René Magritte Memory of a Journey 1955
Reagan
RONALD REAGAN: “The Constution is a document in which we the people TELL THE GOVERNMENT what it is allowed to do.”
— Chuck Callesto (@ChuckCallesto) September 3, 2024
51 days
51 days ago.
This will forever be one of the most badass things a president has ever done. pic.twitter.com/1xv4xEBlC2
— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) September 2, 2024
Kash Patel
https://twitter.com/i/status/1830814009420918825
Sen. Kennedy
Taxing and spending to bankrupt the country for no reason… pic.twitter.com/1STOXzm0yO
— Camus (@newstart_2024) September 2, 2024
Kamala ad
We are not going to let Donald Trump sell out middle class families again.
Watch our latest ad: pic.twitter.com/4vsk4SzUdO
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) September 3, 2024
But nobody knows Kamala
"People are bored by Trump. They're bored with all of the drama, they're tired of the insults, they're tired of the lies about the election… They're interested in a new pitch, and that's what Kamala Harris has for them."
— @SarahLongwell25 on 'Republican Voters Against Trump' pic.twitter.com/perxukg4VH
— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) September 3, 2024
O’Leary CNN
https://twitter.com/i/status/1830841829987860546
Tucker WWII
Darryl Cooper may be the best and most honest popular historian in the United States. His latest project is the most forbidden of all: trying to understand World War Two.
(1:20) History of the Israel-Palestine Conflict
(12:39) The Jonestown Cult
(32:10) World War Two
(45:04) How… pic.twitter.com/HJ2B8RjcCY— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) September 2, 2024
“There is a lot of waste and needless regulation in government that needs to go..”
• Musk ‘Can’t Wait’ To Be Part Of Trump’s Team (RT)
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said he is eager to join Donald Trump’s team if he wins the presidential election in November. According to the Washington Post, Trump is planning to establish a special commission to review the work of federal agencies and is considering Musk for a role on this team. The outlet reported on Monday that the former president and his team had been discussing the initiative behind closed doors in recent weeks. The commission would reportedly be led by prominent business executives, whose task would be to “comb through the government books to identify thousands of programs to cut,” according to the Washington Post.
While Trump has previously dismissed the idea of having Musk join his cabinet due to his sprawling business empire, he said the tech tycoon was a “very smart guy” and could be a helpful consultant to the federal government and provide “some very good ideas.” Trump has also praised Musk for the cost-cutting measures that he implemented after acquiring Twitter (now X) in 2022. Following the takeover, Musk infamously laid off some 6,000 workers, or nearly 80% of the platform’s workforce. Responding to the Washington Post’s claims that he is being considered for the auditing commission, Musk wrote on X on Tuesday that he “can’t wait.” “There is a lot of waste and needless regulation in government that needs to go,” the billionaire said.
Previously, Musk has written that he is “fully” endorsing Trump in the upcoming election and that he is “willing to serve” under the former president if he secures a second term in office. In a post on X last month, the billionaire also shared an AI-generated image of himself standing behind a lectern labeled ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ with the acronym DOGE, referring to the meme-based DOGE coin cryptocurrency, which Musk has personally backed in the past. Last week, Musk also warned that the US was on a “fast lane to bankruptcy” due to government overspending, saying that this is causing rampant inflation in the country. The billionaire also shared a forecast suggesting that the US budget deficit could increase from $1.8 trillion to almost $16.3 trillion over the next ten years at the current rate of spending.
“..despite their critical role in various national security efforts, including the possible rescue of the stranded two astronauts currently in space. None of that matters to Reich..”
• Robert Reich Calls for Arrest of Elon Musk for Resisting Censorship (Turley)
We have previously discussed the anti-free speech views of Clinton’s former Labor Secretary, Robert Reich, who has tried to sell citizens on the perfectly Orwellian view that more freedom means tyranny when it comes to the freedom of expression. He also demanded that former president Donald Trump be banned from ballots as a “traitor” — all in the name of protecting democracy from itself. Last week, Reich wrote a column declaring Elon Musk “out of control” in his refusal to censor citizens and appeared to call for his arrest. Reich has long been a prominent voice in the anti-free speech movement discussed in my recent book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage. Indeed, he has given a voice to the rage in calling for others to be silenced or arrested. Elon Musk has long been the primary target of Reich and his allies after dismantling the censorship system at Twitter, now X.
Reich called Musk’s purchase of Twitter with a pledge to reduce censorship to be “dangerous nonsense.” Notably, Reich’s friend, Hillary Clinton, was one of the first to call for a crackdown on Musk after his purchase of Twitter. Hillary Clinton and other Democratic figures turned to Europe and called upon them to use their Digital Services Act to force censorship against Americans. Reich has always shown a chilling fluidity in how free speech is protected and argued that public interest should be able to trump the right of any citizens in espousing views that he believes are dangerous. In denouncing Musk, Reich encouraged a campaign to counter his efforts to resist censorship. He wrote that Musk “may be the richest man in the world. He may own one of the world’s most influential social media platforms. But that doesn’t mean we’re powerless to stop him.”
