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Debt Rattle November 11 2024

Nov 112024
 
 November 11, 2024  Posted by at 9:54 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  84 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Massacre in Korea 1951

 

• CNN Says Trump Victory Was So Massive He “Broke History” (ZH)
• Was the 2024 Election Too Big to Rig? (AmG)
• Trump’s Day One: A Look At His Opening Moves In The White House (Whedon)
• RFK Jr. Could Pose Big Threat to Big Pharma If He Joins Trump’s Cabinet (Sp.)
• Trump Says Haley, Pompeo Will Not Join White House (RT)
• Zakharova Gives Credit to Trump for Admitting Sickness of US Society (Sp.)
• Trump Calls Putin – WaPo (RT)
• Trump-Putin Call Focuses On The Quick ‘Resolution Of Ukraine War’ (ZH)
• Trump To Announce Ukraine Peace Terms Soon – Polish PM (RT)
• Former NATO Commander Predicts How Ukraine Conflict Will End (RT)
• Trump Jr. Trolls Zelensky (RT)
• What to Expect From ‘Lame Duck’ Biden After Trump’s Win (Sp.)
• Biden Racing To Pour Weaponry Into Ukraine – WSJ (RT)
• Trump Could Impact the Supreme Court for Decades to Come (ET)
• Can There Be an American-Russian Reset? (Paul Craig Roberts)

 

 

 

 

Day1
https://twitter.com/i/status/1855740314952339928

Rogan

They forced him
https://twitter.com/i/status/1855336384988627450

Call her daddy

Bannon

Legend

Vivek

 

 

 

 

“The party of joy failed to instil anyone with any. The political landscape has completely changed forever.”

• CNN Says Trump Victory Was So Massive He “Broke History” (ZH)

President-elect Donald Trump has won Arizona, completing a sweep of all seven battleground in the 2024 election. The Associated Press called the race at 9:21 p.m. ET on Nov. 9. With this win, Trump’s total electoral college count moves to 312 to Vice President Kamala Harris’s 226. Trump was projected to win the election on the morning of Nov. 6. Harris conceded the race later the same day. As The Epoch Times’ John Haughey reports, Trump’s Arizona victory follows candidate Joe Biden’s upset win in the state in 2020, a 0.3-percent squeaker that marked the first time since Bill Clinton’s 1996 win that The Grand Canyon State had voted for a Democratic presidential candidate. In 2016, Trump won Arizona by 3.5 percentage points. Polls presaged the former president’s Arizona win. The FiveThirtyEight poll aggregate had Trump leading by 2.2 percentage points on Nov. 4.

Maricopa County, where 62 percent of the state’s 7.4 million residents, and more than half its 4.367 million voters, live, proved pivotal. Trump won the Phoenix-area vote CC to CC percent, according to the Maricopa County Elections Department. Trump fared better in the key county than in 2016 when he won it with less than 48 percent and in 2020 when he lost it with 47.65 percent, becoming the first GOP presidential candidate to lose Maricopa County in 72 years. As in Nevada, winning the Latino vote drives Arizona campaigns, especially in Maricopa County where one-third of voters are Hispanic, compared to less than 19 percent nationally. While many media declared Trump the winner of Arizona’s 11 Electoral College votes in the preceding days, the AP withheld doing so until all mail-in ballots had been counted. Reported results had not changed much for more than a day by late-afternoon Nov. 8.

On Nov. 7, the Arizona Secretary of State’s office added tens of thousands of votes to the tally, but said there were hundreds of thousands of ballots left to count, including nearly 500,000 in Maricopa County. Therefore, the presidential race and the U.S. Senate contest between Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and Kari Lake remained too close to call by late afternoon Nov. 8. At 5 p.m. EST—2 p.m. PST—on Nov. 8, those numbers, largely frozen for more than a day, had Trump with 1.4 million votes, 52.5 percent of the total tally, to Harris’s 1.2 million votes, or 46.5 percent. Despite the president-elect’s 161,000 vote lead, a significant 6 percentage point advantage, since most Arizona voters cast ballots by mail, and counting typically takes days. the AP withheld the call until it was mathematically impossible for Harris to overcome Trump’s lead. Trump also dominated Harris in the popular vote with the vice president receiving around 10 million less votes than Biden did in 2020…

Additionally, as Modernity.news’ Steve Watson reports, CNN’s data analyst Harry Enten did a deep dive into the gains president Trump made with specific demographics in the election, highlighting how crushing they were for Democrats. The numbers are truly astounding, and incredibly bad for the party of ‘joy.’ Enten pointed out that Trump made the greatest improvements over a previous presidential election performance from the same party since 1992. “When was the last time a party gained in so many different places?” Enten asked, explaining that “You have to go all the way to back to 1992 when Bill Clinton improved on Michael Dukakis’ performance in 49 states, plus the District of Columbia.”

“Donald Trump’s performance on Tuesday was the best for a Republican presidential candidate in exit poll history,” Enten further urged, adding “He literally goes all the way back through history and breaks history.” Enten pointed to how Trump improved his party’s election performance in 49 states and Washington, D.C. over the 2020 election, with Washington state the single one where he didn’t do better. “You know, I think the breadth of the improvement that Donald Trump had – Holy Toledo!” Enten declared. Trump has the biggest mandate imaginable. The party of joy failed to instil anyone with any. The political landscape has completely changed forever.

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“Google still controls 90 percent of the search engine market in the United States. In 2024, Google employee political donations favored Democrats by a ratio of more than 6 to 1. Draw your own conclusions.”

• Was the 2024 Election Too Big to Rig? (AmG)

David Muir earned particular enmity among people who just wanted fair news coverage during the debate between Trump and Harris, when, for example, Muir insisted on “fact-checking” Trump but left Harris alone. For example, Muir contradicted Trump’s assertion that crime rates had risen, and Muir was wrong. The data, as Trump attempted to explain, was missing statistics from California’s major cities. Once that data was added, Trump’s claim was proven accurate.

Just in the last few days we’ve had the big four broadcast news anchors telling us that Trump wanted to put Liz Cheney in front of a firing squad, wants reporters covering his rallies to get shot, “groped” a woman back in the 1990s, expressed “deeply troubling” admiration for Adolf Hitler, held a “Nazi rally,” and intended to use the military against “the enemy within,” along with endless distorted repetition of everything bad they’ve ever said about him. All of this “news” was either truth twisted beyond recognition or outright lies. Meanwhile, their coverage of Harris has been indistinguishable from a paid Harris campaign ad.

There’s no end to the legacy television news media’s war on Trump. It’s not subtle, and despite their dinosaur status, they still exercise decisive influence over millions of voters. For the 2024 season-to-date, ABC Nightly News has averaged 7.7 million viewers, NBC averaged 6.4 million, and CBS averaged 4.7 million. PBS is now a big player as well, with a regular viewership of more than 5 million. That’s nearly 25 million regular viewers, with an average age of 65, nearly all of them high-propensity voters, and very few of them likely to be perusing alternative media. Cable news, for all the visibility and big audiences for the hosted talk shows on their networks, doesn’t compare. Recent estimates for primetime viewers of Fox News have averaged 359,000, versus 175,000 for CNN and 160,000 for MSNBC. Cable news audiences are dwarfed by the audiences for broadcast news content, which is overwhelmingly anti-Trump and pro-Harris. Tens of millions of Americans have been thoroughly brainwashed by these networks. But what about social media and online searches?

Back in 2015, Robert Epstein, a research psychologist with the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology, published “The search engine manipulation effect (SEME) and its possible impact on the outcomes of elections.” Continuing his research, in testimony before the U.S. Congress in 2019, Epstein claimed that biased search results on Google “impacted undecided voters in a way that gave at least 2.6 million votes to Hillary Clinton.” Epstein’s studies are compelling reading, and very little has changed. Google still controls 90 percent of the search engine market in the United States. In 2024, Google employee political donations favored Democrats by a ratio of more than 6 to 1. Draw your own conclusions.

As for social media, much is made of Twitter’s transformation into X, with no more censorship. Twitter, or X, has 95 million users in America. That’s a lot. But in the United States, Facebook has 194 million users, Instagram has 166 million users, TikTok reaches 170 million people, LinkedIn connects 200 million, and YouTube’s regular US viewers number 246 million. As a neutral platform, X’s audience reach is exceeded by more than 10 to 1 by the other major online platforms. With the lone exception of X, every one of these platforms employs biased algorithms designed to suppress conservative content. As for print media, intervention by the owners of the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post to abstain from a presidential endorsement is too little, too late. Every newspaper and magazine with national reach, with the half-hearted exception perhaps of the Wall Street Journal, have been so anti-Trump and pro-Harris it is almost comical.

Social media, search engines, and legacy news media. In every facet of information gathering, the vast majority of Americans have been continuously exposed to anti-Trump, pro-Harris messages. None of this has been happening by accident. Michael Shellenberger, formerly a progressive liberal who was once honored as a Time Magazine “Environmental Hero,” has evolved into an investigative journalist of extraordinary integrity and courage. In recent years, his work has focused on what he has dubbed “the censorship industrial complex.” In a recent substack post, commenting on America’s news media from newspapers to television to online platforms, he had this to say, “It’s not a mirror of reality. It’s not just biased. And it’s not just deferential to the state or the party. It’s a propaganda arm dishonestly representing powerful political, ideological, and financial interests.”

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“..except for day one.” “We’re closing the border and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. Other than that I’m not gonna be a dictator,”

• Trump’s Day One: A Look At His Opening Moves In The White House (Whedon)

President-elect Donald Trump made a multitude of “day one” promises throughout the campaign to begin work on an array of issues, setting himself up for an extremely busy first day back in office. Many of his promises involve reinstating past Executive Orders that the Biden administration rescinded, and some entail advancing initiatives such as energy production. Others involve planning for a year-long anniversary celebration for the nation’s 250th anniversary. Trump made headlines late last year during a Fox News forum with moderator Sean Hannity during which he promised that he would not abuse power or act as a dictator “except for day one.” “We’re closing the border and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. Other than that I’m not gonna be a dictator,” he quipped. His opponents took his quip literally, but in either event Trump’s day one promises extend beyond those two key issues. Here’s a look at what his first day in office may look like.

‘Salute to America 250’
One of Trump’s first planned moves is a relatively lighthearted and apolitical effort to celebrate a key milestone in American history. “On day one, I will convene a White House task force called ‘Salute to America 250,'” Trump declared this week. The task force will be responsible for organizing a year-long celebration to mark the 250th anniversary of American independence.” The celebration will run from Memorial Day 2025 to July 4, 2026 and include what he called the “Great American State Fair,” which will feature pavilions from each state in the Union. Trump also vowed to issue an Executive Order to build his planned garden of noteworthy Americans, which President Joe Biden canceled.

