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Debt Rattle March 24 2024

Mar 242024
 
 March 24, 2024  Posted by at 9:30 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  29 Responses »


Edvard Munch Spring 1889

 

• It’s War: The Real Meat Grinder Starts Now (Pepe Escobar)
• This Is Not ISIS – RT Editor-in-Chief (Sp.)
• Scott Ritter: Moscow Terrorist Attack Doesn’t Look Like ISIS’ Handiwork (Sp.)
• Ukraine Becomes Den of Terrorism in Europe With Help of West – Zakharova (Sp.)
• It’s Time For Russia To Give The West A Nuclear Reminder (Dmitry Trenin)
• “Crocus City Hall” Attack In Moscow Suburb And More (Doctorow)
• Why Russia Won’t Cede Baltic Sea Positions (Sp.)
• US Whips Up Fear of Russian Bugaboo to ‘Subjugate Europe’ (Sp.)
• Israel Announces Major Land Grab In West Bank (RT)
• China Behind Pan American Highway (ET)
• Sir Thomas More and the Biden Corruption Scandal (Turley)
• How The Police State Muzzles Our Right To Speak Truth To Power (Whitehead)
• The Hertz Meltdown Reveals the Scale of the EV Debacle (Jeffrey Tucker)

 

 

Something doesn’t seem to add up here.

 

 

Bill Maher Trump

 

 

Black vote

 

 

J6

 

 

Kevin O’Leary: This is not America

 

 

Shaman

 

 

Fani
https://twitter.com/i/status/1771728518851817940

 

 

 

 

“..the most feasible mastermind is Kyrylo Budanov [..] The “spy chief” who happens to be the top CIA asset in Kiev.

• It’s War: The Real Meat Grinder Starts Now (Pepe Escobar)

Exhibit 1: Friday, March 22, 2024. It’s War. The Kremlin, via Peskov, finally admits it, on the record. The money quote: “Russia cannot allow the existence on its borders of a state that has a documented intention to use any methods to take Crimea away from it, not to mention the territory of new regions.” Translation: the Hegemon-constructed Kiev mongrel is doomed, one way or another. The Kremlin signal: “We haven’t even started” starts now. Exhibit 2: Friday afternoon, a few hours after Peskov. Confirmed by a serious European – not Russian – source. The first counter-signal. Regular troops from France, Germany and Poland have arrived, by rail and air, to Cherkassy, south of Kiev. A substantial force. No numbers leaked. They are being housed in schools. For all practical purposes, this is a NATO force. That signals, “Let the games begin”. From a Russian point of view, Mr. Khinzal’s business cards are set to be in great demand.

Exhibit 3: Friday evening. Terror attack on Crocus City, a music venue northwest of Moscow. A heavily trained commando shoots people on sight, point blank, in cold blood, then sets a concert hall on fire. The definitive counter-signal: with the battlefield collapsing, all that’s left is terrorism in Moscow. And just as terror was striking Moscow, the US and the UK, in southwest Asia, was bombing Sana’a, the Yemeni capital, with at least five strikes. Some nifty coordination. Yemen has just clinched a strategic deal in Oman with Russia-China for no-hassle navigation in the Red Sea, and is among the top candidates for BRICS+ expansion at the summit in Kazan next October. Not only the Houthis are spectacularly defeating thalassocracy, they have the Russia-China strategic partnership on their side. Assuring China and Russia that their ships can sail through the Bab-al-Mandeb, Red Sea and Gulf of Aden with no problems is exchanged with total political support from Beijing and Moscow.

Deep in the night in Moscow, before dawn on Saturday 23. Virtually no one is sleeping. Rumors dance like dervishes on countless screens. Of course nothing has been confirmed – yet. Only the FSB will have answers. A massive investigation is in progress. The timing of the Crocus massacre is quite intriguing. On a Friday during Ramadan. Real Muslims would not even think about perpetrating a mass murder of unarmed civilians under such a holy occasion. Compare it with the ISIS card being frantically branded by the usual suspects. Let’s go pop. To quote Talking Heads: “This ain’t no party/ this ain’t no disco/ this ain’t no fooling around”. Oh no; it’s more like an all-American psy op. ISIS are cartoonish mercenaries/goons. Not real Muslims. And everyone knows who finances and weaponizes them. That leads to the most possible scenario, before the FSB weighs in: ISIS goons imported from the Syria battleground – as it stands, probably Tajiks – trained by CIA and MI6, working on behalf of the Ukrainian SBU.

Several witnesses at Crocus referred to “Wahhabis” – as in the commando killers did not look like Slavs. It was up to Serbia’s Aleksandar Vucic to cut to the chase. He directly connected the “warnings” in early March from American and British embassies directed at their citizens not to visit public places in Moscow with CIA/MI6 intel having inside info about possible terrorism, and not disclosing it to Moscow. The plot thickens when it is established that Crocus is owned by the Agalarovs: an Azeri-Russian billionaire family, very close friends of… Donald Trump. Talk about a Deep State-pinpointed target. ISIS spin-off or banderistas – the sponsors remain the same. The clownish secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Oleksiy Danilov, was dumb enough to virtually, indirectly confirm they did it, saying on Ukrainian TV, “we will give them [Russians] this kind of fun more often.”

But it was up to Sergei Goncharov, a veteran of the elite Russia Alpha anti-terrorism unit, to get closer to unwrapping the enigma: he told Sputnik the most feasible mastermind is Kyrylo Budanov – the chief of the Main Directorate of Intelligence at the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. The “spy chief” who happens to be the top CIA asset in Kiev.

Poso “You will see terror attacks on Russian civilians, this is what Victoria Nuland wants”
https://twitter.com/i/status/1771545163732496857

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“Basic sleight of hand. The level of a railway thimble-rigger,” she added. “It has nothing to do with ISIS. It’s Ukrainians.”

• This Is Not ISIS – RT Editor-in-Chief (Sp.)

Ukraine and the West have resorted to false flag operations to persuade everyone that ISIS* was behind the terror attack in the Crocus City Hall concert venue near Moscow, said Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of Sputnik’s parent media group Rossiya Segodnya. The head of the media group stressed that the names and faces of the perpetrators are already known to authorities and that the terrorists gave everything away during interrogation. “It immediately became obvious why US media were claiming in unison that it was ISIS,” she said. Simonyan explained that the perpetrators were chosen to carry out the attack in a manner that would allow the West to persuade the international community that ISIS was behind the attack. “Basic sleight of hand. The level of a railway thimble-rigger,” she added. “It has nothing to do with ISIS. It’s Ukrainians.” She added that the enthusiasm displayed by Western media when they tried to persuade everyone that ISIS was responsible even before arrests were made gave them away completely.

“This is not ISIS. This is a well-coordinated team of several other, also widely known, abbreviations,” Simonyan concluded. In the hours following the attack, Western media insisted that radical jihadist organization ISIS was behind it, while Ukrainian officials also said that they had nothing to do with the tragedy. However, suspects were detained in Russia’s Bryansk region near Ukrainian border. According to the data provided by law enforcing agencies, they had a support base on the other side of the border. Moreover, while Kiev rushed to deny its involvement into the shooting, Ukrainian secret services have a long track record of terror attacks on Russian territory, from shelling in the Belgorod region to assassinations of political scientist Daria Dugina and journalist Vladlen Tatarsky.

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“Who was behind this attack? Who are the masterminds? The Russian security services will find out. But whoever they are, they reside in Ukraine.”

• Scott Ritter: Moscow Terrorist Attack Doesn’t Look Like ISIS’ Handiwork (Sp.)

Over 100 civilians were killed after a group of armed terrorists stormed a concert and started indiscriminately shooting at the audience. The perpetrators have since been apprehended by Russian authorities and an investigation has been launched to uncover the truth behind this tragedy. Washington’s attempts to pin the blame for the March 22 terrorist attack in Moscow on ISIS* appears suspect due to the perpetrators’ behavior, former US Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter told Sputnik. Pointing out the fact that the terrorists were apprehended while fleeing towards Ukraine, Ritter remarked how “people of violence” have a tendency to “navigate towards their ‘true north’” at the end of the day.

“What I mean by that is, let’s take a special forces team operating behind enemy lines: if they’re compromised, they try to go home, they try to escape and evade towards the friendly lines,” he explained. “ISIS has loyalty to their perverted version of religion, God. Their ‘true north’ is to become martyrs, to navigate home to heaven.” “But that’s not what these terrorists did,” he continued. “Their true north was Ukraine, and they were navigating toward Ukraine. And that’s all we need to know about this. This was an attack that was linked to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Who was behind this attack? Who are the masterminds? The Russian security services will find out. But whoever they are, they reside in Ukraine.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1771611851953991972

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Ukraine: corruption, money laundering and terrorism. No coincidence, a set-up.

• Ukraine Becomes Den of Terrorism in Europe With Help of West – Zakharova (Sp.)

Ukraine has been turning into a center for the spread of terrorism in Europe for the past 10 years with the help of the West, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Saturday. A shooting occurred on Friday evening in the Crocus City Hall concert venue just outside Moscow, followed by a massive fire. A Sputnik correspondent who witnessed the attack reported that at least three men in camouflage had broken into the music hall, shooting people point-blank and throwing incendiary bombs. According to the latest data from the Russian Investigative Committee, at least 115 people died in the terrorist attack and many others were injured, with the number of those killed expected to increase.

“The main thing is that the US authorities do not forget how their information and political environment linked the terrorists who shot people at Crocus City Hall with the banned terrorist organization ISIS [banned in Russia]. Now we know in which country these bloody criminals planned to hide from persecution — Ukraine. The very country that, with the help of Western liberal regimes, has been turning into a center for the spread of terrorism in Europe for the past ten years,” Zakharova said on Telegram.

Zakharova
https://twitter.com/i/status/1771566048178852131

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“–most importantly– to bring the enemy to a halt and encourage it to engage in serious dialogue.”

• It’s Time For Russia To Give The West A Nuclear Reminder (Dmitry Trenin)

Strategic stability is usually understood as the absence of incentives for a nuclear-armed power to launch a massive first strike. Typically, it’s viewed primarily in military-technical terms. The reasons why an attack may be contemplated are usually not taken into account. This idea emerged in the middle of the last century, when the USSR had achieved military-strategic parity with the US and the Cold War between them had entered a “mature” phase of limited confrontation and some predictability. The solution to the problem of strategic stability was then seen in the constant maintenance of contacts between the political leadership of the two superpowers. Which led to arms control and transparency in arranging their respective arsenals. However, the first quarter of the 21st century is ending in conditions very different from the relative international political stability of the 1970s. The US-centric world order established after the end of the Cold War is being seriously challenged and its foundations are visibly shaken.

The global hegemony of Washington and the position of the collective West as a whole is weakening, while the economic, military, scientific and technological might and political importance of non-Western countries –first and foremost China, but also India– are growing. This is leading to a deterioration in relations between the US and other power centers. The two largest nuclear powers, Russia and the US, are in a state of semi-direct armed conflict. This confrontation is officially regarded in Russia as an existential threat. This situation has become possible as a result of the failure of strategic deterrence (in its geopolitical dimension) in an area where Russia’s vital interests are present. It should be noted that the main cause of the conflict is Washington’s conscious disregard –for three decades now– of Moscow’s clearly and explicitly expressed security interests. Moreover, in the Ukrainian conflict, the US military and political leadership has not only articulated, but has publicly expressed, the mission of using its proxy to inflict a strategic military defeat on Russia, despite its nuclear status.

This is a complex undertaking in which the collective economic, political, military, military-technical, intelligence and informational capacity of the West is integrated with the actions of the Ukrainian armed forces in direct combat against the Russian army. In other words, the US is trying to defeat Russia not only without using nuclear weapons, but even without formally engaging in hostilities. In this context, the declaration by the five nuclear powers on January 3, 2022, that “nuclear war should not be waged” and that “there can be no winners,” seems like a relic of the past. A proxy war between the nuclear powers is already underway; moreover, in the course of this conflict, more and more restrictions are being removed, both in terms of the weapon systems used and the participation of Western troops, as well as the geographical limits of the theater of war. It is possible to pretend that a certain ‘strategic stability’ is being maintained, but only if, like the US, a player sets the task of inflicting a strategic defeat on the enemy at the hands of its client state and expects that the enemy will not dare to use nuclear weapons.

Thus, the concept of strategic stability in its original form – the creation and maintenance of military-technical conditions to prevent a sudden massive nuclear strike – only partially retains its meaning under current conditions. Strengthening nuclear deterrence could be the solution to the real problem of restoring strategic stability, which has been seriously disrupted by the ongoing and escalating conflict. To begin with, it is worth rethinking the concept of deterrence and, in the process, changing its name. For example, instead of a passive, we should talk about an active form. The adversary should not remain in a state of comfort, believing that the war he is waging with the help of another country will not affect him in any way. In other words, it is necessary to put fear back into the minds and hearts of the enemy’s leaders. The beneficial sort of fear, it’s worth stressing.

It must also be recognized that the limits of purely verbal intervention have been exhausted at this stage of the Ukrainian conflict. Channels of communication all the way to the top must remain open around the clock, but the most important messages at this stage must be sent through concrete steps: doctrinal changes; military exercises to test them; underwater and aerial patrols along the coasts of the likely enemy; warnings about preparations for nuclear tests and the tests themselves; the imposition of no-fly zones over part of the Black Sea, and so on. The point of these actions is not only to demonstrate determination and readiness to use available capabilities to protect Russia’s vital interests, but –most importantly– to bring the enemy to a halt and encourage it to engage in serious dialogue.

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“..to prevent what has been until recently a conventional war contained within certain rules of conduct degenerating into a partisan war without rules..”

