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Debt Rattle November 20 2024

Nov 202024
 
 November 20, 2024  Posted by at 9:47 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  68 Responses »


Caravaggio St. John the Baptist in the wilderness 1604

 

• Ukraine ATACMS Strike On Russia After Putin Lowers Threshold For Nukes (ZH)
• On Way Out, Reckless Biden Allows Deep Russia Strikes (Lauria)
• Biden Committing Unconstitutional Act Of War- Rep. Massie (RT)
• Kiev Has Permission To Launch Long-Range Strikes – Zelensky (RT)
• Ukrainian Attacks Could Merit Nuclear Response Against NATO – Medvedev (RT)
• New Russia Nuclear Doctrine: What Has Changed (Sp.)
• Kremlin Urges Foreign Nations To Study Russia’s New Nuclear Doctrine (RT)
• The Western World Has Degenerated Into Idiocy (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Can Trump End Ukraine’s ‘Endless War?’ (Victor Davis Hanson)
• Kremlin Reveals Why Ukraine Conflict Will Last ‘A Little Longer (RT)
• ‘Audit’ By Trump Would Be Nightmare For Zelensky – Moscow (RT)
• Secret British Military Cell Plotting To ‘Keep Ukraine Fighting’ (Klarenberg)
• Trump Confirms Plan To Use Military For Deportations (RT)
• Musk Goes All In On ‘Judge Dredd’ Matt Gaetz (ZH)
• Musk Mocks Pandemic Claim From Son of George Soros (RT)
• Diabetes Cases Quadruple Over 30 Years; WHO Urges Lifestyle Changes (ET)

 

 

 

 

Hammer

Trump tariffs

RFK

O’Leary

Scott Ritter

Jennings

Tucker

Shirt

 

 

 

 

Dems’ farewell present to America.

• Ukraine ATACMS Strike On Russia After Putin Lowers Threshold For Nukes (ZH)

About a day after President Biden authorized Ukraine to use the long-range US-made MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System to strike deeper into Russian territory, a new report suggests that the Ukrainian Armed Forces have hit a military installation in the western Bryansk region. This comes after Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia’s nuclear weapons doctrine was changed and signed by President Vladimir Putin, indicating “the use of Western non-nuclear rockets by the Armed Forces of Ukraine against Russia can prompt a nuclear response.” “For the first time, Ukraine’s Defense Forces struck Russian territory with ATACMS ballistic missiles,” RBC Ukraine news agency reported Tuesday. RBC Ukraine said the military facility near the city of Karachev in the Bryansk region was successfully hit with ATACMS. This location was about 115 kilometers (71 miles) from the border with Ukraine.

“Indeed, for the first time, we used ATACMS to strike Russian territory. The strike was carried out against a facility in the Bryansk region, and it was successfully hit,” one source told the local media outlet. Separately, media outlet Kyiv Post stated the 67th arsenal of the Main Directorate of the Missile and Artillery Directorate of Russia was hit. The facility reportedly had large stockpiles of anti-aircraft missiles, munitions for multiple launch rocket systems, artillery ammunition, and guided bombs, much of which was supplied by North Korea. Kyiv Post noted: “Russian media sources, including residents on social networks, reported explosions coming from within the Karachev district, and suggesting that a “military base” was being attacked.” The Russian Astra Telegram channel shared videos of the incident, while local reports said that there had been strikes on this arsenal in late 2023 and again in June and October this year.

Bloomberg revealed more details about the attack: Russian Defense Ministry confirmed Ukrainian armed forces launched a strike with US-made ATACMS ballistic missiles at a military object in Bryansk region on the border with Ukraine, Interfax reports. • 5 missiles were shot down, 1 damaged; no casualties reported • Missile debris caused fire in a military installation. Earlier, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that President Vladimir Putin signed new changes to Russia’s nuclear weapons doctrine. Peskov said the new modifications signify “the use of Western non-nuclear rockets by the Armed Forces of Ukraine against Russia can prompt a nuclear response.”

Peskov’s comments were made shortly after President Biden approved Ukraine’s use of ATACMS against military targets deep inside Russia. Additionally, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov addressed the nuclear doctrine, stating that the threshold for using nuclear weapons has been lowered, during an event in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on the sidelines of the G20 Summit. Lavrov asserted that Russia’s position is that nuclear war won’t happen, and that fundamentally Russian nuclear doctrine doesn’t differ from the United States’ – which sees nukes as a ‘deterrent’. But still, he added, Russia will “react accordingly” to Ukraine firing a US long-range missile.

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The story of the presence of 10,000 or so North Korean troops in Russia/Ukraine is highly questionable. It does come in handy when used as the reason to let Ukraine fire long range missiles at Russian targets.

• On Way Out, Reckless Biden Allows Deep Russia Strikes (Lauria)

Biden ultimately sided with the Pentagon, and he couldn’t be more explicit why. He opposed a NATO no-fly zone over Ukraine fighting Russian aircraft, he said, because “that’s called World War III, okay? Let’s get it straight here, guys. We will not fight the third world war in Ukraine.” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the time backed him up, saying: “President Biden’s been clear that U.S. troops won’t fight Russia in Ukraine, and if you establish a no-fly zone, certainly in order to enforce that no-fly zone, you’ll have to engage Russian aircraft. And again, that would put us at war with Russia.” But now Biden has reversed himself on his sensible positions and is defying the Pentagon to roll the dice that Russia’s warnings, repeated on Monday by Putin’s spokesman, won’t lead to nuclear conflict.

While he previously would not even authorize British long-range missile attacks into Russia in September, let alone U.S. ATACMS, on Sunday he authorized the ATACMS, risking Russia taking direct action against U.S. targets. So what changed Biden’s addled mind? [..] Biden staked his legacy on Ukraine. He was involved in the 2014 coup, in allegedly shady practices there with his son and then in provoking Russia to invade in 2022. He foolishly believed he would prevail in bringing down Putin with an economic, information and proxy ground war. All three are now decisively lost as the U.S. — still under Biden — prepares for the end game. Biden’s only face saver is for Ukraine to get back some of its lost territory by trading for it with Russian territory it seized in Kursk this summer.

So he is authorizing U.S. soldiers to operate ATACMS missiles from Ukraine to beat back a 50,000-man Russian force seeking to take back all of that Russian territory. Part of that force, according to the Pentagon spokesman, is a contingent of at least 10,000 North Korean troops invited by Moscow, thus operating legally on pre-war Russian territory. Yet the presence of these North Koreans has sent the Biden administration and its allied media into paroxysms of near insanity. The New York Times reported on Sunday: “Officials said Mr. Biden was persuaded to make the change in part by the sheer audacity of Russia’s decision to throw North Korean troops at Ukrainian lines. He was also swayed, they said, by concerns that the Russian assault force would be able to overwhelm Ukrainian troops in Kursk if they were not allowed to defend themselves with long-range weapons.”

It is not like Biden doesn’t know the potentially grave consequences he is recklessly unleashing. He was already warned about the no-fly zone and said “that’s called World War III, okay?” He was then warned by the Pentagon against allowing the British missiles and acted like a responsible statesman. But now, when it comes to his precious legacy, he doesn’t appear to give a damn about anything else. He was deprived of a second term (by traitors within his own party he no doubt thinks) and he will risk a NATO-Russia war to avoid the taint of utter defeat in Ukraine. This is what he’s ignoring, according to the Times:

“Some of Mr. Biden’s advisers had seized on a recent U.S. intelligence assessment that warned that Mr. Putin could respond to the use of long-range ATACMS on Russian soil by directing the Russian military or its spy agencies to retaliate, potentially with lethal force, against the United States and its European allies. The assessment warned of several possible Russian responses that included stepped-up acts of arson and sabotage targeting facilities in Europe, as well as potentially lethal attacks on U.S. and European military bases.” Where it goes from there, nobody knows. Thanks, Joe.

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“President Joe Biden has violated the US Constitution and ought to be impeached..”

“Biden is committing an unconstitutional Act of War that endangers the lives of all US citizens..”

“This is an impeachable offense, but the reality is he’s an emasculated puppet of a deep state..”

• Biden Committing Unconstitutional Act Of War- Rep. Massie (RT)

President Joe Biden has violated the US Constitution and ought to be impeached for permitting Ukraine to fire American-supplied long-range missiles into Russia, Congressman Thomas Massie has said. Multiple US outlets reported over the weekend that Biden had lifted the restrictions on Kiev’s use of US-supplied rockets. While the White House has neither confirmed nor denied the news officially, a volley of missiles was fired at Russia’s Bryansk Region early on Tuesday. “By authorizing long range missiles to strike inside Russia, Biden is committing an unconstitutional Act of War that endangers the lives of all US citizens,” Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday. “This is an impeachable offense, but the reality is he’s an emasculated puppet of a deep state,” he added.

According to anonymous officials who spoke to the media, the US permission would “mostly” apply to the Kursk Region of Russia, which Ukraine invaded in August. The decision was reportedly triggered by the Ukrainian claim that 10,000 North Korean soldiers have been deployed to Kursk to aid the Russian troops. The US and its allies had placed certain restrictions on the use of the weapons they have supplied to Kiev since 2022, in order to maintain plausible deniability regarding their involvement in the conflict with Russia.Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that the use of long-range missiles would change the nature of the conflict and make NATO a direct participant in the hostilities. Moscow has also revised its nuclear doctrine to encompass conventional attacks by proxies.

Massie has served in the US House of Representatives since 2012 and won his latest re-election bid unopposed. His insistence on constitutionalism has often put him at odds with both the Democrats and his own party. Under the US Constitution, only Congress has the power to start a war. The last time this happened, however, was in 1942, when it was declared against Axis-aligned Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania. Since 1991, the national legislature has passed three Authorizations for Use of Military Force (AUMF), twice against Iraq and once against Al-Qaeda. The AUMF targeted at Al-Qaeda has been stretched to justify the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan as well as subsequent interventions in Syria, Somalia, Yemen and elsewhere.

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“At least six long-range ATACMS missiles were fired into Russia’s Bryansk Region overnight..”

• Kiev Has Permission To Launch Long-Range Strikes – Zelensky (RT)

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has claimed that several Western countries have given Kiev permission to use their long-range missiles against internationally-recognized Russian territory. The New York Times reported on Sunday that US President Joe Biden had lifted some restrictions on the use of US-provided ATACMS missiles. The White House has neither confirmed nor denied the NYT article, which cited anonymous officials. “Now that there are relevant decisions, not just in the media, but also from the relevant countries, it is very important to add to these decisions the number of opportunities with which we can reduce the military potential of the Russian Federation, wherever it is,” Zelensky said on Tuesday at a press-conference in Kiev.

Speaking alongside Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Zelensky added that Ukraine is now “working to ensure that all countries support long-range capabilities,” urging Germany in particular to “take the appropriate decision” as well. The UK and France have also reportedly lifted restrictions on the use of the long-range missiles they have provided to Kiev, although they haven’t confirmed the move either. Germany and Italy have publicly said their policy remained unchanged, however, and that their weapons can only be used on Ukrainian soil.

At least six long-range ATACMS missiles were fired into Russia’s Bryansk Region overnight, Moscow’s Defense Ministry reported on Tuesday. Five of them were shot down, while debris from one reportedly caused a localized fire at a military base, causing no property damage. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly warned that long-range strikes with Western weapons would change the nature of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, making it a direct confrontation between NATO and Moscow. On Tuesday, Russia officially updated its nuclear deterrence doctrine to authorize an atomic response to conventional attacks from countries backed by nuclear powers. This has been widely interpreted as applying to Ukrainian strikes with weapons supplied by the US, UK and France.

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“Russia reserves the right to retaliate with weapons of mass destruction against Kiev and key NATO facilities, wherever they may be located,” Medvedev said. “This would amount to World War III..”

• Ukrainian Attacks Could Merit Nuclear Response Against NATO – Medvedev (RT)

Moscow’s revised nuclear doctrine permits retaliatory strikes against NATO for the kind of attacks that US President Joe Biden reportedly authorized last week, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has warned. Washington has reportedly granted Kiev permission to use ATACMS ballistic missiles deep inside Russian territory. Medvedev, who serves as deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, warned on Tuesday that such actions would qualify as a threat warranting a nuclear response under the new doctrine, which President Vladimir Putin enacted earlier in the day. In response to such an attack, “Russia reserves the right to retaliate with weapons of mass destruction against Kiev and key NATO facilities, wherever they may be located,” Medvedev said. “This would amount to World War III,” he added.

Unrestricted strikes using Western weapons are part of Vladimir Zelensky’s ‘victory plan’, which he presented to the US president in September. The reported change in US policy, which was confirmed by several American allies, came after Donald Trump won the presidential election earlier this month. The Republican politician has claimed that he could end the Ukraine conflict in 24 hours, once he is back in office in January. Some of his close supporters have accused Biden of trying to railroad the incoming administration into prolonging hostilities with Russia with his decision.

While Washington has not issued an official statement on the matter, State Department Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian A. Nichols told the Brazilian newspaper O Globo on Tuesday that strikes by Kiev as authorized by Biden may encourage Russia to negotiate peace. In September, Putin issued a warning to NATO member states, which Zelensky was lobbying to authorize long-range strikes on Russia. Kiev is incapable of launching Western weapons without direct help of donor states, so any such attack would put NATO and Russia directly at war with each other, the Russian leader said. The updated Russian nuclear posture introduces several changes, one of which states that an attack by a foreign nation that does not have weapons of mass destruction but is backed by a nuclear power should be considered as a joint attack by both.

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“.. the previous version of the doctrine contained no mention of Russia being authorized to use nuclear weapons if attacked by a non-nuclear state backed by a nuclear power.”

• New Russia Nuclear Doctrine: What Has Changed (Sp.)

The new Russian nuclear doctrine recently signed by President Vladimir Putin features several notable articles that were absent from the doctrine’s previous iterations, Russian military analyst Ret.Col. Viktor Litovkin tells Sputnik. “Firstly, the 2020 edition of the doctrine contained no mention of Belarus where we deployed our nuclear weapons and whom we had taken under our ‘nuclear umbrella’,” Litovkin explains. “Secondly, the previous version of the doctrine contained no mention of Russia being authorized to use nuclear weapons if attacked by a non-nuclear state backed by a nuclear power.” According to him, Russia thus sends a direct warning to the United States and NATO who supply Ukraine with long-range missiles and urge Kiev to use them, effectively waging a war against Russia by proxy.

“This is a serious warning that, if they go too far and long-range missiles are used against Russian territory – and these long-range missiles are programmed by NATO specialists because Ukrainian specialists lack the necessary equipment and expertise, not to mention NATO aircraft and heavy UAVs guiding these missiles – we would be empowered to strike against the sites these missiles are launched from,” he adds. Dmitry Stefanovich from the Moscow-based Institute of World Economy and International Relations at the Russian Academy of Sciences also points out that the new edition of the nuclear doctrine states that nuclear weapons could be used in case of a threat to Russia’s “territorial integrity and sovereignty” rather than in case of a threat to “the country’s very existence” as before.

The doctrine thus serves as a reaction to “global processes in the military-political sphere, not all of which are related to Ukraine,” Stefanovich notes. “Most importantly, the document still maintains that nuclear deterrence works only until nuclear weapons are used. One can only guess what would happen ‘beyond the nuclear threshold’ and I hope these speculations remain purely hypothetical,” he remarks.

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“..the weapons authorized by President Biden would enhance Ukraine’s defense capabilities and may encourage Russia to negotiate peace..”

• Kremlin Urges Foreign Nations To Study Russia’s New Nuclear Doctrine (RT)

Foreign leaders should carefully study Russia’s new nuclear doctrine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said, after President Vladimir Putin formally authorized the document. Published on Tuesday, the eight-page policy statement on Russian nuclear deterrence includes changes previewed by Putin in September. It is “extremely important” and should be “the subject of very deep analysis both in our nation and, probably, abroad,” Peskov told journalists during a regular briefing. Among the changes under the new rules, Russia will now consider an attack by a non-nuclear power backed by a nuclear one as a joint attack, and will also treat a massive air assault as warranting a nuclear response. Peskov highlighted specific wording in the doctrine “aimed at ensuring realization by the potential enemy of the inevitability of retaliation in case of aggression against the Russian Federation and/or its allies.”

Last week, US President Joe Biden reportedly granted Kiev permission to use American-made long-range weapons to deliver strikes deep into Russia. The policy change has been confirmed by some US allies, but not by Washington itself. Putin previously said that any such attack would amount to a direct war between NATO and Russia. Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has included unrestricted attacks with Western weapons in his ‘victory plan’ for the conflict with Moscow, which he touted to Biden in September. Other points of his proposal include the deployment of a “conventional deterrence package” on Ukrainian soil. He reportedly requested the US to station Tomahawk cruise missiles in Ukraine and threatened to launch them against Russia.

Peskov was asked on Tuesday whether such a deployment would trigger a Russian nuclear strike under the new doctrine. He declined to answer directly, instead referring to the new provision about foreign attacks backed by nuclear states that Moscow wants to deter with the update. Moscow reserves the right to use nuclear weapons when its sovereignty and territorial integrity or those of its allies is at stake, the official added. On Tuesday, US State Department Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian A. Nichols appeared to indirectly confirm the policy change when he claimed to the Brazilian newspaper O Globo that the weapons authorized by President Biden would enhance Ukraine’s defense capabilities and may encourage Russia to negotiate peace.

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“..it would make more sense for Trump to deport the Democrats and take in the Hispanics.”

• The Western World Has Degenerated Into Idiocy (Paul Craig Roberts)

The moron, Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign minister, has threatened China for supporting Russia. What is it with Western politicians that they think they have authority over the foreign policy of sovereign countries and threaten powerful countries that can blow them off the face of the earth? Why do they so cavalierly stir up powerful enemies that can crush them? Annalena Baerbock is clearly a stupid person. The American Biden regime is even more stupid. The Biden morons have turned a contemptuous eye to Russian military doctrine and the Russian government’s statement that any missiles fired into Russia will be regarded as fired by the US and NATO and will receive a response that includes the possible use of nuclear weapons. The idiot Biden regime has thumbed its nose at Russia and, thereby, regarding the warning as “Putin’s bluff,” has invited nuclear war.

It is possible that Putin will accept Russia’s humiliation in order to spare the world, but he must know that sooner or later he must fight or surrender Russia to Washington. What is being gained from taking such an irresponsible risk? It would be one thing if it were only a risk the consequence of which would be borne only by the Biden morons. But it is another when the risk is borne by the entire world. Where is the world’s denunciation of the Biden idiots for exposing the world to nuclear war? What purpose justifies this extraordinary risk? Is the entire world as stupid as Biden? The notion that America whose government is demonstratively insane is a world leader is beyond absurdity. Such a threat to life as Washington presents cannot be made great. It can only be eliminated. If you care to understand how utterly stupid tens of millions of Americans are, note that about 45% of Americans who voted in the election voted for Democrats.

When almost half of the American population is totally mindless and supports with its votes military attack on Russia, how can Trump make America great again? Indeed, how can America even survive? If you think about it, it would make more sense for Trump to deport the Democrats and take in the Hispanics. America would be better off. To be great a country needs smart people, and clearly Hispanics are smarter than Democrats. We must hope that Trump has risen to the occasion, asked Putin to hold off, and promised to reverse the policy once inaugurated. To remind you, I warned that we would reach this dangerous point because Putin refused to use sufficient force to end the conflict with Ukraine before Washington could get deeply involved. Trying to avoid a larger war, Putin produced one. Note that the US and NATO are already in violation of this new doctrine.

For example, an Aegis Ashore facility, which is almost identical to the anti-ballistic missile Aegis Combat System carried by US naval vessels, just opened in Poland. This is the second such facility on the Russian border (the first is in Romania). Both facilities are armed with the dual-use Mark 41 launch system that can launch both ballistic and Tomahawk cruise missiles, which can be armed with nuclear weapons. The missiles arrive and are loaded into the launchers concealed in large crates that make it impossible for observers to ascertain which type of missile is being used. It is difficult to understand such provocative actions by Washington that clearly threaten the world with nuclear war.

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“..how could Putin reassure the Russian people of anything short of an absolute annexation of Ukraine after the cost of one million Russian casualties?”

1/ Russia doesn’t want to annex Ukraine. 2/ There are not nearly one million Russian casualties.

• Can Trump End Ukraine’s ‘Endless War?’ (Victor Davis Hanson)

Trump was elected in part on promises to avoid “endless wars” of the sort that cost American blood and treasure in Afghanistan and Iraq but without resulting in strategic advantage or civilized calm. Yet as a Jacksonian, Trump also restored American deterrence through punitive strikes against ISIS and terrorist thugs like Baghdadi and Soleimani—without being bogged down in costly follow-ups. During the last four administrations, Putin stayed within his borders only during the Trump four years. But upon entering office, Trump will likely still be faced with something far more challenging as he confronts what has become the greatest European killing field since World War II—the cauldron on the Ukrainian border that has likely already cost 1-1.5 million combined dead, wounded, and missing Ukrainian and Russian soldiers and civilians.

There is no end in sight after three years of escalating violence. But there are increasing worries that strategically logical and morally defensible—but geopolitically dangerous—Ukrainian strikes on the Russian interior will nonetheless escalate and lead to a wider war among the world’s nuclear powers. Many on the right wish for Trump to immediately cut off all aid to Ukraine for what they feel is an unwinnable war, even if that abrupt cessation would end any leverage with which to force Putin to negotiate. They claim the war was instigated by a globalist left, serving as a proxy conflict waged to ruin Russia at the cost of Ukrainian soldiers. They see it orchestrated by a now non-democratic Ukrainian government, lacking elections, a free press, or opposition parties, led by an ungracious and corrupt Zelensky cadre that has allied with the American left in an election year.

In contrast, many on the left see Putin’s invasion and the right’s weariness with the costs of the conflict as the long-awaited global proof of the Trump-Russian “collusion” unicorn. Thus, after the 2016 collusion hoax and 2020 laptop disinformation ruse, they see in some of the right’s opposition to the war at last proof of the Russophiliac Trump perfidy. They judge Putin, not China’s imperialist juggernaut, as the real enemy and discount the dangers of a new Russia-China-Iran-North Korean axis. And to see Ukraine utterly defeat Russia, recover all of the Donbass and Crimea, and destroy the Putin dictatorship, they are willing again to feed the war to the last Ukrainian while discounting escalating Russian threats to use tactical nuclear weapons to prevent defeat.

Trump has vowed to end the catastrophe on day one by doing what is now taboo: calling Vladimir Putin and making a deal that would do the now impossible: entice Russia back to its February 24, 2022, borders before it invaded and thus preserve a reduced but still autonomous and secure Ukraine.How could Trump pull that unlikely deal off? Ostensibly, he would follow the advice of a growing number of Western diplomats, generals, scholars, and pundits who have reluctantly outlined a general plan to stop the slaughter.

But how could Putin reassure the Russian people of anything short of an absolute annexation of Ukraine after the cost of one million Russian casualties? Perhaps in the deal, Putin could brag that he institutionalized forever his 2014 annexations of once Russian-speaking majority Donbass and Crimea; that he prevented Ukraine from joining NATO on the doorstep of Mother Russia; and that he achieved a strategic coup in aligning Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea in a new grand alliance against the West and particularly the United States, with the acquiescence if not support of NATO member Turkey and an ever more sympathetic India.

And what would Ukraine and the West gain from such a Trump art of the deal? Kyiv might boast that, as the bulwark of Europe, Ukraine heroically saved the country from Russian annexation as envisioned in the 2022 attempt to decapitate Kyiv and absorb the entire country. Ukraine subsequently was armed by the West and fought effectively enough to stymie the Russian juggernaut, wound and humiliate the Russian military, and sow dissension within the vastly weakened Russian dictatorship, as evidenced by the assassinated would-be insurgent Prigozhin.

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“..it started against the Kiev regime. And now it is continuing as a war between Russia and NATO. That is why it took a little bit longer and will take a little bit longer..”

• Kremlin Reveals Why Ukraine Conflict Will Last ‘A Little Longer (RT)

Russia’s military operation was initially aimed at Ukraine but quickly became a conflict with NATO, President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov has said. Putin sent troops towards Kiev in February 2022 after the Ukrainian government openly rejected the Minsk Agreements and began shelling the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics in the Donbass. In an extended interview with Indian media on Tuesday, Peskov was asked why the hostilities have taken 1,000 days and counting, and if he could predict when they might end. “When all this started, it started against the Kiev regime. And now it is continuing as a war between Russia and NATO. That is why it took a little bit longer and will take a little bit longer,” the Kremlin spokesman said.

“It will come to an end as soon as we reach our goals,” Peskov said, adding that Russia would prefer to achieve its objectives through negotiations, but Ukraine has literally outlawed any talks with Moscow. “So that’s why we’re continuing the military operation, because the possibility of peaceful negotiations is now being denied, both by Kiev and their [bosses] in Washington,” Peskov told the Indian media. The initial spring 2022 peace talks between Russia and Ukraine were reportedly derailed by Boris Johnson, the British prime minister at the time, who told Kiev that the West was not ready to make peace with Moscow. The US and its allies have funneled almost $200 billion worth of aid to Ukraine since 2022, including weapons, ammunition and combat equipment such as artillery, tanks, fighter jets and long-range missiles, while insisting this did not make them a party to the conflict.

On Tuesday morning, Ukraine used long-range ATACMS missiles provided by the US to strike Russia’s Bryansk Region, confirming media reports that Washington had given Kiev permission to do so. Putin has warned that such a step would change the very nature of the conflict and make NATO a direct participant in the hostilities. He also updated Russia’s nuclear doctrine to allow a strategic response to a conventional attack by the proxy of an atomic power.

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Put Musk and Ramaswamy and their investigators on it. They’ll have a ball.

• ‘Audit’ By Trump Would Be Nightmare For Zelensky – Moscow (RT)

A possible financial review under the administration of US President-elect Donald Trump must be a cause of alarm for Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, Russia’s envoy to the UN Vassily Nebenzia has said. Trump’s election victory earlier this month, having made a critical approach to Ukraine part of his platform, poses a threat to Zelensky, because he could force an unfavorable peace deal on Kiev in order to deliver on his promise to end the fighting. Commenting on Monday at a UN Security Council meeting dedicated to Ukraine, Nebenzia said officials in Kiev likely have more personal reasons to be concerned.“The new authorities might want to check all the money that was sent to Ukraine and conduct a full audit of the assistance already provided,” the Russian envoy stated.

“This scenario… is much more frightening for Zelensky, because a significant part of the aid has been simply plundered and misappropriated by [him] and his entourage,” he added. Nebenzia cited media reports that Ukrainian officials had gone into panic mode after news of Trump’s victory. All Western support for Kiev is inherently vulnerable to graft, he claimed, stating that “the scale of the corruption is something we can only guess.” Trump has called Zelensky the “greatest salesman ever” over the Ukrainian’s repeated extraction of aid money from the incumbent Democratic US administration. Government graft has been consistently named by observers as a major problem for Ukraine since it gained independence in the 1990s. Transparency International last year ranked it 104th among 180 nations for which the West-sympathetic organization calculates its corruption perception index.

The Zelensky government claims that it has made great strides in tackling the problem. Kiev has reportedly complained about US Ambassador Bridget Brink, maintaining that she creates “unnecessary tensions” with Washington by pressing the corruption issue. Contrary to the assurances, the problem seems acute, Time magazine reported last November, citing a source claiming that Ukrainian officials are “stealing like there’s no tomorrow.” Pentagon Inspector General Robert Storch reported this week that “corruption continues to complicate Ukraine’s efforts to achieve its EU and NATO aspirations,” particularly due to multiple scandals in the Defense Ministry.

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Desperately seeking relevance.

• Secret British Military Cell Plotting To ‘Keep Ukraine Fighting’ (Klarenberg)

Emails and internal documents reviewed by The Grayzone reveal details of a cabal of British military and intelligence veterans which plotted to escalate and prolong the Ukraine proxy war “at all costs.” Convened under the direction of the British Ministry of Defense in the immediate aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the cell referred to itself as Project Alchemy. As British leadership sabotaged peace talks between Kiev and Moscow, the cell put forward an array of plans “to keep Ukraine fighting” by imposing “strategic dilemmas, costs and frictions upon Russia.” The leaks obtained by The Grayzone expose a hidden hand behind Britain’s policy in Ukraine, showing in unusually granular detail how it aimed to engineer a long, grinding war through covert operations that stretched the bounds of legality.

Project Alchemy’s proposed schemes spanned every conceivable field of warfare, from cyber attacks to “discreet operations” to outright terrorism. The secret cell even put forward a plan to “aggressively pursue” and “dismantle” independent media outlets – including The Grayzone – through an aggressive campaign of legal harassment and online censorship, so they “would be forced to close.” The incendiary blueprints were fed to the highest levels of the British state and national security structure, where they were apparently well-received. Founded by a senior British Ministry of Defence official, Project Alchemy is composed of veteran military and intelligence operatives united by a desire for all-out war between the West and Russia. Some have trained Ukrainian forces in clandestine sabotage tactics. Members of the national security cabal tacitly acknowledged that their proposed operations stretched the bounds of British law.

Thus they suggested that London should be “prepared to creatively use the law” to meet its goals, and even be willing to erase “legal restrictions on UK deniable ops” against Russia. Some of Project Alchemy’s most extreme recommendations have already been implemented, often with calamitous results. These include the cell’s proposal to strike Crimea’s Kerch Bridge, which prompted a Russian escalation that saw punishing attacks on Ukraine’s electricity infrastructure. Alchemy also envisioned the construction of a secret, Gladio-style army of Ukrainian partisan fighters to carry out assassination, sabotage, and terror missions behind enemy lines. It appears the British premier, Keir Starmer, fell under the influence of the Project Alchemy cabal soon after his election in July, when he eagerly embraced the role of “wartime prime minister.”

After pledging to support Ukraine “as long as it takes,” however, Starmer is quietly backing away from the maximalist policy. In Kiev, Ukrainians are left to ponder how their “friends” in London got them into this mess, and why they can not, or will not get them out of it. The British spooks who gathered around Project Alchemy reasoned that the longer the proxy war continued, the more Russian president Vladimir Putin’s “credibility at home and abroad drops, and his ability to fight NATO is degraded.” Today, Project Alchemy’s gambit has clearly backfired, as Putin remains popular within Russia, while a crumbling Ukrainian army loses territory by the day despite constant re-arming by the West. But the war planners in London remain staunchly committed to escalation, refusing to shelve their diabolical proposals.

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“Under legislation from 1976, US presidents can declare national emergencies at their discretion..”

• Trump Confirms Plan To Use Military For Deportations (RT)

US President-elect Donald Trump has confirmed that he intends to declare a national emergency and use military resources to deport undocumented immigrants. During his re-election campaign, Trump vowed to launch “the largest deportation program” of criminals in US history, and repeatedly floated the possibility of involving the army. On Monday, Trump shared a post by conservative activist Tom Fitton on the Truth Social media platform. Fitton, who is the president of Judicial Watch, a public interest group dedicated to investigating government corruption, had written that Trump’s administration would “declare a national emergency and will use military assets” to address illegal immigration “through a mass deportation program.” Reposting Fitton’s comment, Trump wrote, “TRUE!!!” Under legislation from 1976, US presidents can declare national emergencies at their discretion and redirect funds designated by lawmakers for other purposes.

Trump’s plans regarding illegal migration include ramping up deportations, reinstating a “travel ban” for certain countries, and closing the border to asylum seekers. He’s also vowed to end birthright citizenship for infants born on domestic soil to undocumented migrant parents. Trump’s top immigration adviser Stephen Miller told The New York Times last year that the military could construct large-scale camps to hold people slated for deportation. According to Department of Homeland Security estimates, around 11 million people are in the US illegally. Trump declared a national emergency at the southern US border amid a surge in asylum seekers during his first term in 2019 and reappropriated military funds for the construction of a wall along the border with Mexico. When Joe Biden was elected president in 2021, further construction of the wall was halted.

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“Matt Gaetz has 3 critical assets that are needed for the AG role: a big brain, a spine of steel and an axe to grind..”

• Musk Goes All In On ‘Judge Dredd’ Matt Gaetz (ZH)

Elon Musk has come out swinging for Rep. Matt Gaetz, as the Florida lawmaker and President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general faces scrutiny over sexual misconduct allegations that may throw his Senate confirmation into disarray. “Matt Gaetz has 3 critical assets that are needed for the AG role: a big brain, a spine of steel and an axe to grind,” Musk wrote in a Tuesday post on X. “He is the Judge Dredd America needs to clean up a corrupt system and put powerful bad actors in prison,” Musk continued, adding “Gaetz will be our Hammer of Justice.” Musk also addressed the allegations, saying he considers them “worth less than nothing,” as “Under our laws, a man is considered innocent until proven guilty.

“If AG Garland (an unprincipled douchebag) could have secured a conviction against Gaetz, he would have, but he knew he could not. “Case closed.” Senators on both sides of the aisle are requesting more information into a House ethics probe of Gaetz which allegedly contains accusations that Gaetz paid for sex with a woman who was 17 at the time. The DOJ investigated the allegations, but decided in February of 2023 not to file any charges against him. Gaetz has denied the allegations.

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Scamdemic.

• Musk Mocks Pandemic Claim From Son of George Soros (RT)

SpaceX and Tesla boss Elon Musk has ridiculed a claim made by Alex Soros, son of billionaire financier George Soros, that Americans would be “screwed” if there was another pandemic. The comment appeared to target President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for the next US health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, Soros, heir to his father’s business and philanthropic empire, suggested that the plans for health agencies announced by RFK Jr. “could weaken a future pandemic response.” “They are playing with fire! Americans will be screwed if there is another pandemic!” Alex Soros wrote. ”*scamdemic,” responded Musk, a close confidant of Donald Trump, who played a prominent role in the former president’s re-election campaign.

RFK Jr., an anti-vaccine activist and environmentalist, has pledged to revise the work of US health agencies, claiming that the Food and Drug Administration’s “war on public health is about to end.” During the Covid-19 pandemic, RFK Jr. railed against response measures such as lockdowns and mandatory vaccinations, claiming they were more about power grabs than genuine public health concerns. Among RFK Jr.’s current healthcare policy priorities are reviewing vaccine safety and combating chemicals, pollutants, and additives that he claims contribute to chronic disease in the US. Critics argue that RFK Jr.’s views run contrary to the medical and scientific consensus.

Elon Musk has also slammed governments’ handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and mass inoculations, suggesting that the “vaccine is potentially worse” than the disease if administered to the whole population. The tech mogul said in 2021 that he and his family were vaccinated against the virus. Trump has nominated Musk for a role aimed at streamlining the work of the government, co-leading a Department of Government Efficiency – which will be an advisory body without the status of a department.

American investor and philanthropist Alex Soros is one of five children of Hungarian-American billionaire investor and liberal George Soros. The 39-year-old chairs the Board of Directors of the Open Society Foundations, and sits on the investment committee of Soros Fund Management. His father, 94-year-old George Soros, has an estimated net worth of nearly $7 billion. George Soros has for decades been a prominent US Democratic Party donor. In the run-up to the recent US presidential election, Musk earned the nickname “George Soros of the Right,” due to his large financial contributions to the Trump campaign. The Tesla CEO has on numerous occasions been critical of Soros, accusing him of trying to destroy Western civilization and of hating humanity.

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“Out of every $4 in health care spending in the United States, $1 was used for people diagnosed with diabetes..”

That Tedros guy still has a job? Whatever he urges, who will listen?

• Diabetes Cases Quadruple Over 30 Years; WHO Urges Lifestyle Changes (ET)

Hundreds of millions of people globally have become diabetic over the past 30 years, leading the World Health Organization (WHO) to call for “urgent action” to deal with the health crisis. The number of adults living with diabetes worldwide has more than quadrupled since 1990, the WHO said in a Nov. 13 statement citing the results of a recent study it supported. An estimated 828 million adults were living with the condition worldwide in 2022, an increase of 630 million from 1990. The lowest prevalence of diabetes was in “Western Europe and East Africa for both sexes, and in Japan and Canada for women.” The highest prevalence was in Polynesia and Micronesia, certain nations in the Caribbean, North Africa, and the Middle East, as well as Pakistan and Malaysia. In total, 14 percent of the world’s adults had diabetes in 2022, double the seven percent 30 years back.

“We have seen an alarming rise in diabetes over the past three decades, which reflects the increase in obesity, compounded by the impacts of the marketing of unhealthy food, a lack of physical activity, and economic hardship,” said WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “To bring the global diabetes epidemic under control, countries must urgently take action. This starts with enacting policies that support healthy diets and physical activity, and, most importantly, health systems that provide prevention, early detection, and treatment.”Nearly 450 million adults aged 30 and above with diabetes remained untreated in 2022. This represented 59 percent of all adults who have the condition, a 3.5-fold jump. Ninety percent of untreated adults were living in low- and middle-income countries.

According to data from the CDC, around 38 million Americans were living with diabetes in 2021, which was roughly one in 10 individuals. One in five didn’t know they had the condition. Nearly 100 million, or more than one in three Americans, suffered from pre-diabetes. A bipartisan group of senators in June announced legislation aimed at improving the early detection and screening of type 1 diabetes, titled “Strengthening Collective Resources for Encouraging Education Needed (SCREEN) for Type 1 Diabetes Act.” Early identification “can prevent life-threatening conditions like diabetic ketoacidosis and potentially allow for the use of therapeutics to delay the clinical onset of the condition, helping to improve patients’ quality of life and reliance on insulin,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).

A report from the American Diabetes Association last year found that the country’s annual cost of the illness was nearly $413 billion in 2022, which included more than $306 billion in direct medical costs. Out of every $4 in health care spending in the United States, $1 was used for people diagnosed with diabetes, it said.“In addition to its enormous physical and health burden, diabetes also carries an untenable cost burden that is often disproportionately borne by vulnerable and underserved communities,” said Charles Henderson, CEO of the organization. He pointed out that the medical costs for such people have risen by 35 percent over the previous decade. “Reducing the cost of diabetes is essential to improving the lives of all people with diabetes.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

Naomi Wolf

 

 

Mercury

 

 

McCullough

 

 

Optimus

 

 

Cork

 

 

Swans

 

 

Coke

 

 

First date

 

 

Jaguar

 

 

Ducklings

 

 

Cran

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle November 18 2024

Nov 182024
 
 November 18, 2024  Posted by at 9:49 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  71 Responses »


Rembrandt van Rijn Bathsheba at her bath 1654

 

• Biden Authorizes Ukraine’s Use Of US Missiles To Hit Targets Inside Russia (ZH)
• The Biden Administration Wants ‘World War III’ – Trump Jr. (RT)
• Musk Reacts To Biden Reportedly Allowing Deep Strikes On Russia (RT)
• Democrats Propose ‘Shadow Government’ To Oppose Trump’s Cabinet (ZH)
• It’s Trump’s Transition and He Calls the Shots (Wegmann)
• Beyond Victory and Defeat: A Vision for National Unity (ET)
• What Happens to Jan. 6 Defendants After Trump’s Election Win? (ET)
• Trump Not Even in Power Yet and Already Wreaking Havoc on European Markets (Sp.)
• Musk, Ramaswamy Seek Volunteers to Join New DOGE Department (ET)
• Harris Campaign Still Pleading With Donors for More Money (Sp.)
• Trump Faces An Economic Catch-22 His First Day In Office (ZH)
• EU Won’t Survive Without Russia And BRICS – Russian Senator (RT)
• RT Is ‘Only Station Where I Can Tell The Truth’ – RFK in 2020 (RT)
• Climate Summits “No Longer Fit For Purpose”, Experts Say (ZH)
• US Media Cheerleads ‘Killer Robots Filling Ukrainian Skies’ (Sp.)
• Left is a Vicious Wounded Tiger, They Want Us Dead – Larry Klayman (USAW)

 

 

Depopulation goes fast.

 

 

Trump

Bannon

Scharf
https://twitter.com/i/status/1857562938837520434

Gaetz

Casey Means

Kai

 

 

 

 

We’ve been hinting at escalation for a while…

• Biden Authorizes Ukraine’s Use Of US Missiles To Hit Targets Inside Russia (ZH)

In a move straight out of Louis “After me, the flood” XV, the outgoing BIden admin, in a seemingly desperate move to destabilize the global geopolitical picture, has authorized the lifting of some restrictions on Ukraine’s use of western-made weapons to strike military targets inside Russia, according to reports from Bloomberg and the AP. The decision was reportedly shaped by North Korea ramping up support for President Vladimir Putin’s army and an increase in Russian missile and drone attacks on its neighbor. The approval represents a major U.S. policy shift and comes as the deep state-supported, dementia-ridden puppet Joe Biden is about to leave office and incoming President-elect Donald Trump has said he would bring about a swift end to the war and has expressed skepticism over continued support by the United States.

