Aug 022023
 


Claude Monet Le Grand Canal et Santa Maria della Salute 1908

 

Trump Indictment Shows Free, Fair 2024 Election No Longer Possible (Sp.)
Ukraine Discovers ‘Massive’ Draft-Dodging Conspiracy (RT)
Lukashenko Wants To Incorporate Wagner Fighters Into New Contracted Army (TASS)
Kremlin Doubles Down On Grain Deal (RT)
Brazil Sets Terms For Expansion Of BRICS – Reuters (RT)
Niger Bans Uranium And Gold Exports To France (RT)
First We Go for Moscow, Then We Take Beijing (Pepe Escobar)
Twitter Sues Censorship Advocate (RT)
Russiagate To Blame For Ukraine Conflict – Trump (RT)
Jill Biden’s Ex-Husband Talks About “Very Dangerous Biden Crime Family” (ZH)
Devon Archer Reveals the ‘Niceties’ of Influence-Peddling (Turley)

 

 

 

 

Body count

 

 

Trump Roseanne 1998
https://twitter.com/i/status/1686372099848331264

 

 

EV
https://twitter.com/i/status/1686291955511332864

 

 

Macgregor

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘We will put you in jail if you dispute elections..’

Trump Indictment Shows Free, Fair 2024 Election No Longer Possible (Sp.)

The new charges against Donald Trump offer conclusive proof that there can be no talk of a free and fair election in 2024, Tom Fitton, president of conservative legal and election watchdog group Judicial Watch believes. “This indictment is a naked threat and act of intimidation by the Democratic Party against any and all of their political opponents. The message from the Biden regime is: ‘We will put you in jail if you dispute elections’. A free and fair 2024 election is officially impossible,” Fitton wrote in a release following Tuesday’s indictment. “The Biden administration has left the rule of law and the US Constitution behind with its latest indictment of President Trump for daring to dispute the 2020 presidential election, as is his God-given right as a president, a citizen, and a candidate under state, federal and constitutional law,” Fitton added.

The non-profit head accused President Biden and Justice Department chief Merrick Garland of “trying to jail” Trump and turn him “into a political prisoner” to distract the public from “conclusive evidence” of President Biden’s “personal corruption” related to his and his son’s alleged pay-to-play political influence peddling scheme. Fitton called on Congress to “do everything under the law to undo this attempt to wreck our republican form of government,” and called on the courts to “finally step up and shut down this unprecedented prosecutorial abuse.”

Donald Trump is the first president in US history to face felony indictment, and now has three outstanding sets of charges against him – including 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to an alleged payoff to a former adult film star, and 31 counts related to “willfully retaining national defense information under the Espionage Act” over his storage of classified documents at his Florida estate. The latest indictment features four counts for alleged attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, including: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and a conspiracy against rights.

If convicted on all counts, the former president of the United States could get up to 641 years in jail (i.e. over 25 consecutive life sentences). Trump has dismissed all charges against him as a “witch hunt,” with his attorneys characterizing the attempts to prosecute him as a politicized “clown show.” His supporters believe the charges are a bald-faced attempt to pressure and intimidate him out of running for office for a third time in 2024 after the collapse of Russiagate (the claim that Trump was a secret Kremlin agent) and twin impeachments (the first related to an attempt to get Kiev to reopen a probe into Hunter Biden’s dealings in Ukraine, the second to the January 6, 2021 unrest at the Capitol).

Indictment timing

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In Ukraine, police don’t arrest such guys, they demand part of the take.

Ukraine Discovers ‘Massive’ Draft-Dodging Conspiracy (RT)

Ukrainian police and Security Service (SBU) said on Tuesday they had discovered a widespread conspiracy in 11 regions and the capital to issue fraudulent medical exemption certificates to men seeking to avoid mobilization. The Prosecutor-General’s Office announced that 100 offices and residences in Kiev, Kiev Region, Odessa, Transcarpathia, Poltava, Vinnitsa, Cherkasy, Chernigov, Lviv, Zhytomyr, and Ivano-Frankovsk had been searched as part of the investigation into the scheme. Prosecutors say that officials of regional recruitment centers teamed up with members of military-medical commissions to create “a scheme for issuing certificates declaring men unfit for military service due to their health”and had them removed from the draft register.