• “Crocus City Hall” Attack In Moscow Suburb And More (Doctorow)

The question of a shift from conventional warfare in which Ukrainian forces are being decimated, with or without Western military and financial help, to terrorist operations was already discussed in Western as well as Russian media a month ago when General Zaluzhny was about to be replaced as head of the Ukrainian military forces. There was speculation that his successor might well become Kirill Budanov, head of the Ukrainian military intelligence services and director of the campaign of sabotage and terror against Russia, which was even then yielding very impressive results while the regular army was floundering. Instead, Zelensky selected General Oleksandr Syrsky to replace Zaluzhny. Syrsky, as we know, was the general who threw away the lives of his soldiers in hopeless efforts to retain strategically unimportant towns and he has continued this military folly in the latest Ukrainian counter-attacks around Avdeevka.

Meanwhile, Budanov’s star has continued to rise. Yesterday’s carnage at the Crocus City Hall is only the latest and most publicized proof. ***** The Putin administration is clearly wary of pointing a finger at Kiev for this outrage. But the Russian public is surely going to put enormous pressure on the Kremlin to face up to the facts and to do something more than just another ‘revenge attack’ on Ukrainian military infrastructure such as was carried out several days ago in response to the latest Ukrainian incursions and missile attacks in the Russian border province of Belgorod, near Ukraine’s second city of Kharkov. There surely will be those Russian patriots who will call for a decapitating strike on Kiev to get rid of Zelensky and the neo-Nazis who de facto control his government at one blow. This has been achievable at any moment over the course of the past two years but was not done by the Kremlin for reasons that have nothing to do with its Christian faith guided humanitarian values.

No, the reason was to prevent what has been until recently a conventional war contained within certain rules of conduct degenerating into a partisan war without rules such as you commonly see in fratricidal military conflict. The fact today is that with the upsurge of spectacular terrorist attacks on and inside Russia Ukraine is de facto already engaged in all-out ‘partisan’ style warfare. The fact is that with the threat of a French directed invasion force entering Ukraine set out in the past week, with the delivery of F-16s to Kiev approaching, and with the delivery of nuclear enabled German Taurus cruise missiles still under discussion, the time for end-game division of what remains of Ukraine among the interested parties is here and now. The logic of the U.S. encouragement to Kiev to perpetrate exactly this kind of atrocity is obvious to anyone with eyes to see. It was precisely attacks like this, as for example during the Chechen wars and the Beslan school siege-massacre that Putin was enraged and responded violently. The decapitation of Kiev now will be very convenient also for Washington.

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“This must result in a clear Russian strengthening of military forces along the border with Finland.”

• Why Russia Won’t Cede Baltic Sea Positions (Sp.)

NATO is on a slippery slope towards further escalation after absorbing Finland and Sweden as Russia won’t stand by as the alliance tries to block its access to the Baltic Sea. That is according to Mikael Valtersson, former officer of Swedish Armed Forces, and former defense politician and chief of staff with Sweden Democrats. “NATO’s main goals in the Baltic Sea are to keep the sea and air lines open to Finland and the Baltic states in case of a conflict with Russia,” Valtersson told Sputnik. “Another important goal to do this is to deny Russian access to the Baltic Sea in case of conflict. This will make the situation for the Russian Kaliningrad enclave very difficult.” Tensions around the Baltic have escalated steadily, driven by NATO’s expansion since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. Poland fell under the alliance’s aegis in 1999 followed by Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania’s admission to NATO in 2004.

After previously-neutral Finland and Sweden joined the alliance, the Baltic Sea in principle became a ‘NATO sea’ with the exception of the two short Russian coastlines, the Swedish military veteran stressed Moscow has no other option but to respond to NATO getting closer to its borders by stepping up defenses of its north-western regions. Finland shares a 1,340 km (830-mile) border with Russia, making the matters particularly sensitive for both nations. In an interview with journalist Pavel Zarubin in December 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin noted that Moscow had revived the Leningrad Military District and started concentrating military units there. “The enlargement of NATO with the admission of Sweden and Finland as members has clearly increased Russian security concerns,” Valtersson exlplained. “The main problem is the membership of Finland in NATO, since its closeness to the naval facilities at the Kola Peninsula, transportation routes to the Kola Peninsula and St. Petersburg. This must result in a clear Russian strengthening of military forces along the border with Finland.”

“In the long run a number of military systems ought to be deployed. First of all a large amount of air defense, especially long distance, must be deployed to both defend Russian territory but also to greatly reduce NATO capability to use Finnish air space and reduce the usage of air transports over the Baltic Sea to the Baltic states,” the military expert continued. Another important aim for Russia, according to Valtersson, is to develop methods to reduce NATO access to the sea lanes in the Baltic Sea. He suggested that new technologies such as sea drones could be used to that end. The Swedish military veteran added that a third pillar of Russian defense would be long-range weapons, which could keep important ground targets in Finland and the Baltic states, especially arms depots, in the crosshairs.

“A fourth important question to solve is the precarious situation of supplying Kaliningrad,” Valtersson observed. “This must probably be solved by large prestorage of resources so the enclave can withstand isolation for a couple of months.” “A fifth and final question to solve is to secure Russian territory from ground attacks. To succeed in this a large number of ground units must be deployed along the border with Finland and the Baltic states,” he concluded. “Fortifications such as those that were so successful in the Zaporozhye area last summer must also be established, at least at important choke points.”

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“Here in Europe, the war is now being used to whip up popular enthusiasm for war mobilization of the domestic economies and subjugation of the populace to authoritarian and unlimited powers of the ruling elite..”

• US Whips Up Fear of Russian Bugaboo to ‘Subjugate Europe’ (Sp.)

European politicians are doing their best to continue ratcheting up tensions with Moscow, with French President Emmanuel Macron reiterating that he may send thousands of troops to Ukraine, Baltic politicians allying with Paris on the issue, and Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski saying it’s an “open secret” that NATO soldiers are already in the country. British and German media have done their part to add fuel the hysteria, citing a recent briefing to Bundestag lawmakers on purported plans by Russia to kick off a “full-scale ‘land, sea and air’ war” with NATO. “We hear threats from the Kremlin almost every day…so we have to take into account that Vladimir Putin might even attack a NATO country one day,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warned in an interview earlier this year. This week, Polish President Andrzej Duda claimed it was a matter “of common sense” that “Putin, by putting his economy on a war footing, will have such military might that he will be able to attack NATO.”

Meanwhile, his top general, Polish Armed Forces Chief of Staff Wieslaw Kukula, has alleged that Russia is actively “preparing for a conflict,” and urging Europe to do the same. Europe’s defenses are in an unenviable state. Facing a major economic downturn and a $61 billion spending shortfall after giving roughly the same amount away to Kiev for NATO’s proxy war against Russia, European military leaders have warned that they could be left “throwing stones” within hours of a major conflict breaking out as arms and ammo stocks round dry. But the question no Western officials or media have been able to answer is why Russia – which has over the past three decades expressed a preference for economic cooperation with Europe, rather than fighting its western neighbors, would be interested in invading NATO and almost certainly triggering World War III. “The whole of NATO cannot fail to understand that Russia has no reason, no interest – neither geopolitical, nor economic, nor political, nor military – to fight with NATO countries,” President Putin said in an interview in December, emphasizing that Moscow and the bloc “have no territorial claims against each other” and could live peacefully.

The problem may just be that Russia is taking the hysterical outbursts by NATO officials and Western media at face value, instead of searching for the ‘man behind the curtain’ seeking desperately to keep tensions in place. “For the United States, the war in Ukraine has failed as a means of weakening Russia so that they can proceed with preparations to fight China. But it has succeeded spectacularly as a means of subjugating Europe. Washington now firmly has its knees on the neck of Europe,” veteran international relations and Russian affairs expert Dr. Gilbert Doctorow told Sputnik. Economically and politically, the US has been able to extract major concessions from the Europeans over the past two years, plucking hundreds of manufacturers from the continent thanks to an energy crisis sparked by the bloc’s “suicidal” decision to cut off Russian energy supplies, forcing the EU to purchase American LNG at four times the cost, and even trying to saddle Brussels with economic and military aid to Ukraine as Congress remains deadlocked over a $61 billion aid package.

“Here in Europe, the war is now being used to whip up popular enthusiasm for war mobilization of the domestic economies and subjugation of the populace to authoritarian and unlimited powers of the ruling elite,” Doctorow said. “What remains of free speech and other freedoms can be snuffed out in war hysteria. Moreover, the war fever is being used by [European Commission President Ursula] von der Leyen and the EU Commission in a bid to draw more power into Brussels at the expense of the national governments,” Doctorow warned. “Some countries are resisting, for example Prime Minister [Mark] Rutte of the Netherlands and even the mealy-mouthed German Chancellor [Olaf Scholz, ed.] are publicly opposed to the proposal of a European debt issuance to finance subsidies to the military production companies, all in spite of van der Leyen. Meanwhile, Macron is on the other side, pushing for greater European centralization for which is the proposed common investment in defense is a nice instrument,” the observer added.

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“..we promote the settlement movement with hard work and in a strategic manner across the country..”

• Israel Announces Major Land Grab In West Bank (RT)

The Israeli government has designated nearly 2,000 acres in the West Bank as state-owned land in a move described by rights groups as the biggest land grab on occupied Palestinian territories in decades. The expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank is illegal under international law. In 2016, the UN Security Council described them as “a major obstacle to the vision of two States living side-by-side in peace and security.” Nevertheless, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich argued that the declaration of state-owned land in the Jordan Valley on Friday was “an important and strategic issue.”

“While there are those in Israel and the world who seek to undermine our right to Judea and Samaria and the country in general, we promote the settlement movement with hard work and in a strategic manner across the country,” Smotrich said in a statement, as quoted by the Times of Israel. According to local media, the designation of plots of land as Israeli paves a way for the construction of settler houses, as well as for commercial development. Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now described the declaration as the largest since the 1993 Oslo Accords, adding that “the year 2024 marks a peak in the extent of declarations of state land.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government gave a green light to the construction of more than 3,400 new settler homes this month, drawing more criticism from the UN and the Palestinian Authority.

“The West Bank is already in crisis. Yet, settler violence and settlement-related violations have reached shocking new levels, and risk eliminating any practical possibility of establishing a viable Palestinian State,” UN human rights chief Volker Turk said in his report to the Security Council on March 8. Smotrich said in February that the expansion of settlements was a legitimate response to Palestinian terrorist attacks. “Our enemies know that any harm to us will lead to more construction and more development and more of our hold all over the country,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

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“It’s like a boa constrictor that’s tightening and tightening around the United States..”

• China Behind Pan American Highway (ET)

If it’s ever completed, the Pan American Highway will stretch about 18,000 miles from Alaska to Argentina, opening up a land corridor the length of the Americas. It has gone unfinished for decades due to American and Panamanian concerns over the environment, crime, and disease—and more recently mass migration. The dangerous, rugged terrain acts as a natural barrier to travel from South to Central America. The bridge and road expansion will end near the town of Bocas de Cupe, in the Darién Gap. However, bridging the rivers has been considered one of the major obstacles blocking completion of the highway. The new project has worried some who fear completing the road into the Darién Gap will be a win for China and a loss for America.

Michael Yon, a former war correspondent, has been covering mass migration through Panama for several years and has used social media to bring attention to the bridge’s construction and its implications. China would benefit through an alternate trade route around the Panama Canal, which is essential to global trade. But for the United States, it could open the floodgates to migrants from South America, he told the Epoch Times. Meanwhile, U.S. leaders have grown increasingly wary of the military implications tied to Chinese infrastructure projects being built in America’s backyard as part of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), particularly around the Panama Canal. In 2018, Panama signed on to China’s ambitious BRI project, dubbed a modern Silk Road, after publicly recognizing Taiwan as part of China, much to the surprise and concern of the United States.

The CCP aims to utilize the BRI “to amass power and influence at the expense of the world’s democracies,” U.S. Southern Command Commander Army Gen. Laura Richardson warned in March. She and other commanders in recent years have been sounding the alarm about China’s incursion into the Western Hemisphere. China “seeks to supplant the United States as the world’s leading economic and military power,” Gen. Richardson noted in a written statement to the House Armed Services Committee. Mike Howell, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, believes China’s economic development in the region threatens America’s influence and security. “If China displaces the U.S. in the Western hemisphere as the dominant economic power, then we lose our leverage,” Mr. Howell, formerly an attorney with the Department of Homeland Security, told The Epoch Times. China is encircling the United States with infrastructure in Latin America and the Caribbean, Mr. Howell said. “It’s like a boa constrictor that’s tightening and tightening around the United States,” he said.

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“..when a man takes an oath, he’s holding his own self in his own hands like water, and if he opens his fingers then, he needn’t hope to find himself again.”

“The Democrats have allowed their very identity to drip through their open fingers..”

• Sir Thomas More and the Biden Corruption Scandal (Turley)

In the 1966 movie “A Man for All Seasons,” Sir Thomas More faces Richard Rich, an ambitious office seeker who would ultimately lie and betray him. In this British historical drama, More warns Rich that “when a man takes an oath, he’s holding his own self in his own hands like water, and if he opens his fingers then, he needn’t hope to find himself again.” This week, Democrats appear to have finally drained away what remained of themselves and their party. For years, Democratic members and the media have demanded any evidence of the direct involvement or knowledge of President Joe Biden of the influence-peddling operation of his son, Hunter, and his brothers, James and Frank. In the hearing, witnesses testified under oath about specific meetings with Joe Biden discussing these foreign dealings and the family business interests. Bank records were introduced showing the transfers of millions going to Hunter and various Biden family members.

