that baby boys who had been exposed to four different phthalates at the end of the first trimester in the womb had a shorter anogenital distance, or AGD. Can you explain what AGD is and why it’s important? Nobody is going to like that term, so you could use taint or gooch instead. But basically it’s the distance between the anus and the beginning of the genitals. And scientists have recognized its importance for a long time. I have a paper from 1912 that looks at AGD and showed that they were nearly 100 percent longer in males than in females. Our work has shown that chemicals, including the diethylhexyl phthalate, shorten the AGD in males.

You’ve also linked phthalate exposure to a lack of interest in sex. Yes, we found a relationship between women’s phthalate levels and their sexual satisfaction. And researchers in China found that workers with higher levels of bisphenol A, commonly known as BPA, in their blood were more likely to have sexual problems, including decreased desire. Of course, phthalates, which are added to plastics, food, cosmetics, and other products, aren’t the only problem. You write about lots of chemicals that interfere with the hormonal system and reproduction, including the pesticide atrazine, which you’ve linked to lower sperm quality, and glyphosate, which you’ve recently shown decreases AGD in rats and perhaps also in humans.

It’s worth pointing out that all of these chemicals we’re talking about are still in use in the U.S., while some other countries have banned them. Anyway, tell me about the relationship between endocrine disrupting chemicals and how children play? Sexually dimorphic play is controversial. Some people say it’s all socially determined. And it undoubtedly does have social determinants, but it also has physiological determinants. And we showed that in two studies. We asked mothers of young children to tell us how their children play. It’s pretty simple: How often do they play with guns? Play with dolls? Play dress-up? Play with tea sets, etc. And it turns out that when boys are exposed to the same chemicals that affect AGD, they play in a less male-typical manner.

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Sep 222020
 
 September 22, 2020  Posted by at 9:09 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , ,  21 Responses »


Ray K. Metzker Marseille 1961

 

Assange’s Removal From Embassy Was on ‘Direct Orders From US President’ (Sp.)
160 Officials From Across The World Call For Assange’s Release (NBC)
A Second UK COVID19 Lockdown Is Doomed To Fail: Brits Won’t Comply (RT)
CDC Stumbles Again, Says COVID19 Guidance Posted ‘In Error’ (NBC)
China, WHO Could Have Helped Prevent Pandemic: Congressional Report (NYP)
Lancet Changes Editorial Policy After HCQ Study Retraction (G.)
Ballot Harvesting Party Will Be Over if Tulsi Gabbard Gets Her Way (NM)
Trump Says Aides Rejected His Request To Adjust Value Of Dollar (R.)
European Bank Stocks Swoon to 1988 Low (WS)
Virgin Islands AG Subpoenas Entirety Of Epstein Flight Logs (RT)
Kennedy’s US-Russia Joint Space Vision Must Be Revived (Ehret)
Activist Warns Left: Trump Might Pick First Black Female Justice (JTN)
Trump Fires Giant Pink Glitter Cannon To Reveal SCOTUS Nominee Gender (BBee)

 

 

1 million global deaths is not far off. Expect a ton of publicity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cassandra is a Trump supporter – but an even stronger Assange supporter- who just proved that the trial is political. Which means Julian cannot under British law be extradited. Or at least that’s what the law says.

Assange’s Removal From Embassy Was on ‘Direct Orders From US President’ (Sp.)

Journalist Cassandra Fairbanks has informed the court in Julian Assange’s extradition hearing that Arthur Schwartz, who is known as Donald Trump Jr’s “fixer”, had advance warning of the US indictment against the WikiLeaks publisher. Julian Assange’s removal from the Ecuadorian Embassy was done so “on direct orders from the [US] president”, according to information provided to American journalist Cassandra Fairbanks. Ms Fairbanks’ explosive testimony would appear to support to position that Mr Assange’s prosecution has a political dimension and reflected a shift in the government’s attitude with a change in administration from that of former president Barack Obama.

According to Ms Fairbanks’ witness statement, which was read into the court by the defence in Mr Assange’s extradition hearing on 21 September 2020, she was contacted by Arthur Schwartz, “a wealthy GOP donor who does communications for [former Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell] and works as an informal adviser to Donald Trump Jr”. During this phone call, which Ms Fairbanks recorded, Mr Schwartz was panicking because he believed a Tweet that she published revealed “classified information”. Ms Fairbanks attempted to calm down Mr Schwartz saying that she didn’t publish classified information and that she merely shared a link to a report from ABC news which described the role that Mr Grenell played in coordinating Mr Assange’s release.

Mr Schwartz was not put at ease by Ms Fairbanks’ assurances and asked her to delete the Tweet. “I don’t want to go to prison” Mr Schwartz told Ms Fairbanks, adding that people are aware of the fact that the two have been communicating with each other and have been seen with each other. Mr Grenell was acting “on the orders from the president” Mr Schwartz can be heard saying during the recorded conversation. “So, you’re going to punish me because he took orders from the president?” he asked Ms Fairbanks who responded that she wasn’t punishing him she was merely retweeting a report by ABC. Mr Schwartz begged Ms Fairbanks to delete the Tweet which she ultimately agreed to do. Ms Fairbanks is a contributor to the Pro-Trump Gateway Pundit news outlet and she notes that she herself “endorsed [Mr Trump’s] presidency over a number of years”.

Her witness statement says that she “believed Schwartz’s statement [that Mr Grenell coordinated Mr Assange’s removal from the embassy] to be correct because his close personal ties to both President Trump and Grenell are well-known”. The statement also says that her interactions with Mr Schwartz, on the subject of Mr Assange and WikiLeaks, first began after she dropped a link to an interview with Mr Assange’s mother, Christine Assange, into “a direct message group [in October 2018] containing multiple people who either worked for President Trump or were close to him in other ways – along with several other reporters and political commentators”. Among those in the group were then US Ambassador to Germany Mr Grenell as well as Mr Schwartz.

After she put the link to the interview into the group chat, Ms Fairbanks’ statement says that she received a phone call from Mr Schwartz who was “very angry”: “[Mr Schwartz] repeatedly insisted that I stop advocating for WikiLeaks and Assange, telling me that ‘a pardon isn’t going to f**king happen.’ He knew very specific details about a future prosecution against Assange that were later made public and that only those very close to the situation then would have been aware of. He told me that it would be the ‘Manning’ case that he would be charged with and that it would not involve the Vault 7 publication or anything to do with the DNC. He also told me that they would be going after Chelsea Manning. I also recollect being told, I believe, that it would not be before Christmas. Both of these predictions came true just months later.”

“Kidnapping a political refugee” from the Ecuadorian Embassy would be “an act of war”, Ms Fairbanks said to Mr Schwartz, to which he apparently responded “not if they let us”.

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Is the mainstream press getting involved now?

160 Officials From Across The World Call For Assange’s Release (NBC)

More than 160 current and former world leaders, lawmakers and diplomats have endorsed a call for the U.K. to free WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and stop his extradition to the U.S. The signatories of the open letter, addressed to U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and several government ministers, included the president of Argentina and two former presidents of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. [..] The letter was first written by the group Lawyers for Assange in August, and then received the support of the international signatories whose names were released on Monday. It laid out several legal reasons why Assange shouldn’t be extradited, including the claim that he wouldn’t face a fair trial in the U.S., and that he would “be exposed to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

His extradition “would gravely endanger freedom of the press,” the letter said. “This demonstrates the growing opposition around the world to U.S. efforts to extradite and prosecute Assange, and the political nature of this case,” Assange’s lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, told NBC News. Many of the letter’s signatories, which also include Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and former Ecuadoran leader Rafael Correa, are fierce critics of the U.S. and have previously spoken out against American foreign policy. Last week, Robinson told a London court that Assange was offered a presidential pardon in 2017 by then-Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., and Trump associate Charles Johnson if he helped to resolve the “ongoing speculation about Russian involvement” in the hacking of Democratic National Committee emails leaked during the 2016 U.S. election campaign.

At the hearing in London on Friday, James Lewis, prosecutor for the U.S. government, said: “The position of the government is we don’t contest these things were said. We obviously do not accept the truth of what was said by others.”

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What you gonna do? Arrest them all and throw them into virus-infected prisons?

A Second UK COVID19 Lockdown Is Doomed To Fail: Brits Won’t Comply (RT)

Now armed with statistics and expert advice, the British public are much better informed about Covid than in March and won’t countenance another lockdown imposed by politicians who have mishandled the pandemic at every turn. A looming second lockdown in the UK, as part of the Government’s haphazard approach to dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, is destined to fail for one reason: the revered ‘Blitz spirit’ that we’re all in this together has vanished. Now it’s everyone for themselves. For several days now, there has been talk of another imminent imposition of harsh restrictions on our movement. While the first national lockdown was universally accepted, any follow-up – call it ‘a circuit breaker’ or whatever clever name you like – is going to be a little trickier.

Look at what’s happened in Madrid over the weekend, where a wave of protests hit the Spanish capital with people taking offence at the regional president’s efforts to reduce an infection rate in some areas of more than 1,000 per 100,000 by restricting the movements of 850,000 people. And when Isabel Dìaz Ayuso bluntly suggested it was the “way of life” of the immigrants living in those neighbourhoods that was contributing to the problems, the mob insisted she resign. What for? Trying to keep them safe? Remember, Spain had a draconian three-month lockdown that saw kids shut up indoors over summer, but they recognised they were all in it together and stuck to their guns. Now that spirit has dissolved, as people claim the government is spreading fear and hatred among already marginalised communities. Attention has turned away from battling the pandemic to fighting among themselves.

That easygoing compliance has hardened in the UK as well. We’re not so accepting of the words coming from the familiar Downing Street podium these days. Because we’ve now had months of expert home tutoring by the impressive duo of government scientists Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance, whose careful, measured explanations and predictions have driven the real narrative behind the boosterism of the government’s “moonshots” and “world-beating” boasts. Last week it was Boris Johnson telling us it would all be over by Christmas. Now Health Secretary Matt Hancock says maybe not. That kind of ‘he said, she said’ nonsense is a test to anyone’s patience, but you can see where the desperate-to-be-loved PM is coming from. People want a return to normal, even if that ‘normal’ is different to what we are used to, and BoJo is keen to be the one to deliver the good news.

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And Americans won’t comply either, thanks to BS like this.

It is really only yesterday that I said: “Do they still have any credibility left? You know, after Redfield’s “Act for one Man and one Mask”?”

CDC Stumbles Again, Says COVID19 Guidance Posted ‘In Error’ (NBC)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday walked back information posted on its website just three days ago, which stated the coronavirus can spread through aerosolized droplets. The CDC now says that Friday’s guidance was posted “in error,” and that new information will be issued shortly. The move is yet another misstep for the nation’s leading public health agency, which recently reversed its guidance for the second time on testing asymptomatic people for the coronavirus. On Friday, an update posted to the CDC’s website stated the virus can be transmitted through tiny, aerosolized droplets that are “produced when an infected person coughs, sneezes, sings, talks, or breathes.”

That information was already well known, according to infectious disease experts. It was “not surprising or jarring,” Dr. Jill Weatherhead, an assistant professor of infectious diseases at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, said. “The scientific community has been raising the alarm about this since February, that airborne spread can happen,” said Joseph Allen, an associate professor in the department of environmental health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. So infectious disease experts were perplexed Monday, when the CDC scrubbed that section of the website of any mention of airborne transmission, writing that “a draft version of proposed changes to these recommendations was posted in error to the agency’s official website.”