Like Hillary Clinton, Reich is calling on foreign governments and censors to silence American citizens including Musk: “Regulators around the world should threaten Musk with arrest if he doesn’t stop disseminating lies and hate on X.” He even appears willing to undermine national security programs to stop unfettered free speech. He called for the U.S. government to cut off contracts with his companies despite their critical role in various national security efforts, including the possible rescue of the stranded two astronauts currently in space. None of that matters to Reich who appears to view free speech as a greater threat to our nation: “Why is the US government allowing Musk’s satellites and rocket launchers to become crucial to the nation’s security when he’s shown utter disregard for the public interest?
Why give Musk more economic power when he repeatedly abuses it and demonstrates contempt for the public good?” Reich’s call to regulate speech in the public interest is the Siren’s Call of every authoritarian regime in history. He will presumably tell us what speech is no longer tolerable for public policy reasons. Our “Indispensable Right” will, according to Reich, be safely in the hands of the European censors who can protect us from errant and dangerous thoughts. As he explained earlier, “the kinds of things that we do about this is, focus less on thinking about free speech, but thinking about how the times have changed.” In this way, speech regulations can keep us “moving towards how we recommend content and … how we direct people’s attention is leading to a healthy public conversation that is most participatory.” The “healthy public conversation” with Robert Reich increasingly appears to be his talking and the rest of us listening.
“Unless the Brazilian government returns the illegally seized property of X and SpaceX..”
• Musk Threatens To Go After Brazilian Government Assets (RT)
Tech mogul Elon Musk has vowed to seek the seizure Brazilian government assets in the US, if Brazil does not return property belonging to his companies X (formerly Twitter) and Space X. Last week, the Supreme Court of Brazil ordered the operations of X to be “immediately suspended” and threatened a fine of 50,000 Brazilian reals ($8,874) per day against anyone trying to sidestep the ban on accessing the platform using a VPN. The judge gave Google and Apple five days to remove X from their app stores. The ruling was upheld Monday by a panel of federal supreme court justices. The court also froze the accounts of satellite internet provider Starlink, a subsidiary of Musk’s SpaceX, to ensure the payment of fines imposed for failing to appoint a new legal representative for X in Brazil.
“Unless the Brazilian government returns the illegally seized property of X and SpaceX, we will seek reciprocal seizure of government assets too,” Musk wrote on his social media platform. “Hope Lula enjoys flying commercial,” the billionaire added, referring to Brazilian President Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva. Musk was responding to a tweet of a news report about the US government’s confiscation of a jet allegedly used by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, claiming it violated Washington’s sanctions against Caracas. The fierce dispute between the Brazilian authorities and the US entrepreneur began in April, when Brazilian Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes ordered X to delete the accounts belonging to several supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro, calling them “digital militants” who spread “disinformation” about himself and the court.
The billionaire rejected the demand, highlighting that to comply with the order would violate Brazilian laws. Musk announced plans to suspend operations in the country, citing what he called censorship orders that his company refused to comply with. Commenting on the seizure of Starlink’s accounts, Musk objected to the “absolutely illegal action” taken without any due process, pointing out that X and SpaceX are “two completely different companies with different shareholders.” He also pledged to provide free internet access to the company’s Brazilian customers while the accounts remain blocked. On Monday, Reuters reported a senior state official as saying that Brazilian telecommunications regulator Anatel could introduce sanctions against Starlink, which is currently the only company that refused to comply with the ruling to shut down X. Anatel has warned that the company’s license for operating in the country could be revoked.
Brazil’s no. 1 news source.
• Brazilians to be Fined $9000 a Day for Receiving News from X (Turley)
Brazil has not just banned X (formerly Twitter) from the entire country, but citizens will now be fined $9000 a day (more than the average salary in the country) for using VPNs to access the platform. X is the main source of news for Brazilians, who will now be left with government-approved sources or face financial ruin in seeking unfettered information. The Guardian is reporting that the confiscatory fines are part of a comprehensive crackdown on efforts to get news through X, including ordering all Apple stores to remove X from new phones. The move puts Brazil with China in the effort to create a wall of censorship between citizens and unregulated information. For the anti-free speech movement, Brazil is a key testing ground for where the movement is heading next. European censors are arresting CEOs like Pavel Durov while threatening Elon Musk.
