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Debt Rattle September 22 2024

Sep 222024
 
 September 22, 2024  Posted by at 9:05 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  62 Responses »


René Magritte Golconda 1953

 

• An American Coup? (Neuburger)
• 72 Minutes (Scott Ritter)
• ‘It’s Over For Russia’ – Boris Johnson (RT)
• Has The EU Suddenly Realized How Much It Has Screwed Itself Over? (Marsden)
• EU Leadership Urges Europe To Be Ready To Fight Russia In 6-8 Years (ZH)
• The DEI Trojan Horse Has Undermined US Military (Sp.)
• TikTok Wipes Out Sputnik Accounts (Sp.)
• No One Is Safe: The Global Threat of Israel’s Weaponized Pagers (Sweidan)
• When Vladimir Putin Was Pootie-Poot (Adam Dick)
• All of Europe Does Business With Russia – Hungary (RT)
• Indian State Oil Refiners Seeking Long-term Deals With Russia – Media (RT)
• Harris ‘Too Busy’ To Talk To Media – Adviser (RT)
• Secret Service Allowed ‘Multiple Failures’ Before Trump Shooting – Report (RT)
• America’s Healthcare Dead Last in Rich Nation Rankings (Sp.)
• Words You Can’t Ignore (Max Jones)

 

 

 

 

Tucker Carmela excellent
https://twitter.com/i/status/1837206654711980070

 

 

RFK sued Trump

 

 

Ireland

 

 

Thiel

 

 

Dimon
https://twitter.com/i/status/1837245042056105994

 

 

Mars
https://twitter.com/i/status/1837626546074325240

 

 

India
https://twitter.com/i/status/1837643524600148279

 

 

Maher

 

 

 

 

Easily the prime article/video this weekend. Because it puts everything on its head.

Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell “and critic of America’s wars”, states that the Pentagon has taken over US foreign policy. And that is as stark as it sounds. Wilkerson says that Biden, Harris, Blinken and Jake Sullivan have all been sidelined because the Pentagon doesn’t want to go to war, not in Ukraine and not in Gaza. “No dice”. And they can’t do a thing without the Pentagon.

Judge Nap: “COL. Lawrence Wilkerson : Can Ukraine Make It to Nov 5th?”

We have some transcript below, but do watch the whole interview.

• An American Coup? (Neuburger)

In a 30-minute interview with Judge Napolitano on September 18, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell and critic of America’s wars, described a recent event in which Pentagon chief Gen. Lloyd Austin told President Biden that, in Wilkerson’s words, “the Pentagon has taken over, essentially, diplomacy as well as any action, militarily speaking, with regard to both theaters of war,” meaning Ukraine and Israel. Wilkerson added, “And so they’re now in charge.” Austin, according to this telling, listened “to the people in the bowels of the Pentagon who know the truth” and forced the President to back down. Biden was furious, we’re told, but “took that advice.” Except, as Wilkerson tells it, it wasn’t advice, but instruction. “No dice,” as Wilkerson characterized the message, sounds pretty final. This is good news and bad news. The good, U.S. policy is now: To Netanyahu, if you invade Lebanon or attack Iran, you’re on your own. To Zelenskyy, no to long range missiles reaching deep into Russia.

So we and the world are safer, at least for a while. The bad: Is this a coup? Has the military stood up to the President, forced him to change policy? If the answers are yes, we’re on our way once more to revising the Constitution-as-practiced. Both political parties have already confirmed that the Fourth Amendment can be ignored. That’s now the “new normal.” So what’s this encroachment of the Pentagon into foreign policy, if not another “new normal”? Has MacArthur finally won?

Whatever the truth, you won’t see this reported in what people call the “news,” but I doubt Wilkerson’s sources are wrong. At any rate, we’ll know soon enough by the way Zelenskyy and Netanyahu act. Welcome to the future of U.S. foreign policy.

Wilkerson: I think what we’re seeing here is another attempt, because a 100-plane strike didn’t do it, by Netanyahu to provoke Hezbollah to some sort of action that he can then declare is warlike to the extent that he can do what he wants to do with them — even though I’m told with great confidence in the sources that the latest two visits by the Central Command Unified Commander were to tell him [Netanyahu] that we would not be with him in the event of his going to war with Hezbollah that he provoked. Nor will we be with him going to war with Iran that he provoked. And we made it quite clear that we would know if he provoked it.

Napolitano: You’re speaking of General Kurilla [CENTCOM commander since April 2022].

Wilkerson: Yes. Yes.

Napolitano: So Scott Ritter agrees with you, Doug Macgregor says he can’t imagine Austin and Blinkin letting General Kuralla do that. It’s very very interesting. … Is this speculation on your part or is it based on sources?

Wilkerson: It’s based on some pretty reliable sources. And here’s the bigger picture and I hope the others told you this too. Biden’s fury — and you could see it — he was seething when he met with the British Prime Minister.

Napolitano: Yes, yes, we have that clip. He was out of control with anger.

Wilkerson: And what he [had] just been told, apparently, was by the Pentagon, “No dice, Mr President. No dice on Ukraine and no dice on Gaza. We’re in charge now.”

Napolitano: No dice. You’re talking about no dice on the long range missiles reaching deep into Russia, even though Tony Blinkin had intimated all week in Kyiv with his British counterpart that this was happening. And Sir Keir Stormer, the British Prime Minister, had every reason to believe as he’s flying across the Atlantic that Joe Biden’s answer would be yes.

Wilkerson: He was embarrassed. He was embarrassed by the fact — he was pulling out his maps with target data and Biden told him, “Don’t even pull them out. We’re not going to talk about that.” I’ve been told, again by fairly reliable sources, that Blinkin and Sullivan — Blinkin primarily, but Sullivan too — have been sidetracked, and what’s happened is the Pentagon has taken over, essentially, diplomacy as well as any action, militarily speaking, with regard to both theaters of war. And so they’re now in charge. I have to change my evaluation of Secretary Austin if that’s the case, because it means he listened finally to the people in the bowels of the Pentagon who know the truth, and he’s reacting to that, and he’s told the President Biden that, and to Biden’s credit, even though he was furious, he finally took that advice.

Napolitano: Colonel, you once ran the State Department [as Secretary Colin Powell’s chief of staff under George Bush]. How does the Defense Department engage in diplomacy?

Wilkerson: They engage in diplomacy every day. Every day. There are four-stars in the various syncdoms, the regions that they control, the AORs [Areas of Responsibility] [who] are the true U.S. diplomats. And some of them are very good at it. I saw some of them. I worked with some of them who are very good at it, better than any Secretary of State. But it shouldn’t be that way. That’s a parenthetical remark. We shouldn’t have the military leading diplomacy. But we often do. And the Japanese prime minister once told me why to my face. He said, “Larry, when your East Asia and Pacific Assistant Secretary comes out here, he’s not got anything but his briefcase. When the man from Honolulu comes out here, from Camp Smith in Hawaii, he’s towing air wings, submarines, battle groups, Marine amphibious groups, Army divisions. I listened to him. This is the Prime Minister of Japan.

Napolitano: Who told General Kurilla to tell Prime Minister Netanyahu, “If you invade Lebanon, you’re on your own?”

Wilkerson: It was, I think, Austin. But that’s the chain of command. Austin conveyed that message to him [Kurilla]. But I think it was Austin that convinced Biden to give him that command so he could transmit it to Kurilla.

Read more …

“..everything you thought you lived your life for would be dead. And if you survived? To quote Nikita Khrushchev, “The survivors would envy the dead.”

• 72 Minutes (Scott Ritter)

Most Americans approached last weekend thinking about how they would spend the much-anticipated end of the work week with their friends and family. Few realize how close they came to actualizing the scenario so horrifyingly spelled out in Annie Jacobsen’s alarming must-read book, Nuclear War: A Scenario. 72 minutes. That is all it takes to end the world as we know it. That is less time than most movies playing at the local cinema. Most people could not drive to the local home improvement store to buy the materials needed to do the little repairs around the home that usually wait for the weekend. Walk the dogs? Play with the kids? Forget about it. 72 minutes. And everything you thought you lived your life for would be dead. And if you survived? To quote Nikita Khrushchev, “The survivors would envy the dead.”

Ukraine, together with many of its NATO allies, has been asking for permission from the United States, the United Kingdom, and France to be able to employ precision-guided long-range weapons systems provided by these countries against targets deep inside Russia. On Sept. 6, at a meeting of the Ramstein Contact Group, a forum where U.S.-NATO military support to Ukraine is coordinated, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky personally appealed to the group for more weapons support from its Western allies and called on allies to allow Ukraine to use the weapons they provided to strike deeper inside Russia. “We need to have this long-range capability,” Zelensky said, addressing the attendees, who included U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, “not only on the divided territory of Ukraine but also on Russian territory so that Russia is motivated to seek peace. We need to make Russian cities, and even Russian soldiers think about what they need: peace or Putin.”

Secretary Austin, in comments made afterwards, said he didn’t think the use of long-range missiles to strike inside Russia would help end the war, adding that he expected the conflict would be resolved through negotiations. Moreover, Austin noted, Ukraine had its own weapons capable of attacking targets well beyond the range of the British Storm Shadow cruise missile. Despite Austin’s pushback, President Joe Biden appeared to be on track to give Zelensky the green light he was looking for regarding the use of British-provided Storm Shadow cruise missiles and U.S.-provided long-range ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) missiles for strikes on Russian soil. On Sept. 11, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, accompanied by British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, visited Ukraine, where they held meetings with Zelensky and his newly appointed foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha.

