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Debt Rattle October 30 2024

Oct 302024
 
 October 30, 2024  Posted by at 9:41 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  63 Responses »


Frans Masereel Montmartre 1925

 

• Trump Supporters Are ‘Garbage’ – Biden (RT)
• I’m The Opposite of a Nazi – Trump (RT)
• Whoopi: Trump Will Break Up Interracial Marriages, Deport The Non-Whites (MN)
• ‘World’s Most Accurate Economist’ Predicts US Election Outcome (RT)
• Musk Denies Allegations He Worked Illegally in America (ET)
• Chaos and Crime: Legacy of the Biden-Harris Border Policies (Mark Green)
• Steve Bannon Released From Prison After Serving 4 Months (ET)
• Secessionism and Polarization on Rise in US (Sp.)
• Jay Bhattacharya Receives Prestigious Award for Intellectual Freedom (Turley)
• Assange’s Father on Von Der Leyen: EU Falls to Bits Under ‘Frau Genocide’ (Sp.)
• When Evil Is Allowed In, Evil Stays (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Ex-President Warns of Growing Ukrainian Anger Over Military Draft (RT)
• Support For New UK PM collapses (RT)
• Delusions Of Adequacy: How British Ambassadors Became A Joke (Jay)
• A Heroic Preference For Self-Destruction Takes Hold In Israel (Alastair Crooke)
• Mass Industrial Strikes Begin In Germany (RT)

 

 

 

 

Lethal

Bret

Georgia

PA fraud

MEP

RFK

Elon

Tucker Dore

Jocelyn

 

 

 

 

He said it while Kamala was doing her final speech at the Ellipse. That got no attention because of it. Was that the intention?

• Trump Supporters Are ‘Garbage’ – Biden (RT)

The supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump are “garbage,” outgoing US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday. He later claimed that he misspoke and meant to condemn a specific speaker at Trump’s recent Madison Square Garden rally. Biden made his comments during a Zoom call organized by the Hispanic advocacy group Voto Latino. He began by bringing up comedian Tony Hinchcliffe who made a joke on Sunday comparing Puerto Rico to “a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean.” “Just the other day, a speaker at [the Trump] rally called Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage,” Biden said, adding that Puerto Ricans are “good, decent honorable people.” “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters. His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American,” Biden stressed. “It’s totally contrary to everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been.”

The president went on to accuse Trump of trying to “divide the country based on race,” and insisted that the Democratic candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, “will be a president for all of America.” Biden later took to X to clarify that he had “referred to the hateful rhetoric about Puerto Rico spewed by Trump’s supporter at his Madison Square Garden rally as garbage.” “That’s all I meant to say. The comments at that rally don’t reflect who we are as a nation,” Biden wrote. The president’s remarks were quickly condemned by Trump’s allies. “He’s talking about everyday Americans who love their country,” Republican Senator Marco Rubio said, urging the Biden campaign to apologize. “We are not garbage, we are patriots who love America,” Rubio said during a Trump rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Hinchcliffe himself had accused Democrats of overreacting to his set at the Madison Square Garden event. “These people have no sense of humor,” he wrote on X on Sunday, claiming that the Harris team had taken the joke out of context “to make it seem racist.” Both Democrats and Republicans have frequently accused each other of hateful rhetoric and demonization. Some conservatives have drawn a parallel between Biden’s ‘garbage’ comment and that of Hillary Clinton, who described Trump supporters in 2016 as a “basket of deplorables.” Trump himself has been recently criticized for labeling his opponents an “enemy from within.”

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“Trump explained that his father taught him to never use either “Nazi” or “Hitler” as a slur..”

“..the US soldiers who took part in the Normandy landings in June 1944 would have been offended [..] If you think those brave men were fighting for an open border and sex change surgeries for illegal aliens, the proper term for you is ‘dips**t”

• I’m The Opposite of a Nazi – Trump (RT)

US Republican candidate Donald Trump has lashed out at Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign for comparing an event he held in New York’s Madison Square Garden last week with a rally of Nazi supporters at the same venue in 1939 at which speakers praised Hitler’s Germany. At the recent Trump event, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe compared Puerto Rico to a “floating island of garbage,” triggering a wave of rebuke from across the political spectrum. A senior advisor for the Republican campaign told the press that “this joke does not reflect the views of President Trump” and his team. Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz jumped on the gaffe, telling a rally in Henderson, Nevada of a “direct parallel to a big rally that happened in the mid-1930s at Madison Square Garden.”

Trump responded by telling a crowd of backers in Atlanta, Georgia: “The newest line from Kamala and her campaign is that everyone who isn’t voting for her is a Nazi. We’re Nazis.” “I’m not a Nazi. I’m the opposite of a Nazi,” he stated. Trump explained that his father taught him to never use either “Nazi” or “Hitler” as a slur. Both words, among many other insults, have been hurled his way, he said. “They call me everything from a mad genius looking to take over the world to a very very stupid person,” according to Trump. While proclamations that Trump is a new Hitler who seeks to abolish democracy are nothing new, such language was only recently adopted by the Harris campaign. The vice president publicly called her rival a “fascist” last week, citing the opinion of retired General John Kelly, who served as the chief of staff in the Trump administration.

Trump’s running mate, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, meanwhile, said at the same rally that “I imagine that nearly every person in this room has a relative who served in the Second World War. Our families actually went and defeated the Nazis. To call us Nazis is a disgrace.” Vance claimed that the US soldiers who took part in the Normandy landings in June 1944 would have been offended by the policies proposed by the Democratic campaign. “If you think those brave men were fighting for an open border and sex change surgeries for illegal aliens, the proper term for you is ‘dips**t’,” he declared.

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Completely gone. As is Mika.

NOTE: JD Vance’s wife is “non-white”.

• Whoopi: Trump Will Break Up Interracial Marriages, Deport The Non-Whites (MN)

The media continues to make absurd assertions against Donald Trump in a desperate effort to derail his campaign just a week out from the election. The latest came via Whoopi Goldberg on The View who claimed that Trump plans to break up interracial married couples and deport the person who is not white. Not only that, but Golderberg also claimed that Trump would then “put the white guy with someone else.” It’s completely absurd claim that resides only in her warped reality. “He’s not gonna be – he’s not gonna say, ‘Oh, you’re with a white guy, I’m gonna keep you from being deported,’” Goldberg blurted. “No, he’s gonna deport you and put the white guy with someone else,” she ridiculously asserted.

“The man is out there!” she screamed wide eyed. Who is “out there” exactly? Who are the ones fomenting division? If this is what they’re like now, imagine what’s going to happen when Trump wins. As if that wasn’t enough batshit crazy, The View then wheeled out “Morning Joe” host Mika Brzezinski who literally started crying and saying all Trump supporters are Nazis. “These are the final hours,” she warned, adding “I come with such dire warnings, and I mean them from the bottom of my heart!” asserting that we are witnessing the “descent into fascism.”

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“..the most probable outcomes are: Trump victory; GOP clean sweep.”

• ‘World’s Most Accurate Economist’ Predicts US Election Outcome (RT)

Republican candidate Donald Trump will “most probably” win the US presidential election next month, economist Christophe Barraud, ranked by Bloomberg as the top forecaster of the American economy, has said. With one week to go until the election, Democratic candidate and current vice president Kamala Harris leads Trump by less than one percentage point, according to the New York Times, which has reported that the gap is narrowing and that battleground states remain “extraordinarily tight.” Making his prediction in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, Barraud wrote: “Looking at different metrics such as betting markets, polls, election modelers’ forecasts, financial markets, as of now, the most probable outcomes are: Trump victory; GOP clean sweep.”

Barraud is chief economist and strategist at Market Securities, and has been awarded the title of Top Forecaster of the US Economy by Bloomberg every year bar once since 2012. He also presented several possible scenarios of the US election outcome in an interview with Business Insider earlier this week. “A Trump win with a Republican sweep” and a majority in the Senate would enable the new president to implement tax cuts for corporations and households, as well as focus more on domestic rather than foreign policy, Barraud said. It would also have a short-term positive impact on US economic growth, creating a GDP boost between 2.1% and 2.3% in 2025, he added.

Among the other scenarios is a Trump victory with a divided Congress, according to the expert. This would limit his ability to cut taxes, forcing him to focus on foreign policy, likely by implementing trade restrictions and tariffs, Barraud said. The outcome would hurt global growth and slow the US economy in the long term, he added. If Harris wins with a divided Congress, there will be minimal changes to economic policies, according to Barraud. Earlier, Allan Lichtman, known as the “Nostradamus” of US elections for accurately predicting nine of the last ten presidential outcomes since 1984, said Harris will win the November 5 vote.

Trump Political Director

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“I was on a J-1 visa that transitioned to an H1-B. They know this, as they have all my records..”

• Musk Denies Allegations He Worked Illegally in America (ET)

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has denied allegations that he worked illegally in the United States in the early days of his career. An Oct. 27 report from The Washington Post alleges that Musk began his career working illegally in the U.S. for a period in 1995 while he was building a Silicon Valley startup, Zip2, which sold for about $300 million four years later. The outlet cited company documents, former business associates, and a past CEO of the company who said investors were worried that Musk could be deported if discovered. In a series of posts on social media, Musk denied the allegations. Responding to a video of President Joe Biden referencing the Post’s claims, Musk said he had authorization to work in the United States.

In another post, he provided more details about his immigration status. Musk says he was initially on a J-1 visa for international students to pursue academic training or research, then transitioned to an H1-B visa allowing temporary employment for specialty occupations. “I was on a J-1 visa that transitioned to an H1-B. They know this, as they have all my records,” Musk said. Musk was born in South Africa. At age 18, he immigrated to Canada after gaining Canadian citizenship through his Canadian-born mother. He attended Queen’s University at Kingston in Canada before transferring to the University of Pennsylvania. Musk moved to California in 1995 to attend Stanford University but dropped out after two days and co-founded Zip2 with his brother Kimbal. He became a U.S. citizen in 2002.

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Rep. Mark E. Green, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, represents Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District.