However, it is Brazil that foreshadows the brave new world of censorship where entire nations will block access to sites committed to free speech values or unfettered news. If successful, the Brazilian model is likely to be replicated by other countries. The reason is that censorship is not working. As discussed in my book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” we have never seen the current alliance of government, corporate, academic, and media interest against free speech. Yet, citizens are not buying it. Despite unrelenting attacks and demonizing media coverage, citizens are still using X and resisting censorship. That was certainly the case in Brazil where citizens preferred X to regulated news sources. The solution is now to threaten citizens with utter ruin if they seek unfettered news.
The question is whether Brazil’s leftist government can get away with this. The conflict began with demands to censor supporters of the conservative former president Jair Bolsonaro. When X refused the sweeping demands for censorship, including the demand to name of a legal representative who could be arrested for refusing to censor users, the courts moved toward this national ban. The man behind the effort is Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who has aggressively used censorship to combat anything that he or the government deems “fake news” or disinformation. With socialist president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, they are the dream team of the anti-free speech movement. The question is whether Brazil will become a nightmare for free speech around the world as other nations seek to force citizens to read and hear news from approved, state-monitored sites.
Because he thinks Trump will win.
• Why Did Zuckerberg Choose Now to Confess? (Tucker)
On many subjects important to public life today, vast numbers of people know the truth, and yet the official channels of information sharing are reluctant to admit it. The Fed admits no fault in inflation and neither do most members of Congress. The food companies don’t admit the harm of the mainstream American diet. The pharmaceutical companies are loath to admit any injury. Media companies deny any bias. So on it goes. And yet everyone else does know, already and more and more so. This is why the admission of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg was so startling. It’s not what he admitted. We already knew what he revealed. What’s new is that he admitted it. We are simply used to living in a world swimming in lies. It rattles us when a major figure tells us what is true or even partially or slightly true. We almost cannot believe it, and we wonder what the motivation might be.
In his letter to Congressional investigators, he flat-out said what everyone else has been saying for years now. “In 2021, senior officials from the Biden Administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree….I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it. I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today. Like I said to our teams at the time, I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any Administration in either direction – and we’re ready to push back if something like this happens again.”
A few clarifications. The censorship began much earlier than that, from March 2020 at the very least if not earlier. We all experienced it, almost immediately following lockdowns. After a few weeks, using that platform to get the word out proved impossible. Facebook once made a mistake and let my piece on Woodstock and the 1969 flu go through but they would never make that mistake again. For the most part, every single opponent of the terrible policies was deplatformed at all levels. The implications are far more significant than the bloodless letter of Zuckerberg suggests. People consistently underestimate the power that Facebook has over the public mind. This was especially true in the 2020 and 2022 election cycles. The difference in having an article unthrottled much less amplified by Facebook in these years was in the millionfold. When my article went through, I experienced a level of traffic that I had never seen in my career. It was mind-boggling.
When the article was shut down some two weeks later – after focused troll accounts alerted Facebook that the algorithms had made a mistake – traffic fell to the usual trickle. Again, in my entire career of closely following internet traffic patterns, I had never seen anything like this. Facebook as an information source offers power like we’ve never seen before, especially because so many people, especially among the voting public, believe that the information they are seeing is from their friends and family and sources they trust. The experience of Facebook and other platforms framed the reality that people believed existed outside of themselves. Every dissident, and every normal person who had some sense that something odd was going on, was made to feel like some sort of crazy cretin who held nutty and probably dangerous views that were completely out of touch with the mainstream.
What does it mean that Zuckerberg now openly admits that he excluded from view anything that contradicted government wishes? It means that any opinions on lockdowns, masks, or vaccine mandates – and all that is associated with that including church and school closures plus vaccine harms – were not part of the public debate. We had lived through and were living through the most significant far-reaching attacks on our rights and liberties in our lifetimes, or, arguably, on the history record in terms of scale and reach, and it was not part of any serious public debate. Zuckerberg played an enormous role in this. People like me had come to believe that average people were simply cowards or stupid not to object. Now we know that this might not have been true at all! The people who objected were simply silenced!
“Harris is not so much a flip-flopper as a padder, who supports anything, without any worry about framing each new position by renouncing her original and opposite one.”
• Can They Really Reinvent Kamala Harris in 70 Days? (Victor Davis Hanson)
Harris’s well-funded 2019 campaign quickly blew up early. Indeed, she never entered much less won a single primary–and captured no delegates through voting. In the frenzy following George Floyd’s death, and the mayhem and nationwide rioting and violence of late spring and summer, panicked 2020 nominee Joe Biden announced in advance he would select a diversity candidate as a running mate. And in no time, and under increasing pressure to trump his braggadocious promise, he boxed himself in by assuring his handlers that his running mate would be preselected as a black woman. Given there were then no black female governors and only two black women in the Senate, Kamala Harris was a choice of last resort—even though, as a candidate and competitor of Joe Biden, she had condemned him before a nationwide audience as a veritable racist who had habitually cozied up to segregationists.