Blinken and Lammy, however, failed to make the announcement the Ukrainians were waiting with bated breath to hear. Instead, Blinken and Lammy reiterated the full support of their respective nations to Ukraine’s victory, adding that they would adapt their support to meet Ukrainian needs. “The bottom line is this: We want Ukraine to win,” Blinken said after his meeting with Zelensky. The stage was now set for Keir Starmer, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, to fly to Washington, D.C., last Friday, where he would meet with Biden and jointly agree to give Ukraine permission to use Storm Shadow and ATACMS against targets inside Russia. Russia has long made it clear that it would view any nation which authorized the use of its weapons to strike Russia as a direct party to the conflict. In comments to the media in Russia last Thursday — one day before the Biden-Starmer meeting at the White House — Russian President Vladimir Putin made it clear that any lifting of the restrictions on Ukrainian use of U.S.- and U.K.-provided long-range weapons would change “the very essence of the conflict.” He said:

“This will mean that NATO countries, the United States, European countries are fighting Russia. And if this is the case, then…we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, speaking after Putin’s announcement, noted that the Russian president’s words were “extremely clear” and that they had reached their intended audience — U.S. President Biden. Biden didn’t seem happy about the message. In responding to a question from reporters prior to his meeting with Prime Minister Starmer at the White House about what he thought about Putin’s warning, Biden snapped angrily, “I don’t think much about Vladimir Putin.” The evidence suggests otherwise.

Read more …

Update from another planet.

• ‘It’s Over For Russia’ – Boris Johnson (RT)

Russia must understand that “it’s over,” and that Ukraine will not concede any territory for peace, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has argued. For this goal to be achieved, however, Kiev will need long-range weapons, NATO membership, and half a trillion dollars, Johnson added. In an op-ed published in The Spectator on Saturday, Johnson argued that Ukrainian forces still have the “ability to win,” if only the West would cave to every single one of Kiev’s demands. These include, he wrote, permission to strike deep inside Russian territory with Storm Shadow and ATACMS missiles, and immediate invitation to NATO with Article 5 security guarantees, and “half a trillion dollars… or even a trillion.” Disregarding Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent warning that enabling long-range strikes would place NATO in a state of war with Russia as “bluster and saber-rattling,” Johnson argued that these steps are necessary to “send the crucial message to the Kremlin.”

“The message is: that’s it. It’s over. You don’t have an empire any more. You don’t have a ‘near abroad’ or a ‘sphere of influence’. You don’t have the right to tell the Ukrainians what to do, any more than we British have the right to tell our former colonies what to do,” he asserted. “It is time for Putin to understand that Russia can have a happy and glorious future, but that like Rome and like Britain, the Russians have decisively joined the ranks of the post-imperial powers, and a good thing, too,” he continued. The West, Johnson argued, “must abandon any idea that the Ukrainians will do a deal” or “trade land for peace.” “We in the West would be mad to try to impose that outcome,” he added. Ironically, Russia and Ukraine reportedly agreed to a peace deal during talks in Istanbul in 2022. The agreement would have involved Ukraine declaring military neutrality, limiting its armed forces, and vowing not to discriminate against ethnic Russians. In return, Moscow would have joined other leading powers in offering Ukraine security guarantees.

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky withdrew from the talks at the last moment. According to Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia, former US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, and several Ukrainian media reports, Johnson was instrumental in convincing Zelensky to abandon negotiations. Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and the deputy leader of Türkiye’s ruling party, Numan Kurtulmus, have also claimed that several Western states conspired to scupper the deal. Five months after the Istanbul talks, Russia assumed control of four former regions of Ukraine. According to the most recent figures from the Russian Defense Ministry, the Ukrainian military has lost nearly half a million men since February 2022, and the Pentagon concluded last year that Ukraine stands little chance of regaining its former territories.

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“..unscrewing everything they screwed up over the past two and a half years through self-inflicted idiocy in the interests of impressing their girlfriend Vladimir Zelensky (aka president of Ukraine).”

• Has The EU Suddenly Realized How Much It Has Screwed Itself Over? (Marsden)

The EU is having a full-blown existential crisis. Someone has really screwed up its economy, and the culprit is conspicuously absent from a new report outlining the carnage. Are there no mirrors in Brussels? Former European Central Bank president and Italian prime minister, Mario Draghi, has published a new “economic competitiveness” report after a year of work at the request of unelected ‘Queen’ Ursula von der Leyen’s ‘Royal’ European Commission. And it’s a real page-turner, one of the great mysteries of our times. One is left to breathlessly leaf through the 400-page document looking for a culprit responsible for the massive amount of economic carnage detailed by Draghi. “For the first time since the Cold War we must genuinely fear for our self-preservation,” he told reporters in Brussels. How about starting off by not actively self-sabotaging?

Draghi said that the bloc desperately needs to keep up with China and the US, but has been failing. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the EU readily jumped in to ride shotgun alongside Uncle Sam along regime change highway, but now finds itself kicking dirt on the roadside and wanting to make its own way. “Now conditions have changed,” Draghi said. “World trade is slowing. China is actually slowing very much, but it’s become much less open to us, and actually it’s competing with us in global markets on all accounts. We’ve lost our main supplier of cheap energy, Russia. And now we have to start for our defense again for the first time since the Second World War.” Apparently, the jokers ruling Europe from the big top tent in Brussels are shocked to discover that they’ve been victimized. Who could possibly have done such a thing?

Gotta love the use of the passive there. “Lost” their cheap energy from Russia. Like it just fell out of their pocket like a set of house keys on the way back from the store. Listening to Draghi, you’d also think that the EU hasn’t actually adopted “de-coupling” from China as a strategy, egged on by Washington, which wanted Europe all to itself, before EU officials rebranded it a “de-risking” when they realized how stupid a move it would be to fully alienate China as the bloc’s top trading partner and customer. And now, oh gee, the EU has to start thinking about its own defense again, Draghi said, rather than just using it to shake free some natural resources from all the places with fortuitously-located terrorist problems. The Ukraine conflict has been an equally convenient excuse to make more weapons at taxpayer expense for the EU’s own defense after emptying out the old junk from its closets.

Good thing, too, because making more weapons is about the only real easy answer for improving the economy right now, judging by the dire state of things outlined in this new report. Still, the EU can’t even do the military-industrial racket right. Draghi has pointed out that EU members are basically idiots for buying most of their weapons abroad, with nearly two-thirds coming from the US. Big mystery as to why Washington wants to keep the party going in Ukraine when it’s making bank by drumming up the need to ramp up weapons purchases for EU members under the guise that their former top economic lifeline and energy supplier (Russia) was suddenly a big threat to them. The bonus: making Europe more dependent on the US for pricier gas, too.

The whole report is just loaded with gems, like this one: “If Europe cannot become more productive, we will be forced to choose. We will not be able to become, at once, a leader in new technologies, a beacon of climate responsibility and an independent player on the world stage. We will not be able to finance our social model. We will have to scale back some, if not all, of our ambitions. This is an existential challenge…” Draghi’s going on about all these grand ambitions like leading new tech and being a climate and social icon, while European elites have been yelling at the plebs to turn down the heating and air conditioning to stick it to Putin and cheering mild winters like we’re living in the dark ages. Draghi also said that the EU needs another €800 billion ($890 billion), which is about 4.5% of the entire bloc’s GDP, just to be able to stay globally competitive. And that competitiveness can only be achieved by thoroughly unscrewing everything they screwed up over the past two and a half years through self-inflicted idiocy in the interests of impressing their girlfriend Vladimir Zelensky (aka president of Ukraine).

Read more …

They made some Baltic Lunatic the EU’s new defense commissioner.

• EU Leadership Urges Europe To Be Ready To Fight Russia In 6-8 Years (ZH)

NATO’s tiny Baltic states have continued to be among the most hawkish within the alliance when it comes to ‘confronting Russia’ and making war plans. One Lithuanian official is making headlines for saying that eventual NATO war with Russia is inevitable, and that Europe must begin preparing now. Andrius Kubilius, a former Lithuanian prime minister and the EU’s new defense commissioner, has told Reuters that Europe must prepare to go to war with Russia withing the next six to eight years. “Defense ministers and NATO generals agree that Vladimir Putin could be ready for confrontation with NATO and the EU in 6-8 years,” Kubilius said in his capacity as the European Union’s first-ever Defense Commissioner. “If we take these assessments seriously, then that is the time for us to properly prepare, and it is a short one. This means we have to take quick decisions, and ambitious decisions,” he added.

Kubilius’ appointment is seen as an indicator that the EU is getting more serious about war-spending as a bloc, though EU leadership has no decision-making capacity when it comes to NATO. Apparently he’s unconcerned with the dangers of nuclear-armed confrontation. Russia has said it would deploy nuclear weapons if its territory and population faces existential threat of annihilation. Kubilius described further in his statement, “The European Union won’t have defense plans or military leadership, like NATO does — but the European Union has instruments to get larger financing, which NATO doesn’t.” He has called for a total investment of a gargantuan sum: 500 billion euros in the coming years in order to ramp-up the readiness of European militaries.

European Parliament has recently passed a largely symbolic resolution approving the Zelensky government’s use of long-range weapons to attack inside Russia. The head of Russia’s State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, has responded by saying “What the European Parliament is calling for leads to a world war using nuclear weapons.” Thinks looking bleak: A newly-created EU leadership position and the very first directive issued relates to future war with Russia… Clearly peace is on the minds of few. The only way to avoid escalation leading to nuclear-armed showdown in the heart of Europe is the negotiating table, but both Moscow and Kiev have of late issued statements denying that they are even close to sitting down together to seek settlement or ceasefire.

