Nov 292024
 


Mattia Preti The Adoration of the Shepherds 1660-99

 

Trump Is ‘Not Safe’ – Putin (RT)
Putin: Oreshnik Saved For A Rainy Day (Helmer)
Trump May Be Oreshniked On Ukraine Even Before He Gets To China (Pepe Escobar)
Oreshnik Missiles Could Be Used To Strike Kiev – Putin (RT)
Russian General Staff Prepares Retaliation Friday-Saturday (Helmer)
Did Trump Just Solve The US-Mexico Border Crisis? (ZH)
Marc Andreessen Describes “Alarming” Meeting With Biden Admin (ZH)
Musk Floats Slashing IRS Budget, Regulatory Agency In X Posts (JTN)
Trump-Zuckerberg’s Mar-a-Lago Chatter Suggests Imminent Changes in Meta (Sp.)
White House Pressing Ukraine To Draft 18-Year-Olds for War (Antiwar)
Lawfare Warriors Express Regret But Not Remorse After Election (Turley)
Either The Most Corrupt Judge In England, Or The Stupidest (Helmer)
Sky News Is The Limit For Fake News In The UK From Israeli Lobby Cash (Jay)
“Good Faith” Discussions Underway To Un-Cancel NFL Redskins Logo (ZH)

 

 

 

 

Andreesen

 

 

 

 

“Putin said he was even more astonished that Trump’s political opponents had targeted the Republican’s family and children..”

• Trump Is ‘Not Safe’ – Putin (RT)

US President-elect Donald Trump is “not safe,” Russian President Vladimir Putin believes. The Russian president made the remarks on Thursday at a press conference in Astana, Kazakhstan, following a two-day Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) summit. Putin said he was astonished by the way the US election campaign had unfolded, citing the “absolutely uncivilized methods used to battle against Trump, including repeated assassination attempts.” “In my opinion, he is not safe now,” Putin emphasized, noting that “various incidents have happened in US history.” Russia’s president praised Trump as an experienced and intelligent politician, saying he hopes the president-elect is “cautious and understands this.”

Trump survived an assassination attempt on July 13 during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when a bullet fired from around 150 meters away grazed his ear. The Secret Service responded by taking down the shooter, who was later identified as 20-year-old Thomas Crooks, a resident of a suburb of nearby Pittsburgh. Another would-be assassin, Ryan Routh, was arrested in September after he set up an ambush at a Florida golf course belonging to Trump.

On Wednesday, ABC News reported, citing court documents, that US federal authorities have arrested an Arizona man who allegedly threatened to kill Trump and his family via a series of Facebook videos, which he had been posting on a “near daily basis.” Putin said he was even more astonished that Trump’s political opponents had targeted the Republican’s family and children. He called such behavior “revolting” and indicative of the US political system’s decline, noting that even criminal groups would not resort to such methods. Putin said he couldn’t rule out that the Biden administration has been trying to create difficulties for Trump’s relations with Russia. Nevertheless, Moscow is “ready for dialogue with the United States, including with the future administration,” Putin stressed.

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“You know, in Soviet times there was that joke about weather forecasts. ‘The forecast is: Everything is possible today during the day.’”

• Putin: Oreshnik Saved For A Rainy Day (Helmer)

In remarks to Russian journalists on Thursday evening, President Vladimir Putin confirmed that missile and drone strikes against the Ukraine’s military infrastructure and the electricity grid carried out on Thursday, and also earlier in the week, are the retaliation the Defense Ministry foreshadowed for the November 23-25 ATACMS strikes on Kursk. Detailed target and damage reports by Russian military bloggers published between noon and 13:00 Moscow time, indicate that strikes by Kalibr and Kh-101 missiles, drones, and other weapons hit targets across the country’s electricity system, including the western regions of Rivne, Khmelnitsky, Volyn, and Vynnitsa. Power blackouts in the Ukraine were reported to be widespread from the line of combat in the east to the Polish border in the west, with up to eleven hours of power outage in Kiev where the temperature has dropped below freezing.

President Putin followed in remarks to Russian reporters at the conclusion of his two-day meetings in Astana, Kazakhstan, in a session posted by the Kremlin at 17:15. Asked several questions about the use of the Oreshnik missile in Russian retaliation for the ATACMS strikes on Kursk on November 23 and 25, Putin quipped that it is being saved for a rainy day. “It would be futile to target a minor objective with a hypersonic missile; that’s like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. However, we will utilise our entire arsenal against significant targets. As I have previously mentioned, we do not rule out the combat employment of Oreshnik on military-industrial facilities or command centres, including those in Kiev.”

The earlier ATACMS attacks, Putin said, “received a response today. Our Armed Forces have been executing retaliatory strikes over the past couple of days. Today, there was a comprehensive operation: 90 missiles were deployed alongside 100 unmanned strike vehicles. Seventeen targets within Ukraine were struck, encompassing military, military-industrial, and auxiliary facilities which support the armed forces and industrial defence enterprises. I wish to reiterate once more: we will certainly respond to such acts of aggression against the Russian Federation. The timing, methods, and weapons employed will be determined by the General Staff of the Ministry of Defense, as each target necessitates a specific approach and appropriate weaponry.”

Asked again about Oreshnik, “do you think these strikes on the [Kiev decision-making] centres are also possible with Oreshnik because nothing else seems to be able to get it?” Putin replied: “You know, in Soviet times there was that joke about weather forecasts. ‘The forecast is: Everything is possible today during the day.’ ” The president was followed on Thursday evening, Moscow time, by a detailed Defense Ministry bulletin announcing “in response to the strikes of the Kiev regime in the depths of the territory of Russia, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation during this week carried out strikes on the locations of the systems of long-range western weapons of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.” Details of the targets followed, including US and French military personnel reported killed while directing Ukrainian missile operations in bunkers at Kharkov and Odessa.

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“..launched from Chukotka, it may reach Minuteman III silos in Montana in 23 minutes.”

• Trump May Be Oreshniked On Ukraine Even Before He Gets To China (Pepe Escobar)

When it comes to state of the art Russian weaponry, what the inestimable Ray McGovern defines as the MICIMATT – the whole Hegemonic complex – seems to dwell in perpetual stupor. They had no clue about Kalibr, Sarmat, Khinzal, Zircon or Avangard before they were introduced. They had no clue about Oreshnik (‘Hazel”) before the 30-minute protocolar warning by the Russians, stating a missile test was coming, and it was not nuclear. The Americans assumed that would be just another ballistic missile test, as they happen routinely close to the Arctic. Even President Putin didn’t know Oreshnik was ready for its close-up until the last minute. And Kremlin spokesman Peskov confirmed that only an ultra-rarefied circle knew Oreshnik even existed. In a nutshell: the MICIMATT only sees what Russia shows off – and when it happens.

Call it a leak-proof vow of secrecy permeating the Russian military complex – which, by the way, is a massive state, nationalized company, with a few private components. And that offers the Russian government, in practice, better engineering, better physics, better mathematics and better practical, final results than anything across the self-important collective West. Oreshnik – a kinetic weapons system – is a certified game-changer when it comes to military technology and warfare in more ways than one: actually several. Simple physics tells us that by combining enough kinetic force and mass, utter devastation is guaranteed, comparable to a low-to-medium yield nuclear weapon. With the added benefit of no radiation. Oreshnik is an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), under development by Russia (along with other systems) even before Trump 1.0 pulled the U.S. out of the INF treaty in 2019.

A few concise analyses have pointed out how Oreshnik can be fitted into intercontinental non-nuclear missiles. The Russians are being very diplomatic, not stressing that if Oreshnik is launched from the Russian Far East, it can easily reach most latitudes across the USA. Moreover, applying Oreshnik tech to tactical missiles – Putin late last week said this is already happening – also changes the whole tactical domain. The new game in town is Russia being capable of unleashing ultra-high-velocity kinetic weapons literally anywhere around the world – after warning civilians to abandon the area around the targets. And there’s absolutely no defense against it, anywhere. It’s quite predictable that the woke, arrogant/ignorant MICIMATT, as well as NATO and the whole, brainwashed collective West simply have no idea what just hit them, seemingly out of the blue. To be concise: a system with the destructive power of a tactical nuclear weapon but carrying the precision of a top sniper’s bullet.

Ergo, sitting duck billion-dollar aircraft carriers; the whole, 800-plus Empire of Bases; assorted underground bunkers; ICBM launch platforms; naval shipyards; not to mention NATO’s HQ in Brussels, the Aegis Ashore base in Redzikowo (Poland), the NATO joint force center in the Netherlands, southern NATO command in Naples – all these immensely expensive assets are fair game for non-nuclear Oreshniks capable of reducing them to dust in a flash after flying for mere minutes at over Mach 10. By now multitudes around the world are aware that Oreshnik may reach Berlin in 11 minutes and London in 19 minutes. Also that launched from southern Russia, Oreshnik may reach the U.S. air base in Qatar in 13 minutes; launched from Kamchatka in the Far East, it may reach Guam in 22 minutes; and launched from Chukotka, it may reach Minuteman III silos in Montana in 23 minutes. To quote the epic 1960s Motown hit: “Nowhere to run, baby, nowhere to hide.”

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“Russia has several of the weapons systems at its disposal and is building more of them, the president has warned..”

• Oreshnik Missiles Could Be Used To Strike Kiev – Putin (RT)

The Russian military is selecting targets in Ukraine for further possible strikes using the country’s new Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missiles, President Vladimir Putin warned on Thursday. Potential targets for the missiles could be “decision making centers” in Kiev, the Russian leader warned, during a meeting with Moscow’s key regional allies in Astana, Kazakhstan. Military facilities could also be targeted, along with defense and industrial enterprises – “especially since the Kiev regime has repeatedly attempted to strike at facilities of national importance in Russia,” Putin explained. Moscow already has several Oreshnik missiles at its disposal and has begun the large-scale production of the advanced weapon system, he added.

Addressing his counterparts from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Putin reiterated that the first Oreshnik launch last week had been Moscow’s response to Western countries granting permission for Kiev to fire long-range weapons deep inside Russia. This made NATO member states directly involved in the conflict, he added. Last night, Russia launched around 90 missile and 100 drone attacks against military targets in Ukraine, he said. It came in response to Kiev’s continued attacks using Western weapons. More Oreshnik strikes may follow, he warned. “Oreshnik has no counterparts in the world, of course, and I believe none will appear anytime soon,” he said. “[The system has] dozens of homing warheads that attack their targets at Mach-10 speed… Their temperature reaches 4,000 degrees,” the president added. “Anything located in the strike center is obliterated into elemental particles, reduced to dust.”

Oreshik can destroy highly fortified targets buried deep underground, Putin said. A massive strike with such missiles would be comparable to a nuclear strike in its force, he added. We have several units ready for use now. Certainly, should the strikes with Western long-range weapons on our territory continue, we will respond, including by launching more combat tests of Oreshnik systems. Speaking at the CSTO meeting, Putin compared Russian systems with similar specifications to US ATACMS missiles and French/British SCALP/Storm Shadow missiles, which Kiev has used against Russia. Moscow’s weapons are superior in some aspects, and the country produces significantly more of them that the entire NATO bloc can, he claimed.

