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Debt Rattle September 6 2024

Sep 062024
 
 September 6, 2024  Posted by at 8:16 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  68 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Two naked figures 1908

 

• Putin Quips That He Prefers Harris To Trump (ZH)
• Trump Reacts To Putin Rooting For Harris (RT)
• Trump Pulling Ahead Of Harris – Nate Silver (RT)
• ABC Debate: ‘I’m Gonna Let Her Talk’ – Trump (ET)
• Trump Will Adopt Elon Musk’s Proposal For Gov’t Efficiency Commission (ZH)
• Ukrainian Army Facing Collapse – Putin (RT)
• Prosecutors Urge Hunter Biden Judge To Reject Plea Deal (ZH)
• Scott Ritter Says Ending Cooperation With RT, Sputnik Due to US Sanctions (Sp.)
• ‘A Unique Kind of Fascism’: US Continues Clampdown on Alt Media (Miles)
• DoJ Clampdown on Russian Media Proving US Empire Has No Clothes (Sp.)
• Whistleblowers Reveal US Secret Service Blunders (Sp.)
• Pavel Durov Warns French Crackdown Will Prompt Serious Tech Setbacks (Sp.)
• Macron Pushes Through PM Pick After 60 Days (Manley)
• Germany Reeling in the Wake of AfD Election Victories (SCF)

 

 

 

 

Trump lead CNN

 

 

RT

 

 

Kamala CNN

 

 

Tulsi

 

 

Benny

 

 

Liz Cheney Kamala

 

 

Tucker

 

 

9 times cheaper

 

 

Chris M Butler
https://twitter.com/i/status/1831722765335806020

 

 

Rogan

 

 

 

 

“Putin said Harris “laughs so contagiously and expressively, it shows she’s doing well.”

• Putin Quips That He Prefers Harris To Trump (ZH)

Russian President Vladimir Putin said during an interview at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok that Russia now wants Vice President Kamala Harris to win in November since they had previously supported Joe Biden – and Biden has endorsed Harris. “I told you, our favorite, if I may say so, was the current president, Mr. Biden,” said Putin, smirking. “He was removed from the race, but he advised all his supporters to support Ms. Harris. So we will do it as well, we will root for her,” he continued. Putin said Harris “laughs so contagiously and expressively, it shows she’s doing well.” “And if she is doing well, then … Trump introduced so many restrictions and sanctions against Russia, like no other president had ever introduced before him. And if Ms. Harris is doing well, perhaps she will refrain from doing anything like that,” he continued.

As modernity.news continues, Putin’s comments are likely to be dismissed as a joke by the Harris campaign, while Trump will probably use them to deflect long-standing claims by Democrats that his campaign is supported by Russia. According to Sky News’ Moscow correspondent Ivor Bennett, “Vladimir Putin is having a little chuckle himself here. His comments are almost certainly more mischief-making than a statement of fact because, as we know, Russia’s president doesn’t always say what he thinks.” As we highlighted earlier this week, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked by pro-Russia TV reporter Pavel Zarubin, “Then who is our candidate now?” “We have no candidate. But, of course, the Democrats are more predictable. And what Putin said about Biden’s predictability applies to almost all Democrats, including Ms. Harris,” responded Peskov. The Kremlin spokesman was also dismissive towards Trump’s claim that he could end the war with Ukraine within 24 hours.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1831723835101499393

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” I don’t know exactly what to say about it. I don’t know if I’m insulted or he did me a favor..”

• Trump Reacts To Putin Rooting For Harris (RT)

US Republican candidate Donald Trump said on Thursday that he doesn’t know how to feel about Russian President Vladimir Putin stating that he preferred his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris. The Russian leader said earlier in the day at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok that Moscow would rather see Harris win the US presidential election in November. Putin told the audience that he admired the Democratic Party candidate’s “infectious laugh” and that he respected current President Joe Biden’s choice to endorse her as his successor. “He [Putin] endorsed Kamala, and I didn’t know if I was supposed to call him up and say, ‘Thank you very much’ … I don’t know exactly what to say about it. I don’t know if I’m insulted or he did me a favor,” Trump claimed during an event at the Economic Club of New York. US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby reacted by stating that the Russian president should refrain from discussing the US presidential election.

Putin’s remarks came in response to a question at the forum on whether he had a preferred candidate in the US election now that Joe Biden, for whom he previously expressed a preference, has dropped out. Putin replied by saying that it was not Russia’s job to choose a “favorite” in the election, which is up to American voters. Moscow has repeatedly dismissed Washington’s allegations about attempts to interfere in the US elections. Speaking about Harris, the Russian president suggested that her positive disposition could mean she would refrain from imposing as many sanctions on Russia as Trump did, who Putin said had introduced more restrictions on Moscow than any other president in American history at the time. “In the end, the choice is up to the American people, and we will treat their eventual decision with respect,” Putin said.

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“..Trump now stands a 58.2% chance of winning the election, compared to Harris’ 41.6%..”

• Trump Pulling Ahead Of Harris – Nate Silver (RT)

Influential American election analyst Nate Silver has put Republican candidate Donald Trump’s chances of defeating Vice President Kamala Harris in this November’s election higher than at any point since Harris announced her candidacy in July. Despite polling consistently showing Harris with a slight lead over Trump, Silver claimed on Wednesday that the Democrat has underperformed in recent surveys, and that Trump now stands a 58.2% chance of winning the election, compared to Harris’ 41.6%. This time last week, Silver’s model gave Trump a 52.4% chance of winning, and put Harris’ chances at 47.3%. Silver’s predictions are regularly cited by American media outlets, and are considered among the more influential election forecasts in the country. His methodology samples polling, economic data, likely turnout, and other factors – including the post-convention “bounce” that typically boosts a candidate for several weeks after the official nomination.

Democrats confirmed Harris as their party’s nominee at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago three weeks ago. However, Harris didn’t receive the “bounce” that most candidates normally do, Silver explained. CNN polls conducted after the convention showed Harris and Trump tied in three out of six battleground states and leading by around five points in three more, while a YouGov survey showed the Democrat leading by two points nationwide. With these polls taken so soon after the convention, Harris should have held a wider lead, Silver argued. Silver’s predictions are contradicted by other pollsters. FiveThirtyEight, an analytics organization founded by Silver, maintains that if the election were held today, Harris stands a 55% chance of winning, with Trump’s likelihood of victory standing at 44%. While FiveThirtyEight and Silver use the same methodology, FiveThirtyEight places more emphasis on polling as election day draws closer.

Individual polls can be misleading, however. A New York Times poll last month showed Harris beating Trump by 50% to 46% in the swing states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. However, the poll oversampled Democrats, and when adjusted showed Harris and Trump in a statistical dead heat in all three states. For both Harris and Trump, winning either Pennsylvania and its 19 electoral votes, or Michigan and Wisconsin’s combined 25 votes, will be essential to winning the election. Silver’s model shows Trump winning in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and North Carolina, with the two candidates tied in Michigan and Harris with a slight lead in Wisconsin. “Needless to say, stranger things have happened than a candidate who was behind in the polls winning,” Silver cautioned. “And in America’s polarized political climate, most elections are close and a candidate is rarely out of the running.”

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“Everybody has a plan until they get ‘punched in the face..”

• ABC Debate: ‘I’m Gonna Let Her Talk’ – Trump (ET)

After Hannity asked what the former president was doing to get ready for next week’s debate with Harris, Trump replied: “I think I’ve been practicing all my life for this stuff. It’ll be an interesting evening.” The former president said debates are unpredictable, so a candidate needs to be nimble. Many before him have prepped extensively, only to fail miserably in the heat of debate. “Everybody has a plan until they get ‘punched in the face,’” Trump said, quoting Mike Tyson. “A lot depends on ABC. … I hope they’re going to be fair,” he said, adding that a contract bars the network from providing questions to either candidate in advance of the showdown. The Trump and Harris camps had proposed different ground rules for the debate; they disagreed over whether the candidates should be seated or standing, and over whether microphones should be muted while the opposing candidate is speaking.

Trump’s strategy? “I’m gonna let her talk,” he said. That is what he did on June 27 in Atlanta, where CNN hosted a debate between him and President Joe Biden. The incumbent was widely seen to have struggled during that face-off. Biden withdrew from the race less than a month later and endorsed Harris as his preferred successor. Noting that many thousands of Pennsylvanians depend on fracking for their livelihoods, Trump told the audience, “You have no choice; you’ve gotta vote for me.” Hannity played multiple video clips of Harris making past statements opposing fracking. Trump said he disbelieves her recent statement that she won’t ban the procedure that is used to help extract gas or oil from the ground. He said Democrats’ policies have directly hurt the industry even without an outright ban. “You have to have fracking. … It’s a massive business for Pennsylvania, and you can’t take a chance” that Harris would eliminate it, Trump said.

Hannity noted the town hall came at a time when Trump was trending upward in some of the polls. Those include a Trafalgar Group poll showing Trump ahead of Harris in Pennsylvania by 2 percentage points. The host said the latest numbers seem to suggest that Harris’s “long-lived honeymoon phase now finally, finally appears to be over.” In the RealClearPolitics average of opinion polls, Harris was holding a 1.9 percent national lead against Trump on Sept. 4. But a few very recent polls were detecting a shift in momentum. In Rasmussen Reports’ Daily Presidential Tracking Poll on Sept. 4, Trump opened a six-point lead over Harris nationally. But in Rasmussen’s five-day average, he was only 2 percent ahead of her. Many other polls still show Harris with an edge over Trump nationally, but still within the margin of error, which runs at 3 percent or more for most polls. An online prediction and betting site, Polymarket.com, on Sept. 4 showed Trump with a 52-percent chance of winning the Nov. 5 election; Harris had a 47-percent chance.

Hannity noted that Harris has given no solo news conferences since she became the apparent Democratic nominee 45 days prior to the Fox town hall. She and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, participated in an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on Aug. 29 but disclosed no new policy specifics. And, as of Sept. 4, no policy platform was yet listed on Harris’s website. Hannity contrasted this with the dozens of news conferences and interviews Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), have given since Biden dropped out of the race. After Trump passed the 16-minute, 30-second mark into the program, Hannity thanked him for going longer than Harris’s CNN interview; the audience laughed.

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“No pay, no title, no recognition is needed.”

• Trump Will Adopt Elon Musk’s Proposal For Gov’t Efficiency Commission (ZH)

Former President Trump plans to adopt Elon Musk’s proposed new commission, the Department of Government Efficiency abbreviated as ‘DOGE.’ According to The Wall Street Journal, Trump could unveil the new government efficiency commission as early as today. Trump plans to unveil the government efficiency commission before he delivers a speech at the Economic Club of New York. He will tell reporters that the commission would conduct “a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government” and make “recommendations for drastic reform.” The commission’s primary goal is to identify ways to eliminate fraud and improper payments, according to portions of the speech viewed by journos at WSJ.

Trump’s upcoming speech and proposed commission to address the failures of Biden-Harris’ Bidenomics, which sparked an inflation storm and financially crushed mid—and low-tier consumers, also aims at deregulation. Trump has actively championed deregulation to make the economy great again. Musk endorsed Trump on X shortly after the failed assassination attempt on July 13. He pledged millions of dollars to a super PAC supporting causes on the right. Speaking with Reuters last week, the former president said he would offer Musk a position if he were seriously interested. ” He’s a very smart guy. I certainly would—if he would do it, I certainly would,” the former president said. “He’s a brilliant guy.” Musk and Trump first publicly discussed a government efficiency commission during a two-hour conversation on X on August 13. The conversation has received 60.4 million views so far.

Musk shared an AI picture last month of himself standing at a platform that read “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) and wrote on X, “I am willing to serve.” Earlier this week, Musk reiterated, “I can’t wait. There is a lot of waste and needless regulation in government that needs to go.” On X this morning, Musk responded to one user’s post about WSJ’s story. He said, “I look forward to serving America if the opportunity arises. No pay, no title, no recognition is needed.” Trump also plans to say, “This election will decide whether we reward Kamala Harris with re-election and four more years of economic calamity—or whether we change direction.” Let’s not forget that the federal government loses between $233 billion and $521 billion to fraud annually, or about $4,000 per American household, as per The Hill.

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Meanwhile…

• Ukrainian Army Facing Collapse – Putin (RT)

High casualties incurred by the Ukrainian military since Kiev launched its incursion in Russia’s Kursk Region could render its armed forces useless, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. The Russian leader shared his assessment of the frontline situation on Thursday during a panel discussion at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok. He said the Ukrainian attempt to disrupt the Russian military with the massive attack across the border last month had backfired. ”Our military has stabilized the situation and is now gradually pushing the opponent from the border territories. More importantly, there is no resistance to our advancement [in Donbass],” he explained. “The opponent has weakened itself on the key axis by moving those relatively strong and well-trained units to the border areas.” Ukrainian officials expected Moscow to redeploy some of its forces from the east to repel the incursion in the north.

However, the gamble has not paid off, Aleksandr Syrsky, Kiev’s top general, acknowledged last week. Putin said Russian troops had been securing more land in Donbass, which is a priority for Moscow, at a pace unseen in a long time. Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops are “suffering very high losses in manpower and hardware.” “Because of that, [Kiev] risks a collapse of the front line on the most important axis. The casualties may result in a loss of fighting capability of the entire armed forces, which is what we are looking to achieve,” the president added. On Wednesday, the Russian Defense Ministry estimated that Ukrainian casualties in the Kursk operation had surpassed 9,700 troops. Kiev also lost 81 tanks, dozens of other armored vehicles, hundreds of cars, and multiple heavy weapons, the military said. Putin confirmed the statistics, telling the audience that the intelligence had been confirmed by multiple sources.

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Alford plea: you don’t say you did it, but you accept the punishment.

Does there need to be a conviction before he can be pardoned?

• Prosecutors Urge Hunter Biden Judge To Reject Plea Deal (ZH)

It would appear that Hunter Biden doesn’t have a nicely arranged plea deal with the DOJ after all – as prosecutors have urged the judge in the case to reject his proposal to plead guilty. Of note, Hunter is attempting to plead guilty via an “Alford plea,” which would have to be approved by the prosecution and higher-ups at the DOJ. It appears they were caught off guard.

* * *

Hunter Biden’s lawyers announced on Thursday that the first son will plead guilty in his $1.4 million tax evasion case. “Mr. Biden intends to change his plea this morning,” Hunter’s lawyer Abbe Lowell told the judge in a Los Angeles federal courtroom, with the younger Biden facing trial on nine federal charges for failing to pay federal taxes from 2016 – 2019. If convicted, Hunter faced up to 17 years behind bars. He currently faces up to 25 years behind bars when he’s sentenced in November for a conviction on gun charges.

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“I am deeply grateful for the professionalism of all of my Russian colleagues over the past several years, and am proud to have made their acquaintance..”

• Scott Ritter Says Ending Cooperation With RT, Sputnik Due to US Sanctions (Sp.)

The US Department of the Treasury issued a statement on Wednesday to announce sanctions against the Rossiya Segodnya media group, RIA Novosti, RT, Sputnik and Ruptly. The sanctions affected Rossiya Segodnya and RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan and a number of other senior executives. “The actions by the Department of the Treasury in levying new sanctions against RT, Sputnik, and other Russian media organizations has made it impossible for me to continue my work as an outside contributor for RT and Sputnik, as well as participating in interviews and other collaborations with other Russian media,” Ritter said on X. He said his work with Russian media organizations was legitimate journalism.

“I reject the notion that the work I have done over the past years with the newly sanctioned Russian media organizations has been anything other than legitimate journalism, the content of which has been factually correct and analytically sound, and always of my own creation,” Ritter said. However, he said, he is committed to obeying US laws. “Nonetheless, I am fully committed to obeying US law, and as such will be terminating all contractual relationships with both RT and Sputnik effective immediately, as well as suspending my participation in any and all media interaction with sanctioned individuals and organizations until which time it is deemed lawful to do so by US authorities,” Ritter said. He said he will continue to exercise his free speech rights.

“I am deeply grateful for the professionalism of all of my Russian colleagues over the past several years, and am proud to have made their acquaintance. I regret the actions of my government in silencing legitimate journalistic outlets, and look forward to the day when freedom of speech and a free press is not constrained by a dubious ‘Russian exception’ that is violative of Constitutional norms and values,” Ritter said. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, commenting on the US sanctions imposed against the Rossiya Segodnya media group, told Sputnik that attacks on Russian media are the result of operations by Western security services to “sterilize” the information space.

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“..a recent survey found that almost half of Amercans believe there is “not enough democracy” in the United States while 57% of people polled said the US government only serves a minority of its population..”

• ‘A Unique Kind of Fascism’: US Continues Clampdown on Alt Media (Miles)

The Biden administration signaled that it would continue to clamp down on alternative media Wednesday with the announcement of several measures against figures connected to Russian outlets. “Today, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated ten individuals and two entities as part of a coordinated US government response to Moscow’s malign influence efforts targeting the 2024 US presidential election,” read a statement released Wednesday morning. US Attorney General Merrick Garland claimed individuals connected to Russian media outlets were involved in a campaign to spread “disinformation” in the months leading up to November’s election, a favored talking point the Biden administration has repeatedly used to justify its heavy-handed tactics in regulating social media.

The account for RT on the video sharing giant YouTube was removed in 2022 and Biden signed legislation earlier this year likely to result in the social media app TikTok becoming unavailable in the United States after this fall’s election.Writer and historian Dr. Gerald Horne joined Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program Wednesday to discuss the surprising development, which he attributed to the United States’ concern over the rise of Russia, China and Iran and the emergence of an increasingly multipolar world. “It’s difficult to judge what you just described without judging simultaneously what’s unfolding in the Tampa, St. Petersburg area of Florida, where Chairman Omali and his comrades and the African People’s Socialist Party and the Uhuru movement are now facing trial in the halls of injustice for reasons eerily similar to these charges,” said Horne, referring to the Biden administration’s ongoing persecution of Black radical groups.

“Certainly, we should not forget what has befallen Scott Ritter, the former arms inspector, now viewed widely as a dissident who has been a frequent guest on numerous platforms including your own, as I understand it, rebuking and reprimanding US foreign policy, particularly as it relates to the escapade in Ukraine,” he continued. “Not to mention the funding and financing an army of the radical regime in Israel. We are also aware of what has befallen Richard Medhurst who is a frequent speaker on issues related to Iran in particular. He was detained in London summarily just a few days ago in a blatant violation of civil rights and civil liberties, causing some commentators to suggest that England, Great Britain is moving towards a unique kind of fascism.” Horne claimed a “hysteria” is gripping the US political class over an emerging counterhegemonic bloc of countries increasingly able to challenge the political and economic might of the United States.

Former US Army officer Gen. Wesley Clark reflected the anxieties of Washington officialdom in an editorial in USA Today recently, casting Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping as enemies of “democracy.” But a recent survey found that almost half of Amercans believe there is “not enough democracy” in the United States while 57% of people polled said the US government only serves a minority of its population. Russia and China ranked higher than the United States on most questions regarding their citizens’ self-perception of their country’s democracy, with Chinese people being among the most likely in the world to consider their country democratic. Clark drew attention to improving relations between Beijing and Moscow, something the United States worked to undermine throughout the Cold War.

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“$10 million would barely influence a US Senate race. The amount is hardly a drop in the bucket for a presidential race.”

• DoJ Clampdown on Russian Media Proving US Empire Has No Clothes (Sp.)

The US Justice Department’s sweeping crackdown on Russian media on Wednesday to the thunderous applause of the legacy media will leave Americans a little less informed, less safe and a lot less free, observers including long-time Sputnik contributors say. “It looks like the US Department of Justice is producing another election year spectacular. Sixty days before the election we are invited to suspend our disbelief and embrace ‘Russia, Russia, Russia: The Sequel.’ And once again the DOJ is rounding up the usual suspects: Trump, Russia and Democracy,” political commentator and Newsmax columnist Michael Shannon told Sputnik, commenting on the DoJ’s unprecedented crackdown on Russian media Wednesday over alleged “disinformation” and an election-related “malign influence operation.”

“I predict the audience for this lame sequel will be the remaining mask wearers, Clot Shot booster advocates, Trump haters, consonant crusaders and government employees. Anyone else with simple common sense will see it for what it is: The DOJ’s attempt to influence the election,” Shannon stressed. The figures being alleged by the Justice Department are also laughable, according to the observer. “Let’s put alleged Russian influence buying in perspective. The indictment says Tenent Media was given $10 million to ‘influence the election.’ I’ve got news for you. $10 million would barely influence a US Senate race. The amount is hardly a drop in the bucket for a presidential race. Donald Trump and Joe Biden combined spent $1.85 BILLION in 2020,” Shannon emphasized.

“I regret the actions of my government in silencing legitimate journalistic outlets, and look forward to the day when freedom of speech and a free press is not constrained by a dubious ‘Russian exception’ that is violative of Constitutional norms and values,” former US Marine intelligence officer, UN weapons inspector and commentator Scott Ritter wrote in a social media post. Ritter, who has already suffered a campaign of blatant intimidation by the FBI, including a raid on his family home and the confiscation of his passport, announced the termination of his work for Sputnik and other Russian media after the DoJ and Treasury’s new restrictions were announced, fearing he would be further targeted.

Former CIA analyst-turned whistleblower and author Larry Johnson highlighted the DoJ crackdown’s off the charts “hypocrisy that is staggering in its magnitude and its foulness,” telling Sputnik that the claims of Russian media attempts to “meddle” in the upcoming US presidential election are simply laughable when considering that the US government has allocated “almost $4 billion to interfere or meddle in the political affairs of other countries” in 2024 alone. Popular independent media personality Jackson Hinkle says Americans looking for alternative perspectives and sources of information will the most to suffer from the DoJ’s move. “We can topple governments. We can kill sovereign presidents of sovereign countries. But for a media company to be reporting on the facts…about what’s actually going on in the world, and then for the United States to sanction them, it’s absolutely insane,” Hinkle said. “I think millions of Americans want to hear that truth, and that’s why they’re going after companies like Sputnik so hard right now.”

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“It’s a matter of an intent to expose him to potential assassination..”

• Whistleblowers Reveal US Secret Service Blunders (Sp.)

Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) has claimed that most agents who were present during the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump in July were not US Secret Service (USSS) agents, but were in fact Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents. The US politician told Fox News that the only training the agents received was a “2-hour online webinar” training. Citing claims made by whistleblowers, he added that the agents who were protecting the former president that day had no prior experience in security detail. Hawley wrote the whistleblowers’ allegations in a letter to Ronald Rowe, the acting director of the USSS, and attached the letter to an X post. Tyler Nixon, an attorney, media relations specialist and political analyst, joined Rachel Blevins on The Backstory on Wednesday, and presented a rundown of the agency’s long-standing failings.

“Well, there’s no question that the Secret Service (USSS) is a very troubled agency and it has been varyingly for many years,” Nixon said. “…the agency has had serious problems with … racial discrimination. There was a lawsuit that became a class action that dragged on for nearly 17 years of Black agents from the ‘80s and ‘90s who were held back, discriminated against, suppressed in terms of promotions. They won and the Secret Service fought that tooth and nail.” The lawyer disclosed that he represents the first Black Secret Service agent who served on presidential protection, who has threatened to be a whistleblower to the “Warren Commission concerning the laxity, drinking and other things that the agents had perpetrated or done on the President John F. Kennedy detail,” he said, adding that “many argue [the laxity] contributed to their slow reactions [of JFK’s assassination].”

“[USSS] has to, I think, if they were talking about it, it’s well over a billion-dollar budget. I think it might have been $1.4 billion, if I’m not mistaken. But whatever it is, it is absolutely enough that they should have the best equipment, the best agents and the best operations. And I think it’s just proof that, generally speaking, you can throw as much money as you want at a government agency to address a problem if there’s institutional incompetence and institutional issues and just the fact that the government operates the way it does without accountability,” Nixon explained.

“And one of the other things was, which really stands out in the Trump affair was that they were assigning […] based on apparently the status, let’s just say, of the protectee, meaning Trump’s not the president. He’s a candidate, a former president. Versus what [American conservative commentator Dan Bongino] noted should be the criteria for assigning the resources, which is the threat profile,” he added. “In Butler, there was what I would view as it wasn’t simply incompetence. There was actually active security stripping, which is very, very troubling because that’s not just a matter of people not doing their jobs properly. It’s a matter of an intent to expose him to potential assassination or assassination, and that is, that’s corruption that is so – I mean, it would be criminal, obviously, that level of corruption,” he continued. “So, major reforms need to happen with that agency, if not a total reckoning.”

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“..Telegram has an official representative in the EU that both “accepts and replies to EU requests.”

• Pavel Durov Warns French Crackdown Will Prompt Serious Tech Setbacks (Sp.)

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov spoke out on Thursday against the crackdown against his platform by French authorities, warning that the spate of charges could mark the start of serious setbacks for the tech industry as a whole. In a post shared on Telegram, Durov detailed that he had been questioned by French authorities over a period of four days, and that he had been informed he would be held “personally responsible” for criminal actions that occur on the platform due to past notifications that had gone answered. “This,” Durov went onto emphasis, “was surprising for several reasons.” Not least of which was the fact that Telegram has an official representative in the EU that both “accepts and replies to EU requests.” “Its email address has been publicly available for anyone in the EU who googles ‘Telegram EU address for law enforcement,'” he pointed out, adding that authorities could have easily contacted him via the French consulate in Dubai.

“A while ago, when asked, I personally helped them establish a hotline with Telegram to deal with the threat of terrorism in France.” “Using laws from the pre-smartphone era to charge a CEO with crimes committed by third parties on the platform he manages is a misguided approach,” he said. “Building technology is hard enough as it is. No innovator will ever build new tools if they know they can be personally held responsible for potential abuse of those tools.” Rather than pursuing criminal charges, French authorities should have instead opted for the “established practice” of filing legal action against an internet service to start proceedings. Durov underscored that Telegram would not be abandoning its principles on ensuring users’ privacy and security, but that it was and will continue to hold open lines of communications with country regulators.

However, if no balance can be made in any one nation, the company will opt to “leave.” The CEO further rejected reports that painted Telegram as “some sort of anarchic paradise” and slammed them as “absolutely untrue.” However, while the platform’s user count has soared upwards of 950 million, he acknowledged the spike “made it easier for criminals to abuse our platform.” Durov revealed that new internal measures were being implemented, and that such steps would be made public at a later time. The Russian-born tech entrepreneur was detained at a Paris airport on August 24 on charges related to criminal uses of his messaging app, including terrorism, child pornography, drug trafficking, money laundering and fraud. He was released on August 28 on a 5-million-euro ($5.5 million) bail and is barred from leaving France.