Faced with the evidence that the president lied about his lack of any knowledge or involvement in the influence peddling, the Democrats opened their fingers wider. Rep. Dan Goldman, D., N.Y., captured the problem for Democrats in even addressing any of the mounting evidence contradicting the president. Yet, Goldman has long shown a willingness to rush in where angels fear to tread. In previous attacks, Goldman repeatedly hit the Bidens with friendly fire when eliciting damaging answers from witnesses. Goldman has a habit of raising the worst evidence that his colleagues have avoided. In one hearing, he stumbled badly in raising the WhatsApp message where Hunter told a Chinese businessman that his father was sitting next to him and would not be pleased unless he sent him money. On another occasion, he prompted an IRS whistleblower to note that an email Goldman read into the record was actually a direct contradiction of the denials of the president.

In the latest misstep, Goldman pressed former Biden partner Tony Bobulinski on a proposal shared with Hunter and others to reserve 10% for “the Big Guy.” In other emails, Bobulinski was told to use such codes to avoid mentioning Joe Biden’s name. He was expressly identified as “the Big Guy.” Goldman snapped at Bobulinski, “Did anyone ever respond to that email?” Bobulinski responded “Yes, they did numerous times. Hunter himself did.” Goldman blurted out “you’re right” before angrily reclaiming his time to cut him off. Things did not prove any easier for other members. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D., N.Y., imploded by mocking Bobulinski and challenging him “It is simple, you name the crime. Did you watch him steal something?”

Bobulinski proceeded to rattle off a series of possible criminal acts and Ocasio-Cortez cut him off. She then bizarrely pretended that he did not just list the crimes and barked “What is the crime, sir? Specifically?” Bobulinski was not the only one confused and noted “you ask and answer the question, I answered the question, RICO, you’re obviously not familiar with…” That is when Ocasio-Cortez again cut him off with “Excuse me, sir. Excuse me, sir. Excuse me, sir. RICO is not a crime, it is a category. What is the crime?” With that, it appears that Trump has now been cleared of charges in Atlanta by no one other than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Racketeering is a crime and some of the crimes referenced by Bobulinski are commonly part of such conspiracies. The exchange captured the lunacy of the hearing as Democrats demanded evidence and then ignored it when it was repeatedly offered by witnesses and members.

Yet, Ocasio-Cortez was illuminating on one point. Neither she nor her colleagues were willing to admit the obvious. Few people now disagree that Hunter was openly engaging in influence peddling, which is a form of corruption that the government has long fought around the world. It is also clear that Joe Biden knew of that influence peddling not just from his son but newspaper accounts. He had knowledge of the corruption and facilitated it.However, Ocasio-Cortez wanted to ignore the millions of dollars acquired in influence peddling to press a witness on whether he saw the president steal something like a purse or a hubcap. The Democrats have allowed their very identity to drip through their open fingers. They have become a party that calls for censorship, ballot cleansing, and court packing. Now they are dismissing allegations of raw influence peddling after opposing every effort to investigate it.

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“..hese legislative attempts to redefine and criminalize speech are a backdoor attempt to rewrite the Constitution and render the First Amendment’s robust safeguards null.”

• How The Police State Muzzles Our Right To Speak Truth To Power (Whitehead)

Tyrants don’t like people who speak truth to power. Cue the rise of protest laws, which take the government’s intolerance for free speech to a whole new level and send the resounding message that resistance is futile. In fact, ever since the Capitol protests on Jan. 6, 2021, state legislatures have introduced a broad array of these laws aimed at criminalizing protest activities. There have been at least 205 proposed laws in 45 states aimed at curtailing the right to peacefully assemble and protest by expanding the definition of rioting, heightening penalties for existing offenses, or creating new crimes associated with assembly. Weaponized by police, prosecutors, courts and legislatures, these protest laws, along with free speech zones, bubble zones, trespass zones, anti-bullying legislation, zero tolerance policies, hate crime laws, and a host of other legalistic maladies have become a convenient means by which to punish individuals who refuse to be muzzled.

In Florida, for instance, legislators passed a “no-go” zone law making it punishable by up to 60 days in jail to remain within 25 feet of working police and other first responders after a warning. Yet while the growing numbers of protest laws cropping up across the country are sold to the public as necessary to protect private property, public roads or national security, they are a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a thinly disguised plot to discourage anyone from challenging government authority at the expense of our First Amendment rights. It doesn’t matter what the source of that discontent might be (police brutality, election outcomes, COVID-19 mandates, the environment, etc.): protest laws, free speech zones, no-go zones, bubble zones, trespass zones, anti-bullying legislation, zero tolerance policies, hate crime laws, etc., aim to muzzle every last one of us.

To be very clear, these legislative attempts to redefine and criminalize speech are a backdoor attempt to rewrite the Constitution and render the First Amendment’s robust safeguards null and void. No matter how you package these laws, no matter how well-meaning they may sound, no matter how much you may disagree with the protesters or sympathize with the objects of the protest, these proposed laws are aimed at one thing only: discouraging dissent. This is the painful lesson being imparted with every incident in which someone gets arrested and charged with any of the growing number of contempt charges (ranging from resisting arrest and interference to disorderly conduct, obstruction, and failure to obey a police order) that get trotted out anytime a citizen voices discontent with the government or challenges or even questions the authority of the powers-that-be.

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“Why in the world would anyone want to rent one of these things rather than a gas-powered car? You might be better off with a horse and carriage.”

• The Hertz Meltdown Reveals the Scale of the EV Debacle (Jeffrey Tucker)

The Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has revealed its ambition: to phase out gas-powered cars in favor of electric vehicles (EVs). Incredibly, this announcement comes as we are flooded with overwhelming evidence that EVs are a market loser. Indeed, the artificial boom and then meltdown of the EV market is a modern industrial calamity. It was created by government, social media, wild disease frenzy, far-flung thinking, and the irrational chasing of utopia, followed by a rude awakening by facts and reality. CEO of Hertz Stephen Scherr has been booted out due to a vast purchase of an EV fleet that consumers didn’t even want to rent. The company has now been forced to sell them at a deep discount and in a market where consumers are not particularly interested. Looking back, however, Scherr’s decision to bet everything on an EV boom was a disaster that was highly praised at the time.

Only last year, the company bragged: “This morning, [Hertz] was recognized by The White House for our efforts to expand access to electric vehicles across the country. Demand for EV rentals is growing and we’re here to help our customers electrify their travels.” Pleasing the Biden administration is not the same as pleasing consumers. The demand turned south fast in a real-world test of drivers. But that’s not all. Hertz could not make their investment pay no matter what they did. The key issues with EVs are as follows. The cost upfront is much higher. Financing charges are higher. They depreciate at a higher rate than internal combustion cars. The insurance is more expensive, by at least 25 percent. Repairs are much more expensive, if you can get them done at all, and take longer. Tires are more expensive and don’t last as long because the car is so heavy. Refueling is not easy and missteps here can have nightmarish consequences. They are more likely to catch fire. Any motor vehicle accident that impacts the battery can lead to repairs higher than the value of the car, that is totaled with so much as a scratch.

To top it all over, there is no longer any financial advantage to the driver. It now costs slightly more to charge under many conditions than to refuel with gasoline. The novelty of driving one for a day wears off after the first day. At first they seem like the greatest thing that ever happened, like an iPhone with wheels. That’s great but then the problems crop up and people start to realize that they are fine for urban commutes with home chargers and not much else. They make truly terrible rentals. Obviously, under rental conditions, people have to use charging stations rather than a charger in the garage. That means spending part of your vacation figuring out where to find one. Not all are superchargers, and if it is a regular charger, you are looking at an overnight wait. If you do find a station with fast chargers, you might have to wait in line. They might not work. You waste hours doing this. And you likely have to reroute your trip even to find a station without any certainty that you will get a spot with a functioning charger.

No one wants to do this. When you rent a car, all you want is a car that goes the distance. And typically car rentals are for going some distance else you would just take a taxi or a Lyft from the airport. You might need to drive several hours. And god forbid that this takes place in cold weather because that can reduce your mileage by half. Your whole trip will be ruined. Why in the world would anyone want to rent one of these things rather than a gas-powered car? You might be better off with a horse and carriage. Did Hertz think of any of this before they spent $250M on a fleet? Nope. They were just doing the fashionable thing. Again, I’m not knocking some uses for EVs. If you think of them as enclosed and souped up golf carts, you get the idea. They can be wonderful for certain urban environments so long as you don’t overuse them and have to get them repaired. You also have to be in a financial position to afford the higher costs all around, from financing to insurance to repairs and tires. And you have to be prepared to take a big loss on resale, if you can even manage to find a buyer.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Kory

 

 

Kate?!
https://twitter.com/i/status/1771395851031834888
AI?!
https://twitter.com/i/status/1771242436691366012

 

 

 

 

Baboon

 

 

Storm oil

 

 

Frens

 

 

Mama elephant
https://twitter.com/i/status/1771517926442484209

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle January 17 2024

Jan 172024
 
 January 17, 2024  Posted by at 9:40 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  57 Responses »


Salvador Dalí The persistence of memory 1931

 

• The US, Israel Have Lost Battlefield Control (Helmer)
• The West Bank is a Ticking Time Bomb (Cradle)
• Netanyahu Wants To Wipe Out All Palestinians – Former Nigerian FM (RT)
• South Africa to Sue US and UK as Complicit in Gaza Genocide (Telesur)
• War On Gaza – Iran Demonstrates Its Means Of Self-Defense (MoA)
• Congress Asleep as Biden Makes War on Yemen (Ron Paul)
• Biden Admin Wants Ukraine to Switch Proxy War Strategy ‘to Defense’ (Sp.)
• Zelensky Threatens Putin’s Grandchildren (RT)
• West’s Lunatic Woke Agenda Spills Over Into Bystander Serbia (Karganovic)
• How Davos Locals Gouge The Global Elite (RT)
• US Scrambling To Check China’s ‘Charm Offensive’ In Davos (RT)
• German Government Seeks To Downplay Protesting Workers’ Plight (Marsden)
• MSNBC Host: Iowa Proves White Christians are Racists (Turley)
• Art Dealer Testifies that Hunter Expressly Asked for Buyer Information (Turley)
• An Anniversary West Would Rather Forget (Bhadrakumar)

 

 

 

 

Tucker Iowa Excellent

 

 

Derkach
https://twitter.com/i/status/1745239534332440966

 

 

 

 

Zel Davos

 

 

Lazarus

 

 

 

 

“..for success two major problems must be solved — dislocation and exploitation. One precedes and one follows the actual blow — which in comparison is a simple act.”

• The US, Israel Have Lost Battlefield Control (Helmer)

When your enemy dupes you into compounding your mistakes, without achieving your military objectives, he is leading you into an escalation of force which will defeat you, sooner or later. Later is more costly, defeat more ruinous, so the Arab-Iranian alliance against Israel and the US is waging the long war they were never before believed capable to fight. No matter how much force you use, every US Army manual on winning battles and wars says the same thing. Captain B.H. Liddell Hart, the British Army strategist of a generation ago, advised that “for success two major problems must be solved — dislocation and exploitation. One precedes and one follows the actual blow — which in comparison is a simple act.” Today is Tuesday morning — and it is already plain on the Middle Eastern battlefield that the Anglo-American air attacks against Yemeni targets of Friday and Saturday have “dislocated” none of the capabilities of the Ansarallah government in Sanaa and the Houthi military units.

For exploitation after the air strikes, the initiative has remained instead with the Houthis: they are continuing their attacks on the US Navy fleet in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, keeping them on guard, but demonstrating they are ineffectual to protect US and Israel-connected shipping now diverting from the area. “War is a two-party affair,” old Liddell Hart had said, “in order to hit with effect, the enemy must be taken off his guard.” In the Middle East the enemy has been taken off his guard. That’s to say, the Israelis, the Americans, and the British. Minutes after midnight on Tuesday, Moscow time, Russian military bloggers began relaying the news from Iran and Yemen of new missile attacks against a Greek-American owned bulker in the Gulf of Aden during the afternoon, and hours later at night, a US mercenary forces unit, a US consulate building, an Israeli base, and the home of a leading oil trader in the Kurdish city of Erbil in northern Iraq.

According to Boris Rozhin’s Colonel Cassad Telegram platform, “the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has officially announced that the ballistic missile attack on US and Mossad bases in Iraq was carried out in response to the bloody terrorist attack in Kerman during commemorative events dedicated to Qassem Soleimani. Local sources in Erbil report at least 8 rocket strikes… At the moment, what is known is that there have been strikes against of the following targets by IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] missiles: 1. The American base at Erbil airport. 2. The U.S. Consulate in Erbil. 3. The local headquarters of the Kurdish security service. 4. The private residence of a local businessman [Peshraw Dizayee] associated with the Mossad. There is a high activity of ambulances in Erbil. There is no clarity about the victims, but it is obvious that there will be numbers of them.”

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“..the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements and the forced displacement of Palestinians undermine security in the occupied West Bank, and will not make Israel safer..”

• The West Bank is a Ticking Time Bomb (Cradle)

Alongside the military assault on Gaza, extremist religious parties in Israel’s government coalition seized a strategic opportunity after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood to launch a systematic displacement agenda in the occupied West Bank. This stealthy policy was facilitated by several factors, notably, the escalation of settler violence post-7 October, increased political pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the vise-like leverage that settler-extremists enjoy over Israel’s ruling coalition and key governmental institutions, particularly the Ministry of Finance As an example, nearly $250 million of the national budget earmarked for war expenses in December 2023 was directed by Israel’s radical Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich toward settlement projects in the West Bank.

Immediately after its announcement, the EU criticized the settlement-funding provisions of the revised budget, rightly arguing that the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements and the forced displacement of Palestinians undermine security in the occupied West Bank, and will not make Israel safer. In response, Tel Aviv significantly tightened its grip on West Bank Palestinians. This involved obstructing Palestinian workers from employment in Israel and the finance minister’s refusal to transfer Palestinian clearance funds to the Palestinian Authority (PA) to pay Gaza’s worker salaries. On the military front, Israeli has launched a frenzied campaign on the West Bank since 7 October, resulting in the death of hundreds and arrest of over 6,000 Palestinians. Acts of violence, forced displacement of civilians, and armed settler attacks – enabled by weapon transfers from Israel’s extremist National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir – escalated dramatically across the occupied territory.

