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Debt Rattle Election Day 2024

Nov 052024
 
 November 5, 2024  Posted by at 9:30 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  62 Responses »


Berthe Morisot The old track to Auvers 1863

 

• Joe Rogan Endorses Trump (RT)
• The Final Days of the Lie Machine (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Will The Coming Election Make Or Break America? (Von Hoffmeister)
• Escape from Psychopathocracy (Kunstler)
• US Judge Refuses To Block Elon Musk’s Election Lottery (RT)
• Early Voting Numbers ‘Scary’ For Harris – Former Obama Campaign Manager (RT)
• Will America Survive the 2024 Election Tomorrow? (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Harris and Walz Declare War on America (Klingenstein)
• Washington Activates National Guard, Oregon “Standing Ready” (ZH)
• NBC Airs Trump Message After Harris Saturday Night Live Appearance (ET)
• Both Parties Deploy Legions of Lawyers For Election Challenges (Turley)
• Ukraine Needs 500,000 New Troops – Lawmaker (RT)
• US Preparing Europe to Start Direct War With Russia If Ukraine Fails – Lavrov (Sp.)
• Is The West Finally Ready To Admit Defeat In Ukraine? (Diesen)
• Diving Expert Questions Narrative Behind Nord Stream (RT)
• Netanyahu’s “Imaginary War Narrative” Strategy (Alastair Crooke)

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1853138762513187263

Axelrod

Elon subsidies
https://twitter.com/i/status/1853284733389779368

Vivek

He hates

Little secret

Megyn

Naval

Elon
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1853259040098308317

 

 

 

 

“Musk makes what I think is the most compelling case for Trump you’ll hear, and I agree with him every step of the way. For the record, yes, that’s an endorsement of Trump..”

• Joe Rogan Endorses Trump (RT)

Podcaster Joe Rogan has endorsed former President Donald Trump following an interview with one of his most vocal supporters, billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk, on the eve of Trump’s faceoff against Vice President Kamala Harris. Rogan promoted his interview with the “great and powerful” Musk in a post on X, insisting that if it weren’t for the self-described free speech absolutist, “we’d be f**ked.” “Musk makes what I think is the most compelling case for Trump you’ll hear, and I agree with him every step of the way. For the record, yes, that’s an endorsement of Trump,” Rogan told his 13.3 million followers on Monday evening. During the interview, Musk reiterated his warning that the 2024 election could become the last if Democrats win and move to “legalize enough illegals to turn the swing states, and everywhere will be like California.”

“There will be no escape. This is it. This is the last chance. Go out and vote. Vote like your life depends on it. Vote like your future depends on it, because it does,” he urged the audience. The news soon reached Trump, who was holding a rally in the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania at the time. “It just came over the wires that Joe Rogan just endorsed me. Is that true? Thank you, Joe. That’s so nice. And he doesn’t do that,” Trump said.

Last month, Trump appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, where he accused his Democratic opponents of representing an “enemy from within” that undermines the country and poses a greater threat than any foreign adversary. The three-hour conversation covered a wide range of topics and garnered over 45 million views on YouTube alone. The host of the largest podcast in the US also wanted to interview Trump’s rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, but could not reach an agreement on terms. The Harris campaign allegedly wanted Rogan “to travel to her, and they only wanted to do an hour,” leading him to decline the offer despite his “sincere wish” to “get to know her as a human being.”

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“The Washington Post and the New York Times win prizes, but increasingly we talk only to a certain elite. More and more, we talk to ourselves.”

• The Final Days of the Lie Machine (Paul Craig Roberts)

One of the worst features of Democracy is the self-serving lobby groups. The Israeli lobby groups, AIPAC and ADL are having a rough time because of the Zionist genocide of the Palestinians. People are starting to wonder how Israel is a victim when Israel is slaughtering women and children not only in Gaza but also in south Lebanon. Now that in Ukraine the Biden-Harris regime have given Americans another lost war, which casts more doubt on American omnipotence, the military/security complex lobbies are experiencing public disbelief in their narratives. The Atlantic Council is a lobby group for the military-security complex and Washington’s hegemony over Europe. Attempting to control explanations important to war profits, the group created a lie machine, DFR Lab. On October 30, one of the lie machine’s employees, Meredith Furbish, branched out into other areas and defined those of us who have documented the legalization of election theft in the swing states as “Russia-linked media.”

Furbish doesn’t say why only Russians and not Americans are concerned with the mechanisms used to steal American elections. Citing a narrative controller called Alliance for Securing Democracy, Furbish describes me as “an RT regular and noted conspiracy theorist.” I think it has been years since I was interviewed by RT, and being interviewed doesn’t make one a “regular.” Furbish is so incompetent that she doesn’t know that the Russian journalist Ekaterina Blinova writes for Sputnik, not RT. The notion Furbish is trying to perpetuate is that those who identify voting irregularities are Russian agents spreading disinformation. Russia has to be behind everything so that we can stay at war with Russia. As for being a conspiracy theorist, the self-serving interest groups declare all truth-tellers to be conspiracy theorists. Every explanation, no matter how truthful, that does not uphold the official narratives is a conspiracy theory. This tells us that it is the conspiracy theories that are correct, not the official narratives.

To suppress truth has been the function of the print and TV media and NPR for many years. The editors and journalists in the presstitute media have no independence. Moreover, most were indoctrinated in journalism schools that their task is to control narratives for the ruling elite. Lobby groups such as the Atlantic Council create their own lie machines to guard their agendas from exposure. But it hasn’t worked. The lie machine has failed. We have that on the authority of no less than two major lie machine operators. The editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal, once a reputable newspaper but no longer, recently said that the media had lost readership because the newspapers ceased reporting and became protectors of official narratives and lost the trust of the public. The words she used were the media “lacks transparency.”

Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post, never a reputable newspaper, wrote on October 28 a Washington Post editorial in which he said that the reputation of the American print and TV media has fallen below that of Congress. “Our profession is now the least trusted of all.” Reality, Bezos said, won over the lie machine: “Reality is an undefeated champion.” To regain credibility, Bezos says, the media will have to return to accuracy and cease to sacrifice truth to the promotion of ideological agendas. “The Washington Post and the New York Times win prizes, but increasingly we talk only to a certain elite. More and more, we talk to ourselves.” Who does Meredith Furbish talk to? Her discredited lie machine bosses. No one reads her. No one cares what she says. The election tomorrow will tell us if enough Americans have escaped their indoctrinated existence to save our country.

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“A wave of mistrust washes ashore with each campaign promise and counterattack, feeding a monster that has been lurking since the nation’s founding..”

• Will The Coming Election Make Or Break America? (Von Hoffmeister)

As the 2024 US election nears, tension is rising across the nation, fueling fears that the American republic itself hangs in the balance. For some, this election presents the risk of a final fracture, one where states weary of federal overreach might assert their autonomy and challenge Washington’s hold. Supporters of a more decentralized America argue that a return to local governance could strengthen the republic, while critics warn it may signal the beginning of a dissolution of that which once bound the states by family ties and shared purpose. With the world watching, the outcome of the election may determine whether America endures as a unified power or breaks up into a mosaic of rival territories, each proclaiming its own justice.

Many foresee an era of upheaval – one that may bring the nation closer to collapse than ever before. The election, many argue, could serve as a sword dividing the states, slashing the bonds of unity that held them through trials and bloodshed. A wave of mistrust washes ashore with each campaign promise and counterattack, feeding a monster that has been lurking since the nation’s founding. Dread grows that strong states like Texas may finally cast off the federal chains, carving paths as sovereign lands should they sense betrayal from a distant capital.

Some voices call for the wisdom of disaggregated administration, suggesting that perhaps strength lies not in a vast, singular realm but in federated regions, united only by a loose pact. For these, the nation’s greatness could thrive in a non-monolithic structure, one that allows each region to wield its own power and champion its distinct traditions. They see this as a way to preserve the land’s beauty, avoiding the stain of forced conformity and letting each region flourish like a proud kingdom unto itself. But others see this as the beginning of the end, a shattering of the once-mighty republic, a descent into fractious states wary of neighbors and embittered by ancient rivalries.

Across the oceans, foes of the republic watch with a glint in their eyes, sensing the scent of weakness. The world, once ordered by America’s hand, could see new realms emerge as pillars of a power shift. With America splintered, vast civilizations unshackled from Western influence could grow bold, forging a world of their own design. In the tumultuous aftermath of this election, new alliances could take shape, established on ancient principles that defy the siren song of democracy. It is a prophecy of an order led not by one people but by many, each distinct, each following the call of its own land and heritage.

For the republic itself, dark forebodings abound. Some warn that unchecked discord could rend the union asunder, casting the states as enemies sworn to conquer one another, much as kingdoms of old clashed on blood-soaked fields. Political battles, once confined to speeches and votes, may soon take the form of steel and fire, with regions seeking dominance or defense of their way of life. In such a landscape, the banners of free states could be raised high, each upholding its own “God-given” reign, even as they march against one another.

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“It is an enormous, dastardly machine designed to deprive you of your consent to be governed. It is the work of political psychopaths.”

• Escape from Psychopathocracy (Kunstler)

Why does it seem that the Democratic Party is in it solely to remain in power? I will tell you: because it controls the money-flows to the vast cadres of a vicious parasitical bureaucracy and its support system of outside orgs that commit crimes and make war on the rest of us. It’s called “the blob” for a reason. It’s exactly like that monster out of the 1950s horror movies, a shape-shifting leviathan that devours everything in its path with only one purpose, to grow ever larger until it consumes. . . everything. In my state of New York last week, the DEC authorities sent a swat team to seize a man and woman’s pet squirrel and raccoon and then killed the animals. Why? Because they could. How is that different from the DOJ swatting and seizing a grandmother for walking through the US capitol building and then stuffing her in prison for the rest of her natural life on misdemeanor charges? It’s not different.

They are both demonstrations of deliberate cruelty — and that’s why the squirrel story resonated so widely around the country. You know exactly what it says: we can take whatever is dear to you. . . your pets. . . your livelihood. . . your freedom. . . your life. Who failed to notice that candidate Kamala Harris was unable to articulate any coherent notion about how her government might manage its business beyond some empty nostrums about “joy,” and “turning the page”? Because the party’s actual purpose, which it hides and lies about, is just to push you around, tell you what to do and what to think, and to punish you if you don’t comply — in other words, to exercise despotic power. It can’t do anything else with that power. It lacks the competence to manage an economy from the top down, and it certainly won’t allow the countless volitional transactions of people at liberty to produce and sell things of value on their own.

It will go to war against anything to steal more money: some pitiful foreign kleptocracy of a country. . . the liberty-minded people of our own country. . . against sound ideas, proven principles, standards of decency, and, not unusually, against reality itself. And now you and I face the ordeal of an election that, by design, will be nearly impossible to audit, will remain inconclusive for weeks, and subject to endless dispute. Why, because it serves the purpose of the Party of Chaos, which is. . . chaos! The scheme was to introduce so many devices of uncertainty as to guarantee political paralysis. Why else would you use batteries of hugely expensive computerized vote-counting machines that can be easily hacked, untraceable mail-in ballots with no chains of custody, the automatic registration of non-citizens, and laws (as in California) to literally forbid the requirement of voter-ID?