• Chaos and Crime: Legacy of the Biden-Harris Border Policies (Mark Green)

Upon being inaugurated, one of the responsibilities Joe Biden and Kamala Harris assumed was to keep the American homeland secure and safeguard our sovereign borders. Nearly four years later, looking at the catastrophic, unprecedented border crisis that has unfolded on their watch, can anyone say with a straight face they have fulfilled that obligation? The answer, unequivocally, is no – and Americans are the ones paying the price. From the beginning, Biden, Harris, and other key officials in their administration were determined to end President Donald Trump’s effective border security policies – regardless of the consequences. They also refused to enforce long-standing immigration laws that administrations of both parties have enforced.

According to a new report by my committee, the incoming Biden-Harris team was warned by current and former Department of Homeland Security law enforcement during the presidential transition of what would happen if they embarked on this path – and yet, they chose to do so anyway. This dereliction of duty has led to disastrous outcomes in the realm of public safety. Under Biden and Harris’ leadership, our borders are wide open and ripe for exploitation, and interior enforcement has fallen off a cliff. The numbers bear this out. Since Fiscal Year 2021, the Border Patrol has recorded more than 55,000 arrests of illegal aliens with criminal histories, compared to just around 22,000 from FY2017-2020. Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens has said that “[h]ardened criminals often hide in smuggled migrant groups.” According to one Border Patrol deputy chief patrol agent, “any crime that can be committed, we do encounter people who have committed them.”

The problem of criminal aliens is not just limited to the border. Between FY2017-2020, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested more than 480,000 aliens with criminal convictions or pending charges on their record. By contrast, in the first three years of the Biden-Harris administration, such arrests dropped to just around 165,000, despite the historic numbers of illegal aliens crossing the border. Likewise, the Trump administration removed more than 604,000 criminal aliens from FY2017-2020, while the Biden-Harris administration only removed around 158,000 from FY2021-2023 (ICE data for FY2024 has not yet been publicly released). Additionally, removals of gang members last year were down 40% from their peak during the Trump administration.

These numbers have dropped because the Biden-Harris administration tied the hands of law enforcement. According to guidance issued by DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in September 2021, ICE personnel cannot “rely on the fact of conviction … alone” in deciding whether to detain a suspected criminal alien, a statement that one federal judge ruled in 2022 “flips the presumption of detention on its head.” It should come as no surprise, then, that ICE’s Non-Detained Docket has exploded to well over 7.4 million individuals – up from just around 3.2 million at the end of FY2020. Among these millions are nearly 650,000 aliens with criminal backgrounds, including more than 13,000 convicted murderers, 15,000 with sexual assault convictions, and more than 62,000 convicted of assault.

The consequences of this policy of non-enforcement have been deadly. One need only ask the families of Laken Riley, Rachel Morin, Jocelyn Nungaray, and many others whose lives have been taken or otherwise irrevocably shattered at the hands of those here illegally.

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No, the US has no political prisoners…

• Steve Bannon Released From Prison After Serving 4 Months (ET)

Steve Bannon, who served as a top White House adviser early on in the Trump administration, was released from prison on Oct. 29 after serving four months for contempt of Congress. “The four months in federal prison not only didn’t break me, it empowered me,” he said during his “WarRoom” podcast. “I am more energized and more focused than I’ve ever been in my entire life.” Bannon, 70, was serving time in the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut. His release comes after a federal judge on Oct. 22 denied his request for early release. Bannon entered prison in July after the Supreme Court refused to take up his request to avoid his four-month sentence. When he began serving his sentence in July, Bannon called himself a “political prisoner.” “I am proud of going to prison,” he said at the time, adding that he was standing up to Attorney General Merrick Garland and what he called a “corrupt” Justice Department.

A jury convicted him in 2022 for two counts of contempt of Congress after he refused to comply with requests from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach. Bannon, 70, claimed that former President Donald Trump had extended executive privilege over his testimony. Bannon’s attorney, David Schoen, told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that the district court had wrongly excluded evidence surrounding another attorney advising Bannon that he didn’t have to comply with the subpoenas because Trump had invoked that privilege. “At a bare minimum, it’s required that the defendant know or understand that his or her conduct was unlawful or wrong,” Schoen told the court in November 2023. “Mr. Bannon acted in the only way he believed and understood from his lawyer that the law permitted him … to behave in response to the subpoena.” The appeals court said that under its precedent, Bannon’s advice-of-attorney defense “is no defense at all.”

“As both this court and the Supreme Court have repeatedly explained, a contrary rule would contravene the text of the contempt statute and hamstring Congress’s investigatory authority,” Judge Brad Garcia said, writing for the court. “Because we have no basis to depart from that binding precedent, and because none of Bannon’s other challenges to his convictions have merit, we affirm.” Bannon faces other criminal charges in New York, where a judge has set Dec. 9 as the start date for the trial in his border fundraising case. Prosecutors allege that Bannon helped funnel more than $100,000 to a co-founder of the nonprofit WeBuildTheWall Inc. who was allegedly getting a secret salary after Bannon and others had promised donors that every dollar would be used to help construct a wall along the U.S.–Mexico border. Bannon has pleaded not guilty to money laundering and conspiracy charges, calling them “nonsense.” In 2021, Trump pardoned Bannon in a federal case similar to the one he’s currently facing from New York prosecutors.

That case was brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which also prosecuted Trump for alleged election interference involving a payment to adult performer Stephanie Clifford, known as Stormy Daniels. Trump similarly pleaded not guilty. Bannon entered prison the same month that another former Trump White House adviser, Peter Navarro, exited under similar circumstances. Navarro claimed executive privilege in defying a congressional subpoena, but D.C. District Judge Amit Mehta said he hadn’t shown enough evidence the privilege was asserted. Trump is facing potential prison time for his role in the events of Jan. 6, 2021, but has successfully avoided trial in Washington. His appeal on presidential immunity resulted in a landmark Supreme Court case and a lengthy delay of the pre-trial process for special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of him.

Bannon

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“..It is “the overreach of the Biden-Harris administration”, starting from anti-Trump lawfare and ending with transgender propaganda, that has fuelled the division dramatically..”

• Secessionism and Polarization on Rise in US (Sp.)

The election integrity dispute surrounding the 2020 vote reportedly reinvigorated secessionist sentiment across the US which is continuing to grow ahead of election day. The Texas Nationalist movement, which advocates for Texas to secede from the US, is gaining momentum amid the southern border crisis. The Lone Star state is not the only one where activists are pushing for independence: around 25 US states are “ready” to leave, according to the Daniel Miller, the president of the secessionist Texas Nationalist Movement, in April. It is “the overreach of the Biden-Harris administration”, starting from anti-Trump lawfare and ending with transgender propaganda, that has fuelled the division dramatically, according to Michael Shannon, a Conservative political commentator and Newsmax columnist.

“Things like that and then the federal government mandating that men who think they are women can compete in women’s sport, arresting abortion protesters, people praying quietly in front of abortion mills, the political manhunt against the January 6th rioters that has extended even down to grandmothers, all of this really concerns Republicans, conservatives and I guess the few independents who still respect the rule of law. And so that’s what started this real division,” Shannon told Sputnik. The US political commentator noted that Texas secession is unlikely to happen any time soon. Still, he does not rule out that some red states could strive to leave the nation if Harris wins. “If there becomes a real split, it’ll probably start with Ron DeSantis in Florida, who will begin by refusing to cooperate with any federal agency that tries to, and this is assuming Harris wins, any federal agency that tries to impose these, frankly, totalitarian edicts from Washington,” Shannon noted.

The YouGov February poll indicated that 23% of Americans would support their state seceding from the US, whereas 28% would support a state other than their own leaving. While 51% of American respondents firmly oppose secession, 27% remain unsure. A separate YouGov survey shows that the divide across the nation comes along party lines: Democrats and Republicans think they have little in common, unlike their peers a decade ago. Last February, House Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene called for nothing short of a “national divorce” between Republican and Democratic states. The Trump-Harris race is very close, making the country almost evenly split, Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida, told Sputnik. Bottom line is that one side is going to be very disappointed by the election results no matter who wins, according to the pundit.

“If Trump wins, you’re going to have almost 50% of the country where Democrats are very disappointed,” Jewett said. “And if Kamala Harris wins, you’re going to have all those Republican Trump fans, almost 50% of the country. They’re going to be very upset as well. I think in the short run, it’s definitely going to exacerbate, make it worse.” Therefore, the question is whether the winner would try to pull people together, or whether half of American voters will remain alienated, the academic noted, drawing attention to the fact that presently there is some big difference between Democratic and Republican states.

“We’ll have to see how the leaders on both sides react if they react as normal or the winner is gracious and the loser is gracious, and then maybe those partisan divides won’t be so bad. But if they do not, if they question the election results, or if the winner really rubs it in and says ‘okay, now I’m going to do everything I want and I’m only representing the people that voted for me’ – that’s not going to be great for American society overall.” The professor warns that partisan divisions might get worse potentially in the longer run.

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“It is equally right to condemn all those who sought to silence a scientist who is now being praised for resisting their campaign to silence him and others.”

• Jay Bhattacharya Receives Prestigious Award for Intellectual Freedom (Turley)

Few in the media seemed eager to attend a ceremony last week in Washington, D.C., where the prestigious American Academy of Sciences and Letters was awarding its top intellectual freedom award. The problem may have been the recipient: Stanford Professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. [Stanford Professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya] has spent years being vilified by the media over his dissenting views on the pandemic. As one of the signatories of the 2020 Great Barrington Declaration, he was canceled, censored, and even received death threats. That open letter called on government officials and public health authorities to rethink the mandatory lockdowns and other extreme measures in light of past pandemics. All the signatories became targets of an orthodoxy enforced by an alliance of political, corporate, media, and academic groups. Most were blocked on social media despite being accomplished scientists with expertise in this area. It did not matter that positions once denounced as “conspiracy theories” have been recognized or embraced by many.

