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Debt Rattle March 22 2024

Mar 222024
 
 March 22, 2024  Posted by at 9:19 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  80 Responses »


Rembrandt van Rijn A Lady And Gentleman In Black 1633
Stolen from Gardner Museum March 18 1990, the single largest art theft in the world. Never recovered.

 

• NY Prepares To Seize Trump Assets In Westchester County (ZH)
• Judge Grants Trump’s Request to Appeal Fani Willis Disqualification Decision (ET)
• The Path to Victory for Trump (Hammer)
• The “Perversity” of Michael Cohen (Turley)
• Trump Fears Alzheimer’s – WaPo (RT)
• What Is Necessary For The Ukrainian “Sanitary Zone” To Be Sanitary? (Helmer)
• Ukraine Forced To Close Controversial ‘War Sponsors’ Blacklist (RT)
• Russian Troops To Kill All French Soldiers In Ukraine – Senior Lawmaker (TASS)
• Biden’s Point Man Visits Ukraine With Bundle of Promises (Sp.)
• Ukrainian Officers Negligent in Duties and Attitude to Personnel – POW (Sp.)
• US Submits Draft Resolution To UN Calling For Gaza Ceasefire – Blinken (TASS)
• Authorized Atrocities (Patrick Lawrence)
• Russia and China Reach Shipping Deal With Houthis (RT)
• Yemen’s Indian Ocean Checkmate (Harb)
• Justice Department Considering Plea Deal for Assange (Antiwar)

 

 

 

 

Tucker no reason
https://twitter.com/i/status/1770864586788348034

 

 

Nap

 

 

AOC

 

 

Comer

 

 

J6

 

 

Benz Hunter

 

 

Belfort

 

 

 

 

Irreversible. Theft. SCOTUS better hurry. Or the US will not have a justice system left.

• NY Prepares To Seize Trump Assets In Westchester County (ZH)

The state of New York has positioned itself to seize Donald Trump’s assets in Westchester County following a $454 million civil fraud judgement against the former president. The state registered the massive judgement in the county, a sign that his properties in the area may be at risk of being seized if Trump can’t post an appeal bond. The judgement, registered March 6 according to the Westchester Country Clerk’s online database, didn’t give any reason for the registration, nor did it specifically identify any of Trump’s assets, but it will allow Attorney General Letitia James to more easily secure liens on two of the billionaire’s most valuable properties – Trump National Golf Club Westchester, and the 212-acre Seven Springs estate which remains mostly undeveloped, Bloomberg reports.

James has said she’s prepared to start seizing Trump assets if he misses a March 25 deadline to post a bond for 120% of the judgment to put it on hold while he appeals. She hasn’t started that process, and the registration in Westchester County doesn’t automatically mean she will attempt to seize the properties. It’s nevertheless a clear sign they’re at risk. Trump, who is campaigning to return to the White House in the November election, has asked a New York appeals court to waive the bond while he challenges the verdict, or allow him to post a smaller one for $100 million. A ruling on that request, which James opposes, could come at any time.

Trump and his sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, were found by Judge Arthur Engoron to be liable for inflating the former president’s assets in order to obtain better terms on loans – despite the banks involved all saying they did their own internal due diligence and were happy with the relationship. In a March 18 filing, Trump said that an appeal bond is “unattainable,” as insurance companies that arrange them won’t take his real estate as collateral – only cash, which Trump has previously warned he doesn’t have. If the court doesn’t help him with a lower bond, Trump says he’ll have to sell properties in a “fire sale” to raise money. In Manhattan, the state doesn’t have to register the judgement since that’s where the verdict was handed down. Trump properties in the Big Apple include Trump Tower and his skyscraper located at 40 Wall Street.

Habba
https://twitter.com/i/status/1770799295379145212

CNN Mar A Lago

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Is he backpedalling?

• Judge Grants Trump’s Request to Appeal Fani Willis Disqualification Decision (ET)

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee has granted former President Donald Trump’s request for a certificate of immediate review, allowing the former president and seven co-defendants to appeal the judge’s order denying the disqualification of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. The certificate of immediate review, filed on March 20 at the Superior Court of Fulton County in Georgia, allows President Trump and seven co-defendants to seek an appeal from the Georgia Court of Appeals, which has the discretion to accept or decline to hear the case. “Judge McAfee has issued a certificate of immediate review allowing us to take our motion to disqualify Fani Willis directly to the Georgia Court of Appeals,” David Shafer, former chairman of the Georgia Republican Party and one of the seven co-defendants, said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, commenting on the judge’s decision.