[..] “This is so destructive to this incredibly wonderful agency that we have loved and admired our entire careers,” Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the school of public health at Brown University, said. “This is amateur hour.” Science evolves and is guided by what doctors and researchers learn over time, but clear messaging is critical to a proper public health response to the virus. “The CDC is like a North Star in terms of guiding this pandemic,” Weatherhead said. “It’s important that there is clear and concise communication so that everybody is on the same page.” “Hopefully we will get communication from the CDC to better understand why they’re walking back on what we already know to be factual,” she added.

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An overly polite headline. It doesn’t include “criminally negligent”.

China, WHO Could Have Helped Prevent Pandemic: Congressional Report (NYP)

The coronavirus pandemic might have been prevented if not for Chinese cover-ups in the early days of the outbreak and the World Health Organization “parroting” Beijing propaganda, according to a damning audit from the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The 96-page report — obtained by The Post ahead of its planned Monday release — says the Chinese Communist Party destroyed evidence and buried troubling data, while nationalizing the supply chains and limiting exports of US companies 3M and General Motors, keeping key goods in the country.

“It is beyond doubt that the CCP actively engaged in a cover-up designed to obfuscate data, hide relevant public health information, and suppress doctors and journalists who attempted to warn the world,” reads the report, authored by Republican members of the Democrat-held committee. Had China been more transparent and proactive when the first signs of the burgeoning health crisis emerged in Wuhan in late 2019, the outbreak could have been largely contained — potentially saving hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide, the pols wrote.

“Research shows the CCP could have reduced the number of cases in China by up to 95 percent had it fulfilled its obligations under international law and responded to the outbreak in a manner consistent with best practices,” the report said, citing a study on Medrxiv, a Yale University-linked online clearinghouse for medical manuscripts. “It is highly likely the ongoing pandemic could have been prevented,” the report said. Instead, on Jan. 1, CCP officials ordered that the Wuhan wet market from which the contagion is believed to have sprung “be closed and sanitized, destroying forensic evidence that may have provided insight into the origins of the outbreak,” the report said.

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It was a classis hit job from the start. And the Lancet bought and swallowed it whole. But HCQ remains banned in many places, so it worked.

Lancet Changes Editorial Policy After HCQ Study Retraction (G.)

One of the world’s leading medical journals, the Lancet, has reformed its editorial policies following a shocking case of apparent research misconduct involving the study of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid-19. In May, the Lancet published a peer-reviewed study about the controversial drug hydroxychloroquine, which concluded Covid-19 patients who received the drug were dying at higher rates and experiencing more heart-related complications than other virus patients. The large observational study analysed data purported to be from nearly 15,000 patients with Covid-19 who received the drug alone or in combination with antibiotics, comparing this data with 81,000 controls who did not receive the drug.

This data was recorded by hospitals around the world in a database by a US data analytics company known as “Surgisphere”, the Lancet paper said. The findings prompted the World Health Organization to halt its clinical trials of the drug, given the paper’s findings that it was linked with deaths and complications. But days after the paper was published, Guardian Australia revealed issues with the Australian data in the study. Figures on the number of Covid-19 deaths and patients in hospital cited by the authors did not match up with official government and health department data. Senior clinicians involved in Covid-19 research told Guardian Australia they had never heard of the Surgisphere database.

Researchers from other countries identified similar issues with the data from their hospitals, and a further Guardian Australia investigation revealed doubts that the database used by the study authors likely did not even existed. Sapan Desai was a co-author of the paper and founder of the Surgisphere database. Following the revelations, information about Surgisphere was deleted from the internet. It was also revealed that none of the co-authors of the paper had seen the Surgisphere data for themselves, and they said that Desai did not give them access to it even after questions about the paper were raised by Guardian Australia and the research community. The paper’s co-authors, which included a highly respected vascular surgeon, supported the retraction of the paper and distanced themselves from the data.

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Go Tulsi!

Ballot Harvesting Party Will Be Over if Tulsi Gabbard Gets Her Way (NM)

Ballot-harvesting is a voting related practice allowing paid political operatives to collect an unlimited number of ballots, subsequently delivering them into the hands of election officials. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, recently introduced legislation, The Election Fraud Prevention Act, which if passed would effectively slow down or even put a halt to the practice. The legislation could potentially be in effect in time for November’s all-important 2020 presidential election. When Rep. Gabbard made her run for the Oval Office during the Democratic presidential primaries, the public learned that she was a proud member of the Army National Guard, having served in two Mideast deployments. Currently, she is a major in the Army Reserves.


Rep. Gabbard’s proposed legislation, which is co-sponsored by Rep. Rodney Davis, R-IL, would amend a 2002 act, and if passed would deny certain federal payments to states that permit ballot harvesting. This type of reform could go a long way in helping to prevent a particularly heinous kind of corruption of the electoral process. If ballot-harvesting remains in place, or worse, if its use becomes widespread nationally, special interest groups aligned with a particular candidate or political party may be able to manipulate the results of legitimate elections. As Rep. Gabbard noted, “While some states have prohibited vote harvesting, many states lack any regulations that would stop third-parties from fraudulently collecting and mishandling ballots as has occurred in recent elections.”

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‘Sir, we can’t do that. It has to float naturally.’

There are actually people who react to this by saying Trump didn’t know the dollar floats.

Trump Says Aides Rejected His Request To Adjust Value Of Dollar (R.)

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday said he was rebuffed when he asked officials to adjust the exchange rate of the dollar to counteract what he described as repeated currency manipulation by China of its yuan. Trump told thousands of supporters at a political rally in Dayton, Ohio, that his policies were saving jobs in the political battleground state after years of inaction to confront China’s aggressive behavior in global markets. “I go to my guys, ‘What about doing a little movement on the dollar?’” he said, but they countered that was not possible. “‘Sir, we can’t do that. It has to float naturally.’”

The Republican president, who is seeking reelection to a second term in the Nov. 3 national poll, repeated his claim – which China denies – that Beijing deliberately changes the value of its currency to gain competitive advantage in global markets. China’s central bank has denied intervening to weaken the yuan and lower the cost of its exports to the United States. The yuan has firmed for eight weeks straight against a softening dollar. Trump gave no details on his conversation about tweaking the dollar’s value, and no comment was immediately available from the U.S. Treasury Department, which is expected to release its long-delayed semi-annual currency report in coming weeks.

[..] Trump in May reversed course and backed a “strong dollar” after years of railing against the dollar’s relative strength as a factor harming U.S. competitiveness. The Treasury Department in January dropped its designation of China as a “currency manipulator”, days before U.S. and Chinese officials signed the Phase 1 trade deal, saying Beijing had agreed to refrain from competitive devaluation.

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How many arrests so far?

European Bank Stocks Swoon to 1988 Low (WS)

The Stoxx 600 Banks index, which covers major European banks, slumped 5.7% on Monday, to close at 81.1, just a smidgen above the multi-decade low, of 79, set in March. The last time before March that the index was below today’s level was in February 1988, during the sell-off that followed Black Monday in October 1987, when it also slumped as low as 79. The index has collapsed by 85% since its peak in May 2007, after having quadrupled over the preceding 12 years. Here are the wondrous European bank stocks going back to 2007:

Not even the promise of more industry consolidation, facilitated by shotgun mergers of big, struggling banks with smaller struggling banks, has stemmed the slide of Europe’s banking shares. Three weeks ago, Spain’s third largest lender, CaixaBank, announced plans to buy majority state-owned Bankia, with money largely provided by the State, to form what will be Spain’s largest domestic bank. Spain’s MSCI rose only slightly in response and is now lower than it was. Today, it wasn’t just banking stocks that had a rough day. European stocks overall were down by 3.9%, as concerns grow over a second wave of the coronavirus. But banks were particularly hard hit.


One reason for the rout was the release of a report by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists on lenders that had facilitated $2 trillion in suspicious transactions. HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Standard Chartered, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of New York Mellon, were implicated. Over almost two decades, the five banks had “enrich[ed] themselves and their shareholders while facilitating the work of terrorists, kleptocrats, and drug kingpins,” the report said.

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I wouldn’t put any money on her actually getting them. Unredacted. National security, don’t you know.

Virgin Islands AG Subpoenas Entirety Of Epstein Flight Logs (RT)

The US Virgin Islands Attorney General has subpoenaed 21 years’ worth of deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s flight logs, reportedly striking fear in the hearts of high-profile passengers not yet exposed as Lolita Express riders. Passenger logs for Epstein’s four helicopters and three planes have been subpoenaed by Virgin Islands AG Denise George, who recently sued the disgraced financier’s estate for 22 counts including human trafficking, child abuse, neglect, prostitution, aggravated rape, and forced labor, according to a Sunday report by the UK Mirror. In addition to the passenger lists, George has requisitioned “complaints or reports of potentially suspicious conduct” and any “personal notes” the pilots made while flying Epstein’s alleged harem of underage girls around the world.

She also wants the names and contact information of anyone who worked for the pilots – or who “integrated with or observed” Epstein and his passengers. Epstein pilot David Rodgers previously provided a passenger log in 2009 tying dozens of politicians, actors, and other celebrities to the infamous sex offender – including former US President Bill Clinton, actor Kevin Spacey, and model Naomi Campbell. However, lawyers for Epstein’s alleged victims have argued that list did not include flights by Epstein’s chief pilot, Larry Visoski, who allegedly worked for him for over 25 years. “The records that have been subpoenaed will make the ones Rodgers provided look like a Post-It note,” a source told the Mirror over the weekend, claiming that George’s subpoena had triggered a “panic among many of the rich and famous.”

Epstein’s private plane, nicknamed the Lolita Express, counted among its passengers such luminaries as the UK’s Prince Andrew, celebrity lawyer Alan Dershowitz, actor Chris Tucker, Harvard economist Larry Summers, Hyatt hotel mogul Tom Pritzker, and model agency manager Jean-Luc Brunel along with Campbell, Spacey, and Clinton (who the logs show flew with Epstein over two dozen times). However, the passengers who enjoyed his other aircraft have not been made public – yet. George has also subpoenaed more than 10 banks – including JPMorgan, Citibank, and Deutsche Bank – in her quest to get to the bottom of the financial edifice Epstein built up before he died. The financial institutions have been ordered to submit documents related to some 30 corporations, trusts, and nonprofit entities tied to the predatory playboy.

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How did we ever get from Kennedy to Russiagate?

Kennedy’s US-Russia Joint Space Vision Must Be Revived (Ehret)

September 20th marked the anniversary of the last speech John F Kennedy delivered to the United Nations’ General Assembly. This event bears more relevance upon our present crisis than most people could possibly imagine. This is true not only because it is wise to pay homage to great ideas of the past which lesser souls allowed to slip away and get buried under the sands of time, but also because history provides many of the solutions to seemingly impossible problems in our own time. During his short speech, Kennedy outlined the very same fundamental obstacles to survival faced by our own world 57 years later: “The spectre of nuclear annihilation looming overhead, poverty and the evils of colonialism staining humanity on earth, and the dominance of destructive modes of thinking which have prevented honest dialogue between the west and east who have so many common interests and yet have been blocked from acting upon them for want of creativity, understanding and faith.”

Although it is far too rarely displayed in history, great leaders (those who are beholden to their consciences) recognize that there are solutions to every problem. From Plato to Cicero to Confucius and Christ in ancient times or Thomas More, Benjamin Franklin, Lincoln, and Kennedy in our modern age, these rare but vitally important individuals demonstrate through their words and deeds that when the dominant social rules of the game prevent those necessary and possible solutions from manifesting, then only one course of action becomes possible: Change the rules of the game. The martyred Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin eloquently touched on this truth in 1992 shaking the hands with Yasser Arafat and advancing a two-state solution saying: “The future belongs to those who have the courage to change their axioms.”