If approved, the capability would likely be used first in the Kursk region of Russia, where Ukraine is fighting against North Korean troops as well as Moscow’s forces, the people said. Still, any permission, if granted, is unlikely to go as far as Ukraine has requested, one of the people said. As the war in Ukraine heads into its third full winter, the US and its allies “have grown extremely concerned” about Pyongyang’s decision to deploy its forces in combat and assessments by some Group of 20 nations suggest North Korea could eventually send as many as 100,000 troops to Russia. The allies believe the deepening cooperation between Putin and Kim Jong Un could have consequences for the security balance in the Indo-Pacific region, Bloomberg has reported previously. Discussions between the allies over missile strikes have intensified since Donald Trump won US elections earlier this month, another Bloomberg source said.

Trump has said he will seek a quick deal between Ukraine and Russia to end the war, without specifying how. In other words, Biden’s puppet masters are urgently seeking to escalate the war in Ukraine to make the quick ceasefire sought by Trump impossible (after all, war is how the Deep State earns its income). Until now, Biden had remained opposed, determined to hold the line against any escalation that he felt could draw the U.S. and other NATO members into direct conflict with Russia. But what supposedly triggered the shift is not Trump’s desire to end the war, at least not according to Bloomberg’s deep state sources, but North Korea’s decision to deploy deployed thousands of troops to Russia to help Moscow reclaim land in the Kursk border region that Ukraine seized this year, and which Russia has already mostly regained even as Ukraine continues to cede territory in the Donetsk region. The introduction of North Korean troops to the conflict comes as Moscow has seen a favorable shift in momentum.

As many as 12,000 North Korean troops have been sent to Russia, according to U.S., South Korean and Ukrainian assessments. U.S. and South Korean intelligence officials say North Korea also has provided Russia with significant amounts of munitions to replenish its weapons stockpiles. Trump, who takes office in January, spoke for months as a candidate about wanting Russia’s war in Ukraine to be over. He also repeatedly slammed the Biden administration for giving Kyiv tens of billions of dollars in aid. His resounding election victory has Ukraine’s international backers worrying that any rushed settlement would mostly benefit Putin. Which is where the deep state’s World War 3 Hail Mary comes in, especially since the outgoing Biden administration has said it will send as much aid as possible to Kyiv before Trump takes office in January.

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“..make sure they get World War 3 going before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives..”

• The Biden Administration Wants ‘World War III’ – Trump Jr. (RT)

US President-elect Donald Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., lashed out at the Democrats following reports that outgoing President Joe Biden has allowed Ukraine to use American-made long-range missiles to strike internationally recognized Russian territory. Trump Jr., who campaigned alongside his father during the 2024 presidential election and has been helping him pick members of his future cabinet, did not mince words on social media. “The Military Industrial Complex seems to want to make sure they get World War 3 going before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives,” he wrote on X on Sunday. “Gotta lock in those $Trillions. Life be damned!!! Imbeciles!” The Biden administration previously restricted the use of ATACMS missiles by Ukraine, citing fears of possible retaliation by Russia. The White House, however, had decided to reverse its policy, according to reports by multiple news agencies.

The White House and the Pentagon have chosen not to comment on the matter. The reported decision is widely seen as a last-ditch effort to boost Ukraine’s military capabilities before Trump could assume office on January 20. During his re-election campaign, the president-elect cast doubt on the necessity of unconditional aid to Kiev and vowed to resolve the conflict by diplomatic means. His looming return to the White House made the Democrats, together with officials in Ukraine and the EU, worry that the new administration could abandon Ukraine. Moscow has repeatedly stated that allowing Western weapons to be used deep inside Russia would be a signal of NATO’s direct involvement in the conflict. President Vladimir Putin said that Russia will take “appropriate decisions in response to the threats.”

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“Libs [liberals] love war..” [..] “..war facilitates bigger government.”

• Musk Reacts To Biden Reportedly Allowing Deep Strikes On Russia (RT)

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, a close confidant of US President-elect Donald Trump, has weighed in on President Joe Biden’s apparent decision to officially sanction the use of American missiles on targets deep within Russian territory, agreeing with a post stating “libs love war.” With just two months left in office, Biden reportedly gave in to one of Ukraine’s long-standing demands on Sunday afternoon, authorizing Kiev to use its American-provided Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) in strikes on Russia’s Kursk Region. The decision was simultaneously reported by multiple US media outlets. Ukraine plans to conduct its first long-range attacks in the coming days, Reuters reported, citing “two US officials and a source familiar with the decision.” Biden’s decision marks a significant escalation in the conflict.

While Ukraine has possessed ATACMS missiles since April, the US president did not at that time give Kiev permission to use them on internationally recognized Russian territory. To date, they have been used in strikes on Russia’s Crimea, Donetsk, and Lugansk regions, which Washington considers Ukrainian. Responding to the news on X, Utah Senator Mike Lee, a Republican, declared that “Libs [liberals] love war,” adding: “war facilitates bigger government.” “True,” Musk replied. While SpaceX has provided the Ukrainian military with Starlink internet terminals, Musk has long argued that Kiev cannot hope to defeat Russian forces on the battlefield, and that the conflict must end in a negotiated settlement. The tech tycoon endorsed Donald Trump – who has vowed to bring a swift end to the fighting – earlier this summer, and following Trump’s defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris last week, he has emerged as one of the president-elect’s closest advisers.

Musk is not the only figure in Trump’s orbit to condemn Biden’s decision. Richard Grenell, a close adviser to the president-elect who served as acting director of national intelligence in 2020, accused Biden of “escalating the wars before he leaves office.” “The Military Industrial Complex seems to want to make sure they get World War 3 going before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives,” Trump’s son, Donald Jr., wrote on X. “Gotta lock in those $Trillions. Life be damned!!! Imbeciles!” Trump has vowed to bring the conflict to a speedy conclusion, and is expected to push Moscow and Kiev to agree to peace talks. Musk reportedly joined Trump on a phone call to Vladimir Zelensky last week, speaking directly to the Ukrainian leader at one point, according to reports in the US media.

Musk has not acknowledged taking part in the call, but wrote on X shortly afterwards that “the senseless killing will end soon. Time is up for the warmonger profiteers.” Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Moscow would view any attacks on Russia’s internationally recognized territory with American-supplied weaponry as NATO entering the conflict directly. These actions, he suggested, would have severe repercussions, including retaliation against Western interests.

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“The Dems can pretend like people are listening to them as they tell the world how they would would do each cabinet job better..”

• Democrats Propose ‘Shadow Government’ To Oppose Trump’s Cabinet (ZH)

If Democrats today are known for anything, it’s their uncanny inability to read the room and listen to people when they say “No”. It’s a typical trait of psychopaths; the assumption that when people refuse your ideals and your leadership they “don’t really mean it” and they “just”need a little more convincing”. Sorry leftists, but no means no. It doesn’t help that the most common argument coming from leftist pundits after their brutal election loss is that the only reason voters didn’t choose Kamala Harris and the woke cult is because most Americans are stupid. The progressives think they know what’s best for everyone else. They’re the smartest people in the room, after all… Despite the supposedly incredible intellectual power of the progressive elites, they still lost the election in a landslide and common sense would dictate that they should reconsider their political philosophy and align more with the needs of the general public. However, recent events suggest that’s not going to happen.

Donald Trump’s cabinet process is well underway and some of his picks have the Democrats (and some Neo-Cons) truly terrified. In particular, the establishment media machine is already pumping out endless propaganda in an attempt to undermine RFK Jr, Matt Gaetz, Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, Pete Hegseth, etc. They are floating rumors of sexual misconduct, corruption, mental instability, conspiracy; desperately clamoring to stop these appointments no matter the cost. Why? Because these people will have the power to completely gut the status quo regime and they openly assert they will do so. Trump faces perhaps the most aggressive opposition to his cabinet appointments of any president in recent history, and it’s a sure bet that most Democrats and a number of GOP RINOs in the Senate will work together to sabotage the appointment process. But Trump has the ability to force the Senate into recess and make his appointments while lawmakers are out of session, which means Democrats and Neo-Cons might not have a choice in the matter.

In preparation for this outcome, some Democrats are calling for the creation of what they call a ‘Shadow Government’ or ‘Shadow Cabinet’. Democrat Wiley Nicol from North Carolina cites a similar dynamic used by the UK government; a kind of counter-body of political leaders that hound elected officials with policy criticism while offering their own policies as a better option. The idea is rather tone deaf. For Americans, the phrase “shadow government” has numerous negative connotations and inspires suspicions of corruption. In the UK it’s a bit more innocuous – Members of a shadow cabinet have no executive power. It is the shadow cabinet’s responsibility to apply scrutiny to the policies and actions of the sitting government, which doesn’t sound much different from what opposing politicians already do.

That said, a shadow government also represents a false alternative. It’s the government that the Democrats think should be in power instead of the government that the public actually voted for. It should be noted that the UK’s socialist system have become increasingly authoritarian in recent years, with punishments for thought crimes now widely enforced. There is no true opposition party to the globalist establishment in the UK, they barely know what a legitimate conservative is.

All parties essentially hover around the center left, and with each passing year the center left moves further to the extreme left. The idea that UK or European government methods should be emulated by the US shows just how detached from the American people Democrats have become. At best, this concept represents a sad attempt by Democrats to cling to the illusion of importance. The Dems can pretend like people are listening to them as they tell the world how they would would do each cabinet job better, but they never really do much beyond talk. At worst, the shadow government could be used as an alternative contact point for foreign governments, NGOs and other institutions that prefer not to engage with the Trump Administration and face the music.

If the latter is the ultimate goal, then it is utterly contrary to the constitution. There is no allowance for a “shadow cabinet”, it doesn’t exist as a legal edifice in the US for good reason. There is only one government, which Americans voted into office. No one wants to hear from Democrats on how they would govern; they had their chance and they blew it. Anyone who understands progressive government knows that their system is designed only to eat more and grow bigger. It’s not designed to shrink, or to give up power. What the Democrats greatly fear is a substantial downsizing of the bureaucracy. That is where they derive their true influence. A shadow cabinet might be the beginnings of an effort by leftists to pretend as if they still have a say in the overall course of the country.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1857495484534857996

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“President-Elect Trump will begin making decisions on who will serve in his second Administration soon..” “Those decisions will be announced when they are made.”

• It’s Trump’s Transition and He Calls the Shots (Wegmann)

Since Election Day, the Trump transition has been copying and pasting the same quote again and again into emails to reporters seeking comment on this or that presidential appointment. “President-Elect Trump will begin making decisions on who will serve in his second Administration soon,” Trump transition spokesperson Karoline Leavitt always writes without fail. “Those decisions will be announced when they are made.” The boilerplate delivers an obvious truth that many in Washington, D.C., find uncomfortable or, in some cases, unimaginable: The president-elect alone, not his senior staff, and certainly not any outside organization, is calling the shots. Enter Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The famous vaccine skeptic is a new addition to the Trump orbit. He abandoned his own presidential campaign over the summer before backing the Republican candidate, delivering an unusual but no less invaluable endorsement in the final stretch of the election season. “It is a realignment,” Tucker Carlson later said of the coalition that included RFK Jr., whose addition he helped facilitate. “It is unbelievable.” The Kennedy apostate, it seemed at the time, was only there to deliver a bit of political capital. Kennedy is an environmental lawyer who believes in climate change and who sued oil companies. He is a Catholic but also a liberal who believes in abortion rights. He is a crusader against what he has described as “Big Banks” and “Big Data” and “Big Tech” and “Big Pharma.”

The one thing Kennedy would never be? The Health and Human Services Secretary. So said Howard Lutnick, the co-chair of the Trump transition committee. Just days before the election, he told CNN that Kennedy was “not getting a job for HHS.” Asked anchor Kaitlin Collins, “He would not be in charge of HHS?” Replied Lutnick, “No, of course not.” And then, nine days after the election, Trump announced his intent to nominate RFK Jr. to that HHS post. “I look forward to working with the more than 80,000 employees at HHS to free the agencies from the smothering cloud of corporate capture so they can pursue their mission to make Americans once again the healthiest people on Earth,” Kennedy said in a statement. Pharmaceutical stocks stumbled.

Democrats on Capitol Hill were aghast. Republicans were mostly silent. Asked for reaction, South Dakota Sen. John Thune, whom Republicans elected to serve as Senate majority leader in the next Congress, told reporters, “I don’t have one at this point.” Not all of Trump’s picks were so controversial. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, for instance, is well-respected among his colleagues on the Hill and is considered a shoo-in for secretary of state. Others reflected the realignment that Carlson referenced on the campaign trail, like former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a lapsed Democrat whom Trump tapped to serve as his director of national intelligence.

And then there is former Rep. Matt Gaetz. RealClearPolitics first reported that the Florida Republican was about to resign after Trump announced his intent to nominate him to be attorney general. His hasty resignation likely precludes the House Ethics Committee from releasing a report that includes allegations he had sex with a minor. Gaetz denies the allegations. Some Republicans still find them disqualifying. Trump made the decision, according to Politico, after his longtime confidant Boris Epshteyn lobbied on Gaetz’s behalf the night before. Incoming White House chief of staff Susie Wiles was reportedly unaware and in a different part of the plane during the deal-making. The developments reflect a president-elect who is much more hands-on this time around and, perhaps, a transition chief unaware of how Trump operates.

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“Trump avoided a fall into the abyss and instead reached new heights.”

• Beyond Victory and Defeat: A Vision for National Unity (ET)

The election is finally over, marking a stunning victory for former President Trump, who not only won all swing states but also, for the first time in 20 years, secured the popular vote. This required changing the opinions of 7 percent of all voters—a whopping 10 million people! With the Senate and, most likely, the House on his side, Trump now has a free hand to implement his policies. However, the nation remains deeply divided, with no signs of healing. Media platforms like YouTube, cable TV, and TikTok are filled with attacks and counter-attacks. While Republicans have indeed won the majority, they are unable to reach out to the other 48 percent of voters who chose differently. The election still feels like an “I can overpower you” contest. Does it have to be this way? Is there anything that can pull our nation together after such a bitterly fought election?

I still remember the moment former President Trump announced his presidential campaign at Mar-a-Lago in November 2022, just one week after the midterm election. It was a subdued event, a low point for Trump and his supporters, as they had just lost most of their battles—except for victories by J.D. Vance and Ron DeSantis, the latter of whom soon became Trump’s next political headache. When Gov. DeSantis announced his own campaign four months later, touting his impressive midterm election results, Trump’s path back to the White House grew even murkier. From then on, however, a stunning sequence of events unfolded. In March 2023, Trump was indicted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for alleged hush money payments to an adult film star. Outraged, Trump’s supporters rallied, and his poll numbers surged by five percentage points.

Next came the classified documents indictment in June, followed by the Jan. 6 election interference indictment, the Georgia election interference case, the high-profile Mar-a-Lago raid in August, and the New York bank fraud case in October. Yet each of these misfortunes turned into blessings, raising Trump’s poll numbers by five percentage points each time. Soon, DeSantis found himself unable to keep up, trailing in Trump’s wake. When Trump lost his bank fraud case and was hit with a nearly $500 million penalty, many thought it would bankrupt him. However, his Digital World Acquisition Corp. shareholders voted to acquire his Truth Social company and take it public, giving Trump a financial lifeline with nearly $2 billion in new wealth. Trump avoided a fall into the abyss and instead reached new heights.

The miracle continued. When he was shot at a rally in Butler in July 2024 but survived miraculously, rising to shout “Fight!” more than half the nation was awed by him, including former critics and foes like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. It was another instance of misfortune transforming into fortune. Over the past two years, Donald Trump has repeatedly risen from the ashes, culminating in his landslide victory in November. What does this unbelievable sequence of events tell us? Now that the election is over, should it be reduced to the winning side laughing at the losing side and enjoying a four-year victory? What message might these sequence of events be trying to convey? I believe that, at this moment, conservatives should reach deeper into the issues that divide us and seek common ground that can unify the nation. That common ground lies in the values and principles of this country.

These values and principles are embodied in the Constitution and, more importantly, in the vision of the Founding Fathers who crafted it. Despite the divisions in our country, the Constitution still holds a place of reverence. Why don’t we engage in dialogue within the framework established by the Constitution to address our profound differences?

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“I think there’s going to be a complete second look at all of the prosecutions..”

• What Happens to Jan. 6 Defendants After Trump’s Election Win? (ET)

After President-elect Donald Trump won a second term, multiple defendants charged for their roles in the events of Jan. 6, 2021, asked to delay their cases because they anticipate pardons from Trump. Many were denied, but each nonetheless raised questions about how Trump will handle the cases. According to data collected by NPR, more than 1,500 people have been charged in relation to Jan. 6, with nearly 1,000 pleading guilty. At least a dozen cases have been dismissed, while plenty remain with changes following Trump’s election. At the beginning of November, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia announced multiple sentences and guilty verdicts. Various factors could determine whether these individuals end up avoiding jail time, but perhaps the most important is Trump’s eventual control of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and who will lead that department.

On Nov. 13, Trump announced Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) as his pick for attorney general. Gaetz has been critical of the prosecutions and introduced a bill in July that was intended to prevent prosecutors from retaliating against Jan. 6 defendants for seeking resentencing. Gaetz has also questioned federal involvement, stating that Jan. 6 “wasn’t an insurrection” but that it “very well may have been a fedsurrection.” Assuming the presidency also grants Trump substantial pardon power under the Constitution: Trump has indicated that he’s open to pardoning those charged but left open the possibility that some would face punishment. “We will treat them fairly,” he said in January 2022. “And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons, because they are being treated so unfairly.”

More recently, during an event in July, he was asked about individuals who assaulted officers. He said he would “absolutely” pardon the defendants “if they’re innocent” and added that “they were convicted by a very tough system.” More than 70 defendants have received a mixed verdict, and so far, more than 1,000 people have been sentenced, with 64 percent receiving prison time, according to NPR data. Some defendants have also taken plea deals. “I think there’s going to be a complete second look at all of the prosecutions,” Robert Ray, a former Trump impeachment attorney, told The Epoch Times, while noting the large number of cases brought.

He added that a second look wouldn’t “necessarily yield a favorable result with regard to each and every defendant, but I think there’s going to be a pretty strenuous exercise of the pardon and commutation power to deal with overreaching [by prosecutors].” John Pierce, an attorney who has represented Jan. 6 defendants, told The Epoch Times he expects a “blanket pardon,” while Trump–Vance transition spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said the president-elect “will make pardon decisions on a case-by-case basis.” It’s unclear which individuals Trump will consider for pardon.

“That’s the million-dollar question,” Lori Ulrich, an attorney with the public defender’s office, told The Epoch Times. She is currently representing Joseph Fischer, whose case made it to the Supreme Court this year. Fischer and other defendants face a myriad of charges, including an obstruction charge the Supreme Court addressed this summer in Fischer v. United States. It’s unclear how Trump’s DOJ will apply that ruling, but the president-elect’s pardons could be influenced by factors such as the politics surrounding his pardons. “If President Biden either pardons or commutes the sentences for Hunter Biden, that gives President Trump political cover to either pardon or commute the non-violent J6 offenders, [as well as] Peter Navarro, and Steve Bannon, if he chooses to,” John Shu, a constitutional law expert who served in both Bush administrations, told The Epoch Times.

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“Investors fear that Europe will be in the front line of the coming trade war.”

• Trump Not Even in Power Yet and Already Wreaking Havoc on European Markets (Sp.)

Donald Trump’s expected return to the White House in January has been met with intense skepticism by both political and economic elites in Europe. European markets are trending downward and the euro has slid to its worst dip against the US dollar since the 2022 energy crisis in anticipation of Donald Trump’s return to the White House. The cause? Fears that Trump will make good on his campaign promises to level cross-the-board 10-20% tariffs on all foreign imports, including those coming from Europe. Barclays analysts cited by the Financial Times dubbed the Stoxx Europe 600’s poor performance compared to US markets – which soared on news of Trump’s reelection last week, a “Trump premium.” ING global markets head Chris Turner explained the situation in no uncertain terms: “Investors fear that Europe will be in the front line of the coming trade war.”

“Trump’s not messing around,” Markus Hansen, portfolio manager at Vontobel, a Zurich-based investment management firm, said. “His administration wants to get going on tariffs from day one” and the Europeans “will find themselves in the crossfire.” The president-elect appeared to confirm as much last week with his reported plans to rehire noted trade hawk Robert Lighthizer as his trade czar. During Trump’s first term, Lighthizer kicked off a trade war with China, strongarmed Canada and Mexico into renegotiating NAFTA, and slapped tariffs of up to 25% on steel and 10% on aluminum imports from much of the world, including Europe. FT says the specter of new Trump tariffs, combined with China’s growing industrial might, could push European manufacturers deeper into crisis.

The latter are already reeling from Brussels’ shortsighted 2022 decision to try to wean the EU off Russian energy, which thrust regional industrial powerhouses into recession and arguably the worst deindustrialization crisis since WWII. Jeffries investment banking chief European economist Mohit Kumar confirmed to FT that Europe’s poor performance is tied to the fact that its “cheap energy model has been broken” by the Ukraine crisis. The markets’ reaction to Trump’s victory echoed a string of pessimistic analyses on Europe’s prospects under Trump generally, expecting the president-elect to “test European solidarity on NATO, Ukraine and trade,” and prove “2025’s disaster” for a Germany lurching “from crisis to crisis.”

Representatives of Europe’s political class couldn’t help but express disdain for Trump following last week’s election, with outgoing EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell telling colleagues in Brussels this week that Trump’s victory “is going to have many geopolitical consequences.” “We have to show that we are not afraid or divided – although in reality we surely are, because the reception to President Trump’s victory has not been the same in all [European] capitals. In any case, the result will have profound consequences for our bilateral relations. Trump talks about imposing 10% tariffs on all European products. If such a thing were to happen, it would certainly affect our competitiveness,” Borrell said.

Read more …

“Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lots of enemies, and compensation is zero. What a great deal!”

• Musk, Ramaswamy Seek Volunteers to Join New DOGE Department (ET)

Tesla CEO Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy announced on Nov. 14 that they are looking for volunteers to join the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), calling for the top 1 percent of small-government revolutionaries.” We are very grateful to the thousands of Americans who have expressed interest in helping us at DOGE,” they announced on social media platform X. “We don’t need more part-time idea generators. “We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting. If that’s you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants.” Musk further confirmed that DOGE work would be unpaid, stating on X, “Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lots of enemies, and compensation is zero. What a great deal!”

In response to that comment, Ramaswamy stated, “That stands in contrast to the many government bureaucrats who: (a) do little or no work, (b) tell people only what they want to hear, & (c) make more money than the value they create.” DOGE’s objective is in its name: to make government more efficient, with significant spending cuts being among the top expectations. “I look forward to Elon and Vivek making changes to the Federal Bureaucracy with an eye on efficiency and, at the same time, making life better for all Americans,” Trump said in a Nov. 12 statement announcing the new department and its leaders. “Importantly, we will drive out the massive waste and fraud which exists throughout our annual $6.5 Trillion Dollars of Government Spending. They will work together to liberate our Economy, and make the U.S. Government accountable to ‘WE THE PEOPLE.’”

Musk stated on X that all DOGE actions will be posted online to provide “maximum transparency.” This will include the creation of a leaderboard showcasing the “most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars,” which he said would be “extremely tragic and extremely entertaining.” He also urged the public to be vocal about anything that is being cut that they think might be important. Trump said the initiative could be “‘The Manhattan Project’ of our time.” The request for volunteers followed Musk’s announcement in September that he was willing to forgo compensation.

“I look forward to serving America if the opportunity arises,” Musk said in a post on X. “No pay, no title, no recognition is needed.” DOGE will work with the Office of Management and Budget and is set to complete its work no later than July 4, 2026, America’s 250th anniversary. “Either we get government efficient or America goes bankrupt. That’s what it comes down to. Wish I were wrong, but it’s true,” Musk wrote on X, responding to Trump’s official announcement on Nov. 12.

Read more …

Cui bono?

• Harris Campaign Still Pleading With Donors for More Money (Sp.)

The Democrats suffered a repeat of the 2016 presidential election last week, with Donald Trump returning to the White House, while Republicans flipped the Senate and maintained control of the House of Representatives – a government trifecta the GOP previously enjoyed between 2017 and 2019. Despite raking in over $2.3 bln in cash for her campaign and billions more in indirect support through the PAC-based campaign financing loophole, Vice President Kamala Harris and her campaign surrogates are reportedly still prodding donors for more money after her election loss. The Reason? The campaign reportedly spent more than it raised on an array of election-related content, from TV, internet and mail ads to lavish payments to social media influencers, concerts and rallies, and now wants supporters to help it climb out of the financial hole it has dug for itself.

Small-time supporters subscribed to Harris’s email donor list are reportedly facing a deluge of almost-daily donation appeals, while personal calls are being made to bigger donors (whose generosity measures beyond hundreds of dollars). Democrats say that despite losing the war, there’s still a battle to be fought over Donald Trump’s cabinet picks – many of whom will have to undergo grueling confirmation hearings in the Senate, and point to outstanding seats in the House of Representatives, the election results for which have yet to be called. US media reported last week that the Harris campaign had landed itself $20 mln in debt after the election. Donald Trump took to Truth Social to express “surprise” over the fact that Harris had run out of money, and urged Republicans, “for the sake of desperately needed UNITY,” to chip in to help the opposition pay back the debts. Media hinted at one big potential source of the debts, pointing to last-minute concerts in seven swing states featuring big name (and big bucks) artists like Bon Jovi, Christina Aguilera, Katy Perry and Lady Gaga.

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“..one of their primary tasks should be to expose how the Biden Admin has been hiding the real economic data from the nation at large..”

• Trump Faces An Economic Catch-22 His First Day In Office (ZH)

The first thing Trump needs to do is set up an economic advisory board (Ron Paul would be a great candidate to lead such a project) and one of their primary tasks should be to expose how the Biden Admin has been hiding the real economic data from the nation at large. The temptation will be to keep this data under wraps for fear that it will destroy the country should everyone know the facts. I think the country has voted in great numbers for an end to the status quo and that they want transparency. We can handle the truth. If Trump doesn’t educate the public on how the Democrats and the establishment have been rigging the numbers, then the public will ultimately blame conservatives for any eventual crash. Also, when the public knows the truth, they will also understand why dramatic changes to policy need to be made.

A major pillar of Trump’s economic plan includes tariffs on foreign goods as a way to pay off the national debt, reduce taxes and fund the government. Leftists claim tariffs are actually a “tax on the American consumer” and will end in disaster as prices rise. They’re ignoring the fundamental point. Tariffs cause an increase in prices on foreign-made goods, not American made products. We simply need to manufacture more in the U.S. Why does the U.S. need to remain stuck as a consumer country only? Why can’t we also produce? First, tariffs are not just a tax, they are leverage. Europe is already talking about buying more commodities and goods from the U.S. so they can avoid high tariffs. China is likely to do the same.

The U.S. is the biggest consumer market in the world with 30% of global share. No other nation comes close. Producer nations would face economic disaster without access to U.S. customers. That said, it’s not enough. There needs to be a backstop of domestic production and I think this could also help reduce price increases. How? If the U.S. focuses on what I call the “quality economy” then prices will be higher for a time, but in the long run inflation will drop significantly. The key is that we produce goods with a high quality standard – products that last for many years and have a significant warranty attached.

If our goods are better than foreign products and they last longer, then people will buy less stuff over time. This means reduced spending, more savings, lower demand and ultimately lower prices. There’s a number of ways Trump could subsidize this domestic manufacturing boom while also greatly increasing American wages and the standard of living. Biden pretended he was going to do this with his so-called Inflation Reduction Act and his green energy programs. Trump could do it for real.

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“..the EU has effectively trapped itself, which does not benefit its interests. “It is in a trap. And this does not work to the advantage of the European Union..”

• EU Won’t Survive Without Russia And BRICS – Russian Senator (RT)

The EU can’t survive without cooperating with Russia and the BRICS states, Russian Federation Council Deputy Speaker Konstantin Kosachev said in an interview with RT on Saturday. Russia, however, needs the EU far less, he said. Kosachev noted that the sanctions imposed on Russia create a significant barrier to any real cooperation with the EU. The bloc has imposed 14 rounds of sanctions against Russia following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022. These measures have targeted Russia’s central bank reserves held abroad, major banks, various companies, entrepreneurs, politicians, and officials, along with bans on numerous imports and exports. The Russian Foreign Ministry has condemned the sanctions as illegitimate, while President Vladimir Putin has described them as irrational.

Kosachev pointed out that lifting these sanctions would require the unanimous approval of EU states, and that even if a majority supports removing them, dissent by just a few countries could derail such an initiative. He concluded that the EU has effectively trapped itself, which does not benefit its interests. “It is in a trap. And this does not work to the advantage of the European Union,” the deputy speaker emphasized. While he believes Russia will continue to thrive independent of the EU, he asserted that the EU’s survival hinges on its collaboration with Russia and other BRICS nations. “We will survive without cooperation with the European Union on our side. The European Union will not survive without cooperation with Russia and other member states in BRICS, this is for sure.” Earlier this month, Putin stated that Western efforts to isolate Russia economically and politically have ultimately failed.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Grushko has claimed the EU’s total losses from sanctions imposed on Russia and restrictions on its economic activity are believed to be around $1.5 trillion, according to “the most conservative estimates.” Some EU nations contend that the sanctions have hurt the bloc more than Russia. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban cautioned on Friday that the EU’s sanctions regime “should be reviewed,” or else it risks “destroying” the European economy. Meanwhile, the well-attended annual BRICS summit that was held in October in Kazan, the first since the group’s expansion to include Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates, highlighted that Russia remains globally connected despite Western sanctions. Delegations from 35 countries participated in the event. More than 30 nations, including NATO member Türkiye, have expressed interest in joining the group. BRICS now accounts for an estimated 37.3% of global GDP versus 14.5% for the EU.

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“If people knew the truth, people would have a lot of questions about what we’re giving to our children… Unfortunately we have to go to Russian TV to tell the truth..”

• RT Is ‘Only Station Where I Can Tell The Truth’ – RFK in 2020 (RT)

Americans are “not allowed” to talk freely about healthcare problems on US media and must go to Russian TV “to tell the truth,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told RT DE in Berlin in August 2020. He singled out RT America as the “only station” where he was free to express his opinion on the US healthcare system and its inadequacies. Kennedy was an outspoken critic of the US Covid-19 response during the pandemic. Often accused of being an ‘anti-vaxxer’, he has brushed off the claims, stressing that the only thing he opposed was administering drugs that have not been safety-tested. Kennedy claimed that the entire US vaccine industry was “an artifact” of the old “quasi-military” public health system introduced during the Cold War as a “national security defense against biological attacks” by Russia.

According to him, the laws regulating vaccines were written with a “loophole” that allowed pharmaceutical companies to forgo time-consuming safety tests if they did not call a drug a medicine. This was done in order to deploy vaccines quickly and with no regulatory impediments, but resulted in a “gold rush to put more vaccines on the table” as pharmaceutical companies “took advantage of that old military loophole” to boost profits. “You know why people don’t know it? Because there’s censorship. I’m not allowed to talk about that on American TV… I do talk about it on RT America – it’s the only station that lets me talk about it,” he stated. Very paradoxical but it’s true: RT America is the only place where we can talk about many of these subjects.

Kennedy said it was “ironic” that a Russian TV station looked to be the most free in the US, but not surprising. “Unfortunately, US TV is owned by the pharmaceutical companies,” he stated, noting that ever since the US passed a law that made it legal to advertise prescription drugs on TV back in 1997, the influence of big pharma on media content has become all-encompassing. “If you look at the evening news in the US, out of twenty two advertisements on a typical news show seventeen are pharmaceutical. So they’re dictating content,” he claimed, adding that this was the reason behind Americans “consuming more drugs than any country in the world” while still having “the worst health outcomes.”

“Pharmaceutical drugs are now the number three killer in the US after heart attacks and cancer, but nobody talks about it…. If people knew the truth, people would have a lot of questions about what we’re giving to our children… Unfortunately we have to go to Russian TV to tell the truth,” he stated. Kennedy was nominated by US President-elect Donald Trump for the position of secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) earlier this week. If approved, he will oversee America’s major healthcare agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and National Institutes of Health (NIH). A longtime critic of these agencies, he has promised major reforms in order to “make America healthy again.”

Read more …

The purpose is fear.

• Climate Summits “No Longer Fit For Purpose”, Experts Say (ZH)

It looks like experts are starting to realize that the litany of global ‘climate summits’, where participants fly in on private jets to wax poetic about the virtues of attempting to change thousand-year cooling and warming cycles on Earth, could need some reform. Leading climate experts, including Ban Ki-moon, Mary Robinson, Christiana Figueres, and Johan Rockström, are calling for significant changes to UN climate summits, according to a new report from The Guardian. They argue future conferences should only be hosted by nations demonstrating strong climate action and advocate for stricter controls on fossil fuel lobbyists. Over 1,700 industry lobbyists attended Cop29, raising concerns about undue influence. The group has urged the UN to streamline the annual summits, amplify the voices of developing countries, and increase meeting frequency to better address the climate crisis.

“It is now clear that the Cop is no longer fit for purpose. We need a shift from negotiation to implementation,” they wrote. “We need strict eligibility criteria to exclude countries who do not support the phase-out/transition away from fossil energy. Host countries must demonstrate their high level of ambition to uphold the goals of the Paris agreement,” they said. Cop29, held in Baku, Azerbaijan, is nearing its halfway point amid controversy. Azerbaijan, a major fossil fuel producer with oil and gas comprising half its exports, follows last year’s host, the UAE—a petrostate led by Sultan Al Jaber, who retained his role as head of Adnoc during the conference. At Cop29 in Baku, controversy surrounds the presence of 1,773 fossil fuel lobbyists, more than any nation except Azerbaijan, Brazil, and Turkey, and far exceeding the 1,033 delegates from the 10 most climate-vulnerable nations.

The Guardian wrote that former U.S. Vice President Al Gore criticized the fossil fuel industry’s influence and called for reforms in choosing host countries. Talks center on securing $1 trillion annually by 2030 to help poorer nations address climate challenges, but progress is slow, with disagreements over contributions from developed nations and emerging economies like China. Campaigners demand polluters pay, while a report suggests innovative funding options, including levies on cryptocurrencies, plastics, and air travel, or a 2% wealth tax, to bridge finance gaps. Negotiations will continue into next week.

Recall, just days ago we wrote about a how a senior COP29 official in Azerbaijan reportedly used his role as heading up the fight on climate change…to secure meetings with potential investors in the country’s oil and gas sectors. Energy production drives 60% of Azerbaijan’s economy. Elnur Soltanov, Azerbaijan’s deputy energy minister and COP29 chief, was covertly recorded discussing investment opportunities in the state-owned SOCAR, according to PJ Media. “SOCAR Trading is trading oil and gas all over the world, including in Asia. To me, these are the possibilities to explore. But in any case this is something that you need to be talking to SOCAR, and I would be happy to create a contact between yourself and them,” he was caught on tape saying. He added: “We have a lot of gas fields that are to be developed.”

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“They are gnats. Gnats can be really annoying. That does not change what they are..”

• US Media Cheerleads ‘Killer Robots Filling Ukrainian Skies’ (Sp.)

NATO and Ukrainian officials and arms contractors have stated openly that the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is an “ideal testing ground” for Western weapons systems for the conflicts of the future against other potential adversaries. Now, media have begun championing turning the crisis into a forever war using cheap killer drones. The US military-industrial complex has reportedly begun literally embedding itself into Ukrainian-produced military hardware, with Virginia-based defense firm Auterion said to be preparing to deliver ‘tens of thousands’ of its small, cheap Skynode autopilot computers to Kiev to fuse with locally made UAVs to increase their lethality. The minicomputers reportedly provide guidance, targeting and networking functions, are capable of stabilizing drones and maneuvering around obstacles to targets, and cost about $300 apiece.

Oleksiy Babenko, CEO of Ukrainian UAV startup Vyriy Drone, says his company will build several thousand of the new autopilot-equipped drones this month. The Wall Street Journal reported on the development in a puff piece published Friday, with the story, titled ‘Killer Robots Are About to Fill Ukrainian Skies’, praising the fusion of US and Ukrainian military manufacturing capabilities, and suggesting the UAVs are the solution the Zelensky regime is looking for as Washington’s interest in fueling the Ukrainian crisis fades, undermining more conventional and expensive forms of military support. WSJ specifically touts the new drones as a fix to Ukraine’s increasingly dire manpower shortfall, and low cost compared to missiles and artillery shells, which NATO hasn’t been able to supply in sufficient numbers after being outproduced by Russia’s defense sector.

Russian electronic warfare tools, and advances in its own drone programs, pose a challenge to Ukraine’s UAV ambitions, the newspaper admitted, pointing to Russian EW systems’ ability to “drown out” the signal between enemy drones and operators at a rate of 80-90%, and Russian defense engineers’ creation of a new series strike drones attached to long fiberoptic cables, which makes them impervious to enemy jamming. Reading like a written version of the 2017 sci-fi short film ‘Slaughterbots’, WSJ’s story alarmed even its own readers – particularly its praise of systems that further ‘automate’ the conflict. “The drone/EW/AI arms race we see in the Ukraine war is Skynet’s nursery and preschool,” one reader wrote, referring to the main antagonist from James Cameron’s Terminator movies, which warned of the dangers of AI being allowed to take control of military decision-making.

“Robot armies, impersonal killing, will become the new norm. What could go wrong?” another person sarcastically asked. “So this is the latest magic bullet. Every day there are fewer Ukrainians able to fight…Do you really think these drones will change the tide of a war of attrition? They are gnats. Gnats can be really annoying. That does not change what they are. Continuing this is irresponsible and immoral,” another commentator wrote.

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“He needs us to back him. We need to fight for him if necessary. Here’s the scary thing. God forbid, but I don’t think this is the last assassination attempt. I think there will be more..”

• Left is a Vicious Wounded Tiger, They Want Us Dead – Larry Klayman (USAW)

Renowned Attorney Larry Klayman, founder of Judicial Watch and later Freedom Watch, has been fighting government corruption and winning for decades. Today, the fight has turned into an all-out war and fight to the death. Klayman explains, “Bottom line is we have been in a war, but now we are at red alert…””The fact that Donald Trump has been reelected the 47th President of the United States with the popular vote and an overwhelming landslide in the Electoral College, the Left is on the run, but it’s stung. It’s like a wounded tiger. It’s vicious. It will fight back… You are going to see the Left in the streets, ultimately. It will probably be in days, if not weeks. You are going to see a repeat of what we saw with Black Lives Matter, ANTIFA, radical Palestinians and others. They are going to be coming for us.

Frankly, and this sounds extreme, we saw the assassination attempts… and Kamala Harris and Biden calling Trump Hitler, calling them garbage and calling us garbage, they want us dead. Let me repeat that. They want us dead…They are like rats leaving the ship. The time to peacefully and legally crush them is now.” Klayman also sees that things may not stay peaceful. Klayman points out, “It’s only a matter of time because they are whipping up the hatred right now against all of us garbage men…” “It’s only a matter of time that he (President Trump) may have to declare martial law to reestablish order here. I hope it doesn’t get to that. But he (the President) has that authority as well. So, I want people to realize that there may be a calm in the storm right now, but the communists, the atheists, the radicals and the Left are coalescing. They are plotting, and they are planning.

This is like the ‘Force’ in ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Darth Vader.’ They intend to come back anyway they can. If they can’t do it peacefully and legally, which they can’t, they are going to get violent, and we better be prepared for that.” Klayman also points out that President Trump cannot turn America around without the help of millions of patriots. Klayman says, “He needs us to back him. We need to fight for him if necessary. Here’s the scary thing. God forbid, but I don’t think this is the last assassination attempt. I think there will be more. . . . This kid that took a crack at Trump in Butler, we don’t know what his motive was today. . . . We’ve never gotten the truth about anything. We don’t know who killed John F. Kennedy. Even Bobby Kennedy Jr. does not believe that Sirhan Sirhan killed his father. Martin Luther King’s family does not believe that James Earl Ray was the assassin of Martin Luther King. It was probably Edgar Hoover the FBI Director. . . .