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“..if a civilian evacuation warning is also issued, as Putin has foreshadowed, then one hour on Friday or Saturday will be what Putin has called the “danger zone”.

• Russian General Staff Prepares Retaliation Friday-Saturday (Helmer)

On Tuesday afternoon, November 26, the Russian Defense Ministry issued an unusual bulletin revealing that since the Oreshnik strike on November 21, the US had launched two ATACMS attacks across the Ukrainian border on Russian military targets in the Kursk region. The first of these on an S-400 air defence unit on November 23 had not been disclosed before. Both the November 23 and November 25 ATACMS strikes, totalling 13 missiles in all, had been partially intercepted. Russian casualties were suffered, including several fatalities. The Defense Ministry also telegraphed its punch. “Retaliatory actions are being prepared,” the bulletin concluded. Earlier that same morning, November 26, the airspace around the Oreshnik launch site at Kapustin Yar — east of Volgograd in the north of Astrakhan region — was identified for closure to civilian flights by an international notice to airmen (NOTAM).

The notice said the no-flight zone would start at 04:00 on Thursday, November 27, and continue until 20:00 on Saturday, November 30. Kapustin Yar was the launch pad for the first Oreshnik strike on the Yuzhmash plant at Dniepropetrovsk on November 21. The flight distance for that Russian missile from launch to target was 800 kilometers. If a second Oreshnik strike is being prepared at Kapustin Yar, the range to US and Ukrainian military bunkers at Kiev is within 1,100 kms; to the comparable military targets in Lvov, 1,600 kms; to the US-Ukrainian base at Rzeszów, on the Polish side of the border, 1,750 kms. The Oreshnik can strike targets at up to 5,000 kms, making it an “intermediate range”, not an “intercontinental range” missile.

On the afternoon of Wednesday, November 27, President Vladimir Putin arrived in Astana, Kazakhastan, for two days of talks. He is due to return from Kazakhstan on the evening of Thursday, November 28. Once the president is in Moscow, he will be in position to order, direct, and follow a retaliation strike by the General Staff against US and Ukrainian targets. If the strike flies at Oreshnik speed of Mach 10 to Mach 12, the operation will run from 5 to 9 minutes. If a 30-minute advance warning is sent to the US, and if a civilian evacuation warning is also issued, as Putin has foreshadowed, then one hour on Friday or Saturday will be what Putin has called the “danger zone”.

“In case of an escalation of aggressive actions,” Putin has said, “we will respond decisively and in mirror-like manner…It goes without saying that when choosing, if necessary and as a retaliatory measure, targets to be hit by systems such as Oreshnik on Ukrainian territory, we will in advance suggest that civilians and citizens of friendly countries residing in those areas leave danger zones. We will do so for humanitarian reasons, openly and publicly, without fear of counter-moves coming from the enemy, who will also be receiving this information.” The Defense Ministry has now confirmed the escalation by the US on November 23 and 25. Putin will decide his retaliation before Saturday evening.

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She denies.

• Did Trump Just Solve The US-Mexico Border Crisis? (ZH)

Did Trump solve the border crisis two months before even being sworn in as the 47th president? Two days after surprising markets – and sending the peso plummeting – by announcing he would enact 25% import duties on Mexican goods if the country doesn’t stop the flow of drugs and migrants across the border.[..]? tariffs on Mexican goods in response to the flood of drugs across the porous southern border, best known for allowing millions of illegal immigrants to enter the US in the past four ears, Trump’s unexpected gambit may have already paid off. In a post on Truth Social network, Trump announced that after a “wonderful” conversation with Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum, she “agreed to stop Migration through Mexico, and into the United States, effectively closing our Southern Border.”

He added that the two also talked about “what can be done to stop the massive drug inflow into the United States” concluding that it was a “very productive” conversation which of course, it would be, if indeed Trump – who again is still two months away from inauguration – managed to solve the US border crisis just 48 hours after using targeted tariffs as a bargaining chip. While it remains to be confirmed on the Mexican side if Trump’s recollection of the conversation is accurate, Trump’s announcement comes just hours after the legacy media reported that Mexico would take on a more aggressive posture, with the AP reporting that Sheinbaum had suggested that “Mexico could retaliate with tariffs of its own” and that while she was willing to engage in talks on the issues, drugs were a U.S. problem. “One tariff would be followed by another in response, and so on until we put at risk common businesses,” Sheinbaum said, referring to U.S. automakers that have plants on both sides of the border.

She said Tuesday that Mexico had done a lot to stem the flow of migrants, noting “caravans of migrants no longer reach the border.” However, Mexico’s efforts to fight drugs like the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl – which is manufactured by Mexican cartels using chemicals imported from China – have weakened in the last year. Amusingly, Sheinbaum also said Mexico suffered from an influx of weapons smuggled in from the United States, and said the flow of drugs “is a problem of public health and consumption in your country’s society” which judging by the libs ongoing reaction to Trump’s victory is pretty much spot on.As noted, there is still no official confirmation or full context of the agreement from President Sheinbaum’s side, but the market certainly reacted with the peso surging, and almost wiping out all losses from the past 48 hours after Trump’s first unveiled his 25% tariff threat.

If confirmed, this would be the second time Trump has managed to convince Mexico to suspend migrants from crossing its territory to enter the US. Back in 2018, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador – a charismatic, old-school politician – developed a chummy relationship with Trump. The two were eventually able to strike a bargain in which Mexico helped keep migrants away from the border – and received other countries’ deported migrants – and Trump backed down on similar threats. While Sheinbaum, who took office Oct. 1, has been seen as a stern leftist ideologue trained in radical student protest movements, and appeared less willing to pacify or mollify Trump, it seems she too has capitulated just 48 hours after Trump unveiled what was coming.

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Insanity on steroids.

• Marc Andreessen Describes “Alarming” Meeting With Biden Admin (ZH)

Marc Andreessen, the billionaire investor and co-founder of the influential Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, revealed in a new episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast that after an “alarming” meeting with Biden administration officials earlier this year was the moment he would have no other choice but to support Donald Trump. For decades, Andreessen has supported Democrats, including Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton. However, a troubling spring meeting with Biden administration officials caused major concerns. During the meeting, officials explained their plan to control AI through government regulatory capture—a strategy reminiscent of Communist policies in China.

“We had meetings [Biden officials] this spring that were the most alarming meetings I’ve ever been in. Where they were taking us through their plans, and it was – basically just full government – full government control – like this sort of thing, there will be a small number of large companies that will be completely regulated and controlled by the government, they told us. They said don’t even start startups – there’s just no way that they can succeed – there’s no way that we’re going to permit that to happen.”

In mid-July, Axios reported that Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz had donated to President-elect Trump’s campaign. At the time, their support was attributed to Trump’s pro stance on crypto and AI regulation. It’s another telling example of just how far-left Democrats in the White House spooked Silicon Valley heavy hitters, such as Elon Musk. Back to the podcast, Rogan asked Andreessen: “When you leave a meeting like that, what do you do?” Andreessen responded: “You endorse Donald Trump.”

Andreessen told Rogan about the federal government’s rogue “Operation Choke Point.” He described it as a move by the Department of Justice that initially targeted marijuana businesses and gun manufacturers. He said under Biden, it was then weaponized to destroy political opponents, tech founders, and the crypto community.

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“There are too many duplicative regulatory agencies..”

• Musk Floats Slashing IRS Budget, Regulatory Agency In X Posts (JTN)

Billionaire Elon Musk, who will play a role in the new Trump Administration as a co-head of the newly planned, informal Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) commission, has often floated proposals on his social media platform, X. On Wednesday, the entrepreneur asked his millions of followers if Congress should grant a recent $20 billion dollar funding request from the Internal Revenue Service by Biden Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo, who said the extra funds were vital for running the tax collection agency. “The IRS just said it wants $20B more money,” Musk wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Do you think its budget should be: Increased, Same, Decreased, Deleted,” he asked, in an attached poll. More than 60% of the users who voted in his poll called for the IRS’s budget to be “deleted.”

This is just the latest instance of Musk asking for public feedback on his policy proposals on X, which he acquired in 2022. Adeyemo’s plea for extra funding comes after Republican lawmakers were able to include a $20 billion cut to the agency’s budget in a federal funding stopgap bill in September, which is keeping the government funded until Dec. 20. Musk also called for slashing government regulations by eliminating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is responsible for protecting consumers in the financial sector. “Delete CFPB. There are too many duplicative regulatory agencies,” Musk posted to X. The agency was created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank law passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to regulate the sector.

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“..to “remove Meta’s ability to remove or censor political content.”

• Trump-Zuckerberg’s Mar-a-Lago Chatter Suggests Imminent Changes in Meta (Sp.)

President-elect Donald Trump met with Meta* CEO Mark Zuckerberg face-to-face in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, on November 27, the New York Times reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter. “Zuckerberg is attempting to curry favor with the incoming Trump administration in order to avoid criminal prosecution,” Ryan Hartwig, a Facebook* whistleblower and co-author of “Behind the Mask of Facebook: A Whistleblower’s Shocking Story of Big Tech Bias and Censorship”, tells Sputnik. Trump has long been critical of Zuckerberg over reportedly restraining him and other conservatives on social media, withholding the Hunter Biden “laptop from hell” story, and orchestrating a “plot” against him in the 2020 election. Nonetheless, the two exchanged pleasantries during the recent encounter, according to the NYT.

“I think there may be some closed-door negotiations, however, given that Meta is a valuable tool for national security and surveillance of foreign countries, we may see a slight decrease in Trump’s rhetoric,” the pundit continues. “Hopefully there are penalties for Meta and Zuckerberg beyond just monetary fines. Influencing other countries’ elections is one thing, but domestic election interference is a very serious matter.” Hartwig expects Trump to proceed with social media regulations under section 230 during his second term in order to “remove Meta’s ability to remove or censor political content.” He also suggests possible changes in Meta’s executive leadership and even relocation of the company’s headquarters to Texas or another state “that isn’t an echo chamber for certain viewpoints.”

“These policy changes would include not removing any political speech and gutting most of its community standards,” the pundit highlights. And “more importantly, taking a stricter stance against minors on the platform and enforcing strict age verification,” Hartwig adds in an apparent reference to X owner Elon Musk lambasting Meta for “a massive child exploitation problem.”

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+ Lindsey Graham.

• White House Pressing Ukraine To Draft 18-Year-Olds for War (Antiwar)

The White House is pressuring Ukraine to increase the size of its military by lowering the minimum age of conscription from 25 to 18, The Associated Press reported on Wednesday. A senior Biden administration official said the outgoing administration wants Ukraine to start drafting 18-year-olds to expand the current pool of fighting-age males. The pressure from the US comes as polling shows the majority of Ukrainians want peace talks with Russia to end the war. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan recently hinted that the US was pressuring Ukraine to expand conscription, saying Ukraine’s biggest problem in the war was the lack of manpower.

