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Debt Rattle September 17 2024

Sep 172024
 
 September 17, 2024  Posted by at 8:39 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  35 Responses »


Alfred Eisenstaedt Egyptian Fishing Boats. Suez Canal near Port Said 1935

 

• Beep Beep. Woosh. . . ! (James Howard Kunstler)
• Ukrainian Connection in Trump’s Assassination Attempt Cannot Be Ignored (Sp.)
• Would-Be Trump Assassin Palled Around With Neo-Nazi Azov Brigade In Ukraine (ZH)
• Musk Accuses Democrats of Encouraging People to Kill Trump (Sp.)
• With Fact-Checks Like These, How Does Truth Stand a Chance? (Turley)
• An Anatomy of the Post-Debate Detritus (Victor Davis Hanson)
• Putin Orders Increase In Size of Russian Military (RT)
• Russia ‘Militarily Invincible’ – Kazakh President (RT)
• Poland Vows To Pay For Ukraine’s Ammo (RT)
• Trump’s Promises To End Ukraine Conflict ‘Not Real’ – Zelensky (RT)
• Ukrainian Court To Consider Zelensky’s Legitimacy – MP (RT)
• Closing Hatches Before Rains Founder The Western Vessel (Alastair Crooke)
• 50+ US Lawmakers Hold Military Stocks (CD)
• Sunlight and Clouds, Not CO2, Drive Earth’s Climate (ET)

 

 

 

 

ABC debate

 

 

Routh 2022

 

 

Maddow Hitler

 

 

DNC Trump
https://twitter.com/i/status/1835451631225151862

 

 

Flynn

 

 

Nuland

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Donald Trump is looking increasingly likely to be the winner of the presidential race. I have long held that the globalists will wrap up an economic collapse or a world war and throw it in Trump’s lap.” — Brandon Smith.

• Beep Beep. Woosh. . . ! (James Howard Kunstler)

This time, the shooter lives to do some ‘splainin’. Do you wonder if he might get around to ‘splainin’ his role with the shady non-governmental orgs (NGOs) supported by the CIA who enabled his travels to Ukraine and his efforts there recruiting global mutts to fight for the Nazi-ish Azov Battalion? Perhaps he might rat-out actual government officials who assisted him in his colorful misadventures? As Ed Snowden remarked on “X”, wannabe Trump assassin Ryan Routh has “something of an Oswald vibe” — meaning, well-groomed by the intel boys, to be used as required.

Perhaps we’ll find out — if nothing fatal happens to befall Mr. Routh while in custody — how exactly he learned Mr. Trump would be on the links that afternoon? The candidate’s round of golf that day was supposedly a snap decision known only amongst his innermost circle. Or how did Mr. Routh figure out the most advantageous fairway to lay at for a clear shot? The FBI is on the case, you may be reassured to know. Things political are speeding up with the autumnal quickening. The blob is truly and deeply a’fright. So many blobsters will be liable to pay for their multitudinous crimes against the people of this country if Mr. Trump squeaks back into power that such a future is unthinkable to them. And yet, nothing has worked to deactivate this. . . this golden golem stalking the land. Nothing to show for the immense catalog of lawfare cases concocted to drain his wealth and stuff him into a prison cell — and astounding how amateurish they all were! Engoron and Merchan, two boobies hatched out of Judicial Error Central. Fani Willis, a walking-talking banana peel! Merrick Garland, saving democracy one abuse of power at a time!

The Butler, PA, head-shot op came awfully close to eliminating their, uh, problem, but no cigar. The Palm Beach golf course ambush had a Peter Sellers vibe, wouldn’t you agree? With the rifle muzzle poking through the shrubbery behind a fence. What next? A pizza with pepperoni, mushrooms, and cyanide? Maybe try to drop an anvil on Mr. Trump’s head from a passing airplane? (Beep-beep. . . woosh!) Somebody do something!!! The blob is shrieking to its minions from the sub-basement bunkers at Langley to the salons of Georgetown, to the US Embassy in Ukraine. Well, there’s always World War Three! And it looks like just such a romp is about to be instigated. You may have seen the photo last week of “Joe Biden” meeting with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer at a big conference table, talking-up a plan to give Ukraine the green light to rain long-range missiles deep into Russia. Meaning, let NATO technicians work the targeting console to send US or British made rockets any old place over there? Like, Red Square? Or the Winter Palace, St. Petersburg? Find an actual Ukrainian to push the launch button.