Some argued that there was no need to shut down schools, which has led to a crisis in mental illness among the young and the loss of critical years of education. Other nations heeded such advice with more limited shutdowns (including keeping schools open) and did not experience our losses. Others argued that the virus’s origin was likely the Chinese research lab in Wuhan. That position was denounced by the Washington Post as a “debunked” coronavirus “conspiracy theory.” The New York Times Science and Health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli called any mention of the lab theory “racist.” Federal agencies now support the lab theory as the most likely based on the scientific evidence. Likewise, many questioned the efficacy of those blue surgical masks and supported natural immunity to the virus — both positions were later recognized by the government. Others questioned the six-foot rule used to shut down many businesses as unsupported by science. In congressional testimony, Dr. Anthony Fauci recently admitted that the 6-foot rule “sort of just appeared” and “wasn’t based on data.”

Yet not only did the rule result in heavily enforced rules (and meltdowns) in public areas, the media further ostracized dissenting critics. Again, Fauci and other scientists did little to stand up for these scientists or call for free speech to be protected. As I discuss in my new book, “The Indispensable Right,” the result is that we never really had a national debate on many of these issues and the result of massive social and economic costs. I spoke at the University of Chicago with Bhattacharya and other dissenting scientists in the front row a couple of years ago. After the event, I asked them how many had been welcomed back to their faculties or associations since the recognition of some of their positions. They all said that they were still treated as pariahs for challenging the groupthink culture. Now the scientific community is recognizing the courage shown by Bhattacharya and others with its annual Robert J. Zimmer Medal for Intellectual Freedom.

So what about all of those in government, academia, and the media who spent years hounding these scientists? Biden Administration officials and Democratic members targeted Bhattacharya and demanded his censorship. For example, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) attacked Bhattacharya and others who challenged the official narrative during the pandemic. Krishnamoorthi expressed outrage that the scientists were even allowed to testify as “a purveyor of COVID-19 misinformation.” Journalists and columnists also supported the censorship and blacklisting of these scientists. In the Los Angeles Times, columnist Michael Hiltzik decried how “we’re living in an upside-down world” because Stanford allowed these scientists to speak at a scientific forum. He was outraged that, while “Bhattacharya’s name doesn’t appear in the event announcement,” he was an event organizer. Hiltzik also wrote a column titled “The COVID lab leak claim isn’t just an attack on science, but a threat to public health.”

Then there are those lionized censors at Twitter who shadow-banned Bhattacharya. As former CEO Parag Agrawal generally explained, the “focus [was] less on thinking about free speech … [but[ who can be heard.” None of this means that Bhattacharya or others were right in all of their views. Instead, many of the most influential voices in the media, government, and academia worked to prevent this discussion from occurring when it was most needed. There is still a debate over Bhattacharya’s “herd immunity” theories, but there is little debate over the herd mentality used to cancel him. The Academy was right to honor Bhattacharya. It is equally right to condemn all those who sought to silence a scientist who is now being praised for resisting their campaign to silence him and others.

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“If they’re worrying about Julian Assange, well, they ought to get a new job..”

• Assange’s Father on Von Der Leyen: EU Falls to Bits Under ‘Frau Genocide’ (Sp.)

The European Union is “falling to bits” under the leadership of the head of the European Commission Ursula Van der Leyen, who is commonly called “Frau Genocide,” John Shipton, an Australian activist and the father of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, said in an interview with Sputnik. “The EU is falling to bits. Everybody within the EU is squabbling. The commissioner of the EU, Van der Leyen, we call her Frau Genocide – it is very popular. I mean, everybody despises her. She’s an authoritarian figure. In Germany the GDP [growth] last year was 0.2%. That’s not even 1%, it’s two-tenths of 1%,” Shipton noted. In December 2023, Clare Daly, a member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Ireland, called von der Leyen “Frau Genocide” and said that she was responsible for the escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Immediately after the escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, von der Leyen, who took a pro-Israeli position and for some time ignored the deterioration of the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and the deaths of civilians, was harshly criticized in the media, which accused her of “double standards,” recalling her statements on the conflict in Ukraine, and warned against making statements on behalf of the entire EU. Later, the European Commission press service and the European External Action Service had to correct von der Leyen’s one-sided statements, explaining that the opinion expressed “is her personal and does not reflect the position of the entire EU.” The United States does not like and does not accept the truth about itself, John Shipton, an Australian activist and the father of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, said in an interview with Sputnik.

In July, Assange was released from a British prison after many years of imprisonment and returned to Australia following a plea agreement with the US authorities. According to Shipton, Washington “took very strong measures against Julian for publishing the truth.” “And also they put Chelsea Manning in jail for 35 years. And Edward Snowden had to have asylum in the Russian Federation. So it is clear that they do take very strong exceptions to the truth about themselves being published. They don’t like the truth about themselves,” the activist said about the US actions. However, Shipton said Washington had “too many problems” to continue worrying about the Assange case. “If they’re worrying about Julian Assange, well, they ought to get a new job,” Shipton advised the US authorities.

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“Humankind, said T.S. Eliot, “cannot bear very much reality.”

• When Evil Is Allowed In, Evil Stays (Paul Craig Roberts)

On two previous occasions Israel sent its vaunted army into southern Lebanon only to be driven out by the Arab militia, Hezbollah, operating without tanks, without an air force, without air defense. It appears that it has now happened again. Israel has been stopped cold on the ground, causing the Israeli defense minister to announce an end to the ground operations. The Israeli Army is only good at killing women and children from the air, as in Gaza. Israel’s war against Hezbollah has been replaced with Israeli air strikes against civilian residential areas in Beirut, which provides more evidence that the only function of the Israeli military is to murder women and children from the air. The obvious conclusion is that the Israeli military doesn’t fight; it commits war crimes against civilians. The reason civilian neighborhoods in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon and not Hezbollah territory, are being destroyed from the air is that Iran and Russia permit it by not providing air defense systems to Lebanon.

Iran and Russia are “maintaining peace” by permitting Israel to slaughter Lebanese women and children and destroy schools and hospitals from the air. It is a paradox that Washington, Putin, and Iran are equally indifferent to Israel’s slaughter from the air of civilians in Gaza and civilians in Lebanon. Any one of the three countries could stop the murder of civilians, but not one of them will do anything. Putin has placed his bets on BRICS, but that is an economic organization that might or might not succeed. Its success is handicapped by the fact that the Russian and Chinese economists are indoctrinated by the American neoliberals, and, therefore, are not merely worthless to their countries but positively harmful. If Washington wanted the Israelis’ murder of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians to stop, Washington would stop providing Israel with the weapons. Clearly, Israel is doing what Washington wants.

But why do Russia and Iran want Palestinian and Lebanese civilians to be massacred when either country can stop it? It is beginning to look as if it is not merely Washington and Israel that Satan has in his grasp, but Russia and Iran as well. Every time Putin gets off-focused from Russia’s only threat–Washington–he finds himself with a mess on this hands. With Putin focused on the Olympics in China, Washington sent the Georgian army into South Ossetia. With Putin focused on the Sochi Olympics, Washington overthrew the Ukrainian government and brought war to Russia. Now Putin is focused on BRICS and Washington is stirring up a color revolution in Georgia to regain the former Russian province as another beached against Russia. The opposition parties and the President of Georgia do not accept the election results, which are favorable to Russia.

I think that Putin by refusing to use power is losing credibility. I don’t think Putin understands the ideological character of the Democrat Party and the ideological woke liberal-left that controls it. If the Democrats manage to retain control over the government, I don’t think Putin is prepared for the consequences. Humankind, said T.S. Eliot, “cannot bear very much reality.” That is as true of Russians as of Americans. Reality conflicts with hopes, aspirations, and plans, and when ignored upsets all of them. Putin’s Ukraine conflict which has greatly widened, the brewing color revolution in Georgia supported by Washington, and Iran’s demonization and isolation are all self-inflicted disasters caused by ignoring reality.

When powerful countries such as Russia, China, and Iran stand aside from genocide, they destroy their own reputations. The world is crying out for someone with the means to stand up for humanity, for justice, for truth, and there are no takers. In Gaza children undergo amputations without anesthesia. The little water available is polluted. Everyone is sick. Washington keeps sending the weapons used from the air against purely civilian populations. Disease and starvation will finish the job for the Americans and the Israelis. It is America that has enabled this genocide. And Americans, in their insouciant existence, think they are the salt of the earth.

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They’re calling up another 160,000.

• Ex-President Warns of Growing Ukrainian Anger Over Military Draft (RT)

Ukrainian society is growing increasingly resentful of Kiev’s mobilization campaign and is now plagued by divisions, former President Leonid Kuchma has said. In an interview with Interfax on Monday, Kuchma, who held office between 1994 and 2005 and led Kiev’s delegation during talks to settle the Donbass crisis between 2014 and 2020, lamented that Ukraine’s internal unity has eroded since the escalation of hostilities with Russia in February 2022. According to Kuchma, the army, society and the leadership initially managed to set their differences aside and became a “monolith.” “Even in politics, the infighting disappeared for a while. Today it is no longer the case,” he said, adding that Ukrainian elites “have renewed the rat race of their petty interests.” In wider society, there is also dissatisfaction “with the army’s demands for increased mobilization,” Kuchma added.

“The government blames society for not being ready to stand up for the state, while society urges the authorities to lead by example and start with themselves. There are many such contradictions,” he said. The former Ukrainian leader said that while the country remains “united by hatred of the enemy,” there is “less mutual understanding” among people and that this “postpones victory” for Kiev. Ukraine’s foreign policy is beset by a similar problem, Kuchma claimed. A kind of pluralism appeared in our global communication,” he stated, contrasting it with the early stages of the conflict, when Kiev signaled it would “fight to the end” and called for help from nations around the world. This comes from a need to hone separate narratives for different international partners depending on how hawkish they are on Russia, Kuchma said.

“Some are defenders of fundamental Western values, others are supporters of ‘business as usual’ with Russia. Some are determined ‘hawks’, others are cautious ‘peacemakers’,” Kuchma said. Kiev announced general mobilization after the escalation of hostilities with Russia, barring most men aged between 18 and 60 from leaving the country. This spring, faced with mounting losses, Kiev lowered the draft age from 27 to 25, and significantly tightened mobilization rules. Videos showing recruitment officers attempting to catch eligible men in various public places, often resulting in violent clashes, have since appeared online. Ukrainian frontline troops interviewed by Western media consistently complain of a lack of manpower, leading to long rotation, extreme exhaustion, and gradual retreat under Russian pressure.