Mass deportations
A signature issue for Trump, the removal of illegal immigrants from the U.S. is expected to take priority. U.S. Customs and Border Protection has reported more than 10 million immigrant encounters under the Biden administration. Media outlets regularly cited an 11 million illegal immigrant figure prior to Trump’s first term and that the current number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. may exceed 20 million. “On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program of criminals in American history,” Trump declared during a recent rally in Reading, Pa. “We’re going to get them out.” He further cited Operation Wetback, a mass deportation effort during the Presidency of Dwight Eisenhower that removed millions of undocumented workers during the 1950s. That effort had the cooperation of the Mexican government, though it remains unclear whether Trump will be able to secure that nation’s help this time.

Mexican tariffs
To that end, he has planned a trade-based approach. During a recent rally, Trump promised he would demand that the President of Mexico work to shut down illegal border crossings or face a 25% tariff on all goods exported to the United States. “I’m going to inform her one day, one or sooner that if they don’t stop this onslaught of criminals and drugs coming into our country, I’m going to immediately impose a 25% tariff on everything they send in to the United States of America,” he said at a rally in North Carolina earlier this month. Throughout his campaign, Trump has often repeated his conversations with former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador during which he secured Mexico’s deployment of troops to secure the border through a similar trade-related threat.

Birthright citizenship
In May of last year, Trump promised to issue an Executive Order directing federal agencies to interpret federal law in a manner that would not grant birthright citizenship to the children of illegal aliens. “As part of my plan to secure the border on day one… I will sign an Executive Order making clear to federal agencies that under the correct interpretation of the law, going forward the future children of illegal aliens will not receive automatic U.S. citizenship,” he vowed. So-called “anchor babies” have been a longstanding issue in U.S. immigration policy and have complicated efforts to remove illegal immigrants whose children are considered U.S. citizens.

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“RFK is going to blow up. He’s marching around saying what he wants the administration to do before Trump’s had a chance to take a breath. Eventually Trump will sour on him..”

• RFK Jr. Could Pose Big Threat to Big Pharma If He Joins Trump’s Cabinet (Sp.)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is primed for a possible senior job in Trump’s White House, promising to “Make America Healthy Again” by reining in big pharma’s enormous influence on US health policy, and by improving food standards. Here’s why the pharmaceutical lobby is going to have a hard time accepting that. “He’s going to have a big role in health care, a very big role. He knows it better than anybody,” Donald Trump said last week when asked about RFK Jr.’s possible future in his administration. “He’s got some views that I happen to agree with very strongly and I have for a long time.” Sources told media Saturday that Kennedy has already been asked to make recommendations to the Trump team on appointments to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Food and Drug Administration.

Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies have already prepared for the worst, with some execs reportedly hoping Trump and and RFK Jr. have a falling out before Kennedy can do any damage to their respective bottom lines. “We need to have somebody who is going to be grounded by science and evidence and not somebody who rejects it,” John Maraganore, former CEO of Boston-based biotech firm Alnylam, told FT in a story published Friday, commenting on Kennedy’s prospects. Kennedy involvement in Trump’s health policy “would be awful on a lot of levels,” a senior unnamed health exec said. “RFK is going to blow up. He’s marching around saying what he wants the administration to do before Trump’s had a chance to take a breath. Eventually Trump will sour on him,” another suggested.

Kennedy’s poor reputation with pharmaceutical companies is understandable, given the attention he’s gotten on the campaign trail during his 2024 presidential run, and before that – for his work as an environmental lawyer, Children’s Health Defense chairman and author of the 2021 book The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health, which spent twenty weeks on NYT’s bestseller list. Kennedy used the national attention he got over the past three years to promote his favorite causes – vaccine safety and public health. His stinging remarks on these issues, and ability to now have the president-elect’s ear, explain why big pharma finds him so dangerous.

Anti-Vaxxer? Smeared, throttled and censored by legacy media as an “anti-vaxxer” in virtually every article that mentions him, Kennedy has said repeatedly that he’s “never been anti-vaccine.” “I fought against mercury in fish for 40 years. Nobody called me anti-fish. I like the idea that we have seatbelts in cars. Nobody calls me anti-automobile. I want vaccines that are safe just like every other medication and that are adequately tested. It doesn’t mean I’m anti-vaccine. It just means that I’m sensible and have common sense,” Kennedy said in a tense PBS interview in 2023. “The pharmaceutical industry is – I don’t want to say because this is going to seem extreme – a criminal enterprise, but if you look at the history, that is an applicable characterization. For example, the four biggest vaccine makers, Sanofi, Merck, Pfizer and Glaxo make all of the 72 vaccines that are now effectively mandated for American children.

Collectively, those companies have paid $35 billion in criminal penalties and damages in the last decade,” he told Lex Fridman in 2023. “And the problem is that they’re serial felons,” Kennedy said, citing the example of Merck’s non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug Vioxx. “They killed people by falsifying science. And they did it. They lied to the public. They said, ‘this is a headache medication and an arthritis painkiller’. But they didn’t tell people that it also gave you heart attacks…We found when we sued them the memos from their bean counters saying ‘we’re going to kill this many people, but we’re still going to make money,” Kennedy said. “The way that the system is set up, the way that it’s sold to doctors, the way that nobody ever goes to jail so there’s really no penalty [and] it all becomes part of the cost of doing business,” Kennedy said.

RFK

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“..[Pompeo’s] bid faced fierce opposition from close allies of the president-elect, including his son Donald Trump Jr. and conservative journalist Tucker Carlson..”

• Trump Says Haley, Pompeo Will Not Join White House (RT)

US President-elect Donald Trump has said he will not ask former Republican presidential contender Nikki Haley or former secretary of state Mike Pompeo to join his administration. The two prominent figures have criticized Trump in the past, but endorsed him in his 2024 election campaign. In a social media post on Saturday, Trump wrote that he would not be inviting Haley or Pompeo “to join the Trump Administration which is currently in formation,” adding: “I very much enjoyed and appreciated working with them previously, and would like to thank them for their service to our Country.” Trump won a landslide victory in the US presidential election on November 5, defeating Vice President Kamala Harris. He is now considering candidates for his administration, ahead of his inauguration on January 20.

Haley, a former South Carolina governor who previously served as US ambassador to the United Nations under the Trump administration, ran against Trump in the Republican primary this year before finally endorsing him. Pompeo, who served as Trump’s CIA director, had been named as a possible defense secretary by some media. But as Politico reported earlier this week, citing two people familiar with the matter, his bid faced fierce opposition from close allies of the president-elect, including his son Donald Trump Jr. and conservative journalist Tucker Carlson. Both Pompeo and Haley have been vocal proponents of providing more US military aid to Ukraine, as a means of “preventing” a broader “war”.

In July, Pompeo laid out an escalatory plan for Ukraine that involved more weapon transfers, contradicting Trump’s campaign statements. The president-elect has repeatedly claimed he could end it in his first 24 hours in office, without specifying how he might achieve this. Trump has also said Ukraine is unlikely to emerge victorious against Russia in the conflict, and suggested that he might stop funding Kiev, describing Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky as “the greatest salesman in history.” In addition, Haley endorsed Ukraine’s application to join NATO as a means of conveying a clear “signal” to Russia. Moscow has pointed to Ukraine’s goal of joining NATO as one of the key reasons for the current conflict, and repeatedly slammed weapons shipments to Kiev, warning that all they do is prolong the hostilities without changing the outcome.

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“Please do not forget that the outgoing administration still has a couple of months in their pocket. During this time, and we know them, a lot can be done to make a mess..”

• Zakharova Gives Credit to Trump for Admitting Sickness of US Society (Sp.)

Donald Trump, who won the US presidential election, must be given credit for a more realistic assessment of the United States as a sick society, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told Sputnik. Donald Trump, who served as US President from 2017 to 2021, won the presidential election that took place on November 5. “We must give credit to Trump, he certainly said it as it is. American society is sick, that’s what he said. If before the election the slogan was ‘let’s make America great again,’ now it’s ‘let’s make America healthy again,'” Zakharova said. “This is a more realistic assessment. In these circumstances, we will need to interact with this country in some way.” She added that there were wonderful moments of cooperation in the history of relations between Russia and the United States that are worth striving for.

But today it is noticeable how Russophobia is encouraged in the United States, which “is becoming a sector of the general American philosophy,” she added. Trump became the first US politician since the 19th century to return to the White House after a four-year hiatus. Trump’s victory was announced by all leading media outlets counting votes: the Associated Press, Fox News, CNN, NBC, ABC, and CBS.Democratic candidate Kamala Harris addressed supporters and announced that she would concede, while incumbent US President Joe Biden spoke with Trump and congratulated him. The Electoral College from the states must vote for candidates in accordance with the will of the voters on December 17, and the new Congress will approve the voting results on January 6.

The inauguration will take place on January 20. The outgoing administration of US President Joe Biden may create problems for Russia for another couple of months while still in power, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman added. “Regarding bilateral relations, we need to understand and be realistic. The US presidential election has taken place. It has been recognized as such within the United States. The losers acknowledged the winner, but he [US President-elect Donald Trump] still needs to take office. Please do not forget that the outgoing administration still has a couple of months in their pocket. During this time, and we know them, a lot can be done to make a mess, I think their Russophobia has not gone away,” Zakharova said. The current administration has failed in implementing much of its Russophobic policy, Zakharova added. “The concept of creating an anti-Russia on the territory of Ukraine has failed. The idea of isolating Russia has failed. After all, this is not just a myth. This was an attempt to bring it to life. And much was done for this,” Zakharova said.

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“..On Thursday, the president-elect told NBC News he had already spoken with “probably” 70 world leaders since his election victory..”

• Trump Calls Putin – WaPo (RT)

US President-elect Donald Trump has called Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the Ukraine conflict and its potential settlement, the Washington Post reported on Sunday, citing several people familiar with the matter. The phone call took place on Thursday, shortly after Trump secured his election victory. The US president-elect reportedly urged Putin not to “escalate” the conflict, reminding him of the significant US military presence in Europe, one of the sources told the daily. Apart from that, Trump and Putin spoke about “the goal of peace on the European continent,” with the president-elect expressing interest in follow-up conversations to talk about “the resolution of Ukraine’s war soon,” several other unnamed individuals told the WaPo. The report gave no insights into what reaction, if any, Trump’s remarks invoked.

The Washington Post also claimed that Kiev was “informed” ahead of the call and allegedly “did not object” – but the Ukrainian foreign ministry denied this part of the report. “Reports that the Ukrainian side was informed in advance of the alleged call are false. Subsequently, Ukraine could not have endorsed or opposed the call,” Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesperson Georgiy Tikhiy told Reuters. Thus far, Moscow has made no official comments on the reported phone call between Trump and Putin. On Thursday, the president-elect told NBC News he had already spoken with “probably” 70 world leaders since his election victory, but Putin was not among them. “I think we’ll speak,” Trump said at the time.