The conspirators allegedly charged an average of $6,000 dollars for the “service” and their customers did not even show up for their medical exams, based on the absence of any electronic medical records, the prosecutors said. The recipients then used these fraudulent medical exemptions to travel outside Ukraine. During the searches of doctors’ offices, recruitment centers and residences of suspected draft dodgers, the police seized “medical records, logs of registration of medical findings, patient certificates, [and] other medical and accounting documents.” The entire conspiracy was allegedly “mediated by third parties,” who remained unnamed. Ukrainian national police and the SBU are involved in the investigation. There have been no arrests as of yet, but “notices of suspicion” have been issued to several individuals.

The government in Kiev has ordered several waves of conscription since the hostilities with Russia escalated in February 2022. In late June, recruitment centers in several regions stopped sending individual summons, issuing instead blanket notifications to all men of military age to report in. Ukraine does not publish official casualty figures for its military, but photos posted on social media in recent months have shown cemeteries across the country rapidly filling up amid a grinding offensive against prepared Russian positions in the south. During the month of July alone, the Ukrainian military lost almost 21,000 soldiers and 2,227 units of military equipment, 10 German-supplied Leopard tanks, 11 US-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, and 50 self-propelled guns from several Western countries, according to a report by Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu on Monday.

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The state’s private army.

Lukashenko Wants To Incorporate Wagner Fighters Into New Contracted Army (TASS)

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Time warp.

Kremlin Doubles Down On Grain Deal (RT)

Russia has said it is prepared to “immediately” resume the defunct Black Sea grain deal, but insisted it would only do so after its conditions are met. Brokered by the UN and Türkiye last year, the agreement allowed agricultural goods to continue flowing through Ukrainian ports.Speaking after Washington’s United Nations envoy, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, claimed that the Russian government might be “interested in returning to discussions” about the grain deal earlier on Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov clarified the Russian stance in comments to Sputnik. “Moscow is ready to immediately return to the grain deal. But this will take place only after the conditions concerning Russia are fulfilled,” he told the outlet on Tuesday.

The Kremlin outlined the circumstances under which it would return to the grain deal on multiple occasions in recent weeks, with Russia’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, citing several distinct conditions. These include lifting Western sanctions on Russian grain and fertilizer exports, reconnecting Russian financial institutions to the SWIFT payment system, and ending restrictions on Russian imports of spare parts for agricultural machinery. Polyansky also insisted the grain deal “must recover its initial humanitarian nature” and help to alleviate food scarcity in developing nations, rather than making rich countries even more wealthy. Yury Ushakov, the foreign policy adviser for Russian President Vladimir Putin, has also expressed willingness to continue the deal. Not long after the agreement was voided by Moscow in mid-July, the adviser argued that the pact “is not fully done for, but simply suspended, because the Russian part of this package decision was not implemented.”

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin also explained that the grain deal is still technically in effect, but noted that the Western sanctions relief mandated under the arrangement had not come to fruition. “We have been receiving promises for an entire year,” he said regarding the economic penalties. Mediated with help from the UN and Ankara, the agreement was established in July 2022, creating a humanitarian corridor through the Black Sea to allow grain and fertilizer shipments to leave Ukraine’s ports. Moscow repeatedly complained about its unmet conditions before allowing the deal to expire on July 18, also insisting that Kiev had exploited the safe corridor to launch military attacks on Russia.

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Not Brazil’s call.

Brazil Sets Terms For Expansion Of BRICS – Reuters (RT)

Brazil is worried that a rapid expansion of BRICS, an intragovernmental economic forum in which it is a founding member, would destabilize the organization and diminish the roles of the current member states, government sources told Reuters. “An expansion could transform the bloc into something else,” an anonymous Brazilian official was quoted by the news agency on Wednesday as saying. “Brazil’s position has been concerned with the cohesion of the group and preservation of our space in a group of important countries.” BRICS currently includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, with the latter joining the original four members in 2010. The club touts itself as counterbalancing global Western influence as the world transitions to a multipolar political order.

It currently accounts for around 40% of the global population and nearly a quarter of its economy, and is developing alternatives to entrenched international financial institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Dozens of nations have announced their interest in joining BRICS, with Bolivia doing so on Monday, and 22 have formally applied for membership. Current members are discussing what formal criteria candidates should meet, in hopes that they can come to a consensus in time for the upcoming summit of leaders in Johannesburg on August 20-22.China and Russia have expressed support for expanding the organization, and South Africa favors the move provided that the rules are carefully considered. India “has reservations,” but has largely abandoned its past reluctance, according to Reuters, leaving Brazil as the “main holdout.”

“Brazil is going to have to give in at some point because we are realistic and it is not in our nature to block things,” a Brazilian official told the agency. “But it won’t be good for us.” Brasilia advocates gradual growth to maintain regional balance and keep pre-eminent roles for the five current members, the sources explained.