This was the work of lawfare terrorist Marc Elias — with hundreds of millions of dollars at his disposal, some from the government itself, a bunch from the party, and some from rogue billionaires such as George Soros, Bill Gates, and Reid Hoffman, and then disbursed surreptitiously through hundreds of NGOs — to elect officials such as Secretaries of State and district attorneys who will ignore or bend the law, to pay off state legislators around the country to change voting rules, to hire brigades of ballot “harvesters,” and to file ruinous lawsuits against anyone who objects to these pranks. It is an enormous, dastardly machine designed to deprive you of your consent to be governed. It is the work of political psychopaths.

[..] One way or another, looks like we’re in for a hard, anxious winter. Threats galore loom concerning possible blob / Party of Chaos mischief ahead, designed to disorder our national life: false flags prompting the imposition of martial law. . . aggressive censorship and cancellation of free-speaking regime opponents. . . deployment of Antifa mobs against civil order, with violence, looting, arson. This symbiotic enemy of the people is desperate to evade accountability for the crimes they’ve already committed as officials running institutions: abuse of power, conspiracy to deprive many citizens of their civil rights, perhaps even treason. They’re capable of anything. They must be defeated.

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“There is no prize to be won; instead, recipients must fulfill contractual obligations to serve as spokespersons for the PAC..”

• US Judge Refuses To Block Elon Musk’s Election Lottery (RT)

A judge in Pennsylvania has allowed Elon Musk’s giveaway to continue until Election Day on November 5, rejecting the district attorney’s request to block it as an “illegal” lottery. On October 19, the CEO of X, SpaceX, and Tesla announced he would give $1 million each day to registered voters in swing states who signed his petition defending “free speech and the right to bear arms.” He presented the first check during a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, that same day, stating the giveaway would run until Election Day. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, a Democrat, filed a civil lawsuit accusing the entrepreneur of running an “illegal” lottery.

According to the lawsuit, America PAC, a political action committee, and Musk “are lulling Philadelphia citizens – and others in the Commonwealth (and other swing states in the upcoming election) – to give up their personal identifying information and make a political pledge in exchange for the chance to win $1 million.” America PAC attorney Chris Gober argued that despite Musk describing the giveaway as random, the program does not constitute a lottery. “There is no prize to be won; instead, recipients must fulfill contractual obligations to serve as spokespersons for the PAC,” Gober said at a hearing before Common Pleas Court Judge Angelo Foglietta on Monday.

Krasner’s office called Gober’s statement a “complete admission of liability,” with lawyer John Summers arguing during the hearing that Musk and the PAC have deceived thousands of Philadelphians by being intentionally opaque about the details surrounding the giveaways. Musk, who previously positioned himself as politically neutral, publicly endorsed the Republican nominee shortly after the failed assassination attempt on Trump on July 13. Last month, the US-based billionaire revealed he had donated $75 million to America PAC, which he founded in July. The organization aims to bolster turnout for Trump in swing states. On the eve of the election, Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris are deadlocked in key battleground states, with polls suggesting neither has an advantage greater than two points.

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“Republicans did not do what they did last time. Last time, Trump said: ‘Do not early vote,’ and so they did not.”

• Early Voting Numbers ‘Scary’ For Harris – Former Obama Campaign Manager (RT)

The early voting numbers in the US presidential election look “scary” for Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, former US President Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign manager Jim Messina has said. Messina made the warning on Sunday, during an interview with MSNBC host and former White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki. “Early vote numbers are a little scary,” he said. According to the former Obama campaign manager, supporters of Republican candidate Donald Trump have been much more active this time compared to the previous election. “Republicans did not do what they did last time. Last time, Trump said: ‘Do not early vote,’ and so they did not. Republicans do have an advantage in early vote numbers. When the early vote comes in, it is going to look a little bit different than 2020,” he said. The early voting figures have “led lots of your friends and my friends to call me panicking,” Messina told Psaki.

However, he stressed that Harris’ campaign also has grounds to be “very, very happy.” It is because two voting blocks that are believed to be crucial for the Democratic candidate are “coming big,” the former campaign manager explained. Women make up more than a half of the early voters and “in the past ten days, young voters in these battleground states are coming out in what looks to be… historic numbers,” Messina explained. According to NBC’s figures, 76.2 million mail-in and early in-person votes have already been cast across the US. Among those who voted early, 41% are Democrats and 39% are Republicans, with the party affiliation of the remaining 20% unknown. However, more Republicans cast their ballots in four out of the seven battleground states, with the margin being the largest in Arizona: 42% to 33%. NBC’s figures suggest that among the early voters, 53% were females and 20% those aged between 18 and 39 years.

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“Are Americans going to elect Kamala, who has responsibility for these policies, President of the United States? If so, Americans are kissing their country good-bye.”

• Will America Survive the 2024 Election Tomorrow? (Paul Craig Roberts)

The election is upon us. It is an important election, because the result will determine whether America as we knew it will continue to exist. Trump represents America. Kamala represents the forces attempting to overthrow America. In the last few days leading Democrats, such as Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, have said that the First Amendment is in the way of their ability to impose their agendas on the American people and that censorship of truth is essential to their rule. Democrat Law school deans and Democrat intellectuals have said the same. In the Autumn 2024 City Journal, Jacob Siegel describes the Democrats’ plot to manage Democracy. Censorship is used to control the public’s access to information. Denied facts, controlled narratives are used to create public acceptance of Democrat agendas.