Trump has already spoken with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, who described the conversation as “positive” and said Trump’s outreach shortly after his victory was encouraging. Zelensky noted that he “cannot yet know” what Trump’s actions will ultimately be and that, should a resolution of the conflict be “just fast,” it would likely mean “losses for Ukraine.” Throughout his election campaign, Trump has repeatedly pledged to swiftly end the conflict between Moscow and Kiev, potentially even before officially assuming office. However, he has not provided any concrete details on how he plans to achieve this.

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“Trump and his aides are distrustful of career government officials following the leaked transcripts of presidential calls during his first term. “They are just calling [Trump] directly..”

• Trump-Putin Call Focuses On The Quick ‘Resolution Of Ukraine War’ (ZH)

President-elect Donald Trump is already moving quite fast on his goal to quickly bring to an end the Ukraine war. It has been revealed Sunday he held a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin previously on Thursday, the first such communication between the two since Trump won the election. Trump urged immediate de-escalation in the call with Putin. The Washington Post describes that “During the call, which Trump took from his resort in Florida, he advised the Russian president not to escalate the war in Ukraine and reminded him of Washington’s sizable military presence in Europe, said a person familiar with the call, who, like others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.” Multiple sources said the call focused on the “goal of peace on the European continent” and ended on a positive note with plans to hold future conversations on “the resolution of Ukraine’s war soon”.

WaPo has further said that Ukraine was informed that the call was going to take place and did not object. However, the Zelensky government has subsequent this the report rejected this claim. “Reports that the Ukrainian side was informed in advance of the alleged call are false. Subsequently, Ukraine could not have endorsed or opposed the call,” Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi told Reuters. WaPo has also underscored that the Trump transition team is fearful of leaks at this point: “Trump’s initial calls with world leaders are not being conducted with the support of the State Department and U.S. government interpreters. The Trump transition team has yet to sign an agreement with the General Services Administration, a standard procedure for presidential transitions. Trump and his aides are distrustful of career government officials following the leaked transcripts of presidential calls during his first term. “They are just calling [Trump] directly,” one of the people familiar with the calls said.”

Currently, the Zelensky government and some of the more hawkish leaders within NATO are deeply worried that the future Trump White House will force a ‘bad deal’ – or one that pressures Kiev to give up some 20% of his territory. They are against anything which the Kremlin could view as ‘victory’ for Russia. One proposed plan, said to be getting the most attention from Trump’s team, would see an indefinite ‘freeze’ on the front lines in the east, paving the way for immediate ceasefire, and enforced by European peacekeepers along an 800-mile demilitarized zone. Peace would also be ensured by Ukraine agreeing to suspend its aspirations to join NATO for twenty years. This buffer zone would not involve any US troops, according to initial reports based on the description of Trump officials. Included a brief discussion on territory…

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“..forcing Ukraine to temporarily suspend its quest to join” NATO, with the matter potentially put on hold “for at least 20 years.”

• Trump To Announce Ukraine Peace Terms Soon – Polish PM (RT)

US President-elect Donald Trump could present his vision of peace in Ukraine in the coming days, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has claimed. The head of government has predicted that the Republican would offer a timeframe for a potential truce as well as security guarantees for Kiev. While on the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly vowed to end the Ukraine conflict within “24 hours,” without specifying any details. The president-elect told the US media that he was going to tell Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky “No more. You got to make a deal.” He also implied that he would leverage further assistance to Kiev in a bid to coerce Moscow into negotiating. On Saturday, Polish Radio quoted Tusk as saying that Trump’s team was still working on their roadmap for Ukraine. Nevertheless, the Polish prime minister added that he expected the US president-elect to make public certain key elements in the near future, such as a timeline for a potential ceasefire, the line along which it would take effect, as well as security guarantees for Ukraine.

According to the broadcaster, Tusk claimed that “these will definitely be solutions that will involve less US interference in Ukrainian affairs.” That same day, the prime minister announced plans to hold meetings with French President Emmanuel Macron, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer as well as the leaders of the Nordic and Baltic states. Tusk cited the emergence of a “new political landscape” following the election of Donald Trump as the 47th US president. He explained that Europe was faced with a “serious challenge… in the context of a possible end to the Russian-Ukrainian war,” as quoted by Politico. “Nobody wants the conflict to escalate,” Tusk stressed, adding that “at the same time, nobody wants Ukraine to weaken or even capitulate.”

The Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous sources, reported on Wednesday that Trump’s team was considering several proposals. Most of them, according to the media outlet, envisage “freezing the war in place… and forcing Ukraine to temporarily suspend its quest to join” NATO, with the matter potentially put on hold “for at least 20 years.” The WSJ claimed that among the proposals allegedly being discussed was the creation of a demilitarized zone along the current front line. The article quoted an unnamed Trump adviser as noting that it would not be American troops or US-funded international organizations such as the UN, but instead European nations, who would be tasked with maintaining peace there.

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“..Ukraine might also join the EU. “Putin will hate that part of it, just like the Ukrainians will hate the part of Putin holding onto 20 percent of their country. But it’s a negotiation..”

• Former NATO Commander Predicts How Ukraine Conflict Will End (RT)

The Ukraine conflict will end with Russia taking approximately a fifth of the country’s pre-2014 territory, ex-NATO commander James Stavridis has predicted. Stavridis, a retired admiral who often appears on TV to share his insight on international affairs, told CNN’s Michael Smerconish on Saturday that Ukraine might also join the EU. “Putin will hate that part of it, just like the Ukrainians will hate the part of Putin holding onto 20 percent of their country. But it’s a negotiation,” Stavridis told Smerconish. Stavridis has also said that if President-elect Donald Trump can end the Ukraine conflict in 24 hours, he will “be the first one voting for his Nobel Peace Prize.” Trump has previously claimed he could end the conflict in the first 24 hours of his presidency, without elaborating how exactly.

“What I hope he does, and I think he will, is put pressure on both sides to get to the negotiating table,” Stavridis said. He added that Ukraine will also get a “path to NATO, probably three to five years.” He also said that the deal would probably include “some kind of demilitarized zone” between the two parties, likely patrolled “with NATO soldiers, for example, not US, Europeans.” “A negotiated settlement is not something the US can impose, but for the Ukrainians and Russians to agree upon,” Stavridis told Newsweek later on Saturday, adding that eventual settlement of the conflict, which escalated in 2022, will take months. In October, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky presented his ‘victory plan’, which demanded immediate NATO membership. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Kiev’s desire to join the bloc – which Moscow has described as an existential threat – was one of the key reasons for the current conflict.

Zelensky has also insisted that Ukraine will keep fighting until it restores its 1991 borders, a task that would involve the recapture of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, Kherson Region, Zaporozhye Region, and Crimea from Russia. Russia maintains that it is open to any talks starting with an acknowledgement of “territorial reality” – that the above-mentioned regions will never return to Ukrainian control. Earlier, US Vice President-elect J.D. Vance suggested that the conflict could be frozen along the current front line, with Kiev forced to abandon its claims to territories held by Russia, as well as its aspiration to join NATO.

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“POV: You’re 38 Days from losing your allowance.”

• Trump Jr. Trolls Zelensky (RT)

Donald Trump Jr., the eldest son of the US president-elect, has suggested that Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky could soon lose access to American aid. While on the campaign trail, the Republican candidate repeatedly described Zelensky as the “greatest salesman in history” for his ability to milk President Joe Biden’s administration of tens of billions of dollars. Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, Washington has emerged as Kiev’s biggest donor, with the US Congress earmarking more than $174 billion in military and other aid. Moscow has denounced this assistance, insisting that it only serves to unnecessarily prolong the bloodshed and is unable to change the course of the conflict. Taking to Instagram on Saturday, Trump Jr. posted a short video that features a photo of Zelensky standing beside the president-elect, with the camera gradually zooming in on the Ukrainian leader.

The picture then turns black and white with dollar banknotes raining down upon the official. The caption reads: “POV: You’re 38 Days from losing your allowance.” In recent months, Trump has repeatedly vowed to end the Ukraine conflict within “24 hours,” without divulging the specifics of his plan. Speaking to the US media, he said he intended to tell Zelensky “No more. You got to make a deal.” The president-elect implied that he would leverage further aid to Ukraine in a bid to coerce Russia into negotiating. He has also criticized the Biden administration’s generosity toward Kiev on multiple occasions. The Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous sources, reported on Wednesday that Trump’s team was considering several roadmaps, which allegedly envisage Ukraine relinquishing its NATO membership aspirations “for at least 20 years” and freezing hostilities along the current front line.

Washington, however, would provide Kiev with more weaponry to keep Moscow at bay, the media outlet claimed. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he strongly favors a comprehensive solution over a simple freezing of the conflict, noting, however, that Moscow is ready to negotiate in principle. Zelensky has publicly ruled out making any territorial concessions to Russia. On Friday, Bloomberg claimed that European Union leaders had been discussing “whether the bloc will be ready to foot the bill for the war,” amid concerns that “Trump will seek to shift the financial burden on Europe.” Earlier this week, the Financial Times, citing unnamed Ukrainian defense officials, reported that fear was growing in Ukraine that the US president-elect would suspend military aid to the country.

Read more …

“..they are in a rush to Trump-proof their alleged accomplishments..”

• What to Expect From ‘Lame Duck’ Biden After Trump’s Win (Sp.)

The White House press pool reported on Sunday that Biden had refused to say what he plans to talk about with Trump at their meeting scheduled for November 13. With Donald Trump set to be sworn in as the 47th president on January 20, the question is how incumbent Joe Biden will grapple with the “difficult diplomacy” related to Ukraine, the Middle East and beyond in the meantime. Biden administration officials recognize that they already have much less sway with other nations and just a limited ability to make policy decisions that can endure beyond inauguration day, as they are in a rush to Trump-proof their alleged accomplishments, according to the Washington Post. On Ukraine, the WP argues that the Biden administration may focus on shipping as much military supplies as they can to the Kiev regime amid their fears that Trump may pull the plug.

Biden could decide on taking “a maximalist approach toward helping Ukraine over the next couple of months,” even though some White House officials “oppose the idea.” Reports that Biden plans to send 500 Patriot and NASAMS missiles to Kiev are “not implausible but even if he goes through with it, everyone knows that this is a final gesture and that US largess is at an end,” Dan Lazare, US constitutional historian and political commentator, tells Sputnik. As for the Middle East, there are three separate conflicts in which Israel is now involved — Gaza, Lebanon and Iran — and “none is likely to be resolved before Trump takes office,” per the WP. The Foreign Policy claimed that Biden may opt not to veto a resolution stipulating sanctions on Israel if it doesn’t agree to accept a Gaza ceasefire deal.