How is that not a direct attack on Russia by NATO? Well, of course it is exactly that. Russia’s chief executive, Mr. Putin, clarified it for the Globalist Neocon cohort infesting NATO that such an action would bring. . . “consequences.” That is a word the Neocons are no longer acquainted with; it has been such a long time since they’ve crossed its path, like its boon companion, “truth,” also missing-in-action these days. And, to be fair, Mr. Putin did not specify what the consequences might be, not even a simple metaphor like a mushroom cloud, or an ashtray. How did they even get “Joe Biden” off the beach for that photo op? It is understood by everyone over ten-years-old in America that “JB” is not available for duty anymore. The “out-to-lunch” sign hangs permanently on the doorknob of the Oval Office now.

The USA does not have a functioning chief-of-state for the first time in 235 years. After 2021, some sort of unelected, informal Politburu that self-assembled in the White House, like a clot from a Covid vaccine shot, is running our affairs. Maybe Kamala Harris has a clue who is in that outfit. Or somebody in the news media could ask her (if she ever gets around to holding an actual news conference, where the questions are not previewed or scripted.) Anyone dare ask? Kamala Harris is strangely missing from the front page of The New York Times this morning. Is that a little ominous? The debate is behind her. There will not be another, apparently. There is nothing about her schedule on the official campaign website. Has she entered fade-away mode? Is it all over now except for the ballot harvesting and the, uh, little adjustments to the Dominion vote-counting machines? Has the drinking started again?

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“It would not shock me at all that there would be some elements inside the government that would get involved in that kind of plot..”

• Ukrainian Connection in Trump’s Assassination Attempt Cannot Be Ignored (Sp.)

The fact that Ryan Routh was “an ardent supporter of the Ukraine and wants to see Russia attacked, and clearly saw Trump as a threat to Ukraine’s future receipt of US military support,” cannot be hidden, says former US State Department official and retired CIA intelligence officer Larry Johnson. “I’m sure that the Kiev regime is going to distance itself from this. The Kiev regime, along with the apparent support of the CIA, has put together a death list of Americans. A list of Americans who ought to be killed. It’s not a list to send them nasty letters. Scott Ritter’s on it, I think Douglas McGregor’s on it. It is not out of line for them to have done this,” Johnson tells Sputnik. He describes the fact that Routh was apparently privy to Trump’s whereabouts as “puzzling”, given the latter does not make his schedule public.

“Who leaked that to him? How did he know? Was there somebody inside the Trump team that told him? Was there somebody inside the Secret Service who told him? Was it a foreign intelligence service? Was the Ukrainian intelligence that alerted? That has to be investigated,” Johnson remarks. According to him, the assassination attempt is going to have a detrimental effect on the support for Ukraine in the United States, at least among Trump’s supporters. Johnson also suggests that many people in the current US government do not want Trump to become president again and would rather see him dead. “It would not shock me at all that there would be some elements inside the government that would get involved in that kind of plot. The Secret Service, I think it’s on notice and the focus is on it in such a way that they can’t afford to allow sloppiness and poor planning and poor security to go unanswered,” he says.

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“Who was he working with in the US government that was allowing him to do this?”

• Would-Be Trump Assassin Palled Around With Neo-Nazi Azov Brigade In Ukraine (ZH)

Perhaps the most interesting angle to attempted Trump assassin Ryan Routh’s recent history in his Ukraine connection. We documented that when he went to Ukraine to recruit for its International Legion in 2022 he was a Western mainstream media darling for a time, having been quoted on behalf of the cause to get more foreign fighters thrown into the battle against Russia by a who’s who of major media sources from FT to Newsweek to the NY Times. But when he arrived in Ukraine, according to these media reports, the 58-year old Routh himself was considered too old to fight alongside the Ukrainian army. “So plan B,” Routh described to one outlet, “was to come to Kiev and promote the idea of many others coming to join the International Legion. We need thousands of people here to fight alongside Ukrainians.”

“There are about 190 countries on our planet, and if the governments are not officially sending soldiers here, then we civilians should pick up this torch and make it happen,” he described. He had told Newsweek in a video interview from Ukraine that the war with Russia was as simple as “good vs. evil” and essentially the same as good guys and bad guys in the Hollywood movies Americans grew up with. It was not a gray conflict, he described, but “black and white”. In March of 2022, just a month into the Russian invasion, he tweeted that everyone around the globe should be willing to volunteer and “fight and die” in Ukraine. Still, much of his time was reportedly spent in a hotel room in the far western city of Lviv.