These agendas are open borders; normalization of sexual perversity; sexualization of young children; demonization of white people as “racists,” “deplorables,” and “garbage;” replacement of merit with DEI, and further erosion of parental control by performing sex change operations on under age children without parental consent. Liberal American women think these are good policies. If Kamala becomes President of the United States, it will be while liberal women who elected her. Jacob Siegel writes: “The Democratic Party’s strategy to win the presidency in 2024 hinges in large part on preventing a normal election from taking place. Procedural and voting irregularities that would have triggered alarm across the political spectrum until recently have become an accepted feature of the landscape. The Democrat party has pursued this strategy since 2016, when the Obama White House and the Hillary Clinton campaign worked with U.S. intelligence agencies to frame Trump falsely as a Russian agent.”

You have heard this all before from me. The Democrats want a Sodom and Gomorrah Tower of Babel, and they are working hard to get it. The same agenda is afoot in Europe where countries composed of ethnic nationalities for which they are named–French, German, Italian, Dutch, British, Irish, Spanish, Portuguese, Belgian, Hungarian, Polish, Czech–are disappearing into “diversity.” To get rid of ethnic Europeans and their culture is the reason for the open borders that have decimated European civilized existence. The destruction of white ethnic countries and their replacement with Towers of Babel is the intention of the left-wing Western intellectuals and all of the currently ruling political parties. Western ethnicities have been sold out by their own elected leaders. What explains the insouciance of peoples who elect to power people who intend to displace them from their own country?

[..] Steven Malanga writing in the City Journal makes it clear that the destruction of racial homogeneity has a cost. The Biden-Harris regime have made it possible for South American criminal gangs to get visas into the US without background checks due to a Homeland Security (sic) program called the Electronic System for Travel Authorirzation–Visa Waiver Program. The result Malange reports, has been a run-away epidemic of crimes. All sorts of gangs have been unleashed on Americans. Some specialize in drugs, some in trafficking women and children for prostitution, some in burglary, some in murder. Malanga reports that immigrant-invader burglary gangs use “Wi-Fi suppression equipment to disarm home alarms, cell-phone trackers to determine the location of homeowners, and fake IDs.” The gangs face minimal risk. If arrested, they are usually quickly released and vanish. “The leaky immigration system has made some criminals so bold that they deliberately get themselves arrested at the California border, knowing that they will be immediately released into America.”

The amount of crimes committed by immigrant-invaders is difficult to determine, because Democrats do not want Americans to know the cost of the Democrat’s open borders policy. Malanga reports that a sense of the problem’s magnitude is available from a Government Accountability Office study of crimes committed by illegals incarcerated in prisons. “Analyzing data from 2011 through 2016, the study attributed more than 1 million drug violations, 33,000 homicides, 500,000 assaults, 110,000 auto thefts, and 132,000 sex offenses to illegals. And these figures predate the 2021 border surge, recent bail reforms that have let offenders walk free, and the reduction in public-safety efforts following the defund-the-police movement.” Are Americans going to elect Kamala, who has responsibility for these policies, President of the United States? If so, Americans are kissing their country good-bye.

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“We are in a war. But only one side is fighting—their side. You can’t win a war if you don’t fight.”

• Harris and Walz Declare War on America (Klingenstein)

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are prepared to wage war on America. Let me explain. Walz’s most important education advisor is Brian Lozenski, a professor of “urban and multicultural education” at Macalester College. Lozenski is a prominent national voice in the world of critical race theory (CRT), and the foremost authority on CRT in Minnesota. CRT holds that everything about American society is racist. Everything—American values, from patriotism and hard work; American institutions, from the traditional family to religion; and American policies, from secure borders to energy independence. Racism, say the critical race theorists, is in America’s DNA. In a recently unearthed video, Brian Lozenski puts it even more directly: “America is irreversibly racist…[and] must be overthrown.” In case you missed his meaning, he goes on to say, “You can’t be a critical race theorist and be pro-U.S.” This is a declaration of war. It could not be any clearer.

Tim Walz appointed Lozenski to a key curriculum committee tasked with developing “ethnic studies” standards for instruction in every grade, in every required class, in every public school in Minnesota. (Ethnic studies is a cousin of CRT and, like CRT, has the “overthrow” of America in its sights.) Under the proposed standards, as described by Katherine Kersten of the Center of the American Experiment: “First-graders must ‘identify examples of ethnicity, equality, liberation and systems of power’ and ‘use those examples to construct meanings for those terms.’” (Yes, first-graders.) “High school students are told to ‘develop an analysis of racial capitalism’ and ‘anti-Blackness’ and are taught to view themselves as members of ‘racialized hierarchies’ based on ‘dominant European beauty standards.’” Ethnic studies is the centerpiece of Walz’s education agenda, and Lozenski is the leader of the ethnic studies initiative. Nor is this radical program simply something that has bubbled up from below.

According to Kersten, Walz himself “has used both legislation and administrative rulemaking to achieve…radical Ethnic Studies instruction… Between 2021 and 2023, Walz proposed and pushed Ethnic Studies in a series of ‘governor’s policy and budget bills’ at the Minnesota Legislature.” This is the Democrats’ nominee for vice president of the United States of America. Republicans have long failed to realize that they are in a war. Now they should. If someone says they want to destroy you, then you know you are in a war—it’s pretty obvious. It’s time for Republicans to get on a war footing. They must fight like our democracy depends on it. The destructive left is sure that the former President Donald Trump is a threat to democracy—or at least they say so, and they act as if they believe it. We know this is nonsense. The Lozenski video shows us clearly where the real threat to our democracy lies.

