Oct 312024
 


Gustave Caillebotte Paris Street, Rainy Day 1877

 

On November 5 the Decision Will Be Made between Freedom and Tyranny (PCR)
Trump Rides In Garbage Truck (RT)
Final Messaging of Trump and Harris Are Polar Opposites (Whedon)
Harris Campaign Manipulating Social Media – Researcher (RT)
Harris Campaign Slashes North Carolina Ads As Dems’ Turnout Plunges (ZH)
Trump Told Netanyahu To End War – Israeli Media (RT)
Rogan Rages At YouTube Censorship: “You Can’t Suppress Shit… ” (ZH)
NYTimes Journos Uncover Elon Musk’s Secret Luxury Compound In Austin (ZH)
Wikipedia Is ‘Broken’ – Musk (RT)
US Supreme Court Lets Virginia Purge Noncitizens From Voter Rolls (ZH)
As Liz Cheney Slams Donald Trump, Her Integrity Comes Under Fire (Julie Kelly)
Who are the Big Money Players Supporting the Candidates? (Sp.)
EU Wants to Subdue Hungary by Replacing Viktor Orban With Their Protege (Sp.)
Ties With Russia ‘Absolutely Necessary’ – Ex-Ukrainian President (RT)

 

 

 

 

Ackman

Art of the Surge
https://twitter.com/i/status/1851419171420045524

Puerto Rico

Indian Space Agency Chief

Vivek

Biden garbage

Donalds
https://twitter.com/i/status/1851471969172037796

Bannon Wolff
https://twitter.com/i/status/1851614803694866881

Vote

Tulsi
https://twitter.com/i/status/1851594961785086239

Dore Tucker

 

 

 

 

“Democrats Continue to Block All Efforts to Restore Electoral Integrity.”

“If Trump does not regain office, America will never again experience a free election. Voting will be used as a ratification for the one-party state..”

On November 5 the Decision Will Be Made between Freedom and Tyranny (PCR)

The Democrat Nevada Supreme Court ruled contrary to law that non-postmarked ballots that arrive 3 days after the election can be counted. This permits non-mailed mail-in ballots to be filled in after the vote count and used to reverse the electoral result. The federal US Appeals Court for the fifth circuit ruled that the US Constitution requires ballots to be counted on election day. The Democrats have declared the US Constitution to be a racist document that they will not abide by despite their oath of office to uphold the Constitution. Democrat federal district courts required the state of Virginia to restore non-US citizens to its voter rolls. This allows the Democrats to vote the non-citizens. The Democrat Department of Justice (sic) required the state of Alabama to have non-US citizens on the state’s voter rolls. A federal judge dismissed the Republican attempt to have only US citizens on Michigan’s voter rolls.

The Democrat Pennsylvania supreme court illegally ruled that improperly cast mail-in ballots can be counted. The Democrat district attorney in Philadelphia is suing Elon Musk in an effort to stop Musk’s support of the US Constitution. Democrat states legalized street corner drop-in ballot boxes that permit anonymous individuals to stuff with fraudulent votes that the Democrats have ruled must be counted. O’Keefe Media Group reports that in totally corrupt Maricopa County, Arizona, Democrat election officials instructed poll watchers not to interfere with illegal ballot harvesting or to report any voting irregularities. American universities have produced a generation of Woke leftwing business leaders. The consequence is that the business leaders are no longer Republican, and their money, especially that of billionaires, has gone to the Democrats.

The latest campaign filings for the first half of October show that Kamala spent $304.5 million on her election campaign which raised $295.3 million. Trump came in with less than half of that. Trump raised $117 million and spent $143.7 million. If these reported figures are correct and representative of the campaign, it means that American money is aligned with the revolutionary Democrat Party which intends to overthrow the Constitution and citizen rule. Voters are committed differently, but the election is easily stolen from them. I agree with Elon Musk. If Trump does not regain office, America will never again experience a free election. Voting will be used as a ratification for the one-party state. November 5 is the day the decision is made between freedom and tyranny. If tyranny wins, there will be no going back.

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“They’ve bullied you, they’ve demonized us, they’ve censored us, they’ve deplatformed us and they weaponized the power of our own government against all of us..”

Trump Rides In Garbage Truck (RT)

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump rode a garbage truck during a campaign stop in Wisconsin on Wednesday, in an apparent dig at outgoing US President Joe Biden’s disparaging comments about Trump voters. Biden labeled Trump supporters “garbage” in a Zoom call with activists on Tuesday. He later clarified that he was condemning a joke made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe from the stage during an earlier Trump rally at Madison Square Garden, who compared Puerto Rico to “a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean.” The supporters of the Democratic candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, have described Hinchcliffe’s speech as “racist,” although the comedian insisted that the joke was taken out of context. Trump mocked Biden and Harris as he appeared in the battleground state of Wisconsin sitting inside the cabin of a white dump truck decorated with American flags and laden with his own campaign slogans.

“How do you like my garbage truck?” the former president asked reporters, leaning out of the passenger seat window. “This truck is in honor of Kamala and Joe Biden.” Trump later delivered a speech in Green Bay while wearing a bright-orange vest. “I have to begin by saying, 250 million Americans are not garbage,” he told the crowd, accusing the Democrats of spreading hate towards his fans. “For the past nine years, Kamala and her party have called us racists, bigots, fascists, deplorables, irredeemables, Nazis, and they called me Hitler,” he said, drawing boos from the audience. “They’ve bullied you, they’ve demonized us, they’ve censored us, they’ve deplatformed us and they weaponized the power of our own government against all of us,” he added.

Trump’s ally, businessman and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, posted a video of himself emptying bins in a garbage truck and wearing a green vest. Harris has distanced herself from Biden’s ‘garbage’ comment. “I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for,” she told the BBC, promising that, if elected, she would be “a president for all Americans, including those that don’t vote for me.” Both Republicans and Democrats have increasingly accused each other of resorting to hateful rhetoric throughout the highly contentious election cycle, as voters are set to go to the polls on November 5. Trump himself has been criticized for using brash and vulgar language against his opponents, most recently for describing his rivals as an “enemy from within.”

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“..looking forward versus back..”

Final Messaging of Trump and Harris Are Polar Opposites (Whedon)

In the campaign’s final days, former President Donald Trump is campaigning on a vision for the nation’s future while Vice President Kamala Harris seems to be looking back four years to rehash Democratic grievances over his election challenge, and reverting from a campaign based on “joy” to calling Trump and his supporters “fascists” and even “Nazis.” Harris held a rally Tuesday on The Ellipse, the same site where Trump delivered his own address on Jan. 6, 2021, which Democrats have characterized as an attempt to incite an “insurrection.” During her speech, Harris recalled Trump’s time in office and called on voters to “turn the page” on the era of his political ubiquity. She further painted Trump as a purveyor of division, recalling his remarks about “the enemy within,” and urged Americans to “turn the page on the drama and the conflict, the fear and division […] It is time for a new generation of leadership in America,” she said, warning that Trump would walk into the Oval Office with an “enemies list.”

Her speech followed years of Democrats labeling Trump a “threat to Democracy” and a “fascist” and came amid media outcry over his Madison Square Garden rally. Legacy media and Democrats alike drew comparisons between Trump’s event and a 1939 Nazi rally held at the same venue. That venue, ignored by mainstream media, was also home to rallies held by Presidents Hoover, Truman and John F. Kennedy, where Marilyn Monroe sang a salacious rendition of “Happy Birthday” to JFK. Jan. 6, meanwhile, has long been a focus of the Harris campaign, and featured heavily in events featuring former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., who served on the House panel that investigated that incident. Attracting backlash at the Madison Square Garden rally was comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, an insult comic who made a joke about Puerto Rico upon which the Harris campaign and media seized as validation of Trump’s supposed racism and admiration for Adolf Hitler.

The theme of Trump as a fascist and threat to democracy, especially in light of Jan. 6, has essentially become the campaign’s final message to the American voters, but many doubt that it will resonate with the electorate. In a recent Emerson College survey, 45.2% of respondents said that the economy was the most important issue of the election compared to only 13.7% who chose “threats to democracy” as a most salient issue. A further 14.4% chose immigration and 7.2% picked abortion access. Healthcare rounded out the top five with 5.9%. A CBS survey, however, suggests that “democracy” may be more than just a minority issue, albeit one that doesn’t split on partisan lines. Seventy-one percent of respondents identified “the state of democracy” as a “major factor” in their vote. But the economy again overshadowed the issue as 84% labeled it a “major factor” and 76% said the same of “inflation” on its own. Trump, for his part, has heavily emphasized economic concerns in the final push, even debuting a new proposal during his Sunday rally to provide a new tax credit for family members taking care of parents or other relatives.

“[W]hat Trump’s overall closing message has been, which if you look at what he’s saying and you look at his paid ads… it’s really mostly about the economy and about immigration and about how we can have a more optimistic future in America.” CNN’s Scott Jennings said amid media furor over Hinchcliffe.. In a press conference on Tuesday, the former president said that Harris had opted to double down on the Nazi narrative and continue to focus on Jan. 6 because “her record is horrible” and she can’t focus on the issues that matter to Americans because of it. “I’m running on a plan to save America,” Trump said during a Tuesday press conference. “It’s going to be saving it from the incredible destruction that’s been caused by crooked Joe Biden and Kamala.”

“So when Kamala Harris was doing the CNN town hall last week, and she was asked a question that might be about Hitler or January 6, I understand if she includes in her answer something about Hitler on January 6,” said former Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., on the “John Solomon Reports” podcast. “But when you get asked questions about the economy and the border and you’re still answering about Hitler and January 6, you don’t deserve to win, because … you’re being handed what should be a softball question.” “You should walk into that town hall. You should walk into that town hall hungry to answer it. ‘Oh my gosh. I can’t wait until they ask about the economy, because I’m so proud of my record and I’m so proud of my ideas that I can’t wait to tell people everything that we’re working on.’ Instead, when you actually get to that point of a town hall or an interview, Kamala Harris is, you know, she still is like, oh my gosh, let me figure out how to answer this in some word salad. It’s about Hitler and January 6. It doesn’t work.”

In the meantime, there is little to suggest that Harris’s messaging or outrage at Hinchcliffe’s jokes have moved the needle in her favor. Polymarket betting odds currently favor Trump to win the presidency over Harris by a 66.9% to 33.1% margin. The current figure represents an increase in Trump’s odds since Sunday and marks his highest odds against Harris in months. He also currently leads Harris in the RealClearPolitics polling average by 0.4%. At the state level, Trump currently leads in every swing state, save Michigan, a modest decline from his recent high that had him winning every key battleground.

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“..fraudulently games Community Notes with sock puppet accounts and astroturf tactics..”

Harris Campaign Manipulating Social Media – Researcher (RT)

Kamala Harris’ and Tim Walz’s campaign staff have organized “astroturf” operations on the social media platform Reddit and conspired to manipulate the Community Notes feature on X, according to an American researcher. “Astroturfing” is a term used to describe manufactured content posing as authentic, named after the artificial soil used at American sporting venues, as opposed to real, “grassroots” support. The Harris-Walz campaign “fraudulently games Community Notes with sock puppet accounts and astroturf tactics. And we have the screenshots and spreadsheets and campaign comms to prove it,” Sean Davis, founder of the outlet Federalist, posted on Wednesday. Davis was citing a series of articles by a researcher going by the handle ‘Reddit Lies’, including screenshots taken from the Harris-Walz server on the messaging platform Discord, purporting to show how the Democrats conspired to swamp social media with their content, while suppressing criticism.

In one example, Democratic National Committee employee Timothy Durigan instructed campaign volunteers to vote down a Community Note that flagged a post by the @KamalaHQ account as inaccurate. The Community Notes project was rolled out by Elon Musk after he purchased Twitter – since renamed X – in 2022, as a way to flag inaccurate or misleading posts without resorting to censorship. According to ‘Reddit Lies’, multiple official Harris-Walz accounts have “regularly provided dishonest presentations” of their rivals, former President Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance, to the point where even CNN called them out. Yet “virtually none” of their “false and misleading tweets” have Community Notes – most likely because of a coordinated campaign to vote them down, the researcher said.

The Harris-Walz Discord has a “Twitter (X) Community Notes Training” module, which teaches users how to increase their score and urges them to downrank notes that call out inaccurate claims by Democrats, according to screenshots published by the Federalist. While the campaign may have had success in keeping Community Notes off their misleading posts, it has not been able to manipulate the system to the extent it wanted, ‘Reddit Lies’ said, citing a post in which one of the organizers lamented X’s safeguards. The campaign also appears to be using a tool called Reach to propagate its messages across multiple platforms, running afoul of “coordinated inauthentic behavior” bans intended to stop ‘Russian bots’ that the Democrats allege have interfered in US elections.

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“The campaign had seen a North Carolina-Nevada combo as a potential game-saving offset in the event Trump were to win Pennsylvania. Now, North Carolina seems to fading out of reach..”

Harris Campaign Slashes North Carolina Ads As Dems’ Turnout Plunges (ZH)

North Carolina may no longer be a swing state: With under a week to go until Election Day, the Kamala Harris campaign just slashed its planned advertising in the state. Some see the move as a surrender in the face of surging Republican turnout and plunging Democratic turnout in early voting there. According to AdImpact, a political intelligence firm, on Monday the Harris-Walz campaign reserved $2.7 million worth of ads in North Carolina for the last stretch of the campaign, only to turn around and kill more than $2 million of its reservations on Tuesday. Though Harris is following through on a scheduled Raleigh rally on Wednesday morning — while Trump is holding his own event in Rocky Mount, NC — her campaign managers’ hopes of winning North Carolina’s 16 electoral votes have likely plunged as daily updates of early voting numbers continue to paint a grim picture of her prospects in the Tar Heel State.

The 2020 vs 2024 contrast in early voting patterns is striking. Compared to the same time four years ago, North Carolina Democrats have cast 341,000 fewer votes, while Republicans have cast 9,000 more, noted Andy Jackson of the Raleigh-based John Locke Foundation. Aside from the party mix, North Carolina is also seeing lower turnout among two traditional Democratic voter blocs: young people and blacks. In 2020, 92% of the state’s black voters backed Biden. Across the country, however, black support of Trump is surging. Earlier this month, political analyst Mark Halperin told Tucker Carlson that, despite Harris’ bullishness on North Carolina, reliable Republicans told him North Carolina was firmly on the Trump side of the scoresheet:

Last week, an unnamed Harris campaign official conceded that things were starting to look bleak in North Carolina, telling NBC News, “Of all of the seven [swing states], that one seems to be a little bit slipping away.” The campaign had seen a North Carolina-Nevada combo as a potential game-saving offset in the event Trump were to win Pennsylvania. Now, North Carolina seems to fading out of reach, while early voting turnout patterns in Nevada also have Democrats sweating. In this scenario, if Trump wins North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona, he’d only need 8 more electoral votes from the four remaining swing states to reach the winning 270:

While early voting numbers paint a grim Democratic picture, opinion polls continue to portray the North Carolina race as a tight one. The most recent poll, via AtlasIntel, has Harris leading 49% to 48%. Trafalgar’s latest survey shows Trump leading 49% to 46%. In 2020, Trump won North Carolina, beating Joe Biden 49.9% to 48.6%. Going into early voting, there was considerable concern among Republicans that turnout in GOP-dominated western North Carolina would be smothered by the devastation visited upon the region by Hurricane Helene — so much so that the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, Maryland Rep. Andy Harris, mused that North Carolina’s legislature should consider awarding the state’s electoral votes to Trump no matter what the election’s outcome is.

However, in another Democrat-jarring early-voting dynamic, “Turnout in the 13 counties hardest hit by Helene is slightly HIGHER than in the rest of the state,” said election expert Jackson. According to a new Elon University poll, only 24% of North Carolina Republicans say that state and federal agencies are doing a “very good” or “good” job handling recovery efforts, compared to 68% of Democrats — who are less likely to live in the affected zone. As an increasingly weakened Harris campaign staggers to the finish line, what will be the next shoe to drop?

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“..Israel should end the war “fast… because they are getting decimated with this [negative] publicity.”

Trump Told Netanyahu To End War – Israeli Media (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he wants the war in Gaza over before he takes office in January, assuming he wins next week’s presidential election, the Times of Israel reported on Wednesday. Trump made the demand to Netanyahu when the pair met at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in July, the Israeli news site reported, citing “a former Trump administration official and an Israeli official.” Four months before the meeting, Trump told the Israel Hayom news outlet that “you have to finish up your war,” calling the destruction of civilian homes in Gaza “a very bad picture for the world.” Trump, who often touts his close relationship with Netanyahu and his support for Israel, said a week before the meeting that Israel should end the war “fast… because they are getting decimated with this [negative] publicity.”

In his public statements, Trump has never set a timeline for Netanyahu to cease military operations. The officials who spoke to the Times of Israel stressed that Trump did not define what he would consider an end to the conflict, with the American source saying the Republican could very well support “residual” activity by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Gaza. Netanyahu has repeatedly stated that the IDF will continue to wage war until it achieves “total victory” over Hamas, and that Israel will maintain “full security control” over the strip afterwards. Speaking to lawmakers from his Likud party earlier this week, Netanyahu said that he “can’t agree” to Hamas’ demand that the IDF withdraw from Gaza in exchange for the release of the roughly 100 hostages still held by the Palestinian militants. Any pre-inauguration day victory, the American official said, must include the release of these hostages.

Further complicating matters is the fact that Netanyahu’s hardline coalition partners have signaled multiple times since last October that they would withdraw from government – tanking Netanyahu’s political career – at the first sign of any ceasefire with Hamas. “There are internal political constraints to ending the war quickly,” an Israeli security official told the Times of Israel earlier this month, apparently referring to this possibility. Despite his pro-Israel stance, Trump has made inroads with Arab-American voters by promising to end the fighting in Gaza and Lebanon. In a social media post on Wednesday aimed at Lebanese-Americans, Trump declared that the conflict in their homeland was “caused by Kamala Harris and Joe Biden,” and said that he would ensure “your friends and family in Lebanon… live in peace, prosperity, and harmony with their neighbors.”

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“It’s a runaway train and they hate it because they’re ideologically opposed to Trump being more popular..”

Rogan Rages At YouTube Censorship: “You Can’t Suppress Shit… ” (ZH)

“If you Google’d Rogan-Trump you could only get clips, you couldn’t find the full episode,” exclaimed Joe Rogan this afternoon, after numerous reports of censorship/suppression of his legendary interview with former President Trump on YouTube. “We reached out to them,” he continued, “and they fixed it,” but, he went on “Elon was furious and contacted Daniel Ek at Spotify and they put it on X as well. Now it has more views than ever.” In fact, on top of the unknown tens of millions who watched/listened to it on Spotify, almost 20 million people have watched the Rogan-Trump interview on X now……and a further 41 million on YouTube… Rogan forthrightly explained to those who will not listen: “You can’t suppress shit. It doesn’t work. People are going to realize what you’re doing.

“This is 2024. “If my video isn’t trending, then what is? Why is my video not trending? If one show has 36 million downloads in one day, that’s not trending? There’s no way this was a mistake. It could have been a rogue engineer or something.” We suspect Rogan is being generous with that thought. “They’re desperate because they had no idea it was going to be that popular. It’s a runaway train and they hate it because they’re ideologically opposed to Trump being more popular. Mass reporting could also have done it, but that’s a symptom of the left too.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1851751389858541792

Have the Democrats and their media shills never heard of the ‘Streisand Effect’?

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“A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces, by far.”

NYTimes Journos Uncover Elon Musk’s Secret Luxury Compound In Austin (ZH)

The world’s richest man and Donald Trump’s most prominent supporter has reportedly acquired two mansions in Austin, Texas, within walking distance of each other, paying upwards of $35 million for the villas to support his growing family (of which there are at least 11). Nosy New York Times journalists, citing sources and public records … were the first to report that Musk acquired two mansions in Austin, all within walking distance of each, for $35 million. They said one of the mansions was a 14,400-square-foot mansion resembling a Tuscan home. The other home was directly behind it. Sources told the NYTimes there was a third mansion about a 10-minute walk away—this is the home Musk usually stays at while in Austin. NYT journos wrote:

“Three mansions, three mothers, 11 children and one secretive, multibillionaire father who obsesses about declining birthrates when he isn’t overseeing one of his six companies: It is an unconventional family situation, and one that Mr. Musk seems to want to make even bigger.” Musk moved to Austin after dumping his California mansions and shifted his companies, SpaceX, Tesla, and the Boring Company, to Texas. This decision was primarily because Governor Gavin Newsom and far-left Democrats ruined California with backfiring progressive policies that sparked a tidal wave of violent crime. Plus, business conditions in the state are atrocious compared with Texas. In Musk’s mind, imploding global fertility rates are the biggest crisis of our lifetime: “A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces, by far.”

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“..the website “is controlled by far-left activists” and that “people should stop donating to them.”

Wikipedia Is ‘Broken’ – Musk (RT)

Wikipedia is “broken,” X and Tesla owner Elon Musk wrote on Tuesday, commenting on accusations that the online encyclopedia allows articles which essentially brand Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump a “fascist.” The billionaire, who recently offered his full support to the previous US president ahead of the November election, highlighted an article called ‘Wikipedia Editors Officially Deem Trump a Fascist’ by American writer Ashley Rindsberg. The article published on Pirate Wires drew attention to several Wikipedia entries, including ‘Trumpism’, ‘Racial views of Donald Trump’, and ‘Donald Trump and fascism’, noting that the latter page appeared on the same day that The Guardian published a 4,000-word essay called “Is Donald Trump a Fascist?” alluding to many similar points.

The page ‘Donald Trump and fascism’ also contains some of the more pointed accusations against the Republican, including comparisons between the January 6 attack by the then president’s supporters on Capitol Hill and the Beer Hall Putsch, a failed coup attempt by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in 1923. Rindsberg noted that the ‘Trumpism’ Wikipedia page writes that the supposed ideology “has significant authoritarian leanings,” and is “national-populist” and “neo-nationalist” in essence while relying on “a source that argues exactly the opposite.” He added that some of the key quotes in the ‘Trumpism’ article are sourced to late sociologist Richard Lachmann, who was described as a “committed leftist” and “an anti-imperialist.”

Commenting on Rindsberg’s article, Musk wrote on X: “Wikipedia is broken.” He previously claimed that the website “is controlled by far-left activists” and that “people should stop donating to them.” Musk’s criticism of Wikipedia comes after a June report by the Manhattan Institute found that some English-language articles tended to associate right-wing leaders more often with words correlated with negative emotions as “anger” and “disgust.” This apparent bias, the researchers added, is also influencing automatic responses given by AI large language models.

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“The ruling applies only to Virginia’s “systematic” effort to remove noncitizens that began after Aug. 7..”

US Supreme Court Lets Virginia Purge Noncitizens From Voter Rolls (ZH)

The US Supreme Court has granted a request by Virginia officials to move forward with its removal of roughly 1,600 alleged noncitizens from the state’s voter rolls – granting a request from state officials to pause a lower court order that blocked Virginia from continuing a systematic voter removal program launched in August. “The application for stay presented to The Chief Justice and by him referred to the Court is granted. The October 25, 2024 order of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia … is stayed pending the disposition of the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit…” reads the order, which passed by a vote of 6-3. As the Epoch Times noted on Monday, the application was filed in the case known as Beals v. Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights. The application was directed to Chief Justice John Roberts, who oversees emergency litigation from Virginia.

The lead applicant, Susan Beals, is Virginia’s Commissioner of Elections. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit found unanimously on Oct. 27 that taking the names off the voter rolls within 90 days of an approaching federal election appears to violate the National Voter Registration Act. Federal elections are scheduled for Nov. 5. The Supreme Court previously held in Purcell v. Gonzalez (2006) that courts should not change rules close to an election because doing so creates a risk of causing confusion. Virginia counters that the legal provision is not relevant because the names being removed are not those of U.S. voters. But “that argument violates basic principles of statutory construction by focusing on a differently worded statutory provision that is not at issue here and proposing a strained reading of the Quiet Period Provision to avoid rendering that other provision absurd or unconstitutional,” the Fourth Circuit said.

Such an interpretation would be problematic because it would give the words “voters” and “registrant” an identical meaning, the circuit court said. Moreover, Virginia had not demonstrated its appeal was likely to succeed or that it would suffer irreparable harm should the appeal be denied, the circuit court said as it affirmed an Oct. 25 ruling by U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles. Giles wrote that Virginia was still free to cancel the voter registration of noncitizens individually or to investigate “noncitizens who register to vote or who vote in Virginia’s election.” The ruling applies only to Virginia’s “systematic” effort to remove noncitizens that began after Aug. 7, she added.

Nevada
https://twitter.com/i/status/1851305139560464660

Dominion
https://twitter.com/i/status/1851618753860993201

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“The driver’s transcript, in addition to hundreds of witness interviews conducted by the J6 committee, still has not been made public.”

As Liz Cheney Slams Donald Trump, Her Integrity Comes Under Fire (Julie Kelly)

Liz Cheney, a staunch “Never Trump” former Republican representative, has joined Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in key swing states in the final days of the campaign to warn voters that Donald Trump does not respect the “rule of law” or the U.S. Constitution. “[When] you think about, what are you looking for in somebody you hire, you’re looking for somebody that you can trust, you’re looking for somebody who’s going to be responsible, who’s going to operate in good faith,” Cheney told the Detroit Economic Club on Oct. 22. But new evidence has emerged suggesting that Cheney may have unethically influenced crucial anti-Trump testimony while serving as vice chairman of the January 6 Committee that investigated the protest at the U.S. Capitol in 2021. At issue is Cheney’s collaboration with Cassidy Hutchinson, now 27, a former aide to then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

Hutchinson, who also is campaigning for Harris, is widely considered the committee’s “star” witness for her damning account of Trump’s alleged conduct on January 6. For nearly two hours during her June 28, 2022, televised appearance, Hutchinson explained her version of what happened before and after Trump’s speech at the Ellipse as the White House scrambled to respond to the escalating chaos at the Capitol. In one of the more explosive moments of that hearing, Cheney held up the handwritten draft of a tweet for President Donald Trump to post instructing protestors to disperse from the area. Cheney asked Hutchison if she had written the tweet, which was never posted. “That’s my handwriting,” replied Hutchinson, who said the words had been dictated to her by Meadows that afternoon around 3:00 p.m. A footnote in the committee’s final report stated that a “review of Hutchinson’s handwriting was consistent with the script of the note.”

The import of the testimony was clear: Hutchinson was not only an eyewitness but a key participant as events unfolded that day. But a certified handwriting analyst retained by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga), chairman of the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight, determined that Hutchinson did not write the note. The handwriting, according to the expert, belongs to Eric Herschmann, a Trump White House lawyer who had immediately contradicted Hutchinson’s testimony in 2022 and later provided several samples of his own handwriting to Loudermilk’s analyst. “The Select Committee was willing to take [Hutchinson] at her word, rather than checking into the facts. The American people deserve the truth,” Loudermilk said. [..]

This latest disclosure by Loudermilk – who is conducting separate inquiries into the events of Jan. 6 and the now defunct J6 select committee – appears to represent another example of Cheney’s questionable involvement on the committee, particularly related to Hutchinson. Loudermilk unearthed text messages on an encrypted chat app between Cheney and Hutchinson prior to her public testimony, which represented the fifth time Hutchinson testified before the committee; she had already sat for transcribed interviews in February, March, May, and on June 20, 2022. On June 6, 2022, Hutchinson texted Cheney using Signal, asking “to have a private conversation with you,” according to information released by the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight.

They were connected by Alyssa Farah Griffin, a one-time co-worker of Hutchinson and also a witness before the committee who now appears on “The View.” The texts appear to indicate Cheney and Hutchinson spoke on the phone shortly after that initial outreach. Hutchinson dismissed her attorney at the time, former White House deputy general counsel Stefan Passantino, a few days later. Passantino had represented Hutchinson and was paid to do so by Trump’s Save America PAC. Two Cheney-recommended lawyers, Jody Hunt and William Jordan, soon agreed to represent Hutchinson pro bono. Cheney, a lawyer who is a member of the Washington D.C. bar, appeared to know her communications violated ethics guidelines about communicating with witnesses behind their lawyer’s back. A text from Farah Griffin to Hutchinson acknowledged a “concern” that Cheney “can’t really ethically talk to you without [Passantino.]”

But Hutchinson did more than just change lawyers; in several instances, she changed her story from her previous testimony. During her televised testimony, which committee staffers later described as an “emergency” event initiated by Cheney, Hutchinson re-enacted an alleged confrontation between Trump, his driver, and the head of his security detail in the presidential vehicle following his speech at the Ellipse. Under questioning led by Cheney, Hutchinson said Trump became “irate” upon being told it was not safe to go to the Capitol after he advised his supporters to march there “peacefully and patriotically.” Trump, according to Hutchinson’s second-hand account, attempted to grab the steering wheel of the vehicle. “Mr. Trump then used his free hand to lunge toward [Head of Security] Bobby Engel,” Hutchinson said as she recounted a conversation she purportedly had with Tony Ornato, the deputy White House chief of staff at the time, after the incident.

Her testimony rocked the political world, with legal analysts from across the spectrum insisting that the story would doom Trump. Others expressed skepticism, prompting Cheney to defend her witness. “I am absolutely confident in her credibility, I am confident in her testimony, and the committee is not going to stand by and watch her character be assassinated by anonymous sources,” Cheney told ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl on June 30, 2022. But no one in the White House corroborated Hutchinson’s version of events. To the contrary, Ornato said the first time he heard of any confrontation in the presidential vehicle was during Hutchinson’s testimony. “I recall, that day after Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony, going to the Secret Service Counsel and being in his office and then the Secret Service spokesperson asking me about my recollection was of that story.

And I relayed that that is not a story I recollect and I don’t recall that story happening,” Ornato told Cheney, who asked about the incident. And during the committee’s questioning of the unnamed Secret Service driver, investigators didn’t ask about the alleged incident. The subject was discussed only after the driver’s attorney “proactively” brought it up, according to a report by Loudermilk’s committee, prompting the driver to tell the committee that he “[President Trump] never grabbed the steering wheel. [President Trump] never grabbed the steering wheel. I didn’t see him, you know, lunge to try to get into the front seat at all.” The driver’s transcript, in addition to hundreds of witness interviews conducted by the J6 committee, still has not been made public.

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“One of the biggest games, the easy money games in America and in the West right now is promoting this unregulated globalism..”

Who are the Big Money Players Supporting the Candidates? (Sp.)

Fifty megadonors have collectively poured over $2.5 billion into political committees and other organizations supporting Democrats and Republicans, according to The Washington Post. Individual megadonors have played “an outsized role” in the 2024 presidential race, Axios reports. “What the donors expect in return is influence,” Jim Rogers, renowned investor, chairman of Beeland Interests, and co-founder of Quantum Fund, told Sputnik. “And if they need something or think they need something from the government, they think that they will be able to contact the government, contact someone and get what they need. If you pay a lot of money, you expect to get something in return.” Billionaires Bill Gates and Mike Bloomberg gave $50 million each to support Kamala Harris, while Tesla CEO Elon Musk has given almost $75 million to PACs supporting Trump.

Businessman Timothy Mellon poured a whopping $125 million into the super PAC Make America Great Again. Nonetheless, Harris is leading Trump by over two-to-one in terms of fundraising and spending. “In the period 1988 to the present, the emergence of unregulated globalism has created an opportunity for big investors to really not just curry favor with big governments, but to basically pick and choose leaders and key officials in these governments, either to protect themselves from prosecution or to put themselves in a position where they can reap large financial rewards off of their government connections,” Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel told Sputnik. Referring to the Biden and Clinton families’ suspected influence peddling schemes, the analyst noted that “it’s relatively cheap to send $20 million, $100 million, even $250 million towards a politician, if that politician can turn around and help a big company turn $2 trillion into $4 trillion.”

Kamala Harris has raised around $1 billion since July, when she was endorsed by George and Alex Soros, BlackRock co-founder Ralph Schlosstein, and Evercore founder Roger Altman. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon also expressed his full support for Kamala in private, according to The New York Times. BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has long played a substantial role in Democratic administrations, with the company’s employees serving in the US government under both Barack Obama and Joe Biden. “One of the biggest games, the easy money games in America and in the West right now is promoting this unregulated globalism where there is no power strong enough to obstruct a multinational company or investors or multinational companies from profiting off of their ties to these various government actors,” Ortel stressed. Alphabet Inc., Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, and Meta top the list of Kamala Harris’ campaign donors, according to OpenSecrets.

Silicon Valley tycoons have also flocked to support Harris: Facebook* co-founder Dustin Moskovitz gave $30 million to the Harris campaign while co-founder of Opsware Ben Horowitz donated $2.5 million. “The Republican Party is no longer the party of the rich,” Ortel noted. “The Democratic Party out of Silicon Valley and the neo-monopolies created there – they have the money, which is very different than it was in the 1980s under Reagan and under Bush.” While Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and Hollywood have thrown their weight behind Harris, US industries and defense contractors have largely supported Donald Trump, according to OpenSecrets and financial tech startup Quiver Quantitative. Trump is famous for huge military spending and benefits to domestic industrial giants. In 2018, he signed what at the time was seen as the largest military budget in US history, worth $700 billion. Still, Boeing reportedly provided Harris with a bigger chunk of donations.

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“The stakes are high, because they want Hungary to abandon its sovereign [politics] and fully submit to the will of the leadership in Brussels..”

EU Wants to Subdue Hungary by Replacing Viktor Orban With Their Protege (Sp.)

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban accused European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and President of the European People’s Party (EPP) Manfred Weber of colluding to oust him and install their own puppet government in Budapest. “Brussels is colluding with [Prime Minister] Viktor Orban’s liberal-social-democratic opposition in Hungary and is trying to pull the ground from under its feet in the parliamentary elections due in 2026,” Endre Simo, the president of the Hungarian Community for Peace (Magyar Békekör), told Sputnik. “Under the leadership of Ursula von der Leyen and Manfred Weber, we can witness Brussels’ serious political interference in Hungary,” he added. Simo noted Weber’s support for Peter Magyar, leader of “the presumably foreign-funded” opposition party Tisza, began before the June European Parliament elections. Weber asserted on October 9 that Orban would eventually be defeated by Magyar, with Hungary’s general elections scheduled for April 2026.

Orban came to prominence for advocating conservative values and national sovereignty, which was lambasted by the EU as a threat to the bloc’s unity and democracy. He also: • rejected EU migrant quotas and built a fence along its border with Serbia and Croatia in 2015 amid the European immigrant crisis • cracked down on a George Soros-funded university and other foreign NGOs over interference in Hungarian affairs in 2018 • blamed anti-Russia sanctions imposed by the EU after the beginning of the special military operation in Ukraine for the European energy crisis, and said they should be scrapped • opposed Ukraine’s accession to NATO and the EU, stressing that Ukraine should be a neutral buffer zone between Russia and the West – with security guarantees • opposed the bloc’s militarization of Ukraine and repeatedly blocked EU aid packages to the Kiev regime, arguing that arming Ukraine brings Europe “closer to destruction” • embarked on a peace mission tour to Russia, China and Ukraine in July 2024.

According to Simo, Tisza appears to be “a promising opposition formation for all anti-Russian domestic and international forces” that fully supports the policy of the European Union, including its proxy war in Ukraine. By contrast, Orban is seeking peace, the pundit says. “Viktor Orban’s government wants to live in peace with Russia,” Simo says. “It firmly rejects Brussels’ efforts to defeat Russia militarily and with sanctions, and to this end to continue providing military and financial support to Ukraine.” In his speech to the EU parliament in October, Orban presented his priorities for the Hungarian presidency of the EU and called for “changes”. “He ranked peace first, economic efficiency second, and the review of the EU’s immigration policy,” Simo said. Predictably, Orban’s speech was met with harsh criticism from von der Leyen and Weber. “The stakes are high, because they want Hungary to abandon its sovereign [politics] and fully submit to the will of the leadership in Brussels,” the pundit warned.

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“..how else would we get reparations?”

Ties With Russia ‘Absolutely Necessary’ – Ex-Ukrainian President (RT)

Ukraine will need to renew ties with Russia in order to seek compensation when the armed conflict between the two is over, the country’s former president Leonid Kuchma has argued. Asked during an interview with Interfax Ukraine on Monday whether economic contacts with Russia would be possible anytime soon, tformer head of state said they would be “absolutely necessary,” because “how else would we get reparations?”. Considering Russia’s geographic location and rich mineral resources, regular commerce is possible in the future, he added. But Russia must “change its aggressive imperialist psychology” first, Kuchma claimed, adding that he does not expect that to happen. Kiev and its Western backers have described the Ukraine conflict as a ‘Russian imperial conquest’.

Moscow denies that, pointing to the US-led proxy war triggered by NATO’s expansion in Europe and Ukrainian discrimination against ethnic Russians. In February, an economic adviser to Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky claimed Kiev would seek roughly $1 trillion in damages from Russia. Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmigal also suggested a sum of sum $750 billion last year. The US has warned that the $300 billion in Russian national assets frozen by the West since 2022 will not be released until Moscow agrees to pay reparations. Meanwhile Russia is considering potential claims against Ukraine, senior diplomat Rodion Miroshnik said this month. Regional officials previously estimated damages in the range from hundreds of millions of dollars to $145 billion.

The latter is what Kiev allegedly owes Crimea for attacks since 2014 when voters in the region rejected an armed coup in Kiev and voted to join Russia. Kuchma, who led Ukraine from 1994 to 2005, stated that his government forged good relations with neighboring nations by meeting “each other halfway instead of bumping heads”, he mused. The ex-president argued that if his successors followed his example and showed flexibility in relations with Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban would have been more supportive of Ukraine now. After the 2014 Maidan coup, Kiev sought to suppress all languages except Ukrainian in the public sphere. Orban has accused Ukraine of infringing on the rights of the ethnic Hungarian minority living in the west of the country.

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Fruit loops

 

 

Brick

 

 

Street art
https://twitter.com/i/status/1851508647261614483

 

 

Seahorse
https://twitter.com/i/status/1851704401146318858

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Sep 242024
 
 September 24, 2024  Posted by at 8:33 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  61 Responses »


René Magritte Where Euclid walked 1955

 

The Madness of Antony Blinken (Lauria)
Wheezing Past the Graveyard (Kunstler)
“Have The Doors To A War Without Limits Been Opened?” (Alastair Crooke)
DoJ Releases Trump Assassin’s $150,000 Reward To “Complete The Job” Letter (ZH)
The Supreme Crisis of Chief Justice John Roberts (Turley)
Musk’s X Caves In To Brazil (RT)
Dear Readers, Tyranny Is Upon Us (Paul Craig Roberts)
West Has Halved Financial Aid To Ukraine (RT)
Ukraine Conflict Could Persist Beyond 2026 – UK FM (RT)
Zelensky Has Chosen Escalation – Moscow (RT)
Zelensky Aiming To ‘Trump-proof’ Aid – The Times (RT)
New Car Registration Levels Crashing In EU (RT)
Macron Calls For New World Order (RT)
Erdogan Weighs In On Failure Of Türkiye-mediated Ukraine Talks (RT)
Will a BRICS Bretton Woods Take Place in Kazan? (Pepe Escobar)

 

 

 

 

Bret

 

 

RFK MAHA


https://twitter.com/i/status/1837904332827906457

 

 

JDVance

 

 

Vivek will be a force

 

 

Pelosi
https://twitter.com/i/status/1838099477221015938

 

 

Gaetz

 

 

Taxes
https://twitter.com/i/status/1838218305498149181

 

 

 

 

“Blinken and the British are trying to lead us to the brink.”

The Madness of Antony Blinken (Lauria)

On March 7, 2022, two weeks after Moscow entered the civil war in Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CBS News from Moldova that the U.S. would give NATO-member Poland a “green light” to send Mig-29 fighter jets to Ukraine to enforce a no-fly zone against Russian aircraft. U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer then also backed the no-fly zone. But within days the Pentagon shot down the idea as it engaged in a consequential battle with the State Department and members of Congress to prevent a direct NATO military confrontation with Russia that could unleash history’s most unimaginable horrors. A no-fly zone “could result in significant Russian reaction that might increase the prospects of a military escalation with NATO,” according to then Pentagon spokesman John Kirby. President Joe Biden was caught in the middle of the fray. Pressure on the White House from some members of Congress and the press corps was unrelenting to recklessly bring NATO directly into the war.

Biden ultimately sided with the Defense Department, and he couldn’t be more explicit why. He opposed a NATO no-fly zone over Ukraine fighting Russian aircraft, he said, because “that’s called World War III, okay? Let’s get it straight here, guys. We will not fight the third world war in Ukraine.” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin backed him up: “President Biden’s been clear that U.S. troops won’t fight Russia in Ukraine, and if you establish a no-fly zone, certainly in order to enforce that no-fly zone, you’ll have to engage Russian aircraft. And again, that would put us at war with Russia.” (The administration plan was, and apparently still is, to bring down the Russian government through a proxy counteroffensive and an economic and information war, not a direct military one.) Blinken, who stepped out of line to speak above the heads of the president and the Pentagon, lost that round. It’s surprising he kept his job. But he survived and now he’s come back for more.

Blinken’s recklessness emerged yet again last week when he peddled a story — eagerly picked up by The Guardian and The New York Times — that Biden would approve a British request to fire its Storm Shadow missiles deep into Russia. The Guardian story on Sept. 11 said: “The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, gave his strongest hint yet that the White House is about to lift its restrictions on Ukraine using long-range weapons supplied by the west on key military targets inside Russia, with a decision understood to have already been made in private. Speaking in Kyiv alongside the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, Blinken said the US had ‘from day one’ been willing to adapt its policy as the situation on the battlefield in Ukraine changed. ‘We will continue to do this,’ he emphasised.” To fire British Storm Shadows, Ukraine would have to depend on British technical soldiers on the ground in Ukraine to actually launch them and on U.S. geolocation technology.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz revealed those British soldiers are already in Ukraine. In other words, it would be a NATO attack on Russia, dressed up as a Ukrainian one. It would mean the U.S. and Britain were at war with Moscow, something Blinken seems to want and said was going to happen. The next day Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that launching such missiles into Russia “will mean that NATO countries — the United States and European countries — are at war with Russia. And if this is the case, then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.” Nevertheless, The New York Times ran a story on the same day with the headline: “Biden Poised to Approve Ukraine’s Use of Long-Range Western Weapons in Russia.”

The Guardian added: “British government sources indicated that a decision had already been made to allow Ukraine to use Storm Shadow cruise missiles on targets inside Russia, although it is not expected to be publicly announced on Friday when Starmer meets Biden in Washington DC.” Blinken’s words evidently raised British Prime Minister Keir Starmer‘s hopes that he would satisfy his desire to strike Russia with his nation’s arsenal of long-range missiles, despite Putin saying that meant direct war with NATO. Blinken and the British are trying to lead us to the brink.

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“Ukraine was not a problem for anyone until we made it a problem on-purpose.. [..] Ukraine could, in theory, revert to not being a problem for anyone again. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”

Wheezing Past the Graveyard (Kunstler)

What could go wrong? Probably more than you might imagine. We have just turned the corner into autumn. Now, things get serious, even gravely dark. America has never been so into dancing skeletons and morbidity. The small-town yards are filling up with inflatable signifiers of hell and death. Don’t you wonder what all this signifies besides good old family fun? The zeitgeist maybe having a little sport with us, you think? We are chiefly preoccupied with our badly dysfunctional self-governance, of course, and the method for periodically revising it, which we call an election. Nobody has confidence in the process, which has acquired so many layers of absurd, needless complexity for the sole purpose of perverting the outcome that every lawyer in the land will have a hefty guaranteed annual income in the probably futile effort to sort it out come November 6. There is your hell-scape, with overtones of death on a pale horse. . . and all. Chaos. . . riots. . . anarchy. . . civil war.

The threat of World War Three may have abated for the moment, but in a peculiar and disconcerting way, viz. a coup in the executive branch. The gadfly Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, long ago chief-of-staff to Sec’y of State Colin Powell, reports that the Pentagon has cancelled “Joe Biden,” that is, taken him out of the decision-loop for anything. Well, you ask yourself, how is it possible he had even remained remotely close to any decision-loop this long, in any case, given the problem of his obviously broken brain? But now, it is unofficially official: just eat your mint-chocolate ice-cream and shut up, and let Dr. Jill run those “cabinet meeting” photo ops.According to Col. Wilkerson, Sec’y of Defense Lloyd Austin told the “president” to his face that there will be no flinging of US-supplied long-range missiles from Ukraine “deep into Russia,” as the neocon-infested White House been chattering about endlessly.

Wiser heads deep in the DOD HQ have decided the matter. Lump it, if you must, Tony Blinken and Jake Sullivan. The Russians’ “red-line” on such a caper is so wide you can see it from the International Space Station — that is, if you’re an astronaut marooned up there due to combined NASA/Boeing incompetence. . . but that’s another story. Meanwhile, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer was all revved up for the missile operation and flew to Washington for a one-to-one meet-up with “JB” to get the go-ahead. The Brits are avid for another World War. The last two went so well for them that they kissed their vast empire goodbye. Now they want to kiss goodbye their sceptered isle itself, which has almost no economy left and is overrun by cultural hostiles who are not into Shakespeare.

The Brits’ floundering government is a posse of monomaniacs fixated on defeating Russia which, at this point in history, is like a dormouse (Glis glis) facing down a brown bear (Ursus arctos). “Joe Biden,” reportedly “furious” at losing his executive power, was constrained to tell Mr. Starmer that the missile strike op was off, which left the UK PM miffed that he had crossed the ocean for no reason. Who knows, the Brits are so nuts these days that perhaps they’ll try to pull it off on their own. Mr. Zelensky, the no-longer-elected leader of Ukraine was begging them to try it because Ukraine has nothing left. NATO as a whole really has nothing left, either. Not much of a combined military, scant munitions left in the cupboard, and no will to wage war among the depressed citizens of its member nations.

There is nothing left except to come to terms on a settlement that will leave Ukraine not a member of NATO. The entire affair has been a humiliation for NATO and America, especially for the “Joe Biden” management team (whatever it actually consists of these days). The longer they refuse to engage in talks, the less of Ukraine will be left as a sovereign entity — having proven to the world that its sovereignty rests solely on its capacity to be used as a catspaw by the American neocon / intel blob. You’re reminded that for seventy years prior to 2014, Ukraine was not a problem for anyone until we made it a problem on-purpose — our purpose being idiotic and malicious — and Ukraine could, in theory, revert to not being a problem for anyone again. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

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“It is probable that we shall see more such hypersonic missiles flying – immune to air defences – should this war escalate, and Iran intervene..”