Among the more bizarre aspects to his campaigning on behalf of the Ukrainian military’s foreign legion were his efforts to recruit US-trained Afghan special soldiers to go to Ukraine’s front lines. The initiative appeared so large in scale (given Routh was seeking to transfer hundreds, or even thousands, of Afghan fighters – according to his words) – that one commentator questions in light of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump: “Who was he working with in the US government that was allowing him to do this?” In a 2023 interview with the NY Times Routh openly displayed his proclivity toward violent acts by threatening to shoot his critics, and the Times featured the quote almost as if lionizing his commitment to defending Ukraine:

In a telephone interview with The New York Times in 2023, when Mr. Routh was in Washington, he spoke with the self-assuredness of a seasoned diplomat who thought his plans to support Ukraine’s war effort were sure to succeed. But he appeared to have little patience for anyone who got in his way. When an American foreign fighter seemed to talk down to him in a Facebook message he shared with The New York Times, Mr. Routh said, “he needs to be shot.”Surely visibility like this put him on the federal government’s radar… or given Washington’s pro-Ukraine euphoria US officials were possibly even helping him in some way. He had received so much media attention also apparently as head of the International Volunteer Center in Ukraine. Importantly, he has boasted of having “had partners meeting with [Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense] every week and still have not been able to get them to agree to issue one single visa.” This raises the question of the degree of his involvement with US government officials at the time.

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“..[Reid Hoffman] wished Trump to be a “real martyr”, which, in Musk’s opinion, means to be “dead.”

• Musk Accuses Democrats of Encouraging People to Kill Trump (Sp.)

Some high-profile Democrats have actively encouraged people to kill former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, American entrepreneur Elon Musk claimed on Monday. “They [Democrats] have actively encouraged people to kill Trump,” Musk commented on a post on X that called Trump “an evil dictator”. He added that Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn known to be one of the Democratic party’s major donors, told the audience at the Sundance film festival that he wished Trump to be a “real martyr”, which, in Musk’s opinion, means to be “dead.”

The second assassination attempt on Donald Trump occurred on Sunday at the Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach while the former president was playing golf. Police said Secret Service agents opened fire on the alleged assassin, who was hiding in the bushes. The man fled the scene but was later apprehended. An AK-47-style rifle was found at the scene, along with two backpacks and a GoPro camera. The FBI has joined the investigation, and US authorities are treating it as an assassination attempt.

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“ABC actually disseminated false information under the mantle of fact-checking, and that’s a real problem..”

• With Fact-Checks Like These, How Does Truth Stand a Chance? (Turley)

ABC News has been widely criticized for the bias of the two moderators Linsey Davis and David Muir. Even liberal outlets acknowledged that the two journalists seemed inclined to “fact check” only Trump. In the meantime, they allowed clearly false statements from Harris to go unchallenged. Three of the unchecked claims are being widely disseminated by supporters, including some in the media. Here are three legal “facts” that are being repeated despite being clearly untrue.

“Crime is down under the Biden-Harris administration.“ One of the most notable slap downs by ABC followed Trump commenting that crime rates have drastically risen during the Biden-Harris administration. Muir immediately balked and declared: “As you know, the FBI says overall violent crime is coming down in this country.” Harris and her allies have been repeating the claim by ABC. But the actual statistics show that Trump was right. The Justice Department’s released survey found that, under the Biden administration, there has been a significant increase in crime. Violent crime was up 37 percent from 2020 to 2023, rape is up 42 percent, robbery is up 63 percent and stranger violence is up 61 percent. Other reports had shown startling increases such as a doubling of carjackings in D.C. in 2023.

“Harris has not supported transgender operations for undocumented migrants.” Some of the greatest mocking in the media concerned Trump’s statement that Harris has supported transgender conversion treatment for undocumented persons. New Yorker staff writer Susan Glasser immediately wrote “What the hell was he talking about? No one knows, which was, of course, exactly Harris’s point.” On CNN, Wolf Blitzer declared how “outlandish” it was for Trump to make such a claim. But it’s true. In 2019, Harris told the ACLU that she not only supported such operations but actively worked for at least one such procedure to take place. When it was reported by Andrew Kaczynski on CNN, host Erin Burnett was gobsmacked by the notion of taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries for detained migrants. “She actually supported that?” Burnett exclaimed. Even the New York Times later admitted that the “wildest sounding attack line” from Trump was “basically true.”

Harris does not support the right to abortion in the final three months of a pregnancy. Trump also hit Harris on her no-limits position on abortion rights, allowing women the right to abort a baby up to the moment of birth. Trump said Harris supports laws allowing abortions in “the seventh month, the eighth month, [and] the ninth month,” to which Harris retorted: “C’mon,” “no,” and “that’s not true.” The hosts again said that Trump was making up his criticism of late-term abortions, including the risk of babies being born but allowed to die. But in fact, many states, including Minnesota under Gov. Tim Walz (D), protect the right of a woman to abort a baby into the ninth month. While it is often said that this is left to the mother and her doctor, the law gives the decision to the mother. Late-term abortions are relatively rare, but they do occur. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report estimated in 2019 that about 4,882 abortions were performed that year at least 21 weeks or later into pregnancy.