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Both France and Germany are in deep political trouble.

“It’s like a husband and wife debating over which electrician to hire to redo the wiring in your house not being able to come to an agreement and hiring a plumber..”

• Macron Pushes Through PM Pick After 60 Days (Manley)

President Emmanuel Macron has appointed Michel Barnier, 73, a veteran right-wing politician who served twice as European Commissioner and played a major role in the 2016 Brexit Task Force, as the new prime minister of France as of Thursday. Macron is trying to break through a political impasse that has gripped France following the country’s snap legislative elections held in July. The French presidency said in a statement that Macron is entrusting Barnier with “the task of forming a unity government to serve the country and the French people”, the New York Times reported. Barnier will take over the role from Gabriel Attal, France’s youngest ever prime minister who has held the position for the last eight months. Phil Kelly, a Belfast-based political commentator and socialist activist, joined Sputnik’s Political Misfits Thursday to discuss Macron’s continued rejection of the French public’s desires.

“This is far from democracy. This is an absurdity,” said Kelly. “It’s like a husband and wife debating over which electrician to hire to redo the wiring in your house not being able to come to an agreement and hiring a plumber. It’s an affront, an absolute affront to the democratic will of the people.” “What Macron is doing is he’s investing heavily in creating future problems because France is a powder keg. It is divided. The breakthrough for the left was good to see, but let’s hope it’s not a pyrrhic victory because what acts like this are doing is it just erodes faith that people have in their democratic institutions,” he added. “It’s a further sign that France is in dissent and chaos, that its establishment is flailing, that Macron is just trying to hold the door against change,” the analyst suggested. “But that change will come to France and I hope it’s a positive change, but there’s no guarantee there will be. The country’s in a dark way.”

In March of last year France’s Senate passed a controversial reform bill to raise the retirement age for French citizens by two years. The Senate passed the bill by 195 votes to 112. Macron’s decision to push through a bill that is extremely unpopular among voters for the alleged sake of the economy clearly went unforgiven during July’s election. Business-friendly think tanks such as the pro-Macron Institut Montaigne claim Macron’s pension plan is more cost-effective than other proposals, but a majority of French voters reject the ploy. “A country that is able to send billions of euros to the Kiev regime while its own citizens are offered a diet of, ‘we make you work longer for less’… and it’s a bit like from his gilded palace in Paris. He’s a bit like Macron Antoinette,” Kelly said.

“Macron [is] a guy who’s deeply unpopular, who, at one point, was talking up the advantage of World War III to the French people, now clinging on desperately to power, trying to make the guy who lost who came forth the leader of the country and all, as you say, to cling on to his own power for a little bit longer and to try and push through a policy that is so deeply unpopular.” In January, Macron claimed during a speech at the Swedish Defense Academy that the future security architecture of the continent could no longer be settled simply by the United States and that Europe should determine its own future. In April, the French president said he would be willing to discuss using French nuclear warheads as a “credible European defense” against a supposed Russian threat. The French president previously hinted at the use of France’s nuclear weapons in 2020 and again in 2022. In March the leader alarmed other EU member states when he announced his openness to ground operations in Ukraine, saying it might be required “at some point”.

“It’s not, unfortunately, only France that has this kind of political class,” Kelly added. “[There was] one of the ministers in the German government who’s a member of the Green Party saying — I’m sure you remember this — ‘I don’t care about German voters, I’ll do whatever it takes to support Ukraine.’” “This is why Europe is in decline. Much like your country where the political establishment has [nothing to] offer, it has no vision of how to move things forward, it only has ‘how can we trick the electorate in the next election and then just do the same [thing],’” he explained.

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“The government in Berlin should ask itself if it can even continue to govern..”

• Germany Reeling in the Wake of AfD Election Victories (SCF)

The German residents of Saxony and Thuringia awoke on Monday to a radical new political landscape as the Alternative for Germany, or Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), received more than double as many votes as the three parties which make up the federal coalition government — the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), environmentalist Greens and neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP) — combined. This marks the first in any German state since Nazi rule. The results represent a major setback to Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s struggling coalition government and demonstrate the increasing breakup of the political landscape and surge in popularity of anti-establishment parties across the continent. Scholz labelled the losses for his government “bitter” and called upon mainstream parties to build governments without “right-wing extremists”.

The AfD, which, as an “extremist” group, falls under the official surveillance of the German domestic intelligence agency, was founded in 2013 as an offshoot of the CDU. It advertises itself as a right-wing movement that is critical of the European Union’s policies but supportive of German membership. Since its founding, the party has moved further to the political right and shifted its attention to immigration and Islam. The party is most powerful in the formerly communist east Germany, which is less wealthy than the country’s west. Björn Höcke, 52, the leader of Thuringia, has been convicted of knowingly using a Nazi slogan at political events, a conviction he is appealing. A court in the eastern city of Halle fined the history teacher turned politician for using the prohibited phrase “Everything for Germany”, or “Alles für Deutschland” in German. The slogan was etched on weapons used by Nazi paramilitary officers. Germany has harsh laws against the use of phrases and symbols linked to the Nazi party.

In the last nationwide election, for the European Parliament in June, the AfD attracted 16 percent of the vote. In other words, not exactly a nationwide nationalist takeover. Moreover, with just over 2 million people out of a national population of more than 80 million, Thuringia ranks as one of the smallest of Germany’s 16 states. At the same time, Saxony’s population stands at just 4 million. Nevertheless, it is rather astonishing, and worrisome, that about one in three voters in these two states cast their vote for a party that the states’ own intelligence agencies have declared to be ‘extremist’. Factors that have led to support for the AfD in eastern Germany include deep dissatisfaction with the national government, anti-immigration sentiment and opposition to any further German military aid for Ukraine. And despite the government’s rapid reaction to the deadly knife attack in Solingen, in western Germany, shortly before the elections failed to result in a change of opinion. Four out of five German voters have expressed discontent with the work of the federal government, a sentiment that has lasted a long time.

The AfD rightly views itself as having established a deep support base. The state elections brought “historic” success for their party, AfD co-leader Alice Weidel said on Sunday, calling for the federal government to stand down. “It is also a punishment for the federal government, it is a requiem for this coalition,” she said. “The government in Berlin should ask itself if it can even continue to govern. This question of fresh elections should be posed at least following the [upcoming] election in Brandenburg, because things cannot carry on like this.” Now the government of Olaf Scholz is attempting to recalibrate its positions, moving further to the right to counter the AfD’s respectable gains. Looking down the road to the immigration debate during the electoral campaigns, the federal government last week announced harsher migration and security policies, and made an unexpected move to deport 28 asylum-seekers who had committed criminal offenses to Afghanistan.

Now, all eyes are now focused on the eastern German state of Brandenburg, where elections are scheduled for September 22. The coalition of the SPD, Greens and FDP are nervously anticipating this vote as the German population is increasingly demanding new blood in the halls of power. If early nationwide elections were to be held today, current polling shows they would no longer get a majority. The victors would be their competitors the AfD and the Conservative Union of the Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian counterparts, the Christian Social Union (CSU). The Union, which comprises the largest opposition bloc in the Bundestag, has long called for the government to step down. Therefore, the SPD will be campaigning extra hard leading up to election day, because the vote will be crucial for them. The party has led the government in Brandenburg since 1990.

“I expect that everyone will make even more of an effort than ever before,” said SPD co-leader Lars Klingbeil on Sunday evening in Berlin. The party needed to work together to win back votes, he said. “Everyone now needs to play their part so that things improve.” In the event that Brandenburg’s state premier of 11 years, Dietmar Woidke, fails to be reelected, this could set in motion some serious power moves in the country. There is even the possibility that Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who polls higher than Scholz among Germans, could become the chancellor candidate for the federal election in September 2025. Will the coalition government last that long? That’s a question many Germans are anxiously pondering today amid the rise of far-right ideology, which is beginning to reverberate across the country. Whether that will turn into a political earthquake remains to be seen.

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Putin Nordstream

 

 

Ghostwriting
https://twitter.com/i/status/1831522277705372109

 

 

Fox

 

 

Best job

 

 

Thank you

 

 

Trust

 

 

Antlers

 

 

Moose
https://twitter.com/i/status/1831678847835590856

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle August 9 2024

Aug 092024
 
 August 9, 2024  Posted by at 9:02 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  68 Responses »


Henry Bacon Fisherfolk returning with their nets, Étretat 1890

 

• Harris Snubbed VP Contender Shapiro Because He’s Jewish – Trump (RT)
• Why Did Kamala Snub The Obvious VP Choice In Josh Shapiro (QTR)
• Harris Chose Walz Over Shapiro to Ward Off Critics of Israel War on Gaza (Sp.)
• National Guard Disputes Walz’s Military Bio (ZH)
• Harris/Walz Rally Was Really Just Another Free Concert (MN)
• ‘They Took It Away’: Trump Admits Democrats Snatched Presidency From Biden (Sp.)
• Vance Explains Trump’s Plans For Europe (RT)
• This Means War! (Jim Rickards)
• German Heavy Armor Back To Fields Of Kursk Region After 80 Years (RT)
• Russia Should No Longer Hold Back In Ukraine – Medvedev (RT)
• US Must Rein In ‘Terrorist Client’ Ukraine – Moscow (RT)
• Police Release Bodycam Video of Officer Trying to Confront Trump Shooter (Sp.)
• Scott Ritter Blasts Raid on His Home as US Gov ‘Fishing Expedition’ (Sp.)
• Allowing Two Million Gazans To Starve ‘May Be Moral’ – Israeli Minister (RT)

 

 

 

 

O’Leary

 

 

I’m speaking

 

 

Rogan Kamala
https://twitter.com/i/status/1821630125420495151

 

 

Blagojevich

 

 

Trump Willie

 

 

Trump Hillary

 

 

Trump Elon

 

 

Trump Bannon

 

 

 

 

“This is the worst team ever assembled for a Jewish person or for Israel.”

• Harris Snubbed VP Contender Shapiro Because He’s Jewish – Trump (RT)

US Vice President Kamala Harris did not pick Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro as her running mate because he’s Jewish, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has claimed. Although Shapiro was considered the favorite, Harris ended up picking Minnesota Governor Tim Walz instead. “Everyone thought it was going to be Shapiro, it turned out not to be Shapiro,” Trump said on Fox News on Wednesday. “I have very little doubt that it was not for the reason we’re talking about. It was because of the fact that he’s Jewish and they think they’re going to offend somebody else.” “I think there were other people better than him, I know them all. But I was shocked when it came to the final two and she didn’t pick Shapiro,” he added.

The ‘progressive’ faction of the Democrats had pushed back against Shapiro, citing his advocacy of Israel and criticism of pro-Palestinian student protests across the US. Some critics dubbed him “Genocide Josh” – echoing the “Genocide Joe” moniker given to President Biden – while others pointed to potential problems a Harris-Shapiro ticket would have garnering Muslim, Arab and Palestinian-American voters in key swing states. “You wouldn’t feel very comfortable if you’re Israel right now with this team,” Trump told Fox News. “This is the worst team ever assembled for a Jewish person or for Israel.” “They are so bad to Jewish people – what they’ve done and the way they talk and their policy and everything else,” he added.

During his 2017-2021 presidency, Trump openly supported Israel, recognizing its annexation of the occupied Golan Heights and relocating the US embassy from Tel Aviv to West Jerusalem, among other things. He has repeatedly said that any Jews who vote for Democrats “should have their head examined.” In the 2020 election, however, an estimated 70% of American Jews voted for Biden. The Biden-Harris White House has supplied weapons and ammunition to Israel, while demanding a ceasefire and negotiations with Hamas, something Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected.

Trump

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“..the Democrats do not think they, in any way, need to be aggressive in order to earn your vote…as if Kamala Harris not holding a press conference since becoming the presidential nominee hasn’t told you that already.”

• Why Did Kamala Snub The Obvious VP Choice In Josh Shapiro (QTR)

As somebody who thinks the country would implode into itself like a dying star if Harris won the election, I was extraordinarily relieved to see her pick. I was all but certain that Harris was going to pick Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro as her running mate. Everything about the pick made sense: he was racially her foil, he was younger, a well-spoken candidate, he was viewed as more of a moderate, he has great support in the extraordinarily crucial swinging state of Pennsylvania, and he could help the Democratic Party claw back some of the Jewish vote that they’ve (deservedly) lost over the last year while their far left fringe, including ‘the squad’, has all but openly supported Hamas. The Shapiro pick made so much sense and, in my opinion, guaranteed the election for Harris so much, that I thought it would even break through the dumb-ass-politician-blood-brain barrier and be the inevitable selection.

But instead, nope! We get Tim Walz. The party who claims to hate old milquetoast white men, instead selected an even further left old milquetoast white man. What a time to be alive! Without going into the worst points about Walz, not the least of which is he oversaw the destruction of his own state during the George Floyd riots of 2020, the pick is so conservative strategically, it just might fail. It reminds me of when Hillary Clinton picked Tim Kaine as her running mate. [..] Tim Walz is a pick that you make when you are far ahead in the polls and literally have nothing to worry about. He’s an NFL prevent defense that should only be run when you are multiple touchdowns ahead and the clock has less than 20 seconds on it. Walz is a declaration that the Democrats do not think they, in any way, need to be aggressive in order to earn your vote…as if Kamala Harris not holding a press conference since becoming the presidential nominee hasn’t told you that already.

I also have an unfounded and unproven theory on how Walz became Harris’s running mate. If you remember, on Friday, Philadelphia mayor Cherelle Parker, or a staffer of hers, accidentally tweeted out a pre-made and clearly pre-planned congratulatory message on Josh Shapiro being picked as Kamala’s vice president. The pre-planned nature of it made it clear that the leak was a legitimate accident and the pick was likely legitimate. [..] Now we know, at some point, assuming the Shapiro pick was legitimate, Harris changed her mind. Could it have possibly been that after the leak on Friday, members of the progressive base and Democratic voters lashed out at Harris for picking a Jewish running mate? After all, there were widespread reports last week of whitewashing Josh Shapiro’s Wikipedia page and attempts to try and cover up his past support for Israel.

In Walz, did the Democratic Party choose to abandon its Jewish base and side with activists and supporters of Palestine? One way to make that statement would be to pick the man who oversaw the looting and riots of 2020, that’s for sure. Either way, the sugar high of Harris becoming the nominee is going to soon start to run out, and it’s difficult for me to see how the Democratic base is going to get any sort of additional dopamine hit from her vice-presidential selection. In fact, I think this pick will force the onus to be aggressive to shift back to Harris and the momentum back to the Trump campaign. Everybody knows there was a fair amount of second-guessing regarding Trump’s vice-presidential pick. Shapiro likely could have given Vance a run for his money in attracting moderates and debating. But Walz is just the opposite: my guess is that to people in the center, Vance now looks more like the moderate and, in general, the candidate who has their sh*t together the most.

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“It means the anti-Israel wing of the Democratic Party is very much in control.”

• Harris Chose Walz Over Shapiro to Ward Off Critics of Israel War on Gaza (Sp.)

US Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ pick of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate was dictated by Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s open support for the Israeli war on Gaza, experts told Sputnik. On Tuesday, Harris announced Walz as her vice presidential candidate in the 2024 election, saying he was a “battle-tested leader.” President Joe Biden hailed Harris’ choice and called it a great decision. The announcement put an end to weeks of speculation that Harris would go for Shapiro, who was reportedly one of the top finalists for the role. “As far as I and everybody else can figure, they passed over Shapiro because he is Jewish and has been supportive of Israel in the past. It means the anti-Israel wing of the Democratic Party is very much in control.

In my view, Shapiro would have been a much better pick in terms of winning the election,” Roderick Kiewiet, professor of Political Science at the California Institute of Technology, said. The choice of a presidential contender’s running mate rarely has any impact on the vote, Kiewiet argued. The only time it actually mattered was in 1972, when Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern’s pick Tom Eagleton was discovered to have undergone electro-shock therapy at a mental institution. Eagleton quit the race but McGovern was humiliated and lost to Richard Nixon by a landslide. Shapiro’s 2022 victory in the race for governor of Pennsylvania, a critical battleground state, proved that he had a good chance of helping the Democratic ticket take it in November, Alan Cafruny, Henry Bristol Professor of International Affairs with the Department of Government at Hamilton College, told Sputnik.

“However, Shapiro has taken a strong stand in favor of Israel’s actions in Gaza, notably condemning pro-Palestinian activists, especially students and many young people, as anti-Semitic. Young people are a core Democratic constituency. Israel’s horrific actions in Gaza have profoundly altered public opinion among many Americans,” Cafruny said. While the matter was probably not critical for Harris, it played a role in the choice of the vice presidential candidate, as Democrats believe that Walz, too, can deliver Pennsylvania and its 19 electoral votes, he added.”If I had been Kamala Harris, I would have chosen Shapiro as my running mate because he would have brought more strength to the ticket in Pennsylvania, a ‘must-win’ state for the Democrats.

But this was Harris’ choice, and, apparently, she did not want to further alienate the left wing of the party as, I expect, she attempts to move toward the center for the general election campaign,” Richard Bensel, Professor of Government at Cornell University, said. With Tim Walz tapped as the Democratic vice presidential nominee, Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance may appear “weird” and even “extremist,” significantly damaging the Republicans’ chances of winning in November, the experts predicted. Following the announcement by Harris, Trump sarcastically thanked her for her choice, while Vance said that he had called Walz and left him a voice message congratulating him and wishing for “robust conversations” in the future.

The Trump campaign called Walz a “dangerously liberal extremist.” “One of Tim Walz’s strengths is that he will be a very good foil for JD Vance in the coming vice presidential debate (if there is one). Walz’s appealing personality and moderate demeanor will only strengthen public impressions of Vance as an unstable extremist,” Richard Bensel said, adding that this comparison was likely to be only a “minor” issue come the election. While the Minnesota governor is unlikely to bring significant changes to the Harris campaign, choosing him will probably boost the Democratic duo’s standing “since one of the major points the Democrats will try to make is that the Republican ticket is ‘weird'” and Walz is definitely “not weird” himself, Bensel explained.

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“When questioned about all of it, Walz decided to duck, cover, and run from a journalist before an explanation could be ‘deployed.'”

• National Guard Disputes Walz’s Military Bio (ZH)

The Minnesota National Guard has disputed Governor Tim Walz’s military biography, saying that his claims of retiring at the rank of command sergeant major is untrue. Minnesota National Guard spox Army Lieutenant Colonel Kristen Augé told Just the News that Walz, Kamala Harris’ vice presidential running mate, was demoted and did not retire as a command sergeant major as he has claimed for years – including on his official gubernatorial biography – as he failed to complete a 750-hour course in the Army’s Sergeants Major Academy, a mandatory course for E-9s, the Army’s highest enlisted rank. While Walz temporarily held the title of command sergeant major he “retired as a master sergeant in 2005 for benefit purposes because he did not complete additional coursework at the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy,” Army Lt. Col. Kristen Augé, the Minnesota National Guard’s State Public Affairs Officer, told Just the News.

The statement reignited a controversy that began during his 2018 election for governor in which National Guardsman claimed on social media and in a paid ad that Walz declined to deploy to Iraq for combat duty in 2005 and forfeited his title of command sergeant major. Walz chose to run for Congress that year. -Just the News. The governor’s biography, however, says that “Command Sergeant Major Walz” retired from the Minnesota National Guard in 2005. At the time he was serving as one of the highest ranking members of the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion. “He retired as a master sergeant in 2005 for benefit purposes because he did not complete additional coursework at the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy,” said Augé. That said, an unnamed Guard spokesperson told Task & Purpose, in direct contradiction to Augé, that Walz’s demotion was a technicality. “Soldiers who do not finish the course revert back to their prior rank,” they told the outlet. “This is what we refer to as an administrative reduction and not punitive in nature.”

The outlet also claims that the Guard ‘confirmed’ that Walz was properly promoted and served in the E-9 role, and “retired as” an E-9, despite the later reduction. That said, Task & Purpose also framed the entire stolen valor controversy as “The ‘Swift Boating’ of Tim Walz” – as if his on-record lies about ‘weapon of war, that I carried in war’ (he never saw war), are the same as disputed allegations over John Kerry’s (D) Vietnam war record. On Wednesday we noted that Walz straight up lied about having been deployed in a combat zone. The lies were so egregious that even CNN acknowledged they were less than ideal. “Walz did make a comment speaking to a group, he’s done it a couple of times, where he has used language that has suggested that he carried weapons in a fighting situation,” said CNN correspondent Tom Foreman in a fact check. “As you know, with your contact with the military, I know from coming from a military family, there is a difference between being in a combat area, being involved at a time of war and actually being in a position where people are shooting at you. There is no evidence that at any time Governor Walz was in a position of being shot at, and some of his language could easily be seen to suggest that he was.”

“So that is absolutely false when he said that about gun rights out there. The campaign has essentially come forward to say, ‘Look, he had a long career, he would never want to purposely mislead people about this.’ It’s what campaigns tend to say,” Foreman continued. Meanwhile, in a 2006 press release issued by his campaign, Walz is described as a “veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom,” the US military operation in Afghanistan. As modernity.news notes, some have charged that this is misleading given that Walz was stationed in Italy at the time, with his battalion providing base security in Europe. Walz has also come under fire from the men he served with, who they described in a 2019 letter as ‘Traitorous, fraudulent and shameful.’ Meanwhile, the Free Beacon reports that Walz knew his National Guard battalion was being eyed for a likely redeployment to Iraq when he decided to retire.

“As Command Sergeant Major, I have a responsibility not only to ready my battalion for Iraq, but also to serve if called on,” Walz said in a campaign statement on March 20, 2005. Just three days prior, the National Guard Public Affairs Office announced that at least part of his battalion could be shipped overseas to the Middle East in the next two years. Walz left the National Guard that May. Two months later, his battalion was put on notice that they would be deploying to Iraq. When questioned about all of it, Walz decided to duck, cover, and run from a journalist before an explanation could be ‘deployed.’

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They can’t meme and they can’t stream.

• Harris/Walz Rally Was Really Just Another Free Concert (MN)

Kamala Harris’ campaign has once again used a free concert as a way of drawing people to their rally for the photo op. A large number of people turned up at an outdoor stadium Eau Claire, Wisconsin on Wednesday, yet most appeared to be there to watch Grammy award-winning indie folk band Bon Iver. The lead singer of the band, Justin Vernon, is from Eau Claire. NPR reported that “Vice President Harris will draw from some hometown talent on Wednesday when Bon Iver performs at a rally in Eau Claire, Wis. — part of a barnstorm tour of swing states she is doing with her running mate this week.” Observers note that there was a distinct lack of Harris/Walz signs, and a lot of middle aged beardy folk men in the crowd. As we highlighted last week, this happened in Atlanta, where the large crowd turned up to watch rapper Megan Thee Stallion and some dancers shake their asses around, then started walking out when Harris took the stage.

The campaign is desperately attempting to use popular culture and influencers to gain traction. For example, wildly popular Twitch streamer Kai Cenat, who has over 12 million followers told his viewers that he had been approached by Harris’ people about doing a livestream with her, but noted only Cenat has no interest in doing it. Cenat declared “Kamala is getting rejected by everyone,” noting that the campaign reached out five times to try to get him on board but he doesn’t “give a fuck” about her. In addition, State Senator Jake Hoffman of Arizona received information from an influencer showing that the Harris campaign has been paying social media influencers in an effort to boost popularity. Hoffman charged that the campaign is engaged in astroturfing, and has “zero grassroots, so they’re trying to manufacture fake support using cash as the incentive.”

The letter from Alicia Howard of the Harris-Walz campaign reads “if you’re interested in creating content on Instagram, please let me know as soon as possible. We can discuss the details and compensation for your involvement.” The campaign then sent a follow-up note promising “paid partnership.” It appears the campaign is also employing marketing groups to reach out to influencers with promises of cash for content. Meanwhile, Donald Trump took part in a huge live stream with influencer Adin Ross Monday, attracting over 580,000 live viewers and reportedly over 100 million subsequent views. Next week Trump is scheduled to take part in a conversation with Elon Musk.

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“I would say that Hillary was smart. She was her own worst enemy in many ways, but she was smart, very smart.”

• ‘They Took It Away’: Trump Admits Democrats Snatched Presidency From Biden (Sp.)

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said on Thursday that the Democratic party took away the presidency from President Joe Biden and emphasized that the sitting US president had the right to run for reelection regardless of whether he had a chance to win or not. “The presidency was taken away from Joe Biden, and I’m no Biden fan…they took the presidency away,” Trump said during a press conference. “People were saying he lost after the debate, he couldn’t win. Well, I don’t know that that’s true, necessarily, but whether he could win or he couldn’t win, he had the right to run. And they took it away.” Trump claimed that Biden is very angry at former US President Barack Obama and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi right now after they reportedly forced him to step down from the presidential race. Touching on recent remarks Biden made on the transfer of presidential powers, Trump told reporters that despite what his successor said there would in fact be a peaceful handover following the November results.

“Of course there will be a peaceful transfer, and there was last time, and there will be a peaceful transfer. I just hope we’re going to have honest elections,” Trump said. The event also saw the former president detail that he had agreed to a participate in three debates in September against political rival Kamala Harris, who he quipped was not as “smart” as 2016 presidential contender Hillary Clinton. “So I’ve run against Hillary and I’ve run against various other people. I would say that in terms of intelligence, Hillary was far superior,” Trump said during a press conference. “I would say that Hillary was smart. She was her own worst enemy in many ways, but she was smart, very smart.” The dates Trump outlined for the debates are September 4, 10, and 25. However, he noted that he’s still waiting for confirmation that Harris will participate in these debates as well. Media reported that Harris is locked in for the September 10 debate.

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“..he rejected the notion that sustained aid to Ukraine is necessary to prevent a future attack on NATO..”

• Vance Explains Trump’s Plans For Europe (RT)

European NATO members need to do a better job of deterring a hypothetical Russian attack and dealing with the loss of Russian oil and gas, vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance has said. The Republican senator from Ohio, who was picked by former US President Donald Trump as his running mate for the November election, said a potential Trump administration would demand “self-sufficiency” from the EU while maintaining friendly relations. Speaking to the Semafor news website on Wednesday, he rejected the notion that sustained aid to Ukraine is necessary to prevent a future attack on NATO. Russian President Vladimir Putin has “shown in Ukraine that he can’t go that far,” he argued, contrary to what Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, tells American voters.