Ben Gvir, who fronts the hidden agenda of nationalist and religious parties in the coalition government, used the Al-Aqsa Flood events to displace 25 Palestinian Bedouin communities, including 266 families in the eastern foothills near Ramallah and the Jordan Valley. Already this year, under pressure from his extremist allies, Netanyahu has halted demolitions of illegal Jewish outposts in the West Bank, going against the recommendation of Defense Minister Yoav Galant who is trying to ease tensions in the West Bank while conflict rages on Israel’s northern and southern fronts. In early January, Smotrich and Ben Gvir publicly called for the displacement of Gazans to make way for the return of Zionist settlers to the Gaza Strip for the first time since their 2005 expulsion. Their belligerent comments sparked a new rift with the US administration of Joe Biden, which has sharply criticized “inflammatory and irresponsible” rhetoric from Tel Aviv.

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“South Africa’s role in the world is a ‘mandalisation..’”

• Netanyahu Wants To Wipe Out All Palestinians – Former Nigerian FM (RT)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to eliminate all Palestinians and move them to Sinai, former Nigerian foreign minister Bolaji Akinyemi told RT in an exclusive interview as Pretoria’s genocide case against Israel continues before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Akinyemi, who served as external affairs minister from 1985 to 1987, said South Africa was carrying “a heavy load” because Pretoria “will not expect material reward” in taking Israel to the ICJ, accusing it of genocide against Palestinians. “South Africa’s role in the world is a ‘mandalisation,’” he added. The term ‘mandalisation’ is associated with Nelson Mandela, who repeatedly refused deals for his release from prison until the world saw the country’s problems. “[Nelson Mandela] was stubborn,” Akinyemi added.

The former minister believes that “Netanyahu wants to wipe out all the Palestinians, not just Hamas, [and what] he really wants to do is to drive them into Sinai.” He argued that Hamas is a product of “Israeli aggression and occupation.” Akinyemi suggested that the main decision of the ICJ won’t be delivered for a few years, “by which time the war is over, the Palestinians will have been wiped out, or Israel will have done whatever it is that it needs to do.” For this reason, it is “important that the ICJ [delivers] an interim ruling within weeks,” Akinyemi stated.

“If you want to stop the Hamas resistance, Israel has to recognize the fact that the Palestinians must have a home of their own. The two-state solution is the solution,” the former Nigerian minister concluded. On Thursday, the ICJ began hearing South Africa’s case in The Hague, which claims that Israel has committed genocide against the Palestinians. South African lawyers at the ICJ stated that the latest Gaza war is a result of Israeli oppression of Palestinians for decades. However, the allegations have been vehemently denied by Israel. South Africa is asking for a preliminary ruling to compel Israel to stop its military campaign in Gaza.

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A 47-lawyers team..

• South Africa to Sue US and UK as Complicit in Gaza Genocide (Telesur)

On Monday, South African lawyers handling the Genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) announced that they are preparing a separate lawsuit against the United States and the United Kingdom for complicity in Zionist war crimes. The new legal action would aim to bring those complicit in the genocide before civil courts, said Wikus Van Rensburg, who said that the team of South African lawyers has maintained contact with American and British lawyers to finalize the new judicial action. Even if the U.S. does not accept the ICJ ruling, it should at least receive sanctions as happened with Germany, a country that is still paying compensation for the Holocaust. The United States must now be held accountable for the crimes it committed,’ says Van Rensburg, who is leading the 47-lawyers team.

“We intend to bring legal proceedings against the U.S. Government based on overwhelming evidence that the U.S. Government has, and is, aiding, abetting and supporting, encouraging or providing material assistance and means to Israel and the Israeli Defense Forces. This conduct by the U.S. Government has enabled and continues to enable Israel to engage in international crimes against the Palestinian people,” the South African lawyers said in a letter sent to US President Joe Biden on January 2. “These crimes resulted in, among others, the displacement of the Palestinian people from their homes and property, destruction of Palestinian property, theft of Palestinian land and which facilitate and assist Israel in committing the ongoing and current war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and intentional killing of innocent civilians, including men, women, children and babies as well as the elderly and disabled.”

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“..Iran has shown that it can hit all of Israel with well targeted attacks without having to deploy any soldiers abroad..”

• War On Gaza – Iran Demonstrates Its Means Of Self-Defense (MoA)

During the one hundred days of war by Israel on all people in Gaza the members of the ‘resistance axis’ responded to the onslaught. Hamas in Gaza successfully attacked invading Israeli forces. Even yesterday it still launched missiles from north Gaza towards Israel. Hizbullah in Lebanon attacked Israel on its border. Iraqi resistance groups attacked U.S. bases in Syria and Iraq. The Houthi in Yemen attacked ships related to Israel. The U.S./Israel axis escalated from there. Israel killed Hamas officials who openly lived in Beirut. It also killed an IRGC official in Syria and a Hizbullah official in Lebanon. The U.S. bombed the Houthi as well as resistance groups in Iraq and Syria. An ISIS attack, likely instigated by the U.S., killed some 100 people in Kerman, Iran.

After the U.S. attacked Iraqi resistance groups in Syria and Iraq these intensified their attacks on U.S. bases. Hizbullah slowly incremented its responses to Israeli attacks on Lebanon. After the U.S. bombing in Yemen the Houthi responded by adding U.S. and UK related ships to their target list. Yesterday a U.S. owned ship was hit by a Houthi missile. The resistance axis is a collection of groups loosely connected to Iran. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp has trained these groups. But it did much more than the usual U.S. military training would do. The IRGC encouraged the groups to contact each other and to exchange knowledge. They now cooperate on all levels. Iran brought in new technologies and weapons and taught each group on how to make their own copies. Today Hizbullah intelligence people teach Houthi how to systematically interpret U.S. actions. Houthi and Iraqis exchange missile and drone building plans.

The axis of resistance has become an assembly of quite autonomous entities who no longer depend on deliveries or orders from Iran. But they all follow the same anti-colonial ideology. The U.S. tried to interrupt the resistance development by, in 2020, killing Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the IRGC and founder of the resistance axis. It was in vain. The resistance was already too developed. It continued to grew on its own despite U.S. attempts of interference. After Soleimani’s death Iranian support for its resistance partners increased: “When President Donald J. Trump ordered the killing of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the leader of the Quds Force, in 2020, “Iran’s response to the assassination of its national hero was very measured,” noted Adnan Tabatabai, an expert on Middle East politics who focuses on Iran-Saudi relations. What followed, Mr. Tabatabai said, was “what I would refer to as a severe deterrence crisis for Iran, because in the following two years in particular, Israel carried out the most humiliating operations on Iranian soil.” They included sabotage around the Natanz nuclear enrichment site and the remote-control assassination of the scientist at the heart of the nuclear program.”

But in the four years since, Iran has deepened and sharply improved its proxy forces, supplying them with new generations of weapons, the capability to assemble their own arms and more training. Until yesterday all but one member of the resistance axis had responded to the Israeli attack. Last night Iran itself finally joined in. It fired ballistic missiles from Iran on two far away targets. The headquarter of the ISIS related Turkestan Islamic Party in Idleb, Syria, was destroyed. A headquarter of al-Qaeda aligned Hayad Tahrir al-Sham was also hit.

Another barrage of missiles came down (vid) in the city of Erbil in the Kurdish north of Iraq. The house of Peshraw Dizayee, a rich Kurdish businessman, was hit and destroyed. Dizayee did a lot of business with the U.S. and was involved in selling oil from the Kurdish region of Iraq through Turkey to Israel. Iran claims that his house was used as a base for the Israeli Mossad. That is at least plausible. The shortest trajectory from Iran to Idleb in Syria is at least 1,200 kilometers. Iran thus demonstrated that it can reliably hit targets at that distance. The missiles used, named Khaybar Shekan, have a top reach of 1,450 kilometers. These attacks are a warning to Israel and the U.S. Iran has shown that it can hit all of Israel with well targeted attacks without having to deploy any soldiers abroad. Should Iran be attacked, it has the will and the means to respond in kind.

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“Far from taking action against this illegal move by an out-of-control president, Congress as a body couldn’t even see fit to criticize the Administration..”

• Congress Asleep as Biden Makes War on Yemen (Ron Paul)

Late last week President Biden started a new US war on the tiny country of Yemen. US warships and fighter jets launched more than a hundred missiles at the country in a massive escalation that the Administration bizarrely claimed would “de-escalate” tensions in the Red Sea. Taking the US to war without a Congressional declaration of war is a grave crime against the Constitution. Not only did Biden show no interest in coming to Congress for a war declaration, he didn’t even ask for authorization. Together with Washington’s reliable junior partner in war, the UK, Biden attacked Yemen. It seems the US Administration consulted more with the UK government than with the US Congress on the attacks. But that’s not really the worst part. Far from taking action against this illegal move by an out-of-control president, Congress as a body couldn’t even see fit to criticize the Administration.

On the contrary, Congressional leadership in both bodies actually applauded President Biden for brazenly violating US law! House Speaker Mike Johnson not only praised the illegal move, he urged the President to go further and confront Iran. He said, “This action by U.S. and British forces is long overdue, and we must hope these operations indicate a true shift in the Biden Administration’s approach to Iran and its proxies that are engaging in such evil and wreaking such havoc.” To their credit, several Members of Biden’s own party joined with a handful of Republican colleagues to denounce a US president taking the country to war without the authority to do so. California Rep. Ro Khanna was one of the first Democrats to criticize Biden’s warmaking, stating, “The President’s strikes in Yemen are unconstitutional.

For over a month, he consulted an international coalition to plan them, but never came to Congress to seek authorization as required by Article I of the Constitution.” The Framers of the Constitution gave war-making power to Congress because they understood that leaving such power in the hands of one person was a recipe for disaster. The role of the president is to make the case for a war declaration. Congress deliberates and either authorizes or refuses the proposed action. Washington has obviously not learned the lessons of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and all the other failed US interventions over the past 20 years. Why do we keep losing wars? Because we do not go into wars according to the US Constitution. This war will be no different.

The Houthis in Yemen withstood years of attacks from the Saudis using the latest US weaponry and came out on top. To this point they have not been targeting US vessels in the Red Sea, but only ships heading to or from Israeli ports. They are doing so in opposition to Israel’s destruction of Gaza. In short, it was never our war. But now, with this attack, Biden has made it our war. So we are left with the strange and sad spectacle of Congress asleep at the wheel as a Defense Secretary launches military strikes from his hospital bed in the service of a president clearly not in his prime. All this in pursuit of a policy that makes no sense and is leading us closer to a major war in the Middle East that will only harm, not serve, the US national interest.

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“..a fundamental question — where is their money, the money of American taxpayers, spent, and whether the astronomical sums that were spent for last year were allocated to the Kiev regime. Did these amounts help achieve any results?”

• Biden Admin Wants Ukraine to Switch Proxy War Strategy ‘to Defense’ (Sp.)

The Biden administration wants Ukraine to switch its strategy in the ongoing proxy war against Russia “from offense to defense,” Andreas Kluth, a columnist for Bloomberg, has written. Ukraine botched the counteroffensive launched last summer despite the billions’ worth of NATO military aid, “frustrating Washington.” Hence, the regime in Kiev is to get new instructions from its “puppet-masters.” The new “assignment” from the White House is reportedly to be delivered by US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan as he meets with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos. Russia’s forces are “too well dug in, and the Ukrainians have lost too many soldiers and used up too much ammo,” the columnist admitted. “Offense is always harder than defense, but for Ukraine it may now be out of the question,” he noted succinctly.

But even the defense tactic will only work if the US, Europe “keep sending drones, missiles and bullets,” Kluth noted, as enthusiasm for propping up Kiev wanes. “There can be no optimism in Davos” on Ukraine this year, the columnist summed up. Zelensky, who continues to be in denial over Ukraine’s battlefield results (or rather, lack thereof) will not like what he hears from Sullivan, the author surmised. However, he can be expected to slug down that bitter-tasting edict and continue what he does best: harangue Western allies over insufficient aid. US President Joe Biden has requested $106 billion in supplemental funds, of which more than $60 billion would be intended for Ukraine. However, the request prompted deadlock on Capitol Hill as Congressional Republicans have been demanding stricter immigration policies and strengthening border security in exchange for approving the additional aid for Ukraine.

More and more officials in the United States are questioning the efficacy of spending astronomical sums of money to support Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “We see that internal debates and internal processes continue in the United States, more and more representatives of the political establishment are interested in, well, probably such a fundamental question — where is their money, the money of American taxpayers, spent, and whether the astronomical sums that were spent for last year were allocated to the Kiev regime. Did these amounts help achieve any results?” Peskov told reporters.

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“..Putin will not “rest in peace, both in this world and in the next,” said Zelensky. “Neither his children, nor his grandchildren.”

• Zelensky Threatens Putin’s Grandchildren (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has threatened Russian President Vladimir Putin’s entire family with “criminal trials” and long prison sentences, during a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday. Zelensky’s address to the gathering of aspiring global leaders focused on asking for more weapons, money, and ammunition so he could continue to fight Russia. At one point, however, he made a reference to the Russian leader’s family. Putin will not “rest in peace, both in this world and in the next,” said Zelensky. “Neither his children, nor his grandchildren.” The Russian leader is “the sole reason why various wars and conflicts persist” and he must be held accountable so his “aggression” doesn’t embolden other “autocracies,” Zelensky insisted.