We don’t know anything about the two people that tried to assassinate Donald Trump because our government is corrupt to the core, and that is why the Left is going to resist. Our government needs to be reconstituted. Embedded in government is the Deep State, and it is more powerful than the President.” Klayman is appealing to the incoming Trump Administration to make him the Czar in charge of picking judicial appointments. Klayman says too many RINO judges were put on the bench during Trump’s first Administration. Klayman is also representing Laura Loomer in a $150 million defamation lawsuit against HBO and Bill Maher. Klayman is also the lawyer of record on many other groundbreaking cases. Klayman also talks about the need for donations as the 2024 Election cycle took donations away from FreedomWatchUSA.org. Klayman makes an appeal for badly needed funds so he can continue his work for “We the People” against government corruption.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Tucker

 

 

Deer

 

 

Cats

 

 

Kingfisher

 

 

Catch

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle November 15 2024

Nov 152024
 
 November 15, 2024  Posted by at 9:50 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  53 Responses »


Arnold Böcklin The Isle of the Dead III 1883

 

• Trump Picks RFK Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services (PCR)
• Trump’s Foreign Policy Team May ‘Double Down on Stupid’ – Larry Johnson (Sp.)
• Trump Team Members Irritated By Musk – NBC (RT)
• Will Gabbard Be Able to Direct the Intelligence ‘Community’? (Ray McGovern)
• Has America Lost Its Mind Or Will Trump Get It Right This Time? (Ryumshin)
• Make Money Free Again (Ron Paul)
• Infowars Auction Thrown Into Chaos After Judge Investigates Malarkey (ZH)
• What Are Trump’s Chances to Make American Great Again? (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Trump Team To Nuke EV Tax Credit As Musk’s Price-War Endgame Looms (ZH)
• Tucker Carlson: Joe Rogan Has “Changed American History” (MN)
• FEC Chairman: Biden DOJ Broke Federal Policies with Letter Targeting Musk (AmG)
• Trump Vows To ‘Work Very Hard’ On Ukraine (RT)
• Will Trump Stop Ukraine From Joining NATO? (van den Ende)
• Ukrainian State-run Agency Scrubs Posts Bashing Tulsi Gabbard (RT)
• Electric War Moves Beyond Putin Pause Button To Power Off Button (Helmer)
• The State-Backed Settler War To Annex The West Bank (Inlakesh)
• Some Elections Will Never Be ‘Democratic’ Enough For The West (Behanzin)
• French Prosecutors Seek Prison Term And Election Ban For Le Pen (RT)

 

 

 

 

Rogan

Kirk

Gaetz

Barrack

Enten

Eva

CIA
https://twitter.com/i/status/1856754040505602131

Homan

Thiel Musk

 

 

 

 

“I am astonished and delighted. I hope it isn’t fake news.”

“It will be ironic if Kennedy restores our health but Trump’s foreign policy team destroys us in war.”

• Trump Picks RFK Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services (PCR)

I am astonished and delighted. I hope it isn’t fake news. President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday said he is “thrilled to announce” Robert F. Kennedy Jr as his nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) in a statement on social media. “For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health,” Trump wrote on platform X, along with his announcement. “HHS will play a big role in helping ensure that everybody will be protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives that have contributed to the overwhelming Health Crisis in this Country,” Trump wrote on Nov. 14.

If this is real, the media and Trump Transition Team certainly misled me about the impossibility of Bobby Kennedy in a power position that can bring down the criminal pharmaceutical industry. This is a victory even if Big Pharma, wielding its campaign contributions, forces the Senate to refuse to confirm Kennedy in office. Trump can go to the public with the names of the bought-and-paid-for corrupt Senators and ask why Americans elect people who knowingly serve corporate criminals who knowingly damage the health of the American people. The nomination of Kennedy is the most powerful of all of Trump’s appointments, with Matt Gaetz’s being second.

We will now see if the Republican Senate is with Trump or against Trump and the American people. If the Senate consents to recess appointment of Trump’s team, they are with the President. If they do not, they are against him and are part of the deadly enemy he and we must defeat. Kennedy’s nomination restores my hope that Trump might achieve something. Trump, Kennedy, Gaetz, and Gabbard are fighters, a rarity in a Republican administration. But I still have concern about what seems to be a foreign policy/military team that is too committed to Israel to achieve peace. It will be ironic if Kennedy restores our health but Trump’s foreign policy team destroys us in war.

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“They still believe, foolishly, naively, that they can easily split Russia from China..”

• Trump’s Foreign Policy Team May ‘Double Down on Stupid’ – Larry Johnson (Sp.)

Days after his election victory over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, Republican President-elect Donald Trump began filling Cabinet positions and other key roles inside his future administration. Donald Trump’s foreign policy appointments for his incoming administration show that “he didn’t learn a thing during his first term,” Larry Johnson, retired CIA intelligence officer and State Department official, told Sputnik. “He talked one thing during the campaign about ending needless wars. And yet he is staffing himself with really a lot of young people who are locked up with old ideas,” Johnson noted. In his opinion, Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, is just an absurd joke. Florida Congressman Michael Waltz, tapped as Trump’s national security advisor, is also a disaster, Johnson argued, underscoring that he “represents everything that Donald Trump said that Donald Trump stood against.”

New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, tapped to serve as US ambassador to the United Nations, “comes in with a very strident pro-Zionist point of view,” the expert remarked. With a foreign policy team like that, Johnson said, Trump is “going to double down on stupid” when it comes to most important international areas, such as Ukraine, the Middle East, and China. “He doesn’t understand that the world has changed. They still believe, foolishly, naively, that they can easily split Russia from China, that there’s no natural alliance between Russia and China so that we can we can manipulate Russia into joining with us to defeat China. They just don’t get it,” the ex-CIA analyst underscored.

“They believe that they can boss people around in the Middle East and control what they do. Not recognizing the fact that Saudi Arabia and Iran, who were at odds two years ago, have now reestablished diplomatic relationships, are exchanging defense ministers to visit each other’s capital, and are planning joint military exercises. The Organization of Islamic Countries has made it quite clear that there should be no normalizing any relations with Israel until there is a Palestinian state and the Palestinians are secure. The Trump team doesn’t get that… And they’re going to probably have to get punched in the face to wake up and grasp the new reality,” said Johnson.

Read more …

Oh yeah, they all hate him, right, NBC?!

“Trump joked that “Elon won’t go home. I can’t get rid of him.”

• Trump Team Members Irritated By Musk – NBC (RT)

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk is overstaying his welcome at US President-elect Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and “behaving as if he’s a co-president,” sources close to the election winner have told NBC News. Trump’s team has denied that there is any tension between the pair. Musk joined Trump at Mar-a-Lago on election night and has spent much of the last week at the Florida resort assisting the transition team. The tech tycoon has weighed in on Trump’s cabinet appointments, and was present when Trump held phone calls with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reportedly speaking directly to Zelensky at one point. Musk’s closeness to Trump has apparently irritated some of the president-elect’s transition staff, a source at Mar-a-Lago told NBC News on Wednesday.

“And he’s sure taking lots of credit for the president’s victory. Bragging about America PAC and X to anyone who will listen. He’s trying to make President Trump feel indebted to him. And the president is indebted to no one,” the source added. A second source said that Musk has an “opinion on and about everything” and that his insistence on sharing these opinions has started to annoy Trump’s most senior aides and advisers. “He wants to be seen as having a say in everything (even if he doesn’t),” the source said, adding that Musk’s aggressive lobbying may hurt his standing with the president-elect in the long run. Over the last week, multiple sources close to Trump have fed a steady stream of transition-related gossip to the media. It is unclear how accurate this gossip is, particularly in the case of Musk, who Trump speaks glowingly about.

“Elon Musk is a great guy, loaded with personality and ‘brainpower’,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday. “He is definitely a high IQ person, which is the reason that his really strong endorsement meant so much to me, and to MAGA. He’s at a beautiful Mar-a-Lago concert right now, and the crowd absolutely loves him,” Trump continued, adding that Musk’s contribution to his win “will never be forgotten.” “Elon Musk and President Trump are great friends and brilliant leaders working together to Make America Great Again. Elon Musk is a once in a generation business leader and our federal bureaucracy will certainly benefit from his ideas and efficiency,” a spokesperson for Trump told NBC.

At a meeting with House Republicans on Wednesday morning, Trump joked that “Elon won’t go home. I can’t get rid of him.” However, Trump went on to praise Musk for dedicating so much time and money to his campaign, and Republican lawmakers told NBC that his statement on how Musk “won’t go home” was made in jest. On Tuesday, Trump nominated Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Although not an actual federal agency, DOGE will “provide advice and guidance” to the White House and Office of Management and Budget on how to eliminate regulations, slash government spending, and restructure other agencies, Trump said in a statement.

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“It would take a courageous and politically astute person and strong backing and trust from the president for any DNI to be able to fulfill the duty to “oversee and provide advice … on covert action programs.”

• Will Gabbard Be Able to Direct the Intelligence ‘Community’? (Ray McGovern)

President-elect Donald Trump’s selection of Tulsi Gabbard to be director of national intelligence (DNI) will cause shockwaves in and among the 18 fiefdoms that now comprise the U.S. intelligence community. Gabbard will be fighting an uphill battle if she tries to herd those 18 cats into a cohesive whole and restore integrity to intelligence analysis. The hill’s incline will be still steeper, if she takes seriously her duty to warn the president of the frequently noxious blowback of C.I.A. covert actions. I cannot overcome the urge to quote from “The Princess Bride”: Good luck stormin’ the castle, Tulsi … It will take a miracle! In short, the odds are against her. Whether she succeeds depends, first and foremost, on how strongly the president backs her. Unlike most former DNIs, she has already demonstrated uncommon courage, as well as smarts and political skill. On the other hand, she has had virtually no experience managing a large institution, much less a “community” well versed in internecine warfare to protect individual rice bowls, and populated with careerist bureaucrats all too accustomed to telling the ultimate boss, the president, what he wants to hear.

Important Duties The DNI is in charge of preparing The President’s Daily Brief (PDB), National Intelligence Estimates and the annual Threat Assessment required by Congress. What is less well known is her role in covert action — a favorite of the C.I.A.’s clandestine service. Executive Order 12333 (July 2008) stipulates: “The Director of National Intelligence (DNI) shall oversee and provide advice to the President and the NSC with respect to all ongoing and proposed covert action programs.” Thus, what the EO says. My own experience suggests that this covert-action-related duty has been more honored in the breach than in the observance, so to speak. Director of Central Intelligence William Colby was, in my personal experience, the only director to give intelligence analysts a look at some covert action proposals and ask for comment. I served directly under Colby as an acting national intelligence officer in the mid-70s. Will DNI Tulsi Gabbard (assuming she is confirmed by the Senate) step up to this task? It would take uncommon courage. Was the current DNI, Avril Haines, informed beforehand that the C.I.A. would blow up the Nord Stream pipelines? If so, did she give it her blessing? Or was she kept in the dark?

Blowing Up Pipelines … My guess is that DNI Gabbard would have promptly recognized the folly in that C.I.A. “can-do” attitude/escapade and would have briefed the president on its longer-term implications. She is a good listener to analysts who she asks to brief her. I know that, too, from personal experience responding to her questions when she was one of Hawaii’s representatives in the House. It would take a courageous and politically astute person and strong backing and trust from the president for any DNI to be able to fulfill the duty to “oversee and provide advice … on covert action programs.”

… and Blowing Off the Analysts Sizable covert action programs require a sanity check from analysts with substantive expertise, as sad experience has shown. Recall the Bay of Bigs operation of April 1961. At President John Kennedy’s request, historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. investigated the affair. His conclusion, set down in a MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT dated June 30, 1961, speaks for itself: “The trouble with the Cuban [Bay of Pigs] operation, for example, was not that the intelligence and operations were combined, but precisely that the Cuban operation evaded systematic intelligence judgment. The Intelligence Branch (DDI) of the CIA was never informed of the existence of the Cuban operation. The Office of National Estimates was never asked to comment on the assumption, for example, that discontent had reached the point in Cuba where a successful landing operation would provoke uprisings behind the lines and defections from the Militia. I gather that if its opinion had been invited, DDI would have given quite a different estimate of the state of opinion in Cuba from that on which the operation was based. … The Bureau of Intelligence and Research of the Department of State knew even less about the Cuban operation.”

Tulsi

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“..one of the biggest comebacks since Lazarus..”

• Has America Lost Its Mind Or Will Trump Get It Right This Time? (Ryumshin)

[..] .. there are indications that Trump’s new four-year term will at least be more meaningful than the previous one. Firstly, no one will dare question the legitimacy of the elected president. In 2016, Trump’s victory seemed unnatural (Clinton won the popular vote). This led people to see his presidency as a failure of the system and to speculate about foreign interference. Now Trump has safely won both the electoral and popular votes. The Democrats are unlikely to dispute this. There could be a flare-up of political tensions if Trump starts taking revenge on all those who have wronged him (which the Democrats are very afraid of). But I think a truce is more likely. The Democratic Party is facing a massive internal showdown, with a search for those responsible for its electoral woes. The president-elect has never been particularly eager to follow through on his threats (remember: Hillary Clinton wasn’t jailed).

Second, the Trump of 2024 is not the same as the Trump of 2016. Eight years ago, a somewhat naive businessman who thought running a government was as easy as building skyscrapers in Manhattan entered the White House. Since then, however, Trump has matured politically, learned to compromise and completely taken over the Republican Party. The bitter experience of his first administration, filled with random and often disagreeable people, suggests that this time he’ll have a clear plan of action and a suitable team under him. For Russia, the positions of Secretary of State and National Security Advisor are of particular interest. These are the people who will determine the foreign policy of the second Trump administration – and whether he will keep his promise to end the conflict in Ukraine. There is the former US ambassador to Germany, Ric Grenell. He hangs out in European right-wing circles, opposes Ukrainian membership in NATO and favors the creation of ‘autonomous zones’ there (i.e. recognizing Russia’s control over the south-east). Grenell is being considered for Secretary of State or National Security Adviser – if he takes either position, it would be rather good news for us. It would be doubly good if other foreign policy positions were filled by people with similar views (Marco Rubio or Bill Hagerty).

There’s also Trump’s former national security adviser, Robert O’Brien. He’s also a contender for the top job, but is seen as a ‘hawk’. O’Brien supports military aid to Ukraine, and his selection could be a sign that potential negotiations between Moscow and Washington will be difficult. Of course, whoever Trump picks, we should not expect a ‘‘ceasefire in 24 hours’ — that is, to put it mildly, an unrealistic exaggeration. But I believe that under him, serious settlement talks could actually begin in 2025. Well, at least there will be an attempt to start a peace process. The other question is what methods will the president use to achieve this? What will his proposal be and what will he ask of Russia in return for concessions? But it is probably too early to speculate about that. For now, let’s look at the new US president-elect’s first steps.

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“President Trump should work to eliminate the need for the Fed to keep interest rates low. He can do this by fighting for massive spending cuts, starting with the military-industrial complex..”

• Make Money Free Again (Ron Paul)

Two days after Donald Trump became the first American since Grover Cleveland to win nonconsecutive presidential elections, the Federal Reserve announced a quarter percent cut in interest rates. Following this announcement, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell held a press conference where he said that he would not comply with any presidential request that he step down before his term ends in May of 2026. Powell claimed that the president lacks the legal authority to fire the Fed chairman. So, if President Trump tells Chairman Powell “you’re fired,” Powell could bring suit asking a court to review Trump’s action. President Trump and Chairman Powell are at odds over President Trump’s desire to require the Federal Reserve to consult with the president before changing interest rates or taking other significant actions. Powell is likely to do all he can to convince Congress to reject any legislation giving the president any type of official role in setting monetary policy.

After all, Chairman Powell is so protective of Fed autonomy that he opposes auditing the Fed on the grounds that it could threaten the Fed’s independence, even though there is nothing in the Audit the Fed legislation giving the president or Congress any new authority over the Fed’s conduct of monetary policy. Requiring the Fed to consult with the president regarding monetary policy would likely increase price inflation and dollar devaluation. Politicians usually like low interest rates because they associate low rates with economic growth. Politicians also want the Fed to keep rates low so the federal government can keep racking up huge amounts of debt. Without a central bank that is ready, willing, and able to monetize the federal debt, the welfare-warfare state would not exist.

Despite the claims of Chairman Powell and other central bank apologists, the Fed has never been free of political pressure. Presidents were trying to influence the Federal Reserve long before Donald Trump began posting “mean tweets” about Jerome Powell. Requiring the Fed to consult with the president would at least make the president’s efforts to influence monetary policy open and transparent. President Trump and other Fed critics such as Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren think they are more capable of determining the “correct” interest rate than the Fed. This ignores the fact that interest rates are the price of money and like all prices are shaped by a variety of constantly changing factors. When the Fed manipulates interest rates, it distorts the signals sent to investors. The result is the boom- bust business cycle.

The fiat system is also responsible for rising income inequality and the decline of the dollar’s purchasing power, which has lowered most Americans’ standard of living. President Trump should work to eliminate the need for the Fed to keep interest rates low. He can do this by fighting for massive spending cuts, starting with the military-industrial complex. He should also push Congress to pass the Audit the Fed bill. Additionally, President Trump should support legalizing all competing currencies. The forthcoming tax bill should include a provision exempting precious metals and cryptocurrencies from capital gains taxes. The key to making America great again is to make money free again.

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The trustee stiffed the Sandy Hook families to keep Jones’s frieds from buying his company.

• Infowars Auction Thrown Into Chaos After Judge Investigates Malarkey (ZH)

(Update 2020ET): Just when you thought the least funny website on the planet, The Onion, had prevailed in the Infowars auction, the judge in the case put the brakes on the sale after it was revealed that the (anti-Jones) bankruptcy trustee did not accept the highest bid, and instead allowed the Sandy Hook families to ‘assist’ by pledging their massive judgement towards the auction – which Jones says is illegal. According to Jones, there should be some sort of a hearing to discuss this early next week. He believes that the judge is likely to order a new auction for sometime in January, where a Jones-allied group will have the opportunity to buy the company without the trustee picking their own winner regardless of actual bid. The saga continues…

(Update 1130ET): Hours after yesterday’s auction, Infowars.com is now down. We wish Alex Jones well on his next endeavor, which we’re guessing is going to be massive. The leftist-satirical rag The Onion announced on Thursday that it had won a bankruptcy auction to acquire Infowars – the website founded and operated by Alex Jones since 1999. On Wednesday, Jones said that the auction’s trustee could choose any bidder it wanted – not necessarily the high bidder. Jones announced the sale on X Thursday morning. “I just got word 15 minutes ago that my lawyers and folks met with the U.S. trustee over our bankruptcy this morning and they said they are shutting us down even without a court order this morning,” he said. “The Connecticut democrats with The Onion newspaper bought us.”

The Onion told the NY Times that the bid was sanctioned by the families of the victims of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, who won a $1.4 billion defamation lawsuit against Jones. The Onion did not disclose the price it paid for Infowars and its assets, including Jones’ production studio and supplement business. Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion parent company, Global Tetrahedron, says he plans to relaunch Infowars in January as a parody of itself, mocking “weird internet personalities.”

Infowars

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“Gaetz is no milk toast. He is a strong individual, the kind of person needed in such a critical office. My question is: does he have the seasoning..”

• What Are Trump’s Chances to Make American Great Again? (Paul Craig Roberts)

No, MAGA Americans, I am not a party pooper. I am a realist. No, I am not trying to make Trump look bad. I was Trump’s defender against all the false accusations and indictments. I insisted that we had to stand up for Trump and elect him or never again would a presidential candidate take the side of the people against the Establishment. I warned over and over that Trump does not know Washington, and he has again proven me correct with his appointments of a war cabinet of Washington insiders, with no executive authority for Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Today (November 13) Trump’s announcements of appointees was a little better in the cases of Tulsi Gabbard and Matt Gaetz. When I say a little, I don’t imply any criticism of these two Americans. In Gabbard’s case, I don’t know what the executive power of the Director of National Intelligence is. Is Gabbard above the CIA, NSA, State Department, or is she a coordinator of information that she does not originate and control?

The Director of National Intelligence is a cabinet-level agency or department created in 2004 during the orchestrated hysteria of “Muslim terrorists.” It advises the president, the National Security Council, and the Homeland Security Council. Apparently, it has taken over the CIA’s function of providing the president’s daily briefing. Where it gets its information from is unclear. Is the National Intelligence Agency just a mouthpiece for the CIA? Regardless, Tulsi Gabbard’s voice is important, and the position gives her a voice. The same for Matt Gaetz’s appointment as US Attorney General. Gaetz is no milk toast. He is a strong individual, the kind of person needed in such a critical office. My question is: does he have the seasoning. I certainly don’t object if he does. I would have thought that some of Trump’s attorneys, illegally prosecuted by Biden’s totally corrupt Attorney General, would have been a better choice.

I think my choice would have been the Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton. He has experience as an attorney general, and he has challenged the Biden regime criminals on several fronts. This doesn’t mean that Gaetz can’t be successful. Perhaps Gaetz should insist that Paxton be appointed deputy attorney general. That would be a strong team, a team that could guarantee the Trump administration’s success. If Trump is to return America to the rule of law, those who weaponized law must be punished. Also on the 13th Trump appointed the Treasury Secretary. His name is Scott Bessent. He is a hedge fund manager who created a global investment fund. He might be a good pick. I don’t know. Bessent is a Southerner and, thereby, possibly possesses integrity. But his background indicates a man out for himself at the expense of other people: Yale University, George Soros Fund Management, a successful Soros destabilizer of the British pound and Japanese yen. In other words, a person out for his own benefit.

Perhaps he has reformed. But there is no indiction that he has any grasp of economic policy. Will he see his Treasury seat as a way to build relationships and to expand his opportunities to make money? Trump’s view seems to be that making money is what makes America great again. In my day the US Treasury Department was a policy organization. Today it is a police agency at work imposing sanctions and stealing the central bank reserves of “enemies.” When I was in the US Treasury, I had to tell my executive secretary that I did not want any more appointments with lobbyists telling me how I was to formulate policy to serve them. Being of years of experience, she told me: you won’t get the directorships, you won’t get the consultant fees. I told her I was there to serve the president and that was our job.

It is going to be a challenge for the administration Trump has assembled to make America great again. Trump is there to be tough for America. War is a likely outcome. The threatened world already sees it coming. Mohammed bin Salman, the ruler of Saudi Arabia has been conducting naval exercises with Iran. The Saudi ruler recently had talks with Putin about preventing Israeli/US attacks on Iran. It seems that the US has lost the Saudis and is on the verge of losing a war, the loss of which will disappoint Trump supporters looking to be made great again. My hope is that Trump can get enough done peacefully that the American people don’t give up hope, thereby empowering the ruling elite with the gift of a demoralized population.

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“..Tesla – the largest EV automaker in the US and the only one not reliant on EV credits for survival..”

• Trump Team To Nuke EV Tax Credit As Musk’s Price-War Endgame Looms (ZH)

The final chapter of the electric vehicle price war, sparked by Tesla’s Elon Musk, hinges on President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to eliminate the $7,500 consumer tax credit. Sources with direct knowledge told Reuters that the Trump team has discussed ending the EV tax credit as part of broader tax reform legislation. Sources indicated that Tesla – the largest EV automaker in the US and the only one not reliant on EV credits for survival – told the Trump transition committee that it fully supports the federal government ending the subsidy. Here’s more from Reuters: Repealing the subsidy, which has been a signature measure of President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), is being discussed in meetings by an energy-policy transition team led by billionaire oilman Harold Hamm, founder of Continental Resources, and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, the two sources said.

The group has had several meetings since Trump’s Nov. 5 election victory, including some at his Florida Mar-a-Lago club, where Tesla chief executive Elon Musk has also spent considerable time since the election. In mid-July, Trump stated at a campaign rally that he would “end the Electric Vehicle Mandate on Day One — thereby saving the US auto industry from complete obliteration, and saving US customers thousands of dollars per car.” On X, around that time, Musk explained to the Whole Mars Catalog why repealing the tax credit would only benefit Tesla: In October, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade group representing all automotive brands besides Tesla, penned a letter expressing to lawmakers in Congress how crucial the EV tax credit is in “cementing the US as a global leader in the future of automotive technology and manufacturing.”

In the markets, Rivian shares tumbled by 10% in the early afternoon, while Tesla shares fell by 3.5%. We knew the playbook in July. Here it is again: “Musk’s strategy to win the EV price war: Build the largest EV business with taxpayer dollars, popularize EVs, allow other startups and OEMs to enter the market, and then support politicians who want to end EV subsidies, crushing the competition and leaving Tesla reigning supreme.”

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“Rogan is just willing to just sit there with interesting people and talk for three hours. That was the most affirming, reassuring thing I’ve seen in 35 years of media — that that worked.”

“I’m thrilled and proud to be Rogan’s friend. I admire him more than anybody in media — by far..”

• Tucker Carlson: Joe Rogan Has “Changed American History” (MN)

During a recent discussion with Joe Polish, at the Genius Network Annual Event, Tucker Carlson heaped praise on Joe Rogan, going as far to say that the podcast king has changed American history. Tucker noted that “Rogan created the genre of podcasting. I’ve been in the media my whole life. Rogan used to be a sitcom actor, a standup comedian, and an MMA fighter. So he starts this thing called a podcast where he talks for like three hours.” Carlson admitted “I’m in television at a big network and I thought it was dumb. No one is going to listen to a three-hour podcast from some MMA fighter?” “I know, right?” Carlson said as the audience began to chuckle. “And this guy’s not even in our business! What’s he doing?” Carlson related, explaining his feelings at the time. “He completely changed not only American media but also American history.

He created a whole new genre — it would be like if one guy invented the newspaper or television, that’s how big what he did was,” Carlson urged. He continued, “And I will admit I did not see it coming, I did not understand it, I did not think it would work. And the fact that it did work says something so great and important about Americans. Rogan proved that Americans really want to learn.” “They’re not learning in school, they’re not learning in the rest of the media. It’s all shallow and dumb, about race and gender, it’s all lying,” Carlson further asserted. He continued, “Rogan is just willing to just sit there with interesting people and talk for three hours. That was the most affirming, reassuring thing I’ve seen in 35 years of media — that that worked.” “I’m thrilled and proud to be Rogan’s friend. I admire him more than anybody in media — by far,” Carlson concluded.

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“..an attempt “to intimidate and chill private citizens and organizations from campaigning on behalf of President Trump.”

• FEC Chairman: Biden DOJ Broke Federal Policies with Letter Targeting Musk (AmG)

On Wednesday, the chairman of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) admitted that the outgoing Biden-Harris Department of Justice (DOJ) violated federal policies and illegally targeted “perceived political opponents” by sending a threatening letter to Elon Musk. According to the Washington Examiner, FEC Chairman Sean Cooksey sent a letter to DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, saying that the letter to Musk concerning his efforts to encourage people to support freedom of speech constituted an attempt “to intimidate and chill private citizens and organizations from campaigning on behalf of President Trump.” Cooksey also recommended that Horowitz, along with the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), open investigations into the incident and “hold accountable any individuals responsible for any violations of federal law or department policies.”

The letter in question was sent to Musk by the DOJ just weeks before the election on November 5th. In it, DOJ officials warned Musk’s America PAC that the pledge to give away $1 million every day to a randomly-selected voter who signed the PAC’s petition in support of freedom of speech was allegedly a violation of federal law. The letter also accused Musk of making “a mockery of democracy.” Musk defended his PAC’s actions, pointing out that participants at the time did “not need to register as Republicans or vote in the Nov. 5 elections.” “The underlying motivation behind this stunt is obvious,” said Cooksey in his scathing letter to the DOJ. “Employees of President Biden’s Department of Justice wanted to stop an independent political committee from campaigning for President Trump in crucial swing states just prior to election day.”

Cooksey further accused the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section of deliberately leaking the Musk letter to the New York Times, which was a violation of the department’s media policies. “Writing such a letter and then leaking it also violates the department’s long-standing policy against the identification of uncharged parties and the disclosure of prejudicial information,” Cooksey continued. Elon Musk, the founder and owner of Tesla and SpaceX, as well as the owner of the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), is the wealthiest man in the world.

He was previously a Democrat who supported politicians such as Barack Obama, but has shifted further to the right in recent years, due primarily to the Democrats’ increasingly radical stances, including support for censorship and transgenderism. Musk gave his official endorsement of President-elect Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign following the assassination attempt against him on July 13th. President-elect Trump has since announced that Musk, alongside businessman and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, will lead an entirely new federal agency called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), with the purpose of significantly reducing the size of the federal government over the course of the next two years. The agency plans to complete its work by July 4th, 2026, which will be the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States.

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“..the goals of its military operation – including Ukrainian neutrality, demilitarization, and denazification – must be met..”

• Trump Vows To ‘Work Very Hard’ On Ukraine (RT)

US President-elect Donald Trump has promised that his team will work hard to resolve the Ukraine conflict to prevent further bloodshed. Trump made the remarks at the America First Policy Institute gala at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida on Thursday. “We’re going to work in the Middle East, and we’re going to work very hard on Russia and Ukraine.” He went on to say that the conflict “has got to stop,” adding that he has seen a report claiming that “thousands of people… were killed” over the past three days. “They happen to be soldiers but whether they’re soldiers or they’re people sitting in towns, we’re going to work [on] it,” Trump said, without elaborating further. In the run-up to the presidential election, the Republican – who has been critical of unconditional US support for Kiev – promised to end the Ukraine conflict within 24 hours if elected, even before being sworn into office.

While that pledge remains far from fulfilled, media reports have claimed that Trump is already reshaping US policy on Ukraine. A Wall Street Journal report earlier this month indicated that one potential peace plan would force Ukraine to suspend its ambitions to join NATO for at least 20 years and would freeze the conflict along the current front lines in exchange for continued US military assistance to Kiev. In addition, Trump has nominated several critics of Ukraine aid for top government positions, including Senator Marco Rubio for secretary of state, Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, and Matt Gaetz for attorney general. The nominations must be confirmed by the Senate, which the Republicans regained control over in this year’s election.

Moscow has said it is open to dialogue, but has ruled out freezing the conflict, insisting that the goals of its military operation – including Ukrainian neutrality, demilitarization, and denazification – must be met. President Vladimir Putin has signaled that Russia is willing to immediately declare a ceasefire and start peace talks as soon as Kiev begins withdrawing troops from the regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye, which voted in referendums to join the country in autumn 2022. Moscow has also ruled out talks with Kiev as long as Ukrainian troops occupy part of the border region of Kursk.

Bowes

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“President Biden could push the process of admitting Ukraine to NATO, and the current Congress or a future Congress could vote on it even after he is no longer in office.”

• Will Trump Stop Ukraine From Joining NATO? (van den Ende)

President-elect Trump bragged during his election campaign that he could solve the Ukraine conflict in 24 hours once he is installed in the White House. Trump’s bombast is, of course, unrealistic. No war can be solved within 24 hours. There must be peace talks and, above all, a treaty to secure territory and people. And what about the thorny issue of Ukraine joining NATO? For Russia to make a durable peace, that issue must be erased. Will Trump stop Ukraine from joining NATO? For Ukraine to join NATO, the U.S. Senate must approve its membership, as must the other 31 NATO member states. Russia is adamant that Ukraine will not be permitted to join the U.S.-led military bloc. But let’s just consider how the U.S. and its NATO allies might procedurally attempt Ukraine’s membership.

Trump’s “America First” policy will have consequences for NATO. At this point, it is unclear whether a new Republican-dominated Congress will even vote on Ukraine’s admission to NATO. With the recent U.S. elections, the American people have chosen to change course, but will a change of course be allowed by the powers that be? Does it matter which party, Democrats or Republicans, are in Congress and governing America? Will the war hawks win again, perhaps? Trump is not in the White House yet. That won’t be until January 20, and there could be surprises from the outgoing Biden administration during the next two months. President Biden could push the process of admitting Ukraine to NATO, and the current Congress or a future Congress could vote on it even after he is no longer in office.

The U.S. Senate could also vote on a treaty to approve Ukraine’s membership in NATO as early as the next few weeks, although it could take years for the country to become a full member. Both Democrats and some Republicans hope that this solution would still allow Ukraine to join NATO. Many people forget in the “heat of the election show” that we’ve seen in recent weeks and the election hype around Donald Trump that both Democrats and Republicans support the proxy war against Russia and would like to see Ukraine join NATO. It was recently revealed that primarily Republicans in the House of Representatives — who chair the national security committees — have formally filed a request pressuring President Biden to lift remaining restrictions on Ukraine’s use of U.S.-supplied Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) long-range missiles.

Although Trump’s son, Donald Jr, recently said that there is no place for “war hawks” in the new government, there will probably be pro-Ukraine figures in cabinet positions. This includes Senator Lindsey Graham, a prominent member of the GOP and a big Trump supporter, who might be given a ministerial post. Graham candidly told CNN and CNBC that the Donbass is full of mineral resources that America wants its hands on and that access to such natural wealth was central to the conflict. The hawkish senator has also said, and make no mistake, he is a close political friend of Trump and will have a lot of influence in the next administration, that “Trump will give Ukraine a lot of leverage to end the war.” So, are Americans being fooled again? Thinking now that Trump is elected, the proxy war against Russia will be over quickly, only for the American warmongers to start another war, say, against Iran.

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“..someone who “for several years, has been working for foreign audience for the Kremlin money.”

• Ukrainian State-run Agency Scrubs Posts Bashing Tulsi Gabbard (RT)

Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD) has quietly removed its news bulletins accusing former US Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of spreading fake news on behalf of Russia. The change came after US President-elect Donald Trump nominated Gabbard, a lieutenant colonel of the US Army Reserve, to oversee the CIA and the NSA as the director of national intelligence. Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council set up the CCD in March 2021 with the stated goal of fighting disinformation in news reports and on social media. In practice, the agency focuses on flagging and “debunking” stories that are critical to Ukraine and has accused many Russian and Western officials of spreading “fake news.” According to the news website Strana.ua, the CCD took down four of its bulletins mentioning Gabbard from social media, including one from April 2022 that described her as someone who “for several years, has been working for foreign audience for the Kremlin money.”

In a bulletin from June 2024, Gabbard was accused of spreading disinformation about Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, and a bulletin from February 2023 said that the politician was “espousing pro-Russian rhetoric.” The posts were removed on Thursday morning, Strana.ua said. As of the time of writing, the CCD’s 2022 post accusing Gabbard of taking “the Kremlin money” is still up on the National Security and Defense Council’s account on X. The link to the CCD bulletin is inactive, however. Kiev has repeatedly lashed out at Western public figures critical of Ukraine, including journalist Tucker Carlson and tech billionaire Elon Musk.

Gabbard, who has long opposed US military interventions in the Middle East and has accused Washington of warmongering, left the Democratic Party in 2022. Last month, she announced that she had joined the Republican Party and was backing Trump. In 2022, Gabbard argued that the conflict in Ukraine could have been avoided if the US “had simply acknowledged Russia’s legitimate security concerns” regarding Kiev’s aspirations to join NATO. She has since insisted that the conflict should be resolved through negotiations and that Ukraine should become a neutral country. Gabbard slammed Zelensky last year, accusing him of seizing “absolute control of Ukrainian media, outlawing opposition political parties.”

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“The temperature is dipping below freezing at night, the daylight hours are shorter, the electrical lighting and heating loads are going up.”

• Electric War Moves Beyond Putin Pause Button To Power Off Button (Helmer)

This week’s announcements of emergency electricity rationing and scheduled power supply cuts in the farwestern Ukrainian regions of Volyn, Ivano-Frankivsk and Transcarpathia indicate that pinpoint drone targeting by the Russian General Staff is a new stage in the electric war since President Vladimir Putin put on pause long-range missile attacks on western Ukrainian power generation plants since August 26. On Tuesday, the regional Ukrainian media reported “restrictions will apply to businesses in the Ivano-Frankivsk and Volyn oblasts starting on 13 November, in five phases, and will be scheduled from 07:00 to 20:00. The restrictions are being implemented due to damage to critical infrastructure by Russian forces and decreasing temperatures.” The national utility Ukrenergo announced that from November 13 “GOPs [power limit schedules] are being introduced due to a shortage in the energy system in the Carpathian region”.

The deficit in the current demand-supply balance for electricity has also been compounded by the decline reported in the Ukrainian press of imports of power from cross-border sources in Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Moldova. The reported cutback this week defies the European Union (EU) agreement at the end of October for “an increase of the export capacity limit to Ukraine and Moldova to 2,100 megawatts (MW) during this winter. It represents an increase of 400 MW from the previous value [1,700 MW]…The 2,100 MW export capacity limit will apply from 1 December 2024.” “This is a temporary situation,” Ukraine’s energy minister Herman Halushchenko announced on Wednesday. “ ‘Unfortunately, restored generation facilities can occasionally fail. This has happened, but all these issues will be resolved, and the situation will stabilize,’ he stated. The minister also pointed to a significant reduction in electricity imports to Ukraine, which are currently down to about 100 MW.”

A military source comments: “The damage from the August attacks has not been repaired – just patched up. There have been strikes on transformer stations since. They’ve been smaller in scale but indicative of the [Russian] General Staff’s knowledge of the [Ukrainian] distribution grid vulnerabilities. The General Staff’s moves have complicated Ukrainian efforts to keep the power on. The Ukrainians are hiding how bad the situation is, including in terms of getting spares. The temperature is dipping below freezing at night, the daylight hours are shorter, the electrical lighting and heating loads are going up. The jury-rigged grid is unable to handle it without curtailments.”

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“..this attack will be particularly focused on completely erasing Palestinians from what is known as Area C, which constitutes roughly 60 percent of the West Bank. That escalation has already begun.”

• The State-Backed Settler War To Annex The West Bank (Inlakesh)

Despite Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and military aggression against Lebanon, Tel Aviv is preparing to unleash its fanatical Jewish settlers in a coordinated war against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, aiming to ethnically cleanse what remains of the territory and pave the way for further annexation. Adding fuel to the fire, billionaire Miriam Adelson, the wealthiest Israeli in the world, bankrolled Donald Trump’s “huge victory” in his successful presidential campaign with one clear condition: support for annexing the West Bank. Last month The Times of Israel noted that the wealthy widow “is carrying on a legacy she built with her late husband, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson,” and that “The Adelson family has long been one of the largest sources of campaign money for Republican candidates and has backed Trump during each of the last three general elections.”

Speaking to The Cradle, Ubai al-Aboudi, executive director of Palestinian rights group ‘Bisan Center,’ says that “the Israeli settlers are preparing to carry out a major attack, to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian population,” adding that this attack will be particularly focused on completely erasing Palestinians from what is known as Area C, which constitutes roughly 60 percent of the West Bank. That escalation has already begun. On 4 November, armed settlers launched a brazen assault on the Palestinian city of Al-Bireh, marking a surge in the violence that has gripped the West Bank. In October alone, settlers carried out at least 1,490 attacks against Palestinians, their property, and their land – often under the supervision and protection of occupation soldiers. In the past, extremist settler attacks against Palestinians were characterized by their spontaneous nature and uncoordinated thuggery, but this has begun to change.

During a recent interview with Israel’s Channel 7 News, West Bank Settlement Council leader Israel Gantz commented on a meeting he had with the recently sacked Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant: “We asked that the West Bank be treated as Jabalia, Rafah, and the villages of southern Lebanon were treated, which means displacing the residents, killing the terrorists in these villages, cleansing the terrorist infrastructure, confiscating the weapons and then returning them to their villages.” While the statement includes the idea of returning Palestinians to their villages, if such an operation replicated Gaza and southern Lebanon, there would be no village to return to. Gantz also requested that Palestinian villages bordering illegal Jewish settlements be ‘cleansed’ due to the potential security threat posed to Israelis living there – both ideas reportedly opposed by Gallant.

On 5 November, however, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu replaced Gallant and handed the defense minister position to long-time ally Israel Katz. While serving in his previous role as Israel’s foreign minister, Katz openly called for expelling Palestinians from their homes in the West Bank, unlike his predecessor.

Huckabee

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“It seems that this is less about fraud or malfunctions and more about disappointment over the defeat of their pro-Western Georgian political allies.”

• Some Elections Will Never Be ‘Democratic’ Enough For The West (Behanzin)

We have witnessed a strong reaction from the United States and the European Union following the elections in Georgia held late last month. Their pro-Western candidate suffered a defeat, and these Western powers – particularly Washington and the European Council – have expressed doubts about the election’s legitimacy, even calling for an investigation into its conduct. It is legitimate to ask whether the right to validate the election results in this sovereign country lies in the hands of Washington or Brussels, while the Georgian people have expressed themselves democratically. This situation once again raises the crucial issue of foreign powers intervening in the internal affairs of sovereign nations. For several years, the United States, often followed by its European allies, has taken the liberty of intervening in the electoral processes of various countries under the pretext of ensuring “democracy.”

However, this posture of self-proclaimed guardians of democracy becomes inconsistent if it only applies to elections that serve their interests. In Georgia, the people voted and chose to place their trust in Georgian Dream, a local party which seeks to build pragmatic relations with Russia and managed to gather broad popular support. The Georgian Dream party secured 54% of the votes. International observers present noted that the electoral process adhered to democratic standards, despite unfounded accusations made by some external actors. So why, in this context, do Washington and Brussels suddenly feel the need to question the results? It seems that this is less about fraud or malfunctions and more about disappointment over the defeat of their pro-Western Georgian political allies.