When she labels her own running mate a racist it becomes hard to take her charges of racism against Trump seriously. As vice president, Harris predictably proved inept. In a variety of tasks as “border czar” and point woman on space exploration, she proved not merely clueless but embarrassingly so—sappy, cackling, and variously labeled by ex-staff and Democratic insiders as “out of her league” and “way over her head.” Her chief role was to break a sometimes 50/50 deadlocked Senate and therefore, in every one of those votes, owns the passage of hard-left legislation that often turned disastrous. As Biden’s cognitive decline accelerated at a geometric rate, a widely derided Harris was seen by the Bidens as Joe’s Spiro Agnew insurance policy: a vice president so bumbling and unimaginable as a future president that if Biden only breathed, he would be still judged preferable to the travesty of a Harris succession.
Biden utterly imploded on June 13 during a stress-test national debate. His collapse ended the 42-month-long charade that he was “fit as a fiddle.” In 24 hours, Biden was transmogrified by his handlers from an Arnold Schwarzenegger-like health nut to physically and mentally unable to continue as the Democratic nominee. Left unsaid was that his diving polls, not his debility, doomed Biden. Otherwise, he would have survived his latest public humiliation had his approval ratings been respectable. Harris’s race, gender, and status as vice president made it impossible not to anoint her as the new Democratic candidate.
Her machinations to preempt any challengers were achieved almost instantaneously in the same anti-democratic fashion as the removal of Biden himself from the ticket. In the way of the current Democrats, whatever the billionaire donor class and the DEI apparat decide is reified almost instantly by fiat. We now suffer a zombie presidency for the next five months. Biden’s own party insists that he is too enfeebled to campaign as a nominee but not too demented to serve as president. Weirder still, a presidential candidate, who has never in her life won a primary and just days ago was written off by her own party as linguistically challenged, is being reinvented in 70 days as the second coming of Barack Obama.
Is this how Hillary got that 97% likelihood to win in 2016?
• Harris’ So-Called ‘Surge’ Is Thanks To Oversampling: Pollsters (ZH)
As we’ve been highlighting since 2016, polls are not to be trusted thanks to various ‘tricks of the trade’ – most commonly, oversampling. Last month we noted how the founder of the main outside spending group backing Kamala Harris for president says their own internal opinion polling is “much less rosy” than public polls. “Our numbers are much less rosy than what you’re seeing in the public,” said Future Forward super PAC president Chauncey McLean said during a Monday event hosted by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. Now, the Washington Times reports that some pollsters are even sounding the alarm over Vice President Kamala Harris’ so-called ‘surge’ in the polls – which Harris pulled ahead in after replacing President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee on July 21.
Since the switch, Harris is leading Trump nationally by nearly 2 percentage points and is either leading or tied with him in all seven battleground states. However, Republican analysts argue that these polling numbers may not accurately reflect voter sentiment due to biased polling methodology. Critics point out that many polls have been sampling a disproportionately smaller share of Republican voters compared to exit poll data from the 2020 presidential election. The result, they say, is a misleading “phantom advantage” for Ms. Harris. According to them, this skewed sampling could be a strategic move to boost enthusiasm and fundraising for Ms. Harris’ campaign. Trump campaign strategist Jim McLaughlin echoed this sentiment, stating, “They undersample Republicans” intentionally “to tamp down support and donations for Trump.” He added that the polls are part of a larger effort to create a narrative that favors Harris.
Trump has openly criticized the poll results. “It’s fake news,” Trump declared during a rally in Michigan. “They can make those polls sing.” Harris’ recent poll numbers have indeed helped fuel excitement among her supporters, as evidenced by her campaign’s announcement of a $540 million fundraising haul in July, more than four times what Mr. Trump raised in the same period. Still, the growing skepticism over the legitimacy of the polls has prompted some to question whether the surge in support is as real as it appears.
Recent polls that show a Harris lead, such as the Suffolk University/USA Today poll, included more respondents identifying as Democrats (37.1%) than Republicans (33.8%). The poll found Ms. Harris leading Trump by 5 percentage points, a significant turnaround from earlier in the year when Trump was ahead by 4 points vs. Biden. Similarly, a Yahoo News/YouGov poll released on August 27 found Ms. Harris ahead of Mr. Trump by 1 percentage point, with Democrats making up 33% of respondents compared to only 29% for Republicans. The discrepancy in party sampling is causing concern among poll watchers. Data from the 2020 exit polls showed a nearly equal split, with 36% identifying as Republican and 37% as Democrat. Yet, recent polls seem to favor Democrats disproportionately, leading to claims of deliberate skewing.