“Yes, we are not terrorists, and therefore these will be criminal trials,” after which Putin and his entire family would spend “a long, multi-year vacation” behind bars, he added. Zelensky has repeatedly insisted that Ukraine does not engage in terrorism, while admitting he would have Putin assassinated if the opportunity arose. The Ukrainian security service, the SBU, has operated a dedicated assassination unit since 2015, according to its former chief. The Washington Post recently highlighted the SBU’s campaign of assassinations while attempting to deflect any blame from the CIA, which is deeply embedded in Ukrainian intelligence. Ukraine has targeted local Russian officials, as well as journalists such as Darya Dugina and Vladlen Tatarsky.

Writer Zakhar Prilepin survived an assassination attempt, while Russian security services thwarted a SBU hit on RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan in November. Zelensky’s mention of Putin’s grandchildren came just a day after Anne Applebaum – an American journalist and wife of Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski – claimed that the Russian president “has a grandson with Dutch citizenship.” Her source was an associate of Alexey Navalny, a Russian blogger imprisoned for embezzlement. The Russian president was married from 1983 to 2013 and has two daughters, who have stayed out of the media spotlight. His ex-wife, Lyudmila Ocheretnaya, was sanctioned by the UK in 2022.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1747285549201649818

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“Let Serbia serve as an instructive case study, foreshadowing the contours of the coming dystopia.”

• West’s Lunatic Woke Agenda Spills Over Into Bystander Serbia (Karganovic)

Not one of the items that follow will strike a typical resident of the “collective West,” aka the 14 percent of the world that styles itself the “international community,” as inherently improbable or even odd in many instances. They have grown accustomed to it; it is part of their everyday landscape. Here, for illustrative purposes, is a select but representative sample of policies and prescribed behaviours that in that bizarre but thankfully shrinking part of the world have come to constitute the new normal.

1/ In order to maintain the fiction that in their attributes men and women are physiologically indistinguishable, the Canadian government has mandated the installation of tampon dispensers in men’s bathrooms. The empirical fact that men have no use for tampons is trumped by ideology, which dictates categorically that they do because it is dogmatically prescribed that men do menstruate and are furthermore able to give birth to babies. People who believe themselves to be something they are not, and claim that their subjective self-perception overrides reality, are politically empowered to cancel empirical observation and the conclusions reached by scientists who perform accurate, verifiable research.

2/ Also on the ideological reality chopping block is terminology that points to pre-woke, common sense notions about natural relations between human beings. “Mother” and “father, “expressions that allude to the manifestly different roles of parents in the process of conception and nurture of offspring, in the woke-controlled universe have been forcibly replaced by designations “parent no. 1” and “parent no. 2,” invented to hide those facts. Now the Methodist Church of Great Britain has gone a step farther, to label terms “husband” and “wife” offensive. Inspired by inclusivity, the technical rationale for this departure from normalcy is “to avoid making assumptions” that are not “the reality for many people.”

3/ The avant-garde state of California has passed a law that takes effect this year, AB 1084, requiring large retail stores to include gender neutral toy sections or face fines and other punishments. The new law will place an additional undue burden on retailers and will have the foreseeable economic impact of raising the price of toys generally for normal families and their children. Incidentally, it is anybody’s guess what the definition of gender neutral toys is and whether there is a market for such items. But in a parallel universe governed by ideological delusions these are inconsequential details.

4/ In Britain, the country where the novel 1984, which introduced the notion of thought crime, had been written, the first literal thought crime prosecutions have recently been instituted. Isabel Vaughan Spruce, Director of UK March for Life, so far has been cited by the police three times and taken to court for silently praying in front of abortion clinics. Readers should note that her arrests were triggered not by speech or conduct but for an “objectionable” activity that was purely mental. British authorities did not contest her right as a citizen (or royal subject, if you wish) to be in the public space where she was detained. Detention and prosecution were based entirely on their perception of what allegedly was going on in her mind, in the proximity of an abortion clinic, which the authorities considered might be provocative and perturbing to the consumers of the clinic’s services.

Readers should be aware that in common law the concept of thought transgression does not exist and that so far the British Parliament has not given statutory expression to such an offence. Nevertheless, an actual person presumably endowed with human rights has been subjected to persecution for objectively unprovable thoughts in order to enforce a legally non-existent norm. But that is the new normal, the rules based order of woke jurisprudence now taking shape in the land that once prided itself on upholding the “rights of Englishmen,” no matter how eccentric. Even the KGB in the old days could not have made this up.

5/ Returning to avant-garde California, award-winning Glendale fifth-grade teacher Ray Shelton was suspended for refusing to acquiesce to male students who “identify” as girls stripping naked in front of female students in the girls’ changing room. For opposing the transgender agenda in his school Shelton lost his job. It made no difference that female students and their parents fully supported him and also vehemently objected to these aggressive displays of opposite sex nudity. Glendale happens to be a heavily Armenian suburb of Los Angeles and its overwhelmingly normal residents are unacculturated to progressive Western values. They reacted with consternation to the state-orchestrated sexualisation of their children. Their protests, however, were to no avail. Shelton is now suing the state for damages. Good luck, in the judicial system of the deranged state of California.

These morsels of lunacy might be regarded as the tragicomical final stage in the collapse of a suicidal civilisation except for the fact that by means of highhanded political manipulation and arrogant agenda imposition even nations and cultures which still retain a residue of sanity are being cowed into submission and drawn into the abyss. Let Serbia serve as an instructive case study, foreshadowing the contours of the coming dystopia.

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All tax deductible. Including the escorts.

• How Davos Locals Gouge The Global Elite (RT)

Rental prices in Davos, Switzerland during the World Economic Forum (WEF) have become a spectacle of the absurd. However, for local landlords this is not something outrageous but merely business as usual — a prime opportunity to capitalize on the presence of the global elite to generate substantial income. With only around 50 fully booked hotels and a limited number of vacation homes providing about 25,000 beds for visitors, Davos is pushing its capacity limits. This falls far short of what’s needed for a globally significant event such as the WEF. Even participants staying in nearby Klosters, Bad Ragaz, or even Zurich contribute to a veritable revenue boom typically only seen in the summer. Some shop owners rent out their establishments for exorbitant prices of $200,000 or $300,000 per week.

Accommodations are typically fully booked months in advance, with even the most affordable available room on Airbnb coming at a hefty price of $1,614 per night – and this is for a shared bathroom in a residential apartment. For those looking to book an entire place for the week of January 15th, the cost is at least $2,386 per night. While hoteliers still exercise restraint, individual property owners are going all out this year. Rentals of up to $18,387 per week are not uncommon. Some listings even surpass this. One private landlord is asking an unbelievable $86,197 for a 4.5-room apartment during the WEF week – equivalent to $14,366 per day! Shamelessly leveraging the economic summit as a selling point, this provider advertises on popular booking websites under the name “WEF 2024 Davos.”

Numerous houses are exclusively offered for the duration of the WEF. For instance, this year, the Tivoli Lodge was rented for $456,265, whereas normally it costs between $54,958 and $73,277 per week. But it doesn’t stop there: the Bortji Estate, featuring three chalets accommodating up to 42 people, was leased for $1,460,000. This stands out as the pinnacle during the WEF and makes this year’s event the most expensive ever in terms of rental prices. [..] Luxury property prices in Davos are witnessing a substantial surge, driven by the basic principles of supply and demand. The prevailing formula is straightforward: as demand for accommodation in Davos rises and supply remains constant, prices soar.

This surge is accompanied by a hefty price tag. While attendance at the Davos event is complementary for WEF members – although a membership reportedly costs approximately $65,000 – the associated expenses can add up. Tickets for non-members, meanwhile, come with a price tag of approximately $25,000, and attendance is strictly by invitation-only. Total expenses for the week can easily surpass $350,000. Additionally, attendees face steep prices for food, drinks, and events, exemplified by 2015 reports of a hot dog costing a staggering $43.

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“..Beijing “will have 10 state ministers in attendance,” with Scott Miller, the US ambassador in Bern, suggesting the delegation had all the hallmarks of a “pseudo state visit.”

• US Scrambling To Check China’s ‘Charm Offensive’ In Davos (RT)

US diplomats are scrambling to hold on to their influence in Switzerland, as their Chinese counterparts attempt to woo the country’s top officials during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Politico reported on Monday, citing sources. The outlet said American officials were so alarmed by the size of the Chinese delegation at the event that they rushed to arrange a meeting between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Swiss President Viola Amherd to ensure Washington does not lose influence in the Alpine country, famed for its neutrality and status as a mediation powerhouse. Politico cited an internal State Department memo dated January 12 as outlining US strategy in this regard. It reportedly warns that Beijing “will have 10 state ministers in attendance,” with Scott Miller, the US ambassador in Bern, suggesting the delegation had all the hallmarks of a “pseudo state visit.”

The document reportedly further underscores the importance China attaches to the trip, noting that the delegation was to be headed by Premier Li Qiang, described in the memo as the “No. 2” to Chinese leader Xi Jinping. “Miller believes it would be bad optics if S[ecretary] doesn’t at least have a handshake with new Pres of Swiss Confederation,” the paper is said to note, adding that Amherd “has made herself completely available” for a sit down. Meanwhile, Li and Amherd held talks on Monday, bolstering an already existing free trade agreement and discussing cooperation and mediation issues. China has also agreed to grant Swiss citizens visa-free entry. At the same time, a spokesperson for the State Department told Politico that Blinken was also expected to meet with Swiss officials, although the exact timing remains unclear.

The top US diplomat will be in Davos on Tuesday and Wednesday and is likely to meet Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, as well as a number of Western leaders, according to the article. Washington’s apparent effort to step up its diplomatic game comes just as it has once again locked horns with Beijing in the aftermath of the presidential election in Taiwan, which China considers part of its sovereign territory. After the US congratulated Taiwanese President-elect William Lai, who is a supporter of a pro-independence course, China stated that this message sent a “gravely wrong signal,” and protested the US having “any form of official interaction with Taiwan and interfering in Taiwan affairs.”

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“..German farmers are not only told to eat cake, Marie Antoinette style, but also to pay up for the government’s screw-ups..”

• German Government Seeks To Downplay Protesting Workers’ Plight (Marsden)

I spent a week with farmers protesting near the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Too bad Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government didn’t get down off its high horse and do the same. It was a missed opportunity to benefit from a much-needed mugging by reality. Instead, the Interior Ministry contented itself by preemptively framing the protesters as susceptible to far-right infiltration. Scholz said that “rage is being stoked deliberately” by “extremists”. When asked about this concept, the unanimous response among the farmers was laughter, eye rolling, or one-line jokes. If you want to put down a dog, just say it has rabies – or has been hanging out with the far-right. Despite the protest taking place right across the street from the German parliament, farmers said the only officials whose presence was noticed, as they inquired about the protesters’ concerns, were from the right-wing Alternative for Deutschland.

Oh no, looks they’re co-opting already! Or maybe they’re just doing their jobs in trying to actually grasp the “ground truth” of the situation rather than framing it up with a convenient narrative in an effort to dismiss it. When a government official finally graced the protest with his presence on January 15, at the apex of the week-long protest, it was Finance Minister Christian Lindner, who took to the stage and loudly proclaimed that the government basically had no money. “I can’t promise you more state aid from the federal budget. But we can fight together for you to enjoy more freedom and respect for your work,” he said. I’m not even a farmer – although I was raised on a farm in Canada – and still I find this infuriating. Mostly just as a woman, though. Because Lindner sounds like a guy on a date who says that he’s broke, but instead of just splitting the check, he wants you to pay for the whole thing.

The farmers aren’t asking Berlin to pay their bills. What they want is for Team Scholz to refrain from taking even more of their hard-earned money in the form of taxes on diesel fuel for their farm vehicles, particularly at a time when government efforts to stick it to Russia and to the climate-change bogeyman, by making fossil fuel energy less available and affordable, is making it increasingly harder for them to do the job of feeding the country. As if farmers aren’t already paying this government enough. One farmhand told me that his boss has a budget of €3,300 a month for his job, and that by the time all the taxes are paid to the German government, the final salary paid to the worker tops out at €1,400. Where’s all that cash going?

Here’s a clue. Scholz said last fall that Germany had to “be able to help Ukraine on the basis of solidarity. We support Ukraine in its defense struggle, with financial resources and weapons.” Yet German farmers are not only told to eat cake, Marie Antoinette style, but also to pay up for the government’s screw-ups. Team Scholz blasted a hole in its own budget when it transferred cash from a Covid fund into a “climate and transformation fund,” but then couldn’t pay it all back, leaving a €17 billion ($18.5 billion) deficit and a scramble to somehow recoup the funds through austerity measures. So Scholz wants the farmers to pay his bills, but also to pay for his mistakes. And if they refuse, they must have been infiltrated by far-right extremists.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1747346361865896118

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The hatred is deep. And deeply unhealthy.

• MSNBC Host: Iowa Proves White Christians are Racists (Turley)

In an early glimpse of what to expect from coverage of this election, MSNBC and CNN hosts went into full rage mode with the Iowa caucus results. MSNBC host Joy Reid led this effort by declaring that “White Christians” are racists who want minorities to “bow down” to them. Reid asked about this manifest racism of white Christians in a conversation with Robert “Robbie” Jones, the president and founder of Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and author of “The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy.” Reid explained to anyone who was confused about their white Christian neighbors: “All the things that we think about, about electability, about what are people gaming out, but none of that matters when you believe that God has given you this country, that it is yours, and that everyone who is not a White, conservative Christian is a fraudulent American, is a less real American. Then you don’t care about electability. You care about what God has given you.”

She later added “It is religion And I think what we have to actually confront – and this is what the Democrats are going to face – is this is now what White evangelicalism is. It is Christian nationalism. That’s the name of it, right?” It is all part of “White evangelical Christians of a certain mindset … that they own this country, that immigrants, that Brown people, that Hindus like Vivek Ramaswamy and his wife are illegitimate Americans. They are less legitimate Americans than they are…They’re not trying to convince people and win people over through politics. What they’re saying is, ‘We own this country, and everyone will bow down to us.’”