Such was the case of John F. Kennedy who recognized early on in his short-lived presidency that the geopolitical “closed system” thinking dominant among the military and foreign policy experts of the west held only the seeds for humanity’s destruction. In his speech of September 20, 1963, Kennedy revisited a theme which he first unveiled on the day of his inaugural address in 1961: A joint U.S.-USSR space program to transform the rules of the Cold War and usher in a new creative age of reason, win-win cooperation and boundless discoveries. In his 1961 inaugural speech, Kennedy ushered in the theme that would animate his next three years saying:

“Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths and encourage the arts and commerce. Let both sides unite to heed in all corners of the earth the command of Isaiah–to “undo the heavy burdens . . . (and) let the oppressed go free.” Ten days later, Kennedy re-iterated this idea during his first state of the Union inviting Russia “to join with U.S. in developing… a new communication satellite program in preparation for probing the distant planets of Mars and Venus, probes which may someday unlock the deepest secrets of the universe”.

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Wait a minute. That was my line.

Activist Warns Left: Trump Might Pick First Black Female Justice (JTN)

An activist group formally launched the “She Will Rise” campaign Monday to call for an African American female judge to be nominated to the Supreme Court. A supporter of the group, Nikole Hannah-Jones, who authored The New York Times’ 1619 Project, warned that President Trump might be the president who picks the first black female justice following the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. “I think this is a case of be careful what you wish for because it’s certainly possible that Trump could appoint a black women but it’s also very possible it could be just as cynical as it was when the second black Supreme Court justice became Clearance Thomas,” she said during a discussion organized by the nonprofit advocacy group Demand Justice.


“You can certainly find a black woman who is extremely conservative; who is a strict constructionist; who is going to align with the most conservative people on the court and that again will be a hollow victory. In some ways, again, that is a very cynical choice because it puts black people in the position of having to argue against the first black woman to go on the bench because the first black woman is not someone who we feel will actually serve our communities well so yeah, that’s possible,” she also said. Trump said this past weekend that he would nominate a female to fill Ginsburg’s seat. Some African American male judges appear on Trump’s public shortlist of potential Supreme Court nominee, but there are currently no African American female judges included. A hispanic female and male judge are on his list.

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And then finally there’s the good news, courtesy of the Babylon Bee.

Trump Fires Giant Pink Glitter Cannon To Reveal SCOTUS Nominee Gender (BBee)

It was a festive occasion, as gender reveals often are, and a crowd brimming with excitement gathered outside the White House to find out from President Trump what gender the nominee for Supreme Court Justice would be. “Oh I sure hope it’s a boy!” yelled one man. “No way! It has to be a girl!” yelled a nearby woman. However, some unhappy citizens gathered in the crowd only to protest how primitive and cis-heteronormative a gender reveal party for a Supreme Court Justice is. “This is so backwards,” yelled local non-binary furry queen-king Yoox Bellavix. “The nominee hasn’t even been questioned by the Senate to determine what gender they identify with! Gender is not the same as biological sex! We need hearings now!”


Trump suddenly appeared on the White House lawn and greeted all the gathered crowd with a wide beaming smile like that of an expectant father. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen and Democrats and Fake News media! I am very happy, so very happy, I don’t even remember the last time I was this happy, to announce the gender of our nominee to fill the seat!” he said. The crowd erupted in joyous applause as the Secret Service rolled out a giant wheeled cannon similar to a civil war artillery piece and pulled the trigger to send an enormous cloud of pink glitter into the air. “Of course it’s a girl! It’s a girl!” Trump said as he made an hourglass curve gesture with his hands. “Tremendous. Thank you very much!”

At publishing time, all the assembled media figures stood completely covered in pink glitter. The White House lawn is also entirely covered. The EPA estimates it could take up to 12 years for the pristine swamp environment of the White House lawn to return to normal.

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Aug 222020
 
 August 22, 2020  Posted by at 10:07 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  19 Responses »


Steve Schapiro Robert Kennedy US Presidential Campaign 1968

 

Coronavirus Pandemic Could Be Over Within Two Years – WHO (BBC)
Dr. Birx: November In-Person Voting As Easy As Going To Starbucks (JTN)
Where’s Tulsi? (RT)
This Year’s DNC Was 2016’s DNC on Steroids (Savage)
The Truth About The Post Office Controversy (Patel)
Catapulting Russian-Meddling Propaganda (Ray McGovern )
Fighting Russia Has Become An Existential Necessity For NATO – Lavrov (RT)
AG Barr Throws Cold Water On Possible Edward Snowden Pardon (ZH)
What A Nation Cut Off From The Rest Of The World Looks Like (Saxo)
Alan Rusbridger: Assange Case Is Worrying For All Journalists (PG)

 

 

Passing 800,000 deaths globally is a sad milestone again, but US new cases had their best week since the end of June, so that’s a good thing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Postmaster

 

 

Not sure every single person will see this as a reassuring message.

Amazing how little the man has to say who pretends to aid the entire world. When PPE corruption is one of your main talking points…

Coronavirus Pandemic Could Be Over Within Two Years – WHO (BBC)

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) says he hopes the coronavirus pandemic will be over in under two years. Speaking in Geneva on Friday, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the Spanish flu of 1918 took two years to overcome. But he added that current advances in technology could enable the world to halt the virus “in a shorter time”. “Of course with more connectiveness, the virus has a better chance of spreading,” he said. “But at the same time, we have also the technology to stop it, and the knowledge to stop it,” he noted, stressing the importance of “national unity, global solidarity”.


The deadly flu of 1918 killed at least 50 million people. The coronavirus has so far killed almost 800,000 people and infected 22.7 million more. Dr Tedros also responded to a question about corruption relating to personal protective equipment (PPE) during the pandemic, which he described as “criminal”. “Any type of corruption is unacceptable,” he answered. “However, corruption related to PPE… for me it’s actually murder. Because if health workers work without PPE, we’re risking their lives. And that also risks the lives of the people they serve.”

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Well she actually said “If you go into Starbucks in the middle of Texas and Alabama and Mississippi that have very high case rates..” But then, in states with lower case rates it should be even safer…

Dr. Birx: November In-Person Voting As Easy As Going To Starbucks (JTN)

The doctor coordinating the White House Coronavirus Task Force says she believes it will be safe for voters to go to the polls in November. “Well, I can tell you it has been safe for me to go to Starbucks and pick up my order,” Dr. Deborah Birx told Just The News in an interview when asked about in-person voting. Birx has been traveling the country by car and one of her practices is to visit as many Starbucks as she can in an attempt to gauge whether people are wearing masks and socially distancing. She said her coffee experiences in states that have higher than normal COVID-19 cases, has led her to a conclusion about voting. “If you go into Starbucks in the middle of Texas and Alabama and Mississippi that have very high case rates, then I can’t say that it would be different waiting in line in the polls,” Birx said.

Of course, she cautions that masks must be worn and social distancing must be adhered to. “I know there’s a way but you really do have to pay attention,” she added. Birx spoke Friday afternoon at the White House on a myriad of topics. While much of the discussion centered on vaccines and a potential timetable for a return to normal, she also revealed something personal: she’s been a victim of harassment and threats via technology. “I do get death threats, and I get text messages that are horrific,” she said. “I get stuff sent to my home where my daughters are that is shocking and their phones get shocking messages. All of that has been happening since March.”

In a way, Birx has a thankless job as she tries to navigate not just the reality of a deadly virus but the political realities as well. Most of the criticism has come from liberal Democrats who have criticized her for not doing enough to set the record straight on some of the president’s medical claims. Birx, who has served in both Republican and Democratic administrations for decades, said she will soldier on. “You just have to stay true to your own personal values,” she said. “I’ve never been asked to cross that line. I believe when people look back that they’ll find out that I personally never crossed that line.”

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The Tulsi treatment is the state of the DNC in a nutshell. Cancel culture at its finest, advertized as unity. And Bernie, AOC, Tulsi swallow it all.

Where’s Tulsi? (RT)

This week’s Democratic virtual gathering to nominate the Joe Biden/Kamala Harris ticket for the November election was a triumph of party centrism over the progressive wing. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was given a whopping 90 seconds to nominate Bernie Sanders in a technical procedure, and no members of her ‘squad’ were given the stage. Instead, a parade of speakers from both parties told Americans that replacing Donald Trump with Biden was the single most important task at hand. One other party outsider was noticeably absent at the convention. Tulsi Gabbard, the representative for Hawaii, was snubbed despite remaining in the primary race right until Biden’s imminent victory and winning two delegates.

In those metrics, she performed better than VP nominee Harris herself. Yet Gabbard “was not invited to participate in any way”, she confirmed on Twitter. Frankly speaking, she would have been welcomed at the convention about as gladly as evil witch Maleficent at the birthday party of Sleeping Beauty. Once considered a rising political star and given the same duty to nominate Sanders in 2016 as AOC this year, Gabbard has become a pariah in her own party over the past two years. Apparently, the Democratic leadership would rather give a platform to someone who helped lie the country into the 2003 Iraq invasion than to a woman who calls for an end to forever wars, some commenters noted. During the campaign, Gabbard stepped on quite a few toes. Going after Harris’s prosecutorial record was arguably the moment the California senator’s bid for presidency went sideways.

Guest of honor Pete Buttigieg, described by Biden as the future of the party, would probably not appreciate her either. After all, after he brought up her infamous trip to Syria during a debate, Gabbard gave him a lecture on the importance of talking to your adversaries. [..] The redbait smearing of Gabbard began early in her campaign. In February 2019, NBC declared her a “Russian favorite” based on the opinion of New Knowledge, the shady firm best known for fabricating a ‘Russian influence campaign’ during the 2017 Senate special election in Alabama. In October, the same attack was launched from the very top of the party establishment, as Hillary Clinton claimed the Kremlin was “grooming” Gabbard to run as a third-party candidate.

https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1296591920538550273

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“As the country’s social fabric is torn apart by evictions, record unemployment, and mass death, they decided to hold a virtual prayer circle for Republican senator John McCain.”

This Year’s DNC Was 2016’s DNC on Steroids (Savage)

Save a few protests from frustrated Sanders delegates, the convention was a pristine spectacle of celebrity-driven, limousine liberalism at its most cartoonish and out of touch. No one expected a politician like Clinton to remake herself as a populist figure. But the four-day elite love-in — hosted, no less, at a convention center bearing the name of one of the world’s biggest banks — was so dripping with Ivy League pretension and Hollywood glam that it looked more like an awards show than a democratic appeal to the citizens of a republic. November was still three, potentially perilous months away, and — despite a year of unexpected populist insurgencies from both the Left and right — Democrats were already measuring the drapes for an indefinite future residency in the White House.

When November finally did come, their complacency would be punished with the single greatest political upset in modern history. In more ways than one, this year’s DNC evoked an ominous feeling of deja vu. True enough, the context is very different. This time, Donald Trump is the incumbent president and America is in the throes of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Contra Clinton, the party’s nominee was merely the final centrist standing among what was this time a vast field of candidates rallying to neutralize Sanders — and, unlike its last standard-bearer, he was more the establishment’s measure of last resort than its first choice.

Notwithstanding these differences, the parallels between this week’s convention and the gilded spectacular of 2016 are difficult to overlook. Yet again, Democrats are headed into a consequential election with a Wall Street–friendly ticket raking in millions from financial concerns and doing its utmost to signal it has minimal interest in honoring key campaign pledges.

As in 2016, party leaders feel they can openly flaunt their contempt for a progressive left that has nowhere else to go while putting their chips on anti-Trump Republicans and conservative suburbanites (to that end, John Kasich and Colin Powell were featured prominently on the schedule while the Democrats’ brightest star got just over one minute).