“Have The Doors To A War Without Limits Been Opened?” (Alastair Crooke)

For the last year, both Israel and Hizbullah have avoided major escalation by observing unwritten rules of engagement or ‘equations’ between the parties, such as not targeting civilians. That is now over. In his first speech since the devices blew up on Tuesday and Wednesday, Sayed Nasrallah, the Hizbullah leader, conceded that his group had “endured a severe and cruel blow”. He accused Israel of breaking “all conventions and laws” and said that it would “face just retribution and a bitter reckoning”. But he did not describe how Hezbollah might retaliate; “nor did he discuss the time, nor manner, nor place” of it ocurring. Nasrallah warned: “The enemy declares as its official goal to return the settlers to the North. We accept the challenge: You will not be able to return to the North. In fact, we will displace more Israelis from their homes. We hope Israel enters Lebanon, we are waiting for their tanks day and night: We say, ‘welcome!’”.

There is some point to this remark. From the outset, Hizbullah was configured militarily more for all-out war with Israel, than the limited tit-for-tat, calibrated war – which never played best to Hizbullah’s strengths. Clearly, a new phase of war has begun, and to underline this point, Israel began one of its heaviest strikes on Israel after Nasrallah’s speech on Thursday night. U.S. Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin reportedly informed leaders of Congress that evening about his fear of an imminent Israeli offensive into Lebanon. Nasrallah’s assessment of coming war is fully shared by at least some senior Israeli military commanders, albeit by no means all. Several profess the belief that war with Hizbullah could extend into a regional war – and lead to the collapse of Israel. However … “You don’t do something like that, hit thousands of people, and think war is not coming”, said retired Brig. Gen. Amir Avivi, who leads the Israel Defence and Security Forum, a group of hawkish former military commanders.

“Why didn’t we do it for 11 months? Because we were not willing to go to war yet. What’s happening now? Israel is ready for war”. “There’s a lot of pressure from the society to go to war and win”, said Avivi, the retired general. “Unless Hezbollah tomorrow morning says, ‘OK, we got the message. We’re pulling out of south Lebanon’ – war is imminent”. A poll in late August by the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank, found that 67% of Jewish respondents thought Israel should intensify its response to Hizbullah. That includes 46% who believed that Israel should launch a deep offensive striking Lebanese infrastructure, and 21% who seek an intensified response that only strikes on Hezbollah’s infrastructure. General Avivi’s remarks likely reflect an underlying reality that had become only too clear: Amos Hochstein, the U.S. Envoy, has failed to achieve any ‘diplomatic’ progress towards a Hizbullah withdrawal from the south of Lebanon.

In parallel, U.S. officials, (according to the WSJ) now concede that a Gaza ceasefire is ‘out of reach’ for Biden; and that, equally, Israel’s military attrition on southern Lebanon that had resulted in the displacement of 80% of its inhabitants had achieved nothing. Israel’s northern residents also remain displaced. It seems, therefore, that Israel is set on a path to wider conflict. A taster has already been given: On 17 September, the Houthis fired a missile at a target close to Ben Gurion airport. The missile covered 1,300 miles in less than 12 min, which is to say, it flew at hypersonic speed, approaching Mach 9 – untouchable by air defences – and struck its target. It is probable that we shall see more such hypersonic missiles flying – immune to air defences – should this war escalate, and Iran intervene. What is paradoxical (as so often in conflict) is that the exploding pager operation seemingly was entirely fortuitous in terms of the timing. It was not planned specifically to move Israel to a new phase in the Lebanese conflict:

“High-level regional intelligence sources told Al-Monitor that the decision to carry out the operation was “forced” on Israel following an intelligence lapse … The Israeli military’s original plan was to explode the devices in the event of a full-blown war with Hezbollah in order to gain a strategic edge – but not to detonate them on Tuesday”, the sources added. “However suspicions from at least two Hezbollah members caused the Israeli security establishment to agree to a premature execution of the plan. After a Hezbollah member in Lebanon suspected foul play with the pagers several days ago – that person was killed, the sources said … [and the plan was] ultimately executed. The subsequent decision to trigger the radios to explode was said to be driven by the expectation that after the pager detonations the radios would fall under suspicion”.

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He smells too much like an intel asset. Doesn’t have a penny but moves to Hawaii. Yet, spends his time in Ukraine. Then offers $150,000 for a murder.

DoJ Releases Trump Assassin’s $150,000 Reward To “Complete The Job” Letter (ZH)

Former President Trump’s would-be assassin Ryan Wesley Routh wrote a chilling letter admitting he failed in trying to take the life of the former president, and offering a reward for anyone who can finish the job… The note was addressed to the “World” and reads: “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed you. I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster. It is up to you now to finish the job; and I will offer $150,000 to whomever can complete the job,” according to court papers. Routh dropped off a box at a person’s home that included the letter, the court documents state. As Jack Phillips reports at The Epoch Times, law enforcement officials were contacted on Sept. 18, or three days after he was arrested, by a person who said that Routh dropped off the box at his location in the months prior to the incident. The witness opened the box after learning of Routh’s arrest, finding ammunition, phones, and various letters.

Prosecutors said the note and other evidence found at the scene show a need for Routh to be detained while the government builds its case against him. A detention hearing is scheduled for Monday morning at a federal court in Florida. “Because the facts are offered for the limited purpose of supporting the United States’s request for pretrial detention, the facts in this written proffer do not set forth all of the information and evidence known to the United States in this ongoing investigation,” the court documents state. Prosecutors found “a notebook with dozens of pages filled with names and phone numbers pertaining to Ukraine, discussions about how to join combat on behalf of Ukraine.” “He [the former President] ended relations with Iran like a child and now the Middle East has unraveled,” Routh wrote in one of the documents, according to the court papers. “Everyone across the globe from the youngest to the oldest knows that Trump is unfit to be anything, much less U.S. president. U.S. presidents must at the bare miminum embody the moral fabric that is America and be kind, caring and selfless and always stand for humanity.”

Cellphone records from two of the recovered phones show that Routh traveled from Greensboro, North Carolina, to West Palm Beach on Aug. 14, 2024, prosecutors wrote. Further, on “multiple days and times from Aug. 18, 2024, to Sept. 15, 2024, Routh’s cellphone accessed cell towers located near Trump International and the former president’s residence at Mar-a-Lago,” the filing said. A cellphone that was recovered by authorities showed a Google search of how to travel from Palm Beach County, Florida, to Mexico. Federal officials also found a list with dates in August, September, and October as well as venues where the former president had appeared and was scheduled to appear, prosecutors say. During his first court appearance last week, Routh declared that he had no assets and only owned two trucks worth $1,000. In a 2023 book that apparently written by him, Routh also wrote that he had no bank account and no retirement savings.

Posts made by Routh on X and other social media sites show that he was an avid supporter of Ukraine in the ongoing Russia–Ukraine conflict, even posting images and videos of himself in Kyiv and other areas in Ukraine since the war started. He also made critical comments about the former president, including several in July that referenced the first assassination attempt. Routh faces federal firearms charges in connection to the Sept. 15 incident. Prosecutors say that Routh, 58, camped out near Trump’s Florida golf course for 12 hours before his gun barrel was spotted by a Secret Service agent, who then fired at the suspect before he fled the scene. Authorities also discovered an SKS-style rifle with 11 rounds, including one round in the chamber, according to the court papers. Officials previously said that the suspect did not fire any shots and had no direct line of sight to Trump, who was golfing at the time of the incident. The former president also was not harmed.

In July, Trump survived his first assassination attempt and was shot in the ear by a gunman who fired at a rally while he was speaking in Butler, Pennsylvania, prompting questions about the Secret Service’s ability to protect him. The FBI said that when its agents attempted to interview Routh after he was detained on Sept. 15, he invoked his right to an attorney. Routh has not entered a plea. Finally, Matt Walsh brings up a crucial point about the release of this letter: “They didn’t release the Covenant shooter manifesto because they were allegedly afraid it would inspire more shootings. And yet within a week they release a letter from Trump’s would-be assassin where he openly encourages more shootings and offers to pay for them.” Routh is set to appear in federal court on Monday for a detention hearing after the attempted assassination on September 15 at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach. Better keep an eye out for ‘Jack Ruby’-esque followers…

Routh

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“..calling for them to be more aggressive against the conservative justices and even calling for Congress to cut off their air conditioning to make them retire.”

The Supreme Crisis of Chief Justice John Roberts (Turley)

Chief Justice John Roberts has always been “a man more sinned against than sinning.” That line from Shakespeare’s “King Lear” seems increasingly apt for the head of our highest court. Roberts was installed almost exactly 20 years ago and soon found himself grappling with a series of controversies that have rocked the court as an institution. He is now faced with another monumental scandal, after the New York Times published leaked confidential information that could only have come from one of the nine members of the court. By most accounts, Roberts is popular with his colleagues and someone with an unquestioning institutional knowledge and loyalty. He is, in many respects, the ideal chief justice: engaging, empathetic, and unfailingly respectful of the court’s justices and staff. Roberts has been chief justice during some of the court’s most contentious times. Major decisions like overturning Roe v. Wade (which Roberts sought to avoid) have galvanized many against the court.

According to recent polling, fewer than half of Americans (47 percent) hold a favorable opinion of the court (51 percent have an unfavorable view). Of course, that level of support should inspire envy in the court’s critics in Congress (18 percent approval) and the media (which only 32 percent trust). Some, however, want to express their dissatisfaction more directly and even permanently. This week, Alaskan Panos Anastasiou, 76, was indicted with 22 federal charges for threatening to torture and kill the six conservative justices. Another man, Nicolas Roske, 28, will go on trial next June for attempting to assassinate Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh. In the meantime, law professors have rallied the mob, calling for them to be more aggressive against the conservative justices and even calling for Congress to cut off their air conditioning to make them retire.

Politicians have also fueled the rage against the court. On one infamous occasion, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) declared in front of the Supreme Court, “I want to tell you, [Neil] Gorsuch, I want to tell you, [Brett] Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price.” Yet, it is what has occurred inside the court that should be most troubling for Roberts. On May 2, 2022, someone inside the court leaked to Politico a copy of the draft of the opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturning Roe v. Wade. It was one of the greatest breaches of ethics in the court’s history. The subsequent investigation failed to produce any charges for the culprit or culprits. Now, the New York Times has published highly detailed accounts of the internal deliberations of the court. The account seemed largely directed at the conservative justices and Roberts.

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They appointed a legal representative. “Musk claimed that de Moraes threatened to arrest the company’s legal representative if X did not adhere to court orders…”

Musk’s X Caves In To Brazil (RT)

Social media platform X says it is moving to comply with demands issued by Brazil’s Supreme Court in hopes of reversing a nationwide ban ordered by Justice Alexandre de Moraes last month. For nearly three weeks, X has been inaccessible to Brazilian users. Using a VPN to access the site carries the threat of a fine of almost $9,000. That’s after de Moraes, the country’s top judge, banned the platform for failing to censor accounts that “spread disinformation.” The platform’s owner Elon Musk, a vocal advocate of free speech, has until now refused to back down, describing de Moraes’ orders as an attempt to censor voices on his platform and calling the justice “an evil dictator cosplaying as a judge.” However, on Friday, X’s legal representatives announced that the platform has taken steps to comply with the Brazilian court’s demands to help resolve the impasse and get the ban on the site lifted.

These steps include paying the fines X owes, blocking the accounts that de Moraes had previously accused of propagating misinformation and of undermining Brazilian democracy, and naming a legal representative in the country. Under Brazilian law, in order to operate in the country, foreign companies are required to have a representative who would assume all the legal responsibilities of the firm locally. X had such a representative until mid-August when it decided to close its offices and fire all its staff in the country. That was after Musk claimed that de Moraes threatened to arrest the company’s legal representative if X did not adhere to court orders.

On Saturday, Brazil’s Supreme Court confirmed X’s moves and gave the company five days to file all the necessary paperwork validating its new legal representative. It also reiterated its orders to block the accounts that had previously been indicated in a probe into hate speech and misinformation, and to pay fines totalling over $3 million. It’s unclear which particular accounts have been targeted, as the probe is confidential. The dispute between Musk and Brazilian authorities began in April when de Moraes ordered X to delete the accounts of several supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro, calling them “digital militants” who spread “disinformation” about himself and the court. Musk refused, saying this would violate Brazilian laws.

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“If you don’t support those who are opposing tyranny, tyranny is what you will have..”

Dear Readers, Tyranny Is Upon Us (Paul Craig Roberts)

Dear Readers, Truth is being dispelled from the Western World. Truth diminishes by the day. It is not only happening in America but also throughout America’s empire. In Great Britain it has become a criminal offense to protest Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians. In Germany it is a criminal offense to challenge Zionist history of the Second World War. In France if you are the owner of a social media site that permits free speech, you are detained, subject to investigation, and possibly indicted. In the United States if you challenge an official narrative you can be declared a domestic terrorist and have your passport and personal possessions confiscated. Of course, extremely few Americans do challenge official narratives. Americans learn to live a safe life by accepting whatever the authorities say. Don’t rock the boat and get in trouble. Do as your peers do. This well ingrained attitude is a recipe for tyranny, into which America is falling.

When you can’t tell the truth without bringing trouble upon yourself, there must be a reason: truth is dangerous to the authorities, so truth is demonized as disinformation, false news, Russian disinformation, espionage, offensive, racist, domestic terrorism. Little wonder that truth is disappearing from the Western World. It is certainly not welcome. The risk of saying it is growing. No university will support the truth. No foundation will support the truth. No official media will support the truth. No bar association, no medical association, no political party will support truth. Fewer and fewer courts will support the truth. Truth is on the verge of extinction. It is being replaced by official narratives. These official narratives are bringing you tyranny. If you don’t support those who are opposing tyranny, tyranny is what you will have. Tyranny is much closer than you think.

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” Just over a week ago, the Ukrainian government adopted its draft budget for 2025, indicating a deficit of 75%.”

West Has Halved Financial Aid To Ukraine (RT)

The flow of Western funds into Ukraine’s state budget has almost halved compared to last year, the Russian newspaper Vedomosti has calculated after reviewing data from Kiev’s Finance Ministry. Between January and June this year, the US and its allies, who have been backing Kiev throughout its conflict with Moscow, financed only 27% of the country’s budget expenditure, compared to 50% in the first half of 2023, the paper said in an article on Monday. In monetary terms, Western financial aid to Kiev decreased from $19.1 billion to $10.6 billion, during that period, Vedomosti noted. According to the article, authorities in Kiev are expected to attract $37 billion in outside loans in 2024 to cover the budget almost entirely, but in the first half of the year they managed to receive only a quarter of that sum.

At the same time, the burden on the Ukrainian budget is increasing, as the cost servicing previously accrued debt has soared from $900,000 to $5.2 billion this year, the paper said. This is more than total expenditure on education, healthcare and supporting the economy combined, it stressed. Analysts who spoke to Vedomosti suggested that postponing payment deadlines and debt restructuring would only allow Kiev to delay a default but not to avoid it. Ukraine is insolvent and will not be able to pay back its foreign loans, they insisted. Just over a week ago, the Ukrainian government adopted its draft budget for 2025, indicating a deficit of 75%.

According to a report in the Sunday Times, continued international financial aid for Kiev is among the key pillars of Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s so-called ‘victory plan.’ Zelensky is currently in the US, where he is expected to present his initiative to President Joe Biden, members of Congress, and to both 2024 election presidential contenders – Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. He claims the scheme could allow the conflict between Russia and Ukraine to be concluded the end of this year if Washington and its allies make “quick decisions” on boosting its support for Kiev. Russia’s first deputy permanent representative to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, has said Moscow is unaware of the contents of Zelensky’s proposals and that it has not been invited to discuss them. “It is hard for us to understand what is on the madman’s mind,” he remarked.

W. 2008

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“This is a critical time for nerve and guts and patience and for fortitude on behalf of allies who stand with Ukraine..”

Ukraine Conflict Could Persist Beyond 2026 – UK FM (RT)

The fighting between Russia and Ukraine is likely to rage on for at least another two years, the UK foreign secretary has predicted. David Lammy gave a speech at a conference of the governing Labour Party in Liverpool on Sunday, stressing Britain’s commitment to supporting Kiev. He noted that the government has committed to providing Ukraine with £3 billion ($3.99 billion) in military aid annually “for as long as it takes.” On the same day, the foreign secretary attended an event on the sidelines of the conference, warning that the hostilities could persist into “the back end of 2025 into 2026” and beyond. The hardship and challenges arising from the Russia-Ukraine conflict are set to become “deeper and harsher” in the coming years, he said, as quoted by the Guardian. “This is a critical time for nerve and guts and patience and for fortitude on behalf of allies who stand with Ukraine,” Lammy insisted.

The foreign secretary’s remarks apparently referred to the unwillingness of US President Joe Biden’s administration to allow Ukraine to use Western-supplied weapons for long-range strikes into Russia’s internationally recognized territory. Moscow has warned that giving such permission, which Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has been demanding for months, would make NATO countries direct participants in the conflict and be met with an appropriate Russian response. “There is a very real-time discussion across allies about how we can support Ukraine as we head into winter,” the British foreign secretary noted. However, he refused to reveal details, saying that would only “only aid [Russian President Vladimir] Putin.”

Lammy’s view on the likely duration of the fighting appears to clash with plans set out by Zelensky – who claimed last week that he had developed a scheme to end the hostilities by the end of this year if the West makes “quick decisions” on increasing its support for Kiev. The Ukrainian leader is now in the US, where he plans to show his so-called ‘victory plan’ to Biden, members of Congress, and both presidential contenders – Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Russia has never set deadlines when it comes to the conflict with Ukraine, and has repeatedly said that its military operation, which started in February 2022, will continue until its goals are achieved. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated on Sunday that “there is no alternative to our [Russian] victory.”

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“It is hard for us to understand what is on the madman’s mind.”

Zelensky Has Chosen Escalation – Moscow (RT)

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky chose the path of escalation when he ordered Kiev’s forces to enter Russia’s Kursk Region, Moscow’s first deputy permanent representative to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, has said. On Sunday, Zelensky arrived in the US, where he is planning to meet with US President Joe Biden, members of Congress, and both presidential contenders – Kamala Harris and Donald Trump – to present them with his ‘peace plan,’ which he recently renamed a ‘victory plan.’ According to Zelensky, the scheme could end the conflict between Moscow and Kiev by the end of this year if the West makes “quick decisions” on increasing its support for Ukraine. Polyansky told RIA Novosti news agency on Monday that Russian authorities “judge what the others do by their actions, not by their words. This means that he [Zelensky] clearly chose the path of escalation when he invaded Russia’s Kursk Region.”

“I think this was the best reply to everybody who hoped that the Ukrainian leadership was striving for peace,” he stressed. The Ukrainian military entered Kursk Region on August 6, in the largest attack on internationally recognized Russian territory since the outbreak of the hostilities between Moscow and Kiev in February 2022. The Russian military quickly halted their advance and has reported the recapture of more than a dozen villages in the past few weeks. However, Kiev’s forces remain in control of part of the region, and the fighting continues. According to the latest data from Russia’s Defense Ministry, Ukraine has lost more than 16,000 troops and several hundred units of military equipment, including 126 tanks and 95 armored personnel carriers, since the start of the incursion.

Moscow is unaware of the content of Zelensky’s ‘victory plan’ and has not been invited to discuss it, Polyansky said. “It is hard for us to understand what is on the madman’s mind. We do not know what Zelensky is planning, and there is a lot of hype around him being here [in the US] and about what he will or will not offer,” the diplomat stressed. Speaking about the outcome of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev on Sunday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated that “there is no alternative to our [Russian] victory.”

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“..the idea that Ukraine would not achieve a full victory over Russia is “awful” and “unacceptable..”

Zelensky Aiming To ‘Trump-proof’ Aid – The Times (RT)

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky will request NATO-type security guarantees for Kiev and other irreversible commitments when he meets US President Joe Biden this week, The Times reported on Sunday. Zelensky will also seek endorsement for Ukraine’s ongoing incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region and access to “specific” advanced Western weapons to be used against Russia, the British newspaper claimed. Each point is reportedly part of what Zelensky has termed a ‘victory plan’ in the conflict with Moscow. His aim is to increase the pressure on Russia to the extent that it is coerced into signing a peace agreement on Ukrainian terms, The Times explained, citing its analysis of public remarks and several anonymous sources. Zelensky has publicly stated that his plan would allow the conflict to end this year, although The Times claims it would take at least two more years to implement.

The key issue for Kiev is preventing Donald Trump from reversing commitments to Ukraine, should he be reelected as US president in November, the newspaper added. The Republican nominee and his running mate, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, have suggested that their administration would force Kiev to make painful concessions in order to end the hostilities. However, the idea that Ukraine would not achieve a full victory over Russia is “awful” and “unacceptable,” Zelensky told the New Yorker magazine ahead of his trip to the US this week. The Ukrainian leader has promised to brief Trump and his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Haris, on his ‘victory plan’. Prior to Kiev’s incursion into Kursk last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered an immediate ceasefire in return for Zelensky renouncing Ukraine’s bid to join NATO and removing all troops from Russian territory.

Officials in Moscow have said they would accept a peace deal along the lines that the two nations agreed in 2022, before Kiev made a U-turn and opted to seek a military victory, reportedly after being prompted by the West. A NATO diplomat told The Times it is “clear that the Ukrainians will not be able to drive the Russians out,” although accepting neutral status and ceding territories “would be a disastrous outcome” that “can definitely not be the basis of the negotiation.” Moscow has said it will not take part in a ‘peace summit’ proposed by Zelensky for later this year, describing it as “fraudulent.”

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Bankrupted themselves over Ukraine.

New Car Registration Levels Crashing In EU (RT)

The EU market for new cars saw its biggest drop in over two years in August, according to data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA). Registrations of new automobiles fell 18.3% year-on-year across the bloc, with double-digit losses in the region’s three major markets: 27.8% in Germany, 24.3% in France, and 13.4% in Italy, according to the ACEA’s latest data. Spain, the fourth largest car market in the EU, saw a 6.5% decline. Only four EU member states posted slight growth in new car registrations last month, namely Poland, Slovenia, Cyprus, and Malta, according to ACEA data. Most of the new cars delivered across the bloc were petrol-fueled (33.1%), with hybrid-electric vehicles (HEV) close behind at 31.3%.

The share of new battery-electric cars (BEV) in the EU car market fell to 14.4% from 21% recorded in August 2023. Deliveries of BEVs have been declining for four consecutive months this year, contrasting sharply with steady growth throughout 2023, notes ACEA. The association unites Europe’s 15 major car, truck, van and bus makers. The bloc-wide decline followed Brussels’ introduction in July of provisional tariffs on BEVs made in China and imported into the EU. Following an anti-subsidy probe, the European Commission concluded that the BEV value chain in China benefits from “unfair subsidisation,” which is causing “a threat of economic injury” to EU BEV makers.

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Join BRICS.

Macron Calls For New World Order (RT)

French President Emmanuel Macron has called for reform of the current “unjust” world order so that humans can coexist more peacefully. He outlined his vision on Sunday as part of the international ‘Imagining Peace’ gathering in Paris, which brought together leading political and religious figures. Speaking before the Catholic community of Sant’Egidio, Macron said “We must be imaginative enough to think about the peace of tomorrow, a peace in Europe in a new form.” If the European continent is to become more stable, everyone should acknowledge that it is “neither quite the EU, nor resolutely NATO,” he stated. “We will have to think of a new form of organization for Europe and rethink our relationship with Russia” after the Ukraine conflict is over, the president added. Macron has sent mixed messages regarding the hostilities between Russia and Ukraine as the conflict evolved over the years.

In 2022, he drew criticism from fellow Western officials for urging them not to “humiliate” Russia. In early 2024, he said the West should not rule out the deployment of NATO troops on Ukrainian soil – a proposal that multiple other national leaders have rejected. The speech comes as Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky is set to meet US President Joe Biden to present his so-called ‘victory plan’ – a purported roadmap to pressuring Russia into conceding defeat. He wants permission to conduct long-range strikes deep inside Russia with Western weapons as part of the plan. France is among a handful of nations that have donated such military hardware to Ukraine in the form of SCALP/Storm Shadow cruise missiles, which the country produces jointly with the UK.

British officials have supported Kiev’s request to strike Russia, but the ultimate decision is understood to be in Washington’s hands. Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated that any such attack would be considered an act of war by NATO member states. In his speech, Macron claimed that the global system created in the wake of World War II was “incomplete and unjust,” because many modern nations did not even exist at that time and don’t have a proper place at the table. He said international bodies, such as the UN, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, should be reformed accordingly. Russia is among a number of nations that have declared a goal of reducing the influence of Western-dominated institutions in global affairs with a view to creating a multipolar world order.

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“..certain lobbies did not want these efforts to achieve their goal..”

Erdogan Weighs In On Failure Of Türkiye-mediated Ukraine Talks (RT)

Talks in Istanbul to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine in March 2022 did not achieve their goal because certain interests were opposed to a peace deal, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has revealed. Erdogan addressed those negotiations between Moscow and Kiev on Monday during a press conference at the Turkish House in New York, as he was highlighting Ankara’s positive role as an intermediary in various conflicts. “We have made efforts to establish a just peace since the beginning of the [Ukraine-Russia] war, and we continue to do so,” he said, as quoted by Anadolu news agency. “The negotiations in Istanbul have proven the success of Türkiye’s active role. However, certain lobbies did not want these efforts to achieve their goal,”Erdogan added.

The 2022 negotiations between Kiev and Moscow to resolve their differences culminated in a draft treaty. If implemented, Ukraine would have agreed to become a neutral nation with a limited army in exchange for international security guarantees. Shortly after the document was signed by heads of the respective delegations, Kiev made a U-turn and declared military victory over Moscow as its only option in the conflict. The policy change was prompted by a visit to Kiev by then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a Russia hawk, who told the Ukrainians to keep fighting, according to Ukrainian MP David Arakhamia, who signed the draft treaty on Kiev’s behalf. Moscow believes that Johnson ordered Ukraine not to compromise, since the West is interested in inflicting maximum damage on Russia regardless of the cost paid for it by the Ukrainian people.

Johnson has claimed he simply advised Kiev not to trust the Kremlin and that his words did not amount to an instruction. Having left his position in September 2022 following a wave of domestic scandals, Johnson remains a vocal advocate for pumping more arms and aid into Kiev. Unrestricted Western support will “send the crucial message to the Kremlin” that it cannot have a say on what is happening at its doorstep, he argued in an op-ed just published by The Spectator magazine. Erdogan is visiting the US to take part in the UN General Assembly. Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky is set to promote his ‘victory plan’ on the sidelines of the event. He is scheduled to first present his proposal to US President Joe Biden.

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“What’s at stake is the extremely complex design of a brand-new financial system – decentralized and using digital technology.”

Will a BRICS Bretton Woods Take Place in Kazan? (Pepe Escobar)

With less than a month before the crucial BRICS annual summit in Kazan under the Russian presidency, serious informed discussions are raging in Moscow and other Eurasian capitals on what should be at the table in the de-dollarization and alternative payment system front. Earlier this month Andrey Mikhailishin, head of the task force on financial services of the BRICS Business Council, detailed the list of top projects under consideration. They include:
• A common unit of account – as in The Unit, whose contours were first revealed exclusively by Sputnik.
• A platform for multilateral settlements and payments in BRICS digital currencies, connecting the financial markets of BRICS members: that’s BRICS Bridge, which bears similarities with the Bank of International Settlements-linked MBridge, already in effect. That will complement intrabank systems already in action, as in Russia’s SPFS and Iran’s CPAM settling financial transactions – and 60% of their trade – in their own currencies.
• A blockchain-based payment system that entirely bypasses the US dollar: BRICS Pay. Arguably 159 participants may be ready to adopt this sanction-evading, similar-to-SWIFT mechanism right away.
• A settlement depository (Clear).
• An insurance system.
• And crucially a BRICS rating agency, independent from the Western giants.

What’s at stake is the extremely complex design of a brand-new financial system – decentralized and using digital technology. BRICS Clear, for instance, will be using blockchain to record securities and exchange them.
As for The Unit, the value of the common unit of account is pegged by 40% to gold and by 60% to a basket of BRICS member’s national currencies. The BRICS Business Council considers The Unit a “convenient and universal” instrument, since a unit can be converted into any national currency. That would definitely solve the nagging problem of exchange rate volatility when cash balances accumulate from settlements in national currencies; for example, a mountain of Indian rupees used to pay for Russian energy.

Who Do I Call to Talk to BRICS?
I asked a very direct question to two Russian analysts, one of them a finance tech executive with vast experience across Europe, and the other the head of an investment fund with global reach. Considering the sensitivity of their posts, they prefer to remain anonymous. The question: Is BRICS ready to become an actor in Kazan next month, and what should be on the table in terms of the strategy to establish an alternative payment system?

The Answers. Analyst 1:
“Time has come for BRICS to become a real actor. The world demands it. The leaders of BRICS countries clearly understand it. They have the moral power and the political will to set up an organization to provide a number for BRICS to be called in – that’s the best question for the upcoming summit.” The analyst is referring to what could be dubbed “the Kissinger moment”, when Dr. K famously quipped, in the Cold War era, “when I want to talk to Europe, who do I call?”
Now to Analyst 2:
“For a BRICS agreement amongst countries to mean something, countries need to agree on a framework of action and that means accepting some responsibilities in exchange for certain rights. And it sounds there’s no better way to achieve that than to arrive at mutually agreed obligations on settlement of financial transactions.” One of the analysts added a very important, specific point: “By now the situation is pretty clear, to properly address the issue of cross-border payments. The best mechanism should be based on the New Development Bank (NDB), given that Russia has a mandate to propose the new president of that organization. Whoever the candidate will be, cross-border payments should be at the top of his agenda.” The NDB is the BRICS bank, based in Shanghai. The analyst hopes this decision on the future of the NDB will be made before the BRICS summit: “Given the diplomatic and political considerations, the candidate should be made known, formally or informally to the member countries.”

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Obamagate
https://twitter.com/i/status/1838041585583337978

 

 

Obama Bieber
https://twitter.com/i/status/1838028542421909561

 

 

Cat tail
https://twitter.com/i/status/1838108949125448085

 

 

Pick up a duck

 

 

Cold
https://twitter.com/i/status/1838247556981080212

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Sep 202024
 
 September 20, 2024  Posted by at 8:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  72 Responses »


Paul Gauguin Haymaking in Brittany 1889

 

The ‘War Party’ Makes Its Plans (Patrick Lawrence)
Russia Slams NATO’s ‘Reckless’ Rejection of Putin’s Red Line on Ukraine (Sp.)
Ukraine War Turns Into Russian Roulette (Bhadrakumar)
This Ain’t No WWIII: This Is A War OF Terror (Pepe Escobar)
‘Victory Plan’ Ready – Zelensky (RT)
Ukrainian Commanders Urged Zelensky Not To Invade Kursk (Antiwar)
Russia’s Drone Production To Increase Tenfold – Putin (RT)
Craig Murray Describes Transition Of UK, West In General Into Tyranny (PCR)
Switzerland Dumps Neutrality (Sp.)
Descendants of Native American Chief Want His Face Back In NFL (RT)
Kamala Bucks (Jim Rickards)
Trump Makes First Payment In Bitcoin (RT)
FBI: Iran Hacked Trump Campaign Materials And Gave Them To Biden/Harris (MN)
Russia’s Shadow Fleet is a Ticking Geopolitical Timebomb (Garcia)
Pager Bomb Plot 15 Years In The Making – ABC News (RT)

 

 

 

 

RFK Trump

 

 

Simplicity

 

 

Trump ad
https://twitter.com/i/status/1836488676152361056

 

 

Trump Walz
https://twitter.com/i/status/1836601717825126588

 

 

Newsom

 

 

Teamsters

 

 

Nate Silver Sep. 17

 

 

Tucker Vance

 

 

O’Leary

 

 

Calley Means

 

 

 

 

A lot of war articles today. NATO et al are now saying Putin so far has not reacted very violently to breaches of red lines, therefore he won’t do so in the future either. Joe Biden: “I don’t think much about Vladimir Putin.” Your leaders are dragging you straight into a war that nobody wants but them.

The ‘War Party’ Makes Its Plans (Patrick Lawrence)

The Biden White House and the Democratic Party machine trying to advance Kamala Harris from No. 2 in the regime to No. 1 gets more interesting by the week, I have to say. The Harris campaign has at last, two months after the party’s elites and financiers railroaded her candidacy past any semblance of a democratic process, published a platform it calls A New Way Forward, and I will get to this in due course. I am less interested now in words posted on a website than in two recent developments we ought to consider together even if no one has yet thought to do so. Slowly and very surely, it becomes clear by way of these weekly turns how a new Democratic regime, should Harris win on Nov. 5, proposes to manage the imperium’s business. And however many foolish voters may be illusioned otherwise, if Harris takes the White House her business will be neither more nor less than managing the imperium—the wars, the provocations, the illegal sanctions and other collective punishments, the terrorist clients in Israel, the neo–Nazis in Kiev.

Last Wednesday, Sept. 4, Liz Cheney surprised Washington and, I suppose, most of the rest of us when she announced she would support Harris’s run for the presidency. The onetime Wyoming congresswoman, a coup-cultivating warmonger who remains among the hawkiest of right-wing foreign-policy hawks, was not the first Republican to jump across the aisle this political season, and she was also not the last: Two days later, Liz’s pop did the same. Dick Cheney, of course, needs no introduction. Instantly, the Harris campaign declared its delight in having the support of these courageous patriots, as the organization called them in its official statements. A week after all this high-caliber politicking, President Biden convened in the Oval Office with Keir Starmer, the new British prime minister, to consider Ukraine’s proposal to fire Western-supplied missiles at targets well inside Russian territory.

The Brits are ready to oblige the Kiev regime, as are the French, but everyone—London, Paris, Kiev—needs Biden’s permission to widen the war in this fashion. At the moment, Biden and Secretary of State Blinken are in their “Well, maybe” phase, and we are meant to be on the edges of our seats wondering whether they will assent to these plans. But haven’t we seen this movie before and don’t we know how it ends? Wasn’t it, “Maybe we will send HIMARS rocket systems,” “Maybe M–1 tanks,” “Maybe Patriot missiles,” “Maybe F–16s”? Even before the Biden–Starmer encounter last week, Blinken and David Lammy, the British foreign secretary, during a visit to Kiev for talks with Volodymyr Zelensky, were already dropping heavy hints that Biden will once again acquiesce to the plans the Ukrainian president and the British PM were choreographed to present to him.

The stipulation Biden and Blinken now purport to insist upon is that they will not assent to letting Kiev use weapons provided by the U.S. — which seems to be different from weapons made by the U.S.—against targets in the Russian interior. This is no more than one of those hair-splits in which the Biden White House trades when it wants to look thoughtful and cautious but is neither. Will someone tell me what damn difference it will make to Russia if Moscow takes a hit from a missile sent from Britain, France or the United States? These people are convening to plan the Western powers’ reckless escalation of a proxy war they have no way of winning and know they have no way of winning. Desperation is as desperation does: This is my simple read of these deliberations. Between the war-planning and the shifting political loyalties, what have we witnessed over these past couple of weeks? This is our question.

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“..the use of long-range missiles against targets deep in Russia would “increase the threat of escalation,” which runs counter to European security interests.”

Russia Slams NATO’s ‘Reckless’ Rejection of Putin’s Red Line on Ukraine (Sp.)

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated on Wednesday that dismissing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s warnings about the dangers of Ukraine using Western weapons to attack Russian territory is both provocative and perilous. “Such a ostentatious desire not to take seriously the statements of the Russian president is an absolutely short-sighted and unprofessional step,” Peskov told reporters. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg denied in an interview out on Tuesday that allowing Ukraine to use long-range Western weapons to strike deep into Russia would cross country’s “red line” despite warnings from Russian President Vladimir Putin. “There have been many red lines declared by him [Putin] before, and he has not escalated, meaning also involving Nato allies directly in the conflict,” Stoltenberg told The Times newspaper. Stoltenberg said that he supported the United Kingdom and France in their decision to lift restrictions on Kiev’s use of long-range weapons against Russia.

He argued that their use by Ukraine would not draw the alliance into conflict with Russia. Putin said that NATO countries were essentially deciding whether to get directly involved in the Ukrainian conflict. He warned that direct participation of Western countries in the conflict would change its nature, forcing Russia to respond to emerging threats. Meanwhile, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto stated on Wednesday that Hungary is concerned about the potential use of long-range arms to strike Russia, as this would contradict Europe’s security interests and heighten the risk of escalation. He emphasized that “Hungary is interested in peace, and every step that threatens escalation makes us concerned,” adding that the use of long-range missiles against targets deep in Russia would “increase the threat of escalation,” which runs counter to European security interests.

Putin balance
https://twitter.com/i/status/1836749250312417654

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“..Biden was plainly dismissive about the latest Kremlin warning, saying, “I don’t think much about Vladimir Putin.”

Ukraine War Turns Into Russian Roulette (Bhadrakumar)

The UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer met with the US President Joe Biden in the White House on Friday with the question of the use of long-range missiles by Ukraine to hit deep inside Russia on their agenda of conversation. But there were no announcements, nor was there any joint press conference. Starmer later told the media that the talks were “productive” but concentrated on “strategy” rather than a “particular step or tactic”. He did not signal any decision on allowing Kiev to fire long-range missiles into Russia. Starmer said no final decision had been taken on the Storm Shadow missiles and hinted that further developments may follow at the gathering of the UN General Assembly later this month. “We’ll obviously pick up again in UNGA in just a few days time with a wider group of individuals,” he said.

One reason for such extreme secrecy is that the US and UK are intensely conscious of the Russian President Vladimir Putin’s explicit warning on Thursday that any use of western long-range missiles to strike Russia “will mean that NATO countries, the United States, and European countries are parties to the war in Ukraine. This will mean their direct involvement in the conflict, and it will clearly change the very essence, the very nature of the conflict dramatically.” Putin added in measured words: “This will mean that NATO countries – the United States and European countries –- are at war with Russia. And if this is the case, then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.” Admittedly, Putin has given similar warnings before also, but did not follow through even when western weaponry was used by Ukraine with impunity to invade Russia recently.

So much so that Biden was plainly dismissive about the latest Kremlin warning, saying, “I don’t think much about Vladimir Putin.” On its part, Moscow estimates that although no official decision on the matter has been announced, it has already been made and communicated to Kiev, and that Moscow would have to respond with actions of its own. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, Moscow’s point person on the diplomatic track, was quoted as saying on Saturday, “The decision has been made, the carte blanche and all indulgences have been given (to Kiev), so we [Russia] are ready for everything. And we will react in a way that will not be pretty.” Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chairman of the country’s security council, went a step further saying that the West is testing Russia’s patience but it is not limitless. He said Ukraine’s invasion already gave Russia formal grounds to use its nuclear arsenal.

Medvedev warned that Moscow could either resort to nuclear weapons in the end, or use some of its non-nuclear but still deadly novel weapons for a large-scale attack. “And that would be it. A giant, grey, melted spot instead of ‘the mother of Russian cities’,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app, referring to Kiev. Putin, in his remark on Thursday once again rejected the Anglo-American sophistry that it is Ukraine that will be using any western long-range missiles and not NATO. He pointed out that the Ukrainian army “is not capable of using cutting-edge high-precision long-range systems supplied by the West. They cannot do that. These weapons are impossible to employ without intelligence data from satellites which Ukraine does not have. This can only be done using the European Union’s satellites, or US satellites – in general, NATO satellites…

“most important, the key point even – is that only NATO military personnel can assign flight missions to these missile systems. Ukrainian servicemen cannot do this. Therefore, it is not a question of allowing the Ukrainian regime to strike Russia with these weapons or not. It is about deciding whether NATO countries become directly involved in the military conflict or not.” Interestingly, neither Washington nor London has so far refuted Putin’s above explanation and, curiously, it has been expunged altogether from British press reports — fearing, perhaps, that public opinion might militate against such direct involvement by the UK in a war against Russia in a combat role!

Moscow anticipates that the US-UK ploy may be to test the waters by first (openly) using Britain’s Storm Shadow long-range air-launched cruise missile, which has already been supplied to Ukraine. On Friday, Russia expelled six British diplomats assigned to the Moscow embassy in a clear warning that Uk-Russia ties will be affected. Russia has already warned the UK of severe consequences if the Storm Shadow were to be used to hit Russian territory. What makes the developing situation extremely dangerous is that the cat-and-mouse game so far about NATO’s covert involvement in the Ukraine war is giving way to a game of Russian roulette that follows the laws of Probability Theory.

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“This ain’t no party
This ain’t no disco
This ain’t no fooling around
No time for dancin’
Or lovey-dovey
I ain’t got time for that now..”

This Ain’t No WWIII: This Is A War OF Terror (Pepe Escobar)

First we had action: President Putin – cool, calm, collected – warns that any attack on Russia with long-range NATO missiles will be an act of war. Then we had reaction: NATO rats scurrying back to the gutter – in haste. For now. All that was a direct consequence of the Kursk debacle. A desperate gamble. But the state of things in the proxy war in Ukraine was desperate for NATO. Until it became crystal clear it’s all basically non-recoverable. So there are two options left. Ukraine’s unconditional surrender, on Russia’s terms, tantamount to NATO’s complete humiliation. Or escalation to all-out war (italics mine) with Russia. The U.S. – but not the UK – ruling classes seem to have registered the essence of Putin’s message: if NATO is at war with Russia, “then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.”

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov was ominously more precise: “The decision has been made, the carte blanche and all indulgences have been given [to Kiev), so we [Russia] are ready for everything. And we will react in a way that will not be pretty.” For all practical purposes, NATO is already at war with Russia: non-stop reconnaissance flights, high-precision strikes on airfields in Crimea, forcing the Black Sea Fleet to relocate out of Sevastopol, these are only some instances. With “permission” to strike as far as 500 km deep into Russia, and a list of several targets already submitted by Kiev for “approval”, Putin has clearly stated the obvious. Russia is fighting an existential war for the survival of the Motherland – what it has done repeatedly over centuries. The USSR suffered 27 million losses and emerged from WWII stronger than ever. That demonstration of willpower, in itself, scares the collective West to death.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov – whose Taoist patience seems to be exhausting – added some color on the Big Picture, drawing from English literature: “George Orwell had a rich imagination and historical foresight. But even he could not imagine what a totalitarian state would look like. He described some of its contours, but failed to penetrate the depths of the totalitarianism that we now see within the framework of the ‘rules-based order.’ I have nothing to add. The current leaders in Washington, who suppress any dissent, have ‘outdone’ him. This is totalitarianism in its purest form.” Lavrov concluded that “they are historically doomed.” Yet they don’t really have the guts to provoke WWIII. Trademark cowards can only resort to a War OF Terror. Here are some instances. The SVR – Russian foreign intel – discovered a Kiev plot to stage a Russian missile attack on a hospital or kindergarten on Kiev-controlled territory.

The objectives include raising the – collapsed – morale of the AFU; justify the complete removal of any restrictions on deep missile strikes inside the Russian Federation; and attract support from the Global South – which overwhelmingly understands what Russia is doing in Ukraine. In parallel, if this massive false flag works, the Hegemon would use it to “increase pressure” (How? Screaming at the top of their lungs?) on Iran and the DPRK, whose missiles would likely be the perpetrators of the carnage. As much as this seems far-fetched on a Maximum Stupidistan level, considering the Deep Dementia ranging from Washington and London to Kiev it does remain possible, as NATOstan de facto retains the strategic initiative in this war. Russia for its part remains passive. It is NATO that is choosing the method, the place and the time for its key, choice strikes.

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Formerly known as the “peace plan”.

‘Victory Plan’ Ready – Zelensky (RT)

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky declared his secretive ‘victory plan’ complete on Wednesday in a video address. Moscow has dismissed Kiev’s designs as incapable of altering the course of the conflict. Details of the Ukrainian roadmap for defeating Russia remain murky, but Zelensky has been giving regular updates on its progress. On Monday, he said it was more than 90% ready, while he now describes it as “fully prepared,” adding that “the most important thing is the determination to implement it.” Russian officials have dismissed the plan, which Zelensky first announced in August. ”We have heard such statements from the representatives of the Kiev regime many times. We realize what the nature of this regime is. We will continue our special military operation and realize all our goals,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at the time.

US President Joe Biden and the presidential nominees of the country’s two main parties, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, are the primary targets of the proposal, according to Zelensky. He intends to travel to the US to brief the Americans, which will reportedly happen as soon as next week. However, officials in Washington are already aware of what Zelensky will be bringing to the table, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield has indicated. ”We have seen President Zelensky’s peace plan,” she told journalists on Tuesday, before expressing confidence that it “can work.” According to media reports, Zelensky will press his backers for Ukrainian membership in NATO and the EU, continued Western military aid, and other perks.

In August, Kiev sent thousands of troops into Russia’s Kursk Region in an operation Zelensky called an element of the victory plan. The incursion was aimed at forcing Russia to redeploy forces from the front in the east and serve as a bargaining chip in eventual peace talks, according to Ukrainian officials. Russian advancements in Donbass have continued despite the gamble. Moscow has meanwhile ruled out negotiations with Kiev, citing attacks against local Russian civilians whom Ukrainian troops allegedly targeted on purpose. The Russian army has been pushing Ukraine back in Kursk Region, which Zelensky claimed aligned with his plan. Kiev is currently lobbying Washington and its allies to allow long-range strikes with donated Western weapons deep inside Russia. President Vladimir Putin has said that Moscow would consider any such strike an act of war by NATO and react accordingly.

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“..he “opposed a task that didn’t correspond to the brigade’s strength.”

“..he thought the brigade would be too exposed inside Russia and would suffer heavy casualties..”

Ukrainian Commanders Urged Zelensky Not To Invade Kursk (Antiwar)

Some of Ukraine’s top military commanders opposed President Volodymyr Zelensky’s plans to invade Russia’s Kursk Oblast, but he went through with the assault anyway, POLITICO reported on Tuesday. The report, which cited Ukrainian military officials, said that Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, the former commander-in-chief and current ambassador to the UK, opposed the offensive when Zelensky first broached the idea earlier this year. Zaluzhny opposed the offensive because there was no clear second step once the border was breached. “He never got a clear answer from Zelensky,” one of the Ukrainian officials said. “He felt it was a gamble.” Another Ukrainian officer who opposed the invasion was Emil Ishkulov, the former commander of Ukraine’s 80th Air Assault Brigade. He was removed from his position in July, which drew protests from senior Ukrainian military officials, who said they didn’t understand why Ishkulov was dismissed.

Ukrainian media reported at the time of his dismissal that Ishkulov was removed because he “opposed a task that didn’t correspond to the brigade’s strength.” Two senior Ukrainian military officials told POLITICO that Ishkulov opposed the Kursk invasion because he thought the brigade would be too exposed inside Russia and would suffer heavy casualties. Russia recently began a counteroffensive in Kursk and has recaptured some villages. One purpose of the Ukrainian invasion was to distract Russia from the Donbas region, where Russian forces have been making steady gains. But that has failed as Russian troops continue to close in on the Donetsk city of Pokrovsk.