As we look at the rising anger in this country, this is a good part of it. In our echo chambered coverage, viewers hear of the effort to suppress all minorities (including apparently minority GOP presidential candidates) and how this “may be our last election.” Yet, these same hosts will denounce others for their reckless language as they fuel racist and rage rhetoric. Reid’s colleague MSNBC Host Rachel Maddow censored Trump’s victory speech and said that the network would not allow viewers to hear him because he said “untrue things.” MSNBC would allow viewers to hear the victory speeches of anyone it deems as speaking truthfully about political issues. Much like our politics, our media often seems captured by the most extreme elements of our society. It explains why the media is now at an all-time low in terms of trust. However, the most concerning aspect is that this is just the beginning of January. We have to make it to November.

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The White House made this up. All of it:

““the President has established the highest ethical standards of any administration in American history, and his family’s commitment to rigorous processes like this is a prime example.”

• Art Dealer Testifies that Hunter Expressly Asked for Buyer Information (Turley)

More details are emerging from the recent testimony of Hunter Biden’s art dealer, George Bergès. We previously discussed how Bergès confirmed that the accounts of buyers flocking to buy Hunter’s art was false and that most of the art was purchased by his Democratic donor patron, Kevin Morris. Not only did Bergès shatter White House claims of a carefully constructed ethical system to keep Hunter from knowing the identity of purchasers, Bergès testified that Hunter expressly demanded to know the identity. Various experts objected to the sales as a serious ethical problem of donors using the purchases to assist President Biden and his family. The media dutifully reported at the time how the White House was grappling with the ethical questions and, according to the Washington Post, “the White House officials have helped craft an agreement.” It was portrayed as unprecedented and unyielding.

The White House continued to swat down questions by citing an ethical plan created for the sales. Andrew Bates, a spokesperson for the White House, said in a statement that “the President has established the highest ethical standards of any administration in American history, and his family’s commitment to rigorous processes like this is a prime example.” Then White House spokesperson (and now MSNBC host) Jennifer Psaki stated: “Well, I can tell you that after careful consideration, a system has been established that allows for Hunter Biden to work in his profession within reasonable safeguards […] But all interactions regarding the selling of art and the setting of prices will be handled by a professional gallerist, adhering to the highest industry standards. And any offer out of the normal course would be rejected out of hand. And the gallerist will not share information about buyers or prospective buyers, including their identities, with Hunter Biden or the administration, which provides quite a level of protection and transparency.”

Yet, Bergès reportedly testified that he had no contacts with the White House and Hunter knew the identity of the purchasers of most of the art. Notably, Bergès was reading these same reports in the news but never objected to the alleged misrepresentation. He admitted that he read of those reports and was confused. A staffer asked: “When you’re seeing in the press that the White House is putting in certain safeguards regarding an ethics agreement but you’ve had no conversations with [the] White House, I mean, did you ever say to Hunter Biden, ‘Hey, where’s this coming from?’” Bergès responded: “I might have. I probably did, yeah.” He admitted that he was surprised by the coverage “[b]ecause I hadn’t had any communication with the White House about an agreement.” That, of course, was never reported. Instead, the media dutifully reported how there was this comprehensive ethical plan in place.

What was particularly notable is that, despite the false White House claims and extensive coverage, Hunter appears to have discarded any such limits. Berges testified that artists usually do not know who buys their art. So not only did Hunter not comply with the agreement with the first, this was a departure from standard operating procedure to let him know about the purchasers: “…I don’t know how it was phrased or—but I remember that there—that that was the difference…That part was different. Normally, the gallerist does not let the artist know who the collectors are…The first one was that I was required to disclose who the buyers were. In the second one, I was required to not disclose the buyers.”

The most important testimony, in my view, is still the massive purchase by Morris. This Democratic donor was introduced to Hunter at a Democratic fundraiser for the first time not long before reportedly giving him millions to pay off his taxes and support his lavish lifestyle. He then reportedly purchased most of the art as the media was reporting how hot Hunter was as a new emerging artist. The claims of walling off the identity of purchasers and the high demand for his art proved to be false.

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“..citizens became heroes — artists, musicians, writers, soldiers and sailors who stubbornly resisted the iron from entering their souls.”

• An Anniversary West Would Rather Forget (Bhadrakumar)

An epochal anniversary from the annals of modern history is coming up in another ten days that remains a living memory for the Russian people. The Siege of Leningrad, arguably the most gruesome episode of the Second World War, which lasted for 900 days, was finally broken by the Soviet Red Army on 27th January 1944, eighty years ago to be exact. The siege endured by more than three million people, of whom nearly one half died, most of them in the first six months when the temperature fell to 30° below zero. It was an apocalyptic event. Civilians died from starvation, disease and cold. Yet it was a heroic victory. Leningraders never tried to surrender even though food rations were reduced to a few slices of bread mixed with sawdust, and the inhabitants ate glue, rats — and even each other — while the city went without water, electricity, fuel or transportation and was being shelled daily.

It was on the 22nd of June, 1941 that the German armies crossed the Russian frontiers. Within six weeks, the Army Group North of the Wehrmacht, armed forces of the Third Reich, was within fifty kms of Leningrad in a fantastic blitzkrieg and had advanced 650 kms deep into Soviet territory. A month later, the Germans had all but completed the city’s encirclement, only a perilous route across Lake Ladoga to the east connected Leningrad with the rest of Russia. But the Germans got no further. And 900 days later their retreat began. The epic siege of Leningrad was the longest endured by any city since Biblical times, and, equally, citizens became heroes — artists, musicians, writers, soldiers and sailors who stubbornly resisted the iron from entering their souls.

Petrified by the prospect of surrender to the Soviet Union, the Nazis preferred to lay down arms before the western allied forces, but Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe, ordered that the honour of victory should go to the Red Army. Herein lies one of the greatest paradoxes of war and peace in modern times. Today, the anniversary of the siege of Leningrad has become, most certainly, an occasion that the US and many of its European allies would rather not remember. Yet, its contemporary relevance is not to be glossed over, either. The Nazi leadership aimed to exterminate Leningrad’s entire population by enforced starvation. Death by starvation was a deliberate act on the part of the German Reich.

In the words of Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler “intended to have cities like Moscow and St Petersburg wiped out.” This was “necessary”, he wrote in July 1941, “because if we want to divide Russia into its individual parts,” it should “no longer have a spiritual, political or economic centre.” Hitler himself declared in September 1941, “We have no interest in maintaining even a part of the metropolitan population in this existential war.” Any talk of the city surrendering had to be “rejected, as the problem of keeping and feeding the population cannot be solved by us.” Simply put, the population of Leningrad was left to starve to death – much like the millions of Soviet prisoners of war held by the Wehrmacht. The historian Jörg Ganzenmüller later wrote that this form of mass murder was cost-effective for Berlin, for, it was “genocide by simply doing nothing”.

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Cans

 

 

Elephant
https://twitter.com/i/status/1747274613921620466

 

 

Giraf

 

 


The pterosaur Quetzalcoatlus, the largest known flying animal that ever lived, with a 40-foot (12-meter) wingspan. It existed about 65 to 72million years ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle October 26 2023

Oct 262023
 
 October 26, 2023  Posted by at 8:20 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  43 Responses »


Banksy Girl with a balloon 2002/2017

 

• ‘More Dangerous Than Cuban Missile Crisis’ – Larry Johnson (Sp.)
• West Using Religious Hatred To Destabilize World – Putin (RT)
• Is a Palestinian Genocide In The Making? (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Gaza Hospital System Has ‘Completely Collapsed’ – Official (RT)
• Israel Aims “To Teach UN A Lesson” (G.)
• The US Has Betrayed Egypt Again (Sahiounie)
• Europe Suffering From ‘War Psychosis’ In Support For Ukraine – Hungary (RMX)
• Kiev Slams Musk Over Calls To End Ukrainian Conflict (RT)
• US Senate Ready To Block $100 Billion Israel-Ukraine Aid – Politico (RT)
• Ukraine’s Manpower Problem (Russell Bentley)
• George Floyd Killed Himself (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Trump Fined $10,000 for Breaking Gag Order in New York Civil Fraud Trial (Sp.)
• Trump Cleared of Any Wrongdoing in FBI Headquarters Spat (ET)
• FBI Received ‘Criminal Info’ From Over 40 Confidential Sources on Bidens (JTN)

 

 

 

 

Queen Rania 1 min

Queen Rania 20 min

 

 

 

 

4 more years

 

 

 

 

Mike Johnson
https://twitter.com/i/status/1717067217676734568

 

 

 

 

“..the Jewish state is “choosing a course of action that’s going to make it more difficult for it to survive intact as a nation”..

• ‘More Dangerous Than Cuban Missile Crisis’ – Larry Johnson (Sp.)

The latest escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict may further deteriorate if Iran decides to get involved and if the US continues to view Russia and China as enemies, Larry Johnson, an author and ex-Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyst, told Sputnik. The situation surrounding a new escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict shows no sign of getting resolved, with Tel Aviv already into the third week of its bombardment of the Gaza Strip, currently under a full blockade. These developments are unfolding as the US signals its full-fledged support for Israel, while Arab nations and Iran have indicated their intent to lend a helping hand to the Palestinians. “It’s more dangerous than the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. And with each passing day, we’re getting closer to setting the world on fire,” Johnson maintained.

According to him, the fact that “nobody’s taking their foot off the accelerator” is “just sort of stunning.” Dwelling on the Biden administration’s policy in this regard and recalling (as an example) that the US “is illegally in Syria,” the ex-CIA analyst said that “on the one hand, we [the US] want to tell very much the need to follow an international rules-based order, and yet we flout those very rules.” He warned that “the danger here now” is that major countries, including Russia, China, Brazil, India, Pakistan, and South Africa “are getting fed up” and that “the traditional sort of allies that the United States thought it could rely on in the Middle East are not there anymore”. They include Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, who are “even refusing to take calls from [US President Joe] Biden,” according to the former CIA analyst. “So when you add all of this together, it is, you know, if we’re heading for a collision and then on top of it,” Johnson noted.

The ex-CIA analyst also warned of far-reaching implications from Iran possibly getting involved in the current Palestinian-Israeli armed conflict. “Israel insists it’s going to go on with a ground attack into Gaza. And I think if they do that, the minute they do that, you’re going to see a Hezbollah [Lebanon-based militant group] operation from the north. And Israel is vowing retaliation, which even could include nuclear weapons. I think it’s getting that dangerous because, you know, Israel really is in potential peril. I think its very existence will be on the line if Iran gets engaged, because Israel is not in a position to fight a two front war at all,” Johnson pointed out. When asked about the possibility of a war between the US and Iran in the offing, the ex-CIA analyst said he thinks “that’s exactly where it’s headed.”

As for Israel, Johnson went on to say, the Jewish state is “choosing a course of action that’s going to make it more difficult for it to survive intact as a nation”, something that he said remains “part of his concern.” “We’re seeing right now a level of unity between the Arab and Muslim world […], which is becoming very strident in their support of all of, you know, Hamas and the Palestinian people. So, I think we don’t appreciate what we’re up against,” Johnson noted.

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“..The goal of all those actions is to “increase instability in the world, to divide cultures, peoples, world religions, and to provoke a conflict of civilizations..”

• West Using Religious Hatred To Destabilize World – Putin (RT)

The West is fomenting religious hatred and intolerance to “divide and conquer” the world, to maintain a “new world order” that amounts to dominance and colonialism, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday. Meeting with leaders of Russia’s religious communities at the Kremlin, Putin addressed the current conflict in the Middle East and warned that “Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and Russophobia” were being used as weapons against a multipolar world. “The West sees how the process of forming a multipolar world order is gaining momentum. And in order to restrain the development of independent, sovereign countries, to split the world majority, they use the same means,” Putin said.

These forces want “the epidemic of violence and hatred” to engulf not just the Middle East but to Eurasia, he warned. “Muslims are being set against Jews, calling for ‘war with the infidels’. Shiites are pitted against Sunnis, Orthodox Christians against Catholics. In Europe, they turn a blind eye to blasphemy and vandalism against Muslim shrines. In a number of countries, Nazi criminals and anti-Semites, with the blood of Holocaust victims on their hands, are openly glorified at the official level. In Ukraine, they are moving towards banning the canonical Orthodox Church and deepening the church schism,” Putin said.

The goal of all those actions is to “increase instability in the world, to divide cultures, peoples, world religions, and to provoke a conflict of civilizations,” the Russian president added. “Meanwhile, they talk about some kind of ‘new world order’, whose essence hasn’t changed: hypocrisy, double standards, claims to exclusivity, to global dominance, to the preservation of an essentially neocolonial system.” Putin expressed condolences to all Israelis who lost family members in the October 7 attacks, but warned that “innocent people should not be held accountable for crimes committed by others,” and that the fight against terrorism “cannot be carried out according to the notorious principle of collective responsibility.”

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“A possible result could be the destruction of Israel, the result being peace in the Middle East..”

• Is a Palestinian Genocide In The Making? (Paul Craig Roberts)

Israel is talking tough –“Israel vows to cut off ‘the head of the snake’ and launch a military attack against Iran if Hezbollah joins the war with Hamas”. But it is only the economics minister talking, not a military one or Netanyahu. The Israeli military is good at murdering children, women and old men and at mass slaughter of civilians and destruction of social infrastructure such as hospitals from a safe distance with bombs and missiles. But the fighting ability of Israel’s army and its ability to take casualties is in question. In its encounter with Hezbollah some years ago, the Israeli army was driven from the field. The Israeli ground invasion of Gaza continues to be delayed. Israelis are claiming there are not enough flak jackets for their soldiers and America must give Israel more money so they can invade Gaza.