In this vein, Lazare stresses that “while Biden may engage in a few holding actions, the game is up” because Trump’s “margin of victory was so decisive that he’ll effectively be calling the shots from here on out.” In the Asia Pacific, Biden is due to attend the upcoming APEC summit in Peru as his administration braces for disruption of regional alliances, per Al Jazeera. The outgoing US president “may put in an appearance” at the upcoming G20 and APEC summits, “but it’s doubtful that he’ll even get a round of applause” there, Lazare says.

Read more …

“..Washington sought to deliver the weaponry by April, but Donald Trump’s win has apparently prompted the outgoing administration to accelerate the process.”

• Biden Racing To Pour Weaponry Into Ukraine – WSJ (RT)

The outgoing Biden administration is seeking to fully use funds allocated for Ukraine to deliver additional weapons to the country, The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, citing unnamed White House officials. The plan, however, is reportedly facing logistics hurdles as the US further depletes its already thinned out stockpiles. Washington has more than $7 billion left in drawdown authority, enabling the Pentagon to transfer weapons and ammunition to Kiev, as well as another $2 billion to fund long-term equipment contracts for Ukraine, the WSJ noted. The pending delivery involves some 500 anti-aircraft missiles for various systems, including Patriots and NASAMS, a senior Biden administration official has said. The cache of missiles is expected to get delivered to Ukraine in the next few weeks, where it will meet the country’s air defense needs for the rest of the year.

The plan, however, has already raised concerns that it would further deplete already-exhausted US weapons stockpiles, officials told the newspaper. Apart from that, funneling a large amount of weaponry within mere weeks is bound to lead to logistics problems and put a further strain on US capabilities, the officials warned. The rush to get as many weapons to Ukraine as possible before US President Joe Biden’s term ends is intended to give Kiev an advantage and reinforce its “negotiating position,” according to the WSJ. Before the presidential election, Washington sought to deliver the weaponry by April, but Donald Trump’s win has apparently prompted the outgoing administration to accelerate the process.

The president-elect has long been critical of the largesse afforded Kiev and has repeatedly pledged to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine overnight, potentially even before assuming office officially. Trump, however, has provided little to no detail on how exactly he would do that. The delivery is unlikely to meet Kiev’s ever-growing weaponry wish list. Separately, the WSJ reported that Washington has refused to give Ukraine additional ATACMS ballistic missiles. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has informed Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky that the call to violate long-standing US arms contracts and prioritize Ukraine over its customers awaiting the missiles of the type was “too much to ask.” The Pentagon has been reluctant to send additional ATACMS missiles to Ukraine, arguing that the munitions of the type were not actually needed since Russia had already moved all the valuable assets from their reach.

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“If he picks from that short list he himself has created, then I think we’re going to have an awesome continuation of the originalist approach to the Constitution..”

• Trump Could Impact the Supreme Court for Decades to Come (ET)

President-elect Donald Trump’s second term could help make him one of the most consequential presidents for the U.S. Supreme Court by solidifying a long-lasting originalist majority. Although Democrats have criticized the justices in recent months, the 2024 elections may have stripped them of the power they would need to block Trump’s nominees and implement reforms to stunt conservatives’ influence on the court. Republicans are projected to take the U.S. Senate, offering a two-year window for Trump to appoint new conservative jurists to the highest court should any of the sitting justices announce retirement. Neither of the two most senior justices, Clarence Thomas, who is 76 and joined the court in 1991, and Samuel Alito, who is 74 and joined in 2006, have announced a retirement plan.

“No one other than Justices Thomas and Alito knows when or if they will retire, and talking about them like meat that has reached its expiration date is unwise, uninformed, and, frankly, just crass,” Federalist Society chairman Leonard Leo said. If Trump is later tasked with appointing two justices, he could be the first president since President Dwight D. Eisenhower to have five of his nominees sit on the nation’s highest court. In terms of pace, Trump has already appointed more justices in one term than his predecessors did during their tenures. Continuing at that pace would likely lead to long-term shifts for the institution and its jurisprudence, especially if his successors follow other presidents in nominating fewer justices. The court, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, has been described as incrementalist, but some of its recent decisions have raised questions about the stability of longstanding precedents.

Trump’s nominees—Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett—have already contributed to major shifts in American law, starting with their vote to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022. Just before Trump’s reelection, they also redefined the scope of presidential immunity and overruled a decades-old administrative law doctrine—known as Chevron deference—that was supported by the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Conservatives have touted this decision and Dobbs as following an originalist approach, or one that seeks to follow the Constitution’s original meaning. Such an approach might continue if Trump selects justices from the long list of judges appointed to federal courts during his first term in office.

Judicial Crisis Network President Carrie Severino told The Epoch Times that if Trump wanted to appoint more originalists to the Supreme Court, he wouldn’t have to “look any farther than the appellate judges” he appointed during his first term. “If he picks from that short list he himself has created, then I think we’re going to have an awesome continuation of the originalist approach to the Constitution,” said Severino, a former Thomas clerk. In October, a three-judge appellate panel, which included a former Thomas clerk and former Alito clerk, backed Republicans’ position that election officials couldn’t count ballots that arrived after voting day. They said doing so violated the Constitution and a law passed in 1844 on the timing of elections.

Thomas has said on more than one occasion that he has no intention of retiring. Meanwhile, conservative attorney and commentator Ed Whelan has speculated in National Review that Alito will retire next spring with Thomas following him in 2026. The Supreme Court’s recent decisions have been viewed by both sides of the ideological spectrum as utilizing originalism and textualism, or trying to adhere to the plain language of American laws, after decades of different approaches. “After most of the 20th Century spent with a very liberal court, we actually have a majority of originalists in the court,” Severino said during a press call this summer. Overturning Roe raised questions about a whole body of law, known as “substantive due process,” which stems from the 14th Amendment’s due process clause.

That body of law informed the court’s decision in a series of other cases like Griswold v. Connecticut, Lawrence v. Texas, and Obergefell v. Hodges, which struck down state laws on birth control, sodomy, and marriage respectively. Following Dobbs, left-leaning voices worried that the more conservative Supreme Court would eventually overturn those cases. Alito’s majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, which overturned Roe, indicated that the idea of a constitutional right to abortion exceeded the bounds of substantive due process. However, he attempted to distinguish it from the issues in Lawrence and other cases while maintaining that his opinion wouldn’t threaten those other precedents.

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“Did he learn his lesson as he claims, and can he find strong men who will put their reputation in the line of fire?”

• Can There Be an American-Russian Reset? (Paul Craig Roberts)

The New York Post reports that Russians are floating the idea of a “reset” with the US made possible by Trump’s election as President. Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund said that Trump’s “convincing victory shows that ordinary Americans are tired of the unprecedented lies, incompetence, and malice of the Biden administration. This opens up new opportunities for resetting relations between Russia and the United States.” Trump and Putin are in favor of this, and so is the Russian media which is asking these kind of questions: “What does the Trump administration mean for the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine? Do you think he will be able to broker a peace, or at least a ceasefire, in at least one of those conflicts?

“Do you expect the US to scale back its defense commitments in Europe under Trump? If so, will this create an opportunity for European countries to move ahead with some sort of of vision of collective security that does not rely on the US? Perhaps something in line with Macron’s proposals? “Do you expect any changes in the US-NATO relations? Will the alliance’s new secretary general, Mark Rutte, be able to effectively deal with the Trump White House?” My response is that these are relevant questions. Trump has these intentions. Does he have the means? Trump has confidence, but he also has ego and blusters, two traits unsuitable to dealing with Putin, Xi, and the Iranian Supreme Ruler.

Also, Trump is a strong personality. Some strong men are comfortable with strong subordinates, but others prefer yes-men. Trump’s first term was littered with people of weak character and low integrity and they were traitorous. Did he learn his lesson as he claims, and can he find strong men who will put their reputation in the line of fire? If so, will he fight for their confirmation by the Senate, or will his advisors convince him that he risks bad publicity and defeats at the beginning of his administration?

There is some indication of that already in a report that a businessman on Trump’s transition team said that Bobby Kennedy is not to have a position except as an advisor who collects information on harmful food and vaccines. Little doubt, nominating Bobby as FDA chief or Health and Human Services Secretary would have Big Pharma in every Senator’s office threatening the cut-off of all campaign contributions and their redirection to challengers. Maneuvering Trump into non-confrontation erodes his image as a fighter for America and will disappoint his supporters. It is unlikely that Trump’s advisors realize that the Senate’s refusal to confirm Bobby in office would enhance Trump’s power. He could present the people with the names of the Senators who are actively blocking the restoration of Americans’ health and ask why voters elected obstacles to making America great again. Trump has the people. He could bring the power of the people to bear on the Big Pharma stooges.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Pelican
https://twitter.com/i/status/1855533714060497263

Snake
https://twitter.com/i/status/1855363705590169974

Sad dog

Fox

Again
https://twitter.com/i/status/1855364849586626861

Octopus

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle October 10 2024

Oct 102024
 
 October 10, 2024  Posted by at 8:38 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  72 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Peasant burning weeds 1883

 

• Chaos is Coming – John Rubino (USAW)
• 60 Minutes Under Fire For Deceptively Editing Kamala Harris Interview (ZH)
• Harris Attempts To Blame Trump For FEMA Hurricane Relief Failures (MN)
• US in Dangerous Hiatus Amid Biden’s Lame Duck Period – Jeffrey Sachs (Sp.)
• Trump Is Making A Mistake That Could Cost Him The Presidency (Marsden)
• Russian Victory Will Liberate Europe – Emmanuel Todd (RT)
• EU Running Out Of Time On Ukraine – Orban (RT)
• Refusal to Buy Russian Energy Endangers EU’s Economic Growth – Orban (Sp.)
• What Is Russia Deciding For Terms To End The War In The Ukraine (Helmer)
• Zelensky Cancels November ‘Peace Summit’ (RT)
• Russia Could Seek War Reparations From Ukraine (RT)
• US Global Economic Share Dips Below 15% For First Time (Sp.)
• US Spending on Mideast Conflict Tops $22 Billion in One Year (Sp.)
• Israel Seeks To Fix 2006 Failures, While Hezbollah Lies In Wait (Mehdi)
• Israel’s Collective Punishment Turns the World Against It (DeMartino)
• Iran ‘Fully Prepared’ For War – FM (RT)
• US Navy Was At Scene Of Nord Stream Blasts – Media (RT)
• US Antitrust Officials Consider Google Breakup As ‘Trustbusting Era’ May Return (ZH)
• Crypto Exchange Sues US Market Regulator (RT)

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1843706162509951236

JD RFK

DeSantis

Trump Elon MAGA
https://twitter.com/i/status/1843999824359919850

Tulsi
https://twitter.com/i/status/1843991681072566642

Doocy

60m

Megyn Day 1

Doral

Tampon Tim

 

 

 

 

“There’s no reason to protect speech that everybody agrees on..”