More than a dozen states, in fact, allow on-demand abortions after a baby is viable and can even survive outside of the womb. Nine of those states permit abortions throughout the entirety of pregnancy. Harris has supported these state laws and certainly did not answer the question on what limits she would support, other than saying that she supports Roe v. Wade. Clearly, many late-term abortions occur to protect the life of the mother. However, you can have (as both Trump and Harris support) exceptions to protect the life of the mother without allowing abortions up to the moment of birth. To be sure, Trump did not help himself with his wilder claims. These included debunked accounts of Haitian migrants eating people’s pets in Ohio, which Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike Dewine, has denied.

The issue is not fact-checking, but the failure to do so equally and accurately. ABC actually disseminated false information under the mantle of fact-checking, and that’s a real problem. Moderator Linsey Davis admitted later that ABC did not want a repeat of what had happened in the last debate, wherein Trump was given free rein and the moderators limited themselves to asking questions and enforcing time limits. CNN was praised in that debate across the political spectrum for being even-handed.

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“She pantomimed as if she were prepped by Hollywood actors..” “And in the debate, she presented her nothingness in confident fashion..”

• An Anatomy of the Post-Debate Detritus (Victor Davis Hanson)

When the size of the huge television audience—some 67 million watched the debate—was announced, team Harris naturally assumed her win might bounce her even higher than did her initial July surge after the forced abdication of President Biden from the ticket. But then strange post-debate developments followed. Harris did not receive the anticipated large bounce. In fact, the polls still remain mostly even. She may have arrested Trump’s pre-debate surge a bit, but otherwise, a debate that polled so heavily in her favor oddly still seems to have made little difference in the still up-for-grabs race. Stranger still, Harris, the supposedly clear winner, almost immediately asked for another debate. Her handlers suggested that this demand displayed newfound confidence from her win—as if an assured, second knockout debate would ensure her permanent pull away.

But Trump and others countered that it might have instead indicated the very opposite: that her pre-debate internal polls had shown the race was even or even had Trump leading and thus she still needed a second shot at derailing him, given her own team was not sure her single and transitory debate favorability would translate into any real lead. Then in a day or two, other and far more significant realities emerged, resetting the debate—like a first date’s favorable first impression beginning to sour a day later upon further reflection. As the debate clips were endlessly replayed on television, radio, and the blogosphere over the ensuing week, few, if any, favorable Harris soundbites popped up. Harris, remember, was a veritable political unknown who was running a stealth campaign of media avoidance and running out the clock. She had never really answered any questions addressed to her in the campaign.

And in the debate, she presented her nothingness in confident fashion. But she ignored and snubbed both the toadish moderators and Trump at every turn. Yet the public had tuned in only to receive just three answers from her that she had never previously offered them since her July anointment: Why are you flipping—temporarily or permanently?—on almost every issue from your past positions? If you are the candidate of change, why did you and President Biden as incumbents not make these changes the last three years—or at least promise now to make them in the next four months of your remaining tenures? And what exactly will be your policies as president and the details of their proposed implementation? Every time these questions in the debate were either stumbled upon by the moderators or demanded by Trump, Harris evaded by plugging in her memorized, smiley, and stonewalling non-answers.

Even leftist media outlets could not find video clips that would show a dominant Harris mastering any of these questions. Furthermore, in the recycled visuals of the campaign, when Trump blustered and ranted, viewers now noticed that Harris had deliberately turned to him in scripted posturing. She pantomimed as if she were prepped by Hollywood actors—not just on memorizing canned trivialities but also giving fake moves and poses.

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Nothing dramatic.

• Putin Orders Increase In Size of Russian Military (RT)

President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree that officially increases the number of personnel in Russia’s armed forces to almost 2.4 million people, including 1.5 million servicemen. The latest increase comes after a similar decree in December 2023, when the president boosted the number of employees in the Russian military to just over 2.2 million, including 1.3 million troops. In his order on Monday, Putin also instructed the Russian government to allocate the necessary funds for the Defense Ministry to carry out the increase, which formally takes the number of personnel in the armed forces to 2,389,130. The last time the president expanded the number of Russian troops, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov explained that the move was the result of the “proxy war” being waged against Moscow by the West. “The security of our country must be, of course, ensured,” Peskov stated at the time.