”When the Harris administration says if we don’t stop Putin in Ukraine, he’s gonna march all the way to Germany, one, it’s not true, and two, what does that say about Germany’s defense capabilities?” Vance said. ”If [the Germans] can’t repel a Russian invasion that does not suggest America should effectively serve as a security protector for Germany, that suggests the Germans ought to get off their ass and invest in their own defense,” he added, pointing to the example of Israel. ”The Israelis are smart about their interests. They recognize that there are limitations,” he said. “What they need from an ally, I think, is support, not for us to step in and do for them what we do for Europe.”

Russian officials have ridiculed the claim by Western politicians that Moscow wants to attack NATO. The Ukraine conflict, according to them, was triggered by the expansion of the US-led military bloc and its intention to bring Ukraine into its ranks. After Western nations backed an armed coup in Kiev in 2014, the new authorities declared joining NATO a key policy goal. EU nations joined the US in imposing sanctions on Russia in retaliation for the hostilities. Among the key measures, most EU states have stopped buying low-cost pipeline natural gas that Russia had been supplying to Europe since the Soviet era. The loss of Russian gas has allowed the US to dramatically increase liquefied gas exports to Europe. The Trump administration had unsuccessfully pushed the EU to make the same switch, famously touting American fuel as “molecules of freedom” to European customers in 2019.

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“Israel’s assassinations and Iran’s pending retaliation illustrate the dangers of having a weak, unfit, lame-duck American president like Joe Biden..”

• This Means War! (Jim Rickards)

Let’s revisit April’s Iranian missile and drone attacks on Israel which, again, were launched in retaliation for Israel’s strike on Iran’s consulate in Syria. Iran’s attack was almost staged. It was telegraphed in advance, giving Israel (as well as U.S. forces in the region) time to prepare for it. The great majority of Iranian drones and missiles were shot down, and Israel suffered very little damage. It was as if Iran was saying, “We have to retaliate for your attack on our consulate, but we don’t want further escalation. So we’re going to let you know what we’re going to do and give you time to prepare for it. Our attack won’t really hurt you, but we have to do it in order to save face.” Israel conducted its own retaliatory strike on Iran, but it was limited, and that was the end of it. Both sides could wipe their hands clean and move on. But Israel’s latest assassinations changed all that. They represented significant escalations against Iran, especially the assassination in Iran’s own territory.

Imagine the U.S. response if Russia, for example, assassinated a key U.S. ally attending the inauguration of an American president. So why would Iran listen to pleas for a limited, measured response this time? It took that approach in April, and Israel escalated anyway. So in this instance, Iran has no incentive to limit its retaliation. In its view, deterrence has failed. The only logical response is to punish Israel as hard as it can. That of course raises the question: How might Iran retaliate? It could take the form of drone and missile attacks, similar to the ones in April, only more intense. Iran could also enlist its proxies like Hezbollah to attack Israel from southern Lebanon, forcing Israel to fight a two-front war (Gaza being the first, which is still ongoing). Or it could be a combination of both. Hezbollah is a much more formidable fighting force than Hamas, so Israel will have its hands full if it has to confront Hezbollah. Meanwhile, The U.S. is sending warships and aircraft to the region to support Israel. What can go wrong? It’s not hard to envision a scenario in which the U.S. is dragged into the fighting.

Yesterday, a rocket attack on a U.S. base in Iraq injured five personnel. It’s not known who’s responsible at this point, but it could very likely be an Iranian proxy. It’s hard to imagine the timing was just coincidental. Here’s the larger point: Israel’s assassinations and Iran’s pending retaliation illustrate the dangers of having a weak, unfit, lame-duck American president like Joe Biden. Here’s why… The U.S. has previously restrained Israel from taking stronger action against Iran. The U.S. has been pursuing a Gaza ceasefire and a hostage deal. Sources claim the Biden administration felt it was close to a breakthrough before the assassinations. The two assassinations torpedoed whatever chances there were of a hostage deal. Would Israel have acted against strong U.S. interests if a firm president was in office? It’s highly unlikely. It’s apparent that Benjamin Netanyahu has little respect for a greatly diminished, lame-duck Biden who’s on the way out.

That’s why Biden’s diminished condition isn’t just a domestic concern. It has potentially serious geopolitical consequences, which are presently unfolding. And does anyone believe Kamala Harris is a viable alternative? Netanyahu almost certainly doesn’t. If we’re not in a recession already (I believe we entered one in May or June), we’re clearly heading for one. A new Middle East war will drive up the price of oil, maybe dramatically depending on how the conflict unfolds. That means higher prices at the pump, which are already too high for many Americans. What if Iran shuts down the Strait of Hormuz, ending all oil exports from the Persian Gulf (or the Arabian Gulf, depending on who you’re talking to)? That could be the final nail in the coffin of the Biden economy. We’d be staring in the face of a major recession that would crush average Americans.

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This is what Russians see: nazis have returned 80 years after beig defeated..

• German Heavy Armor Back To Fields Of Kursk Region After 80 Years (RT)

German-made heavy armor pieces are rolling through the fields of Russia’s Kursk Region again, some 80 years since one of the biggest battles of WWII in the same area, Bild wrote on Thursday, reporting on Kiev’s cross-border incursion. The German tabloid, citing videos posted online, said that several Marder infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) have been spotted among the equipment used by the Ukrainian military in its offensive, launched early on Tuesday. The media outlet pointed to footage published by the Russian Defense Ministry, which shows IFVs being hit with Russian kamikaze drones. Thursday morning, the ministry published a clip showing the destruction of at least three Marder vehicles by Russian Lancet drones, among other strikes on Ukrainian military equipment. The armor pieces were hit while moving along dirt roads and through a wooded area.

Posting on X (formerly, Twitter), Bild journalist Julian Ropcke said all three Marders “fell victim” to Russian strikes just a few kilometers from the border – as the Ukrainian forces had sent them into battle “without adequate air defense.” The news of German-made weapons being used in an attack on Russia’s internationally recognized Russian territory has prompted a mixed reaction in Germany. The head of the German parliament’s Defense Committee, Markus Faber, stated he had no issues with the development. Any weapons handed over to Kiev cease to be German and become Ukrainian ones, he told the Funke Media Group. He also described the territory of both Ukraine and Russia as a “war zone.” “This is a highly dangerous development,” said Sahra Wagenknecht, the head of the newly formed BSW Party and a former Left Party leader.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz should call the Ukrainian leadership and “demand that no German weapons be used in [attacks] on the Russian territory,” she added. Back in 1943, Soviet troops clashed with the Nazi forces on the fields of the Kursk Region in what has since become known as the Battle of Kursk. It was one of the deadliest episodes of World War II and one of the largest tank battles in history. Nazi Germany sought to achieve victory at the time by fielding its then brand-new armor pieces, including Panther and Tiger tanks as well as Ferdinand tank destroyers. The battle involved thousands of tanks on both sides, ended with the Soviet forces inflicting a defeat on the Nazi troops.

Up to 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been involved in the incursion into Kursk Region this week, supported by armor that included several US-made Stryker armored fighting vehicles, as well as artillery and drones, the Russian Defense Ministry has said. Kiev’s forces have lost some 660 soldiers and 82 armor pieces, including eight tanks, 12 armored personnel carriers and six infantry fighting vehicles since the start of their operation, according to estimates provided by the ministry on Thursday. Moscow’s forces have stalled the Ukrainian troops’ offensive and prevented them from getting deeper into the region, the Russian authorities said.

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“From this moment, the special military operation should become openly exterritorial in nature..”

• Russia Should No Longer Hold Back In Ukraine – Medvedev (RT)

Russia should respond to Kiev’s attempted incursion in Kursk Region by taking over land that Moscow currently recognizes as Ukraine, former President Dmitry Medvedev has suggested. The Ukrainian military initiated a cross-border raid involving some 1,000 troops this week, which has so far claimed five civilian lives and left over 30 others wounded in Russia. The operation has largely been thwarted by the Russian army and border guards, Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov reported on Wednesday. He estimated Ukrainian casualties at 315, including 100 killed in action. “From this moment, the special military operation should become openly exterritorial in nature,” Medvedev, who serves as deputy chair of the Russian Security Council, argued in a post on Thursday.

“We can and should go further into what still exists as Ukraine. To Odessa, Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Nikolaev. To Kiev and further. There should be no restrictions in terms of recognized borders,” he explained. Kiev and its Western backers claim that Russia started the hostilities in February 2022 out of a desire for imperial conquest. Moscow has denied that, saying it sought to stop continued Ukrainian attacks on the ethnic Russian breakaway republics in the east and preempt a Ukrainian military offensive in Donbass. Four Ukrainian regions have since voted in referendums to join Russia, though some parts of them remain under Kiev’s control. Moscow says it will only agree to peace talks if Ukraine pulls its troops out of these new federal subjects.

Medvedev, a Ukraine conflict hardliner, said the “terrorist operation” in Kursk Region should “remove any taboo” on declaring publicly that the Russian forces “will only stop when we consider it acceptable and beneficial for us.” The EU has endorsed the Ukrainian operation in Kursk Region. European Commission spokesman Peter Stano has said that the country has the right to defend itself, “including by striking the aggressor on its territory.” The US has implied that it had not been made aware of Kiev’s plans, with White House national security spokesman John Kirby telling the press: “We intend to reach out to our Ukrainian partners to get a fuller picture of what happened.”

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“We intend to reach out to our Ukrainian partners to get a fuller picture of what happened..”

• US Must Rein In ‘Terrorist Client’ Ukraine – Moscow (RT)

The US must stop the flow of weapons to Ukraine after American-supplied arms were used to strike schools, hospitals, and homes in Russia, Moscow’s ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, has said. The senior diplomat was referring to strikes on civilians during Kiev’s attempted incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region this week. According to the regional governor, Ukrainians deliberately attacked non-military targets, even hitting an ambulance with a kamikaze drone and killing the driver and a paramedic. The Russian Defense Ministry listed Western-donated weapons among those destroyed in repelling the Ukrainian forces. Antonov joined other Russian officials in describing the Ukrainian operation as “terrorist,” stressing in a statement on Wednesday that contrary to Western claims, Kiev’s actions cannot be justified by the right to self-defense.

“Washington should stop supplying arms to Kiev and yank the chain of the neo-Nazis in the Ukrainian army,” he said. So far, remarks by American officials on the issue have been “outrageous,” since they failed to sympathize with the civilian victims of “their clients,” he added. The Russian military estimates that Kiev deployed some 1,000 troops in the attempted incursion on Tuesday morning and has lost roughly a third of them since, including 100 killed in action. The US government has distanced itself from the operation. “We intend to reach out to our Ukrainian partners to get a fuller picture of what happened,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby told journalists on Wednesday. He stressed that Washington’s policy on how Kiev can use US-donated weapons “has not changed in any way.”

Officials have said that the arms are being supplied on the condition that they would not be used outside of what the US recognizes as Ukrainian territory. An exemption was announced earlier this year for locations along the border, in case of the imminent threat of Russian attacks. The claimed limitation was never fully observed, as evidenced by the Ukrainian use of Western hardware during an incursion into Belgorod Region in May 2023. Photo evidence confirmed the loss of two M1151A1 Humvee vehicles as well as two M1224 MaxxPro vehicles on Russian soil in that raid. The operation was conducted by a Kiev-backed militia force, which was armed with Czech and Belgian small arms.

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Feed us little bits at a time..

• Police Release Bodycam Video of Officer Trying to Confront Trump Shooter (Sp.)

Police in Pennsylvania released body camera footage of an officer who attempted to confront the Trump shooter in the moments before he attempted to assassinate the former US president. The footage released Thursday shows an officer trying to get on a rooftop before the shooter, Thomas Crooks, opened fire on Trump. However, the officer is seen quickly getting down from the rooftop without reaching Crooks. Within seconds, the officer hits the ground and sprints to the other side of the building toward a squad car, where he retrieves his department-provided rifle. The Butler Township Police Department earlier explained there is no audio in the initial frames of the video as the officer did not activate his bodycam. It’s not until he begins loading his firearm that the audio is turned on. “He’s straight up! Right where you picked me up,” the officer is heard telling another cop, later describing the gunman as having long hair and a book bag.

As officers descend on the scene, the same officer who spotted Crooks makes his way back onto the rooftop. Brief images on the released footage appear to show a few officers standing near Crooks’ body. Additional footage has offered more insight into the general confusion on the ground in the aftermath of the shooting. Officials previously said a local law enforcement officer had attempted to climb on to the rooftop but retreated after Crooks pointed a rifle at the officer. Crooks attempted to assassinate Trump at a campaign rally on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania. He shot Trump in the ear, killed one audience member and wounded two others. The incident prompted scrutiny of the US Secret Service’s failure to prevent the assassination attempt, ultimately leading the agency’s director to resign.

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They confiscated hia archive: “..documents that substantiated his findings that Iraq never had weapons of mass destruction..”

• Scott Ritter Blasts Raid on His Home as US Gov ‘Fishing Expedition’ (Sp.)

The former USMC intelligence officer’s home was raided Wednesday over allegations he had violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which requires anyone who acts on behalf of a foreign nation to register as such to the US government. However, individuals accused of such a violation are typically notified by letter, not a raid. The recent raid carried out on the New York home of former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter was another chapter in the US government’s harassment campaign against him and his family, he told Sputnik. “It’s a fishing expedition. It’s harassment,” Ritter told Radio Sputnik’s Critical Hour on Thursday, noting that the US government’s end goal is to discredit him in the eyes of the public as he continually works to shed light on US policy. Within the more than two dozen boxes that were carried out of Ritter’s home were documents that substantiated his findings that Iraq never had weapons of mass destruction, a key claim that encouraged the US to undertake its invasion of the Middle Eastern nation in 2003.

“This is the archive that backs up my allegations, my assertions that Iraq didn’t have weapons of mass destruction, that the US policies … that accused Iraq of such were premised on a lie. It’s an archive that I was relying upon to write a book that’s in draft form right now, and they seized that archive,” Ritter told show hosts Dr. Wilmer Leon and Garland Nixon, adding that the confiscation of those documents were out of the scope of the search warrant. “This is not about FARA. It literally isn’t. This is targeted harassment. This is a frontal assault on free speech and free press.” Touching on how the legal system has outlined that sharing a viewpoint with a foreign government does not equate the status of foreign agent, Ritter recalled he had told one of the agents on the scene that his “main premise is stopping a nuclear war” and less about throwing his support behind another government.

“My main premise is to, you know, support diplomacy over militarism, to promote dialogue instead of confrontation, you know, and to promote arms control instead of an arms race,” he said. “If this is a crime in America, then convict me and throw the key away. But it’s not. Having acted as a journalist for some 20 years now, Ritter has published works in numerous publications that include the Washington Post and the New York Times. Ritter told Nixon that he’s no different than any other journalist being paid for their work. “But they’re trying to twist this into somehow saying that I am in the employ of the Russian government, and that I am acting on instructions from the Russian government. The good news is that nothing they seized will back up these assertions. The bad news is I don’t think it matters,” he said.

“They kept saying you’re trying to shape the opinion of the American people. You’re damn right I’m trying to shape the opinion of the American people. Everybody engaged in journalism is doing this. This is what you’re supposed to do to empower people with knowledge and information, fact-based knowledge and information so they can make their own decisions. The most dangerous thing in a democracy like America is a knowledgeable citizen, a citizen empowered with information to make an informed, you know, choice on election day, not dumb sheep being herded down the path.” “This is harassment designed to silence me. It’s designed to intimidate me. And for everybody listening, understand this is a frontal assault on the Constitution of the United States,” Ritter stressed. “A frontal assault on free speech. A frontal assault on the free press.”

“Free speech isn’t free if when you execute your right to speak freely, you get raided by the FBI. And a free press cannot exist if, carrying out your journalistic duties, you are accused because of the position you take of, you know, working for an entity because these positions have to clash with the official policy objectives of the United States.” Asked if the raid was tied to the June seizure of his passport or a recent event he attended in New York to discuss his latest work and efforts to encourage an ease of tension between the US and Russia, the former intelligence officer admitted “they’re all connected.” Ritter detailed he had planned additional trips to Russia later this year that would help to gain information that would help “empower the American audience about, you know, the reality of Russia and the danger of American policy.” “The United States government did not want any of these trips to happen. They seized my passport and now they’re just extending the harassment,” he said.

“They fear what I’m doing, and they fear what we are doing and this is what happens when governments get afraid of their own citizens. Citizens who, again, I remind everybody, are simply executing their rights of free speech and, as a journalist, my participation in the free press.” “I never want to be a foreign agent. I’m not acting as one and I don’t want to act as one. I will never represent another country. I represent America, only America,” he continued. “I believe in the potential of my country to be that which we, you know, purport to be, what we want to be, and I recognize that we’re not there and one of the reasons we’re not there is because of the policies of my government.” “And, therefore, as an American citizen, it is my duty to speak out and shine a light on where I think my government is going wrong so that we, the people, can take corrective action and get the government back on track because the government serves us, we don’t serve the government.”

Ritter
https://twitter.com/i/status/1821512772771106981

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Jesus Christ.

• Allowing Two Million Gazans To Starve ‘May Be Moral’ – Israeli Minister (RT)

Starving the citizens of Gaza could be a “just” way of forcing Hamas to release hostages, but this would spark outrage from the global community, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has complained. Israel controls the flow of humanitarian aid entering the besieged Palestinian enclave but its distribution is managed by aid groups within Gaza. Speaking at a right-wing conference earlier this week, Smotrich said Israel was being forced to allow aid into the enclave “because there is no choice,” and because West Jerusalem needs “international legitimacy” to wage its war against Hamas. He argued that Israel is unable to use humanitarian aid to pressure the Palestinian militant group because today’s global reality makes this “impossible.” “No one in the world would let us starve and thirst two million citizens, even though it may be just and moral until [Hamas] return our hostages,” he said.

Smotrich suggested that, if the distribution of aid within Gaza was controlled by Israel, then the current war would have already ended and the hostages captured by the Palestinian fighters on October 7 would have been returned. “You cannot fight Hamas with one hand and give them aid with the other,” Smotrich added, claiming that humanitarian aid is the Palestinian militia’s “money,” “fuel,” and its method of “civilian control” in Gaza. The minister’s comments have been met with widespread outrage, including in the West. The EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell has called on West Jerusalem to distance itself from the remarks, arguing that starving civilians constituted a “war crime,” and that advocating for this was “beyond ignominious.” UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy has also called on the “wider Israeli government to retract and condemn” Smotrich’s comments, insisting that “there can be no justification” for his remarks.

Germany’s ambassador to Israel, Steffen Siebert, also called the finance minister’s statements “unacceptable and appalling,” and said it was a “principle of international law and of humanity to protect civilians in a war.” Meanwhile, the issue of humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza has continued to raise concerns from the international community, with human rights organizations warning that the enclave remains at high risk of famine. The International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan has blamed Israel for the crisis and has sought arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for using “starvation as a method of war,” among other crimes. Israel, however, has denied accusations of restricting aid deliveries to the Palestinians, instead suggesting that Hamas was stealing the resources.

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Rogan RFK

 

 

RoganUK
https://twitter.com/i/status/1821661925383819366

 

 

Greet

 

 

Dog dive
https://twitter.com/i/status/1821466295939772680

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle August 8 2024

Aug 082024
 
 August 8, 2024  Posted by at 9:34 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  52 Responses »


Henry Bacon General View of the Acropolis at Sunset 1900(?)

 

• Stolen Valor: Walz Bailed On Iraq Tour, Then Lied About Combat Deployment (ZH)
• The GOP Plan To Handle Tim Walz, ‘Ideological Soul Mate’ of Harris (RCW)
• Minnesota National Guard Confirms VP Nominee Tim Walz Demoted (JTN)
• Kamala Donated To ‘Defund Police’ Group Pushing For DC Sanctuary City (ZH)
• US Arms Makers Refusing To Invest In Ukraine (RT)
• EU Hails Incursion Into Russia As Ukraine’s Right To ‘Self-defense’ (RT)
• Ukraine Spreading ‘Terrorism’ Around The World – Zakharova (RT)
• Fourth African State Sanctions Ukraine For ‘Supporting Terrorism’ (RT)
• Why Did America Give Away Its Manufacturing Jobs? (Paul Craig Roberts)
• FBI Raids Scott Ritter’s House (RT)
• Vienna Cancels Taylor Swift Concerts Over ISIS Attack Fears (RT)
• Hunter Biden Got ‘Millions’ of Dollars From Romania to Influence US Gov’t (Sp.)
• The “No Kings Act” is a Decapitation of the Constitution (Turley)
• Crazed Authoritarians Demand X Be Shut Down in UK (MN)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shellenberger

 

 

Pelosi

 

 

Somalia

 

 

Sinwar
https://twitter.com/i/status/1821017557538590978

 

 

Victor Davis Hanson: “Anything That Didn’t Kill [Trump] Made Him Stronger”

 

 

 

 

Did they vet this guy at all? He bailed on his National Guard battalion when he heard he would be deployed to Iraq, and you want to put him second in line for Commander-in-Chief?

• Stolen Valor: Walz Bailed On Iraq Tour, Then Lied About Combat Deployment (ZH)

Kamala Harris’ VP pick Tim Walz has come under fire over his extreme left-wing policies, from joking about helping illegal immigrants into the country by investing in a ‘ladder company,’ to signing a law that gives them driver’s licenses, to delaying the deployment of the National Guard during the Georger Floyd riots. And while there’s much more to discuss, Walz has come under the most intense scrutiny for embellishing his military record, when in reality he bailed on his National Guard battalion – instead running off to Congress after learning that he would be deployed to Iraq.”On May 16th, 2005, [Walz] quit, betraying his country, leaving the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion and its Soldiers hanging; without its senior Non-Commissioned Officer, as the battalion prepared for war,” wrote retired Command Sergeants Major Thomas Behrends and Paul Herr in a 2018 letter posted to Facebook.

The pair further criticized Walz for abandoning the National Guard for Congress despite being fully aware that he could have requested permission from the Pentagon to seek office while on active duty. And instead of filing the proper paperwork to ensure a smooth transition out of the military, Walz “instead … slithered out the door,” the letter reads, adding that Walz “embellished and selectively omitted facts of his military career for years.” Trump VP pick JD Vance ripped Walz in a press conference, saying “What bothers me about Tim Walz is the stolen valor garbage. Do not pretend to be something you’re not. And if he wants to criticize me for getting an Ivy League education, I’m proud […] I was able to make something of myself and I would be ashamed if I was him and I lied about my military service like he did.” (X via @townhallcom). What’s more, Walz lied – telling a crowd that he was in fact deployed. “I carried weapons of war in war,” he said. Walz insists he has an “honorable record.”

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“..Democrats have “shifted so far to the left as a whole that candidates as extreme as Kamala Harris, as extreme as Tim Walz, are now considered mainstream.”

• The GOP Plan To Handle Tim Walz, ‘Ideological Soul Mate’ of Harris (RCW)

Democrats are eager to introduce Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to the country. He is a veteran who used the GI Bill to get to college, a former public-school teacher who coached high school football, and a two-term governor of a midwestern state with a record of accomplishments on behalf of working-class families. Republicans are just as excited. Despite his Rust Belt resume, they say Vice President Harris has selected a radical as her running mate. In an interview with RealClearPolitics, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley said, “Tim Walz is really, truly her ideological soulmate.” The emerging Republican plan to beat the Harris-Walz ticket? Just roll the tape, replied Whatley: “Our opposition research is going to be video clips of Tim Walz.” More specifically, Whatley said the GOP would point to Walz’s previous comments about wanting to invest in a “30-foot-ladder factory” to help migrants scale former President Trump’s border wall, his support for giving undocumented individuals healthcare and driver’s licenses in Minnesota, and his handling of the 2020 riots in Minneapolis that followed the death of George Floyd.

Republicans have already been hitting Harris over illegal immigration and the border, inflation and the economy, and crime. Walz just presents a new wrinkle and new video clips. One immediately began circulating online. Conservatives were quick to criticize Walz for not deploying the Minnesota National Guard sooner in the summer of 2020 as rioters looted and burned through Minneapolis. “I could smell the burning tires, and that was a very real thing,” Minnesota first lady Gwen Walz told a local news reporter in an interview making the rounds online Tuesday. “I kept the windows open as long as I could because I felt like that was such a touchstone of what was happening.” According to the GOP, this is more evidence of the weak-on-crime radicalism of Democrats. The race is now on for Democrats to introduce their new folksy anti-Trump champion while Republicans rush to define him as more of the same.

For his part, Walz has a history of spoiling GOP plans. He punched his ticket to Congress in 2006 by flipping a Republican House seat. After more than a decade, Walz ran and won the governor’s mansion by more than 10 points in 2018, a post he easily held a second time four years later. Michael Tyler, a spokesman for the Harris campaign, said that by picking Walz, Harris has “cemented the fundamental contrast in this race between the Harris-Walz ticket which is fighting for working families and the Trump-Vance Project 2025 agenda that would unleash harm on Americans across the country.” The pair will spend the coming months, he added, traveling the country talking about “building up the middle class instead of cutting taxes for the rich, and fighting for our fundamental freedoms, including reproductive freedom.” Walz may be an asset particularly in the Midwest. He talks plainly, and his small-town biography explains his appeal.

When President Biden announced his retirement, Walz was quick to throw his support behind Harris as many others did. He emerged as a sort of pathfinder for Democrats with his broadsides against Sen. J.D. Vance as soon as Trump named the Ohio Republican his running mate. “The golden rule” in rural, small-town America, Walz said during a “Morning Joe” interview last month, was to “mind your own damn business.” And then the governor forged the talking point that the left has used with some immediate success to define the GOP ticket. “We do not like what has happened where we can’t even go to Thanksgiving dinner because you end up in some weird fight that is unnecessary,” he continued. “Well, it’s true. These guys are just weird.” And in this way, the word “weird” became the Democratic byword for the Republican ticket. Trump, Vance, and all their ideas, Democrats have said on repeat for weeks, aren’t just a threat to democracy, they are unusual and out of touch with America itself.

The left now enjoys rare alignment. Everyone from New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to West Virginia independent Sen. Joe Manchin praised the Walz pick. All of it, replied Whatley, is more evidence that Democrats have “shifted so far to the left as a whole that candidates as extreme as Kamala Harris, as extreme as Tim Walz, are now considered mainstream.”