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“..the largest post-election drop in approval rating of any British prime minister in modern history..”

Took him just 4 months. Who’s next?

Not long ago, Elon Musk predicted civil war in the UK. To what extent was he wrong?

• Support For New UK PM collapses (RT)

Keir Starmer has suffered the largest post-election drop in approval rating of any British prime minister in modern history, according to a recent poll. Starmer is now more unpopular than his predecessor, Rishi Sunak, was when he resigned in July. Starmer rode to power in July on the back of a landslide general election victory for the Labour Party. Seeking to distance himself from the leftism of the party’s former leader, Jeremy Corbyn, Starmer promised to drag Labour back to the centrism of Tony Blair, and to deliver “good government, national security, secure borders, and economic stability.” Less than four months into his premiership, Starmer’s approval rating has plummeted from a post-election high of +11 to a dismal low of -38, according to a survey of 1,012 adults carried out by More in Common. This 49-point drop in approval is “unprecedented” in modern history, More in Common Director Luke Tryl told the Telegraph on Monday.

According to the poll, Starmer is less popular than Rishi Sunak was when he resigned as prime minister and leader of the Conservative Party following July’s election. Sunak had an approval rating of -37 when his party was wiped out by Labour, which has since risen to -31. Blair enjoyed a +60 approval rating following Labour’s landslide 1997 election win, which took three years to fall into negative territory. Tryl told The Telegraph that two key decisions have cratered Starmer’s popularity. “If you ask what people have noticed, by a country mile it is the decision on the winter fuel allowance and the early release of prisoners,” he explained, adding that controversy over Labour donor Waheed Alli’s gifts to senior officials, including Starmer, has also dented the PM’s standing.

Last month, Starmer’s government tightened eligibility rules for winter fuel payments, effectively denying around 10 million pensioners payments of up to £300 ($390) toward heating their homes. Days earlier, it was announced that thousands of prisoners, including convicted killers and kidnappers, would be released after serving just 40% of their sentences, in a bid to ease prison overcrowding. As images of career criminals celebrating their release and publicly thanking Starmer emerged, the PM said that he “shares the public’s anger,” but insisted that “there was no choice.”

Meanwhile, hundreds of people have been jailed for taking part in anti-Islam and anti-immigration riots across the UK in late July and early August. More than two dozen people have been handed prison sentences for online offenses, including a Conservative councillor’s wife who received 31 months behind bars for making X posts calling for migrant accommodation to be burned down. The More in Common poll was published ahead of Starmer’s first budget on Wednesday, which is expected to include tax hikes to fund healthcare and housing spending. Around 68% of respondents said they are worried about the budget, while 70% said that overall, “things are getting worse” in the UK.

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“The shocking part is how the journalists comply with this draconian system which would have made Stalin glow with pride.”

• Delusions Of Adequacy: How British Ambassadors Became A Joke (Jay)

The ugly incident at the airport in Moscow with the British deputy ambassador to Russia grabbing at journalists’ cameras and even ripping a press badge off one should be seen as a message to all of us, when talking about British diplomacy. It’s dead. Tom Dodd’s embarrassing few minutes, which will surely haunt him for the rest of his career, could not be a more damning example of what diplomacy was once and what it is now. Like international journalism, diplomacy is barely a shadow of its former self and those who work as diplomats are third grade at best, cardboard cut outs for their predecessors 30 years ago who really had clout and affected how the world operated. The new generation of British diplomats, like Dodd, are not only entirely ineffective and a waste of space and taxpayers’ money but they also come with a number of peculiarities which you wouldn’t normally expect.

Narcissism, arrogance and delusion are the new qualities of this breed and it was all there to see in the video clip of Dodd who was absolutely outraged that journalists could actually approach him with questions. Of course there is quite a great deal of tension between Russia and the UK at the moment as Dodd is now part of a team “inspecting the work of the country’s mission in Moscow in the aftermath of the spy scandal”, reports RT. In mid-September, six British embassy staff were declared persona non grata over their alleged involvement in “subversive activities” and espionage. Dodd is confused though. He broke the unwritten rules of the foreign office. Typically, ambassadors in Africa and Middle East countries manipulate local media for their own needs and generally treat local journalists like their personal servants. Of course, they avoid international journalists like the plague, especially their own.

They basically go native and align themselves with the regime’s own strategy on handling local press. But this ‘rule’ cannot apply in Moscow where, apart from the press there having more freedoms that your average British hack, the UK is considered practically an enemy of the state. And so Dodd was lost by the ambush situation where his requirements as a ‘new generation’ foreign office twerp didn’t extend to dealing with press with tricky questions. His predecessor of 30 years ago would have revelled in the opportunity to deal with the questions with a certain élan and composure. Yet it’s narcissism which is the weakest point which shows. It’s this belief that the individual themselves is the most important subject which shames Britain as a once glorious country, now making it look like a failed state which no longer has any relevance on the world stage.

Todd belongs to a generation of diplomats who consider journalists more or less as stenographers who dutifully write what you tell them to write, on the occasion, and remain silent for the rest of the period. Like rats in a basket which you occasionally shake to amuse yourself. And yet you can hardly blame him. Britain’s own press is such a shambles these days and so embedded in the government’s annals that you can hardly call it the fourth estate any more. Any foreign correspondent who emails a question to the foreign office media team will tell you that. When a reply comes, it is Sir Humphry gobbledygook language which doesn’t even tackle your question. On many occasions, in my own experience, the FCO plainly lies to journalists. That isn’t what is shocking. The shocking part is how the journalists comply with this draconian system which would have made Stalin glow with pride.

The system, which you would normally associate with a regime in West Africa, is supported by the journalists themselves. And Dodd is part of this system. Corrupt, outdated, backward delusional view about Britain and how it should deal with the press. But it’s a pattern which I have noticed is quite typical of British ambassadors. While I was in Lebanon, there was a British ambassador there who agreed to an interview with me. When I didn’t do the ‘local’ thing of writing a shining piece on his achievements but instead wrote objectively about him, the same ambassador turned on me. Tom Fletcher, an effeminate narcissist who posed for a photo shoot as James Bond while ambassador and spent most of his time filling social media with photos of himself and super models with swollen upper lips, defamed me to a group of MEPs who visited Beirut, trying to destroy my credibility – as an act of childish petulance for the interview which touched upon his vanity and lack of knowledge of the region.

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“Netanyahu, Gallant and Halevi are gambling with Israel’s very existence… they never think for a moment about the day after..”

• A Heroic Preference For Self-Destruction Takes Hold In Israel (Alastair Crooke)

The war without limits ideology – purely theoretically – could be a thinkable solution: Ron Dermer, a former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. and confidant of Netanyahu, was asked a few months earlier what he saw as the solution to the Palestinian conflict. He replied that both the West Bank and Gaza must be totally dis-armed – “yes”. Yet more important than disarmament, Dermer said, was the absolute necessity that all Palestinians be “de-radicalised”. (This has now been extended to the whole region that must be ‘de-radicalised’). When asked to expand, Dermer pointed approvingly to the outcome of WW2: The Germans were defeated, but more plainly the Japanese were fully ‘de-radicalised’ at the end of the war. ‘De-radicalisation’ therefore means installing a Leviathan-esque “despotism that reduces the majority to total powerlessness, including spiritual, intellectual and moral powerlessness.

The total Leviathan is a unique, absolute and unlimited power, spiritual and temporal, over other humans”, as Dr Henri Hude has observed. Thus, as postmodern culture sinks into the inhuman and favours the Leviathan – with the total annihilation of other peoples and the suppression of their separate identities – the question arises, could ‘war without limits’ work? Could such terror impose on the Middle East an unconditional surrender “that would allow it to change profoundly, militarily, politically and culturally, and to transform as a satellite within Pax Americana?” Hude goes on to note, “The conditions demanded of Japan by the USA were exorbitant, and it was to be expected that Japan would put up a tremendous resistance. The atrocious use of the bomb broke this resistance”. The clear response that Dr Hude gives in his book Philosophie de la Guerre is that war without limits cannot be the solution, because it cannot deliver long-lasting ‘deterrence’ or de-radicalisation.

“On the contrary, it is the most certain cause of war. Ceasing to be rational, despising opponents who are more rational than it is, arousing opponents who are even less rational than it is. The Leviathan will fall; and even before its fall, no security is assured”. The latter gives two insights as to how Hude’s analysis might apply to today’s wars: One is that whenever postmodern culture capsizes into ‘necessary’ violence (which it hyper-culpabilises, since it prioritises life, rather than suffering), it can only justify the violence through evoking a more than absolute evil – the demonized enemy. Secondly, Hude identifies such extreme ‘will to power’ – without limits – as necessarily containing the psyche of self-destruction within it too. For the Leviathan to function, it must remain rational and powerful. Ceasing to be rational, despising opponents who are more rational, and angering opponents who are less rational than it is itself, the Leviathan then must fall.

One respected military observer – Maj. Gen. (Res.) Itzhak Brik, a former senior IDF commander and a former long-serving IDF ombudsman – has warned again of Israel’s looming fall: Netanyahu, Gallant and Halevi are gambling with Israel’s very existence… they never think for a moment about the day after. They are disconnected from reality and exercise no judgment … When the catastrophe strikes, it will already be too late … These three megalomaniacs imagine that they are capable of destroying both Hamas and Hizbullah and ending the ayatollahs’ regime in Iran … They want to accomplish everything through military pressure, but in the end, they won’t accomplish anything. They have put Israel on the brink of two impossible situations [–] the outbreak of a full-fledged war in the Middle East, [and secondly] continuing the war of attrition. In either situation, Israel won’t be able to survive for long.

Only a diplomatic agreement has the power to extricate us from the quagmire into which these three men have dragged us. Israel teeters at the edge: It doesn’t have the necessary forces; it doesn’t have a culture of tolerating persistent suffering; and it will not be able to impose itself over the plurality of resistance that it faces. Reason already is cast aside, its opponents are ridiculed: a ‘heroic’ preference for self-destruction has taken hold. ‘Masada’ is being spoken of.