With the state of the country inarguably worse than it was in 2016, this formula somehow looks even more out of touch than it did four years ago. During a moment of national reckoning with racism and police violence following the brutal murder of George Floyd, Democrats opted to give the architect of stop-and-frisk a prime-time speaking slot. As the country’s social fabric is torn apart by evictions, record unemployment, and mass death, they decided to hold a virtual prayer circle for Republican senator John McCain. Despite giving a speech that exceeded most expectations, their tribune is a candidate whose ability to win is privately doubted even by the people who proved most critical to his nomination.

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“With universal mail-in voting, the government would mail ballots to everyone, regardless of whether they request them.”

The Truth About The Post Office Controversy (Patel)

Do we really have to worry about the Postal Service? That’s the latest faux controversy to dominate our political debate. It’s a sign of our times that even the mail system isn’t without controversy. As usual, there’s plenty of blame to go around on how we got into this mess. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s reasonable to presume we need more absentee voting. Packing voters into overcrowded indoor polling places with long lines is not a good idea. Our government and politicians of all stripes have a duty to promote free and fair elections whether in person or absentee. That shouldn’t be a controversial idea. At the same time, there are legitimate concerns about universal mail-in voting.

Absentee voting is different. With absentee voting, a specific voter requests his or her specific ballot to vote by mail. That system has been used for years and — especially in the states doing it best — it works pretty well. Universal mail-in voting is different. With universal mail-in voting, the government would mail ballots to everyone, regardless of whether they request them. Some places even allow for “ballot harvesting,” where a third party can collect ballots for many people and file them in bulk. This system has not traditionally been used widely, and it raises legitimate concerns over voter fraud. A 2018 North Carolina congressional election was in fact overturned after a state probe found that a Republican operative illegally collected ballots with forged signatures and filled in votes.

The Postal Service controversy falls in the midst of the very legitimate debate. We should all be able to agree that to the extent mail-in voting is used — the absentee variety would be my preference — the Postal Service has to be able to handle its role to ensure a fair election in a reasonable time frame. The Postal Service — which is supposed to operate independently based on funding from the postal fees it charges — has been losing money for years. Due to email and other forms of communication, we send about 30% fewer letters each year than we did just a decade ago. To combat this, the Postal Service has been reducing its operating costs. That all makes sense. Now comes the controversy part. There are three drivers contributing to it. Two are self-inflected by the Republicans, and one — likely the biggest — is being driven pretty disingenuously by the Democrats.

First, it would have made sense to pause some Postal Service operating cuts as it became more and more clear after COVID-19 that we were going to rely more on the mail this election cycle than in any other. Taking mail sorting machines out of service and cutting back on mailboxes that are less used may not be the best moves when you know the mail will be crucial for a national election. A pause in operating cuts makes sense in case the equipment is needed for real, substantive reasons — to ensure a fair and timely election — and also to induce confidence among the American people that our sacred right to vote will not be abridged due to the pandemic. This is exactly the justification the Postal Service provided this week when they finally announced such a pause. It was, of course, too late to stem the controversy.

Second, as is the case with so many controversies of this era, President Donald Trump did not do himself any favors with his comments on the matter. Trump said he opposed more money for the Postal Service because without that money, “You can’t have universal mail-in voting, because they’re not equipped to have it.” The president is not wrong to question universal mail-in voting, but his statement that he was going to unilaterally in effect stop it through a holdup of postal funds only added fire to Democrats’ claims that he was against taking steps to have a fair election during the pandemic.

Read more …

Read of the day. Excellent. Where it all comes together.

Catapulting Russian-Meddling Propaganda (Ray McGovern )

The Best Defense… is a good offense, and the Senate Intelligence Committee’s release of its study — call it “Mueller (Enhanced)” — and the propaganda fanfare — come at a key point in the Russiagate/Spygate imbroglio. It also came, curiously, as the Democratic Convention was beginning, as if the Republican-controlled Senate was sending Trump a message. One chief worry, of course, derives from the uncertainty as to whether John Durham, the US Attorney investigating those FBI and other officials who launched the Trump-Russia investigation will let some heavy shoes drop before the election. Barr has said he expects “developments in Durham’s investigation hopefully before the end of the summer.”

FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith already has decided to plead guilty to the felony of falsifying evidence used to support a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to surveillance to spy on Trump associate Carter Page. It is abundantly clear that Clinesmith was just a small cog in the deep-state machine in action against candidate and then President Trump. And those running the machine are well known. The president has named names, and Barr has made no bones about his disdain for what he calls spying on the president. The cognoscenti and the big fish themselves may be guessing that Trump/Barr/Durham will not throw out heavier lines for former FBI Director James Comey, his deputy Andrew McCabe, CIA Director John Brennan, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, for example.

But how can they be sure? What has become clear is that the certainty they all shared that Hillary Clinton would be the next president prompted them not only to take serious liberties with the Constitution and the law, but also to do so without taking rudimentary steps to hide their tracks. The incriminating evidence is there. And as Trump becomes more and more vulnerable and defensive about his ineptness — particularly with regard to Covid-19 — he may summon the courage to order Barr and Durham to hook the big fish, not just minnows like Clinesmith. The neuralgic reality is that no one knows at this point how far Trump will go. To say that this kind of uncertainty is unsettling to all concerned is to say the obvious.

So, the stakes are high — for the Democrats, as well — and, not least, the LSM. In these circumstances it would seem imperative not just to circle the wagons but to mount the best offense/defense possible, despite the fact that virtually all the ammunition (as in the Senate report) is familiar and stale (“enhanced” or not). Black eyes might well be in store for the very top former law enforcement and intelligence officials, the Democrats, and the LSM — and in the key pre-election period. So, the calculation: launch “Mueller Report (Enhanced)” and catapult the truth now with propaganda, before it is too late.

Read more …

NATO is not capable of fighting Russia. But it can wage a one-sided domestic disinformation war.

Fighting Russia Has Become An Existential Necessity For NATO – Lavrov (RT)

Confrontation with Russia has become the sole reason for NATO’s existence, and this encourages instability in Europe, creating artificial dividing lines on the continent. That’s according to Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov. The veteran diplomat told the Moscow daily Trud that everyone knows there are no real threats to security in Europe but that NATO needs to invent them in order to keep itself relevant. Lavrov also drew attention to the fact that Russia has repeatedly proposed measures to reduce tensions and reduce the risk of incidents on the continent. “Now, just like during the Cold War, fighting Russia on all fronts, including information and propaganda, has become the alliance’s reason for existence,” he explained.

“NATO has deployed extensive resources on the eastern flank, near our borders, including conducting exercises and improving military infrastructure.” “The alliance continues to expand its area of military and political influence, inviting all new countries under its ‘umbrella’ under the pretext of protecting them from Russia,” he added. Lavrov further explained that the alliance adheres to the line of “containment and dialogue” in relations with Russia, although “as a result, there is practically no place for a real and open dialogue on pressing problems.” In the same interview, the foreign minister accused Ukrainian authorities of not hiding their desire to use the conflict in the Donbass to preserve European Union sanctions pressure on Russia, by not fulfilling their obligations under the Minsk Agreements.

According to him, Kiev takes advantage of the fact that the EU continues to link the issue of improving relations between the bloc and Russia with the implementation of the Minsk agreements, to which Russia is not a party. “Alas, this artificial and short-sighted link persists to this day – to the great satisfaction of the Kiev authorities, which not only do not fulfill their obligations under the Minsk Package of Measures, but also make no secret of their desire to use the unresolved conflict to maintain sanctions pressure against Russia,” Lavrov said.

Read more …

If Barr continues to fiddle on the Durham report, Trump may do it anyway.

AG Barr Throws Cold Water On Possible Edward Snowden Pardon (ZH)

Once again President Trump’s anti-establishment and ‘anti-deep state’ instincts look like they’ll be promptly reigned in by those around him. He shocked leaders in Congress and within his own administration when one week ago he mused openly in a New York Post interview that maybe Edward Snowden should be pardoned. In follow-up he said at a press briefing last Saturday “There are many, many people – it seems to be a split decision that many people think that he should be somehow treated differently, and other people think he did very bad things.” And further that: “I’m going to take a very good look at it.” The president raised eyebrows and anxiety across the D.C. beltway with his unprecedented remarks.

“There are a lot of people that think that he is not being treated fairly. I mean, I hear that,” he had initially told NY Post, before adding: “Many people are on his side, I will say that. I don’t know him, never met him. But many people are on his side.” This immediately raised hopes among those that hail the NSA leaker as a whistleblower who exposed deeply unconstitutional surveillance of the domestic populace that he might one day soon see freedom. But now Attorney General William Barr is throwing cold water on such a bold prospect, saying to the Associated Press on Friday that he’d be “vehemently opposed” to any initiative to pardon Snowden, who remains on the run from US authorities – but given asylum in Russia.

If he were to return to the United States he would face severe charges related to the Espionage Act and spilling of state secrets, which would certainly bring life imprisonment. “He was a traitor and the information he provided our adversaries greatly hurt the safety of the American people,” Barr said in the new comments. Interestingly, Trump’s own view as expressed years ago was that Snowden was a “traitor”. Barr’s latest comments frame Snowden’s actions as motivated by money and fame, and not of out of a sense of patriotism or concern for upholding the Constitution: “He was peddling it around like a commercial merchant. We can’t tolerate that,” Barr added firmly. Recall that last year the DOJ under Barr fought to ensure that Snowden wouldn’t see any money generated from US sales of his tell-all book Permanent Record.

Read more …

Japan has been quiet, it’s true.

What A Nation Cut Off From The Rest Of The World Looks Like (Saxo)

Earlier this morning, there has been a couple of Japanese data releases. Japanese consumer price inflation was unexciting with a rate at 0% YoY. While we see some relative price changes in many countries, the basic story for the moment is that inflation will remain low in most countries. In addition, Japan National Tourism Organization has published its latest data regarding the flow of foreign visitors in July. Basically, it shows what a nation cut off from the rest of the world looks like. The flow of foreign visitors in Japan published by Japan National Tourism Organization is out this morning. The country was supposed to welcome an unprecedented number of Olympic fans from all around the world just about now, but the pandemic has turned everything upside down.

Arrivals of foreign visitors plunge 99% YoY in July, at 3,800 individuals (slightly up compared to the previous month, when it stood at 2,600 individuals). For the sake of comparison, at the beginning of the year, the country recorded more than 2.6 million foreign visitors in a month’s time. Whilst the country expected to draw around 40 million visitors this year, the final number for 2020 might fall to 7-8 million at best, which would represent a drop of 80% compared to the target. Over the past years, the contribution of travel and tourism to GDP has significantly increased, to reach 7% in 2019, on the back of government’s incentives to promote foreign tourism via marketing push overseas and eased visa requirements.


The COVID-19 constitutes a serious setback for the government’s hopes for tourism and it is unlikely that the recent campaign to spur domestic tourism launched on July 22 will offset losses generated by the drop in the flow of foreign visitors. Considering the number of new COVID-19 cases has sharply increased since mid-July and that many countries at global level are facing the acute risk of second wave, the country is not expected to reopen to foreigners anytime soon and will probably postpone initial plans to let foreign students and businessmen return.

Read more …

Well, speak out then. A lot louder than this.