John Rubino is a long time fan of TAE. The idea he uses here of the “shrinking trust horizon” was first defined by Nicole Foss right here at TAE at least ten years ago.

• Chaos is Coming – John Rubino (USAW)

Analyst and financial writer John Rubino has long warned of a massive financial crisis. With unstoppable wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, Rubino says one thing is for sure, “Chaos is coming.” Rubino explains, “This does not get fixed easily, and to the extent this gets fixed at all, this gets fixed via chaos. Prepare for a really interesting decade. This is going to be unlike anything we have seen in our lifetimes. Not since the Great Depression, nothing like this has happened.”

This all feeds into what Rubino calls the “shrinking trust horizon.” Rubino points out, “When everybody is lying to you, you reach a point where you only trust your city councilman, or your mayor and your local farmers. . . . So, you just don’t put any stock in what your doctor tells you. You stop taking the vaccinations they tell you to take. . . . You stop doing the . . . statins for high blood pressure and cholesterol. You stop doing that because you don’t trust those people anymore. . . . Starting with the “weapons of mass destruction,” which the government lied to us to get us into a multi-trillion dollar war in Iraq, it’s been one big lie after another.

In 2016, there was Trump/Russia collusion. . . . It turned out to be Hillary Clinton opposition research. With the CV19 pandemic, it was just lie, after lie, after lie. . . . Now, you have what is going on in North Carolina and Tennessee after Hurricane Helene. People are figuring out they are being lied to one issue at a time. . . . You’ve got a whole new set of people watching the government screw up and behave incompetently or corruptly, and they are learning they cannot trust the guys in charge anymore. So, the trust horizon is shrinking everywhere you look.”

There are so many parts of the economy that are quietly facing huge trouble and big losses. Nothing could start a total all-sector market crash faster than an attack by Israel on Iran’s nuclear sites. Rubino says, “There you go. That could be the thing that sets everything off. Bombing nuclear weapons facilities or a nuclear power plants is one of those things that has so many unintended consequences. Iran would have to respond to that in a serious way. It’s possible that China and Russia would step in on the side of Iran. . . . Then you get something much bigger. . . . I think the financial markets would respond to that.

Oil would go to $150 a barrel. That would crash the stock market. Then you get all the other dominos falling: commercial real estate, residential real estate, government bonds, derivatives and everything starts blowing up. That could be the catalyst for a market crash much bigger than 2008 and 2009. This would be something we have not seen since the Great Depression. We are not far from that. I think Trump said he thinks Israel should bomb Iran’s nuclear facility. . . . Biden is the demented figurehead for the neocons who want WWIII because they think they can win it. Chaos is definitely coming, but I am hoping it is survivable chaos, and I am not sure that it will be.”

Read more …

Did they think no-one would notice?

• 60 Minutes Under Fire For Deceptively Editing Kamala Harris Interview (ZH)

CBS has come under fire for deceptively editing Kamala Harris’ “60 Minutes” interview – replacing her word-salad answer from a pre-interview teaser with a completely different answer in the version that aired. When asked by host Bill Whitaker why it seemed like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasn’t listening to the United States, Harris originally replied: “Well Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by, or a result of, many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region.” But in the version that aired, Harris’ answer was: “We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.” Watch:

The Trump campaign has demanded that the network release the full interview. “On Sunday, 60 Minutes teased Kamala’s highly-anticipated sit-down interview with one of her worst word salads to date, which received significant criticism on social media,” said Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary. “During the full interview on Monday evening, the word salad was deceptively edited to lessen Kamala’s idiotic response.” “Why did 60 Minutes choose not to air Kamala’s full word salad, and what else did they choose not to air?” she asked. “The American people deserve the full, unedited transcript from Kamala’s sit-down interview. We call upon 60 Minutes and CBS to release it.”

Trump also posted about it on Truth Social, writing “I’ve never seen this before, but the producers of 60 Minutes sliced and diced (“cut and pasted”) Lyin’ Kamala’s answers to questions, which were virtually incoherent, over and over again, some by as many as four times in a single sentence or thought…” Trump suggested that the network helping Harris may have been a “major Campaign Finance Violation,” and is a “stain on the reputation of 60 minutes that is not recoverable.” Trump also called for an investigation.

Several have called out the network over the propaganda. Investor Bill Ackman took to X, where he said: “And how could @60Minutes’ manipulation occur without the consent of @KamalaHarris? Let’s not forget she is the Vice President of the United States and she is being asked about our foreign policy in the Middle East and our relationship with the leader of our principal ally in the region. Thinking about this more, the only plausible explanation is that the Vice President herself and/or her administration found that her original answer, which implied that Israel’s actions in the region were a direct result of the Biden/Harris policy, would harm her campaign and would therefore need to be expurgated from the public record.

In order to execute such a violation of journalistic ethics, I would expect that CBS News CEO Wendy McMahon and possibly Shari Redstone herself would have had to approve the manipulated video. This is a story worthy of investigative journalism from real journalists. Where are they? Where are the whistleblowers? Or are all of them so ideologically compromised that they are prepared to sacrifice the truth and their integrity in an effort to elect their favored candidate?”

Read more …

“Trump hasn’t been in office since 2020, yet somehow a woeful federal government response to a hurricane that occurred in 2024 is his fault because he said some mean words.”

• Harris Attempts To Blame Trump For FEMA Hurricane Relief Failures (MN)

Kamala Harris reverted to her default position when talking to the cackling hags on The View about FEMA’s disastrous hurricane relief efforts. She attempted to blame Donald Trump. “He puts himself before the needs of others. I fear that he really lacks empathy,” Harris said of Trump, also describing his criticism of her as “callousness.” Trump hasn’t been in office since 2020, yet somehow a woeful federal government response to a hurricane that occurred in 2024 is his fault because he said some mean words.

It’s pathetic. She repeated the same script on Colbert’s propaganda parade.

While Harris is on The View, Stern and Colbert, Trump is giving out free accommodation to first responders prepping for the massive storm heading toward Florida, yet he’s the selfish one with no empathy according to her. Harris also claimed that Trump is using the hurricane to play political games, yet she outright lied Monday in claiming that Florida governor Ron DeSantis wouldn’t take her calls. Let’s also not forget that while Americans were begging for help, Kamala was appearing on a sex podcast, laughing about tampons. Her response is always either laugh inanely, talk about her mother, or blame Trump. As we earlier highlighted, in the same appearance Harris admitted that she wouldn’t do anything different to pudding brain Biden given the opportunity.

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“I hope for rationality by the next government, because we need a completely new foreign policy, based on negotiation, mutual respect with other great powers, and peace..”

• US in Dangerous Hiatus Amid Biden’s Lame Duck Period – Jeffrey Sachs (Sp.)

The United States is in a dangerous hiatus during outgoing President Joe Biden’s lame duck period, which several US allies are trying to exploit, Jeffrey Sachs, a world-renowned economist and president of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, told Sputnik. “President Biden is not really in full control anymore, both because of his waning mental status and his lame duck status,” Sachs said. “We are in a dangerous hiatus. [Israel’s Benjamin] Netanyahu is exploiting that hiatus, and [Volodymyr] Zelensky is trying to as well.” The United States backs Israel’s reckless behavior, talks openly about war with China, and continues a delusional policy in Ukraine that is bleeding that country while threatening to provoke more escalation, Sachs explained.

Zelensky has been pushing the Biden administration to allow Kiev to use US-supplied long-range missiles for deep strikes inside Russian territory, which Russia has warned could drag the United States directly into the conflict. To date, Biden has refrained from granting Ukraine its request. Meanwhile, in the Middle East, Netanyahu continues to expand his military operation in the region, shifting its focus from Gaza to Lebanon, which provoked Tehran to conduct its second aerial assault against Israel on Tuesday and left open the possibility for more military action by Iran. Sachs added that there is little chance Biden will steer the United States toward a “good direction” throughout the remainder of his term, but there’s also no guarantee that things will improve after either Republican candidate Donald Trump or Democratic candidate Kamala Harris comes into power on January 20.

“I hope for rationality by the next government, because we need a completely new foreign policy, based on negotiation, mutual respect with other great powers, and peace,” Sachs said. “The US doesn’t seem to have much sound thinking at the top right now.” Many other countries are trying to exploit US military power, including the United Kingdom, Poland, and the Baltic states, which are all urging reckless policies by the United States that could land it quickly in World War III, Sachs noted.

Read more …

Netanyahu is not Israel.

• Trump Is Making A Mistake That Could Cost Him The Presidency (Marsden)

When Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky recently stood next to Trump in search of support against Russia, looking like a kid being chewed out by the school principal, Trump reminded him that “it takes two to tango.” But, when it comes to Israel, Trump only sees a soloist, minding its own business and inexplicably eliciting the wrath of its neighbors. And Trump just can’t seem to shut up about it. That isn’t what his base signed up for. On the anniversary of the events of October 7, 2023, when Hamas fighters from Gaza attacked Israeli civilians at an adjacent music festival following years of anti-Palestinian oppression, Trump had a variety of options. His base expects him mainly just to butt out and focus on problems that affect the daily lives of Americans – not all of whom live in Israel, contrary to perception.

Trump fancies himself such a peacemaker on Ukraine that he’s said he could resolve that conflict in a jiffy. He has no such ambition for the Middle East, apparently. Instead, he threw on a yarmulke and stood beside some giant tablets with Hebrew inscriptions, and riffed about how he would “remove the Jew haters” if elected in November, and how the “bond between the United States and Israel is strong and enduring” and that he would ensure that it was “closer than it ever was before.” Trump called on Israel to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to hit? I mean, it’s the biggest risk we have, nuclear weapons,” Trump said at a recent rally, ignoring the fact that nuclear weapons have a magical way of inciting respectful behavior all-around, in the same way that Trump’s beloved second amendment does in the US.

That remark alone places Trump in a more pro-Israel and pro-war posture than the Biden administration, which has explicitly objected to Israel attacking Iranian nuclear facilities. He’s also more aggressively pro-Israel than his Democratic opponent, Vice-President Kamala Harris, who at least routinely pays lip service to the need to protect Palestinian civilians in light of Israeli bombardments and glaringly dodged the question when asked whether Israel is even an ally. Who is Trump even trying to appeal to? The establishment? Why even bother? He has long lost their support on everything else, and this certainly isn’t going to bring them back aboard. Republican neocons? Same thing. Certainly not his “MAGA” base, whose position is non-interventionist and in favor of butting out of tiffs between countries on the other side of the planet. There was no shortage of them who noticed Trump’s October 7 pandering and announced on social media something along the lines of, “that’s it, I’m out.”