Read more …

No Russian gas.

• Mass Industrial Strikes Begin In Germany (RT)

German trade union IG Metall on Tuesday launched strikes in the nation’s metal and electrical industries in an attempt to win higher wages, German media has reported. The action comes amid growing concern about the health of the EU’s largest manufacturing economy. According to the tabloid Bild, employees began walking off the job during the night shift, including at Volkswagen’s plant in the city of Osnabruck, where workers worry the plant may be closed. Elsewhere, around 200 employees of the battery manufacturer Clarios went on strike in Hanover, Lower Saxony, carrying torches and union flags, the outlet wrote. Meanwhile, in Hildesheim, Lower Saxony, around 400 employees, including those at Jensen GmbH, KSM Castings Group, Robert Bosch, Waggonbau Graaff and ZF CV Systems Hannover, have reportedly halted operations.

Protests are also expected at BMW and Audi plants in Bavaria. Work is to be stopped nationwide during the course of the day, the tabloid wrote. ”The fact that production lines are now at a standstill and offices are empty is the responsibility of the employers,” IG Metall’s negotiator and district manager Thorsten Groger stated, as quoted by Deutsche Welle. IG Metall is demanding a 7% pay raise compared to the 3.6% raise over a period of 27 months offered by employers’ associations, due to soaring inflation. The companies call such demands unrealistic. The mass strikes come as Volkswagen announced on Monday it would close “at least” three of its ten plants in Germany, lay off tens of thousands of staff and downsize remaining plants in the country.

The measures are part of a cost-cutting drive, the conglomerate said earlier. Oliver Blume, chief executive of the VW Group, has cited a “difficult economic environment” and “failing competitiveness of the German economy” as factors behind the decision. The German Association of the Automotive Industry warned last year that the country was “dramatically losing its international competitiveness” due to soaring energy costs. A recent survey by the VDA auto industry association suggested that the reshuffling of the German car industry could lead to 186,000 job losses by 2035, roughly a quarter of which have already occurred.

Read more …

 

 

 

YMCA

 

 

Little things
https://twitter.com/i/status/1851182802735108492

 

 

Turbo cancers
https://twitter.com/i/status/1851199741276602449

 

 

Kiseki

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle Boxing Day 2023

Dec 262023
 
 December 26, 2023  Posted by at 10:02 am Finance Tagged with: , , , ,  28 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Jacqueline in Turkish costume 1955

 

• Biden Handling Of Southern Border To Cost Him 2024 Election – Congressman (JTN)
• Thousands Join Huge Migrant Caravan In Mexico Ahead Of Blinken Visit (BBC)
• Confiscating Russian Assets Would Be ‘Cataclysmic’ For Dollar – Robert Shiller (RT)
• Biden Is Destroying The Dollar – Russia’s Top MP (RT)
• Netanyahu Outsmarted by Wily Biden? No, Biden Is the One Being Played (Crooke)
• Despite Its Shortcomings, UNSC Vote Will Tie Israel’s Hands (Bhadrakumar)
• New York Times Sparks Outrage Over Running Op-Ed By Hamas Mayor (NYP)
• Ukraine Accuses New York Times of ‘Working For The Kremlin’ (RT)
• Security Guarantees For Kiev Are ‘Just A Scrap Of Paper’ – Medvedev (RT)
• Behind the Democrats’ Efforts to Regulate the Supreme Court (ET)
• MEP Brands Von Der Leyen ‘Frau Genocide’ (RT)
• Germany Uses The Weapon Of Climate Change Against Its Own People (Marsden)
• The 4 Major Battlefronts in Trump’s Ongoing Ballot Dispute (ET)
• And So Ends an Era (Kunstler)

 

 


Christmas in Jerusalem (1921), back before the Nakba, when the three Abrahamic faiths lived side by side in peace in the Holy City.

 

 

Trump Xmas
https://twitter.com/i/status/1739015163141832943

 

 

Trump

 

 

 

 

Sowell warning

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..GOP members of Congress have never been in a stronger position for border security and they cannot compromise now..”

• Biden Handling Of Southern Border To Cost Him 2024 Election – Congressman (JTN)

As the 2024 presidential election nears, Republicans are sharpening their attacks lines on the chaotic and insecure U.S. southern border, seeing it as one of President Joe Biden’s biggest vulnerabilities. Many in the GOP have been urging the Democrat-controlled Senate and President Biden to pass legislation titled H.R.2, also known as the “Secure the Border Act.” This bill would immediately resume construction of the wall on the southern border, supply border patrol agents with resources and invest in technology for border security. “The Senate has literally sat on it,” Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., said on the Just the News, No Noise TV show. “The president has sat on it. The president has no intention of making this into law. As a matter of fact, to the point where they say ‘we’re not even going to combine it with other things that we want, because we don’t want any compromise in securing our border.'”

“This comes at a great political cost to him, and he is going to lose the election on this single issue, if nothing else,” said McCormick, a Marine combat veteran and emergency room doctor before he joined Congress. According to data released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in October, there have been a total of 736 terrorist suspects stopped at the border in fiscal year 2023, part of the 3.2 million people who have attempted to enter the country illegally. A poll earlier this month found a whopping 79% of Americans believe the situation at southern border is either an “emergency” or a “major problem.” According to a poll conducted by Monmouth University last week, 69% of those surveyed said they disapproved of Biden’s job when it comes to immigration.

Former Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan said that GOP members of Congress have never been in a stronger position for border security and they cannot compromise now. “Right now we have our own war that we’re fighting,” Morgan said on the “Just the News, No Noise” TV show. “I use that word intentionally: war. We’re fighting it on our own borders, and the cartels are our enemy.” House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., recently announced he would be bringing articles of impeachment against Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for his response to the southern border crisis. Rep. Eli Crane, R-Az., told the John Solomon Reports podcast he thinks that Speaker Mike Johnson should hold out and get all of H.R. 2 in the budget deal.

“I’m the type of guy that believes that we could get a lot more than we normally get if we actually were willing to stand and fight,” Crane said. “I don’t usually see that from the Republican Party. It’s one of my many, many frustrations. “It’s not that there’s not plenty of good people in the party. I think that there’s just this attitude that we have to continually capitulate and kick the can down the road.” Morgan also slammed Senate Republicans who signal they want to compromise on border security.

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“The number of people apprehended at the US southern border exceeded two million both in the 2022 and the 2023 fiscal years.”

• Thousands Join Huge Migrant Caravan In Mexico Ahead Of Blinken Visit (BBC)

Thousands of migrants have set off on foot from southern Mexico in an effort to reach the United States border. Around 7,000 people mainly from South and Central America, including thousands of children, are estimated to have joined the migrant caravan. They left just days before US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due to discuss how to curb mass migration with the Mexican president Several border crossings have recently been closed due to a migrant surge. White House national security spokesman John Kirby said US President Joe Biden and his Mexican counterpart, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, shared concern about the “dramatic” increase in migrants crossing their joint border. The number of people apprehended at the US southern border exceeded two million both in the 2022 and the 2023 fiscal years.

In September 2023 alone, US Border Patrol apprehended more than 200,000 migrants crossing the US-Mexico border unlawfully, according to US Homeland Security figures. The latest migrant caravan left from the southern Mexican city of Tapachula, near the country’s southern border with Guatemala, on Christmas Eve. Its leaders carried a banner reading “Exodus from poverty”. Local media said that most of the migrants were from Cuba, Haiti and Honduras, but some came from as far away as Bangladesh and India. Many said that they had decided to join the caravan after waiting for months for transit permits. The migrant rights activist Luis García Villagrán, who is accompanying the caravan, said joining the mass trek north was a last resort for many of the migrants who had been stuck in Tapachula. “The problem is that the southern border [with Guatemala] is open and 800 to 1,000 people are crossing it daily. If we don’t get out of Tapachula, the town will collapse.

“We tell the Mexican state that it has left us no other option but to take the coastal highway and walk as far as we can get,” he said. The migrants covered some 15km on the first morning, after setting off at dawn on 24 December. One Honduran migrant said he had left his home country to escape a criminal gang which had threatened to kill him. José Santos told Reuters news agency: “I was scared so I decided to come to Mexico hoping I’ll be allowed to go to the US.” On Friday, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he was willing to work again with the US to address concerns about migration. The Mexican leader is due to meet the US secretary of state on Wednesday. Their meeting comes at a time when the surge in immigration is a hot political topic in the US with pressure mounting on President Biden to stem the flow across the US southern border.

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“If America does this to Russia today… then tomorrow it can do this to anyone..”

• Confiscating Russian Assets Would Be ‘Cataclysmic’ For Dollar – Robert Shiller (RT)

The dollar’s standing as a reserve currency would be jeopardized if the West confiscates frozen Russian assets to aid Ukraine, Nobel Prize-winning economist and Yale University professor Robert Shiller said in an interview with Italian news outlet La Repubblica published on Sunday. According Shiller, seizing the assets would give the global community, especially countries which, like Russia, “convert their savings into dollars and thus entrust them in the reliable hands of Uncle Sam,” grounds to doubt the US currency. “If America does this to Russia today… then tomorrow it can do this to anyone. This will destroy the halo of security that surrounds the dollar and will be the first step towards de-dollarization, which many are increasingly confidently leaning toward, from China to developing countries, not to mention Russia itself,” the economist warned.

“I can’t convince myself that this [confiscation of Russian assets] is the right way,” he explained. “In addition to the fact that this will be confirmation for the Russian leader that what is happening in Ukraine is a proxy war, it could paradoxically turn against America and the entire West,” Shiller explained, adding that the situation would likely turn into “a cataclysm for the current dollar-dominated economic system.” Overall, he said that while he sees some moral ground for using Russian assets to aid Ukraine, there is too much risk and “too many unknowns” with regard to the impact of such an action. Shiller is known for his research in financial markets, financial innovation, behavioral economics, macroeconomics and real estate. In 2011, he was named one of Bloomberg’s ‘50 Most Influential People’ in Global Finance, and in 2013, he received the Nobel Prize in Economics for his empirical analysis of asset prices in 2013.