Read more …

Better not get into a fight. Unwinnable.

• The DEI Trojan Horse Has Undermined US Military (Sp.)

The US military is facing what has been characterized as its worst recruitment, morale, and public trust crisis in modern history. Here’s what the Biden administration’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion has to do with it. An analysis of a trove of internal documents by The Daily Caller has revealed that the US Air Force has been excluding white male applicants from its popular Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program in favor of minorities. Highlighting the Biden administration’s obsession with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), the prejudice reflects a broader push by Washington’s liberal establishment to turn Martin Luther King Jr.’s quote about not judging people “by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” on its head. Team Biden went to work on DEI and “equity” (not to be confused with “equality”) guidelines for the military immediately after stepping into office, firing off three key executive orders in January 2021, including:

EO 13985: “Advancing Racial Equality and Support for Undeserving Communities Through the Federal Government” (including the military). EO 13988: “Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender-Identity or Sexual Orientation.” EO 14004: “Enabling All Qualified Americans to Serve Their Country in Uniform” – aimed at easing transgender individuals’ ability to serve. Together with the June 2021 EO 14035 on “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce,” the trio of directives kicked off a fundamental transformation of the military, sparking a series of bizarre scandals and leading to an unprecedented drop in readiness and morale:

In 2021, the Air Force and Navy faced widespread derision after rolling out maternity flight suits, with Tucker Carlson calling the move a “mockery of the US military,” and highlighting the absurdity of having “pregnant women…fight[ing] our wars.” In June 2023, facing an outcry from conservative lawmakers, the military banned drag shows on base, deeming them “inconsistent with regulations regarding the use of resources,” with DoD spokespeople scrambling to assure that “the Department does not fund drag shows or drag activities.” In October 2023, the advocacy group which won a historic Supreme Court case against race-conscious admissions to US universities brought cases against West Point and the US Naval Academy on grounds of DEI-based bias. The Supreme Court binned the West Point case in February 2024, with the Naval Academy’s affirmative action trial kicking off this past week.

The staggering costs of Pentagon DEI initiatives has also garnered considerable attention and criticism, with spending jumping from $68 million in 2022, to $86.5 million in 2023, and $114.7 million in 2024. The funds provide for things like mandatory diversity training and the hiring of onsite “diversity officers” to ensure compliance with DEI regulations. The Biden Pentagon has been hailed as the most diverse in history, with racial and sexual minorities receiving a host of top jobs, from a proud lesbian tapped to serve as Air Force under secretary, to a transgender assistant secretary of defense, to Lloyd Austin – the Pentagon’s first black chief. But these DEI “milestones” have not exactly helped the military achieve its goals over the past four tumultuous years, with the humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 and the Navy’s impotence against the Houthis from January 2024 on showing that more diversity does not mean more won battles.

In fact, the DEI seems to have made things worse, with the military facing an unprecedented “crisis of recruitment, trust, and spending,” as a Newsweek piece recently put it, forcing some observers and lawmakers on Capitol Hill to consider returning the draft, or offering immigrants citizenship in exchange for service amid recruitment numbers dropping between 20-40%, public trust in the military plummeting from 73% in 2019 to 60% today, and morale and readiness described as being among the lowest since World War II. DEI, combined with other Biden policies aimed at the military, including mandatory COVID shots, have been blamed for the crisis.

Read more …

Only one opinion allowed.

• TikTok Wipes Out Sputnik Accounts (Sp.)

The US Department of the Treasury issued a statement on September 4 announcing sanctions against Sputnik’s parent media group Rossiya Segodnya, RIA Novosti, RT, Sputnik, and Ruptly. The sanctions also targeted Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of Rossiya Segodnya, and a number of other senior executives. On the morning of September 21, the video-sharing platform TikTok removed the Sputnik International account of the Sputnik news network, just days after the US announced new sanctions targeting Russian media. TikTok has not yet commented on the development.

TikTok, which is part of the Chinese company ByteDance, has been under intense pressure from US authorities in recent months. In April, US President Joe Biden signed into law a bill passed by Congress that would ban TikTok in the United States if it refuses to divest from its Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance. TikTok and ByteDance have since challenged the measure in court. Earlier this month, the US State Department tightened the operating conditions of Rossiya Segodnya and its subsidiaries, designating them as “foreign missions.”

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“Israel’s actions signal a new level of risk to global trade, where civilian products may be tampered with for political or military advantage. What was once a matter of state-to-state conflict is now a threat to individual households.”

• No One Is Safe: The Global Threat of Israel’s Weaponized Pagers (Sweidan)

Israel’s coordinated attacks on Lebanon, marked by the near-simultaneous explosion of thousands of pager and walkie-talkie devices over two days, resulted in the deaths of at least 37 people, including children, and left thousands severely wounded. This brutal terrorist attack should serve as a dire warning to the world: a stark reminder that the occupation state’s criminal actions know no limits, indiscriminately targeting those who challenge its interests, or those of its western allies. In the wake of this aggression, who can guarantee that Israeli exports to other countries won’t be weaponized in future conflicts? The “pager attack” serves as yet more evidence that Israel poses a global threat, ushering in a dangerous, dystopian new era in which civilians are no longer safe, even in their own homes. When analyzing the pager detonations from a legal standpoint, it becomes clear that Israel’s killing spree in Lebanon this week lies somewhere between a war crime and an act of terrorism.

The legal classification depends on the current state of affairs between Lebanon and Israel. If Lebanon is considered to be at war with Israel, the targeting of civilians — non-combatants — through the bombing of pagers blatantly violates international laws of warfare, including the Geneva Conventions. Article 51 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions (1949) strictly prohibits indiscriminate attacks on civilians, and Article 85 lists attacks on civilians as grave breaches that amount to war crimes. In this case, we must identify who qualifies as a “combatant” under international humanitarian law. A combatant is defined as someone under military command, wearing a distinguishable uniform and openly carrying weapons. Without these markers, those targeted in the pager attack are considered civilians under international law. Additionally, the attack violates the principles of distinction and proportionality, fundamental tenets of international humanitarian law.

The principle of distinction mandates that combatants must be differentiated from civilians — a rule clearly ignored in Israel’s attacks, evidenced by the deaths of children. The principle of proportionality prohibits attacks where the harm to civilians is excessive compared to the military advantage gained. In this instance, the minimal military impact pales in comparison to the devastating toll on civilians, including the psychological and moral damage inflicted. Therefore, Israel’s adoption of a strategy of indiscriminate violence during its recent aggression against Lebanon is a war crime. The Guardian notes that half a century after the Second World War, a global treaty — to which Israel is a signatory — came into force, which “prohibited in all circumstances to use booby-traps or other devices in the form of apparently harmless portable objects that are specifically designed and constructed to contain explosive material.”

However, if we consider that Lebanon is not in a formal state of war with Israel, the aggression falls under a different legal classification: terrorism. According to the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings (1997), Israel’s actions can be categorized as a “terrorist bombing.” The use of civilian devices, like pagers, in non-military zones with the intent to spread fear aligns with the convention’s definition of terrorism, which criminalizes the unlawful use of explosives to target civilians or infrastructure with the intent to intimidate populations or coerce governments.

The UN General Assembly Declaration on Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism (1994) defines terrorism as any act aimed at causing death or serious bodily harm to civilians for the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or international organization to act. Accordingly, the pager bombings were intended to intimidate the Lebanese and the resistance or force them to make concessions, which is consistent with the definition of terrorism under customary international law. Yesterday, Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Petra De Sutter condemned the “massive terrorist attack” in Lebanon and Syria, while Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, wrote in a statement that the attack “violates international human rights law, and, to the extent applicable, international humanitarian law.”

Israel’s pager bombing has also sparked global concerns about the security of international supply chains. If Israel has indeed begun weaponizing civilian devices through third parties in other countries, this raises the terrifying prospect that supply chains once thought to be safe could be compromised at any time. In an interview with India Today TV, a technologist expressed concern that Israel’s actions could lead to similar risks in other countries, creating the possibility of booby-trapped electronics infiltrating homes worldwide. The implications are profound: Israel’s actions signal a new level of risk to global trade, where civilian products may be tampered with for political or military advantage. What was once a matter of state-to-state conflict is now a threat to individual households.

Read more …

In 1990, the CIA were sure Putin was -literally- their man.

• When Vladimir Putin Was Pootie-Poot (Adam Dick)

United Sates President Joe Biden has spent most of his presidency refusing to talk with Russia President Vladimir Putin. This is despite — or maybe because of — the fact that such discourse could have led to an agreement ending the US government’s proxy war against Russia. Instead of talking out a resolution to the fighting, Biden has kept pumping dollars, weapons, and intelligence to the Ukraine government, resulting in a rising death toll and expanding war. Also advanced has been the risk of drawing the US and Russia directly into a war against each other that could go nuclear. Still, Biden will not pick up the phone or fly on a plane to talk things over with the president of Russia. “I have no good reason to talk to Putin right now,” said Biden on July 11, 2024 in response to a reporter’s question at one of Biden’s rare press conferences.

We know Biden loves his vacation time, but, really, isn’t ending the Ukraine War and preventing its further escalation a good enough reason to start chatting with Putin? How about putting in a little effort to give peace a chance? Long, long ago, during the presidency of George W. Bush, a US president not only regularly talked with Putin, including in in-person meetings, he even had an affectionate nickname for the Russia president. For Bush, Putin was Pootie-Poot. How things have changed. Not every American president before Biden had a cute nickname for counterparts among the long line of Russia leaders, and Soviet leaders during the decades when Russia was subsumed in the Soviet Union.