While the party boss said that the GOP playbook remains the same now that Walz has joined the ticket, behind the scenes Republicans expressed giddiness that Walz, instead of a more moderate candidate like Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, was selected. One prominent Republican operative accused Walz of “plagiarizing California’s failed far-left liberal agenda for Minnesota.” Republicans hope to compete in that state, despite Donald Trump’s two narrow losses there. The selection of Walz won’t do anything to change that strategy, Whatley told RCP. He said Republicans are looking forward to “a conversation in Minnesota about how, as the governor, Walz allowed riots to basically burn down Minneapolis, and then Kamala Harris came in and bailed out all those people out.” That will continue to be, he said, “a conversation we’re happy to have in Minnesota.”

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“He ran away. It’s sad.” “He had the opportunity to serve his country, and said ‘Screw you’ to the United States..”

• Minnesota National Guard Confirms VP Nominee Tim Walz Demoted (JTN)

The Minnesota National Guard confirmed Wednesday that Gov. Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’ vice presidential running mate, was demoted and did not retire as a command sergeant major like he has claimed for years, including on his official gubernatorial biography. While Walz temporarily held the title of command sergeant major he “retired as a master sergeant in 2005 for benefit purposes because he did not complete additional coursework at the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy,” Army Lt. Col. Kristen Augé, the Minnesota National Guard’s State Public Affairs Officer, told Just the News. The statement reignited a controversy that began during his 2018 election for governor in which National Guardsman claimed on social media and in a paid ad that Walz declined to deploy to Iraq for combat duty in 2005 and forfeited his title of command sergeant major. Walz chose to run for Congress that year.

The governor’s biography, published on the state’s official website, says that “Command Sergeant Major Walz” retired from the Minnesota National Guard in 2005. At the time he was serving as one of the highest ranking members of the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion. The Minnesota National Guard disputed his description of his final rank,. “Governor Tim Walz served from April 8, 1981, to May 16, 2005. Governor Walz served in the Minnesota National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery after transferring from the Nebraska National Guard in 1996. While serving in Minnesota, his military occupational specialties were 13B – a cannon crewmember who operates and maintains cannons and 13Z -field artillery senior sergeant. In Nebraska, he served as a 11Z – infantry senior sergeant, and a 71L – administrative specialist. He held multiple positions within field artillery such as firing battery chief, operations sergeant, first sergeant, and culminated his career serving as the command sergeant major for the battalion,” Army Lt. Col. Kristen Augé, Minnesota National Guard’s State Public Affairs Officer, told Just the News in a statement Wednesday.

“He retired as a master sergeant in 2005 for benefit purposes because he did not complete additional coursework at the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy,” she added. According to Army Regulation 600-8-19, a solider who does not complete the requisite coursework results is automatically demoted. “The Soldier must complete the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Course as a condition of this promotion. Failure to meet the condition will cause demotion per AR 600 – 8 – 19,” the regulation reads. This is not the first time that Walz’s military records have come under scrutiny. During his campaign for governor in 2018, two retired senior officials in the Minnesota National Guard criticized Walz for retiring shortly before his battalion was set for a deployment to Iraq. The two retired Command Sergeants Major in the guard wrote in an open letter posted to Facebook that they felt it was their “duty and responsibility to bring forth the truth as we know it concerning his service record.”

Thomas Behrends, one signer of the letter, was chosen to replace Walz. According to the letter, Minnesota Governor Walz was selected in 2004 to serve as the Command Sergeant Major of the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion and by September of that year Walz was conditionally promoted to the rank. But, by early 2005, Walz’s battalion was ordered to mobilize for an active duty deployment to Iraq. Shortly after, in May 2005, Walz “quit, leaving the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion and its Soldiers hanging; without its senior Non-Commissioned Officer, as the battalion prepared for war,” according to the two Command Sergeants Major. “When your country calls, you are supposed to run into battle — not the other way,” Behrends told the New York Post Tuesday. He ran away. It’s sad.” “He had the opportunity to serve his country, and said ‘Screw you’ to the United States. That’s not who I would pick to run for vice president,” he added.

The office of Governor Walz did not respond to a request for comment from Just the News. Retired U.S. Army Reserve Major General Tim Haake told Just the News that, based on his experience, a Command Sergeant Major resigning shortly before a deployment would likely have a “deleterious” effect on the unit. “The Command Sergeant Major is the highest enlisted rank in a unit and is the key person ensuring the troops are prepared, logistically, emotionally, and any other way, for the mission.” As a result of his abrupt retirement, and breach of his conditional agreement, the authors claimed Walz was demoted to Master Sergeant for his retirement.

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#BlackLivesMatter still exists?

• Kamala Donated To ‘Defund Police’ Group Pushing For DC Sanctuary City (ZH)

Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff donated to a progressive legal group last year that pushed to defund the police, and wants to make Washington DC a permanent “sanctuary city” for illegals, the Washington Examiner reports, citing a copy of their joint tax return. Harris and Emhoff donated $1,000 to Legal Aid DC, a nonprofit that works on housing law and represents low-income clients in multiple areas. The pair also donated $1,000 to the nonprofit in 2021, according to the report. “News of the donations, which have not been reported on until now, comes as Harris faces scrutiny on the 2024 campaign trail over her support in 2020 for defunding the police and her handling of the border crisis. Harris has reversed course on a variety of her left-wing policy positions after becoming the Democratic presidential nominee.

“But the vice president’s willingness to fund Legal Aid DC as recently as 2023 could raise questions about her ties to controversial progressive activists — including after Harris selected Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), who has been widely criticized over his response to the 2020 riots in Minnesota, as her running mate.” -Washington Examiner. Legal Aid DC was founded in 1932, and brands itself as “the district’s oldest and largest civil legal services organization” helping to “make justice real in individual and systemic ways.” In 2020, Legal Aid DC published a statement in the wake of George Floyd’s death noting that it “stands in solidarity with those speaking out, demonstrating, and demanding a country and society that will treat every one of its residents with dignity and respect.” Days later, the group’s housing law attorney Amanda Korber was quoted in an article pushing for fewer police officers in DC.

Legal Aid DC shared the article on social media, writing “As Legal Aid’s Amanda Korber noted in the article, we are concerned, especially given the ongoing protest movement, about any solution that involves more police and policing in DC public housing. #BlackLivesMatterDC.” As the Examiner notes further, Legal Aid DC shared an article in 2021 glorifying BLM, and amplifying a quote by Minneapolis City Councilman Jeremiah Ellison declaring “I think the police will view a leftist protester with a gas mask as more dangerous than a right-wing protester with a semiautomatic rifle.” Of note, Ellison – the son of Minnesota AG Keith Ellison, helped lead the charge in 2020 to “dismantle” the Minneapolis Police Department. Legal Aid DC also supported a since-approved law in DC that to make it a “permanent” sanctuary city – legislation which restricts cooperation between US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and local agencies.

Legal Aid’s Adam Jacobs said at the time that the law “could lift some of the terror our immigrant neighbors and their families have faced for many years.” “It also restricts the city’s prisons from functioning as immigration detention centers and amends a loophole used by ICE and the U.S. Marshals to detain immigrants outside of D.C. Superior Court,” reported NBC4 Washington in 2020 upon the City Council’s approval of a permanent version of the then-temporary law. Meanwhile, Harris running mate Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), has supported similar “sanctuary state” policies in the past, as well as a law allowing illegal immigrants to obtain a driver’s license.

Meanwhile, Legal Aid DC also submitted testimony in 2023 in support of a bill to “create a reparations task force and fund to address the impacts of slavery and institutional racism in Washington, D.C.,” according to documents. The organization’s policy counsel, Jen Jenkins, told the DC City Counsel that it’s essential for the district “to acknowledge that slavery, colonialism, and systemic racism have left deep scars in D.C. and to begin rectifying those impacts for black D.C. residents through enacting this bill.” Also, Walz’s wife is ‘weird’…

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“Making investments into a manufacturing facility that could be obliterated by Russia and may not have sustained demand in the future “has to make sense from a business case..”

• US Arms Makers Refusing To Invest In Ukraine (RT)

American arms manufacturers are reluctant to open workshops in Ukraine despite the Pentagon coaxing them to do so, the military news outlet Defense One reported on Tuesday, citing a US State Department official. The Ukrainian government has touted the build-up of domestic arms manufacturing by foreign firms as an alternative to the long-term supply of military aid by Western sponsors. Germany’s Rheinmetall has so far voiced the most ambitious plans to operate on Ukrainian soil, promising to make not just munitions, but also armored vehicles and tanks in the country. However, other large players, particularly those from the US, have been cautious about making such pledges. Northrop Grumman is an exception, having announced last month that it had finalized an agreement to produce medium-caliber ammunition in Ukraine. The company will provide equipment and training, but has refused to put its own employees on the ground.

Making investments into a manufacturing facility that could be obliterated by Russia and may not have sustained demand in the future “has to make sense from a business case,” a US State Department official told Defense One on the sidelines of the Farnborough air show in the UK. The US industry “is really eager” to profit, but needs the government to hedge their investments for risks, according to the source. ”It has to be a business case for what they’re trying to do, and so looking at maybe starting off with a maintenance, repair, and overhaul type stuff, spare parts production, so kind of starting a crawl-walk-run-type philosophy, before you actually get to the more advanced stuff,” the official said. In addition to the war-related risks, Western firms are also concerned about corruption, the source acknowledged. The US diplomat claimed that Ukraine was making progress in that regard, but was far from where it needed to be to allay the concerns.

Graft has been an endemic problem in the country since it gained independence in the early 1990s. Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has reportedly complained about the attention paid to the problem by his Western backers, claiming that it is largely irrelevant at a time when his nation is fighting Russia. Russia has described the Ukraine conflict as a US-triggered proxy war against it, waged for the sake of Washington’s geopolitical interests. The American economy has benefited from it by boosting demand for weapons and tanking the competitiveness of Western European manufacturers, Russian officials have said. European firms have lost access to cheap Russian energy and raw materials due to the breakdown of trade with the country, with some relocating plants to the US as a result.

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Where did they find 1,000 extra troops?

• EU Hails Incursion Into Russia As Ukraine’s Right To ‘Self-defense’ (RT)

The European Union fully supports the actions of Ukraine’s forces, including striking Russian territory, European Commission spokesman Peter Stano has said. The statement came a day after Ukraine launched a major cross-border sortie into Russia’s Kursk Region early on Tuesday. At least five civilians were killed in assault as of Wednesday evening, according to the Interim Governor of Kursk, Aleksey Smirnov. Another 31 people – including six children – were injured in the Ukrainian shelling of the town of Sudzha, Russia’s Health Ministry said late on Wednesday. Russian President Vladimir Putin has called the Kursk attack yet another “large-scale provocation” by Kiev, accusing Ukrainian troops of deliberately targeting civilians. Commenting on the raid, Stano said Ukraine has the right to defend itself, “including by striking the aggressor on its territory.”

“The EU continues to fully support Ukraine’s legitimate right to defend itself” and win back its lost territories, the spokesperson told the Ukrainian news network Suspilne on Wednesday. Kiev considers the Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, the Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, as well as the Crimean peninsula to be parts of Ukraine. All five territories formerly joined the Russian Federation after a series of democratic referendums. Ukrainian forces numbering up to a thousand, supported by tanks and artillery, moved across the border in an attempt to take hold of the Sudzhinsky district of Russia’s Kursk Region, the Russian Ministry of Defense said on Wednesday, reporting that the Ukrainian advance had been stopped. In the attack, Kiev’s forces suffered at least 315 casualties, with more than 100 killed and the rest wounded as of Wednesday, the chief of the Russian General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, reported.

Ukraine also lost at least 54 armored vehicles, including seven tanks during the push, he stated. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova slammed the incursion as a “massed terrorist attack.” The “barbaric attack” aimed to “sow panic among the residents of the region and demonstrate at least some semblance of activity, amid the constant failures of the Ukrainian armed forces in the conflict,” she stated. Commenting on Kiev’s incursion, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Washington’s stance on Ukraine’s use of US-supplied weapons in cross-border attacks has not changed, and that “with the actions that they are taking today, they’re not in violation of our policy.” Moscow has repeatedly warned that Western arms supplies to Ukraine will not break the course of the conflict, but only prolong it.

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“Things will get worse in terms of Ukrainian terrorism spreading across the planet. It’s not a joke..”

• Ukraine Spreading ‘Terrorism’ Around The World – Zakharova (RT)

The Ukrainian government has become a terrorist organization acting on behalf of Western nations and their “deep state structures,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has claimed. The official condemned Kiev in an interview on Wednesday, after Ukrainian troops launched an incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region one day previously and several civilians were killed by Ukrainian strikes. “This is an act of terrorism. It was obviously directed against peaceful people. There is no doubt about that,” the spokeswoman told Sputnik Radio. Zakharova brought up Mali’s decision earlier this month to cut diplomatic relations with Kiev, after Ukrainian officials claimed credit for an ambush on Russian military contractors by Tuareg militants. A spokesman for the Ukrainian military intelligence called it a “successful military operation” by his agency, but Bamako described it as support for terrorism in the Sahel region of Africa.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has since denied Kiev’s involvement in the incident, while neighboring Niger joined Mali in condemning Ukraine and breaking ties with it. “Things will get worse in terms of Ukrainian terrorism spreading across the planet. It’s not a joke,” Zakharova warned. People in power in Kiev have turned their country into a “terrorist gang” doing the dirty work for Western nations and their “deep state structures,” the diplomat claimed. She also asked what it would take to convince the American people that by bankrolling Ukraine, their government was sponsoring terrorism. Ukrainian troops have been launching attacks against settlements in the border areas of Kursk Region as they try to push their way inside Russian territory.

On Tuesday evening, acting Governor Aleksey Smirnov reported that the civilian death toll from the hostilities had increased, after a Ukrainian kamikaze drone hit an ambulance near the town of Sudzha, one of the primary targets of the attacks. The strike killed the driver and an elderly paramedic, and left a doctor injured, he said. Previous updates confirmed three civilian fatalities. Meanwhile, local health officials reported on Wednesday that at least 28 people had been injured by Ukrainian strikes. Zakharova cited a deep fake video of Smirnov, in which the governor urged all men in Kursk Region to go to conscription centers and take arms, as evidence that Ukraine’s military activities were primarily meant to disturb Russian civilians. The clip was apparently based on an actual video statement made by the governor on Tuesday, which urged citizens to keep calm and prioritize their safety.

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Mali, Niger, Senegal and Burkina Faso. What business does Kiev have there?

• Fourth African State Sanctions Ukraine For ‘Supporting Terrorism’ (RT)

Niger has severed diplomatic relations with Ukraine in response to Kiev’s alleged support for militants who killed dozens of Malian soldiers and Russian Wagner Group contractors in an attack last month. The West African state’s decision on Tuesday came just two days after Mali took the same step, accusing Kiev of supporting international terrorism. Ukrainian officials had earlier indicated that Kiev had assisted Tuareg rebels who staged an attack in the village of Tinzaouaten. In an interview following the incident, Ukraine’s spy agency spokesman, Andrey Yusov, indicated on national TV that the insurgents had received intelligence to conduct a “successful military operation against Russian war criminals.” He warned that “there will be more to come.” Ukraine’s embassy in Senegal posted the video – now deleted – on its Facebook page along with a comment from Ambassador Yury Pivovarov, who said “there will certainly be other results.”

Niamey’s military government spokesman, Amadou Abdramane, called the remarks “indecent” and “unacceptable” in an address on state TV late on Tuesday, claiming that they characterize “acts of aggression.” “Niger, in total solidarity with the government and people of Mali, has decided in all sovereignty […] to sever diplomatic relations between the Republic of Niger and Ukraine with immediate effect,” Abdramane said. Kiev has yet to respond to the African state’s move. On Monday, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry denied any involvement in the terrorist attack and described Mali’s decision to break off diplomatic ties as “shortsighted and hasty.” “Ukraine is known in Africa as an important contributor to ensuring regional security,” the ministry stated, arguing that Bamako had acted without providing any evidence of Kiev’s complicity in the ambush near the Algerian border.

On Tuesday, the West African regional bloc ECOWAS condemned the killings in Mali and expressed “strong” opposition to “any foreign interference” that threatens the region’s peace and security. Bamako’s neighbors, including Senegal and Burkina Faso, have all criticized Ukraine over the statements by its officials. Since 2012, Mali has been embroiled in a jihadist insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives. A decade-long French military mission failed to quell the violence, which has spilled over to neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger. All three former French colonies, led by their militaries, have severed defense ties with Paris and formed the Alliance of Sahel States to combat terrorism. Russia, which Bamako, Niamey, and Ouagadougou regard as a strategic security ally, has agreed to assist the troubled Sahel states in combating long-standing terrorist threats.

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“Journalism as an occupation no longer exists. Today the struggle is not to get at the heart of an issue, but to have one’s agenda prevail.”

• Why Did America Give Away Its Manufacturing Jobs? (Paul Craig Roberts)

Not long ago a couple of publishers asked about my memoirs. I told them I had no interest. Memoirs are an enormous undertaking, especially when your files haven’t been organized for the purpose. Moreover, many of mine have been discarded in moves. When you have lived as long as I have and been involved in so many major issues, files are a voluminous collection. Moreover, I have always had a jaundiced eye toward memoirs, being unsure whether they are an exercise in egotism. In past times I think memoirs, even if they were attempts to control the narrative, something done for us today by the CIA and woke media and universities, still made information available that otherwise would have died with the person. I find this a bit sobering as there is a great deal of information that is going to die with me. Despite all the winnowing of my files, I still have 25 crates that if I did nothing else for one year I might get through. To organize the information, I would need at least two assistants.

I have barely touched the crates, and already I have found important matters long forgotten. In 2004 NY Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer and I opened a New Year with a jointly authored column in the New York Times. We raised the offshoring issue. American manufacturing jobs and the tech jobs of American professionals were being sent to Asia. We posed the question that if jobs offshoring was free trade, as economists claimed, was free trade any longer in America’s interest? My position was that jobs offshoring is a contradiction of free trade–more later–and Schumer was still in his idealistic period when he was concerned about the displacement of American labor by foreign labor in the production of goods and services that Americans consumed. Our article caused a firestorm. The Brookings Institution in Washington called a conference and asked us to come and defend our position. C-Span broadcast the conference live and rebroadcast it a number of times. Schumer and I carried the day.

Delighted with the publicity, Schumer suggested a follow-up article. The NY Times was eager. We began a draft, and then it went cold. My explanation is that Wall Street, which was committed to jobs offshoring, got to Schumer and explained campaign contributions to him. I continued on. Conservatives, free market economists, and libertarians, who are indoctrinated with free trade, but who do not comprehend the theory, called me a heretic. Nevertheless, both the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post were intrigued that the “most ardent” of the “Reagan policymakers” had taken a position against the policy that Wall Street was imposing on the country. The Wall Street Journal assigned Timothy Aeppel to arrange a series of debates to be published in the Wall Street Journal between me and Columbia University Professor Jagdish Bhagwati. The question was: Is jobs offshoring really free trade?

Adam Smith and David Ricardo’s theory of free trade rests on the principle of comparative advantage. What this means is that a country’s capital remains employed at home and is employed in areas in which the capital is best used. If all countries do this, there are gains from trade, and all countries will be better off than if they are self-sufficient. I have wondered if the free trade theory was used as a stratagem to repeal the British Corn Laws and reduce the income and power of the landed aristocracy. Both Smith and Ricardo made it completely clear that if a country’s capital left the country, it was pursuing absolute advantage, not comparative advantage, and free trade theory is vitiated. This is the point I made. Without comparative advantage, there is no case for free trade. The Wall Street Journal wasn’t the only media institution interested in the facts. So was the Washington Post.

The Washington Post assigned their economics editor Paul Blustein to interview me and my critics and to do a news report. Blustein interviewed me at least three times prior to writing his story. Keep in mind that Blustein had been a critic during my Treasury days with the Reagan administration. Nevertheless, after giving my critics their say, Blustein wrote:“Still, mainstream economists can’t answer a key question that Roberts raises, which is how the U.S. economy can generate better employment opportunities to replace the white-collar jobs that are suddenly vanishing. “Roberts recently got some support for his argument from a heavyweight academic economist, William J. Baumol . . . a past president of the American Economic Association and a book he published with Ralph E. Gomery, [a distinguished mathematician] that pokes some holes in economic orthodoxy by showing that free trade will not necessarily provide mutual gains to countries.”

Today this exchange of ideas in the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post and the honest appraisal of one’s opponents is not possible. I am banned from the Wall Street Journal, a newspaper I used to edit. I am banned from the Washington Post for which I was a contributor. I am banned from the NY Times which used to call me and ask me to write on current issues. I am banned from the newspapers of the Scripps Howard News Service. I am banned from the San Diego Union, the San Francisco Examiner, and the Los Angeles Times for which I was a regular contributor. There is no debate. There are narratives, and the narratives are imposed. Journalism as an occupation no longer exists. Today the struggle is not to get at the heart of an issue, but to have one’s agenda prevail.

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“..violations of the Foreign Agent Restriction Act (FARA)”

• FBI Raids Scott Ritter’s House (RT)

Federal agents and state police have searched the house of former US Marine and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter in New York state on Wednesday. State Police and FBI agents descended on the street of Bethlehem township, south of Albany, around noon, according to the local outlet Times-Union. They carried “more than two dozen boxes” out of the house just before 5pm local time. The law enforcement executed a search warrant “related to concerns apparently the US government has about violations of the Foreign Agent Restriction Act (FARA)” Ritter told reporters gathered outside the house after the agents left. He denied any allegations of wrongdoing and said the federal government was trying to intimidate him. An FBI spokesperson confirmed “law enforcement activity in connection with an ongoing federal investigation,” but would say nothing further.

Ritter is a former US Marine Corps major who served as a UN weapons inspector in Iraq during the 1990s. He opposed the 2003 US invasion, insisting that Saddam Hussein’s government did not have weapons of mass destruction, as Washington claimed at the time. He has also been an RT contributor and saw his passport seized by the US government when he tried to attend the St Petersburg International Economic Forum in June. Jim Hoffman, Ritter’s neighbor across the street for two decades, told the Times-Union that the former inspector has kept a low profile. “When he came out against the Iraq War back in early 2000s, he was vilified everywhere,” Hoffman said. “Honestly, he was right. He said there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”

Ritter himself has not posted anything about the raid on social media. His most recent post on X was from Tuesday’s meeting with independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The administrators of his Telegram channel posted photos of the raid and said they have not heard from him either.

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Hmmm…

• Vienna Cancels Taylor Swift Concerts Over ISIS Attack Fears (RT)

US pop mega-star Taylor Swift has canceled three upcoming concerts in Vienna, Austria after two suspects were arrested for allegedly planning terrorist attacks on the shows. Swift was supposed to perform at Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadium on August 8, 9, and 10 as part of her European leg of the Eras Tour. Venues across the continent have been sold out for weeks. “With confirmation from government officials of a planned terrorist attack at Ernst Happel Stadium, we have no choice but to cancel the three scheduled shows for everyone’s safety,” concert promoter Barracuda Music said in an Instagram post. “All tickets will be automatically refunded within the next 10 business days.” Austrian police arrested a 19-year-old who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS) in Ternitz, a town south of Vienna. Another suspect was later detained in the capital

Franz Ruf, director-general for public safety in the Austrian Ministry of the Interior, told reporters that the suspects were allegedly self-radicalized online, planned to attack Vienna, and expressed particular interest in Swift’s concerts. The organizers expected 65,000 concertgoers at each show and an additional 10,000 to 15,000 fans outside the arena, police said. The risk justified raising security precautions, said Vienna police chief Gerhard Purst. The 19-year-old suspect may have been building an explosive device, police said, and the chemical substances found at his home are currently being investigated. The names of the suspects have not been made public. Swift embarked on the Eras Tour in March 2023, aiming to do 152 concerts across five continents, performing hits from her 17-year career. The 34-year-old songstress is expected to make $2 billion from the tour by the time it wraps up in December.

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Pardon him while you still can..

• Hunter Biden Got ‘Millions’ of Dollars From Romania to Influence US Gov’t (Sp.)

Hunter Biden, the son of US President Joe Biden, has received millions of dollars from a Romanian entrepreneur in order to influence the US government during his father’s vice presidency, court filings have revealed. US Department of Justice Special Counsel David Weiss’s office found that Biden received “substantial” sums of money from foreign firms and individuals in exchange for acting as a lobbyist, consultant, or legal adviser. “With respect to his first topic, ‘allegations that Mr. Biden (1) acted on behalf of a foreign principal to influence U.S. policy and public opinion,’ the defendant did receive compensation from a foreign principal to attempt to influence U.S. policy and public opinion, as alleged in the indictment, and this evidence is relevant and not unfairly prejudicial,” the Wednesday filing read. Hunter Biden worked for Romanian businessman Gabriel Popoviciu (referred to as G.P. in the document) to help him escape bribery charges in Romania, Weiss’s office also revealed.

“The evidence of what the defendant agreed to do and did do for G.P. demonstrates the defendant’s state of mind and intent during the relevant tax years charged in the indictment. It is also evidence that the defendants actions do not reflect someone with a diminished capacity, given that he agreed to attempt to influence U.S. public policy and receive millions of dollars,” the document said. In November 2023, House Republicans subpoenaed the president’s brother James Biden and Hunter Biden to appear for a deposition before lawmakers. In May, Smith said that Hunter Biden had repeatedly lied to Congress in his February deposition to distance his involvement in what should be considered a “clear scheme to enrich the Biden family.” The House of Representatives is investigating the Biden family for alleged criminal activity, including foreign influence peddling and bribery.

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The Supreme Court is the only things they don’t control..

• The “No Kings Act” is a Decapitation of the Constitution (Turley)

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) has introduced the “No Kings Act” with great fanfare and the support of most of his Democratic colleagues. Liberal groups have heralded the measure to legislatively reverse the ruling in Trump v. United States. It is obviously popular with the press and pundits. It is also entirely unconstitutional in my view. The “No Kings Act” is not just a cynical abdication of responsibility by Democrats, but would constitute the virtual decapitation of the Constitution. I have previously written about the false claims made about the Supreme Court’s decision by President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and other leading democrats. The press and pundits have reached a new level of sensationalism and hysteria in the coverage with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow even claiming that it was a “death squad ruling.” The Court actually rejected the most extreme positions of both the Trump team and the lower courts.