Besides Mr. Shafer, the co-defendants who can appeal the judge’s disqualification ruling are Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, Robert Cheeley, Michael Roman, Harrison Floyd, and Cathleen Latham. All of them had joined the initial motion to disqualify Ms. Willis and later joined the motion for a certificate of immediate review. The request for immediate review, filed on March 18 by Steve Sadow, attorney to President Trump, stems from Judge McAfee’s decision to allow Ms. Willis to remain on the high-profile case, in which the former president is accused of election interference. President Trump has denied wrongdoing and has called the case a politically motivated “witch hunt” meant to undermine his 2024 comeback bid for the White House. Ms. Willis was accused of engaging in an “improper” romantic relationship with prosecutor Nathan Wade and benefitting from it financially. The two acknowledged the relationship but denied any financial benefit or conflict of interest.

Judge McAfee said in a March 15 order that there was an appearance of impropriety but that no conflict of interest had been proven. He found that disqualifying Ms. Willis wouldn’t be the appropriate remedy to the appearance of impropriety and instead ordered Mr. Wade off the case. Mr. Wade resigned hours after the morning order was issued. In earlier testimony, Mr. Wade had acknowledged a romantic relationship with Ms. Willis but testified that it had ended before the election case indictment was handed up. Judge McAfee noted that Mr. Wade’s inconsistent answers under oath in his recent divorce case showed a willingness to “conceal” his relationship with Ms. Willis, and he opined that an “odor of mendacity” lingered on the prosecution team with Ms. Willis’s and Mr. Wade’s testimonies in his court.

Given the seriousness of the appearance issue as described by the judge, the defendants argued that the removal of Mr. Wade wasn’t sufficient. Judge McAfee had a 10-day window to decide whether he would allow a review of his disqualification decision. Allowing review could technically halt pretrial proceedings for up to 45 days while an appeals court decides whether to take the case. However, in his March 20 certificate of immediate review, Judge McAfee said that the court intends “to continue addressing the many other unrelated pending pretrial motions, regardless of whether the petition is granted within 45 days of filing, and even if any subsequent appeal is expedited by the appellate court.” The case still has 15 defendants (four have accepted plea bargains) and is expected to run for about six months.

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“..the Democratic Party in its fetid current form is wholly unfit to govern the local assisted living facility—to say nothing of the greatest country in the world.”

• The Path to Victory for Trump (Hammer)

For the many Americans who are neither Trump enthusiasts nor card-carrying Democratic partisans, this choice at the ballot box may be less than fully enticing. But for those patriots who still love this country, warts and all, and in spite of our ruinous current trajectory and decadence, it is imperative that Trump secures a second presidential term. It really is that simple. You may admire Trump’s willingness to challenge conventional orthodoxies and his instinctual nationalism, or maybe you think he is an unprincipled politician and an obnoxious boor, to boot. Perhaps you believe Trump is now being persecuted by a weaponized prosecutorial apparatus, or you might have deep qualms about voting for someone found guilty of a crime by a jury of his peers. But whatever it is you think about the polarizing 45th president of the United States, it doesn’t really matter. The reality is that the Democratic Party in its fetid current form is wholly unfit to govern the local assisted living facility—to say nothing of the greatest country in the world.

And whoever once said American elections don’t present a binary choice is a moron; that is precisely what they do. Patriots of all stripes must therefore band together to get Trump across the finish line this November. Trump can certainly make that task easier (or harder) based on how he runs his campaign this year. Here is what he should do. Since Trump is the first former president to run for a non-consecutive additional term since Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, his campaign is somewhat anomalous. Most challengers to an incumbent president seeking reelection can only talk about what they will do once they are in office and how that agenda differs from the incumbent’s record. But Trump already served a full term; he has a record. What’s more, that term was just a few years ago; most voters remember it well.The key to Trump’s reelection this fall, then, is to make the straightforward case that his term was demonstrably better for the median American citizen than Biden’s term has been.

On the economy, Biden has presided over the worst inflation in four decades, declining real wages, a formal recession, and a historic supply chain crisis. Trump, by contrast, oversaw a generally flourishing pre-COVID economy: the stock market soared, inflation was generally subdued, America became a net exporter of oil and natural gas for the first time ever, and the Black unemployment rate even reached the lowest it has been since that statistic was first measured. On the border, Biden has presided over the worst crisis in American history: Endless streams of unknown illegal aliens have flooded over, leading to a massive strain on municipalities’ resources, skyrocketing violent crime, depressed wages for working-class Americans, and the mass importation of terrorism-implicating “special interest aliens.” Trump, by contrast, may not have finished construction of the border wall, but illegal immigration was orders of magnitude lower than it is today due in no small part to the prudent measures he implemented, such as Remain in Mexico.

On the world stage, Vladimir Putin did not march into Ukraine under Trump (indeed, it is curious that Putin invaded Crimea during the Obama presidency in 2014 and then waited patiently until the next Democratic president to invade again), and under Trump, Hamas did not infiltrate Israel and kill the most Jews in a single day since the defeat of Nazi Germany. Iran was on the brink of economic catastrophe by the end of Trump’s term due to his administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign; under Biden, the Islamic Republic has been “maximally emboldened” to sow the seeds of jihad all over the Middle East. For all the talk of Trump’s “chaos,” there was not a single major war abroad during his presidency. The 2024 presidential campaign is going to get ugly. Democrats have barely commenced the advertising onslaught that is to come, wherein they will depict Trump as a Mafia-like thug and shamelessly compare Jan. 6, 2021, to 9/11. Trump’s best chance this fall is to ignore the noise and prove, contrary to the smear campaigns, that he is the superior candidate in terms of competence, stability, and sanity. He has the record to prove it.