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“Africa is preparing for war
After the coup d’état in Niger and the removal of the French puppet from the presidential position, the West African organization ECOWAS, which is under the full control of the United States and France, announced that it would attack Niger. Yesterday, Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea jointly declared that the attack on Niger is an attack on all of them and that they will intervene militarily. But the most interesting part is Algeria’s statement that it will also intervene militarily if Niger is attacked. Today the Chief of Staff of the Algerian Army arrived in Moscow for a meeting with Shoigu. Algeria is likely to receive heavy weapons from Russia and Iran through its ports. The USA and France have confirmed that they support military intervention by ECOWAS, de facto confirming that they are creating a new war in the world like in Syria and Ukraine. The same scheme worked for them when they destroyed Libya, but today Niger has powerful support..”

Niger Bans Uranium And Gold Exports To France (RT)

Niger’s military authorities, which seized power from President Mohamed Bazoum in a coup last week, banned uranium and gold exports to France on Sunday with “immediate effect,” multiple reports suggested on Monday. General Abdourahamane Tchiani, the leader of the newly formed transitional council, announced the decision, according to the Al Mayadeen news portal. Thousands of junta supporters applauded the move on Sunday during anti-French protests in the capital, Niamey, and burned French flags, local outlet Wazobia reported. “We have uranium, diamonds, gold, and oil, and we live like slaves? We don’t need the French to keep us safe,” the portal quoted one of the protesters as saying. Niger is the world’s seventh-largest uranium producer, accounting for 5% of global output, according to the World Nuclear Association.

French media reports say the country accounts for 15%-17% of uranium used in France to generate electricity. Euratom – the European Atomic Energy Community – told Reuters on Tuesday that the West African country was the second-largest supplier of natural uranium to the EU bloc last year. According to the agency, there is no immediate threat to nuclear power production if Niger suspends supplies because utilities in the EU have enough uranium stocks to fuel nuclear power reactors for three years. Alexander Uvarov, editor of Russian nuclear news website Atominfo, told TASS that the immediate impact of Niger’s uranium export cut on the French nuclear power sector will be insignificant, but global uranium prices are likely to rise. The French state-owned company Orano, which operates a uranium mine in Niger, said on Tuesday that it is keeping an eye on the security situation in the former French colony.

“The group closely follows the instructions given by the French Embassy to give the opportunity to employees to leave Niger if they wish,” Orano stated. Earlier, the company stated that mining operations would continue despite ongoing “security events.” France announced on Tuesday that it would evacuate French and European citizens from Niamey, citing attacks on its embassy in the aftermath of the July 26 coup. The junta claimed that French security forces assaulted demonstrators who marched in support of the coup and protested against France’s presence in the country on Sunday. Six people were injured as a result of the French intervention, according to the coup leaders. The French foreign ministry has denied using lethal force against the protestors.

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“..pan-Africa should go all-out creating their own brands and value-added products, without waiting for “approval” from the West.”

First We Go for Moscow, Then We Take Beijing (Pepe Escobar)

The Global Majority is free to choose two different paths to counteract the rabid, cognitive dissonant Straussian neocon psychos in charge of imperial foreign policy; to relentlessly ridicule them, or to work hard on the long and winding road leading to a new multipolar reality. Reality struck deep at the Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg, with its astonishing breadth and scope, reflected in the official declaration and key facts such as Russia writing off no less than $23 billion in African debt, and President Putin calling for Africa to enter the G20 and the UNSC (“It’s time to correct this historical injustice.”) Three interventions in St. Petersburg summarize the pan-African drive to finally get rid of exploitative neocolonialism.

President of Eritrea Isaias Afwerki: “They are printing money. They are not manufacturing anything at all, it’s printing money. This has been one of their weapons globally – the monetary system… sanctions here, sanctions there… We need a new financial architecture globally.” President of Burkina Faso, Ibrahim Traoré, the face of a resurgent Global South and the world’s youngest leader: “A slave that does not rebel does not deserve pity. The African Union (AU) must stop condemning Africans who decide to fight against their own puppet regimes of the West.”

President of Uganda Yoweri Museveni: “One facet of neo-colonialism and colonialism was Africa being confined to producing only raw materials, crops, like coffee, and minerals (…) This issue is the biggest factor why the African economies are stunted; they do not grow, because all the value is taken by other people (…) So, what I want to propose to Russia and China is to discourage as a policy the importing of raw materials from Africa, to instead work with the Africans to add value at source.” In a nutshell: pan-Africa should go all-out creating their own brands and value-added products, without waiting for “approval” from the West.