“Our view has been that there’s not one weapon system that makes a difference in this battle. It’s about manpower, and Ukraine needs to do more, in our view, to firm up its lines in terms of the number of forces it has on the front lines,” Sullivan said on PBS News Hour last week. Last month, Serhiy Leshchenko, an aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said Ukraine was under pressure from US politicians to lower the conscription age. “American politicians from both parties are putting pressure on President Zelensky to explain why there is no mobilization of those aged 18 to 25 in Ukraine,” he said. Zelensky signed a mobilization bill into law back in April that lowered the conscription age from 27 to 25.

A few weeks before the mobilization bill became law, Zelensky received a visit from US Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who complained that not enough young Ukrainian men were being sent to the frontline. “I would hope that those eligible to serve in the Ukrainian military would join. I can’t believe it’s at 27,” Graham said. “You’re in a fight for your life, so you should be serving — not at 25 or 27. We need more people in the line.” The Biden administration’s push for Ukraine to draft younger men comes as it is doing everything it can to escalate the proxy war before President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated on January 20. President Biden is seeking another $24 billion to spend on the conflict even though it’s clear there’s no path to a Ukrainian military victory.

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“..the use of motivated judges in favorable jurisdictions for political advantage. These same figures claim to be “saving democracy.”

• Lawfare Warriors Express Regret But Not Remorse After Election (Turley)

The reaction to the reelection of Donald Trump in the media has ranged from histrionic to outright hysteria. MSNBC analyst and former Sen. Claire McCaskill wept openly on television as CBS News anchor John Dickerson got choked up on national television in an interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, still struggling to discuss the news days after the election. However, arguably the most perplexing responses came a few days ago when the New York Times ran a column from one of the advocates of the lawfare used against Trump since 2016. Yale Law Professor Samuel Moyn has long been a favorite of the New York Times as part of what I have previously described as a counter-constitutional movement in higher education. As I discuss in my book, The Indispensable Right, Moyn and others have insisted that the constitution itself may be the problem with America. In a previous New York Times op-ed, “The Constitution Is Broken and Should Not Be Reclaimed,” Moyn and Harvard Professor Ryan D. Doerfler called for liberals to “reclaim America from constitutionalism.”

While the New York Times publicly condemned a U.S. senator for writing about the use of the National Guard to stop violent protests (as would be done at both the White House and the Capitol), it has published a long line of figures who have engaged in violent or extremist rhetoric from the left. However, this particular column may be worth the ink and hypocrisy needed to publish it. The New York Times long lionized those who brought raw partisan prosecutions against Trump and his allies, including efforts to cleanse ballots to deny citizens the opportunity to vote for the man who just won the popular vote. In his new column “Liberals Bet They Could Beat Trump With the Law, Moyn regrets the lawfare, not because it distorted the law and weaponized the legal system, but because it did not work. He even quotes Benjamin Wittes, who helped create the Lawfare website, which was used, in Moyn’s words, “to hem in Mr. Trump.” Wittes wrote, “I have no interest in recriminations.” Perhaps, but the public does.

The election—which handed both houses of Congress and the White House to the GOP—was arguably the largest verdict in history. However, it was not necessarily a verdict for Trump as much as it was against the lawfare and advocacy journalism that had been used openly for years. After all, the “Let’s Go Brandon!” movement developed at the start of the Biden Administration and was as much a criticism of the media and political establishment as it was Joe Biden — a type of “Yankee Doodling” of the governing elite. For years, these figures ignored the “recriminations” of some who objected to using the legal system for political purposes, particularly in the New York cases. To his credit, Moyn now admits that “the more uncomfortable truth is that our search for political salvation primarily through the law has backfired.”

However, he remains remarkably uncritical of such tactics in the first place. Instead, he insists that these losses were due to simply “legalistic tactics.” Some of us call that the law. Moyn plays Shakespeare’s Othello in claiming to be “one that lov’d not wisely but too well.” The problem, he explains to the fragile Times readership is that they “rooted their opposition to Mr. Trump in the law since his first month in office.” He even refers to efforts early on to block Trump’s immigration policies. As soon as Trump came into office, he faced an acting Attorney General, Sally Yates, who ordered the department to stand down and not assist the new president in his immigration orders. I wrote at the time that the order was an outrageous and partisan act by Yates, who was planning on leaving in a matter of days.

While I criticized the initial Trump orders as poorly crafted (perhaps due to the lack of legal support) and in need of revision, I noted that he was likely to prevail on his claimed underlying authority. He ultimately prevailed after revising the orders. Yet, the New York Times and other publications again lionized Yates for an act that some of us view as unprofessional and arguably unethical. The problem with the lawfare campaign is that it did not just treat the law as an extension of politics, but treated the public as chumps. A large part of the public saw these cases for what they were: the use of motivated judges in favorable jurisdictions for political advantage. These same figures claim to be “saving democracy.”

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“Russian weapon, Russian crime, Russian culprits, Russian responsibility – those are the Hughes orders.”

• Either The Most Corrupt Judge In England, Or The Stupidest (Helmer)

The story the British government began telling in March 2018 on the road to the war, which the British and their allies are now losing in the Ukraine, is that Russian assassins, on a mission approved by President Vladimir Putin, tried to kill Sergei and Yulia Skripal with a poison weapon they left behind. As story-telling goes, this one has been extraordinarily successful. Much more successful than the Anglo-American war against Russia. Most British people, all United Kingdom media reporters, and about one-quarter of the black cab drivers of London believe the story. This large group of people are being persuaded by a retired Court of Appeal judge named Anthony Hughes (titled Lord Hughes of Ombersley) not to notice that between the allegation of an unwitnessed attempt at murder by poison sprayed on a door handle on March 4, 2018, and the allegation of a death by poison sprayed from a perfume bottle on June 30, 2018, there is a gap of more than four months in time, and of almost fifteen kilometres in space.

The question for the judge is an obvious one: how did the murder weapon get from the one crime scene to the other without the murderer’s movement, presence or action; without leaving a single circumstantial clue; and without causing collateral damage, let alone poisonous contamination of anyone over such a long interval. In testimony to answer this question this week in a London meeting hall made up like a court, Hughes listened to the chief investigator of the crimes at the Metropolitan Police repeatedly admit he didn’t know how to explain the gap. In ten accompanying evidence exhibits, Hughes also accepted that the only way the sole witness called to explain the gap could do so was to coach him through ten separate police interviews, eight of them in just three weeks following the death of Dawn Sturgess, his girlfriend.

The witness Charles Rowley, according to his police record, is a criminal with multiple heroin possession convictions, a suspect in dealing Class A drugs, and a drug addict on methadone prescription. Para 31. Rowley was also on the press record as hustler for a million-pound payout. Rowley, the judge was told by the police, was classified by the MET as a Section 18 witness. That is to say, according to the exhibit of the police “Witness Interview Strategy – Charlie Rowley”, dated July 12, 2018, he was a witness “whose quality of evidence is likely to be diminished by reason of fear or distress”. Hughes made a record of accepting as admissible Rowley’s changing and contradictory explanations of how he came by the poison weapon. The judge also accepted as admissible the MET’s acknowledgement that they don’t know with confidence how the poison weapon had gone from one place to the other.

Their confidence was so low, the chief MET investigator told the judge, “we have not managed to secure sufficient evidence yet to present to the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service], sir, that allows them to charge with any offences linked to Dawn and Charlie’s poisoning,” — Page 6. Hughes’s counsel replied: “Yes, thank you. Moving on just a little bit.” . The policeman, Commander Dominic Murphy, also said: “I don’t think we will ever actually know and the reality is there are of course several hypotheses for where the Novichok could have been and where Charlie could have found it”; “I think it’s worth acknowledging, sir, that there are of course many possibilities still for where the Novichok would have been and how Charlie found it”; “I don’t think we can discount the box being anywhere during those periods, no. We cannot evidence where the box was from 4 March right through to the point at which it was in Muggleton Road [Dawn Sturgess’s home]”; “I should say as the SIO [Senior Investigating Officer] for Operation Caterva I have seen no information or evidence to suggest that this is the case, but yes, of course it absolutely remains a possibility.”

“Thank you,” Hughes said. Hughes tried telling the policeman how to say what he wasn’t sure he saw. “He [Rowley] is coming from the direction of the bins. What is he carrying, do you think? A [Murphy]. I would imagine items he has recovered during the process. LORD HUGHES: Well, don’t imagine, Mr Murphy, come on. What does it look like?” The judge was so angry with the police officer, he stripped him of his commander rank. In the Anglo-American jurisprudence of murder trials, when the judge coaches the witness in front of the jury, the defence lawyer rises and objects. He then asks for the jury to be excused while he demands the judge retract, recuse himself, or dismiss the charges because the prosecution has failed to present a case to answer.

Hughes, however, is following the orders of the British Government, not English law. The orders are to fabricate the appearance of the case which the prosecution cannot make, in order to “identify, so far as consistent with section 2 of the Inquiries Act 2005, where responsibility for the death lies.” Russian weapon, Russian crime, Russian culprits, Russian responsibility – those are the Hughes orders.

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Britain is in deep.

• Sky News Is The Limit For Fake News In The UK From Israeli Lobby Cash (Jay)

The European Union and a number of its member states’ governments are continuing in their quest to control media even more. The most recent move from the UK – to give an on screen seal of approval from the state in the form of a ‘Kitemark’ – was actually rejected by the House of Lords recently. This institution, made up of octogenarian buffoons – who mostly employ assistants to deal with their email boxes, such is the condition of their digital awareness – produced a report recently which they themselves ultimately rejected. The idea floated was that there would be some sort of regulator who would approve broadcast content with an on screen icon allowing viewers to see that the state had given it the thumbs up for being objective, unbiased and accurate.

At this point you might have fallen off your seat laughing at this notion, given that practically all of the UK’s entire fourth estate – large players as well as individual journos – are the most bigoted, biased and, at best, ill-informed group of media folk you are ever likely to meet in your lifetime, given what he have seen in Ukraine and Gaza. But the joke gets funnier. While we see over the last two years how out of touch the state is with how it is perceived, let alone its decisions to support the IDF in Gaza murder children and women or how it blindly supports Ukraine in its war against Russia, this idea that the humble citizens of the UK would place their trust in the government to direct them on the validity of media’s offerings is beyond parody.

How did the House of Lords even get to have a hand in all of this is remarkable in itself, but the idea of the Kitemark gives you an idea of the direction of where a further media crackdown is heading. Perhaps the old buffers, before their afternoon nap, were onto something when they rejected it, thinking that maybe it would open up a Pandora’s box and backfire on those who created it. Take the EU for example. What no British MEP, let alone Nigel Farage, who became an multimillionaire on the back of the Brussels beast he pretends to loath, is that this organization itself already spends hundreds of millions of its own taxpayers’ money on funding the biggest fake news operation for television ever known. Virtually all TV reporting which comes from Brussels is down with the production costs paid for by the EU, via is impressive state of the art studios and production teams all on hand to support the hapless Brussels correspondent.