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“If lying were an art form, former Trump fixer Michael Cohen would be its Rembrandt..”

• The “Perversity” of Michael Cohen (Turley)

Michael Cohen was back in court this week and it did not go well. The former fixer for Donald Trump was in court seeking a reduction in his federal sentence and to answer for his use of Google’s AI chatbot to submit arguments with fake case authority. However, things went off the rails when his counsel cited his prior testimony as evidence of his rehabilitation. U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman called the argument “perverse” and noted that Cohen is clearly a serial perjurer and cited the need for continued “deterrence.” That is hardly a promising review before Cohen appears as the star witness for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in the prosecution of former president Donald Trump. If lying were an art form, former Trump fixer Michael Cohen would be its Rembrandt. Throughout his career, the disbarred lawyer has found powerful clients who valued his reputation for supporting any side that offered the biggest payback.

For full disclosure, I have been a critic of Cohen for years, including columns when he was still representing Trump. Cohen has been repeatedly accused of perjury. For example, after Cohen turned on Trump, he went from being a pariah to a hero for many Democrats. Yet, he continued the same pattern. When he was called before the House to testify against Trump soon after his plea agreement with the Justice Department, Cohen was again accused of perjury: The House Oversight Committee chairman, Elijah Cummings, a Democrat from Maryland, began his questioning by noting that he told him that he had better testify truthfully this time or be nailed to the cross. “Didn’t I tell you that?” Cummings asked. “Yes, you did, more than once,” Cohen replied. Then Cohen went forward and claimed he had cared nothing about jobs or pardons from Donald Trump. However, a number of news organizations reported that Cohen was upset after lobbying for the White House counsel, chief of staff, or other jobs in the administration.

Despite a multitude of such sources, Cohen has insisted, “I was extremely proud to be the personal attorney for the president of the United States of America. I did not want to go to the White House. I was offered jobs.” There is little ambiguity here. Either multiple witnesses lied or Cohen once again lied to Congress. Then Cohen stated, “I have never asked for, nor would I accept, a pardon from President Trump.” That also directly contradicts multiple sources who say his lawyer pressed the White House for a pardon, and that Cohen unsuccessfully sought a presidential pardon after FBI raids on his office and residences last year. (Roughly a month later, he decided to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller.). Even after being stripped of his bar license and sentenced to three years in prison, Cohen continued the pattern. In 2019, Cohen failed to appear to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee, citing the inability to travel due to a medical surgery.

However, he was seen partying before the hearing date with five friends with no apparent problems. Even in jail, Cohen was accused of lying to a court in violation of an order for early release due to medical problems. He was ordered back into custody after being spotted at a high-end restaurant. After Cohen admitted to various criminal acts in federal court to secure his plea agreement, he then declared that he lied. In his 2018 guilty plea before U.S. District Judge William Henry Pauley III, Cohen admitted to this conduct under oath. Cohen was later asked by Trump counsel “Did you lie to Judge Pauley when you said that you were guilty of the counts that you said under oath that you were guilty of? Did you lie to Judge Pauley?” Cohen matter-of-factly responded “yes.” He was then again asked “So you lied when you said that you evaded taxes to a judge under oath; is that correct?” He again responded “yes.”

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We’ll see lots of this in the MSM. Variations on: Biden old and senile? Well, so is Trump.

• Trump Fears Alzheimer’s – WaPo (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump has a fear of developing dementia due to his father’s battle with Alzheimer’s disease, according to the Washington Post, which cited several of the billionaire’s former associates. The outlet claimed to have spoken to a former senior executive at the Trump Organization, who said they had worked with Trump and saw him interact with his father Fred Trump Sr. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source claimed that “Donald is no doubt fearful of Alzheimer’s.” “He’s not going to talk about it and not going to admit it,” they told WaPo, claiming that this information was nevertheless relevant in light of Trump’s allegations that current US President Joe Biden is not mentally fit for office.

WaPo also cited Trump’s niece, Mary L. Trump, who reportedly recalled that Donald was seriously upset by his father’s descent into dementia after the patriarch failed to recognize his children at a family gathering in the mid-1990s. The outlet also cited an interview that Donald Trump gave to Playboy in 1997, in which he stated that seeing his father suffering from Alzheimer’s had left him wondering “out loud about the senselessness of life.” In recent years, Trump has repeatedly claimed that US President Joe Biden was suffering from severe mental health issues as he could often be seen tripping, getting lost, mixing up world leaders and countries, losing his train of thought mid-sentence, and recently even forgetting NATO’s new ally, confusing Norway with Finland. At the same time, the billionaire has boasted that he himself had passed the Montreal cognitive test with flying colors.