As it has in the past, the Court adopted a three-tiered approach to presidential powers based on the source of a presidential action. Chief Justice John Roberts cited Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer, in which the court ruled against President Harry Truman’s takeover of steel mills. In his famous concurrence to Youngstown, Justice Robert Jackson broke down the balance of executive and legislative authority between three types of actions. In the first, a president acts with express or implied authority from Congress. In the second, he acts where Congress is silent (“the zone of twilight” area). In the third, the president acts in defiance of Congress. In this decision, the court adopted a similar sliding scale. It held that presidents enjoy absolute immunity for actions that fall within their “exclusive sphere of constitutional authority” while they enjoy presumptive immunity for other official acts. They do not enjoy immunity for unofficial or private actions.

Where the coverage has been wildly inaccurate, the No Kings Act is cynically dishonest. To his credit, President Joe Biden was at least honest in proposing a constitutional amendment to overturn the decision in Trump. However, that was dead on arrival in Congress since under Article V it would require a two-thirds majority vote in both houses and then ratification by three-fourths of the states. The Democrats are seeking to circumvent that process with simple majority votes with the No Kings Act. The bill is being presented as a jurisdiction-stripping measure, not an effort to dictate outcomes. Congress does have authority to change the jurisdiction of the federal courts. That authority was recognized by the Court itself in Ex parte McCardle (1869). Chief Justice Salmon Chase ruled that it did have the authority “to make exceptions to the appellate jurisdiction of this court.”

However, Chase also emphasized that the law did “not affect the jurisdiction which was previously exercised” so that prior decisions would remain fully enforceable. Moreover, shortly after McCardle, the Court ruled in United States v. Klein (1871), that Congress may not use its authority of court jurisdiction to lay out a “rule of decision” for the Supreme Court, or effectively dictate results in court cases. The No Kings Act does more than just strip jurisdiction and makes no secret of its purpose in dictating the outcome of future cases. It purports in Section 2 to “clarify that a President or Vice President is not entitled to any form of immunity from criminal prosecution for violations of the criminal laws of the United States unless specified by Congress.” That is a rather Orwellian view of “clarification” since it directly contradicts the opinion in declaring in the very next section that “[a] President, former President, Vice President, or former Vice President shall not be entitled to any form of immunity (whether absolute, presumptive, or otherwise) from criminal laws of the United States unless specified by Congress.”

Schumer and most of the Democratic senators actually believe that they can simply instruct lower courts to ignore a Supreme Court ruling on the meaning of the Constitution. It would undermine the basis of Marbury v. Madison after 221 years. To be sure, it is stated in strictly jurisdictional terms. Yet, it crafts the jurisdictional changes to mirror the decision and future immunity claims. The bill declares that federal courts “may not consider whether an alleged violation of any criminal laws of the United States committed by a President or Vice President was within the conclusive or preclusive constitutional authority of a President or Vice President or was related to the official duties of a President or Vice President unless directed by Congress.” But the Democrats are not done yet. Section 4 actually removes the Supreme Court from such questions and makes appellate courts the effective highest courts of the land when it comes to presidential immunity:

“The Supreme Court of the United States shall have no appellate jurisdiction, on the basis that an alleged criminal act was within the conclusive or preclusive constitutional authority of a President or Vice President or on the basis that an alleged criminal act was related to the official duties of a President or Vice President.” Notably, this is one of the wacky ideas put forward by the President’s Supreme Court Commission. After all, why pack the Court if you can just gut it? Of course, some sponsors like Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) want to both pack the Court and strip it of authority. Presumably, once packed, the authority to act as a court would be at least restored with the liberal majority.

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Sorry, Two Tier Kier. NASA need Musk to save their ISS astronauts.

• Crazed Authoritarians Demand X Be Shut Down in UK (MN)

Mimicking a policy that the west once condemned Communist China for pursuing, authoritarians are now calling for X to be shut down completely in the UK to stop civil unrest. After the country was rocked by a series of riots over the past week in response to a 17-year-old son of Rwandan immigrants killing three little girls in Southport, the media and the political class blamed the anger on “misinformation” shared on X. In reality, the UK has been a boiling pot of resentment and rage over mass migration for years, with huge numbers continuing to arrive, putting massive strain on the country and making some parts of major towns and cities unrecognizable, despite nobody having ever voted for it. However, the disorder is being exploited to grease the skids for mass censorship. Cambridge professor Sander van der Linden said the government could “geo-restrict access to a platform if the situation got so bad” and Twitter could also be “banned from the app store for violating policies.”

Jessica Simor QC also called for the UK government to “pass a short bill closing down Twitter in the UK.” Entrepreneur Ana Vilhete also called for Twitter to be temporarily banned in the UK to “limit the spread of inflammatory information.” Journalist Paul Mason, a Marxist who once worked for the BBC, demanded the government use the Online Safety Bill (which passed under the excuse of protecting children from harmful content) to “pull the plug” on X. Apparently, it’s horrendous for Middle Eastern dictators to shut down and block social media networks during times of civil unrest, as occurred during the Arab Spring, but when the UK does it, it’s fine. Whenever there are anti-government protests in China, the Communist regime there also blocks and suspends social media networks, something that was once slammed by western governments as a vicious attack on basic freedom, but a tactic which they now emulate.

Although the riots are cited as the primary reason for mass censorship, the calls are also being driven by the fact that Elon Musk has challenged the mainstream narrative on the riots and embarrassed Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Musk branded Starmer ‘Two Tier Kier’ for pursuing a vigorous crackdown on anti-mass migration demonstrators while turning a blind eye to Muslim mobs who have also rioted and physically attacked innocent people. The British political establishment engaged in a collective hissy fit over Musk’s simple question for Starmer and the government when he asked, “Why aren’t all communities protected in Britain?”. The X owner also drew attention to a viral video clip of a man being arrested in his own home by police over a Facebook post, asking if it was “Britain or the Soviet Union”. The regime is deeply fearful that Musk’s intervention is causing them to lose control of the narrative that the unrest is being fueled by mindless, racist thuggery and not legitimate concerns about the impact of mass migration on working class people in the UK.

Hitchens/Starmer

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All roads…

 

 

Mar a lago
https://twitter.com/i/status/1820943581823299921

 

 

Starlink

 

 

Sting
https://twitter.com/i/status/1820913480192725080

 

 

Rescue
https://twitter.com/i/status/1820900188627857766

 

 

Oh no!
https://twitter.com/i/status/1821068771252916646

 

 

More friends
https://twitter.com/i/status/1821162344866632041

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle June 9 2024

Jun 092024
 
 June 9, 2024  Posted by at 8:37 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  51 Responses »


George Grosz Apocalyptic landscape 1936

 

• EU Could Stop Ukraine Conflict In 24 Hours – Orban (RT)
• Macron Building ‘Coalition’ To Send Troops Into Ukraine (RT)
• Macron Faces Crushing Defeat In EU Elections (RMX)
• NATO Chief Scraps €100 Billion Ukraine Fund Plan (RT)
• European Union: From Peace To Bellicosity (Dionísio)
• Russia Vows Immediate Countermeasures Should West Take Its Assets (TASS)
• Scott Ritter: Another American Voice For Sanity And Peace Cancelled (SCF Op-ed)
• Scott Ritter Silenced by Liberal Authoritarians (Patrick Lawrence)
• 2024 Hillary vs Trump – Not Biden? (Martin Armstrong)
• Hillary Clinton Slammed For Using D-Day To Call Trump Hitler (MN)
• Alex Jones to lose InfoWars (RT)
• Will Hunter Take the Stand? (Turley)
• New Texas GOP Platform Calls For Secession Vote, Resistance (ZH)
• Israel Kills Over 200 Palestinians to Rescue 4 Captives (Mondoweiss)

 

 

 

 

No convicted felon

 

 

David Sacks

 

 

Putin diverse world
https://twitter.com/i/status/1799219256854261777

 

 

Pepe
https://twitter.com/i/status/1799450850102051172

 

 

Maher Bezos
https://twitter.com/i/status/1799284489207624195

 

 

Tucker Massie AIPAC
https://twitter.com/i/status/1799237579071770927

 

 


Dostoevsky

 

 

 

 

He keeps making sense. That’s why they want to bar him.

• EU Could Stop Ukraine Conflict In 24 Hours – Orban (RT)

The West is “within centimeters of a direct conflict” with Russia, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has warned, noting that both the EU and US need pro-peace forces to replace those currently in power in order to avoid this scenario. In an interview with TV2 on Friday, just two days before the European Parliament elections, Orban said that with all the discussions regarding sending additional weapons and even troops to Ukraine, the West “is on a straight road to war.” The prime minister noted that when the conflict began in 2022, most EU countries, including Germany, vowed to only send non-lethal aid to Kiev, such as helmets – and “there was no question of supplying equipment suitable for killing human life to the Ukrainians.” Since then, however, the Western powers have supplied Kiev with a wide range of weaponry and ammunition.

“At the rate this is going, it is not an exaggeration to say that we are centimeters away from the final stop when Western European or American soldiers appear in the territory of Ukraine, we are within inches of a direct collision [with Russia] at this moment,” he warned, lamenting that most leaders currently in power in the West “don’t see it, they want war.” He added, however, that the point of no return has not been reached yet, and to prevent a war with Russia from breaking out, there needs to be a change in Western governments. “We are at the penultimate moment to reverse the outbreak of the war. For this we need to achieve change in Brussels and Washington… If the European leaders wanted peace today, within 24 hours there would be a ceasefire at the front line.

All they would have to do was to say: Dear Ukrainians, a ceasefire is necessary, we need to stop, we will not give more weapons and money until there is a ceasefire and peace negotiations,” Orban said. He added that there would be a greater chance of reaching a peace deal if Donald Trump wins the US presidential election in November and “ends this war within 24 hours,” as he has pledged to do. Orban has insisted that Hungary should refrain from taking part in any potential NATO action in Ukraine, arguing that the military bloc was created with the purpose of defending member states from aggressors, not waging war outside its territory. Hungary has consistently criticized the Western approach to the Ukraine conflict, and opposed NATO’s funding and arming of Ukraine, as well as the sweeping sanctions on Russia – instead calling for a ceasefire and diplomatic solution.

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Macron makes no sense. So he’s popular..

• Macron Building ‘Coalition’ To Send Troops Into Ukraine (RT)

French President Emmanuel Macron has gone beyond merely talking about the possibility of deploying NATO troops to Ukraine, taking steps to form a coalition of military trainers who would work inside the former Soviet republic preparing Kiev’s soldiers to fight Russian forces. “We want to have a coalition for reasons of efficiency, and several of our partners have already given their agreement,” Macron told reporters on Friday in Paris. “We will use the coming days to finalize the largest possible coalition capable of responding to Ukraine’s request.” Macron did not identify the countries, other than France, that have committed to sending trainers to Ukraine. He argued that dispatching specialists to do training work inside Ukraine should not provoke a Russian response.

“We are not at war with Russia,” Macron said. “We do not want an escalation, but we want to do everything in our power to help Ukraine resist. Is it an escalation if Ukraine asks us to train mobilized soldiers on its soil? No, that does not mean deploying people – European or allied soldiers – on the front line.” Macron made the comments after hosting a visit by Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky. He announced on Thursday that France will send Mirage 2000 fighter jets to Kiev and train Ukrainian pilots. It will reportedly take until around the end of this year to have pilots ready to fly the warplanes. French forces have already trained around 10,000 Ukrainian troops in France and other NATO countries. Lithuania and Estonia have also publicly suggested that they would be willing to deploy instructors inside Ukraine. Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said last month that NATO trainers were already operating in the battle-torn country.

Russian officials have warned that any foreign military personnel in Ukraine would be considered legitimate targets for attack, regardless of their duties and locations. The Russian Foreign Ministry said Macron’s “belligerent rhetoric” and provocative statements had escalated the Ukraine crisis. Macron began making public comments about the possibility of troop deployments to Ukraine in February, triggering pushback from some NATO allies and a Kremlin warning that this step would inevitably lead to a direct conflict with Russia. US President Joe Biden reportedly rejected Macron’s proposal to send instructors to Kiev, citing concerns that they could be in the line of fire and spark an escalation.

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..popular in Brussels, that is. But not at home..

“..unchanged at 15 percent. At the same time, Marine Le Pen’s party is polling at 33 percent..”

• Macron Faces Crushing Defeat In EU Elections (RMX)

President Emmanuel Macron’s party will suffer a historic defeat in the European Union elections on Sunday, Hungarian news portal Origo writes. It is not hard to guess that after this huge defeat, he will take even more refuge in foreign policy. Having failed in his own country, he is trying to achieve unquantifiable and non-existent successes in the international world. According to Wednesday’s opinion poll by IFOP-Fiducial, Macron’s party has been unable to improve four days before the European Parliament elections, standing unchanged at 15 percent. At the same time, Marine Le Pen’s party is polling at 33 percent. No governing party in France has lost by such a humiliating margin since 1979, the first European Parliament elections on party lists. True, it is also rare for a governing party to win what can be considered a roughly midterm election; the last time this happened was in 2009 when then President Nicolas Sarkozy won the EU parliament election.

Six French parties are now in the running for the European Parliament. After Marine Le Pen (RN) and Macron (a coalition of four parties), the Socialist Party will be third, with 13.5 percent, but they could easily overtake Macron in the end. The communist, anti-Semitic, pro-Muslim Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party could get 8 percent, the classic Gaullist, center-right party 7.5 percent and Éric Zemmour’s anti-immigration party, formed just two years ago and unrivaled among young people, 6 percent. IFOP’s seat estimates suggest that the far-left Green Party, still at 5 percent but in steady decline, will be eliminated. Voter turnout is now expected to slightly exceed 50 percent. Macron is currently midway through his second five-year term as president, and according to the French constitution, he cannot run for a third after his current term expires in 2027.

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“..since the aid was to be collected over five years, this meant NATO “expects the hostilities to continue for this period.”

• NATO Chief Scraps €100 Billion Ukraine Fund Plan (RT)

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has ditched a five-year plan to provide Ukraine with €100 billion ($108 billion) in military aid after pushback from members of the bloc, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. In April, several Western media outlets reported, citing diplomatic sources, that Stoltenberg had presented a draft long-term military support plan for Ukraine, designed in part to guard against any cut in US support if former President Donald Trump returns to the White House. Earlier this year, Trump called for restricting aid to Ukraine to loans and insisted that European NATO members match Washington’s level of assistance to Kiev. The Stoltenberg plan was reportedly been questioned by several NATO members who sought clarification from the bloc’s secretary general on where and how the enormous sum of money involved would be obtained.

The unnamed officials told Politico last month that the plan was “confusing” and that the €100 million figure would be revised. Earlier this week, a NATO diplomat told the FT that Ukrainian authorities were “not super thrilled” with the idea either, pointing out that the package would in practice only duplicate bilateral and EU-managed commitments and not actually represent fresh cash. Instead, Stoltenberg is expected to submit an updated plan to provide Kiev with lethal and non-lethal aid of around €40 billion annually, the sources told Bloomberg. The new proposal will reportedly be discussed by NATO defense ministers next week. Under the new plan, which is aimed at providing more transparency about what Ukraine’s supporters contribute, the amount of assistance from each NATO member would be determined on the basis of a percentage of their GDP.

The US would reportedly account for nearly half of the aid, with the other 31 members providing the rest. The sources also told the news outlet that Türkiye has cautioned that any coordination of military assistance for Ukraine could create the perception of greater involvement of the bloc in the conflict. Last month, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said that Budapest was opposed to the initial plan, explaining that since the aid was to be collected over five years, this meant NATO “expects the hostilities to continue for this period.” The diplomat added that Hungary does not plan to participate in arming Ukraine or training its soldiers. The country’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, has expressed the view that NATO is getting closer to war with Russia every week.

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“..a non-existent Europe will be sung, which, while celebrating “European values”, demands the fracture of continental Europe..”

• European Union: From Peace To Bellicosity (Dionísio)

[..] this is what hurts to hear from Euroenthusiasts and Brussels fanboys. But, how is it that your favorite enchanting tale is nothing more than a deferred dream, whose assumptions indicate that, after all, this postponement is eternal, because, within the framework of the European division of labor, it is not up to the peripheral countries to develop high value added activities? And nothing highlights this reality more than the data regarding wage convergence: to the promise of future convergence, it was not just the Portuguese economy that did not live up to it, but all the peripheral economies of the European Union. Growing up, they were never able to converge, with the distances between those in the south and those in central and northern Europe almost always maintaining or increasing. The fact is that the only small and peripheral country that dared to break with this logic was Greece. Today, we all know where Greece ended up.

They accused the country of stealing, lying, falsifying, all because the respective government committed the “crime” of wanting to pay its people the same as workers in central and northern European countries earned. The largest European countries, which constantly exceed deficit limits, have never been subject to the “excessive deficit procedure” and austerity measures to correct it. Furthermore, in the Portuguese case, between funds received and the purchase of products and services provided by central and northern Europe, between 1996 and 2023, this country gave more than it received, explaining the real meaning of this European adventure. According to the Bank of Portugal, between what came in and what went out, the country had a negative balance of 61 billion euros. In conclusion, the carrot that attracts the donkey, European structural funds, are nothing more than disguised loans, disguised in the form of “investment”, but whose return is worth more to those who give them – the countries of northern and central Europe – than for those who receive them.

The “investment” in funds thus constitutes a double benefit: economic and political control over the beneficiaries of the subsidies; economic return in the medium and long term. The fact that these funds are allocated under strategies (Lisbon strategy; Strategy 2020 and 2030) designed in Brussels, determines that they do not aim to solve the real problems of peripheral countries. European funds aim to solve the problems that peripheral countries have so that they can be used as instruments to enrich central countries. The instrumentalization that the countries of central and northern Europe make of the eastern countries, with regard to the strategy of domination of Russian and Slavic lands, finds parallels in the countries of southern and Mediterranean Europe, namely by taking advantage of the intercontinental geographic links that such countries they mean, in addition to their significance as destination markets and as reserves of qualified and cheap labor, which is formed, satisfactorily, with the European Union’s own funds.

It is, therefore, imperative to dismantle and denounce this cycle of exploitation, whose benefits are not distributed equitably and which tends to maintain relative differences over time, a difference that aims to keep this cycle untouchable. Furthermore, coupled with this political-economic dimension, another one is added, which the conflict taking place in Ukraine unmasks. Peripheral and distant countries were suddenly elected as enemies of Russia, without their people being taken into account, who unconsciously watched the transfer of their funds to the war effort. The most tragic thing is that whoever denounces the failure of this European project is accused of being “anti-European”, as if this were the only possible formulation, as if human history did not have cemeteries full of inevitable stories. When this European Union enters its bellicose phase, it is more fundamental than ever to talk about a Europe of peace, cooperation and friendship between people. A Europe in which openness does not mean submission.

The upcoming elections for the European parliament will be yet another moment during which very little will be said about the European Union, its autocratic character, its macrocephalism. Instead, a non-existent Europe will be sung, which, while celebrating “European values”, demands the fracture of continental Europe. While celebrating “union”, it forces a country to give up it’s history and replace it with a whitewashing revisionism of their fascist past. While it demands the surrender of its economy, it replaces it with eternal dependence from the political power of monopolies, represented in Brussels. Belonging to the European Union begins to resemble those dreams that delight us while we sleep, but when we wake up, we realize that they are just that, dreams. The European project cannot survive even the light of day, much less when one wakes up.

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“..including in Europe. There is much more of their property and funds in Russia than America’s..”

• Russia Vows Immediate Countermeasures Should West Take Its Assets (TASS)

Moscow will not wait to retaliate to the confiscation of its assets in the West, with a slew of political and economic countermeasures in its holster, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a briefing on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). “They are planning to pledge Russia’s virtual reserves without preliminary permission, with future revenues from them not only to be immediately pocketed by the West but also spent on some other military ventures aimed against Russia. We will naturally respond appropriately to such steps, as we have always done. We have a range of political, economic countermeasures against those attempting to get hold of Russian reserves,” she said. “One should think long and hard before deciding to go ahead with this as countermeasures will follow,” the diplomat added.

In May, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on compensation for damage caused to Russia and its Central Bank due to the US’ unfriendly actions, Zakharova noted. “A similar mechanism may be applied to other countries as well, including in Europe. There is much more of their property and funds in Russia than America’s. Moreover, the US and the EU have already proven that they can no longer be regarded as reliable jurisdictions for foreign investors, whose investment can at any time be confiscated or stolen,” she said, adding that “those actions have no legal basis behind them, being simply outright theft.”

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“In the laudable spirit of 1930s U.S. Marine Major General Smedley D Butler, they have shown how “war is a racket”.

• Scott Ritter: Another American Voice For Sanity And Peace Cancelled (SCF Op-ed)

The sinister prevention of Scott Ritter travelling to speak and broadcast from Russia this week by United States authorities is a sure sign that the Western imperialist warmongers are afraid of the truth. Indeed, there is a dark shadow cast on their pretensions of “democracy and freedom” – ironically in a week that supposedly commemorates the D-Day landings and the historic fight against fascism. The former U.S. Marine and United Nations weapons inspector has gained worldwide respect as an independent political commentator and analyst. Ritter has become a powerful critic of the United States and NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine. He has staunchly appealed for dialogue and diplomacy, warning that the reckless provocations by Washington and its allies towards Russia are driving the world to a nuclear conflagration. This week, Ritter was due to fly from New York to Istanbul, on his way to attend the St Petersburg International Economic Forum in Russia.

The annual forum is attended by thousands of delegates from all over the world. He was hauled off the flight by U.S. police officers and his passport was confiscated before being escorted from the airport. There was no official explanation for the draconian interdiction to his travel plans. The U.S. State Department refused to comment on the matter, saying it was a private matter. However, there is no doubt, whatsoever, that the humiliating move was politically organized by powerful people, as Ritter claims. It was aimed at preventing him from going to Russia simply because of his outspoken political views. That is an incredible infringement of democratic rights and a revelation of the dark forces at work, which are now increasingly public and blatant. The incident is a grave illustration of how legally protected free speech rights are being trampled on in the United States and other NATO countries. Numerous other instances of censorship and “cancelling” are testimony to the intensity of the information war that the Western states are waging, not just against supposed foreign adversaries but against their own citizens.

Millions of Western citizens are being denied access to important independent news and other media simply based on official designation by unaccountable Western authorities that said information is “Russian disinformation”. Russian news outlets such as RT and Sputnik are banned from being accessed through normal channels. Scott Ritter is one of several respected American voices of sanity and genuine intelligence who are banished from so-called mainstream Western media. Other figures include Professors John Mearsheimer and Jeffrey Sachs, former ambassador to the Soviet Union Jack Matlock, former CIA analysts Ray McGovern and Larry Johnson and former senior Pentagon experts Doug Macgregor and Earl Rasmussen. All of these figures are articulate and informed critics of the U.S.-led NATO proxy war in Ukraine. They have been eminently capable of explaining how the war was fomented through illicit intervention in Ukraine over many years and how the prospects for a diplomatic and peaceful settlement are deliberately being sabotaged by Washington and its NATO vassals.

In the laudable spirit of 1930s U.S. Marine Major General Smedley D Butler, they have shown how “war is a racket”. The war in Ukraine has been sold to the world based on a fetid pile of lies and Russophobic prejudices. A heinous fraud is taking place, putting the world’s future at imminent peril. Scott Ritter, like the other voices cited above, is never or rarely interviewed on the corporate-controlled Western media channels precisely for the reason that the critical analysis he and they articulate debunks the war propaganda emanating from the U.S. government and its NATO allies – propaganda that is pumped and laundered non-stop to the Western public and presented as “news”. No dissenting voices are permitted under the tyranny that is Western imperialist warmongering. Just ask Robert Fico, the Slovakian prime minister who was shot and seriously wounded by a gunman on May 15 because, as Fico believes, he opposes the NATO war against Russia.

As the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw once said, assassination is just an extreme form of censorship. A demonstration of the nefarious propaganda system was seen this week during the 80th anniversary of the D-Day Normandy landings. U.S. President Joe Biden and other Western leaders used the commemorative event in France to issue doom-laden warnings that “democracy is under attack” and to portray the war in Ukraine as a re-run of the standing up to Nazi Germany in World War Two with Russia projected as the reincarnation of Hitler’s Third Reich. The whole D-Day pomp and ceremony was a travesty. And yet such nauseating distortion of history was relayed to Western audiences by the likes of CNN and BBC, to mention just two channels, as if it were a noble reflection. Democracy and freedom are under attack alright – from Biden and the rest of the Western ruling elite whose basis of oligarchic power is increasingly appearing as outright fascism – albeit with “liberal” sounding rhetoric.

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“..I sense things may get a great deal worse from here on out..”

• Scott Ritter Silenced by Liberal Authoritarians (Patrick Lawrence)

It is not difficult to be astonished these days, given how many things going on around us warrant astonishment. To pull something out of a hat at random, the Democratic apparatus has openly, brazenly politicized the judicial system—weaponized it, if you prefer—in its determination to destroy Donald Trump and now has the temerity to warn in the gravest terms that a second Trump term would mean… the politicization of American justice. Again at random, in The Washington Post’s June 7 editions George Will tells us President Biden “has provided the most progressive governance in U.S. history.” Yes, he wrote that. Give in to your astonishment. It is interesting in this case to note that, during the reign of Ronald Reagan 40 years ago, our George thought big government was bad, bad, bad. Now it is a fine thing that Biden is “minimizing the market’s role by maximizing the government’s role in allocating society’s resources and opportunities.”

Apart from turning his own argument hourglass upside-down, this assessment of our swiftly declining president is preposterously, right-before-your-eyes false. You cannot tell the AC’s from the DC’s these days. But this is not the half of it in the way of astonishing events, things done, things said and such like. Last week, as many readers will have noticed, Scott Ritter, the former weapons inspector and now a widely followed commentator, was about to board a plane bound for Turkey when armed police officers stopped him, confiscated his passport and escorted him out of Kennedy International Airport. Ritter was booked to transit through Istanbul for St. Petersburg, where he planned to attend the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, an annual gathering. Here is Ritter recounting this incident in an interview with RT International: “I was boarding the flight. Three officers pulled me aside. They took my passport. When asked why, they said, “Orders of the State Department.” They had no further information for me. They pulled my bags off the plane, then escorted me out of the airport. They kept my passport.”