If this grotesque subsidy were to be taken away, there would be almost no reporting on the EU at all, which would of course be a fine thing as what the so-called journalists are doing to show their gratitude to the brown envelope of course is very complimentary to the project. But back to the Kitemark. If we had such on screen logos to ‘direct’ viewers, how long would it be before the new eurosceptics in the bloc – Hungary, under the leadership of Viktor Orban – would insists that a new on screen logo should be seen by every report which comes from Brussels whose team have benefited from their entire report being paid for by the EU? If even the most supportive of EU voters were to see such a symbol they might ask themselves a perfectly reasonable question: how objective can these reports actually be? The House of Lords rejecting the on-screen Kitemark idea are thinking ahead of the game.

They are assuming that most people will switch off altogether watching those reports and move entirely to social media for their information. In reality, this has already happened on a large scale as any journalist will tell you if you want to know what’s really going on in Gaza or in Kursk, it’s going to be social media where you will go. The problem is the UK media model, once a respected beacon of its time which stood as an example to the rest of the world, is now entirely corrupted. It is rotten to the core and only serves one real purpose which is to keep the narrative from firstly, the U.S. and secondly the British government alive. Perhaps even funnier is the role of Sky News which has shown particularly on Gaza that it is the champion of fake news with its interpretation of the events entirely projected through the prism of the Zionists behind the genocide and their own depraved false narratives cooked up for western media, rather than for anything which comes close to raw, objective reporting of the events.

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Wokeists know better than those they “protect”.

• “Good Faith” Discussions Underway To Un-Cancel NFL Redskins Logo (ZH)

In a recent X post by Republican Montana Sen. Steve Daines, the senator wrote, “The censorship of the former Commander logo was a classic case of woke gone wrong. I applaud the Commanders & the NFL for their commitment to never censor the logo again.” Speaking to Fox News, Daines said, “The irony – they [woke left] were canceling Native American culture, as in the DEI [Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion] movement went way too far …” At a recent Energy & Natural Resources Committee meeting on Capitol Hill, Daines stated that there had been “good faith negotiations” with the NFL team to restore the logo of Blackfoot Chief John Two Guns White Calf, which had been in use for half a century.

In 2020, the NFL team succumbed to pressure from the radical left, promoting woke culture and forcing a name change from the Redskins to the “Washington Commanders.” Before the woke left unleashed cancel culture, the NFL franchise used Native American artist Walter “Blackie” Wetzel’s artwork of the Blackfoot chief as the inspiration for the team’s logo from 1972 to 2020.

[…] And just like that, the iconic logo, celebrating Indian Country, was memory-holed, as were many other logos. The nation is waking up from a terrible decade of toxic and nation-killing wokeism nightmare. As we’ve previously noted, the ‘Overton Window’ has shifted. For the sake of humanity, let us hope the woke mind virus—destructive by nature and detrimental to the nation—comes to an abrupt end. Woke ideology was never intended to succeed; its true purpose is to destroy. Even The New York Times and Bloomberg acknowledged a new Rutgers study showing that DEI initiatives transform individuals into being “hostile.”

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Hotel

 

 

Jump

 

 

Nap https://twitter.com/i/status/1861719390628311086

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Sep 202024
 
 September 20, 2024  Posted by at 8:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  72 Responses »


Paul Gauguin Haymaking in Brittany 1889

 

The ‘War Party’ Makes Its Plans (Patrick Lawrence)
Russia Slams NATO’s ‘Reckless’ Rejection of Putin’s Red Line on Ukraine (Sp.)
Ukraine War Turns Into Russian Roulette (Bhadrakumar)
This Ain’t No WWIII: This Is A War OF Terror (Pepe Escobar)
‘Victory Plan’ Ready – Zelensky (RT)
Ukrainian Commanders Urged Zelensky Not To Invade Kursk (Antiwar)
Russia’s Drone Production To Increase Tenfold – Putin (RT)
Craig Murray Describes Transition Of UK, West In General Into Tyranny (PCR)
Switzerland Dumps Neutrality (Sp.)
Descendants of Native American Chief Want His Face Back In NFL (RT)
Kamala Bucks (Jim Rickards)
Trump Makes First Payment In Bitcoin (RT)
FBI: Iran Hacked Trump Campaign Materials And Gave Them To Biden/Harris (MN)
Russia’s Shadow Fleet is a Ticking Geopolitical Timebomb (Garcia)
Pager Bomb Plot 15 Years In The Making – ABC News (RT)

 

 

 

 

RFK Trump

 

 

Simplicity

 

 

Trump ad https://twitter.com/i/status/1836488676152361056

 

 

Trump Walz https://twitter.com/i/status/1836601717825126588

 

 

Newsom

 

 

Teamsters

 

 

Nate Silver Sep. 17

 

 

Tucker Vance

 

 

O’Leary

 

 

Calley Means

 

 

 

 

A lot of war articles today. NATO et al are now saying Putin so far has not reacted very violently to breaches of red lines, therefore he won’t do so in the future either. Joe Biden: “I don’t think much about Vladimir Putin.” Your leaders are dragging you straight into a war that nobody wants but them.

• The ‘War Party’ Makes Its Plans (Patrick Lawrence)

The Biden White House and the Democratic Party machine trying to advance Kamala Harris from No. 2 in the regime to No. 1 gets more interesting by the week, I have to say. The Harris campaign has at last, two months after the party’s elites and financiers railroaded her candidacy past any semblance of a democratic process, published a platform it calls A New Way Forward, and I will get to this in due course. I am less interested now in words posted on a website than in two recent developments we ought to consider together even if no one has yet thought to do so. Slowly and very surely, it becomes clear by way of these weekly turns how a new Democratic regime, should Harris win on Nov. 5, proposes to manage the imperium’s business. And however many foolish voters may be illusioned otherwise, if Harris takes the White House her business will be neither more nor less than managing the imperium—the wars, the provocations, the illegal sanctions and other collective punishments, the terrorist clients in Israel, the neo–Nazis in Kiev.

Last Wednesday, Sept. 4, Liz Cheney surprised Washington and, I suppose, most of the rest of us when she announced she would support Harris’s run for the presidency. The onetime Wyoming congresswoman, a coup-cultivating warmonger who remains among the hawkiest of right-wing foreign-policy hawks, was not the first Republican to jump across the aisle this political season, and she was also not the last: Two days later, Liz’s pop did the same. Dick Cheney, of course, needs no introduction. Instantly, the Harris campaign declared its delight in having the support of these courageous patriots, as the organization called them in its official statements. A week after all this high-caliber politicking, President Biden convened in the Oval Office with Keir Starmer, the new British prime minister, to consider Ukraine’s proposal to fire Western-supplied missiles at targets well inside Russian territory.

The Brits are ready to oblige the Kiev regime, as are the French, but everyone—London, Paris, Kiev—needs Biden’s permission to widen the war in this fashion. At the moment, Biden and Secretary of State Blinken are in their “Well, maybe” phase, and we are meant to be on the edges of our seats wondering whether they will assent to these plans. But haven’t we seen this movie before and don’t we know how it ends? Wasn’t it, “Maybe we will send HIMARS rocket systems,” “Maybe M–1 tanks,” “Maybe Patriot missiles,” “Maybe F–16s”? Even before the Biden–Starmer encounter last week, Blinken and David Lammy, the British foreign secretary, during a visit to Kiev for talks with Volodymyr Zelensky, were already dropping heavy hints that Biden will once again acquiesce to the plans the Ukrainian president and the British PM were choreographed to present to him.

The stipulation Biden and Blinken now purport to insist upon is that they will not assent to letting Kiev use weapons provided by the U.S. — which seems to be different from weapons made by the U.S.—against targets in the Russian interior. This is no more than one of those hair-splits in which the Biden White House trades when it wants to look thoughtful and cautious but is neither. Will someone tell me what damn difference it will make to Russia if Moscow takes a hit from a missile sent from Britain, France or the United States? These people are convening to plan the Western powers’ reckless escalation of a proxy war they have no way of winning and know they have no way of winning. Desperation is as desperation does: This is my simple read of these deliberations. Between the war-planning and the shifting political loyalties, what have we witnessed over these past couple of weeks? This is our question.

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“..the use of long-range missiles against targets deep in Russia would “increase the threat of escalation,” which runs counter to European security interests.”

• Russia Slams NATO’s ‘Reckless’ Rejection of Putin’s Red Line on Ukraine (Sp.)

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated on Wednesday that dismissing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s warnings about the dangers of Ukraine using Western weapons to attack Russian territory is both provocative and perilous. “Such a ostentatious desire not to take seriously the statements of the Russian president is an absolutely short-sighted and unprofessional step,” Peskov told reporters. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg denied in an interview out on Tuesday that allowing Ukraine to use long-range Western weapons to strike deep into Russia would cross country’s “red line” despite warnings from Russian President Vladimir Putin. “There have been many red lines declared by him [Putin] before, and he has not escalated, meaning also involving Nato allies directly in the conflict,” Stoltenberg told The Times newspaper. Stoltenberg said that he supported the United Kingdom and France in their decision to lift restrictions on Kiev’s use of long-range weapons against Russia.

He argued that their use by Ukraine would not draw the alliance into conflict with Russia. Putin said that NATO countries were essentially deciding whether to get directly involved in the Ukrainian conflict. He warned that direct participation of Western countries in the conflict would change its nature, forcing Russia to respond to emerging threats. Meanwhile, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto stated on Wednesday that Hungary is concerned about the potential use of long-range arms to strike Russia, as this would contradict Europe’s security interests and heighten the risk of escalation. He emphasized that “Hungary is interested in peace, and every step that threatens escalation makes us concerned,” adding that the use of long-range missiles against targets deep in Russia would “increase the threat of escalation,” which runs counter to European security interests.

Putin balance https://twitter.com/i/status/1836749250312417654

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“..Biden was plainly dismissive about the latest Kremlin warning, saying, “I don’t think much about Vladimir Putin.”

• Ukraine War Turns Into Russian Roulette (Bhadrakumar)

The UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer met with the US President Joe Biden in the White House on Friday with the question of the use of long-range missiles by Ukraine to hit deep inside Russia on their agenda of conversation. But there were no announcements, nor was there any joint press conference. Starmer later told the media that the talks were “productive” but concentrated on “strategy” rather than a “particular step or tactic”. He did not signal any decision on allowing Kiev to fire long-range missiles into Russia. Starmer said no final decision had been taken on the Storm Shadow missiles and hinted that further developments may follow at the gathering of the UN General Assembly later this month. “We’ll obviously pick up again in UNGA in just a few days time with a wider group of individuals,” he said.

One reason for such extreme secrecy is that the US and UK are intensely conscious of the Russian President Vladimir Putin’s explicit warning on Thursday that any use of western long-range missiles to strike Russia “will mean that NATO countries, the United States, and European countries are parties to the war in Ukraine. This will mean their direct involvement in the conflict, and it will clearly change the very essence, the very nature of the conflict dramatically.” Putin added in measured words: “This will mean that NATO countries – the United States and European countries –- are at war with Russia. And if this is the case, then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.” Admittedly, Putin has given similar warnings before also, but did not follow through even when western weaponry was used by Ukraine with impunity to invade Russia recently.