Yet, they all were willing to talk. This includes Ronald Reagan who called the Soviet Union an “evil empire” and pushed for increased US military spending to counter what he presented as a Soviet threat. Reagan met with and kept in regular contact with Soviet leader Michail Gorbachev, succeeding in putting in place arms control deals between the nations. Other US presidents, while directly and by proxy militarily countering the “red spread” and “Soviet expansion,” kept in communication with Soviet leaders. They wanted to be dedicated cold warriors while minimizing the risk of outright war between the US and Soviet Union. Biden should give Putin a call. And when Biden makes that call, why not give Putin a nice nickname too? Doing this may run counter to Biden’s nature, but it could be the first step down the path to peace. Unfortunately, there is little indication that seeking peace is even a small component of the Biden administration’s agenda.

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“The difference between us and the others in general is that we speak honestly and openly about this issue..”

• All of Europe Does Business With Russia – Hungary (RT)

A significant number of companies in the EU continue to discreetly do business with Russia despite the bloc’s sanctions, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said. “Here I would like to disappoint the idealists, as the situation is that everyone in Europe is doing this,” Szijjarto said in Budapest on Friday.“ The difference between us and the others in general is that we speak honestly and openly about this issue. All of Europe does business with the Russians, but some deny this; we don’t need that.” Szijjarto added that Hungary does not agree with the sanctions, but since this is EU policy, Budapest respects them. Hungary typically vetoes specific EU proposals if they seriously harm national interests, he said, adding that developing economic cooperation with Russia is one of those interests.

The EU imposed sanctions on Moscow in 2014, and expanded them after the Ukraine conflict escalated in 2022. The main targets are high-value sectors of the Russian economy, including energy, finance, and trade. Hungary has long been at odds with the EU over its approach to the Ukraine conflict and its sanctions policy towards Moscow. This makes it difficult for the EU to agree on new restrictions, Euractiv reported in August, citing diplomatic sources. Many experts in both Russia and the West have warned that unilateral sanctions bring more harm to the countries that impose them than to Russia itself. EU officials have also acknowledged that Moscow has been successful in sidestepping the restrictions. In June, Finance Ministry data showed that Russian budget revenues from oil and gas soared by 73.5% in January-May this year, compared to the first five months of 2023.

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“Long-term deals are expected to help avoid price swings and provide India with steady access to Russian oil at a lower price..”

• Indian State Oil Refiners Seeking Long-term Deals With Russia – Media (RT)

India’s state-owned oil refiners are in talks with Russia about clinching long-term supply deals, the news outlet Business Standard reported this week, citing sources at the country’s Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. Agreements could reportedly be sealed as soon as next April when the new fiscal year starts. India, the world’s third-largest consumer of crude oil, depends on imports for up to 85% of its needs. Russia is India’s top oil supplier, and New Delhi has often noted that Moscow has been instrumental in ensuring the nation’s energy security. Nevertheless, while India’s private refiners already have annual deals for Russian oil supplies, the state companies have tended to buy it in the spot markets, reserving long-term contracts for sources from the Middle East. According to the ministry’s sources, however, the high volatility in spot prices has rendered this arrangement no longer attractive for the state refiners.

Long-term deals are expected to help avoid price swings and provide India with steady access to Russian oil at a lower price. India stepped up purchases of Russian crude in 2022 shortly after the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict and the first rounds of Western sanctions on Moscow. New Delhi has taken advantage of the discounts Moscow offered on its oil after the latter effectively lost its traditional buyers in the West. Last month, India even overtook China as the largest buyer of Russian crude. Ramping-up purchases of Russian oil not only helped India bolster its domestic energy security, but made it one of the leading exporters of petrochemicals to Europe. India’s exports of refined oil products to European countries jumped by 2,539 times since 2018, The Print reported earlier this month, citing data from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

Western states have been pressuring India to stop buying Russian oil, but New Delhi has remained adamant that it would continue to do so. Indian officials have also argued on more than one occasion that the decision to buy Russian oil has helped prevent a global energy crisis. In an interview with RT in July, India’s minister of petroleum and natural gas, Hardeep Singh Puri, stated that without Russian oil on the market, global prices would have hit $250-300 per barrel.

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Nobody seems to know what she is busy with.

• Harris ‘Too Busy’ To Talk To Media – Adviser (RT)

US Vice President Kamala Harris hasn’t given many media interviews because “she’s a very busy person,” one of her campaign advisers, Keisha Lance-Bottoms, has told CNN. Even liberal pundits have criticized Harris for dodging the spotlight. In the two months since she announced her presidential campaign, Harris and running mate Tim Walz have given a total of seven sit-down interviews, while former President Donald Trump and running mate J.D. Vance have given 70 interviews and press conferences, according to a tally compiled by Axios this week. When conversations with partisan allies – for instance Trump’s live chat with X owner Elon Musk – are counted, the former president pulls even further ahead of Harris, who has largely stuck to scripted rallies to reach voters. Asked why Harris is not doing more interviews, Lance-Bottoms told CNN on Friday that “we would love to see her sit down every single day with CNN and do interviews, but it’s that she’s a very busy person.”

“She’s the vice president as well as a candidate,” Lance-Bottoms continued, reiterating that Harris is simply “too busy” to match Trump’s media schedule. Harris has come under fire from the New York Times for avoiding unscripted appearances, while CNN commentator Scott Jennings hammered the vice president on Friday for deliberately avoiding “hostile media.” The night before, Harris spoke at length to TV host Oprah Winfrey, although the interview was friendly and featured a host of Harrris’ celebrity supporters, including Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lopez, Julia Roberts, Chris Rock, and Ben Stiller. Harris’ campaign believes that “limiting interactions with the press is the right strategy – even if it frustrates reporters,” Axios reported, citing sources close to the campaign. According to a recent New York Times/Siena poll, 31% of voters feel that they don’t know enough about Harris, while only 12% are unsure who Trump is or where he stands on key issues.

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Too many failures to be failures.

• Secret Service Allowed ‘Multiple Failures’ Before Trump Shooting – Report (RT)

Multiple “operational and communications failures” by the US Secret Service allowed a gunman to open fire on former President Donald Trump during a campaign rally in July, an internal review has found. Trump narrowly avoided death while speaking to a crowd in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July, when a bullet fired from around 150m away grazed his ear. The gunman, a 21-year-old named Thomas Matthew Crooks, fired from a rooftop that had apparently been left unprotected by the Secret Service, killing one rally goer and injuring two others before he was shot dead by a sniper. In the aftermath of the incident, it emerged that local police had spotted Crooks using a range-finder an hour before he opened fire and passed a photo on to Secret Service agents. The agents noticed the gunman on the roof 20 minutes before the incident, but took no action until the first shots rang out.

In a preliminary report released on Friday, the Secret Service stressed that local police were responsible for securing the roof in question. However, the report stated, the officers covering this building had no contact with the Secret Service. Some information about the shooter relayed by local law enforcement never made it to the Secret Service, the report stated, blaming a lack of radio communication between the various agencies working at the rally site. As a result, information about Crooks’ appearance and movements had to be relayed by chains of phone calls and text messages, it claimed. Shortly before the rally began, Crooks was able to fly a camera-equipped drone over the site without being stopped or questioned. The Secret Service report stated that while the agency deployed a counter-drone team to the site, “there were some technical difficulties” with their equipment.

Regarding the choice of venue, the report stated that a Secret Service team had visited the site beforehand and noted that the line of sight between the rooftop and the stage where Trump spoke could pose a “challenge.” However, “the security measures to alleviate these concerns were not carried out.” The internal investigation is still ongoing, and a final report is expected in the coming weeks. While much of Friday’s summary appeared to pass blame on to local law enforcement, Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe told reporters that the agency nevertheless needs “a shift in paradigm in how we conduct our protective operations.” Rowe’s predecessor, Kimberly Cheatle, resigned ten days after the shooting. Several other high-ranking agents were placed on leave during the investigation.

Trump survived another attempt on his life earlier this month, when a pro-Ukraine activist aimed a rifle at the former president at one of his golf courses in Florida. Secret Service agents fired several shots at the man and arrested him after he fled the scene. Republican Representative Matt Gaetz claimed earlier this week that some GOP lawmakers believe there is a “mole inside the Secret Service providing information about points of vulnerability” to would-be assassins.

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“Recent surveys indicate that healthcare is among the top priorities for voters in the November presidential election..”

• America’s Healthcare Dead Last in Rich Nation Rankings (Sp.)

The percentage of Americans able to access quality healthcare hit a new low of 55% in 2024, according to the West Health-Gallup Healthcare Affordability Index. Affordability of healthcare has become one of the top issues ahead of the 2024 US presidential election. The US healthcare system continues to lag far behind other high-income countries, an analysis by the Commonwealth Fund shows. It has retained its dismal ranking since 2004, when the nonprofit launched its surveys. Ten nations, including Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US, were compared on healthcare system aspects such as access, care process, administrative efficiency, equity, and health outcomes. The US showed the worst overall performance despite spending more per capita on healthcare than any other nation (16% of its GDP in 2022).