If Lozenski is a revolutionary, and he certainly is, then so is Tim Walz, who entrusted him with the education of Minnesota’s children. What about Kamala Harris? Could it be that she didn’t know who she was choosing? No, it couldn’t be. She knows perfectly well who Tim Walz is and what he believes. After all, she chose him over more qualified candidates precisely because his ideology was the most compatible with hers. It is sometimes the case that a presidential candidate fails to detect some aspect of their running mate—for example, personal failings or minor policy positions—but a candidate does not choose, say, a Marxist, or in this case, a revolutionary, running mate by accident. From Kamala’s perspective—and we must understand Kamala’s perspective—she simply chose a man who wants to improve America in the same way she wants to improve it. But their idea of “improving” is identical to Lozenski’s overthrowing.”

Trump regularly says, and quite rightly, that the enemy within is “far more dangerous” than China and other enemies without. But we have not had a face for the “enemy within.” Now we do. The face of the enemy within is Brian Lozenski. The right must give up the delusion that we are still engaged in politics as usual. We are in a war. But only one side is fighting—their side. You can’t win a war if you don’t fight. It is well past time that we engage the enemy, prepared to give our last full measure of devotion so that the greatest country in the history of mankind shall not perish from the earth.

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The army. For an election. Already seems normal.

• Washington Activates National Guard, Oregon “Standing Ready” (ZH)

Washington Governor Jay Inslee is activating the Washington National Guard ahead of election day, according to KING 5, and neighboring state Oregon isn’t far behind. The action by the governor follows two recent ballot box arsons in Portland and Vancouver, Washington, in late October, which destroyed hundreds of ballots. Officials are still seeking a suspect. Governor Inslee announced that some National Guard members will assist local law enforcement and the State Patrol, with the exact number yet to be decided. Homeland Security has warned of potential political violence and threats to election infrastructure ahead of the 2024 General Election. Guard members will be on standby from Monday through Thursday night. “The southwest region of Washington state has already experienced specific instances of election-related unrest,” Inslee commented according to CNN.

“Based upon general and specific information and concerns regarding the potential for violence or other unlawful activity related to the 2024 general election, I want to ensure we are fully prepared to respond to any potential additional civil unrest,” he continued. Oregon is taking similar measures, with its National Guard “standing ready”. In a statement, Gov. Tina Kotek said: “The governor’s office is closely monitoring and coordinating with local, state and federal agencies to ensure Oregon voters can safely cast their ballot.” Meanwhile, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler noted there’s “no current information to suggest unrest” but acknowledged community tension. Oregon State Police, Portland law enforcement, and the Department of Emergency Management are coordinating efforts, with Portland increasing police staffing on Tuesday as a precaution. In 2020, Oregon deployed the National Guard and a unified command for election security, and recently, states have increasingly activated the Guard for cybersecurity during elections, the report concluded.

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“We have to straighten out our country, we have to close our borders, we have to lower our taxes, we have to get rid of inflation. I’ll fix it.”

• NBC Airs Trump Message After Harris Saturday Night Live Appearance (ET)

NBC aired a message from former President Donald Trump one day after Vice President Kamala Harris appeared on Saturday Night Live (SNL). Trump spoke for about one minute during the message, which was prerecorded and broadcast during a NASCAR race on Nov. 3. It was aired again during an NFL game. Trump, after greeting fans of sports, noted that the presidential election is slated for Nov. 5. “We’re two days away from the most important election in the history of our country. We’ve got to save our country, and it needs saving. It’s in very bad shape,” Trump said. “We’re going to end up in a depression based on what’s been happening,” he added later. “We have to straighten out our country, we have to close our borders, we have to lower our taxes, we have to get rid of inflation. I’ll fix it.”

Harris appeared live during Saturday’s SNL. She participated in a skit that portrayed her speaking to another version of herself ahead of the election. “It is nice to see you, Kamala, and I’m just here to remind you, you got this. You can do something your opponent cannot do. You can open doors,“ Harris told Maya Rudolph, who was playing the vice president and had said she wished she could talk to someone ”who’s been in my shoes; a black, South Asian woman running for president, preferably from the Bay Area.” Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Brandon Carr wrote in a Nov.3 post on social media platform X that the Democratic presidential nominee’s appearance may have violated an FCC rule against licensed broadcasters using public airwaves to influence an election in favor of a candidate unless the other candidate is offered equal time by the same broadcasters.

The rule in question “generally means providing comparable time and placement to opposing candidates,” according to an FCC fact sheet. The regulator gives an example of a qualified candidate appearing on a station. In that scenario, the station “will be required to entertain requests for Equal Opportunities by opposing legally qualified candidates for the same office,” the FCC states. “However, the station is not required to seek out opposing legally qualified candidates and offer them Equal Opportunities.” The FCC grants licenses to some broadcasters. The agency can revoke licenses, although its chairwoman said in October that revocation would not happen “for political reasons.” Over the weekend, NBC lodged a notice with the FCC that said Harris appeared on its network for one minute and 30 seconds. The broadcaster said the appearance came “without charge.”

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“..a judge had to order Democratic Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes to release the names of roughly 218,000 voters who may have been allowed to register without the proof of citizenship required by state law..”

• Both Parties Deploy Legions of Lawyers For Election Challenges (Turley)

The Supreme Court has already intervened to stop an effort by the Biden-Harris administration to force Virginia to put people back on the voting rolls who had identified themselves as non-citizens. It is a crime for non-citizens to vote. Although Virginia allows any mistaken information to be corrected (and also allows for challenged voters to file provisional ballots), lower courts ordered Virginia to enable people to vote who had said they were not citizens. Critics charge that the case is the continuation of the administration’s unrelenting attacks on voter identification and proof of citizenship laws, even though 84 percent of Americans support such laws. In California, Governor Gavin Newsom and Democratic legislators actually made it a crime for any poll worker to ask voters for identification.