So much so that Biden was plainly dismissive about the latest Kremlin warning, saying, “I don’t think much about Vladimir Putin.” On its part, Moscow estimates that although no official decision on the matter has been announced, it has already been made and communicated to Kiev, and that Moscow would have to respond with actions of its own. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, Moscow’s point person on the diplomatic track, was quoted as saying on Saturday, “The decision has been made, the carte blanche and all indulgences have been given (to Kiev), so we [Russia] are ready for everything. And we will react in a way that will not be pretty.” Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chairman of the country’s security council, went a step further saying that the West is testing Russia’s patience but it is not limitless. He said Ukraine’s invasion already gave Russia formal grounds to use its nuclear arsenal.

Medvedev warned that Moscow could either resort to nuclear weapons in the end, or use some of its non-nuclear but still deadly novel weapons for a large-scale attack. “And that would be it. A giant, grey, melted spot instead of ‘the mother of Russian cities’,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app, referring to Kiev. Putin, in his remark on Thursday once again rejected the Anglo-American sophistry that it is Ukraine that will be using any western long-range missiles and not NATO. He pointed out that the Ukrainian army “is not capable of using cutting-edge high-precision long-range systems supplied by the West. They cannot do that. These weapons are impossible to employ without intelligence data from satellites which Ukraine does not have. This can only be done using the European Union’s satellites, or US satellites – in general, NATO satellites…

“most important, the key point even – is that only NATO military personnel can assign flight missions to these missile systems. Ukrainian servicemen cannot do this. Therefore, it is not a question of allowing the Ukrainian regime to strike Russia with these weapons or not. It is about deciding whether NATO countries become directly involved in the military conflict or not.” Interestingly, neither Washington nor London has so far refuted Putin’s above explanation and, curiously, it has been expunged altogether from British press reports — fearing, perhaps, that public opinion might militate against such direct involvement by the UK in a war against Russia in a combat role!

Moscow anticipates that the US-UK ploy may be to test the waters by first (openly) using Britain’s Storm Shadow long-range air-launched cruise missile, which has already been supplied to Ukraine. On Friday, Russia expelled six British diplomats assigned to the Moscow embassy in a clear warning that Uk-Russia ties will be affected. Russia has already warned the UK of severe consequences if the Storm Shadow were to be used to hit Russian territory. What makes the developing situation extremely dangerous is that the cat-and-mouse game so far about NATO’s covert involvement in the Ukraine war is giving way to a game of Russian roulette that follows the laws of Probability Theory.

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“This ain’t no party This ain’t no disco This ain’t no fooling around No time for dancin’ Or lovey-dovey I ain’t got time for that now..”

• This Ain’t No WWIII: This Is A War OF Terror (Pepe Escobar)

First we had action: President Putin – cool, calm, collected – warns that any attack on Russia with long-range NATO missiles will be an act of war. Then we had reaction: NATO rats scurrying back to the gutter – in haste. For now. All that was a direct consequence of the Kursk debacle. A desperate gamble. But the state of things in the proxy war in Ukraine was desperate for NATO. Until it became crystal clear it’s all basically non-recoverable. So there are two options left. Ukraine’s unconditional surrender, on Russia’s terms, tantamount to NATO’s complete humiliation. Or escalation to all-out war (italics mine) with Russia. The U.S. – but not the UK – ruling classes seem to have registered the essence of Putin’s message: if NATO is at war with Russia, “then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.”

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov was ominously more precise: “The decision has been made, the carte blanche and all indulgences have been given [to Kiev), so we [Russia] are ready for everything. And we will react in a way that will not be pretty.” For all practical purposes, NATO is already at war with Russia: non-stop reconnaissance flights, high-precision strikes on airfields in Crimea, forcing the Black Sea Fleet to relocate out of Sevastopol, these are only some instances. With “permission” to strike as far as 500 km deep into Russia, and a list of several targets already submitted by Kiev for “approval”, Putin has clearly stated the obvious. Russia is fighting an existential war for the survival of the Motherland – what it has done repeatedly over centuries. The USSR suffered 27 million losses and emerged from WWII stronger than ever. That demonstration of willpower, in itself, scares the collective West to death.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov – whose Taoist patience seems to be exhausting – added some color on the Big Picture, drawing from English literature: “George Orwell had a rich imagination and historical foresight. But even he could not imagine what a totalitarian state would look like. He described some of its contours, but failed to penetrate the depths of the totalitarianism that we now see within the framework of the ‘rules-based order.’ I have nothing to add. The current leaders in Washington, who suppress any dissent, have ‘outdone’ him. This is totalitarianism in its purest form.” Lavrov concluded that “they are historically doomed.” Yet they don’t really have the guts to provoke WWIII. Trademark cowards can only resort to a War OF Terror. Here are some instances. The SVR – Russian foreign intel – discovered a Kiev plot to stage a Russian missile attack on a hospital or kindergarten on Kiev-controlled territory.

The objectives include raising the – collapsed – morale of the AFU; justify the complete removal of any restrictions on deep missile strikes inside the Russian Federation; and attract support from the Global South – which overwhelmingly understands what Russia is doing in Ukraine. In parallel, if this massive false flag works, the Hegemon would use it to “increase pressure” (How? Screaming at the top of their lungs?) on Iran and the DPRK, whose missiles would likely be the perpetrators of the carnage. As much as this seems far-fetched on a Maximum Stupidistan level, considering the Deep Dementia ranging from Washington and London to Kiev it does remain possible, as NATOstan de facto retains the strategic initiative in this war. Russia for its part remains passive. It is NATO that is choosing the method, the place and the time for its key, choice strikes.

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Formerly known as the “peace plan”.

• ‘Victory Plan’ Ready – Zelensky (RT)

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky declared his secretive ‘victory plan’ complete on Wednesday in a video address. Moscow has dismissed Kiev’s designs as incapable of altering the course of the conflict. Details of the Ukrainian roadmap for defeating Russia remain murky, but Zelensky has been giving regular updates on its progress. On Monday, he said it was more than 90% ready, while he now describes it as “fully prepared,” adding that “the most important thing is the determination to implement it.” Russian officials have dismissed the plan, which Zelensky first announced in August. ”We have heard such statements from the representatives of the Kiev regime many times. We realize what the nature of this regime is. We will continue our special military operation and realize all our goals,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at the time.

US President Joe Biden and the presidential nominees of the country’s two main parties, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, are the primary targets of the proposal, according to Zelensky. He intends to travel to the US to brief the Americans, which will reportedly happen as soon as next week. However, officials in Washington are already aware of what Zelensky will be bringing to the table, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield has indicated. ”We have seen President Zelensky’s peace plan,” she told journalists on Tuesday, before expressing confidence that it “can work.” According to media reports, Zelensky will press his backers for Ukrainian membership in NATO and the EU, continued Western military aid, and other perks.

In August, Kiev sent thousands of troops into Russia’s Kursk Region in an operation Zelensky called an element of the victory plan. The incursion was aimed at forcing Russia to redeploy forces from the front in the east and serve as a bargaining chip in eventual peace talks, according to Ukrainian officials. Russian advancements in Donbass have continued despite the gamble. Moscow has meanwhile ruled out negotiations with Kiev, citing attacks against local Russian civilians whom Ukrainian troops allegedly targeted on purpose. The Russian army has been pushing Ukraine back in Kursk Region, which Zelensky claimed aligned with his plan. Kiev is currently lobbying Washington and its allies to allow long-range strikes with donated Western weapons deep inside Russia. President Vladimir Putin has said that Moscow would consider any such strike an act of war by NATO and react accordingly.

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“..he “opposed a task that didn’t correspond to the brigade’s strength.”

“..he thought the brigade would be too exposed inside Russia and would suffer heavy casualties..”

• Ukrainian Commanders Urged Zelensky Not To Invade Kursk (Antiwar)

Some of Ukraine’s top military commanders opposed President Volodymyr Zelensky’s plans to invade Russia’s Kursk Oblast, but he went through with the assault anyway, POLITICO reported on Tuesday. The report, which cited Ukrainian military officials, said that Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, the former commander-in-chief and current ambassador to the UK, opposed the offensive when Zelensky first broached the idea earlier this year. Zaluzhny opposed the offensive because there was no clear second step once the border was breached. “He never got a clear answer from Zelensky,” one of the Ukrainian officials said. “He felt it was a gamble.” Another Ukrainian officer who opposed the invasion was Emil Ishkulov, the former commander of Ukraine’s 80th Air Assault Brigade. He was removed from his position in July, which drew protests from senior Ukrainian military officials, who said they didn’t understand why Ishkulov was dismissed.

Ukrainian media reported at the time of his dismissal that Ishkulov was removed because he “opposed a task that didn’t correspond to the brigade’s strength.” Two senior Ukrainian military officials told POLITICO that Ishkulov opposed the Kursk invasion because he thought the brigade would be too exposed inside Russia and would suffer heavy casualties. Russia recently began a counteroffensive in Kursk and has recaptured some villages. One purpose of the Ukrainian invasion was to distract Russia from the Donbas region, where Russian forces have been making steady gains. But that has failed as Russian troops continue to close in on the Donetsk city of Pokrovsk.

Another purpose of the invasion was to psychologically impact Russian civilians, a strategy that was praised by Richard Moore, the head of the British spy agency MI6, during a joint public appearance with CIA Director William Burns. Moore said the operation was “typically audacious and bold on the part of the Ukrainians, to try and change the game” and that it had “brought the war home to ordinary Russians.”

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“Along with the development of drones, we need to look for means of their electronic and conventional destruction..”

• Russia’s Drone Production To Increase Tenfold – Putin (RT)

The Russian military is set to receive ten times more drones in 2024 than it did in the year before, President Vladimir Putin announced on Thursday during a meeting of the Military-Industrial Commission on the development of unmanned aircraft systems. The president stated that in 2023, the Russian Armed Forces received nearly 140,000 drones of various types and their production rate has since gone up significantly. “This year, the production of drones is planned to increase several times, or to be more precise, almost ten times,” Putin said. He said that the range of unmanned systems is being expanded and that unmanned boats are being developed as well.

“The key task is to produce a wide range of unmanned aerial vehicles and to set up serial production of such promising technology as quickly as possible,” Putin explained, adding that it is necessary to “fully meet” the needs of the armed forces and increase drone production and the technical and tactical characteristics of UAVs, which includes actively introducing elements of artificial intelligence. “Along with the development of drones, we need to look for means of their electronic and conventional destruction. This will save the lives of our military personnel, civilians and more reliably protect military equipment, civilian infrastructure, and critically important facilities,” the president said.

Putin stated that the design, testing, and serial production of drones is set to be carried out in special scientific and production centers, 48 of which are planned to be created across the country by 2030. Earlier on Thursday, the president personally visited the Special Technology Center (STC) in St. Petersburg which specializes in the production of unmanned aerial vehicles, electronic warfare systems and communications. Putin also inspected an exhibition of robots that have already been supplied to Russia’s forces on the front line and was shown several examples of kamikaze drones, reconnaissance systems, and a model of a loitering munition.

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“If you refuse to turn over your electronic devices, it is two years in prison. Two years in prison for refusing to answer a question.”