“This is connected with the war that the countries of the collective West are waging. A proxy war, which includes elements of indirect participation in military actions and elements of economic warfare, financial warfare, legal warfare, going beyond the legal framework, and so on.” Russia’s Defense Ministry also stated at the time that the expansion of the army would be done through citizens who voluntarily wish to serve under contract. It also explained that the decision to increase personnel numbers was due to the threat posed by NATO’s continued expansion. Members of the US-led bloc have significantly expanded their military presence along the Russian border, deploying additional air defense systems and strike weapons. “An additional increase in the combat strength and numbers of the armed forces is an adequate response to the aggressive activities of the NATO bloc,” the ministry wrote.

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“Further escalation of the war will lead to irreversible consequences for the entire of mankind..”

• Russia ‘Militarily Invincible’ – Kazakh President (RT)

Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has claimed that Russia is “militarily invincible,” warning against any further escalation of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev. He also suggested that the path to peace is still open, singling out the Sino-Brazilian peace initiative as a viable option. Soon after the outbreak of hostilities in February 2022, Western leaders proclaimed that they hoped to inflict a “strategic defeat on Russia.” Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that this was the reason for then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson visiting Ukraine in the spring of 2022. This effectively derailed the Istanbul peace deal, which had previously been agreed by representatives of Kiev and Moscow. During a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday, Tokayev said that “it is a fact that in military terms Russia is invincible.”

“Further escalation of the war will lead to irreversible consequences for the entire of mankind, and, first of all, all the countries that are directly involved in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict,” the Kazakh president warned. He claimed that the Istanbul agreement had represented a good opportunity to end the bloodshed at an early stage, but was squandered. However, according to Tokayev, a peaceful settlement can still be achieved. “Various countries’ peace initiatives should be carefully considered and a decision to cease the fighting should be made,” the Kazakh president stated, adding that territorial disputes could be resolved thereafter. “In our opinion, the peace plan [presented by] China and Brazil is worthy of support,” he added. Tokayev described ties between Kazakhstan and Russia as a “strategic partnership,” but added that Astana also maintains friendly relations with Kiev.

Last week, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky dismissed Beijing and Brasilia’s joint six-point peace roadmap as “destructive,” accusing the two nations of siding with Russia. The plan emphasized “dialogue and negotiation” as the only “viable way out of the crisis.” Meanwhile, last Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy had urged the Ukrainian leadership behind closed doors to “come up with a more realistic plan.” According to the media outlet, Kiev’s Western backers are concerned that Ukraine’s maximalist plans to restore its 1991 borders “would require the West to provide hundreds of billions of dollars worth of support, something neither Washington nor Europe can realistically do.” Back in July, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban stated that a “Russian defeat is difficult to imagine,” taking into account the “balance of soldiers, equipment and technology.”

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“..Warsaw has yet to make any payments towards the scheme, citing temporary obstacles..”

• Poland Vows To Pay For Ukraine’s Ammo (RT)

Poland will fulfill its promise to help finance a Czech initiative to buy ammunition for Ukraine from outside the EU, Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has told the European Truth news outlet. The Polish diplomat was responding to reports that Warsaw was the only country among Kiev’s backers that had yet to contribute to the scheme, despite vowing to do so earlier this year. According to the Polish newspaper Wyborcza, as of August this year, over a dozen countries had provided funds to buy more than half a million artillery shells, sourced from manufacturers outside the European Union, with Germany providing the largest share. Sikorski acknowledged that Warsaw has yet to make any payments towards the scheme, citing temporary obstacles.

“We have made a political decision to allocate €50 million this year and another €50 million next year. But there are some technical, administrative and legal issues related to the state agency for strategic reserves,” the foreign minister said. He noted that the foreign Ministry has already done its part, and he now hopes that “colleagues from other ministries will also do everything,” pledging: “It will definitely be done.” The Czech initiative to procure shells for Kiev from around the world was announced back in February, to fill a void after Western manufacturers failed to supply artillery rounds fast enough to meet Kiev’s battlefield demands. Ukraine’s backers have reportedly only able to collectively produce 1.3 million shells in a year, while Russia has been able to make 4.5 million at a quarter of the cost of European and American equivalents.

A total of 18 countries, including Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands and Portugal, signed up to cover the cost of Prague’s plan. In July, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky stated that 15 countries had made contributions, and that there were enough funds to deliver 500,000 shells to Ukraine by the end of the year. Czech officials have also suggested extending the scheme into 2025. Moscow has repeatedly criticized the West’s continued military support for Kiev, and argued that weapon and ammunition shipments to the country only serve to prolong the fighting and cause more bloodshed, without affecting the eventual outcome.

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“I had a phone call with Donald Trump, and he said that he’s very supportive and we had a good conversation..”