Some of these early challenges are welcomed, in the sense that we still have time to work out problems. Courts are notoriously reluctant to intervene after an election with the limited time before the certification of votes. They often refuse challengers access to vital election board information or bar cases as speculative or litigants as lacking in standing. This fuels the public’s distrust of the integrity of the election. Some challenges potentially involve a high number of votes in swing states. For example, in North Carolina, the Republican National Committee is suing the North Carolina State Board of Elections over 225,000 people who may not have been appropriately registered because that state failed to require a driver’s license or partial Social Security number. In Arizona, a judge had to order Democratic Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes to release the names of roughly 218,000 voters who may have been allowed to register without the proof of citizenship required by state law.

There is also a growing concern over possible systemic voting registration violations in multiple districts in Pennsylvania. Initially, 2,500 forms were marked as suspicious for possible false names, duplicative handwriting or unverifiable or incorrect identifying information. Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams and her team found that about 60 percent of the 2,500 forms were potentially illegitimate. Monroe County District Attorney Mike Mancuso linked the registrations to “Field and Media Corps,” a subsidiary of Fieldcorps, an Arizona-based organization. Field and Media Corps appears to have taken down its website, but it previously identified itself as a subsidiary of FieldCorps. It described itself as “connecting campaigns and projects with communities of color across the state. Our clients benefit from our social activism and coalition leadership experience gained through decades of leading campaigns, highlighting social inequalities, and developing BIPOC coalition building.”

FieldCorps has reportedly been working for the Harris-Walz campaign, the Mark Kelly campaign in Arizona and other Democratic campaigns. Efforts to reach FieldCorps for comment have been unsuccessful. The concern is that companies like FieldCorps could be replicating errors across districts and states in the rush to register new voters. If these are knowing falsifications, it could constitute a federal crime. We also have the same controversies arising in this election about changes to voting laws just before the election. In 2020, many voters were opposed to courts in states like Pennsylvania issuing last-minute changes. Many assumed that these laws had been finally worked out to guarantee the criteria for consideration of mail-in ballots and other forms of voting.

However, with less than two weeks to go, a divided Pennsylvania Supreme Court voted 4-3 to order a significant change in election rules. The Election Code in the state is a model of clarity — it says that a provisional ballot “shall not be counted if the elector’s [mail] ballot is received in a timely manner by a county board of elections.” However, the court ruled that provisional ballots must be counted even if an individual has already sent in a mail ballot rejected for violating a mandatory rule, such as failure to place the ballot in a secrecy envelope or to date or sign the envelope. Late Friday night, the Supreme Court declined to block the counting of the provisional ballots.

However, on Friday, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court did hold the line on another major change of the state election laws ordered by a lower court. The court stayed a decision that it is unconstitutional to reject mail ballots without handwritten dates on the return envelopes. The stay means that the law will remain in effect for the election. Justice Kevin Doughtery (joined by Chief Justice Debra Todd) wrote a reassuring concurrence for many of us having to follow these cases: “‘This Court will neither impose nor countenance substantial alterations to existing laws and procedures during the pendency of an ongoing election.’ We said those carefully chosen words only weeks ago. Yet they apparently were not heard in the Commonwealth Court, the very court where the bulk of election litigation unfolds.”

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“The Russian Defense Ministry has estimated Ukraine’s total losses – killed and wounded – at over 500,000, or around half of its total manpower..”

• Ukraine Needs 500,000 New Troops – Lawmaker (RT)

Ukraine needs at least 500,000 new recruits to replace combat losses and outfit new units, lawmaker Roman Kostenko has said in an interview. Kiev’s current plans would fall 300,000 men short. Kostenko is the secretary of the Verkhovna Rada’s Defense and Intelligence committee and a former officer in the Ukrainian military. His comments came in an interview with the TV channel Priamyi (Direct) over the weekend. Taking into account the situation, the estimate floated at the end of last year by former military chief Valery Zaluzhny seems more relevant than Kiev’s current figures, Kostenko said. “Zaluzhny did not take those numbers randomly. I rather agree with him here that after all, such a number is more relevant than what we’ve gathered, than what we were told before, that we don’t need that many,” Kostenko said. Zaluzhny had called for a mobilization of 500,000 men in December 2023.

Vladimir Zelensky initially agreed with that assessment, but backtracked due to a public backlash. Zaluzhny was relieved in February – reportedly due to disagreements about the draft – and named Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK. While Zelensky did not specify how many troops would have to be drafted, the authorities in Kiev spoke of 160,000 by the end of the year, following changes to the mobilization rules this spring. According to Kostenko, the goal was actually 200,000 troops but mobilization rates dropped in September and again last month. This “cannot be allowed under any circumstances,” he said, as mobilization rates need to keep up the pace with battlefield attrition. According to Ukrainian media, Kiev’s armed forces currently number 1.05 million. Additional troops are needed to replace combat losses as well as allow frontline units to be rotated out for fresh brigades.

Ukrainian lawmakers have revealed that over 100,000 troops have deserted since the start of the conflict. Mobilization officers have resorted to hunting men down in the streets and markets, often hauling them away by force as onlookers record the incident. Moscow is currently waging “one of the most powerful” offensives since 2022, according to Zaluzhny’s replacement, General Aleksandr Syrsky. Ukrainian units are in “constant demand for the replenishment of resources,” Syrsky has said. Russian forces have made major advances in Donbass over the past several months, taking Ugledar and Selidovo and approaching Kurakhovo while maintaining pressure all along the line. The Russian Defense Ministry has estimated Ukraine’s total losses – killed and wounded – at over 500,000, or around half of its total manpower.

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If Trump wins, they’ll do it before Jan. 20.

• US Preparing Europe to Start Direct War With Russia If Ukraine Fails – Lavrov (Sp.)