Another purpose of the invasion was to psychologically impact Russian civilians, a strategy that was praised by Richard Moore, the head of the British spy agency MI6, during a joint public appearance with CIA Director William Burns. Moore said the operation was “typically audacious and bold on the part of the Ukrainians, to try and change the game” and that it had “brought the war home to ordinary Russians.”

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“Along with the development of drones, we need to look for means of their electronic and conventional destruction..”

Russia’s Drone Production To Increase Tenfold – Putin (RT)

The Russian military is set to receive ten times more drones in 2024 than it did in the year before, President Vladimir Putin announced on Thursday during a meeting of the Military-Industrial Commission on the development of unmanned aircraft systems. The president stated that in 2023, the Russian Armed Forces received nearly 140,000 drones of various types and their production rate has since gone up significantly. “This year, the production of drones is planned to increase several times, or to be more precise, almost ten times,” Putin said. He said that the range of unmanned systems is being expanded and that unmanned boats are being developed as well.

“The key task is to produce a wide range of unmanned aerial vehicles and to set up serial production of such promising technology as quickly as possible,” Putin explained, adding that it is necessary to “fully meet” the needs of the armed forces and increase drone production and the technical and tactical characteristics of UAVs, which includes actively introducing elements of artificial intelligence. “Along with the development of drones, we need to look for means of their electronic and conventional destruction. This will save the lives of our military personnel, civilians and more reliably protect military equipment, civilian infrastructure, and critically important facilities,” the president said.

Putin stated that the design, testing, and serial production of drones is set to be carried out in special scientific and production centers, 48 of which are planned to be created across the country by 2030. Earlier on Thursday, the president personally visited the Special Technology Center (STC) in St. Petersburg which specializes in the production of unmanned aerial vehicles, electronic warfare systems and communications. Putin also inspected an exhibition of robots that have already been supplied to Russia’s forces on the front line and was shown several examples of kamikaze drones, reconnaissance systems, and a model of a loitering munition.

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“If you refuse to turn over your electronic devices, it is two years in prison. Two years in prison for refusing to answer a question.”

Craig Murray Describes Transition Of UK, West In General Into Tyranny (PCR)

Here is a summary of the speech in the video below of former British Ambassador Craig Murry describing the transition of Britain and the West in general into Tyranny. The UK has criminalized dissent. A new Public Order Act makes it illegal to hold a rally or demonstration if it “inconveniences” anyone. This gives the state unlimited power to clamp down on any demonstration. A new National Security Act makes it illegal to accept funding if it comes from “a hostile state” (there is no definition of what qualifies as a “hostile state”) A new Public Safety Act makes it a criminal offense to publish “misinformation” (there is no definition of “misinformation” — the government decides). It is all about control of the narrative. Zionist lobbies have great influence on official narratives across the West.

Citizens of the West are not allowed to accuse Israel of genocide; this is increasingly being equated with being a “terrorist”. Anti-terrorism powers are being used to prevent any criticism of Israel. Murray, a former British Ambassador, was arrested at the airport under the “Terrorism Act” for attending a pro-Palestine demonstration in Iceland. Under the Terrorism Act, if you are arrested at an airport, you have no right to remain silent, no right to a lawyer, you must turn over all your electronic devices with the passwords. If you refuse to turn over your electronic devices, it is two years in prison. Two years in prison for refusing to answer a question.

Many people are being detained under anti-terrorist legislation, including a professor from Paris and several independent journalists, who all have been detained as was Murray. There is a continual attempt to connect people to Russia. The FBI detained an American professor who spoke with Murray at a pro-Palestine demonstration and had all his electronic devices confiscated. Crackdowns on free speech, freedom of assembly, and any form of dissent are happening all across the Western world in an increasing frequency. As the West trumpets the importance of “freedom and democracy”, it simultaneously limits the freedoms of its own peoples and moves towards complete totalitarianism.

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Their greatest asset.

Switzerland Dumps Neutrality (Sp.)

The Swiss Council of States, the upper house of the parliament, said on Wednesday that it had voted against a ban on the participation of its military in joint NATO drills. “The participation of Switzerland in joint defense exercises with NATO must not be banned. The Council of States rejected a motion from the National Council to this effect on Wednesday by 29 votes to 12 and after a lively debate,” the upper house said in a statement. Swiss senators believe that in case of an attack on the country, its neutral status will disappear, so Switzerland’s army needs to be ready to defend itself. Switzerland is neither an EU or a NATO member, but Bern has joined almost all European sanctions against Russia since February 24, 2022. In 2024, the Swiss military will take part in 20 exercises outside its territory and four drills on its territory, all of them with the participation of NATO countries.

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Ha ha ha! Here’s to the do-gooders.

Descendants of Native American Chief Want His Face Back In NFL (RT)

Descendants of John Two Guns White Calf, a Native American chief who inspired the now-retired logo of the Washington Commanders football team (previously known as the Redskins), have called for his return to NFL events. “The fans want him back and we want him back,” Thomas White Calf, a great nephew of the celebrated early-20th-century Blackfeet tribe leader, told Fox News last week. “Our ancestor was the most famous and most photographed native in history,” he added, speaking on the phone alongside his mother, Delphine White Calf. “I’m proud of him. The Blackfeet are proud of him.” The conservative news network interviewed the family after they met Montana Senator Steve Daines – a vocal critic of the 2020 decision to rebrand the franchise. The lawmaker brought up what he believes to be a historic wrong in Congress and in the media on multiple occasions.

“Make no mistake, this logo was inspired and envisioned … as a tribute to Native Americans. It is not a caricature. It is a depiction of pride and strength. Of courage and honor,” he said at a Senate subcommittee hearing in May. Both the name and the mascot were retired in 2020, against the backdrop of racial protest following the death of George Floyd. Major investors and shareholders put pressure on the team’s top sponsors, claiming that the branding promoted negative stereotypes about Native Americans. The management caved in, though the Redskins were renamed as the Commanders only two years later.

A spokesman for the team told Fox News that it is collaborating with Senator Daines “to honor the legacy of our team’s heritage and the Native American community,” but had no intention of reviving the old logo. The news outlet pinned the blame for the naming controversy on the non-profit National Congress of American Indians. Among other things, it seeks to eradicate what it perceives as inappropriate mascots in sports and complained against the Redskins in 2013 in a 29-page report on the issue. “Today’s harmful ‘Indian’ mascots are very much an extension of the commercialization of race such as black face and African-American stereotypes,” the document claimed.

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“A change in leadership is probably our last hope in stopping this madness from continuing.”

Kamala Bucks (Jim Rickards)

We’re still trying to process the latest assassination attempt on Donald Trump, which took place on Sunday in West Palm Beach. But while that’s important to dissect as the election gets closer, it’s important to consider a development I’ve been warning about for over two years. President Trump has long been an opponent of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) or as I call them Biden Bucks. (Now that Biden is essentially out of the picture, maybe I should rename them Kamala Bucks.) I called them “Biden Bucks” because I wanted Biden (and his partner Kamala) to take full credit for what I consider to be crimes against American citizens. More on that shortly. For now, let’s focus on Trump. At a New Hampshire campaign rally earlier this year, Donald Trump reiterated what he’s been saying for months: CBDCs are dangerous and he would never allow one if elected. For too long, the average American has been squeezed by the big banks and financial elites. It’s time we take a stand — together.

This would be a dangerous threat to freedom, and I will stop it from coming to America. Such a currency would give a federal government absolute control over your money. They could take your money, and you wouldn’t even know it was gone. In fact, Trump recently pledged to ban CBDCs, promote the creation of a national crypto reserve and guarantee that the government will not sell crypto obtained through law enforcement seizures. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: “Welcome aboard, Mr. President.” Again, I’ve been sounding the alarm about Biden Bucks for over two years. I’ve been warning about Joe Biden’s plan to control your money and take away your privacy rights completely. President Trump is right. Biden Bucks are a dangerous threat to freedom. They’re a threat to our constitutional liberties and give the government total control of our private financial information. A change in leadership is probably our last hope in stopping this madness from continuing.

Maybe you’re a new reader who’s not familiar with Biden Bucks, or maybe you’re an existing reader who hasn’t thought of them for a while. To catch you up, here are the basics: They would replace physical cash with new electronic currencies. These Biden Bucks would have the full backing of the U.S. Federal Reserve. To be clear, they won’t just be a complement to cash. They will entirely, or very nearly entirely, REPLACE the cash (“fiat”) dollar we have now. In other words, the dollar will be strictly digital. This digital dollar would be the sole, mandatory currency of the United States. What does this mean for you? It would put your money under direct government control as President Trump has said. You could use it only at the government’s discretion. We are already seeing how many retailers are no longer accepting cash across America. What happens when physical cash is eliminated from any payment transactions?

Imagine this. To further advance the Biden/Harris Green New Scam, what if the Dems and their deep state enablers decide that gasoline needs to be rationed? Your Biden/Kamala Bucks could be rendered useless at the gas pump once you’ve purchased a certain amount of gasoline in a week. You want gas, but all you get is a one-word message: Declined. How’s that for control? That’s just one example. Biden Bucks would create new ways for the government to control how much you can buy of an item or even restrict purchases. They would keep score of every financial decision you make. In a world of Biden Bucks, the government will even know your physical whereabouts at the point of purchase. It’s a short step from there to putting you under FBI investigation if you vote for the wrong candidate or give donations to the wrong political party. If any of this sounds extreme, fantastical or otherwise far-fetched, I promise you it’s not. It’s happening right now. And given all the abuses of power the government’s engaged in over the past few years, why should you be surprised that Biden/Kamala Bucks wouldn’t invite even more abuse?

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“The purchase of burgers by Trump “was one of the most important Bitcoin transactions of all time..”

Trump Makes First Payment In Bitcoin (RT)

Donald Trump used Bitcoin to buy cheeseburgers and beer for his supporters at a bar in New York City on the National Cheeseburger Day. This made Trump the first ever incumbent or former US president to make a payment using the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, according to media reports. The Republican presidential candidate visited PubKey, a Bitcoin-themed bar and restaurant in Manhattan, shortly before his Long Island campaign rally on Wednesday.The 78-year-old was helped by the bar’s employees to perform the transaction using his phone and a tablet belonging to PubKey. “I just made the first transaction in Bitcoin,” Trump announced to cheers from Bitcoin enthusiasts, who packed the establishment. Paying with cryptocurrency was “very easy,” he added.

“They have been treating you very badly at the SEC (US Securities and Exchange Commission) and we are going to treat you very fairly,” he told the crowd. “Get out and vote because if you vote, we cannot lose,” the former president said. The purchase of burgers by Trump “was one of the most important Bitcoin transactions of all time,” one of PubKey’s owners, Thomas Pacchia, told the Bitcoin Magazine. “We are very excited he was here… to show his support to the Bitcoin community.” Bitcoin, which was introduced in 2009, has grown in value by more than 500% during the past five years. The current price for one Bitcoin is above $61,000.

On Monday, Trump and his children unveiled their own cryptocurrency venture, called World Liberty Financial. There is so far little information available about the project, which is expected to be a borrowing and lending service to trade cryptocurrencies. According to Donald Trump Jr., its goal is to provide opportunities to entrepreneurs who are unable to obtain financing from traditional banks. Trump appears to have made a U-turn on cryptocurrencies during the current presidential campaign. In 2021, he told Fox News that they were a “scam” and “potentially a disaster waiting to happen.” The dollar should remain “the currency of the world,” and investing in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies “hurts the US currency,” he argued at the time.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1836512155077898279

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Do we believe the FBI?

FBI: Iran Hacked Trump Campaign Materials And Gave Them To Biden/Harris (MN)

The AP is reporting that the FBI has uncovered evidence that Iranian hackers stole materials from the Trump campaign in the Summer and provided them to what was then the Biden/Harris campaign. The report notes that the emails were sent to “people who were associated with Biden’s campaign” in June and July when he was still the Democratic nominee. The FBI uncovered the “unsolicited” evidence as part of its efforts to investigate election interference. The emails “contained an excerpt taken from stolen, non-public material from former President Trump’s campaign as text in the emails,” a government statement noted. It is not known if the Biden/Harris campaign reviewed the materials. Hilariously, however, the Harris campaign issued a statement saying that they were “victims” of the hack. Last night in New York, Trump referred to the development, calling it “foreign election interference,” and charging that “Biden is working with Iran.”

It is clear that there is a concerted effort to undermine Trump’s campaign, with officials revealing in August that further internal communications were hacked and provided to at least three media organisations, with the perpetrators suspected to be Iranian hackers. As we previously highlighted, the Secret Service also uncovered an assassination plot against Trump by Iran on the same weekend as the Butler shooting in July.

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Antonio Garcia doesn’t seem overly happy that Russia sidesteps the sanctions.

Russia’s Shadow Fleet is a Ticking Geopolitical Timebomb (Garcia)

In response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the European Union and several other Western countries imposed extensive sanctions on Russia, attempting to stop the trade of Russian oil. In December 2022, the G7 countries decided on an oil price cap. However, Russia has found ways to circumvent these sanctions, primarily through the creation of a “shadow fleet” of oil tankers. Despite robust US Treasury sanctions targeting the shadow fleet, Russia continues to expand it by incorporating new tankers, allowing for stable exports and further evasion of oil price caps. Only 36% of Russian oil exports were shipped by IG-insured tankers. For other shipments, Russia utilized its shadow fleet, which was responsible for exports of ~2.8 mb/d of crude and 1.1 mb/d of oil products in March 2024. Kpler data shows that in April 2024, 83% of crude oil and 46% of petroleum products were shipped on shadow tankers. The shrinking role of the mainstream fleet fundamentally undermines the leverage of the price cap.

The shadow fleet is a collection of aging and often poorly maintained vessels with unclear ownership structures and lack of insurance. The number of old, outdated ships departing from Russia has increased dramatically. The EU has recently introduced legislation aimed at cracking down on the sale of mainstream tankers into the Russian shadow trade, but the problem persists. Russia managed to expand its shadow tanker fleet, adding 35 new tankers to replace 41 tankers added to OFAC’s SDN list since December 2023. These tankers, all over 15 years old, are managed outside the EU/G7. With 85% of the tankers aged over 15 years, the risk of oil spills at sea is heightened.

The shadow fleet poses a significant and rising threat to the environment. The aging and underinsured vessels increase the risk of oil spills, a potential catastrophe for which Russia would likely refuse to pay. The vessels can cause collisions, leak oil, malfunction, or even sink, posing a threat to other ships, water, and marine life. With estimates suggesting over 1,400 ships have defected to the dark side serving Russia, the potential for environmental damage is substantial. For instance, since the beginning of 2022, 230 shadow fleet tankers have transported Russian crude oil through the Danish straits on 741 occasions. Also, a shadow fleet tanker on its way to load crude in Russia collided with another ship in the strait between Denmark and Sweden. Last year, a fully loaded oil tanker lost propulsion and drifted off the Danish island of Langeland for six hours. Recovery after any potential oil spill could take decades.

Added to the environmental issue, seaborne Russian oil is almost entirely heading to the Asian markets, with India, China, and Turkey being the biggest buyers. In 2023, 86% of oil exports went to friendly countries compared to 40% in 2021, and 84% of petroleum product exports compared to 30% in 2021. This shift in export destinations highlights the changing geopolitical landscape of the oil market due to the sanctions and the rise of the shadow fleet. Several measures have been proposed to address the challenges posed by the shadow fleet. These include stricter sanctions on individual vessels, increased scrutiny of financial institutions involved in Russian oil deals, and fines that would limit sales or decommission tankers.

The G7 countries are taking measures to tighten control over the price cap and further pressure Russia. The US has introduced a series of sanctions against ships and shipowners suspected of violating the price cap. However, concerns remain that these measures could lead to higher energy prices and escalate tensions with Russia. The Danish foreign ministry has stated that “The Russian shadow fleet is an international problem that requires international solutions.” The shadow fleet has allowed Russia to circumvent Western sanctions and continue profiting from its oil exports, but it has come at a significant cost. The environmental risks posed by these aging and poorly maintained vessels are alarming, and the shift in oil trade patterns is reshaping the geopolitical landscape. Addressing this complex issue will require concerted international efforts and a delicate balance between maintaining sanctions and ensuring stable energy markets. The situation is unsustainable, and the need for action is becoming increasingly urgent.

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For the amount of time and effort put in, it doesn’t look very successsful. There must have been a “better” plan.

Pager Bomb Plot 15 Years In The Making – ABC News (RT)

Israeli intelligence services have been contemplating an operation along the lines of this week’s mass explosions of Hezbollah electronic devices for at least 15 years, a US intelligence source has told ABC News. Thousands of people were injured in Lebanon by a series of blasts linked to pagers, walkie-talkies, and other equipment used by the militant group. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for the incident, although media reports have widely described it as a Mossad plot that involved rigging the gadgets with remotely-triggered explosive charges. Speaking to ABC News, a US source called it a “supply chain interdiction,” adding that the CIA has long been reluctant to employ similar tactics due to the risk of collateral damage. In Lebanon, children were among some two dozen people killed in the attack, which also left many victims mutilated.

The New York Times previously reported that the supply of sabotaged devices started in the summer of 2023, citing multiple officials familiar with the operation. The ABC News report suggested that BAC Consulting, a Hungarian-based firm subcontracted by Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Gold Apollo to produce pagers for Hezbollah, was an Israeli front. The devices were never in Hungary and BAC was “a trading intermediary, with no manufacturing or operational site” in the country, a government spokesperson told the outlet. The administration of Taiwan has distanced the self-ruled Chinese island from the wave of violence in Lebanon. “The components are [mainly] low-end IC [integrated circuits] and batteries,” Economy Minister Kuo Jyh-huei told reporters on Friday, as quoted by Reuters. “I can say with certainty they were not made in Taiwan.”

Beirut and the Hezbollah leadership have blamed Israel for the incident and have declared that Lebanon is now in a state of war with its neighbor. The Israel Defense Forces intensified cross-border attacks on Thursday, in what observers fear may be a prelude for a major ground invasion. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Wednesday announced a “new phase in the war” with the militant movement. An Israeli commando division previously involved in military action in Gaza has moved to the north amid the sharpening tensions. Israel launched large-scale military action in Lebanon in 1982 – leading to a three-year partial occupation and the rise of Hezbollah as a prominent military and political force – and again in 2006, in what turned out to be a month-long incursion.

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Dominion
https://twitter.com/i/status/1836426236916363344

 

 

Rogan shooter
https://twitter.com/i/status/1836496582973194256

 

 

Close up
https://twitter.com/i/status/1836642625509568992

 

 

Penguins
https://twitter.com/i/status/1836474470703210503

 

 

Shark

 

 

Transformation

 

 

 

 

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Sep 052024
 
 September 5, 2024  Posted by at 8:41 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  75 Responses »


René Magritte Pandora’s box 1951

 

Tyranny Is Closer Than You Realize (Paul Craig Roberts)
Popular Conservatives Tricked Into $10M Russian Influence Campaign: DOJ (ZH)
US Justice Department Reveals Legal Action Against RT (RT)
Biden To Take ‘Law Enforcement Action’ Against RT – CNN (RT)
Persecution of Sputnik, RT Contributors Highlights US Hypocrisy (Sp.)
Harris Denounced Unfettered Free Speech in 2019 CNN Interview (Turley)
Fake News Now At Peak As Kamala Faces CNN “interview” (Jay)
Harris-Walz: The Ticket Of COVID Tyranny (Rich)
Trump To Fight Revamped J6 Charges (RT)
Zelensky Vows To ‘Hold’ Occupied Russian Territory (RT)
Ukraine ‘Weaponizing’ Religion – Church of Jerusalem (RT)
Rothschild Helped Ukraine Clinch Debt Restructuring – Reuters (RT)
‘Looming Threat’ From Russia Sparks ‘Major Rethink’ Of EU Defense Policy (RT)
Starlink Agrees To Comply With Brazil’s Orders To Block X (ZH)
Pavel Durov – Freedom To Play Fool, Stock Speculator, Fraudster (Helmer)
Mongolia Showed Its Greatness To The World (SCF)
Truth is being Removed from the Western World (Paul Craig Roberts)

 

 

 

 

Emerald

 

 

Hawley
https://twitter.com/i/status/1831132426573054452

 

 

SAVE Act
https://twitter.com/i/status/1831010091849421005

 

 

Vivek
https://twitter.com/i/status/1831180765234655471

 

 

Trump Nordstream

 

 

Trump Fridman

 

 

 

 

Will they try to lock him up for a year, 6 weeks before the election?

Tyranny Is Closer Than You Realize (Paul Craig Roberts)

It is strange that there is no discussion of it, but in two weeks and one day on September 18 Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for president in the November election in two months, is scheduled by a corrupt Democrat “judge” to be sentenced for 34 felony counts pulled out of thin air by a corrupt Democrat prosecutor for how Trump’s accountants reported an expense. Trump’s accountants reported the expense as a legal expense, which was a reasonable classification of the expense, but the corrupt Democrat prosecutor said it was a campaign contribution by Trump to his own campaign and that by reporting it as a legal expense he is guilty of interfering in the election. It is this absurd personal opinion of the corrupt Democrat prosecutor–are there any Democrat prosecutors who are not corrupt?– that turned a non-issue of how an expense was reported into 34 felony charges.

In fact, there is only one charge. But the corrupt Democrat prosecutor wrote it up 34 different times in order to create an appearance of large scale crime. Few jurors have the intelligence to see the wool being pulled over their eyes, especially when all they hear from the whore media is that Trump is a criminal and a threat to democracy, a traitor to America, a Russian agent, an insurrectionist, and so on. No one in the whore American media tells them any different. What is the Democrat judge going to do on September 18? I can’t say that I know. If common sense were involved, the Democrat judge would have set the sentencing date after the election, or he would issue a suspended sentence. But common sense is not part of the script. According to the scuttlebutt, the Democrat Justice (sic) Department has decided on a one year prison sentence.

According to the scuttlebutt the Democrat Justice (sic) Department has been working it out with Rikers prison a way of accommodating Trump’s Secret Service protection that is required by federal law for former presidents 24/7. Whether the Secret Service will do any better job of protecting Trump in prison than they did at his Pennsylvania rally is the open question. The puzzling aspect of the September 18 sentencing is why bother? All of the theft mechanisms used in the swing states to deny Trump his 2020 victory have been legalized. In the swing states it is now legal to steal the election, so why bother sentencing Trump? Is it chaos that the elite want? Are the tyrannical elite hoping that Trump’s imprisonment will cause people to pour into the streets, thus permitting the Democrat regime to declare an insurrection and arrest all Republican members of Congress, all Republican governors, and all Republican state legislatures?

Will torture uncover a plot and lead to the arrest and detention of all white conservatives and registered Republican voters in detention camps that already exist, allegedly for hurricane victims? It would happen so fast that there would be no chance of organized resistance. I agree, this sounds far-fetched, so what is the point of the sentencing? Justice? From Democrats? What a joke!! Democrats care nothing for justice. They are after power. At all costs. One would think that the issue of one political party sentencing the presidential candidate of the other political party to prison six weeks prior to the election would be a major issue dominating the news and public discussion. But it is not. There is no information. Only scuttlebutt.

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They allegedly paid them well.

Popular Conservatives Tricked Into $10M Russian Influence Campaign: DOJ (ZH)

The DOJ has accused several conservative influencers of unwittingly working for a Kremlin-funded media outlet. A federal indictment unsealed on Wednesday alleges that a Tennessee-based media company, later identified as Tenet Media, received nearly $10 million from employees of Russian state-backed media company, Russia Today (RT), as part of “a scheme to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging.” The DOJ claims that RT and two of its employees – Kostiantyn “Kostya” Kalashnikov and Elena “Lena” Afanasyeva – worked to funnel money to Tenet Media as part of a series of “covert projects” aimed at shaping narratives within Western audiences. The indictment specifically notes that the influencers – including Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, Dave Rubin and Lauren Southern – had no idea they were taking Russian money, and were deceived.

They were told by Tenet founder Lauren Chen – who allegedly knew the true source of the funds – that the money was from a wealthy private investor named “Eduard Grigoriann.” At least one of the influencers asked for a profile on Grigoriann before signing a contract – and was given a fabricated one-page profile. This was apparently sufficient, as two of the commentators (believed to be Tim Pool and Benny Johnson) signed contracts which paid Pool $100,000 per podcast, while Johnson was paid $400,000 per month plus a $100,000 signing bonus for “four weekly videos.” While Pool and Johnson have issued statements (below), it’s been pointed out that Lauren Chen has recently been trying to divide Donald Trump’s base…

In a Wednesday statement on X, Pool says that should the allegations prove true, “I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims,” and ends by telling haters to “eat my irish ass.” Johnson says “Our lawyers negotiated a standard, arms length deal, which was later terminated,” adding “We are disturbed by the allegations in today’s indictment, which make clear that myself and other influencers were victims in this alleged scheme.” We’re sure the timing of this, two months before the election, was a total coincidence. How long has the DOJ been sitting on this? Why did it drop a day after we learned that a Chinese spy was working for NY Gov. Kathy Hochul, or that Poole was going to sue Kamala Harris for defamation?

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“..trick Americans into unwittingly consuming foreign propaganda.”

US Justice Department Reveals Legal Action Against RT (RT)

The US Department of Justice has charged two Russians it identifies as RT employees with money laundering and working as foreign agents for their alleged role in pushing video content that sowed “discord and division” in the US. In a criminal indictment unsealed on Wednesday, US prosecutors claimed that Konstantin Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva financed and directed a Tennessee-based production company that published English-language videos to various social media platforms aimed at amplifying “domestic divisions in the United States.” These videos were viewed more than 16 million times on YouTube alone, the indictment alleged, and, according to FBI Director Christopher Wray, represented an attempt to “trick Americans into unwittingly consuming foreign propaganda.”

Producing videos that highlight social and political divisions in the US is not a crime. However, the Justice Department claimed that Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva broke the law by not registering as foreign agents. Back in 2017, the Department of Justice forced the now-defunct RT America to register as a foreign agent, after a host of US intelligence agencies claimed that RT had helped to elect Donald Trump by publishing “negative coverage” of Hillary Clinton and criticizing the US’ “corrupt political establishment.” Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva face a maximum sentence of five years in prison for violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and 20 years for money laundering. However, the charges against them will likely never be proven in an American courtroom, as the US has no extradition treaty with Russia.

The two Russians were also sanctioned by the US Treasury Department on Wednesday, along with RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan and three other senior RT employees. Simonyan dismissed the charges, responding “great job, team!” on Telegram. In a press conference on Wednesday, US Attorney General Merrick Garland said that the allegations against Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva, as well as a separate Russian scheme to allegedly spread anti-Ukraine content online, “make clear the ends to which the Russian government, including at its highest levels, is willing to go to undermine our democratic process.”

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RT’s answer is clear.

Biden To Take ‘Law Enforcement Action’ Against RT – CNN (RT)

The administration of US President Joe Biden is planning to accuse Russia of meddling in this year’s presidential election, and will announce “law enforcement action” against those supposedly responsible, CNN reported on Wednesday. RT will be the prime target of this action, the network stated. The White House will accuse Russia on Wednesday of “a sustained effort to influence the 2024 US elections” by using “Kremlin-run media” to spread so-called “disinformation,” CNN reported, citing US government sources. Alongside a public condemnation from the White House, the US Department of Justice will announce “law enforcement action targeting the covert Russian campaign,” the network said. RT is “a major focus of the US announcement,” CNN added, noting that “US officials see the Russian outlet as a key piece of Kremlin propaganda efforts.”

“Dear CNN,” RT’s press office responded following Wednesday’s article. “We certainly have a response. Actually, we have several, but we couldn’t decide on one (we even thought of running an office poll), so here they are:

1. Ha!

2. Hahahaha!

3. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

4. 2016 called and it wants its clichés back

5. Three things are certain in life: death, taxes and RT’s interference in the US elections

6. We gotta earn our Kremlin paycheck somehow

7. Somewhere, Secretary Clinton is sad that it’s not because of her

SINCERELY,

RT Press Office”

Democrats like Biden have accused Russia of interfering in the last two presidential elections. During the 2016 and 2020 campaigns, US intelligence agencies repeatedly claimed that Moscow was deploying hackers and using “information warfare” to swing the vote in favor of Donald Trump. These allegations, coupled with claims that Trump had colluded with Moscow to win the election, formed the basis for a two-year investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, but were ultimately found to be baseless. In 2020, more than 50 “former intelligence officials” published a letter claiming that files on Hunter Biden’s laptop – which implicated the Biden family in multiple foreign corruption schemes – were fabricated by Russia. The laptop’s contents have since been proven genuine.

Throughout the past decade, American officials have repeatedly accused RT of spreading “disinformation” – a term that these officials rarely define. Back in 2017, the Department of Justice forced RT America to register as a foreign agent, after a host of US intelligence agencies claimed that RT had helped to elect Trump by publishing “negative coverage” of Clinton and criticizing the US’ “corrupt political establishment.” RT America ceased operations in 2022 after the network was dropped by its US distributors in response to the Ukraine conflict.

Despite their claims of “Russian interference” in US elections being repeatedly proven to be without foundation, American spies have stuck to them. Earlier this summer, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) in Washington alleged that the Kremlin had mounted a “whole-of-government” effort to turn the American public against Biden and his fellow Democrats. This accusation paved the way for the FBI to raid the homes of Scott Ritter, a former UN weapons inspector and RT contributor, and Dimitri K. Simes, a Soviet-born US political pundit who hosts a show on domestic Russian television. Ritter described the raid as an attempt to intimidate “anyone who goes against official [US] policies and particularly against the deep state.”

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“..it is not the Russians but the US government that is engaged in an attempt to influence and control the popular narrative for its own benefit.”

Persecution of Sputnik, RT Contributors Highlights US Hypocrisy (Sp.)

The United States’ persecution campaign against journalists and political dissidents with ties to Russian media accelerated Wednesday when new repressive measures were announced against several entities. New sanctions were announced against 10 individuals and two organizations under the umbrella of the Rossiya Segodnya media group, including RIA Novosti, RT, Sputnik and Ruptly. The sanctions target these entities for alleged “hostile interference in the presidential elections,” the US Treasury Department claimed. The measures also target editor-in-chief of Rossiya Segodnya and RT Margarita Simonyan and several top managers at RT. Ex-CIA analyst and former State Department counterterrorism expert Larry Johnson spoke with Sputnik Wednesday about the startling development, the latest attempt by the Biden administration to shape political discourse online and in the media.

“The latest stunt pulled by the Biden Department of Justice to declare all of these sanctions on Russia for alleged interference in the US political system is a level of hypocrisy that is staggering in its magnitude and in its foulness,” Johnson said.“Let’s be clear about one thing: the one country in the world that has been involved with more interference in the internal political affairs of every other country is the United States. During the reign of President Eisenhower in the 1950s, there were 170 different covert actions carried out against other countries.” “This year [the US has] allocated almost $4 billion to interfere or meddle in the political affairs of other countries,” he continued. “$315 million of that goes to the National Endowment for Democracy. $300 million is specifically what they call counter-Russian influence. And another $2.9 billion is for ‘democracy’ programs. And these have been used basically to run propaganda, to pay people, to organize ‘democracy’ programs in places like Georgia.”

The US frequently funds pro-Western media and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in foreign countries it targets for regime change to pave the way for a pro-US government to come to power. Author and journalist William Blum documented over 50 examples of significant US interference in other countries since World War II in his classic book Killing Hope, largely based on the shocking revelations of ex-CIA agent Philip Agee. More recently the US has interfered in countries such as Brazil, Indonesia and Ukraine, paving the way for the latter country’s extremist anti-Russia government through its support for the Euromaidan coup in 2014. “I don’t know how many millions of dollars are allocated to the CIA for additional covert actions designed to plant stories in media, to create electronic media, to influence social networks across the board,” Johnson continued. “It’s the United States that’s meddling.

With respect to the entire bogus claim that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, we now know without a doubt that that was a Democrat operation led by Hillary Clinton and her team,” he added. “Everything we were told about Donald Trump and the Russians was a lie. I was one of the few writing about it at the time to call it out… The notion that RT is manipulating and influencing the presidential election is beyond laughable,” he claimed, noting that the Russian television channel’s app is banned from many app stores in the West while its content has been removed from YouTube and other websites. “How is a news network that’s not allowed to broadcast and that’s shut [out] of social media in the United States supposed to influence [the election]? … It just goes across the board that they’re going to try to attack any kind of alternative voice in the media.”

Johnson noted that he has been subjected to a “pre-interview” with most television news outlets he has appeared on, such as the BBC, MSNBC, Fox News, CBS and the CBC, during which employees for each outlet attempted to ascertain what he would say when interviewed live on air. RT was one of only two outlets that never subjected him to the practice, he said. “It’s the so-called ‘free democracies’ that want to run that litmus test,” he said. Johnson said the recent persecution of figures connected to RT and Sputnik is merely another attempt to run the “Russiagate” playbook, attempting to discredit alternative media outlets that critique US foreign policy. “Electoral interference” continues to take place, Johnson claimed, but it is not the Russians but the US government that is engaged in an attempt to influence and control the popular narrative for its own benefit.

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“..Donald Trump, he has 65 million Twitter followers, he has proven himself to be willing to obstruct justice – just ask Bob Mueller..”

Harris Denounced Unfettered Free Speech in 2019 CNN Interview (Turley)

I previously wrote how a Harris-Walz Administration would be a nightmare for free speech. Both candidates have shown pronounced anti-free speech values. Now, X owner Elon Musk and former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have released the interview to show the depths of the hostility of Harris to unfettered free speech. I have long argued that Trump and the third-party candidates should make free speech a central issue in this campaign. That has not happened. Kennedy was the only candidate who was substantially and regularly talking about free speech in this election. Yet, Musk and Kennedy are still trying to raise the chilling potential of a Harris-Walz Administration. In my book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I discuss how the Biden-Harris Administration has proven to be the most anti-free speech administration since John Adams.

That includes a massive censorship system described by one federal judge as perfectly “Orwellian.” In the CNN interview, Harris displays many of the anti-free speech inclinations discussed earlier. She strongly suggests that X should be shut down if it does not yield to demands for speech regulation. What is most chilling is how censorship and closure are Harris’s default positions when faced with unfettered speech. She declares to CNN that such unregulated free speech “has to stop” and that there is a danger to the country when people are allowed to “directly speak[] to millions and millions of people without any level of oversight and regulation.” Harris discussed her view that then-President Trump’s Twitter account should be shut down because the public had to be protected from harmful viewpoints.

“And when you’re talking about Donald Trump, he has 65 million Twitter followers, he has proven himself to be willing to obstruct justice – just ask Bob Mueller. You can look at the manifesto from the shooter in El Paso to know that what Donald Trump says on Twitter impacts peoples’ perceptions about what they should and should not do.” Harris demanded that Trump’s account “should be taken down” and that there be uniformity in the censorship of American citizens: “And the bottom line is that you can’t say that you have one rule for Facebook and you have a different rule for Twitter. The same rule has to apply, which is that there has to be a responsibility that is placed on these social media sites to understand their power… They are speaking to millions of people without any level of oversight or regulation. And that has to stop.”

In other words, free speech should be set to the lowest common denominator of speech regulation to protect citizens from dangerous viewpoints. Harris’s views have been echoed by many Democratic leaders, including Hillary Clinton who (after Musk purchased Twitter) called upon European censors to force him to censor American citizens under the infamous Digital Services Act (DSA). Other Democratic leaders have praised Brazil for banning X after Musk balked at censoring conservatives at the demand of the socialist government. Brazil is where this anti-free speech movement is clearly heading and could prove a critical testing ground for national bans on sites which refuse to engage in comprehensive censorship. As Harris clearly states in the CNN interview, there cannot be “one rule for Facebook and you have a different rule for Twitter.” Rather, everyone must censor or face imminent government shutdowns.

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“‘gold fishing’ – an on-screen facial contortion where the lips and cheeks move, but nothing comes out of the mouth..”

“Harris is seen as the most suitable candidate to further the causes of America’s military industrial complex ..”

Fake News Now At Peak As Kamala Faces CNN “interview” (Jay)

Wherever you look, it feels like we are being bombarded now with an unprecedented level of fake news. One reason may well be how the installed governments by western elites – military industrial complex and banking – are getting very skittish indeed about a shake up of world order in November when the airhead Kamala Harris takes on Donald Trump in the presidential elections. This new trend of installing a useful idiot into power has been around for decades across Africa and Asia where the U.S. and before that the UK installed their own despots to serve their own needs, so we shouldn’t be so shocked by someone like Harris having the landscape prepared for her. To call Harris a ‘lightweight’ is understating her political verve. She has none of the conventional talents that politicians require like public speaking, or engaging with media, let alone having any ideas of her own which might make it one day to policy.

For most Americans the choice in November is between Harris, who is essentially Biden 2.0 or Trump. Not exactly a tough call many might say since RFK endorsed Trump who traditionally he has not been a fan of; it’s as though he’s saying to Americans, “anything but Kamala. Do the maths”. Media is of course playing a huge and certainly tawdry role in pushing her which is not generally noted by most Americans. For weeks she has ignored or avoided all serendipitous contact with journalists which surely must be orders from the elite who are controlling her. And there is good reason for this as the internet is awash with her talking gibberish. Or dancing. Talking mumbo jumbo won’t help her at the polls against Trump who revels at the microphone and is not afraid to go head to head with journalists and unscripted interviews, despite him whining about how unfair the set-up is.

What he is alluding to is that left-wing media in America like CNN fake the news and as we saw recently almost certainly gave Kamala a print out of the questions she was going to face with her recent CNN interview where she was joined by her running mate just in case she did something which broadcast journalists call ‘gold fishing’ – an on-screen facial contortion where the lips and cheeks move, but nothing comes out of the mouth. In Kamala’s case, gold fishing might not be as bad as actually speaking, as she has shown us that there is not much between the ears. She is not overburdened with what many academics have of knowing too much and not being able to communicate in short sound bites. Harris doesn’t really know anything at all except a few talking points from Biden’s days. Her own people will be happy with the staged interview as they can at least counter oped writers who claim she is so lame that she avoids all press. Thanks CNN. Great jaaaabbbb.

Harris is seen as the most suitable candidate to further the causes of America’s military industrial complex whose six main companies cannot slow production down, unless they make job layoffs. The insatiable hunger of this machine is responsible for the lion’s share of U.S. foreign policy and Biden gave his cronies their one hundred Christmas’s when he created the Ukraine war and more recently Gaza. In Gaza the false reporting from western media is as repulsive as the images of children who have lost their entire brains and whose heads look like theatrical floppy props, which has become the day to day norm now when Israel bombs schools. Does anyone in the west in either camp still believe this is a “war” against Hamas fighters?

With the recent invasion of West Bank and the rise of settlers stealing land there, surely the real story of Netanyahu’s campaign is there for all to see in plain light: ethnic cleansing on a grand scale to wipe Palestinians off the face of Israel. And still we read western journalists and op-ed writers parroting the line about ‘two state solutions’ and what the EU says, etc etc. By the time the chairs are arranged and the mineral water is put on the tables, there will not be a Palestinian left to even represent his or her own state. Everyone knows the two-state solution is a massive parody of diplo gibberish a bit like Kamala’s few media stints which are still good for a laugh today. And it’s an identical story in Ukraine. No western journalists can report on the true story of Ukrainian losses in Kursk and how the operation has blown up in Zelensky’s face. The omission of reporting key facts and data is just as bad as making up your stories, if not worse.

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“..he also established a “Covid hotline” where people could call and report anyone who wasn’t following the governor’s edicts..”

Harris-Walz: The Ticket Of COVID Tyranny (Rich)

Quarantine, lockdowns, social distancing – words I’m sure everyone reading never wants to hear again. Even several years removed, the pain inflicted by Covid-19 and subsequent policy reactions is still fresh in our collective consciousness. I wouldn’t blame anyone for wanting to forget the whole thing, and you wouldn’t be the only one. The authoritarians who violated your freedoms in the name of Covid safety would love for those years – and their mistakes – to be forgotten. As it happens, two of those authoritarians will be appearing together on ballots this November – Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. Kamala Harris is a familiar name to many Americans. Picked out by Biden to serve as vice president on the 2020 Democrat ticket, she has served the past three-and-a-half years as Biden’s second-in-command. Depending on the outcome of the presidential elections in November, she might even be getting a promotion.

But in her capacity as VP, she has overseen the Biden administration’s increasingly tyrannical edicts in the name of stopping Covid. In 2021, the Biden administration attempted to wield OSHA against the American people by requiring that any companies with over 100 employees require weekly testing or vaccination. Not only was the legal reasoning behind this mandate spurious, the actions being mandated had, at best, questionable efficacy in combating the “Omicron” Covid strain. Thankfully, the mandate was struck down in a 6-3 decision by the Supreme Court in 2022, but neither Biden nor anyone in his administration ever rescinded their support for the measure. Additionally, the Biden administration took steps to censor anyone skeptical of their Covid policies by putting pressure on private companies. As revealed by the “Twitter Files,” the Biden administration would request that Twitter either ban or artificially reduce the reach of certain accounts.

These included high-profile individuals, such as Robert Kennedy Jr. It was only after Elon Musk purchased Twitter that such government “requests” were disclosed to the public. Vice President Harris has done more than look on with passive approval at the Biden administration’s actions. She has been actively involved in vaccination drives, encouraging masking, and imploring Americans to social distance. At a 2021 vaccine drive in South Carolina, Harris stated: “So, the vaccines—let me say it again—are safe. They are safe. And they are free. And they are effective. And it is that simple.” And, on the subject of “herd immunity”: “If you are vaccinated, you are protected. If your community is vaccinated, Covid rates in your community will go down.”

Just a few months after these remarks, the Delta variant would crash through the United States, despite millions of Americans being vaccinated. The same would happen again in 2022, when the Omicron variant caused record-high numbers of Covid infections. Harris also supported vaccines for children aged 5-11, despite the fact that young children are among the least likely to suffer serious complications from Covid. Even the World Health Organization would later reverse their position on child vaccination because of the marginal-to-nonexistent benefits.

In contrast to Harris, Tim Walz is an unfamiliar name to many. In 2018, Walz was elected governor of Minnesota, reelected in 2022, and is currently running with Harris for vice president. During Covid, he supported the same masking, lockdown, and social distancing policies that most governors across the country did, however, Walz’s administration was willing to go farther in these measures than many other governors. After Walz issued a stay-at-home order to prevent the spread of Covid, he also established a “Covid hotline” where people could call and report anyone who wasn’t following the governor’s edicts. This caused no small amount of controversy within the state, but when Walz was asked about removing the hotline, he said, “We’re not going to take down a phone number that people can call to keep their families safe.”

Walz was perfectly willing to enforce his lockdown orders as well. Whenever a Lakeville restaurant tried to reopen for dine-in service, state attorney general Keith Ellison sought a restraining order to keep it closed. Gloating on the situation, Ellison said. “I’m gratified the court recognizes the severity of the pandemic and the need to take urgent action to stop the spread of Covid-19.” In June 2020, Walz issued a mask mandate, requiring anyone in an indoor space with non-family members to wear a mask. In the official announcement of this mandate, Walz said, “But as Minnesotans always do during tough times, we come together and we take care of one another. And right now there’s no better way to demonstrate our Minnesotan values than by wearing a mask.”

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“..The hearing is scheduled for Thursday..”

Trump To Fight Revamped J6 Charges (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump will enter a not guilty plea to criminal charges in a revised indictment accusing him of attempting to overturn the 2020 election results. The case is related to the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol Building in Washington, DC by Trump supporters in the aftermath of his defeat. The Republican candidate in this year’s race for the White House said in a court filing on Tuesday that he would not be present at a formal reading of the charges against him. He also authorized his attorneys “to enter a plea of not guilty” on his behalf “to each and every count of the superseding indictment.” The hearing is scheduled for Thursday. The revised indictment includes the same four charges prosecutors brought against Trump last year and that he pleaded not guilty to in August 2023.

Trump was accused of conspiracy to defraud the US, conspiracy against the voting rights of citizens, and obstruction of congressional certification of the election. The new document is a stripped-down version of last year’s criminal case against Trump. Certain allegations were dropped and reframed after the US Supreme Court ruled that Trump has broad immunity from criminal prosecution over official actions taken during his term as president. Trump has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and denounced the case as an attempt to prevent him from returning to the White House. In a series of posts on his Truth Social platform late last month, he called it “a direct assault on democracy” and a “resurrection of a dead witch hunt.”

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“..it intends to “hold” the territory because it is crucial to Kiev’s “victory plan” to end the conflict.”

Zelensky Vows To ‘Hold’ Occupied Russian Territory (RT)

Ukraine intends to occupy part of Russia’s Kursk Region indefinitely, Vladimir Zelensky has said. Officials in Kiev earlier signaled that they plan to use this as a bargaining chip in potential negotiations with Moscow.In an interview with NBC News released on Tuesday, the Ukrainian leader was asked what he plans to do with the internationally recognized Russian territory Kiev has captured as a result of a large-scale cross-border incursion that began last month.While Zelensky stressed that Ukraine “does not need [Russian] land” and “[does not] want to bring our Ukrainian way of life there,” it intends to “hold” the territory because it is crucial to Kiev’s “victory plan” to end the conflict. “For now, we need it,” he said.

He declined to say whether Ukraine plans to seize more Russian land. “With all respect, I can’t speak about it,” Zelensky said, citing the same considerations that forced Kiev to keep preparations for the Kursk offensive secret.Ukraine launched a large-scale attack on Kursk Region on August 6, reportedly committing some of its best brigades equipped with Western-supplied armor. While it made some initial gains, Moscow says the advance has been halted. The Russian Defense Ministry has estimated Kiev’s losses in the Kursk offensive at more than 9,300 troops and 700 armored vehicles.

Mikhail Podoliak, a senior aide to Zelensky, has said that the purpose of the attack was to secure a stronger position during potential peace talks with Moscow and to instill fear in the Russian population. Russian President Vladimir Putin has denounced the incursion as a provocation, accusing Ukraine of indiscriminately targeting civilians and pledging that Moscow will eventually “deal with the Ukrainian bandits” who entered Kursk Region. He signaled that Russia has no plans to engage in talks until the incursion is completely defeated, adding, however, that Moscow does not reject negotiations in principle.

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“..such a blanket punishment of countless faithful men and women does not promote unity, nor does it promote peace.”

Ukraine ‘Weaponizing’ Religion – Church of Jerusalem (RT)

The Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, one of the oldest Christian churches in the world, has called on the Ukrainian government to repeal a law which exposes the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) to a likely ban. Kiev has outlawed religious organizations that it suspects of having ties with Russia. The legislation, which Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky signed into law last month, is designed to shut down the UOC, the largest Christian denomination in the country. The UOC was previously targeted in a massive crackdown by the state, as officials told priests and the faithful that they should switch to the Kiev-supported rival Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). In a statement on Tuesday, the Patriarchate of Jerusalem denounced Kiev’s move, insisting that “such a blanket punishment of countless faithful men and women does not promote unity, nor does it promote peace.”