• Craig Murray Describes Transition Of UK, West In General Into Tyranny (PCR)

Here is a summary of the speech in the video below of former British Ambassador Craig Murry describing the transition of Britain and the West in general into Tyranny. The UK has criminalized dissent. A new Public Order Act makes it illegal to hold a rally or demonstration if it “inconveniences” anyone. This gives the state unlimited power to clamp down on any demonstration. A new National Security Act makes it illegal to accept funding if it comes from “a hostile state” (there is no definition of what qualifies as a “hostile state”) A new Public Safety Act makes it a criminal offense to publish “misinformation” (there is no definition of “misinformation” — the government decides). It is all about control of the narrative. Zionist lobbies have great influence on official narratives across the West.

Citizens of the West are not allowed to accuse Israel of genocide; this is increasingly being equated with being a “terrorist”. Anti-terrorism powers are being used to prevent any criticism of Israel. Murray, a former British Ambassador, was arrested at the airport under the “Terrorism Act” for attending a pro-Palestine demonstration in Iceland. Under the Terrorism Act, if you are arrested at an airport, you have no right to remain silent, no right to a lawyer, you must turn over all your electronic devices with the passwords. If you refuse to turn over your electronic devices, it is two years in prison. Two years in prison for refusing to answer a question.

Many people are being detained under anti-terrorist legislation, including a professor from Paris and several independent journalists, who all have been detained as was Murray. There is a continual attempt to connect people to Russia. The FBI detained an American professor who spoke with Murray at a pro-Palestine demonstration and had all his electronic devices confiscated. Crackdowns on free speech, freedom of assembly, and any form of dissent are happening all across the Western world in an increasing frequency. As the West trumpets the importance of “freedom and democracy”, it simultaneously limits the freedoms of its own peoples and moves towards complete totalitarianism.

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Their greatest asset.

• Switzerland Dumps Neutrality (Sp.)

The Swiss Council of States, the upper house of the parliament, said on Wednesday that it had voted against a ban on the participation of its military in joint NATO drills. “The participation of Switzerland in joint defense exercises with NATO must not be banned. The Council of States rejected a motion from the National Council to this effect on Wednesday by 29 votes to 12 and after a lively debate,” the upper house said in a statement. Swiss senators believe that in case of an attack on the country, its neutral status will disappear, so Switzerland’s army needs to be ready to defend itself. Switzerland is neither an EU or a NATO member, but Bern has joined almost all European sanctions against Russia since February 24, 2022. In 2024, the Swiss military will take part in 20 exercises outside its territory and four drills on its territory, all of them with the participation of NATO countries.

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Ha ha ha! Here’s to the do-gooders.

• Descendants of Native American Chief Want His Face Back In NFL (RT)

Descendants of John Two Guns White Calf, a Native American chief who inspired the now-retired logo of the Washington Commanders football team (previously known as the Redskins), have called for his return to NFL events. “The fans want him back and we want him back,” Thomas White Calf, a great nephew of the celebrated early-20th-century Blackfeet tribe leader, told Fox News last week. “Our ancestor was the most famous and most photographed native in history,” he added, speaking on the phone alongside his mother, Delphine White Calf. “I’m proud of him. The Blackfeet are proud of him.” The conservative news network interviewed the family after they met Montana Senator Steve Daines – a vocal critic of the 2020 decision to rebrand the franchise. The lawmaker brought up what he believes to be a historic wrong in Congress and in the media on multiple occasions.

“Make no mistake, this logo was inspired and envisioned … as a tribute to Native Americans. It is not a caricature. It is a depiction of pride and strength. Of courage and honor,” he said at a Senate subcommittee hearing in May. Both the name and the mascot were retired in 2020, against the backdrop of racial protest following the death of George Floyd. Major investors and shareholders put pressure on the team’s top sponsors, claiming that the branding promoted negative stereotypes about Native Americans. The management caved in, though the Redskins were renamed as the Commanders only two years later.

A spokesman for the team told Fox News that it is collaborating with Senator Daines “to honor the legacy of our team’s heritage and the Native American community,” but had no intention of reviving the old logo. The news outlet pinned the blame for the naming controversy on the non-profit National Congress of American Indians. Among other things, it seeks to eradicate what it perceives as inappropriate mascots in sports and complained against the Redskins in 2013 in a 29-page report on the issue. “Today’s harmful ‘Indian’ mascots are very much an extension of the commercialization of race such as black face and African-American stereotypes,” the document claimed.

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“A change in leadership is probably our last hope in stopping this madness from continuing.”

• Kamala Bucks (Jim Rickards)

We’re still trying to process the latest assassination attempt on Donald Trump, which took place on Sunday in West Palm Beach. But while that’s important to dissect as the election gets closer, it’s important to consider a development I’ve been warning about for over two years. President Trump has long been an opponent of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) or as I call them Biden Bucks. (Now that Biden is essentially out of the picture, maybe I should rename them Kamala Bucks.) I called them “Biden Bucks” because I wanted Biden (and his partner Kamala) to take full credit for what I consider to be crimes against American citizens. More on that shortly. For now, let’s focus on Trump. At a New Hampshire campaign rally earlier this year, Donald Trump reiterated what he’s been saying for months: CBDCs are dangerous and he would never allow one if elected. For too long, the average American has been squeezed by the big banks and financial elites. It’s time we take a stand — together.

This would be a dangerous threat to freedom, and I will stop it from coming to America. Such a currency would give a federal government absolute control over your money. They could take your money, and you wouldn’t even know it was gone. In fact, Trump recently pledged to ban CBDCs, promote the creation of a national crypto reserve and guarantee that the government will not sell crypto obtained through law enforcement seizures. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: “Welcome aboard, Mr. President.” Again, I’ve been sounding the alarm about Biden Bucks for over two years. I’ve been warning about Joe Biden’s plan to control your money and take away your privacy rights completely. President Trump is right. Biden Bucks are a dangerous threat to freedom. They’re a threat to our constitutional liberties and give the government total control of our private financial information. A change in leadership is probably our last hope in stopping this madness from continuing.

Maybe you’re a new reader who’s not familiar with Biden Bucks, or maybe you’re an existing reader who hasn’t thought of them for a while. To catch you up, here are the basics: They would replace physical cash with new electronic currencies. These Biden Bucks would have the full backing of the U.S. Federal Reserve. To be clear, they won’t just be a complement to cash. They will entirely, or very nearly entirely, REPLACE the cash (“fiat”) dollar we have now. In other words, the dollar will be strictly digital. This digital dollar would be the sole, mandatory currency of the United States. What does this mean for you? It would put your money under direct government control as President Trump has said. You could use it only at the government’s discretion. We are already seeing how many retailers are no longer accepting cash across America. What happens when physical cash is eliminated from any payment transactions?

Imagine this. To further advance the Biden/Harris Green New Scam, what if the Dems and their deep state enablers decide that gasoline needs to be rationed? Your Biden/Kamala Bucks could be rendered useless at the gas pump once you’ve purchased a certain amount of gasoline in a week. You want gas, but all you get is a one-word message: Declined. How’s that for control? That’s just one example. Biden Bucks would create new ways for the government to control how much you can buy of an item or even restrict purchases. They would keep score of every financial decision you make. In a world of Biden Bucks, the government will even know your physical whereabouts at the point of purchase. It’s a short step from there to putting you under FBI investigation if you vote for the wrong candidate or give donations to the wrong political party. If any of this sounds extreme, fantastical or otherwise far-fetched, I promise you it’s not. It’s happening right now. And given all the abuses of power the government’s engaged in over the past few years, why should you be surprised that Biden/Kamala Bucks wouldn’t invite even more abuse?

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“The purchase of burgers by Trump “was one of the most important Bitcoin transactions of all time..”

• Trump Makes First Payment In Bitcoin (RT)

Donald Trump used Bitcoin to buy cheeseburgers and beer for his supporters at a bar in New York City on the National Cheeseburger Day. This made Trump the first ever incumbent or former US president to make a payment using the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, according to media reports. The Republican presidential candidate visited PubKey, a Bitcoin-themed bar and restaurant in Manhattan, shortly before his Long Island campaign rally on Wednesday.The 78-year-old was helped by the bar’s employees to perform the transaction using his phone and a tablet belonging to PubKey. “I just made the first transaction in Bitcoin,” Trump announced to cheers from Bitcoin enthusiasts, who packed the establishment. Paying with cryptocurrency was “very easy,” he added.

“They have been treating you very badly at the SEC (US Securities and Exchange Commission) and we are going to treat you very fairly,” he told the crowd. “Get out and vote because if you vote, we cannot lose,” the former president said. The purchase of burgers by Trump “was one of the most important Bitcoin transactions of all time,” one of PubKey’s owners, Thomas Pacchia, told the Bitcoin Magazine. “We are very excited he was here… to show his support to the Bitcoin community.” Bitcoin, which was introduced in 2009, has grown in value by more than 500% during the past five years. The current price for one Bitcoin is above $61,000.

On Monday, Trump and his children unveiled their own cryptocurrency venture, called World Liberty Financial. There is so far little information available about the project, which is expected to be a borrowing and lending service to trade cryptocurrencies. According to Donald Trump Jr., its goal is to provide opportunities to entrepreneurs who are unable to obtain financing from traditional banks. Trump appears to have made a U-turn on cryptocurrencies during the current presidential campaign. In 2021, he told Fox News that they were a “scam” and “potentially a disaster waiting to happen.” The dollar should remain “the currency of the world,” and investing in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies “hurts the US currency,” he argued at the time.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1836512155077898279

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Do we believe the FBI?

• FBI: Iran Hacked Trump Campaign Materials And Gave Them To Biden/Harris (MN)

The AP is reporting that the FBI has uncovered evidence that Iranian hackers stole materials from the Trump campaign in the Summer and provided them to what was then the Biden/Harris campaign. The report notes that the emails were sent to “people who were associated with Biden’s campaign” in June and July when he was still the Democratic nominee. The FBI uncovered the “unsolicited” evidence as part of its efforts to investigate election interference. The emails “contained an excerpt taken from stolen, non-public material from former President Trump’s campaign as text in the emails,” a government statement noted. It is not known if the Biden/Harris campaign reviewed the materials. Hilariously, however, the Harris campaign issued a statement saying that they were “victims” of the hack. Last night in New York, Trump referred to the development, calling it “foreign election interference,” and charging that “Biden is working with Iran.”

It is clear that there is a concerted effort to undermine Trump’s campaign, with officials revealing in August that further internal communications were hacked and provided to at least three media organisations, with the perpetrators suspected to be Iranian hackers. As we previously highlighted, the Secret Service also uncovered an assassination plot against Trump by Iran on the same weekend as the Butler shooting in July.

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Antonio Garcia doesn’t seem overly happy that Russia sidesteps the sanctions.