The US is preparing Europe to enter into a direct military conflict with Russia in case of Kiev fails, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday. Top diplomat added that conflict with Russia would be “suicidal adventure” for Europe. “As a fallback option in case the regime of Zelensky fails, they [the US authorities] are preparing continental Europe to embark on a suicidal adventure and enter into a direct armed conflict with Russia,” Lavrov said at the International Symposium “Creating the Future.” Moscow is hosting the international symposium from November 4-6. This year, the event is attended representatives from 87 countries, including speakers, delegates, artists, diplomats, and journalists. Russia will continue discussion on multipolar world principles at international platforms, including during the G20 summit in Brazil, Sergey Lavrov added.

“In July, under our chairmanship, the United Nations Security Council held an open debate on the principles of co-existence among states and in a multipolar world. We proposed for discussion a number of concrete steps aimed at restoring credibility and stabilizing the international situation. We will continue this dialogue at other multilateral platforms, including this month in Rio de Janeiro at the G20 summit,” Lavrov said. Meanwhile, the dialogue on the intergovernmental level is facing difficulties, the Russian top diplomat said, adding that the West was still trying to gain unilateral advantages by any means, including “the privatization of the secretariats of the international organizations.” The UN should not keep silence in connection a with a bill in Ukraine that seeks to ban the Russian language, Russian Foreign Minister said.

Last month, Ukrainian Minister of Education and Science supported a bill banning the use of the Russian language in schools. “The very first article of the UN Charter, it is impossible to pass by it if you read this document seriously, it says: everyone is obliged to respect human rights, any human being, regardless of race, sex, language and religion. This is also the UN Charter, which the secretary general [Antonio Guterres] is calling for to guide in the Ukrainian conflict. I have not heard a single comment from Guterres’ spokesperson regarding the legislative extermination of the Russian language in Ukraine in all spheres of life,” Lavrov said. The secretary general needs to get his spokesperson to better articulate the United Nations Secretariat’s interpretation of international law, the official added.

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“Support for continued fighting in a war that cannot be won has been the only acceptable expression of empathy..”

• Is The West Finally Ready To Admit Defeat In Ukraine? (Diesen)

The Economist magazine reports this week that “Russia is slicing through Ukrainian defenses” and Ukraine is subsequently “struggling to survive.” Across the Western media, the public is being prepared for defeat and painful concessions in future negotiations. Journalists are changing the narrative as reality can no longer be ignored. Moscow’s coming success has been obvious since at least the summer of 2023, yet this was ignored to keep the proxy war going. We are witnessing an impressive demonstration of narrative control: For more than two years, the political-media elites have been chanting ‘Ukraine is winning’ and denounced any dissent to their narrative as ‘Kremlin talking points’ that aim to reduce support for the war. What was ‘Russian propaganda’ yesterday is now suddenly the consensus of the collective elites. Critical self-reflection is as absent as it was after the Russiagate reporting, following the 2016 US election.

Similar narrative control was displayed when the media reassured the public for two decades that the US was in control of Afghanistan, before it fled in a great rush with dramatic images of people falling off an airplane. Journalists deceived the public over the past while by presenting the stagnant front lines as evidence that Russia was not gaining an edge. However, in a war of attrition, the direction of the war is measured by attrition rates – the losses on each side. Territorial control comes after the adversary has been exhausted as territorial expansion is very costly in such high-intensity warfare with powerful defensive lines. The attrition rates have throughout the war been extremely unfavorable to Ukraine, and they keep getting worse. The current collapse of Kiev’s front lines was very predictable as its manpower and weaponry have been exhausted.

Why has the former narrative expired? The public could be misled by fake attrition rates, yet it is not possible to cover up territorial changes after the eventual breaking point. Furthermore, the proxy war was beneficial to NATO when the Russians and Ukrainians were bleeding each other without any significant territorial changes. Now that the Ukrainians are exhausted and are beginning to lose strategic territory, it is no longer in the interests of the US-led bloc to continue the war. Back in 2022, the political-media elites weaponized empathy to get public support for war and disdain for diplomacy. The Western public was convinced to support the proxy war against Russia by endless messaging about the suffering of Ukrainians and the injustice of their loss of sovereignty. Those who disagreed with NATO’s mantra that ‘weapons are the way to peace’ and instead suggested negotiations were quickly dismissed as puppets of the Kremlin who did not care about Ukrainians.

Support for continued fighting in a war that cannot be won has been the only acceptable expression of empathy. For the postmodernists seeking to socially construct their own reality, great power rivalry is largely a battle of narratives. The weaponization of empathy enabled the military narrative to become impervious to criticism. War was virtuous and diplomacy treasonous as Ukraine was allegedly fighting Russia’s “unprovoked” war with the objective to subjugate the entire country. A strong moral framing convinced people to deceive and self-censor in support of this noble cause. Even criticism of how Ukrainian civilians were dragged into cars by their government and sent to their deaths on the front lines was portrayed as supporting ‘Kremlin talking points’, as it undermined the NATO war narrative.

Reporting on high Ukrainian casualty rates threatened to undermine support for the fighting. Reporting on the failure of sanctions threatened to reduce public support for the sanctions. Reporting on the likely US destruction of Nord Stream threatened to create divisions within NATO. Reporting on the US and UK sabotage of the Minsk agreements and the Istanbul negotiations threatened the narrative of the West merely attempting to ‘help’ Ukraine. The public was offered the binary option of adhering either to the pro-Ukraine/NATO narrative or the pro-Russia narrative. Anyone challenging it with inconvenient facts could thus be accused of supporting Moscow’s objectives. Pointing out that Russia was winning was uncritically interpreted as taking its side.