No passport, no freedom to travel, no explanation. I have it on good authority that Ritter subsequently advised other Americans who were to attend the St. Petersburg events not to risk it. I have had countless conversations over many years in which the question considered has been “Is this as bad as the 1950s?” The matter has been especially vital since the Russiagate fiasco began during the Clinton–Trump campaign season in 2016. It was in the ensuing years that the authoritarianism implicit in American liberalism from the first burst upon us like some weird grotesque out of a Dr. Seuss book. I always urge caution when invoking comparisons between our corruptions and ideological extremes and those of the McCarthy era. Hyperbole and exaggeration never serve one’s understanding or one’s argument. But the confiscation of Scott Ritter’s passport on the instructions of Antony Blinken’s State Department seems to me a radical step too far.

The liberal authoritarians now in command of the nation’s major institutions, the House of Representatives among the only exceptions, have just signaled they are quite prepared to act at least as undemocratically as the House Un–American Activities crowd, the FBI and the rest of the national-security state did during the 1950s to preserve their political hegemony. When I think of confiscated passports I think of Paul Robeson, the gifted singer, the courageous political dissenter, the civil rights advocate—whose documents were seized in 1950 because he refused to indulge in the Cold War paranoia that was already prevalent. His performing career collapsed and he nearly went broke before a Supreme Court decision restored them in 1958. Or I think of all the screenwriters, novelists, poets, painters and activists whose papers were canceled while they were in Mexico—or in France or in Sweden or in England—to avoid HUAC and expatriation turned into exile.

And when I am finished thinking of these people, about whom there is a rich, inspiring literature, I think of how far America descended into a derangement we tend to look back upon in some combination of wonder, derision and contempt. We can no longer look back in this fashion. The revocation of Scott Ritter’s passport, along with the destruction of the judicial system, the myth-spinning about our purported leaders and all the rest pushes this in our faces. Let us give this a moment’s thought to see if we can determine what is likely to be in store. Why Scott Ritter, I have wondered these past few days. Of all the dissident commentators of too many stripes to count, why Scott?

I reply to myself, “Because Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer, a former U.N. arms monitor in Iraq and he enjoys big-time credibility as a patriotic American.” His voice, in short, is the sort that can carry weight in sectors of the voting public that may well prove key in determining the outcome in the Trump–Biden election this Nov. 5. Viewed in this context, I take the full-frontal suppression of Ritter’s rights last week as very likely tied to the liberals’ political prospects, other than brilliant as they are at this point. Censorship, suppression of various kinds taking various forms, “canceling”—these are nothing new, of course. But I sense things may get a great deal worse from here on out.

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“I still cannot see how the Neocons will allow Trump to win. There goes their dream of World War III..”

• 2024 Hillary vs Trump – Not Biden? (Martin Armstrong)

The press is starting to actually report that Biden is losing it. This is how they float a balloon to see if it will fly. The August Democratic Convention has been rumored for some time that they will DRAFT someone else to replace Biden. He swore he would never debate Trump. This may be setting the stage for him to step aside. The Neocons are delighted with Hillary, for she has been among the Neocons all along. She will have no problem nuking Russia. This will certainly make things interesting. Bill Clinton actually had cigar sex with an intern in the Oval Office when he was President! There was a phone call when he was getting into a Hummer, and he commented on the phone that he was sitting on the floor in the Oval Office on the seal of the USA at that moment. As the Washington story went, that is why the Republicans made a big deal out of his actions. Everyone had encounters with staff or lobbyists.

The staff of John McCain was very concerned about him and a lobbyist. However, Bill Clinton lied to the American people about it on national television. He paid off Paula Jones $850,000. That was far more than Trump paid Stormy Daniels, who was NOT even an intern as Monica and the famous blue dress. Clinton’s $850,000 payment to get rid of a sexual harassment claim while he’s President had NO criminal court charges for what was the same thing. Why was Clinton deemed exempt from what happened with Trump and Stormy?” The Democrats have been praying that the Criminal Convictions of Trump on these issues, which have nothing to do with his performance as President, are greatly disappointing. People are seeing through this onslaught against Trump, which the Neocons keep pushing for World War III ASAP. A vote for the Democrats is clearly a vote for World War III. If Hillary gets in, you better dig a bunker real deep under your house.

The polling averages haven’t budged in the direction that Democrats were hoping. At RealClearPolitics, Trump led Biden in head-to-head matchups by 0.8 percent on May 30, the day of the guilty verdict. Now, his lead is at 1.1 percent. In five-way surveys that include minor candidates, Trump’s lead at RCP has dropped from 2.2 percent on May 30 to 2.1 percent now. FiveThirtyEight’s average of polls that include Biden, Trump, and Kennedy show the Republican’s lead slipping marginally from 1.7 percent on May 30 to 1.4 percent now. Our computer has projected a Republican win on 4 out of 6 models. Two are quite dramatic. I still cannot see how the Neocons will allow Trump to win. There goes their dream of World War III. We are running our models on the likely outcome. This may end up being very surprising to many. We will let you know when it is ready.

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For decades, comparing someone to Hitler was taboo. Now it’s normal.

• Hillary Clinton Slammed For Using D-Day To Call Trump Hitler (MN)

Two time presidential loser Hillary Clinton used the 80th anniversary of D-Day as a way of attacking Donald Trump and comparing him to Hitler. Hillary directly compared the fight against Nazi Germany during World War Two to voting against Trump in the upcoming election. Worse still, Clinton equated those who will vote against Trump to soldiers who put their lives on the line in the Normandy landings. Hillary disabled the comments on the post because the consensus among pretty much everyone who saw it is that it is disgusting and completely lacking in respect. As we highlighted earlier, Joe Biden couldn’t stay awake in France at the ceremony to mark the 80th year since the historic D-Day invasion of Normandy, France on June 6, 1944. Biden also used the occasion to attack Trump and also compare voting against him to fighting against Hitler.

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He’ll be around..

• Alex Jones to lose InfoWars (RT)

Right-wing commentator Alex Jones has agreed to liquidate his assets in a bid to pay a court-imposed fine of $1.5 billion. Among Jones’ assets is the parent company of InfoWars, a platform used by the shock-jock to broadcast news, views, and conspiracy theories for more than two decades. Jones filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2022, after a Connecticut judge ordered him to pay the families of the Sandy Hook massacre victims $1.5 billion in damages. Jones had claimed on air that the mass shooting – in which a gunman killed 20 elementary school children and six adults – was staged by the US government in a plot to usher in draconian gun control laws. In filings made to a Texas bankruptcy court on Thursday, Jones’ lawyers requested that the Chapter 11 bankruptcy be converted into a Chapter 7 liquidation, as “there is no reasonable prospect of a successful reorganization” of his debts.

According to court documents, Jones’ assets will not be enough to cover the $1.5 billion fine. However, the Sandy Hook families agreed last year that Jones could liquidate his holdings in order to pay a minimum of $85 million over the next 10 years. In a motion filed earlier this week, the families stated that they want Jones to liquidate Free Speech Systems LLC, the parent company of the InfoWars platform, which has also sought bankruptcy protection. Jones founded InfoWars in 1999, and by 2017, the website was receiving around 10 million monthly visits – eclipsing many mainstream news sites. In his nightly broadcasts on InfoWars, Jones has launched tirades against Democrats, liberals, globalist politicians and NGOs, international financiers, and anyone else he accuses of helping usher in the ‘New World Order’ – a tyrannical system of global governance predicted by American conspiracy theorists since the 1980s.

In an interview with Jones earlier this year, American journalist Tucker Carlson noted that many of the Texan firebrand’s predictions – that the World Trade Center would be destroyed in 2001, that the federal government would introduce mask mandates during the Covid-19 pandemic, and that “a giant war” would break out in Ukraine in February 2022 – came true. Speaking on InfoWars last weekend, Jones claimed that the American “deep state” had orchestrated the legal campaign against him, adding that he was “out of options.” On Friday’s broadcast, Jones said that InfoWars would likely close down within several weeks, but that he may “relaunch” under a different brand.

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“The risk of testimony is that Hunter could burst into flames on the stand and torch any chance to nullify the crime..”

• Will Hunter Take the Stand? (Turley)

This weekend, the Hunter Biden team is reportedly debating whether to have him take the stand on Monday, a move rife with risk. Most criminal defendants avoid such appearances given the potential damage of a withering cross examination. Those risks were evident in the recent testimony of Hunter’s daughter, Naomi, which backfired badly on key points. I have sometimes been in the minority among defense attorneys and legal commentators on this question. In celebrity trials, a jury can feel alienated or even disrespected by a defendant not taking the stand. That was the case, in my view, with Martha Stewart. When a defendant brings forth a host of others to speak for him or her, the refusal to testify can become more glaring and concerning. Hunter Biden is in that position. He has had a host of relatives testify, including his daughter Naomi. When you put your daughter on the stand and subject her to a tough cross examination, many jurors can wonder how you can stay safely behind the defendant’s table.

Yet, Naomi’s testimony is precisely why defense counsel are risk adverse on the question. She gave moving testimony on her love for her father and his struggle with addiction. However, her attempt to establish that Hunter was not using drugs at the time of his gun purchase fell apart on cross examination. She testified that she was thrilled during this period with how “healthy” and clean her father appeared: “He seemed like the clearest I had seen him since my uncle died…I told him I was so proud of him and I was proud to be able to introduce Peter to him.”

Prosecutors showed her text messages that told a different story. In some, Naomi appears alarmed by her father’s conduct and lack of responses. On October 18, for example, she texted “I’m sorry daddy, I can’t take this, I don’t know what to say.” That message coincides with messages from Hunter seeking to score drugs from a guy named Mookie and stating that he was doing crack in a car. In other messages, Naomi complains that he was not responding. She finally received a response when, at 2 a.m, Hunter asked her to have her boyfriend drop off keys to a truck for him in Manhattan. Naomi was asked if she saw the drug residue or paraphernalia in the truck. Any cross examination would focus less on Naomi than it would on Mookie.

Any decision to put Hunter on the stand is obviously dependent on your defense strategy. As I have previously written, all of the defenses suggested by Abby Lowell in his opening argument collapsed within two days. That includes the suggestion that someone else checked the box on the form denying that Hunter was using drugs. These claims seem so unbelievable and unsupported that they might insult a jury. However, the real strategy in this open-and-shut case appears to be simple jury nullification. The defense is trying to get one or more jurors to ignore the law and the evidence to acquit Biden. Nullification efforts in the case appear to be a combination of both political and social association. First and foremost, this is Bidentown. It is the hometown of President Joe Biden and voted overwhelmingly for him in past elections. It is the opposite of the Manhattan trial of former President Donald Trump. This is the best possible jury pool for a Biden.

Second, all of the jurors testified to knowing someone with drug problems. Hunter has written moving accounts of his struggle with addiction. Some jurors may resist convicting someone who has seemingly overcome the scourge of addiction. So, if this is a nullification strategy, does Hunter testifying help or hurt? The answer is that it could seal the deal or shatter it with jurors. Hunter will make a good witness on his struggle to overcome drugs and alcohol abuse. He can claim little or no memory of the gun store purchase. Hearing from him directly can establish a connection, even a bond, with jurors that could reinforce a nullification vote. However, it will also subject him to cross examination by prosecutors who have been lethal in their well-planned and well-executed case. They can delve into his texts and the later intervention by his family to deal with his self-destructive lifestyle. He also faces the potential of triggering new criminal offenses through perjury.

That latter concern is particularly real after the formal referral of three House committees to Attorney General Merrick Garland. Hunter is accused of lying to Congress in his recent testimony on key issues under investigation. While many expect Garland to ignore the referral to protect the President and his family, the allegations are compelling and the Justice Department has previously prosecuted individuals in cases with far less support. This would appear a relatively easy perjury prosecution, but the politics may be insurmountable for Garland. Most attorneys would advise Hunter to remain behind the defense table and not take the stand. After all, this is a great jury rendering a verdict on a Biden in Bidentown with the First Lady seated behind him for much of the trial. They just need one. The risk of testimony is that Hunter could burst into flames on the stand and torch any chance to nullify the crime. We will know soon. However, if Hunter checks this box and testifies, it is the one decision that he will not be able to blame on others.

Read more …

The Texas Stock Exchange intrigues me.

• New Texas GOP Platform Calls For Secession Vote, Resistance (ZH)

Reflecting plummeting patience with overstepping federal overlords, the Texas Republican Party has adopted two platform planks that call for legislators to assert state sovereignty, and to schedule a secession referendum in the next general election after November’s. “This historic vote at the 2024 Republican Party of Texas Convention represents a substantial shift towards enhancing state sovereignty and exploring the potential for Texas to operate as an independent nation,” said the Texas Nationalist Movement (TNM) in a statement. “It reflects the growing sentiment among Texans for greater autonomy and the protection of our rights against federal overreach.” Fittingly, that historic vote took place in San Antonio — home of the Alamo, aka “the cradle of Texas liberty.” Though it represented a setback, the 1836 Battle of the Alamo was a key chapter in the fight for independence that culminated in Texas becoming a self-governing republic.

The first plank asserts that the US government is infringing on powers reserved to Texas and all other states, and calls for unwarranted federal laws to be thwarted by Texas government. It also affirms the right of Texas to secede: “Pursuant to Article 1, Section 1, of the Texas Constitution, the federal government has impaired our right of local self-government. Therefore, federally mandated legislation that infringes upon the 10th Amendment rights of Texas shall be ignored, opposed, refused, and nullified. Texas retains the right to secede from the United States, and the Texas Legislature should be called upon to pass a referendum consistent thereto and pass the Texas Sovereignty Act as filed in the 88th Legislative Regular Session as HB 384.”

The second plank is a pointed directive to put the question of secession to the people of Texas in the next general election: “The Texas Legislature should pass a bill in its next session requiring a referendum in the next General Election for the people of Texas to determine whether or not the State of Texas should reassert its status as an independent nation. This referendum should be a legislative priority.” From the San Antonio convention, here’s a brief but interesting clip of the Texas Nationalist Movement’s Nate Smith speaking in support of the independence-minded platform planks — and ably fielding a question from a delegate who suggests TNM is guilty of treason.

We’d have liked to hear Smith answer his critic’s attempted second question — as to whether Smith had recited the Pledge of Allegiance earlier that day as part of convention rituals. It’s likely the questioner would have next pointed to the pledge’s reference to “one nation…indivisible.” In making a case for why patriots shouldn’t pledge allegiance, Brian McGlinchey has argued that, of several objectionable components of the pledge, “‘indivisible’ should give greatest offense to American patriots. The very existence of the United States — created by secession from the British empire — is a testament to political divisibility as a foundational human right…By reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and proclaiming the United States of America ‘indivisible,’ Americans disclaim their human right of self-determination.”

The Texas Nationalist Movement’s GOP convention success comes on the heels of a state Republican Party controversy over the issue. Despite TNM having amassed more than 139,000 signatures requesting that a secession question be placed on the March 5 primary ballot, the Texas GOP’s leadership refused to include it. TNM appealed to the state supreme court, which refused to hear the controversy. The party chair who presided over that decision, Matt Rinaldi, is out. Now, party’s top two officials are both signers of the “Texas First Pledge.” In addition to promising to place the interest of Texans “before any other nation, state, political entity, organization, or individual,” signatories commit to bringing about a secession referendum and, if it is approved by a majority of Texans, to work for an expeditious exit from the union.

After seceding from Mexico, Texas was an independent country from 1836 to 1845 and, economically, is extraordinarily well-suited for independence today. It’s by far the largest oil producer of any US state, accounting for a whopping 42% of American production, with no other state exceeding even 10%. It has deep-water ports, abundant agriculture, and is a major high-tech hub. There’s fixin’ to be another feather in Texas’s hat. As we examined earlier this week, the booming Lone Star State economy — and rising aggravation over compliance costs and woke regulations — has spurred BlackRock, Citadel Securities and other investors to back a new challenger to the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq: the Texas Stock Exchange.

Read more …

“..there are 120 captives still held in the Gaza Strip, including 43 who have been killed since October, many reportedly by Israel’s own forces..”

• Israel Kills Over 200 Palestinians to Rescue 4 Captives (Mondoweiss)

At least 210 Palestinians were killed and hundreds of others were injured on Saturday [June 8] in the central Gaza Strip, in what Israel is celebrating as a “heroic” military operation to rescue four Israeli captives that were being held in Gaza. Palestinian media reported intense bombardment in the early afternoon local time in various areas in the Nuseirat and Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. Video footage from the main market in the Nuseirat refugee camp showed crowds of Palestinian civilians fleeing under the sound of heavy artillery fire. Al Jazeera reporter Anas al-Sharif reported that Israeli forces “infiltrated” the Nuseirat refugee camp in trucks disguised as humanitarian aid trucks. The Gaza government media office said in a statement that Israeli forces launched an “unprecedented brutal attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp” directly targeting civilians, and that ambulances and civil defense crews were unable to reach the area and evacuate the wounded due to the intensity of the bombing.

The media office added that according to its count, at least 210 Palestinians were killed and an estimated 400 others were injured during the Israeli operation. Video footage published on social media showed dozens of bodies of men, women and children lying in the streets in the Nuseirat area, as well as bloodied and injured civilians being rushed to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah. Al Jazeera quoted Dr Tanya Haj-Hassan with Doctors Without Borders as saying the emergency department at Al-Aqsa Hospital “is a complete bloodbath … It looks like a slaughterhouse.” “The images and videos that I’ve received show patients lying everywhere in pools of blood … their limbs have been blown off,” she told Al Jazeera, adding “That is what a massacre looks like.”

As the death toll from the central Gaza Strip continued to rise, Israeli reports emerged that four Israeli captives were rescued in the operation and transferred back to Israel. The four captives were identified as Noa Argamani, 26, Almog Meir Jan, 21, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 40. They were all reportedly taken on October 7th from the Nova Music festival in southern Israel close to the Gaza border. According to Israeli media, the four captives were found in good health, and were transferred to a hospital in Israel where they were reunited with their families. One member of the Israeli special forces was killed during the attack. Israeli newspaper Haaretz cited Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari as saying the captives were “rescued under fire, and that during the operation the IDF attacked from the air, sea, and land in the Nuseirat and Deir al-Balah areas in the center of the Gaza Strip.”

Haaretz added that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant approved the operation on Thursday evening. Netanyahu hailed the operation as “successful,” while Gallant reportedly described it as “one of the heroic operations he had seen in all his years in the defense establishment, according to Israeli media. The families of Israeli captives held a press conference on Saturday afternoon in reaction to the news. Relatives of the four captives rescued on Saturday praised both the Israeli military and the government. Some relatives of the remaining captives still being held in Gaza demanded an end to the war and a prisoner exchange in order to secure the release of those still being held in Gaza.

On Saturday evening local time, spokesman for the Qassam Brigades Abu Obeida said “the first to be harmed by [the Israeli army] are its prisoners”, saying that while some of the captives were freed in the operation, a number of other Israeli captives were reportedly killed. The Israeli government and military have not commented on the reports that Israeli captives were killed in the operation. It is reported that there are 120 captives still held in the Gaza Strip, including 43 who have been killed since October, many reportedly by Israel’s own forces.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Pediatricians
https://twitter.com/i/status/1799281058170405320

 

 

Nightmare

 

 

 

 

Fauci whipping boy

 

 

Firedog
https://twitter.com/i/status/1799191649945587886

 

 

Hamster

 

 

Black deer
https://twitter.com/i/status/1799416082341728390

 

 

Breach
https://twitter.com/i/status/1799404757980983589

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle June 6 2024

Jun 062024
 
 June 6, 2024  Posted by at 8:38 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  77 Responses »


Paul Gauguin We hail thee Mary 1891

 

• RNC Backup Plans for Presidential Nomination If Trump Is In Prison (ET)
• X Urges Supreme Court for Review After Jack Smith Obtained Trump Files (ET)
• J6 Committee Delayed Secret Service Driver From Refuting Limo Story (Turley)
• Poll: Plurality of Americans Believe Trump Trial was Politically Motivated (AmG)
• “Biden Allies Freak After WSJ Blasts “Slipping” Brain (ZH)
• Is Hunter Biden Pursuing a Jury Nullification Strategy? (Turley)
• Scott Ritter on Reason Behind Move to Stop Him From Traveling to Russia (Sp.)
• NATO Would Stand No Chance’ Against Russia-China Military Alliance (Sp.)
• The West Is Already At War With Russia But Its Leaders Can’t Wake Up (Jay)
• Ukraine To Recruit Deserters – Media (RT)
• Ukraine No Longer Allowing Dual Citizens To Leave (RT)
• Nobody in US Has Ukraine’s Interests At Heart – Putin (RT)
• Austria’s Ex-FM Kneissl Says Europe ‘Lost Its Soul,’ Entered War Path (Sp.)
• Americans Are an Abused People (Paul Craig Roberts)

 

 

 

 

Huckabee
https://twitter.com/i/status/1798530465214693854

 

 

Trump ad


https://twitter.com/i/status/1798402097773428890

 

 

Ron Paul
https://twitter.com/i/status/1798183178823197100

 

 

John Roberts
https://twitter.com/i/status/1798137403019768042

 

 

The greatest temptation is to settle for too little. – Thomas Merton

 

 

Trump Black Panthers

 

 

Putin on Trump case

 

 

Laptop

 

 

Laptop
https://twitter.com/i/status/1798383585683968496

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last paragraph is golden.

• RNC Backup Plans for Presidential Nomination If Trump Is In Prison (ET)

With former President Donald Trump facing the possibility of being sentenced to prison just days before the Republican National Convention, GOP officials are formulating backup plans in case the former president isn’t able to receive the Republican Party’s presidential nomination in person. “We’ll be thinking about it, and we’re working on that right now,” Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley told Newsmax in an interview on June 4, when asked whether the Republican Party is preparing for the possibility that the former president can’t attend the convention because he’s behind bars. The convention, which will take place in Milwaukee from July 15 to July 18, is expected to draw thousands, but President Trump might not be one of them, given his recent felony conviction and the possibility that, on July 11, Justice Juan Merchan will sentence him to prison.

President Trump was recently found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records to hide nondisclosure payments, supposedly to prevent bad press and sway the 2016 election in his favor. He maintains his innocence and says he’s the victim of a vindictive political prosecution meant to derail his 2024 comeback bid. Justice Merchan could sentence President Trump to up to four years on each business records falsification count, with a maximum of 20 years. The former president said in a June 2 interview on Fox News that he could handle being jailed or imprisoned, while calling the people involved in his conviction “sick” and “evil.” The former president and his attorneys have vowed to appeal the conviction, with President Trump even calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to step in before the sentencing date and overturn the guilty verdict.

Although a former Manhattan district attorney predicted that President Trump would receive no prison time regardless of any appeals process, GOP officials say they’ll be ready to handle whatever scenario presents itself at the convention. “We expect that Donald Trump is going to be in Milwaukee and he’s going to be able to accept that nomination,” Mr. Whatley said. “And if not, we will make whatever contingency planning we need to make for it.” Although Mr. Whatley didn’t provide specifics about the contingency plans, he said the RNC will “certainly” have a plan in place to make sure President Trump receives the nomination no matter what. “We want to have a show that is going to roll out Donald Trump and his vision for America, which is going to set up this election cycle,” Mr. Whatley said while expressing confidence that President Trump will become the 47th president when the Election Day dust settles in November.

In response to Mr. Whatley’s preparing for the possibility of President Trump virtually addressing the Republican National Convention, Democratic National Committee Rapid Response Director Alex Floyd released the following statement: “Even before Donald Trump became a convicted felon, his inner circle was already staffed by a roster of convicts and fraudsters brought on board for their loyalty to Trump and his MAGA agenda over the rule of law. Now Trump’s hand-picked RNC chair is openly floating Trump calling into the convention from a jail cell because the Republican Party has become completely beholden to a criminal who is willing to undermine our justice system and our democracy to pursue his agenda of revenge and retribution.”

Read more …

“..disclosing the warrant would result in “destruction of or tampering with evidence, intimidation of potential witnesses, and serious jeopardy to the investigation,” and let President Trump “flee from prosecution.”

• X Urges Supreme Court for Review After Jack Smith Obtained Trump Files (ET)

Elon Musk’s X Corp. has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to consider stepping in against a process that lets officials obtain information from social media companies and bars the companies from informing people whose information is handed over. The process wrongly enables officials to “access and review potentially privileged materials without any opportunity for the user to assert privileges—including constitutional privileges,” lawyers for X said in a filing to the nation’s top court. Unsealed documents in 2023 showed that X provided data and records from former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account to special counsel Jack Smith after Mr. Smith obtained a search warrant. X was blocked from informing President Trump by a nondisclosure order that Mr. Smith also obtained. The order said disclosing the warrant would result in “destruction of or tampering with evidence, intimidation of potential witnesses, and serious jeopardy to the investigation,” and let President Trump “flee from prosecution.”

X challenged the order, arguing it violated its First Amendment rights and noting that President Trump might have reason to claim executive privilege, or presidential privilege. The company wanted to alert the former president so he could assert the privilege, but U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ruled against it, claiming during a hearing that the only reason X was issuing the challenge was “because the CEO wants to cozy up with the former president.” A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld the ruling from Judge Howell, an appointee of former President Barack Obama. “The government proffered two compelling interests that supported nondisclosure of the search warrant: preserving the integrity and maintaining the secrecy of its ongoing criminal investigation of the events surrounding January 6, 2021,” U.S. Circuit Judge Florence Pan wrote. She was joined by Circuit Judges Cornelia Pillard and Michelle Childs. Judge Pillard was appointed by President Obama; Judges Pan and Childs were appointed by President Joe Biden.

The full court denied a rehearing en banc, although four judges said “we should not have endorsed this gambit,” referring to the combination of a warrant and nondisclosure order. “Rather than follow established precedent, for the first time in American history, a court allowed access to presidential communications before any scrutiny of executive privilege,” Circuit Judge Neomi Rao wrote in a dissent. The appointee of President Trump was joined by Circuit Judges Gregory Katsas and Justin Walker, other President Trump appointees; and Judge Karen Henderson, an appointee of former President George H.W. Bush. The Supreme Court should take up the case because the majority’s opinion conflicts with Supreme Court precedent and rulings from other circuits, lawyers for X said in the new petition. “This court has long held that holders of executive privilege must have notice and an opportunity to assert privilege before confidentiality of the potentially privileged documents is breached. The decision below departs from that precedent.

Because former President Trump was not informed of the warrant before his records were produced, he could not timely assert executive privilege,” they wrote. Several circuit courts have issued contrasting decisions, which creates a split that needs resolved, X lawyers said. That included a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit that cleared a protocol for a warrant that involved giving people with attorney-client privilege “the first opportunity to identify potentially privileged materials” and did not let investigators access the materials until the parties or the court approved. Another circuit split exists in regard to the nondisclosure order, the lawyers said. In Freedman v. Maryland, the Supreme Court ruled that “any restraint prior to judicial review can be imposed only briefly in order to preserve the status quo.” While two circuit courts have found the ruling does not apply to nondisclosure orders, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has found that some nondisclosure orders must adhere to the ruling. The conflict “warrants this court’s review,” X lawyers said.