However, some have suggested that Trump’s own mental health may also be slipping, after several gaffes on the campaign trail in recent months, such as confusing South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley with former speaker Nancy Pelosi, and warning that the US could face “World War II” under Biden. Meanwhile, a recent survey by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 63% of American voters are not very or not at all confident in Biden’s mental capability to serve effectively as president. Trump also did not fare well, with 57% voicing concerns about his mental capacity. The pair are now set to face off in the upcoming US presidential election, which will be held on November 5.

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“.. there cannot be a military outcome for the General Staff and the Kremlin which will allow terrorism against Russia forever from inside those cities, or from whatever remains of the Ukraine. So there must be regime change in Kiev– and a form of Russian occupation that will be surprising.”

• What Is Necessary For The Ukrainian “Sanitary Zone” To Be Sanitary? (Helmer)

In his election victory speech on Sunday night, President Vladimir Putin has accepted the 87% Russian voter mandate to finish the war by securing the Novorussian territories east of the Dnieper River, and converting western Ukraine into “a certain sanitary zone in today’s territories subordinated to the Kiev regime.” In military terms, this zone extends westward from the Dnieper to the full 500-kilometre range of NATO missiles supplied to the Ukrainian forces; and to the 900-km range of the drones in the current Ukrainian inventory. With direct flight distance from Odessa to Lvov at 630 kms, and between Kharkov and Lvov of 975 kms, this means that all of the “territories subordinated to the Kiev regime” will become a sanitary zone, demilitarized to the Polish border.

Referring to the HIMARS rocket attacks in the Belgorod region and the proposed evacuation of nine thousand schoolchildren out of range, Putin announced at his campaign headquarters, “I do not exclude that, bearing in mind the tragic events taking place today, we will be forced at some point – when we deem it appropriate — to create a certain sanitary zone in today’s territories subordinated to the Kiev regime.” The president did not specify how soon is “appropriate”, or how deep the demilitarized or sanitary zone will be, except that in calculating the depth and taking Russian control of it, the range of weapons includes “first of all, of course, [weapons] of foreign production.” Demilitarization of the Ukraine has been the strategic objective of the Special Military Operation from the start in February 2022.

In several Kremlin meetings last June, Putin foreshadowed a zone variously called a DMZ, buffer zone, or cordon sanitaire. In a meeting with military correspondents on June 13, 2023, Putin explained operationally. “Here are several solutions: first, bolstering the effectiveness of the counter-battery struggle. But this does not mean that there won’t be missile strikes against our territory. And so if this continues then we will apparently have to consider the issue – and I’m saying this very carefully – of creating a buffer zone on Ukraine’s territory at such a distance from where it could be impossible to reach our territory.” Mapping the DMZ has been discussed in detail as senior civilian and military officials in Moscow and in the Donbass have publicly discussed the range-of-defence requirement.

Now, with the conclusion of the election, Russian military bloggers have begun to voice open criticism of the performance of the military in preventing drone and missile attacks from striking civilians in Belgorod, as well as oil refinery targets up to 900 kms from the border. According to Boris Rozhin (Colonel Cassad), Russian early warning and detection of Ukrainian HIMARS units are effective, but counter-battery and interception firing is delayed. “The reason is organizational issues that prevent timely fire damage to the exposed priority targets. The issue of their elimination is extremely relevant now: This will not only significantly increase the effectiveness of counter-battery warfare, but also reduce the intensity of enemy strikes on Belgorod and other settlements.” “Organizational issues” is a code term for the chain of command Rozhin avoids explaining.

Military sources in Moscow have been discreetly acknowledging that the decisions on how far the Russian military operation should extend westwards were postponed during the election campaign. During this time, the sources have also been warning, the Ukrainians were able to construct extensive surface fortifications and command-and-control bunkers north of Chernigov facing an expected offensive drive of Russian forces toward Kiev; and around Odessa to block a Russian offensive in the south. These lines are reportedly manned by fresh and well-supplied Ukrainian reserves, who are being held out of the meat-grinder battles along the line of contact, like Bakhmut and Avdeyevka.

Threats to reinforce these new fortified lines with a French-led “coalition” have come from President Emmanuel Macron. In parallel, detailed planning by the German Luftwaffe, backed by Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, of long-range Taurus missile attacks, launched from aircraft based outside the Ukraine, has become public knowledge. In response, a well-informed Moscow source believes the parameters of Russian strategy are becoming clearer “now that Putin is waving the green flag. It’s clear, for example, that although there will not be battles inside cities like Odessa, Kharkov, and Kiev, there cannot be a military outcome for the General Staff and the Kremlin which will allow terrorism against Russia forever from inside those cities, or from whatever remains of the Ukraine. So there must be regime change in Kiev– and a form of Russian occupation that will be surprising.”

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“..unacceptable to disseminate such information in the state’s name without resolving the legal issues.”