In short, for some Western powers, when they do not win an election, they adopt a strategy aimed at delegitimizing the results through unfounded doubts and calls for investigations. This eerily recalls similar situations, such as the one experienced during the presidential election in July 2024 in Venezuela. US interference in the internal affairs of other countries is well-documented, but it is paradoxical to see Europe blindly following this path. In recent decades, Europe, once proud of its independent stance on the global stage, seems, with its puppet leaders in Brussels, to have gradually aligned itself with American policies, to the point where it is now perceived as merely a relay for Washington’s interests. This trend is visible in its foreign policy, particularly during major crises, where Brussels seems increasingly dependent on the American line.

In the Georgian case, the European reaction is particularly troubling. Why is the European Union, which claims to promote peace and international stability, suddenly seeking to question a democratic election simply because the results do not align with its political expectations? This attitude reflects a deep contradiction between the so-called “democratic values” that Europe claims to defend and the actual practices on the ground. If the Georgian situation is such a problem for Brussels, perhaps the president of the European Council should personally travel to Georgia to conduct this much-demanded investigation. More seriously, is it truly the mandate of the European Union to question the sovereignty and the will expressed by the Georgian people? What about respecting the democratic processes it claims to uphold?

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Germany, France, they do the same thing. AFTER sinking their economies.

• French Prosecutors Seek Prison Term And Election Ban For Le Pen (RT)

French prosecutors have asked a judge to slap former National Rally party leader Marine Le Pen with a five-year prison term and a ban from running for public office in an embezzlement case. Le Pen and 24 other current and former members of the right-wing National Rally are accused of using €3 million ($3.3 million) in European Parliament money intended for payments to parliamentary assistants to fund work on internal party business from 2004 to 2016, in violation of EU law. All of the defendants have denied any wrongdoing. During the proceedings in Paris on Wednesday, the prosecutors argued that Le Pen should receive the harshest punishment as she was a member of the European Parliament and the leader of the National Rally when some of the alleged violations took place. She led the party, which was previously called the National Front, from 2011 to 2021 and still remains a member.

Three years of Le Pen’s sentence would be suspended, and the other two could be served with an electronic bracelet, the prosecutors said. They also asked for her to be fined €300,000 ($316,000). The prosecutors said the five-year ban on running for office should be implemented immediately, before the defense can appeal the ruling. This means that if found guilty, Le Pen would be disqualified from the presidential election in 2027. During the trial, which began in late September, she announced plans to run for president for the third time. “It is clear that the only thing the public prosecutors wanted was Marine Le Pen’s exclusion from political life,” Le Pen told reporters after the hearings.

National Rally leader Jordan Bardella, who is not a defendant in the case, took to X to accuse the prosecutors of an “assault on democracy,” saying they are “seeking to persecute and take revenge on Marine Le Pen.” The prosecutors also requested that the National Rally be fined €2 million, and that all of the others who are accused receive bans from running for public office from one to five years. The defense will now present its arguments to the judge until the trial concludes on November 27. A verdict is expected in early 2025. In the 2022 election, Le Pen lost to President Emmanuel Macron in the second round 58.55% to 41.45%.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Friends AI
https://twitter.com/i/status/1856787925859443045

 

 

NZ

 

 

Dog hide

 

 

King&son

 

 

Tank

 

 

Molly

 

 

Salt mine

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle November 10 2024

Nov 102024
 
 November 10, 2024  Posted by at 9:41 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  72 Responses »


Claude Monet Camille on the Beach at Trouville 1870

 

• Goodbye To The Liberal Elites (Diesen)
• Trump Must End Wars, Focus On Problems At Home – Dennis Kucinich (RT)
• Trump’s Election Victory Gives Cautious Optimism For Peace In Ukraine (SCF)
• Trump Seeking ‘Major Changes’ To US Foreign Policy – Bloomberg (RT)
• Biden Allows Deployment Of US Military ‘Contractors’ To Ukraine – Media (RT)
• Can Trump Tame Resistance 2.0? (J. Peder Zane)
• Trump’s Triumph Sows Sorrow for Soros (Sp.)
• Kamala Harris May Be Appointed Supreme Court Judge (Sp.)
• Zelensky ‘Afraid War Will End’ – Slovak PM Fico (RT)
• Zelensky Must Accept ‘Crimea Is Gone’ – Trump Strategist (RT)
• Musk Says “Time Is Up For The Warmonger Profiteers” (ZH)
• Will Trump Clash With Musk Over EV Tariffs? (Sp.)
• Putin Outlines The ‘Moment of Truth’ (Pepe Escobar)
• Neoliberalism Has “Become a Totalitarian Ideology” – Putin (Paul Craig Roberts)

 

 

 

 

Bullet

Gender

20 million

 

 

 

 

App
https://twitter.com/i/status/1854976633733890264

Co-President

Elon
https://twitter.com/i/status/1855085762930422025

Amish

Vivek Elon
https://twitter.com/i/status/1855142541697728612
https://twitter.com/i/status/1855281327253188672

Kash Patel
https://twitter.com/i/status/1855244901916492023

FYI

Disavow

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..Trump’s flaw is that excessive tariffs and an economic war on China will severely disrupt supply chains to the extent it will undermine the US economy..”

• Goodbye To The Liberal Elites (Diesen)

“Make America Great Again” is likely a reference to somewhere around 1973, when the US peaked – it’s since been in decline. Under the neoliberal consensus, society became an appendage to the market and politicians became unable to deliver the changes demanded by the public. The political left could not redistribute wealth, and the political right could not defend traditional values and communities. Globalization gave birth to a political class loyal to international capital without national loyalties, and accountability to the public disappeared. Globalization often contradicts democracy, and there is a growing division between illiberal democracy versus undemocratic liberalism.

A key lesson from the American System in the early 19th century was that industrialization and subsequent economic sovereignty is a necessity for national sovereignty. Tariffs and temporary subsidies are important tools for infant industries to develop maturity, and fair trade is thus often preferable to free trade. Trump’s tariffs to re-industrialize and advance technological sovereignty are noble ambitions that even the Biden administration attempted to emulate. However, Trump’s flaw is that excessive tariffs and an economic war on China will severely disrupt supply chains to the extent it will undermine the US economy. The excesses of Trump’s tariffs and economic coercion derive from the effort to break China and restore US global primacy. If the US can accept a more modest role in the international system as one among many great powers, the president elect could embrace a more moderate economic nationalism that would have a greater prospect of succeeding.

Trump’s vice president-elect, JD Vance, correctly noted the self-defeating moralizing of the US: “We have built a foreign policy of hectoring and moralizing and lecturing countries that don’t want anything to do with it. The Chinese have a foreign policy of building roads and bridges and feeding poor people.” It is a good time for pragmatism to triumph over ideology. Critics of Trump are correct to point out the paradox of a billionaire claiming to represent the people against a detached globalized elite. Sitting in flashy buildings with his name on the side in large golden letters, Trump has nonetheless taken the role of representing American workers by calling for re-industrialization. Raised in the excesses and hedonism of America’s cultural elites, Trump calls for preserving America’s traditional values and culture. Is Trump a savior? Probably not.

But policies are more important than personalities, and Trump is kicking open a door that was seemingly closed by liberal ideology. Trump’s appeal to end the forever wars resulted in invaluable support from former Democrats such as Tulsi Gabbard, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Elon Musk. The liberal crusades over the past three decades have fueled unsustainable debt. Of course, they financed the deep state (the blob), but they alienated the US across the world, and incentivized the other great powers to collectively balance Washington. The forever wars were costly mistakes that never end well, yet the US could absorb these costs during the unipolar era in the absence of any real opponents. In a multipolar system, America must scale back its military adventurism and learn how to prioritize foreign policy objectives.

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“Trump is a deal-maker… a family man concerned about children and grandchildren. He’s not personally interested in seeing the US expand into war, he’s not a globalist in that way..”

• Trump Must End Wars, Focus On Problems At Home – Dennis Kucinich (RT)

US president-elect Donald Trump will have his hands full fixing the mess in foreign and domestic policy left by incumbent leader Joe Biden’s administration, according to Dennis Kucinich, two-time Democratic presidential candidate and retired eight-term US congressman. In an interview with Going Underground host Afshin Rattansi broadcast on RT on Saturday, Kucinich said that the success of Trump’s presidency will depend on his ability to shift the focus of US politics from the “globalist aspirations of the State Department” to problems at home. The veteran politician welcomed Trump’s victory over Democrat Kamala Harris in this week’s election, saying that it represents a “historic shift” in US politics towards “populism.”

“[The US] has come through a very dark period where the government put this country to the edge of World War III, and people don’t want that,” Kucinich stated, noting that ordinary Americans worry about simple things like paying bills and generally “making ends meet,” which he called “very practical aspirations they have in common with people around the world.” He said Trump’s presidency “will depend on not getting further involved in foreign entanglements.” “This economy is shaking, the dollar is not in the same position it was in four years ago… the previous administration has not been successful in reviving the economy with all this money for Wall Street but not enough for main street,” he stated. Kucinich added that this happened “precisely” because the Biden administration poured billions into wars “that are not necessary.”

There’s a lot of work Trump will need to do, he is going to be faced with some serious decisions about scaling back the US position in Europe and the Middle East and to try to find a way that we can move past the events that the Biden administration embroiled America in. Kucinich noted that he expects Trump to be able to extricate the US from global conflicts through his “deal-making finesse.” “Trump is a deal-maker… a family man concerned about children and grandchildren. He’s not personally interested in seeing the US expand into war, he’s not a globalist in that way,” he stated. Kucinich also suggested that Trump would be wise to lead the US towards cooperation with the “new world” that is “taking shape in response to disastrous sanctions and wars,” citing BRICS as one of the alignments that the US should consider working with.

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“Russia’s military victory in Ukraine is as assured as it is righteous and legally correct. Moscow will set its own terms and is not looking for U.S. approval under Trump or anyone else.”

• Trump’s Election Victory Gives Cautious Optimism For Peace In Ukraine (SCF)

As the dust settles after a tumultuous U.S. presidential election, the magnitude of Donald Trump’s victory becomes clearer. His decisive win to become the 47th president of the American Republic is an emphatic popular mandate for change. This could enable Trump to bring the disastrous U.S.-led proxy war in Ukraine against Russia to a peaceful end, as Francis Boyle, a respected American professor of international law, remarked this week. Going into the election, the stakes could not have been higher. A continuation of the nearly three-year-old conflict – as would have happened if the Democrats had remained in power – was potentially leading to World War Three and a nuclear conflagration. Trump had starkly warned of that imminent danger. A central part of his election platform was a pledge to push for a diplomatic resolution.

At 78, Donald J Trump becomes the only second president in U.S. history to win two non-consecutive terms. The last figure to do that was Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, in 1892, as noted by Martin Sieff, a seasoned observer of American elections. What makes Trump’s political comeback so astonishing is the defiance of the establishment and the mainstream media, which for the most part was staunchly supporting his rival, Kamala Harris. “Every dirty trick, lie and scare tactic in the history of American politics – which is filled with them – was used against him. They all failed,” wrote Sieff this week. The pre-election polls, right up to voting day on November 5, weren’t even close, as it turned out. Trump swept the electoral map, taking even the supposedly battleground states, to win by more than 4 million popular votes. He also stormed past the crucial threshold of 270 to win over 300 electoral college votes.

The key factor for his triumph was the economy which Trump tapped into. Bound up in the economic tribulations for ordinary Americans is the militarism and warmongering that the Democrats have become associated with. The callous lack of priority to address pressing social and economic needs of poor, working Americans that the Biden administration and his vice president Kamala Harris had displayed over the past four years was matched by their license to fund the war in Ukraine to the tune of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars.

There was also the factor of the Biden administration’s appalling complicity in the Israeli genocide in Gaza over the past year. Millions of Muslim, Arab and young voters who would normally vote Democrat were outraged and disgusted. They refused to give Harris their votes. Trump is no friend of the Palestinian people, but at least he could not be accused of complicity in genocide the way Biden and Harris indelibly are. Not only does Trump win the White House decisively, his Republican Party also took back control of the Senate and looks like maintaining its majority in the House of Representatives. With that dominance in the executive and legislative branches of government, the second Trump administration will be able to implement his program without impediment. His previous administration (2016-2020) was hampered by Democrats and the corporate-controlled media over spurious claims about “Russia collusion”. That propaganda farce is obsolete.

The authority of Trump’s political position makes it propitious for him to follow through on his election pledge to end the conflict in Ukraine. Trump has boasted that he can end the war in 24 hours. That is typical bluster from the former real estate magnate. The signs are that Russia has its own clear-sighted objectives and will not be swayed from achieving them. Russia is done with Western duplicity. It is determined to defeat the Kiev NeoNazi regime, to retain its newly regained historic territories, and to ensure whatever is left of the rump Ukrainian state that it will never join the NATO military alliance. Russia’s military victory in Ukraine is as assured as it is righteous and legally correct. Moscow will set its own terms and is not looking for U.S. approval under Trump or anyone else.

What Trump can do to expedite the end of the bloodshed and establish peace is to immediately sever the reckless military aid to the Kiev regime. Trump’s “America First” manifesto suggests that is what he will do. By closing down the war racket that was driven by the Biden administration, the conflict will come to a much-needed prompt end. This week, Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Trump on his election and said that Moscow was open for reasonable dialogue. But it seems patent that the dialogue will be about accepting the eminently reasonable conditions that Russia had always offered – no NATO expansion into Ukraine and recognition of the principle of indivisible security for all.

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“..the country is now “moving in the direction – knowing that Trump has won – of accepting that negotiations are a reality.”

• Trump Seeking ‘Major Changes’ To US Foreign Policy – Bloomberg (RT)

US President-elect Donald Trump is wasting no time in his push to revamp Washington’s policies on Ukraine, even though his inauguration is still weeks away, Bloomberg reported on Friday. One unnamed former Trump administration official told the agency that the Republican will “have an immediate head start thanks to the perception that he will be tougher than his predecessor.” He added that some US adversaries could change their behavior without waiting for the president-elect to be sworn in, as they might be “deterred by the threat of US retaliation,” while others could try “to exploit their remaining leverage before President Joe Biden leaves office.” According to Bloomberg, the shift in the wind is “felt most acutely in Ukraine,” given that Trump has promised to settle the conflict within 24 hours if elected, even before his inauguration.

The president-elect and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky have already had a phone call, with X owner Elon Musk – a Trump ally who has advocated for Kiev to cede territory to Russia to end the conflict – also reportedly joining in. Shelby Magid, the deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, told Bloomberg that Trump’s victory has changed Ukraine’s attitude toward talks. She added that the country is now “moving in the direction – knowing that Trump has won – of accepting that negotiations are a reality.” The transition period is often turbulent in the US, the article added, noting that this has been exacerbated by Trump’s apparent intention to change US policy. According to Bloomberg, this has “handcuffed the Biden administration,” as many US allies had been reluctant to take action before they were sure who would be the next US president.

As for a possible settlement of the Ukraine conflict, the Wall Street Journal reported that one of the plans under consideration includes Kiev dropping its ambitions to join NATO in the near future and freezing the conflict along the current front line. While Zelensky has ruled out any concessions to Russia, including “trading” territory, Ukrainian media reports suggested that he might be powerless to resist US pressure if Trump decides that Kiev must make a peace deal with Russia. Moscow has ruled out a freezing of the conflict, insisting that all of the goals of the military operation – including Ukrainian neutrality, demilitarization, and denazification – must be achieved. Nevertheless, Russia has signaled that it is open to talks aimed at resolving the crisis.

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What if they come under fire? What about body bags?!

• Biden Allows Deployment Of US Military ‘Contractors’ To Ukraine – Media (RT)

The administration of outgoing President Joe Biden has lifted a de facto ban on deploying US defense contractors to Ukraine to repair American-made armaments, Reuters and CNN reported on Friday, citing anonymous Pentagon officials. This reversal of previous US policy comes as Donald Trump, who has been skeptical of providing funding and military assistance to Ukraine in its conflict with Russia, secured his second term in the White House. While it is unclear whether Trump would have continued the prior policy, he has promised not to put American lives at risk and to rapidly conclude the conflict once in office again. The potential American presence on the ground will be “small” and located “far” from the front lines, and they are not expected to engage in combat, Reuters wrote on Friday, citing an anonymous US official.

As the US and its NATO partners have provided Kiev with increasingly sophisticated American-made armaments, such as F-16 fighter jets and Patriot air defense systems, restrictions have slowed repairs and proven increasingly challenging. Much of the equipment has been damaged beyond repair by Kiev’s own specialists. The policy change aligns the Pentagon more closely with the US State Department and USAID, which already have contractors in Ukraine, according to another official. “These contractors will help the Ukrainian Armed Forces rapidly repair and maintain US-provided equipment as needed so it can quickly return to the front lines,” CNN wrote on Friday, citing a defense official. Specifically, F-16 jets and Patriot batteries “require specific technical expertise to maintain,” they said.

Allowing US contractors to work in Ukraine will provide a faster alternative to the current method of transporting equipment to NATO countries such as Poland and Romania for repairs, CNN noted. Meanwhile, the risks of being killed by Russian strikes will fall on the companies bidding for the Pentagon contracts. “Each US contractor, organization, or company will be responsible for the safety and security of their employees and will be required to include risk mitigation plans as part of their bids,” CNN cited a defense official as saying.

Russian President Vladimir Putin previously stated that Moscow is aware of the “direct involvement of NATO troops in this conflict.” He pointed out that several high-tech systems the US and its allies have provided to Kiev, such as ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles, require the involvement of Western officers to operate them. The Russian Defense Ministry regularly reports airstrikes on repair facilities in Ukraine. This week alone, the Russian military conducted at least 38 strikes on Ukrainian military-industrial complex facilities, as well as the energy and military infrastructure supporting them, according to the latest report on Friday.

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“They will keep fighting, banking on a return to power in two or four years when they can continue their project to transform America. They are masters of the long game.”

• Can Trump Tame Resistance 2.0? (J. Peder Zane)

Last Tuesday, we were all equal – one person, one vote. Against every effort by the liberal elites, a slim majority of Americans returned Donald Trump to the White House, investing him with vast authority through their 73 million votes. On Wednesday, the normal order of inequality was restored. The potent forces in government, business, media, and academia that opposed Trump by hook or crook took back up their undemocratic reins of power and began to plot how, as Kamala Harris put it in her concession speech, they “will continue to keep fighting.” This is not as bad as it sounds. America became a free and prosperous nation in large part because of the constraints our founders put on government – both in the checks and balances at the federal level and the federalism that invests states with great authority. This, along with the visionary Bill of Rights and the refusal to establish a national church, created vast opportunities for individuals and non-governmental organizations to shape our country.

This diffusion of power is a major reason why we have never come close to dictatorship. Even with the vast expansion of government since the New Deal and Great Society, there are still too many moving parts for a wannabe authoritarian to corral. As it empowers the non-governmental actors, the American system depends on an implicit set of checks and balances – both vigilance and restraint – on the behavior of the people. One clear example concerns speech. The First Amendment’s broad protections are limited by the guardrails imposed by ever-evolving community standards regarding acceptable discourse. In theory, everybody can say the n-word, but you really can’t, along with a host of slurs that once filled our newspapers. Another example involves accepting the results of elections. Even in Ronald Reagan’s 1984 landslide, about 42% of Americans did not vote for the Gipper.

Still, the losing side is expected to accept defeat graciously, to respect the authority their adversary has gained in this zero-sum game of elections, and take up the mantle of the loyal opposition. In the wake of Trump’s victory, this is another norm that conspicuous segments of the modern Democratic Party seem intent on breaking – not through a Jan. 6 episode of violence but through the legislative maneuvers, investigations, and lawfare that marked their resistance during his first term. Before the election, the legacy media was filled with largely celebratory articles about efforts to Trump-proof government in case he won. This effort is now being turbocharged with reports that President Biden aims to use the lame-duck session to thwart his successor. Governor Gavin Newsom has called a special session of the California legislature to Trump-proof state laws.

Governor Maura Healey has said Massachusetts state police will not support Trump’s mass immigration plans – a bedrock promise of his campaign, which is backed by a majority of Americans. This opposition is only the tip of a long spear of Resistance 2.0. The liberal and leftist elites in the legacy media, academia, and various other power centers have made clear that they will do everything they can, not just to oppose but to undermine and delegitimize the democratically elected president. This is not business as usual, nor is it merely an echo of Mitch McConnell’s vow in 2010 to make Obama a one-term president. It is a rejection of the compact that has long ruled American politics in which the losing side gives the winner a chance to prove them wrong.

How could they? Their unhinged claims that Trump is an authoritarian fascist are not a political ploy but a deeply held belief, cultivated over decades of Manichean indoctrination. They have used similar language to describe every Republican president since Reagan. Trump is the culmination of this uncompromising worldview. The concise paraphrase of the physicist Max Planck’s insight – that science proceeds one funeral at a time – captures what Trump is up against. Democrats and their allies are too invested in their own ideology to change. They will keep fighting, banking on a return to power in two or four years when they can continue their project to transform America. They are masters of the long game. In response, Trump and his allies must first hope that the GOP retains control of the House of Representatives – votes are still being counted. This is crucial for limiting the Democrats’ ability to kneecap the new administration with spurious congressional investigations.

More importantly, Trump must, as best he can, limit his love for battle, resist his instinct to take the bait. He should treat his opponents with the contempt they deserve, ignoring their provocations for the sake of effective governance. He should be guided by the single best line of his campaign, “My revenge will be success.” He must focus on our problems rather than his enemies. The challenges we face – especially our unsustainable debt, an economy that is not working for ordinary Americans, and a world beset by conflict – have little to do with the opinions of Democrats and the New York Times. Yes, his opponents enjoy great power, which they will brandish in an attempt to weaken and frustrate him. But if he can rise above their malice – and his own pettiness – he just might make America great again.

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“I expect that Trump will be found guilty at least in some cases, and will be in jail by election day in November 2024..”

• Trump’s Triumph Sows Sorrow for Soros (Sp.)

Billionaire hedge fund shark-turned liberal ‘philanthropist’ George Soros’ financial interests and political projects may be in trouble when Donald Trump returns to the Oval Office, with tens of millions in campaign funding, smear jobs and even involvement in the Trump prosecutions failing to stop the former president from making a comeback. Bloomberg reported on Friday that Soros Fund Management plans to shut down its Hong Kong office as part of a surprise “administrative reorganization” after 14 years of operations. The move may signal preparations by the Soros family to make major changes in the way their soft power empire operates with Trump back in power. The campaign by the elder Soros and his son and heir apparent Alex to keep a Democrat in the White House has failed to pay dividends, despite the Soros’ Fund for Policy Reform’s transfer of $60 mln to Future Forward, a pro-Democrat dark money super PAC.

That’s on top of a $15 mln donation by an Open Society Foundations subsidiary in 2023. Along with money, the Soros family invested significant personal capital into the campaign against “MAGA-style Republicans” in 2024. In the spring of 2023, Alex Soros announced a dramatic scaling back of OSF’s operations in Western Europe to focus on Ukraine, Moldova, the Western Balkans, and the United States, with the effort to stop Trump becoming a top priority. George Soros first sounded the alarm over Trump’s “America First” foreign policy in 2016, when he pumped millions into Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign but failed to see his preferred candidate elected. After Trump won, Soros funded an anti-Trump “resistance movement,” manifesting itself in street protests, court challenges to his domestic agenda, secret lobbying of members of his administration, support for lawmakers promoting a neoliberal foreign policy, and even $1 mln in cash spent on the infamous debunked ‘Trump-Russia collusion’ dossier.

During Trump’s first term, Soros lobbied tech giants to regulate social media, funded a campaign to support dozens, if not hundreds, of liberal prosecutors and judges, gubernatorial candidates, congressional hopefuls, and other state and local officials in 2018 and 2020. Soros and the OSF’s noticeable shift away from meddling abroad to interfering in US domestic politics earned the ire of Trump backers, who sought to declare him a “domestic terrorist,” strip him of his assets, and expel the Hungarian-born billionaire from the country. When Joe Biden won in 2020, a Soros-linked think tank lobbied his administration to support policies favoring OSF principles in nearly two dozen different policy areas, and laid out $20 mln to create ‘grass roots organizations’ to sell Biden’s $1.2 trln infrastructure bill. In 2022, Soros channeled $125 mln into a ‘Democracy PAC’ to support anti-MAGA candidates in the midterms.

In 2023, as criminal indictments began to come down on Trump, the former president immediately linked the political “witch hunt” against him to Soros and his “hand-picked and funded” Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, to whose 2021 campaign Soros is known to have donated at least $1 mln. “I expect that Trump will be found guilty at least in some cases, and will be in jail by election day in November 2024,” Soros said in an August 2023 interview. “If I am right, he is unlikely to win the election. But if I am wrong, the US will face a constitutional crisis that is likely to bring on an economic crisis as well.” Something seems to have gone terribly wrong in the billionaire’s calculations, with Soros’ ex-money manager, Stan Druckenmiller, warning in mid-October that the markets were “very convinced” that Trump would win.

With the Soros family dealt a major blow in Tuesday’s election and set back to where it started in 2016, only time will tell whether the OSF empire will restart its anti-Trump “resistance” movement, and if the president-elect’s inner circle – steeled by over eight years of efforts to sabotage Trump and undermine his ability to govern – will tolerate Soros-style attacks on the US political system and constitutional order.

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Eminently unqualified.

• Kamala Harris May Be Appointed Supreme Court Judge (Sp.)

US Vice President and former presidential candidate Kamala Harris may be appointed an associate justice of the US Supreme Court after the failed attempt to become the first female president of the United States, Newsweek reported, citing a Democratic member of the South Carolina House of Representatives, Bakari Sellers. Harris has a Doctor of Law degree and worked in the prosecutor’s office, the mayor’s office and for lawyers. She also served as San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general between 2011 and 2017. During that period, she refused to support two initiatives banning the death penalty in the US, which gave her opponents grounds to accuse her of inconsistency. Sellers believes outgoing US President Joe Biden can persuade the current associate justice, the 70-year-old Liberal, Sonia Sotomayor, to resign, for Harris to take her place, Newsweek said.

However, the move should be made quickly, before the Trump administration enters the White House, according to the report. “I think that’s actually a very good plan. I think it’s something that should happen,” Sellers was quoted as saying by Newsweek. Sotomayor’s health is of growing concern, since she is at quite an advanced age and has type 1 diabetes, Newsweek reported, adding that some Democrats have been urging her to resign. A presidential election took place in the United States on November 5. Republican candidate Donald Trump, who served as the US president from 2017-2021, was declared the winner by all leading race callers and networks, namely the Associated Press, Decision Desk HQ, Fox News, and CNN, NBC, ABC and CBS from the National Election Pool consortium, as he secured enough votes in the Electoral College to win the election.

Democratic candidate Kamala Harris conceded defeat in an address to her supporters, and US President Joe Biden congratulated Trump. The Electoral College, the group of presidential electors from the states, will vote for the candidate whom each state’s voters have chosen on December 17, and the results will be approved by Congress on January 6. The presidential inauguration will take place on January 20. Trump became the first US president since the 19th century to be elected to non-consecutive terms.

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“The EU is a peace project, and the war must be stopped.”

• Zelensky ‘Afraid War Will End’ – Slovak PM Fico (RT)

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky is deeply concerned about Donald Trump’s triumph in the US presidential election, fearing it could lead to a suspension of military and financial aid from Washington, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has said. In an interview with Radio Slovensko on Saturday, Fico discussed how Trump’s policies could impact global politics and the Ukraine conflict. The prime minister claimed that when he saw Zelensky during the EU summit in Budapest, Hungary, on November 7, the Ukrainian leader appeared visibly shaken. “Have you ever seen a person who is afraid that the war will end? I saw him, and his name is Vladimir Zelensky,” Fico told the host, adding that Zelensky seemed “shocked that Trump won and that there could be a halt to aid from the United States.”

Throughout the presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to end the fighting in Ukraine within “24 hours,” without specifying how he might achieve this. Fico argued that the fighting will not stop as long as the West continues to send billions of dollars’ worth of weaponry into the conflict zone. “That means there will be some fundamental decisions regarding the war in Ukraine… He is someone who simply doesn’t like wars as such,” Fico remarked, reflecting on how Trump, as a businessman, “prefers” tariffs and sanctions to military confrontations. The Slovak leader suggested that the president-elect will take “decisive steps.” If Washington cuts financing to Kiev, the EU will need to adjust its policies and push for negotiations instead of doubling down on arming Ukraine in the hope that Russia will eventually lose. “We are again acting as a military cabinet in relation to Ukraine… Is the EU ready to assume all the costs of the war in Ukraine?” Fico wondered.

“There is still an opinion that if we keep supporting Ukraine, we will bring Russia to its knees, but that does not work,” he argued, urging the bloc to recognize that this logic is flawed. “The EU is a peace project, and the war must be stopped.” European Union leaders discussed in Budapest whether they can afford to continue financing the Ukrainian military if Trump decides to withdraw Washington’s support, Bloomberg reported on Friday. However, according to sources, rather than money, they are more concerned about “the available military resources that have come primarily from the US.” Meanwhile, Zelensky seemed more concerned about the money – as he demanded from the EU roughly $300 billion in frozen Russian sovereign assets if the US cuts him off, claiming the money “rightfully belongs” to Ukraine. He also told the summit that he did not yet know Trump’s plans, and that only Kiev should “decide what should and should not be on the agenda for ending this war.”

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“.. if that is your priority of getting Crimea back and having American soldiers fight to get Crimea back, you’re on your own..”

• Zelensky Must Accept ‘Crimea Is Gone’ – Trump Strategist (RT)

The second administration of US President-elect Donald Trump will focus on achieving peace in Ukraine rather than enabling it to take back all the territory it has lost to Russia, Bryan Lanza, a senior campaign advisor to the US president-elect, has said. Lanza, a veteran Republican party strategist who has worked on campaigns with Trump since 2016, made the remarks to the BBC on Saturday. While he expressed respect for the Ukrainian people, Lanza said the US priority would be to achieve “peace and to stop the killing.” The strategist dismissed as unrealistic Kiev’s proclaimed goal of expelling Russian forces from all the territory it claims. Lanza specifically mentioned the Crimean peninsula, which broke away from Ukraine in the aftermath of the 2014 Maidan coup and joined Russia via a referendum. He did not say anything about four other formerly Ukrainian territories incorporated into the country in 2022.

When [Vladimir] Zelensky says we will only stop this fighting, there will only be peace once Crimea is returned, we’ve got news for President Zelensky: Crimea is gone. The US will not fight on Ukraine’s behalf to get the those areas back from Russia, Lanza stressed. “And if that is your priority of getting Crimea back and having American soldiers fight to get Crimea back, you’re on your own,” he said. Instead, the Ukrainian leadership should come up with a “realistic vision for peace” ahead of potential negotiations. Zelensky’s insistence that “we can only have peace if we have Crimea” just shows he is “not serious,” Lanza said. “What we’re going to say to Ukraine is, ‘You know what you see? What do you see as a realistic vision for peace? It’s not a vision for winning, but it’s a vision for peace. And let’s start having honest conversation,” he added.

Trump repeatedly promised to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine in 24 hours during his election campaign. However, he has provided little detail on how he intends to do so. Meanwhile, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance has suggested that the conflict could be frozen along the current front line, with Kiev forced to abandon its claims over the territories held by Russia, as well as its aspiration to join NATO. Lanza’s statements on the Ukraine issue do not reflect Trump’s position, Reuters reported on Saturday evening. “Brian was hired to work on the campaign,” the agency quoted a Trump campaign representative as saying. “He does not work for the president [now] and does not speak for him.”

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“J.D. Vance has previously called for Ukraine being “heavily fortified so the Russians don’t invade again” as part of a future peace process..”

• Musk Says “Time Is Up For The Warmonger Profiteers” (ZH)

The Wall Street Journal this week reported that President-Elect Donald Trump is being presented with an array of competing proposals from advisers related to his campaign promise to immediately end the war in Ukraine upon entering the White House. While he’s reportedly yet to approve a specific plan, and much might also depend on his team identifying who will fill the top national security and foreign policy posts in the administration, what’s clear is the Zelensky government will feel the pressure to immediately sit at the negotiating table with Moscow. The WSJ has revealed that the current options being considered all involve imposing a ‘freeze’ on the war, which to Kiev’s dismay would involve “cementing Russia’s seizure of roughly 20 percent of Ukraine” while imposing a 20-year suspension on Ukraine pursuing NATO membership.

The front lines in the east “would essentially lock in place” according to the proposed plan which is reportedly attracting most attention within Trump’s team, and this freeze would be enforced by European peacekeepers along an 800-mile demilitarized zone. Trump officials have told the WSJ that the president-elect is committed to seeing that no American troops are deployed as part of policing this buffer zone; instead the Europeans should shoulder the burden: “Who would police that territory remains unclear, but one adviser said the peacekeeping force wouldn’t involve American troops, nor come from a U.S.-funded international body, such as the United Nations. “We can do training and other support but the barrel of the gun is going to be European,” a member of Trump’s team said. “We are not sending American men and women to uphold peace in Ukraine. And we are not paying for it. Get the Poles, Germans, British and French to do it.”

The degree to which this plan is actually being mulled and favored by Trump is unclear. Ukraine is likely to object to being forced to give up such a large chunk of what it sees as its legitimate sovereign territory. “Anyone—no matter how senior in Trump’s circle—who claims to have a different view or more detailed window into his plans on Ukraine simply doesn’t know what he or she is talking about or doesn’t understand that he makes his own calls on national-security issues, many times in the moment, particularly on an issue as central as this,” a former Trump National Security Council aide told WSJ by way of important caveat. However, Elon Musk, who was invited by Trump to join in on a phone call with Ukraine’s President Zelensky this week, has suggested the above peace plan is likely top of the list of what’s being considered.

“The senseless killing will end soon. Time is up for the warmonger profiteers,” Musk posted on X in direct response to X commentator Mario Nawfal, who wrote about “Trump’s plan for Ukraine.” Nawfal in his original post which caught Musk’s attention wrote that Trump “reportedly plans an 800-mile demilitarized zone between Russia and Ukraine, with British and European troops patrolling the area” – quoting Newsweek. “Under the proposal, Russia would retain its territorial gains, and Ukraine would agree not to join NATO for 20 years,” Nawfal’s post added.

Another controversial aspect to the plan would be Washington would continue to pump Ukraine full of weapons while declaring it ‘neutral’ regarding NATO. J.D. Vance has previously called for Ukraine being “heavily fortified so the Russians don’t invade again” as part of a future peace process. But this would probably be especially objected to by the Kremlin, given a stated aim of Putin’s in executing the war is precisely to ‘demilitarize’ Ukraine, and to halt the advance of NATO infrastructure into the former Soviet satellite. Putin might perceive that the West continuing to arm Ukraine for many years to come would just set things up for another major future clash and war in Eastern Europe.

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“Take away the subsidies. It will only help Tesla,” Musk posted on X in July..”

• Will Trump Clash With Musk Over EV Tariffs? (Sp.)

Throughout his campaign, Donald Trump has railed against Joe Biden’s climate policies, vowing to row back spending on green energy, and boost drilling for oil and gas to “further defeat inflation.” Donald Trump may help Tesla and the domestic EV industry by imposing very high tariffs on Chinese EV exports to the US, Dr. Mamdouh G. Salameh, a global energy expert, told Sputnik. “This will give a domestic boost to Tesla,” he said, “in return for the financial and political support” that Tesla CEO Elon Musk provided to his election campaign. Weighing in on Trump’s campaign pledges to “end the electric vehicle mandate on day one,” geopolitical commentator Thomas W. Pauken II speculated that Biden’s EV subsidies were “not exactly very business-orientated.”

“It was a case of having government spending on unpopular EVs… It didn’t make the cars cheaper. It just made it cheaper for the manufacturers to produce the cars and to even go head over heels over increasing automated manufacturing. So, the subsidies, rather than invest into human labor or to lower the cost, instead went to the manufacturers to automate their factories,” he underscored. The president-elect is “correct for opposing these types of subsidies,” the pundit said. “When Biden was having to decide on what companies would get the subsidy, I’m pretty sure that he looked at the DNC donors list to see who is more worthy of the subsidies and who is not,” Pauken II added.

Biden made EVs the centerpiece of his administration’s bid to fight climate change, allocating billions to manufacturers, the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program to install more EV chargers, incentives for battery factories, and tax credits for buyers. Trump, however, has slammed EVs as too expensive and undermining the American auto industry. In his nomination speech at the Republican National Convention, Donald Trump said that he would “end the electric vehicle mandate on day one,” adding that this would result in “saving the US auto industry from complete obliteration, which is happening right now, and saving US customers thousands and thousands of dollars per car.”

Elon Musk, who donated over $119 million to a political action committee in his support, according to Federal Election Commission filings, has dismissed concerns about a potential end to Biden’s EV tax credit. “Take away the subsidies. It will only help Tesla,” Musk posted on X in July. Shares of Tesla, Inc. soared 15% on the results of the November 5 election, adding roughly $15 billion in value to Musk’s net worth.

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“..this is a clash of the very principles on which relations between countries and peoples will be built at the next historical stage.”

• Putin Outlines The ‘Moment of Truth’ (Pepe Escobar)

President Putin’s plenary session performance (address + Q&A) at the annual Valdai Club meeting in Sochi felt like a high-speed train on cruise control. Totally cool, calm, comfortable, in full command of a Himalaya of facts, no political leader anywhere – recent past and present – would even come close to delivering what amounts to an extensive, detailed world view deeply matured over a quarter of a century at the highest geopolitical level. Putin began his address referring to the October 1917 revolution, drawing a direct parallel with our turbulent times: “The moment of truth is coming”. In a clear tribute to Gramsci, he stated how a “completely new world order” is “being formed before our eyes.” The subtle reference to the recent BRICS summit in Kazan could not possibly escape critical minds across the Global Majority.

Kazan was a living, breathing testimony that “the old order is irrevocably disappearing, one might say, has already disappeared, and a serious, irreconcilable struggle is unfolding for the formation of a new one. Irreconcilable, first of all, because this is not even a fight for power or geopolitical influence, this is a clash of the very principles on which relations between countries and peoples will be built at the next historical stage.” As concisely as possible, that should be taken as the current Big Picture framework: we are not mired inside a reductionist clash of civilizations or the “end of History” – which Putin defined as “myopic” – but facing a make-or-break systemic clash of fundamental principles. The result will define this century – arguably the Eurasia Century, as “the dialectics of History continues.” Putin himself quipped that he would drive into “philosophical asides” during his address.

In fact that went much further than a mere refutation of unilateral conceptual fallacies, as “the Western elites thought that their monopoly is the final stop for humanity” and “modern neoliberalism degenerated into a totalitarian ideology.” Referring to AI, he asked rhetorically, “will human remain human?” He praised the building of a new global architecture, moving towards a “polyphonic” and “polycentric” world where “maximum representation” is paramount and the BRICS are “coming up with a coordinated approach” based on “sovereign equality.”

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“Peace is possible if Trump can escape from the US military/security complex and the warmonger neoconservatives.”

• Neoliberalism Has “Become a Totalitarian Ideology” – Putin (Paul Craig Roberts)

At the Valdai Forum Putin said that neoliberalism stifles national sovereignty and traditional values and erodes national cultures, thus eliminating diversity. “There is no room for difference in the neoliberal order. It seeks to flatten diversity rather than celebrate it.” Washington’s unipolar system “only serves a small number of powerful elites.” Now that Putin has come to these realizations, perhaps he will replace his neoliberal central bank director. Putin thanks Washington for the economic sanctions that forced Russia off the mistaken path of globalism. “The sanctions have forced us to look inward, to focus on developing domestic industries.” Globalism is a one-way street to economic death. For Americans the consequence was the offshoring of American industry and middle class jobs, pressure on state and local budgets, and the loss of a trained work force.

Putin says that he respects Western civilization–probably more than do graduates and professors of Western universities. The problem is not Western culture. The problem is with the aggressive policies of Western governments. Putin is puzzled that such weak political and military countries are so aggressive toward such a powerful unified country as Russia. Putin said Trump was a capable leader who has shown courage and resilience. Putin declared willingness to work with Trump to normalize relations and put them on a more constructive path. Now that both powers have capable leaders perhaps the world can escape from war. Peace is possible if Trump can escape from the US military/security complex and the warmonger neoconservatives.