• Russia’s Shadow Fleet is a Ticking Geopolitical Timebomb (Garcia)

In response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the European Union and several other Western countries imposed extensive sanctions on Russia, attempting to stop the trade of Russian oil. In December 2022, the G7 countries decided on an oil price cap. However, Russia has found ways to circumvent these sanctions, primarily through the creation of a “shadow fleet” of oil tankers. Despite robust US Treasury sanctions targeting the shadow fleet, Russia continues to expand it by incorporating new tankers, allowing for stable exports and further evasion of oil price caps. Only 36% of Russian oil exports were shipped by IG-insured tankers. For other shipments, Russia utilized its shadow fleet, which was responsible for exports of ~2.8 mb/d of crude and 1.1 mb/d of oil products in March 2024. Kpler data shows that in April 2024, 83% of crude oil and 46% of petroleum products were shipped on shadow tankers. The shrinking role of the mainstream fleet fundamentally undermines the leverage of the price cap.

The shadow fleet is a collection of aging and often poorly maintained vessels with unclear ownership structures and lack of insurance. The number of old, outdated ships departing from Russia has increased dramatically. The EU has recently introduced legislation aimed at cracking down on the sale of mainstream tankers into the Russian shadow trade, but the problem persists. Russia managed to expand its shadow tanker fleet, adding 35 new tankers to replace 41 tankers added to OFAC’s SDN list since December 2023. These tankers, all over 15 years old, are managed outside the EU/G7. With 85% of the tankers aged over 15 years, the risk of oil spills at sea is heightened.

The shadow fleet poses a significant and rising threat to the environment. The aging and underinsured vessels increase the risk of oil spills, a potential catastrophe for which Russia would likely refuse to pay. The vessels can cause collisions, leak oil, malfunction, or even sink, posing a threat to other ships, water, and marine life. With estimates suggesting over 1,400 ships have defected to the dark side serving Russia, the potential for environmental damage is substantial. For instance, since the beginning of 2022, 230 shadow fleet tankers have transported Russian crude oil through the Danish straits on 741 occasions. Also, a shadow fleet tanker on its way to load crude in Russia collided with another ship in the strait between Denmark and Sweden. Last year, a fully loaded oil tanker lost propulsion and drifted off the Danish island of Langeland for six hours. Recovery after any potential oil spill could take decades.

Added to the environmental issue, seaborne Russian oil is almost entirely heading to the Asian markets, with India, China, and Turkey being the biggest buyers. In 2023, 86% of oil exports went to friendly countries compared to 40% in 2021, and 84% of petroleum product exports compared to 30% in 2021. This shift in export destinations highlights the changing geopolitical landscape of the oil market due to the sanctions and the rise of the shadow fleet. Several measures have been proposed to address the challenges posed by the shadow fleet. These include stricter sanctions on individual vessels, increased scrutiny of financial institutions involved in Russian oil deals, and fines that would limit sales or decommission tankers.

The G7 countries are taking measures to tighten control over the price cap and further pressure Russia. The US has introduced a series of sanctions against ships and shipowners suspected of violating the price cap. However, concerns remain that these measures could lead to higher energy prices and escalate tensions with Russia. The Danish foreign ministry has stated that “The Russian shadow fleet is an international problem that requires international solutions.” The shadow fleet has allowed Russia to circumvent Western sanctions and continue profiting from its oil exports, but it has come at a significant cost. The environmental risks posed by these aging and poorly maintained vessels are alarming, and the shift in oil trade patterns is reshaping the geopolitical landscape. Addressing this complex issue will require concerted international efforts and a delicate balance between maintaining sanctions and ensuring stable energy markets. The situation is unsustainable, and the need for action is becoming increasingly urgent.

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For the amount of time and effort put in, it doesn’t look very successsful. There must have been a “better” plan.

• Pager Bomb Plot 15 Years In The Making – ABC News (RT)

Israeli intelligence services have been contemplating an operation along the lines of this week’s mass explosions of Hezbollah electronic devices for at least 15 years, a US intelligence source has told ABC News. Thousands of people were injured in Lebanon by a series of blasts linked to pagers, walkie-talkies, and other equipment used by the militant group. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for the incident, although media reports have widely described it as a Mossad plot that involved rigging the gadgets with remotely-triggered explosive charges. Speaking to ABC News, a US source called it a “supply chain interdiction,” adding that the CIA has long been reluctant to employ similar tactics due to the risk of collateral damage. In Lebanon, children were among some two dozen people killed in the attack, which also left many victims mutilated.

The New York Times previously reported that the supply of sabotaged devices started in the summer of 2023, citing multiple officials familiar with the operation. The ABC News report suggested that BAC Consulting, a Hungarian-based firm subcontracted by Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Gold Apollo to produce pagers for Hezbollah, was an Israeli front. The devices were never in Hungary and BAC was “a trading intermediary, with no manufacturing or operational site” in the country, a government spokesperson told the outlet. The administration of Taiwan has distanced the self-ruled Chinese island from the wave of violence in Lebanon. “The components are [mainly] low-end IC [integrated circuits] and batteries,” Economy Minister Kuo Jyh-huei told reporters on Friday, as quoted by Reuters. “I can say with certainty they were not made in Taiwan.”

Beirut and the Hezbollah leadership have blamed Israel for the incident and have declared that Lebanon is now in a state of war with its neighbor. The Israel Defense Forces intensified cross-border attacks on Thursday, in what observers fear may be a prelude for a major ground invasion. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Wednesday announced a “new phase in the war” with the militant movement. An Israeli commando division previously involved in military action in Gaza has moved to the north amid the sharpening tensions. Israel launched large-scale military action in Lebanon in 1982 – leading to a three-year partial occupation and the rise of Hezbollah as a prominent military and political force – and again in 2006, in what turned out to be a month-long incursion.

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Dominion https://twitter.com/i/status/1836426236916363344

 

 

Rogan shooter https://twitter.com/i/status/1836496582973194256

 

 

Close up https://twitter.com/i/status/1836642625509568992

 

 

Penguins https://twitter.com/i/status/1836474470703210503

 

 

Shark

 

 

Transformation

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Jul 032020
 


Theodor Horydczak Washington Monument 1933 (soon to be renamed)

 

US Economic Reboot Menaced By Bug In The System (R.)
Florida Shatters Records With Over 10,000 New COVID19 Cases In Single Day (R.)
China Didn’t Alert WHO To Coronavirus Outbreak — The Internet Did (DC)
House Dems, Liz Cheney Restrict Trump’s Planned Troops Withdrawal (Greenwald)
Gilead Is Profiteering Off A COVID Drug We Already Paid For (Sirota)
Ghislaine Maxwell, Longtime Jeffrey Epstein Associate, Arrested (NYP)
Virginia Giuffre, Alan Dershowitz Both Lose In New Court Ruling (NYPost)
The Strategies of Dementia Politics (NR)
FedEx Asks Washington Redskins To Change The Team’s Name (NBC)

 

 

It’s Julian Assange’s birthday today. Light a candle.

 

 

Again, both the world and the US set new highs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How Fauci shot his credibility:

 

 

Is a virus a bug?

• US Economic Reboot Menaced By Bug In The System (R.)

Like a computer suffering from a pesky virus, the U.S. economy has been shut off and turned back on. This reboot seems to be working. The economy added almost 5 million jobs in June, on top of the roughly 3 million added in May, bringing the unemployment rate down over two percentage points to 11.1%. But as frustrated tech users know, short-term fixes are usually just that. Beyond the decent headline numbers, the labor force participation rate also increased to 61.5%, and around two-fifths of the job gains were in the hard-hit leisure and hospitality sector. Also, the Bureau of Labor Statistics actually revised the net jobs added over the previous two months upwards to 90,000.

But the root source of the economic woes – Covid-19 infections and deaths – is also moving northward. The U.S. reported almost 50,000 new cases on Wednesday, the fifth daily record in a little over a week, according to the New York Times. Texas hit a whopping 8,000 new daily cases. What these relatively decent jobs numbers may actually show is an economy that reopened too quickly. In fact, recent JPMorgan data from around 30 million of its credit- and debit-card holders shows that increased spending in restaurants appeared to be correlated with a rise in new infections three weeks later.

So the fragile recovery could easily crash – or at the very least, freeze. The virus spikes are prompting states and cities to stall or reverse reopenings. Texas has closed bars and limited restaurant occupancy. California shut down bars and indoor dining in 19 counties. And even New York City, which has dramatically reduced infections, decided on Wednesday to delay bringing back indoor dining at restaurants, which had been slated to restart next week.

Ultimately, it’ll be impossible to assess the depth of the lasting economic damage until reopening is mostly complete. In the topsy-turvy world of 2020, jobs numbers are not the best way to predict how the economy will perform. Until the bug is removed from the system, or brought under control, medical statistics will provide perhaps the most important information. With almost 2.7 million confirmed Covid-19 cases and 128,000 deaths, and rising, these numbers aren’t looking good.

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Time for a holiday…

• Florida Shatters Records With Over 10,000 New COVID19 Cases In Single Day (R.)

Florida shattered records on Thursday when it reported over 10,000 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase in the state since the pandemic started, according to a Reuters tally. Outbreaks in Texas, California, Florida and Arizona have helped the United States break records and send cases rising at rates not seen since April. In June, Florida infections rose by 168% or over 95,000 new cases. The percent of tests coming back positive has skyrocketed to 15% from 4% at the end of May. Florida, with 21 million residents, has reported more new daily coronavirus cases than any European country had at the height of their outbreaks.

To contain the outbreak, Florida has closed bars and some beaches but the governor has resisted requiring masks statewide in public or reimposing a lockdown. Only one other state has reported more than 10,000 new cases in a single day. New York recorded 12,847 new infections on April 10, three weeks after the state implemented a strict lockdown that closed most businesses. While the state has relaxed many measures, it requires masks in public and mandates anyone arriving from 16 other U.S. states with high infections self-quarantine for two weeks. Once the epicenter of the U.S. epidemic, New York saw cases rise by about 6% in June – the lowest rate in the entire country.

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Let’s see how this plays out.

• China Didn’t Alert WHO To Coronavirus Outbreak — The Internet Did (DC)

China didn’t alert the World Health Organization (WHO) to the coronavirus outbreak, a new timeline released by the WHO shows. China’s propaganda machine has claimed that China quickly reported the viral outbreak to the WHO, a claim that the WHO’s initial timeline supported. But the WHO found out about the outbreak from the internet, not from Chinese officials contacting them, according to the new timeline. The updated timeline, which was released June 29, says the WHO “picked up a media statement by the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission from their website” and also picked up a report on an American website, though it doesn’t say in what order those two events occurred.

The WHO doesn’t link to the Wuhan health commission’s media statement that it says tipped the organization off to the outbreak. Rep. Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, expressed skepticism that the statement even exists. “Even if the Commission posted something on their website – which we have seen no proof they have – the CCP still did not report the outbreak to the WHO as required by the International Health Regulations,” McCaul said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “As the updated WHO timeline clearly states, WHO staff ‘picked up a media statement…from their website’ – it was not sent to them by any officials in China,” the Texas Republican continued.