Maybe he’s trying to charm American voters, more generally? A new Pew Research survey published this month found that just 31% of them have confidence in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with 75% of them now concerned that US forces will somehow end up getting dragged into the melee. A YouGov poll has found that just 33% of Americans sympathize with Israel over Palestinians in the Gaza conflict. A Gallup poll from March also found that a majority of US voters oppose Israel’s actions in Gaza. And that was even before it kicked off similar action against Syria, Lebanon, and “Hezbollah pagers” exploding in the vicinity of civilians.

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“If, as I believe, the US is defeated, NATO will disintegrate and Europe will be left free..”

• Russian Victory Will Liberate Europe – Emmanuel Todd (RT)

A Ukrainian defeat would represent a victory for Europe, French anthropologist Emmanuel Todd has claimed, in an interview with the Italian news outlet Corriere di Bologna published on Tuesday. According to Todd, who has stressed that he is not an explicit supporter of Moscow, if Russia were to lose in the Ukraine conflict, this would allow “European submission to the Americans to be prolonged for a century.” The leading intellectual has argued that Europe has effectively delegated the representation of the West to the US and has been paying the consequences ever since. He claims in the interview that nothing can be done to change this fact at the moment due to the ongoing Ukraine conflict, but suggests that its outcome will “decide the fate of Europe.” “If, as I believe, the US is defeated, NATO will disintegrate and Europe will be left free,” Todd told the outlet, noting that it is unlikely that Russia would be compelled to militarily attack Western Europe after establishing itself on the Dnieper River.

“Russia will have neither the means nor the desire to expand once the borders of pre-communist Russia are reconstituted. The Russophobic hysteria of the West, which fantasizes about the desire for Russian expansion in Europe, is simply ridiculous for a serious historian,” he said. A number of Western leaders have in recent months raised concerns that if Russia were allowed to defeat Ukraine it would eventually set its sights on other European and NATO countries. Moscow, however, has repeatedly stressed that it has no intention of attacking any other countries once it accomplishes its goals in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed talk of a ‘Russian threat’ as “nonsense” being peddled by Western governments to scare the European population in order to “extract additional expenses” from them.

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“..he will not wait until the inauguration ceremony … in order to manage a peace” in Ukraine..”

• EU Running Out Of Time On Ukraine – Orban (RT)

The European Union must act now to settle the Ukraine conflict or be consigned to irrelevance by the US, the Hungarian prime minister has warned. Viktor Orban predicted that if Republican nominee Donald Trump wins the US presidential election on November 5, he will start to deal with the crisis even before he takes office. The former US president has repeatedly claimed that if elected, he will persuade Kiev and Moscow to reach a diplomatic solution “within 24 hours.” His running mate, J.D. Vance, has suggested that Trump would likely freeze the conflict along the current frontline and offer Russia a guarantee that Ukraine will not join NATO. Speaking at a press conference in Strasbourg on Tuesday, Orban said that should Trump defeat his Democratic rival Kamala Harris, “he will not wait until the inauguration ceremony … in order to manage a peace” in Ukraine.

Trump “will act immediately, so we as European leaders don’t have any time to waste, because there would not be two or three months, as we usually have between the election and the inauguration of the new president,” Orban said. He urged European leaders to “react first intellectually, philosophically, then strategically, and then at the level of action as soon as possible.” The Hungarian prime minister also said he was glad that the EU leaders would convene for an informal summit in Budapest on November 7, describing the event as a good opportunity to discuss potential ways out of the Ukraine conflict. Orban also pointed to foreign policy differences between the current Democratic administration and the Trump team, and admitted that he is rooting for the GOP candidate. Unlike many EU member states, Hungary has long called for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, and firmly opposed the delivery of weapons to Ukraine.

Last month, the Hungarian prime minister claimed that a growing number of EU nations were leaning toward abandoning their “pro-war” stance and “would like to join the peace camp.” According to the official, it was Hungary that “started this idea, because we stirred up a huge debate in Europe.” “Without the peace mission, such a debate would not have started and everyone would still only talk war,” Orban stressed. After Budapest took over the rotating presidency of the EU in June, the Hungarian prime minister visited Kiev, Moscow, Beijing and Washington as part of his “peace mission.” The initiative drew the ire of EU officials in Brussels at the time. According to Orban, “this war clearly has no solution on the battlefield… An agreement must be sought.” Earlier in September, he argued that Ukraine and Russia should first agree to a ceasefire before drafting a detailed peace plan.

After meeting with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky late last month, Trump told reporters that he had not “changed from the standpoint that we both want to see this end and we both want to see a fair deal made.” He doubled down on his pledge to “get [the Ukraine conflict] resolved very quickly.” The last peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine broke down in the spring of 2022, despite the sides pre-approving a proposed peace treaty. According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as both Ukrainian and US officials, the West “ordered” Kiev to withdraw from the talks. He has also claimed that Kiev had initially agreed to transform Ukraine into a neutral country and restrict the size of its military. Moscow has since expressed its readiness to settle the conflict diplomatically on numerous occasions, insisting, however, on Kiev accepting the “territorial reality” of Russia controlling the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye regions and Crimea.

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Very much.

• Refusal to Buy Russian Energy Endangers EU’s Economic Growth – Orban (Sp.)

The fact that the European Union is refusing Russian natural gas has significantly endangered the bloc’s economic growth, forcing it to focus on its own energy infrastructure, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Wednesday. He added that this move spurred on an increase of energy prices. “The EU productivity is growing at slower pace of our competitors, and our share of global trade is going down. EU businesses are paying two to three times more in energy prices than in the United States, and this is four to five times when it comes to natural gas. Moving away from Russian energy has endangered EU GDP growth and we now need to focus on energy support and building infrastructure for liquefied natural gas [LNG],” Orban said at the plenary session of the European Parliament.

The West stepped up sanctions pressure on Russia after the start of the special military operation in Ukraine in 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the West’s long-term strategy of containing Russia was hurting the global economy instead. In June, the EU approved the 14th sanctions package against Russia. For the first time it is targeting gas, banning re-exports of Russian LNG in EU waters and prohibiting new investments and services in LNG production projects in Russia.

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“..the terms of Istanbul-II for the politicians to draft and sign must follow the terms of armistice, unconditional surrender and disarmament to be dictated by the generals.”

• What Is Russia Deciding For Terms To End The War In The Ukraine (Helmer)

The Russian history of end-of-war negotiations for the capitulation of Germany and for the World War II peace settlement requires it to be understood now: it was the Red Army’s defeat of the enemy on the battlefield all the way to Berlin which preceded and which was the precondition for the paper promises and pacts offered to Moscow by those allies whom Joseph Stalin understood to be permanent enemies of Russia — the United States, United Kingdom, and France. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has just spelled this out in an especially timed essay published on October 2. Those lessons are being repeated now because they apply with equal force to the end-of-war negotiations with the US in the process nicknamed Istanbul-II. For Russian decision-makers in Moscow, and for the Russian people across the country, there can be no long-term security for the country without the military defeat of the enemy on the Ukrainian battlefield, capitulation of the Kiev regime, and withdrawal from Ukrainian territory of its US and NATO allies. This is first of all.

The political “guarantees”, “permanent neutrality” of the Ukraine, and treaty promises for the removal of foreign bases, forces, and weapons to continue war against Russia – terms spelled out in the pact of March 2022 known as Istanbul-I — come second. This is because the terms are unreliable and unenforceable, no matter what president of the US is elected next month and promises the day after — unless and until the Russian military has won the unconditional surrender of its enemies, and secured the battlefield against revival of the war in future. This battlefield security extends from the new Russian western border to the old Ukrainian borders with Poland, Hungary, Romania and Moldova. Which must come first now — war or politics?

The Russian answers to this question being debated in Moscow today are turning the old German theory of war and the state upside down, reversing the meaning of the well-known maxim of Carl von Clausewitz, “war is a continuation of politics by other means.” In Europe today — the Russian General Staff and Security Council insist — politics is the continuation of war by other means. Accordingly, the terms of Istanbul-II for the politicians to draft and sign must follow the terms of armistice, unconditional surrender and disarmament to be dictated by the generals.

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“Peace summit”, “victory plan”, f•ck off. Your people are dying.

• Zelensky Cancels November ‘Peace Summit’ (RT)

Ukraine is no longer planning to hold a second peace conference on ending hostilities with Russia, a senior aide to Vladimir Zelensky has said. The meeting had been scheduled for November. Zelensky held an ambitiously-named ‘peace summit’ in June at the Swiss resort of Luzerne, where he sought support for his ‘peace formula’ – a ten-point wishlist that Moscow had rejected as delusional. The event, to which Russia was not invited, was widely seen as a failure. ”The Second Peace Summit will not take place in November,” senior presidential aide Darya Zarivna told the media on Tuesday. According to Zarivna, work is continuing on preparations for such a meeting, with “thematic conferences” dedicated to each point so that everything will be ready for an eventual conference. The last of those thematic conferences, dealing with humanitarian concerns, should take place in Canada at the end of October, Zarivna said.

During his visit to the US last month, Zelensky said he presented a “victory plan” to President Joe Biden and both presidential candidates in the upcoming election, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. While the exact details have not been made public, the five points leaked to the media amount to the West ramping up financial and economic aid to Kiev, admitting Ukraine to NATO and the EU, and allowing long-range missile strikes into Russian territory. Moscow has described the last point as direct participation of the US and its allies in the conflict, which would require an adequate response. Russia has since updated its nuclear doctrine accordingly.

On Tuesday, the White House announced that Biden would not meet Zelensky in Germany as previously scheduled, since he has canceled all of his travel plans due to Hurricane Milton impacting Florida. According to Ukrainian media, Zelensky and Biden were supposed to discuss the ‘victory plan’ this coming Saturday. Moscow has ruled out participation in Zelensky’s conferences, dismissing any discussion of the purported formula as futile and pointless. Russian President Vladimir Putin laid out a set of terms for a ceasefire with Ukraine in June, which included “denazification” and a legally binding rejection of membership in NATO.

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”Everything… is accounted for in a database for damage incurred to the economy, businesses and individuals..”