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WHO

 

 

RFK

 

 

CO2

 

 

Panther

 

 

Simple

 

 

Pick up

 

 

Yakutia

 

 

Plane

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle November 9 2024

Nov 092024
 
 November 9, 2024  Posted by at 9:25 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  69 Responses »


Claude Monet Camille Sitting on the Beach at Trouville 1870-71

 

• Trump’s ‘New Conservatism’ Can Bring A Revival of The True American Spirit (RT)
• The System Worked (Jeffrey Tucker)
• Trump Prosecutors Stuck on Listless Ships Without a Port of Call (Turley)
• DOJ Says Policy Is to Not Prosecute Presidents (ET)
• Aborted- Be Careful What You Wish For (James Howard Kunstler)
• The World According to Trump – with Col. Wilkerson (Chris Hedges)
• Musk Joined Trump-Zelensky Call – Axios (RT)
• Putin Left Door Open to West (Sp.)
• Zelensky Wants All Of Russia’s Frozen Money (RT)
• Nearly Fifth of Ukraine’s Soldiers AWOL Amid Collapse in Morale (Sp.)
• US Will Abandon Ukraine – Orban (RT)
• EU ‘Lacks Brains’ – Putin (RT)
• Russian And Ukrainian Officials Meet In Belarus (RT)
• The Colonization of Europe By The United States (Vasco)
• Dr. Peter McCullough Calls On Trump To Remove The Covid-19 Vaccine (JTN)
• Dutch Health Minister Admits Covid is a Military Operation” (PCR)

 

 

 

 

Flynn warns of third assassination attempt

Second most

Tucker Vivek

Vivek

Idiots
https://twitter.com/i/status/1854902036698935645

Fed

Homan
https://twitter.com/i/status/1854850081893007519

 

 

 

 

Trump, the Economy & World War III: Col. Douglas Macgregor’s Shocking Predictions

 

 

Galloway: The greatest comeback since the Rumble in the Jungle

 

 

 

 

 

 

Constantin von Hoffmeister.

“The “new conservatism” inaugurated by Trump is guided by precepts that once defined the American way of life..”

• Trump’s ‘New Conservatism’ Can Bring A Revival of The True American Spirit (RT)

Donald Trump has accomplished the improbable once more – mastering every obstacle and surviving two assassination attempts – to reclaim the throne as president of the United States. In a nation whose corrupt establishment sought to sideline him, he returns not as a defeated man but as one propelled by a profound connection with the American spirit, a connection that no attack could diminish in the slightest. Trump’s return embodies resilience and an enduring rapport with the people, marking the most remarkable comeback in American history. He has taken political center stage again to revive America’s core values and lead his supporters towards a renewal of genuine American principles. Trump’s return has reignited the aura of the time up through the 1980s when America’s moral and cultural values were clear, stable, and honored by the everyday citizen.

The nuclear family, veneration of one’s heritage, gun rights, and unfiltered patriotism – the values cherished in the past are now considered “reactionary.” However, with Trump’s victory, these values might regain their prominent place, repelling the leftist currents that have tried to undermine them for decades. This signals a dramatic shift in America’s ideological trajectory. Trump’s election acts as a direct response to decades of leftist domination in media, academia, and politics. The “new conservatism” inaugurated by Trump is guided by precepts that once defined the American way of life, including the acceptance of traditional gender roles, religion’s high status in public life, and a perception of freedom based on constructive individualism, not coercive rhetoric. Trump’s base, often labeled “backward,” sees itself as repossessing the dignity of the average, and thus quintessential, American.

It understands that what was once normal is now framed as “right-wing extremist” or “radical” simply because the ground beneath America’s cultural landscape has shifted so far left. The anti-liberal movement that Trump embodies has roots in George Wallace Jr.’s presidential campaign in 1968 and Pat Buchanan’s populist challenge to the Republican establishment in the 1990s. Trump continues these legacies, proving that his message is heard by those who feel alienated by the sterile and homogenized culture foisted upon them. His leadership represents a recapture of cultural space that many Americans feel has been taken from them. With Trump’s win, America is going to regain its sanity – its center.

In the aftermath of Trump’s triumph, our expectation is shifting forward, where J. D. Vance is positioned as a fitting successor. In his autobiographical account Hillbilly Elegy, Vance describes with unflinching clarity the plight of the white working class, revealing the same wounds of disintegration and despair that stirred Trump’s ascent. His book lays bare the erosion of blue-collar America – the scourge of addiction, the decay of family bonds, and the economic desolation haunting rural communities. These communities, spurned and mocked by the urban mainstream and coastal cosmopolitans, have become Trump’s most loyal supporters. Vance, with his intellectual acuity and profound understanding of this demographic, stands ready to carry the torch of Trump’s populist message, built on a more conceptual foundation.

One of Trump’s most significant pronouncements in his 2016 campaign – “Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo” – was far more than simple rhetoric; it was a fierce call to renounce the burdens of global stewardship. With “America First,” Trump tapped into the psyche of a people weary of perpetual wars and foreign obligations that sapped the nation’s strength and spirit. The 2017 National Security Strategy echoed this reorientation, asserting that “the American way of life cannot be imposed upon others, nor is it the inevitable culmination of progress.” Here, Trump’s message resonated with unmistakable clarity: the duty of the American government lies foremost with its own citizens, firmly tied to the preservation of its own destiny.

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“It was the least expected conclusion to the most contentious election of our lives or perhaps in a century or more..”

• The System Worked (Jeffrey Tucker)

These have been a dark few years in which many suppositions about the U.S. system of government have come into question. You can see it in the polls showing the loss of trust. It has pertained to everything from medicine to media to tech to academia and of course government. In addition, the sources we once associated with expertise have pushed agendas that have contradicted all experience and hence have been rejected by vast numbers. The United States is hardly alone in this. Most countries of the world today are dealing with a wrenching upheaval in politics and social order generally. Stability has turned to instability, certainty to uncertainty, and clarity to the fog of war. The resulting thicket seemed to offer no way out. As an inevitable part of this, many people have questioned whether the democratic system of choosing leaders works properly anymore.

Protests following election returns are common worldwide, not necessarily because people have stopped believing in the ideal but because they doubt that the count is accurate and the ballots are legitimate. Technology has not helped this problem but rather introduced more doubt. This problem has massively afflicted the United States in recent years. There have been doubts at every point, not helped by a well-documented loosening of voting rules during the pandemic response (the CDC encouraged mail-in voting) and then after during a refugee wave that has disrupted many communities around the country. This is a serious problem: when people have doubts about such a core functioning of the system, there is a feeling of being caged in a machine only the elites control. This is a major reason for the shock concerning election results. It’s not just that the Republicans swept the presidency and one if not both houses of Congress but also the popular vote, which no one really believed possible.

The betting markets gave such an outcome very low odds. Many people this year trudged the polls with grave doubts about the relevance of what they were doing. Is the system so broken that the will of the people no longer matters as compared with the power of the elites? This was a real shock, from people from all sides. It was that the people’s voice rose above all the money, manipulation, claims of fraud, uncertainties over voter ID, technology, and so much more. For years now, people have habitually found fault with nearly everything. The prediction was that the conclusion of the vote in the presidency would take days, weeks, or even months. Such a prospect is enormously depressing for a nation that imagines itself to be a great one. But sure enough, the results came in on a perfect schedule, as the polls closed, culminating in a result for a candidate that had for years now faced down attacks from every angle. It was the least expected conclusion to the most contentious election of our lives or perhaps in a century or more.

It was a clean victory for Donald J. Trump, including the popular vote. Not only that: it was a credible result. That’s the key. The result accomplished much. It wiped out several years of partisan agitation against the system of the Electoral College as established in the U.S. Constitution. The purpose of this institution is to grant a more even representation of the states as entities over the popular will. This traces to the federalist system established by the Founders, not a unity government from the center but a federation of states that have come together for their common betterment. Wiping that structure out would have been transformative. But with a victory of the popular vote, that is no longer an issue. It would not have changed the result. This feature, truly blessed, of the outcome also quelled much-predicted street violence. Even the concession speech by Kamala Harris was conciliatory, and contained not even one hint of funny business or rigging. It was a clear and challenged expression of popular will to which everyone on all sides had to accede.

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“Trump will not be the only defendant to see substantial changes on January 20, 2025. Trump has pledged to pardon those prosecuted over the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot.”

• Trump Prosecutors Stuck on Listless Ships Without a Port of Call (Turley)

Nearly two years ago, I wrote that Democratic prosecutors’ lawfare campaign against Donald Trump would make the 2024 election the single largest jury decision in history. Now that the verdict is in, the question is whether prosecutors will continue their unrelenting campaign against the president-elect and his companies. The answer is that it may not matter. The election reflected a certain gag sensation for a public fed a relentless diet of panic and identity politics for eight years. The 2024 election will come to be viewed as one of the biggest political and cultural shifts in our history. It was the mainstream-media-versus-new media election; the Rogan-versus-Oprah election; the establishment-versus-a-disassociated-electorate election. It was also a thorough rejection of lawfare. One of the things most frustrating for Trump’s opponents was that every trial or hearing seemed to give Trump a boost in the polls. As cases piled up in Washington, New York, Florida and Georgia, the effort seemed to move more toward political acclamation than isolation.

These cases are now legal versions of the Flying Dutchman — ships destined to sail endlessly but never make port. If there is a single captain of that hapless crew, it is Special Counsel Jack Smith. For more than a year, Smith sought to secure a verdict in one of his two cases in Washington and Florida before the election. His urgency was seemingly shared by Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, but by few other judges or justices. Around 2 am, Smith became a lame-duck prosecutor. Trump ran on ending his prosecutions and can cite a political mandate for it. Certainly, had he lost, the other side would be claiming a mandate for these prosecutions. Trump’s new attorney general could remove Smith and order the termination of his continued prosecution. That is less of a problem in Florida, where a federal judge had already tossed out the prosecution of the classified documents case, which some of us saw as the greatest threat against Trump.

In Washington, Chutkan, who proved both motivated and active in pushing forward the election interference case, could complicate matters. Under federal rules, it is up to Chutkan to order any dismissal. In the case of former national security adviser Michael Flynn, Judge Emmet Sullivan resisted granting the dismissal sought by the Justice Department — a record that I criticized as both unusual and unwarranted. Chutkan could run the incoming Trump administration around on any dismissal, but in the end, it should succeed in ending Smith’s ill-considered indictment. In reality, Smith was not only losing the Florida case but was likely to be reversed again in Washington due to his refusal to make sufficient changes in his indictment of Trump after the recent immunity decision by the Supreme Court. Smith could make one last push to damage Trump in the period before the inauguration by pushing for an immunity decision from Chutkan. He would again likely find a supportive ally in Chutkan.

However, in the end, this would do little to change the fact that the Flying Dutchman will soon be without a crew or port of call. One of the most immediate cases to resume is the prosecution in Manhattan by District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Many, including commentators like CNN’s senior legal analyst Elie Honig, have denounced that case as legally flawed and obviously politically motivated. Judge Juan Merchan is scheduled to rule on the immunity issue by Nov. 11 and to hold a possible sentencing on Nov. 26. Merchan has shown a pronounced bias against Trump in the past, and his counsel is likely anticipating a continuation of this pattern. Merchan could sentence Trump to jail. However, such an abusive sentencing, even a brief one, would likely trigger an expedited appeal and would likely be stayed. Trump cannot pardon himself in a state case, but the case itself is a target-rich environment of arguable legal errors that could collapse on appeal.

Another case in New York is likely to move forward now. There is a pending appeal on the massive civil case against Trump brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James. For many, James is the very face of lawfare as a prosecutor who ran on getting Trump on something, anything. She ultimately secured another openly biased judge in Justice Arthur Engoron, who imposed an absurd, grotesque $455 million in fines and interest against Trump and his corporation. Notably, some of the judges on the appellate panel seemed to agree with that assessment, questioning not just the amount but the very use of this law in a case where there was no victim and no one lost a single dollar due to the fraud alleged. My assumption is that the opinion is already written, held back only because of the election. It could now be issued and constitute a major change in the case. Whatever is left of that judgment, if anything, would then certainly be appealed.

Then there is the roaring dumpster fire in Georgia. An appellate court there will decide whether District Attorney Fani Willis and her office can continue prosecuting the case. If they are forced off the case, a new prosecutor must review the matter. While some criminal allegations against defendants can be established, the alleged racketeering conspiracy against Trump is legally flawed and likely to fail on appeal. Trump will also continue to appeal civil cases such as the E. Jean Carroll case, which will linger long past the election. Trump will not be the only defendant to see substantial changes on January 20, 2025. Trump has pledged to pardon those prosecuted over the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot. The public elected him despite that pledge and over the opposition of Democrats. That will affect hundreds and may come in the form of a mix of pardons and commutations, depending on the underlying charges.

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The GOP has demanded that Jack Smith preserve all his records.

• DOJ Says Policy Is to Not Prosecute Presidents (ET)

Special counsel Jack Smith’s office said the Department of Justice (DOJ) has a longstanding policy not to prosecute a sitting president, in response to a query about whether it will drop its criminal cases against President-elect Donald Trump, who won the 2024 election. Peter Carr, a spokesman for the special counsel’s office, declined to comment on whether the office will drop its cases but directed The Epoch Times to a 2000 memo from the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel. It states that “indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would unconstitutionally undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions.” Multiple Republicans called on the DOJ and local district attorneys to end their prosecutions of Trump after he won the presidential election on Nov. 5.

“The American people have spoken: the lawfare must end,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) wrote in a post on social media platform X. “I call on Attorney General Garland, [Manhattan District Attorney] Alvin Bragg, and [Fulton County District Attorney] Fani Willis to immediately terminate the politically motivated prosecutions of President Donald Trump.” On Nov. 6, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) wrote on X that special counsel Jack Smith should “look forward to a new chapter” in his legal career. “The Supreme Court substantially rejected what you were trying to do, and after tonight, it’s clear the American people are tired of lawfare. Bring these cases to an end,” Graham wrote.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1854615830358614487

Former Attorney General Bill Barr, who served under Trump, told Fox News that prosecutors should “do the right” thing and end their cases against the president-elect. “Further maneuvering on these cases in the weeks ahead would serve no legitimate purpose and only distract the country and the incoming administration from the task at hand,” Barr said. “The public interest now demands that the country unite and focus on the challenges we face at home and abroad. Attorney General Garland and all the state prosecutors should do the right thing and help the country move forward by dismissing the cases.” He said that the U.S. electorate has “rendered their verdict on President Trump and decisively chosen him to lead the country for the next four years.” “They did that with full knowledge of the claims against him by prosecutors around the country, and I think Attorney General Garland and the state prosecutors should respect the people’s decision and dismiss the cases against President Trump now,” Barr said.

Trump is slated to appear before a New York judge later this month to face sentencing after he was charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection to payments he made during the 2016 election. He was convicted by a jury in May. He had pleaded not guilty and denies the allegations. However, with the election result, it’s not clear whether Trump will receive any sentencing after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that presidents should have some degree of immunity from prosecution for official acts. It’s unclear what Judge Juan Merchan will do following the election. Merchan has already pushed back the sentencing date twice. Trump faces charges in Fulton County, Georgia, for allegedly trying to illegally overturn the 2020 election results, although that case is currently in limbo after the president-elect and several co-defendants appealed a judge’s ruling to allow Willis to remain on the case. The Georgia Appeals Court is currently scheduled to take up a Trump appeal next year, and the case is currently on pause.

Willis, a Democrat, was elected to another term in office as Fulton County’s top prosecutor on Nov. 5, according to projections from The Associated Press. In two federal cases brought against him, Trump faces criminal charges in Washington, brought by Smith, over his alleged activity following the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol breach. A separate case that was brought by Smith in Florida over his handling of classified documents was dismissed by a federal judge earlier this year, although Smith had appealed it. When Trump officially takes office, he could use his presidential authority to dismiss the two cases brought by Smith, who was appointed by Garland. However, he has less latitude in dealing with the cases brought in New York City and Fulton County. In public events and on social media, Trump often has said that the various criminal cases brought against him were attempts to interfere in the 2024 election.

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“The Democratic Party and the Deep State blob really did try to steal that from you. As they stole the 2020 election — which is probably one of the things to be revealed in the process.”

• Aborted- Be Careful What You Wish For (James Howard Kunstler)

At last, it appears that the Party of Chaos got its fondest wish: it aborted itself in the 2024 election. “Joe Biden” was the coat-hanger it used: this miserable, grifting, now-senile hack politician who will be remembered only for driving his country to the verge of ruin. And for what? All in an effort to cover-up a long train of crimes and abuses against the American people perpetrated by a permanent bureaucracy gone rogue that was the party’s partner-in-crime. And now it’s over. The childishness of the Left — AOC whining about “fascism” — is under-appreciated. Note how the party’s most august mouthpiece, The New York Times, pretends to soul-search in the aftermath of the election debacle. “Many Democrats were considering how to navigate a dark future, with the party unable to stop Mr. Trump from carrying out a right-wing transformation of American government. Others turned inward, searching for why the nation rejected them. They spoke about misinformation and the struggle to communicate the party’s vision in a diminished news environment inundated with right-wing propaganda” — The New York Times

The New York Times diminished itself. It drove itself crazy with narratives — just as a crazy person with disordered thoughts can’t discern what’s real and what’s not. What they need is a serious mental health check. The time for incessant lying, hoaxing, and performative hysteria is over. On Thursday, in a three-minute speech, the President-elect set out a clear list of measures to reconstruct a national consensus based on reality. It includes firing a lot of people in the agencies, dis-embedding all the inspector-generals from the departments they oversee, establishing a “truth and reconciliation commission” to declassify and publish documents “related to alleged deep state activities, including spying, censorship, and corruption,” and finding out who exactly at the CIA / FBI / DHS / and other places has been leaking fables and falsehoods to the news media. In other words, clear away a shit-ton of untruth that burdens the consciousness of country.

Though the statement omitted to say so directly, it’s very likely that a number of public officials will find themselves before grand juries in the years ahead. If you haven’t figured it out already, you’ll learn that the term “misinformation” was just the gas in the gaslight used to confound the country about what has really been at stake — which is your personal liberty in what is supposed to be a free country. The Democratic Party and the Deep State blob really did try to steal that from you. As they stole the 2020 election — which is probably one of the things to be revealed in the process.

Look at this bar graph. Note how many millions more votes were cast in the 2020 elections than in the two previous and now in the 2024 contest. How did that happen? Where did that surplus supply come from? The Covid-19 scam provided the cover for a profligate mail-in ballot operation. They deluged the country with paper. Mark Zuckerberg provided $450-million through his cut-out charities to hire thousands of party activists to harvest and fill-out fraudulent ballots, and stuff them in drop-boxes by the hundredweight, with special attention to the crucial precincts in swing states — and that’s what landed the basement-cringing candidate, “Joe Biden,” in the White House.

It was that simple, and that much in-your-face, and for four years the official organs of the news swatted the truth away claiming they were “false, baseless, conspiracy theories” — and half the country was credulous enough to believe that. Or mentally ill, not able to tell fantasy from reality, especially in the newsrooms. Even more shamefully, this half of the country was led by the better-educated, credentialed, managerial class of citizens, who, amazingly, managed to turn intelligence into a new kind of personal liability. (The simplest explanation for that astounding failure is that people who consider themselves “experts” eagerly believe other experts and credentialed authorities, making them easiest to dupe. That’s why the faculty lounges are full of Jacobins.)

The winning side in this contest didn’t vote against Kamala Harris so much as they voted against the Democratic Party, the Party of Chaos, of BLM riots, of drag queens in the school library, of men in the women’s swim lane (and locker room), of forced vaccinations (your bodily autonomy, sister?), of locking up grandmothers who walked through the Capitol rotunda, of state-driven censorship, of malicious political prosecutions, of ruinous proxy war, of flooding the country with criminal alien mutts, of Mao Zedong style erasing of history, of FISA court surveillance, and, finally, of the same sort of self-loathing for the nation that a three hundred pound sophomore with a nose ring and sleeve tattoos feels for herself.

Kunstler

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Wilkerson: “..it’s genuine. I don’t think he likes war. I don’t think he likes starting wars.”

Hedges is a lifelong leftie not flexible enough to comprehemd what just happened.

• The World According to Trump – with Col. Wilkerson (Chris Hedges)

Donald Trump will become the 47th president of the United States and given the host of global debacles the US has its hands in—ranging from the genocide in Gaza, to Israel’s attacks on Lebanon and Iran to the Ukraine war—nobody is quite certain what direction the country will take with the former president at the helm again. Joining host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report is Lawrence Wilkerson, a retired Army colonel and former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell. With his extensive insights and expertise into the Middle East and American foreign policy, Wilkerson provides a valuable understanding into what a Trump presidency may look like outside of the borders of America.

Wilkerson predicts Trump will stay true to “his disdain for war,” emphasizing “it’s genuine. I don’t think he likes war. I don’t think he likes starting wars.” Regarding Ukraine, Wilkerson thinks Trump will shut down the war effort. But when it comes to the Middle East, that commitment clashes with one of Trump’s long standing loyalties: unwavering support for Israel. War with Iran seems increasingly likely by the day despite, according to Wilkerson, resistance from the Pentagon and prior administrations. In the case of Trump, however, “you wonder how long that resistance can hold up if the president of the United States is intent on—and this is the one place where Trump really worries me—doing everything in his power for Israel,” Wilkerson notes. He adds, “Trump has made it quite clear that that’s his policy, that’s his belief, and I think he’s being honest about it.”

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Wonder whose idea that was.

Musk has allegedly predicted the conflict will be over soon.

• Musk Joined Trump-Zelensky Call – Axios (RT)

Elon Musk joined US President-elect Donald Trump’s phone call with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky the day after Trump prevailed in the US election, Axios claimed on Friday. According to sources familiar with the conversation, Trump reassured Zelensky of US support, though he avoided specific commitments on aid. At the same time, Musk added that he would keep supporting Ukraine with Starlink satellites, which have been a critical link for Ukraine’s communication and defense. Both men have previously been critical of financial and military support for Ukraine, saying that Kiev cannot win the conflict. The outlet described the move as a surprise that added a layer of intrigue to the call between the president-elect and the embattled leader in Kiev.

Musk’s involvement underscores his influence with Trump and his complex stance on the war, Axios added. Earlier this year, Musk allegedly told Republican US senators during an X Spaces conversation that Ukraine could not realistically win against Russia. “There is no way in hell [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is going to lose,” he reportedly said to Senators Ron Johnson and Mike Lee, among others. “This spending does not help Ukraine; prolonging the war does not help Ukraine. Having these boys die for nothing is wrong and needs to stop.” Musk has also urged citizens to contact their representatives and oppose continued aid, comments that generated backlash for his perceived cynicism toward Ukraine’s cause. The Biden administration is aiming to accelerate military assistance to Ukraine before the January 20 transfer of power, amid concerns Trump might cut support.

However, Trump’s call with Zelensky apparently sent a different message, with the Ukrainian leader later describing the conversation as “positive” and saying Trump’s outreach so soon after his victory was encouraging. Yet Zelensky remains cautious. Speaking at a press event in Budapest on Thursday, he stressed that while he appreciated the prompt call, he “cannot yet know” what Trump’s actions will ultimately be. Zelensky added, “If it’s just fast, it means losses for Ukraine. I just don’t yet understand how this could be in any other way.” During the campaign, Trump frequently pledged to end the conflict quickly but avoided detailing how.

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“..performed brilliantly in terms of being on top of his brief, having all these facts and figures at his fingertip, being very articulate, being very clear, answering questions directly.”

“I can’t think of any other political leader in the world who could perform in that kind of way..”

• Putin Left Door Open to West (Sp.)

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a speech at the plenary session of the 21st Annual Meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club on Thursday. While criticizing Western leaders for failing to serve the interests of their people, Vladimir Putin also sent a positive signal for the future, Geoffrey Roberts, emeritus professor of history at University College Cork, Ireland, told Sputnik. “Very clearly, he [Putin] is signaling continued resistance to Western hegemony, Western dominance. He also makes his point, time and again, that European political leaders aren’t serving their country’s best interests […] by the policy that they’re pursuing in terms of global politics,” he noted.

However, at the same time, the Russian president “made it clear that Russia is not going to run after the West to restore relations, but the door is open if that’s the choice that the West wants to make,” the leading British scholar on Soviet diplomatic and military history underscored. It’s not clear whether US President-elect Donald Trump will pursue friendly relations with Russia, but the chances are much higher now, Roberts speculated. “[Vladimir Putin] said that if Trump wants to improve relations, he is open to it,” Roberts said after attending Putin’s speech and a Q&A session at the Valdai Club. “It would be a while before we know what’s going to happen. I think a big factor will be who he [Trump] appoints to key positions in foreign policy and national security… I also think Trump will be very reluctant to increase the American commitment to NATO in any way and to see further expansion of NATO […] in Europe or elsewhere.

But as I say, that’s a matter for speculation,” the emeritus professor noted. According to the academic, Putin was “very relaxed, very confident” throughout his appearance at the event, and “performed brilliantly in terms of being on top of his brief, having all these facts and figures at his fingertip, being very articulate, being very clear, answering questions directly.” “He’s responding on the spot to comments, statements, questions that the people at the meeting, the members of the Valdai Club, are making. I can’t think of any other political leader in the world who could perform in that kind of way,” Roberts remarked.

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Biden is crazy enough to give it to him before Jan. 20.

• Zelensky Wants All Of Russia’s Frozen Money (RT)

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has demanded that the $300 billion of Russian sovereign assets currently immobilized by sanctions in Western financial institutions be given to Kiev. He raised the issue of Western aid, particularly the possibility that US President-elect Donald Trump could cut aid for Kiev, at a press conference following the European Political Community summit in Budapest on Thursday. Following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, the US and its allies froze an estimated $300 billion in assets belonging to the Russian central bank. The bulk of the funds, around €197 billion ($213 billion), are being held at Euroclear. The Brussels-based clearinghouse has estimated that the impounded Russian assets generated €5.15 billion ($5.55 billion) in interest in the first three quarters of this fiscal year.

“Everyone says: What will you do if Trump does not support you financially? Where will you get weapons? Let me answer you. Can we take the $300 billion that rightfully belongs to us?” Zelensky said. This would allow Ukraine to buy armaments for itself, he claimed. “Is it possible for us to decide for ourselves what kind of weapons we need? Can we decide for ourselves what to do with this money?” he added. The US and its European allies have so far allocated more than $218 billion in aid to Kiev since the escalation of the conflict, according to stats from Germany’s Kiel Institute. However, in recent months, the payments have been getting smaller and the larger aid allocations have instead been loans.

In October, G7 states finalized a massive $50 billion loan for Ukraine to be backed by profits accrued on the frozen Russian assets currently immobilized in the West. Despite US pressure to confiscate the assets in their entirety, the IMF has so far opposed this course of action, raising concerns that it could undermine trust in the Western financial system. Moscow has denounced the asset freeze as “theft,” and repeatedly warned that tapping its funds would be illegal and set a dangerous precedent. Western donors have become increasingly concerned about the money allocated to Kiev, as corruption has been one of Ukraine’s biggest problems for years. In June, the European Commission also set up a special watchdog to prevent possible embezzlement. Earlier this year, the Pentagon’s inspector general described corruption in Ukraine as “endemic,” and its government as “one of the least accountable” in Europe.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1854847549242294536

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“..a million men of military age are estimated to be on the run across Ukraine..”

• Nearly Fifth of Ukraine’s Soldiers AWOL Amid Collapse in Morale (Sp.)

Ukraine’s deep manpower shortage has overshadowed the steady flow of Western arms deliveries. Against the backdrop of Russia’s steady advance, Kiev regime military personnel have been surrendering and deserting in droves, while over a million men of military age are estimated to be on the run across Ukraine. Almost a fifth of Ukraine’s soldiers have gone AWOL from their positions, The Economist cited a source in the general staff as saying. An overwhelming collapse in morale on the front line amid Russia’s steady advance is driving mass desertion, a senior Ukrainian military commander has claimed. Despite more Western weapons in the pipeline for Ukraine, these is a “breakdown of trust between society, the army and the political leadership” in Kiev, according to the outlet.

It added that Ukraine has been struggling to replace vast battlefield losses with conscription, “barely hitting two-thirds of its target.” Rampant draft dodging and desertion forced the Volodymyr Zelensky regime to adopt a new draconian mobilization law this year, while also lowering the recruitment age from 27 to 25. Ukrainians are increasingly resisting being sent into the meat grinder of a proxy conflict. Earlier, in October, Ukrainian media reported that since the beginning of 2022, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office has registered some 60,000 criminal cases of unauthorized abandonment of a unit and about 30,000 cases of desertion.

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“The biggest problem in Europe right now is that they don’t talk to those who need to be talked to,” he said. “This is a luxury one cannot afford in politics.”

• US Will Abandon Ukraine – Orban (RT)

US President-elect Donald Trump will pull his country out of the Ukraine conflict, leaving EU leaders in an “uncomfortable and difficult position,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said. “The situation on the front line is obvious. It’s a military defeat. The Americans will get out of this war,” he told Kossuth Radio on Friday. “Europe alone cannot finance this war.” Some EU leaders want to keep pouring money into a lost cause but the silence is growing among those with such an opinion, Orban said, while others are calling for a policy reassessment. Meanwhile, the few nations that have been advocating de-escalation and talks, including Hungary itself, as well as Slovakia and the Vatican, have been vindicated, he added. Orban’s prediction of a change in US foreign policy follows Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election earlier this week.

The Republican has previously claimed that he could end the Ukraine conflict in 24 hours. The Hungarian leader expects major changes for the entire world after Trump’s win, which he said was so big that “it can be seen not only from the Moon, but also from Mars.” Politicians who have been pushing for a Ukrainian victory are now in a bind, but they always knew that such an outcome was possible, Orban said. Earlier this year, he conducted what he called a “peace mission,” meeting stakeholders in the conflict. He traveled to Kiev, Moscow, and Beijing, as well as to the US, where he discussed the issue with President Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

Budapest subsequently sent a report to other EU member states, which recommended that they should prepare for a shift on Ukraine, so “there is no reason for any leader to say that they were surprised,” Orban said. “The biggest problem in Europe right now is that they don’t talk to those who need to be talked to,” he said. “This is a luxury one cannot afford in politics.” Orban was maligned by some other EU leaders for his diplomatic engagements. They claimed that he was siding with Russia and abusing Hungary’s rotating presidency of the EU by allegedly giving the impression that he was acting on Brussels’ behalf. The prime minister clarified that he was representing only his own nation.

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“When I talk to my colleagues and experts – I don’t want to offend anyone – but I often ask them what the EU lacks. They answer that it lacks brains..”

• EU ‘Lacks Brains’ – Putin (RT)

The EU lacks leaders who act based on the national interests of their countries, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. He also claimed that the bloc’s current economic policies are devised by people with insufficient expertise who are guided by “vassalage” to the US. “When I talk to my colleagues and experts – I don’t want to offend anyone – but I often ask them what the EU lacks. They answer that it lacks brains,” Putin said at the Valdai International Discussion Club in the Russian Black Sea city of Sochi on Thursday. “It is not that they are stupid, but that the decisions in the economic sphere are made by politicians who have nothing to do with the economy,” the Russian leader stated. As a result, the steps taken by the bloc, such as anti-Russia sanctions, are “politicized, ill-considered, and baseless,” he added. We see that many European countries – and almost all NATO members – they take steps that work to the detriment of their own interests and only benefit US politics and economy.

Putin mentioned former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, whom he praised for acting “solely” in the interests of the German people. He cited one such example as being the construction of the Nord Stream pipelines, through which Russia supplied gas to Germany until their partial destruction due to sabotage in September 2022. “Schroeder did not do that in the interests of Russia, did not do it in order to create conditions for us to obtain economic benefits, but solely in the interests of the German people, fighting to ensure that the best conditions for the supplies,” Putin stated. Schroeder “deliberately risked his political career” by making decisions “completely unpopular” among his peers, Putin added. The Russian leader lamented that “very few” politicians in Germany or the broader EU can do that today, arguing that this is why their economies are in a state of crisis.

The Russian leader also criticized EU politicians for abandoning Russian gas amid sanctions linked with the Ukraine conflict. This is “incomprehensible,” Putin said, as these same politicians “made so much noise” about their green goals, only to seek alternative supply sources and restart coal plants amid the energy crisis that resulted from their actions. Putin stressed that the bloc needs more politicians such as Schroeder, who “have their own opinion,” are “consistent” in their policies, and act in the interests of the people. “People see what’s really happening. If the gap between the ruling elites who are guided by other’s interests and the bulk of the population increases, nationally oriented political forces will grow… Everything will eventually lead to a weakening of this vassalage [to the US],” he stated.

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“Russia received 37 bodies, while handing Ukraine 563.” “The lopsided numbers point the real ratio of casualties on the battlefield, multiple Russian media outlets have said..”

• Russian And Ukrainian Officials Meet In Belarus (RT)

Delegations from Moscow and Kiev have met in Belarus to exchange bodies of the fallen and discuss humanitarian matters, Russian Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova has revealed. The last time Moskalkova met with her Ukrainian counterpart, Dmitry Lubinets, was in January 2023. “We exchanged lists of persons visited by mutual consent and letters from prisoners to their relatives, and also discussed further humanitarian cooperation in providing assistance to civilians, including establishing the location and reunification of families, and mutual visits to prisoners,” Moskalkova said on Friday, in a statement posted on Telegram.

One family reunification has already taken place. Anna Kondratyevna, a 91-year-old resident of Cherkasy Region, was brought to Belarus so she could be transferred to Russia and be taken care of by her family there. “Her son asked us for help in transferring his mother to Russia, where he could look after her,” Moskalkova said, noting that the Ukrainian side agreed, but the situation was complicated by the fact that Kondratyevna could not move independently.The meeting in Belarus was also used to exchange the remains of fallen soldiers. Russia received 37 bodies, while handing Ukraine 563.

Among the remains handed over to Ukraine were the bodies of 62 POWs killed in January this year, when a Russian Il-76 transport airplane was shot down over Belgorod Region by Ukraine’s US-supplied Patriot missiles. The lopsided numbers point the real ratio of casualties on the battlefield, multiple Russian media outlets have said. Moskalkova announced a pending meeting with Lubinets in mid-October, without revealing its time and place. She said at the time that the talks would address the condition of detention of prisoners, allegations of torture, and the fate of civilians forcibly relocated by Ukrainian invaders in Russia’s Kursk Region.

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Making Europe poorer is a deliberate policy.

• The Colonization of Europe By The United States (Vasco)

Former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi recently presented a comprehensive report to the European Union that demonstrates how Europeans are falling behind Americans – and even Asians – on key issues of economic development. While in 1990, GDP per capita in the United States was 16% higher than in the eurozone, by 2023 that gap had already grown to more than 30%. This means that Americans are increasingly richer than Europeans. But the gap between the richest men in the United States and Europe is also widening. Only 10% of high-tech entrepreneurs in the top 30 and top 500 of the market capitalization rankings are European. By comparison, 73% in the first and 56% in the second are American. These new figures once again reveal the economic devastation of Europe. And its origins are directly linked to American power. By the 1930s, the United States had lost all the advantage it had gained over its European competitors at the end of World War I.

Europe was devastated and Washington had emerged as the world’s great economic superpower. However, the 1929 crisis brought this strength to an end. The Great Depression seemed to have put an end to the American dream. Just as World War I was a dispute between imperialist powers over the world market, the future World War II needed to be unleashed so that the Americans could regain control – partially lost to Germany and Japan in the wake of the 1930s crisis. Franklin D. Roosevelt led the reorganization of the American economy, vastly expanding federal spending and making large public investments thanks to a dictatorial centralization of economic power in the hands of a small corporate monopoly. The result was an unimaginable increase in industrial production – focused almost exclusively on the war. Pearl Harbor came in very handy: it was the excuse the regime needed to eliminate opposition to its entry into the conflict.

Between 1941 and 1944, U.S. war production more than tripled, and by 1944 its factories were producing twice as much as Germany, Italy and Japan. American industrial production served two intertwined strategic objectives: to destroy Europe and to rebuild it in its image and likeness. The U.S. equipped Britain with the weapons needed to confront Germany, and both carried out an intense bombing campaign with the explicit intention of destroying the German economy, the industrial engine of Europe. Almost 2.7 million tons of bombs were dropped on Germany and the Nazi-occupied regions of other countries, particularly France and Belgium (completing the industrial heartland of Europe). American and British aerial bombings killed 305,000 Germans, injured almost 800,000, totally or partially destroyed 5.5 million homes, and left 20 million without essential public services.

It was genocide. Added to the immediate slaughter of 330,000 civilians in Japan by the atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the U.S. bombings took the lives of 635,000 people. The U.S. destruction of Europe was a big deal that benefited the United States decisively in securing its total supremacy in the new postwar world order. The deficit of foreign countries in 1946-47 was more than $19 billion. The U.S., which was intact, offered loans to begin the reconstruction of Europe as a soft form of colonization, while at the same time punishing those countries severely. In the words of the unsuspecting establishment historian Arthur S. Link, “the American government, even during the bitter days of Reconstruction, had never taken such terrible revenge on former enemies.” The German people and institutions were reformed “in the image of the United States.”

The Truman Doctrine and, mainly, the Marshall Plan, were the pillars of the U.S.’s post-World War II policy of colonizing Europe: the first transformed all of Western Europe and part of its southeast into a huge American military base, through NATO, policing the politics of these countries. The second began as a clientelist policy, granting handouts to starving Europeans (11 billion dollars) that were later returned with interest, beginning the process of economic, political and social dependence on Europe. Between 1948 and 1951, another 12 billion dollars had been spent in this regard.

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“The viral infection is like the common cold now,” McCullough said. “So they’re not clinically indicated. They’re not medically necessary..”

• Dr. Peter McCullough Calls On Trump To Remove The Covid-19 Vaccine (JTN)

Prominent cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough on Thursday called on president-elect Donald Trump to pull the COVID-19 vaccine from the marketplace. “The COVID-19 vaccine should be pulled from the market,” he said. “They have not had the safety track record America wanted to see.” He added that many who have taken the COVID-19 vaccine have suffered injuries from the vaccine, got disabilities or even died. Numerous lawmakers and doctors have expressed concern about the safety of the vaccine and whether the federal government and vaccine makers fully disclosed the risks.

In January, Florida’s top doctor called for the halt of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine use. “The viral infection is like the common cold now,” McCullough said. “So they’re not clinically indicated. They’re not medically necessary. They should be removed from the market.” The Centers for Disease and Prevention has addressed concerns about “adverse events” related to the vaccines, saying they “meet the Food and Drug Administration’s standards for safety and effectiveness” and that only in “rare cases” have people experienced serious health events as a result of getting an initial shot or booster.

Read more …

“Does this explain why Sweden, which only joined NATO this year, was the only country in Europe to adopt a more lenient policy during the coronavirus crisis?”

• Dutch Health Minister Admits Covid is a Military Operation” (PCR)

The Dutch Health Minister has revealed a damning fact about the Covid Deception: The Dutch Minister of Health revealed that Covid was a far worse and far larger public deception than critics have realized. It was “a military operation” against the people. This is not a conspiracy theory. This is real. In the Netherlands, the Covid release program was run by the intelligence agency NCTV. One of the first to comment on Agema’s appearance on X was Woo researcher Cees van den Bos. Under the heading “the coup d’etat,” he characterized the NCTV as a “bamiluk” of NATO: “This country will only be free if the NCTV is completely abolished and these kinds of shadow governments never get a foothold again. This is the biggest obstacle that stands in the way of a democracy,” he said. He added that there is no control over the NCTV: “The NCTV has carte blanche, as has been shown during corona.”

According to Van den Bos, people who think corona is over (“let’s stop talking about it”) are waiting for another hard “reality check.” He thanked Agema for her “candor.” Van den Bos previously pointed out – also in this newspaper – that the NCTV was in charge during the coronavirus crisis, in the person of Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg, who had succeeded Dick Schoof as NCTV boss in early 2019. At the end of 2022, Van den Bos accused the NCTV of having committed a “coup d’etat.” The crisis management was almost everywhere in the hands of the military and intelligence services, and in our country it rested with the NCTV. In addition to the day-to-day management of the crisis organization, the NCTV even counted it as its task to coordinate the parliamentary process (“timing and mutual congruence”). The intelligence service set up a separate team for this, according to a report from mid-March 2020.

Commenting on the parliamentary vote, it said: “Ambition and agreement are not surprising.” It was likely intended to prevent unexpected motions or amendments to new legislation. In early 2023, journalist Elze van den Hamelen described NATO’s role in this newspaper, based on investigative work by Van den Bos: “The documents show that since at least 2019, more than a year before the coronavirus pandemic, the government has set up a large organization to “combat disinformation.” The initiative for this came from NATO and the EU, Van den Bos shows: “It was a military operation aimed at its own population. Not to turn people off, but to influence their behavior.” During the coronavirus pandemic, NATO set the guidelines for the covid response and coordinated the “Stratcom” (strategic communications). “The guidelines were circulated through the member states’ foreign ministers.” Does this explain why Sweden, which only joined NATO this year, was the only country in Europe to adopt a more lenient policy during the coronavirus crisis?