The EU, US, and their allies have frozen roughly $300 billion of Russian foreign exchange reserve assets since last year as part of a sanctions campaign over the Ukraine conflict. Western nations have been mulling ways to use the funds to aid Ukraine for the better part of a year. While no specific plan has so far been finalized, last week’s media reports indicated the US recently stepped-up discussions on the matter with its allies. Washington reportedly wants to “legalize” the confiscation of Russian assets by recognizing Western countries as injured parties in the Ukraine conflict. Russia considers both the initial freezing of its assets and plans to confiscate them unlawful. Speaking to reporters last week, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that any country considering the move should understand that it would face an immediate mirror response from Moscow.

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“In an effort to ensure their financial security other states will now more actively abandon the dollar..”

• Biden Is Destroying The Dollar – Russia’s Top MP (RT)

The US has lost its economic dominance, Russian State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin wrote on his Telegram channel on Sunday. Attempts to regain it by unleashing “military conflicts, sanctions and trade wars, organizing terrorist attacks and destroying the European economy” have not brought Washington the desired results, according to Volodin. Russia’s top lawmaker called the dollar the only remaining instrument of US influence. However, other countries are increasingly abandoning it because Washington is using the greenback as a weapon in a “political battle.” He added that US President Joe Biden was depriving his own country of its “last advantage,” since such threats do not build confidence in either the country itself or its currency.

The global trend towards using national currencies in trade instead of the dollar began to gain momentum last year, after Ukraine-related sanctions cut off Russia from the Western financial system and froze its foreign reserves. “In an effort to ensure their financial security other states will now more actively abandon the dollar as the world reserve currency,” Volodin wrote. Amid sweeping sanctions on Russia, which have proved ineffective, the US is “hysterically threatening to disconnect banks around the world from their financial system for violating them,” he added. Moscow significantly ramped up the use of national currencies in its foreign trade last year, moving away from the euro and dollar in international transactions. The share of both in Russia’s export settlements fell from 96% in early 2022 to 17% this past September, according to the central bank.

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“..Netanyahu knows the Houthis: They will not be deterred by Biden’s maritime flotilla. They will, rather, relish drawing the West into a Red Sea quagmire.”

• Netanyahu Outsmarted by Wily Biden? No, Biden Is the One Being Played (Crooke)

Biden smirked and responded, “I know”, when told by a guest that Netanyahu is drawing the U.S. into a civilisational conflict – and further that Netanyahu blames him (Biden), complaining that the White House wants to block Israel from getting at the root of the problem, by harping on about Gaza and the ‘day after’. In practice, what Netanyahu is doing is simply mounting a classic flanking manoeuvre – attempting to circumvent Biden by pointing to the ‘broader conflict’ with Iran: ‘Why are you pestering me about Gaza when there’s a monumental conflict raging’, suggests Bibi in exasperation? “This is not only ‘our war’ but in many ways your war… This is a battle against the Iranian axis… now threatening to close the maritime strait of Bab Al-Mandeb… It is the interest … of the entire civilized community”, Netanyahu has said – not very subtly.

Biden’s reaction is a smug smile, hinting that he thinks he can outplay Netanyahu (‘the fox’). This is Biden’s approach: He aims to disarm Netanyahu’s allegation of an obstructionist U.S. through a parade of top-level visits that reiterates his unstinting support Israel – and to pre-empt Bibi, through insisting that he (Biden) will take care of the non-Gaza issues (Hizbullah, Yemen etc.). So, the U.S. is assembling a maritime force to confront AnsarAllah in Yemen; the Biden Admin will act to sanction violent settlers in the West Bank; it is warning Baghdad to rein-in the Hashad al Sha’abi; and his envoys in Beirut are trying to forge a ‘diplomatic agreement’ that will include the withdrawal of Hizbullah’s Radwan Forces to the other side of the Litani River in southern Lebanon, and also deal with the unresolved border disputes between Israel and Lebanon.

Biden prides himself on being a hugely experienced foreign policy actor – and thinks himself too wily for Bibi’s tricks. But maybe, Netanyahu – for all his many faults – better understands the Region? Biden clearly is being played. Even though he fails to recognize it. Netanyahu knows that ‘no way’ will Hizbullah disarm, and withdraw to north of the Litani. He knows this, and thus can wait out Biden’s diplomatic failure, before saying that the approximately 70,000 Israeli citizens displaced from the northern towns in the wake of 7 October need to ”go home”, and that if the U.S. cannot remove Hizbullah from the border-fence, then Israel will do it.

Netanyahu is using Biden’s diplomatic Lebanese initiative to build European justification for an Israeli operation in a few weeks’ time to push Hizbullah away from the border with Israel. (An Israeli operation against Hizbullah has been in the works from the outset of the Gaza war). Netanyahu knows too that control over settler violence in the West Bank lies not with him, but is in the hands of his partners: i.e., Ministers Ben Gvir and Smotrich. Neither he, nor Biden can dictate to them – they have been quietly increasing the squeeze on West Bank Palestinians for months. And finally, Netanyahu knows the Houthis: They will not be deterred by Biden’s maritime flotilla. They will, rather, relish drawing the West into a Red Sea quagmire.

Like it or not, Biden’s tactic of containing and pre-empting regional escalation through the U.S. itself becoming lead actor – in lieu of Israel – is clearly drawing the U.S. deeper into conflict. Does Biden believe that the Houthis will just quietly ‘roll-over’ because the Gerald Ford is anchored off Bab Al-Mandeb, or that Hizbullah will accept instruction from Amos Hochstein? The second way that Biden is being outplayed is through him seeing the Israeli problem as ‘just Bibi’ – indulging in personal politics. Of course, it is true that the Israeli PM is moulding Israeli politics to his own survival needs; yet pause a moment to consider what President Herzog said on Tuesday during an interview facilitated by the Atlantic Council, a leading Washington-based think tank.

Herzog has long been viewed as distinctly ‘dovish’ and ‘Leftist’ by the Beltway foreign policy establishment – prior to the war – compared to Netanyahu. In the interview, Herzog said: “We intend to take over the entire Gaza Strip and change the course of history”. He said that the current conflict is a clash of “a set of civilizational values” and he cast Hamas (in pure Manichaean terms) as a “force of evil”, adding that Israel would no longer tolerate Gaza being a “platform for Iran – driving everyone into the abyss of bloodshed and warfare”. Not much daylight then between him and the PM then.

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“..the permanent members of the Security Council should cast vetoes only under “rare, extraordinary situations to ensure the council remains credible and effective.”

• Despite Its Shortcomings, UNSC Vote Will Tie Israel’s Hands (Bhadrakumar)

The adoption of a resolution by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Friday with focus on a pause in the fighting in Gaza to allow for the delivery of more humanitarian aid can be seen as a turning point in the tortuous journey toward imposing a sustainable ceasefire. But a caveat must be added that the ultimate litmus test lies in the implementation of the UNSC resolution, as the past history of such resolutions on Palestine does not give cause for optimism. In fact, Israel’s defiance was in full view already. As the Security Council passed the resolution, Israeli forces pushed ahead with their offensive into Gaza on Friday and ordered residents in Al Bureij — an area in central Gaza where Israel had not previously focused its offensive — to evacuate. Israeli military’s chief spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said on Thursday: “Our forces continue to intensify ground operations in northern and southern Gaza.”

UN Secretary General António Guterres was spot on when he told reporters after the resolution was passed that “a humanitarian ceasefire is the only way to begin to meet the desperate needs of people in Gaza and end their ongoing nightmare.” The resolution itself is the outcome of week-long intense negotiations between the United States and the Arab countries that sponsored it — the UAE and Egypt, in particular — to settle for the lowest denominator, which meant accepting a Washington-friendly text that enabled the Biden administration to evade responsibility for another veto, for the third time since 7 October. Unsurprisingly, the US negotiators brazenly resorted to pressure tactics by drawing on their usual diplomatic tool box — blackmail, arm-twisting and ultimatums — to water down the text to the extent that important provisions relating to a ceasefire and a UN mechanism to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza and ensure its monitoring were abandoned.

And, yet, the US abstained in the vote at the end of the day, registering its reservations — principally, that the resolution was silent on the attack by Hamas on 7 October. The unkindest cut of all is that the resolution accommodated the US diktat to replace the language describing an immediate cessation of violence with an ambiguous phrase calling on the parties to “create conditions for a cessation of hostilities.” The wording meets the Israeli requirement to have a free hand to continue with its barbaric military operations.This anomaly, coupled with the absence of any reference to the condemnation of indiscriminate attacks by the Israeli military against civilians almost delivers the wrong signal that the Security Council is effectively becoming an accomplice to the destruction of Gaza — a misnomer that agitated Russia so much that it proposed a last-minute amendment to replace the phraseology in the resolution: “to create the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities” with the unambiguous call “for urgent steps toward a sustainable cessation of hostilities.”

Russia’s demand for an immediate ceasefire was in line with a resolution overwhelmingly passed by the UN General Assembly recently, but the Americans would have nothing of that sort. The unfortunate part is that the Arab sponsors of the resolution caved in to US blackmail to veto the resolution. What transpired between the protagonists behind the scenes is not known. The paradox is that, in reality, the Americans themselves were desperately keen to avoid casting a veto — the third in as many months — that would have made a mockery of President Joe Biden’s bombastic remark in his September speech at the UN last year that the permanent members of the Security Council should cast vetoes only under “rare, extraordinary situations to ensure the council remains credible and effective.”

All indications are that the US is acutely conscious of finding itself “diplomatically isolated and in a defensive crouch,” as the New York Times put it in an acerbic commentary on the Biden administration’s plight as “an increasingly lonely protector of Israel … (that) puts it at odds with even staunch allies such as France, Canada, Australia, and Japan.” The commentary says that what rankles most is that first, when the US seems to have green-lit a massive Israeli military response to 7 October “without guardrails,” it: “painfully confirmed to many in the (global) south this sense that there was a double standard” — and second, even more, “the Russian strategy works, because beyond the United Nations what everyone sees is Russia standing up for international law — and the US standing against it.”

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“.. it is imperative that we listen — whether we like it or not — to other voices..”