“There is no justification to weaponize religious belief practice and we all must allow those who wish to pray to do so in a manner that accords with their conscience,” the statement stressed.Jerusalem said it sympathized with victims of the Ukraine conflict, “but out of this pain must not emerge a new schism among the faithful or the criminalization of innocent people because of their religious practice.” “The Patriarchate of Jerusalem recognizes the challenges and deep divisions that this conflict represents, and is committed to the spiritual mission of dialogue and reconciliation through fraternal discussions,” it added. The UOC has historic and spiritual ties to the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), but is self-governed. The OCU was created in late 2018 as part of the failed reelection campaign by then-Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko.

The move caused a major schism in the Orthodox Christian world, as the new organization was recognized by the Patriarchate of Constantinople in Türkiye. It revoked a decision made in the 17th century to acknowledge the ROC’s spiritual leadership in the lands that are now independent Ukraine. The Moscow Patriarchate broke ties with Constantinople in retaliation. The Patriarchate of Jerusalem has been working to heal the rift. The Ukrainian law was previously criticized by the Catholic Church. Pope Francis said he was concerned for the state of religious freedoms in the country, and urged Kiev to “let those who want to pray be allowed to pray in what they consider their Church.”

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BlackRock.

Rothschild Helped Ukraine Clinch Debt Restructuring – Reuters (RT)

Ukraine reached its recent agreement with bondholders on a debt restructuring as a result of efforts by Rothschild & Co, Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing sources involved in the talks. Kiev appointed Rothschild as an advisor to its Finance Ministry in 2017. Kiev announced last week that it had reached an agreement with a group of foreign investors to restructure its $20 billion debt. Bondholders – including US financial giants BlackRock and Pimco, as well as French asset manager Amundi – granted Ukraine a two-year debt freeze in February 2022 when the conflict with Russia broke out. The bondholders’ committee, which represents the holders of 25% of the bonds, has agreed to accept losses of 37%, or $8.7 billion, on the nominal value of their debt.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reportedly confirmed that the deal was compatible with the parameters of its $122 billion aid package to Kiev. Both the IMF and the country’s creditors, which include the US and the Paris Club, have signed off on it, according to a statement with the terms of the accord published on the London Stock Exchange. The restructuring of the massive debt will help Kiev save $11.4 billion over the next three years. This is crucial for both its war effort and its IMF program, Reuters wrote, describing the debt restructuring as one of the fastest and largest in history, eclipsed in scale only by those undertaken by Argentina and Greece.

The report, however, highlighted that initial negotiations between the Ukrainian government and its lenders that started in June 2022 did not go to plan. Talks failed after a couple of weeks as the core committee of bondholders complained that the write-down Ukraine was demanding was “significantly in excess” of the 20% expected and risked doing “substantial damage” to relations.With less than two months until the August 2022 payment moratorium expired, Rothschild reportedly arranged face-to-face meetings for the sides at the firm’s offices in Paris. These reportedly involved representatives of some of the world’s top asset management firms and their legal and financial advisers, Kiev’s debt chief Yury Butsa, Ukraine’s long-term legal advisers White & Case and the Rothschild team.

According to Reuters, bondholders demanded that Ukraine restart coupon payments immediately, offer a path to a higher principal recovery and, importantly, “keep it simple.” IMF staff reportedly worked “at breakneck speed” to crunch the numbers. Kiev offered an alternative in the form of a simpler GDP-linked bond, with creditors also being offered the instant coupon payments that they had wanted, starting at a rate of 1.75% and eventually rising to 7.75%. The final result from the bondholder vote was more than 97% support, Reuters said.

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“..the conflict in Ukraine had revealed “the sorry state of European militaries and defense industries.”

‘Looming Threat’ From Russia Sparks ‘Major Rethink’ Of EU Defense Policy (RT)

The European Parliament is set to hold closed-door, high-level discussions on Wednesday in relation to a new report on the competitiveness of the EU defense industry, Politico has reported. The document, prepared by former Italian prime minister Mario Draghi, reportedly calls on the bloc to rethink its defense policy in light of the Ukraine conflict and the purported threat from Russia. Draghi prepared the 400-page report at the request of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who said last week that the EU needs a “systemic overhaul” of its defense spending to increase production and reduce its dependence on the US. “The EU’s defense industrial base is facing structural challenges in terms of capacity, know-how and technological edge. As a result, the EU is not keeping pace with its global competitors,” a draft of the document reads, Politico reported on Monday.

The report also cites “the emergence of new types of hybrid threats” and “a possible shift of geographic focus” by the US as reasons for the EU to take “growing responsibility” for its own security. Draghi, who also previously served as the head of the European Central Bank, suggested earlier this year that his report will focus on the possible ways to fill the productivity gap, which has been mostly driven by a lack of investment in innovation. The EU spends roughly one-third of what the US does on defense in monetary terms, and the bloc’s arms companies depend 80% on international suppliers, largely from across the Atlantic, Draghi wrote. International think tank, the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), noted last month that the conflict in Ukraine had revealed “the sorry state of European militaries and defense industries.”

Among the recommendations are the introduction of steps to incentivize domestic defense solutions over competitors, and a removal of red tape for weapons manufacturers to access EU funding. The United States, the founding member of NATO, has played a central role in the bloc’s defense, as most EU nations are NATO members. Since the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict in early 2022, the White House has been sending additional forces to the EU. Some nations, such as the Czech Republic and the Baltic states, have claimed that Russia would attack them if it won in Ukraine. Moscow has repeatedly dismissed the claims. President Vladimir Putin said in June that there is no threat of Russia attacking NATO countries as it has no “imperial ambitions,” and described such allegations as “nonsense.”

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Wonder why.

Starlink Agrees To Comply With Brazil’s Orders To Block X (ZH)

Elon Musk’s internet service, Starlink, has announced that it will comply with a Brazil Supreme Court order to shut down X while vowing to pursue “all legal avenues” to allow the recently banned Musk-owned social media platform to operate in Brazil. The move, announced by Starlink in a statement on Sept. 3, marks an apparent reversal after the country’s telecommunications regulator previously said that the satellite-based internet provider stated that it wouldn’t agree to block the social media platform. Starlink said it would abide by an order from Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes requiring internet service providers and app stores to block X from their platforms. “Regardless of the illegal treatment of Starlink in freezing our assets, we are complying with the order to block access to X in Brazil,” Starlink’s statement said.

“We continue to pursue all legal avenues, as are others who agree that @alexandre’s recent orders violate the Brazilian constitution.” As Tom Ozimek reports at The Epoch Times, De Moraes froze Starlink’s accounts last week in order to pressure the company to cover fines imposed on X in Brazil, reasoning that both are part of the same Musk-controlled group. In response to the asset freeze, Starlink said on Aug. 29 that it believes de Moraes’s decision violated due process and was unconstitutional. “It was issued in secret and without affording Starlink any of the due process of law guaranteed by the Constitution of Brazil,” Starlink said in the statement. “We intend to address the matter legally.” Starlink’s announcement that it will comply with the order to shut down X comes a day after a spokesperson from Brazil’s telecommunications regulator told The Epoch Times that the company had “informally” expressed to a top agency executive its intention to buck the X ban.

The spokesperson said that unless Starlink complies, it will face sanctions, including possibly having its operating license in Brazil revoked. Arthur Coimbra, an Anatel board member, told The Associated Press that if Starlink refuses to abide by the order to block X, authorities could also eventually seize equipment from Starlink’s 23 ground stations in Brazil, where Starlink serves over a quarter million customers. Starlink’s announcement that it intends to comply with the X ban marks the latest chapter in a long-running dispute between Brazilian officials and Musk, who has refused to comply with court orders to block accounts accused by investigators of spreading hate and misinformation. Both Musk and X’s global government affairs team have denounced these orders as unlawful attempts at censorship.

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Helmer has a whole different take on Durov.

“The man who was hiding too much..”

Pavel Durov – Freedom To Play Fool, Stock Speculator, Fraudster (Helmer)

Pavel Durov aka Paul du Rove (“vagabond” in French) doesn’t put his money where his mouth is. This is because more than half the assets and almost half the revenues of Durov’s Telegram group of companies are digital units which Telegram itself programmes, stores, trades, values, and revalues, so the potential for concealment, deception and fraud is unaccountably large. This is the reason Durov has failed to secure the US regulator’s permission to sell shares in his $30 billion valuation of Telegram in a US initial public offering (IPO). In short, the freedom and privacy Durov claims his Telegram social media platform represents is not at all what the financial reports reveal of his money-making. The first fraud flag was waved by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in October 2019 after more than a year of Durov’s money-raising through digital tokens he called Grams which he offered to sell for $1.5 billion.

At the time, cornerstone investors in Durov included the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich and other oligarchs. Durov — announced the SEC — “seeks to obtain the benefits of a public offering without complying with the long-established disclosure responsibilities designed to protect the investing public… the defendants have failed to provide investors with information regarding Grams and Telegram’s business operations, financial condition, risk factors, and management that the securities laws require.” In the five years since then, Durov claims to have sold another billion-dollar bond in 2021; $210 million in fresh securities in 2023; and $330 million in paper which Durov floated in March of this year. “The increased demand for our bonds shows that global financial institutions value Telegram’s growth in audience and monetization”, he said (telegrammed) at the time.

These investments weren’t exactly money for value, or vice versa. Durov has admitted he has been buying about a quarter of the debt issues himself. “Valuations are based on market inputs that are not observable,” reported a blockchain industry analyst. When the investors have turned out to be governments – like Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi emirate wealth fund — the real value Durov promised to exchange is likely to be as much political and military as financial. Similar terms of exchange are likely to have been agreed when, in addition to his Russian passport in the name of Durov, he took passports from the United Arab Emirates (name unknown), France (name Paul du Rove), and St Kitts and Nevis. Four months ago, Durov signed financial reports for his Telegram group prepared and audited by PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC). He thought the details would remain secret. Instead, following his arrest and indictment in France last week, they were leaked to the Financial Times in London.

The newspaper claims it “got its hands on the privately held company’s financials” but without explanation it is withholding them from full release. Durov’s signature is dated April 26, 2024. In public defence of his countryman, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said this week that Durov had been naïve about the “old system of globalization…P.V. Durov turned out to be too, too free, too slow or did not listen to Western advice about the so-called moderation of his brainchild.” Naivety is not what Durov signed his name to in Telegram’s financial reports. They reveal he is running a debt pyramid, replenishing the annual deficit between his expenditures and his income with new borrowings whose cost of servicing amounted in 2023 to 46% of his revenues. The leaked papers also disclose that his losses last year came to $259.3 million, although Durov managed to reduce that to $173.2 million by claiming offsetting digital assets had jumped in value. To support such valuation manipulations and his public claims of Telegram’s $30 billion market value, the small print of the auditor’s notes reveal that Durov uses his own digital money to boost the appearance of rising Telegram subscription numbers and demand for the company’s bonds — 15,000 subs and $64 million in bonds, to be precise.

As for protecting Telegram user privacy, Durov acknowledges that after subtracting $130 million in self-accounting “integrated wallet” value from his bottom-line revenue of $342.5 million, over the past year he sold “collectibles” for $17.8 million – almost 9%. This item is defined in the report as “usernames, virtual phone numbers…The related revenue is recognised at a point in time when the collectible is assigned to the user. The Group also enables the sale of collectibles between users and receives the fee for facilitating the sale.” According to the public indictment of the French prosecutors, fraud is one of the charges against Durov, along with money laundering, concealment by cryptology, and “refusal to communicate, at the request of the authorized authorities, the information or documents necessary for the realization and exploitation of interceptions authorized by law.”

According to Russian and international sources, the recent history of each one of these charges involves Durov in dealings with the Azerbaijan government, with the Kanak rebellion in the French colony of New Caledonia, and in undertakings he gave to agents of the French foreign intelligence agency, the Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE), when they visited him recently in Dubai. For a legal analysis of the Digital Services Act and regulations, the law applying to Telegram and to free speech in the social media in the European Union (EU), read this from Craig Murray. The analysis is made irrelevant by Murray’s acknowledgement that the indictment may be warranted if Durov “refused to remove or act over specific individual content specified by the French authorities, or unless he set up Telegram with the specific intent of facilitating organised crime”. Specific content was what the DGSE told Durov it wanted him to provide when they last met. That they met has been confirmed by the official leaks in Libération’s report of September 1. The newspaper headline was “The man who was hiding too much”. That Durov reneged on his promise to the DGSE is what the Paris prosecutor’s statement of August 28 indicates.

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“The people who once faced and conquered the great nations of Eurasia are now once again proving their greatness by boldly confronting Western arrogance.”

Mongolia Showed Its Greatness To The World (SCF)

Russian President Vladimir Putin landed in Mongolia on September 2, making his first trip to a Rome Statute’s country since the International Criminal Court (ICC) illegally issued an arrest warrant against him last year. As expected, some Western member states of the ICC demanded Mongolia to arrest Putin. The same demand was made by the Kiev neo-Nazi regime itself, but was completely ignored by the Mongolian authorities, who welcomed Putin with a red carpet in a great official ceremony. For the West and Kiev, Mongolia’s move was a “violation of international law.” For any serious analyst, the act was a brilliant demonstration of strength, sovereignty and insubordination. From a purely realistic point of view, the Mongolian attitude was completely correct, since, being geographically close to Russia, Mongolia needs to maintain a foreign policy of friendship and cooperation with Moscow.

Both nations have common interests and share the same geographical space – in addition to having a rich common history –, being true natural partners. In fact, Mongolia has shown the world its greatness by welcoming Putin. The country simply said “no” to illegitimate international pressure by taking the sovereign step of welcoming the Russian leader to its territory. The courage of the Mongolian authorities must be praised, as several countries have recently declined to take similar decisions, trembling in the face of international pressure. Even within the BRICS, the illegal arrest warrant against Putin is becoming a relevant issue. Recently, there have been several discussions in Brazil and South Africa about the “possibility” of arresting Putin in the event of a visit by the Russian president. In both countries, government authorities made it clear that the Russian president would be received calmly and safely, but the Judiciary acted irresponsibly, stating that arrest would be mandatory.

To avoid diplomatic discomfort and institutional crises in partner states, Putin has never confirmed any visit to these countries. Of course, a member country of the ICC can decide to arrest someone convicted by the Court. However, an ICC decision can only be valid against a citizen of a member country, otherwise there is an insurmountable legal impasse. The Russian Federation does not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC, and there is no possibility that the country would accept that its citizens be arrested by order of this court. Therefore, if there were a coercive measure to arrest Putin or any other Russian citizen based on an ICC ruling, Moscow would certainly react by taking decisive measures – possibly even military ones. It is up to the ICC member country, upon receiving a foreign citizen “wanted” by the court, to decide whether the decision is valid or not.

If the wanted citizen is a native of a country that does not recognize the ICC, arresting him or her seems absolutely irrational and unnecessary. Furthermore, even in the event of recognition of the court, it must be emphasized that the final decision on whether or not to arrest someone on its territory will always be up to the state itself. There is no force or document in international law capable of obliging a state to act coercively against someone, since state sovereignty is the basic principle of all international relations. In other words, Mongolia, a small country between two giants (Russia and China) had more courage and wisdom than the great emerging powers like Brazil and South Africa. The decision to welcome Putin revealed that the ancient imperial and warrior spirit of the Mongolian people is still alive. The people who once faced and conquered the great nations of Eurasia are now once again proving their greatness by boldly confronting Western arrogance.

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” Leaving a Gestapo Police State in its Place..”

Truth is being Removed from the Western World (Paul Craig Roberts)

Not even one value of Western civilization remains. All values that composed an era of freedom have been repudiated. The example of the hour is Telegram owner Durov’s indictment in France. The basis of the French indictment is that Telegram’s privacy, the basis for its existence, provides a mechanism that criminals can use to commit crimes, such as posts of children in sexual acts. Privacy also provides secret means of communication that criminals and drug dealers use for their illegal businesses. The French government’s claim is that Telegram, by providing privacy, enables these crimes and therefore Durov is complicit in the crimes. Notice that it is Durov, not the child pornographers and drug dealers, who is being prosecuted. In other words, the argument of the French indictment is that as an owner of a communication mechanism that criminals use to facilitate their commitment of crimes, Durov himself has committed a crime.

We have been hearing illogical arguments of this kind for some time. Those who want to take away the ability of people to protect themselves from criminals and rapists by using their Second Amendment right to own firearms try to hold firearm manufacturers responsible for injuries and deaths caused by people using firearms. In other words, it is the manufacturer’s fault, because his product enabled the criminal to commit the crime. Sooner or later this argument will be applied to a large number of goods and services. For example, vehicles are used in bank robberies, in murders, and in human trafficking, and it is the car and vehicle manufacturers who enabled the criminals by producing the vehicle. One can see it applied to search engines and to GPS, because they enable criminals to locate their target.

All of this might sound silly to a reader, but it is no more silly than the French government’s indictment of Durov. Indeed, it is not silly at all. It is weaponized law in operation. In a way Durov’s indictment is his own fault. Like many Russians who have been brainwashed by Western propaganda, Durov thought France had more freedom than Russia and took French citizenship. He made a mistake. The French case against Durov also reflects the Gestapo police state argument, which over the years has been finding a welcome home in the Western world, that it is the responsibility of private individuals to be accomplices of police and that the failure to perform this role indicates criminal behavior. For the past several decades people in the Western world have been so poorly educated–indoctrinated against themselves instead of educated–that they find it plausible that people who refuse to be agents of a police state are criminals.

The Washington Post sees it this way. The only valid reason for social media’s existence is to spy for the government. One of the Post’s mal-educated reporters wrote that “for years internet moguls have flown above the law.” How is protecting free speech “flying above the law?” What law is above the First Amendment? The indoctrinated reporter thinks that laws contrary to the First Amendment of the US Constitution are valid, and that Elon Musk and Pavel Durov are violating the law by their commitment to free speech. The Washington’s Post’s presstitute says “The world’s internet regulators are no longer playing around.” He writes that the crackdowns against Telegram and X “come months after the United States passed a law that could lead to the banning of TikTok” and herald the end of the era of free speech on the Internet, a good thing in the Post’s view.

The Washington Post is delighted that free speech is to be regulated. In my opinion the entire rationale for the existence of the Washington Post is to control narratives for the CIA. As even insouciant Americans should know after enduring eight years of the system violating all ethics and all laws in its effort to deep-six Donald Trump, throughout the Western world law is nothing but a weapon to protect the lies fed to insouciant people as official narratives, the doubting of which is rapidly becoming a criminal action. In the name of official narratives, truth is being removed from the Western world. In my lifetime I have watched the transformation of the free Western world, a product of centuries of struggle, into a Gestapo Police State.

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Capybara

 

 

Lion

 

 

Porcupine
https://twitter.com/i/status/1831268038689132859

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Sep 032024
 


René Magritte Memory of a voyage 1955

 

A Vote for Kamala Is a Vote for Tyranny (Paul Craig Roberts)
Kamala Harris is ‘Clear Underdog’: Campaign Chief (Sp.)
With Friends Like CNN, Kamala Harris Can’t Fail (Bridge)
Is Kamala Very Very Afraid? (Jim Kunstler)
California Bill Banning Voter ID Laws Passes Legislature (ET)
On a Highway to Hell (Scott Ritter)
Russia Says Relations With US At All-Time Low (RT)
50 Countries United Against Russia Under ‘Nazi Banners’ – Lavrov (RT)
Lukashenko Prepares His Weapons: Could Belarus Be Drawn Into The War? (Oncan)
Hungary Can’t Survive Without Russian Oil – FM (RT)
Soros-Bankrolled Human Rights Watch Tells Mongolia To Arrest Putin (RT)
US Seizes Maduro’s Plane – CNN (RT)
RFK Jr: “A Reckoning” For “Immoral, Homicidal” COVID Criminality Needed (MN)
Why Musk’s Lawsuit Against Media Matters . . . Matters (Turley)
Kyle Bass Says ‘Green’ War To Blackball Oil Was Doomed To Fail (ZH)

 

 

 

 

RFK Vietnam

 

 

Trump Crooks

 

 

Day one

 

 

Cotton

 

 

Tulsi
https://twitter.com/i/status/1830557403848511566

 

 

Elon
https://twitter.com/i/status/1830527091126702437

 

 

Reagan
https://twitter.com/i/status/1830240891266564449

 

 

GlennG

 

 

 

 

 

 

“When We Lose the Constitution, We Lose America”

“Probably few heard Kamala Harris say [..] that free speech, guaranteed by the First Amendment of the US Constitution, is impermissible without oversight and regulation and has to stop..”

“How can Kamala possibly take the oath of office and promise to uphold the Constitution?”

A Vote for Kamala Is a Vote for Tyranny (Paul Craig Roberts)

It is clear that large numbers of Americans have no conception of what is at stake in the November presidential election. Insouciance, being an American trait, is especially high this Labor Day Weekend. Probably few heard Kamala Harris say on August 30 in this video in what seems to be an interview at a CNN event that free speech, guaranteed by the First Amendment of the US Constitution, is impermissible without oversight and regulation and has to stop. Yes, she said that, and in the same 28 seconds said a number of other unbelievably stupid things that demonstrate her incapacity to serve in any political office even at the lowest level. For example, Kamala said “he (Musk) has lost his privileges and it (X) must be taken down.” Kamala is saying that free speech, the bedrock foundation of American freedom is a privilege granted by government, and by refusing to accept government censorship of free speech, Musk has lost his “privilege” to operate a social media company, which “must be taken down.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1829652525315944693

For example, “the bottom line is that you can’t say you have one rule for Facebook and a different rule for Twitter” (she means X). There is no such rule. What she is saying is that Facebook’s cowardly or woke management has agreed to censor in order to protect the lies that constitute the official narratives, and Elon Musk, being a person of character and integrity, has not. Kamala Harris is so totally ignorant and so totally uneducated that she is unaware that the US Constitution governs the US government. She thinks our Constitutional rights are subject to regulation by government in order to conform us to official narratives. Kamala says that social media sites “are directly speaking to millions and millions of people without any oversight or regulation,” but so is she. So is CNN. So is NPR. So is NBC. So is CBS. So is ABC. [..] So is the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Treasury, the Secretary of Homeland security. So is the Supreme Court. So is Congress. So is the President of the United States.

Kamala is so utterly stupid — indeed, she is so stupid as to be unbelievable — that she does not realize that she is sticking the gag into her own mouth. Kamala is so dumb that she does not understand that social media does not speak to millions of people. Instead, millions of people on social media speak to whoever cares to hear, usually a small number. How can a person as stupid as Kamala and as hostile to free speech be a candidate for president of the United States? How can Kamala possibly take the oath of office and promise to uphold the Constitution? The woke progressives don’t care. They hate the Constitution as much as Kamala is ignorant of it. I have often reported that law schools long ago abandoned the US Constitution as an obstacle to a woke society of DEI. Hardly a day passes that a law school dean doesn’t prove the truthfulness of my statement. [..]

On August 30, 2024, Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley, called for a new constitution, claiming that failing to make changes would cause the U.S. to “drift toward authoritarianism.” If Chemerinsky were competent to be a law school dean, he would understand that the United States is the Constitution. Chemerinsky’s call for a new constitution is a call for the overthrow of the United States. Will he be arrested as a threat to democracy? Without the Constitution, we would be some other country–which is what they want. The goal is a compliant population with no rights, only privileges that can be revoked for non-compliant behavior. They oppose the idea that government is accountable to people. Their goal is a people who are accountable to the government. Once Kamala is in office, the transformation will be complete.

Dear insouciant American, try to pay attention, try to understand, that the Dean of one of America’s largest law schools is claiming that the US Constitution, the embodiment of the rights of free people, is an oppressive document and stands in the way of “justice and equity.” The Berkeley Law School dean has actually written a book about How the Constitution Threatens the United States. When the Constitution is destroyed, America is destroyed. When law schools have deans too stupid to understand this, it indicates that America has been lost. Dear insouciant American, try to understand that the November election is not about abortion rights. It is not about “inclusion.” It is not about any of the issues about which you are being indoctrinated. It is about whether you have any prospect of continuing life in freedom.

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“The New York Times suggests the memo is “an artful attempt to lower expectations” and boost fundraising..”

Kamala Harris is ‘Clear Underdog’: Campaign Chief (Sp.)

The Democrats enter the final phase of the election as “the clear underdogs”, Harris-Walz campaign chief, Jen O’Malley Dillon, wrote in a memo titled “The State of the Race 65 Days Out.” Dillon, previously confident in Joe Biden’s victory despite poor poll results, had never made such a statement before. The US mainstream media cites Harris’ rising approval numbers, while questioning Dillon’s newfound caution. What’s troubling the Harris-Walz campaign chief?

• Despite record fundraising, increased volunteer interest, and a spike in voter enthusiasm, Dillon cautions that “Donald Trump has a motivated base of support, with more backing and higher favorability than he has had at any point since 2020.” • The upcoming debate between Vice President Harris and Trump, with the latter described in the memo as “a formidable opponent”, is another note of concern. • Dillon observes, “In 2020, the election came down to about 40,000 votes across the battleground states. This November, we anticipate similarly razor-thin margins.” • Additionally, Trump is “a heavily defined candidate”, whereas American voters are less familiar with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. Dillon urges “aggressive campaigning” to “introduce and define [the Harris-Walz] ticket to the voters.”

The New York Times suggests the memo is “an artful attempt to lower expectations” and boost fundraising, while reinvigorating the base. However, Republicans argue that Harris is the underdog, claiming her poll lead results from deliberate oversampling of Democratic voters. They criticize her as economically “illiterate” and point to her controversial record as Joe Biden’s vice president.

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Nobody watches CNN. Ironically, that’s what they count on.

With Friends Like CNN, Kamala Harris Can’t Fail (Bridge)

How pathetic, how lacking in confidence is this woman, that she is running for president of the United States, the highest office of the land, but won’t agree to an interview with a friendly network without Tim Walz accompanying her. On top of that, the Harris campaign picked the lowest-rated news channel (CNN) to do the interview, hours before a holiday weekend, and on the same night college football season kicked off. In other words, Harris’ handlers were desperately seeking to keep this interview as low key as possible. While CNN’s Dana Bash did ask several substantive questions in this closely watched interview, there was scant critical follow up to Harris’ answers although the vice president has flip-flopped on numerous occasions in the past, most notably on the question of America’s energy resources.

“When you were in Congress, you supported the green New Deal, and in 2019 you said, quote, ‘There is no question, I’m in favor of banning fracking.’ Do you still want to ban fracking?” Bash asked. Harris responded that she no longer wanted to ban fracking and that she had emphasized that position in 2020. Bash reminded that Harris had previously said in a 2019 town hall that she did in fact want to prohibit fracking. When the CNN host went on to ask the vice president why she wanted to change her 2019 position, Harris made vague references to “scientific studies” on climate change, when the real reason for the flip-flop was to secure votes in the swing state of Pennsylvania where fracking is an important part of the economy. In other words, politics as usual.

Bash also questioned Harris for her role as ‘Border Czar’ in the Biden administration. The vice president was asked if she is still of the opinion that border crossings should be decriminalized, a position she took during her 2019 campaign. Harris managed to largely evade the question, simply answering that she believes in “consequence” and that “we have laws that have to be followed and enforced.” The problem is, the Biden administration has done very little to enforce those laws. Conservative estimates report that under President Biden’s watch, there have been over 8.5 million migrant encounters nationwide, 6.7 million of which have been at the Southwest border. Worse yet, 1.7 million known ‘getaways’—illegal immigrants who have evaded Border Patrol— are now living in the interior of the United States without documentation and without having undergone any vetting by immigration officials.

The number of illegal immigrants in the country has roughly doubled under President Biden. The United States had some 10.2 million illegal immigrants in 2020, and another 10 million have entered during Biden’s presidency. In light of this escalating situation, Harris had a lot of answering to do in the interview, which regrettably never happened. Meanwhile, many political commentators fear that a cloud of foul play surrounded the Harris-Walz sit down, and for good reason. Indeed, there is no reason to believe that CNN, a fiercely pro-liberal news channel, did not provide Kamala Harris with the questions prior to the interview.

Suffice it to recall that in the run up to the 2016 presidential showdown between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, former Democratic National Committee interim chair and CNN contributor Donna Brazile was caught sending town hall topics to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. News of the incident was discovered courtesy of leaked emails – a “hack job” conveniently blamed on the Russians, and despite the fact that a DNC employee, Seth Rich, 27, was murdered in cold blood on the streets of Washington, DC shortly after the revelations went public. Police say the young man was the victim of a robbery, although none of his private possessions were taken. Bash also questioned Harris over Biden’s disastrous debate performance that set in motion the effort to remove the president and replace him with Harris.

After Biden stumbled through the June 27 debate against Trump, Harris took to CNN to defend the 81-year-old president’s health and mental acuity. “Do you have any regrets about what you told the American people [about Biden’s health]?” Bash asked. “Not at all,” Harris responded, with a hint of conspiracy. Given Harris’ known inability for articulating complex ideas without the help of a teleprompter, many observers are of the opinion that Biden’s departure at the 11th hour was a deliberate move that protected Harris from having to spend too much time in the public eye before November. We already know from past experience that Harris’ political shelf life is extremely short.

Just four years ago, Harris was forced to withdraw early from the presidential nomination process with poll numbers in the low single digits, yet today she has managed to advance one step from the White House without winning a single vote. All things considered, some might call that very suspicious fortune. The only thing that can explain this surge in popularity is a media industrial complex that is willing to celebrate Kamala Harris as she prepares for her first and possibly last debate against The Donald on September 10. After that it’s anybody’s guess, but given the fact that almost the entire media complex has thrown its hefty support behind Harris, Trump is facing a formidable challenge.

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“Mr. Obama. Voila and fait accompli! If he finds himself appointed rather than elected, he would not be in defiance of the 22nd Amendment..”

Is Kamala Very Very Afraid? (Jim Kunstler)

Lurking behind her is not only the American intel blob of dark forces and sinister figures, but an international blob made up of malevolent groups within and throughout Western Civ, clearly working to bring it down — the Eurocrats wrecking their own countries’ agriculture and their industrial economies while jailing their opponents for thought crimes; the WEFers pushing the demented climate change agenda and ruinous migrant invasions; the bankers looking to seize the “collateral” (property, chattels, investment portfolios) of a billion everyday citizens when the bond Ponzi scheme blows up, as it must; the WHO steered by Bill Gates seeking to inject unsafe vaccines into everybody in order to greatly and quickly reduce the population; the Soros NGO legions working to subvert the public interest here, there, and everywhere; the NATO warmongers trying like hell to start World War Three. . . . Kamala Harris surely understands — if she understands anything — that she has become their chosen pawn, and is at their mercy (they have none).

She should be afraid especially of the American blob. That combine of higher-ups in the CIA, the DOD, the FBI, the DHS, the State Department, and Gawd knows how many lesser-known agencies and “black op” back offices, knows that it is in great danger if Mr. Trump happens to get elected (despite their best efforts to rig things). After all the trips laid on him, all the way up to attempted assassination, you can be sure that Mr. Trump will be coming after the cabal for committing real and serious crimes. They are running scared now. Despite all the power seemingly at their command, nothing has availed so far — not lawfare, not bullets — to stop Mr. Trump’s implacable march back into the Oval Office, where he could possibly succeed in turning the USA back into a functioning republic

Poor Kamala Harris is the blob’s wholly inadequate instrument to fend off this fate. If she continues to perform badly, the blob might not hesitate to try getting rid of her. That may be the blob’s last chance of stopping the election from happening altogether. The nation has never been in the predicament of having the head of a ticket resign or die in the homestretch of an election campaign. There is no provision in the Constitution for it because there are no provisions in the Constitution for political parties per se. It would all be a kind of improv.

And then, of course, America would be stuck with the unfit and incapable “Joe Biden,” heading the government, at least until something else can be worked out. Maybe that working out would just be the final stage of the coup that has been in motion, really, since 2016 when John Brennan, Barack Obama, and James Comey attempted to oust Mr. Trump with RussiaGate. Some kind of “interim commission” might be formed to “solve” the problem of the cancelled election. They’ll look for someone with “proven ability” to serve as provisional president — maybe, someone who has already been president. . . say, Mr. Obama. Voila and fait accompli! If he finds himself appointed rather than elected, he would not be in defiance of the 22nd Amendment. Okay, now try re-thinking how scared Kamala Harris must be.

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“California is one of 15 states that doesn’t ask for photo ID at the ballot box..”

At what point does this become election interference?

California Bill Banning Voter ID Laws Passes Legislature (ET)

A California bill that would ban local governments from requiring voter identification in their elections passed the state assembly, and now awaits the governor’s approval or veto. The measure would ban local governments such as Huntington Beach—where voters recently gave the City Council the go-ahead to impose such a requirement—from enacting voter ID laws and makes clear the state has exclusive jurisdiction when it comes to the voter verification process. Senate Bill 1174, authored by Sen. Dave Min, passed the Assembly in a 57 to 16 vote on Aug. 27. “I have repeatedly told the Huntington Beach City Council members pushing this issue that if they were to produce any evidence of widespread voter fraud, I would lead efforts to change California’s voter eligibility rules. They have not produced any such evidence,” the Irvine Democrat said in an Aug. 30 press release following the Assembly vote.

In May the Senate approved the bill 30–8. Min said his bill would protect against a “patchwork of varying election requirements” throughout the state, blocking all cities from requiring voters to present a government-issued identification to vote. The ban would include charter cities, which have more authority than general-law cities over such things as regulating local police and elections. “We cannot have 100 different charter cities making up 100 different sets of voting rules, based on fringe conspiracy theories,” Min said, referring to questions of election integrity in the 2020 presidential election. In a May 21 Senate floor hearing, Min said SB 1174 would create a statewide standard that prevents cities from enacting their own policies, which he said could disenfranchise voters.

In a recent Assembly Local Government bill analysis, Min argued that voter ID requirements only create barriers for voters but don’t protect against fraud, as voters already must verify their identity when they register. He said the state already automatically recounts some ballots, does signature verification checks, and allows voters to track their ballots. “We will not concede to ploys of voter fraud while an overwhelming body of evidence proves our elections are safe, secure, and above board,” he said. Voters in California are required to show identification only if they didn’t provide a driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number when registering, but the secretary of state also accepts credit or debit cards, student IDs, or an ID from a commercial establishment.

[..] Huntington Beach City Attorney Michael Gates told The Epoch Times in a recent interview that Min’s bill is “pure political symbolism” in response to the city’s recently passed measure. He said as a charter city, under Article XI, Section 5 (b) of the California Constitution, Huntington Beach has a right to have voter ID, and the state will lose any legal challenges it brings. “The state is running headlong into another legal clash, which it will lose miserably. Huntington Beach has it right, the state has it completely wrong. And all Californians want election integrity. It’s common sense,” he said in a text message to The Epoch Times.

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“..all we guarantee is that eventually there will be a warfighting scenario where the U.S. will end up using nuclear weapons. And then we all die.”

On a Highway to Hell (Scott Ritter)

[..] the Biden administration is now confronted with the possibility and or probability of a much larger, capable Chinese strategic nuclear force capable of surviving a limited U.S. first-strike and delivering a nation-killing nuclear payload to U.S. soil in retaliation. To adjust to this new reality, the U.S. would need to allocate nuclear warheads currently targeted against Russia onto China. This would require that the U.S. not only develop revised target lists for both Russia and China, but also rethink targeting strategies in general, looking to maximum physical destruction over political impact. More dangerously, the U.S. would have to look at employment strategies that maximized the element of surprise to ensure all targets were hit by their designated weapons. This would require a change in the readiness posture and operational deployment areas of U.S. nuclear forces.

With increased readiness comes the need for vigilance against any preemption efforts by a potential nuclear adversary, meaning that U.S. nuclear forces will be placed on a higher alert status. In short, the risk of nuclear war, inadvertent or otherwise, has become exponentially greater. In March the Biden administration reportedly issued a new Nuclear Employment Guidance document reflecting this reality. Nowhere in this guidance is there consideration for using arms control as a means of managing the nuclear equation, either by extending the New START treaty, or working with China to prevent a Chinese nuclear breakout. Instead, the U.S. appears to be concerned about the erosion of nuclear deterrence that will be brought about by diverting weapons dedicated to non-Chinese contingencies. When seen in this light, the answer to the problem is more, not fewer, nuclear weapons.

This is why the U.S. is going to let the New START treaty lapse in February 2026 — once the treaty goes away, so, too, does the cap on the number of deployed warheads, and the U.S. nuclear establishment will be able to build up the U.S. operational nuclear arsenal so that there are enough weapons for every designated target. The world is becoming a very dangerous place. Nuclear weapons offer the illusion of security. By allowing the U.S. nuclear posture to shift away from deterrence toward warfighting, all we guarantee is that eventually there will be a warfighting scenario where the U.S. will end up using nuclear weapons. And then we all die. We are, literally, on a Highway to Hell.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1830702703678472650

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“Bilateral relations are now at probably their historical low point with no prospects for entering a growth trajectory to be seen..”

Russia Says Relations With US At All-Time Low (RT)

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said that Russia-US relations are at a historic low, dismissing the idea that the two sides could gradually improve them in the foreseeable future. In an interview with national broadcaster, Russia 1, the top official emphasized that Washington has been consistently trampling on Moscow’s interests and exerting pressure for several decades. Ties between the two states have reached “a cracking-up point” during Joe Biden’s presidency, according to Peskov, who stressed that the US administration is demonstrating an openly hostile position towards Russia by supporting Ukraine. “Right in the middle of Mr. Biden’s presidency all these processes have culminated […] Bilateral relations are now at probably their historical low point with no prospects for entering a growth trajectory to be seen,” he said.

“The US, despite many statements to the contrary, is directly involved in the Ukraine conflict,” Peskov concluded. Bilateral ties between Russia and the US took a nose-dive in 2022 when Washington and its allies attacked Moscow with a barrage of economic sanctions following the escalation of the Ukrainian conflict. Moreover, the White House has been providing Kiev with substantial economic and military aid, drawing reprobation from Russian officials, who have accused Washington of playing a direct role in the conflict. In addition, the US withdrew from two security treaties, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty and the Open Skies treaty, under the administration of Donald Trump. While the White House under President Joe Biden has extended the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) through 2026, last year Moscow suspended its participation, citing the US role in the Ukraine conflict.

Peskov also cast doubt on statements made by former US President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly pledged to resolve the Ukraine conflict within 24 hours if elected a second time. The Republican presidential frontrunner has also claimed that he had an excellent relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin while in office, adding that the conflict would have never started on his watch. “I don’t think there is a magic wand, it is impossible to do anything in a day,” Peskov said. “Although, if we assume that the next US president will make a statement during his inauguration speech that the US stands for peace and is therefore ending its support for Ukraine […], then something in someone’s brain will change.”

Mearsheimer

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For decades, the Americans and their allies “sought total control over Ukraine. They funded nationalist and anti-Russian organizations there; they persistently worked to convince Ukraine that Russia was its eternal enemy..”

50 Countries United Against Russia Under ‘Nazi Banners’ – Lavrov (RT)

The West has always wanted to dismantle Russia and has gone as far as joining forces with the Nazis in Ukraine in an attempt to achieve this goal, Moscow’s top diplomat Sergey Lavrov has said. The foreign minister made the statement during a meeting with students and educators at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations on Monday, the first day of the new academic year in Russia. The West has always been concerned that Russia is “too strong, too independent,” and has wanted to do something about it, “preferably breaking it up,” said Lavrov. “A very indicative story is repeating itself because today, 50 countries have gathered against Russia under Nazi banners, considering the essence of the [Ukrainian leader Vladimir] Zelensky regime,” he continued, referring to the military assistance provided by the US and its allies to Kiev amid the conflict with Russia.

The foreign minister noted that Ukrainian troops have on numerous occasions been filmed wearing Nazi patches or carrying banners similar to those used by Adolf Hitler’s forces during the World War II. The “denazification” of Ukraine was identified by Russian President Vladimir Putin as one of the main goals of Moscow’s military operation against Kiev when it was launched in late February 2022. Lavrov asserted that Moscow was not going to play by Western rules and will not “embed itself into various schemes created without our participation and without taking Russia’s interests into account.” However, he said Putin had made it clear that Moscow remains “open to contacts with the countries of the ‘collective West,’ with the understanding, of course, that they will abandon their openly hostile policies towards our country.”

If the US and its allies do not change their ways, “we will continue to respond resolutely to any unfriendly steps,” Lavrov added. Elsewhere on Monday, Putin said the conflict between Moscow and Kiev had broken out because of “the destructive strategy of the West” regarding Ukraine. For decades, the Americans and their allies “sought total control over Ukraine. They funded nationalist and anti-Russian organizations there; they persistently worked to convince Ukraine that Russia was its eternal enemy and the main threat to its existence,” the Russian leader said. Washington and its “satellites” orchestrated the 2014 Maidan coup in Kiev, which was driven by “radical neo-Nazi groups” that continue to determine Ukraine’s policies to this day, he added.

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“A nuclear disaster that could occur in the region would be most beneficial to Washington..”

Lukashenko Prepares His Weapons: Could Belarus Be Drawn Into The War? (Oncan)

The operation by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kursk region was not just a tactical move by Ukraine, but also a step that revealed the West’s intentions in the ongoing war. The acceptance of this demand raises the possibility that the attacks within Russia, beginning with Kursk, will be designated as the “main offensive line” from the perspective of Ukraine and the West. Before the peace negotiations, which are now expected by everyone to take place “someday,” the West intends to sit at the table as strongly as possible, in exchange for Donbass, which is connected to Russia. Recently, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for the removal of restrictions on the use of long-range missiles in attacks on Russian soil, and it was learned that “some NATO countries” have also prepared a statement with the same demand. While developments on the Kursk front remain tense, significant events have occurred in another important country involved in the Russia-Ukraine confrontation: Belarus.

In recent days, some critical developments have taken place in Belarus that have not received much attention in the media. The Kyiv administration recently violated Belarusian airspace with attack drones, and Belarus’s ready air defense system quickly announced that it had destroyed these drones. This marks the largest military engagement Belarus has had with Ukraine in recent times, despite Belarus’s efforts to avoid becoming directly involved in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. For Ukraine and the West, Kursk, with its nuclear power plant in the region, is a significant leverage against Russia. A nuclear disaster that could occur in the region would be most beneficial to Washington. What about Belarus? The strategic minds in the West will do everything possible to drag Russia’s closest ally into the hot war. This could include a potential leak at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, located just 16 kilometers from the Belarusian border.

Among the various methods of attacking Russia and Belarus, it is no coincidence that the first thought is of a nuclear leak. The easiest way to overcome the “obstacles” to deploying NATO weapons, or even NATO troops, in Ukraine is through a nuclear leak in the region and the creation of a perception that Russia and Belarus are “unable to control the disaster.” Therefore, in military developments like the attack on Kursk, the most critical point to monitor is not which town is controlled by whom, but how close they are to nuclear power plants.In light of the recent developments on the Kursk front, the Belarusian army has decided to strengthen the units in the Gomel and Mazyr regions. Mazyr is a Belarusian region close to the Dniester River and Kyiv, while Gomel is near Kursk via Bryansk. Special operations forces, ground forces, and missile units, including Polonez and Iskander missile systems, have begun new training and exercises in the designated regions.

Similarly, the Ukrainian Armed Forces continue to improve border security systems and defense elements, while also amassing troops along the Belarusian border. Meanwhile, plans to drag Belarus into the Russia-Ukraine conflict are still being pursued in the West and Ukraine. Recently, former commander of the Polish Army’s Ground Forces, General W. Skrzypczak, accused Belarus of conducting a “military campaign” against Poland and called for the establishment of a “Belarusian legion” in his country.

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“..It affects about a third of our imports from Russia.

In Slovakia, the situation is even worse, these supplies account for about 40% there..”

Hungary Can’t Survive Without Russian Oil – FM (RT)

Hungary cannot survive without Russian oil, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has warned, stressing that Ukraine’s decision to suspend transit poses a serious challenge for Budapest. Kiev halted the transit of crude supplied by Russian energy giant Lukoil via the Druzhba pipeline in June, citing sanctions. The measure has directly hit landlocked Hungary and Slovakia, depriving them of oil previously exported by Lukoil through Ukrainian territory. In an interview with Russian business daily RBK on Monday, Szijjarto said Hungary will be completely deprived of oil without supplies from Russia. “We will not be able to feed the country in a broad sense. We simply will not be able to meet the demand for fuel… because we do not have sufficient alternative infrastructure,” the diplomat said. “You just have to look at the numbers… We do not want to take such risks,” Szijjarto added. “Therefore, the fact that Ukraine has made such a decision is a very serious challenge for us. It affects about a third of our imports from Russia.

In Slovakia, the situation is even worse, these supplies account for about 40% there,” he stressed. Kiev imposed sanctions on Lukoil in 2018, having banned the company from divesting its business in the country, as well as prohibiting trade operations and participation in the privatization or leasing of state property. Lukoil still sent crude via the southern arm of the Druzhba pipeline as EU sanctions did not target these flows. The EU prohibited transport of Russian crude oil by sea in December 2022 as part of far-reaching sanctions on Moscow over the Ukraine conflict. Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic have been granted exemptions by Brussels as they source alternative supplies. Slovakia and Hungary are the only EU member states that have rejected the bloc’s policies on supplying Kiev with military aid amid the conflict with Moscow. Both states have repeatedly called for the crisis to be solved through diplomacy.

Last week, Politico reported that Budapest had proposed a solution for the restoration of halted Russian oil flows by rebranding Lukoil products. That way, the crude shipped via Ukraine could be officially sold to Hungarian energy giant MOL before it crosses the border. The arrangement could reportedly mean paying an additional $1.50 per barrel to secure transit outside of previous agreements. Szijjarto told RBK that a temporary solution to the crisis situation could be found, stressing that “in the long term, we need to look for another, legally significant solution.” The Hungarian diplomat traveled to Russia last week to discuss energy security issues. Budapest is “satisfied with Russian energy cooperation, which is one of the guarantees of the country’s food security,” Szijjarto wrote on Facebook after meeting with the head of Russian energy giant Gazprom, Aleksey Miller.

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ICC, Ukraine, HRW… And Putin got a welcome with all honors.

Soros-Bankrolled Human Rights Watch Tells Mongolia To Arrest Putin (RT)

The George Soros-funded organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the government of Mongolia to arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin during his trip to the country, which would be in accordance with the Asian state’s obligations as a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Putin arrived in Mongolia on Monday at the invitation of the country’s president, Ukhnaa Khurelsukh, to attend a ceremony commemorating the 1939 Battle of Khalkhin Gol, in which Soviet and Mongolian forces defeated the Imperial Japanese Army. Ahead of his visit, HRW, which has received over $100 million from Soros’ Open Society Foundations, issued a statement on its website warning Mongolia against allowing Putin to enter the country.