It ranked lowest in both accessibility and healthcare outcomes, with 26 million Americans having no insurance, and a quarter of the working age population underinsured. As inflation fuels costs, over 40% of Americans spent at least $1,000 on healthcare out-of-pocket last year, per the survey. At 77.5 years, US life expectancy is over four years below the 10-country average (the same as sanction-riddled Iran). The US has the highest rates of preventable and treatable deaths for all ages. Over 107,000 people died from overdoses in 2023 amid a raging substance abuse crisis, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There were 43,000 gun-related deaths in 2023, according to a report by the National Institute of Health Care Management. Recent surveys indicate that healthcare is among the top priorities for voters in the November presidential election.

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“..children are meant to play, to be loved, to be accepted and protected..”

• Words You Can’t Ignore (Max Jones)

A frightened little girl trembles and screams “in terror after mistaking thunder for an Israeli airstrike.” – Times of Gaza. Most of the people — and especially the children — who survive this genocidal slaughter will forever be traumatized. Children are meant to play, to be loved, to be accepted and protected. The children of Gaza will never get to be children. Most will never get to be adults either. Like this little girl, they will be stuck in the past, unable to experience something as simple as rainfall and thunder. When the rain falls and the thunder booms, their scars will take them back to their terror — the only thing that once separated them from the explosions destroying their homes, the blood and gore of their friends and relatives, and the reality that at any moment they might be killed. I urge you to not look away from this poor girl — look openly enough and you will see yourself. The times you were afraid and no one was there. The times you needed someone to assure you that things would be ok, and no one did. The times you needed to be accepted.

A four-year old girl, Rahaf Ziad Abu Suweirih, died the other day in Gaza when Israeli bombs shelled her home — but the bombs did not kill her. Her little heart stopped, incapable of handling the horrors imposed upon her by Israel’s genocide. As I said above, children are meant to play, to be loved, to be accepted and protected. The children of Gaza will never get to be children. Rahaf Ziad Abu Suweirih’s body knew this so well — and thus, knew that Rahaf should never have experienced the terror, violence, and abandonment that Israel’s genocide forced her to endure — that her tiny heart spared her. Her loved ones will mourn her death. They will try to make sense of the pain they feel, and how anyone could weaponize such hatred against something so innocent. The scars her death left them will remain tender for the rest of their lives. A story true for all the survivors of Gaza. But death is not merely an inducer of pain. It is also a protectorate; a unifier. It reaches up from the deepest depths of the soul to hug the broken human when no one else can.

It takes all the fragments that the tribulations of life shatter and pieces them back together. It is death that can lift a blanket over the abandoned child, or the terrorized adult, and give them permission to rest when the world cannot. This is especially evident in Gaza, where children cannot be children. They have to be survivors. Fighters. Being a child in Gaza only makes easy prey for the hunters playing blood sport. For a child, who again, is only meant to play, to be loved, accepted and protected, this creates a living hell that they have to believe is traversable, either by themselves or the adults they look to for guidance. Of course, no one can navigate the constant and unpredictable patterns of bombs, death and terror. But for the child, what choice do they have between believing the lie that they can control something, or succumbing to death itself? The reality is that Israel creates an uninhabitable space for Gazans, a “labyrinth of death,” that no one could ever survive without the chance of luck.

[..] But protecting one’s self, and one’s children, from the bombs of genocide means denying reality and believing, in one way or another, that you still possess some control of your own fate. To survive, the victims cannot accept that they are effectively “mice in a trap.” They must create different versions of reality in which they can prevail. In other words, they must become multiple people living different fantasies — all to protect their physical self. While these different realities may protect the survivors from death, they will not cease to exist once the war is over. This will send them scrambling in search of the unity that they were forced to abandon. In fleeting moments, they will find places of refuge that unite their broken spirits. These places will tend to the wounds that their traumas left them with “treatments” of comfort and solace.

Yet in time, these places will obscure the unity they at first grant. Whether the survivor finds shelter in the fuzzy feeling of a white opiate, in a bottle of liquor, in a toxic relationship, or any other pathology that detaches them from the pain of reality, the survivor will end up mistakenly believing that they are only complete with the help of the “treatment” that temporarily soothes their pain. This lie will lead them into a new trap: one much harder to see but just as real as the “mice trap” of Gaza. Without realizing it, they will never stop searching for the person that they were never allowed to be, and they will cling to the places that offer the illusion of fulfillment.

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No. 1

 

 

GROK

 

 

Cats

 

 

Blondie
https://twitter.com/i/status/1837430585117045144

 

 

Jenga

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle August 3 2024

Aug 032024
 
 August 3, 2024  Posted by at 8:46 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  52 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Science and Charity 1897 (he was 16)

 

• Men Beating Women For Medals Is ‘Madness’ – Serbian President Vucic (RT)
• Second Olympic Boxer Who Failed Gender Test Beats Woman To Tears (ZH)
• The Passage of Time (Jim Kunstler)
• Trump Says He’s Agreed To Fox News Debate On September 4 (CNN)
• Biden Victim Of ‘A Coup’ – Trump (RT)
• Unburdened: Kamala Harris Dishes Fresh Word Salad During Prisoner Swap (ZH)
• The DEI Trap (Porter)
• Harris and the Bouncing Balloon Campaign (Trende)
• EU Sets Up Trump Working Group – FT (RT)
• Kremlin Reveals Details of Prisoner Swap With Western Countries (Sp.)
• An Empty White House Gives Netanyahu Free Reign (Sp.)
• Biden Angry Over Being Kept In The Dark On Israel Killing Hamas Chief (ZH)
• Hungary Rejects Croatian Oil Route Over High Fees (Sp.)
• US Trying to ‘Teach’ Russia, China ‘Proper Behavior’ in Nuclear Sphere – Envoy (Sp.)

 

 

 

 

Rasmussen

 

 

Elon
https://twitter.com/i/status/1819530943847153931

 

 

Secret Service

 

 

JD Vance
https://twitter.com/i/status/1819132419066548379

 

 

Trump Meta

 

 

Susan Rice

 

 

Kamala spending

 

 

Tulsi

 

 

Shapiro

 

 

 

 

The Olympics are suffering incredible damage. The Games are for the whole world. Most of which simply can’t understand why men are celebrated for beating women, and want nothing to do with that.

• Men Beating Women For Medals Is ‘Madness’ – Serbian President Vucic (RT)

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has said “madness rules the world” in response to a transgender athlete defeating a woman in a boxing match at the Paris Olympics on Thursday. Italian boxer Angela Carini faced off against Algeria’s Imane Khelif in the welterweight category, but resigned after just 46 seconds. After taking a series of crushing blows from her Algerian opponent, who was barred last year from the World Championships after failing a gender eligibility test, the 25-year-old from Naples forfeited the bout, saying, “this is unjust!” Carini said she was hit harder than she ever has and feared that her nose was broken. The fight sparked strong reactions worldwide, with the Serbian president denouncing the match in which a “biological male” was allowed to compete against a woman.

“Imagine this disease and madness that began to rule the world, when men come, beat women, and get medals. Madness began to rule the world, and everyone went crazy,” Vucic told reporters on Thursday. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said the fight “did not seem on an equal footing,” adding that “Athletes who have male genetic characteristics should not be admitted to female competitions.” Russian-Australian boxer Konstantin Tszyu, a former world light-welterweight champion, also condemned the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) clearance for Khelif. “It’s not normal when a man performs in a boxing match against a woman! And if the IOC allows such cases, then what can we say about them? The IOC has completely lost its mind!” Tszyu told RBC.

The head of the coaching council of the Russian national boxing team, Eduard Kravtsov, said, “everyone understands perfectly well that this is a man.” “And a man whose testosterone is through the roof has an immediate advantage over women. This is both physical strength and speed,” Kravtzov told reporters on Thursday. “Khelif was disqualified at the World Championships, but The IOC has its own rules. The fact that men enter women’s sports is disgusting.” Khelif was disqualified by the International Boxing Association (IBA) in 2023 as a biological male. The boxer appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport but “withdrew the appeal during the process,” the IBA said on Wednesday. The association protested the IOC’s decision to allow Khelif to compete in Paris, arguing that its rules “raise serious questions about both competitive fairness and athletes’ safety.”

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“The IOC’s differing regulations on these matters, in which IBA is not involved, raise serious questions about both competitive fairness and athletes’ safety..”

• Second Olympic Boxer Who Failed Gender Test Beats Woman To Tears (ZH)

On Thursday we reported that one of two boxers banned from competing by the International Boxing Association (IBA), Algerian Imaine Khelif, brutalized a female opponent at the 2024 Olympics in Paris – hitting her so hard that she quit the match just 46 seconds in after taking two massive shots to the head. Now, the second boxer banned by the IBA, Taiwan’s Lin Yu-Ting, easily dispatched with another female boxer – Uzbek Sitora Turdibekova, similarly reducing her to tears. Yu-Ting was disqualified from last year’s World Championships, and had a medal stripped after failing a gender test.

“Based on DNA tests, we identified a number of athletes who tried to trick their colleagues into posing as women,” International Boxing Association (IBA) President Umar Kremlev said at the time, Outkick reports. “According to the results of the tests, it was proved that they have XY chromosomes. Such athletes were excluded from competition.” The IBA also directly criticized the IOC, saying “The IOC’s differing regulations on these matters, in which IBA is not involved, raise serious questions about both competitive fairness and athletes’ safety,” however the IOC position is that Khelif, and Chinese transgender athlete Lin Tu-ting of Taipei, “are women according to their passports,” who had qualified under the rules of elligibility.