• Trump’s Promises To End Ukraine Conflict ‘Not Real’ – Zelensky (RT)

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has dismissed US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s promise to immediately end the conflict with Russia, calling it typical election rhetoric that is unlikely to materialize. Trump has repeatedly claimed that if he returns to the White House, he would secure a peace deal between Moscow and Kiev “within 24 hours.” “Just get it done. All right. Negotiate a deal,” he said during last week’s presidential debate with his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris. Harris retorted that Trump was planning to “just give up” on Ukraine, and went on to list her own efforts to secure military support for Kiev. “My position is that election period and election messages are election messages. Sometimes they are not very real,” he said, adding that while Trump’s remarks “can make us, all our people nervous,” a conversation with the former president two months ago left a very different impression.

“I had a phone call with Donald Trump, and he said that he’s very supportive and we had a good conversation,” he told the host. In April 2022, Kiev and Moscow were close to finalizing a peace agreement in Istanbul, but the talks were broken off due to an intervention by Ukraine’s Western backers. Since then, Kiev has repeatedly stated that any talks should be based on Zelensky’s ten-point peace plan, which states that Russia must relinquish territories held by Ukraine prior to 2014. Moscow has rejected the idea as detached from reality. Last week, Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance suggested that Trump’s potential peace proposal would probably involve creating a demilitarized zone around the current line of contact and guaranteeing Ukraine’s neutrality, ideas that align with Russia’s main objectives.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, however, cast doubt on achieving a quick resolution to the conflict, saying that “anyone, who steps forward and says they could solve the Ukraine war in one day from the outside” needs to be questioned as to “whose side are they going to be solving it on.” Moscow has ruled out negotiations while Ukrainian forces remain in Russia’s Kursk Region, citing war crimes committed during the incursion in early August. Previously, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would order an immediate ceasefire if Ukraine were to abandon its NATO ambitions and territorial claims.

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“A court in Ukraine is to consider a lawsuit by opposition lawmaker Aleksandr Dubinski on Monday [..] Dubinski has been in custody since last November, facing a litany of charges, including high treason..”

• Ukrainian Court To Consider Zelensky’s Legitimacy – MP (RT)

A court in Ukraine is to consider a lawsuit by opposition lawmaker Aleksandr Dubinski on Monday, arguing that Vladimir Zelensky has been illegally holding power since his term expired on May 20. Dubinski has been in custody since last November, facing a litany of charges, including high treason. A presidential election was due to be held in Ukraine on March 31, but Zelensky indefinitely postponed the vote, citing martial law imposed due to the conflict with Russia. Dubinski originally filed his lawsuit in late June, arguing that Zelensky’s actions violated the Ukrainian constitution, and urged parliament to call a presidential election. At a hearing a month later, the court postponed the case until September 16, according to the MP. In a post on his Telegram channel in July, the lawmaker wrote: “I have to state – there is only one citizen and member of parliament in Ukraine that has taken steps to preserve the constitutional order… it is non-attached MP Dubinski.”

Earlier that month, the prosecutor general’s office launched a fourth criminal probe into the politician over his failure to file tax returns while in custody. Last November, the Security Service of Ukraine charged Dubinski with high treason over his alleged “information-subversive activities in the interest of Russia.” The lawmaker has dismissed the accusations, along with two other charges against him, as politically motivated. Earlier this month, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that “de jure President Zelensky now is not the legitimate president” of Ukraine. His comment echoed those made earlier by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in early June, the Russian head of state suggested that presidential powers should have been transferred to the Ukrainian parliament following the expiry of Zelensky’s five-year term in office. By remaining at the helm, the Ukrainian leader appears to be in breach of “Article 109 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code, which says that this should be treated as seizure of power,” the Russian president argued at the time. Putin went on to claim that Ukraine’s Western backers were keeping Zelensky in power with a view to blaming him for upcoming “unpopular decisions,” such as lowering the “mobilization age to 18.” “I think the US administration will force the leadership of Ukraine to make these decisions… and then will get rid of Zelensky,” the Russian president predicted.

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“..terrorising West Bankers to quit their land; the destruction of social infrastructure in the West Bank (as with Gaza); and through a harsh financial squeeze on Palestinian society..”

• Closing Hatches Before Rains Founder The Western Vessel (Alastair Crooke)

Israel is entering the next phase of its war on Palestine by completing its takeover of the Gaza Strip – from the northern border to the Netzarim corridor. It is likely that they intend for this area to then gradually be made available for Jewish settlement and annexation to Israel. In a piece titled, “Annexation, Expulsion and Israeli Settlements: Netanyahu Gears Up for Next Phase of Gaza War”, the Editor of Haaretz, Aluf Benn, writes, were the takeover to proceed, “Palestinian residents who remain in northern Gaza will be expelled, as suggested by Maj. Gen. (res.) Giora Eiland, under threat of starvation and under cover of “protecting their lives””. Netanyahu and his supporters will see this move, Benn suggests, as a lifetime achievement: Expanding Israel’s territory for the first time, after 50 years of Israeli withdrawals. This will be the Israeli Right’s ‘Zionist response’ to 7 October.