• Ukraine Forced To Close Controversial ‘War Sponsors’ Blacklist (RT)

Ukraine has decided to abandon its list of ‘international sponsors of war’ following complaints from other countries. Ukraine’s National Agency on Corruption Prevention has hosted a website listing companies that continue to do business in Russia or “indirectly assist in or contribute to Russia’s war efforts.” The list includes major corporations such as PepsiCo, P&G, Yves Rocher, Unilever, Metro, Nestle, Auchan, and Xiaomi. The project was part of Kiev’s strategy to pressure companies into cutting ties with Moscow in response to the conflict with Russia. The Ukrainian government announced on Tuesday, however, that those wishing to view the list will be redirected to the more neutrally named State Register of Sanctions curated by Ukraine’s National Defense and Security Council.

The decision was made after a meeting attended by diplomats from more than ten countries, including the US, China, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan, as well as representatives from the EU. According to a statement on the government’s website, many of Ukraine’s partners raised concerns about “the lack of legal basis for the existence of the ‘international sponsors of war’ list.” Kiev had to consider “the negative impact of this list on the adoption of important decisions to stop the Russian aggression,” the statement read.

Ukraine’s Justice Ministry ultimately agreed that it was “unacceptable to disseminate such information in the state’s name without resolving the legal issues.” Austria had refused to back the 12th round of EU sanctions against Russia, demanding that Kiev remove the Vienna-based Raiffeisen Bank from the blacklist. Ukraine eventually conceded, paving the way for Austria to give the green light to the sanctions in December 2023. Last month, Beijing requested that Kiev remove its companies from the list as well. “China firmly opposes the inclusion of Chinese enterprises in the relevant list and demands that Ukraine immediately correct its mistakes and eliminate negative impacts,” a Foreign Ministry spokesperson told Reuters.

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“.. the number of dead Frenchmen has exceeded a psychologically significant threshold, and now there is a question about how to bury the dead and treat the wounded in secret…”

• Russian Troops To Kill All French Soldiers In Ukraine – Senior Lawmaker (TASS)

Russian servicemen will eliminate all French soldiers coming to Ukraine, State Duma Deputy Speaker Pyotr Tolstoy said. “We will kill all French soldiers who will come to the territory of Ukraine. All of them,” he told the BFMTV channel. The politician also pointed out that 147 out of 367 French mercenaries who arrived in Ukraine earlier have been eliminated. In addition, Tolstoy emphasized that Russia “does not care” about the statements of French President Emmanuel Macron and his words about the rejection of red lines in the provision of aid to Kiev. On March 19, Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Director Sergey Naryshkin said that France was already preparing a military contingent to be sent to Ukraine, which would initially amount to about 2,000 soldiers. After that, the French Ministry of the Armed Forces made a statement on the social network X that what Naryshkin said did not correspond to reality.

The Russian intelligence chief pointed out that France unofficially recognized the deaths of its own servicemen. The French army has not experienced such a level of losses since the Algerian War of 1954-1962. The Elysee Palace, as Naryshkin noted, also believes that the number of dead Frenchmen has exceeded a psychologically significant threshold, and now there is a question about how to bury the dead and treat the wounded in secret so as not to spark a public outcry. In late February, after a conference in Paris devoted to Ukraine, Macron did not explicitly rule out the possibility of sending ground troops from Western countries to the special military operation zone. Macron also said that Western states “intend to do whatever is necessary” to prevent Russia from gaining the upper hand in this conflict.

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“Even if Ukraine holds on, what we really are saying is that we are going to leverage countless lives in order to do that.”

• Biden’s Point Man Visits Ukraine With Bundle of Promises (Sp.)

A big bag of nothing but promises is what Joe Biden’s national security advisor brought with him on his covert trip to Kiev on Wednesday. As Jake Sullivan offered a rehash of the same old promises of Washington’s commitment to supporting Ukraine, he could not put any specific timeframe as to when more aid might be forthcoming. It would appear that the whole point of Biden’s point man visiting Ukraine was to placate Kiev while exuding confidence that the gridlock in Congress over supplementary aid to Ukraine would end – at some point. This was Sullivan’s first trip to Ukraine since he accompanied Biden to the Ukrainian capital on February 20, 2023. This hurried visit could be taken as a sign that things look pretty bleak when it comes to hopes of getting the aid package “out the door.” And yet, Sullivan ruled out any “Plan B,” saying: “I’m confident that we will achieve Plan A… We are confident we will get a strong bipartisan vote in the House for an assistance package for Ukraine… It’s already taken too long,” he said, noting, however, that “I’m not going to make predictions about exactly when this will get done.”