From the IBA: “IBA Secretary General and CEO explained that testing was conducted upon the request of the Technical Delegate and Medical Jury of the Championships. The results became available in seven days and the IBA Secretary General and CEO, acting on behalf of IBA, notified the athletes immediately about their disqualification, giving them twenty-one days to appeal the decision to CAS. Mr. Yerolimpos confirmed that similar testing was conducted by a different independent laboratory with the same athletes at the previous edition of the IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships in Istanbul, Turkey in 2022. However, the results were received only upon conclusion of the event, hence the athletes were not disqualified back then. The IOC, meanwhile, defended its decision to allow both IBA-disqualified boxers to compete, suggesting they’ve met all the requirements.

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Sorry Jim, changed your title. “The Passage of Time” is a classic.

• The Passage of Time (Jim Kunstler)

Have you noticed yet? — the weird thing about Veep Kamala Harris is how weirdly brisk her transfiguration was from a sit-com character to Wonder Woman, overnight in the reality-optional news media. In a party burdened with complex ideology, she was known only for tautology: “The significance of the passage of time, right? The significance of the passage of time,” she repeated solemnly on a tour of a Louisiana library in 2022. “So, when you think about it, there is great significance to the passage of time.” Yes, ma’am. You nailed that ol’ coonskin to the wall, all righty! Suddenly her time has come! Everything is Kamala Kamala Kamala. Lights! Camera! Action! But, as you have already been informed, time does not stand still. If it did, then everything would happen at once, which would be a great inconvenience to all. In what seems like a magically extended moment since someone told “Joe Biden” to go dangle, Kamala acquired a lance and halo and rode forth to save our democracy.

Yet, it’s a long way to the grand meet-up of Democratic Party delegates in Chicago, August 19, and that journey is cluttered up with long moments like the one we’re in now, moments when delegates are liable to stew, and maybe even think about more moments to come when the magic of the current moment has passed — because that, after all, is the significance of the passage of time! Here today, gone tomorrow! Hope and change! Go through enough passages of time and things can happen, or even un-happen, such as, perhaps, the rise and fall of the Veep as the champion of this figment known as our democracy. It’s kind of like what they used to say sixty years ago in Vietnam about having to destroy the village in order to save it. Only this time around, it’s democracy in America.

At the convention in Chicago, apropos of whoever selected Kamala Harris, someone might blurt out: “Say, who elected you boss of this outfit?” The answer, of course: nobody. Delegates may share their gnawing doubts in the hallways and state caucus breakout rooms. Metaphysical conundrums will arise. All that sub rosa chatter might even coalesce into. . . a movement! In the name of democracy, someone screeches, a public roll-call vote must be taken! Say, what? We thought that was settled two weeks ago when the virtual roll call happened. Nuh-uh, nah, no way, more delegates chime in. Here is your teachable moment: the virtual is not an adequate substitute for the authentic.

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“..BUT WITH A FULL ARENA AUDIENCE!….” It’s unclear whether Harris would agree to those new terms..”

• Trump Says He’s Agreed To Fox News Debate On September 4 (CNN)

Former President Donald Trump said he has agreed to participate in a debate hosted by Fox News on September 4 and will no longer participate in the debate he previously agreed to hosted by ABC, when President Joe Biden was the presumptive Democratic nominee. Trump said the new debate would be hosted in Pennsylvania with a live audience and that the moderators would be Fox News hosts Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum. It is unclear whether Vice President Kamala Harris has accepted the invitation from Fox News. “I have agreed with FoxNews to debate Kamala Harris on Wednesday, September 4th. The Debate was previously scheduled against Sleepy Joe Biden on ABC, but has been terminated in that Biden will no longer be a participant,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

Trump said: “The FoxNews Debate will be held in the Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, at a site in an area to be determined. The Moderators of the Debate will be Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, and the Rules will be similar to the Rules of my Debate with Sleepy Joe, who has been treated horribly by his Party – BUT WITH A FULL ARENA AUDIENCE!….” It’s unclear whether Harris would agree to those new terms. The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.

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“I think she’s easier than he is. I always felt he was incompetent but he had a certain base, and no matter how bad he was, people were going to vote for him. She doesn’t have that base.”

• Biden Victim Of ‘A Coup’ – Trump (RT)

The Democratic Party “staged a coup” against US President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump has claimed. Trump has previously alleged that Barack Obama orchestrated Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race. Biden suspended his reelection bid last month, after a weeks-long pressure campaign in which senior Democrats – including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former President Barack Obama – and party donors convinced the 81-year-old that he could not defeat Trump in November. “They staged a coup against the President of the United States,” Trump told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham in an interview this week. “They went in and they told him ‘you’re leaving, you’re way down in the polls’, 17 points, I think.” “It’s like you’re in a fight with somebody, and you’re really winning, and they take him out and they put somebody else in,” he continued. “Nobody ever heard of this before. This is a coup.”

Speaking to the New York Post last month, Trump claimed that Obama “can’t stand” Biden, and played a leading role in ousting his former vice president from the race. “They all dumped him, and they said, ‘Either you get out nice or we’re going to go after you.’ And that’s what happened. And he had no choice. There’s no question about it,” Trump told the newspaper. Biden, who at the time was quarantined at home with Covid-19, announced his withdrawal on social media. The president did not appear in public until three days after the announcement, and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to run in his stead in a short post on X (formerly Twitter). “I would rather run against her than him,” Trump told Ingraham. “I think she’s easier than he is. I always felt he was incompetent but he had a certain base, and no matter how bad he was, people were going to vote for him. She doesn’t have that base.”

Harris ran for her party’s presidential nomination in 2019, but withdrew from the primary race that year with less than 900 popular votes and her polling numbers in the low single digits. Despite being an historically unpopular vice president, Harris is currently polling better against Trump than Biden was before his withdrawal, although analysts have cautioned that she is likely benefiting from a “bump” in enthusiasm that will subside as the campaign drags on. Trump has focused his attacks on Harris’ liberal record and her role as Biden’s “border czar,” blaming the vice president for record levels of illegal immigration seen since 2021. Trump has also lobbed more personal attacks at Harris, telling a panel of black journalists on Wednesday that she promoted her Indian heritage until “she happened to turn black and now she wants to be known as black,” and telling Ingraham that she has “the laugh of a crazy person.”

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“This is just an extraordinary testament to the importance of having a president who understands the power of diplomacy and understands the strength that rests in understanding the significance of diplomacy..”

• Unburdened: Kamala Harris Dishes Fresh Word Salad During Prisoner Swap (ZH)

Ever since Democrats coup’d Joe Biden into stepping aside, they’ve done their best to shield frontrunner Kamala Harris from opening her mouth (a difficult ask), lest she remind everyone that she’s actually an idiot whose vocabulary relies on a very limited random word generator. Point in case – Harris was caught on camera in the wild – where she gave an unscripted answer while she and President Joe Biden greeted three American citizens and one permanent resident who arrived home after a prisoner exchange with Russia on Thursday. “This is just an extraordinary testament to the importance of having a president who understands the power of diplomacy and understands the strength that rests in understanding the significance of diplomacy,” said Harris, using so many words to say so little.

Thursday’s exchange of 24 prisoners was the largest such swap since the Cold War, and included Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former Marine Paul Whelan and 14 other individuals who were being held in Russia, in exchange for 8 held by the west – including a Russian assassin and two hackers being held in the US, Germany, Norway, Slovenia and Poland. The plane carrying the formerly detained Americans landed at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland at around 8PM local time. “Whelan, a 54-year-old ex Marine, was sentenced to 16 years in 2020 after being detained two years earlier on suspicion of spying. Both were freed Thursday as part of the East-West prisoner swap – the largest since the Cold War. After being freed from their Russian cells, the former prisoners took a four-hour flight from Moscow to Ankara. They then boarded a plane for a 10-hour trek back to the US.

She was seen running into the arms of her family Thursday, after embracing both Kamal Harris and Joe Biden upon exiting the plane. But it was Whelan who disembarked first, followed by Gershkovich, and then Kurmasheva. All three were seen giving Harris and Biden handshakes before blissfully running into the arms of their respective families.” The prisoners were seen speaking with the president and vice president on the landing strip as onlookers cheered, in a display that, instead of occurring in private, was aired for the world to see. -Daily Mail.

On Friday, former President Trump said that the swap marked a victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin, and said he would have cut a better deal if he was in the White House. “Well, as usual, it was a win for Putin…But we got somebody back. So, I’m never going to be challenging that. It wouldn’t have happened with us,” Trump told Fox Business. “We wouldn’t have had to let some of the great killers of the world go.”

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“Biden burnished his own “antiracist” credentials at the expense of his choice. He implicitly diminished her, whoever she might have been, in order to prove that he’s neither a racist nor a sexist.”

• The DEI Trap (Porter)

Americans universally believe that everyone should have a fair shot at opportunities regardless of sex or race, which is why the kind of racism and sexism that was once so prevalent is so rare today. Americans in 2024 embrace multiculturalism and diversity. This is the reason diversity and inclusion programs became ubiquitous. There’s virtue and no harm in gentle reminders to be sensitive and inclusive in light of our diversity. After all, our national motto is e pluribus unum. Today’s Democratic Party, however, rejects this positive view of American progress. Democrats claim that America remains institutionally racist and paternalistic – a credo that provides the intellectual justification for identity politics and the grievance-based race-conscious demand for equity that animates the DEI movement.