Critics from the medical world have meanwhile reacted sharply to Agema’s revelation, including medical ethicist Wendy Mittemeijer: “For the first time in four years, I hear a public admission that the NCTV was in charge during the corona crisis, and that it had to be carried out. It was a military operation. This was not allowed to be said for four years. That was a conspiracy theory. I appreciate the honesty of the minister, that this is being admitted and that he was not in charge. The news of Agema also fits in with what Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has repeatedly stated about the production of the coronavirus vaccines in the US. According to him, this was a military operation, with close involvement of the US Department of Defense (DOD) and the military-industrial complex. Defense, according to him, was in full charge and paid pharmaceutical companies for their brand names, so people would think they were getting something from Pfizer or Moderna.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

RFK vaccines

 

 

Fire escape

 

 

Pelican

 

 

Wolf attack

 

 

Geese(?!)

 

 

 

 

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How America Became Unburdened By What Has Been

Nov 062024
 
 November 6, 2024  Posted by at 12:19 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  20 Responses »


Emil Nolde Zwei Schwimmer1914

 

 

We’ll see many articles on Trump’s clean sweep win in the days to come. Here’s Andrew Korybko’s interpretation of events:

 

 

Andrew Korybko: :

 

How America Became Unburdened By What Has Been

Trump just beat Kamala despite the formidable odds that were against him. He survived two assassination attempts, withstood the government’s lawfare, and is on track to secure the popular vote even though the legacy media was fully in support of his opponent. Speaking of her, she’s infamous for repeating her phrase about America becoming “unburdened by what has been”, which means moving past the Trump era. Ironically, the country just moved past her, and here’s how it happened:

———-

1. “It’s The Economy, Stupid!”

Democrat consultant James Carville famously coined the abovementioned phrase in reference to the most important electoral issue for most Americans. It still rings true to this day since the majority of the country is worse off after four years of the Biden-Harris Administration than it was after Trump’s first term. It doesn’t matter what the reasons for that are since such developments strongly work against incumbents. Americans accordingly voted to bring back the golden economy that Trump ushered in.

2. Immigration, Both Legal & Illegal, Is Out Of Control

Immigration is always a hot button issue, but it was even more so during this election due to the unprecedented influx of illegal immigrants that invaded the country under Biden and viral reports of legal Haitian immigrants brought in by the government eating people’s pets in Ohio. Trump pledged to crack down on the illegal component and more properly vet those who come into the country via legal channels to ensure that they’ll assimilate and integrate. This approach is wildly popular with Americans.

3. Folks Are Afraid Of World War III

Americans have never been as afraid of World War III as they are now. The NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine and the back-and-forth Israeli-Iranian strikes, each of which have the potential to spiral into the apocalypse in the worst-case scenario, were unthinkable under Trump. He promised to do his utmost to bring peace to Europe and the Mideast if he’s re-elected while Kamala promised more of the same policies that brought the world to the brink of war. A vote for Trump therefore became a vote for peace.

4. The Media’s Smears Against Trump No Longer Work

The past eight and a half years of the legacy media’s smears against Trump no longer have the effect that they used to in manipulating voters’ perceptions of him and have even become counterproductive. The more that they accuse Trump of being a “Nazi” or whatever else, the less that people care. Their celebrity surrogates are just as bad, and some like Mark Cuban dealt a powerful blow to their cause by viciously attacking Trump’s female supporters in what can be seen as this year’s “October Surprise”.

5. Musk Restored Freedom Of Speech Online

The preceding points are all important, but they wouldn’t have led to Trump’s victory had Elon Musk not restored freedom of speech online by buying Twitter. Americans were then able to share news about the election without fear of censorship, which showed them that they weren’t alone in questioning the Biden Administration and legacy media’s false claims. Those two were also debunked in real time. Had it not been for Musk, then their lies would have proliferated unchallenged, likely reshaping the election.

6. Musk, RFK, & Tulsi Made It Cool To Defect From The Democrats

Musk, RFK, and Tulsi Gabbard are former Democrats who defected from the party in protest of what it’d become, namely a radical liberal–globalist ideological movement that totally severed its perceived roots with the working class. They all eventually rallied behind Trump, which made it cool for other Democrats to defect from the party too and helped win him some of the Independent vote that took him over the edge in key swing states. He couldn’t have won had it not been for this unity coalition.

7. The Amish & Poles Helped Trump Pull Ahead In Pennsylvania

The Keystone State became the key to Trump’s victory this time around, and he has the Amish and Poles to thank for that. Scott Presler, the one-time chairman of Gays for Trump, played an indispensable role in mobilizing the first while the Posobiec Brothers (popular conservative commentator Jack and his brother Kevin) recruited their fellow co-ethnics from the second in their home state. The combination of these two, both groups and activists, guaranteed Trump’s victory there.

8. The Republicans’ GOTV Campaign Made All The Difference

The Republicans were determined to make Trump’s lead “too big to rig” after being convinced that he was defrauded out of his rightful second term during the last election. To that end, they embraced early voting and harvested ballots as enthusiastically as their Democrat rivals did four years ago, knowing that literally every vote counts and not wanting to miss a single one. This made all the difference by preemptively averting speculative scenarios by which Trump could have been defrauded yet again.

9. Abortion Is No Longer An Issue In Presidential Elections

The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe vs. Wade in mid-2022 made abortion a states’ rights issue, which took the wind out of its former sails as a federal one and thus made it much more difficult for the Democrats to turn women against Republican presidential candidates like before. Try as they did, they couldn’t pull it off anymore, and this helped Trump come out ahead. The party relied on abortion for so long that they don’t know what to do now that it’s no longer relevant at the presidential level.

10. Walz Was One Of The Worst VP Picks Imaginable

Kamala might have had a chance if she picked Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro as her running mate instead of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, but the former is Jewish and has ties to the IDF, so she feared that she’d lose the Midwest’s Muslim vote if she chose him. That was a mistake since Walz was one of the worst VP picks imaginable and JD Vance made mincemeat out of him during their debate. Most Americans didn’t want Walz one heartbeat away from the presidency after that.

———-

Trump’s political comeback story is one for the history books after the seemingly insurmountable odds that he overcame. A mix of masterful campaigning, Musk’s purchase of Twitter, and arguably a stroke of divine providence over the summer came together to make this possible. America is now truly unburdened by what has been after decisively rejecting the past four years in full defiance of the Democrats. It’s now up to Trump to deliver on his ultimate promise to “Make America Great Again”.

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle Clean Sweep 2024

Nov 062024
 
 November 6, 2024  Posted by at 9:37 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  94 Responses »

At 1.43AM:

 

• Will America Survive the Election? (Paul Craig Roberts)
• With JD Vance and Elon Musk, Suddenly Ideas Are Back in this Campaign (Ron Paul)
• 77 Days of Transition (ET)
• WikiLeaks: 5 Questions For Donald Trump If He Wins (ZH)
• Celebrities Being Pressured To Publicly Back Harris – Musk (RT)
• Trump Calls Nancy Pelosi “An Evil, Sick, Crazy B…” (MN)
• Donald Trump ‘More Popular’ Than ‘Least Qualified’ Kamala Harris (Sp.)
• In the Midst of a Roid Rage Election, a Reason to Have Hope (Turley)
• Russian History As Therapy For Western Historians Who Just Want To Be Loved (JH)
• The General Staff’s Map And President Putin’s Map Are Different (Helmer)
• Novichok Was Not Detected – But There Was Cocaine (Helmer)
• Schiff w/ Mitchell: Fed Policy is Backfiring (SchiffGold)
• Ukraine Not Drafting Enough Troops – MP (RT)
• Ukrainian MP Calls For Mobilization Of Women (RT)
• Netanyahu Fires Israeli Defense Minister (RT)

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1853701886282526996

Rogan Elon


https://twitter.com/i/status/1853567754093416932s


https://twitter.com/i/status/1853601901948125683

Shanahan

 

 

 

 

“November 5 is the last chance of redeeming America..”

• Will America Survive the Election? (Paul Craig Roberts)

On November 3, I wrote about Meredith Furbish, a truth-suppressor for the Atlantic Council. She misrepresented my documentation of rulings by federal judges, state judges, Justice (sic) Department and Homeland Security (sic) officials, and state and local Democrat election officials, which legalized the vote theft mechanisms used illegally in the 2020 presidential election, as Russian-associated disinformation. The ubiquitous evidence that the Democrats were heavily into vote fraud was dismissed as a conspiracy theory. I assumed Meredith is a she, but perhaps “she” is an AI bot in an algorithm that connects information unfriendly with approved official narratives with Russian interference in US elections. It makes more sense that Meredith is an algorithm, because an algorithm, not being sentient. would not be aware of my completely documented case. The Democrats are determined that today’s election not be fair, and I am far from the only one who is aware of this.

Since I wrote, the US Supreme Court has had to intervene to prevent the Biden-Harris regime from preventing the state of Virginia from removing noncitizens, who do not have the right to vote, from the voter rolls. Of course, showing the totally partisan nature of all Democrats, the three female Democrat appointees to the Supreme Court dissented. It is perfectly OK with them that non-citizens have the same right to vote as citizens. This is the trouble with every Democrat appointee, whether to the courts or to the executive branch. They do not know the difference between a US citizen and someone who just illegally walked across the border. Despite court rulings against them, the Biden-Harris regime continues to hamper efforts to keep non-US citizens from illegally voting in the presidential election. The Daily Caller reports that “Several states say that the Biden-Harris administration has not cooperated with their efforts to prevent non-citizens from voting.”

The states have filed lawsuits against the corrupt Biden-Harris regime, the most corrupt regime in American history. “The Department of Justice (DOJ) sued Virginia in October and Alabama in September over their efforts to remove non-citizens.The excuse was it was too close to the election. Texas, Ohio and Florida filed their own lawsuits against the Biden-Harris regime this month for allegedly hampering their efforts to restore electoral integrity, while other states told the Daily Caller News Foundation the federal government has not supported attempts to identify non-citizen voters.” Note that for the Democrat totally corrupt Justice (sic) Department “closeness to an election” is more important than having a president elected with votes of illegal aliens. Will any person of integrity ever again consent to serve in a totally discredited US Department of Justice (sic)?

The Biden-Harris Justice (sic) Department and Homeland Security (sic) Department have steadfastly refused to cooperate with efforts to have voter rolls in which only American citizens are present. The Montana Secretary of State has complained of Homeland Security’s blockage of its efforts to ensure that American citizens determine our government, not immigrant-invaders. The Montana Secretary of State said: “Montanans deserve to know that our state’s voter rolls are accurate, and it’s imperative for election officials across the state and nation not to be stonewalled by our federal government to assist in our duties to ensure accurate voter rolls.” The Department of Homeland Security, a criminal agency in the hands of Democrats, has a Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program . It prevents states from identifying illegals on their voter rolls, because it uses a unique immigration identifier unavailable to the states.

The Biden-Harris regime refuses to provide the information necessary for states to remove illegals from their voter rolls. On October 24, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said: “While the administration is blocking access to these records, the Department of Justice is suing or threatening to sue multiple states, including Ohio, who are trying to enforce their citizenship voting requirements.” “The Department of Justice (DOJ) sued Virginia in October and Alabama in September over their efforts to remove non-citizens. Texas, Ohio and Florida filed their own lawsuits against the administration this month for allegedly hampering their efforts, while other states told the Daily Caller News Foundation the federal government has not supported attempts to identify noncitizen voters.” Dear Readers, the Biden-Harris regime and the US Department of Justice (sic) are involved in an attempted coup to turn America into a one-party dictatorship. Americans who sit out this election or who vote Democrat are voting for tyranny. They are too stupid to know it, but they are so indoctrinated by the media and education that they have no realization of reality.

They think they are being compassionate toward suffering peoples from abroad. They are thinking that they need the household help that immigrant-invaders provide. They think that Trump sexualizes women, but endless women portray themselves online in porn videos for all the world to see. The United States of America and the entirety of the remains of the Western World are on the verge of total collapse. Only 13% of Americans believe the media. Even the editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal and the owner of the Washington Post have publicly stated that no one any longer believes what the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post report. Those Americans who give the Democrats enough votes to steal the election will have elected Tyranny in America. According to numerous reports, those with sufficient resources are already fleeing America. Astute Americans having watched the stupidity and incompetence of the American people for years have lost all confidence in the country, and they are departing. November 5 is the last chance of redeeming America.

Read more …

“While the last thing I am looking for is another job, I am encouraged by the outpouring of support and happy to help any effort to correct the wrong path we have been going down – a path toward total bankruptcy..”

• With JD Vance and Elon Musk, Suddenly Ideas Are Back in this Campaign (Ron Paul)

This presidential campaign season may be one of those turning points in history for reasons good and bad. Anyone watching the one debate between the Republican and Democratic Party candidates would not have come away with the view that this was a great battle of competing principles and visions for the future. It was a campaign of name-calling and bullets, where one candidate avoided discussing ideas at all costs – and even avoided the media at all costs. Where the other candidate dodged two attempted assassinations while throwing red meat rhetoric to an understandably angry population. It was a campaign where, more than ever, the mainstream media completely abandoned any idea of being a neutral source of information and instead jumped into the ring on the side of one candidate. In the one debate between presidential candidates, the mainstream media went so far as to “fact check” one candidate while giving the other a “pass.”

The “fact check” turned out to be misinformation – something the mainstream media excels in – but they have long figured out that by the time the actual facts are in, people have already absorbed the falsehood. According to the conservative Media Research Center, mainstream media coverage of the Trump campaign was 85 percent negative while its coverage of the Harris campaign was 78 percent positive. If accurate, it explains why the public holds the media in such contempt. What felt missing in the campaign was a discussion of the real issues we are facing. The destruction caused by interventionism in our economy, in our lives, and in the rest of the world. There was no talk about the Federal Reserve and how it hurts the middle class, helps the wealthy, and greases the war machine.

Then, at the tail end, things got interesting. Republican candidate for Vice President, JD Vance, mentioned last week that he had come to the view that the Federal Reserve was not the benevolent force for good that its supporters claim. He didn’t say it in those exact words, but that was his point. Then Trump surrogate campaigner Elon Musk made an announcement that no-doubt terrified the DC swamp: were he to get the government efficiency job Trump suggested, he’d start with a bang, cutting two trillion dollars from the Federal budget!

We even had a little fun with it. After I posted some encouragement on Musk’s Twitter/X, he responded that he would be happy to have me join him looking for places to cut! While the last thing I am looking for is another job, I am encouraged by the outpouring of support and happy to help any effort to correct the wrong path we have been going down – a path toward total bankruptcy. Perhaps the most encouraging development this election cycle is the well-earned decline in the influence of the corrupt mainstream media. When Elon posted a funny meme of the two of us cutting government on his Twitter/X platform, it garnered some 50 million views! Compare that to the steady decline of mainstream media viewership. An alternative way of reporting and analyzing the events of our time is emerging on the ruins of the legacy media and it’s driving them insane. Good.

Read more …

“..the Constitution, Article Two says, ‘Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors.’ This bill is Congress trying to intrude on the authority of the state legislatures to do that.”

• 77 Days of Transition (ET)

The 2024 presidential election will see the first application of a 2022 amendment to the laws governing the transfer of power between administrations. There are 77 days between the Nov. 5 election and the Jan. 20, 2025, inauguration of the next president, during which time the president-elect will ready his or her administration to take over from President Joe Biden. The handoffs between an outgoing administration and a government-in-waiting have been largely drama-free for decades, and they have been governed by the rules enumerated in the Presidential Transition Act of 1963. The Electoral Count Reform Act will take effect this year, ensuring that five days after the election, the team of the winning candidate (or both candidates if the winner is not yet identified), will begin readying for the White House.

Unless another authority is designated by state law, the act appoints governors as the principal officials responsible for filing certificates of state presidential electors. By providing expedited court review of matters pertaining to electors, it guarantees that Congress can establish a final slate of electors. The vice president’s involvement in the electoral vote count is defined by the new act as purely ceremonial, and he or she is not given any power to affect the count in any way. It also reduces the possibility of challenges by raising the threshold for congressional objections to one-fifth of each house. Previously, a single member of both chambers was needed to enter an objection to an elector or slate of electors. Additionally, the General Services Administration (GSA) is now required to provide money to both candidates in the event that a candidate does not withdraw their candidacy within five days following the election. This change affects the presidential transition process. The GSA will cut off financing to the unsuccessful campaign once the results are finalized.

The initial responsibility of the successful candidate is to acquire knowledge of the current agency missions, policies, and ongoing projects, as well as to commence the process of filling political positions in the executive branch, ranging from Cabinet secretaries to press assistants. The new team is provided guidance by career leaders and appointees from the outgoing administration to assist in the launch of its government. They also provide briefings on significant issues and facilitate inquiries. An orderly transition has long been dependent on the flow of resources. Delays occurred following the 2020 presidential election as President Donald Trump questioned the validity of the election results as they were being reported. Because Trump was contesting the results in court, there was a delay in the start of the transition from Election Day on Nov. 3, 2020, to Nov. 23.

Emily Murphy, then head of the GSA, reviewed the transition law from 1963 and concluded that she lacked the legal authority to determine a winner and commence funding and collaboration with the transition to a Biden administration. Weeks after the election, Murphy sent a Letter of Ascertainment to Biden and commenced the transition process after Trump’s efforts to contest the results had collapsed across key states. According to the GSA’s guidelines on the new rules, the amendment eliminates lengthy delays and states “an affirmative ‘ascertainment’ by GSA is no longer a prerequisite for obtaining transition support services.” However, the new law also effectively mandates federal support and cooperation for both candidates to initiate a transition. It is stated that such support should persist until “significant legal challenges” that could affect electoral outcomes have been “substantially resolved” or until electors from each state convene in December to formally select an Electoral College winner.

Under this mandate, Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris may find themselves forming rival administrations for weeks. The Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement amendment to the Presidential Transition Act was passed in December 2022. During a committee hearing on the Electoral Count Act on Aug. 3 that year, Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) said, “We were all there on Jan. 6 … We have a duty [and] responsibility to make sure it never happens again.” Manchin was referring to the events on Jan. 6, 2021, when protesters breached the U.S. Capitol while Congress was counting electoral votes.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said in her testimony: “In four out of the past six presidential elections, the Electoral Count Act’s process for counting electoral votes has been abused with frivolous objections being raised by members of both parties. But it took the violent breach of the Capitol on Jan. 6 to really shine a spotlight on how urgent the need for reform was.” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) opposed the bill, stating in a press release: “This bill is a bad bill. … It’s bad policy and it’s bad for democracy. There are serious constitutional questions in the bill. The text of the Constitution, Article Two says, ‘Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors.’ This bill is Congress trying to intrude on the authority of the state legislatures to do that.”

Read more …

“Will “swamp” insiders flatter their way into influential roles and take control of your administration, reducing MAGA to mere rhetoric?”

• WikiLeaks: 5 Questions For Donald Trump If He Wins (ZH)

On Tuesday, as Americans head to the polls in a tight race to determine who will be the next president, WikiLeaks has issued five big questions for a potential future Trump administration. When in 2016 Trump defeated former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, many among Trump’s base and fiercest supporters had high hopes that he would truly “drain the swamp” while completely realigning US foreign policy in opposition to the neocons, including ending the ‘forever wars’ in the Middle East. After all, he was the first GOP nominee in history to trash Republican George Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003. And later as president he called the Iraq war “the single worst decision ever made.” But these high hopes turned to disappointment when Trump willingly brought into his administration some of the very neocons who have long been part of the problem, or arguably who are at the very heart of the swap, or the Washington blob. He put into powerful positions people like John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, William Barr, and Elliott Abrams.

Of course, as Trump himself now fully knows, these officials did much to sabotage any sincere efforts of the administration on things like getting US troops out of Syria, and ultimately turned on him. Trump’s supporters also back in 2016 had high hopes that he would pardon Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, and also declassify all records related to the sham ‘Russiagate’ drive concocted by the Clinton campaign alongside Hillary’s deep state allies. Sadly, none of that happened, as to a large degree ‘the swamp’ quickly became well-ensconced in the Trump White House. Many became the ‘enemy within’ the administration, and after leaving wrote books and went on speaking tours where the main topic became maligning Trump’s leadership and attacking him as a person. With all of this in mind, WikiLeaks has publicly issued the following questions for Trump, anticipating his possible return to the White House…

1. How will you handle the so-called deep state “wolves in MAGA hats” circling your transition team, posing as MAGA to obtain powerful positions in a prospective Trump administration? After all, personnel is policy.

2. In your previous administration, you appointed figures like Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, William Barr (former CIA), Robert O’Brien, Nikki Haley, and Elliott Abrams, who often opposed your “America First” rhetoric, especially on foreign policy and freedom of speech. If elected again, can you assure that these individuals, or others like Tom Cotton and Marco Rubio—both funded by arms companies—will not hold positions in your administration?

3. Many of these individuals have not only opposed your policies but have actively worked against you, even putting their weight behind your prosecution. For instance, Mike Pompeo accused you of keeping classified documents, suggesting that doing so endangered U.S. soldiers. He also directed the CIA to draw up plans to assassinate Julian Assange, suppressed the release of JFK files at the CIA’s request, and claimed, “There is no deep state at the CIA.” What is your stance toward those who merely feign support for MAGA?

4. Many of these former officials have now cashed in and make substantial profits from lobbying for arms companies, banks, and foreign corporations. For example, Pompeo founded American Global Strategies, which advises arms companies, joined the Israeli disinformation and censorship company Cyabra, and took positions with Japanese steel firm Nippon Steel (lobbying to increase foreign steel imports to the U.S.) and arms company DYNE Maritime (seeking AUKUS-related contracts). He even launched his own military-industrial investment bank, Impact Investments, and, like Hunter Biden, joined the board of a Ukrainian company, Kievstar, despite lacking relevant experience. While Pompeo’s case may be extreme, others have similarly lucrative roles. Will you ban appointments for those who have financial incentives to start wars, or increase mass surveillance and censorship?

5. A growing faction within the Republican Party and among independents advocates for a foreign policy less driven by CIA influence and arms industry profits. Figures like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard have called for increased oversight of the CIA and reduced foreign interventions.

However, personnel is policy. Will “swamp” insiders flatter their way into influential roles and take control of your administration, reducing MAGA to mere rhetoric?

Read more …

And now they look stupid.

• Celebrities Being Pressured To Publicly Back Harris – Musk (RT)

American celebrities are publicly endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris in the US presidential election race partly because their job security is on the line, tech billionaire Elon Musk claimed on Joe Rogan’s podcast on Monday. Multiple heavyweights in the US entertainment industry, including some who were previously apolitical, have backed the Democratic candidate for president. Hosting Musk on his show, Rogan called the rallying behind Harris “strange,” suggesting that celebrities “think it’s going to get them more movies or something.” Musk claimed that the opposite is true, and that “these celebrities, they get a call from someone powerful in Hollywood. That person says: ‘You know it would be really great if you endorsed Kamla.’”

There is an implicit threat that failure to do so would result in not receiving further opportunities in the industry, Musk said. They don’t make the threat. They don’t need to. But everyone knows what would happen if you don’t [back Harris]. The entrepreneur is a key supporter of former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, and intends to take a cabinet-level job in his potential administration. After his interview with Musk, Rogan publicly endorsed Trump, saying that the tech billionaire’s arguments had convinced him.

Hollywood, which has historically leaned left politically, has become highly intolerant to descent, Rogan said. As recently as during President Barack Obama’s term in office, a star of the magnitude of Clint Eastwood could be openly Republican without apparent repercussions, Rogan noted. A few decades ago, Ronald Reagan went from being a Hollywood actor into politics, ultimately being elected to the White House with the Republicans. “Once Trump got into office, he became this focal point, where all logic was thrown out the window,” Rogan suggested. “It’s just ‘Trump is bad, you have to attack Trump.’” Superstar singers Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, and Jennifer Lopez, as well as actor Harrison Ford, are some of the big names to have endorsed Harris.

Read more …

“I don’t use much [profanity], you know, every once in a while, and it’s never a real bad word, it’s never bad … but it is a little better when you use foul language..”

• Trump Calls Nancy Pelosi “An Evil, Sick, Crazy B…” (MN)

During his final rally in Michigan, president Trump gave a succinct description of exactly who his supporters are pitted against. During the two hour speech that started just after midnight, Trump referred to former speaker and Democrat kingpin Nancy Pelosi, noting “She’s a crooked person, she’s a bad person. Evil.” “She’s an evil, sick, crazy b—-” he said, stopping short of saying the word “bitch.” “It starts with a B, but I won’t say it. I wanna say it,” Trump boomed. “I don’t use much [profanity], you know, every once in a while, and it’s never a real bad word, it’s never bad … but it is a little better when you use foul language,” he continued, adding “These are bad people.”

Trump reiterated that his real opponent is not Kamala Harris but an “evil Democrat system”. “We will defeat the corrupt system in Washington. Because I’m not running against Kamala, I’m running against an evil Democrat system. These are evil people,” he asserted. “I wasn’t running against Biden either,” Trump further noted, adding “He was stuck in a basement. I didn’t even run against him. Now running against a very evil system, and we have to defeat that system, and America’s future will be an absolutely incredible one.”

Read more …

No-one will remember Kamala. Except her handler Obama.

• Donald Trump ‘More Popular’ Than ‘Least Qualified’ Kamala Harris (Sp.)

Though the presidential race in the US appears to be pretty close, Republican candidage Donald Trump is a “more popular candidate,” says retired US Air Force Lt.Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, who is also a former analyst for the US Department of Defense. “He’s certainly the more energetic candidate. He’s the more dynamic candidate. And he gets a lot of news coverage, both good and bad,” Kwiatkowski remarks. Comparing Trump and his Democratic rival Kamala Harris, Kwiatkowski observes that the former appears more media-savvy. “He’s very out there in the media… You know, he makes news. So people are aware of him,” she explains. “And we have a lot of social media craziness around. And I see it more around the Trump side where they’re either promoting Trump, laughing with Trump, laughing at Trump.”

Meanwhile, Harris is “the least qualified presidential candidate that has ever made it this far in the race,” says Kwiatkowski, who also branded the Democrat as “the least qualified vice president” of the United States. “So having a very qualified guy running against a very unqualified person, that’s unusual,” she muses. The fact that Harris made it this far is “very concerning,” Kwiatkowski warns, arguing that “something has changed” in the United States. Kamala Harris winning the upcoming US presidential election would be a “miraculous” thing, says Kwiatkowski. She also described Trump surviving an attempt on his life by accidentally moving his head in the same fashion. While Trump’s rivals in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, respectively, were both career politicians who enjoyed strong support within the Democratic Party, Harris got zero primary votes from her fellow Democrats and performed “badly” both in her campaign and as vice president of the US, Kwiatkowski notes.

“I don’t know how Biden is to work for, but as vice president, she’s not done anything that she can really crow about,” Kwiatkowski observes. “And she has refused to separate her policies from the current administration, which is what people tend always.” Thus, Kwiatkowski points out, people who will vote against Harris are going to be voting “against the current administration and all of its policies and whatever is blamed on that administration.” “Certainly the economy in the United States, crime, immigration, war – the Ukraine war is not as popular as it once was. It’s very unpopular, in fact,” Kwiatkowski says, adding that the war Israel wages in Gaza and Lebanon “is not popular either” and that Trump supposedly already advised Netanyahu to end it.

Americans have come a long way since the 2020 election, becoming both “angrier” and “wiser” than before, Kwiatkowski says. “My prediction is that we will not have this giant breakdown in society no matter who wins. We will not have this new civil war if Trump wins or if Kamala Harris is named the winner,” she postulates. If Harris wins, Kwiatkowski suggests, the Republicans will be “enraged” and there may be “marches on Washington,” but these actions will be taken “in the context of understanding how the state, how DC, how the federal government will respond to them.”

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“He could not shut up, so he decided to become an American instead..”

• In the Midst of a Roid Rage Election, a Reason to Have Hope (Turley)

When President Joe Biden took the podium in his hometown of Scranton, Pa., to campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris, many expected a return to the “self-professed unifier” Biden from the 2020 election, particularly after his recent comments calling tens of millions of Trump supporters “garbage.” If so, they were disappointed when it turned out to be the “take him behind the Gym” Biden. Speaking through clenched teeth, Biden seethed that he wanted to “smack [Trump] in the ass.” Even with the Harris campaign alarmed over his costly gaffes, Biden clearly could not resist the rage. He is not alone. This entire election seems to be a type of political roid rage. In my book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I discuss how rage rhetoric and rage politics have long been part of our history. Politicians will often intentionally trigger rage to rally voters not in support of their policies but in opposition to their opponents.

However, Biden’s seeming inability to keep his rage in check is a common feature of this rage politics. As I wrote in the book, “rage is liberating, even addictive. It allows us to say and do things that we would ordinarily avoid, even denounce in others.” It is also contagious. Across the country, people are yelling at neighbors, tearing down signs, and even assaulting each other. What they are unwilling to admit is that they enjoy the rage. They like it. As someone who has written about rage rhetoric and covered presidential elections for over two decades for different networks, I should be accustomed to these scenes. I am not. From the scenes outside of the Trump trial in Manhattan to the scenes outside of political rallies in Virginia, I find the rage depressing and deflating.

However, in flying to New York this weekend to join the Fox election coverage, I had a moment of real hope. I was driven to the airport by a man who told me that he was just months from his citizenship and how he and his wife were so thankful to soon be U.S. citizens. He came from a Middle Eastern nation where he long admired the United States for its freedoms, particularly the freedom of speech. Indeed, in his home country, he constantly ran into trouble with his government and was warned by his imam that he had to stop acting “like an American” by speaking his mind. He could not shut up, so he decided to become an American instead. He then told me how confused he and his wife are by this election. They love the United States and cannot understand why people are so hateful and angry. “It is like they do not understand what they have here,” he noted.

Listening to him over the course of our ride, I started to feel something that I had not felt in a while: real hope. Sometimes, our truest citizens are found among our newest converts. As I discuss in my book, the problem with our democracy is that most citizens grew up in a nation where basic rights like the freedom of speech are guaranteed. They have never known the absence of such rights. This man and his wife have. They were not born here. They had to escape their country at great peril and cost to become U.S. citizens. They chose us and what we stand for. They follow other great Americans drawn to these shores by something unique about this country. One was Tom Paine. The man who was credited with rallying a nation behind a revolution only landed upon these shores two years before the Declaration of Independence. His rocketing to fame with the publication of Common Sense enraged some, like John Adams, who viewed him as an unkempt, unknown rabble-rouser.

Yet, it was precisely Paine’s immigration that gave his words such clarity and power. He saw this emerging nation as unique for all of humanity, a nation where citizens could live free without the calcified social, economic, and political limits of the Old World. His voice resonated with this nation because it was so genuine and authentic. I heard that same voice on my way to the airport. Sometimes, it takes the newest among us to remind us who we are to not only the rest of the world but also to each other. I do not know what is coming out of that gate on election night. I have been there before. However, half of this country is going to be very, very upset either way this goes. What we need to struggle to remember is that this election does not define us. The rage does not define us. We defined ourselves almost 250 years ago and do so every day that new citizens like my new friend come to these shores. There is hope in who we are . . . even if we forget sometimes.

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Helmer. Great title.

• Russian History As Therapy For Western Historians Who Just Want To Be Loved (JH)

It’s a pity when a 760-page history of the Russian leadership’s thinking during the Cold War period, 1945 to 2022, earns consignment to the waste bin within the first nineteen pages, and in just three sentences. This ratio of toxicity to prolixity – 1 to 40 — is exceptional, although the price asked for it by the publisher, Cambridge University Press — £30, $34.95 — isn’t so exorbitant as to exclude using the book as a doorstopper. This is Sergey Radchenko’s To Run the World: The Kremlin’s Cold War Bid for Global Power. Just weeks following the book’s launch date, Amazon is already trying to clear its stock by offering a discount of 25% to $26. That’s as competitive as the price of an elite brand of door sausage (aka draft stopper). According to Michael McFaul, once the Obama Administration’s Russia-hater in chief in Moscow and Washington, the “brilliant writing” is the “go-to source for understanding Soviet behaviour during the Cold War. Fiona Hill, McFaul’s Russia-hating successor during the Trump Administration, claims the book is “magisterial [and] help[s] explain why Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine and confront the West”.

If you want to slam your door on those two, and block the winter winds starting again in the Ukraine, place Radchenko’s blockbuster between your bottom door rail and the sill. In that position, it will also do double-duty as warning from that piece of ancient Russian wisdom – it’s bad luck to shake hands over a threshold. As Anglo-American histories of Russian thinking go, Radchenko’s is the new one on the edge of an old, familiar black hole. He begins by announcing that “this book offers a radical new interpretation of the underlying motivations of Soviet foreign policy “. He follows with his three radical novelties:“what the Soviets saw as their ‘legitimate’ interests were often not seen as particularly ‘legitimate’ by anybody else., leading to a kind of ontological insecurity on the Soviet part that was compensated for by hubris and aggression”. “At the end of the Second World War Soviet policy makers surveyed the world… No one expected the Americans to stay in Europe”. “The infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact carved up Eastern Europe and led directly to the outbreak of the Second World War.”

Radchenko’s new facts to substantiate these three claims aren’t new at all so there’s no point in rehashing them – in the maxim familiar in the Baltimore and Washington think tanks, Hak mir nisht keyn tshaynik – that’s Yiddish for don’t keep banging your teapot at me. Radchenko brings this to conclusion at page 30: “The Cold War was inevitable because Stalin made it so…[his] responsibility [is] best summarized by Jeffrey Lewis: ‘there were three causes of the Cold War: Stalin, Stalin, and Stalin.” Lewis is an ex-Pentagon employee and currently a junior academic at a think tank employing American and British retirees from the Pentagon and Ministry of Defense. It keeps its funding sources secret, but at Lewis’s previous think tank the funders included Bill Gates, George Soros, the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations.

Because Stalin is to blame at the beginning of this history, Radchenko comes to his second teapot-banging conclusion at the end of his history, page 603, when — without the benefit of historical archives or interviews with sources — Radchenko says Putin is a repeat of Stalin’s psychopathological craving to be loved by the West, especially by Americans. In his February 2022 speeches launching the Special Military Operation in the Ukraine, Putin “raved”, according to Radchenko; The war, Radchenko adds now, “was mainly Russia’s failure: it proved unwilling or unable to overcome its toxic resentments and imperialist impulses. But there was another factor in play. Stalin’s belligerent foreign policy, whatever his motivations, helped forge the West on an anti-Soviet basis. Throughout the Cold War, the Soviets tried hard to undermine Western unity even as they craved Western recognition. They never managed.”

In this history, Radchenko diagnoses Stalin with a personal case of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), who then inflicts his pathology on all the Russians, turning Soviet policy and now Putin’s, into Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD). For the outcome, if not the cure, Radchenko goes back to Yiddish: “Perhaps, with the right combination of chutzpah and good luck, Russia could one day recover its illusive greatness and its insatiable, self-destructive ambition to run the world.”

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“..the demilitarized zone (DMZ) stretching westward to a depth calculated as the range of US and NATO-supplied artillery, drones and missiles..”

• The General Staff’s Map And President Putin’s Map Are Different (Helmer)

For more than two months now, President Vladimir Putin’s orders to the General Staff have been to shorten the range of the electric war campaign to the area east of Kiev and the Dnieper River, and west of the advancing line of Russian forces. The General Staff have responded by limiting their strikes to electricity and other energy supplies for military repair and drone production plants, troop marshalling points, and logistic hubs supplying the Ukrainian forces in Kursk and along the front. This is the Putin Pause. The General Staff have understood it to allow strikes against energy infrastructure in Kharkov, Odessa, and the Sumy region. In recent days Boris Rozhin’s Colonel Cassad blog and the daily bulletins from the Ministry of Defense have also identified electric war raids at Kharkov and Odessa. How much of a territorial concession on the military map which Putin has directed Vladimir Medinsky to discuss in secret with the Ukrainians and Americans isn’t known.

What is known is the map of the General Staff’s targets since August 26. That was the date of the last Russian drone and missile attack on electricity production and distribution in the west of the country. Putin’s map, which he announced in his speech to the Foreign Ministry of June 14, lacked coordinates. On the one hand, Putin reiterated the objectives of the Special Military Operation he had announced on February 24, 2022, as “the protection of people in Donbass, the restoration of peace, and the demilitarisation and denazification of Ukraine. We did that to avert the threat to our state and to restore balance in the sphere of security in Europe.” On the other hand, the president said, “these conditions are simple. The Ukrainian troops must be completely withdrawn from the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and Kherson and Zaporozhye regions. Let me note that they must be withdrawn from the entire territory of these regions within their administrative borders at the time of their being part of Ukraine.”

On the General Staff map, the difference between Putin’s second statement of terms and his first statement is the width of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) stretching westward to a depth calculated as the range of US and NATO-supplied artillery, drones and missiles for striking the new Russian regions and the Russian hinterland. Because the range of drones in current use against Russia has been extended to 800 kilometres, and applying this to the direct flight distance westward from Donetsk, the DMZ to assure Russian military security should stretch to a north-south line running through Rivne and Khmelnitsky (lead image). From Donetsk to Kiev, however, is a flight distance of 600 kms; from Donetsk to Odessa, 560 kms; to Kharkov, just 250 kms. This range of drone and missile lethality threatening Russian territory puts the future of Kiev, Odessa, and Kharkov squarely in the General Staff’s sights.

How the General Staff is drawing the DMZ map to achieve demilitarization of the Ukraine in military terms is one thing. How the objective of demilitarization is being mapped in the Kremlin is quite another. According to a well-informed military source, “the General Staff’s priority is defensibility. This is based on terrain, control of highways, bridges and railways, establishment of a land corridor to Transdnistria, and control of the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), known as the Pivdennoukrainsk NPP in the Nikoalev region near Pervomaisk. The DMZ line then runs roughly northeast/southwest along the Kodyma River and highway connecting Balta on the Moldovan border with Pervomaisk. This would give Russian force deployment a defensible position with control over the major highways leading to the bridges across the Dnieper at Dniepropetrovsk and Kremenchuk. There will be no more reliance on the vulnerable bridges at Kherson and Kakhovka to ensure sound Russian logistics. Communication with Transdnistria will be ensured by control of the E58/581 highway which runs between Kherson and Tiraspol.”

Read more …

Speaks for itself.

• Novichok Was Not Detected – But There Was Cocaine (Helmer)

The British Government’s narrative that Russian military agents, on orders from President Vladimir Putin, used Novichok in Salisbury in March 2018 continues to collapse. A secret chemical warfare agent revealed last week that two tests for Novichok, using special machines provided by the Porton Down chemical warfare laboratory, failed to confirm an organophosphate poison in either Dawn Sturgess or her boyfriend, Charles Rowley. The agent described himself in his witness statement and in a guarded appearance at the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry last week as a qualified medical doctor and pharmacology expert. “I currently work at Dstl [Defence Science and Technology Laboratory] Porton Down within the Chemical, Biological and Radiological (CBR) Division, and provide medical advice to the Ministry of Defence and other government Departments on CBR related threats… I was Chemical and Biological (CB) Medical Advisor to Dstl and the Operational teams in support of the investigations into the attack on the Skripals (Operation WEDANA) and the investigation into the poisoning of Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley (Operation READ).”

The agent’s name was ordered to be kept secret by the Inquiry chairman and commercial consultant, Anthony Hughes (titled Lord Hughes of Ombersley). This is despite Hughes’s ruling that he would not keep the names secret of “those who were already sufficiently identified publicly in connection with the events of 2018.” FT49 is the cipher used for the Porton Down agent, although sources claim he has advertised his engagement in the Skripal, Sturgess and Rowley cases in several academic publications accessible on the internet. In his witness statement dated September 16, 2024, the Porton Down agent revealed that he had organized with doctors at the Salisbury District Hospital (SDH) to test the blood of Sturgess and Rowley, after their admission to the hospital on June 30, 2018, using special biochemical assay machines provided by Porton Down. One of the machines had been installed at SDH during the hospitalisation of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in March of 2018. A second Porton Down machine was in operation at a Birmingham toxicology laboratory.

Agent FT49 reported these machines had failed to detect evidence of the Novichok organophosphate in blood samples of Sturgess and Rowley. Government officials then ordered Porton Down itself to take over the blood testing to confirm the presence of Novichok. This is the first leak from an official source that Porton Down may have rigged the blood testing in order to fabricate the existence of Novichok and of the Russian attack. According to FT49, after “an unexpected failure to identify the organophosphate compounds by Birmingham’s analytical laboratory I suggested to Dr Jukes [Stephen Jukes, SDH doctor in charge of treating Sergei Skripal] that Dstl [Porton Down] should also receive a blood sample. Late morning of 2nd July 2018 I was made aware via a phone call from the ITU [Intensive Treatment Unit at SDH] that the Birmingham results were back; there was no evidence of a pesticide, despite cholinesterase inhibition, and the two patients [Sturgess and Rowley] did not have the same non-prescribed drugs in their blood other than a trace of cocaine.”