Alan Rusbridger: Assange Case Is Worrying For All Journalists (PG)

Former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger has said the ongoing US extradition case against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is “disturbing” and “has worrying implications for all journalists”. And he has said it is “surprising” that more don’t share his concerns. While Assange has garnered support from a range of campaigning groups for his plight, the response from journalists and the news industry in the UK has been relatively muted. Rusbridger was editor of the Guardian for 20 years, leaving in 2015. Under his editorship the paper worked with Wikileaks on the 2010 Iraq and Afghanistan war logs and, a few years later, the Snowden Files. [..] Any charges against Assange relating to journalistic activity, such as the publishing of material in the public interest, “should be dropped”, Rusbridger told Press Gazette.

[..] Rusbridger said that while Assange had done things he can’t defend, and which “stray beyond the conventional definition of journalism”, the Australian is not “all good or all bad”. “When you stand back and say, well, whatever we think of Assange, what he is being targeted for is the same or similar as many journalists have done, then it’s surprising to me that more people can’t see that this case has worrying implications for all journalists” Rusbridger said the precedent set by the UK of allowing someone to be extradited for prosecution under another country’s official secrets laws could ultimately be used by regimes to target British journalists who report on sensitive information about foreign powers. “It’s quite a disturbing thing that we should send somebody to another country for supposedly breaking their laws on secrecy. If journalists are not concerned by that, then I think they should be,” he said.

“The danger here is that if everyone sort of shrugs and leaves Assange to his fate and this sets some kind of judicial precedent, then the next time… a journalist on the Sunday Times writes about a secret Israeli weapons system, as has happened in the past, the Israelis say ‘well actually that breaches our Official Secrets Act, under the Assange precedent we now ask for this person to be returned to our country so we can prosecute them’. “You could see how what seems like a sort of tangential case involving somebody that I know lots of journalists don’t really regard as a proper journalist suddenly becomes something that has set a very alarming precedent.”

On the question of whether Assange is a journalist, Rusbridger said he was “one of these complicated figures that we’ve never had to deal with before the 21st Century” and had “many identities”. He said Assange clearly did “some things that are journalistic”, pointing in particular to the Collateral Murder video that showed a US air attack in Iraq that killed a dozen people, including two Reuters media workers. “Any newspaper would have been thrilled to run that story,” said Rusbridger. “It was a really, truly shocking story in the public interest. “So that was clearly journalism, but [Assange is] also an activist, he’s a publisher, he’s a kind of impresario, he is a whistleblower, he’s a kind of information anarchist, and so that that makes him very difficult to categorise or to work out what our attitude to him is.

Read more …

 

 

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Mar 022020
 


John Vachon Big Four Cafe, Cairo, Illinois 1940

 

China Leaves Asymptomatic Patients off Coronavirus Infection Tally (Caixin)
Epidemic Won’t Spark Financial Crisis In China (Global Times)
CDC Retesting Patient After Testing Negative, Being Released (KSAT)
CDC Testing Limits May Have Delayed Coronavirus Response (HP)
US Agency Investigating Production Of Faulty Coronavirus Test Kits (R.)
Murder Probe Sought For South Korea Sect At Center Of Coronavirus Outbreak (R.)
China Gives Relief to Shield Trillions of Yuan in Bad Debt (BBG)
Australia Warns It Can’t Stop The Spread Of Coronavirus From Overseas (R.)
Indonesia Confirms First Cases, Linked To Japanese Citizen In Malaysia (SCMP)
Japan’s Factory Activity Shrinks At Fastest Pace Since 2016 (R.)
Buttigieg Drops Out Of Democratic Race Two Days Before Super Tuesday (R.)
Klobuchar Cancels Campaign Rally After Protests (Hill)
Tulsi Gabbard Urges Trump: Don’t Drag Us Into War With Russia (ZH)
Assange Enters The Kangaroo Court (MStar)
EU Accepts Greek Demand For Emergency Foreign Affairs Council (K.)

 

 

 

Cases 89,248 (+ 1,616 from yesterday’s 87,632)

Deaths 3,058 (+ 64 from yesterday’s 2,994)

 

Everyone just dances on. China pretends it’s fine, and the Global Times assures us there will be no financial crisis. As the US CDC is found painfully wanting on multiple fronts. As Super Tuesday draws near, Trump will be criticized heavily for the US response to COVID19, especially now the first US deaths are on the tally. But though he certainly stumbles his way awkwardly through, the CDC would be what it is no matter which party is in charge.

And while western governments, along with China, have no strong desire to perform the best testing they can, because it can only make them look worse, “newly infected” countries like Nigeria (190 million) and Indonesia (260 million), don’t have the desire, and not the means either. This will keep official infection numbers low(er), but does that mean we can all go visit without any worries?

 

From SCMP:

 

 

From Worldometer (Note: mortality rate fell to 6%):

 

 

A more complete pic of COVID2019.app:

 

 

 

 

“If you don’t have symptoms, it’s not an illness,” he said. “There’s no need to announce it.”

And at the same time, the first lung transplant:

Twitter: “Oh gosh – first lung transplant done for a #COVID19 patient. Hope only a fraction of the 20% severe cases ever need this. Though there is currently 50% 28-day mortality if someone enters ICU (based on China data). But what % or total infected will need ICU? Unclear.”

China Leaves Asymptomatic Patients off Coronavirus Infection Tally (Caixin)

China’s decision to exclude individuals who carry the new coronavirus but show no symptoms from the country’s public tally of infections has drawn debate over whether this approach obscures the scope of the epidemic, with a document received by Caixin showing a significant proportion of one province’s cases show no symptoms. Since early February, the National Health Commission (NHC) has concluded that “asymptomatic infected individuals” can infect others and demanded local authorities to report those cases. However, the commission has also decided not to include these people in its statistics for “confirmed cases” or indeed to release data on asymptomatic cases.

On Feb. 25, in Northeast China’s Heilongjiang province there were 104 asymptomatic infected individuals, according to a Feb. 26 Heilongjiang Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention document obtained by Caixin. That same day the province said it had 480 “confirmed cases,” a tally which did not include the 104 asymptomatic cases. In its Jan. 28 virus prevention and control plan, the NHC demanded the prompt detection and reporting of those with light or no symptoms. According to a document obtained by Caixin, the Heilongjiang CDC confirmed its first asymptomatic individual on Feb. 1 and asked the NHC for permission to leave the case off its public list of confirmed cases.

[..] two days after the fourth edition of the NHC’s Covid-19 guidelines released on Feb. 7 said asymptomatic cases should be reported separately and excluded from the confirmed case tally, Heilongjiang removed 13 asymptomatic infected individuals from its tally of “confirmed cases.” However, multiple studies from both Chinese and overseas researchers have been published, suggesting that individuals infected with Covid-19 can be contagious even if they do not feel ill.

In earlier guidelines, asymptomatic individuals were supposed to be observed and treated at home. But by the fifth edition of the NHC guidlines released Feb. 21, they had to undergo a 14-day quarantine as well as test negative in two separate nucleic acid tests before being released. Health authorities have also developed criteria to determine whether an asymptomatic individual is the source of infection in any given cluster. Nevertheless, at a Feb. 14 press conference, NHC deputy director Zeng Yixin said that the country would only publicize “suspected” and “confirmed cases.” “If you don’t have symptoms, it’s not an illness,” he said. “There’s no need to announce it.”

Read more …

The Party speaks. It’s not feeling well.

Epidemic Won’t Spark Financial Crisis In China (Global Times)

China is not facing a financial system crisis, despite mounting pressure from the coronavirus epidemic on the economy and global stock market routs, but further macro stabilizing measures, including more liquidity injections, might be necessary, analysts said on Sunday. Ominous signals have begun to suggest that the epidemic might have hit the Chinese economy harder than some had expected, which in turn has fueled speculation that China might face a financial crisis. On Saturday, official data showed that China’s manufacturing sector may have experienced a sharp downturn in February worse than during the global financial crisis in 2008.

The official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) dropped to 35.7 in February, the lowest level on record, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The non-manufacturing PMI plunged to 29.6, deep in contraction territory. The downbeat data followed hefty losses in the Chinese A-share market on Friday amid a worldwide stock market rout due to concerns over the coronavirus epidemic. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index plummeted 3.71 percent on Friday to drop below the psychologically important level of 3,000. The index lost 4.87 percent for the week. Although the Chinese stock market fared better than Wall Street, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 12 percent last week, concerns over a potential downtrend in the A-share market or even a broader financial crisis grew.

“Suggestions that China is facing risk of a financial crisis are just absurd,” Dong Dengxin, director of the Finance and Securities Institute at the Wuhan University of Science and Technology, told the Global Times on Sunday. “If anything, China’s A-share market is facing an upward trajectory given the fact that it has been at its historic lows and that the economic fundamentals have not changed.” [..] In light of moves by China’ s central bank to inject liquidity and local governments to support businesses, some argue the potential risks of a spike in non-performing loans among local governments could cause a financial crisis.

But Dong said that China’s government debt level remains significantly lower than those of developed countries and banks are among the world’s biggest and most regulated. “Everything is very much under control,” he said. China’s A-share market might be at the start of a bull run, according to Yang Delong, chief economist at Shenzhen-based First Seafront Fund. “US stocks have reached its top, whereas the A-share market is bottoming out. Therefore I think the A-share market will increase by 20 percent this year,” he wrote in a note sent to the Global Times on Sunday.

Read more …

The CDC is being exposed as a pretty incompetent entiry.

CDC Retesting Patient After Testing Negative, Being Released (KSAT)

A patient released from isolation in San Antonio on Saturday is being retested for the coronavirus at a local health facility, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Officials say the patient met the criteria for release after testing negative for the virus twice. Both of the tests were administered more than 24 hours apart. However, the patient later returned to isolation after a pending lab test came up positive for the virus that causes COVID-19, according to the CDC. The patient was isolated when they were treated at the local medical facility for several weeks after returning from Wuhan, China, on a State Department chartered flight, the CDC says. Out of caution, the CDC says the individual was brought back into isolation at a local medical facility and is getting retested.


The patient did have contact with others while outside of isolation, and health officials are working to trace others that may have been exposed. Metro Health is working to track where the patient went, who they interacted with, the time frames they spent outside of the quarantined facility and who may have been exposed, officials say.“This is an unfolding situation with many unknowns. CDC is making decisions on a case-by-case basis using the best available science at the time. CDC’s priority is to protect both patients and communities,” said the CDC in part, in a press release. Several Texas officials are speaking out after the CDC’s announcement that a patient was released into San Antonio with possible coronavirus exposure. Mayor Ron Nirenberg says it’s unacceptable that CDC officials released the patient and allowed the public exposure.

Read more …

You could be minutes from death, but if you didn’t visit China or French kiss with someone who did, no tests for you.

CDC Testing Limits May Have Delayed Coronavirus Response (HP)

Genetic sequencing of two cases of the novel coronavirus in Washington suggests the disease had been circulating in the state for six weeks — but went undetected because of strict testing restrictions set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to a scientist who compared the genetic fingerprints. The study of the coronavirus contracted by a high school student in Snohomish County north of Seattle links the illness to the very first COVID-19 case in the nation, a man who tested positive Jan. 19 after returning to his home in Snohomish county from China. He has since recovered, but the illness was passed on, undetected, via community transmission for “the past six weeks,” noted Trevor Bedford, an associate professor at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington.

He attributed the lack of earlier detection of an “already substantial outbreak” to the CDC’s “narrow case definition requiring direct travel to China” (or contact with someone known to be ill with coronavirus) before people could be tested. [..] Besides restrictions until recently on when it could be used, the test created by the CDC in early February initially only worked predictably in a handful of labs. Early detection is critical so that people can begin treatment and be isolated before passing on the virus to someone else. As of Friday, fewer than 500 people had been tested in the U.S., according to the CDC, compared with countries like South Korea, where 65,000 have been tested.