President Joe Biden’s military aid for Ukraine remains mired in political deadlock. The $95 billion US foreign aid bill passed by the Senate that includes more than $60 billion for Ukraine is stuck in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, with GOP lawmakers insisting new funds be linked to more action against illegal immigration. Media reported that House Republicans are in the early stages of work on an alternate foreign aid bill that they hope will be ready by April. Current discussions are believed to be centered on trying to get the aid approved in the form of a loan. Last week, Pentagon cost savings allowed Washington to scrounge up $300 million in Ukraine military assistance that included air defense interceptors, artillery rounds, and armor systems. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin touted it before European allies at a meeting of Ukraine’s Defense Contact Group at Ramstein Air Base on March 19.

“Those supplies rush to you as we speak,” said Sullivan. As for Kiev’s coveted larger package, he reiterated that “we are confident that we will get this aid to Ukraine.” Sullivan also put a damper on the Kiev regime’s hopes of getting their hands on American longer range ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile Systems) with a range of up to 300 kilometers. There were reports that these systems might be included in the $300 million Ukraine aid package. “ATACMS, I am going to disappoint you, I have nothing to announce here publicly today on that issue. When we do have something to share we will be sure to share it, but we will say that we had very constructive discussions about our military support and our capabilities,” Sullivan said.

Earlier, US officials predicted Ukraine’s failure in the NATO proxy conflict with Russia in a worst-case scenario unless Congress approves additional military aid to Kiev. “This doesn’t go well for Ukraine over time without a supplemental, and it could lead to potential collapse,” an unnamed official was quoted by The Washington Post as saying, adding: “But here’s the bottom line: Even if Ukraine holds on, what we really are saying is that we are going to leverage countless lives in order to do that.”

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“The average age of servicemen is over 45 years old..”

• Ukrainian Officers Negligent in Duties and Attitude to Personnel – POW (Sp.)

Officers in the Ukrainian Armed Forces are negligent in their duties and towards personnel, with discipline among servicemen low, Ukrainian Sergeant Dmytro Balanda, who was on the line of contact near Kupyansk at the end of 2023, told reporters. “No one wanted to fight, everyone resented it, there were no officers at the position. They gave orders: just go out, dig in, without saying where to dig in, in which direction, or where to wait for encounters, it was such a negligent attitude. Many of my comrades were outraged and said: ‘Why don’t we have officers… We didn’t have proper training.’ The average age of servicemen is over 45 years old,” said Balanda, who later surrendered in the Zaporozhye region.

According to him, servicemen in his unit refused to participate in combat operations. “The attitude of the commanders is bad … For several days we were without water, without food. There is no discipline, discipline was violated. The servicemen managed to get drunk, they didn’t get rowdy, but they refused to go to their positions. They said they refuse to carry out combat operations. They were written down as insubordinate and thrown in the brig without water or food,” the prisoner added. As the commander of the detachment BARS-10, call sign “Saturn,” told reporters, the Ukrainian serviceman was detained when he crossed the line of contact near the village of Kamenskoye in the Zaporozhye region.

“In the morning, under fog, under enemy fire, it was right during an intense attack by enemy FPV drones. The observer at a distant post saw that there was a man with a backpack and two bags in his hands. We reported it on the radio, moved forward, and decided to arrest him without firing, because we saw with binoculars and a drone that he was unarmed. We ordered him to lie down on the pavement, put his things down, and take off his outer clothes in order to protect us. There are many examples, everything happens, maybe a person is booby-trapped, like a shahid [suicide attacker],” Saturn said, describing the circumstances of the detention and the security measures taken by the Russian troops.

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Hot and empty air.

• US Submits Draft Resolution To UN Calling For Gaza Ceasefire – Blinken (TASS)

The United States has submitted a draft resolution to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) calling for an immediate ceasefire and release of Israeli hostages in the Gaza Strip, according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. “We actually have a resolution that we put forward right now that’s before the United Nations Security Council that does call for an immediate ceasefire tied to the release of hostages, and we hope very much that countries will support that,” he said in an interview with the Al Hadath television. According to Blinken, the latest draft resolution would send a “strong signal.” While the United States stands with Israel’s right to defend itself, Washington focuses on efforts to protect civilians “who are suffering so terribly,” he emphasized.

“We’ve been leading the effort to do that, to get more in, to get more to the people who need it. We are pressing on that as hard as we can,” Blinken said. The United States used its right to veto at the UNSC to block several resolutions calling for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian radical movement Hamas before. Algeria was the last country to have submitted its draft resolution in late February. On Wednesday, the US secretary of state arrived in Saudi Arabia, the first stop of his sixth tour of the Middle East since the Palestinian-Israeli conflict escalated again on October 7. Blinken is planning to travel to Egypt and Israel later on. He is expected to hold talks in Cairo with top diplomats from Egypt, Jordan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia as well as with the UAE minister for international cooperation and a senior Palestinian official later today.

Varadkar

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“Israel has proven a failed experiment, incapable of conducting itself as a legitimate nation-state.”