• New York Times Sparks Outrage Over Running Op-Ed By Hamas Mayor (NYP)

The New York Times ran an op-ed Sunday by Hamas’ handpicked Gaza City mayor — prompting outrage on social media from Israel supporters who slammed the Gray Lady for amplifying “Jew hate.” The essay by Yahya R. Sarraj published on Christmas Eve comes amid fury over Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s social media post that denounced Israel as a violent occupying force and likened Jesus to Palestinians. Sarraj’s op-ed — titled “I Am Gaza City’s Mayor. Our Lives and Culture Are in Rubble” — condemned Israel for “caus[ing] the deaths of more than 20,000 people” and for destroying or damaging “about half the buildings” in the Gaza Strip. The Times’s decision to grant a platform to Sarraj, who was appointed mayor of Gaza City by Hamas in 2019 after a career in academia, sparked an immediate backlash from many on social media.

“I wonder, would NYT also publish an op-ed from Al-Qaeda justifying 9-11? Of course not, but there is no red line to this paper’s Jew-hatred,” tweeted Arsen Ostrovsky, an International Human Rights lawyer who describes himself on X as a Zionist. “Unbelievable. This is a Hamas-appointed Mayor,” another X user wrote, adding: “They slaughtered and raped their neighbors and have the nerve to represent themselves as victims?” Others slammed Sarraj for ignoring the Hamas massacre that led to Israel launching its assault on Gaza. “Literally a member of Hamas, you have no shame or dignity NYT,” wrote an X user. Some did defend the Times for giving voice to Sarraj. “As much as I know so many ppl are angry and upset that the @nytimes published this letter from the Mayor of #Gaza, Yahya R. Sarraj, it is imperative that we listen — whether we like it or not — to other voices,” wrote an X user with handle Keep The Stroke.

“But let’s be clear, Yahya Sarraj, was intricately aware of the tunnels being build under #Gaza. As we all know, Sarraj probably would have been killed and/or family threatened, if he didn’t tow the line. Either way Sarraj was complicit in what has befallen Gaza.” Israel launched a massive military campaign in Gaza following the Oct. 7 terrorist attack by Hamas gunmen which left around 1,200 soldiers and civilians dead. Scores of Israeli soldiers and civilians also were taken hostage and remain in captivity in the Gaza Strip. Times critics also pointed out that former op-ed page editor James Bennet was forced out after the paper’s staffers were outraged over his decision to green-light a guest column by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.). Cotton used the op-ed in the summer of 2020 to call for a forceful military response to crack down on rioting by Black Lives Matter and Antifa demonstrators in the wake of the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.

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More NYT. Busy holiday season.

• Ukraine Accuses New York Times of ‘Working For The Kremlin’ (RT)

The journalists covering the Russia-Ukraine conflict for the New York Times have been recruited by Russian secret services, Kiev’s information warfare agency has said on Monday. The state-run Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD) made its statement while blasting the NYT for its recent article about the prospects of peace negotiations between Moscow and Kiev. “In order to write this text, the Russian Federation has used American journalists who were recruited during their work in Russia,” the CCD said in a statement on social media, without elaborating. The story published by the New York Times on Saturday lists its Moscow bureau chief Anton Troianovski, together with staff writers Adam Entous and Julian E. Barnes, in the byline.

The article cited “two former senior Russian officials close to the Kremlin,” as well as US and international officials, as claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin “has been signaling through intermediaries since at least September that he is open to a ceasefire that freezes the fighting along the current lines.” The report further claimed that the Kremlin was using “back-channel diplomacy” to indicate that the Russian leader “is ready to make a deal.” The CCD criticized the Times for their story angle, suggesting that Moscow might be sending a “signal” with the aim of “preventing further military aid for the Ukrainian Armed Forces from the West.” It also said the story was likely aimed at “boosting the rating” of former US President Donald Trump, who is running for reelection against Joe Biden. Trump said on the campaign trail that he will easily end the conflict if he returns to the White House.

“One shouldn’t forget that Russia is playing a game of ‘peace’, while investing more in its defense industry and building up its army. There is no mention of it in the article, obviously,” the CCD said. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also dismissed the report as “incorrect,” reiterating that Russia’s military strategy towards Ukraine remains unchanged. He added that Moscow would engage in negotiations “exclusively for the achievement of its own goals.” The negotiations broke down in the spring of 2022, with Russia accusing Ukraine of abruptly walking away from previously agreed-upon terms. Ukrainian officials have since stressed that talks can only resume if Russia recognizes Ukraine’s 1991 borders. Moscow has repeatedly stated that it is impossible.

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“Here’s the drill: we won’t take you into NATO, we don’t want war with Russia, but on an individual basis, do whatever you like.”

• Security Guarantees For Kiev Are ‘Just A Scrap Of Paper’ – Medvedev (RT)

Western security guarantees for Ukraine are themselves useless but could pave the way for a NATO military base in the country, which could trigger a direct clash with Moscow, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Monday. The security declaration, which was first adopted by members of the G7 group in July, promises military assistance to Kiev, as well as frameworks for enhancing Ukraine’s defense industrial base and intelligence sharing. Moscow has denounced the document as an “encroachment on Russia’s security.” Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, called Kiev’s plan to convince the EU to provide it with security guarantees a new push “to create an anti-Russian consensus.”

At the same time, he suggested that the declaration “has no added value whatsoever.” “This is just a public statement, which means it is a useless scrap of paper,” he said. According to Medvedev, however, the document paves the way for the signing of bilateral security agreements between Kiev and its Western backers. Those deals could lead to arms production cooperation, military training, and other programs beneficial to the “neo-Nazis” in Kiev, he said. Such a deal could even entice some “crazy” Western country to set up a military base in Ukraine, he added. “Here’s the drill: we won’t take you into NATO, we don’t want war with Russia, but on an individual basis, do whatever you like.” This could open the way to a large-scale conflict involving a NATO country and Moscow, Medvedev believes.

“When Russia strikes such a base – and this will inevitably happen because the military personnel of the base came specifically to fight us – will the alliance countries be ready for a collective response?” he asked. The ex-president suggested that in this particular case Article 5 of the NATO Treaty – which stipulates that an attack on one member of the bloc is an attack on the entire alliance – leaves “a lot of wiggle room.” NATO could “respond together, or could leave the country that owns the base in Ukraine to go at it alone,” while the retaliation itself could be by military or other means. The ex-president’s comments come after Andrey Sibiga, the deputy head of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s office, said that six EU members – Austria, Croatia, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Malta – have yet to support security guarantees for Kiev, adding that he was sure that they would eventually get on board.

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“That’s almost the definition of ‘lawfare’—using the legal system to wage war on your opponents. You pack the court by knocking off a Republican or two.”

• Behind the Democrats’ Efforts to Regulate the Supreme Court (ET)

Democrats’ push to impose a code of conduct on the U.S. Supreme Court is driven by their desire to exert power over a court that hasn’t been ruling their way on key issues, legal experts say. Democrats and their left-wing activist allies have been incensed over the past two years as the court sent abortion matters back to the states, axed affirmative action in college admissions, bolstered gun rights and public prayer, backed a website designer’s right not to promote a same-sex wedding, and strengthened private property rights while weakening the government’s regulatory powers over the environment. Several experts told The Epoch Times that the left cannot accept the conservative majority on the Supreme Court, so it will keep agitating against it and try to undermine its legitimacy in the eyes of the public.

So far, the activism has propelled the court to adopt its first-ever formal code of conduct, issued on Nov. 13, but Democrats say it’s a toothless gesture and won’t fix what they say is a court that’s overly sympathetic to business interests and conservative causes. “The court’s new code of conduct falls far short of what we would expect from the highest court in the land,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said. “While the code of conduct prohibits the appearance of impropriety, it allows the justice to individually determine whether their own conduct creates such an appearance in the minds of ‘reasonable members of the public.’ This is something that justices have repeatedly failed to do over the last few years.” To remedy the supposed crisis at the court, Mr. Durbin backs the proposed Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency (SCERT) Act of 2023, which his committee approved on a party-line vote in July.

The proposal, which Republicans have denounced as unconstitutional, would create a system allowing members of the public to file complaints against justices for violating the proposed code of conduct or for engaging “in conduct that undermines the integrity of the Supreme Court of the United States.” Among other things, it would also impose mandatory recusal standards and create a panel of lower court judges to investigate complaints against the Supreme Court. Democrats are proposing their code of conduct “so they can control the Supreme Court,” said Steven J. Allen, a distinguished senior fellow at Capital Research Center, a watchdog group. “They’re doing this to get rid of one or more Republican appointees so they can be replaced,” Mr. Allen said. “That’s almost the definition of ‘lawfare’—using the legal system to wage war on your opponents. You pack the court by knocking off a Republican or two.”

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“..while cheerleading a “brutal apartheid regime that she calls a ‘vibrant democracy..”

• MEP Brands Von Der Leyen ‘Frau Genocide’ (RT)

Irish MEP Clare Daly has called European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen “Frau Genocide” over the EU’s stance on Israel’s military operation in Gaza. She went on to claim that contrary to its professed adherence to democracy, the bloc tramples on the will of the people when it runs counter to its own agenda. Daly, a left-wing politician representing Ireland’s Independents 4 Change political party, said from the European Parliament podium on Sunday that von der Leyen was “elevated to power without a single vote from the citizens.” She went on to accuse the EU Commission president of “swooping in and overriding the foreign policies of elected governments” in recent months, while cheerleading a “brutal apartheid regime that she calls a ‘vibrant democracy.’” The lawmaker concluded: “With defenders of democracy like that, I think I speak for many, many citizens of Europe, when I say: ‘Nein, danke! No, thanks, Frau Genocide!’”