Employers sensitive to the left’s narrative on race and sex and leery of claims made in litigation seek to prove and protect their own virtue by hiring on the basis of race or sex. But doing so not only disadvantages whites or males wholly blameless for the sins of the past, it also diminishes the minority hire whose qualifications are doubted by some of their peers – even when they are the best person for the job. The disconnect between the DEI narrative and the modern cultural reality regarding racism and sexism creates the DEI trap: DEI injects racism and sexism into a culture that rejects racism and sexism, making things worse and hurting those it purports to help. Joe Biden’s 2020 selection of Kamala Harris as his running mate and his appointment of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court only highlighted the DEI trap. “I commit that if I’m elected president and I have an opportunity to appoint someone to the courts, I’ll appoint the first black woman to the court,” Biden vowed.

“If I’m elected president, my cabinet and my administration will look like the country, and I commit that I will in fact pick a woman to be vice president. There are a number of women who are qualified to be president tomorrow. I would pick a woman to be my vice president.” He didn’t say he would pick the best person – he said he would pick a woman and that there are a number of women who are “qualified” to be president. Biden burnished his own “antiracist” credentials at the expense of his choice. He implicitly diminished her, whoever she might have been, in order to prove that he’s neither a racist nor a sexist. Then, after securing the nomination, Biden chose Sen. Kamala Harris, whose own campaign for president was a surprising disappointment and unambiguous failure. A star in her home state of California, she turned out to be a bust as a national candidate.

Choosing her over Elizabeth Warren or Amy Klobuchar, both of whom performed better in the 2020 primaries, had the perverse effect of highlighting the importance of race and sex in Biden’s selection, further bolstering his image with those in his party who value DEI, at the expense of further diminishing Harris. Now, the liberal legacy media would have us all make believe that none of this happened – and make believe that Kamala Harris is the next great Democratic Party leader, despite a lackluster record as vice president and without competing against other rising stars in her party. Now, Harris further diminishes herself as she conducts her own search for a running mate: Democrats have quietly made it known that only white males are under consideration. Really? Kamala, who should not be called a DEI candidate, needs a white guy by her side to win? Is this really where Democrats want to be?

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It’s so much harder to build up someone that people really don’t like.

• Harris and the Bouncing Balloon Campaign (Trende)

We all know that this election will be different than any other election we’ve had in recent decades – how could it not be? This is a 100-day campaign through Election Day, and a 45-day campaign until early voting begins. The dynamics are fundamentally different than your average modern campaign. I’ve been struggling to characterize exactly how the dynamics animating this campaign are different. What I’ve come up with is this: This campaign is a lot like the old kids’ game of “don’t let the balloon touch the ground.” In the event you aren’t familiar with that competition, the rules of the game are remarkably straightforward: Kids bounce a balloon around, and they do so until the balloon touches the ground. In the long run, kids can’t really win the game, as gravity inevitably wins out. But if the goal is to pass time while parents pull together some last minute aspect of the party, the kids can theoretically win.

Right now, Kamala Harris is in her honeymoon phase. She’s been elevated from the vice presidency to presumptive Democratic nominee. This has been accompanied by an improvement in her job approval as she rides a groundswell of good press and has the opportunity to re-introduce herself to the American public. Her stock has risen accordingly. At the same time, she is probably too far to the left to win a general election. She hasn’t really shown Barack Obama’s knack for knowing when he needed to hedge his position or even rule out something to his left because it would alienate a key electoral constituency. To be sure, there are people who don’t really believe that “too far left” is a category that exists (a lot of people on the right believe something similar); if you’re one of them then the entire frame of this article and theory of the campaign are incorrect.

But within that frame, having the election turn to a referendum on Harris’ positions and record, which really have been on the left flank of the Democratic Party, is the equivalent of the ball touching the ground. If those positions are what the election is about, her path to victory becomes much more complicated. As I’ve written before, I don’t think Harris is probably viable over the course of a year-long campaign. There’s a reason she was polling at 3% (barely ahead of Andrew Yang) in the 2020 Democratic primary when she dropped out. She doesn’t have to run a year-long campaign, though. As it turns out, events line up in the political calendar in such a way that it really is possible to keep the balloon bouncing. Consider: Harris will almost certainly pick her vice presidential candidate this week. She has a large number of attractive choices from which to select, which will earn her another week or two of positive press.

That gets us to mid-August, when the Democratic National Convention begins. It will likely be a carefully scripted, well-managed event. There’s little doubt that Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and Hillary Clinton will all deliver well-crafted prime-time addresses to rally the party behind its new nominee, as will Harris and her running mate. She might not receive a bounce, since she’ll still be in her honeymoon phase, but the balloon will be saved from the floor once again. Then, in mid-September, Trump will be sentenced following his conviction in the New York fraud/hush money case. Regardless of whether or not he receives jail time, it’s another distraction from any substantive discussion of the issues in 2024. The attention is diverted from Harris and falls on Trump in a relatively unflattering light. The ball is kept off the ground again; the election actually shapes up as a referendum on Trump at this point.

At that point, we begin to vote. With extended early voting timelines, Pennsylvania starts voting in mid-September, followed by Minnesota, New Mexico, and Virginia starting a few days later. At the beginning of October, Arizona, Georgia, and Ohio start accepting ballots. In short, we can’t think of this campaign as a traditional campaign. It’s a sprint, and a shorter sprint than people acknowledge. Harris might not be able to keep the ball bouncing through November, but she might not have to. Events are lining up to at least keep things going through a sizeable chunk of what has now become an election season.

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As I wrote yesterday: “Among the plans the commission will focus on is the need for EU taxpayers to potentially contribute more to Ukraine’s defense..”

• EU Sets Up Trump Working Group – FT (RT)

The EU has set up a dedicated team of officials to prepare for the potential return of Donald Trump as US president, the Financial Times has reported, citing sources. The European Commission is seeking to assess the implications of possible policy changes that could ensue after the US election in November, especially on the issue of support for Ukraine, three people briefed on the matter told the outlet. The team will also determine what impact a victory by the Democratic Party’s presumed nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, could have on aid for Ukraine, FT writes. Brussels believes that Harris’ policies “may not represent complete continuity” with those of current US President Joe Biden, it adds. EU leaders have pledged to continue to provide military and financial support to Ukraine. Nearly €108 billion ($116.5 billion) has already been allocated to Kiev via the Solidarity with Ukraine fund since the start of Russia’s military operation in February 2022.

The Biden administration has so far committed more than $55 billion in security assistance to Kiev. Trump, the Republican nominee, has, however, repeatedly threatened to scale back aid to Ukraine if elected. He has also proposed structuring the aid as a loan. Additionally, he has pledged to end the conflict within 24 hours of returning to office. Russian President Vladimir Putin said last month that he took Trump’s pledge “seriously.” EU countries are also concerned about Trump’s previous threats to pull the US out of NATO or significantly undermine the mutual defense clause for countries that do not meet the organization’s contribution targets, FT said. Trump’s advisers floated the idea of demanding that NATO allies spend 3% of their gross domestic product on defense, a higher target than bloc members have agreed to, Bloomberg reported in July.

“It’s a discreet discussion forum to think about how best to prepare for Trump,” the outlet quoted one of its sources as saying. “It’s just plain smart to do so.” Among the plans the commission will focus on is the need for EU taxpayers to potentially contribute more to Ukraine’s defense, FT wrote. After Biden dropped out of the presidential race last month and endorsed Harris as his replacement, she and Trump were polling neck and neck. Some of the latest polls this week, however, show Harris leading by a narrow margin. Commenting earlier this year on the upcoming US election, Putin said that Russia was ready to work with any American president. Russia has also repeatedly warned that no amount of foreign aid and weapons is capable of changing the situation on the battlefield and that such deliveries simply prolong the conflict.

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“When they give ours back, then we can talk about it..”

• Kremlin Reveals Details of Prisoner Swap With Western Countries (Sp.)

Negotiations for the Russian-US prisoner exchange were primarily conducted between Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) and the CIA, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Friday. The FSB confirmed on Thursday that eight Russians detained and held in custody in a number of NATO countries had been returned home. A plane carrying the freed prisoners arrived at Moscow’s Vnukovo-2 airport from Ankara late on Thursday, where they were greeted by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia, in turn, has released 16 people, including seven Russians and five German citizens. “Negotiations for this complex exchange were conducted through the FSB and CIA. This was the main channel through which the agreement was reached,” Peskov told journalists. Peskov highlighted that Moscow’s firm stance on prisoner exchanges has been effective, resulting in the return of Russian citizens.

When US journalist Tucker Carlson asked Putin to extradite the convicted Americans as a gesture of goodwill, “Putin answered him that there can be no goodwill gestures here,” Peskov told reporters. “When they give ours back, then we can talk about it,” he continued. “This tough position nevertheless yielded results, and our people returned to their homeland thanks to this position.” The fate of all Russians imprisoned in the US is a subject of constant concern, the presidential spokesman stressed, adding that the relevant departments will continue their work. Peskov also dismissed accusations that Moscow is replenishing the “prisoner exchange pool” for bargaining with the West, calling them absurd and unjustified. “Here we can answer the question with a question – what about those who make accusations against Russia, how do they respond to the constant arrests of Russians abroad, the constant arrests of Russians by the United States?” Peskov asked.

“What are the goals of the United States? Therefore, of course, these are completely unjustified and absurd accusations,” he insisted. Peskov revealed that US agents had attempted to influence a jailed Russian intelligence officer’s father to persuade his son to betray his country — but the father instead validated his son’s actions. “According to one of the intelligence officers, the US, of course, tried to influence this officer employee who was imprisoned there, and they found the father of this employee here, and a phone call was organized,” Peskov said. “During the phone call, the father, contrary to what was expected of him, actually said ‘Son, you are doing the right thing, hold on.’ It is also a very interesting case.”