• Authorized Atrocities (Patrick Lawrence)

In the decade before the American defeat in Indochina, the U.S. and its allies dropped more than 7.5 million tons of bombs on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. If we want to go further back in postwar history we can think about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Then we can think about Israel in Gaza: As of the start of this year — leaving us more than three months to count — it had dropped more than 70,000 tons of ordnance on a territory the size of Manhattan. Torture of Palestinian prisoners — the beatings, the maiming, the waterboarding, the forced confessions: Is this so different from how the U.S. conducted the “war on terror?” Long-term detentions in dungeons with no charges and no recourse to attorneys: There is no echo in this of what goes on at Guantánamo as we speak? Those IDF soldiers in the photographs are nothing more than punks with guns, vulgarians with no shred of humanity in them. Can we rightfully describe the U.S. troops at Abu Ghraib any differently?

Israel ignores the International Court of Justice? Where might this impudence come from? There is more, much more, that we can add to this list. Afghanistan merits a place on it. There is the West’s “back-to-the-Stone–Age” destruction of Libya in 2011. I confine myself to the postwar decades to allow us to take a good, clear look at that “edifice of global norms” of which Mishra writes. When we do, we find the West has licensed the Israelis. They bear a pre-authorization by way of many precedents. There is one for more or less every shameful act the Israelis perpetrate against the Palestinian population — this in the West Bank as well as Gaza. And so we discover — or remind ourselves, depending on how attentive we have been to events — that the post–1945 edifice has looked from the start roughly as it looks now. Israel is at bottom an outcome, not the prime cause of anything.

Certainly the grotesque spectacle of mass murder and wholesale destruction we witness daily has marked a rupture, to stay with Mishra’s term. But to assert that this rupture lies in Israel’s conduct is to sustain an insidious mythology of innocence for the West. No, the true rupture lies with those in the West who are sucked into Israel’s utter immorality and now come face-to-face with their amoral indifference or, for the best of them, discover the extent of their powerlessness despite their authentic efforts. As to Israel, I am with Primo Levi as Mishra quotes him. “The Jewish state” had already proven a mistake when he made his much-disputed remark in 1985. The truth of it has since been demonstrated a hundred times over. Israel has proven a failed experiment, incapable of conducting itself as a legitimate nation-state.

But whose mistake is Israel? It was the West, Britain in the lead, that created Israel by caving to the Zionists at the expense of indigenous Palestinians. This is the reality of power that should weigh most heavily on our shoulders. Israel ‘R’ us. Britain’s abandonment of the 1920 Mandate brings us to one of the deeper characteristics of our time, our postwar edifice. This is the ever more complete disregard of those in power for the principles, standards and broadly accepted ethics that give form and coherence to a stable civilization and keep its public space clean and well lit. In our crumbling edifice, everything is done according to its value as an expedient to a desired outcome. This, too, is a kind of depravity. And it is this depravity that produces the depravity we watch as we watch Israel’s effort to destroy an entire people.

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“Last week, the Houthis’ leader, Abdul Malik Al-Houthi, vowed to expand the campaign to the Indian Ocean and hit vessels traveling around South Africa..”

• Russia and China Reach Shipping Deal With Houthis (RT)

The Yemen-based Houthi militants have told Russia and China that their ships can sail freely through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden without fear of being attacked, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing sources. People with knowledge of the matter told the outlet that the understanding was reached during talks in Oman involving Russian and Chinese diplomats and a top Houthi political figure. According to Bloomberg’s sources, in exchange for promising safe passage for ships the Houthis want the two countries to provide political support for the rebel group in international bodies such as the UN Security Council.

The Houthi rebels have carried out dozens of drone and missile attacks on commercial vessels traversing the Red Sea, disrupting shipping traffic through one of the world’s most important maritime corridors. As a result, many major shipping companies have stopped using the Suez Canal and are instead redirecting ships around the Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa. The Houthis have been attacking ships they believe to be linked to Israel in what they claim is a show of “solidarity” with the Palestinian people in light of the war in Gaza. After the US and the UK conducted a number of strikes on Houthi facilities in Yemen, the group said it would now also attack ships affiliated with both nations.

In a recent such incident, Yemeni missiles struck the merchant vessel True Confidence in the Gulf of Aden earlier this month, causing the first deaths since the militant group started its attacks. The Houthis claimed the vessel was American. However, according to a Bloomberg source, the ship used to be owned by Los Angeles-based Oaktree Capital, but a new non-US company had taken it over. A senior Houthi political leader, Ali Alqhoom, declared recently on X (formerly Twitter) that the group’s goal is “sinking America, Britain and the West in the swamp of the Red Sea.” Last week, the Houthis’ leader, Abdul Malik Al-Houthi, vowed to expand the campaign to the Indian Ocean and hit vessels traveling around South Africa. Attacks on vessels in the Red Sea region decreased traffic via the Suez Canal, a vital route between Asia and Europe that ordinarily handles about 15% of global maritime trade.

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“We have surprises that the enemies do not expect at all,” before announcing the successful testing of a new hypersonic missile..”