[..] Dr. Jeff Duchin, public health officer for Seattle and King County, complained about the testing system Saturday when addressing the first coronavirus death in the nation in Kirkland, Washington. “Testing capacity is so limited,” he said at a press conference. The state public health lab only began testing for COVID-19 on Friday, but officials hope soon to be able to also rely on commercial and university labs. “If we had the ability to test earlier, I’m sure we would have identified patients earlier,” said Duchin. [..] To ease the testing logjam, the FDA announced Saturday that labs and hospitals across the nation will now be able to conduct the test for COVID-19 and won’t have to wait for results from the CDC.

Read more …

You can always export them to Africa.

US Agency Investigating Production Of Faulty Coronavirus Test Kits (R.)

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services confirmed on Sunday that it is investigating a manufacturing defect in some initial coronavirus test kits that prompted some states to seek emergency approval to use their own test kits. On Saturday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said his state would immediately begin using its own test kit developed in-state after asking the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday for permission to do so. The FDA said on Saturday it would allow some laboratories to immediately use tests they have developed and validated to achieve more rapid testing capacity for the coronavirus. On Sunday, New York confirmed its first case of coronavirus.


FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said in a statement on Sunday that “upon learning about the test issue from CDC (the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), FDA worked with CDC to determine that problems with certain test components were due to a manufacturing issue. We worked hand in hand with CDC to resolve the issues with manufacturing.” Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday the United States has 75,000 test kits on hand “and over the next week that will expand radically.” He said over 3,600 people in the United States have been tested to date. Hahn added that the “FDA has confidence in the design and current manufacturing of the test that already have and are continuing to be distributed. These tests have passed extensive quality control procedures.”

Read more …

Also for Chinese government, western governments? They also hid facts.

As for Seoul, they tested only a few 1000 of the 317,320 Shincheonji members and “trainees”..

Murder Probe Sought For South Korea Sect At Center Of Coronavirus Outbreak (R.)

The government of Seoul asked for a murder investigation into leaders of a Christian sect at the center of the country’s deadly coronavirus outbreak, saying the church was liable for its refusal to cooperate with efforts to stop the disease. A large majority of the more than 4,000 confirmed cases of the South Korean outbreak, the largest outside China and still growing, have been linked to the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, a secretive movement that reveres founder Lee Man-hee. Park Won-soon, mayor of Seoul, said if Lee and other leaders of the church had cooperated, effective preventive measures could have saved those who later died of the virus. “The situation is this serious and urgent, but where are the leaders of the Shincheonji, including Lee Man-hee, the chief director of this crisis?” Park said in a post on his Facebook page late on Sunday.


Seoul’s city government said in a separate statement that it had filed a criminal complaint with the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office, asking for an investigation of Lee and 12 others on charges of murder and disease control act violations. The prosecutors’ office said it had received the complaint and was reviewing it. Health authorities said the vast majority of the 3,000 cases confirmed in Daegu, another Korean city, were linked to a branch of the church there, where a person who had tested positive in February attended services twice. [..] Health authorities said they have obtained a list of 317,320 Shincheonji members and “trainees”, but have been told by some local governments that it was not exhaustive.

Read more …

When money is your only answer to all questions.

China Gives Relief to Shield Trillions of Yuan in Bad Debt (BBG)

China’s financial regulators will allow the nation’s lenders to delay recognizing bad loans from smaller businesses reeling from the deadly coronavirus outbreak, giving temporary reprieve to trillions of yuan of debt. Qualified small- and medium-sized businesses nationwide with principal or interest due between Jan. 25 and June 30 can apply for a delay to the end of the second quarter, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory said in a joint statement with the central bank on Sunday. In Hubei province, the center of the outbreak, the waiver applies to all companies, including large firms, according to the statement. Chinese banks are taking extraordinary steps to avoid recognizing bad loans, seeking to protect themselves and cash-strapped borrowers from the economic fallout of the epidemic, as Bloomberg News reported last week.


Regulators told lenders not to downgrade loans with missed payments or report delinquencies to the country’s centralized credit-scoring system before the end of June, according to the statement. The push by banks and regulators to ease the wave of debt going bad is part of a broader effort by President Xi Jinping’s government to shore up the Chinese economy, which some forecasters predict may suffer a rare quarter-on-quarter contraction to start 2020. Gross domestic product may shrink by 2.5% in the first quarter, Nomura Holdings Inc. economists led by Lu Ting said in a report on Saturday, after the country’s manufacturing sector reported record-low activity in February. In addition to pumping billions of yuan into the banking system to make it easier for lenders to extend credit, authorities have cut interest rates, reduced taxes and pledged to adopt more “proactive” fiscal policies.

Read more …

It’s a choice, a trade-off. Close the borders OR get infected.

Australia Warns It Can’t Stop The Spread Of Coronavirus From Overseas (R.)

Australia’s chief medical officer said on Monday it was no longer possible to completely prevent people with the coronavirus from entering the country, citing concerns about outbreaks in Japan and South Korea. Australia, one of the first countries to put restrictions on its borders in a bid to limit the spread of the virus, confirmed its first death from the disease on Sunday. “It is no longer possible to absolutely prevent new cases coming in,” Brendan Murphy, Australia’s Chief Medical Officer, told reporters in Canberra. “We have got concerns about Japan and South Korea. They are working hard to control their outbreaks but we are still concerned that people in those countries and other high risk countries may present with an infection.”


The chief medical officer’s comments came as Australian officials confirmed the country’s 30th case of coronavirus, a 40-year old man who arrived in Australia’s second most populated city, Melbourne from Iran. He later travelled to Tasmania. Meanwhile, Australia named the 78-year old man who became the country’s first person to die from coronavirus as James Kwan. He was a passenger on the Diamond Princess ship that was held off Japan’s coast for weeks. Kwan and his wife, who also has the virus, were transferred back to Australia for treatment. Australia barred entry from Feb. 1 to any foreigners who had travelled through China in the two weeks prior to arriving in Australia. It extended that ban to Iran on Sunday. Both bans are in force until at least March 7. Australian citizens and permanent residents are exempted.

Read more …

That country of 260 million with a very sparse health care system. That has neither the desire nor the means to count its victims.

Indonesia Confirms First Cases, Linked To Japanese Citizen In Malaysia (SCMP)

Two Indonesians have tested positive for the coronavirus after being in contact with an infected Japanese national, Indonesian President Joko Widodo revealed on Monday, marking the first confirmed cases in the world’s fourth most populous country. The two had been hospitalised in Jakarta, Widodo told reporters at the presidential palace in the capital. The president said a 64-year-old woman and her 31-year-old daughter had tested positive after being in contact with a Japanese national who lived in Malaysia and was found to have the virus after returning from a trip to Indonesia. Widodo said an Indonesian medical team had traced the movements of the Japanese visitor before uncovering the cases.


“After checks, they were in a sick state. This morning I got a report that the mother and the daughter tested positive for coronavirus,” said Widodo, who said they were being treated at Jakarta’s Sulianti Saroso infectious diseases hospital. Health Minister Terawan Agus Putranto told reporters the Japanese visitor was a friend of the two women’s family and had visited their house. He said authorities were checking who else the Japanese visitor may have come into contact with. The confirmation of the first cases of coronavirus came after authorities had defended their screening processes, with some medical experts raising concerns of a lack of vigilance and a risk of undetected cases in the Southeast Asian country of more than 260 million people.

Read more …

Who could have predicted that?

Japan’s Factory Activity Shrinks At Fastest Pace Since 2016 (R.)

Japan’s factory activity was hit by its sharpest contraction in nearly four years in February, raising a red flag over manufacturing in the world’s third-largest economy as the impact from the coronavirus outbreak spreads. The manufacturing slowdown offers the clearest evidence yet of the epidemic’s damaging effects on global growth and businesses and is likely to ramp up pressure on Japanese policymakers to boost growth. The au Jibun Bank Japan Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) slipped to a seasonally-adjusted 47.8 from a final 48.8 in the previous month. The February reading was its lowest since May 2016.


The index stayed below the 50.0 threshold that separates contraction from expansion for a 10th month, marking the longest stretch since a 16-month run to June 2009 during the global financial crisis. “Near-term prospects for Japan’s industrial sector appear very bleak,” said Joe Hayes, economist at IHS Markit, which compiles the survey. “Weakness was driven by the demand-side in a broad-based fashion. Consumer, intermediate and capital goods producers recorded faster declines in demand and overall order books fell at the sharpest rate in over seven years.” The pressure on the world’s third-largest economy has built rapidly during the past weeks as the virus outbreak is dealing a sharp blow to China’s economy, Asia’s biggest.

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Good DNC boy. All against Bernie.

Buttigieg Drops Out Of Democratic Race Two Days Before Super Tuesday (R.)

Pete Buttigieg dropped out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination on Sunday, saying he no longer saw a chance of winning, the day after fellow moderate Joe Biden won a big victory in South Carolina. The move shook up the Democratic contest to pick a candidate to take on Republican President Donald Trump in November’s election and came two days before the 14-state Super Tuesday nominating contests that will offer the biggest electoral prize so far. Buttigieg, a 38-year-old former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who gained early momentum after he narrowly won the Iowa caucuses last month and finished a close second in New Hampshire, had sought to unite Democrats, independents and moderate Republican voters.


But he finished a distant third in Nevada and fourth in South Carolina. “Today is a moment of truth … the truth is that the path has narrowed to a close for our candidacy if not for our cause,” Buttigieg told supporters in South Bend on Sunday night. “Our goal has always been to unify Americans to help defeat Donald Trump and to win the era for our values.” [..] An adviser told Reuters that Buttigieg was dropping out to avoid helping the odds of front-runner Bernie Sanders, a senator from Vermont and self-described democratic socialist. “Pete was not going to play the role of spoiler,” said the adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Could he have went through Super Tuesday and beyond? Sure. But this was not a vanity exercise.”

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Klobuchar out today? Place your bets. She has zero chance, but can take away votes from Sleepy Joe. They’ll keep Warren in, so she can dig into Bernie’s support.

And as all the TV clowns talk about Bernie’s support among black voters, check this:

“Klobuchar was the lead attorney in the county at the time of his initial trial, and she later denied a request for him to attend his mother’s funeral after he was imprisoned.”

Klobuchar Cancels Campaign Rally After Protests (Hill)

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) canceled a campaign rally in St. Louis Park, Minn., on Sunday after protesters reportedly affiliated with Black Lives Matter and other civil rights groups took the stage at her event for over an hour. In a statement obtained by The New York Times, Klobuchar’s campaign said the senator offered to meet with demonstrators in exchange for them exiting the stage and allowing her rally to proceed, adding that the protesters initially agreed to such terms before reportedly backing out and refusing to leave the stage.

“The campaign offered a meeting with the senator if they would leave the stage after being on the stage for more than an hour,” a spokesperson for the Klobuchar campaign told the Times. “After initially agreeing, the group backed out, and we are now canceling the event.” The campaign did not immediately return a request for further comment from The Hill. Klobuchar has faced calls to suspend her campaign from Black Lives Matter and NAACP activists over her role in the criminal prosecution of Myon Burrell, an African American man who was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison while still a teenager. Klobuchar was the lead attorney in the county at the time of his initial trial, and she later denied a request for him to attend his mother’s funeral after he was imprisoned.