The solidly pro-Israel Biden regime expresses concern that Israel has no workable plan for sending ground forces into Gaza, and are questioning whether the IDF can achieve its goal of annihilating the Hamas militant group. There is concern that once the Israeli army is in Gaza Hamas will keep it there while Hezbollah overruns the rest of Israel. Netanyahu is now threatening Hezbollah with nuclear weapons. Israel’s use of nuclear weapons would leave Israel isolated in the world, which Israel already would be except for Israel’s American puppet state. Doubts about Israel’s success is why there has been no Israeli land invasion into Gaza. A possible result could be the destruction of Israel, the result being peace in the Middle East, which would reduce the profits of the US military/security complex and make the US neoconservatives irrelevant, hardly a desirable outcome for the US Establishment, and certainly not a desirable outcome for Israel.

As it currently stands, Hezbollah’s intervention and Iran’s intervention to protect Hezbollah depends on an Israeli invasion of Gaza, not on Israel’s merciless bombing of the civilian population and total destruction of infrastructure. Based on available current information, it seems that Israel has formed a new plan, which is to bomb Gaza City in northern Gaza to rubble, killing as many Palestinians as possible and driving the rest into Egypt where the “moral West and the only Middle East democracy” will leave them to die in the Sinai desert. As Norman Finkelstein told Chris Hedges, no one in the West will do anything about the Palestinian Genocide. And apparently neither will Hezbollah and Iran unless Israel invades Gaza.

Lowkey

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“..describing the amount of supplies that have already arrived as only “a drop in the ocean.”

• Gaza Hospital System Has ‘Completely Collapsed’ – Official (RT)

The hospital system in Gaza has completely collapsed, Palestinian health ministry spokesman Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra said on Tuesday. He warned that hospitals need an immediate flow of medical supplies and fuel to restore lifesaving services amid the violent escalation between the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Israel. “The fact that the doors of hospitals remain open does not mean that they provide service to the flood of the wounded,” he told journalists. On Wednesday, the ministry stated that 12 hospitals and 32 primary care centers in the blockaded Palestinian enclave were unable to operate due to bombing by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), as well as fuel shortages and a lack of staff. Currently, there is only 30% of the original number of medical workers, the authority said in a statement on Facebook.

Gaza “has run out of medicines for treating cancer, diabetes and kidney failure,” Palestinian health minister Mai Al-Keila told RIA Novosti. She called for the opening of safe corridors for humanitarian aid, describing the amount of supplies that have already arrived as only “a drop in the ocean.” According to the Palestinian health ministry, 73 medical personnel have been killed, 57 facilities damaged, and 25 ambulances destroyed as a result of Israeli strikes. The Gaza conflict escalated on October 7 when the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing hundreds and taking more than 220 hostages, according to Israeli officials. In retaliation, the IDF began airstrikes on the Palestinian enclave and announced a complete blockade of Gaza, cutting off supplies of water, food, electricity, medicine and fuel.

Since the start of the hostilities, Israel has reported 1,405 deaths, while Gaza officials say the death toll on their side of the border has risen to 6,546, noting that at least 2,704 of the victims were children. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned the Security Council on Tuesday that the situation in Gaza was raging and threatening to spread throughout the region. He called for unimpeded humanitarian aid and an immediate ceasefire. He added that “Hamas’ attacks did not happen in a vacuum,” and noted that “the Palestinian people [had been] subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.” In response, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan called for Guterres’ resignation, accusing him of showing “compassion” for terrorists and murderers.

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Don’t talk peace or else!

• Israel Aims “To Teach UN A Lesson” (G.)

Israel says it is banning United Nations representatives from visiting the country “to teach them a lesson” after the UN secretary general, António Guterres, said the 7 October attacks by Hamas had to be seen in the context of decades of occupation of the Palestinian people. Speaking at a UN general debate on the Middle East in New York, Guterres created fury when he said: “It is important to … recognise the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.” He also said no injustice to the Palestinians could justify the appalling attacks by Hamas. Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, said on army radio: “Due to his remarks we will refuse to issue visas to UN representatives. We have already refused a visa for undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, Martin Griffiths. The time has come to teach them a lesson.”

Erdan has already demanded Guterres’ resignation and described his remarks as blood libel. The response reflects a long-running Israeli belief that UN agencies, especially the UN human rights council, has an anti-Israeli agenda. It is not clear how far the visa ban extends within the UN hierarchy. A large number of UN workers, for instance, are employed by UNRWA, the UN relief and works agency for Palestinian people. The UN secretary general created fury in Israel and among some Republicans in the US by describing Israel’s bombardment and blockade of the Gaza Strip in response to the Hamas attacks as the “collective punishment of the Palestinian people” and “clear violations of international humanitarian law”. Guterres also said of Hamas: “Nothing can justify the deliberate killing, injuring and kidnapping of civilians – or the launching of rockets against civilian targets.

All hostages must be treated humanely and released immediately and without conditions.” Griffiths, a former British diplomat and special envoy on Yemen, has been forthright in warning that levels of UN aid into Gaza are woefully inadequate. He has repeatedly called for a ceasefire to allow aid into the territory. Last week the US vetoed a UN resolution tabled by Brazil calling for a humanitarian pause to allow aid into Gaza since it did not explicitly allow for Israel’s self-defence. The US has requested a vote at the UN security council on Thursday afternoon on a draft resolution of its own that reaffirms Israel’s right to collective and individual self defence, but adds that the movement of people within Gaza must be voluntary.

The draft resolution calls for “all measures necessary such as humanitarian pauses to allow for the full rapid safe and unhindered humanitarian access, consistent with international humanitarian law for UN agencies and other impartial humanitarian agencies … to ensure the unhindered provision of water, electricity, food fuel and medical supplies”. Russia has put forward its own counter-resolution calling for a swift and unconditional ceasefire. A vote could take place later this week.

Guterres

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“Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on October 18, that any attempts to displace Palestinians from the West Bank to Jordan would be considered a declaration of “war.”

• The US Has Betrayed Egypt Again (Sahiounie)

The Egyptian parliament met on October 19 and gave President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi the power to declare war against Israel, if necessary. Egypt and Israel have a peace treaty dating from 1979, which has been a success, proving that a neighboring Arab and Muslim country can share long-lasting peaceful relations with the Jewish State of Israel. Egyptians have watched in horror at the scenes of death and destruction in Gaza as the Israeli government exacts its revenge on Hamas after the October 7 attack on Israel. With the promised Israeli ground invasion of Gaza beginning at any moment, it is expected to be a bloodbath among unarmed civilians. Already the death toll is at least 5,087, including 2,055 children. The Cairo Peace Summit, co-chaired by the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine, met on October 21.

Sisi said that the solution to the Palestinian issue is not the displacement of an entire people to other areas, but justice and obtaining their legitimate rights and the right to self-determination. The U.S. sent a low-level representative to the Cairo Peace Summit, and this was a message from U.S. President Joe Biden, that the U.S. is working against Egypt, and not with them. The U.S. media is portraying Sisi as the villain, who refuses to open the gate at Rafah and allow displaced Palestinians under bombardment to flee. The reason behind Egypt’s refusal to accept Palestinian refugees is never hinted at in the U.S. media which parrots the U.S. State Department talking points. Israel has a long-standing law that prevents any Palestinian who leaves Gaza, or the Occupied West Bank, from ever returning home. The right of return is enshrined in international law; however, Israel does not comply with international law.

Sisi knows there is an Israeli plan, condoned and supported by Biden, to remove all Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt, where they will be supported by humanitarian aid, but can never repopulate Gaza again. They will be permanently homeless and stateless refugees. The Israeli plan also includes the Occupied West Bank and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has warned of attempts to displace the Palestinian people and said: “We will not leave, we will not leave, we will stay in our land.” Jordanian King Abdullah II said, “The violent bombing campaign in Gaza is a collective punishment of a besieged and helpless population,” he said, calling it a “flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and a war crime.”

The U.S.-Israeli plan is to move all the Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank into Jordan, which has had a peace treaty with Israel since 1994. Both leaders have warned of a plan to de-populate the West Bank, which will then be the ultimate solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as there will be no more occupation and no need for the UN resolution calling for the two-state solution. Israel will get everything, and the Palestinians will get nothing. Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on October 18, that any attempts to displace Palestinians from the West Bank to Jordan would be considered a declaration of “war.”

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“No one in Western Europe is talking about peace, Europe is suffering from a war psychosis.”

• Europe Suffering From ‘War Psychosis’ In Support For Ukraine – Hungary (RMX)

Instead of looking for ways to foster peace, the European Union’s current and planned actions only serve to extend the war, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said after a meeting of the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council. “It is all about war, there is no peace. Brussels is still pro-war, as shown by the fact that they would give €5 billion a year for arms over the next four years, which also shows that they expect the war to continue,” Szijjártó said. “No one in Western Europe is talking about peace, Europe is suffering from a war psychosis.” He added that it is clear there will be no solution to the war on the battlefield. Europeans expect nothing but destruction and death, and the conditions for peace are getting worse.

“Taking arms production and training to Ukraine would drag the EU into an immediate war. We find this totally unacceptable. Nor should arms transfers be just about supplying the Ukrainians with as many weapons as possible, because the EU is not a security organization, and justifying a country’s future accession on security grounds is completely unacceptable,” Szijjártó added. Speaking of the EU’s bans on Russian fossil fuels, Szijjártó said that Hungarians do not want to give up energy security in the name of some ill-defined ideals. “On energy supplies: We didn’t talk nonsense by saying that it’s not a political issue, it’s a physical issue. We are not willing to risk the security of Hungary’s energy supply or the results of cuts in tariffs. Hungarians are not responsible for the war, we are not willing to make them pay for it,” he said.

The Hungarian foreign minister accused other member states of being covert about its dealings with Russia, unlike Prime Minister Viktor Orbán who has been honest and transparent through his recent meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing. “My colleague, the Lithuanian foreign minister was blunt. He said that he expected me to clarify whether what is being said here is our own position or the Kremlin’s position. This is unacceptable to me. I reassured him that Hungary is a sovereign country with a sovereign opinion,” Szijjártó explained. “As long as this government is in power, we are not prepared to accept any opinion from anywhere, from any geographical direction, whether there is a lot of water between us or not. I said to my Lithuanian colleague that I hope he can say the same thing with his hand on his heart,” he added.

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“..Zelensky has recently urged his forces to take at least 500 meters of territory from Russian positions daily..”

Imagine taking military orders from a clown whose main achievement is he plays piano with his dick..

• Kiev Slams Musk Over Calls To End Ukrainian Conflict (RT)

Mikhail Podolyak, a senior aide to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, described Elon Musk’s calls for an urgent ceasefire in the Ukraine conflict to avoid a larger conflict as a “catastrophic mistake” with far-reaching consequences in a Telegram post on Tuesday. On his channel, Podolyak called Musk’s recent proposal equivalent to surrendering Ukraine to “mandatory large-scale genocide”from Russia and suggested that refusing to support Ukraine would “inevitably lead to a sharp increase in conflicts around the world, the end of the era of international law, the collapse of the international economy, and the triumph of the forces of evil.” The advisor’s comments came after Musk stated in a conversation on X (formerly Twitter) Spaces on Tuesday that the US was “sleepwalking” into World War III by antagonizing countries like Russia, Iran, and China.

Musk said he believed that “civilization itself may be at stake”and stressed that the US must work to prevent a global conflict. To that end, he called on the US to “resume normal relations with Russia” and “figure out” a way to establish peace in Ukraine, labeling the war a hopeless situation. The billionaire noted that it made no sense that soldiers from Russia and Ukraine should die every day and stressed that a ceasefire was the only way out of the conflict for the Ukrainian people since Russia would never give up its lands – apparently referring to Crimea, Kherson, Zaporozhye, and the Donbass republics – and Ukraine would never be able to take over these territories with its smaller army.

Musk suggested that the current line of control could be a suitable permanent border between Russia and Ukraine since, according to him, there is no significant anti-Russian insurgency in the “Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine” and, therefore, there is little point in forcing areas that want to be part of Russia to be part of Ukraine. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has recently urged his forces to take at least 500 meters of territory from Russian positions daily. That’s despite the Ukrainian military having suffered tens of thousands of casualties during this summer’s counteroffensive, which ultimately failed to achieve any significant territorial gains.

Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin described Kiev’s counteroffensive as having “failed completely.” He stated that Ukraine had lost over 90,000 soldiers, 557 tanks, and 1,900 since the start of the operation in June. At the same time, Russian forces have been ensuring that the Ukrainian military has “increasingly fewer capabilities,” according to Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, who stated on Wednesday that new weapon systems deployed by Russian forces have taken down 24 Ukrainian planes in just the past five days.

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“US President Joe Biden’s $106 billion national security funding request, which includes aid for Ukraine and Israel, is in “big trouble”..

• US Senate Ready To Block $100 Billion Israel-Ukraine Aid – Politico (RT)

US President Joe Biden’s $106 billion national security funding request, which includes aid for Ukraine and Israel, is in “big trouble” as senators prepare to block or significantly alter the bill, Politico reported on Tuesday. The outlet noted that many in the Senate, including Republican supporters of Biden’s initiative, are “uncharacteristically pessimistic” about the bill’s chances. “The package that the White House sent over really is dead,” South Dakota Senator Mike Rounds was quoted as saying. “The appropriators in the Senate can begin by basically starting over.” The bill was introduced by the Biden administration last week, seeking legislative approval to provide an additional $61.4 billion to support Ukraine in its conflict with Russia and $14.3 billion in aid to Israel in its war with Hamas.