This extraordinary shift was actuated – not just through military operations – but by the stroke of a pen: the appointment of Col. Elad Goren as head of the humanitarian-civil effort in Gaza, which effectively, makes him ‘Governor of Gaza’ for years to come. Less noted in the western Mainstream media is the harsh reality that, in the course of the twenty months in which the current Israeli government has been in power, Ben Gvir has armed a 10,000 strong settler vigilante movement that has been terrorising Palestinians in the West Bank. The police in the occupied territories already answer to Ben Gvir’s authority. What is missing from this appreciation is that whilst Ben Gvir has been assembling the ‘State Of Judea’s novel army’, Finance Minister Smotrich, who heads the Administration of the Territories, has revolutionized the situation for Jewish settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank.

Authority in the West Bank has been turned-over to a closed, Right-wing messianic movement that answers only to a single man: Smotrich (the Governor of the West Bank in all but name). In what Nahum Barnea describes as a stealth pincer-movement deployed by Smotrich, one arm of power has lain with his authority as finance minister; the second arm consists in the power delegated to him in his capacity as second minister in the Defence Ministry. Smotrich’s, and the Israeli government’s objective – laid out in Smotrich’s ‘Decisive Plan’ in 2017 – has not changed: to induce the collapse of the Palestinian Authority; to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state; and to give the seven million Palestinians who live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea a choice: to die fighting; to immigrate to another country, or to live forever as vassals in a greater Israeli state.

Have no doubt, ‘the Decisive Plan’ for Palestinians is well underway – terrorising West Bankers to quit their land; the destruction of social infrastructure in the West Bank (as with Gaza); and through a harsh financial squeeze on Palestinian society – as in Gaza.

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“It’s abjectly terrifying that the personal benefit of any member of Congress is factored into decisions about how to wield and fund the largest military in the world.”

• 50+ US Lawmakers Hold Military Stocks (CD)

At least 50 U.S. lawmakers or members of their households are financially invested in companies that make military weapons and equipment—even as these firms “receive hundreds of billions of dollars annually from congressionally-crafted Pentagon appropriations legislation,” a report published Thursday revealed. Sludge’s David Moore analyzed 2023 financial disclosures and stock trades disclosed in other reports and found that “the total value of the federal lawmakers’ defense contractors stock holdings could be as much as $10.9 million.” According to the report: “The spouse of Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the ranking member of the Defense Appropriations subcommittee, holds between $15,000 and $50,000 worth of shares in each of Boeing and RTX, as well as holdings in two other defense manufacturers. Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas), another Defense Appropriations subcommittee member, holds up to $50,000 in the stock of Boeing, which received nearly $33 billion in defense contracts last year.

On the Democratic side of the aisle, Sen. John Hickenlooper (Colo.) holds up to a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of stock in RTX…” The most widely held defense contractor stock among senators and representatives is Honeywell, an American company that makes sensors and guiding devices that are being used by the Israeli military in its airstrikes in Gaza. The second most commonly held defense stock by Congress is RTX, formerly known as Raytheon, the company that makes missiles for Israel’s Iron Dome, among other weapons systems. All 13 senators whose households disclosed military stock holdings voted for the most recent National Defense Authorization Act, which, as Common Dreams reported, allocated a record $886.3 billion for the U.S. military while many lawmakers’ constituents struggled to meet their basic needs.

“It is an obvious conflict of interest when a member of Congress owns significant stock investments in a company and then votes to award the same company lucrative federal contracts,” Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, told Sludge. “Whether or not the official action is taken for actual self-enrichment purposes is beside the point. There is at least an appearance of self-enrichment and that appearance is just as damaging to the integrity of Congress,” Holman added. “This type of conflict of interest is already banned for executive branch officials and so should be for Congress as well. The ETHICS Act would justly avoid that conflict of interest by prohibiting members of Congress and their spouses from owning stock investments altogether.”

Holman was referring to the Ending Trading and Holdings In Congressional Stocks (ETHICS) Act, introduced earlier this year by Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.). In the House of Representatives—where the 2024 NDAA passed 310-118, with the approval of over two dozen members who own shares in military companies—House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul’s (R-Texas) household owns up to $2.6 million in General Electric, Oshkosh Corporation, and Woodward shares. Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Ohio), who sits on the Defense Appropriations subcommittee, owns as much as $100,000 worth of Boeing and General Electric stock.