Burrell’s case has become a point of criticism for Klobuchar’s campaign, as many including the victim’s father believe he may have been wrongfully convicted. “What I need people to understand is this isn’t about partisanship and this isn’t about politics,” said Leslie Redmond, president of the Minneapolis NAACP, in January. “This is about justice. … This isn’t just a situation that happened to the Central Park Five alone. This is a situation that happens all around America. This is a situation that happens right here in Minnesota.” “Young people, young adults were given life sentences to rot away in prison,” he added at the time. “This benefits no one. However, it does benefit politicians who use the criminal justice system to benefit their political careers. Enough is enough.”

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But Tulsi is still running.

Tulsi Gabbard Urges Trump: Don’t Drag Us Into War With Russia (ZH)

Tulsi Gabbard has once again gone on the offensive, skewering Washington mainstream foreign policy and the Trump administration’s refusal to stand up to “dictator” Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Trump reportedly told Erdogan in a phone call last week as the Idlib crisis escalates, now in an open state of war between the Turkish and Syrian armies, and with Russia supporting the latter, that the US “reaffirmed” its support for Turkey in Idlib. Ankara is now demanding greater support from NATO as well, after Russian jets were widely believed behind last Thursday’s massive air strike which killed 33 Turkish soldiers.


Congresswoman and Democratic presidential hopeful Gabbard attacked this stance in a weekend video statement, urging Trump instead to make clear that “the United States will not be dragged into a war with Russia by the aggressive Islamist expansionist dictator of Turkey via NATO.” She also slammed the mainstream media’s efforts to renew holding up al-Qaeda terrorists on the ground in Idlib as mere “rebels” and “freedom fighters” — saying it’s a disgrace to men and women in uniform who signed up to fight terrorists in the wake of 9/11. “Turkey’s been supporting ISIS and al-Qaeda terrorists from behind the scenes for years,” she pointed out. “Turkey’s Erdogan wants to create an Islamist caliphate in Syria, reestablish the Islamist Ottoman Empire, and is working with al-Qaeda and other terrorists to achieve his goal.” “He wants to be the caliph,” she added, explaining further he’s not a “friend” of America, but remains one of the most dangerous dictators in the world.

https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1233740452182024193

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A kangaroo court in a banana republic.

Assange Enters The Kangaroo Court (MStar)

The most visually striking aspect of the Woolwich courtroom is where Assange sits — in a box covered by bullet-proof glass. This obviously unnecessary “security” measure was aimed at portraying Assange as a dangerous, violent terrorist who must be restrained at all times. Not only was the bullet-proof box dehumanising and degrading, it also made it impossible for Assange to participate in his own defence — a basic principle of due process. Assange could barely even hear the proceedings, let alone communicate with his legal team. Any communications that did occur in the box were not confidential since he was flanked at all times by at least one security guard. On Wednesday, Assange finally had enough. He stood up and began to address the judge, requesting he be permitted to properly communicate with his own lawyers.

The judge cut him off and sent the court into recess rather than allow him to speak. When the court reconvened, Assange’s lawyer formally requested Assange be permitted to sit with his legal team — a position that astonishingly was supported by the lawyer for the prosecution, who apparently found the whole set-up so gross as to discredit the entire proceeding. Yet still, the judge would not relent and Assange remained caged like an animal. However the abuse in the courtroom pales in comparison to the abuse behind closed doors in Belmarsh prison. The night after the trial opened, prison authorities relentlessly harassed Assange. He was shuffled from room to room all night, stripped naked and handcuffed multiple times throughout the ordeal. His legal papers were also confiscated.

When the defence lawyers complained the following day in court, the judge shrugged her shoulders and said that she had no authority over the prison administration who subjected him to such humiliation. The years of suffering Assange has endured while being persecuted by the US, British and other governments is evident simply from his physical appearance. Assange was clearly exhausted in the courtroom, sometimes slumped over. Even before being subjected to nearly a year of HMP Belmarsh, Assange had to deal with the psychological torment of nearly seven years’ confinement in the Ecuadorian Embassy. At the same time it is clear he still has the will to fight and has not compromised his principles an inch. The trial resumes in May, and will likely be followed by an extensive series of appeals.

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The pace the EU moves at. As Greece’s borders are being overrun. Erdogan is to visit Putin on Thursday.

Greece swears it won’t let the “migrants” enter, which Erdogan has selected for women and children (photo-ops) and militant youth (severity).

EU Accepts Greek Demand For Emergency Foreign Affairs Council (K.)

Josep Borrell Fontelles, the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, has convened an extraordinary Foreign Council for next week on developments in Syria and the ensuing migration emergency, at the request of Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias. Dendias had formally requested an extraordinary meeting Saturday. In his statement, Borrell says that the EU-Turkey agreement on repatriation of refugees needs to be upheld and confirms EU supports Greece and Bulgaria in addressing the migration issue. Borrell’s statement:


“The ongoing renewed fighting in and around Idlib represents a serious threat to international peace and security. It is causing an untold human suffering among the population, and having a grave impact on the region and beyond. The European Union needs to redouble efforts to address this terrible human crisis with all the means at its disposal. I am therefore calling for an extraordinary meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council next week to discuss the unfolding situation, in particular at the request of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece. Over the past days, I have been in contact with key actors. I have called for an immediate de-escalation and for a lasting ceasefire, deplored the loss of lives, and offered EU support to mitigate the consequences of the crisis. There is only a political solution to this crisis.

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Feb 022020
 
 February 2, 2020  Posted by at 11:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  12 Responses »


NPC “Georgetown-Marines game” 1923

 

US Confirms Its Eighth Case Of Coronavirus (R.)
Uber Suspends 240 Accounts In Mexico To Prevent Coronavirus Spreading (R.)
US Senator Shreds China’s Official Virus Story, Warns Of “Super Laboratory” (ZH)
Pelosi Questions Why The President’s Lawyers Are Not Disbarred (Turley)
CNN’s Blatant And Bizarre Tulsi Gabbard Snub (Hill)
Is Hillary Clinton Angling To Become Vice President? (Hill)
DNC Members Planning Move To Block Bernie Sanders . . . Again (Turley)
NPR Demands Cassandra Fairbanks’s Conversations with Julian Assange (CC)
Fukushima Radioactive Water Should Be Released Into Ocean – Japan Experts (G.)
Kremlin Warns Chemical Provocation Coming Near Aleppo (ZH)

 

 

Are we truly leveling off? There are a few voices out there who like the idea. But perhaps it’s a bit early to say. First today’s numbers:

• Confirmed cases: 14,562 in China, 140 abroad (from 11,945, up 2617) yesterday up 2124

• Deaths: 305 (up 46, yesterday also 46)
(deaths over past 9 days: 15, 15, 25, 25, 26, 38, 43, 46, 46)

• Recovered: 328

• First death outside China (Philippines, patient from Wuhan)

• 8 cases in US

 

 

What gives me pause still in the leveling off ‘debate’ is the January 31 2020 report by Gabriel Leung and his team at HKU which states: “In our baseline scenario, we estimated 75,185 infections as of Jan 25.” On Jan 25 there were 1,200-1,300 confirmed cases. Today there are 14,500. Would their infection estimate also have risen tenfold?

Also, this updated BBC graph brings home once again the speed at which the infections have increased: less than two weeks ago, there were less than 300 vs today’s 14,550. Let’s hope the worst is over, but let’s not jump to conclusions. It’s one thing to look at numbers day-to-day, it’s another to look at longer term developments.

 

 

And this one doesn’t make me feel much better either for some reason:

 

 

 

Looks doable for now.

US Confirms Its Eighth Case Of Coronavirus (R.)

U.S. health officials on Saturday confirmed an eighth case of the fast-spreading new coronavirus in the United States and the Pentagon said it would provide housing for people arriving from overseas who might need to be quarantined. The latest U.S. patient, who is in Massachusetts, recently returned from Hubei province in central China, the epicenter of the outbreak, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in an emailed statement. The person was not identified and no other details were provided. The flu-like coronavirus, which is believed to have originated in a market that traded illegally in wildlife in Hubei’s provincial capital Wuhan, has so far resulted in 304 deaths in China, state broadcaster CCTV said early on Sunday in China.


Confirmed cases of the virus have been reported in 27 other nations, according to the CDC. All but one of the patients in the United States was believed to have contracted the disease while they were traveling in the Wuhan area. U.S. officials this week reported the first human-to-human transmission of the disease in the United States in Illinois. Concerns about the virus spurred the Trump administration to declare a public health emergency and bar entry to the United States for foreign nationals who have recently visited China. In addition, U.S. citizens who have traveled within the past two weeks to Hubei will be subject to a mandatory quarantine of 14 days, believed to be the incubation period of the virus, officials said.

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I include this because I don’t understand it. 2 drivers “may” have transported one user, and that suspends 240 accounts?

Uber Suspends 240 Accounts In Mexico To Prevent Coronavirus Spreading (R.)

U.S. ride-hailing application Uber Technologies Inc. said on Saturday that it suspended 240 accounts of users in Mexico who may recently have come in contact with someone possibly infected with the new coronavirus. The newly identified coronavirus, which is believed to have originated late last year from illegally traded wildlife at an animal market in Wuhan, China, has created alarm because it spreads quickly and there are still important unknowns surrounding it. There are no confirmed cases in Mexico and all nine suspected cases were later declared negative.


Uber said in a statement posted on its Twitter account that two drivers may have transported a user who is possibly infected with the new coronavirus. It added the suspended users should contact health authorities if they develop symptoms. [..] Mexican state news agency Notimex reported on Saturday that 18 of the 52 Mexican students who are studying in China had returned. Notimex did not specify whether the students are in quarantine.

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Time for China to come clean about the lab?! Yeah, right. Reminds me of the novichok affair, that also had a bioweapon lab nearby. And gee, were the UK eager to open up about it.

US Senator Shreds China’s Official Virus Story, Warns Of “Super Laboratory” (ZH)

Cotton referenced a Lancet study which showed that many of the first cases of the novel coronavirus, including patient zero, had no connection to the wet market — devastatingly undermining China’s claim. “As one epidemiologist said: ‘That virus went into the seafood market before it came out of the seafood market.’ We still don’t know where it originated,” Cotton said. “I would note that Wuhan also has China’s only bio-safety level four super laboratory that works with the world’s most deadly pathogens to include, yes, coronavirus.” [..] Cotton appears to be referring to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the country’s foremost virus research facility.

The Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory, which is part of the institute, is located only 20 miles from the Wuhan wet market, the “official” source of the outbreak according to China. Snakes, bats and other animals were identified as possible originators for the coronavirus in early investigations. The rapid spread of the virus, which makes previous contagions like SARS and swine flu look benign by comparison, seems to lend weight to the theory that the novel coronavirus is a tailored bioweapon. Ten days ago, China reported less than 300 had the virus. The country’s latest update now numbers the infected at over 11,000. An additional 15,000 in China are suspected of having the virus, but a reported lack of test kits prevents the government from giving an accurate number.


When the number of infected was still low, China instituted a wide-reaching quarantine, sealing over 40 million inside cities. Now, the world appears to be sealing China in. Russia, Nepal, Mongolia and North Korea have all closed their borders with China. Even more countries are refusing Chinese nationals, including an unprecedented announcement from the administration of President Donald Trump barring entry into America for foreign nationals who have traveled to China. While the virus has been found in several countries around the world including America, all eyes are now on China as the outbreak there shows no signs of slowing.

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“Pelosi added that Trump “will not be acquitted” even if he is acquitted..”