Earlier, Spanish Social Rights Minister Ione Belarra accused Brussels of inaction in the face of what she called “genocide” in Gaza. Media reports also indicate that hundreds of EU staffers slammed von der Leyen for unconditionally supporting Israel. In a speech marking the 75th anniversary of Israel’s founding in late April, von der Leyen praised the country as a “vibrant democracy in the heart of the Middle East.” Following the deadly incursion by Hamas on October 7, Israel launched a massive military operation against the Palestinian Islamist group based in Gaza. Soon after the hostilities broke out, von der Leyen had the Israeli flag projected onto the European Commission building in Brussels as a gesture of solidarity. She reiterated her support when meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Also in October, the Irish Times reported that at least 842 EU staffers had signed a letter denouncing the commission’s stance on Israel. The document reportedly accused von der Leyen of giving a “free hand to the acceleration and legitimacy of a war crime in the Gaza Strip.” According to the Palestinian health authorities, at least 20,000 people have been killed in Gaza since early October, more than half of them children and women. The Hamas raid, which set the spiral of violence in motion, claimed 1,200 lives. The militants attacked, among other places, an open-air music festival, gunning down and abducting participants. The total number of people, both Israeli and foreign nationals, that the radicals took hostage that day was originally around 240, with dozens released since as part of multiple swaps with Israel.

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There is more to the article.

• Germany Uses The Weapon Of Climate Change Against Its Own People (Marsden)

German farmers rolled into Berlin on their tractors last week to have a very public word with the managers who have revoked their long-standing discount – a subsidy on diesel fuel, which powers their farm equipment. It seems that up until now, the government figured that feeding Germans was important enough to support, outweighing any ‘green’ obsessions. But that all changed abruptly for reasons that have little to do with the climate change agenda and more with its desperation for spare change. The drama kicked off when Germany’s coalition government led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz found itself in a bit of a bind recently. Team Scholz had quietly moved €60 billion from a Covid-19 pandemic support fund into a green energy transition fund.

The opposition noticed and finked to the court – which told Team Scholz to put the cash back because the sneaky move was a blatant violation of a law that had been ushered in under former Chancellor Angela Merkel specifically in an effort to ensure that the government was never able to bury itself in debt. Whoops, too late. Subsequently finding themselves underwater on the overall annual budget by an estimated €17 billion, they set about looking for ways to plug the hole. Farmers, Team Scholz apparently figured, can at least be bilked for cash on the pretext that the government tax subsidies for the sinful diesel fuel that powers their equipment deserve to be canceled – sacrificed on the altar of climate change. It all sounds so virtuous, and not at all like scrambling to compensate for a major screwup.

Scholz is presiding over the only major economy set to shrink this year, according to the International Monetary Fund. He stood there with a grin on his face beside US President Joe Biden last year ahead of the Ukraine conflict, as Biden said that Washington would “take care” of the Nord Stream pipeline network (Germany’s economic lifeline of cheap Russian gas). Maybe Scholz was just daydreaming about how green Germany would be without gas. But there’s nothing like getting mugged by the harsh economic reality of German deindustrialization due to a lack of affordable energy to wipe the smirk right off one’s face. So with Germany now strapped for cash, surely it’s time to really get radical about focusing on the most critical interests of the average citizen’s daily life – Ukraine, Ukraine, and Ukraine.

“We are forging ahead with the climate-neutral transformation of our country. We are strengthening social cohesion. And we are standing closely by Ukraine’s side in its defense against Russia,” Scholz said, as parliament agreed on a budget deal. “However, it is clear that we will have to make do with significantly less money to achieve these goals,” he added. No doubt Germans were thrilled to know that Ukraine wouldn’t be going without – unlike Germans. In addition to taxing farmers, jacking up the carbon tax on things like fuel will help get the job done, the government figures. Way to rip off French President Emmanuel Macron’s failed plan that sparked France’s Yellow Vest movement, which gave rise to months of violent unrest. Looking forward to seeing what color vests Germans end up choosing. Green would be fitting.

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There are 3 more fronts.

• The 4 Major Battlefronts in Trump’s Ongoing Ballot Dispute (ET)

4. Who Can Sue to Disqualify Trump? Several of the lawsuits seeking to disqualify President Trump have come from a long-shot Republican presidential candidate, John Anthony Castro, who has acknowledged he doesn’t expect to win the 2024 presidential election. In Arizona, a federal judge dismissed Mr. Castro’s lawsuit, saying that it lacked “standing” and failed to show that he was personally impacted in a way that would allow him to bring a lawsuit against President Trump. Judge Douglas Rayes held that while Mr. Castro was likely to appear on Arizona’s ballot, that prospect didn’t “convince the court that Castro is genuinely competing with Trump for votes or contributions, or that he has any chance or intent to prevail in that election.”A judge in West Virginia similarly ruled on Dec. 21 that Mr. Castro lacked standing to challenge President Trump’s candidacy. The Colorado case, meanwhile, stemmed from a group of voters.

The majority in Colorado’s Supreme Court decision allowed the suit, but the dissent argued that the mechanism by which they brought the case was flawed. Related to courts’ enforcement powers is how state law allows judges to review decisions by secretaries of state. This can vary according to state, meaning that voters challenging President Trump may be more or less successful in certain states. In her dissent, Colorado Supreme Court Justice Maria Berkenkotter argued that her state’s voters didn’t show they had a “cognizable claim for relief.” She and the other two dissenting justices held that their colleagues had read the Colorado election code too broadly. The case involved multiple provisions of Colorado law. Section 1-1-113 of Colorado law directs a district court such as Judge Wallace’s to issue an order resolving challenges that voters or political parties bring to prevent an entity such as the secretary of state from breaching their duties.

The plaintiffs in this case sought to prevent Secretary of State Jena Griswold from placing President Trump on the state’s Republican primary ballot. Another section (1-4-1204(4)) builds on that provision by clarifying the timeline for adjudicating that challenge. More specifically, it requires that the challenge must be brought five days after the candidates’ filing deadline, while the court must hold a hearing within five days and issue its conclusion within 48 hours of the hearing. Justice Brian Boatright said in his dissent that the legal timeline was too constricted for a case such as President Trump’s. “It is no mystery why the statutory timeline could not be enforced: This claim was too complex,” he wrote. “The fact it took a week shy of two months to hold a hearing that ‘must’ take place within five days proves that section 1-1-113 is an incompatible vehicle.

“Dismissal is particularly appropriate here because the Electors brought their challenge without a determination from a proceeding (e.g., a prosecution for an insurrection-related offense) with more rigorous procedures to ensure adequate due process.” Yet another section of Colorado code (1-4-1201) dictates that state primaries “conform to the requirements of federal law and national political party rules governing presidential primary elections.”
What that means in practice was disputed by Justice Berkenkotter. “Did the General Assembly intend to grant Colorado courts the authority to decide Section 3 challenges? Based on my reading of [Colorado law], I conclude that the answer to this question is no,” she wrote. She went on to argue that “the term ‘federal law’ [in Section 1-4-1201] is ambiguous at best.”After discussing some of the legislative history, she concluded that “the term ‘federal law’ is most certainly not an affirmative grant of authority to state courts to enforce Section 3 in expedited proceedings under the Election Code.”

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“..It’s all one big status-acquisition hustle, the seeking of hierarchical privilege by any means necessary..”

• And So Ends an Era (Kunstler)

You may have noticed that our country, formerly a republic of sovereign individuals, has become one great big racketeering operation run by a mafia-like cabal with Marxist characteristics — or, at least, Marxist pretenses. That is, it seeks to profit by every avenue of dishonesty and coercion, under the guise of rescuing the “oppressed and marginalized” from their alleged tormenters. Apparently, half the country likes it that way. Much of the on-the-ground action in this degenerate enterprise is produced by various hustles. A hustle is a particularly low-grade, insultingly obvious racket, such as Black Lives Matter, DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion), and “trans women” (i.e., men) in women’s sports. Some of the profit in any hustle is plain moneygrubbing, of course. But there’s also an emotional payoff. Hustlers and racketeers are often sadists, so the gratification derived from snookering the credulous (feelings of power) gets amplified by the extra thrill of seeing the credulous suffer pain, humiliation, and personal ruin. (That’s what actual “oppressors” actually do.)

Categorically, anyone who operates a racket or a hustle is some sort of psychopath, a person with no moral or ethical guard-rails. Hustles are based on the belief that it is possible to get something for nothing, a notion at odds with everything known about the unforgiving laws of physics and also the principles of human relations in this universe. Even the unconditional love of a mother for her child is based on something: the amazing, generative act of creating new life, achieved through the travail of birth. Have you noticed, by the way, that the birth of human children is lately among the most denigrated acts on the American social landscape? The flap over Harvard’s president, Claudine Gay, is an instructive case in the governing psychopathies of the day. I wish I’d been a roach on the tray of petit fours and biscotti brought into the Harvard Overseers’ board-room when they met to consider the blowback from Ms. Gay’s unfortunate remarks in Congress, followed by revelations of her career-long plagiarisms.

The acrid odor of self-conscious corruption in the room must have overwhelmed even the bouquet of Tanzanian Peaberry coffee a’brew, and not a few of the board members must have reached for the sherry decanter as their shame mounted, and the ancient radiators hissed, and their lame rationalizations started bouncing off the wainscoted walls. Apparently, Ms. Gay did not miss an opportunity to cut-and-paste somebody else’s compositions into everything she published going back to her own student years in the 1990s. She even poached another writer’s acknowledgment page. This is apart from the self-reinforcing substance of her published “research” justifying the necessity for DEI activism, for which she has become first an avatar and now a goat. The dirty secret of this perturbation — and the whole Harvard Board knows it — is that Claudine Gay’s career has been about nothing but careerism, and that this is also true of so many on the faculty and administration at Harvard, and surely at every other self-styled elite school from the Charles River to Palo Alto that had joined in the DEI mind-fuck.

It’s all one big status-acquisition hustle, the seeking of hierarchical privilege by any means necessary, including especially deceit, the politics of middle-school girls. Thus, you see on display both the juvenility of elite higher ed and its use of the worst impulses that prevail in social media, stoking envy, hatred, avarice and vengeance as the currency for career advancement. Claudine Gay was notorious earlier, as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, for wrecking the careers of faculty members (Ronald Sullivan, Stephanie Robinson, and Roland G. Fryer, Jr.) who refused to play the game like middle-school girls. She had no mercy.

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Assange

 

 

 

 

RFK jr

 

 

Chickdog
https://twitter.com/i/status/1739325151542497484

 

 

Frank Dean
https://twitter.com/i/status/1739326732383998462

 

 

 

 

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