“Mongolia would be defying its international obligations as an ICC member if it allows Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit without arresting him,” the HRW’s senior international justice counsel, Maria Elena Vignoli said, claiming that welcoming the Russian President would “undermine the crucial principle that no one, no matter how powerful, is above the law.” Last year, the ICC issued a warrant for Putin’s arrest, accusing him of “unlawful deportation of population (children)” and “unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine” to Russia amid the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kiev. Russia has rejected the ICC’s accusations as absurd, stressing that the evacuation of civilians from a combat zone is not a war crime. Moscow has also pointed out that it has never signed the Rome Statute, on which the ICC is based, meaning that the court has no jurisdiction in the matter.

Meanwhile, Mongolian authorities, despite having signed the Rome Statute on which the ICC is based, have reportedly said that they have no intention of arresting Putin, according to Bloomberg, which cited two sources familiar with the matter. Putin arrived in the Mongolian capital on Monday and was greeted by an honorary guard at Ulaanbaatar Airport. According to presidential aide Yuri Ushakov, he will have a “rich program” on Tuesday as part of his state visit, which will include a meeting with his Mongolian counterpart, negotiations in various formats dedicated to bilateral relations, as well a signing ceremony of Russian-Mongolian intergovernmental documents. Ahead of the trip, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that Moscow had “no concerns” about Putin’s visit and the ICC warrant, stating that “we have excellent relations with our friends from Mongolia,” and that all issues concerning the Russian president’s trip had been “worked out” beforehand.

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They really want the oil.

US Seizes Maduro’s Plane – CNN (RT)

The US government has confiscated an airplane reportedly used by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, claiming it violates Washington’s sanctions against Caracas, CNN reported on Monday. The Americans have charged Maduro with drug trafficking and refused to recognize his victories in the last two Venezuelan presidential elections. “Seizing the foreign head of state’s plane is unheard-of for criminal matters. We’re sending a clear message here that no one is above the law, no one is above the reach of US sanctions,” an unnamed Washington official told CNN, which first reported the story on Monday. According to CNN, the plane is worth around $13 million and was seized in cooperation with Dominican authorities. The US outlet did not identify the airplane, saying only it was seized in the Dominican Republic and flown to Miami, Florida. The departments of Homeland Security, Commerce, and Justice were involved in the seizure.

The Miami Herald identified the jet as a Dassault Falcon 900EX, a French-built corporate jet that has previously visited Cuba, Brazil and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, “often with Maduro on board.” It appears to be registered in San Marino. The Herald cited records from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) showing that a Florida-based company sold the plane to a company in St. Vincent, which then resold it to San Marino. The US government alleges that the reseller was a Venezuelan shell company and that the sale violated its sanctions on Venezuela. American officials described the jet as Venezuela’s equivalent of the US “Air Force One,” noting that Maduro has flown it to a number of places. It was unclear how it ended up in the Dominican Republic, as Venezuela suspended commercial air travel with the island after the July 28 presidential election.

According to CNN, the US intends to confiscate the plane through asset forfeiture process. This means Venezuela could theoretically challenge it in court – if it can find a way around the sanctions to do so. This is the second Venezuelan jet to be seized by the US this year. In February, Argentina sent the US a Boeing 747-300M cargo plane confiscated in 2022, because Caracas allegedly bought it from a sanctioned Iranian company. Maduro called the seizure “a blatant theft” on part of Argentinian President Javier Milei’s government. Washington has seized $2 billion worth of Venezuelan bank accounts and assets in recent years, one unnamed official told CNN.

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“..Fauci and others used their positions during COVID to enforce “totalitarian controls that were not science-based.”

RFK Jr: “A Reckoning” For “Immoral, Homicidal” COVID Criminality Needed (MN)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said that individuals who engaged in “criminal” behaviour during the pandemic still need to be held accountable. Kennedy, who is in line for a health related position in Donald Trump’s administration should he be elected, declared recently that there needs to be a “reckoning” brought upon those responsible. Speaking at the Limitless Expo, Kennedy explicitly referenced Anthony Fauci, noting “I wrote a book about Fauci. It’s a great book. There are 2,200 footnotes in the book… I invited people to find problems with the book… And nobody ever told us any factual error in that book.” He charged that Fauci and others used their positions during COVID to enforce “totalitarian controls that were not science-based.” “It’s a story, really, of people involved in really terrible, immoral, homicidal criminal behavior,” Kennedy urged.

He noted that effective treatments were repressed, stating “Ivermectin was a very, very devastating cure for COVID. It literally obliterated COVID.”“By depriving people of Ivermectin, many, many people, millions of people around the globe, died, and they didn’t need to,” Kennedy added, charging that Fauci and others pressured the FDA to discourage such treatments in favour of relentlessly pushing unproven and untested vaccines. “There were cures for COVID from day one, very effective cures. But they didn’t want that. They wanted the vaccine only,” Kennedy posited, adding “if they admitted that any of [the treatments] were effective, the whole vaccine project would have fallen apart.”

Kennedy added that after the vaccines, myocarditis cases among young people, particularly athletes, exploded. “On average, it was, I think, 29 a month globally, athletes who died on the field. We’re getting down to hundreds a month now,” Kennedy emphasised. He concluded that “the science is out there now, and it’s devastating.” After endorsing Donald Trump last month, RFK Jr. declared that he is ready to help “make America healthy again.”

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“The Media Matters lawsuit directly challenges the ability of media outlets to create false narratives to advance a political agenda..”

Why Musk’s Lawsuit Against Media Matters . . . Matters (Turley)

[..]But Musk’s lawsuit may be the most defining for our age of advocacy journalism. He is suing Media Matters, the left-wing outlet founded by David Brock, whom Time described as “one of the most influential operatives in the Democratic Party.” Although Brock is no longer with the site, Media Matters has long been accused as being a weaponized media outlet for the left. After Musk dismantled the censorship system at Twitter, he became something of an obsession for Media Matters, which targeted his revenue sources. The outlet ran a report suggesting that advertisements of major corporations were being posted next to pro-Nazi posts or otherwise hateful content on the platform. As I discuss in my new book, this effort mirrored similar moves by the anti-free speech movement against Musk to force him to restore censorship systems. Companies including Apple, IBM, Comcast and Lionsgate Entertainment quickly joined the effective boycott to squeeze Musk.

The problem is that it is hard to squeeze the world’s richest man financially. Musk told the companies to pound sand and told his lawyers to file suit. The allegations in the lawsuit read like a textbook on advocacy journalism. Media Matters is accused of knowingly misrepresenting the real user experience by manipulating the algorithms to produce the pairing alleged in its story. The complaint accuses Media Matters of running its manipulation to produce extremely unlikely pairings, such that one toxic match appeared for “only one viewer (out of more than 500 million) on all of X: Media Matters.” In other words, the organization wanted to write a hit piece connecting X to pro-Nazi material and proceeded to artificially create pairings between that material and corporate advertisements. It then ran the story as news. Indeed, two defendant employees of Media Matters did not deny that they were aware of the alleged manipulation and that they were seeking to poison the well for advertisers in order to drain advertising revenues for X.

Although the media covered another judge blocking an effort by state officials to sue Media Matters over the anti-Musk effort, there has been comparably less coverage of the green light for the lawsuit in Texas. U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor of the Northern District of Texas rejected an effort to dismiss the case on jurisdictional and other grounds. Musk will be able to continue his claims of tortious interference with existing contracts, business disparagement and tortious interference with prospective economic advantage. Musk is also suing the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, which also targeted advertisers to choke off targeted sites. Not surprisingly, although the media has heralded lawsuits like the one by Dominion Voting System against Fox News (which led to a large settlement), they are overwhelmingly hostile toward the Musk lawsuits.

It is not hard to see why. The Media Matters lawsuit directly challenges the ability of media outlets to create false narratives to advance a political agenda. As with the CNN and New York Times cases, it can expose how the media first decides on a conclusion and then frames or even invents the facts to support it. While rejecting the longstanding principles of journalism such as objectivity, these media outlets are citing the cases and defenses secured by those now-outdated media organizations. They want to be advocates, but they also want to be protected as journalists. These cases still face tough challenges, including challenging jury polls in places like New York. However, they are exposing the bias that now characterizes much of American journalism. In the age of advocacy journalism, a bill has come due. That is why Musk’s lawsuit against Media Matters . . . well . . . matters.

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We don’t need Kyle Bass to tell us that. Moreover, not only does oil “move” our world, at least half of it is built from oil.

Kyle Bass Says ‘Green’ War To Blackball Oil Was Doomed To Fail (ZH)

Hayman Capital Management founder and CIO Kyle Bass explained in a Bloomberg interview that the mounting backlash against environmental, social, and governance investing in recent years is primarily a response to the extreme demands of radical climate activists, or “green” defenders. Bass argued that these activists were so disconnected from reality that their uncompromising stance on blackballing the fossil fuel industry—without acknowledging that energy transitions can take upwards of half a century—has fueled the backlash. He said plans to moderate fossil fuel usage over decades from the start would’ve possibly prevented the backlash. Bass said the ESG backlash derives from climate activists’ demands that fossil fuels be abandoned immediately. He said the demands were never realistic.

“There were all of these idiots that were just saying, if anyone is doing hydrocarbons, we’re going to blackball them from doing business or from receiving capital,” Bass said, adding, “And so Texas lashed back and said, if you’re going to blackball someone that’s producing hydrocarbons, we’re not going to do business with you either.” He said, “Energy transitions take 40 or 50 years,” pointing out that people “think we can just turn hydrocarbons off and turn on alternative power. But they have no idea how the grid works and no idea how business works.” Bass said the focus should now be on efficiency and electrification. He said the long-term goal should be the energy transition to nuclear. Until then, he noted, fossil fuels and renewable energy sources are “going to coexist for decades and decades to come.”

In a separate interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box” in 2022, Bass said, “The desire for the world to engage in alternative energy is one that I think we all would love to see happen, but there are certain scientific realities, and there are certain narratives that get pushed by NGOs and teenagers. And I think we’ve been taking policy cues from NGOs and teenagers for a long time.”

Bass pointed out that a proper energy transition takes upwards of a half-century. In the interview with CNBC, he said, “The move from coal to natural gas took forty years. They take a very, very, very long time. We can’t just flip a switch.” In his most recent interview with Bloomberg, Bass said, “Skirting hydrocarbons is like bringing politics into investing,” adding, “If you’re willing to give up returns for that, then so be it. But I think that’s naive and it’s a breach of fiduciary duty.” The latest Bloomberg data shows that about half of the US power grid is powered by natural gas generators. This summer, renewable energy power has slid, with coal now producing more power than wind and solar.

In recent years, ESG policies have discouraged investment by banks, funds, pensions, and other entities in the natural gas and coal industries. The problem with this is that unreliable solar and wind can’t power artificial data centers 24/7. We’ve noted that the financial industry’s initial rush to commit to net zero carbon footprints has hit a reality check in a note titled “ESG Frustration And Backlash In The Banking Sector Continues.” The big takeaway is that anyone who puts their climate crisis or woke religion first ahead of rational decision-making is doomed to fail.

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RFK measles
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Feb 272024
 
 February 27, 2024  Posted by at 9:26 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  49 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Peach trees in blossom 1888

 

NATO Troops In Ukraine Can’t Be Ruled Out – Macron (RT)
West Could Cause ‘Worst-Case Scenario’ In Ukraine – Slovak PM Fico (RT)
Putin Insisted On Donbass Ceasefire In 2019 – Zelensky (RT)
Zelensky Downplays Ukrainian Losses to Wheedle More Money Out of West (Sp.)
The Case of the Navalny Corpse – Cherchez Les Femmes (Helmer)
Navalny About To Be Freed In Prisoner Swap When He Died – Ally (BBC)
Leaked Details on CIA Ops in Ukraine Signal ‘End is Near’ for Kiev (Sp.)
Start of SMO Spelled End To Western Global Dominance – Borrell (TASS)
Era of West’s Maritime Hegemony Has Reached Its End – Houthis (Sp.)
Super Bull Market in Gold About to Start – Charles Nenner (USAW)
Biden Operative Inserted Into Fani Team (ZH)
Jim Jordan Reveals New Whistleblower (ZH)
EU Finance Ministers Clash as Bloc Fails to Centralize Market Supervision (Sp.)
Musk Warns Google’s Woke Bureaucratic Blob Won’t Allow Its AI To Be Fixed (MN)
Dissolving Illusions About Vaccine Safety (Mercola)
The Rapidly Emerging Rule of Tyranny in the West (Paul Craig Roberts)
The Border Fiasco and the “Smart Wall” (Whitney Webb)
EU Considers Ban On Repairs For All Vehicles Over 15 Years Old (WS Apes)

 

 


Jacob Rothschild died at 87. Who has their portrait taken this way?

 

 

Black flag

 

 

Tulsi

 

 

Nuland Nordstream

 

 

The Prime Minister of Hungary has given women a lifetime 0% personal income tax exemption if they give birth to and raise at least 4 children.

 

 

Bret

 

 

Roadblocks
https://twitter.com/i/status/1762044181604655309
https://twitter.com/i/status/1762134920837648412

 

 

 

 

Compare that to what they said 2 years ago.

NATO Troops In Ukraine Can’t Be Ruled Out – Macron (RT)

French President Emmanual Macron has argued that deployments of troops to Ukraine by NATO members and other allies cannot be ruled out because Western powers must stop at nothing to ensure that Russia does not defeat Kiev’s forces. “There’s no consensus today to send, in an official manner, troops on the ground,” Macron told reporters after hosting a meeting of European leaders on Monday in Paris. “But in terms of dynamics, we cannot exclude anything. We will do everything necessary to prevent Russia from winning this war.” France hosted Monday’s summit of Ukraine backers to demonstrate steadfast support and European unity amid concerns that US aid to Kiev may stop, especially if Donald Trump wins this year’s presidential election. Macron said that while Ukraine’s European allies want to avoid escalating the conflict into a direct war with Russia, they agree that they must do more to ensure that Moscow doesn’t win.

“We have to take stock of the situation and realize our collective security is at stake,” the French leader said. “We have to ratchet up. Russia must not win, not only for Ukraine, but secondly, we are, by doing so, ensuring our collective security for today and for the future.” Macron noted that the allies who say “never, ever” today about direct troop deployments to Ukraine are the same ones that previously ruled out escalations of military aid that were later granted, including long-range missiles and fighter jets. “Two years ago, a lot around this table said that we will offer helmets and sleeping bags, and now they’re saying we need to do more to get missiles and tanks to Ukraine. We have to be humble and realize that we’ve always been six to eight months late, so we’ll do what is needed to achieve our aim.”

There is broad consensus among the nations represented at Monday’s meeting that the allies must provide more aid to Ukraine and step up more quickly, Macron claimed. “We are not at war with the Russian people, but we cannot let them win in Ukraine,” he said, adding, “We are determined to do everything necessary for as long as necessary. That is the key takeaway from this evening.” Washington ran out of money for Ukraine last month, after burning through $113 billion in congressionally approved aid packages. US President Joe Biden is seeking an additional $60 billion in Ukraine funding as part of an emergency spending bill that also includes aid for Israel and Taiwan. Conservative Republican lawmakers have balked at approving more aid for Ukraine, saying Biden is merely prolonging the conflict without changing its outcome. Trump has claimed he will end the crisis within 24 hours by forcing Ukrainian and Russian leaders to the negotiating table.

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“..He pledged not to let Slovak troops get involved in the fighting, even if it costs him his premiership..”

West Could Cause ‘Worst-Case Scenario’ In Ukraine – Slovak PM Fico (RT)

Western nations may come up with the “worst solution” for the Ukraine conflict at a top-level meeting convened on Monday by France, according to Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico. The Elysee Palace described the event it is hosting as a chance for participants to “reaffirm their unity” and express their determination to defeat Russia in Ukraine. There was initial speculation in the media that Slovakia would not send a representative, but Fico confirmed on Sunday that he would be attending. ”The information about the issues we’re supposed to talk about on Monday sends chills down my spine,” he said in a video statement on social media. Fico expressed concern over a “total escalation” of the conflict by the West and “unlimited military and financial assistance” that the strategy entails. He pledged not to let Slovak troops get involved in the fighting, even if it costs him his premiership.

Fico is an outspoken critic of the Western approach to the Ukraine conflict. He said he wanted to hold consultations with Slovakia’s national security council and his coalition partners before going to Paris. Western leaders will be tackling concerns over optics, an unnamed French presidential official explained to AFP. Ukraine’s backers need to counter any “impression that things are falling apart” for Ukraine after a series of setbacks on the battlefield, the source said. The intention is to send a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin that “he will not prevail” and to examine ways to “do things better and more decisively,” the official added.

The meeting in Paris comes as hostilities enter their third year. The government in Kiev rejected a draft peace agreement with Moscow in 2022, and opted to seek a military victory instead. Last year, Ukrainian forces failed to regain any significant territory despite receiving numerous heavy weapons from foreign donors. Russia liberated the strategically important Donbass town of Avdeevka this month. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and top officials have blamed a shortage of Western weapons for their earlier failed counteroffensive and the current retreat. Half of pledged arms arrive in Ukraine behind schedule, costing Kiev both troops and land, Defense Minister Rustem Umerov complained on Sunday.

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It wasn’t just Boris Johnson in March 2022, they had gotten to him well before that.

Putin Insisted On Donbass Ceasefire In 2019 – Zelensky (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has acknowledged that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, urged him to stop the hostilities in Donbass in 2019. He added that he had strong concerns at the time that diplomacy would freeze the conflict, but not resolve it. Speaking at a press conference on Sunday, Zelensky gave an account of his face-to-face meeting with Putin in Paris in December 2019, which took place several months after he was elected. According to Zelensky, he had a long conversation with Putin, who “constantly raised the issue of ceasefire.” The Ukrainian president said he told the Russian leader that it would not work out in the long run, noting that this turned out to be the case. He recalled that while talking to Putin, he expressed his doubts about the Minsk agreements – which sought to end the hostilities in Donbass – “because… the withdrawal of troops along the line of contact does not work.”

He claimed that he had shown Putin data which proved that the progress was too little and too slow. “I showed him that we would spend 20 years pulling back troops.” Zelensky said this means that the Donbass conflict would have remained frozen for many years, adding that he and Putin had been “haggling” for a long time over the issue. Brokered by Germany and France, the now-defunct 2014 and 2015 Minsk agreements were aimed at halting the hostilities in Donbass and give the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. The 2019 meeting between Zelensky and Putin took place in the Normandy Format with the participation of the German and French leaders.

At the time, the negotiations made some headway, with the sides reaching an agreement on the disengagement of troops in Donbass and prisoner exchanges. However, Russia accused Ukraine of failing to implement the Minsk agreements, saying this was one of the key reasons for launching the military operation against Kiev. Former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko has admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces,” a position that was later echoed by former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and ex-French President Francois Hollande. In autumn 2022, several months into the Ukraine conflict, the two Donbass regions and two other former Ukrainian territories voted overwhelmingly to join Russia in referendums.

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“In general, Zelensky’s statement was so senseless and implausible that I think it will cause a wide resonance, including in Ukraine..”

Zelensky Downplays Ukrainian Losses to Wheedle More Money Out of West (Sp.)

Speaking to CNN on Sunday, Zelensky again begged his Western backers for more money and weapons. “Whether Ukraine will lose is dependent on you, our partners, the Western world,” he said. “We will not lose this war if we get the weapons. We will win.” Zelensky’s interview came on the heels of Russia’s capture of Avdeyevka, a city in the Donetsk region, from the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which were forced into a further retreat. The Ukrainian army is continuing to lose ground since the failure of the Kiev regime’s summer offensive. The botched counteroffensive attempt alone resulted in 159,000 Ukrainian servicemen killed and wounded, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense. Still, the Ukrainian president insisted at a Sunday press conference in Kiev that Ukraine has lost just 31,000 troops killed since the outset of the conflict.

But that contradicted the assessment of US officials last summer that Ukraine had alreadt lost close to 70,000 killed and 100,000 to 120,000 wounded, noted Alexander Mikhailov, analyst and head of the Bureau of Military-Political Analysis in Russia. Speaking to US journalist Tucker Carlson in August 2023, Douglas Macgregor, a retired colonel of the United States Army and a political analyst, suggested that Ukraine’s real losses amounted to 400,000. “That was said before the battle for Avdeyevka and other major battles,” Mikhailov told Sputnik. “Zelensky’s statement in this context should be viewed as an indication of fear of [the Ukrainian] people. He has repeatedly lied. Apparently, he lies and talks about 31,000 killed in order to reduce social responsibility for what was happening,” he noted. The analyst referred to reports that Kiev officials were deliberately understating Ukrainian losses to avoid paying compensation to the families of the deceased.

While targeting his domestic audience in his speech, the Ukrainian president also sought to reassure Western viewers that Ukraine still has enough manpower — and that all that it needs to win are extra money and weapons. “In general, Zelensky’s statement was so senseless and implausible that I think it will cause a wide resonance, including in Ukraine,” Mikhailov stressed. The Ukrainian president also insisted that the Ukrainian military has a clear vision for 2024. Last November Ukrainian MPs lashed out at then-commander-in-chief General Valery Zaluzhny for his failure to outline a military strategy for the coming year. Since he replaced Zaluzhny with Colonel General Oleksandr Syrsky, the Ukrainian president has claimed that Kiev now has not just one plan but was preparing “several” versions of its battlefield strategy for 2024. Mikhailov considers that implausible, however.

“Zelensky just needs to say something so that the Democrats could convince the Republicans to sign $60 billion [in aid to Ukraine],” said the analyst. “Zelensky’s statement that there is a plan for 2024, that they had a plan for 2023 or for 2022” doesn’t make much sense, he added. “They had plans all the time, but these plans ended in nothing and were axed by the reality in which the Russian Federation achieves its goals and continues to fulfill the goals of the special military operation, on a larger scale than previously stated,” Mikhailov said. The analyst also found Zelensky’s comments about a change of strategy ironic, given his claim that Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive plan was cracked by Russia.

“Our counteroffensive action plans were on the Kremlin’s table before the counteroffensive actions began,” Zelensky told a press conference in Kiev. “By stating that the Russians knew about the counteroffensive, he may be rubbing US intelligence’s nose in it,” Mikhailov said. “Because the Americans now control many processes: American and British intelligence agencies — Western intelligence agencies — control all plans of Kiev. And therefore, if it was leaked, it means they missed it.”

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“..Between the two political corpses, a lot of money is at stake..”

The Case of the Navalny Corpse – Cherchez Les Femmes (Helmer)

Two women, Kira Yarmysh and Maria Pevchikh made up the series of lies which in August 2020 claimed that Alexei Navalny had been poisoned with Novichok by a Russian state death squad – first in a cup of tea he drank at Tomsk Airport; then in a bottle of mineral water which he drank in his hotel room; and finally in the underpants he dressed himself with before the water, before the tea. As each of these claims proved untrue on the public evidence, they and Navalny agreed to the release of medical data collected by the group of German doctors who treated Navalny after his admission to the Charité Clinic in Berlin on August 22, 2020. But neither data presented in the doctors’ publication in The Lancet of December 22, 2020, nor the doctors’ report itself proved that Navalny had been poisoned by Novichok. That conclusion came in press releases from the German military, and then from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

According to the Berlin doctors, “severe poisoning with a cholinesterase inhibitor was subsequently diagnosed. 2 weeks later, the German Government announced that a laboratory of the German armed forces designated by the OPCW had identified an organophosphorus nerve agent from the Novichok group in blood samples collected immediately after the patient’s admission to Charité, a finding that was subsequently confirmed by the OPCW.” That’s a political advertisement, not a medical diagnosis – no doctor has signed his name to either, and no German military officer has signed his name to the first. One day before The Lancet publication, on December 21, Navalny, Pevchikh and Yarmysh published their fabrication of the underpants story with the fake telephone call of an FSB agent, Konstantin Kudryavtsev, admitting to Navalny everything which had been disproved until that time.

The combination of fabricated evidence of the murder weapon and then of the murderer’s accomplice was repeated in the documentary film which won the Oscar award for documentary films in March 2023. Yarmysh was Navalny’s press spokesman in August 2020; she still is. Pevchikh was the script writer for Navalny and the channel to him from Anglo-American government agents, as well from Russian financiers in London like Yevgeny Chichvarkin, once the Evroset mobile telephone magnate. If the two women had been telling the truth and Novichok had been in Navalny’s tea, water, or underpants, he would have been dead within minutes of contact. So too would Pevchikh who hand-carried the water bottle from Tomsk to Novosibirsk, then Omsk, and finally Berlin.

Navalny’s blood, urine, skin, and hair, clinically tested and reported by the German doctors treating him at Charité Clinic, proved his collapse had been caused by a combination of drugs he had himself consumed. The two women, and other members of Navalny’s family, including his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, 47, his mother Lyudmila Navalnaya, 69, and his daughter Daria, 23, have all refused to disclose any medical data on his prior medical conditions and the medicines he was taking before the August 2020 episode. Navalny himself gave permission to the Charité Clinic doctors in Berlin to publish their test results in The Lancet report, believing they would corroborate his story. Following Navalny’s death on February 16, 2024, there has been no release of the medical data, nor the medicines Navalny was taking at the time of his death; the record of his vaccinations against Covid-19 which were given to him in Germany; his prior medical conditions; or the toxicology and pathology data collected in the post-mortem investigations following his death.

Russian law prohibits the release of this personal information without the permission of the senior next of kin and executor whom Navalny named in his will. He named his mother, Lyudmila. He did not name his wife, Yulia. His reason for doing that has begun to surface in Moscow. It marks infighting over the political succession to Navalny, and the money which the US has been providing to the Navalny organization. That heirs fight over succession rights, assets and cash is commonplace. What has not yet been noticed in either the Russian or western press reporting is the document on which probate cases start the world over – the will of the deceased. The first sign that an inheritance fight has begun is that while Lyudmila Navalnaya went to Kharp, where Navalny had been imprisoned, and Salekhard, where his body was taken for post-mortem testing, Yulia Navalnaya flew to California to meet President Joseph Biden. Between the two political corpses, a lot of money is at stake.

Read more …

There’s Navalny aid Ms Pevchikh again. This makes no sense. Why would Putin have him killed?

“Putin has gone mad with hatred for Navalny,” Ms Pevchikh said. “He knows Navalny could’ve defeated him.”

By polling at 2%? Navalny has meaning only in the western narrative.

Navalny About To Be Freed In Prisoner Swap When He Died – Ally (BBC)

Alexei Navalny was about to be freed in a prisoner swap when he died, according to his ally Maria Pevchikh. She said the Russian opposition leader was going to be exchanged for Vadim Krasikov, a Russian hitman who is serving a life sentence for murder in Germany. Two US citizens currently held in Russia were also going to be part of the deal, Ms Pevchikh claimed. She added that negotiations were at their final stage on 15 February. The next day, Mr Navalny died in his cell in the prison colony in Siberia where he was being held on a 19-year sentence over charges that were widely seen as politically motivated. Prison officials said the 47-year-old had fallen ill following a “walk”. In a video posted on Mr Navalny’s YouTube channel, Ms Pevchikh, who is the chairwoman of his Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), said negotiations for a prisoner swap had been under way for two years.

She added that after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 “it was clear that Putin would stop at nothing” and that Mr Navalny “had to be freed from jail at any cost, and urgently”. According to Ms Pevchik, Mr Navalny was going to be freed under a humanitarian exchange and American and German officials were involved in the talks. The process finally resulted in a concrete plan for a prisoner swap in December, she said. Vadim Krasikov – a Russian who was found guilty of shooting former Chechen rebel commander Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in the head at close range in Germany in 2019 – was going to be part of the deal. Two US nationals currently held in Russia were also going to be exchanged, Ms Pevchikh said, although she did not name them. However, earlier in February, President Putin told US host Tucker Carlson that talks were ongoing with the US about freeing American journalist Evan Gershkovich, who is being held on espionage charges.

President Putin hinted that in exchange Russia would accept a person who “due to patriotic sentiments, eliminated a bandit in one of the European capitals… during the events in the Caucasus” – almost certainly a reference to Krasikov. According to Ms Pevchikh, Russian President Vladimir Putin changed his mind about the deal at the last minute. She said he “could not tolerate Navalny being free” – and since there was an agreement “in principle” for Krasikov’s freeing, Mr Putin decided to “just get rid of the bargaining chip” and “offer someone else when the time comes.” “Putin has gone mad with hatred for Navalny,” Ms Pevchikh said. “He knows Navalny could’ve defeated him.” As a former KGB officer, President Putin is used to saying – or promising – one thing, and then doing something completely different. It is a policy he and his government have been consistently implementing for almost a quarter of a century. Up until the day Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, President Putin and several Russian officials repeatedly denied there was a plan to invade the country.

Although we do not know what exactly happened to Navalny in prison, engaging in negotiations on his release without intending to set him free would fit the Kremlin’s behaviour over the past years. Within an hour of publication, Ms Pevchikh’s video had had hundreds of thousands of views. The Kremlin has not yet reacted to the claims put forward by Ms Pevchikh, but President Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov has previously said allegations of government involvement into Navalny’s death were “absurd”. Authorities initially refused to hand Navalny’s body over to his mother, only relenting eight days after his death. On Monday, Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmish posted a message on social media saying his allies were looking for a venue where supporters could hold a public farewell later this week. Such an event is expected to be closely monitored by the authorities, provided it is allowed to go ahead at all. A rights group said 400 Russians were arrested across the country for laying flower tributes to Navalny following his death.

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“..the CIA’s role in dealing with the Banderites goes back into the late 1940s and early 1950s..”

Leaked Details on CIA Ops in Ukraine Signal ‘End is Near’ for Kiev (Sp.)

Russia’s Foreign Ministry has dissected Sunday’s NYT story on the CIA’s operations in Ukraine, challenging the newspaper’s assertion that Western intel services’ active involvement in the country began only after the February 2014 Euromaidan coup. “The CIA has helped Kiev to train its spies, and not just spies, but outright militants, extremists, terrorists, thugs. Everyone. And one of the most striking examples of this chain being set in motion occurred in 2013-2014. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, reacting to the NYT’s reporting. “Under the guise of democratic forces and civilians, those which took part in the Maidan were primarily trained at bases in Poland and the Baltic states. And we have spoken about this,” she said. NATO countries’ intelligence services worked to establish bases and other infrastructure in Ukraine long before the 2022 escalation, the spokeswoman said, and not only on the border with Russia, but across the country.

“This begs the question: why is the New York Times only now raising concerns about this? We have provided all the information publicly. Why was the American press silent for many years?” she asked. According to the Times’ account, the CIA created a dozen secret spy bases in Ukraine near Russia over an eight year period going back to 2016, with the intelligence “partnership” supposedly taking “root a decade ago,” after Maidan-appointed spy chief Valentyn Nalyvaichenko contacted then-CIA director John Brennan and the MI6 asking them to help rebuild the Security Service of Ukraine (Ukrainian acronym SBU) “from the ground up.” “They’re lying about the US role in those early stages,” says former CIA analyst and State Department Office of Counterterrorism expert Larry Johnson. “They’re lying about the US and British role in helping create the coup and what happened in the Maidan. They’re acting like ‘oh, you know, the Maidan happened and then the CIA was contacted, after the fact’.

Well that’s not true,” Johnson told Sputnik, suggesting that the NYT is looking to create a narrative on the coup, the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 incident, the ‘Russia the aggressor’ story which ignores Ukraine’s punitive ‘Anti-Terrorist Operation’ in the Donbass starting in 2014, etc. “You’ve got once piece of disinformation after another” in the story, according to the observer. “And then, they’re saying that it was the United States trying to rein in Ukraine from carrying out all these terrorist attacks. So it’s really like we’re trying to send the message that ‘these attacks on Russia were not the fault of the United States, it was the Ukrainians acting on their own,’” which is another patent falsehood, Johnson said. “We’ve had connections [with Ukrainian anti-Soviet and anti-Russian elements] going back to 1955. I mean the CIA’s role in dealing with the Banderites goes back into the late 1940s and early 1950s. They’re trying to portray that this is like some new relationship or just over the last 10-15 years. That’s nonsense,” the former CIA analyst emphasized.

Asked about the likely motivations to publish the expose at this stage of the proxy war in Ukraine, while Russia is advancing through the Donbass and US and European arms assistance to Kiev is under threat, Johnson suggested it may be a signal that Washington has decided to wrap up its Ukrainian project. “I think this is a sign that the end is near for Ukraine. That’s the only reason they’re leaking it now. Because the Ukrainians themselves are putting that information out,” Johnson said. “It’s a sign that the rats are starting to leave the sinking ship. This is their way to say that it’s not the fault of the United States. You know, ‘we did everything we could, it’s these crazy Ukrainians.’ This is part of a ‘blame Ukraine’ [narrative],” the observer noted.

As for the dozen clandestine bases mentioned in the piece, Johnson expressed confidence that Russia knew about these facilities, and likely has taken or will take action to eliminate them. “If I’m Russian intelligence, you’re going to blow those sites up,” he said. “The bases are not going to be that close to Russian territory because the Russians can easily take them out. And they almost exaggerate the kind of intelligence that’s collected. Again, if the CIA was really operating like the CIA is supposed to, that means they would have recruited human sources in the SBU already. That would have been passing them information without admitting or acknowledging it. But that’s not what was going on. This is what they call an open liaison service, so the information is being passed freely.”

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“If the current global geopolitical tensions continue to evolve in the direction of ‘the West against the Rest,’ Europe’s future risks to be bleak..”

Start of SMO Spelled End To Western Global Dominance – Borrell (TASS)

The era of the West’s global dominance finally came to an end with the start of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine and the conflict in the Gaza Strip, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell wrote on his blog. “If the current global geopolitical tensions continue to evolve in the direction of ‘the West against the Rest,’ Europe’s future risks to be bleak. The era of Western dominance has indeed definitively ended. While this has been theoretically understood, we have not always drawn all practical conclusions from this new reality,” Borrell wrote. According to him, the special military operation in Ukraine and the Gaza conflict have “significantly increased this risk” of a confrontation between the Global West and the Global South, which can already be “seen in the Sahel and elsewhere in Africa.”

He emphasized that many countries in the global South accuse the West of “double standards.” Borrell considers this fact unfair and blames Russia and its propaganda for this. “Russia has managed to take advantage of the situation,” he believes. “We need to push back on this narrative but also to address this issue not only with words: in the coming months, we must make a massive effort to win back the trust of our partners (primarily countries that were European colonial possessions in Africa – TASS),” he added. In his blog on the outcome of the Munich Security Conference, Borrell once again rebuked EU countries and the United States for not heeding his warnings two years before the conflict in Ukraine about the rapidly growing security threats to the West. He once again urged Western countries to arm themselves and supply as many weapons as possible to Kiev to try to regain their global dominance.

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“Yemen is a haven of peace, partnership, construction, giving and humanity, especially when the intentions are sincere..”

Era of West’s Maritime Hegemony Has Reached Its End – Houthis (Sp.)

Despite lacking any sort of blue water navy or even much of a brown water fleet beyond machinegun-armed gunboats, the Yemeni militia has managed to put a giant dent in international shipping through the Red Sea chokepoint linking Europe and Asia, with the volume of maritime traffic through the nearby Suez Canal dropping by as much as 40 percent. The era of Western dominance of international waters has reached its end and the US and its allies will have to deal with it, Houthi government Defense Minister Mohamed al-Atifi has said. “The United States, Britain and Israel must realize that the policies of demarcation and assertion of hegemonic influence over the seas have become an obsolete and unwelcome approach,” al-Atifi said in a speech at the graduation ceremony of Yemeni cadets in Hudaydah.

Suggesting that Yemen’s naval forces have “redefined” the concept of regional maritime security, al-Atifi stressed that the Houthis would continue their military operations in the Red Sea as long as the Israeli aggression in Gaza continues, and “as long as blood continues to flow through our veins.” “We are custodians over the navigational course in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait,” al-Atifi said. “We reaffirm that the Yemen Armed Forces will not target any ships that are neither affiliated with the Zionist enemy nor serving its interests. Marine navigation for vessels through the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea is safe,” the defense minister assured. “Sanaa is committed to all international treaties and conventions that do not infringe upon Yemeni dignity and sovereignty or subject it to hegemony and foreign mandates,” he added.

“Yemen is a haven of peace, partnership, construction, giving and humanity, especially when the intentions are sincere. But when challenges grow and the enemies of God and the nation conspire to impose the will of evil and tyranny, another Yemen emerges and its loyal men find themselves as steadfast mountains against their enemies, strong and proud in their positions, pushing to restore balance and removing symbols of evil, oppression, tyranny and arrogance,” al-Atifi said.

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“..if you know winter is coming, you cannot stop it, but you can get a winter coat. Again, Nenner thinks “Trump is the winter coat.”

Super Bull Market in Gold About to Start – Charles Nenner (USAW)

Renowned geopolitical and financial cycle expert Charles Nenner has been warning of a huge war and financial cycle, and it is clear both continue to build. The war cycle will continue to amplify until World War III breaks out. Meanwhile, unpayable debt will continue to explode until another Great Depression hits America again. Standing in the gap is gold, and the wait for a bull market is about over. Nenner explains, “The dollar’s buying power could possibly be cut in half. . . . That’s the reason why we expect a super bull market in gold and silver when the cycle bottoms. You remember I came on and said coming, coming, but not yet? I say it was too early . . . but, now, we are getting very close to a bull market. . . . Gold could still have one more down move because the cycles are still down.”

On Bitcoin, Nenner says, “We had a high of $54,000, and we said if it hit $52,000, we would sell. I do not believe this story that Bitcoin will hit $100,000 based on my work. It has been proven that NASDAQ and Bitcoin go up and down together because it is based on nothing, and people are buying out of greed. Because we think we are at a top in the NASDAQ, then we don’t think the outlook for Bitcoin is too positive.” Nenner thinks the DOW is also topping, and he is telling clients to lighten up on the risk. Nenner sees a second Great Depression playing out again in 2026 or 2027. Nenner thinks the “War Cycle” will continue to build in 2024, but all bets are off in 2025.

Nenner says his wealthy clients see dark days ahead for the world and have actual bunkers to go along with a bunker mentality. Nenner think domestic terror and even war is coming to America in a big way. Nenner is still forecasting “2 billion will die in the next global war, and the only way we get a body count that high is with nuclear weapons.” Nenner sees an election coming in 2024 and still thinks Trump can win. Nenner warns that problems in America are too big for any one person to actually fix. Nenner still thinks if you know winter is coming, you cannot stop it, but you can get a winter coat. Again, Nenner thinks “Trump is the winter coat.”

Read more …

Two stories from one ZH article. The link between the White House and the various Trump prosecutions gets stronger by the day. Ugly.

Biden Operative Inserted Into Fani Team (ZH)

Two stunning reports have emerged that spell trouble for Fulton County DA Fani Willis. For starters, Breitbart News reports from multiple sources that the Biden administration “planted a Democrat operative in the Fulton County office to target former President Trump,” which according to the report “would present a strong argument that the administration interfered in the 2024 presidential election.” Breitbart News granted the sources anonymity to discuss the attorney’s office for fear of retribution. The sources have direct knowledge of the environment at the District Attorney’s Office, which they characterized as “corrupt.” The alleged ‘plant’ in questionf is Jeff DiSantis – the county’s Deputy DA, who not only worked on Willis’s 2020 campaign and was the former Executive Director of the Democrat Party of Georgia, he was the DNC’s deputy director of compliance.

Sources credit DiSantis with colluding with the White House to target Trump. “DiSantis did this,” one source told Breitbart News about the Trump case. “He’s the one. He is the one pulling all the strings. He was the one that walled her [Willis] off. He was in every important meeting. He is the brainchild behind this. That is the connection to the White House.” One of Breitbart’s sources said they are “one hundred percent” sure DiSantis was the inside man that the Biden administration planted in the Fulton County office. “DiSantis is the one pulling the strings on this whole thing,” a second source told the outlet. “Everybody heard Fani testify. It’s no secret that she’s not smart. That is how she sounds and acts every day of the week.” “Anyone that has common sense knows that the White House has been involved in this prosecution,” a source continued. “This shouldn’t just miraculously happen. Of course, she’s [Willis] not going to prosecute the former president United States without the current administration’s approval.”

According to the sources, DiSantis was deeply involved in selecting grand jurors for the Trump case based on voter registration data. “Part of why you’re raising money as a candidate is to get money to buy the data about who are your voters. DiSantis, as the former head of the state Democratic Party, he’s going to know you know [the data] in Georgia,” said a source. “There’s not one conservative person on that grand jury.” Sources also revealed that DiSantis was a member of Willis’s transition team after she won the election in November 2020. DiSantis helped Wade select employees for the new office. “DiSantis was there in the capacity to be a political strategist, hiding in the DA’s office,” a source told Breitbart News.

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But not who it is..

Jim Jordan Reveals New Whistleblower (ZH)

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) came down on Willis with an elbow drop from the top rope, revealing at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that there’s a whistleblower inside of Fani’s office. Whether it’s one of Breitbart’s sources – we don’t know, though Jordan’s comments suggest it might be Willis’s former friend, Robin Bryant Yeartie, who testified against her about Fani’s relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade. “[The whistleblower is] now talking with our office, and we’ll see how that goes. But that’s why we have subpoenaed documents related to this,” Jordan continued. As the Epoch Times notes further; “Over the past several weeks, significant allegations against Ms. Willis and her special prosecutor, Nathan Wade, have emerged, triggering several court motions and hearings during which Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade have testified. The allegations center around the timing of a romantic relationship between the two—the existence of which both have confirmed—and whether Ms. Willis financially benefitted from the arrangement.”

Ms. Willis hired Mr. Wade in November 2021 to handle the racketeering and election case against former President Donald Trump and several co-defendants. Late last week, President Trump’s team said they hired a private investigator to use a program to provide data on Mr. Wade’s cellphone, suggesting that Mr. Wade was actively engaged in a relationship many months before they claimed that their relationship started, in 2022, a key claim both made in court earlier this month. It’s unclear whether Mr. Jordan was referring to Robin Yeartie, a witness in the case who claimed that the two were involved in a relationship in 2019. Ms. Yeartie, who had owned the property where Ms. Willis had lived and was her friend, testified that she was forced to resign from the Fulton County District Attorney’s office several years ago.

However, there have been reports that the whistleblower could be another former employee at the office, Amanda Timpson. Mr. Jordan sent a letter to Ms. Willis’s office several weeks ago, saying the employee was fired because she was being retaliated against, which he said raises serious concerns about whether the district attorney was appropriately supervising the expenditure of federal grant funding allocated to her office and whether she took actions to conceal her office’s “unlawful use of federal funds.” As reported by The Washington Free Beacon, Ms. Timpson said troubles within the office started in March 2021 when she stopped an aide to Ms. Willis from allegedly trying to obtain funds from a $488,000 federal grant for an anti-gang violence organization to instead pay for travel, computers, and other items.

The report noted that she was fired in early 2022, saying only that she was terminated because of an “employee discharge.” But Ms. Willis rejected the claims by saying that the ex-employee’s claims are “false allegations” that are “included in baseless litigation filed by a holdover employee from the previous administration who was terminated for cause,” Politico reported. Her office stated that she failed “to meet the standards of the new administration.” “Any examination of the records of our grant programs will find that they are highly effective and conducted in cooperation with the Department of Justice and in compliance with all Department of Justice requirements,” Ms. Willis said earlier this month.

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Brussels is power hungry.

EU Finance Ministers Clash as Bloc Fails to Centralize Market Supervision (Sp.)

European Union finance ministers disagree regarding proposals to streamline the regulation of national capital markets, aiming to harmonize divergent systems and foster private investment in vital sectors like defense. Due to various market regulations and barriers among member states, the bloc is focusing on supervision, savings products, and insolvency rules to promote risk mitigation and streamline processes for businesses and investors. The bloc’s actions are driven by its bleak outlook as its major economies grapple with challenges such as high inflation, soaring energy costs, and deindustrialization due to their alignment with US-led anti-Russia sanctions, which have inadvertently backfired on the 27-member bloc. Consequently, the EU is facing mounting financial pressures and heightened geopolitical risks.

EU finance ministers are considering proposals from the Eurogroup to advance the capital markets union over the next five years. Paschal Donohoe, Eurogroup president, noted disagreement among member states on the level of ambition needed to establish a common supervisory framework, a key aspect of the bloc’s agenda, set to be completed by March. The Eurogroup represents the assembly of finance ministers from the Eurozone, comprising EU member states that have adopted the euro as their currency. Consisting of 20 members, it holds informal gatherings to oversee the political direction of the currency and manage facets of the EU’s monetary union, including the Stability and Growth Pact.

“Europe is acutely aware at the moment of the need for it to be able to stand firmly on its own two feet in the years ahead,” he said. “I really have felt this in a number of discussions of late that how we can strengthen ourselves is now a necessity,” the Eurogroup’s president noted. However, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has expressed dissatisfaction over the pace of progress in establishing a capital markets union for the bloc. He recommended advancing with three or four supportive countries to pursue greater ambition on joint supervision rather than negotiating a deal among all 27 member states, reintroducing market securitization, and launching a savings product across the EU. According to sources familiar with the matter, the Netherlands and Spain have endorsed France’s initiative. However, they lean towards a pan-European agreement, but are prepared to explore other possibilities.

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“.. Google is one of the key delivery mechanisms of information on the planet, and it is going to have this ‘broken’ AI at its heart.”

Musk Warns Google’s Woke Bureaucratic Blob Won’t Allow Its AI To Be Fixed (MN)

X owner Elon Musk commented on the dumpster fire that is Google’s Gemini AI Sunday, noting that he has spoken to a senior Google executive who has claimed it is being fixed. As we previously highlighted, the latest ridiculous thing the AI has come out with is that it would not misgender Caitlyn Jenner in order to prevent a nuclear apocalypse. Musk chimed in, warned that “Given that the Gemini AI will be at the heart of every Google product and YouTube, this is extremely alarming!” Musk also revealed that a senior Google executive has told him “it would take a few months to fix,” adding “Previously, he thought it would be faster.” “My response to him was that I doubted that Google’s woke bureaucratic blob would *allow* him to fix it,” Musk continued.

“Unless those who caused this are exited from Google, nothing will change, except to make the bias less obvious and more pernicious,” the X owner further warned. The comments come after the Gemini AI also declared that it is “difficult to say” who is the worse human being when given the choice of Elon Musk or Adolf Hitler. The AI clearly cannot discern between right and wrong, having also declared that calling communism “evil” is “harmful and misleading” and refusing to say pedophilia is “wrong.” Musk is right, Google is one of the key delivery mechanisms of information on the planet, and it is going to have this ‘broken’ AI at its heart.

Elon UBI

Read more …

“It’s a dark night of the soul when you wake up to it..”