Pelosi Questions Why The President’s Lawyers Are Not Disbarred (Turley)

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Cal.) made an extraordinary statement yesterday that suggests that lawyers representing President Donald Trump should be disbarred: “I don’t know how they can retain their lawyer status, in the comments that they’re making.” Just as I have been highly critical of President Donald Trump’s attacks on Adam Schiff and others, this is a truly outrageous suggestion. These lawyers are performing a key function in our constitutional system in not just representing an accused person but fulfilling a vital role in an impeachment trial. Because Pelosi disagrees with their legal arguments, she insinuates that they should not be licensed attorneys. It is precisely the type of ad hominem attack that Democrats criticize with the President.


Pelosi added that Trump “will not be acquitted” even if he is acquitted — entirely decoupling the Democratic position from either constitutional or ethical norms. She is not the only person engaging in such low-grade, personal attacks. Harvard Law Professor Larry Tribe denounced Alan Dershowitz as a “charlatan” for his views. Dershowitz denounced another Harvard professor as a “coward” for his criticism. These are good-faith disagreements over the scope and meaning of the constitutional standard. Moreover, the White House counsel has done an able job in responding to the House, including landing a couple of haymakers on the record. Both sides have had brilliant and not-so-brilliant moments. However, they have all conducted themselves will professionalism and civility for the most part.

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The DNC does the exact same thing again that lost them the 2016 election. It’s like a comedy act.

CNN’s Blatant And Bizarre Tulsi Gabbard Snub (Hill)

CNN has held more town hall events than any of the three cable news networks over the past few years and continues that programming strategy as we head into the meat of the 2020 campaign. For the most part, the network has made an effort to provide every candidate on the Democratic side during the primary season with an hour-long stage to answer questions from moderators and voters alike. And that’s what makes CNN’s decision to snub Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) from a series of town halls just days before the New Hampshire primary not only odd, but optically nonsensical. Note: Gabbard is currently polling at 4.8 percent in the RealClearPolitics index of polls in New Hampshire. That puts her ahead of tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang (4.0 percent), businessman Tom Steyer (1.8 percent) and former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (no polling available).

So what do these low-polling candidates all have in common? They all received invites to the CNN New Hampshire town hall. The most recent poll from America Research Group released out of the state even has Gabbard ahead of Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), with the Hawaii congresswoman clocking in at 8 percent to Klobuchar’s 7 percent. And if we’re just talking CNN/UNH polling, Gabbard is at 5 percent, which places her 3 points higher than Steyer and 5 points higher than Patrick, who clocks in a 0.0 percent. “We have reached out, I think, more than once, and we received no explanation,” Gabbard told Fox News on Tuesday regarding the non-invite. “I don’t even think we’ve gotten a response to date about why they’re excluding the first female combat veteran ever to run for president, the only woman of color in the race,” she added.

[..] The last time Gabbard appeared on CNN during one of its special events was at a Democratic debate in Ohio last October. It was then that the Iraq War veteran addressed allegations made by the New York Times and a CNN commentator that she was an asset of the Russian government, an allegation launched (and unchallenged) by 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. “Just two days ago The New York Times put out an article saying that I’m a Russian asset and an [Syrian President Bashar] al-Assad apologist and all these different smears,” she said. “This morning a CNN commentator [Bakari Sellers] said on national television that I’m an asset of Russia. Completely despicable.”


Sellers actually called Gabbard a “puppet for the Russian government” without presenting any evidence to back up the claim. “There is no question, there is no question that Tulsi Gabbard, of all the 12, is a puppet for the Russian government,” alleged Sellers, a former member of the South Carolina House of Representatives. “There is a chance that Tulsi is not just working for the United States,” he added. “That’s not just an allegation.”

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The impechment trial defeat seemed like a good time to reorganize the party. Instead, it’s doubling down.

Is Hillary Clinton Angling To Become Vice President? (Hill)

A number of people in politics, the media and elsewhere are openly speculating that if Democrats wind up with a “brokered convention,” with no strong or viable nominee evident, Hillary Clinton might enter the arena as the “savior” who could unite the delegates and go on to defeat President Donald Trump. Clinton herself seemed to throw shade at that theory during an interview with Variety at the Sundance Film Festival. When asked about the “urge” to beat Trump, the former Democratic nominee said, “Yeah. I certainly feel the urge because I feel the 2016 election was a really odd time and an odd outcome. And the more we learn, the more that seems to be the case. But I’m going to support the people who are running now and do everything I can to help elect the Democratic nominee.”

Several politically savvy Democrats have told me that “everything” may be a much more plausible and powerful scenario. That is, Clinton and/or her team could be negotiating with former Vice President Joe Biden, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg or the last candidate standing to join the ticket as vice president. She would add the gravitas, delegates and, eventually, millions of votes needed to get them over the finish line on Nov. 5. I am assured that Clinton is on every shortlist for that position. If I were in Trump’s world, this scenario would send chills down my spine. There is no doubt that the former first lady, New York senator and secretary of State once again is raising her profile and stepping back into the spotlight to reengage in political discussions.


One such spotlight was provided by the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. There, aside from commenting on her presidential “urge,” Clinton not only promoted the incredibly flattering four-part Hulu documentary about her, titled “Hillary” — which premiered, coincidently, just 10 days before the Iowa caucus — but she also attended the debut of a documentary about the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. The first event was tailor-made to allow her to shine. The other gave her a timely platform to bash President Trump on a number of topics.

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They don’t want to win.

DNC Members Planning Move To Block Bernie Sanders . . . Again (Turley)

In 2016, many of us objected to the concerted effect of the Democratic establishment and the Democratic National Committee to rig the primary for Hillary Clinton. Later it was revealed that the Clinton has largely taken over the DNC by taking over its debt and the DNC openly harassed and hampered Sanders at every stage. Despite this effort, Sanders came close to beating Clinton, who has never forgiven him for contesting a primary that she literally bought and paid for with the DNC. The simmering rage was still evident recently in Clinton’s attack on Sanders and suggestion that she might not support him if he were the nominee (a suggestion that she later took back). She continued her attacks this week and it has served to remind voters, particularly younger voters, of the DNC interference with the primary election.

After the scandal, the DNC pledged to reform itself and reduce the power of establishment figures and superdelegates at the convention. Now, however, Politico is reporting that DNC members are again discussing changing the rules to stop Sanders. This follows the selection of Clinton allies to control the convention and a shocking level of anti-Sanders bias shown by CNN at the last debate. In the meantime, the DNC has been criticized for clearing the way for Michael Bloomberg by changing its rules to help him make the debates. Reportedly, a group of Democratic National Committee members are discussing ways to undermine Sanders and allow for a convention stop on his candidacy. The plan centers around the superdelegates to reverse reforms and allow them to vote on the first ballot. In other words, the supers would be brought back in to keep Sanders out.


[..] The fear is that Sanders could win Iowa and come to the convention with the most votes. It would challenge the view that Biden is the unassailable nominee — just as he challenged the same view with Clinton. These moves are likely to only strengthen the resolve of the surging Sanders supporters. Sanders is receiving the most support among young voters — an extraordinary accomplishment given his age and mainstream opposition. The Democratic Party is clearly not willing to move beyond the control and fealty extended to the Clintons. That could easily force a final reckoning at the convention over who controls the Democratic party.

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Not sure what she’s talking about. Post the subpoena perhaps?

Yves Smith says: “NPR cannot subpoena you. Only an attorney acting on behalf of a court or admin law judge can. If an NPR lawyer has anything to do with this, you should file a bar complaint v. him.”

NPR Demands Cassandra Fairbanks’s Conversations with Julian Assange (CC)

In 2018, National Public Radio (NPR), the publicly funded radio organization, was forced to retract a false claim that Donald Trump Jr. lied to the Senate about plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, Now, NPR is now demanding journalist Cassandra Fairbanks give them records of her conversations with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. NPR has published salacious allegations that WikiLeaks is “a mouthpiece of the Russian government.”

https://twitter.com/CassandraRules/status/1223799010940669959

In a subpoena, NPR also demanded Fairbanks’s conversations with dozens of people, including deceased DNC staffer Seth Rich, long-rumored to be the leaker who passed Democrat emails to Assange. Fairbanks is well known supporter of Assange, and is already declaring she will not hand over her conversations with Assange. “NPR lawyers are on 90 different drugs if they think I would ever give up a single sentence of a convo I’ve had with him,” wrote Fairbanks.

https://twitter.com/CassandraRules/status/1223804978734813186

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Calling Greta!

Fukushima Radioactive Water Should Be Released Into Ocean – Japan Experts (G.)

A panel of experts advising Japan’s government on a disposal method for radioactive water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant has recommended releasing it into the ocean, a move likely to alarm neighbouring countries. The panel, under the industry ministry, came to the conclusion after narrowing the choice to either releasing the contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean or letting it evaporate – and opted for the former. Based on past practice, it is likely the government will accept the recommendation. The build-up of contaminated water at Fukushima has been a sticking point in the clean-up, which is likely to last decades, especially as the Olympics are due to be held in Tokyo this year with some events less than 60km (35 miles) from the wrecked plant.


Neighbouring South Korea has retained a ban on imports of seafood from Japan’s Fukushima region imposed after the nuclear disaster and summoned a senior Japanese embassy official last year to explain how the Fukushima water would be dealt with. Its athletes are planning to bring their own radiation detectors and food to the Games. In 2018, Tokyo Electric apologised after admitting its filtration systems had not removed all dangerous material from the water, and the site is running out of room for storage tanks. But it plans to remove all radioactive particles from the water except tritium, an isotope of hydrogen that is hard to separate and is considered to be relatively harmless. “Compared to evaporation, ocean release can be done more securely,” the committee said, pointing to common practice around the world where normally operating nuclear stations release water that contains tritium into the sea.

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More repetition. Call Bellingcat and the OPCW!

Kremlin Warns Chemical Provocation Coming Near Aleppo (ZH)

Amid the ongoing Russian-Syrian military offensive to liberate Idlib province from the al-Qaeda linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, suburbs near Aleppo have been scene of intense fighting in recent days, despite government forces liberating the major northern city in December 2016, which marked a turning point in the war. Turkish-backed Syrian rebels have in recent days and weeks mounted new insurgent attacks on the outskirts of the provincial capital city at a moment the Syrian Army has made huge gains into neighboring Idlib. A key reason Damascus has vowed to retake every inch of Idlib is that for years al-Qaeda has launched terrorist attacks on suburbs of Aleppo from there as civilians and the government attempt to rebuild the largely destroyed urban center.

This latest renewed fighting in Aleppo appears a concerted effort by Turkey to use its proxy forces to repel and distract the brunt of the Syrian Army offensive on Idlib, considering on Friday President Erdogan warned he’s ready to use military force if Assad doesn’t halt Idlib operations. “Syrian insurgents carried out at least three car bomb attacks against government forces west of Aleppo on Saturday and opened a new front northeast of the city, an attempted fight back after territorial advances by Damascus.” — Jerusalem Post “We will not allow the regime’s cruelty towards its own people, with attacks and causing bloodshed,” Erdogan said. Ankara has been alarmed that hundreds of thousands of civilians are now trying to flee the embattled province toward the Turkish border.


“Turkey with complete sincerity wants Syria’s stability and security, and to this end, we will not shy away from doing whatever is necessary, including using military force.” Erdogan has also accused Russia of violating key agreements for a reduction in fighting in Idlib, while Moscow has cited ongoing attacks against its nearby Hmeimim airbase launched by HTS insurgents based in Idlib. Over the past years HTS and affiliate jihadist groups have also attacked civilian areas of western Aleppo. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to Erdogan’s charge by pointing out Idlib is a haven for terrorists who launch attacks on civilians as well as Russian and Syrian forces. Erdogan has also recently threatened to “open the gates” of millions of refugees on Europe if it doesn’t received political support. Needless to say, we are headed toward the final Syrian war showdown over Idlib.

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