There are ample facts and statements that demonstrate NATO has been fighting to the last Ukrainian to weaken a strategic rival. Yet, the strict narrative control entails that such evidence has not been permitted to be discussed. The strict demand for loyalty to the narrative hides the fact that US foreign policy is about restoring global primacy and not an altruistic commitment to liberal democratic values. The US considers Ukraine to be an important instrument to weaken Russia as a strategic rival.

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“Andromeda had only one 25-kilogram anchor and a 100-meter-long chain, while its crew supposedly dived at the depth of between 80 and 90 meters in the sea. That is just “impossible”..

• Diving Expert Questions Narrative Behind Nord Stream (RT)

A narrative pushed by the Western media about a small team of Ukrainian divers being behind the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September 2022 is hard to believe, Dr Sven Thomas, a renowned German diving specialist, has told Bild over the weekend. Damage sustained by the Russian undersea pipelines suggests that much more powerful explosive charges and a much larger vessel were used to render them out of commission, he said, adding that a small yacht the media keep reporting about would never suffice. American and German media have repeatedly claimed that the blasts were linked to a small Ukrainian crew that rented a leisure yacht called Andromeda at a German port and set off armed only with diving equipment, satellite navigation, and open-source maps. The operation was reportedly given a green light by Ukraine’s then-commander in chief, Valery Zaluzhny.

Multiple media outlets reported in August that the German authorities had issued an international arrest warrant for a suspect in the case, a Ukrainian diver identified as Volodymyr Z. “There must have been at least one more team to cause the huge explosions,” said Sven Thomas, who heads a state-backed life-saving service in the German city of Halle. The specialist, who leads a crew of professional divers and underwater archeologists, added that he had “serious doubts” about the whole story linking the incidents to just a six-member Ukrainian crew using a 15-meter-long leisure yacht. According to Thomas, divers working at a depth of just 34 meters in a lake would need at least four anchors chained to a vessel to keep their equipment stable. Andromeda had only one 25-kilogram anchor and a 100-meter-long chain, while its crew supposedly dived at the depth of between 80 and 90 meters in the sea. That is just “impossible,” according to Thomas, who has been conducting diving operations for years.

The total weight of the equipment needed for such an operation would be about four tons, the expert said, adding that seismic records of the explosions show that at least several charges equivalent to 400 kilograms of TNT were used to blast the pipes. “They cannot drop such bomb charges into water without a crane and a counterweight, the vessel would just capsize otherwise,” Thomas said. According to the specialist diver, the fact that the pipelines were “crushed like a tin can” suggests that the damage was caused by powerful explosions nearby rather than small charges planted directly on the pipelines. Thomas believes that it points to military-grade bottom mines with a yield equivalent to around 1260 kilograms of TNT. Such mines can only be planted by a large vessel with a crane onboard, the expert told Bild.

Andromeda could have been behind only one of four blasts, which was likely caused by a small explosive charge planted directly on one of the pipelines, he added. Moscow dismissed the Western media reports implicating Andromeda as implausible. President Vladimir Putin has maintained the view that the explosions were carried out by professionals supported by “the full might of the state, which has certain technologies,” noting that the US was “probably” behind it. Last month, Danish media reported that US Navy warships had been operating near the Nord Stream pipelines shortly before the explosions.

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“The Narrative – U.S. tech and its Intel as ‘invincible’ – must be maintained. To heck with the facts.”

• Netanyahu’s “Imaginary War Narrative” Strategy (Alastair Crooke)

On Saturday, an Israeli force of some 100 aircraft attacked Iran from a stand-off position in Iraq, some 70 kilometres outside the Iranian border. A Wall Street Journal author, Walter Russell Meade, Distinguished Fellow at the Hudson Institute, wrote: “Israeli warplanes didn’t only cripple Iran’s air-defence systems and inflict painful blows on its missile-producing facilities. They also sent a message that Israel knows where Tehran’s strategic vulnerabilities are, and it can destroy them any time it wants”. Russell Meade adduces from this reading his key point: “Military forces that have access to American military technology and intelligence-gathering capabilities can wipe the floor with militaries that rely on Moscow … American technology is the gold standard in the world of defence – even more so for a country such as Israel that has significant intelligence and technological capabilities”.

The western ‘war of imagined, created reality’ thus reaches out beyond Ukraine – to arrive in Iran. The Narrative – U.S. tech and its Intel as ‘invincible – must be maintained. To heck with the facts. There is too much at stake to forsake it for truthfulness. A more sober and experienced observer however, notes after four days examination, that, succinctly put: “The IAF strikes seem to have produced minimal results; it appears however that covert operatives within Iran achieved several [inconsequential] drone hits. The Israelis launched a lot of missiles [some 56] – all from maximum stand-off distance. Iran put up a LOT of air defence missiles. There are no firm reports, nor video evidence (so far) of big ballistic missile strikes on any significant Iranian targets. The Iranians say they intercepted most of the attacking missiles, but admit some got through”.

As usual, the ‘imaginary war narrative’ being broadcast is completely detached from that which can be observed from ground imagery. Russell Meade effectively was demanding the pretence that ‘we not notice’ that Israel’s attack failed – tht it did not cripple air defences, nor did it devastate any significant target. Yet, as Professor Brian Klaas writes, “the world doesn’t work as we pretend [or imagine] it does. Too often, we are led to believe it is a structured, ordered system defined by clear rules and patterns. This is the meme at the crux of the Rules Order narrative. The economy, apparently, runs on supply-and-demand curves. Politics is a science. Even human beliefs can be charted, plotted, graphed – and by using the right regression and enough data, understand even the most baffling elements of the human condition”. It is a stripped-down, storybook version of reality.

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AI

 

 

Tate

 

 

Love formula

 

 

Bugger

 

 

Boxfish

 

 

Dam

 

 

Sandal

 

 

Zebra

 

 

Holly

 

 

 

 

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