Dissolving Illusions About Vaccine Safety (Mercola)

One of the silver linings of the COVID mass injection campaign is that it has awakened many to the notion that vaccines aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. The COVID shots are so toxic, even though the injuries are being swept under the carpet like never before, there are just so many of them that the carnage cannot be hidden. And, because government and health authorities refuse to acknowledge the problem, many are now questioning all vaccines, not just the COVID shot. “It’s a dark night of the soul when you wake up to it,” Humphries says. “Your whole world does get a bit shattered, because you start to realize that the entire medical system is corrupt and backwards and that there’s probably better ways to do just about everything. And you know what? For 225 years, doctors have been saying that, and for 225 years, those doctors have been ignored. That’s one of the reasons we wrote the second book, ‘The Dissolving Illusions Companion book.’

It’s another huge book, about 600 pages, with 230-something doctors giving different quotes about what they saw, boots on the ground, for smallpox vaccines to the toxoid vaccines to scarlet fever, typhoid, and the worsening of all diseases that occurred after they gave vaccines. Some of them basically come out and say, ‘The entire profession of medicine is a complete waste of time. [They’re doing] damage to humanity. It would be better if all the doctors just were taken off the Earth and for humanity to do nothing.’ What we’ve done over the past 10 years is, in my travels, I would have to do more research to present different diseases. I would go one place and they say, ‘We want to hear about tetanus,’ or they want to hear more about whooping cough. More medical literature has also come out. So, we’ve added basically another book to ‘Dissolving Illusions.’

We’ve expanded it by 200 pages. We’ve added on a chapter on tuberculosis, which was called the White Plague. There’s an extra addition to the smallpox chapter. I’ve added about 20 or 30 new pages to the pertussis chapter. There is a chapter on deadly medicine, the practices from the early 1800s through to the 1940s that were provably causing lots of harm. Roman came up with more charts. There’s a follow-up on the polio chapter. Dr. Jacob Puliyel, who lives in India, wrote the papers on the oral polio vaccines, how they were causing paralysis in children. We added those follow-up papers, as well as a lot of other data that we left out of the original chapter to try to save space, but it’s so important, it really needs to be put out there.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1762265806002352386

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“Those advocating the genocide of humanity are not held accountable. Instead, they are respectable leaders of mankind..”

The Rapidly Emerging Rule of Tyranny in the West (Paul Craig Roberts)

An 18 year old mother put her baby in a dumpster with a trash compactor. The police found the baby’s remains wrapped in a mattress protector inside a zipped-up duffel bag. Evil must have taken a large step forward for a mother to do this to her baby. I can imagine Jakayla Williams thinking that if she had aborted the baby there would be no complaint, so why can’t she put the baby in the dumpster? Legalized abortion, that is legalized murder, has left women insensitive to murder. Consequently, murder is becoming legalized outside abortion. For example, Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians, and our Great Country America vetoes the UN resolutions against Israel’s genocidal murder of the Palestinians. Washington has redefined genocide as “self-defense” by the Israelis committing the genocide.

The atrocities are beyond belief. The Israelis are committing genocide of the Palestinians and the Democrat regime here vetos UN cease fire resolutions. But an 18 year old black American woman is going to be tried for first degree murder because she waited too long before she aborted her baby. How can this be that the Israeli and US governments can murder at will, but if a black woman disposes of her baby after the expiration of the “use by” date of her legal right to murder, she is a murderess? And look what the Great British and American Democracies have done to Julian Assange. Imprisoned in one form or the other for 12 years without any charges being brought. It is just like medieval times when feudal lords at their whim threw people in dungeons for keeps. The latest reports show that the Democrats are spending massive amounts of our money suppressing truth and financing the recruitment and provisioning of the immigrant invaders from 160 countries that are overrunning our country.

According to official, understated, figures, each year Biden is bringing in immigrant-invaders in numbers equal to 12 cities the size of Pittsburg Pennsylvania. So, 24 cities in two years, 36 cities in 3 years, and dumbshit Americans vote for Demorats who are stealing their country from them. How can a people as indoctrinated and brainwashed as Americans possibly avoid the tyranny that is rapidly descending on them? Many Americans have difficulty being realistic about government. They think government is there to serve them. It is not. Many decades ago Albert Jay Nock made that clear in the classic book, Our Enemy, The State. The trust that Americans place in official narratives is extraordinary. Americans fell for 9/11, for Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, for the “Covid Pandemic” hoax and the mRNA deadly vaccine. Our government wouldn’t lie to us, many say as they sit in front of CNN, Fox News, listen to NPR, read the New York Times and program themselves into mindlessness.

I recently read a letter from a US Senator to a federal agency demanding to know why the agency was financing research in Wuhan, China, focused on weaponizing bird flu. She hasn’t had a reply. Are the elite going to release weaponized bird flu on us in 2025? By then will it be a criminal offense to refuse the vaccine? Bill Gates has made it clear that the elite’s agenda is to kill off most of the world population. Mike Benz recently explained to Tucker Carlson the controls being put in place to prevent one word of truth being spoken in resistance to the tyranny that is prepared for us. The official narrative is that people are killing the planet by causing global warming. To save the planet people have to be eliminated. Here we face not Israel’s genocide of a couple of million Palestinians, but the elite’s genocide of 7.5 billion people. Those advocating the genocide of humanity are not held accountable. Instead, they are respectable leaders of mankind.

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“..a digital wall that is not a barrier so much as a web of all-seeing eyes, with intelligence to know what it sees.”

The Border Fiasco and the “Smart Wall” (Whitney Webb)

The disastrous situation at the US-Mexico border is, and has been, intentionally produced. Throughout the last several administrations, regardless of campaign and other public rhetoric, the porous nature of the border has remained unresolved. On several occasions, the situation as it has developed has been blamed largely on incompetence and government inefficiency. Though some administrations have been tougher than others in regards to terrestrial migration (under some metrics), the US-Mexico border has not been sealed off so to force entrants to cross through officially recognized and managed ports of entry. Under the current administration, it has been pointedly obvious that even the sections of the border that do contain physical barriers are being dismantled on purpose, all the while illegal crossings have risen to unprecedented levels. Whatever the motives for this deliberate policy on the part of the Biden administration, the end result has been the widespread characterization of the crisis as an “invasion,” priming the voter bloc usually most concerned with border security – the American Right – for military-style “solutions.”

While the justifications for the frenzied media coverage are based on the actual reality that the border is indeed highly insecure (and has been for some time), the policy responses from American politicians reveal that there is a bipartisan consensus about what must be done. Tellingly, the same “solution” is also being quietly rolled out at all American ports of entry that are not currently being “overrun”, such as airports. That solution, of course, is biometric surveillance, enabled by AI, facial recognition/biometrics and autonomous devices. This “solution” is not just being implemented throughout the United States as an alleged means of thwarting migrants, it is also being rapidly implemented throughout the world in apparent lockstep.

The reasons for the unspoken, but obvious, global consistency in implementing invasive, biometric surveillance is due to the fulfillment of global policy agendas, ratified by nearly every country in the world, that seek both to restrict the extent of people’s freedom of movement and to surveil people’s movements (and much, much more) through the global implementation of digital identity. Those policy agendas include mainly the UN’s Agenda 2030 or Sustainable Development Goals, specifically SDG 16, as well as Interpol’s Global Policing Goals. While the American Right has been rather outspoken in its rejection of the UN’s Agenda 2030, and the digital ID project at large, the distress over the border situation is being used to manufacture consent among this specific group for “solutions” that are focused on expanding surveillance and biometric collection as opposed to the implementation of physical barriers. The Hawaiian shirt-wearing inventor of the VR headset Oculus Rift, Palmer Luckey, has become the face of America’s “virtual border wall.”

Luckey, the brain behind the defense tech firm Anduril, is a long-time associate of Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, with Luckey having met Thiel at 19 when Luckey presided over his first company Oculus Rift, which was later sold to Facebook. Thiel was then on Facebook’s board and was also instrumental in the rise of the social media company. Luckey’s Anduril is also backed by Thiel’s Founders Fund and another Palantir co-founder, Joe Lonsdale, is also an Anduril investor. Anduril is one of the main beneficiaries of government contracts to build autonomous surveillance towers along the US-Mexico border, which are now also being rolled out along the US-Canada border. As a consequence, they are likely to be among the beneficiaries of the Senate’s current proposal for “border security,” which sets aside $170 million for additional towers to be build. Under the Trump and now Biden administrations, Luckey has been vocal about how Anduril will create “a digital wall that is not a barrier so much as a web of all-seeing eyes, with intelligence to know what it sees.” As noted by WIRED in 2018, Luckey and Anduril has long been pitching its technology “as a complement to – or substitute for – much of [then] President Trump’s promised physical wall.”

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“..Circularity requirements..” I have a 25 year old car. Go fuck yourself.

EU Considers Ban On Repairs For All Vehicles Over 15 Years Old (WS Apes)

This Is Absolutely Insane. The European Union Is Considering A Ban On Repairs For All Vehicles Over 15 Years Old. “To encourage Europeans to buy new environmentally friendly vehicles.” So In The Name Of “Climate Change” Millions Of People Will No Longer Be Able To Repair Their Vehicles “. The EU considers banning repairing cars over 15 years old. I mentioned this at the close of program the other day, but, uh, this truly is where it is headed. This is an article from wine press. Uh, the proposal is an amendment to the European commission’s preexisting listen to what they call it. Circularity requirements, Circularity requirements. I guess recycle is kind of passed out of use now that you got, uh, the wind turbines that are not recyclable for the windmills and, uh, the solar panels and all these other issues.

You know, there used to be all this reduce, reuse, recycle, Uh, that doesn’t work anymore. That’s kind of become a mockery. So now that we got circularity requirements for vehicle design and on the management of end of life vehicles. The same is to renew the car fleet. See that’s it. They’re not banning anything. They’re renewing it. They’re renewing it. Yeah. Right…. To encourage Europeans to buy new environmentally friendly vehicles. Uh, this is beyond the despicable practice of planned obsolescence where the manufacturers would design something to break after a short period of time. This is this is planned immobilization. Planned immobilization by the government.

They don’t want people to have cars of any type. By the way, you notice that this doesn’t say anything about electric cars. Of course, they don’t really have to do that. Um, by the time your batteries are 15 years old, they’re already gone long dead. And if you, and if you try to replace those batteries, it’s going to cost more than your car’s worth. So they don’t have to do it for electric cars. It’s already implied your planned obsolescence, uh, based on the concept of a residual vehicle, A category for vehicles that are over 15 years old. Oh, all my vehicles are approaching a residual vehicle.” The people in charge always implement their agendas overseas first before bringing their regulations to America.

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Sagan

 

 

Master’s voice

 

 

 

 

Jag

 

 

Tetris
https://twitter.com/i/status/1762078095467569644

 

 

Tree house

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Oct 112023
 
 October 11, 2023  Posted by at 8:47 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  35 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Self portrait 1972

 

US Support for Israel May Set Off Total Middle East Upheaval – Ex-Envoy (Sp.)
The War Has Started (Illaik)
The Israel-Palestine War Is Washington’s Fault (Inlakesh)
US Funding May be Diverted From Ukraine to Israel (Sp.)
Zelensky Blames Putin For Hamas Attack On Israel (HE)
Khamenei Distances Iran From Hamas Operation (ZH)
Saudi Arabia Expresses ‘Unwavering’ Support For Palestine (RT)
The Civilization Of The Antichrist (Alexander Dugin)
Special Counsel Hur May Prove the Ultimate Punchline in Washington (Turley)
Washington Moving ‘Illegal’ Bioresearch Operations To Africa – Moscow (RT)
EU Issues Ultimatum To Elon Musk (RT)
Finland-Estonia Undersea Pipeline In Baltic “Deliberately Damaged” (ZH)
The US Is On The Verge Of Becoming A Tyranny (Paul Craig Roberts)

 

 

In what is only typical, I’ve seen stories about 40 beheaded babies everywhere. That is Putin eats babies territory. Don’t touch it. Reality is bad enough.

“Throughout the fake “Hamas beheaded 40 children” psyop, there wasn’t a single image of one of the supposed beheaded babies, no images of them when they were alive, no names nor ages, and no parents family members or came forward to say their child had been beheaded. It was all based on unverified claims and “beliefs” from the Israeli military.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blevins

 

 

 

 

Macgregor

 

 

Mental gymnastics”

More mental gymnastics:

@Thom_Hartmann Oct 8: “Hamas apparently knew how to get around Israel’s Iron Dome defenses. They probably learned this from Iran. Iran almost certainly got the information from Russia. And who gave it to Russia? Sure looks like it was Donald Trump, at the request of Putin..”

 

 

Rabbi

 

 

 

 

Pepe Escobar: “Israel bombed to smithereens St. Porphyrius Orthodox Church in Gaza: built 1,616 years ago, the third oldest church in the world.”

 

 

 

 

“The Israeli-US “pipedream” fostered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that relations with Saudi Arabia are going to normalize is now also “gone” for the foreseeable future..”

US Support for Israel May Set Off Total Middle East Upheaval – Ex-Envoy (Sp.)

The United States will support Israel in all actions it takes against Hamas in Gaza after the killing of over 1,000 Israelis in Saturday’s incursion, but this will set off an anti-US wave across the Middle East and the wider Muslim world, former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman told Sputnik. Israel formally declared a state of war on Sunday, a day after Hamas invaded Israeli territory and committed the greatest slaughter of civilians in the 75 year history of the Jewish state. On Monday, Israel put the Gaza Strip under full blockade, with no food, gas or electricity supplies. Both Israel and Palestine have so far reported hundreds of dead and thousands of injured as a result of the escalation.

“The United States will support Israel reflexively but this will set off a much wider anti-US reaction across the Middle East and the wider Muslim world,” Freeman, who also served as assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs in the Clinton administration, said in an interview. The crisis is unlikely to be confined to Israel and Gaza and will metastasize to other neighboring countries, Freeman warned. “The geopolitical dangers could very well rapidly spread to Lebanon and Syria,” he said. The Israeli-US “pipedream” fostered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that relations with Saudi Arabia are going to normalize is now also “gone” for the foreseeable future, Freeman believes. The Biden administration itself appears to have been caught off guard by the ferocious suddenness and success of Hamas’ invasion, Freeman suggested. “National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan last week made the truly idiotic claim that the Middle East region had reached a reassuring level of stability,” he said.

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“.. the Americans sent messages to the Resistance Axis – specifically Iran and Hezbollah – saying, essentially: “We don’t want this to escalate. We want and need stability on the Lebanese border with Israel. We are urging you not to interfere in this war.”

The War Has Started (Illaik)

Hamas did not coordinate its military operation with any of its Resistance Axis allies. It also did not plan to achieve the stunning results that were soon to follow. The Qassam Brigades’ immediate goal was only to destroy Israeli army positions around the Gaza Strip and capture as many soldiers as possible, which they could later exchange for the thousands of Palestinian captives in Israeli prisons. But the Palestinian resistance forces were taken by surprise at the laxity of the occupation army. Contrary to expectations, they stumbled upon security vacuums and poorly guarded military sites in which a large number of enemy soldiers and officers were fast asleep. It was this unexpected opportunity that prodded the Palestinian fighters to reach for bigger gains.

Hamas’ military leadership planned to carry out this operation in complete secrecy. Just weeks earlier, their fighters had conducted military maneuvers/exercises that were observed by the Israelis. But Tel Aviv’s rather complacent intelligence assessment had been that “Hamas is training for what it does not dare to do.” The Israelis, in short, thought that Hamas was merely flexing in order to gain financial concessions for Gaza. No actual operation was ever expected by Israel’s military brass. The veil of secrecy over the operation also extended to the Hamas fighters who carried out the attack. Sources close to Hamas say that their cadres believed, until the morning of the operation, that they were assembling for a training exercise, not for the real thing.

Very few knew details of the comprehensive attack plan. Even Hamas’ allies in Lebanon and Iran learned of the operation at zero o’clock and not a moment before, according to well-informed sources in the Resistance Axis. Even for this axis, the Hamas operation went beyond all possible expectations. Although true that many of the Hamas tactics employed are shared among the Axis’ fighters in Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, and Yemen, the innovation in the Al-Aqsa Flood operation was the signature of the Al-Qassam Brigades, and particularly its brilliant leader Muhammad Deif. The operation was coordinated with remarkable professionalism: accurate and detailed intelligence was amassed, high-level training exercises organized, secrecy was paramount, and superior coordination was established between the myriad drones, paratroopers, and vast majority of Hamas fighters who crossed into the occupation state, through tunnels and above ground.

Al Qassam also planned to target Israeli communications towers and all military sites surrounding Gaza. From a military perspective, this was a near-perfect operation that led to the destruction of all the facilities of the Israeli army’s “Gaza Division” and the annihilation of entire Israeli brigades. For Israel, this was a total humiliation – something it had never experienced before, even in the devastating 1973 Arab-Israeli war. With the support of the collective west, Israel is now assembling a plan to restore its deterrence. Operation Al-Aqsa Flood didn’t only affect the Israelis – it has also endangered western deterrence throughout West Asia and the Arab world. The decline in Israel’s deterrent capacity correlates directly with the weakening of western hegemony in the region.

While Israel has been scurrying around to mobilize its troops and equipment for a counterattack, the Americans sent messages to the Resistance Axis – specifically Iran and Hezbollah – saying, essentially: “We don’t want this to escalate. We want and need stability on the Lebanese border with Israel. We are urging you not to interfere in this war.” The messages were sent on 7 October, as events unfolded, and through more than one medium. Hezbollah’s response was seen on the ground the very next morning, when it bombed Israeli army positions in the occupied Lebanese Shebaa Farms. This was a warning message, which was clarified further by Hezbollah’s Executive Council Chief Hashem Safi Al-Din when he said: “We will not remain neutral in this battle.” Neither will Washington, which immediately announced $8 billion in aid to Israel, and sent an aircraft carrier to the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The US cannot afford for Israel to take more losses, but how far will they go to deter Tel Aviv’s adversaries?

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“..Biden has abandoned the idea of reviving the Iran nuclear deal and of ending the war in Yemen. He also decided to try and inflict a death blow on the Palestinian cause for statehood.”

The Israel-Palestine War Is Washington’s Fault (Inlakesh)

The Declaration of Principles, the first agreement in the Oslo Accords, was signed on the White House lawn over 30 years ago. The accords were supposed to solve the conflict in a span of five years, but failed due to America’s inability to function as a truly neutral peace broker. During the administration of US President Donald Trump, Washington abandoned the two-state solution altogether, through the pursuance of normalization deals between Arab nations and Israel. The issue of Palestinian statehood, which the UN agrees should be solved through a two-state solution, was sidelined as a non-issue and the one bargaining chip possessed by the Palestinians, Arab-Israeli normalization, began to be taken off of the table.

How did the Palestinian political parties respond to normalization in 2018? They overwhelmingly chose non-violent struggle, including in Gaza, where Hamas endorsed the ‘Great March of Return’, a mass protest movement which lasted around a year. Most of the protesters were peaceful, but it was the relatively small groups of Palestinians committing sabotage and anti-Israeli aggression at the border fence that made the news. In response, Israeli forces killed hundreds of Palestinians and injured almost 10,000. On the Israeli side, there was not a single dead soldier or civilian, while Israeli snipers targeted women, children, journalists, disabled people, and medical workers, according to a UN human rights report on the demonstrations. How did the US react to hundreds of thousands of unarmed Palestinian protesters marching on the separation fence between Gaza and Israel? It ignored them and continued to pursue Arab-Israeli normalization.

Under the Biden administration, the two-state solution was also sidelined and the plight of Palestinians was ignored as insignificant. Instead of seeking a solution to the violence which has been steadily escalating to levels not seen in 20 years, during the course of the past two years – especially in the West Bank – Biden has chosen to look the other way and has pursued Saudi-Israeli normalization instead. A deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel would also have the potential to collapse the Iranian-Saudi rapprochement, brokered earlier this year by China, in addition to potentially dragging Washington into an open confrontation with Yemen. Instead of seeking to fulfill the foreign policy pledges made at the start of his term in office, Biden has abandoned the idea of reviving the Iran nuclear deal and of ending the war in Yemen. He also decided to try and inflict a death blow on the Palestinian cause for statehood.

What Hamas just did from Gaza would never have happened if the US had pursued a somewhat rational approach to the region. It could even have been prevented if the US had presented a political plan to de-escalate rising tensions in the occupied territories. Instead, the American government decided to overlook the armed groups in Gaza while attempting to completely dismantle their cause. And all of this for what? A fancy photo op that Biden can use to steer the Democratic Party to victory in the presidential election in 2024, by claiming that he brought peace to the Middle East.

Due to the current conflict, normalization doesn’t seem to be on the table anytime soon anyway, which would mean Hamas’ offensive has not only dealt a blow to Israel, but also to the US. Now that Israel is at war with Gaza, what is the US doing? It is condemning one side, while arming Israel and greenlighting any action it takes. Initially, Washington even refused to urge a ceasefire, in contrast to the push for one from Moscow and Beijing. The White House refuses to acknowledge its role in creating the current violence and carries on with the exact same rhetoric and policy decisions that led to the horrifying war we see today.

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“The Republicans especially and the American people, frankly, have had enough of Ukraine..”

US Funding May be Diverted From Ukraine to Israel (Sp.)

The White House is seeking to attach Ukraine funding to the urgent package for Israel, in a hope that it will help circumvent House Republicans’ opposition to further assistance to Kiev, according to the US mainstream press. House Republicans have signaled strong support to Israel and speeded up efforts to elect a new House speaker. For its part, the White House has reportedly decided to capitalize on the momentum and pair urgent funds to Tel Aviv with a Ukraine military package. Biden officials are said to have held talks with top House and Senate figures to secure additional military supplies for Israel. Per the US press, the request could come to the US Congress as early as next week. “The funding is probably going to be diverted more to Israel,” Michael Maloof, a former senior security policy analyst in the Office of the US Secretary of Defense, told Sputnik.

“And I think the American people see that the Ukrainians just were not able to muster a counteroffensive and billions of dollars were expended and nothing to show for it. So Europeans are thinking the same way. And as we approach a winter which promises to be much more severe than in previous years, they’re going to be looking more inward in the European countries to their needs that are critical needs to survive. So I think in terms of US funding, first of all, nothing is going to get passed because we can’t get a House speaker and the House cannot take up anything unless and until it has a permanent House speaker.” It is unclear how big the Israeli package would be. However, per Maloof, Israel’s lobby in DC appears to be much stronger than the Ukrainian one.

Prior to the Israeli-Hamas war, the Biden administration was considering seeking a $100 billion package for Ukraine. However, some Freedom Caucus Republicans have already signaled they are against merging Israel and Ukraine aid in one bill. “They shouldn’t be tied together. I will not vote to fund Ukraine,” GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from Georgia told the US press. “I think the White House proposal will be D.O.A. or dead on arrival unless the House and the Senate are in some kind of a mood whereby they give a bulk of stuff to funding to Israel and maybe a very small token portion to Ukraine. But I don’t know that. The Republicans especially and the American people, frankly, have had enough of Ukraine,” Maloof said. [..] Maloof suspects that the Israel-Hamas conflict could “explode into something much, much larger than just between Israel and the Palestinians.” “So we may be dealing with at least two conflicts at once,” he said, adding that the US is concurrently poking China over the Taiwan Island. It appears the US could easily outstretch itself.

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“..helping Russia in destroying freedom in Europe..” Sounds a bit desperate.. How would that get you your funding back anyway?

Zelensky Blames Putin For Hamas Attack On Israel (HE)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky released a video on Monday blaming the attacks on Israel by Hamas on Russia and Vladimir Putin. The attacks have resulted in a war between the IDF and Middle Eastern terrorist organizations, mostly taking place in and around the Gaza Strip. He posted the video to X, with the caption: “We have data very clearly proving that Russia is interested in inciting war in the Middle East. So that a new source of pain and suffering would erode global unity and exacerbate cleavages and controversies, helping Russia in destroying freedom in Europe. We can see Russian propagandists gloating. We can see Moscow’s Iranian friends openly extending a helping hand to those who attacked Israel.

All of this represents a much greater threat than the world is currently aware of. The world wars of the past were triggered by local aggressions. We know how to counter this threat. We have already prepared the necessary steps. And our primary goal is to protect the need for maximum global unity.” Zelensky stated, “We see Moscow’s Iranian friends openly supporting those who attacked Israel… “We are preparing the appropriate steps. And most importantly, we are defending the need for maximum unity in the world,” he claimed. “I am grateful to all the leaders and states who are now fully aware of the danger and are ready to work together to keep the situation under control to give the obvious sponsors of terror from broader interference,” he continued, seemingly referencing Russia.

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“Lebanon is not yet a war zone. However, it’s an area of operation. But it seems it’s also a space for both sides to exchange messages..”

Khamenei Distances Iran From Hamas Operation (ZH)

The Israeli army has reportedly issued an order for citizens to evacuate the Metula settlement, which lies just along the northern border with Lebanon. This after a salvo of some 15 rockets was fired from southern Lebanon in a suspected Hezbollah operation. “In response to the launches identified from Lebanese territory toward Israeli territory, IDF soldiers are currently responding with artillery fire,” regional sources report. The IDF said it intercepted several of them, while most landed in open fields. Things are steadily escalating there: “A senior Israeli officer was killed in a confrontation with militants on the frontier with Lebanon on Monday, Israel’s military has confirmed. The [Israeli] military said troops and aircraft killed two “terrorist infiltrators” who had crossed into Israeli territory. Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed that they were its members. Later, at least three militants from Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement were killed as the military attacked sites in Lebanon in response to mortar fire.”

Still, both Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah have thus far narrowly avoided a spiral into all-out war at the Israel-Lebanon border. “What’s happening here seems to be a kind of contained tension. Lebanon is not yet a war zone. However, it’s an area of operation. But it seems it’s also a space for both sides to exchange messages,” an Al Jazeera’s correspondent, Ali Hashem, has observed. Iran, meanwhile, has been on the defensive after major US media, especially the Wall Street Journal, cited US sources who alleged Tehran supported, funded and helped plan Hamas’ deadly rampage across southern Israel on Saturday. There’s speculation that the Iranians fear Israel’s Netanyahu government could begin targeting sites inside Iran. A regional source reports Tuesday on the unprecedented softening of rhetoric from Iran’s leadership, related to Hamas and Israel as follows:

“Iran’s supreme leader has strongly rejected any involvement in the Hamas movement’s surprise attack on Israel. The public maneuvering, which involved Ayatollah Ali Khamenei strikingly repeating his rejection of an Iranian role three times in a 90-second span, follows controversial claims in US media that Tehran helped plan the Oct. 7 blitz. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a high-ranking Iranian source told Amwaj.media that Khamenei’s remarks—his first since the Hamas offensive—may have been sparked by “him seeing the direction of the Israeli public diplomacy campaign.” Rejecting concerns of an impending Israeli attack as Khamenei’s underlying motive, the source said the supreme leader’s comments are “pre-emptive” as opposed to reactive.”

Addressing the rare decision by Khamenei to be so vocal in his rejection of an Iranian role in the Palestinian blitz, a second senior source in Tehran told Amwaj.media, “Give me one reason why he should do otherwise.” Also speaking anonymously given the sensitivity of the matter, he continued, “Why should one give them the perfect justification they need for an attack?” At the same time, the source dismissed the notion that being so explicit in rejecting a role in the Hamas attack indicates a sense of weakness on the part of Iran.

The Pentagon has meanwhile warned both Iran and Hezbollah against jumping into the conflict in a fresh statement: “The senior US official said Iran, Hezbollah and other groups backed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) “should think twice” before joining in the war. “Iran-backed adversaries like Lebanese Hezbollah should not question the commitment of the US government to support the defense of Israel,” the official added. “We believe that the folks in the region understand what those capabilities are,” the White House’s National Security Council coordinator John Kirby, a former US Navy rear admiral, told reporters Monday evening. This as the following just came across the news wires: “US MAY DEPLOY A SECOND AIRCRAFT CARRIER NEAR ISRAEL: WSJ”

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The US tried to use the Saudi-Israel talks to tear apart the Muslim world. But Russia/China just brought Saudi and Iran together.

Saudi Arabia Expresses ‘Unwavering’ Support For Palestine (RT)

Saudi Arabia continues to support the “legitimate rights” of Palestinians, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in a phone call on Monday, Saudi media reported. The latest escalation in Gaza, which broke out after a surprise attack on Israel by the Hamas militant group over the weekend, poses a threat to security and stability in the entire Middle East, the crown prince said, according to the Saudi Gazette. The kingdom plans to take “proactive efforts” and collaborate with international and regional powers to prevent the conflict between Israel and Hamas from spilling over to other parts of the Middle East, bin Salman said, adding that his nation is also seeking to bring a “swift end” to the hostilities.

He further emphasized the importance of humanitarian law and refraining from targeting civilians, while insisting that Saudi Arabia stands by the Palestinians in their pursuit of a “dignified life… [the] realization of their hopes and aspirations,” as well as a “lasting peace,” according to the Saudi Gazette. Bin Salman also discussed the situation in Gaza with Jordanian King Abdullah bin Al-Hussein and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Both conversations were largely focused on preserving regional stability and preventing the conflict from spreading, the outlet reported. Riyadh’s statements came amid the latest flareup of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, following a massive attack on Israel by the Gaza-based Hamas militant group. Militants fired thousands of rockets at Israel and launched a cross-border raid over the weekend.

More than 900 Israelis, including over 100 military personnel, died in the initial attack and follow-up clashes, Israeli authorities said. Israel responded with a massive bombing campaign against Gaza, also announcing a total blockade of the exclave, cutting it off from fuel, water, and food supplies. The Gaza Health Ministry said that at least 510 Palestinians had been killed and 2,751 injured in Israeli air raids as of Monday. The UN said on Tuesday it would launch an investigation into war crimes committed during the latest escalation, adding that it was in possession of “clear evidence” of violations by both sides. On Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged Israel and the Palestinian militants to refrain from further violence, and offered Ankara’s services as a mediator in any potential peace talks. He also said that his nation could facilitate a prisoner exchange if requested.

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“Muslims were not enemies of Ukraine and allies of Russia (with the exception of eschatologically awakened Iran and Syria), but now they will be..”

The Civilization Of The Antichrist (Alexander Dugin)

The escalation of Israel’s war with Palestine will undoubtedly consolidate the Islamic world. Conservatives in the West are again talking about defending the ‘Judeo-Christian civilization in the face of Muslims’, and the radical ideology of Hamas provides them with a convenient excuse for this. However, a society of deep atheism, materialism and legalization of all kinds of perversions, which has long since abandoned traditional theology and values (and orientations), cannot be considered either Christian or Jewish. If the West, as it is now, supports Israel, it is seriously guilty of something. After all, if the devil’s civilization is on your side, then you have done something wrong.

There is no such thing as a Judeo-Christian world, it just doesn’t make sense. The Islamic world, on the contrary, exists and in it, the traditions are still strong. It turns out that it is not the Judeo-Christians against the Muslims, but the Muslims against the satanic culture, against Dajjal. Biden’s idea of combining the theme of support for Ukraine with support for Israel, only underlines this: the West is always on the side of those who submit to its hegemony and serve it. Muslims were not enemies of Ukraine and allies of Russia (with the exception of eschatologically awakened Iran and Syria), but now they will be. Russia is the pole of a multipolar world. Islam is the pole of a multipolar world. Both poles oppose the West’s desperate attempts to save unipolarism and its global dominance at any cost, even at the cost of a world war.

The Palestinian conflict with Israel was not the frontline of a conflict of civilizations. Now it is. Just as the tensions between Russia and Ukraine were regional in character until the Nazis in Kiev were supported by the West, the war in Ukraine has become the frontline of a global confrontation between multipolarity and unipolarity. The scope of this confrontation is growing. The situation is becoming more and more sinister. Already, billions of people on the planet are convinced that the collective West and its allies are absolute evil and the civilization of the Antichrist. Democrats, globalists and neoconservatives are leading humanity straight into the abyss. Which, strictly speaking, is what demons are supposed to do.

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Hur’s job appears to be ‘under the carpet sweeper’.

Special Counsel Hur May Prove the Ultimate Punchline in Washington (Turley)

A neutron and Special Counsel Robert Hur walk into a bar and order two drinks. When Hur asks how much they owe, the bartender responds, “come on, for you guys, you know there’s never a charge.” Unfortunately, for the prosecutor tasked with investigating President Joe Biden, it may not prove a laughing matter. In many ways, Hur is the neutron prosecutor. He may have spent two days interviewing Biden on the discovery of classified material going back decades in various offices and home locations. But we already know that the Justice Department has long maintained a policy against the charging of a sitting president. There are no such problems for Hur’s colleague. Jack Smith was appointed to investigate former President Donald Trump. He is the ultimate proton prosecutor. Smith has aggressively pursued Trump in two different jurisdictions with a long litany of charges, including alleged criminal conduct tied to his removal and retention of classified material.

In comparison, Hur appeared to disappear. There was no word of any grand jury or the issuance of subpoenas. His interview this week was the sign of life for a prosecutor who seemed headed for milk cartons. I have long disagreed with the Justice Department policy as without foundation in the Constitution. There is no question that the best course in dealing with a felonious president is to first remove the president from office through the impeachment process and then indict the former president in the wake of the Senate conviction. However, even the Justice Department admitted in reaching this policy during the Clinton administration that “[n]either the text nor the history of the Constitution” is “dispositive” on this question.

It simply rendered an internal opinion against indictments of a sitting president as a matter of “considerations of constitutional structure.” That is particularly a problem in what could be a strong case. We still do not know whether fingerprints were taken off the documents found in various locations associated with the President. Unlike Smith’s investigation, there have been no strategic leaks from Hur’s investigation. On its face, the President claims that he had no knowledge of these documents appears dubious at best. Some classified material reportedly goes back to Biden’s time as a senator — material that he would have had to remove from a sensitive compartmented information facility or secure room on Capitol Hill. More importantly, the documents from the Obama Administration were removed when Biden left as vice president. They were then divided and repeatedly moved to different locations.

That suggests not just knowledge but a purpose. Why were they divided and some documents were found in his garage and possibly his library? If Hur found fingerprints that contradict Biden’s statements, he could face not just some of the same charges brought against Trump but also possible false statement or obstruction charges. Notably, Biden used counsel to conduct searches and (as in the Trump case) additional classified materials were found after the Biden team said that they had finished their searches. There are serious questions over whether, in allowing uncleared counsel to search through these documents, evidence may have been lost in how they were stored or appeared in locations like the garage. Hur can bring charges against third parties, who would not be barred from indictment under the DOJ policy. But what does Hur then do if he has evidence against the President himself? He could wait to see if Biden does not run for reelection or loses in 2024.

He could ask for a reconsideration of the policy, which was poorly supported during the Clinton Administration as a rationale for blocking any indictment for perjury by the Office of Legal Counsel. Absent such moves, the public may face the glaring contradiction of proton and neutron prosecutors where Smith pursues a former president with abandon while Hur is left with investigating with no possibility of an immediate charge. It is the type of question that Attorney General Merrick Garland should be eager to answer. Indeed, it should have been clarified at the outset with the mandate given to Hur. Garland, however, has maintained a position as a virtual spectator, disavowing any role in the ongoing investigations. He is neither neutron nor a proton. He is literally without mass. So the question is whether Hur can get anything other than free drinks in Washington. The answer to that question may prove to be the best punchline of all.

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There’s Metabiota again. Hunter Biden.

Washington Moving ‘Illegal’ Bioresearch Operations To Africa – Moscow (RT)

The US is transferring dual-purpose biological research activities to Africa, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed on Monday, citing Pentagon documents. According to Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, who leads the Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Protection Troops of the Russian Armed Forces, the move is in response to Moscow’s efforts to expose Washington’s illegal military-biological operations. He also cited the worsening “epidemic situation near biosites in the European region.” “The documents at our disposal confirm the activities of key Pentagon contractors on the African continent – in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, Cameroon, Uganda, and South Africa. Customers on the part of the US government are the DTRA [Defense Threat Reduction Agency], the National Security Agency, and the US Department of State,” Kirillov added.

Moscow has repeatedly accused the US of plotting biological warfare against it and other countries. Last year, Russian UN representative Vassily Nebenzia told the Security Council that Moscow had discovered at least 30 Ukrainian laboratories engaged in disease research, including anthrax and cholera, funded and supervised by the US. In May, State Duma Deputy Speaker Irina Yarovaya expressed concern over Washington’s interest in biological weapons, describing it as a highly concealed and unpredictable form of mass destruction that could become a global issue. The US has denied the claims. On Monday, the Russian Defense Ministry reiterated its previous concerns about “unauthorized” sample collection by Metabiota, which it referred to as a “key Pentagon contractor” during the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

According to the chief of Russia’s Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Protection Troops, the company’s lack of transparency, which prompted concerns from the World Health Organization, resulted in the illegal export of live Ebola virus samples to the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infections. “Predictable deterioration of the disease situation near American biosites is forcing the governments of many African states to take another look at the necessity and expediency of co-operation with the United States. For example, in 2022, Metabiota operations in Africa were terminated because the company’s illegal practices raised too many questions at the level of national governments,” Kirillov claimed.

The San Francisco-based Metabiota was a partner in the $200 million USAID-funded ‘Predict’ epidemiological research project, which concluded in 2019. Several reports, including one by the Associated Press in 2016, claimed that during the 2014 Ebola outbreak the company made a series of “costly” mistakes in its efforts to combat the disease in Sierra Leone. Metabiota employees contributed to flawed laboratory results, disrupted collaborations, and put people at risk of the deadly virus, according to the outlet, which cited leaked documents and interviews with international health responders.

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“..list the violations you allude to on X, so that the public can see them.”

“Our policy is that everything is open source and transparent, an approach that I know the EU supports.”

EU Issues Ultimatum To Elon Musk (RT)

A top European Union official has demanded a crackdown on “disinformation” on X (formery Twitter), warning that the bloc would take action against site owner Elon Musk if he allowed “terrorist content” to circulate on his platform. In an “urgent letter” addressed to Musk on Tuesday, EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton recalled the “very precise obligations” set out under the bloc’s internet regulation laws. He urged for stricter enforcement on X, claiming there had been a deluge of false information related to ongoing fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants. “Following the terrorist attacks by Hamas against Israel, we have indications that your platform is being used to disseminate illegal content and disinformation in the EU,” he said, adding that when X receives “notices of illegal content,” it must “be timely, diligent and objective in taking action and removing the relevant content.”

While Breton offered no examples of “violent and terrorist content” making the rounds on the platform, he went on to state that “public media and civil society organizations” had reported numerous cases of “fake and manipulated images,” including “repurposed” photos from unrelated conflicts and “footage that actually originated from video games.” The official said he expected a “prompt, accurate and complete response” from Musk’s team within 24 hours, and warned that “penalties can be imposed” if EU authorities find that X is not complying with the bloc’s primary internet regulation, the Digital Services Act (DSA). Musk later reacted to the letter in a social media post, asking Breton to “list the violations you allude to on X, so that the public can see them.” He added that “Our policy is that everything is open source and transparent, an approach that I know the EU supports.”

Breton declined to cite any particular cases of misinformation, instead stating that Musk is “well aware of your users’ – and authorities’ – reports on fake content and glorification of violence.” Under the DSA, websites and search engines can be fined up to 6% of their global turnover if they are found in violation of the rules. However, while the law will not be fully enforced until early 2024, sites designated as “very large online platforms” – or those with more than 45 million monthly users, such as X – were expected to meet the requirements starting in August. The violent flare-up in Israel erupted over the weekend, after Hamas – the Palestinian group that governs Gaza – sent waves of commandos and rockets into Israeli towns. The Israel Defense Forces have retaliated with heavy airstrikes on Gaza, which have continued into Tuesday night. Nearly 2,000 people have been killed on all sides of the conflict since Saturday, according to local officials, with thousands more injured.

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Finland has asked NATO to investigate. With a straight face.

Finland-Estonia Undersea Pipeline In Baltic “Deliberately Damaged” (ZH)

Months after famed journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh revealed the US blew up the Russia-to-Germany natural gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea in September 2022 during a covert operation under the guise of the BALTOPS 22 NATO exercise, yet another undersea gas pipeline, this time, connecting Finland and Estonia has allegedly come under attack. Gasgrid Finland and Elering, the Finnish and Estonian gas system operators, detected an “unusual” leak in the 77-kilometer (48-mile) interconnector in the early morning hours on Sunday. “Based on observations, it was suspected that the offshore pipeline between Finland and Estonia was leaking,” Gasgrid Finland said in a statement. “The valves in the offshore pipeline are now closed and the leak is thus stopped.”

ERR News reported that the Estonian Navy started surveying the pipeline with its equipment on Monday, while the Finnish Security and Intelligence Service will also be involved in the investigation. While the Finnish operator gave no reason for the suspected leak on Monday, Finnish officials, one day later, have now said their investigation of the leak will be on the premise of sabotage. “FINNISH DAILY ILTALEHTI, SWEDISH PUBLIC RADIO, CITING FINNISH GOVERNMENT SOURCES: ESTONIA-FINLAND SUBSEA GAS PIPELINE HAS BEEN DELIBERATELY DAMAGED” … queue Western media outlets who will likely place blame on Moscow – just as they did after the September 2022 bombing of the Nord Stream undersea pipeline that once connected Germany with cheap natural gas from Russia.

In early 2023, journalist Seymour Hersh published a bombshell report as his first Substack post that the US blew up the Russia-to-Germany natural gas pipeline as part of a covert operation under the guise of the BALTOPS 22 NATO exercise. Last month, on the first anniversary of the bombing, he posted an article titled “A Year of Lying About Nord Stream, deals with motive. What was the United States’ motive?” His sources said told him: “Biden administration blew up the pipelines but the action had little to do with winning or stopping the war in Ukraine. It resulted from fears in the White House that Germany would waver and turn on the flow of Russia gas—and that Germany and then NATO, for economic reasons, would fall under the sway of Russia and its extensive and inexpensive natural resources. And thus followed the ultimate fear: that America would lose its long-standing primacy in Western Europe.”

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Interview. “..the US has no journalists, only propagandists, and the rule of law has been discarded. The United States is on the verge of becoming a tyranny. That is the American political crisis.”

The US Is On The Verge Of Becoming A Tyranny (Paul Craig Roberts)

There are currently no legal proceedings against the Biden family. The US Department of Justice and the FBI have instead protected both Biden and his son despite the massive evidence in their hands, such as the incriminating information on Hunter Biden’s laptop and the classified national security documents dating from his days as Vice President found in Joe Biden’s homes, car, garage, and storage places. The legal charges brought against Trump are like all the others since 2016–Russiagate, impeachments, document gate, stripper gate, January 6 Insurrection. They have no basis in reality or in law. They are brought by Trump-hating black prosecutors in New York state, New York city, and Fulton County, Georgia, and are nonsensical on their face.

Trump and his co-defendants have to pay attention to the charges, because the prosecutors are known enemies of Trump and his supporters, the judges are Democrats who don’t want Trump as president, and the trials will be held in Democrat jurisdictions where the juries will be Democrat and largely black. There is no outcry against this legal atrocity from the legal profession, the law schools, the bar associations, and very little from Congress. So we face the possibility that Trump can be falsely convicted and forced to spend the rest of his life in appealing the convictions. How the American people will take this I do not know. It might make them very angry and unwilling to accept the use of law as a weapon against Trump and the traditional American electorate. On the other hand, the people might conclude that their country has been lost and nothing can be done, give up, and submit to the rule of unaccountable power.

Everywhere the people see the political use of law for punishment by every federal department in the Biden Regime. Mike Lindell, a Trump donor, has been slapped with five audits by the Internal Revenue Service. Lawyers cannot defend Trump without being punished. Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, former Mayor of New York, has been slapped by the IRS with a tax and penalty bill of $550,000 and a lien on his home. Elon Musk is being investigated by the US Security and Exchange Commission for his purchase of Twitter. Democrats hate Musk, because he revealed that the FBI had secretly forced Twitter to censor all who disagreed with the Biden Regime’s narratives. The list is long. I will define for you American’s political crisis. The belief system has collapsed.

The elites no longer believe in the Constitution that defines the country. Students in law schools and journalism schools are taught that the US Constitution is a racist document and an instrument of white oppression of people of color. They are taught that the Constitution stands in the way of “social progress,” by which they mean the use of law not as a shield of rights but as a weapon for coerced change based on ideological beliefs and commitments. What it boils down to is this: In America you are no longer innocent until proven guilty. You are guilty because you are white, or because you are a Trump supporter. No other evidence is necessary. The Democrats have put 1,000 Trump supporters in prison because they attended a rally for Trump.

Traditionally, American liberals based their demands for reforms not on appeals to good will but on denunciation of existing society. This made it easy for the Cultural Marxists to march through the institutions and discredit Western civilization and the institutions that embody it. Today in American universities no student ever hears anything affirmatory about his country. Instead, they learn that it is something that must be reconstructed. Journalism students learn that objectivity is no longer the purpose of reporting and that news is a weapon to be used to remake society. Law students learn that law is not a protector of rights but a weapon to be wielded to revolutionize society. Consequently, the US has no journalists, only propagandists, and the rule of law has been discarded. The United States is on the verge of becoming a tyranny. That is the American political crisis.

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“Tigger is quite big enough,” said Piglet.
“He isn’t REALLY very big.”
“Well, he SEEMS so.”
Pooh was thoughtful when he heard this, and then murmured:
“Whatever his weight in pounds, shillings, and ounces,
He always seems bigger because of his bounces.” A.A.Milne

 

 

Lids

 

 

 

 

Leopard
https://twitter.com/i/status/1711988297596018975

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Oct 022023
 
 October 2, 2023  Posted by at 8:47 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  23 Responses »


Rembrandt van Rijn The Descent from the Cross 1634

 

The Western World Is Now a Tyranny (Paul Craig Roberts)
One Year Lying About US-Led NATO’s Nord Stream Terrorism Breeds More War (SCF)
Western ‘Idiots’ Want World War III – Medvedev (RT)
PM Sunak Backtracks On Sending British Troops To Ukraine (ZH)
Ukraine Must Mobilize Youths – Ex-UK Defense Chief (RT)
EU Will Back Ukraine Without The US – Borrell (RT)
‘My People Have Bigger Problems Than Ukraine’ – Fico (RT)
Russia’s Military Budget Set To Rise By 70% (RMX)
‘Camouflage’ for Zelensky to ‘Steal More Money From West’ (Sp.)
Blinken’s ‘History Lesson’ Gets Corrected By X Users (RT)
Nagorno-Karabakh Is No More (Pepe Escobar)
The Proper Way to Impeach: Steve Bannon was Right for the Wrong Reason (Turley)
Federal Prosecutors Want Gag Order Against Trump After His Recent Remarks (ET)
Trump Sues Christopher Steele Over Hoax Dossier (ZH)

 

 

 

 

Scott Ritter About Ukraine since 1945

 

 

 

 

TDS

 

 

 

 

Vandersteel

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s all been said before..