The negotiation process for prisoner exchanges and that for the Ukrainian issue involve different principles and areas of work, the spokesman noted. “These are different areas of work and completely different situation,” Peskov explained. “This work, which was carried out through the FSB and the CIA, of course, required very difficult negotiations, drawing up very complex schemes, agreements, and the involvement of a number of countries.” “If we talk about Ukraine and more complex international problems, this is a completely different matter,” he stressed. “There are completely different principles there — these are the principles of our country’s national interests, the interests of national security. The work there is conducted in a slightly different mode and according to different principles.”

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“The attacks could not “happen without the approval of the Americans unless Benjamin Netanyahu believes there is nobody in the White House..”

• An Empty White House Gives Netanyahu Free Reign (Sp.)

At around 2 am local time on Wednesday, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran in an apparent attack by Israel. The attack came hours after an Israeli strike killed Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut. The United States denied foreknowledge of either attack and had previously warned Israel against striking Beirut. The United States is either a party to the recent assassinations by Israel or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes there is no one behind the wheel in the White House freeing him to take any action without repercussions from the United States, veteran war correspondent Elijah Magnier told Sputnik’s Fault Lines on Wednesday. The attacks could not “happen without the approval of the Americans unless Benjamin Netanyahu believes there is nobody in the White House,” Magnier explained. “Which most probably in some cases is the reality, because we don’t know who’s leading America today.”

After concerns over his mental acuity became too large to ignore, US President Joe Biden ended his campaign for reelection but said he planned to finish his current term in office. The President was silent for three days following that announcement then gave an 11-minute speech that appeared to not include any press. He has only made sporadic appearances since and has not taken questions from the media. On Sunday, it was reported that US officials warned Israel against attacking Beirut, saying that it may be a “red line” for Hezbollah. A few days later, Israel not only struck southern Beirut but assassinated a guest of the Iranian government following President Masoud Pezeshkian’s inauguration. “It is obvious that Netanyahu wants a wider war. He wants to force the Americans to come in because America cannot leave Israel on its own because it’s part of its doctrine,” explained Magnier.

“They have to support the Israelis by all means, even if they disagree with the way Benjamin Netanyahu is conducting the war.” “Either [the Americans] cannot control Netanyahu and he’s doing whatever he wants and is dragging the US administration behind him, or, they know, and they are saying they don’t know,” explained Magnier, noting that either way they are complicit. “If they really don’t want the war, why do they continue supplying the Israelis with tens of thousands of [munitions]? Without this ammunition, Israel cannot go to war. So, there’s a big difference between what they are saying and what they are doing.” While Iran showed extreme restraint after Israel bombed its consulate in Syria, Israel is giving them no choice but to respond. “Today, we have Netanyahu cornering everybody – the Americans, the Iranians, the Syrians, the Lebanese, the Yemeni and the Iraqis – and saying ‘Come to the battlefield, I want a bigger war.’ That’s the message we understand.

“If they don’t respond, he’s going to continue hitting them. If they respond – this is what he wants – then they have to play in his field. So what is the solution? This is where everybody is stuck now. They have to respond.” On Tuesday, the Iranian mission to the UN warned that its response will be “special operations.” “The response to an assassination will indeed be special operations– harder and intended to instill deep regret in the perpetrator,” the mission wrote on X. “This is going to be a very difficult 24 to 48 hours that the Middle East is going to [experience] and we’re going to see the result very shortly,” Magnier concluded.

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Do I believe any of this?

• Biden Angry Over Being Kept In The Dark On Israel Killing Hamas Chief (ZH)

Fresh reporting by Barak Ravid of Axios has revealed that President Biden held a “tough” phone call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursdsay wherein the Israeli leader was urged to stop stoking tensions in the region which puts any potential hostage deal in extreme jeopardy. Israel’s Wednesday assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh has put the whole region on a war footing. But Netanyahu and his government without doubt sees this as justified and necessary revenge for the Oct.7 terror attacks on southern Israel. Biden officials are said to be deeply frustrated at the ripple effects from both the Haniyeh killing and the assassination of Hezbollah’s top military commander in Beirut this week. The White House, through Secretary Antony Blinken, has insisted that it was kept in the dark concerning the Israeli Mossad operation to kill Haniyeh. This after Iran issued a formal condemnation alleging Washington’s involvement in the plot.

The whole Axios report paints a picture of Biden being played by America’s closest Mideast ally, even after Washington has injected billions into Israel’s defense. Biden and his officials “feel that Netanyahu kept Biden in the dark over his plans to carry out the assassinations, after leaving the impression last week that he was attentive to the president’s request to focus on getting a Gaza deal.” Or to translate: the White House is belatedly catching up to what most of the world including the Israeli domestic opposition already understood very well – that Netanyahu has prioritized the military fight to eradicate Hamas over the return of the hostages.According to Ravid’s reporting, “One U.S. official said Biden complained to Netanyahu that the two had just spoken last week in the Oval Office about securing the hostage deal, but instead Netanyahu went ahead with the assassination in Tehran.”

And apparently Biden got angry: “At the end of the meeting with Netanyahu in the Oval office last Thursday, Biden became emotional, raised his voice and told Netanyahu he needs to reach a Gaza deal as soon as possible, three Israeli officials with knowledge of the meeting told Axios,” per the report. Yet once again this is a US administration pursuing two contradictory polices at once, allowing the US to get bogged down in escalation messes of Israel’s own making. On the one hand Biden is angrily demanding that Tel Aviv get serious about a ceasefire and hostage exchange, but on the other is vowing to defend Israel if it gets attacked by Iran. In addition to a potential Iran conflict, it remains to be seen if and when PM Netanyahu orders an attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon amid the ratcheting daily tit-for-tat:

Israeli ministers authorized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense chief Sunday to decide on the “manner and timing” of a response to a rocket strike in the Golan Heights that killed 12 children and teens, and which Israel and the United States blamed on Lebanese terror group Hezbollah. According to The Washington Post the US has already assembled 12 warships in Middle East regional waters prepared to respond to any attack on Israel. Currently the USS Theodore Roosevelt and six US Navy destroyers are in the Persian Gulf. An additional five Navy ships are currently patrolling the Eastern Mediterranean, including two destroyers.

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“..Croatia has increased the price of oil transit fivefold compared to the average market price..”

• Hungary Rejects Croatian Oil Route Over High Fees (Sp.)

Croatia is not a reliable partner for oil transit, since it has raised the duty fivefold since 2022, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Friday, commenting on Brussels’ proposal to replace the Russian oil supplies stopped by Kiev with transit through Croatia. Earlier in the day, the Financial Times reported, citing a letter from EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis, that the European Commission had advised Hungary and Slovakia to abandon Russian oil and seek alternative sources in response to a complaint that Ukraine has blocked the transit of oil from Russia. “Croatia is simply not a reliable transit country,” Szijjarto wrote on social media, adding that since the start of the conflict in Ukraine, Croatia has increased the price of oil transit fivefold compared to the average market price. Last month, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said that Ukraine had stopped the transit of Lukoil’s oil.

The Slovak Economy Ministry confirmed that the country was no longer receiving oil from the Russian oil giant, which was sanctioned by Ukraine. On July 22, Szijjarto said that Hungary and Slovakia had launched consultations of the European Commission with Ukraine due to a stop in the transit of oil from Russia through the Druzhba pipeline. On Thursday, EU Commission spokesman Balazs Ujvari said that Kiev’s decision shows no energy supply risks for Hungary or Slovakia, so the Commission will not hold urgent consultations on the issue. Dombrovskis said in the letter to Budapest and Bratislava that “diversification away from Russian fossil fuels should be actively pursued,” the report read on Thursday. He reportedly added that at a meeting of representatives of all EU member states last week, “a significant number … questioned why Hungary and Slovakia had apparently not yet explored alternatives so far”.

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“Medvedev has said that extending the arms reduction treaty is possible only after the United States stops supplying weapons to Ukraine and blocks that country’s accession to NATO..”

• US Trying to ‘Teach’ Russia, China ‘Proper Behavior’ in Nuclear Sphere – Envoy (Sp.)

The United States is trying to teach Russia and China how to behave in the nuclear sphere, Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov said. “Today we heard regular insinuations about Russia’s allegedly irresponsible behavior in the nuclear sphere. With a persistence worthy of a better use, they are again trying to teach our country, just like China, ‘proper behavior,'” Antonov told reporters. He said that otherwise, Washington says the United States will not restrain the growth of its own nuclear arsenal. Acting US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy Vipin Narang said on Thursday that the United States might be forced to reconsider its nuclear size and posture in the absence of a change in the nuclear trajectories of Russia, China and North Korea.

The New START treaty between Russia and the United States is set to expire in 2026. Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev has said that extending the arms reduction treaty is possible only after the United States stops supplying weapons to Ukraine and blocks that country’s accession to NATO. “Our country will continue to be guided exclusively by national interests, without account for which building a Russian-American dialogue on arms control is impossible,” Antonov told reporters. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, signed between the Soviet Union and the US in 1987, banned the countries from developing and possessing ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges from 500 to 5,500 kilometers. In 2019, then-President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the treaty, accusing Russia of non-compliance. In response to the US decision, Russia suspended its participation in the Cold War-era accord.

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The Actor

 

 

Trump loan
https://twitter.com/i/status/1819519750659264984

 

 

Rogan Jones 2003

 

 

Dog Ball Puppy

 

 

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