What this reveals is that both Sturgess and Rowley had been taking cocaine before their collapse. FT49 is also revealing – without expressly saying so — that on the day of their hospitalisation, Rowley had taken the heroin substitute methadone on prescription; Sturgess had not.

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“The CPI is a lie. The unemployment rate is a lie. All these government numbers are designed to create a false picture of prosperity that does not exist.”

• Schiff w/ Mitchell: Fed Policy is Backfiring (SchiffGold)

Earlier this week, Peter joined Mark Mitchell on his podcast for a conversation on economics and monetary policy. They dive into the economic challenges facing the United States, focusing on structural issues like inflation, debt, and currency devaluation. Peter draws attention to the overlooked surge in gold prices, contrasting it with Bitcoin’s media spotlight, and discusses unrealistic promises by politicians on both sides regarding tariffs, tax cuts, and economic growth. To start, Peter and Mark point out the Fed’s plan to reduce long-term interest rates has backfired, leading said rates to rise even higher: “I thought that the catalyst for the next move up in long-term rates would be the Fed reducing short-term rates.

Part of the reason for this reduction in short-term rates was to try to bring down longer-term rates, particularly mortgage rates, because people are having a hard time paying these inflated home prices with normal mortgage rates. … But it backfired. As we’re talking this morning, the yield on a 10-year treasury is now at 4.3%, which is 60 basis points higher than it was when the Fed cut rates by 50 basis points.” Even 4.3% isn’t high enough to flush out decades of malinvestment. Just like a fever burns out a virus, the economy needs high interest rates to properly allocate investment: “Artificially low interest rates are part of the problem underlying the economy, and they are having very negative effects on the allocation of resources– malinvestments.

This is doing damage. We’re not saving enough; we’re borrowing and spending too much. Part of the solution to fixing what’s broken in the economy is to let interest rates go up. They actually need to be higher than they are right now. But the problem is, we have so much debt that we can’t afford it.” Recent jobs numbers are not optimistic, even though most government statistics probably understate the problems facing the economy. Peter explains that he looks at the year-over-year increase to the national debt, a metric he finds more reliable than headline statistics: “The CPI is a lie. The unemployment rate is a lie. All these government numbers are designed to create a false picture of prosperity that does not exist. They understate inflation, overstate growth, understate unemployment, understate the deficits. You can’t believe the information that comes out of the government.”

The government ignores bad data, and the media ignores gold’s record-setting year, choosing instead to focus on Bitcoin’s mediocre performance: “They completely ignore it [gold]. Maybe because it’s making a record high almost every day, so there’s nothing new about it. But when gold is doing this, it’s very significant. It’s sending a clear signal that the Fed is making a mistake, that the rate cuts are a mistake, that inflation is going to be a lot higher. … I’ll be watching financial news as gold hits a new high, and not only will they not discuss gold’s significant new high, they’ll go on and on about Bitcoin making a one-month high.” Peter hopes Donald Trump wins the rapidly approaching election, but urges realistic expectations about his policies, especially because of the incentives politicians face on the campaign trail:

“That’s what he’s promising. ‘Just elect me, and everything’s going to be great. Immediately, we’re all going to be so rich; it’s going to be crazy. And I’m going to collect trillions from the Chinese, and, you know, it’s all going to be great.’ But it’s not all going to be great—that’s the problem. And that’s going to be a problem for the administration because they set the bar so high, the expectations are so high. You kind of want to under-promise and over-deliver, but it’s hard to do that when you’re running for office.” How would we really make America great again? Start by slashing wasteful spending, then abolish the income tax: “We can’t go back to the system we had before the income tax unless we dismantle all the programs that we now have because of the income tax, which I’m all for. Get rid of Social Security, get rid of Medicare, get rid of Obamacare, shrink the government back down to its pre-1913 size. And that would really make America great again!”

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Two female MPS want more troops.

• Ukraine Not Drafting Enough Troops – MP (RT)

Kiev’s military is not meeting its draft quotas amid high casualty numbers in the fight against Russia, Ukrainian MP Solomia Bobrovskaya has said in an interview. ”We have been lagging behind since September,” the lawmaker from the opposition Golos party told Great Lviv, a news outlet. “The mobilization rate has been on the decline since August, while in May we were meeting the target set by the general staff.” If current recruitment rates persist, the draft plan through December will not be fulfilled, Bobrovskaya warned. She blamed the senior Ukrainian leadership, including commander-in-chief Aleksandr Syrsky, for the situation. Their decisions have led to heavy losses at the front and the subsequent drop in enrollment, the MP claimed.

In August, Kiev launched an incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, diverting some of its best-equipped and most trained units for the operation. The force failed to make it very far.Russian troops are currently pushing the Ukrainians in Kursk Region back, having inflicted some 29,600 casualties in the process, according to Moscow. They are also reportedly making significant progress along other parts of the front. Earlier this year, Kiev overhauled its military service system. Ukrainian officials hoped that the simplification of mandatory conscription and heavier punishments for avoidance would help the army replenish its strength after its failed “counteroffensive” last year.

Ukraine needs to draft 500,000 people, as former military chief Valery Zaluzhny proposed, before being removed from office by Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, MP Roman Kostenko argued last week. Meanwhile, lawmaker Mariana Bezuglaya urged this week for a mandatory draft of women to address the manpower shortage. Moscow has described the ongoing conflict as a US-triggered proxy war against Russia, which Washington intends to wage “to the last Ukrainian.” Multiple US officials and politicians have hailed military aid sent to Kiev as a relatively small cost for harming Russia without costing American lives.

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“..expanding conscription to both sexes in the name of equity..”

• Ukrainian MP Calls For Mobilization Of Women (RT)

A Ukrainian lawmaker has called for the conscription of women into the country’s struggling mobilization campaign. MP Mariana Bezuglaya has insisited that it is high time to start targeting women to meet quotas, as Kiev’s military resources dwindle amid ongoing territorial loss on the frontline of the conflict with Russia. Ukraine currently allows for drafting men over the age of 25 and accepts female volunteers. Bezuglaya, however, has repeatedly advocated for expanding conscription to both sexes in the name of equity. “We currently have illegal discrimination against men,” Bezuglaya wrote on her Telegram channel on Monday. “Moreover, if women get mobilized, fewer men will get mobilized – this is one of the reasons for men to support the mobilization of their fellow [female] citizens.”

According to the lawmaker, mobilized women should get assigned to duties in the rear, such as clerks, personnel officers and in the security units, freeing up men to be moved to frontline duties and combat brigades. Others could be sent to military factories to boost the pace of production. “War cannot be an affair of the chosen ones, especially when it is not just about territories or spheres of influence, but about a nation’s existence and the right to life,” Bezuglaya wrote, adding that without the kind of mobilization she advocates, Ukraine is “doomed to lose” the conflict with Russia and its statehood as well. Bezuglaya noted that she has repeatedly submitted this proposal to the defense committee of the Verkhovna Rada, only to have the government and the generals shoot it down. “It’s a paradox,” she wrote.

“The Defense Ministry has failed in the mobilization policy, the generals are literally destroying their soldiers with ill-considered decisions, but this topic is not raised – it is too delicate, you see. Perhaps mobilized women would bring order to this chaos.” Bezuglaya’s comments come after another MP, Roman Kostenko, claimed that Kiev would need to draft another 500,000 men to replenish combat losses and rotate the battle-worn units along the front. Kostenko, himself a veteran, revealed that mobilization has been falling behind over the last two months. A member of Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s ‘Servant of the People’ party, Bezuglaya has frequently clashed with the military due to her hardline policies on the conflict against Russia. At one point she was added to Kiev’s Mirotvorets ‘kill list’ and in September, she survived a vote to oust her from the defense committee. Her jurisdiction was previously represented by Andrey Biletsky, founder of the neo-Nazi ‘Azov’ militia.

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“These issues even reached the public in an unacceptable manner, and, worse, became known to our enemies..”

• Netanyahu Fires Israeli Defense Minister (RT)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, citing “significant gaps” in their position on the war against Hamas and Hezbollah. Foreign Minister Israel Katz has been offered the defense job, while Gideon Saar has been tapped to take his position if he leaves, according to Israeli media. “Serious differences arose between Gallant and me regarding the campaign’s management, with these disagreements accompanied by statements and actions that contradicted both government and cabinet decisions,” Netanyahu said in a statement on Tuesday, explaining his move. According to Netanyahu, wartime requires “complete trust” between the head of government and the defense minister and that trust “has eroded” between him and Gallant in recent months.

“I made repeated efforts to bridge these gaps, but they only widened. These issues even reached the public in an unacceptable manner, and, worse, became known to our enemies, who took pleasure and found advantage in it,” the prime minister added. Netanyahu praised Gallant’s replacement as a “bulldozer with quiet strength and responsible determination,” noting that Katz had headed the finance and intelligence ministries before taking on his current role. This is the second time Netanyahu has fired Gallant. The first time was in March 2023, when the defense minister openly criticized the government’s judicial reforms, which he said divided Israeli society and threatened the military. Following widespread street protests, Netanyahu reversed his decision in early April.

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Bureaucracy

 

 

Gotcha

 

 

Spin
https://twitter.com/i/status/1853769745461354845

 

 

Polychaetes

 

 

Sheep dog

 

 

Tucker Stella

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle October 31 2024

Oct 312024
 
 October 31, 2024  Posted by at 9:40 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  57 Responses »


Gustave Caillebotte Paris Street, Rainy Day 1877

 

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

 

 

 

 

Ackman

Art of the Surge

Puerto Rico

Indian Space Agency Chief

Vivek

Biden garbage

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

Bannon Wolff

Vote

Tulsi

Dore Tucker

 

 

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Trump Rides In Garbage Truck (RT)

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

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

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

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“..looking forward versus back..”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Harris Campaign Manipulating Social Media – Researcher (RT)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Wikipedia Is ‘Broken’ – Musk (RT)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nevada

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read more …

“..how else would we get reparations?”

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

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

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

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

Read more …

 

 

 

Fruit loops

 

 

Brick

 

 

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

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle October 27 2024

Oct 272024
 
 October 27, 2024  Posted by at 9:17 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  56 Responses »


Joseph Mallord William Turner Sunrise over Plain, with Figures 1830

 

• Fever Dream (James Howard Kunstler)
• Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, RFK Jr. To Speak At Trump Rally At MSG in NYC (JTN)
• Kamala Rally Descends Into Complete Chaos As Beyoncé Doesn’t Perform (MN)
• Scott Rasmussen Says Trump Needs To Win A ‘Blue Wall’ State (JTN)
• Over 80% of Americans Support Voter ID and Proof of Citizenship Laws (Turley)
• Appeals Court: Mississippi Law Allowing Ballots After Election Day Illegal (ET)
• Trump Discussed A Wide Range Of Topics For 3 Hours On The Joe Rogan Show (JTN)
• Bravo, WaPo: Ending Media Endorsements Could Help Restore Trust (Turley)
• Trump Reveals His ‘Biggest Mistake’ (RT)
• Trump, Former White House Staffers Reject John Kelly’s ‘Fascist’ Claims (ET)
• Judge Throws Out Vote Payment Allegations Against Elon Musk (ET)
• BRICS Banknotes’ Hidden Meaning Revealed by Creator (Sp.)
• Iranian Media & Pundits Mock ‘Nothingburger’ Israeli Attack (ZH)
• Boeing Could Offload Space Business – WSJ (RT)
• Zelensky Knows The Game Is Up (Shumov)
• The Atlantic Council Has Big Plans For A War Between The US And Iran (Smith)

 

 

 

 

Rogan Kamala

JFK files

Shanahan The Big Cheat
https://twitter.com/i/status/1849970454963925408

Elon Freedom

DOGE

Taxes

Trans

 

 

 

 

“The army, under Department of Defense directive 5240.01 has just been licensed to gun you down.”

And Uncle Sam sleeps in a drainage ditch on the ragged edge of Palookaville…

• Fever Dream (James Howard Kunstler)

“The American ‘Left’ is fully exposed now as a demented, vicious, abusive animal of traumatizing narcissism.” — Celia Farber

Do you hear that lonesome whistle blow? Wooooo-wooooo! It’s the last train to Palookaville pulling into the station. At this late hour, two passengers get on: Kamala Harris, mom jeans and blazer, rheumy red eyes, half-gone on chardonnay. . . and an elderly gentleman with a goatee in a colorful but shabby red-white-and-blue suit, famous long ago as “Uncle Sam.” There’s an election on, in case you haven’t noticed, imminent even. Kamala, everyone seems to agree, has blown it. Can’t answer simple questions pitched by friendly ringers in the “news” business. Hiding somebody else’s agenda is a tough assignment, you see. All she can really do is cackle or simper and, let’s face it, that gets humiliating fast. Joy has turned to despair. Her punched ticket says “one way.” Whose idea was it, anyway, over at party HQ, to put her up to this contest?

She wishes she knew, as she gazes out the window at the sad lights of the little towns streaking by — East Chugwater, Erehwon, Tanktown, Loserville, onward into the night to the end of the line. How’d they manage to yank her out of the Naval Observatory, where she was comfy and cozy watching Netflix rom-coms with Doug, chardonnay refills on-demand, all the Doritos a gal could munch? She was a lover, not a fighter, she repeats to herself, but the self-consolation doesn’t quite avail. Uncle Sam sits stoically five seats behind her. He is resigned, knowing very well why he is on that train, too. His own country is sending him into exile after swindling him out of his history and his posterity. He doesn’t even recognize the place anymore. What happened to Sandburg’s city of big shoulders? Who turned the fruited plain into a hellscape of muffler shops?

How did the heroes of Iwo Jima transition into a legion of TikTok influencers with pierced faces and scrambled brains? When the train gets in, he has no place to go. Perhaps he’ll sleep in a ditch. You entertain these drear hallucinatory conceits despite the giddiness about Donald Trump’s seeming triumph over adversity — botched assassinations, court cases hatched by malice-crazed ninnies, blob-generated calumnies, conspiracies, ops, and hoaxes galore. And for Halloween, they painted a Hitler mustache on him, just for fun. It remains to be seen what marvels of ballot legerdemain have been concocted by Marc Elias, Esq, lawfare artist supreme, destroyer of the nation’s faith in itself. But say Mr. Trump overcomes even the planned epic voter fraud to capture the prize. What then? You’re entitled to feel nervous. The army, under Department of Defense directive 5240.01 has just been licensed to gun you down.

This is a new thing. Now isn’t it a queer moment in history for a move like that? What are they expecting, anyway? And, by the way, who exactly is the varlet in the chain-of-command who issued that directive? (Or did it just bubble-up out of the ruling blob like some sulfurous gas from a Yellowstone fumarole?) People of good faith have reason to believe that the country is about to be blown apart. By another odd coincidence, an outfit called the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association International (AFCEA) has scheduled an “exercise simulating a cyber-attack on critical infrastructure” for November 5 in Atlanta, Georgia. That’s election day. In a big swing state. Whose idea was that? Is there already not enough that might go wrong that some treasonous moron had to kick the risk of fiasco up another notch? Or might it be cover for another Three Card Monte caper with the Georgia votes?

This is the sort of thing that will dog poor old Uncle Sam’s mind as he tries to fall asleep in that drainage ditch on the ragged edge of Palookaville.

Read more …

All together now.

• Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, RFK Jr. To Speak At Trump Rally At MSG in NYC (JTN)

GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s upcoming rally at Madison Square Garden will feature, among others, speakers Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Trump is planning to hold the rally in New York City on Sunday at 5 p.m. ET. Other speakers include former Democratic Hawaii Congresswoman turned Republican Tulsi Gabbard, Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla. and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. The total list provided by the campaign includes 30 names. As Election Day gets closer, both Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and Trump have been ramping up their campaign stops. Harris held a rally in Houston, Texas, Friday with music star Beyonce, while Trump recently got the endorsement of country singer Jason Aldean in Georgia. Trump went on the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast Friday and the episode already has over 10 million views.

Read more …

Not even 1 in 100 were there for Kamala.

• Kamala Rally Descends Into Complete Chaos As Beyoncé Doesn’t Perform (MN)

The Kamala Harris rally in Houston last night was billed as a Beyoncé concert. Everyone, including the media, believed the singer would perform after the announcement was made earlier in the week, but all she did was walk out and make a barely audible speech for a few minutes. Then the rally descended into complete chaos.This is the extent of her appearance:

Firstly, you can’t hear a word she’s saying. What’s so difficult about taking a direct feed from the microphones? It seems some outlets got the feed but others didn’t. What a mess. Secondly, 30,000 people showed up and waited in line because they believed it was a Beyoncé concert. A million people tried to get tickets because they thought it was a Beyoncé concert.

So when it wasn’t, people were pissed. The rally then descended into absolute chaos as some people left, while others kicked up a fuss about Beyonce not singing. The media spun this as Trump supporters ‘protesting’, and Harris repeated a line about showing them the way to the “smaller rally down the road,” referring to Trump’s event. But the fact is, they weren’t Trump supporters, they were just pissed off that they’d been misled. Perhaps the most hilarious aspect of this was that the performance they actually got was 91 year old Willie Nelson.

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Polymarket suggests that won’t be a problem.

• Scott Rasmussen Says Trump Needs To Win A ‘Blue Wall’ State (JTN)

Pollster Scott Rasmussen on Friday said current polls show former President Donald Trump having “the edge” in Georgia, North Carolina, and Arizona, but that he would need one of the “blue wall” states in order to secure victory in November. The election is considered too close to call this far out, with the election coming down to seven critical swing states. Those states consist of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The three “blue wall states” are Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

“Looking at the latest data… If the election were held today, [Donald Trump] would likely win,” Rasmussen said in a post to X. “Trump has edge in key swing states of GA, NC, [and] AZ. That would get him to 262 Electoral College votes. He would then need to win just one of the three Blue Wall states.” Rasmussen said Vice President Kamala Harris would need to “pull the political equivalent of an inside straight,” which means a clean sweep of the blue wall states, in order to win the election.

The Napolitan Institute warned on Friday that one of Trump’s biggest threats is voter turnout, especially in swing states like North Carolina, where voters could be impacted by the remnants of Hurricane Helene. Bad weather, such as blizzards in Northern states, could also negatively impact voter turnout, which would likely hurt Trump more than Harris. The group also warned that some polls might underestimate Harris’ appeal, which could bring more voters to the polls than expected.

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“In the meantime, the Biden Administration is continuing to oppose and legally challenge efforts of states like Virginia to remove alleged non-citizens from their voting rolls.”

• Over 80% of Americans Support Voter ID and Proof of Citizenship Laws (Turley)

This week, I wrote about polls that show the public is not buying the apocalyptic predictions of the imminent death of democracy unless Kamala Harris is elected president. Now, a new poll shatters another main talking point of pundits and the press. Democratic candidates, including Vice President Harris, have denounced voter identification laws as “Jim Crow 2.0” attacks on voters. A majority of voters have long supported these laws. According to a new Gallup poll, that majority is now a supermajority. Despite unrelenting attacks on these laws in the media, eight in ten Americans now support both laws:

With less than two weeks to go in the presidential campaign and voting already underway in many states, 76% of U.S. adults favor the concept of early voting. Two other election law policies are supported by even more Americans — requiring photo identification to vote (84%) and providing proof of citizenship when registering to vote for the first time (83%). … Majorities of Americans favor a range of election law policies that expand voters’ access to the ballot box, including early voting, automatic voter registration, and sending absentee ballot applications to all eligible voters.

They also broadly support measures to limit fraud and ensure election integrity, including requiring photo identification to vote and providing proof of citizenship when first registering to vote. There are few major political issues today that could show this type of overwhelming support, including from Democrats. Yet, both the Democratic politicians and pundits continue to denounce these laws. Indeed, the campaign against Georgia resulted in their losing the All-Star Game and its economic benefits. Yet, under these laws, Georgia is setting records in the turnout of voters. In the meantime, the Biden Administration is continuing to oppose and legally challenge efforts of states like Virginia to remove alleged non-citizens from their voting rolls.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1850082849246019854

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It’s all only designed to cheat.

• Appeals Court: Mississippi Law Allowing Ballots After Election Day Illegal (ET)

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit released an opinion on Oct. 25 stating that federal law requires mail-in ballots be counted no later than election day. In doing so, it ruled against a Mississippi law allowing ballots to be counted if they arrived no more than five days after the election and if they were postmarked on or before the date of the election. The opinion, which came less than two weeks before the 2024 elections, redirected the case back to the lower court while refraining from issuing an injunction that would halt Mississippi’s law. The policy was adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the state kept it after the pandemic ended. “Because Mississippi’s statute allows ballot receipt up to five days after the federal election day, it is preempted by federal law,” Judge Andrew Oldham, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, wrote in his opinion for the court.

RNC Chairman Michael Whatley called the decision on the social media platform X a “seismic win for fair, accurate, secure, and transparent elections.” Justifying the decision to throw the decision back to the lower court, rather than block Mississippi’s law, Oldham referenced a Supreme Court precedent that cautions against last-minute changes to election procedures. “Today’s decision says nothing about remedies,” he said. “We decline to grant plaintiffs’ initial request for a permanent injunction. … Instead, we remand to the district court for further proceedings to fashion appropriate relief, giving due consideration to ’the value of preserving the status quo in a voting case on the eve of an election.’” He was quoting another fifth circuit case but also referenced the Supreme Court’s 2006 decision in Purcell v. Gonzalez. Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson had told the Fifth Circuit that an election was voters’ “conclusive choice of an officeholder,” which took place on election day.

“That is so even if election officials do not receive those ballots until after election day,” his brief to the court read. “An election does not itself require ballot receipt.” Oldham and two other Trump appointees, Judge James Ho and Judge Kyle Duncan, heard oral arguments over the issue in September. The Republican National Committee (RNC) had appealed the decision of a lower court that ruled in favor of Mississippi. Oldham reasoned that the Constitution granted Congress authority over elections through two provisions, including one that allows Congress to alter the timing of federal elections hosted by states. Oldham drew a distinction between the timing of ballot counting and ballot casting. “Even if the ballots have not been counted, the result is fixed when all of the ballots are received and the proverbial ballot box is closed,” he wrote. “The selections are done and final.”

Virginia

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“Trump praised former independent presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr., saying that Big Pharma wasn’t thrilled about their partnership.”

• Trump Discussed A Wide Range Of Topics For 3 Hours On The Joe Rogan Show (JTN)

GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump covered a wide range of topics on the hugely popular “Joe Rogan Experience” Friday during a nearly three-hour interview. Rogan has an audience of about 14.5 million on Spotify and 17.6 million on YouTube, according to Fox News. He is the most-listened-to podcast host, and is considered very influential with young male voters, a demographic that Trump is attempting to reach during the remaining days of the presidential campaign. The episode already has over 10 million views. Among the topics they discussed were his opponent, Kamala Harris, in the race for the White House. They discussed his relationship with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan by the Biden administration, his former National Security Advisor John Bolton, how liberals became pro-censorship of online speech, and his relationship with Robert Kennedy Jr.

Rogan asked Trump if Kennedy Jr. would definitely be a part of his next administration. He showed Trump charts that he said showed “there are chemicals and ingredients in our food that are illegal in other countries because they’ve been shown to be toxic.” He asked Trump if he was pressured not to work with Kennedy Jr. Trump praised former independent presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr., saying that Big Pharma wasn’t thrilled about their partnership. After Kennedy Jr. dropped out and endorsed him, Trump said that if he got another term, Kennedy Jr. would be a part of the administration and would be focused on reforming government agencies like the Food and Drug Administration. “But I would say that the Big Pharma wasn’t thrilled when they heard that,” Trump answered, according to Fox News. “I’ve actually always gotten along very well with him. I’ve known him a long time.

He’s a different kind of a guy. He’s very smart, great guy, and he’s very sincere about this. I mean, he really is. You know, he thinks we spend a fortune on pesticides and all this stuff, and then you end up at that chart…” Kennedy Jr. has been focused on Big Food and getting toxic chemicals out of what Americans eat. He recently coined the term “Make America Healthy Again.” “There’s pesticides and herbicides, and there’s a lot of sh– that’s been sprayed on our food that really is unnecessary,” Rogan said. “And there’s a lot of health consequences.” He added that Kennedy recently told him that “more than 70% of young men are ineligible for the military because of their health.” On another topic, Rogan asked Trump about referring to Kim Jong Un as “Little Rocket Man.”

“I said, ‘Little Rocket Man, you’re going to burn in hell.’ And it was rough,” Trump said. “I got to know him better than anybody, anybody. And I said, ‘Do you ever do anything else? Why don’t you go take it easy and relax? Go to the beach?’ You know, kiddingly, I said, ‘You’re always building nuclear. Just relax. You don’t have to do it. Let’s build some condos.'” And regarding his opponent in the upcoming election, Kamala Harris, Trump described her as a “very low IQ person.” “There’s the rhetoric is also that you’re Hitler and that in order to stop Hitler, you have to do whatever,” Rogan said. “I mean, you’re hearing this now, Kamala compared you, said you love Hitler yesterday.” “Kamala is a very low IQ person. She’s a very low IQ. You know, I’m for taking tests too. I think anybody that runs for president should take, they should give them a test,” Trump said.

Read more …

True, but not why he did it. Bezos is simply afraid of being caught on the wrong end of a landslide.

“Let’s not sugarcoat it…We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right? I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.”

• Bravo, WaPo: Ending Media Endorsements Could Help Restore Trust (Turley)

As someone who used to write regularly for the newspaper, it has been a long time since I have had an occasion to say this but . . . Bravo, Washington Post. This week, the Post announced that not only would it not endorse a candidate this year, but it would not do so in the future. Over two decades ago, I wrote a column calling for newspapers to end the practice of all election endorsements. (Yes, before all things seemed to turn on how you feel about Donald Trump). I have continued to push the press to abandon this pernicious practice. When I first came out against political endorsements, the media had not taken the plunge into advocacy journalism, which is now strangling the life out of this industry. As former New York Times writer (and now Howard University journalism professor) Nikole Hannah-Jones has declared that “all journalism is activism.”

After a series of interviews with over 75 media leaders, Leonard Downie Jr., former Washington Post executive editor, and Andrew Heyward, former CBS News president, reaffirmed this shift. As Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor-in-chief at the San Francisco Chronicle, stated: “Objectivity has got to go.” The result has been the plummeting of trust in the media to an all-time low. Revenues and readership are falling as outlets struggle to survive. Yet, reporters are still refusing to reconsider the abandonment of neutrality and objectivity. Recently, Post owner Jeff Bezos brought in Washington Post publisher and CEO William Lewis, who promptly delivered a truth bomb in the middle of the newsroom by telling the staff, “Let’s not sugarcoat it…We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right? I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.”

The response was calls for Lewis and other editors to be canned. These reporters would rather give up their very jobs than their bias. Now Lewis is under fire again after announcing, “We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.” The Washington Post Guild immediately went ballistic at the thought of not openly supporting Kamala Harris, though many would point out that the Post has hardly been subtle in its coverage on that point. The Guild expressed alarm at the thought of leaving readers to reach their own conclusions “a mere 11 days ahead of an immensely consequential election.” According to the staff, the Post needs “to help guide readers,” and “according to our own reporters and Guild members, an endorsement for Harris was already drafted, and the decision not to publish was made by The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos.”

Read more …

“The biggest mistake I made, was I picked… a few people that I should not have picked..”

He needs to ask for advice on his picks. RFK and Musk are good for that.

• Trump Reveals His ‘Biggest Mistake’ (RT)

Former US president and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has told podcaster Joe Rogan that his “biggest mistake” was making a number of wrong personnel decisions during his time in the White House between 2017 and 2021. Speaking on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast on Saturday, Trump insisted that his was a “great presidency” but pointed out that it could have been even better if he had surrounded himself with different people. “The biggest mistake I made, was I picked… a few people that I should not have picked,” he said. When asked by Rogan if he was talking about the neocons (neoconservatives), the former president said: “Yes, neocons, or bad people, or disloyal people.” “You are reading about them a little bit today. A guy like Kelly, who is a bully, but a weak person,” he said.

Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly recently gave several interviews in which he claimed that, during his time in office, his 78-year-old commander-in-chief had praised Hitler in private and said “more than once” that the infamous leader of Nazi Germany “did some good things.” While the Trump team has denied the claims outright, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris took the opportunity to brand her Republican rival a “fascist” and a would-be dictator. His other questionable choice, Trump recalled on the podcast, was appointing arch-hawk John Bolton as his National Security Advisor, Trump acknowledged. “Bolton was an idiot, but he was great for me,” he said. “He is a nutjob, and every time I had to deal with a country – when they saw this whack job standing behind me – they said: ‘Oh man, Trump is going to go to war with him,” the former president said.

Bolton “was with [US president George HW] Bush when they went stupidly into the Middle East [in 1990]. They should have never done it. I used to say it as a civilian,” he added. Trump fired Bolton in September 2019 after 18 months in the job, saying that he “disagreed strongly with many of [the adviser’s] suggestions.” Speaking about claims by former chief of staff Kelly with CNN earlier this week, Bolton warned that a Trump victory in next month’s election would be “dangerous” for America. However, he rejected accusations of the former president being a “fascist.” According to the hawk, in order to be one “you have to have a philosophy. Trump’s not capable of that.”

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“This is the kind of inflammatory poison that divides our nation and inspires assassins.”

• Trump, Former White House Staffers Reject John Kelly’s ‘Fascist’ Claims (ET)

Former President Donald Trump and previous members of his administration say that claims made by former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly are “patently false.” Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, worked for the Trump administration from 2017 to 2019. He has spoken out multiple times against Trump during the election—most recently in interviews with The New York Times and The Atlantic. In those interviews, Kelly said Trump fitted the general definition of a fascist and alleged that the former president said he wanted “German generals,” like Nazi leader Adolph Hitler had. Several members of the Trump administration, including former Vice President Mike Pence’s former chief of staff, Mike Ayers, have sharply disputed the claims. “I’ve avoided commenting on intra-staff leaks or rumors or even lies as it relates to my time at the White House but General Kelly’s comments regarding President Trump are too egregious to ignore,” Ayers said on X.

“I was with each of them more than most, and his commentary is *patently false.*” Mark Paoletta, general counsel of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), also spoke out against Kelly, writing on X: “I don’t believe a word he says. He was a terrible chief of staff who dishonestly kept information from the President to pursue his own agenda.” Trump himself denounced the stories on Oct. 23, saying Kelly “made up a story out of pure Trump Derangement Syndrome Hatred.” “Even though I shouldn’t be wasting my time with him, I always feel it’s necessary to hit back in pursuit of THE TRUTH,” Trump said on Truth Social and X. Both of Kelly’s interviews came out less than two weeks before Election Day, at a time when early voting is underway across several states, and Trump is starting to take the lead in battleground state polls. Vice President Kamala Harris followed Kelly’s two stories by stating at a CNN town hall that she believed Trump to be a fascist.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. responded directly to these comments on X, saying, “This is the kind of inflammatory poison that divides our nation and inspires assassins.” The Atlantic also claimed Trump made disparaging remarks about a dead military servicemember and balked over her funeral expenses. At a news conference in Austin, Texas, on Oct. 25, the former president also strongly denied making those claims. “If they didn’t get the military funding, I was going to fund it myself,” Trump said about the funeral for Vanessa Guillen, 20, who was murdered in 2020 while stationed at an Army base in Texas that was then called Fort Hood. Guillen’s slaying and dismemberment led to an outcry over sexual harassment at U.S. military bases, resulting in changes to laws and discipline of 21 Army personnel; some were faulted for allowing the prime suspect in her killing to escape and commit suicide.

On Friday, Trump thanked Guillen’s family for publicly denouncing The Atlantic’s allegations. The family came to show support for Trump as he addressed reporters at Million Air Austin, a private airplane service. “The beautiful thing is that these people [Guillen’s relatives] were willing to come out and say it didn’t happen… they didn’t have to do this,” Trump said. Guillen’s sister, Maya Guillen, and the family’s attorney, Natalie Khawam, made social media posts and TV appearances asserting that the article contained inaccuracies and misrepresentations. Trump pointed out that the Atlantic’s article was timed to appear just before the Nov. 5 election, increasing the likelihood that a certain percentage of readers would believe what the magazine reported and hold it against his candidacy. “So I talk about it because it was a terrible thing,” Trump said about the article after touching on multiple other topics, including illegal immigration and election integrity.

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“Here, the injury claimed is unrelated to the conduct alleged in the complaint and the relief sought therein..”

• Judge Throws Out Vote Payment Allegations Against Elon Musk (ET)

A federal judge has turned away allegations that billionaire Elon Musk violated the law when he started giving $1 million away to registered voters. California resident Aaron Greenspan in a lawsuit filed over the summer accused Musk of violating state laws and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. In a recent emergency motion, Greenspan, who founded the company PlainSite, said Musk’s newly announced million-dollar giveaways to voters in swing states violated federal law that prohibits paying or offering to pay people to either register to vote or vote. Greenspan said that Musk, who has endorsed former President Donald Trump, should not be “permitted to continually violate federal law and swing the election.” He asked the court to order Musk to stop violating the law.

U.S. District Judge Maxine M. Chesney on Oct. 22 denied the motion. She pointed to a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that concluded there must be a relationship between an injury claimed in a motion for injunctive relief and the conduct asserted in the underlying lawsuit. “Here, the injury claimed is unrelated to the conduct alleged in the complaint and the relief sought therein,” Chesney said. Musk’s lawyers noted that the giveaways were only open to people who signed a petition in favor of free speech and the right to bear arms and that the petition itself says it is only open to registered voters in swing states such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. “Plaintiff’s motion fails for numerous reasons, including that Plaintiff has no standing, the requested relief bears no relationship to Plaintiff’s complaint, and Plaintiff fails to meet his burden to establish a private right of action under Section 10307(c),” the lawyers said.

“Even if the Court were inclined to consider the merits, Plaintiff does not establish any of the elements required to obtain emergency relief. He fails to show he is likely to prevail on his claims; he does not establish a likelihood of imminent, particularized harm; and, rather than show that the balance of equities and public interest favor his position, he seeks a prohibited prior restraint on Musk’s political speech, including through a vague demand to enjoin ‘interfering with the voting preferences of any individual.‘ Musk’s political action committee on Thursday gave away $1 million to a Wisconsin man, and $1 million more to a Michigan man.

Read more …

100% symbolic. But there will be an “overarching” digital currency, to accomodate trade.

• BRICS Banknotes’ Hidden Meaning Revealed by Creator (Sp.)

The main motif of the symbolic BRICS banknotes that were unveiled at the summit in Kazan is equality and multipolarity, says Evgeny Fedorov, CEO of ARM-Registr – the company that designed the notes. He tells Sputnik that the very way a banknote’s value is denoted four times is meant to display multipolarity because “BRICS is literally a multiverse.” “It is a multipolar banknote by itself,” Fedorov explains. “This associative meaning is ingrained in the note. This is what BRICS original members are talking about, what the world is concerned with today.”

The depiction of BRICS member states’ totem animals on the 200 BRICS banknotes also holds a greater meaning, he points out. “I believe that BRICS is a Noah’s Ark of sorts, meant to save humanity from something terrible that rapidly approaches,” Fedorov says. “These totem animals are protective charms that symbolize the idea of salvation. The idea of a communal ark in which we all are sailing, that we are responsible not just for the people of Earth but for the environment and the animals as well, for everything. This is a huge metaphor and BRICS members, political leaders, journalists and regular folks may find new meanings in it.”

The banknotes also feature depictions of the “most popular symbols” of BRICS countries such as the Moscow Kremlin or the statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro. The banknotes will also feature depictions of BRICS members flags, Fedorov adds: one side will feature images of the BRICS founding members’ flags (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) while the reverse will be subject to change as flags of all the new BRICS members, whenever they may join the group, will be added there.

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Israel declaring the response “concluded” looks like the same that Iran did.

• Iranian Media & Pundits Mock ‘Nothingburger’ Israeli Attack (ZH)

The Israeli ‘retaliation’ attack against Iran, which occurred in the overnight and early morning hours, appears to be complete, with Israel’s military (IDF) having declared the response “concluded” after locations in three provinces of the Islamic Republic were hit. Some 100 Israeli warplanes were sent, primarily across Jordanian airspace, for the unprecedented attack which reportedly included strikes on key missile, drone, and other military sites – including air defense installations. However, Iranians are mocking it as if it didn’t even happen, and there’s an emerging consensus among Western pundits that this was remarkably limited in scale. The attack did not involve Iranian nuclear or oil sites, according to Israeli military officials. IDF Spokesman, Daniel Hagari, said overnight – following at least two or three waves of attacks –

“I can now confirm that we have concluded the Israeli response to Iran’s attack against Israel. We conducted targeted and precise strikes on military targets in Iran, thwarting immediate threats to the State of Israel.” And Hagari’s words concluded with the threat of new major escalation if Iran decides to respond militarily, “If the regime in Iran were to make the mistake of beginning a new round of escalation, we will be obligated to respond. All those who threaten the State of Israel and seek to drag the region into wider escalation will pay a heavy price.” Local reports of explosions near Tehran emerged at around 2:15 local time, with strikes later being reported also in the Karaj, Isfahan and Shiraz areas. Israel’s military said it hit around 20 sites over the several hours across the three provinces. ”

If the regime in Iran were to make the mistake of beginning a new round of escalation, we will be obligated to respond,” the Israeli military said. Israeli media indicated that while the first wave of warplanes took out anti-air defense sites, follow-up waves targeted ballistic missile and drone manufacturing facilities, as well as launch sites. Israeli officials say the operation sought to degrade Iran’s capability to launch another attack such as occurred on April 14 and October 1. The operation was declared complete within a few hours of reports of initial explosions:

The Israeli military said at 6 a.m. that the assault had been completed, with “all goals achieved” and all aircraft returning safely home. It dubbed the campaign “Days of Repentance,” a reference to the recent Yom Kippur holiday. It said dozens of IAF aircraft, including fighter jets, refuelers and spy planes, participated in the “complex” operation some 1,600 kilometers from Israel. Iran has only confirmed that “limited damage” resulted at some bases and asserted that its air defenses countered many of the attacks, a narrative which has been rejected by Israel. Israel’s air force touted that it gave it pilots “wider freedom of aerial action in Iran” – and yet still the whole operation looked significantly less intense than Iran’s Oct. 1st attack on Israel.

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“Boeing had been in contact with potential buyers, including the Blue Origin company owned by Jeff Bezos..”

• Boeing Could Offload Space Business – WSJ (RT)

Boeing is considering the sale of its NASA business, including the troubled Starliner program and the support operations to the International Space Station (ISS), The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing sources familiar with the matter. The corporation is expected to retain its position in some of the space-related programs, namely the Space Launch System (SLS), a super-heavy expendable launch vehicle used by NASA, the sources told the WSJ. The SLS, the key component of the agency’s Moon exploration plans, successfully performed its first flight two years ago. However, production of the rocket has faced assorted troubles and quality control issues. The less successful programs, including the ill-fated Starliner ship, designed to transport crews of up to seven to and from the ISS, could end up sold off, the sources claimed.

The spacecraft was originally planned to become operational in 2017 but has been repeatedly delayed over assorted engineering and management problems. The latest crew flight test, launched in June, resulted in partial failure after the spacecraft’s thrusters malfunctioned on approach to the ISS, and it was deemed too risky to return its astronauts aboard the ship, which ultimately returned to Earth uncrewed in September. The potential sale of its space-related assets comes as a part of the strategy of Boeing’s new CEO, Kelly Ortberg, who is seeking to streamline the corporation and cut its financial losses. However, Boeing had been in contact with potential buyers, including the Blue Origin company owned by Jeff Bezos, even before Ortberg took over in August.

The new CEO signaled the corporation was due for a major overhaul, during a call with analysts and investors earlier this week. While the production of military and commercial aircraft will remain at the company’s core, it could ditch “some things on the fringe,” Ortberg stated. “It’s going to take a lot of work. We’re not going to be able to just wave a wand and clean up these troubled contracts. We signed up to some things that are problematic,” he warned, stating that Boeing would be “better off doing less and doing it better than doing more and not doing it well.” The corporation has been experiencing an enduring financial crisis, with its defense and space projects troubled by repeated cost overruns and delays, while airliner production has effectively ground to a halt in a weeks-long machinists’ strike.

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“Western countries are doing everything they can to avoid a direct confrontation with Russia..”

• Zelensky Knows The Game Is Up (Shumov)

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has finally unveiled his ‘victory plan’ which is supposed to help Kiev win the war against Russia. Ukrainians themselves were the last to learn the details, but now it has been completely disclosed, except for a few classified points. And it’s probably not going to go down in history as a substantial document. Zelensky demanded that Western powers endorse his plan within three months. However, the ‘victory plan’ seems too far fetched for his backers to approve.