Read more …

What a disgrace that committee is/was.

• J6 Committee Delayed Secret Service Driver From Refuting Limo Story (Turley)

Just the News is reporting that the January 6th Committee rebuffed repeated efforts from a Secret Service agent to refute the false story related by Cassidy Hutchinson alleging a violent episode with Trump in the presidential limousine during the Capitol riots. The J6 Committee staff repeatedly delayed the testimony of the agent to disprove the widely reported allegation. Rep. Barry Loudermilk, the chairman of the House subcommittee that is investigating the Jan. 6 riot, has obtained a transcript of the driver’s interview that was conducted months after he first offered to testify. However, it turns out that committee staff were asked repeatedly by counsel for the agent to let him present evidence debunking the claim. Despite being reported by virtually every news outlet, the Committee slow walked his appearance as the story went viral.

The transcript of the driver’s testimony contains express objections by the lawyer that his client had offered to testify in July, August and September of 2022, but was “rebuffed” by the committee. The account reaffirms a major criticism of the committee. After Democrats refused to allow the GOP to pick its members (as a long-accepted practice in the House), the Democrats selected two anti-Trump Republicans who did little to push for a full and fair display of witnesses and facts. The Committee was chaired by Rep. Benny Thompson, a Democrat, with Rep. Liz Cheney, as Vice Chairwoman. Cheney and the committee members clearly knew that Hutchinson’s account was debunked by the very driver who allegedly struggled with Trump. Yet, they allowed the media to report the incident for months while rebuffing the requests of the driver. Loudermilk is quoted as saying “We’re talking about the driver of the limousine, and the head of the entire protective detail. They were brought in by the select committee to testify, but they weren’t brought in until November.

The false account was given by Hutchinson in June of that year. The Secret Service driver testified Trump never tried to reach for or grab the wheel of the SUV. Notably, the transcript shows Cheney trying to explain the delay as due to the need for the Secret Service to produce all documents in the January 6 investigation. Yet, she had no problem with making the false story public through Hutchinson before such supporting material was supplied. She also did not suggest any countervailing testimony or witnesses on the issue as the media ran with the account. Instead, Cheney publicly teased the claim that they had much more evidence of crimes against Trump, which never materialized. Cheney ended one hearing by calling for more officials to come forward and noting that Trump family members and former officials have now come forward with their own public “confessions.” Many of us support the effort to bring greater transparency to what occurred on Jan. 6th and these hearings have offered a great deal of important new information.

Indeed, it has proven gut-wrenching in the accounts of lawyers and staff trying to combat baseless theories and to protect the constitutional process. Yet, the heavy-handed approach to framing the evidence by the Committee was both unnecessary and at times counterproductive. The strength of some of this evidence would not have been diminished by a more balanced committee or investigation. We previously discussed the highly scripted and entirely one-sided presentation of evidence in the Committee. Indeed, witnesses were primarily used to present what Speaker Nancy Pelosi referred to as “the narrative” where their prior videotaped testimony was shown and they were given narrow follow-up questions. They at times seemed more like props than witnesses — called effectively to recite prior statements between well-crafted, impactful video clips. It had the feel of a news package, which may be the result of the decision to bring in a former ABC executive to produce the hearings.

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A mixed set of numbers.

• Poll: Plurality of Americans Believe Trump Trial was Politically Motivated (AmG)

A new poll shows that a sizable plurality of the American people believe that the New York trial of former President Donald Trump was a politically-motivated show trial. As the Daily Caller reports, the ABC News/Ipsos poll shows that 47% of Americans believe the trial was indeed a political hit job, while 38% say that the trial was legitimate and fair. On the question of the “guilty” verdict, 50% of respondents believe the verdict was correct; by contrast, just 27% believe the verdict was wrong, while the remaining 23% said they “don’t know” what to believe with regards to the verdict. Among those who claimed to have followed the case closely, 55% say the verdict was correct while 35% say it was incorrect; another 8% said they “don’t know.”

After the verdict was announced, 49% of respondents said that Trump should end his campaign for re-election. Among partisan lines, just 16% of Republicans said Trump should drop out while 75% want him to continue his candidacy. Among Democrats, 79% want Trump to drop out now, while 52% of independents say the same thing. The same poll also showed that the trial and its outcome have had virtually no effect on Trump’s approval ratings, and may have even led to a slight increase. While the former president had a 29% favorability in March, his favorability currently sits at 31%. Biden’s favorability is at 32%, a slight decrease from 33% in March. The poll featured a sample size of 781 American adults, and was conducted from May 31st to June 1st. The margin of error is 3.7%.

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“I used to meet with him when he was vice president. I’d go to his house,” McCarthy said in an interview. “He’s not the same person.”

• “Biden Allies Freak After WSJ Blasts “Slipping” Brain (ZH)

The Biden administration is scrambling for damage control over the president’s mental condition. Over the past month, the White House claimed executive privilege over an audio tape of Biden’s classified documents interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur, the transcripts of which were altered to make Biden seem more competent Next, TIME Magazine’s Massimo Calabresi couldn’t give a straight answer over Biden’s serious cognitive decline exhibited during an interview. Now, the White House and Biden allies are slamming a Tuesday report from the Wall Street Journal in which 45 people from both sides of the aisle told the outlet that Biden is, to put it mildly, two sandwiches short of a picnic. The Journal cites a January meeting behind closed doors during a critical discussion about Ukraine funding, Biden’s soft-spoken nursing home demeanor led some participants to question his engagement, as he occasionally read from notes and paused.

“You couldn’t be there and not feel uncomfortable,” one attendee noted about the meeting’s dynamics, adding “I’ll just say that.” In another example, Biden completely forgot the details of ‘his’ own policy on big energy projects during a one-on-one meeting with House Speaker Mike Johnson. Others who attended said Biden’s demeanor and level of engagement fluctuated and he seemed lively and engaged at some points. When the topic moved to an immigration overhaul, Johnson, the House speaker, offered Biden a list of dozens of executive actions he could undo to improve border security. Biden, rather than responding to Johnson’s suggestions, chided him, according to people at the meeting, “I’ve forgotten more about immigration than you’ll ever know.” -WSJ

Then, during debt ceiling negotiations with House Republicans, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and others noted that Biden’s demeanor and command of the details varied significantly from day to day. On some days, Biden was described as relying heavily on notes and mumbling, which could suggest inconsistency in cognitive performance. “I used to meet with him when he was vice president. I’d go to his house,” McCarthy said in an interview. “He’s not the same person.” -WSJ. The article also lays out public speaking errors, such as mixing up names of his Hispanic cabinet secretaries, mistakenly speaking about conversations with long-deceased leaders, and other factual errors. These instances contribute to the narrative of cognitive decline. In another section, the Journal reports that “The president moved so slowly around the Cabinet Room to greet the nearly two dozen congressional leaders that it took about 10 minutes for the meeting to begin, some people who attended recalled.”

Read more …

What are the odds of him being convicted in Delaware?

• Is Hunter Biden Pursuing a Jury Nullification Strategy? (Turley)

There was an interesting development this week in the Hunter Biden gun trial: the fact that there will indeed be a Hunter Biden gun trial. That development is surprising only because there do not appear to be any facts in dispute in this case. And the primary witness against Hunter Biden will be Hunter Biden himself. The sole issue in this case is whether Biden filed a false gun form (ATF Form 4473) in which, as a condition for his purchase of a .38-caliber Colt Cobra revolver from the StarQuest Shooters and Survival Supply in Wilmington, Del., he stated that he was not a user of drugs. Biden’s counsel, Abbe Lowell, previously suggested that his client may have had a window of sobriety when he signed the form, but then returned to his addiction afterward. But then Hunter himself blew that theory away with his public comments and books. Lowell then suggested in court that someone else may have checked the box on the form.

In the interim, Lowell has brought a litany of challenges. At one point, he claimed that the government must fulfill a prior dead plea agreement. At another, he adopted an argument of the National Rifle Association challenging the underlying statute. The defense also failed this week to call a last-minute witness who would testify that Hunter may not have known that he was an addict. The defense was accused of essentially hiding the ball with the expert’s expected testimony so Judge Maryellen Noreika barred the appearance of the Columbia professor. Yet, again, Hunter Biden himself would have destroyed the defense. The form asks if Hunter was a user of drugs, not just an addict: “Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?” Hunter wrote how he was a user of a wide array of drugs for years. It is hard to imagine he thought himself as clean as a clergyman in Wilmington in 2018.

So why wouldn’t Hunter just plead guilty? Even without his earlier plea deal, a guilty plea could significantly reinforce a request to avoid jail time in the case. It would also avoid an embarrassing trial for himself and his father during a presidential election. While Hunter could always throw in the towel before the start of testimony, there is currently no discernible strategy beyond hoping that a pending case in the Supreme Court might undermine the indictment. There may also be another possible strategy in play: jury nullification. Unlike Donald Trump in Manhattan, Delaware is Biden country. The chance that he will get strong supporters of his father on the jury is an almost statistical certainty. In 2020, Joe Biden received roughly 60 percent of the vote over Donald Trump in the state. Having first lady Jill Biden, who is extremely popular, at the trial will only reinforce the connection. In addition to a favorable jury pool, Biden may be hoping that testimony on his travails with drugs will prompt one or more jurors to ignore the law and vote to acquit.

Notably, virtually all of the selected jurors have said that they know of someone who has struggled with drugs. Indeed, Judge Noreika already appears to suspect such a strategy. Noreika rejected the effort of the defense to introduce an altered version of the federal firearms form created by the gun store employees. They argue that the alternation showed a political bias on the part of the prosecutors. The court found the document “irrelevant” and chastised the defense team for pursuing “conspiratorial” theories and an effort to confuse or mislead the jury. She noted that the use of the altered form would be “unduly prejudicial and invites (jury) nullification.” Jury nullification arguments have long been banned or discouraged in many courtrooms. Nevertheless, jury nullification has its advocates. For example, Georgetown Law Professor Paul Butler has called for Black jurors to refuse to convict Black defendants of drug crimes. Butler has said that “my goal is the subversion of the present criminal justice system.”

Hunter Biden is obviously not the primary concern of Professor Butler in the impact of drug prosecutions on the Black community. However, he has also argued that “jury nullification is just part of an arsenal of tools to end the failed “war on drugs.” Biden’s case has all of the characteristics of a nullification defense. Even if he cannot secure acquittal, the combination of political and social elements at play in Delaware could produce a hung jury. Trying a Biden in Delaware is a challenge for any prosecutor, even without the potential sympathies for a reformed drug addict. With the first lady sitting behind him, the family ties will be on full display. There is an understandable parental desire to show emotional support for Hunter, but prosecutors cannot be thrilled by the potential effect on jurors in the pro-Biden state.

Read more …

“They provided no explanation of what they were doing. They just did it..”

• Scott Ritter on Reason Behind Move to Stop Him From Traveling to Russia (Sp.)

On June 3, the former Marine Corps intelligence officer and Sputnik contributor was removed by US Customs and Border Protection officers from a plane bound for Russia, where he was to attend the 2024 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). The US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) does not have the authority to seize passports without probable cause, former Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter told Sputnik, commenting on Monday’s incident. Ritter recalled that as he prepared to board the plane, he was pulled out of line by three armed CBP officers who took control of his passport. He said that when he asked them “on what authority,” they cited orders from the US Department of State. “They provided no warrant, no documentation, nor did they provide a receipt for my passport. They provided no explanation of what they were doing. They just did it,” the Sputnik contributor pointed out.

Ritter stressed that his constitutional rights under the Fourth Amendment were violated because the document requires CBP officers to provide a warrant or some other form of authority upon which to conduct the seizure of his passport. “Under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution and others, I’m free to travel. The US government cannot restrict my travel without specific justification, none of which was articulated to me and none of which I believe exists. So it’s a violation of my Fifth Amendment,” the former Marine Corps intelligence officer added.] He suggested that “the real reason” behind all this “appears to be to prevent” him from participating in the SPIEF 2024 and to prevent the work he planned to do as a journalist with his documentary film crew. According to him, he was planning to make a documentary about “the reality of Russia”. “This is my First Amendment right under freedom of speech and a free press. And this right was likewise violated by the US government, by the Biden administration,” Ritter noted.

The Sputnik contributor recounted that he had traveled to Russia “two times in the last year using this same passport,” and that on each time, the US government was notified in advance of his intent to travel and of his itinerary.
In an apparent reference to his planned trip to Russia to attend SPIEF 2024, Ritter said he was “not off on a secret mission” and that the US government “knew full well” what he was up to. “And this is why I believe they acted in the way they did. This has a chilling effect, not just on me and the work I was doing, but on all Americans who choose to speak out against the policies of the United States that they disagree with and to travel abroad at the same time that they are criticizing the US government. And what the US government is saying is that we can control your movement. We can control your life. We can punish you for what you’ve been saying that we disagree with,” the former Marine Corps intelligence officer emphasized.

Nap Scott Ritter : On My Way to Russia I Met Big Brother.

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“The strategic alliance between Russia and China ain’t going to be about taking over countries, ain’t going to be about missile-producing or whatever. It’s going to be about ensuring justice and fairness on the global stage…”

• NATO Would Stand No Chance’ Against Russia-China Military Alliance (Sp.)

The United States has historically worked to prevent an alliance between Russia and China, but the two global powers have joined together in an effort to guard themselves against Western aggression.One year before his death Henry Kissinger, a consequential – and highly controversial – former US Secretary of State, saw the writing on the wall. “The time is approaching to build on the strategic changes which have already been accomplished and to integrate them into a new structure towards achieving peace through negotiation,” said the top diplomat, urging an end to Ukraine’s Western-backed war against Russia. Kissinger made the comments in an article entitled “How to Avoid Another World War” in the British magazine The Spectator, noting that Russia’s “thousands of nuclear weapons” make it “one of the world’s two largest nuclear powers.”

With characteristic braggadocio, the veteran strategist’s remarks were slammed by the Ukrainian government and criticized by a fair number of Western liberals, by then fully convinced of the United States’ duty to once again safeguard freedom and democracy. The West’s apparent indifference towards the prospect of nuclear war and strategic incompetence in allowing Russia and China to join forces was criticized by former security analyst Dr. David Oualaalou, who discussed the latest developments in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict on Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program Tuesday. “Putin will not bluff on this, because this is what’s going to be expected of the Russians, the Russian people, from their leader to defend the country by any means, as we are pushing more and more,” said Oualaalou, noting that Moscow views the conflict as a matter of existential importance.

“The idea to me, the way I look at it, is [Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor] Orban does not want to have his country caught in the middle of this, being a member of NATO or not at this point,” he added, characterizing the European leader as a voice of sanity on the issue. “He’s talking to his lawyers, the officers – they are looking for ways on how to opt out of this kind of involvement with NATO. Frankly, if I may use the term here, it’s about time for Hungary to make a decision whether to leave NATO altogether.” Oualaalou noted that the increasing unpopularity of Western involvement in the ongoing proxy war is leading to a surge in popularity for the right-wing across Europe, with French politician Marine Le Pen rising in popularity while suggesting the country should leave NATO.

Kissinger, credited with setting the United States on a path towards global dominance in the 1970s, worked to ensure China and Russia remained divided during his time as US Secretary of State, pursuing an opening of relations with China to pull them closer to the US. But Western bellicosity has now functioned to create a strong partnership between the two countries, Oualaalou argued – forming an alliance that Western powers would not be able to overcome through military means. “The strategic alliance between Russia and China ain’t going to be about taking over countries, ain’t going to be about missile-producing or whatever. It’s going to be about ensuring justice and fairness on the global stage… [With] these two countries – Russia and China – joined by others, NATO would stand no chance. The US would stand no chance,” he claimed.

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“..the West cannot entertain any of these requests and has taken so much control of the media that its leaders are starting to believe their own BS..”

• The West Is Already At War With Russia But Its Leaders Can’t Wake Up (Jay)

Is NATO planning something big in Ukraine? Are we on the cusp now of WWIII really breaking out since the U.S. has now backed the idea that Ukraine can fire missiles beyond its borders into Russia? The news that President Joe Biden has given the go-ahead for long-range missiles to be fired into Russia should be worrying for a number of reasons. The dangerous game of escalation that the West is playing will have a breaking point in the not too distant future. The question is whether the West really understands how Putin thinks as it is presently betting on no retaliation from Russia, which is not only erroneous but very, very dangerous. Recent missile strikes into Russian territory destroyed two radar installations which western press refuse to report.

The significance of this strike is important as the more Ukraine loses on the battlefield, the more desperate its tactics, egged on by western leaders who still think that their stake in the war is minimal. Although just recently Germany’s leader Scholz did a U-turn at a conference in Berlin with French President Macron — in backing the missile strikes into Russia plan — the truth is that officially NATO does not support the plan, which is why the UK is doing it independently using Storm Shadows operated by SAS soldiers. This has been going on for months and so in many respects the news that the U.S. has authorised the practice could be taken lightly. What’s new? Or, more to the point, is Ukraine going to use longer-range U.S. missiles to keep up with such strikes like the radar stations? Does it have enough missiles in stock is also an important question.

With this strategy in play, we are looking in all scenarios at the slow demise of NATO as the more that such strikes occur, the more it is evident that NATO is a defunct organisation and only really a talk shop at best. NATO members are divided on an overall strategy with Ukraine and so member states do their own thing. If we see more of these strikes, the pressure on Putin to react will be overwhelming but when that time comes, he will practice and eye-for-an-eye strategy and strike the equivalent military installations within Europe or at least Ukraine’s drones operating in the Black Sea. This will be a shock for the West. It will take some days for such a strike to be seen for what it is: a warning. The message will be the escalation game has its limits and you’ve gone over a line.

But are the recent reports of a new offensive in the planning from NATO genuine? Probably not. Just like the reports of Putin wanting to negotiate a peace deal now. Both fake news are part of a strategy of panic from the Biden administration which really needs some sort of victory in Ukraine to present to the American people. Yet all of the aces are with Putin and he doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of falling into these traps. Putin has been pretty consistent in how he sees any kind of peace deal. Denazification, demilitarisation and no deal on NATO membership. The reasons why peace talks are a mere figment of the imagination of western journalists who sink to new lows is that the West cannot entertain any of these requests and has taken so much control of the media that its leaders are starting to believe their own BS. The fourth requirement also of Putin’s is that he can’t negotiate peace with a leader in the Ukraine who no longer has legitimacy as a president. One wonders how long the West can continue to kick up a fuss about that one.

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Anyone who can fog a mirror…

• Ukraine To Recruit Deserters – Media (RT)

Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) has allowed the country’s Armed Forces to recruit deserters as the military continues to experience personnel shortages after suffering heavy casualties, RIA Novosti reported on Wednesday. The agency cited a letter sent by SBI Director Alexey Sukhachov to Ukraine’s commander-in-chief Aleksandr Syrsky. According to the document, up until now, how to deal with cases where servicemen who abandoned their units without permission or outright deserted have decided to voluntarily return to service had not been clearly defined to Ukrainian commanders. In his letter, Sukhachov reportedly asked Syrsky to “orient commanders of military units on the need to ensure the acceptance of the above-mentioned military personnel, who voluntarily returned to military units and expressed a desire to undergo further military service, to appoint them to positions and continue military service.”

Furthermore, RIA writes, the SBI chief asked that the service members who decide to return also be provided the right to monetary compensation. Sukhachov’s request comes as Kiev suffers from a shortage of military personnel having incurred heavy casualties on the battlefield. According to Russia’s Defense Ministry, Ukraine’s Armed Forces are estimated to have lost more than 35,000 troops in May alone, amid Moscow’s offensive in Kharkov Region. Despite the Ukrainian military’s efforts to ramp up mobilization, many people don’t want to serve in the army, prompting Kiev to further tighten mobilization rules and even reduce the conscription age limit from 27 to 25. Last month, Ukraine’s General Staff also announced that it intends to “optimize” its operations by releasing as many as 60% of its personnel and using them “to replenish the command and control bodies at the operational and tactical levels, as well as combat units.”

Ukraine’s mobilization campaign, which was announced shortly after the start of the conflict with Russia, has also been marred by widespread draft dodging. Many have tried to escape the country to avoid service, sometimes losing their lives in the process. According to the Ukrainian State Border Service, at least 45 Ukrainian men have already died while trying to illegally cross into the EU. In May alone, ten people were confirmed to have drowned while trying to cross the Tisza River, which flows from Ukraine’s southwestern border through Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Serbia.

Arestovich
https://twitter.com/i/status/1798148258360889790

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And that includes Americans…

• Ukraine No Longer Allowing Dual Citizens To Leave (RT)

Ukrainian nationals with dual citizenship have been barred from leaving the country, a border guard official said on Tuesday. They are also no longer exempt from the military draft under a new mobilization law. The authorities are struggling to replenish the army ranks as a result of heavy casualties suffered on the battlefield. Russia’s Defense Ministry estimates that Ukraine’s armed forces lost more than 35,000 troops in May alone. Ukrainians with dual citizenship were previously allowed to leave the country, border service spokesman Andrey Demchenko told state TV on Tuesday. “We are not letting this category of citizens through now,” he added.He cited a recent government decree that obliged such people to register for the draft within 30 days. Previously, dual citizens and Ukrainians who were living abroad under a residence permit had been exempted from military service.

Earlier, Defense Ministry spokesman Dmitry Lazutkin also demanded the return of Ukrainians who were residing abroad, saying they should visit their territorial draft offices in person even if they have updated their data remotely. The US embassy in Kiev immediately warned Americans who hold Ukrainian citizenship against traveling to Ukraine. “Effective June 1, Ukraine has eliminated a ‘residence abroad’ exception that previously allowed certain Ukrainian males aged 18 to 60 to depart the country,” it said in a statement, adding that “US-Ukrainian dual citizens… may no longer be able to depart the country” in light of the changes. The diplomatic mission then advised those who are already in Ukraine to “shelter in place and obey all local orders,” while cautioning those “not currently in Ukraine” against traveling there. “There is an extremely high risk you will not be allowed to depart, even with a US passport,” the statement said.

Kiev has been ramping up its mobilization efforts in recent months. In April, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky signed a controversial mobilization law that lowered the conscription age from 27 to 25, greatly expanded the powers of enlistment officers, and introduced additional penalties for draft dodgers. In May, he approved further legislation that provided a way for some prisoners to be paroled if they enlist. Later the same month, the country’s justice minister, Denis Maliuska, announced the first release of convicts to fill the military ranks.

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“..Americans are “not fighting for Ukraine or the Ukrainian people, they are fighting for their own grandeur and global leadership.”

• Nobody in US Has Ukraine’s Interests At Heart – Putin (RT)

The US only cares about its own grandeur and is involved in the Ukraine crisis in order to fulfil its global ambitions, Russian President Vladimir Putin told the leaders of global media agencies ahead of the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) on Wednesday. Washington has provided tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Kiev since the beginning of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine.When asked about a potential shift in US policy towards Russia, Putin said that it is largely dependent on Washington itself and its perception of reality. America is currently obsessed with globalist ambitions that are “destroying the US from within,” the president said. US involvement in the Ukraine conflict is just one manifestation of that globalist policy, he told journalists.“Nobody in the US cares about Ukraine’s interests,” Putin said. Americans are “not fighting for Ukraine or the Ukrainian people, they are fighting for their own grandeur and global leadership.”

According to Putin, the current administration is not so much interested in helping Kiev prevail in the ongoing standoff but is rather “determined to prevent any Russian success precisely because they believe it would damage US leadership [positions].” Those globalist ambitions are harmful to America itself, Putin maintained, naming “high inflation and a huge debt” among the biggest challenges the US is currently facing. A future administration could reverse this destructive trend by focusing on “strengthening the US from within, strengthening its economy and finances, and building up normal relations with the world,” he said, adding that such policies could then bring some “real change” in relations between Moscow and Washington as well. The president’s words came just a day after the Kremlin called the US an “enemy” for the first time. Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov referred to Washington as such while speaking to journalists on Tuesday.

“We are now an enemy country for them – much like they are for us,” Peskov said at that time, describing the two nations’ attitudes toward each other. The Kremlin has previously referred to the US as an “unfriendly state” or “opponent.” Peskov was commenting on Washington’s decision not to allow former US marine, UN weapons inspector and RT contributor Scott Ritter to travel to St. Petersburg to take part in several SPIEF panel discussions. Earlier, the US also let Kiev use American-supplied weapons against targets inside Russia, beyond what the US considers Ukrainian territory. Moscow has repeatedly warned that such actions, alongside continued weapons shipments to Kiev, only lead to further escalation and increase the risk of an all-out war between Russia and NATO, which can easily spiral into World War III.

Putin US
https://twitter.com/i/status/1798107091661680863

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She fled her home country. A Foreign Minister.

• Austria’s Ex-FM Kneissl Says Europe ‘Lost Its Soul,’ Entered War Path (Sp.)

Europe has “lost its soul” by stepping onto the path of war, ex-Austrian Foreign Minister and currently Director of the St. Petersburg State University G.O.R.K.I. (Geopolitical Observatory for Russia’s Key Issues) Center, Karin Kneissl, said on Wednesday. Speaking at a meeting of the Russian Historical Society in the presidential library, Kneissl recalled German philosopher Oswald Spengler’s book “The Decline of the West,” to argue that Europe has been degrading for 20 years.

“Unfortunately, Europe today is a Europe of war. This is the current European agenda… I cannot conceal my sadness… I have always dreamed about a Europe of pluralism, a Europe of freedom, constitution, art,” she told the meeting, adding that Europe has “lost its soul, it is dead.” Kneissl served as the Austrian Foreign Minister from December 2017 to June 2019. Her scapegoating at home was largely associated with the alleged “Russian ties”. The former diplomat moved to Lebanon in June 2022 after leaving Austria in September 2020 and residing in France because of persistent death threats and a de facto ban on working in her home country. In August 2023, it became known that Kneissl had moved to Russia.

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“But if they write to a representative or senator about the misallocation of resources they will get back a letter explaining that “we have to stop them over there before they get over here.”