• Russia Could Seek War Reparations From Ukraine (RT)

Russian officials are keeping track of damage caused by Ukrainian military actions, so that Moscow has accurate figures for potential reparation claims, a senior diplomat has said. Rodion Miroshnik, who is leading Moscow’s special mission to investigate alleged Ukrainian war crimes, discussed this aspect of the conflict with Izvestia newspaper on Wednesday. Much of this work is done on a regional level, but the data collection is coordinated by the central government, he explained. ”Everything… is accounted for in a database for damage incurred to the economy, businesses and individuals,” Miroshnik said. ”Much depends on the battlefield,” he added. “As we progress, an opportunity will arise to formulate our demands regarding those who committed crimes and to discuss realistic mechanisms for damage compensation.”

In February, Oleg Ustenko, who advises Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky on economic issues, estimated the total damages that the country would seek from Russia at $1 trillion. Last year, Prime Minister Denis Shmigal put the figure of prospective reparations at $750 billion, saying that “confiscated accounts of Russia and Russian oligarchs should be the key source.” In May, the US created national financial mechanisms, which can be used to finance Kiev now and to fund its eventual recovery using confiscated Russian assets. Western nations seized some $300 billion of Russian sovereign assets after the outbreak of hostilities in February 2022. Brussels has applied a windfall tax on profits generated by those funds to be spent on Kiev’s needs. Work is underway to create a $50 billion loan against future profits, which would then be transferred to Ukraine.

Russia has denounced those actions as theft of its property. Kiev wants the entire amount transferred to the country. Izvestia cited several estimates by Russian regions in relation to damage that could be claimed from Ukraine, ranging in value from roughly $200 million in the border Belgorod Region to $145 billion in Crimea. This was the biggest figure, set out in June by Vladimir Konstantinov, the parliament speaker of the former Ukrainian region. It included damages relating to Kiev’s economic blockade of the Crimean peninsula. The Ukrainian government cut water and power supplies to Crimea following a decision by its people to join Russia and reject the government that was installed in Kiev after the US-backed armed coup in 2014.

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“..a cumulative decline of 0.58% under Biden to 14.76%..”

• US Global Economic Share Dips Below 15% For First Time (Sp.)

The US share of the global economy has tanked below 15% during Joe Biden’s presidency. By the end of his term, it is projected to hit a record low of 14.76%, according to Sputnik calculations based on data from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. In 1990, the US accounted for 20.16% of the global economy, measured by purchasing power parity (PPP). That share peaked at 21.01% in 1999, with an economic output of $9.6 trillion, compared to a global output of $45.85 trillion. However, the US portion has steadily declined since, with the sharpest drop occurring between 2006 and 2008, when it fell by 0.6% annually. The US share temporarily increased during Barack Obama’s second term, reaching 16.26% in 2014 and 2015, but failed in sustaining the momentum.

By the end of Obama’s presidency, it fell to 16.04%. Subsequently, the US share declined by another 0.7% under Donald Trump. In Biden’s second year, the US share slipped below 15%, reaching 14.82% by the end of 2023. IMF estimates predict the trend will continue, with the US share falling by another 0.06% by the end of 2024, resulting in a cumulative decline of 0.58% under Biden to 14.76%. Meanwhile, China’s share of the global economy has surged to 18.76%, while Japan’s share has dropped by 4.33% over the past 33 years.

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“..it would take about $20 billion to end homelessness in the United States, or about $25 billion to end hunger in the country..”

• US Spending on Mideast Conflict Tops $22 Billion in One Year (Sp.)

The Biden administration began the emergency supply of weapons and ammunition to Tel Aviv immediately after the start of the Israel-Hamas War a year ago, further ramping up its involvement in the conflict by deploying carrier battlegroups, aircraft squadrons, air defenses and boots on the ground at bases across the Middle East. The United States has spent $22.76 billion on the conflict in the Middle East between last October and now, $17.9 billion of this for security assistance to Israel, and $4.86 billion on beefed up US deployments throughout the region, including for the flagging campaign against the Houthis, a new report by Brown University’s Cost of War project has revealed. The university says its estimates – accounting for the period from October 7, 2023 through September 30, 2024, are “conservative,” and do “not include any other economic costs” associated with the crisis, such as heightened costs to global shipping resulting from the Houthis’ partial blockade of the Red Sea to Israel-linked maritime traffic.

The report says US weapons deliveries to Israel have included some 57,000 artillery shells, 36,000 rounds of ammunition for cannons, 20,000 M4A1 rifles, nearly 14,000 anti-tank missiles (though Israel’s Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthi adversaries possess no tanks), and 8,700 MK 82 500 pound bombs. Other assistance included $4 billion to replenish Israel’s Iron Dome and David’s Sling air and missile defense systems, $1.2 billion for the Iron Beam laser air defense system, still in development, and $4.4 billion to replenish US armories emptied by the emergency deliveries to Tel Aviv. US aid also included 4,127,000 kg of JP-8 jet fuel, 14,100 MK 84 unguided 2,000 bombs, 3,000 Joint Direct Attack Munition dumb-to-smart bomb conversion kits, 3,000 Hellfire missiles, 2,600 250-pound GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs, 1,800 M141 bunker buster bombs, 3,500 night vision devices, 200 Switchblade drones, 100+ Skydio X drones, and 75 Joint Light Tactical Vehicles.

Brown’s report noted that the $17.9 billion in direct arms aid to Israel over the past year is “substantially more than in any other year since the US began granting military aid” to the country in 1959. Before 2023-2024, an average year’s-worth of US assistance amounted to approximately $3.3 billion, with total aid between 1946 and early 2024 topping $300 billion, adjusted for inflation. The study also broke down US expenditures related to the Pentagon’s beefed up footprint in the Middle East amid the Gaza conflict, including a $2.4 billion supplemental, another $2.4 billion for costs associated with operating carrier strike groups and other missions against the Houthis, and $50-$70 million for additional combat pay.

Washington’s largesse fueling the conflict in the Middle East contrasts sharply with its economic neoliberalism-driven penny-pinching on social programs at home, with aid organizations calculating, for example, that it would take about $20 billion to end homelessness in the United States, or about $25 billion to end hunger in the country. The crisis in the Middle East is just one of three major security emergencies the US has been actively engaged in over the past year, with others including the ongoing NATO-fueled proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, and the spat with Beijing in Asia amid Washington’s efforts to hem China in along its coasts and prevent the peaceful, negotiated reunification of Taiwan with the People’s Republic.

The Kiel Institute for the World Economy estimates that the United States has sent over $82 billion-worth of support to Ukraine over the past two-and-a-half years, including $56.6 billion in military assistance. Former President Donald Trump believes that figure is much higher, estimating that the actual number is closer to $300 billion. “So, we’re into almost $300 billion for Ukraine, and yet they’re offering people $750 for immediate aid for the worst hurricane than anybody has ever seen,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News on Monday, referring to federal assistance to the victims of Hurricane Helene, which laid a path of flooding and destruction across the US southeast in late September, killing at least 200 people and causing over $38 billion in damage.

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“Anyone dumb enough to push a tank column through Wadi Saluki should not be an armored brigade commander but a cook..”

• Israel Seeks To Fix 2006 Failures, While Hezbollah Lies In Wait (Mehdi)

[..] in the wake of the assassinations of Nasrallah and other top Hezbollah commanders and strategists, the occupation state has ramped up its offensive in Lebanon, with devastating consequences. Targeted airstrikes on Hezbollah’s communication infrastructure and leadership compounds have claimed the lives of over 37 Hezbollah fighters, but it is the civilian casualties that have been most staggering. More than 2,000 Lebanese civilians, including women and children, have been killed – almost double the death toll of 2006 – and over 10,000 injured in less than two weeks, leading international organizations to consider these actions potential war crimes. In 2006, during 34 days of Israel’s aggressions, the total death toll was 1,300. The Israeli bombardment of southern Lebanon and Beirut today mirrors the devastation 18 years ago when villages in the Bekaa Valley and the southern suburbs of Beirut were similarly struck.

Despite the enormous setbacks, Hezbollah has continued to launch rocket attacks deep into Israeli territory, demonstrating a resilience that reflects its strategic gains from the 2006 war. In the last few days, the Lebanese resistance appears to have turned the tide further, striking key Israeli port city Haifa with over 200 projectiles in a historically unprecedented attack on the city and its environs. One of the key lessons Tel Aviv appears to have absorbed from its 2006 military campaign is to apply an excessive use of force, regardless of any accompanying international backlash. CSIS report author Daniel Byman points out that Israel’s war on Gaza and its recent assaults on Lebanon “have clearly shown that Israel’s doctrine of using force has also become more destructive.”

In 2008, the head of the Israeli military’s Northern Command, Major General Gadi Eisenkot, warned after the 2006 war that next time, Israel would destroy “every village from which it fires” and make Hezbollah pay a heavy domestic price for its actions. The CSIS report notes that Israel is less concerned about damaging its international reputation than it was in 2006: “After the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza, killing more in Lebanon is not likely to make it worse.” Despite its overwhelming firepower, Israel’s ground invasion during the 2006 war exposed significant tactical failures. After two weeks of heavy airstrikes, Israel launched “Operation Change of Direction,” deploying thousands of soldiers into southern Lebanon to eliminate Hezbollah fighters.

However, the ground incursion proved disastrous for the Israeli army. The Lebanese resistance, deeply entrenched in underground tunnels and well-versed in guerrilla warfare, inflicted heavy losses on Israeli forces, most notably in the Saluki Valley ambush, where Hezbollah blocked the southern end of a column of tanks, then fired anti-tank missiles to devastate Israeli units who were helpless without artillery and infantry support. “Anyone dumb enough to push a tank column through Wadi Saluki should not be an armored brigade commander but a cook,” reflected Timur Goksel, a Turkish diplomat, military officer, and former spokesman for the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

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“..the enemy at this point, honestly, not just of Lebanon, or of Palestine, or Syria, or Iran. Israel is becoming an enemy of humanity.”

• Israel’s Collective Punishment Turns the World Against It (DeMartino)

In 2008, Israel Defense Forces colonel Gabriel Siboni described what would be named the Dahiyeh doctrine. ”In Lebanon, attacks should both aim at [Hezbollah’s] military capabilities and should target economic interests and the centers of civilian power that support the organization… [Israel] will have to respond disproportionately,” he wrote. The collective punishment carried out by the state of Israel on the people of Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon has turned the world against it and could be its undoing. The repercussions of Israel’s indiscriminate and murderous campaign can be seen both locally and across the globe. “There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything is closed [in Gaza]. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said days after the October 7 attack. Inside Gaza, Hamas was facing a popularity crisis, with only 20% of the population supporting them before October 7 according to James Zogby of the Arab-American Institute.