“I have repeatedly requested information from the WHO about what they knew and when they knew it, and I would welcome any clarity from them on this. But, so far, they have refused to answer any of those requests,” McCaul added. Dr. Michael Ryan, a top WHO official, previously said in an April 20 news conference that the American website, ProMED, gave the WHO its first indication of the coronavirus outbreak. “On 31st December information on our epidemic intelligence from open-source platform partners, PRO-MED, was received indicating a signal of a cluster of pneumonia cases in China. That was from open sources from Wuhan,” Ryan said.

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As I was saying yesterday. How did we ever come to see such acts as normal? I have no doubt that a vast a majority of Americans want to bring the troops home.

• House Dems, Liz Cheney Restrict Trump’s Planned Troops Withdrawal (Greenwald)

Last night, the House Armed Services Committee voted overwhelmingly in favor of an amendment — jointly sponsored by Democratic Congressman Jason Crow of Colorado and Congresswoman Cheney of Wyoming — prohibiting the expenditure of monies to reduce the number of U.S. troops deployed in Afghanistan below 8,000 without a series of conditions first being met. The imposed conditions are by no means trivial: for these troop reductions from Afghanistan to be allowed, the Defense Department must be able to certify, among other things, that leaving Afghanistan “will not increase the risk for the expansion of existing or formation of new terrorist safe havens inside Afghanistan” and “will not compromise or otherwise negatively affect the ongoing United States counter terrorism mission against the Islamic State, al Qaeda, and associated forces.”

The Crow/Cheney amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) last night passed by a vote of 45-11. The NDAA was then unanimously approved by the Committee by a vote of 56-0. It authorizes $740.5 billion in military spending — roughly three times more than the world’s second-highest spender, China. President Trump throughout the year has insisted that the Pentagon present plans for withdrawing all troops from Afghanistan prior to the end of 2020. Last week, reports indicated that “the Trump administration is close to finalizing a decision to withdraw more than 4,000 troops from Afghanistan by the fall.” Trump’s plan “would reduce the number of troops from 8,600 to 4,500 and would be the lowest number since the very earliest days of the war in Afghanistan, which began in 2001.”

In February, Trump announced an agreement with the Taliban to end the war completely. Shortly after those White House withdrawal plans were reported, anonymous intelligence officials leaked a series of claims to the New York Times regarding “bounties” allegedly being paid by Russia to Taliban fighters to kill U.S. troops. Those leaks emboldened opposition to troop withdrawal from Afghanistan on the ground that it would be capitulating to Russian treachery. It was that New York Times leak that Liz Cheney, along with GOP Congressman Mac Thornberry, cited in a joint statement on Monday to suggest troop withdrawal would be precipitous:

“After today’s briefing with senior White House officials, we remain concerned about Russian activity in Afghanistan, including reports that they have targeted U.S. forces. It has been clear for some time that Russia does not wish us well in Afghanistan. We believe it is important to vigorously pursue any information related to Russia or any other country targeting our forces. Congress has no more important obligation than providing for the security of our nation and ensuring our forces have the resources they need. We anticipate further briefings on this issue in the coming days.”

[..] The NDAA that was approved last night by the Committee also imposed restrictions on Trump’s plan to withdraw troops from Germany. Trump’s plan called for the removal of roughly 9,500 troops from German soil, reducing the number of U.S. troops in this extremely prosperous and rich European nation from 34,500 to 25,000. But by an overwhelming vote of 49-7, the Armed Service Committee approved an amendment to the NDAA that “bans the administration from lowering troop levels below current levels until 180 days after Pentagon leaders present a plan to Congress and certify it will not harm U.S. or allied interests.”

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Never let a crisis go to waste.

• Gilead Is Profiteering Off A COVID Drug We Already Paid For (Sirota)

This is a story of cause and effect — a tale of repeated and calculated public policy decisions that have now led to a predictable outcome. This story begins 25 years ago, when the Clinton administration rescinded a rule that required pharmaceutical companies to charge Americans reasonable prices for medicines developed at government expense. Some progressive lawmakers tried to reinstate the rule, but Republicans and Democrats joined together to halt those initiatives. In the ensuing years, the Obama administration refused Democratic lawmakers’ demand to invoke existing federal laws to force down the price of critical medicines.

Meanwhile, the GOP also blocked legislation to let Medicare use its purchasing power to negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs All of that reflected the lobbying, campaign contributions and indomitable bipartisan power of the pharmaceutical industry in Washington. And it led to a result that this newsletter has been warning about, as Gilead just announced that it will charge privately insured Americans more than $3,000 each for a 5-day COVID treatment that was developed with financial support from the government. That’s a $3,000 price tag for a government-sponsored drug treatment that experts say the company could offer at $10 and still make a profit.

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Wonder what happened to make it happen at this particular time. She seemed safe holed up in Paris.

Bookmakers are now taking your bets on her suicide.

• Ghislaine Maxwell, Longtime Jeffrey Epstein Associate, Arrested (NYP)

Longtime Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested Thursday on a six-count indictment charging her with grooming young girls for sex. The British socialite, 58, was arrested by the FBI in New Hampshire around 8:30 a.m., authorities said. The just-unsealed indictment charges stem from Maxwell’s role “in the sexual exploitation and abuse of multiple minor girls by Jeffrey Epstein” as early as 1994, court papers say. “The victims were as young as 14 years old when they were groomed and abused by Maxwell and Epstein, both of whom knew that certain victims were in fact under the age of 18,” the indictment says.

She is specifically accused of grooming three underage victims for sex with Epstein in places including his Upper East Side townhouse, Florida, New Mexico and London. Maxwell is charged with six counts — conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, enticement of a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity and two counts of perjury. Prosecutors also accuse Maxwell — a one-time girlfriend of Epstein’s — of repeatedly lying about her involvement in the financier’s sex trafficking ring during a 2016 deposition.

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From Wednesday, before Ghislaine was arrested. I’m thinking there is probably a connection, but I don’t know which.

There’s a curious line in here:

“The 13-page ruling said Cooper & Kirk “has not, from what the Court can tell, been actively working on the case.”

She has to destroy all the evidence because her lawyers were not working? What?

• Virginia Giuffre, Alan Dershowitz Both Lose In New Court Ruling (NYPost)

Attorneys for alleged Jeffrey Epstein “sex slave” Virginia Roberts Giuffre were ordered Wednesday to destroy evidence from her case against Ghislaine Maxwell — as lawyer Alan Dershowitz was also denied access to the potentially explosive information. Manhattan federal Judge Loretta Preska said she was “troubled” to learn during oral arguments last week that Giuffre’s lawyers, from the firm of Cooper & Kirk, had been given sealed records from her since-settled suit against Maxwell, who Giuffre claims recruited her to have sex with Epstein and his pals while she was underage.

The other men allegedly include Dershowitz, whom Giuffre is suing for defamation over his public denials of her accusations, including calling her a “certified, complete, total liar,” and who is counter-suing Giuffre for causing “serious harm … to his reputation, his business and his health.” “As a practical matter, the Court would be surprised — shocked, even — if Cooper & Kirk was not in some sense ‘using’ the Maxwell discovery in its representation of Ms. Giuffre in her action against Mr. Dershowitz,” the judge wrote.

Preska also rejected claims by Giuffre’s lawyers that they were entitled to the evidence, obtained from her former attorneys at Boies Schiller Flexner, because they’d been hired to represent her in the Maxwell case. The 13-page ruling said Cooper & Kirk “has not, from what the Court can tell, been actively working on the case.” Preska directed the Cooper & Kirk lawyers to destroy the evidence, along with “any material, including work product, derived from” it, and to submit an affidavit afterward.

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I know I’m not supposed to quote right wing media, but this is just too funny. And it raises a valid point: they can’t keep Biden hidden from view forever, and now when he does come out, he’ll be nervous.

• The Strategies of Dementia Politics (NR)

Stoke chaos, obstruct economic recovery, and hide Biden in the basement till Election Day.

Joe Biden is tragically suffering a mental eclipse and sliding away at a geometric rate. Understandably, his handlers have kept him out of sight. He stays off the campaign trail on the pretext of the virus and his age-related susceptibility to COVID-19 morbidity. I say “pretext” without apology. Quarantine should not have otherwise stopped Biden over the past three months from doing daily interviews, speeches, and meetings. But each occasion, however scripted, rehearsed, and canned, would only have offered further daily proof that Biden is cognitively unable to be president or indeed to hold any office. Often Biden cannot finish a sentence. Names are vague eddies in his mind’s river of forgetfulness.

He is in a far more dire mental state than a physically failing FDR was in his 1944 campaign for a fourth term. The earlier career of a healthy Biden illustrates that he was not especially sharp even when in control of most of his faculties. We recall the former sane/nutty Biden of Neal Kinnock plagiarism, his “put y’all in chains” demagoguery, the studied racism of Biden’s riffs about a “clean” and well-spoken Obama, and the sane/insane Corn Pop stories. All are the trademark of a once fool Joe Biden, who was at least alert when compared with his current catalepsy. If Donald Trump can be ungrammatical, Biden is agrammatical — he simply streams together half-thoughts without syntax and then abandons the sentence entirely.

If Trump repeats vocabulary, Biden increasingly searches for words, any noun, whatever its irrelevance to the point he is making. Biden seems to suffer dyscognitive seizures, in which for moments he has no idea what he is doing or saying or where he is — a tragic, nearly epileptic condition. In scary episodes, the pale, scaly, and frozen visage of Biden appears almost reptilian, like a lizard freezing and remaining stationary as it struggles to process signals of perceived danger. Inserting memorized answers into rehearsed questions, as if the entire con was spontaneous, only reveals how his once episodic dementia has become chronic as he loses his prompt and place. It was understandable that his handlers saw opportunity in secluding Biden during Trump’s tweeting, alongside the contagion, the lockdown, the recession, and the rioting that in voters’ minds had equated fear of chaos with the culpability of the current commander in chief.

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Redskins was always a problem. But while you’re toppling Washington statues, you want to keep his name linked to the team, the city? Can anyone explain the logic?

• FedEx Asks Washington Redskins To Change The Team’s Name (NBC)

FedEx has asked the Washington Redskins to officially change their name, long condemned as an anti-Indigenous slur. The shipping company has communicated to the team a request that it change its name, FedEx confirmed Thursday in a statement to NBC News. FedEx owns the naming rights to the Maryland field where the team plays, and its chief executive, Fred Smith, owns a minority stake in the team. FedEx’s request comes a day after Adweek reported that 87 investment firms and shareholders worth $620 billion sent a letter urging FedEx, Nike and PepsiCo to stop doing business with the team until the name is changed.

In 2017, the Supreme Court struck down part of a law that bans offensive trademarks, which helped the team get the Redskins trademark back in 2018. The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board had canceled the registration as offensive to American Indians. [..] Mayor Muriel Bowser said last month on Washington radio station WTEM that the name has been an obstacle in getting the city its own stadium. “I think it’s past time for the team to deal with what offends so many people,” Bowser said. “And this is a great franchise with a great history that’s beloved in Washington, and it deserves a name that reflects the affection that we’ve built for the team.” [..] Dan Snyder, the team’s majority owner, told USA Today in 2013 that he would “never change the name.” “It’s that simple. NEVER — you can use caps,” he said.

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