Mr. Trump’s pollster, Tony Fabrizio, has argued that these polls are designed to suppress support for Mr. Trump. In a memo, he stated, “Once again, we see a series of public surveys released with the clear intent and purpose of depressing support for President Trump.” Pollsters like Don Levy of the New York Times/Siena Poll counter that these claims lack substance. They argue that any gaps between recalled 2020 vote and actual 2020 results are not evidence of intentional bias but may reflect the complexity of polling dynamics, including response bias where Democrats are more likely to participate in polls. Despite these excuses, the controversy surrounding these polls has left many wondering about the true state of the race. Polling analysis site FiveThirtyEight shows Ms. Harris’ approval rating ticking up to 42.3%, up from 37.1% in early July. Yet, doubts persist over how she has managed to rise in the polls without significantly improving her historically low job approval ratings.
“Inflation is the way in which the government tricks citizens into believing that administrations can provide for anything..”
• Kamala Harris Will Not Bring Prices Down. Her Plan Needs Inflation (Lacalle)
In a recent interview with CNN, Kamala Harris said that Bidenomics is working and that she is “proud of bringing inflation down.” However, the Bureau of Labor Statistics published the latest CPI at 2.9%, despite annual inflation being 1.4% when she took office. Inflation is a disguised tax and accumulated inflation since January 2021, when the Biden-Harris administration started, has increased more than 20%. Of course, Democrats blame inflation on the war, the pandemic, and the science-fantasy concept of “supply chain disruptions.” No one believed it, because most commodities have declined and supply tensions disappeared back to normality, but prices continued to rise. As a result, Harris invented the concept of greedy grocery stores and evil corporations to blame for inflation and justify price controls.
Is it not ironic? She blames grocery stores and corporations for inflation, but when price inflation drops, she proudly takes credit. The reality is that the Kamala Harris plan, like all interventionist governments, creates and strives for inflation. Inflation is a hidden tax. Governments love it and perpetuate it by printing money through deficit spending and imposing regulations that harm trade, competition, and technological creative destruction. Big government is big inflation. Inflation is the way in which the government tricks citizens into believing that administrations can provide for anything. It disguises the accumulated debt, quietly transfers wealth from the private sector to the government and condemns citizens to being dependent hostages of government subsidies. It is the only way in which they can continue to spend a constantly depreciated currency and present themselves as the solution.
Furthermore, it is the perfect excuse to blame businesses and anyone else who sells in the currency that the government creates. Kamala Harris will do nothing to cut inflation because she wants inflation to disguise the monster deficit and debt accumulation. In the latest figures, the deficit has soared to $1.5 trillion in the first ten months of the fiscal year. Public debt has soared to $35 trillion, and in the administration’s own forecasts, they will add a $16.3 trillion deficit from 2025 to 2034. It is worse. The previously mentioned figure does not include the $2 trillion in additional debt coming from Kamala’s economic plan.
Harris is aware that her proposals to impose an unrealized capital gains tax, an economic aberration, and other tax hikes will not generate the $2 trillion in additional taxes she seeks. So, she needs the Fed to monetize as much as possible, eroding the US dollar’s purchasing power and making all Americans poorer in the process, only to blame corporations and grocery stores later. Furthermore, it is a way to present the government as the solution to the problem they create, promising the lunacy of price controls and enormous subsidies in a constantly depreciated currency.
“..too slow [to react to] or did not listen at all to Western advice about the so-called moderation of his brainchild..”
• Durov ‘Too Free’ For The West – Lavrov (RT)
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov is facing charges in France because he refused to moderate his platform in accordance with Western demands, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has claimed. Durov was arrested after landing in Paris in late August and charged with multiple offenses, including complicity in “administering an online platform” used by criminal groups to conduct illicit activities, and refusing to cooperate with investigators. The Russian tech entrepreneur, who also has citizenship of France, the UAE, and Saint Kitts and Nevis, was released on €5 million ($5.55 million) bail last week. He is banned from leaving the country while the case against him is ongoing. During a meeting with students and educators at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations on Monday, Lavrov suggested that Durov is being persecuted because he “turned out to be too free.”
The Telegram CEO was “too slow [to react to] or did not listen at all to Western advice about the so-called moderation of his brainchild,” he said. Durov is not the only tech entrepreneur to face such pressure from Washington and its allies, the minister stressed, noting how the head of Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, Mark Zuckerberg “had been summoned to the US Senate and agreed to cooperate, as he himself admitted.” “The West does not pull any punches when dealing with other large platforms either,” he added. What the US and the EU are now doing to Durov is “analogous to their actions related to the abuse of globalization,” Lavrov noted. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said over the weekend that Moscow also had issues with the Telegram CEO in the past, but – unlike Paris – never tried to arrest him.