• Yemen’s Indian Ocean Checkmate (Harb)

Ansarallah’s maritime reach has surpassed all initial expectations, now extending to the distant shores of the Indian Ocean in its ambitious plan to besiege Israel by targeting the occupation state’s shipping interests. Yemen’s strategic position not only serves as a beacon of hope for Palestinians enduring Israel’s brutal military assault on their lives, homes, and livelihoods but has also become a crucial pillar in the Axis of Resistance’s fight against US hegemonic machinations in West Asia. In late February, al-Houthi vowed to expand the scope of attacks against Israel-linked vessels, stating, “We have surprises that the enemies do not expect at all,” before announcing the successful testing of a new hypersonic missile. This stands in stark contradiction to western narratives trumpeting their own containment efforts to encircle Yemen and thwart its ability to intercept Israel-bound vessels.

If anything, the naval operations undertaken by the Ansarallah-aligned armed forces are instead rippling outward, spanning a remarkable distance of over 6,000 kilometers from the Yemeni coast to the Indian Ocean. Crucially, Yemen’s defiance has drawn widespread, popular support from its once-warring nationals, not just in support of Gaza and the Israeli blockade but also against the relentless US and British airstrikes launched under the fig leaf of Operation ‘Prosperity Guardian’ – an extrajudicial imperial project which aims to cripple Ansarallah’s military capabilities under the guise of securing international shipping and trade routes. Yet al-Houthi’s unequivocal declaration on barring the passage of ships associated with Israel, or those engaged in commercial ties with it, from traversing the Indian Ocean and the Cape of Good Hope shows that Washington and London have been dealt a resounding strategic defeat.

By targeting these two new critical waterway passages, Yemen imposes a new reality on global shipping routes. This phase of the naval battle presents a significant threat to the world’s established maritime corridors, compelling commercial vessels traveling to and from Southeast Asia to navigate lengthier and more costly routes around the southern tip of Africa to reach the Mediterranean Sea. Al-Houthi’s message is clear: “Do the Americans, British, and the Zionists expect that any aggressive act against Yemen will distract us from defending Gaza?” Ansarallah recently announced the targeting of over 70 commercial ships with ties to Israel, alongside military battleships across the Red Sea, Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden, and the Indian Ocean.

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“..the US could have leaked the talk of a plea deal to the press to portray Assange as unreasonable if he didn’t take it..”

• Justice Department Considering Plea Deal for Assange (Antiwar)

The Justice Department is considering whether to offer WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange the opportunity to plead guilty to a reduced charge of mishandling classified information, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. The report said DOJ officials and Assange’s legal team have already had preliminary talks on what a plea deal might look like. However, Barry Pollack, a lawyer for Assange, said he has been given no indication that the department will take a deal. “It is inappropriate for Mr. Assange’s lawyers to comment while his case is before the UK High Court other than to say we have been given no indication that the Department of Justice intends to resolve the case and the United States is continuing with as much determination as ever to seek his extradition on all 18 charges, exposing him to 175 years in prison,” Pollack said in a statement.

Consortium News reported later in the day that it had previously learned of the talks between the US and Assange’s legal team on a potential deal, but the information was given off the record, so the outlet did not publicize it. Under the DOJ’s indictment against Assange, he could face up to 175 years in prison under the Espionage Act for exposing US war crimes by publishing classified documents leaked to WikiLeaks by former Army Private Chelsea Manning in 2010. If Assange is convicted, it would set a dangerous precedent for press freedom since publishing information obtained by a source is a standard journalistic practice, whether classified or not. The Journal report said that if the DOJ offers a deal for Assange to plead guilty to a lesser charge of mishandling classified information, it would be a misdemeanor, and he could potentially enter the plea remotely without going to the US. His time in London’s Belmarsh Prison, where he’s been held since April 2019, would count toward his sentence, and Assange could be free shortly after reaching the deal.

While such a deal could potentially secure Assange’s freedom, it could still set a dangerous precedent since it would criminalize the relationship between a journalist and his source. Kevin Gostzola, author of the book “Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case Against Julian Assange,” suggested the US could have leaked the talk of a plea deal to the press to portray Assange as unreasonable if he didn’t take it. “Basically, US officials chat to the press about some possible plea deal for Assange when he isn’t guilty of any crime. If Assange’s team signals it would never be acceptable, then it is Assange’s fault that he remains in prison. Officials can say he wants to martyr himself,” Gostzola wrote on X. Last month, Assange’s legal team presented its case for an appeal to the UK home secretary’s decision to extradite Assange to the US, and a decision on whether or not he can appeal is expected to happen soon.

The Australian government has been calling on President Biden to drop the charges against Assange, who is an Australian citizen. Some members of Congress have also been calling for an end to the persecution of the WikiLeaks founder, including Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who brought Assange’s brother, Gabriel Shipton, to President Biden’s State of the Union. WikiLeaks and Assange supporters are asking Americans to add to the pressure by contacting Congress. Americans can call their House representatives to support H.Res.934, a bill introduced by Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) that calls for the US to drop the charges against Assange.

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