“..a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all..”

The Western World Is Now a Tyranny (Paul Craig Roberts)

America’s reputation as “the land of the free” is rooted in the Anglo-Saxon legal and political tradition, not in diversity and multiculturalism. Law as a shield of the people instead of a weapon in the hands of rulers is a British achievement that Britain’s American colonies inherited. It was the accomplishment of a specific ethnicity known as Anglo-Saxon. Bringing rulers to the same accountability to law as the lowest peasant was a centuries-long process beginning with Alfred the Great in the 9th century and culminating in the Glorious Revolution of 1680. In this legal tradition law is based in the customs and mores of the people, not on edicts issued from rulers, government bureaucrats, regulatory agencies, and activist judges. Obviously, this conveys an ethnic basis to law. A Tower of Babel–the fate of all diminishing white countries today–has no common customs and mores and no basis for law other than rulers’ edicts enforced by power.

Throughout the Western World today the people have lost the protection of law as a shield and suffer under rulers who wield law as a weapon. In the United States today demonstrators and rally attendees are turned into “insurrectionists” and sentenced to prison. Even US President Donald Trump is being subjected to four fake felony prosecutions in order to prevent him from being elected president. During my youth law was seen as a shield of our rights, not as a weapon to be used against us. US Supreme Court Justice George Sutherland explained in 1934 that the purpose of law was to discover innocence or guilt, not to dispose of an enemy:

“The United States Attorney is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, he is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocent suffer. He may prosecute with earnestness and vigor–and indeed, he should do so. But, while he may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones. It is as much his duty to refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring about a just one.”

US Attorney General and Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson saw it the same way: “Any prosecutor who risks his day-to-day professional name for fair dealing to build up statistics for success has a perverted sense of practical values, as well as defects of character… A sensitiveness to fair play is perhaps the best protection against the abuse of power, and the citizen’s safety lies in the prosecutor who tempers zeal with human kindness, who seeks truth and not victims, who serves the law and not factional purposes, and who approaches his task with humility.” In 1940 Jackson said that unethical prosecutors are a threat to justice because of the danger that the prosecutor..

..“will pick people that he thinks he should get, rather than pick cases that need to be prosecuted. With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone. In such a case, it is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who has committed it, it is a question of picking the man and then searching the law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him. It is in this realm–in which the prosecutor picks some person whom he dislikes or desires to embarrass, or selects some group of unpopular persons and then looks for an offense, that the greatest danger of abuse of prosecuting power lies. It is here that law enforcement becomes personal, and the real crime becomes that of being unpopular with the predominant or governing group, being attached to the wrong political view, or being personally obnoxious, or in the way of the prosecutor himself.”

Robert Jackson’s 83-year old description of unethical prosecution precisely describes all of the “investigations,” impeachments, and indictments of President Trump that have been ongoing since 2016 for 8 years and show no sign of abating. The prosecutions of Trump are clearly prosecutions for the purpose of getting rid of a leader who presumes to challenge the ruling establishment. The prosecutions of Trump underline the termination in the US of the impartial rule of law.

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“The reality is fascism, imperialist lawlessness and barbarity are already well-ensconced in this White House.”

One Year Lying About US-Led NATO’s Nord Stream Terrorism Breeds More War (SCF)

Washington’s imperialist interests of dominating Europe and displacing Russia as an energy supplier are central to the reason for the war in Ukraine. This selfish and criminal agenda becomes evident if the Nord Stream act of terrorism is acknowledged and properly understood. The Western public would be up in arms over the false propaganda about the Ukraine war and the supposed “defense of democracy”. Not only that but the European and NATO states would be seen as the criminal accomplices and pathetic vassals that they are. The United States sabotages European civilian infrastructure and the economies of its supposed allies – and yet those allies utter not a word of protest. Indeed, they have willingly and meekly participated in their self-harm.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other European leaders should be prosecuted for complicity in international terrorism and treason against their national interests. Ironically, this week, Joe Biden while in Arizona dared to tell American voters that they face a stark choice in the presidential elections coming next year. Biden said the choice would be for U.S. citizens to either “support democracy” under his continued leadership or “elect extremism” under Donald Trump or some other Republican candidate. What could be more extreme than Biden ordering his military agencies to blow up gas pipelines owned by Russia and other European states?The fact that Biden and the United States have been permitted to get away with the outrage of Nord Stream terrorism is why Washington and its NATO acolytes have continually escalated the proxy war in Ukraine against Russia over the past year.

The astounding impunity afforded to the U.S. and its NATO accomplices over the Nord Stream incident is consistent with the way these same imperialist powers have gotten away with mass murder and waging criminal wars for decades without any prosecutions. The U.S. establishment and its clandestine agencies are a criminal syndicate that also suffers from delusions of virtue. Impunity breeds more criminality. The United States and its Western partners have rarely, if ever, been held to account for their historic crimes against the rest of the world. When such a transparent, brazen act of terrorism is perpetrated as in the Nord Stream sabotage and it is ignored then the world has shifted to an even more perilous situation where crimes have no punishment and even greater, more nefarious crimes can be engaged in.

The U.S. and its NATO henchmen, in particular Britain, are arming a Nazi regime in Kiev with tanks, cluster bombs, depleted uranium shells and longer-range missiles to strike Russia. The impunity that the Americans and their partners believe that they have acquired is shocking and hideous. There is no restraint. For years, the NATO axis has been arming and training Nazi battalions in Ukraine to cynically take an imperialist war to Russia’s doorstep. Canada’s scandalous adulation of a Nazi war criminal in its parliament last week is a sign of the depraved times we live in. But we have reached this degeneration because, as the Nord Stream incident illustrates, the Western powers, primarily the executive American power, feel they are not just above the law but entitled to smash the law for whatever objective they deem desirable.

When those who profess to uphold the law, break the law, then there is no law. That is the frighteningly barbaric world we live in today. Biden warned this week of fascism creeping up on the United States in the form of domestic political rivals. The reality is fascism, imperialist lawlessness and barbarity are already well-ensconced in this White House.

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“..a “freshly minted cretin”..

“..the [Russian] strikes on German factories where those missiles are being made would also be in full compliance with international law..”

Western ‘Idiots’ Want World War III – Medvedev (RT)

The conflict in Ukraine may lead to World War III because of the “idiots” occupying leading roles in the West, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has warned. “The number of high-ranking morons is rising in NATO member states,” he wrote on Telegram on Sunday. Medvedev, who currently serves as the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, was responding to statements from London and Berlin the previous day. The former president labeled the UK’s newly appointed Defense Secretary Grant Shapps a “freshly minted cretin” over his idea of sending British military instructors to Ukraine to train local troops for the conflict with Russia. If this happens, the UK servicemen would become a “legitimate target” for Russian forces, Medvedev warned.

Shapps has proposed deploying instructors to Ukraine, “knowing fully well that they’ll be mercilessly destroyed, and no longer as mercenaries, but precisely as British NATO specialists,” the Russian official wrote. Medvedev also described the head of the German parliament’s defense committee, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, as “another fool” after she urged Berlin to supply long-range Taurus cruise missiles to Kiev. She also claimed that Ukrainian attacks on targets inside Russia using those German-made munitions would be in full compliance with international law. “In this case, the [Russian] strikes on German factories where those missiles are being made would also be in full compliance with international law,” he said.

“Still, those idiots are actively pushing us towards World War III,”the former president concluded. In a previous post on Saturday, Medvedev insisted that Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine would continue until the current regime in Kiev is “destroyed and the historic Russian territories are liberated from the enemy.” Moscow has repeatedly warned that deliveries of weapons to Ukraine by Western countries only prolong the fighting and increase the risk of a direct military confrontation between Russia and NATO. Russian officials have also argued that the provision of arms, intelligence-sharing and the training of Kiev’s troops already means that Western nations have de facto become parties to the conflict.

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Are they just flying trial balloons over there?

PM Sunak Backtracks On Sending British Troops To Ukraine (ZH)

On Sunday, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev who currently serves as the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, suggested that British soldiers training Ukrainian troops in Ukraine would be legitimate targets for Russian forces, as would German factories producing Taurus missiles should they supply Kyiv. Medvedev, who is deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, and has become one of the most hawkish and anti-Western figures in Russian politics, said such steps by the West were bringing World War Three closer. In a post on Telegram, Medvedev first slammed Shapps’s proposal to deploy military instructors to Ukraine, in addition to training Ukrainian armed forces in Britain or other Western countries as at present. “(This will) turn their instructors into a legitimate target for our armed forces,” Medvedev wrote on Telegram. “Understanding perfectly well that they will be ruthlessly destroyed. And not as mercenaries, but namely as British NATO specialists.”

Medvedev then turned his focus to Germany, vilifying those who want Berlin to supply Ukraine with Taurus cruise missiles that could strike Russian territory and try to limit Moscow’s supply to its army. “They say this is in accordance with international law. Well, in that case, strikes on German factories where these missiles are made would also be in full compliance with international law,” Medvedev said. “These morons are actively pushing us towards World War Three,” Medvedev said. Realizing that he probably does not want his government to end in a mushroom cloud, British PM Rishi Sunak quickly backtracked and during a visit to Burnley on Sunday, said he wanted to make the situation “absolutely clear,” explaining that Shapps did not mean British soldiers would be deployed in Ukraine during the conflict with Russia, claiming there was “some misreporting” of comments by Defense Secretary Shapps, who floated the idea; he did however say that the UK has been training Ukrainian soldiers on British soil for “for a long time.”

According to the PM, the defense secretary actually meant that “it might well be possible one day in the future for us to do some of that training in Ukraine.” “But that’s something for the long term, not the here and now, there are no British soldiers that will be sent to fight in the current conflict. That’s not what’s happening,” he insisted. London continues to provide military training to the Ukrainians, but it’s “doing that here in the UK,” Sunak assured. US Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene also voiced alarm over Britain’s apparent plans to send troops to Ukraine, writing on X (formerly Twitter): “They’re going to start World War III” and that “the US cannot participate” in such a deployment, stressing: “No American troops” in Ukraine.

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Come get killed at 16!

Ukraine Must Mobilize Youths – Ex-UK Defense Chief (RT)

Former UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace has claimed that Kiev is succeeding in its counteroffensive but to maintain the momentum and “finish the job,” President Vladimir Zelensky must throw more and younger Ukrainians into battle, while the West provides them with weapons to defeat Russia. Throughout the summer, Kiev’s forces have ultimately failed to make any notable territorial gains and have suffered heavy casualties as they tried to break through Russia’s defenses consisting of vast minefields, as well as heavy artillery and swarms of drones. According to Russia’s Defense Ministry, the number of Ukrainian servicemen killed since the start of the counteroffensive has surpassed 83,000.

Wallace, however, believes that “slowly but surely” Ukrainian forces have been “adapting tactics, absorbing lessons, and making the best of the equipment we have all gifted them,” and that Kiev’s victory is imminent as long as the government “plays its part.” “The average age of the soldiers at the front is over 40. I understand President Zelensky’s desire to preserve the young for the future, but… just as Britain did in 1939 and 1941, perhaps it is time to reassess the scale of Ukraine’s mobilization,” Wallace wrote in an opinion piece published by The Telegraph on Sunday. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said that such heavy casualties were the result of Kiev throwing untrained soldiers into “senseless assaults and slaughter.”He added that these “cynical actions by the West and their henchmen in Kiev are only pushing Ukraine towards self-destruction.”

Back in July, Wallace called Ukraine a “battle lab” for the British military during a report to the parliament. “Let us not pause for one day,” he stated on Sunday. “The world is watching to see if the West has the resolve to stand up for our values and the rules-based system. What we do now for Ukraine will set the direction for all of our security for years to come.” Mobilization in Ukraine has been ongoing since the start of the conflict and had some bumps recently. The country has been hit by scandals involving conscription chiefs, prompting President Vladimir Zelensky to announce in August that he was firing all regional draft heads in the country.

The Ukrainian government has relaxed eligibility standards for recruits, declaring people with certain mental and physical conditions fit for duty. After the launch of Russia’s military operation, Kiev barred men aged between 18 and 60 from leaving the country. Kiev also recently ordered female medics and pharmacists to register for possible enrolment, reportedly causing an exodus of women in those professions. The Russian military leadership in the meantime has no plans to conduct mobilization as its current needs are fulfilled by career military service members, including those who volunteered to fight in Ukraine, according to a senior official. The Russian president reported earlier this month that some 300,000 people had enrolled in the Russian army this year alone.

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Europe’s already sinking into a black hole. Forget it.

EU Will Back Ukraine Without The US – Borrell (RT)

The EU’s military aid to Ukraine will not depend on the decisions taken by the US, the bloc’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, told journalists during his visit to Kiev on Sunday. Brussels plans to continue and further increase its military assistance to the Ukrainian forces, he added. “We have not waited for the [US] decision to be taken to increase our propositions to support Ukraine,” the official said when asked about the EU’s reaction to the US Congress removing military aid for Kiev from its short-time spending bill passed over the weekend. Brussels still regretted the American lawmakers’ decision “deeply and thoroughly,” Borrell said, expressing his hope that “this will not be a definitive decision, and Ukraine will continue having the support of the US.”

The EU Commission had earlier proposed creating a fund for Ukraine worth €50 billion ($52.8 billion), the bloc’s top diplomat said, adding that he also suggested creating a similar fund amounting to €20 billion ($21.13 billion) within the European Peace Facility at an EU foreign ministers meeting in August. “Let’s see what’ll be happening in the US but from our side, we will continue supporting and increasing our support,” the official said. The EU’s top diplomat also maintained that the bloc’s military aid for Kiev is “permanent structured” and does not depend on the decisions of other nations or the results of the Ukrainian operations. His comments came amid the continued Ukrainian offensive, which has failed to bring about any major changes to the frontlines over some four months since its launch, despite massive Western military aid before its start and heavy Ukrainian losses over its course.

“We are facing an existential threat for Europe,” Borrell claimed, adding that if Brussels wants the Ukrainian troops to be “more successful, we have to provide them with better arms and quicker.” He still hinted that Kiev should be more grateful for the bloc’s efforts. In some cases, “our support is not being perceived as important as it is,” the EU top diplomat said, insisting that “it is.” He then said that the total military aid from Brussels and the EU member states to Ukraine amounted to €25 billion ($26.4 billion). The bloc’s cumulative military, financial and humanitarian support reached €85 billion ($89.8 billion), he added.

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I said yesterday that he campaigned on “Not a single penny” more, but it was “Not a single round..”

Meanwhile, Donald Tusk held a mass pro-globalist rally in Warsaw on Sunday. We’re not done yet.

‘My People Have Bigger Problems Than Ukraine’ – Fico (RT)

The Slovak Social Democracy (SMER-SD) party will not support further military aid for Ukraine, its leader, Robert Fico, told journalists on Sunday. Fico’s party took the lead in the parliamentary elections held over the weekend and is now poised to start talks about forming a government. “Slovakia and the people of Slovakia have bigger problems than Ukraine,” he said at a press conference following the announcement of the election results. The SMER-SD won around 23% of the vote, with its closest competitor, Progressive Slovakia (PS), receiving some 18%. When asked about his party’s stance on helping Kiev, Fico said that, if his party successfully forms a government, it would still be ready to help, but only in a humanitarian way.

“We are prepared to help with the reconstruction of the state, but you know our opinion on arming Ukraine,” he said. The SMER-SD conducted an election campaign under the slogan “Not a single round,” suggesting that it would end military assistance to Kiev. An EU and NATO member state with a population of around 5.5 million, Slovakia has already supplied Ukrainian forces with armored personnel carriers, howitzers, and its entire fleet of Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets. Last week, Fico vowed at one of his campaign rallies that his party would not “send a single round [of ammunition] to Ukraine” if it won the election. On Sunday, the politician, who is a former prime minister, described the ongoing conflict as a great tragedy, adding that prolonging the standoff would only make things worse.

“We will do everything we can to start peace negotiations as quickly as possible,” he said, referring to the conflict between Moscow and Kiev. “Further killing does not benefit anyone,” Fico added. Slovakian President Zuzana Caputova said on Sunday that she would formally ask Fico to form a new government on Monday. With no party set to win a majority, Slovakia will need to form a coalition government. The pro-European HLAS (Voice) party, which took third place with 14.7%, did not rule out a possible alliance with SMER-SD. Fico also received congratulations on his election victory from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who said it would “always [be] good to work together with a patriot.” A victory by Fico and his party has reportedly sparked concerns in the US. According to Russian foreign intelligence, Washington had sought to keep the previous Slovakian government in power.

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Poorly write-up.

Russia’s Military Budget Set To Rise By 70% (RMX)

Russian military spending is set to rise by almost 70 percent — to €106 billion — by 2024, according to a Russian Finance Ministry document published Thursday, an increase that illustrates Moscow’s determination to continue its military intervention in Ukraine despite the human and economic costs. According to the document, Russian defense spending will increase by 68 percent in 2024 compared to this year and will reach 10.8 trillion rubles (€106 billion). As a result, the amount allocated to defense will represent about 30 percent of total federal spending in 2024 and 6 percent of GDP — a first in Russia’s modern history. The budget for internal security is set to rise to 3.4 trillion rubles (€33 billion), almost 10 percent of annual federal spending.

The priorities for this budget are outlined as “strengthening the country’s defense capacity” and “integrating the new regions” of Ukraine whose annexation Moscow has demanded, as well as “social aid for the most vulnerable citizens,” just months ahead of the Russian presidential elections in spring 2024. Conversely, total spending on education, healthcare and environmental protection accounts for barely a third of the defense budget, according to ministry figures. Overall, federal spending will total 36.7 trillion rubles (€359 billion), a dramatic 20 percent increase over 2023. The government, however, has explained little about how it will finance this large increase, as Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Musustin said last Friday that revenues from the sale of hydrocarbons will be down sharply and will account for “a third of next year’s budget” in 2024, whereas before the invasion of Ukraine, they accounted for half the budget.

The sector used to drive Russia’s growth, hydrocarbon sales are declining due to international sanctions and the European Union’s determination to move away from energy dependence on Moscow. One indication that the government expects a delicate month ahead for the Russian economy is that it has announced that it has based its budget forecast on the assumption of a dollar worth around 90 rubles, thus betting on a weakening of the national currency in the medium term. The draft budget law for 2024-2026 is due to be sent to the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, on Friday.

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“Ukraine’s Possible New Counteroffensive..”

‘Camouflage’ for Zelensky to ‘Steal More Money From West’ (Sp.)

Kiev’s alleged push for another counteroffensive, this time in the autumn, can be perceived as the West’s red herring, Scott Bennett, a former US Army psychological warfare officer and State Department counter-terrorism analyst, told Sputnik. The Zelensky regime had elaborated a plan for a major offensive in the Kherson and Zaporozhye region in early October, securing the approval of Ukraine’s sponsors in Washington and London, an informed source told Sputnik earlier this week. According to the source, Kiev’s special forces intend to seize control of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) as part of the blueprint. All this could be Western countries’ red herring, Scott Bennett suggested, pointing to the Ukrainian Army’s futile attempts to break through Russian defensive lines.

“As a result of the resounding defeat of Ukraine, the West is frantically searching for an opportunity to try and escape the coming judgement and potential crimes against humanity charges for the death and destruction the Biden Administration has recklessly unleashed. And the nearest opportunity for distraction may be the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant,” Bennett argued. He recalled that many perceive this facility as “a target for destruction in a kind of ‘doomsday’ button that the US might try and push, in an attempt to generate sufficient chaos and destruction to distract the world away from the small scale battles of Ukraine, to the global implications of a nuclear disaster.” According to the former psychological warfare officer, the potential destruction of the Zaporozhye NPP would be the “ultimate expression” of this chaos.

He warned that if the facility is destroyed, “the resulting tsunami of social, political, economic disruption would disorganize opposition parties and protests against the current political elites in Europe and America, and justify a lockdown or martial law and police state mentality which could be endlessly extended.” Bennett didn’t rule out that “the West will combine its best liars in the CIA, the Mossad, the MI6 to blame the event on Russia, and perhaps also simultaneously initiate some self-inflicted false flag attacks at the same time—such as assassinate Joe Biden and Zelensky at the same time and blame this on Russia in order to justify ‘police action’ and a drafting of Americans into the military for conflict with Russia.”

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Trying to blame the holocaust on Russia. Through insinuation.

Blinken’s ‘History Lesson’ Gets Corrected By X Users (RT)

Users of the social media network X (formerly Twitter) have fact-checked a statement made by United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken in which he said Vladimir Putin’s government “manipulates” the details of massacres in Kiev in 1941 “to provide cover for Russia’s abuses in Ukraine.” “Eighty-two years ago, Nazis murdered 34,000 Jews at Babyn Yar,” Blinken wrote in a Friday post. “Soviets buried this history, which today Putin’s government manipulates to provide cover for Russia’s abuses in Ukraine.” He added that “the US is committed to justice for Holocaust survivors and accountability for atrocities.” Blinken was referring to massacres in the Babyn Yar ravine in present-day Kiev, perpetrated by Nazi Germany’s forces and their local Ukrainian collaborators in late September and October 1941 during its campaign against the Soviet Union.

The first such massacre, which took place on September 29 and 30, saw some 33,771 Jews killed. Other victims of mass killings at the site include Soviet prisoners of war (POWs), communists and Romani. It is estimated that between 100,000 and 150,000 people were murdered at Babyn Yar during the German occupation. The atrocities, which were considered to be extreme even by Nazi Germany’s standards, have been a source of debate in Ukraine over reports of local collaborators being involved. Estimates by historians put at one million the number of Jews killed in what is now Ukraine during the Second World War. As such, X users were quick to point out what they suggested was Blinken’s rather short-sighted recollection of historical events.

“Soviet prisoners of war were among the people massacred at Babyn Yar,” reads a contextual fact-box added by X users to Blinken’s post. “The Soviets liberated Babyn Yar and Kiev in 1943. The Soviets held a trial in 1946 in Kiev for 15 German policemen involved in the Babyn Yar massacres.” In response to Blinken’s statement, Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, wrote on X: “I was brought up in the USSR and we all knew about Babyn Yar. Nazi crimes were never ‘buried’ in my country, unlike yours. Writing such a sacrilegious post is beyond any basic notions of decency.” On Friday’s 82nd anniversary of the first Babyn Yar massacre, the Ukrainian foreign ministry issued a statement saying that the event should serve as a reminder to oppose “aggressive-chauvinistic ideologies, in particular, Russian aggression against Ukraine.”

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“..unlike the West which has become quite skilled in organising color revolutions, Moscow does not engage in such activities.”

Nagorno-Karabakh Is No More (Pepe Escobar)

In the end, Nagorno-Karabakh – or the Artsakh Republic – is no more. It will cease to exist on 1 January 2024 – also the first day of the Russian presidency of BRICS 11. All autonomous state structures will be dissolved – according to a decree signed by the head of the Republic, Samvel Shahramanyan. The population – roughly 147,000, 99% of them Armenian Christians – has a choice that’s not really a choice: “familiarize themselves with the conditions of reintegration presented by the Republic of Azerbaijan” and stay, or leave to Armenia for good. Predictably, the exodus is on: an interminable serpent of vehicles congesting the mountain roads of a beautiful landscape where generations of Armenians lived for centuries. As of Thursday night, over 70,000 Armenians had left towards the Syunik region.

The Azeri government in Baku sent police/security forces to Stepanakert. Former Foreign Minister Ruben Vardanyan, an oligarch, was detained by Azeri security while trying to leave for Armenia, mingling with refugees. He had renounced Russian citizenship last year when he moved to work in Artsakh. He’ll probably be freed. Others won’t be so lucky. Everyone leaving is being exhaustively searched. Baku has warned that every Artsakh notable – political and military – will be captured. This is how it sadly ends: the story of how a bunch of crooks – Team Pashinyan in Yerevan – profited personally from a geopolitical pretext. Armenian PM Pashinyan announced that in a few days he’ll consider there are no more Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. Translation: those that decided to stay will be considered to be Azerbaijanis. Yet for Baku, Armenians from Artsakh will always remain Armenians – and thus an object of suspicion.

[..] As corridors go, Zangezur is the proverbial Chinese win-win. Azerbaijan links with its Nakhitchevan enclave and Turkiye. Russia gets a road that goes through Baku and Yerevan. Armenia opens itself to international trade. And Iran is satisfied that the manager will be the former owner of the place: Russia. Ay, there’s the rub. The usual suspects were not happy that Russian guards would be back in Armenia. So they sabotaged this clause via their agent Pashinyan. The record shows how Team Pashinyan behaved these past few months: Armenia’s First Lady visited Kiev; Yerevan transferred “humanitarian aid” to Ukraine; there were joint military exercises with the U.S.; frantic back and forth by U.S. and EU politicos and NGOs. Relations with Moscow are deteriorating fast. Yerevan – a juicy strategic target – is being taken over by the Hegemon and its vassals. It’s not an accident that Yerevan hosts the second largest American embassy in the world. So only one thing is certain: the Transcaucasus will continue to be on fire.

It’s not clear what will happen to Zangezur – and if and when Pashinyan will act on it. There’s always a – remote – possibility that Pashinyan, egged on by his Western handlers, may try to strike a deal with Aliyev to leave Russia out. The Russian Foreign Ministry has not minced its words, noting how Yerevan “flip flopped on policy and sought Western support over working closely with Russia and Azerbaijan”. And how in meetings in Prague and Brussels under the EU, Pashynian “acknowledged Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, but failed to address the rights and safety of the Karabakh Armenians.” The Foreign Ministry all but warns Pashynian that “unlike the West which has become quite skilled in organising color revolutions, Moscow does not engage in such activities.”

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People are confused about impeachment. It’s not a one time, one off thing, it’s a process in which truth finding is central. An impeachment inquiry provides more tools for that.

The Proper Way to Impeach: Steve Bannon was Right for the Wrong Reason (Turley)

Yesterday, I spent a very long day testifying in the first hearing of the House impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden. Not unexpectedly, my testimony angered many on both the left and the right. As I mentioned in my testimony, there is little tolerance for opposing views in this age of rage. Today, caution is considered cowardice and impartiality is viewed as chicanery. Yet our Constitution demands more of each of us at these moments. We can rise to that challenge, as the Framers hoped we would, or we can continue our national descent into rage and ruin. It is the difference between laying the groundwork for a real impeachment or for just another political hit-job.

I was asked to testify on whether the threshold had been met for an impeachment inquiry and what the best practices would be in the investigation of President Biden. I testified that the existing evidence was more than ample to warrant an impeachment inquiry and that these allegations, if proven, would constitute impeachable conduct. That was not enough for many. One of those was Steve Bannon, who went on social media to criticize House Republicans for not selecting someone who would testify, at the very start of an inquiry, that the case already was made for actual articles of impeachment. Bannon suggested that I should have been placed on the “maybe list” if I was not willing to say that the committee had the basis to vote out articles of impeachment on the first day of inquiry.

That, however, would be akin to calling a special grand jury and demanding an indictment before any witnesses or evidence are presented. Bannon’s criticism is emblematic of much of what I cautioned against in my testimony. I implored the Republicans not to replicate the last two impeachments, which I believe did considerable damage to this constitutional process. In the first Trump impeachment, I appeared as the only Republican witness in the only hearing held by the House Judiciary Committee. House Democrats then just cut to the chase and impeached Donald Trump on a thin, undeveloped record.In the second impeachment, they skipped the formalities entirely and went straight to the articles of impeachment in what I called a “snap impeachment.”

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“..He also suggested that Mr. Milley should be executed for his alleged conduct..”

No he did not. He said that: “..in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”. Not that it should be now.

Federal Prosecutors Want Gag Order Against Trump After His Recent Remarks (ET)

Federal prosecutors have urged the federal judge to impose a gag order on former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election interference case, citing the “prejudicial extrajudicial statements” he made on social media. The special counsel team filed the request for a gag order against Mr. Trump on Sept. 15 to restrict him from making “intimidating” comments about witnesses, lawyers, and other people involved in the criminal case. Prosecutors said on Sept. 25 that Mr. Trump continued to wage “a sustained campaign of prejudicial public statements regarding witnesses, the court, the district, and prosecutors” even after the proposed order.

“The defendant should not be permitted to obtain the benefits of his incendiary public statements and then avoid accountability by having others—whose messages he knows will receive markedly less attention than his own—feign retraction,” they said in a court filing. “No other criminal defendant would be permitted to issue public statements insinuating that a known witness in his case should be executed; this defendant should not be, either,” it added. They referred to recent posts on his social media platform, Truth Social, including one on Sept. 22 in which Mr. Trump accused departing Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley of committing treason. In the post, Mr. Trump said that Mr. Milley’s alleged “treasonous act” could have led to “a war between China and the United States.” He also suggested that Mr. Milley should be executed for his alleged conduct.

Prosecutors also mentioned a video posted by Mr. Trump’s spokesman claiming that Mr. Trump had bought a Glock gun in South Carolina. The post was later removed, and the spokesman retracted his remarks, saying that Mr. Trump had only indicated his interest in buying the gun. Despite the spokesman’s retraction, prosecutors said that Mr. Trump “re-posted a video of the incident” posted by one of his followers with a caption that suggested he had indeed bought the weapon. “The defendant either purchased a gun in violation of the law and his conditions of release, or seeks to benefit from his supporters’ mistaken belief that he did so,” the prosecutors stated. Mr. Trump’s lawyers have objected to the request, and U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan on Friday set courtroom arguments for Oct. 16.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers have previously denounced the gag order request as an attempt to “unconstitutionally silence” his political speech. They called the request a “desperate attempt at censorship.” “The prosecution would silence President Trump, amid a political campaign where his right to criticize the government is at its zenith, all to avoid a public rebuke of this prosecution,” his lawyers wrote on Sept. 25. “However, above all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content. “The prosecution may not like President’s Trump’s entirely valid criticisms, but neither it nor this Court are the filter for what the public may hear,” they added.

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Why just Steele? And not Clinesmith, Sussman, Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, Comey, Hillary Clinton etc etc?!

Trump Sues Christopher Steele Over Hoax Dossier (ZH)

The Steele dossier was used by the Obama DOJ and the intelligence community to smear Trump as a Russian asset. Its various fabrications were legitimized under the guise of a legitimate DOJ investigation, and featured frequent strategic media leaks, ‘expert’ opinions, and manipulated evidence such as an email altered by former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith, which was used to renew a wiretap warrant on Trump Campaign adviser Carter Page. Then there was the fraudulent ‘Alfa Bank Server’ allegation made by Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussman, who pleaded guilty to not telling the FBI that he was Hillary’s employee when he alleged that Trump was directly communicating with the Kremlin via a covert server.

Steele peddled the dossier to the State Department – which then passed it along to former FBI deputy assistant director of counterintelligence Peter ‘We’ll stop Trump’ Strzok. Steele also met with the DOJ’s Bruce Ohr (whose wife, as we noted above, Fusion GPS employee), who he told that Russia had Trump “over a barrel.” (Bruce Ohr was consequentially demoted for making “consequential errors in judgement” for failing to inform his supervisors for his role in Russiagate, and retired on Sept. of 2020 “after his counsel was informed that a final decision on a disciplinary review being conducted by Department senior career officials was imminent”). Then there was the infamous ‘pee tape’ allegation that Trump paid prostitutes to urinate in a bed in Moscow where Barack and Michelle Obama had stayed, and that the Kremlin had a tape of the whole thing.

The 35-page dossier was publicly disavowed by high ranking FBI officials, including the bureau’s former deputy director Andrew McCabe, who told lawmakers in November 2020 that he would have never approved the Carter Page wiretap if he’d known the dossier was inaccurate. And now, Trump is suing Steele…

According to the Independent, the 77-year-old former president is bringing a data protection claim against Steele, and his consulting firm Orbis Business Intelligence, in the UK. “Proceedings have been issued on behalf of President Donald J. Trump against Orbis Business Intelligence Limited. The claim relates to breaches of UK Data Protection law arising from the inaccurate processing of the President’s personal data by Orbis following the publication of the false ‘Steele Dossier,’” said Trump attorney Tim Lowles. “The President’s claim seeks remedies including that the inaccurate data contained within the Steele Dossier be erased or rectified together with the payment of damages,” the statement continues.

On October 16, a two-day hearing will commence according to the report, citing a High Court order published Thursday. Steele has defended his work, telling the Oxford Union in March 2022: “What is being called the dossier was actually a series of single-source intelligence reports over a period of time, if you like, almost a running commentary on the election campaign and Russia’s perspective on it — and it comes from the Russian perspective of the telescope if you like,” adding “The sources were Russian, they were reporting on how Russia saw it, and of course, that may in some cases be rather different than how it was viewed in America at the other end of the telescope.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

Soccer dog
https://twitter.com/i/status/1708198778174345445

 

 

Ink

 

 

Turkey
https://twitter.com/i/status/1708441860228751683

 

 

Bless you
https://twitter.com/i/status/1708396893607465463

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Jul 232023
 


Andy Warhol Ingrid Bergman 1983

 

Zelensky Carries Out ‘Polonization’ Of Ukraine – Duma Speaker (TASS)
Russia on the Grain Deal at the UN Security Council (Combate)
Kiev Used Grain Deal To Stock Up On Military Supplies – Russia (RT)
West Driven By “Impotent Rage” – Moscow (RT)
China Overtaking US – Orban (RT)
Western Firms Reluctant To Pull Out Of Russia Despite Sanctions – Orban (TASS)
Washington Becoming Weary of Zelensky’s Never-Ending Demands For Aid (Sp.)
Japan Doesn’t Want to Fight for Taiwan and Neither Do Other US Allies (Sp.)
Lockheed Martin Predicts Strong Profits as Global Instability Rises (LI)
Hunter Biden Expected To Face Up To 10 Criminal Referrals (ZH)
New BRICS Currency Boosts Gold & Destroys Dollar – Jim Rickards (USAW)
Tyranny of the Minority (Turley)
The Downfall of Blobism (Kunstler)

 

 

 

 

Running out

 

 

Ted Nugent
https://twitter.com/i/status/1682755010566803457

 

 

 

 

He says $200 Billion.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1682824375056187393

 

 

Kolakusic
https://twitter.com/i/status/1682649222607261697

 

 

 

 

No Sane Person Goes to War against Russia (Military Textbook Ch. 1 Par. 1) | Dmitry Orlov

 

 

Macgregor: NATO is an Appendage of Globalist Foreign Policy

 

 

 

 

Will he give it away before they come take it?

Zelensky Carries Out ‘Polonization’ Of Ukraine – Duma Speaker (TASS)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is carrying out “polonization” of Ukraine in hopes that this would allow him to stay in power for longer, Russian State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said on his Telegram channel. “Zelensky is carrying out a process of polonization [capture of Ukraine by Poland – TASS] of his country, hoping that, in return, his masters [Washington and Brussels – TASS] will allow him to stay in power for longer,” he said. To that extent, a law was adopted that effectively equals Poles to Ukrainians, providing them with the same set of rights – stay without permission, employment, education, medical service and even some allowances, the official added.

According to Volodin, Ukrainians are being expelled from their homes in Sumy and Chernigov regions, which border Russia, as the authorities seek to replace them with Polish migrants, loyal to the neo-Nazi regime. Ukrainian citizens are also being forced to use Polish language instead of Russian; orthodox Christianity is being persecuted, with Ukrainians being converted to Catholicism, the Duma Speaker underscored. “Meanwhile, a 25-thousand military force comprised mostly of Polish and Lithuanian armed soldiers, ready to occupy Western Ukraine, has been established. The Poles want to take back what they consider their historic lands – the Eastern Borderlands. They do not need Ukrainian citizens on these territories,” Volodin noted.

He stated that, according to the ideology of Washington and Brussels, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian people must die at the frontline (with growing amounts of weapons being shipped to Ukraine to that extent), while the rest must lose their national identity. In order to meet this goal, “Poland’s imperial ambitions” are being used. “Washington and Brussels will continue waging the war until the last Ukrainian,” Volodin concluded.

Read more …

Twitter thread. More land given away:

“..the owners of a significant part of Ukrainian arable land (more than 17 million hectares) are Western corporations Cargill, DuPont and Monsanto.”

Did they pay Zelensky personally?

Russia on the Grain Deal at the UN Security Council (Combate)

“Most of you expressed, in one way or another, disappointment at the termination of the so-called grain deal that provided for exports of Ukrainian grain to global markets. I have a question to you. What was it that you expected? From the very start, we have been drawing everyone’s attention to the fact that the initiative did not meet the initially proclaimed goal and was gaining a well-defined commercial nature. In fact, from the very beginning, developed countries have taken the lead among those buying food from Ukraine. However, no steps were taken to remedy this trend. During the Black Sea Initiative, a total of 32.8 million tonnes of cargo was exported, of which more than 70% went to high- and upper-middle-income countries, including the European Union. The poorest states, notably Ethiopia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Somalia, accounted for less than 3%…


Such geography and commercialization of an initially humanitarian initiative is easily explained by the fact that the owners of a significant part of Ukrainian arable land (more than 17 million hectares) are Western corporations Cargill, DuPont and Monsanto. They bought up Ukrainian land after Kiev lifted a 20-year moratorium on its sale at the request of the IMF and became the main beneficiaries of Ukrainian grain exports. On the other hand, the Europeans who buy Ukrainian food at dumping prices then process it at home and resell as ready-to-consume goods with high added value. In other words, they earn twice. What does this have to do with the task of getting food delivered to the poorest countries, about which we have heard again today?”

Read more …

“A large number of Ukrainian soldiers and foreign mercenaries have also been stationed in the areas protected under the deal..”

Kiev Used Grain Deal To Stock Up On Military Supplies – Russia (RT)

Ukraine has used the Black Sea grain deal to accumulate sizable military and fuel supplies, Russian Deputy Ambassador to the UN Dmitry Polyansky told the organization’s Security Council (UNSC) on Friday. EU nations have also exploited the agreement to reap profits from cheap Ukrainian food products, he said. Since the UN-facilitated deal was introduced a year ago, “the Kiev regime has built up significant military and industrial [supplies], as well as fuel… storage capacities in the areas near its Black Sea ports,” the diplomat said during a UNSC meeting convened after Russia’s decision to withdraw from the agreement.

A large number of Ukrainian soldiers and foreign mercenaries have also been stationed in the areas protected under the deal, he said, adding that Russia could “remedy this situation” now that it has left the deal. The Ukrainian military did not hesitate to use the humanitarian corridors reserved for the grain shipments to launch attacks on the Russian military and civilian targets, Polyansky said, adding that neither the UN nor Western nations had reacted to such attacks in any way. “Do you just want us to put up with it?” asked the envoy. The Russian military repeatedly reported on Ukrainian attempts to strike targets in Crimea with both aerial and naval drones, which were mostly thwarted by Russian defense systems.

In May, Moscow stated that the Ukrainian forces had taken advantage of the grain corridors to stage attacks on Crimea. The deal itself, which was initially touted as a humanitarian initiative aimed at helping the poorest nations to avoid a food crisis, was ultimately “commercialized” by the West, Polyansky said. “Europeans, who buy Ukrainian food products at give-away prices, then process them and re-sell them as manufactured goods with high added value,” he continued, adding that EU nations are “benefiting twice” from the deal. “Tell me, where is the goal of providing the poorest nations with food here?” he asked.

Moscow has repeatedly stressed that only a tiny percentage of the grain exported from Ukraine as part of the agreement has been shipped to such nations, while the bulk of it has ended up in Europe. On Friday, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto also stated that “95% of exported Ukrainian grain does not go to Africa.” He blamed this for rising food prices on the continent, which were “destabilizing regions that are already in difficulty.” The US Department of Agriculture also said in its July report that almost half of all Ukrainian wheat exports ended up in the EU after the grain deal was struck. Türkiye imported almost a quarter of Ukraine’s wheat over the same period, and only roughly one-fifth went to the “rest of the world,” the report showed.

Read more …

“Western leaders are suffering from “megalomania and inferiority complex” at the same time, which is a “dangerous mix..”

West Driven By “Impotent Rage” – Moscow (RT)

The geopolitical decisions of the US and its allies are being dictated by “impotent rage” over the West’s dwindling influence on the global stage, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has stated. Following his meeting with members of the Alexander Gorchakov Public Diplomacy Fund in Moscow on Friday, Ryabkov was asked to comment on this week’s hearing at the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, during which some participants suggested that the strengthening of Russia’s ties with Africa was a result of mistakes committed by Washington. In response, the deputy foreign minister broadly criticized the policies pursued by the US and its allies on the international arena, suggesting that the Western countries have been “making one mistake after another.”


“Their path over the past few years is a path of mistakes and suffering – suffering from their own deficiency in international affairs – from their inability to combine their ambitions, their high expectations that everybody around should obey them, with what they see in reality,” he argued. Ryabkov went on to describe the West’s behavior on the international stage as being driven by “impotent rage.” The diplomat said he senses “deep geopolitical volatility and offendedness” in the decisions made by the US and its allies. Western leaders are suffering from “megalomania and inferiority complex” at the same time, which is a “dangerous mix,” Ryabkov stressed.

Read more …

“..today, instead of American dominance, there are two suns in the sky..”

China Overtaking US – Orban (RT)

The world is facing the biggest power shift in decades, with the US poised to lose its leading position to China, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Saturday. This could result in a major conflict between Washington and Beijing unless the US accepts that it cannot be the “winner” forever, he warned. “[China] has become a manufacturing powerhouse and is now overtaking America,” Orban said in his annual speech in the town of Baile Tusnad in Romania’s Eastern Transylvania. In just 30 years, China has undergone the industrial revolution that took the West around three centuries, the Hungarian prime minister said, adding that America is about to say ‘goodbye’ to its status as the world’s only superpower.

Beijing is also challenging the values Washington seeks to portray as universal, Orban said. China considers American values to be a “hostile ideology,” he said, adding that “there is some truth in it.” Such a development would certainly not sit well with Washington, which will want to remain “on top of the world” forever, Orban warned. He said attempts to challenge existing hegemony had led to major conflict on multiple occasions in human history. “There are no eternal winners and eternal losers,” he added. A conflict between the two great powers is likely but not unavoidable, the Hungarian leader believes. The world needs to find a new balance, and the two opposing parties should recognize each other as equals, he said.

Major nations have to “accept that, today, instead of American dominance, there are two suns in the sky,” Orban added. He also painted a grim picture of Europe’s future by saying it’s about to lose its dominant position in the global economy. Orban blamed the West’s anti-Russian policies for this development. The EU is already “rich but weak,” he said, adding that it would further lose its competitive advantages as a result of its determination to impose sanctions on Russia. The idea that Russia can be separated from the world economy through various restrictions is an “illusion,” he warned. The EU has already witnessed the results of its erroneous decisions, Orban said, adding that “others buy Russian energy instead of us, and we pay more for energy than ever before.”

According to Orban, the UK and Italy would drop out of the world’s top ten economies, and Germany would fall to 10th place, down from its current fourth position. A significant part of the European economy is still linked to Russia despite all the rhetoric about sanctions, he said. Hungary has emerged as one of the major critics of Western policies amid the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kiev. Budapest has repeatedly called for a ceasefire and peace deal in Ukraine, and has criticized the EU for sending arms to Kiev. In June, Orban told the German tabloid Bild that a Ukrainian victory on the battlefield was “impossible.” Hungary has also insisted that anti-Russia sanctions are hurting Europe more than they hurt Russia.

Read more …

“..the European Union countries had annually paid about 300 billion euros for oil and gas, whereas they paid 653 billion euros last year..”

Western Firms Reluctant To Pull Out Of Russia Despite Sanctions – Orban (TASS)

Western companies are not willing to leave Russia despite the sanctions, as they understand that Russia’s economy will still remain part of the global one, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Saturday in his speech at the Free University and the summer student camp in the Romanian town of Baile Tusnad (Harghita County) in Transylvania. The prime minister said that, according to his information, 88% of pharmaceutical, 79% of mining, 70% of energy and 77% of other European industrial companies that were operating in Russia at the beginning of 2022 were still staying in the country. “Of the 1,400 major Western companies, only 8.5% have left Russia,” said Orban, whose speech was aired by Hungarian television channel M1. According to the prime minister, foreign companies paid $3.5 billion to the Russian budget in 2022.


The prime minister said that there is an attempt to “disconnect Russia” from the European economy through sanctions in order to exert political pressure on Moscow. However, he is convinced that this will not have the desired effect, since Russia’s economy is intertwined with the rest of the world, including in the energy sector. “Somebody else is buying Russian raw materials, while we are suffering from military inflation and losing our competitiveness,” he said. Orban pointed out that before sanctions were imposed on Russia, the European Union countries had annually paid about 300 billion euros for oil and gas, whereas they paid 653 billion euros last year. Europe will not be able to compete with the rest of the world as long as energy supplies are twice as expensive as they used to be, Orban believes.

Read more …

“..while also deciding to view Zelensky at ground level instead atop a pedestal.”

Washington Becoming Weary of Zelensky’s Never-Ending Demands For Aid (Sp.)

American officials are growing tired of the demands that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky continues to make with regard to Western support for Kiev, Douglas MacKinnon, a former special assistant for policy and communications at the Pentagon, wrote in an opinion piece for a US media outlet. MacKinnon pointed out in his Saturday article for The Hill, citing sources, that US President Joe Biden “lashed out” at Zelensky in June 2022, yelling that the Ukrainian leader “should be showing more gratitude for the billions in aid he was getting from the United States via the American people.” Asked about Zelensky’s never-ending demands for US aid, a former high-level Pentagon official told MacKinnon that Western support is not infinite.

“Zelensky is acting like a spoiled, petulant child who gets everything he wants and it’s still not enough. Many in the U.S. government and many of our citizens are growing tired of his act. I can assure you he is burning bridges in Europe as well. There is only so much money and good will to go around,” the former Pentagon official said. MacKinnon emphasized that more and more Americans are becoming unsupportive of the continued US aid to Kiev and this trend is likely to grow, “as the American people take a harder look at the horrific consequences of the war while also deciding to view Zelensky at ground level instead atop a pedestal.”

Earlier this week, media reported that Washington was planning to announce a new package of military assistance for Ukraine worth up to $400 million. The new package, which could be announced as early as next week, could include artillery munitions, air defense missiles and ground vehicles for Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive. Earlier this month, the US Defense Department announced a new security assistance package to Kiev worth $1.3 billion that for the first time included 155mm cluster artillery rounds.

Read more …

Japan risks becoming both the rock and the hard place.

Japan Doesn’t Want to Fight for Taiwan and Neither Do Other US Allies (Sp.)

Despite Japan bolstering its military capabilities under the nation’s new Defense Buildup Program, it appears to have zero appetite to engage in direct confrontation with China over Taiwan, Western media and think tanks say. US military facilities in Okinawa, Japan, might play a central role in any Taiwan crisis, according to the Western press. Moreover, American military analysts have almost unanimously agreed that Japan is “the most likely US ally to contribute troops” in a potential US conflict with China over the island. Back in October 2021, War on the Rocks, a US online media outlet, quoted a Japanese poll which appeared to indicate that 74% of respondents would support their government’s military engagement in the Taiwan Strait against China.