Holding Durov accountable for crimes committed by other people using his app is the same as arresting the heads of French automobile makers Renault or Citroen because “terrorists also use cars,” Peskov argued. Durov, who was born in St. Petersburg, formally left Russia in 2014 after law enforcement agencies accused him of refusing to grant investigators access to the communications of terrorism suspects. The dispute was settled in 2020 when the Russian telecoms regulator announced that it had no further issues with Telegram. In an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson in April, Durov insisted that he has repeatedly refused to provide user data to any authorities, including US intelligence services, or to install a surveillance “backdoor” in the app, which has almost a billion monthly users.
“..last year, 90% of gasoline and diesel fuel entered the Mongolian market from Russia..”
• ‘Developing in All Directions’: Putin Praises Russia-Mongolia Relations (Sp.)
On Monday, Putin arrived in Mongolia for an official visit, during which he is anticipated to participate in celebrations marking the 85th anniversary of the joint victory of Soviet and Mongolian armed forces at the Khalkh River. “Indeed, relations between Russia and Mongolia are developing in all directions,” Putin said at a meeting with Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh. Putin underscored the effective work in humanitarian areas, in particular in the field of education. “Today, during the course of our work, we will certainly return to the main areas of our cooperation in the economy,” Putin noted. Russia and Mongolia contribute to Asia’s security by cooperating along military-technical lines, as well as countering terrorism, Putin said. “When considering issues of military-technical and anti-terrorist cooperation, it was noted that Russian-Mongolian cooperation in these areas contributes to ensuring security in Asia,” Putin said after talks with Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh.
Moscow is open to implementing peaceful nuclear energy projects with the East Asian country, Putin said. “We are also open to implementing joint peaceful nuclear energy projects based on the most modern Russian technologies, including the use of small-module reactors,” Putin told reporters following the talks with Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh. Russia sees prospects for cooperation with Mongolia in the gas sector, President Putin said. “We see good prospects for cooperation in the gas sector,” Putin said after talks with his Mongolian counterpart, adding that the possibility of Russian gas supplies to Mongolian consumers is under consideration. Russia has consistently responded to Mongolia’s requests to meet its growing demand for fuel and lubricants, including on preferential terms, the president said, adding that Russia will also continue to supply Mongolia with electricity.
“Our country has long and reliably provided the Mongolian economy with the energy resources it needs. Thus, last year, 90% of gasoline and diesel fuel entered the Mongolian market from Russia,” he added. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that he had exchanged views on current international and regional issues at talks with Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh. Moscow and Ulaanbaatar have paid special attention to advancing trade and investment ties during the talks in the Mongolian capital, Putin added.
“Special attention was paid to building up mutually beneficial trade and investment ties. Russia is one of Mongolia’s main foreign economic partners,” Putin said after talks with Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh. Commercial settlements between Russia and Mongolia are almost entirely carried out in currencies other than the dollar and euro, the president added. In turn, the President of Mongolia thanked Putin for the visit, which coincides with a year of significant celebrations for both nations. This year marks the 85th anniversary of their joint victory at the Khalkhin Gol River and the 50th anniversary of the founding of Erdenet.
“..go do to themselves something that Russians and Mongols found a word for together, back in the 13th century” and get lost..”
• Mongolia Told ICC To Get Lost With Putin Warrant – Medvedev (RT)
The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin turned out to be a meaningless scrap of paper, his predecessor Dmitry Medvedev has said. His comments came after Putin arrived in Mongolia, an ICC member state, without facing any obstacles. Writing on Telegram on Tuesday, Medvedev, who now serves as Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council, mocked the Western reaction to Putin’s visit to Ulaanbaatar. “The servile European Union has reportedly expressed ‘concern’ to Mongolia over the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin,” he said. However, the Asian country “has just told the ICC and Eurodegenerates to go do to themselves something that Russians and Mongols found a word for together, back in the 13th century” and get lost, Medvedev suggested.
The ex-president went on to argue that the ICC – which he labeled a “half-baked ‘court’” – should be afraid of “a scenario where some madman tries to carry out their illegal arrest warrant. […] In that case, their lives would be worth no more than the piece of paper on which this shitty statute is written,” he warned. In March 2023, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Putin and Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova for allegedly participating in unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia. Moscow does not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction and declared the order null and void. Russia says that Ukrainian children were evacuated for safety reasons, and that they can be returned to their parents or guardians upon request.
Putin’s visit to Mongolia was his first foreign trip to a country that recognizes the ICC statute. Ahead of the trip, the court’s spokesman, Fadi el-Abdallah, said that the country had to cooperate with the ICC on the detention, adding that failure to do so could trigger an “appropriate” response from the body. However, the Rome Statute, under which the ICC operates, provides for exemptions if an arrest would “breach a treaty obligation” with another country or violate the “diplomatic immunity of a person or property of a third state.” Before Putin landed in Ulaanbaatar, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov allayed fears of a potential attempt to arrest the Russian leader. “We have excellent relations with our friends from Mongolia,” he said, noting that Moscow “has no concerns” about the ICC warrant.