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Center for Countering Digital Hate

Twitter Sues Censorship Advocate (RT)

X Corp – the company formerly known as Twitter – filed a lawsuit against the UK-based nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) on Monday, accusing the NGO of seeking to stifle free expression and open discussion on X’s platform by scaring away advertisers. Describing the CCDH as an “activist organization masquerading as [a] research agenc[y], funded and supported by unknown organizations, individuals, and potentially even foreign governments with ties to legacy media companies,” the suit accuses the group of initiating a “scare campaign to drive away advertisers” – whose funding X requires to continue to operate its platform as a free service.

In a blog post accompanying the suit, X also accused the CCDH of “targeting people on all platforms who speak about issues the CCDH doesn’t agree with, attempting to coerce the deplatforming of users whose views do not conform to the CCDH’s ideological agenda, targeting free-speech organizations by focusing on their revenue stream to remove free services for people, [and] attempting to illegally gain unauthorized access to social media platform data and to misuse that data.”

The censorship advocate also “scraped” X’s platform, slurping up all available data – something X’s terms of service forbids – and illegally accessed X’s data via a borrowed login from advertising analytics platform Brandwatch, according to the suit. This data was then used “out of context” to claim a “surge in harmful content” had driven advertisers away from X, it states. The unnamed Brandwatch user who assisted the CCDH is among the 50 ‘John Doe’ defendants listed in the suit – co-conspirators X claims is working with CCDH to sabotage X, explaining their real names will be added as their true identities are discovered. X does not put a dollar value on the amount CCDH’s “research” has cost it, referring only to “at least tens of millions of dollars” and demanding that the censorship advocate cease using the stolen data.

CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed dismissed Musk’s claims, telling CNN the lawsuit “sounds a bit like a conspiracy theory to me” and accusing the billionaire of blaming Ahmed for “his own failings as a CEO.” The CCDH has repeatedly alleged that Musk has made X a haven for bigotry, most recently airing its claims in a July 19 Bloomberg article that asserted: “hate speech towards minority communities increased” under his leadership. The lawsuit came less than 24 hours after the CCDH published a letter from what was then known as Twitter, dated July 20, accusing the NGO of “regularly” making “inflammatory, outrageous, and false or misleading assertions about Twitter and its operations,” while positioning such assertions as scientifically-rigorous “research.” The CCDH countered that Twitter was trying to “silence honest criticism” via legal intimidation.

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Big part.

Russiagate To Blame For Ukraine Conflict – Trump (RT)

A probe into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 American presidential election undermined relations with Moscow which ultimately led to the Ukraine conflict, former US president and current candidate Donald Trump said in an op-ed published on Monday. Writing for Newsweek, Trump slammed the congressional investigation into his campaign’s purported ties with Russia, claiming that the report by special counsel John Durham proved that “the Russia Hoax was the most atrocious weaponization” of the US government in history. The long-awaited document, which was released in May, found that the FBI should have never launched a probe into Trump’s ties with Russia as it was based on biased sources.

The ex-president insisted that “an unelected cabal” of senior US officials acting in concert with former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton sought to stop his election in 2016 and then undermine his term in office. According to Trump, their disruptive efforts came “at a critical moment when we should have been reducing tensions with Russia” but instead “the Russia Hoax stoked mass hysteria that helped drive Russia straight into the arms of China.” “Instead of having a better relationship with Russia as I worked to build, we now have a proxy war with Russia, fueled in part by the lingering fumes of Russiagate delirium. Ukraine has been utterly devastated. Untold numbers of people have been killed. And we could very well end up in World War III.”

US authorities accused Russia of interfering in the 2016 presidential election to hurt Clinton and to boost the Republican candidacy of Donald Trump, an allegation which has been vehemently denied by Moscow. Trump and his campaign were also investigated for potential collusion with Moscow, but US authorities failed to find evidence to bring any conspiracy or coordination charges.Meanwhile, Trump, who is running for re-election in 2024, has repeatedly said that he could end hostilities in Ukraine in 24 hours should he become president again. He has also criticized the way the administration of US President Joe Biden is handling the conflict, noting in May that Washington is “giving away so much equipment” to Kiev while it does not have enough munitions for itself.

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Sorry, I don’t see Hunter or Joe Soprano.