Biden also wants $9.2 billion for humanitarian aid in Israel, Gaza, and Ukraine, as well as $7.4 billion to counter China’s influence. The administration included a further $13.6 billion in funding for border security. Politico noted that while Democrats hold the majority in the Senate, they still need nine or more Republican votes to get a bill passed through the chamber. However, it seems that Republican lawmakers are unsatisfied with the current version of Biden’s proposal, with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell stating that a number of GOP senators want stronger border security as well as “other changes.” Politico added that some Republicans are unsure about linking aid to Israel with ongoing funding for Ukraine. A growing number of conservative lawmakers have vehemently opposed sending any further support to Kiev. “They should be separated out,” insisted Republican Florida Senator Marco Rubio, noting that the Israeli component of Biden’s bill has “almost overwhelming support” and could quickly be passed.

South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, however, has insisted that Biden’s package should move forward as a whole. “Those are four national security issues, and we should deal with them as a unit,” he insisted. To date, Washington has approved at least $113 billion in aid to Ukraine, according to recent calculations from the US State Department Office of Inspector General. However, House Republicans have increasingly pushed back against additional aid, going as far as threatening a government shutdown last month over the inclusion of Ukraine in a government spending bill. Funding for Kiev was ultimately dropped from the stopgap spending package, but US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy lost his position after ‘Ukraine skeptics’ accused him of striking a secret deal with the Biden administration to keep the money flowing.

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“..the number of foreign mercenaries and NATO soldiers now fighting in Donbass is much higher than most people are aware, and if it is not currently 50%, it soon will be.”

• Ukraine’s Manpower Problem (Russell Bentley)

During its much hyped offensive, the Ukrainian army lost more than 90,000 people, Russian President Vladimir Putin revealed in a speech last month. “Sometimes it seems that it is not their people who they throw into battle,” he noted. And indeed they are not, anymore. Two of my friends in the DPR/RF Army, each in different units, on different Fronts, one still fighting near Artemovsk, the other down around the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, both told me that the number of foreign mercenaries and NATO soldiers now fighting in Donbass is much higher than most people are aware, and if it is not currently 50%, it soon will be. The Ukrainian military is also increasingly relying on political extremists to help fill its depleted ranks.

Roman Edwards, a British mercenary in Ukraine publicly acknowledged on X (formerly Twitter) that almost all Ukrainian fighters, that he is serving with, openly profess Nazi views: “I’m aware since I serve here. Literally everyone I serve with uses some sort of “N4zi” symbol: Swastika, SS lightning bolts, Totenkopf, etc. they even have a giant Swastika flag with blue and yellow… it’s not a big deal.” So, the first category of enemies Russian soldiers face are hardcore Nazis and professional foreign mercenaries. These are the terrorists and war criminals who torture and slaughter P.O.W.’s and serve as “blocking troops” who even execute Ukrainian conscript soldiers who refuse or even hesitate to commit suicide by obeying impossible orders.

As noted by Vostok Batallion commander Alexander Khodakovsky, the second category of troops – forcibly mobilized Ukrainian conscripts – is much “larger than the Bandera lovers who hate Russia, whose ancestors licked the boots of the Nazis, leaving a will for their descendants to lick the boots of anyone who opposes Russia.” “Look at these prisoners (Ukrainian conscripts). Who do you see? There are no swastikas, like on the bastards from Azov – there are not even tattoos. On his neck one has a large cross with the Savior, who brought him alive from the hell created by his fellow tribesmen,” he explained. Three different perspectives on the summer offensive, from different people –the Russian President, a British mercenary fighting alongside Ukrainian Nazis, and a frontline commander.

To sum it up, many thousands have died, the Ukrainian conscripts are not Nazis, but the foreign mercenaries admit that “literally everyone” they serve with are. What conclusions can be drawn? Simply this – that what is left of the Ukrainian Army is a two tiered system of cannon fodder and blocking troops, that sees untrained conscripts thrown onto the front lines, with battle hardened Russian troops in front of them, and blocking troops made up of foreign mercenaries and hardcore Nazis behind them, who will kill them if they retreat or refuse to advance when ordered to. So, the common Ukrainian citizens, primarily from the ethnically Russian and Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine, are kidnapped from the streets by press gangs and thrown directly into battle without adequate training or weapons, where they are forced to face impossible odds in combat.

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“The jurors knew they would be denounced in the media and by politicians and would have Black Lives Matter and Antifa on their lawns.”

“This is America today. Be a Proud American.”

• George Floyd Killed Himself (Paul Craig Roberts)

If you remember, 3 years and 5 months ago we were told repeatedly that Minneapolis white police officer Derick Chavin murdered black drug addict George Floyd by holding him on the ground with his knee on Floyd’s neck while Floyd cried “I can’t breathe.” The “evidence” was a video taken at a distance by a young black girl that was misleading because it suffered from camera perspective distortion as experts at the time explained but were ignored in the media hysteria focused on the police officer. Moreover, Floyd’s complaints that he couldn’t breathe began when he was sitting in the patrol car. As the up close police videos showed, Chauvin’s knee was on Floyd’s shoulder, the approved technique.

Chavin was restraining Floyd because he realized he had a fentanyl case on his hands, had called medics, and was restraining Floyd so he wouldn’t thrash around and use up what little oxygen he was receiving. Fentanyl kills, if my memory of my investigation is reliable, by depriving blood cells from carrying oxygen. I reported these facts at the time and cited the evidence including the coroner’s report that Floyd’s blood contained a multiple of the fatal dose of fentanyl. But the false media narrative had no ears for the truth. Chauvin was convicted by the media long prior to his trial, and no jury was going to go against solid national opinion. The jurors knew they would be denounced in the media and by politicians and would have Black Lives Matter and Antifa on their lawns.

Consequently, innocent police officers were convicted for a crime that did not happen. The ignorant mob and corrupt media triumphed over justice. When I was young, conviction by the media prior to trial and a guilty verdict meant the case was dismissed because the jury pool was biased. Tucker Carlson recently reported the facts in the first 3 minutes and 30 seconds of this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgXuprXyPg0 . What brought the facts to light again is a law suit filed by a prosecutor against her boss in which deposition under oath revealed the conversation between the prosecutor and the county medical advisor, who told her “that there were no medical findings that showed any injury to the vital structures of Mr Floyd’s neck. There were no medical indications of asphyxia or strangulation.”

We know the facts, Tucker says, but what can we do about it? Apparently nothing. Floyd, a drug addict who killed himself, has been made a martyr. There are monuments to him. Taxpayers turned over $27 million of their money to Floyd’s family. This is another lie set in stone. And innocent police rot in prison. This is America today. Be a Proud American.

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“Their only witness, their chief witness, their only witness, just admitted, number one, he lied,” Trump told reporters..”

• Trump Fined $10,000 for Breaking Gag Order in New York Civil Fraud Trial (Sp.)

US President Donald Trump was recently fined $10,000 for violating a gag order implemented as part of his ongoing civil fraud trial in New York, marking the second such fine he’s been slapped with in less than a week. The fine came after Judge Arthur Engoron questioned Trump on the witness stand, asking him about comments he made to the media during a midmorning break about a partisan “person” that sits near the judge during court proceedings. “If we had a jury it would have been fair, at least — even if it was a somewhat negative jury — because no negative jury would vote against me,” Trump had said during the earlier break. “But this judge will. Because this judge is a very partisan judge, with a person who’s very partisan sitting alongside of him, perhaps even much more partisan than he is.”

On the witness stand, Trump insisted his comments were about his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, who is acting as a witness in the case – not the judge’s law clerk Allison Greenfield, who he had previously criticized on social media. Despite Trump’s explanations, Engoron found his testimony “not credible” and levied the fine against him. Engoron has warned the Trump camp that “severe sanctions” may be levied against the former commander-in-chief for any future slip-ups. “I am very protective of my staff,” the judge said. The civil fraud trial, initiated by the New York Attorney General Letitia James, has been ongoing for approximately three weeks. The incident leading to Trump’s fine began when he referred to Engoron as partisan and suggested there was a more partisan individuals alongside him during a break in the proceedings.

This led to the judge’s concern about potential dangers and the violation of the gag order. Trump’s legal team argued that his comments were directed at Cohen, but the judge disagreed. The violation follows a $5,000 fine imposed on Trump last Friday for comments he made about Greenfield, which were posted on social media. The incident highlights the challenge of gag orders for a former president known for making public comments. In Washington, a federal judge had also imposed a gag order in an election interference case against Trump, which was on hold as an appeals court reviewed its merits. Despite the fine, the incident overshadowed a potentially successful day for Trump’s defense, as his lawyers managed to provoke inconsistencies in Cohen’s testimony. “Their only witness, their chief witness, their only witness, just admitted, number one, he lied,” Trump told reporters, after the day’s hearings, as quoted by US media.

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They thought they had found another case, but not even Chris Wray plays ball..

“I did not feel pressured. I did not feel bullied,” Mr. Wray said in reference to one of the discussions that he had with President Trump in 2018..”

• Trump Cleared of Any Wrongdoing in FBI Headquarters Spat (ET)

After a lengthy review, a Department of Justice watchdog has found that President Donald Trump didn’t improperly influence the FBI’s decision to keep its headquarters in downtown Washington rather than move it to suburban locations in Maryland or Virginia. “With regard to possible influence by then-President Trump or the White House, we found no evidence that the FBI’s decisions were based on improper considerations or motives,” the Justice Department inspector general wrote in a report released on Oct. 24, after a four-year investigation. Roughly 20 years ago, the FBI concluded that its Washington-based headquarters—the J. Edgar Hoover Building—was no longer meeting the needs of the agency in terms of security and supporting the needs of its workforce.

Starting in 2014, the government began to explore the possibility of transferring ownership of the current FBI headquarters land to a developer, who in exchange would build a new facility in the city’s suburbs in a deal dubbed an “exchange procurement.” However, the General Services Administration (GSA) found that the value of the existing site wouldn’t cover the cost of a new facility, and so the Office of Management and Budget asked Congress for money to cover the difference. In July 2017, the GSA announced that it had canceled plans to go ahead with the exchange procurement deal because Congress didn’t appropriate all of the requested funds. This prompted the FBI to scrap plans for a suburban campus and instead recommend that the J. Edgar Hoover Building be demolished and a new headquarters constructed in its place.

However, some Democrats saw a conspiracy afoot. They accused President Trump of meddling in that decision, claiming in an October 2018 letter to the GSA that he did it to keep competitors away from his Washington-based commercial property, the Trump International Hotel. They alleged that President Trump directly influenced the decision to scrap the suburban campus construction deal during a January 2018 meeting that included officials from the GSA, the FBI, and the White House. “He was directly involved with the decision to abandon the long-term relocation plan and instead move ahead [with the alternate plan],” the Democrats wrote. “He should not have played any role in a determination that bears directly on his own financial interests with the Trump hotel.” The letter prompted an investigation, which concluded by finding President Trump innocent of the allegations.

“Specifically, we found no evidence that, in making the decision to seek to have the new FBI headquarters remain at its current JEH site, Director [Christopher] Wray or others at the FBI considered the location of the then-named Trump International Hotel or how then-President Trump’s financial interests could be impacted by the decision,” the watchdog wrote in the report. Mr. Wray told the watchdog that the matter of relocating the headquarters came up in discussions with President Trump on several occasions but that he never felt pressured by the 45th president into making any kind of decision. “I did not feel pressured. I did not feel bullied,” Mr. Wray said in reference to one of the discussions that he had with President Trump in 2018, according to a memo cited in the watchdog’s report.

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Grassley demands answers from both the FBI and the DOJ by November 17.

“Any national security prosecutor like myself will tell you that usually you have a couple or maybe a handful… but 40? That’s the most I’ve ever heard of. That’s more than in mob cases and RICO cases.”

• FBI Received ‘Criminal Info’ From Over 40 Confidential Sources on Bidens (JTN)

The FBI received information about possible criminal activity involving the Biden family from more than 40 informants over an extended period of time, but most avenues of investigation were thwarted, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, revealed in a bombshell letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, released Wednesday. “This letter is based on years of investigation, including the provision of information, records, and allegations from multiple Justice Department whistleblowers that indicate there is – and has been – an effort among certain Justice Department and FBI officials to improperly delay and stop full and complete investigative activity into the Biden family, including but not limited to FD-1023s referencing the Biden family,” Grassley wrote.

“This alleged political infection breaks faith with the American people, and it will ruin our governmental institutions should it continue. As just one initial example,” he added, “I’ve been made aware that at one point in time the FBI maintained over 40 Confidential Human Sources that provided criminal information relating to Joe Biden, James Biden, and Hunter Biden.” Grassley said Americans need answers to an essential question: “Did the FBI investigate the information or shut it down?” “That’s a lot of taxpayer dollars implemented towards one target or one target set,” former Trump advisor Kash Patel said on the “Just the News, No Noise” TV show. “Any national security prosecutor like myself will tell you that usually you have a couple or maybe a handful… but 40? That’s the most I’ve ever heard of. That’s more than in mob cases and RICO cases.”

The Iowa lawmaker further indicated that he had identified 25 Department of Justice and FBI personnel for interviews “who either had a direct or indirect role in the allegations” he mentioned. He further asked that Garland provide him with a litany of records on the Biden family. The Department of Justice already faces allegations of slow-walking the tax investigation into first son Hunter Biden. A pair of IRS agents who worked on the case came forward earlier this year with allegations that Biden-appointed officials had worked to stifle the investigation and prevent the bringing of more sever charges against Hunter Biden. Grassley’s requests come as the House of Representatives continues its own investigations into the first family. Those efforts have thus far uncovered extensive foreign payments linked to Biden family businesses.

Among the most high-profile of discoveries was a document detailing confidential human source information claiming that Burisma CEO Mykola Zlochevsky had hired Hunter Biden to secure access to his then-vice president father and paid them to shut down a probe from the top Ukrainian prosecutor. After the House secured the opportunity to view the form behind closed doors, Grassley himself published the document in July. Earlier this month, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer revealed the discovery of a $200,000 check that Joe Biden received in 2018 from his brother James that was linked to the failing healthcare company Americore.

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