Point one: NATO membership
The first point states that Ukraine must receive an immediate invitation to join NATO, even as the conflict continues. While the bloc’s new Secretary General Mark Rutte insists that Kiev is likely to join at some point in the future, he has been more restrained about commenting on Zelensky’s proposals. “That doesn’t mean that I here can say I support the whole plan […] there are many issues,” he said. In fact, two issues stand out. Firstly, Ukraine is currently engaged in active combat on its own territory. This would present a significant dilemma for NATO if it were to be admitted. Strangely enough, the bloc’s own charter doesn’t contain an obligation to immediately attack the adversary of one of its members. Article 5 states that it “will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force.”

In other words, NATO would not be immediately obliged to fight for Ukraine should Kiev accede. However, if a NATO member can be attacked without consequences, it’s going to look like a paper tiger. This is where the real problem lies: Western countries are doing everything they can to avoid a direct confrontation with Russia, and admitting Kiev dramatically increases the risk of such a clash – or, at the very least, severely damages their credibility. Meanwhile, the West is already providing military aid, financial support, and training to Ukrainian troops without directly involving NATO. As for Russia, it will not tolerate Ukraine’s membership of any Western military bloc. In fact, one of the initial reasons for the February 2022 military offensive was because Moscow feared that Kiev could join such an alliance. Thus, accepting the first point of Zelensky’s plan would symbolize the end of any potential diplomatic solution, forcing all parties to recognize that negotiations are not a possibility.

JD Ukr

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“To be clear, the council is not only interested in Ukraine and Russia. They’re happy to embroil Americans in a larger war wherever they can.”

• The Atlantic Council Has Big Plans For A War Between The US And Iran (Smith)

Globalists as an organized entity have a habit of shifting their efforts between various false-front institutions in order to avoid significant scrutiny. For example, in 2020 they ramped up the fear machine on the covid pandemic and the World Economic Forum took a lead role in that effort. Klaus Schwab was all over the media using covid as an excuse to promote every authoritarian measure imaginable. When that agenda failed (lockdowns blocked, mask mandates ignored, vaccine passports defeated and the CDC caught inflating vaccination numbers), the WEF and Klaus Schwab conveniently disappeared from the media radar. When globalists tried to permanently establish ESG as a way of life for corporations, they introduced the Council For Inclusive Capitalism, run by Lynn de Rothschild and partnered with the Vatican. When ESG was exposed for what it really is (a bridge to full bore communism in which corporations enforce far left social engineering), the CIC vanished from the limelight as quickly as they appeared.

That said, there is one globalist group that has consistently been in the background during most of these operations – The Atlantic Council. Whenever there’s a propaganda push in play to misdirect the western public, whenever there’s a policy initiative to take away your freedoms, whenever there’s a regional war that might explode into a world war, I always end up finding the fingerprints of the Atlantic Council. The council was deeply involved in covid propaganda from 2020 onward and they also have their hands in climate change propaganda, but their bread and butter is regional proxy wars. In my recent article ‘Globalists Are Trying To Escalate The Ukraine War Into WWIII Before The US Election’, I outlined how the council is deeply interwoven into the escalation of the Ukraine war through their Eurasia Center and their Scowcroft Center. They have been stoking conflict in the region for at least a decade with the intention of drawing NATO forces into a direct confrontation with Russia. In a report published by the Atlantic Council in 2014 titled ‘A Roadmap for Ukraine: Delivering on the Promise of the Maidan’, the group notes:

“Last fall, as Ukrainians massed on the Maidan to demand a better government and closer ties to Europe, the Atlantic Council began to mobilize on Ukraine. An Atlantic Council delegation visited Warsaw and Kyiv in March to map out our strategy, and during the visit of Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk to the Council that same month, we launched a one hundred- day campaign to galvanize the transatlantic community behind Ukraine’s democratic future in Europe. As the crisis worsened, we convened at the highest levels, making vital connections between Ukrainian, American, and European policymakers and thought leaders. We deployed our substantial expertise to launch “red team” exercises that anticipated Russia’s actions and outlined strategies to respond to likely scenarios. Our rapid response working groups (“tiger teams”) made recommendations on issues fundamental to Ukraine’s success. An Atlantic Council delegation delivered this report, which brings all of these findings together, to Prime Minister Yatsenyuk and other leaders in Kyiv the first week of July. The findings are also being shared with American and European policymakers…”

On Ukraine’s security policy, the Council advised both NATO and Ukraine officials. The document goes on to outline how NATO could covertly and overtly engage with Ukraine to strengthen their chances of joining with the EU over time; a move which Vladimir Putin claims was one of the very reasons for his invasion of the Donbas. Finally, the paper described how NATO could foster a proxy war against Russia through Ukraine without directly declaring war on Russia. As the Council states: “Russia’s aggression provides an opportunity of strategic clarity and urgency that should be used to expedite building a robust, modern, and capable Ukrainian defense and security establishment…” I believe the Atlantic Council is a root instigator behind every globalist scheme to trigger a larger war between the East and the West. Their ideal scenario seems to be the creation of a proxy conflict that acts as a first domino in a chain that leads to world war, a bit like DARPA’s “Linchpin Theory” which I have written about in the past. To be clear, the council is not only interested in Ukraine and Russia. They’re happy to embroil Americans in a larger war wherever they can.

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Blacks

 

 

Pharma lawyers

 

 

Graphic
https://twitter.com/i/status/1850153250319638731

 

 

Mobility

 

 

Strength

 

 

Play date

 

 

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Debt Rattle October 24 2024

Oct 242024
 
 October 24, 2024  Posted by at 8:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  61 Responses »


René Magritte Popular panorama 1926

 

• Trump Likely to Win in All Swing States – Election Betting Odds (Sp.)
• Nate Silver Predicts Trump Will Win Presidential Election Next Month (JTN)
• Polymarket Is Scanning For US Users As Election Odds Skew Toward Trump (CT)
• GOP Early-Voting Turnout In Nevada Amazes Veteran Observer, Alarms Dems (ZH)
• Tulsi Gabbard Joins Republican Party (RT)
• Bill Gates Funds Harris With $50 Million Donation (Sp.)
• Harris To Deliver ‘Closing Argument Speech’ On The Ellipse Next Week (JTN)
• LA Times Owner Blocks Harris Endorsement (RT)
• World ‘Tired’ of US-led West – RT Editor-in-Chief (RT)
• BRICS Summit: Marching Towards A New World Order (Bordachev)
• Kremlin Orders Delay In New Electric War Attacks (Helmer)
• Ukraine War Ending Scenarios (Barton)
• THAAD Idea Is Like All Of Biden’s So Far With Israel. A Miscalculation (Jay)
• Musk Mania (Jonathan Turley)
• Meteorite That Caused Earth’s Oceans to Boil Helped Early Life Thrive (Sp.)

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1849067926940492006
https://twitter.com/i/status/1849111488847548516

Rasmussen
https://twitter.com/i/status/1848812774593356219

CNN Poll

Amish
https://twitter.com/i/status/1848920948721795350

Check your ballot

531,000+

Sex slavery

Ackman

Kamala: Donald Trump is Hitler.

Liz Cheney
https://twitter.com/i/status/1848757362816921610

Rogan SNL

Tucker

RFK

BBC

Dana

 

 

 

 

After declaring Hillary a sure win in 2016, pollsters are no longer trusted. It’s betting firms now.

• Trump Likely to Win in All Swing States – Election Betting Odds (Sp.)

Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is likely to win in all swing states and get reelected as a result, according to the data released by Election Betting Odds on Tuesday. The betting firm put Trump’s odds of winning Arizona at 72.1%, Georgia at 70.5%, North Carolina at 66.5%, Pennsylvania at 61.5%, Nevada at 60.7%, Michigan at 59.5% and Wisconsin at 57.5%, while Trump’s Democratic rival Kamala Harris is projected to lose them all. Trump’s odds of winning the election stand at 60.3%, while Harris’ chances are estimated at only 39.1%. The analysis predicts that Trump will secure 312 electoral votes, versus Harris’ 226. The service sums up data provided by Betfair, Smarkets, PredictIt, Polymarket and Kalshi, and updates the information every 20 minutes.

According to a poll conducted by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Trump is leading Harris by four percentage points in the swing state of Georgia. The Republican candidate got 47% support, while the Democratic nominee was supported by 43% of those polled. However, the daily noted that 8% of likely voters said they were still undecided, which could change the outcome. The poll was conducted on October 7-16 among 1,000 likely voters in Georgia, with a 3.1 percentage point margin of error. A separate Reuters/Ipsos poll showed Harris leading Trump by three percentage points nationally, 46% to 43%.

When asked about their approach to immigration and economic challenges, respondents favored Trump, who led 46% to 38% on the economy and 48% to 35% on immigration. Over 4,100 US adults took part in the Reuters/Ipsos poll, which was conducted online nationwide on October 15-21. Trump and Harris have been running neck-and-neck in the seven swing states ahead of the November 5 presidential election. These states, also referred to as battleground states, are seen as pivotal for either candidate to secure victory.

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You expect some kind of scientific method, but you get: ‘C’mon, Nate, what’s your gut say?’

• Nate Silver Predicts Trump Will Win Presidential Election Next Month (JTN)

Veteran pollster Nate Silver on Tuesday said his “gut feeling” is that former President Donald Trump will win the presidential election next month, but that the race is still up in the air. The prediction, which was published in a New York Times op-ed, comes as an aggregate of polls on RealClearPolling shows Trump winning the electoral college, while Vice President Kamala Harris leads in the popular vote. But Trump’s lead in the swing states are within the margin of error in most polls. Silver has been tracking presidential elections since former President Barack Obama’s victory in 2008. “In an election where the seven battleground states are all polling within a percentage point or two, 50-50 is the only responsible forecast,” Silver wrote.

“Yet when I deliver this unsatisfying news, I inevitably get a question: ‘C’mon, Nate, what’s your gut say?’ So OK, I’ll tell you. My gut says Donald Trump. And my guess is that it is true for many anxious Democrats.” The pollster defended the gut feeling by observing that polls have underestimated Trump in the past two presidential elections. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was the clear favorite in 2016, but lost to Trump, and Trump fared better than expected against President Joe Biden in 2020. Silver also noted that if Trump does win, one clear sign could be that Democrats no longer have the “clear edge” when it comes to party identification, because many more people now identify as Republicans.

The FiveThirtyEight founder also warned that polls could be wrong about Harris, since the pollsters are too focused on measuring support for Trump. One way these polls could be wrong is by weighing people based on who they believe they voted for in 2020. “People often misremember or misstate whom they voted for and are more likely to say they voted for the winner,” Silver wrote. “That could plausibly bias the polls against Harris because people who say they voted for Biden but actually voted for Trump will get flagged as new Trump voters when they aren’t.”

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“Almost $2.3 billion in bets have been placed in Polymarket’s “Presidential Election Winner 2024” market..”

• Polymarket Is Scanning For US Users As Election Odds Skew Toward Trump (CT)

Crypto predictions platform Polymarket is reportedly checking to ensure whales placing big bets on the United States presidential election are based overseas, as US users are banned from the platform. “Polymarket is in the process of re-checking the details of users of its platform, particularly those making large wagers, to ensure compliance with its rules,” a report from Bloomberg said on Oct. 22, citing a person familiar with the matter. While Polymarket has systems in place to block US users from its website, concerns have been raised that US residents may be circumventing the blockage via virtual private networks — prompting Polymarket to do more due diligence. It follows speculation that a handful of large whales are skewing the odds for the November US presidential election in favor of Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump.

Almost $2.3 billion in bets have been placed in Polymarket’s “Presidential Election Winner 2024” market, which currently favors Trump (63.7%) over Vice President Kamala Harris (36.2%). The whereabouts of Polymarket whale “Fredi9999” have attracted considerable attention, as more than $20 million has been placed on Republican outcomes so far. Trump also leads Harris on competitor prediction platform Kalshi at 60%. Still, Trump’s lead in the crypto prediction markets isn’t currently reflected in most voter polls, including a Reuters poll with Harris in front at 46% to 43%. In response to Polymarket media scrutiny, Kalshi founder Tarek Mansour said Polymarket’s results are accurate and not caused by inorganic manipulation. “The median bet size on Harris is larger than the median bet size on Donald Trump, with the median bet for Harris coming in at $85 compared with Trump’s $58.”

Billionaire and Polymarket investor Mark Cuban said most of the bets placed on Polymarket’s US election market are coming from overseas – and as a result, are not a true reflection of eligible voter sentiment. “From all indications, most of the money coming into Polymarket is foreign money, so I don’t think it’s an indication of anything,” Cuban said in an interview with CNBC Squawk Box on Oct. 21. Polymarket reached a $1.4 million settlement with the United States commodities regulator back in January 2022 for offering more than 900 event-based binary options event markets without obtaining registration. In a different case, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission partially lost a lawsuit it filed against Kalshi in September. The court ruled that the commodities regulator had “exceeded its statutory authority” by ordering the US-based entity to suspend its election markets.

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“Statewide, Republicans account for 52% of in-person early voting, Democrats are just 28%, and “other” is 20%.”

• GOP Early-Voting Turnout In Nevada Amazes Veteran Observer, Alarms Dems (ZH)

Warning lights have been flashing all over the Democrats’ 2024 dashboard, and now a new one is pointing to big trouble for Kamala Harris in the battleground state of Nevada, where early voting results show that GOP voters are actually outnumbering Democrats. Across the country, Democrats typically account for a majority of early votes, and Nevada has been no exception — until now. “The numbers look pretty GOP so far, and that never happens in a presidential year,” wrote veteran Nevada political reporter Jon Ralston in a Tuesday afternoon blog post at the Nevada Independent. Democrats lead statewide mail-in voting by 17,298, but Republicans lead in-person voting by a whopping 25,173 — even beating Dems in Clark County and Washoe County, homes of Las Vegas and Reno, respectively.

Statewide, Republicans account for 52% of in-person early voting, Democrats are just 28%, and “other” is 20%. “Those in-person numbers are startling,” wrote Ralston, who’s been covering Silver State politics for three decades. “A few more days like this…and the Democratic bedwetting will reach epic proportions.” Another dynamic of Americans politics is the big distinction between urban and rural voting patterns, with cities reliably delivering large volumes of Democratic votes. In Nevada, the dynamic is perhaps even more pronounced, with Democrats’ statewide fortunes largely tied to the so-called “Clark firewall.” However, so far in 2024, that barrier is looking mighty short. “The Clark firewall is only 6,500, about a seventh of what it was in 2020,” wrote Ralston.

The bigger picture is even worse for the Democrats: “The [Republican voter-turnout] lead in rural Nevada is more than double the [Democrat] lead in urban Nevada,” he wrote. The sea change prompted Ralston to declare that we’re witnessing a new dynamic in the 2024 cycle: “The [GOP] rural firewall. It’s a thing.” The departure from norms could also have implications for what we see on Election Day: “It’s clear there are more Republicans voting early and by mail, which raises the possibility that Election Day may not be as robust for the GOP.” Extrapolating the results, Ralston concludes that “it means Kamala Harris has to win indies by close to double digits if this turnout scenario holds.” He cautioned that we’ve only three days into 14 days of early voting, and that results could shift.

However, he continued, “If this becomes a trend and not an anomaly, it will be over.” There’s also a Senate race in Nevada this year, pitting Republican challenger Sam Brown against incumbent Democrat Jacky Rosen. The Cook Political Report rates the race as “Lean D,” while Polymarket bettors collectively have Democrat Rosen at an 80% chance of winning. That’s a big variance from the presidential race, where Polymarket gives Trump a 65% chance of taking the state’s six electoral votes. No Republican presidential candidate has won the state since George W. Bush beat John Kerry by a 50.5% to 47.9% margin in 2004… but it looks like the table is being set for an end to that decades-long losing streak.

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“..anti-freedom, pro-censorship, pro-open borders, and pro-war..”

• Tulsi Gabbard Joins Republican Party (RT)

Former Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard has endorsed Donald Trump in the race for the White House, announcing that she has joined the Republican Party. Gabbard, 43, served as a Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii and ran for the party’s presidential nomination in 2020. Previously deployed to Iraq and Kuwait, she became a fierce critic of US military interventions abroad. Gabbard left the Democrats in 2022, accusing the party of being “under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness.” The firebrand made a surprise appearance at Trump’s rally in the battleground state of North Carolina on Tuesday, where the Republican candidate introduced her as someone with “so much common sense.”

After taking the floor and embracing Trump, Gabbard lashed out at the Democratic Party, which she said has become “unrecognizable” in recent years.The Democrats, whose election candidate is Vice President Kamala Harris, are now “anti-freedom, pro-censorship, pro-open borders, and pro-war,” Gabbard claimed, adding that Trump “pledged to end wars, not start them.” Gabbard argued that Trump’s leadership has helped “transform the Republican Party and bring it back to the party of the people and the party of peace.” “I’m proud to stand here with you today, President Trump, and announce that I’m joining the Republican Party. I am joining the party of the people… It is the party of common sense and the party that is led by a president who has the courage and strength to fight for peace.”

The former Democrat has been a vocal critic of Harris’ career as a prosecutor and her foreign policy, particularly on the Ukraine conflict. Gabbard blasted the Democratic nominee as the “main instigator” of hostilities, suggesting that she crossed Russia’s red line by advocating for Kiev’s eventual accession to NATO. “For any objective-minded person, you can see why they wouldn’t want NATO missiles sitting in Ukraine… Kamala Harris has put us, the American people, in this position, where we are closer to the brink of World War III and nuclear war than we ever have been before,” she said. Gabbard’s position is in line with that of Trump, who has repeatedly called for a ceasefire while pledging to end hostilities between Moscow and Kiev within 24 hours if elected.

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“Gates has expressed concerns about the potential impact of a second Donald Trump presidency on global health and family planning programs..”

• Bill Gates Funds Harris With $50 Million Donation (Sp.)

US billionaire Bill Gates has quietly donated $50 million to a nonprofit supporting Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential run, The New York Times reported, citing three sources. While Gates hasn’t publicly endorsed Harris, his sizable donation was made to Future Forward, a “dark money” group backing her campaign. The funds were intended to remain anonymous, the report said. “Mr. Gates’s donation went specifically to Future Forward’s nonprofit arm, Future Forward USA Action, which as a 501(c)(4) ‘dark money’ organization does not disclose its donors, according to the people briefed. So any contribution by Mr. Gates will never appear on any public filing,” the media clarified. According to The New York Times, in private conversations this year with friends and others, Gates has expressed concerns about the potential impact of a second Donald Trump presidency on global health and family planning programs, The New York Times cited sources familiar with Gates’s thinking as saying.

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Where she will scream and screech that Trump is Hitler.

• Harris To Deliver ‘Closing Argument Speech’ On The Ellipse Next Week (JTN)

Vice President Kamala Harris will deliver a “closing argument” speech on the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., next week, exactly one week before the presidential election, senior campaign officials said. The location is the same place former President Donald Trump gave his infamous speech on January 6, 2021, before a crowd of his supporters descended on the Capitol. The Ellipse is a 52-acre park outside the South Lawn of the White House. The vice president’s advisors said the speech will contrast Trump’s January 6 speech, which a campaign official described as Trump’s worst moment in office, with Harris’s “optimistic vision” for the future, the campaign officials told NBC News. She will also encourage the nation to “turn the page on Trump.” The speech is expected to draw a crowd of approximately 7,750 people, according to a permit application that was filed with the National Park Service. The program will also include four to five speakers, and elected officials, according to CNN.

Harris’s advisers said the vice president will approach the address as a prosecutor, who is giving her closing statement to a jury of voters. The announcement comes after Harris delivered remarks at the Naval Observatory, the vice president’s home, in Washington on Wednesday, where she said Trump would “invoke” Adolf Hitler if elected back to the White House. Her remarks at that location have triggered debate over whether the vice president has violated the Hatch Act, which forbids federal government employees from engaging in political activity while on duty or in their official capacity as a federal employee, or try to sway an election. But vice presidents and presidents are usually exempt from the federal act to a degree, because of the dual nature of their roles as leaders and political figures.

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“..the LA Times is the most prominent newspaper in her home state of California..”

• LA Times Owner Blocks Harris Endorsement (RT)

The owner of the Los Angeles Times has forbidden the paper’s editorial board from backing Kamala Harris in this year’s US presidential election, bucking two decades of Democratic endorsements, Semafor has reported. The editorial board was preparing to endorse Harris for the presidency, until Executive Editor Terry Tang intervened earlier this month and ordered them not to endorse anyone, Semafor reported on Tuesday, citing two anonymous sources. According to these sources, the order came directly from the paper’s owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong. A South African-born medical doctor and billionaire entrepreneur, Soon-Shiong bought the ailing LA Times in 2018. While he managed to reverse decades of losses and headcount reductions, the newspaper’s advertising revenue plummeted during the Covid-19 pandemic, and more than 100 employees were sacked earlier this year.

Soon-Shiong’s decision to block the endorsement of Harris will be seen as a major blow to the vice president, as the LA Times is the most prominent newspaper in her home state of California. The LA Times endorsed Republican candidates in every election from the 1880s until 1972, when it backed Richard Nixon against South Dakota Senator George McGovern. This decision, which came months after the Watergate scandal emerged, angered some of the newspaper’s reporters, and the LA Times did not endorse a presidential candidate again until it sided with Barack Obama in 2008. The LA Times has endorsed Democrats in every subsequent election. In a list of endorsements published last week, the editorial board noted that “this may be the most consequential election in a generation.” However, it made no further mention of the presidential race, instead endorsing more than two dozen mostly Democratic candidates for positions ranging from school boards to the US Senate.

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“It shows our fatigue – with them, with their hypocrisy, with their dictates. With their attempts to turn us into something different, with their attempts to chop off pieces from us..”

• World ‘Tired’ of US-led West – RT Editor-in-Chief (RT)

The BRICS Summit in the Russian city of Kazan signals that the world is “tired” of the dictates of the US-led collective West, RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan has said. The gathering also exposes the West’s failed attempts to isolate Russia, she added. Speaking on Tuesday at an event marking the anniversary of diplomatic relations between Russia and China, the RT editor-in-chief recalled the words of Chinese President Xi Jinping, who once said that his country does not need foreign “masters” who attempt to interfere in internal affairs on the pretense of human rights concerns. The same can be heard in Russia from President Vladimir Putin, Simonyan stated. “We know the price of their [the West’s] hypocrisy when they talk about human rights, and this is being said by the same people who used drug trafficking and the most brutal, most disgusting ways to enslave a nation in an effort to force China not to be China – which they did during the Opium Wars,” Simonyan said.

She emphasized that the ongoing BRICS Summit in Kazan demonstrates the clear friendship between the countries attending the event, but also provides evidence of the West’s failed attempts to isolate Russia from the rest of the world. “It shows our fatigue – with them, with their hypocrisy, with their dictates. With their attempts to turn us into something different, with their attempts to chop off pieces from us,” Simonyan said. “We are all tired. Thank you for the fact that we are tired together and will eventually rest together when the truth prevails and this unipolar world, which is already in tatters, ceases to exist.” Leaders from around the world have gathered in Kazan for the 16th BRICS Summit on October 22-24.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who is also attending, noted the significance of the summit for his organization, as the economic grouping represents nearly half of the global population. Guterres’ presence at the BRICS Summit has sparked criticism from Kiev, especially after he skipped this year’s Swiss-Ukraine ‘peace conference’. The BRICS Summit is set to host high-level bilateral talks and diplomatic discussions focused on multilateralism, with dozens of nations expressing interest in joining or working with the group. BRICS currently comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates. The group represents approximately 46% of the world’s population and over 36% of global GDP, according to estimates from leading financial institutions.

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“In the case of BRICS, for the first time, Western countries did not initiate or lead the process.”

• BRICS Summit: Marching Towards A New World Order (Bordachev)

International politics seems to be losing its ability to develop in a linear fashion. From a layman’s point of view, this is of course extremely sad. But if we look at what’s happening in the broader context, it can even inspire a certain optimism. This is mainly because, given the current balance of power, any unswerving development is guaranteed to lead us to a much greater, possibly global, tragedy. In other words, the extraordinarily tragic events that fill today’s news agenda are likely to conceal a gradual movement towards a more stable world, for which the constant revision of what we call the international order will be a matter of routine. But at the same time, the likelihood of a revolutionary scenario, to which the near monopoly of a small group of states would inevitably lead us, will be minimized.

In this context, the international community, and in particular its leading states, is constantly faced with the challenge of choosing between two forms of engagement with the outgoing world order: destruction and creation. Both are in dialectical interaction, and it would be strange to think that there is a clear and simple path to a new, more just world order. All the more so because the opponents of the international community, represented by a small group of countries led by the United States, are not only conducting vigorous defensive operations, but are themselves trying to create the conditions for preserving their current privileges in the future. And they have very solid resources and influence to mobilize – which are not limited to punitive instruments against dissidents.

Therefore, the path of revision of the international order that most of the world’s countries are now embarking on is certainly much more difficult than any attempt at revolutionary revision. Although – and this is encouraging – it leaves more opportunities for what is happening now to be studied in the future. Of all the efforts and initiatives that are rightly seen as driving the new world order, BRICS, the now nine-nation bloc – originally formed by Brazil, Russia, India and China – is arguably the most important. From the outset, it included states that had the potential to embody, in theory and in practice, fundamental changes in the balance of power. Therefore, the BRICS were not inherently inapplicable to the criteria of effectiveness developed by Western political science to assess the success of international organizations.

The creation of such an association was in itself a major achievement. Firstly, because it included countries with very different foreign policy interests. That is, their desire to act together was underpinned by sufficiently reliable objective circumstances to make cooperation between such different powers meaningful. Secondly, because the emergence of BRICS signaled from the outset the West’s inability to control the evolution of international governance. The last major achievement of the US and Europe in this area was the creation of the G20 in 2009, a group of countries chosen by the West to share responsibility with Washington for the damage caused to the global economy by the US financial crisis of 2008. But as none of the other G20 countries wanted to do so, the impact of the group’s activities was rather insignificant. At the same time, even though the G20 has almost completely lost its relevance, it is still used by large developing countries as a way to increase their international presence. In the case of BRICS, for the first time, Western countries did not initiate or lead the process.

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“Zelensky’s word isn’t worth the gas it takes to utter it.”

• Kremlin Orders Delay In New Electric War Attacks (Helmer)

A two-month delay in Russian missile strikes against Ukrainian electricity infrastructure west of the Dnieper River and secret talks on end-of-war terms by the Kremlin go-between Vladimir Medinsky produced two signals from Kiev on Monday – one an offer by Vladimir Zelensky to reciprocate with a limit on Ukrainian missile and drone attacks on Russian territory. The second signal was a “consolation prize” from US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin who was in Kiev to meet Zelensky, his defence minister Rustem Umerov, and Ukrainian Armed Forces commander Alexander Syrsky. From Zelensky’s press conference in Kiev, a Financial Times reporter wrote: “Russia putting an end to aerial attacks on Ukrainian energy targets and cargo ships could pave the way for negotiations to end the war, the Ukrainian president has said.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy told journalists in Kyiv on Monday that ‘when it comes to energy and freedom of navigation, getting a result on these points would be a signal that Russia may be ready to end the war’…If Moscow and Kyiv agreed to end strikes on their respective energy infrastructures, it would be a significant step towards de-escalating the conflict, Zelenskyy said in reference to Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil refineries. ‘We saw during the first [peace] summit that there could be a decision on energy security. In other words: we do not attack their energy infrastructures, they don’t attack ours. Could this lead to the end of the war’s hot phase? I think so,’ he said.” Unusually, there has been no Pentagon readout after Austin’s meetings in Kiev.

Instead, there was a “statement” in advance that “during his engagements, the Secretary will meet with Ukrainian leadership and underscore the U.S. commitment to providing Ukraine with the security assistance it needs to defend itself from Russian aggression on the battlefield.” The geographic phrase, “on the battlefield”, is interpreted in Moscow to be the key. The Pentagon followed with a list of new military supplies tagged for “Ukraine’s urgently needed battlefield requirements.” CNN was briefed by Austin’s staff to emphasize the limited geography of the current US commitment. “A US defense official said that during their meeting, Austin emphasized to Zelensky the importance of Ukraine defending the territory it has taken inside Russia’s Kursk region and capitalizing on those gains, as well as fending off the Russians in the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk…

Much of Austin’s later meeting with Umerov and Ukrainian Armed Forces commander Oleksandr Syrskyi was also focused on Kursk, the defense official said, and the officials drilled down on military planning there for the next several months.” The New York Times was told to report: “The United States has agreed to give Ukraine $800 million in military aid that will go toward manufacturing long-range drones to use against Russian troops, Ukraine’s leader said on Monday…A Pentagon official, speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of the issue, confirmed the move, which comes as the United States shifts its policy and moves toward shoring up Ukraine’s ability to fight the war with its own weapons and on its own terms…The decision to support long-range drone production in Ukraine may be a kind of consolation prize for Mr. Zelensky, who — despite repeated pleas — has so far failed to persuade Western partners to lift restrictions on using their long-range missiles to strike deep inside Russia.”

The US newspaper also quoted Umerov, standing beside Austin, as saying Ukraine would decide on its own what deep Russian territory targets to strike with the new drones the US is paying for it to produce on Ukrainian territory. “Ukraine’s defense minister, Rustem Umerov, said on Monday that Ukraine had invested more than $4 billion in its defence industry. Appearing alongside the U.S. defense secretary, Lloyd J. Austin III, in Kyiv, he said that long-range drones could hit targets more than 1,000 miles away and that they had already destroyed more than 200 military facilities in Russia…The decision also shows a change in tactics for the West.” Sources in Moscow acknowledge the sequence of statements in time; they are uncertain of their meaning for the Russian General Staff and its chief, Valery Gerasimov. “It appears that they are husbanding the missiles”, said one. “I wonder if there is going to be a November surprise.” “It’s a fool’s bargain,” said another. “Noone except the Russian military can guarantee the Nazis won’t continue to attack. Zelensky’s word isn’t worth the gas it takes to utter it.”

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“Russia has its updated military doctrine to fall back on. The question of losing the war is completely discounted, as winning is considered a matter of “life and death.”

• Ukraine War Ending Scenarios (Barton)

Scenario 1. Russia defeats Ukraine.
The unquestionable facts are that Russian troops keep steadily moving westward along the whole frontline in Ukraine. Just most recently, on 3 October 2024 they after heavy fighting, captured strategic town Vuhledar. Within the past two months the Russian army captured over 800 square km in Ukraine. Even the newly appointed, pushy NATO secretary general Mark Rutte has no doubts that it is so. The way he briefly described the military situation in Ukraine in his first press conference was as follows: Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces are making advances in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine’s army has a shaky hold on part of the Kursk region in Russia, which has provided a temporary morale boost, but as casualties mount it remains outmanned and outgunned.

Should such a relentless military push continue, and one can hardly see how it could be stopped or reversed, it is moving toward victory. Even according to the least optimistic forecast, Russia is slowly but firmly moving to take over Ukrainian territory. Slowly, but surely. Will the use of long-range missiles deep inside Russian territory significantly alter the military situation? On September 6 this year, at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was clear in stating that “The use of donated U.S. weapons for long-range strikes on Russia would not turn the tide of the war for Ukraine.” In the unlikely event of a slowdown in Russian military advance in Ukraine, Russia has its updated military doctrine to fall back on. The question of losing the war is completely discounted, as winning is considered a matter of “life and death.”

Scenario 2. Facing nuclear Armageddon
It is essential to recall that, back in June 2024, the future Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, advocated for all NATO member states to commit to participating in military operations outside of the alliance’s territory. This commitment went against the Hungarian president’s perception of his national interests, and he sought assurances from Mr. Rutte that Hungarian troops would not be sent to Ukraine. As we know, Hungary is normally obliged to defend each of the remaining 32 members if any of them is attacked by a non-member state, in line with Article 5 of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty, which forms the foundation of the alliance. Hungary also has obligations under the European Union’s (TEU) mutual defense clause. Interestingly, as requested by the U.S., NATO’s Article 5 formulation does not imply automatic U.S. involvement in any armed conflict. Secretary Rutte gave written assurances to Mr. Orban as he requested. However, this does not imply that NATO troops will not be sent to Ukraine.

If that were the case, Mr. Rutte would have dismissed Orban’s fears by saying that no NATO troops would be sent to Ukraine. But he didn’t say that. Instead, he simply stated that Hungarian troops would not be sent there. Puzzlingly, after taking over from Stoltenberg, he spoke about strengthening partnerships that NATO has established with other countries around the world, notably in Asia and the Middle East, and insisted on Ukraine’s place in the ranks of NATO. Is he then already planning to send NATO troops to Ukraine and other countries? He portrayed the authorization of the use of long-range missiles by Ukraine as legitimate and proposed to leave it to individual countries. Are there any other indications of future NATO intervention in Ukraine? Perhaps the most compelling piece of evidence comes from a Polish judge, Tomasz Schmidt, who defected to Belarus on 31 May 2024. During a press conference, he revealed that the Polish government had promised Biden to send Polish troops to fight against Russia in Ukraine if the U.S. wished so.

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“The truth is though that Iran does not want a war with Israel..”

• THAAD Idea Is Like All Of Biden’s So Far With Israel. A Miscalculation (Jay)

The decision of Joe Biden to send THAAD missile system to Israel seemed like a tactical move, a strategic ace, some might argue. Biden has made it clear that Israel must not strike Iran’s military or its nuclear power infrastructure and that any such retaliation won’t be supported by the U.S. And so, in many ways, Israel is restricted now to reach out for low hanging fruit by bombing weapon sites in Syria and hitting Beirut. Netanyahu is like a shark at the bottom of the ocean. He has to keep a momentum going with war as the moment he stops, he sinks to the bottom and perishes. Hitting Iran is not as easy as it sounds. Israel cannot send fighter jets as the U.S. would have to offer refuelling facilities; and it can’t even fly over most countries surrounding Iran as they have all discounted this possibility.

There is only the option of long-range missiles but no one knows for sure if Israel’s missiles would get past Iran’s own missile defence systems which analysts assume are probably very good. And imagine the humiliation and loss of political capital if Netanyahu sent missiles there and discovered that Iran intercepted all of them. He would be finished. Yet the same can be said about the THAAD batteries. Many experts argue they probably won’t be effective against hypersonic missiles. They’ve never been tested so we don’t know. In reality the basis of Netanyahu’s political longevity is keeping such things a mystery. The more we don’t know about Iran’s military capabilities, the more that can be exploited. Same goes for the THAADs. Clarity really is the enemy here.

Israel has already had one moment of lucidity which has shocked both its elite and its people. The so-called impenetrable ‘Iron Dome’ missile defence system which intercepted most of Hezbollah’s medium-range ballistic missiles is pretty useless for hypersonic, high-altitude missiles which both Iran and Hezbollah have in their arsenal. Israel is now more vulnerable than ever against a massive attack of such missiles and the recent strike on a military base south of Haifa has shown both sides the extent of this susceptibility. Iran’s hypersonic missiles could wipe out all of Israel’s infrastructure if Tehran wishes. The truth is though that Iran does not want a war with Israel and is hoping that once the Israeli public notice just how many IDF soldiers are being killed in the south of Lebanon along its border, the exit of Netanyahu will be swift. His days are numbered.

And yet, despite all of the rhetoric we hear from the Biden camp, it would seem America does want a war. Or at least it’s happy to take Israel to the brink with the same foolhardy, delusional mentality that we see in Ukraine. Even today the U.S. mindset still believes it can threaten and other countries will back down, simply due to the size of America’s military capability. The escalate to de-escalate game. It might just work with the THAAD initiative. But for all the wrong reasons. The problem with the THAAD move by Biden is that the installation of such a system is too little, too late and may well blow up in the faces of the next U.S. administration creating a war with Iran when even Washington has been avoiding one all along. It all comes down to personalities. How will the next U.S. president react when the U.S. soldiers operating it are killed? Does he throw the lever, or stay cool? And doesn’t the mere presence of one of these vehicles present Iran with a sitting duck target?

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“..what is illegal offline should also be seen and dealt with as illegal online. Now it is a real thing. Democracy’s back.’”

• Musk Mania (Jonathan Turley)

I have previously written about the European Union’s (EU) effort to use its infamous Digital Services Act (DSA) to force companies like X to censor Americans, including on postings related to our presidential election. This is a direct assault on our free speech values, and yet the Biden-Harris Administration has not raised a peep of objection. Now, the EU is threatening to set these confiscatory fines with reference to revenue from companies other than X, including Space X. The EU has warned Musk that it is allowed to hit online platforms with fines of as much as 6% of their yearly global revenue for refusing to censor content, including “disinformation.” The inclusion of companies like Space X is ridiculous but perfectly consistent with the effort of the EU to use the DSA to regulate speech in the United States and around the world. The EU is arguing that as a “provider” Musk’s entire business portfolio can be included in the fine calculation. It is ridiculous and chilling.

Musk’s other companies have nothing to do with the platform policies of X. It is simply an unhinged coercive measure designed to break Musk. X has objected: “X Holdings Corp. submits that the combined market value of the Musk Group does not accurately reflect X’s monetization potential in the Union or its financial capacity, In particular, it argues that X and SpaceX provide entirely different services to entirely different users, so that there is no gateway effect, and that the undertakings controlled by Mr. Elon Musk ‘do not form one financial front, as the DMA presumes.’” However, the abusive calculation is precisely the point. The EU censors are making an example of Musk. If they break us, no company or executive could hope to defy them. They are being cheered on in this effort by an anti-free speech movement that includes America politicians and pundits.

One of the lowest moments came after Elon Musk bought Twitter on a pledge to restore free speech protections, Clinton called upon European officials to force Elon Musk to censor American citizens under the DSA. This is a former democratic presidential nominee calling upon Europeans to force the censorship of Americans. She was joined recently by another former democratic presidential nominee, John Kerry, who called for government crackdowns on free speech. In my new book on free speech and various columns, I write about the DSA as one of the greatest assaults on free speech in history. As I wrote in the book: “Under the DSA, users are ’empowered to report illegal content online and online platforms will have to act quickly.’ This includes speech that is viewed not only as ‘disinformation’ but also ‘incitement.’ European Commission Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager has been one of the most prominent voices seeking international censorship. At the passage of the DSA, Vestager was ecstatic in declaring that it is ‘not a slogan anymore, that what is illegal offline should also be seen and dealt with as illegal online. Now it is a real thing. Democracy’s back.’”

The pressure on Musk’s other companies has also been ramping up in the United States. Recently, the California Coastal Commission rejected a request from the Air Force for additional launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base. It is not because the military agency did not need the launches. It was not because the nation and the community would not benefit from them. Rather, it was reportedly because, according to one commissioner, Musk has “aggressively injected himself into the presidential race.” It is all part of Musk mania and the need for the anti-free speech movement to break the only executive who has defied the pressure from this alliance of media, academic, corporate, and government officials. As I have discussed previously, there is a crushing irony in all of this. The left has made “foreign interference” with elections a mantra of claiming to be defending democracy. Yet, it applauds EU censors threatening companies that carry an interview with a targeted American politician. It also supports importing such censorship and blacklisting systems to the United States. When you agree with the censorship, it is not viewed as interference, but an intervention.

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The power of life.

• Meteorite That Caused Earth’s Oceans to Boil Helped Early Life Thrive (Sp.)

A meteorite that pummeled Earth about 3.26 billion years ago has shed light on fascinating secrets about our planet’s distant past. Heat from the impact of the S2 meteorite that struck Earth billions of years ago caused the topmost layer of the ocean to boil off, a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has discovered. S2 also triggered a tsunami bigger than any in known human history, revealed the team of scientists led by Nadja Drabon, Assistant Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. They studied rock samples retrieved from the impact site in the Barberton Greenstone belt of South Africa to better understand the consequences of that massive asteroid strike for our planet. S2, first discovered in 2014, is estimated to have been 40-60km wide, with a mass much greater than the space rock linked with the extinction of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.

It is believed that this space rock gouged out a 500km-wide crater. Analysis of the sedimentology, geochemistry, and carbon isotope compositions left behind by the meteorite revealed that the impact 3.26 billion years ago also heated up the atmosphere by up to 100C, while the cloud of dust shut down all photosynthetic activity. However, besides the destruction, the impact also helped early microbes thrive. Nutrients like phosphorus and iron that fed simple organisms were churned up by the tsunami from the depths to the surface. “We know that after Earth first formed there was still a lot of debris flying around space that would be smashing into Earth… But now we have found that life was really resilient in the wake of some of these giant impacts, and that it actually bloomed and thrived,” Drabon said in a media statement.

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Life is short

 

 

Dowd/Bret

 

 

Repair

 

 

Oranges

 

 

Guard dogs
https://twitter.com/i/status/1848982236235809076

 

 

Order in chaos

 

 

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