“Mongolia has always maintained a policy of neutrality in all its diplomatic relations..”
• Mongolia Explains Why It Didn’t Arrest Putin (RT)
Mongolia is dependent on its neighbors for energy and maintains a policy of neutrality, a government spokesperson has said, responding to demands to detain Russian President Vladimir Putin on a “war crimes warrant.” The International Criminal Court (ICC), Ukraine and the EU have all called on Ulaanbaatar to arrest the Russian leader, citing a 2023 warrant for “forcible deportations” of Ukrainian children. Although Mongolia is a signatory party to the ICC, it did not do so. “Mongolia imports 95% of its petroleum products and over 20% of electricity from our immediate neighborhood, which have previously suffered interruption for technical reasons. This supply is critical to ensure our existence and that of our people,” a government spokesperson told Politico EU via email on Tuesday. “Mongolia has always maintained a policy of neutrality in all its diplomatic relations, as demonstrated in our statements of record to date,” the spokesperson added.
Putin traveled to Mongolia at the invitation of his counterpart, Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh, and met with top officials in Ulaanbaatar to discuss the two countries’ strategic partnership. The Russian president also attended the ceremony marking the 85th anniversary of the Battle of Khalkhin Gol, a decisive victory of Soviet and Mongolian forces over the Imperial Japanese Army that secured the USSR’s eastern flank for most of WWII. During their meeting Putin invited his Mongolian counterpart, Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh, to the BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan next month. Khurelsukh has accepted the invitation. By refusing to arrest Putin, Mongolia has chosen to share “responsibility for his war crimes,” Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Georgy Tykhy said on social media, adding that Kiev “will work with partners to ensure that this has consequences for Ulaanbaatar.”
Mongolia is landlocked between Russia to the north and China to the south, and has maintained good relations with both Moscow and Beijing. Ulaanbaatar also signed the Rome Statute and joined the ICC in 2002, and one of its judges was appointed to the court earlier this year. While the court could formally condemn Mongolia for failing to enforce its writ, it lacks authority to impose penalties such as fines or sanctions. Russia has said it considers the ICC’s warrant null and void, since it is not a party to the Rome Statute. Moscow has also rejected the accusations as absurd, pointing out that evacuating civilians from a combat zone, where they faced imminent danger from Ukrainian artillery and drone strikes, was not a crime.
“The reputation of both the Kiev regime and the ICC is well known. Neither of them are independent and have anything to do with law or justice..”
• Serious International Crimes to Be Brought to Justice – Moscow (Sp.)
“Ukrainian criminals guilty of serious international crimes against their own and Russian citizens, as well as their henchmen, will be brought to justice and will be punished as they deserve to be,” Zakharova said.
Kiev wants to withdraw its citizens from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC), but keep criminal prosecution of foreign citizens, Maria Zakharova said. “In fact, they want to withdraw their citizens from the jurisdiction of even this court, which is as loyal to them as possible, but at the same time reserve the right to criminal prosecution in The Hague of citizens of other countries on charges made up by Kiev itself,” Zakharova said.
Kiev’s words on the ratification of the Rome Statute with conditions shows its true attitude to international humanitarian law, the diplomat added.“Such a step cannot be regarded otherwise than as an undisguised intention to give their military carte blanche to commit serious war crimes,” Zakharova added. Neither Ukraine nor the International Criminal Court have anything to do with law and justice, Zakharova said. “The reputation of both the Kiev regime and the ICC is well known. Neither of them are independent and have anything to do with law or justice,” Zakharova said. On August 24, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law to ratify the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the ICC. Ukraine will not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction over its citizens for seven years after the adoption of the draft law.
Netanyahu is not Israel. Trump should learn that too.
• Netanyahu Refuses Surrender to Israeli Protesters Demanding Hostage Deal (Sp.)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a defiant late-night speech amid mass protests in Tel Aviv Monday, rejecting pressure from the Israeli public to secure a deal to return hostages and bring about a ceasefire in Gaza. “I will not surrender to the pressure,” said Netanyahu during the unusual press conference one day after a general strike shut down much of the country. “No one is more committed to freeing the hostages than me. But no one will preach to me,” he added, insisting there were “certain things we won’t compromise on” in negotiations with Hamas. Key to the controversy is the question of who will maintain control over the so-called Philadelphi corridor, a narrow strip of land separating the Gaza Strip’s southern portion from Egypt. The corridor has been jointly controlled by Egypt and Palestinian authorities since Israel’s military disengagement from Gaza in 2005, with the terms of 1978’s Camp David Accords granting Egypt control of the Rafah border crossing that falls within the route.