Jill Biden’s Ex-Husband Talks About “Very Dangerous Biden Crime Family” (ZH)

The ex-husband of First Lady Jill Biden has broken his silence to speak out against the “Biden crime family” for “targeting” he and Donald Trump. Bill Stevenson, who was married to Jill Biden between 1970 and 1975, told Newsmax last week that the president’s brother, Frankie Biden, tried to intimidate him during his divorce with Jill, and claimed the family threatened him with repercussions.”Frankie Biden of the Biden crime family comes up to me and he goes, “Give her the house or you’re going to have serious problems,”” Stevenson said. “I looked at Frankie and I said, “Are you threatening me?” and needless to say, about two months later, my brother and I were indicted for that tax charge for $8,200.”

When asked to clarify whether he thinks Joe Biden was behind the tax charge, Stevenson told host Greg Kelly: “I not only think it, but I know it,” adding that he “could not believe the power of Joe Biden and the Department of Justice. I couldn’t believe it.” Kelly also noted the parallels between Stevenson’s case and Hunter Biden’s ongoing tax troubles – noting that Hunter was hit with just two misdemeanor counts for $2.2 million in unpaid taxes, while Stevenson and his brother were slapped with two felonies for just over $8,000 in unpaid taxes. “It’s hard to believe what they’re doing to President Trump right now, and that’s why I came to you,” said Stevenson, 75. “He is doing the exact same thing.”


“I was on the wrong side of them, and they have literally come after me for 35 years in a row. One little thing after another,” he continued. “I can’t let them do this to a president that I love and respect. I can’t let them do this to our country.” “This is the only reason I’ve come forward. It’s like I said, nothing about the divorce, no bitterness, but Jimmy, Frankie, and President Biden are very dangerous, and it’s tragic. I can’t let them do what they did to me to President Trump. I can’t do it,” he added.

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FARA all the way. No way out. The foreign contacts want to see Hunter produce Joe. That’s all, the first time.

Devon Archer Reveals the ‘Niceties’ of Influence-Peddling (Turley)

There were niceties.” That description by Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) of calls between President Joe Biden, his son Hunter, and Hunter’s foreign business associates may, strangely, be the most accurate thing the freshman congressman has ever said. The almost-two-dozen calls — detailed by Hunter Biden’s close friend and former business partner, Devon Archer, during a closed-door interview Monday with House Oversight Committee investigators — were indeed “the niceties” of influence-peddling. The calls presumably were intended to show that Hunter Biden could deliver his father and to support what Archer called “the brand.” Hunter had no relevant experience or appreciable business skills, but he had the vice president of the United States on speed-dial.

The selection of Goldman as the only committee Democrat in the interview was ironic. Goldman was a Democratic staff attorney when the House impeached Donald Trump in 2019 largely on the basis of a single telephone call to the president of Ukraine. Now, however, Goldman is calling for an immediate cessation of any further investigation, in an almost comical display of denial and deflection. Goldman helped demolish Biden’s long-standing defense in another hearing just a week earlier. In an effort to defuse the testimony of two IRS whistleblowers, who said Hunter received special protection from their criminal investigation, Goldman tripped the wire and elicited testimony that Joe Biden may in fact have spoken with his son about foreign dealings — something the president has denied for years.

Goldman said that “Joe Biden came to say hello at the Four Seasons hotel to a lunch that he [Hunter Biden] was having” with Chinese energy company executives. He then read from the record how another Hunter associate, Rob Walker, described the origins of that meeting with the Chinese to get his father to stop by: “Hunter told his dad that ‘I may be trying to start a company or try to do something with these guys.’” As with the twenty-some phone calls, Goldman dismissed Joe Biden’s sudden appearance as a fatherly drive-by. On Monday, Goldman tried to dismiss a trusted Hunter Biden partner who was detailing how the then-vice president was critical to selling “the brand.”

The new spin was to admit that the senior Biden did speak with Hunter’s business associates but only to exchange “niceties” when he was put on speakerphone at meetings and dinners. Goldman noted that Archer testified the elder Biden did not discuss “any business dealings or transactions” and said it would be a “preposterous premise to think that a father should not say hello to people that the son is at dinner with.” What is truly preposterous is Goldman’s suggestion that these figures would have discussed corrupt deliverables on a speakerphone in restaurants. That was not the point of the calls. The point would have been that Hunter and his team were selling access, and the calls with his vice president/father confirmed that he was deliverable.

FARA

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Cord

 

 

Boiling
https://twitter.com/i/status/1686279698060632064

 

 

Flight of the red-billed blue magpie
https://twitter.com/i/status/1686317250012151809

 

 

Katykid
https://twitter.com/i/status/1686436506813026308

 

 


The white raven that was thought to be a legend but inhabits a coastal segment of British Columbia, Canada. These ravens are not albino, but leucistic, or lacking any of several different types of pigment (not simply melanin)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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