By launching Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, Hamas hoped to change its image and increase its popularity. “Hamas sought to use October 7th as an attempt to reconfigure its image as an authoritarian militant group into a fighting force protecting Palestinians against Israeli aggression. Hamas believed that by framing October 7th as a revolutionary act of resistance against Israel, Palestinians would see them as protectors of their struggle and see Hamas in a favorable light,” wrote Abdelhalim Abdelrahman in an article for antiwar.com on the anniversary of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. A recent poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that 56% of Palestinians in Gaza say that armed resistance is “the best means of achieving Palestinian goals in ending the occupation and building an independent state,” increasing from 50% in September 2023. The same trend is happening in Lebanon with Hezbollah, the editor of The Cradle told Sputnik’s Fault Lines on Tuesday.

“What has been happening in Lebanon I think is actually creating more support for Hezbollah because even among the people who dislike the existence of the Lebanese resistance, they dislike Israel more,” he argued. “You’re not all of a sudden gonna start taking the side of the people who are bombing your city, your capital, your country. So indiscriminately cutting off the land route to Syria, threatening to start bombing from the sea, as well as from the air… this is the Dahiyeh doctrine.” “They were hoping that at some point Palestinians would be like enough is enough, we are going to turn against Hamas, and that never happened. And, it’s never gonna happen here in Lebanon as well,” Carrillo continued. “Even if they spark some sort of color revolution, it’s gonna fizzle out because Israel, at the end of the day, is the enemy at this point, honestly, not just of Lebanon, or of Palestine, or Syria, or Iran. Israel is becoming an enemy of humanity.” In the region, Israel’s actions have erased decades of work that its government and the US put into normalizing relations with its neighbors.

“[October 7] sidelined what appeared to be an upcoming, soon to be realized, entente between Saudi Arabia and Israel. That would have sidelined… the notion of Palestinian self-determination. But, with October 7, the opposite is in play with the Saudi leadership now contending that no normalization with Israel is possible unless the question of Palestinian self-determination and statehood is on the table,” Dr. Gerald Horne, a historian that holds the John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston told Sputnik’s The Critical Hour. “You can also say that October 7, 2023, weakened the Abraham Accords. Those are the accords initiated by US President, Mr. Trump, which called for normalizing of relations between Morocco and Bahrain and Sudan,” continued Horne. “We now know that with Sudan’s leadership inking those ill-fated accords, it was greeted with hostility on the streets of Khartoum, leading to what is now [a] de-facto civil war.” Across the globe, Israel is finding that countries that were previously satisfied with the status quo are no longer supportive of the zionist state.

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“We are ready for any scenario, the armed forces are fully prepared,” Araghchi stressed. He, however, noted that Iran’s policy is to stop the hostilities and reach an “acceptable ceasefire.”

• Iran ‘Fully Prepared’ For War – FM (RT)

Iran does not want an escalation of tensions in the Middle East and supports efforts for a ceasefire but is fully prepared for war, the country’s foreign minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, has stated. The Islamic Republic launched a barrage of missiles at Israel last Tuesday, striking a number of military bases in what Tehran said was a response to recent Israeli killings of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders. Israel vowed a “serious and significant” strike in reprisal. “We have stated many times that Iran does not want to increase tension, although we are not afraid of war, we are fully prepared…” Araghchi told reporters on Tuesday in Tehran on the sidelines of the ‘Al-Aqsa Storm; The Beginning of Nasrallah’ conference. “We are ready for any scenario, the armed forces are fully prepared,” Araghchi stressed. He, however, noted that Iran’s policy is to stop the hostilities and reach an “acceptable ceasefire.”

According to Mehr News, the top diplomat said at the conference on Tuesday that Israel should not test Tehran’s will. He warned that any attack on Iran would be met with a crushing response. The Iranian military has prepared “at least ten” scenarios for a possible Israeli strike, according to media reports on Monday. The Iranian parliament is reportedly drafting a so-called ‘resistance pact’ to bolster regional security and counter potential external threats, particularly from the US and Israel. According to the Tehran Times, citing the text of the proposal, all member countries will be required to provide comprehensive support – including military, economic, and political assistance – should any member come under attack from Israel or its allies.

Monday marked the one-year anniversary of the raid into southern Israel by Hamas, which claimed some 1,200 lives. The Jewish State responded by declaring war on the Gaza-based militant group and imposing a near-total siege on the enclave. Nearly 42,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Tensions have also risen between Israel and neighboring Muslim countries, which have sided with the Palestinians. Earlier this month, Israel launched a ground operation in Lebanon and has targeted the leadership of the Hezbollah organization.

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We know.

• US Navy Was At Scene Of Nord Stream Blasts – Media (RT)

US Navy vessels were operating at the scene shortly before the explosions that crippled the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea, Danish newspaper Politiken has reported, citing a local harbormaster. The crucial energy infrastructure, built to deliver Russian gas to Germany and the rest of Europe, was ruptured by underwater blasts in September 2022. The piece by Politiken was published on September 26 but largely went unnoticed. However, it resurfaced on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday, with claims being reposted by Glenn Greenwald and other prominent independent journalists. According to the article, American warships had been operating in the area east of the Danish island of Bornholm with their transponders switched off. The paper spoke to John Anker Nielsen, the harbormaster at the Danish port of Christianso, located near Bornholm.

He said he had decided to share details of the events of September 2022, despite initially being “not allowed to say a thing” about them. According to Nielsen, he launched a rescue operation in the area four or five days before the Nord Stream blasts after spotting ships with their transponders switched off and assuming there was an emergency. However, when Danish rescuers approached the scene, they saw that the vessels in question were US Navy ships, Nielsen said. The Naval Command then told Nielsen and his colleagues to turn back, the harbormaster recalled. Politiken said Nielsen does not believe Western media claims that Nord Stream was sabotaged by Ukraine, supposedly using a yacht, named Andromeda, and a small crew to carry out the sophisticated attack. According to the paper, the harbormaster instead has “some faith” in the version of events provided by legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh.

In early February 2023, Hersh authored a report claiming that US President Joe Biden had given the order to destroy Nord Stream. According to an informed source who talked to the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, the explosives that were detonated on September 26, 2022 had been planted at the pipelines during the previous June by US Navy divers under the cover of a NATO exercise called ‘Baltops 22’. The White House denied the report, calling it “utterly false and complete fiction.” Senior Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have previously pointed the finger at the US as the possible culprit behind the Nord Stream explosions. They have argued that Washington had the technical means to carry out the operation and stood to gain the most, considering that the attack disrupted Russian energy supplies to the EU and forced a shift to more expensive US-supplied liquefied natural gas.

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“Google will battle this in the courts for years.”

• US Antitrust Officials Consider Google Breakup As ‘Trustbusting Era’ May Return (ZH)

The US Department of Justice and a group of states submitted a document detailing a proposed remedy framework in the ongoing antitrust case against big tech giant Google. The case centers around Google’s violations of Section 2 of the Sherman Act for illegally maintaining monopolies, including general search services and text advertising. On Aug. 5, US District Judge Amit Mehta, Washington, DC, ruled that Google violated antitrust law by spending billions of dollars to create an illegal monopoly as the world’s default search engine on smartphones, computers, and tablets. The ruling paved the way for antitrust enforcers to submit a 32-page document on Tuesday that explained the potential remedies for the judge to consider as the case moves into the remedy phase.

On page 9 of the remedy framework document, the DoJ specifies the government has a “full range of tools previously identified such as structural and additional behavioral remedies as well as term extensions” to restore competition in the marketplace that would modify Google’s business from using products such as its Chrome browser or Android operating system to create advantages for the big tech firm’s search engine. “Fully remedying these harms requires not only ending Google’s control of distribution today, but also ensuring Google cannot control the distribution of tomorrow,” DoJ said. Antitrust enforcers said Google colluded with other big tech companies to make its search engine the default option on devices.

Google quickly responded in a blog post titled “DOJ’s radical and sweeping proposals risk hurting consumers, businesses, and developers” to the remedy framework document on Tuesday evening. Google Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Lee-Anne Mulholland wrote in the post that the DoJ’s remedy framework is “radical” and could have “negative unintended consequences for American innovation and America’s consumers.” Google’s market capitalization (as of Tuesday’s close) of just a little over $2 trillion makes it the world’s fourth-largest company. Mounting legal pressure sent shares down around 1% in premarket trading in New York. Antitrust pressure has been building, with multiple cases being pushed against Google. It also faces the threat of breakup in a separate government lawsuit centered around its online advertising business.

Across the Atlantic, European Union watchdogs have voiced similar concerns with antitrust enforcers in the US about the need to break up Google’s businesses. EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager recently said that “divestiture is the only way” to settle these worries with the big tech firm. Daniel Ives, managing director and senior equity analyst at Wedbush Securities, commented on Google’s potential breakup, indicating it’s “unlikely at this point despite the antitrust swirls,” adding, “Google will battle this in the courts for years.” There has been a four-decade lull in the government breaking up major companies. The last major one came with the 1984 breakup of AT&T. Before that, the 20th century was considered the ‘trustbusting era’, with Standard Oil, American Tobacco, and a railroad trust known as Northern Securities forced to spit up by the government.

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The SEC was never fit for the task.

• Crypto Exchange Sues US Market Regulator (RT)

The cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com has filed a lawsuit against the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for what it believes to be an overstepping of legal boundaries in regulating the crypto industry. The decision by Crypto.com to sue the SEC came after it received a so-called Wells Notice from the regulator, according to a statement issued on the company’s website on Tuesday. The company claims to be seeking to protect the future of the industry. A Wells Notice is a formal declaration that the regulator intends to recommend an enforcement action against it. According to Reuters, retail trading platform Robinhood’s crypto business, major US crypto exchange Coinbase, and NFT marketplace OpenSea are among the companies in the digital assets industry that have received such notices.

The SEC’s “unauthorized and unjust” actions towards the crypto industry have left no other choice than to file a suit, Singapore-based Crypto.com stated. “Our lawsuit contends that the SEC has unilaterally expanded its jurisdiction beyond statutory limits and separately that the SEC has established an unlawful rule that trades in nearly all crypto assets are securities transactions no matter how they are sold…” “We seek to stop the SEC’s illegal actions in excess of their authority and in violation of federal law in their tracks,” the statement reads. Separately, the company filed a petition with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the SEC, seeking a joint interpretation to confirm that certain cryptocurrency derivative products are solely regulated by the CFTC.

The crypto industry has faced a US regulatory crackdown since the 2022 collapse of FTX. The Bahamas-based exchange was exposed as a Ponzi scheme used to siphon investor funds into the pockets of executives and, via donations, to politicians. Crypto companies have since accused the SEC of overreach and of violating its jurisdiction, while the agency has claimed that it has the authority to regulate crypto under existing laws. The SEC’s cryptocurrency-related actions increased by more than 50% in 2023 over the previous year, according to the US law firm Troutman Pepper. The firms expects this trend to continue.

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“Where were you”

 

 

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