But the IDF has seized control of both the Philadelphi corridor and the Rafah border crossing in recent months, insisting that Israeli authority over both is necessary for security reasons. That stance has proven to be a poison pill in ongoing negotiations with Hamas as Netanyahu refuses to compromise on his establishment of a “buffer zone” along the Gazan side of the route. “This corridor is essential for our existence,” Netanyahu said Monday. “For this reason Hamas is insisting on it. And for the same reason I’m insisting on it.” The Israeli leader claimed weapons are smuggled into Gaza over the 8.7 mile border, allowing Hamas to maintain its armed resistance. Netanyahu has controversially allowed money and resources from Iran and Qatar to reach Hamas in an effort to strengthen the group and maintain Gaza’s political separation from the West Bank, which is overseen by the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority.
“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support the bolstering of Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” said Netanyahu during a meeting with members of his Likud party in 2019, making explicit the symbiotic relationship between the armed group and the hardline Israeli prime minister. “This is part of our strategy to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.” US President Joe Biden has at times appeared flustered by Netanyahu’s intransigence amid months of unfruitful peace talks between Israel and Hamas, while Israeli military officials have publicly rebuked the prime minister for his effective sabotage of a hostage deal. Critics have claimed Netanyahu is merely stalling for time, working to prolong hostilities in Gaza in an effort to maintain his grip on power. The Israeli leader faces prosecution on corruption charges if he is forced to step down from his position.
Observers have speculated Netanyahu is attempting to “run out the clock” until November elections in the United States, after which Donald Trump’s possible return to the White House would provide him with more latitude in solving the Palestinian question. Provocative attacks on leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah on foreign soil have led to speculation the prime minister is seeking to provoke a regional conflict during which the US would presumably come to Israel’s support. Netanyahu has long attempted to goad the United States into a war against Iran, traditionally Israel’s most powerful and influential critic in the region. About 101 Israeli captives are thought to remain in Gaza after Hamas’ surprise operation on October 7, during which several dozen hostages were taken back to the Palestinian territory. Meanwhile Israel continues to hold more than 3,600 Palestinians, many of them children, in so-called administrative detention without charge. Recent polling reveals Netanyahu enjoys the approval of about 29% of the Israeli public.
Israel
https://twitter.com/i/status/1830799717300871552
He can give this to Bobby Kennedy, along with the JFK files.
• Epstein Client List ‘Will Be’ Made Public – Trump (RT)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has suggested that the “black book” with deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s client list would be made public should he be elected president. Epstein worked as a financier and socialized with the rich and famous for years, introducing them to dozens of young women – some of whom were underage at the time – and flying them to his private island in the Caribbean on the jet dubbed the ‘Lolita Express’. “I never went to his island, fortunately. But a lot of people did,” Trump said in an interview with the Lex Fridman podcast, published on Tuesday. “It’s very interesting, isn’t it? Probably will be, by the way,” Trump told Fridman, after the host said it was “very strange” that the list of people who traveled to Little St. James has never been made public.
Trump compared the Epstein disclosures to declassifying the last remaining documents related to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and said he would “certainly take a look at it” and would “be inclined to” release the client list. Trump has previously said that as president (2017-2021) he tried to release the Kennedy files, only for the US intelligence community to persuade him at the last moment that this would somehow be damaging. He has since made a promise to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to declassify the documents about his uncle’s assassination, after the former Democrat endorsed him last month. Revelations that Epstein lured young women – many below the legal age of consent – and pimped them out to powerful and prominent acquaintances were instrumental in the financier’s arrest in 2019.
FBI searches of his New York residence and Caribbean island reportedly came up with videos potentially containing compromising material on his “guests.” That evidence remained under lock and key even after Epstein died in his Manhattan cell in August 2019, officially due to suicide. Epstein’s sometime girlfriend and accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, was arrested in 2020. She wound up convicted of child sex trafficking and sentenced to 20 years behind bars. While the public found out some of the names of the trafficked teens, the names of people they were trafficked to have remained a secret.
RFK kid
Listen up parents.
pic.twitter.com/J7Q99OmZAA— Five Times August (@FiveTimesAugust) September 3, 2024
Tiger mom
Isabella, the golden retriever who became the mom of three tiger cubs at the Safari Zoological Park, Kansas.pic.twitter.com/Fn6eUZ95cz
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) September 3, 2024
Baby elephant sleep
How baby elephants sleeppic.twitter.com/0SycxBLaRK
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) September 3, 2024
Ball
https://twitter.com/i/status/1831004843927867832
Grandma
https://twitter.com/i/status/1830927268547276820
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