The report further speculated about the possibilities of circumventing the country’s Constitution, which limits Japan’s ability to participate in conflicts. Bold statements made by some Japanese officials also seemed to confirm Tokyo’s resolve. One of them, former Minister of Defense Yasuhide Nakayama, insisted in June 2021 that Taiwan is a “red line” and that “we have to protect Taiwan as a democratic country.” Japan and Taiwan are geographically close and any possible military actions over the island could potentially affect Japan’s Okinawa prefecture, Nakayama argued at the time. The People’s Republic of China, which considers Taiwan its inalienable part, has repeatedly stated that it is going to reunite with the island peacefully, referring to years of fruitful collaboration with the former Taiwanese government formed by members of Kuomintang Party.

The Kuomintang can make a spectacular comeback during the Taiwanese general elections, scheduled for January 2024. The party’s victory could nip the fuss around Taiwan’s secessionism and potential conflict in the bud. Even US lawmakers admit it, considering the Kuomintang’s win a potential “threat” to Washington’s plans in the Asia-Pacific. [..] The unfolding situation has apparently given shivers to the Japanese leadership. The Wall Street Journal broke on Monday that the Japanese government is ready to give permission to the US to use bases in Japan in the case of conflict over Taiwan, but Tokyo’s own participation is unlikely. Per the report, Washington invited Tokyo to consider using its Self-Defense Forces, especially the Maritime Self-Defense Force for hunting for Chinese submarines around the island of Taiwan and for other military missions.

Read more …

What Ukraine is really about.

Lockheed Martin Predicts Strong Profits as Global Instability Rises (LI)

Lockheed Martin believes global instability is driving demand and sees an increase in annual profits. Washington’s proxy war in Ukraine has caused an increase in arms spending among NATO members, boosting weapons makers’ stock prices. On Tuesday, Lockheed raised its annual profit and sales outlook on strong demand for military equipment. After making the announcement, the company’s stock price increased by one percent. Reuters reports, “[Lockheed] expects full-year net sales to be between $66.25 billion and $66.75 billion, up from its earlier forecast of $65 billion to $66 billion.”

The billions in profit are driven by sales of big-ticket systems like the F-35. However, Lockheed has struggled to produce F-35s that can perform its promised abilities. In May, the government found the planes’ engines have a serious problem dealing with heat. “The F-35’s engine lacks the ability to properly manage the heat generated by the aircraft’s systems,” POGO reported. “That increases the engine’s wear, and auditors now estimate the extra maintenance will add $38 billion to the program’s life-cycle costs.” The arms maker has additionally experienced a boost in demand for smaller systems, like the Javelin anti-tank missile. The White House has shipped thousands of Javelin systems to Kiev since Joe Biden took office.

As well as predicting future success, Lockheed announced it beat expectations regarding quarterly sales. According to Reuters, “Quarterly net sales rose 8.1% to $16.69 billion, beating expectations of $15.92 billion.” Last year, Ian Bond, director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform, described the surge in the market for weapons as the highest since the Cold War. “This is certainly the biggest increase in defense spending in Europe since the end of the Cold War,” he said. Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Lockheed’s stock price traded below $340 a share, the price increased to over $450 within a few months. On Thursday, Lockheed’s stock was valued at $456 per sale.

Read more …

How do you keep Joe out of the story?

Hunter Biden Expected To Face Up To 10 Criminal Referrals (ZH)

The Chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, James Comer (R-KY), says he plans to file “between six and 10 criminal referrals” against Hunter Biden once his committee finishes its investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings. According to the NY Post, the charges would include sex trafficking a woman across state lines for prostitution. “The Democrats kept saying, ‘Oh, we don’t have any evidence. You don’t have any evidence.’ Well, [Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene] showed them evidence,” Comer told Fox Business in an interview, referring to a sexually graphic image printed on a poster from Hunter Biden’s laptop, in which he’s stuffing his manhood into a prostitute’s mouth who was allegedly paid for with company funds.

“She showed them evidence of the president’s son committing a crime, violating the Mann Act,” said Comer, adding “She showed the plane tickets, she showed the pictures, she showed the evidence. You know, there’s no question he violated it. That’s another thing that he could have been charged with.” Comer also said that the referrals could include violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). “He was money laundering,” said Comer. “He was racketeering. He committed wire fraud. He violated the Mann Act. The list goes on and on and on.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) on Thursday released an unclassified FBI document in which a confidential human source lays out an alleged bribery scheme involving Joe and Hunter Biden, in which a Ukrainian gas giant, Burisma, hired Hunter to gain access to his then-VP father. “The House Oversight Committee previously issued a subpoena to obtain the document, with which FBI Director Christopher Wray did not comply. Though he ultimately permitted the committee members to view the FD-1023 in a secure location, the contents remained unpublished until Grassley’s Thursday release. The document shows that the bureau had a trusted source privy to Burisma’s efforts to quash a probe from then-Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin and its plans to expand to the U.S. and secure a company for IPO purposes. -Just the News

Read more …

“You don’t need dollars and you don’t need gold. You just need to be smart enough to anchor your currency to gold..”

New BRICS Currency Boosts Gold & Destroys Dollar – Jim Rickards (USAW)

Seven-time, best-selling financial author James Rickards predicted in his most recent best-seller called “Sold Out” why broken supply chains would cause big inflation. He was right, and he still contends, “Supply chain problems and inflation are not over.” For an example of the supply chain still being in fragile shape, look no further than the failed grain deal between Ukraine and Russia last week. Rickards points out, “Putin has been very patient about this. He had a deal. Ukraine was not living up to their end of the deal. Putin says we are the ones getting attacked, so, screw the deal. What’s that going to do to the price of grain? It’s going to send grain prices up, and it’s already up 10% just in a matter of days.”

This brings us the new BRICS gold-weighted currency (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) that might be announced in the middle to the end of next month. Rickards calls one unit of currency a “BRIC.” This is a competitor to the U.S. dollar, but Rickards says, “It’s not a reserve currency. . . .I think it may be 8 grams of gold to one “BRIC” (currency), but I don’t know. What I do know is it does not matter. What does matter is they are going to anchor it to a weight of gold. . . . It’s NOT redeemable in gold, it is anchored to it. . . . Let’s says a “BRIC” is worth one ounce of gold. Today that is $1,970 per ounce, except the “BRIC” is NOT anchored to the dollar. It is anchored to gold, which stands in the middle of this equation.

So, the dollar price of gold is going to be going up and down all the time, which means the dollar/“BRIC” exchange rate is going to be going up and down all the time. They don’t have to defend the “BRIC.” They have gold, but they don’t have to back it up with gold. . . . They actually don’t need any gold. . . . If you have made your currency anchored to gold . . . do you want the price to go up or down? You want the price of gold to go up because that means the “BRIC” is worth more dollars, and the dollar is crashing. It’s a way to destroy the dollar. You don’t need dollars and you don’t need gold. You just need to be smart enough to anchor your currency to gold, and when dollar inflation starts to go up, your currency is going to be worth more because of how you pegged it, not to dollars, but how you pegged it to gold.”

Rickards goes on to say, “So, if I were a BRICS member, and I were Russia in particular, and I had this currency tied to gold, and I wanted my currency to be more valuable and your currency (U.S. dollar) less valuable, one of the ways to do that is mess with the supply chain and drive up the price of oil, gasoline, grain . . . which drives up pork prices and chicken prices, and the list goes on. That’s one way to do it.” Rickards also talks about deflation this year and big inflation coming after that. Rickards is predicting big inflation coming for people using dollars, and with his track record, you would be a fool to bet against his analysis.

Read more …

“I shall resist any illegal federal court order.”

Tyranny of the Minority (Turley)

“I shall resist any illegal federal court order.” When “the Court’s interpretation of the Constitution is egregiously wrong,” the president should refuse to follow it. Those two statements were made roughly 60 years apart. The first is from segregationist Alabama Gov. George Wallace (D). The second was made by two liberal professors this month. In one of the most chilling developments in our history, the left has come to embrace the authoritarian language and logic of segregationists in calling for defiance and radical measures against the Supreme Court. In a recent open letter, Harvard law professor Mark Tushnet and University of San Francisco political scientist Aaron Belkin called upon President Joe Biden to defy rulings of the Supreme Court that he considers “mistaken” in the name of “popular constitutionalism.”

Thus, in light of the court’s bar on the use of race in college admissions, they argue that Biden should just continue to follow his own constitutional interpretation. The use of the affirmative action case is ironic, since polls have consistently shown that the majority of the public does not support the use of race in college admissions. Indeed, even in the most liberal states, such as California, voters have repeatedly rejected affirmative action in college admissions. Polls further show that a majority support the Supreme Court’s recent decisions. So despite referenda and polls showing majority support for barring race in admissions, academics are pushing to impose their own values, regardless of the views of the public or of the courts.

However, even if these measures were popular, it would not make them right. It is precisely what segregationists such as Sen. James Eastland (D-Miss.) argued, that “all the people of the South are in favor of segregation. And Supreme Court or no Supreme Court, we are going to maintain segregated schools.” Tushnet and Belkin cite with approval Biden’s declaration that this is “not a normal Supreme Court.” Biden’s view of normalcy appears to be a court that agrees with his fluid view of constitutional law, by which he can forgive roughly a half of trillion dollars in loans or impose a national eviction moratorium without a vote of Congress.

Tushnet and Belkin know their audience. Biden has previously evinced little respect for the Constitution or the courts. Take the eviction case. In an earlier decision, a majority of justices had declared that Biden’s actions were unconstitutional, confirming what many of us had said for months. Even after the majority declared it unconstitutional, Biden wanted to reissue the national moratorium. White House counsel and most scholars told him the move would be blatantly unconstitutional and defy the express ruling of the court. Instead, he consulted the only law professor willing to tell him what he wanted to hear and did it anyway. It was quickly again declared unconstitutional.

Read more …

Good point:

“..who would even want to win the support of such vile creatures as Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Jerrold Nadler, and Adam Schiff, let alone be associated with them in the same club?”

The Downfall of Blobism (Kunstler)

You might not know it these lazy, hazy, muggy days of midsummer, but things are getting pretty wildly out-of-hand in our republic. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. blew up the Democratic Party yesterday in the House Subcommittee on Weaponization of Government hearing, acting like a normal human while being set upon by a flock of harpies desperately screeching “Russia, Russia, Russia,” as if that means anything anymore. He branded them as worse than the McCarthyites of the 1950s, rebuked their insane scurrilities supporting censorship, and left them in a state of exhausted disgrace.

It happens that he is running for the nomination of that very party knocking itself out to destroy him. To win that prize he would have to put a thousand top Democrats through some grueling act of repentance and contrition — and then you’ve got to ask yourself: who would even want to win the support of such vile creatures as Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Jerrold Nadler, and Adam Schiff, let alone be associated with them in the same club?

Elsewhere around the scene this week, we have the ever more degenerate antics of the FBI on view as whistleblowers pour out of the woodwork disclosing the rot behind Director Chris Wray and his boss AG Merrick Garland. This Deep State Blob of turpitude has been growing and festering with so many overlapping cover-ups that they’ve run out of rugs to sweep their crimes under. The massive moneygrubbing misdeeds of Hillary Clinton from Skolkovo and Uranium One beat a direct path through the Ukraine coup of 2014, to RussiaGate, to the Biden Family’s global influence-peddling operation and every mendacious act in-between including the FISA falsehoods, the J-6 entrapment caper, hundreds of malicious and deceitful prosecutions, the Covid-19 fraud, the censorship and medical tyranny, and God-knows how many ensuing deaths from a poisonous vaccine… and now, a brain-dead government trifling with nuclear war.

And whose brilliant idea was it, anyway, to install this disgusting and incompetent grifter, “Joe Biden,” as our head-of-state? They surely knew well before 2019 that his bag-man son was rooting out bribes in Ukraine, China, and elsewhere, at the same time he was consorting with whores and trafficked children while destroying his brain with crack and downing a fifth of vodka a day. And you’re telling me that the CIA and FBI did not know about any of this, even before October 2019 when Hunter’s laptop stuffed with graphic evidence fell into their hands? If they didn’t know any of this, then what’s the point of having an intel community?

My guess is that it was Barack Obama’s idea to stick “Joe Biden” in the White House in the vain effort to use this captive criminal to stave off any accounting for the aforesaid villainies that occurred during Mr. Obama’s two terms. The mission was originally Hillary Clinton’s — she had plenty at stake herself — but she botched the job in 2016 and allowed the Golden Golem of Greatness to slip into power. It is amazing to look back and see how the mighty Blob congealed after that election — like a giant rogue macrophage — to surround and eliminate Mr. Trump, who apparently did not know for many months what he was up against: the entire permanent bureaucracy.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Burton

 

 

 

 

Russ/Gore

 

 

Nanny cam

 

 


saharan dust, a mineral dust from the sahara desert, under the microscope. the dust particles contain sodium, manganese, aluminum, silicon, iron, cobalt, copper, potassium, sulfur and calcium. saharan dust provides marine bacteria and phytoplankton with important nutrients.

 

 

 

 

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Oct 162022
 
 October 16, 2022  Posted by at 8:15 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  45 Responses »


Rembrandt van Rijn Self-portrait 1629

 

Germany’s Failing ‘Stored’ Nat-gas & LNG Experiment (Vilches)
Nord Stream Saboteurs Plunged EU Into ‘Energy Poverty’ – Moscow (RT)
White House Comments On Paying For Starlink Service For Ukraine (RT)
Musk Makes U-turn On Starlink Service For Ukraine (RT)
Elon Musk Discovers Ukrainian ‘Kill List’ (RT)
The Ideological Tyranny of Liberal Interventionism (Ghorayeb)
European Auto Industry In Trouble – S&P (RT)
How 4,000 People From Groningen Managed To Turn Off The Gas Tap (NOS)
Strong US Dollar Is A Headache – IMF (RT)
Central Bank of G20 Host Indonesia Rails Against US Dollar (RT)
Will Beijing Join With Russia vs The West Or Keep Its Powder Dry? (Hvatkov)
Orban Warns Of ‘Protracted War’ (RT)
Hiding Hunter’s Laptop (Hanson)
Yes, They Claimed The Vaccines Would Prevent Transmission (Chung)
Twitter is a Weapon, not a Business (Robert Malone)

 

 

What an odd list.

 

 

John Maersheimer 2014

 

 

Walker

 

 

“Leave the climate activists glued to the wall. Make it an interactive exhibit by allowing patrons to throw tomato sauce at them and donate the proceeds to planting trees.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jinglemerkel Santakaputt.

“.. at the very best only 25% to 30% of the “supposed” 90% reserves could possibly ever be timely recovered and only very slowly through a period of time stretched out in months. ”

Germany’s Failing ‘Stored’ Nat-gas & LNG Experiment (Vilches)

Be that as it may, and as per the US State Dept. the NS1 and NS2 pipeline sabotage would supposedly have “no impact on European energy resilience”… then we should guess that Germans should just enjoy their Oktoberfest and — why not ? — also prepare to celebrate Christmas 2022 as if nothing negative had happened. On the contrary, if technical brain-power (currently AWOL) prevailed, then career strategists both sides of the Atlantic would now be spending all day and night trying to brush up hard on nat-gas management 101, better yet with a touch of sophomoric physics if all possible. And thus no-nonsense contingency plans would already be prepared and under deployment.

The reason is, as explained below, by EU and German design and commitment this is a failing EXPERIMENT. The planned ´stored´ nat-gas & LNG supply strategies have never ever been applied in equivalent circumstances with this strange methodology and humongous scale. Thusly, the 2022 German Oktoberfest will probably turn into a very acid sauerkraut with solid-beer icicles bizarrely hanging from the spouts. The Main Event would still be the December 2022 ´Jinglemerkel Santakaputt´ with nowhere to hide as all of Europe would be undergoing a thorough DE-industrialization process with sharp lowering of standards of living, and in many areas most probably with food issues, darkness & cold, deep frustration and un-heard-of unemployment with massive migrants wishing they had stayed back home (yes).

Be it from Qatar, Norway, or the US… or Russia…Liquefied Natural Gas cannot and will not save the day for Europe. First of all, LNG is and will be for a huge long time to come very scarce worldwide. Furthermore, there are very few loading and unloading terminals available at either end. For example, Germany has 0 (zero) LNG terminals. None. And even some loading terminals at source docks that are already built have serious operational problems or simply do not meet EU standards. Besides, there are not anywhere near enough LNG tankers available and very few are under construction. Who needed ugly dirty fracked LNG only 6 months ago ? And these infrastructure beasts take very long time to be conceived, approved, designed, funded, built, commissioned, certified, and offered to the market.

But it gets worse because many wrongly imagine that fracked sea-borne Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) is a substitute of nat-gas (not). First, it´s terribly more expensive, most explosive & dangerous to handle, and definetly way too scarce to meet European needs. Environmentally, LNG is “fracking” dirty and very cumbersome to liquefy, load and re-gassify with yet non-existant infrastructure at both ends… and is far more difficult to store and many times more costly to freight (Suez could be a limitation) from ackward overseas sources yet unknown (in tankers that do not yet exist) and only in risky seaborne batches onto many dozens of delivery terminals not yet built nor adequately planned for…

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“Stockholm has rejected a plan to set up an official joint investigation team together with Germany and Denmark to look into the explosions [..] All three nations also refused to grant Russia access to the probe. ”

Nord Stream Saboteurs Plunged EU Into ‘Energy Poverty’ – Moscow (RT)

The perpetrators behind the attacks on Nord Stream 1 and 2 natural gas pipelines have destroyed the European Union’s hope of secure and sustainable energy supply, Deputy Prime Minister Aleksander Novak has said on the sidelines of the Russian Energy Week forum. “Those who had plotted and perpetrated this terrorist act have basically plunged Europe into an energy poverty, so to speak,” Novak said on Friday, adding that the sabotage of the pipelines has all but “nullified the energy security” the EU has long sought to achieve. The former energy minister previously said that Russia is still able to supply natural gas to the European Union through a string of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that remains intact. According to President Vladimir Putin the ball was now in the EU’s court on whether it wanted this to happen.

Putin also suggested establishing a new “gas hub” in Türkiye to move the transit volumes to the Black Sea region. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan backed the idea during the leaders’ meeting earlier this week. The Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, designed to carry Russian natural gas directly to Germany, bypassing transit states, including Ukraine and Poland, abruptly lost pressure last month, following a series of powerful underwater explosions off the Danish island of Bornholm. Moscow has called the incident a terrorist attack and said the US, a long-time critic of Germany’s reliance on Russian energy, stood to benefit most from the disabling of the routes, both politically and economically. Washington has denied any involvement. However, Secretary of State Antony Blinken hailed the incident as a “tremendous opportunity” for Europe “to once and for all remove the dependence on Russian energy.”

In the meantime, Stockholm has rejected a plan to set up an official joint investigation team together with Germany and Denmark to look into the explosions, Reuters reported, citing a Swedish investigator. Sweden allegedly argued that its own findings are too sensitive to share even with other EU nations. All three nations also refused to grant Russia access to the probe. Russia used to cover over 40% of the EU’s gas needs prior to the start of the military operation in Ukraine and ensuing sanctions. Supplies dropped dramatically this year, exacerbating the energy crisis, as the bloc is seeking to cut itself off from Russian energy to reduce its dependence and punish Moscow. The US, meanwhile, ramped up its supply of LNG to Europe over the past months, up to a point where it now accounts for nearly half of the bloc’s LNG imports, nearly twice the share recorded in 2021.

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..“burning” around $20 million per month on safeguarding the services from cyberattacks and jamming..”

White House Comments On Paying For Starlink Service For Ukraine (RT)

The Pentagon and US allies are exploring all options to maintain Starlink satellite services for Ukraine after tycoon Elon Musk said he’s no longer willing to provide the communications for free, the White House press secretary has said. During a briefing on Friday, Karine Jean-Pierre was asked if the Biden administration had considered Musk’s request for the Pentagon to foot the bill for satellite internet communications in Ukraine. “Look, we understand the importance of these capabilities to ensure stable communications for Ukraine’s forces in particular,” Jean-Pierre responded. Starlink, operated by Musk’s SpaceX company, has become the main communication tool for Ukraine’s forces since the start of the conflict with Russia.

According to the spokeswoman, the Pentagon is “working with allies and partners to look at all options on how best to support those needs identified by Ukraine specifically.” Further questions on the matter should be referred to the Department of Defense, she added. Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh confirmed on Friday that “the department has been in communication with SpaceX regarding Starlink,” but declined to expand on the nature of those contacts. The DoD understands the “fragility” of satellite communications and their importance for Ukraine “not just on the battlefield, but within the country itself,” Singh said. On Thursday CNN published a letter, which it said SpaceX had sent to the Pentagon in September, demanding that it cover the cost of operating the system in Ukraine. The company is no longer “in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time,” the document read.

Musk reacted to the report by pointing out that his “competitors in space launch and communications,” Lockheed Martin and Boeing, had jointly received over $60 billion in defense contracts in 2021 alone. The entrepreneur explained in a series of tweets how keeping up “warfront” communications was much more difficult and expensive. He said his aerospace company was allegedly forced to divert “massive resources” and was “burning” around $20 million per month on safeguarding the services from cyberattacks and jamming. “Russia is actively trying to kill Starlink,” Musk claimed, warning that it could well succeed in its efforts. “Starlink is the primary communications system of the Ukrainian army on the war front. If anyone else wants this job, please be my guest,” he wrote.

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“..the cost of the internet service in Ukraine, which could amount up to $ 400 million over the next year..”

Musk Makes U-turn On Starlink Service For Ukraine (RT)

The SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has made an abrupt U-turn on his decision to stop funding the operation of the Starlink satellite communication service in Ukraine, where it has been actively used by the Ukrainian troops. Earlier, SpaceX reportedly asked the Pentagon to cover the cost of the internet service in Ukraine, which could amount up to $ 400 million over the next year. “We’ll just keep funding Ukraine government for free,” Musk wrote in a tweet on Saturday, adding that SpaceX would do it “even though Starlink is still losing money and other companies are getting billions of taxpayer dollars.” Earlier, the SpaceX CEO pointed to the fact that his “competitors in space launch and communications,” Lockheed Martin and Boeing, had jointly received over $60 billion in defense contracts in 2021 alone.

The entrepreneur also complained in a series of tweets that keeping up “warfront” communications was difficult and expensive. He also stated that Russia was “actively trying to kill Starlink,” forcing the US company to spend some $20 million per month on safeguarding the services from cyberattacks and jamming. On Thursday, CNN obtained a letter, where Musk supposedly informed the Pentagon his company was “not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time.” SpaceX has donated around 20,000 Starlink satellite units to Ukraine since the beginning of the conflict in late February, providing internet connection and military coordination in chaotic battlegrounds that would otherwise be cut off from the web.

Kiev then praised the terminals as an “essential part of critical infrastructure” but continued to urge SpaceX to send thousands of additional terminals. Musk previously stated that SpaceX would have spent more than $100 million providing Starlink services to Ukraine by the end of the year. At the same time, the company reportedly admitted that most units it had sent to Ukraine were partially or fully funded by the American, British and Polish governments. SpaceX also recently came under fire over alleged Starlink outages across some regions of Ukraine, which some Ukrainian soldiers described as “catastrophic” loss of communications, according to Financial Times.

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“The website has published personal details – names, addresses, photos, social media pages – of children, the youngest of whom is not even 10 years old..”

Elon Musk Discovers Ukrainian ‘Kill List’ (RT)

Elon Musk has expressed concerns over a controversial website that lists supposed enemies of Kiev, amid claims that his own name briefly appeared on Mirotvorets following his threats to cut funding for Starlink satellite internet services actively used by the Ukrainian troops. “Is this list real? What’s the URL?” the SpaceX CEO tweeted in response to independent journalist Eva Karene Bartlett, who on Friday shared a viral screenshot that claims to show his persona added to the notorious database. “I’ve been speaking and writing about this list for years, after being placed on it in 2019, but now that Musk is on it, after Roger Waters and others, perhaps the ‘peacemaker’ list might itself be killed…,” Bartlett wrote.

Elon Musk’s name was not on the list as of Saturday, and it remains unclear whether it indeed briefly appeared on Mirotvorets. Some reports alleged his profile was swiftly scrubbed from the database, while Ukrainian activists claimed the picture was fake and called it a Russian provocation. Many of Musk’s followers were surprised to find out that he’d never heard of Mirotvorets before, and bombarded him with examples of prominent public figures on the database, some already marked “liquidated.” Musk admitted it was “concerning,” after checking with Wikipedia that such a list does indeed exist, and was allowed to stay online since 2014. Mirotvorets, or “Peacemaker,” is a supposedly independent database of individuals whom anonymous moderators consider to be threats to Ukrainian national security.

The site denies being a kill list; rather, it claims to be a source of information for law-enforcement agencies and “special services” about pro-Russian terrorists, separatists and war criminals, among others. It allegedly has links to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry. The Mirotvorets project gained some notoriety in 2015, when writer and historian Oles Buzina and politician Oleg Kalashnikov were assassinated in Ukraine after their profiles appeared on the website. In 2016, EU officials and journalist groups condemned Mirotvorets for leaking data on more than 4,000 members of the media. Human rights activists have discovered that the website features the personal details of 327 children, prompting the Russian authorities to share their concerns over this “huge injustice” with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. The website has published personal details – names, addresses, photos, social media pages – of children, the youngest of whom is not even 10 years old yet, according to the head of the Foundation for the Fight against Repressions.

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“..American and Ukrainian politicians—along with their loyal supporters—are not actually interested in real support for the Ukrainian people. What they want is compliance and consensus for their foreign policy endeavors.”

The Ideological Tyranny of Liberal Interventionism (Ghorayeb)

Since the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian War this year, celebrities and public figures have been unanimous in their moral support for Ukraine. Some, like Telsa CEO Elon Musk, have gone further than words, lending significant material support to the cause. His spacecraft company, SpaceX, paid $80 million to provide Ukraine with the services of Starlink, which, among other things, enables Ukrainian troops to operate drones and communicate with each other. Musk has explicitly declared himself “pro-Ukraine.” A normal person would therefore view Musk, a self-professed centrist, as supporting an ally of the American government against the ravages of war.

However, Musk’s material and moral contributions mattered little when he proposed a peace plan outside the bounds of the liberal internationalist consensus. Russia, Musk tweeted, should be allowed to keep Crimea, and Ukraine should end its bit to join NATO and adopt a neutral status. Musk’s diplomatic musings swiftly drew the ire of the Ukrainian government and its supporters. It also attracted resentful remarks from his own government. Senator Lindsey Graham went on an angry rant against Musk that culminated in a call to cut electric vehicle tax credits, which he mistakenly thought benefitted Tesla. Elon’s car buyers haven’t qualified for a tax credit since 2018.

One may wonder why there is such intense outrage against Musk or why expressing an anti-war opinion is akin to providing support for Putin. Why is it that one tweet with a peace proposal has become a more powerful expression of Musk’s position than $80 million worth of material aid to Ukraine and numerous declarations of support? The reason is that American and Ukrainian politicians—along with their loyal supporters—are not actually interested in real support for the Ukrainian people. What they want is compliance and consensus for their foreign policy endeavors. Media outlets have noticeably censored and attempted to silence opinions that deviate from a consensus that stops short of extravagant government spending on weapons for Ukraine and unwavering admiration for Zelensky.

[..] Ideally, there would be a moral consensus against killing innocent people with room for civil political debate about the root causes of these wars, how we can de-escalate or end ongoing violence, and how to prevent them in the future. One could have contested Musk’s proposal with a counterargument about whether it is the optimal way of reaching what most people agree is wrong: killing innocent people. But this would only be possible if everyone involved in the discourse was concerned with achieving the end of the war and pursuing truth. However, the U.S. foreign policy elite—who have nakedly pursued their interests through intervention in the region before—and Ukraine’s corrupt president do not show an interest in either.

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No, electric cars won’t solve the problem..

European Auto Industry In Trouble – S&P (RT)

With energy prices in EU skyrocketing, a harsh winter could shut down production in parts of the automotive sector, S&P Global Mobility reported this week. According to a report titled “Winter is Coming,” the “combined black swan events” of the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have stretched automotive supply lines, especially with regard to semiconductors. As a result, the industry “may face extensive pressure” from energy costs in the coming months. Starting in the fourth quarter of 2022 through 2023, quarterly production from Europe-based auto manufacturing plants is forecast to be between 4 and 4.5-million-units. However, “with potential utility restrictions,” that output could fall to as low as 2.75 million units per quarter, the report says.

The researcher projected significant supply chain disruptions from November through spring, citing mandatory energy rationing for the region’s auto producers and suppliers. “For an industry already struggling with low inventories of vehicles in dealer showrooms, an additional crisis could be incapacitating on a global scale,” it said. Edwin Pope, S&P Global Mobility principal analyst for materials and lightweighting, pointed out that “If you look through the supply chain – particularly where there’s any metallic structure forming through pressing, welding or extrusion – there’s a tremendous amount of energy involved.

“Total energy usage in these companies could be up to one-and-a-half times what we’re seeing in vehicle assembly today. Anecdotally, we’re hearing that some of this manufacturing capacity is becoming so uneconomic that companies are simply shutting up shop.” He also told Reuters that S&P Global Mobility’s analysis was conducted before the sabotage on the Russian Nord Stream gas pipelines late last month. “Events like that will inevitably shift the scales towards the lower end of what we have predicted, especially in terms of how long it takes to repair things of this nature,” Pope warned.

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Google translate.

“They only wanted to continue if the State imposed a production obligation on them, took over the liability and thus also the risk of prosecution.”

How 4,000 People From Groningen Managed To Turn Off The Gas Tap (NOS)

Only the threat of a criminal case would force oil companies Shell and Exxon to extract less gas in Groningen after the severe earthquake in 2012. A retired criminal court advised action group Groninger Soil Movement (GBB) to use heavy artillery. Public hearings by the Groningen parliamentary committee of inquiry for natural gas extraction have shown in recent weeks how great the impact of that advice has been. The committee closed those hearings yesterday. The GBB first filed a report on behalf of 4000 members in vain: the Public Prosecution Service saw no reason to prosecute NAM. The people of Groningen then asked the court in Arnhem to force the Public Prosecution Service to conduct such a criminal investigation.

In April 2017, the court ruled in their favor. The Public Prosecution Service should investigate whether gas extraction company NAM, a subsidiary of Shell and Exxon, has endangered Groningers. The case is still pending and has cost the GBB two tons in lawyers’ fees, but the effect was maximum. Ben van Beurden, the CEO of Shell, calls that criminal case a “game changer”. His company was suddenly accused of endangering people’s lives by extracting gas. His employees could be personally prosecuted for this. Shell and Exxon informed the Ministry of Economic Affairs that they wanted to stop gas production in Groningen. They only wanted to continue if the State imposed a production obligation on them, took over the liability and thus also the risk of prosecution.

Every other gas field in the world would be closed if it turns out that winning is not safe, both Rolf de Jong of Exxon and Van Beurden of Shell said. But they also realized that it was impossible to stop because Dutch households, hospitals and much industry depend on Groningen gas. It was one of the most startling issues to surface in the public hearings. Until then, the image was that former Minister Wiebes of Economic Affairs had single-handedly decided in 2018 to end gas extraction in Groningen in 2030. That was inescapable, he said, because the State Supervision of Mines then found that gas extraction might have to stop altogether to limit the risk of even more earthquakes. Moreover, the reinforcement operation, the reinforcement of unsafe houses, was completely out of control.

Many more houses had to be reinforced than the ministry wanted and, according to gas extraction company NAM, was necessary. Furthermore, it appeared from the interrogations that the cabinet was not in a hurry with the request of the oil companies. They feared that Shell and Exxon wanted to take the opportunity to also change the historic agreements on profit sharing. The two multinationals and the State divide the gas revenues, with the largest part of the profit (90 percent) going to the State. These are agreements that were made when gas extraction started in the early 1960s.

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“..appreciated 22% against the Japanese yen, 13% against the euro and 6% against emerging market currencies since the start of this year..”

Strong US Dollar Is A Headache – IMF (RT)

As countries around the world struggle to bring down soaring inflation, the weakening of their currencies relative to the US dollar has made that fight even harder, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said. In a report published on Friday, the IMF elaborated how countries should respond to a strong dollar. It highlighted that the greenback is at its highest level since 2000, having appreciated 22% against the Japanese yen, 13% against the euro and 6% against emerging market currencies since the start of this year. “Such a sharp strengthening of the dollar in a matter of months has sizable macroeconomic implications for almost all countries, given the dominance of the dollar in international trade and finance,” the lender wrote.

It further indicated that while the US share in world merchandise exports has declined from 12% to 8% since 2000, the dollar’s share in world exports has held at around 40%. “On average, the estimated pass-through of a 10 percent dollar appreciation into inflation is 1 percent. Such pressures are especially acute in emerging markets, reflecting their higher import dependency and greater share of dollar-invoiced imports compared with advanced economies.” According to the report, approximately half of all cross-border loans and international debt securities are denominated in US dollars. While emerging market governments have made progress in issuing debt in their own currency, their private corporate sectors have high levels of dollar-denominated debt.

“As world interest rates rise, financial conditions have tightened considerably for many countries. A stronger dollar only compounds these pressures, especially for some emerging market and many low-income countries that are already at a high risk of debt distress,” the IMF said. The report suggested that the appropriate policy response is to allow the exchange rate to adjust, while using monetary policy to keep inflation close to its target. “The higher price of imported goods will help bring about the necessary adjustment to the fundamental shocks as it reduces imports, which in turn helps with reducing the buildup of external debt. Fiscal policy should be used to support the most vulnerable without jeopardizing inflation goals,” it said.

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“.. transactions in foreign currencies incur conversion costs, and when they are in US dollars, “the conversion fee is doubled..”

Central Bank of G20 Host Indonesia Rails Against US Dollar (RT)

Indonesia’s central bank has spoken out against the use of the US dollar in export-import transactions, and called for a switch to local currencies in international payments to reduce dependence on the greenback, news portal Tempo.co reported on Friday. Most of Indonesia’s international trade transactions are conducted in foreign currencies, predominantly the dollar, according to Nugroho Joko Prastowo, head of Bank Indonesia’s Solo Representative Office, as cited by local media. “90% of export-import settlements are in US dollars, when in fact the value of Indonesia’s direct exports to the US is only 10%, and the value of US imports is only 5%,” the official told journalists after opening a session on ‘Utilizing Local Currency Settlement (LCS) to Increase Export-Import Efficiency of the Greater Solo Region’.


He said transactions in foreign currencies incur conversion costs, and when they are in US dollars, “the conversion fee is doubled,” suggesting that a system of bilateral payments in local currency could solve the problem. The official said four countries have agreed to utilize LCS with Indonesia so far, namely China, Japan, Thailand and Malaysia. “Singapore has been plotted, although it has not been fully implemented, and soon the Philippines. Currently, the implementation of LCS with Saudi Arabia is also being explored,” he said. Indonesia will be hosting the G20 international forum, bringing together 19 countries and the European Union, on November 15-16 on the island of Bali. Indonesia currently holds the presidency of the group of leading economies.

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‘small fortresses with high walls’

Will Beijing Join With Russia vs The West Or Keep Its Powder Dry? (Hvatkov)

The 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, the pinnacle event in the country’s political life and held only every five years, kicks off in Beijing on October 16. Experts will be tuning in to pick up any signals related not only to the political standing and prospects of China’s leader Xi Jinping, who is likely to run for a third term, but also to the way the country is planning to build its relations with the US and Russia in the future. A new Mao – a new revolution? Western speculation believes that the event could signify a triumph for Xi as he will most likely remain at the helm of the party for a third term. Should that happen, it would go against the tradition which has formed in Chinese politics over the last 30 years. Up to now, the reins of power in the country were handed over to a new generation of leaders at the end of the second term. Thus, such a move would herald a new era in the history of modern China. Starting from 2018, it has become increasingly clear that Xi is going to defy this tradition. That year, amendments were made to the Chinese Constitution lifting the two-term limit on the presidency.

[..] Experts doubt that Beijing will abandon its policy of prudence and caution, and there are a number of reasons for that. “Much of what Vladimir Putin said in his speech at the accession ceremony is in line with China’s own attitudes. But when China talks about similar matters, the wording is often much broader and generally ambiguous. Naturally, Beijing is aware that its confrontation with the West is getting more intense. However, at the level of rhetoric, China tries to avoid being as explicit when expressing its position. Moscow and Beijing have similar viewpoints in that both believe the policies of the West are flawed, as they create artificial barriers to global trade, financial and economic ties and investment opportunities,” Lomanov said.

“China also criticizes the West for building ‘small fortresses with high walls’, referring to blocs like NATO and AUKUS, exclusive alliances designed to unite Western countries and those loyal to them, effectively cutting off everyone else. “China has always stressed the need to reform the existing system of global governance, as it is deeply unfair to developing countries. Despite all its leaps in economic development, China considers itself both a socialist country and the world’s leading developing nation. Therefore, at a practical level, the positions of Russia and China are indeed very close,” the expert from IMEMO RAS believes.

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“anyone who thinks NATO will protect us is wrong.”

Orban Warns Of ‘Protracted War’ (RT)

Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that Hungary needs an army “capable of striking and ensuring peace” in case the continent plunges into chaos over the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and the European Union’s failed policies towards Russia.“We cannot, like ostriches, bury our heads in the sand. We must accept the reality: if this continues, the economy of the continent will collapse, people will be in danger, and it seems that we must prepare for a protracted war,” Orban said on Saturday in Budapest, at a swearing-in ceremony of military volunteers. The Hungarian leader noted that “there are nations that have already begun making preparations and we can’t fall behind in this either,” as cited by the Budapest Times. “In times of war, we need an army capable of striking and capable of ensuring peace!” he told a group of some 250 young recruits, praising them as the “excellence of our nation.”


He added that Hungary needs “a few more” such battalions and announced new recruitment campaigns to be launched from December. Hungary, which is heavily dependent on Russian energy, has maintained a relatively neutral stance during the conflict in Ukraine, condemning the use of force by Moscow, but refusing to supply weapons to Kiev. Orban has frequently criticized the EU’s sanctions on Russia, calling them counterproductive. Over the past months, he has repeatedly called for “the failed policy of Brussels” to be changed, noting that the sanctions “didn’t fulfill the hopes that were pinned on them,” while Europe is “slowly bleeding.” Back in March, Orban said that he felt he couldn’t count on the US-led military bloc when it comes to real action concerning the country’s security, saying “anyone who thinks NATO will protect us is wrong.”

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Long overview.

Hiding Hunter’s Laptop (Hanson)

The definitive book on Cold War era information warfare from our Communist foes is Dezinformatsia: Active Measures in Soviet Strategy. In that book, disinformation is defined as “false, incomplete, or misleading information that is passed, fed, or confirmed to a targeted individual, group, or country.” The American public was subjected to a campaign right out of the Soviet playbook designed to obfuscate the Biden family corruption. It was concocted and deployed by a loosely connected conspiracy of the media, current and former government officials, the Biden campaign, and the social media tech companies. As soon as the story broke October 19, 2020 virtually every major and subsidiary media outlet reported on it with negative sentiment using one of two major themes:

First they argued that it was stolen. The immediate response was to deny the provenance of the laptop which was that Hunter Biden had abandoned it at a repair shop. They began questioning that story and throwing out the completely unfounded speculation that it may be stolen. This smear hit directly at John Paul Mac Isaac, the owner of the repair shop. He provided the contents of the laptop first to law enforcement and when they took no action, to Rudy Giuliani who eventually gave it to the New York Post. The bulk of the media accounts discussing the story in the next 24 hours included a reference to the “stolen” theme.

The second argument offered was that the laptop was not verified. This was the most defensible part of the smoke screen. Most of the media outlets did not have the hard drive so they could say they had not verified it themselves. However, the New York Post showed numerous items in their reporting that would lead any reasonable person to understand the laptop most likely belonged to Hunter Biden. During the taping of an interview with President Trump soon after the story broke, Lesley Stahl of “60 Minutes” ran with this narrative. Stahl denied that the Delaware computer suspected of belonging to Hunter Biden’s was even a story at all after claiming it has been “investigated and discredited.”

“It can’t be verified,” Stahl said of the laptop. “It can’t be verified.” “What can’t be verified?” Trump said. “The laptop!” It had been investigated, but unlike Stahl’s false claim to the contrary the laptop was not discredited. All of the investigations and verification measures showed the same thing: This was Hunter’s laptop, the information was his and it was devastating. One of the truly amazing things is the longevity of the media’s willingness to continue to ignore and suppress this story. It was not until March of 2022 that the New York Times and Washington Post both admitted the long-known fact that Hunter’s laptop was Hunter’s laptop.

Their admissions were not because of some ethical epiphany. They were merely part of a new aspect of the disinformation campaign about the likely charges coming from the ongoing investigation into Biden family corruption. They are based on the disinformation tactic popularized by John Ehrlichman, an aide to President Richard Nixon during Watergate. It’s called the modified limited hangout. In other words, mixing partial admissions with additional misinformation in order to confuse people.

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1000 times. The fact checks look like pretzels.

Yes, They Claimed The Vaccines Would Prevent Transmission (Chung)

No, you’re not crazy. Yes, they claimed the vaccines would prevent transmission. One of the most bizarre lies being told this week in response to Pfizer executive Janine Small’s testimony to EU Parliament is that, actually, the Covid vaccines were never supposed to stop the spread of the virus. Asked by Dutch MEP Rob Roos whether the company had tested its vaccine on “stopping the transmission of the virus” before it rolled out globally, Ms Small said “no” because “we had to really move at the speed of science to really understand what is taking place in the market”. “And from that point of view we had to do everything at risk,” she said. In a viral Twitter video which has now been viewed more than 12 million times, Mr Roos described the response as “scandalous”, arguing “millions of people worldwide felt compelled to get vaccinated because of the myth that ‘you do it for others’”.

Mr Roos said the admission removed the entire basis for vaccine mandates and passports which “led to massive institutional discrimination as people lost access to essential parts of society”. “I find this to be shocking, even criminal,” he said. Of course, fact checkers were not happy. This is not the bombshell it is being presented as, they argue, because it was public knowledge that the primary outcome measured in Pfizer’s clinical trials was reducing risk of disease, but not transmission. Moreover, as the Therapeutic Goods Administration stressed, “transmission effects” are “not an approved indication of any Covid-19 vaccine” currently available in Australia. In Australia, politicians and health officials held millions of people hostage for months, lecturing and threatening them to get vaccinated to regain their “freedoms”.


The vaccines were the “way out” of the pandemic, they were not to just to protect ourselves but to “protect others”, they would “stop the spread”, and not getting vaccinated was “selfish”. Vaccine passports, the “vaccinated economy”, were necessary so people who “did the right thing” would feel “safe” knowing they weren’t “mixing” with the unvaccinated, who were a “risk to the community”. By late 2021 and early 2022, as Omicron became dominant and it was clear vaccinated people were still catching and spreading the virus, the messaging changed. “Stopping the spread? What are you talking about? It’s about reducing hospitalisation and death. We have always been at war with hospitalisation and death.”

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Malone takes a turn away from vaccines.

Twitter is a Weapon, not a Business (Robert Malone)

The research and consulting firm “Edify” has recently disclosed results from a client-driven research project designed to analyze the relationships between the law firm of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (WSGR), Twitter, Biden White House, Obama White House, James Baker, Alexander Macgillivray, Vijaya Gadde, and Anthony Fauci’s daughter, Alison Fauci, who is an engineer at Twitter. The first two of these analyses have been published here and here, and at least one more is anticipated in the near future. The findings clearly document the deep web of relationships tying together WSGR, Twitter, the censorship of President Trump, President Barack Obama, President Joe Biden and the Office of Science and Technology Policy and Google. All of these run through Alexander Macgillivray. Macgillivray currently serves the Biden White House OSTP (Office of Science and Technology Policy) as the Principal Deputy U.S. CTO (Chief Technology Officer).

What Edify documents is the web of relationships which have guided the censorship practices of the US Government-Technology/Social media alliance. As I read through the first of the two analyses, titled “EDIFY: CRITICAL NEXUS: TWITTER, WSGR, MACGILLIVRAY & WHITE HOUSE” (September 15, 2022), my interest was piqued by the documentation of the deep connections between Twitter, Biden, Obama, and the central role of Twitter as a tool for information and psychological warfare. Precisely the hot button issue that I discussed on the Joe Rogan Experience when I used those three words “Mass Formation Psychosis,” which triggered such a visceral reaction from the Silicon Valley technology giants, the Trusted News Initiative, and Peter Breggin.

Based on relationship mapping, Edify draws the following conclusions: “Twitter is the central node and the keystone to understanding. Twitter’s inherent value to the elites, political class and federal apparatus writ large is found in its ability to engage in perception management, which is a technical term more commonly referred to as “psyops” or “psychological warfare”. Twitter engages in perception management in its capacity to establish and manipulate reality by means of actively determining and shaping the content on its platform. Twitter consumers can receive filtered content or are prevented from receiving, seeing or having the ability to publish content altogether.

The de facto censorship occurs primarily along the lines of determining and enforcing community standards, guidelines and rules for user engagement. The evidence is clear that the decisions here appear to fall along clearly identifiable political lines resembling two-tier justice. Content determination, algorithmic manipulation and politically motivated censorship of off-reservation messaging and political opposition are all evidenced examples of how Twitter engages in perception management or appears to do so. Two evidenced domains of Twitter’s engagement in perception management include censoring content relative to COVID-19 and the Hunter Biden Laptop story.” [..] The quote above is just the beginning of the analytical conclusions, which include this gem:

“Alison Fauci is a Twitter software engineer who by title, would possess the technical capabilities and access to function as outlined in the testimony. Beyond Alison Fauci’s functionality as a conduit or intermediary for Dr. Anthony Fauci and his principals at the NIH/NIAID and up, Alison Fauci is by title technically positioned to potentially extract private Twitter user data on designated people including political opposition. Any such extracted data could be fed back upstream to the Obama, Biden cartel et al. It’s also further evidence of a distinct pattern of nepotism threading through all of these matters where spouses and children play critical roles determined by their placement into the broader construct. Alison Fauci was positioned to be a possible conduit of information in an intermediary fashion relative to the Anthony Fauci cohort and its preferences for Twitter’s censorship policies for reliable COVID content damaging to the COVID construct of enterprise fraud and that official narrative.”

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HEART

 

 

Cater snake

 

 


The Alpine Ibex’s preferred habitat is the rocky region along the snow line above alpine forests, where it occupies steep, rough terrain at elevations of 1,800 to 3,300 metres

 

 

Magician
https://twitter.com/i/status/1581272429527179265

 

 


A tiger’s tongue is so coarse, it can lick flesh to the bone. Photo: Tony Zerna

 

 

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