Other House lawmakers with potential conflicts of interest include Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, who owns Leidos shares worth as much as $248,000; Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), who owns up to $100,000 worth of RTX stock; and Rep. Patrick Fallon (R-Texas), a member of the Armed Services Committee who holds Boeing stock worth between $100,000 and $250,000. “Every American should take a long, hard look at these holdings to conceptualize the scope of Congress’ entanglement with defense contractors,” Public Citizen People Over Pentagon advocate Savannah Wooten told Sludge. “It’s abjectly terrifying that the personal benefit of any member of Congress is factored into decisions about how to wield and fund the largest military in the world.” “Requiring elected officials to divest from the military-industrial complex before stepping into public service would create a safer and more secure world from the outset,” she added.

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“..we must stop burning fossil fuel to avoid dangerous climate change. “That is completely wrong.”

“..the warming of the last 24 years was entirely caused by the observed decrease of Earth’s albedo and not by increasing greenhouse gas concentrations..”

• Sunlight and Clouds, Not CO2, Drive Earth’s Climate (ET)

Ned Nikolov, a physical scientist and researcher affiliated with Colorado State University, told The Epoch Times the IPCC is incorrect regarding CO2. “The greenhouse theory claims that atmospheric composition is important,” Nikolov said. “They are arguing that tiny increases of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere cause global warming and that we must stop burning fossil fuel to avoid dangerous climate change. “That is completely wrong.” On Aug. 20, Nikolov and Karl Zeller, a retired U.S. Forest Service meteorologist, published their study that found that recent warming is not the result of increasing CO2. Instead, after analyzing satellite data, the two researchers concluded that the Earth has warmed because it’s been absorbing more sunlight due to reduced global cloud cover. According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Earth’s atmosphere is constantly working to balance the planet’s “energy budget”—the amount of energy entering and leaving it.

After the Sun’s shortwave radiation—sunshine—reaches the Earth, the energy flows back into space as thermal radiation. If this balance is disrupted, and more sunlight is absorbed or not enough heat escapes to space, Earth’s temperature will rise. An imbalance in the energy budget is known as radiative forcing, with the incoming radiation being shortwave and the outgoing radiation being longwave (or thermal). Additionally, Earth’s albedo, the fraction of sunlight reflected back into space, impacts the amount of radiation that reaches the surface. In its Sixth Assessment Report, the IPCC states that, due to increased atmospheric CO2 concentration from human greenhouse gas emissions, Earth’s energy budget is out of balance—more thermal energy is being trapped, resulting in elevated temperatures and warmer oceans.

It also notes regarding the Earth’s albedo that, between 1950 and 1980, there was “evidence for a widespread decline of surface solar radiation (or dimming),” followed by “a partial recovery (brightening) at many observational sites thereafter.” As to the cause, the IPCC states, “Multi-decadal variation in anthropogenic [human-caused] aerosol emissions are thought to be a major contributor (medium confidence), but multi-decadal variability in cloudiness may also have played a role.” In addition, the IPCC said some studies show that “cloudiness” can play a role in “dimming” and “brightening.” But the contribution of aerosols and clouds to dimming and brightening is still debated, and “the origin of these trends is not fully understood.”That, according to Nikolov, is where his study comes in.

“Climate is controlled by the amount of sunlight absorbed by Earth and the amount of infrared energy emitted to space. These quantities—together with their differences—define Earth’s radiation budget,” NASA’s Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) website states. Since March of 2000, the NASA team has been collecting satellite data to examine the energy exchange between the Earth and space.Using those measurements and a “novel climate-sensitivity model derived from independent NASA planetary data,” Nikolov and Zeller evaluated how Earth’s decreasing albedo impacted global temperature during the 21st century. “CO2 is an invisible trace gas that does not interfere with sunlight. It’s believed to trap thermal radiation coming from the surface, but that’s a misconception because the absorption of longwave radiation by CO2 and heat-trapping are completely different physical processes.

According to the 2nd law of thermodynamics, heat-trapping is impossible in an open system such as the atmosphere,” Nikolov said. He added that while water vapor is also a greenhouse gas, it becomes visible when it condenses and forms clouds. And because clouds “reflect solar radiation back to space,” their impact on the climate is “measurable and significant.” “Cloud formation is partially controlled by cosmic forces. When clouds decrease, the planetary albedo drops and more radiation reaches the surface, causing warmer temperatures.” “In our paper, we show, using the best available observations from the [Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System] platform, that the warming of the last 24 years was entirely caused by the observed decrease of Earth’s albedo and not by increasing greenhouse gas concentrations as claimed by the IPCC.”

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