• Americans Are an Abused People (Paul Craig Roberts)

Americans are screwed over people and are too insouciant to notice. And not just on big things, such as being forced to be injected with an untested new kind of “vaccine” with unknown safety and effectiveness. Millions of Americans were faced with the choice of being injected or losing their job and ability to pay rent or mortgage, car payments, utilities, and buy food. The “vaccine” has caused many deaths and millions of injuries from new diseases and profusions of what previously were rare diseases among age groups not previously affected. American babies now die from strokes and heart attacks. And the grieving parents are denied any recourse. No one is being held responsible. And apparently Americans don’t care. How is this any different from the Zionist story of Jews being herded into gas chambers?

Americans can’t do anything about the hundreds of billions of dollars Washington sends to Ukraine to conduct Washington’s proxy war against Russia, or about the billions sent to Israel for the slaughter of Palestinians and physical destruction of Gaza, or the billions sent to Taiwan for Washington’s proxy war against China. Meanwhile homeless American veterans sleep on the streets while the Biden regime gives immigrant-invaders pre-paid debit cards and houses them in hotels. A few Americans might wonder if the billions of dollars could be better used getting the homeless out of their public parks and tent encampments off their sidewalks. But if they write to a representative or senator about the misallocation of resources they will get back a letter explaining that “we have to stop them over there before they get over here.”

The message is: “we are here to serve the military/security complex and Israel Lobby, the funders of our election campaigns, and to replace white Americans with the third world in the interest of diversity. It is not the big things that Americans notice. They are not personally at risk of being sent to war, and there is no specific tax taken from them to finance Israel’s and Ukraine’s wars. But you would think that Americans living on credit card debt would at least notice that which dramatically affects them. Do Americans living on credit card debt comprehend that under the guise of interest charged the credit card companies are taxing their balances at rates ranging from 19.49% to 29.99% based on the credit card company’s estimate of the debtor’s credit worthiness.

In addition to the federal and state income taxes on their income and the Social Security tax and the Medicare tax on income, the credit card companies are imposing a 20-30% tax on debt that is paying for housing, transportation, food, and utilities, as incomes alone in the age of jobs offshoring are insufficient to support living standards for about 40% of the population. I learned about modern day usury in May when my credit card bill did not show up. Perhaps it went into the spam or junk folders or fell victim to a glitch, all possibilities being joys of the digital revolution. Consequently the amount due on May 18 did not get paid until 4 days later on May 22 when an unpaid bill notice appeared in the email. The notice told me that I am charged a late payment fee of $29 plus an interest charge of $61.54. So a 4 day late payment cost me $90.54.

The late payment notice told me that my interest rate of 19.49% is charged from the “first day of the billing period until we receive your payment in full.” In other words, the interest was not charged for the 4 late days, but for the 4 days plus the month’s billing period. The notice also told me that if I missed a second payment, even for one day, during a 12 month period, my interest rate on my unpaid balance would jump from 19.49 to 29.99. There you have it. This is a system for the enserfment of the American consumer. If you are able to focus your attention, try to imagine the rapid rise of impossible indebtedness of Americans who can only make the minimum payment. The minimum payment is a tiny percentage of the balance due. For example, a balance of $4,173.66 has a minimum payment of $131.37. The minimum payment leaves a balance of $4,042.29 accumulating interest at double-digit rates.

Assuming he does not miss two payments in 12 months, his interest rate based on creditworthiness (he only makes minimal payments) is 27.49%. So, the interest on the unpaid balance adds $1,100 to his debt. And the growth in debt increases with the interest charged on the rising unpaid balance. I remember when credit card companies made their money by the 2.5% charge to the businesses that accepted payment via credit card. Those days have vanished. Now credit card companies live extravagantly on interest on consumer credit card debt, while businesses accepting credit card payment charge their customers a fee for paying with a credit card. As an economist I am really amazed that Keynesian economists, whose policy is based on the American consumer’s ability to spend, stood aside while such extraordinary restrictions on aggregate demand were allowed to be put in place. After paying debt service, people have nothing left to spend.

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Covid patents

 

 

Jack

 

 

Square?
https://twitter.com/i/status/1798347399896998384

 

 

Bird feeding
https://twitter.com/i/status/1798356457039319235

 

 

Beers for breeders

 

 

Tucker Bukele

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle June 4 2024

Jun 042024
 
 June 4, 2024  Posted by at 8:43 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  53 Responses »


Eugène Delacroix The Good Samaritan 1849

 

• Which Movie Will It Be? (Jim Kunstler)
• The Trump Conviction Presents a Target-Rich Environment for Appeal (Turley)
• Of Course They’ll Put Trump in Jail (Victoria Taft)
• Rand Paul Warns Of “War In The Streets” Coming From Trump Verdict (MN)
• Top Judge Blocks Complaints Against Trump Judge Aileen Cannon (ET)
• Biden Denies ‘Pulling the Strings’ in Trump’s Criminal Conviction (ET)
• Dear American (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Jury Selection Begins In Hunter Biden Gun Trial (ZH)
• Germany Begins To Militarize: When Have We Seen This Before? (Amar)
• US Close To ‘Fatal’ Miscalculation – Moscow (RT)
• China Explains Snub Of Zelensky ‘Peace Summit’ (RT)
• Ready Reckoner For Killing – The Raisi Assassination (Helmer)
• US Force Scott Ritter Off Plane to Russia, Seize His Passport (Sp.)
• Deaf and Blind: The Maladies of American Diplomats (Patrick Lawrence)

 

 


“..a gesture that is sure to live in infamy..”

 

 

Eastman

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1797274885925765432

 

 

 

 

Shellenberger

 

 

Eric T

 

 

Obama 1992

 

 

Greenwald

 

 

 

 

“..the next day in the White House when “Joe Biden” was asked to comment on it as he shuffled away from the podium, halted, turned, and smirked silently at the cameras, a gesture that is sure to live in infamy.”

• Which Movie Will It Be? (Jim Kunstler)

The ninnies of Bidenworld seem to not understand that by subjecting Mr. Trump to a kangaroo court they’ve made him the kind of outlaw that Americans revere above every other archetypal hero. He’s the new American Robin Hood, the people’s outlaw — with “Joe Biden” relegated as the wicked Sir Guy of Gisbourne, master of foul play and servant of the evil regent Prince John (Barack Obama). The galvanizing moment in this melodrama was not the verdict in Judge Juan Merchan’s kangaroo corral of a court, but the next day in the White House when “Joe Biden” was asked to comment on it as he shuffled away from the podium, halted, turned, and smirked silently at the cameras, a gesture that is sure to live in infamy. The fun should really kick off when the judge gets to sentence Trump-the-Outlaw July 11, a few days before the Republican convention. Life in some New York state pen? A year on Rikers Island? House arrest? Who knows. But you can bet that just like Robin-of-Locksley, Donald-of-Mar-a-Lago will manage to slip out of his captors’ clutches and cleverly vanquish them.

In a sane world, of course, the US Supreme Court would be entreated to adjudicate this gross insult to due process as spelled out in Section 1 of the 14th Amendment. “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” But you might have noticed that this is not a sane world, at least not these days, and not a few supposedly sober analysts, such as Jonathan Turley of George Washington University, claim that a SCOTUS review is a long-shot — which only confirms the reigning insanity since it’s hard to imagine a more compelling moment for the SCOTUS to carry out its fundamental duty: to elucidate the meaning of our Constitution and resolve disputes arising therefrom.

Now, it looks like what we’re seeing after a few days for the shock to wear off, is a mighty righteous rage arising among the faction designated as “Red” — that is, the anti-Woke, anti-Globalist, anti-neoMarxist, anti-Deep State blob, anti-Lawfare, anti-Democratic Party chunk of the adult US population. It amounts to a recognition that we are already in some kind of civil war, and that the tactics of “Joe Biden’s” party must and will be opposed by all means. The SCOTUS is the last resort of legal means for redress in this matter, and they would punt this duty at great peril to the country. To clarify just what this matter is: “Joe Biden’s” White House and Department of Justice conspired with New York County (Manhattan) authorities to maliciously construct and execute a court case made of patently false charges against their principal political adversary, and with a cavalier disrespect to both state and federal law.

As such, the “Stormy Daniels Payoff Case,” as it’s known, is just the latest ploy in a long train of lawless gambits starting with RussiaGate in 2016 (the “Steele Dossier” and all) that have left hundreds of high appointed officials in the federal bureaucracy (plus many retired from it) liable to severe criminal charges ranging as far as sedition and treason. RussiaGate may have started its life as a typical campaign prank by doofuses in the Hillary Clinton organization, but it turned seriously sinister when it was adopted by the FBI and the CIA to execute a plan to harass and defenestrate the elected president, Mr. Trump.With each subsequent prank, to distract from and cover-up their crimes, the same group of officials has committed more crimes, to the point that the federal government now behaves like a gigantic mafia, dedicated to nothing but crime of one kind or another. The Democratic Party has become this mob’s protective order; the old mainstream media its mouthpiece; and the people of this country increasingly its victims.

Naturally, these criminals are now desperate to avoid having to account for their crimes, which is exactly and explicitly what Mr. Trump promises to make them do.So, there it is: a criminal regime versus the people defended by their outlaw hero. Does the SCOTUS want to aid and abet this gang of criminals — led by the way, and just so you know, by Barack Obama and his Kalorama coterie, John Brennan, Mary McCord and her Lawfare coterie, Hillary and Bill Clinton and their henchmen, and scores of additional DC lawyers, fixers, and judges — or, will the SCOTUS avert an epic crisis of legitimacy by stepping in to quash the ridiculously fake New York case just concluded? If they demur in some cowardly blur of excuses, then it’s onto the next truly nation-ending stage of this game.

The “Joe Biden” regime would like nothing more than an outbreak of civil violence they can blame on “right-wing extremists.” In fact, they could and probably will gin that up themselves, just as they transformed the Jan-6-21 mass protest against widespread ballot fraud into a “MAGA insurrection.” You are also certainly aware of the sinister millions, mainly young men from faraway lands, who “Joe Biden” imported across the border the past three years. And you might imagine how they could be put to use against American citizens, along with the Democratic Party shock troops known as BLM and Antifa. Summer’s here and the time is right for fighting in the streets. And, of course, even if the SCOTUS puts an end to this latest bit of Lawfare fuckery, the “Joe Biden” crew can always opt to just up and kill its opponent. Nothing is beneath them now. But when that happens, we’ll be in a very different kind of movie.

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“..if Biden wins the election before this conviction is overturned, history’s judgment will be deafening.”

• The Trump Conviction Presents a Target-Rich Environment for Appeal (Turley)

The conviction of former President Donald Trump in Manhattan of 34 felonies produced citywide celebrations. This thrill-kill environment extended to the media, where former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman told MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace that it was “majestic day” and “a day to celebrate.” When I left the courthouse after watching the verdict come in, I was floored by the celebrations outside by both the public and some of the media. The celebrants would be wise to think twice before mounting this trophy kill on the political wall. The Trump trial is a target-rich environment for an appeal, with multiple layers of reversible error, in my view. I am less convinced by suggestions that the case could be challenged on the inability of Trump receiving a fair trial in a district that voted roughly 90 percent against him. The problem was not the jury, but the prosecutors and the judge. Some of the most compelling problems can be divided into four groups.

The Judge – Acting Supreme Court justice Juan Merchan was handpicked for this case rather than randomly selected. This is only the latest in a litany of Trump cases where Merchan has meted out tough rulings against Trump and his organization. With any other defendant, there would likely be outrage over his selection. Merchan donated to President Biden. Even though the state bar cleared that violation based on the small size of the contribution, it later stressed that no such contributions were appropriate for a judge. We learned later that Merchan has contributed to a group to stop the GOP and Trump. Merchan’s daughter is also a Democratic organizer who has helped raise millions against Trump and the GOP and for the Democrats.

To his credit, CNN legal analyst Elie Honig has previously said that this case was legally dubious, uniquely targeted Trump and could not succeed outside of an anti-Trump district. On the judge, he recently challenged critics on the fairness of assigning a Biden donor who has earmarked donations for “resisting the Republican Party and Donald Trump’s radical right-wing legacy.” He asked “Would folks have been just fine with the judge staying on the case if he had donated a couple bucks to “Re-elect Donald Trump, MAGA forever!”? “Absolutely not.” What is equally disturbing is the failure of Merchan to protect the rights of the defendant and what even critics admit were distinctly pro-prosecution rulings in the trial. It is not just the appearance of a conflict with Judge Merchan but a record of highly biased decisions. In watching Merchan in the courtroom, I was shocked by his rulings as at times incomprehensible and conflicted.

The Charges – A leading threshold issue will be the decision to allow Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to effectively try Trump for violations of federal law. The Justice Department declined any criminal charges against Trump under federal election law over the alleged “hush money” payments. The Federal Election Commission likewise found no basis for a civil fine. With no federal prosecution, Bragg decided to use an unprecedented criminal theory not only to zap a dead misdemeanor into life (after the expiration of the statute of limitation) but to allow him to try violations of not only federal election law but also federal taxation violations. In other words, the Justice Department would not prosecute federal violations, so Bragg effectively did it in state court.

Even when closing arguments were given, analysts on various networks admitted that they were unclear about what Bragg was alleging. The indictment claimed a violation under New York’s election law 17-152 that the falsification of business records were committed to further another crime as an unlawful means to influence the election. However, in a maddeningly circular theory, that other crime could be the falsification of business records. It could also be violations of federal election and taxation laws, which Trump was never charged with, let alone convicted of.

[..] The Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized that the requirement of unanimity in criminal convictions is sacrosanct in our system. While there was unanimity that the business records were falsified to hide or further a second crime, there was no express finding of what that crime may have been. In some ways, Trump may have been fortunate by Merchan’s cavalier approach. Given that the jury convicted Trump across the board, they might have found all of three secondary crimes. The verdict form never asked for such specificity. These are just a few of the appellate issues. There are other challenges, including but not limited to due process violations on the lack of specificity in the indictment, vagueness of the underlying state law and the lack of evidentiary foundation for key defenses like “the legitimate press function.” They are the reason why many of us view this case is likely to be reversed in either the state or federal systems. None of that is likely to dampen the thrill in this kill in Manhattan. But if Biden wins the election before this conviction is overturned, history’s judgment will be deafening.

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“Leftists currently going after Trump have pierced attorney-client privilege and destroyed lawyers for representing the wrong client. They will think nothing of putting Trump in jail. I hope I’m wrong, but I’m not.”

• Of Course They’ll Put Trump in Jail (Victoria Taft)

Why wouldn’t Judge Juan Merchan finish the job and add to the left’s glee in calling Donald Trump a “convicted felon” by sentencing him to jail? That fact that Trump’s sentencing is on July 11, mere days before the Republican National Convention, would not impede a judge who, according to Trump attorney Alina Habba, covered his mouth to laugh during his sentencing. It would be no impediment to the hand-picked jurist who allowed prosecutors to hide the underlying “crime” for the entire trial, hide witnesses, and overrule the majority of the defense objections in this goat rodeo. What would stop him from jailing Trump? The case has horrified believers in the rule of law, without which you cannot have a civil society. It has horrified people who barely paid attention to the trial but gave this judge the benefit of the doubt. Tens of millions of Americans know that this trumped-up case means prosecutors wouldn’t hesitate to do the same to them. Nobody is above the law, but Donald Trump is under it, as has been stated a lot recently with good reason.

Obama’s former Svengali, David Axelrod, told HBO’s Bill Maher that he didn’t think it was a wise idea to put Trump in jail because “it would be worrisome for our country” and “MAGA nation would go nuts.” “I think there is something about jailing a former president, especially on something like this [and] worrisome for our country,” he gamely said. “And I would really be shocked if this judge gave him a prison sentence for this.” We’ll wait for Axelrod’s look of surprise when Trump is sentenced to jail. But don’t be misled. Axelrod knows that Democrat cranks like Bennie Thompson, he of the January 6 Commission, and other dumb representatives introduced a bill to strip “convicted felon” presidential candidates sentenced to jail from getting Secret Service protection. So they want to kill him, too. In the same way the feds got Michael Cohen to plead guilty to elections violations to get a shorter sentence, on unrelated charges, they’ve teed up this case. They’ll send him to jail. I’d be glad to be wrong.

Would Hillary Clinton stand up for the rule of law for Donald Trump? Of course not. She made up stories about him being a Russian spy and then wrote them off as legal expenses. Clinton used campaign funds to pay for the Steele dossier, and used a Russian spy to make up a document calling Trump a spy! She used her campaign coffers to pay for this, calling them legal expenses, but was fined $8,000 for violating campaign finance laws. Trump used his own money to pay off Stormy Daniels through his attorney in 2017 to “influence” the 2016 election, then grossed up and plussed up the money to pay Michael Cohen for legal fees for his work, and he is probably going to jail. They had to make up stuff to smear Trump. There were hundreds of violent riots at which police officers and Secret Service were injured and hospitalized. Kamala Harris gave them bail money in the unlikely event it was needed. Antifa and BLM tried to attack the White House. And nobody who encouraged unrest – like Harris, Maxine Waters, and Chuck Schumer – was held to account. Trump called for a peaceful rally and made an alleged “bad” phone call and they impeached him.

Would people who tried to frame Donald Trump, a man running for president, as a Russian spy hesitate to throw him in jail? [..] Professors, court watchers, former federal prosecutors, former attorneys general, and people who deal in the legal space all the time blithely assure us with bromides. Sending him to jail is highly unlikely. Sending Trump to jail would be hard for a judge to justify. It would be very hard to send a former president to jail on a records offense. It would create a constitutional crisis. They haven’t noticed that the left has destroyed all norms. Leftists currently going after Trump have pierced attorney-client privilege and destroyed lawyers for representing the wrong client. They will think nothing of putting Trump in jail. I hope I’m wrong, but I’m not.

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“I worry about strife. I worry about war in the streets. I worry about 50 percent of the public believing that the court system will be used against them..”

• Rand Paul Warns Of “War In The Streets” Coming From Trump Verdict (MN)

GOP Senator Rand Paul has warned that the fallout of the weaponisation of the justice system against Donald Trump could lead to “war in the streets.” Appearing on Fox Business, Paul was asked “What is your reaction to the conviction?” The Senator responded that it is “a sad day in America,” adding “what I worry about is something even bigger than Donald Trump.” “I worry about strife. I worry about war in the streets. I worry about 50 percent of the public believing that the court system will be used against them,” Paul further urged. “I worry when half the country thinks they won’t be treated fairly, what happens and how people react,” the Senator continued. Paul also pointed out how Hillary Clinton was treated completely differently when she was charged over her email server. “If you look at records violations and you look at Hillary Clinton, $8 million expense, and they slapped her on the wrist cause she got an $8 thousand fine,” Paul asserted. “I think Donald Trump is the only person ever prosecuted for this particular crime,” Paul further suggested, stating that there are probably thousands of cases of records violations in New York that never go to court.

As we highlighted yesterday, Bill Maher has predicted that if Trump is sentenced to any prison time, there will be a civil war that will quickly evolve into a race war because of MAGA supporters. As we highlighted earlier this week, former US Attorney for the District of Utah Brett L. Tolman is adament that Judge Merchan will give Trump jail time. “This judge has considerable power now, on July 11th he has the power to take Trump forthwith, he can take him, put him in custody right then and he can do it for whatever period of time,” said Tolman, warning that despite there being a range of sentencing, “the rules are out the window, who knows what this judge will do.” “I predict he will give him some jail time, I think he will fine him, he’ll give him a stern lecture and then he’ll promptly plan his retirement and a book deal,” concluded Tolman.

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Oasis in the desert.

• Top Judge Blocks Complaints Against Trump Judge Aileen Cannon (ET)

The chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit has blocked complaints against the judge overseeing one of former President Donald Trump’s criminal cases. Chief Judge William Pryor Jr., in a newly released order dated May 22, instructed the circuit court’s clerk to stop accepting new complaints against U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon after the clerk was flooded with complaints. “Since May 16, 2024, the clerk of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has received over 1,000 judicial complaints against Judge Cannon that raise allegations that are substantially similar to the allegations raised in previous complaints,” Judge Pryor, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, wrote in the order. “These complaints appear to be part of an orchestrated campaign.” Judiciary rules enable each judicial council to act when a series of “many essentially identical complaints” from different people flood into the circuit in which the council is based.

The council can instruct the circuit clerk “to accept only a certain number of such complaints for filing and to refuse to accept additional complaints. Judge Pryor recommended to the council that it instruct the clerk to stop taking additional complaints against Judge Cannon, and the council adopted the recommendation. Judge Pryor entered the new order on behalf of the council. Federal law lets people file complaints against federal judges over judicial misconduct, which includes treating litigants “in a demonstrably egregious and hostile manner” and “making inappropriately partisan statements.” Some activists and others have complained about Judge Cannon’s ruling against special counsel Jack Smith, who is prosecuting President Trump. The rulings have resulted in the trial against the former president being pushed back multiple times.

After Mr. Smith’s team on May 31 asked for an immediate gag order on President Trump, for example, Judge Cannon on June 2 directed President Trump to respond and said the government could issue a reply to that response on or before June 21. Misconduct can not include the correctness of a judge’s ruling or allegations about delays, “unless the allegation concerns an improper motive in delaying a particular decision or habitual delay in a significant number of unrelated cases,” according to judicial rules. The order does not apply to four of the complaints lodged against Judge Cannon, according to Judge Pryor. The judge said he reviewed those complaints and dismissed them because they “lack[ed] sufficient evidence to raise an inference that misconduct has occurred.”

Many of the complaints that flooded in are aimed at the rulings or other actions of Judge Cannon in the case against President Trump, which centers on his handling of documents containing sensitive information. President Trump was charged with Espionage Act violations and obstruction in the federal case. He has pleaded not guilty. “Although many of the complaints allege an improper motive in delaying the case, the allegations are speculative and unsupported by any evidence,” Judge Pryor said. “The complaints also do not establish that Judge Cannon was required to recuse herself from the case because she was appointed by then-President Trump.”

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True, it’s not him pulling the strings. He wouldn’t be able to find them.

• Biden Denies ‘Pulling the Strings’ in Trump’s Criminal Conviction (ET)

President Joe Biden has dismissed the notion that he was “pulling the strings” in the criminal cases against former President Donald Trump, who had been found guilty of 34 felony counts. During an exchange with a Fox News reporter outside the White House on Friday, President Biden was asked if the criminal conviction helped his political rival in the election, to which he replied: “I have no idea.” Fox News reporter Peter Doocy followed up by asking President Biden if he is concerned about facing criminal charges once his presidential term ends. “Not at all,” the president answered. “I didn’t do anything wrong. The system still works.” When asked about President Trump’s assertion that he was “pulling the strings behind the scenes” to hurt him politically, President Biden laughed off the claim, saying: “I didn’t know I was that powerful.” President Trump was found guilty on May 30 in a case in which he was charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal non-disclosure payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels as part of a bid to influence the 2016 presidential election.

This marks the first criminal conviction of a U.S. president. The former president denounced the verdict outside the courthouse, calling it a “rigged trial” and an attempt by the Biden administration to hurt a political opponent. “The real verdict is going to be Nov. 5, by the people,” President Trump said. “We’ll keep fighting, we’ll fight to the end, and we’ll win.” Minutes after the jury returned the verdict, an avalanche of donations to the Trump presidential campaign caused the donation page to temporarily become unavailable. The following day, the Trump campaign announced a record one-day fundraising haul of nearly $35 million. President Biden said Friday that it was “reckless” for the presumptive GOP presidential nominee to call the trial rigged, arguing that the case was heard by a jury of 12 Americans selected through a process in which President Trump’s attorney was part of.

“Donald Trump was given every opportunity to defend himself. It was a state case, not a federal case,” the president said in a May 31 address at the White House. “The jury heard five weeks of evidence. And after careful deliberation, the jury reached a unanimous verdict. They found Donald Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts,” he added. President Biden said that, like everyone else, the former president was afforded the opportunity to appeal the court’s decision. “That’s how the American system of justice works. And it’s reckless, it’s dangerous, and it’s irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don’t like the verdict,” President Biden said.

“The justice system should be respected, and we should never allow anyone to tear it down. It’s as simple as that,” he added. President Trump’s sentencing—which is set for July 11—will come just four days before the Republican National Convention where he will be formally designated as the Republican presidential nominee. His legal team has vowed to appeal the verdict, while House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said the U.S. Supreme Court should get involved and overturn the conviction, arguing that the circumstances of the case have led to an erosion of public faith in America’s justice system. While there are no laws barring President Trump from running for the White House as a convicted felon, an overturned verdict before Election Day would likely boost his chances of victory.

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“..future historians will ask why the people did not protest their pending annihilation..”

• Dear American (Paul Craig Roberts)

Dear American, Do you realize that the Republican Speaker of the House, the House Democrat minority Leader, the Senate Majority Leader and the Senate Republican minority leader, along with an almost unanimous Congress have committed you to the support of the Israeli Genocide of Palestine, both the people and the country? “Our” representatives told Netanyahu that “we (meaning the US) join the State of Israel in your struggle against terror.” For eight months Israel has been terror bombing and destroying everything in Gaza, and “our” leaders see the slaughter of women, children, hospitals, all infrastructure as a “struggle against terror” rather than as an exercise of terror.The Congress of the United States, supposedly our representatives, but in reality the representative of Zionist Israel, has invited Chief Genocide Leader of the World Netanyahu for whom arrest warrants are outstanding to address the United States Congress.

The US Congress is doing this because the US Congress, especially its “leaders,” are paid by Israel Lobby campaign donations to defend the indefensible–the Genocide of the Palestinians and the suppression of all criticism of Israel. This will be the fourth time that Netanyahu has addressed the US Congress. Only Senator Bernie Sanders objected: “Netanyahu is a war criminal. I certainly will not attend.” The rest of Congress is comfortable celebrating a war criminal for whom an arrest warrant is issued by the Hague-based International Criminal Court.

Dear American, Does it bother you that “our” government has put our approval on genocide and has endorsed in our name the Genocide of the remnant of a peaceful people who Israel has demonized in order to steal their country? Dear American, Are you aware that you are about to be taken into nuclear war over the borders of Ukraine while your own undefended, wide open borders are welcoming in 3.6 million immigrant-invaders each year? Dear American, Are you aware that President Trump has been convicted in a Democrat Joseph Stalin type show trial of a non-existent crime? Dear American, Are you aware that the New York justice (sic) system is the most corrupt of any on planet Earth? The New York justice (sic) system could not find justice if there was a quadrillion dollar reward. Dear American, Do you comprehend that you live in a country that is collapsing at light speed, morally, politically, economically, socially, militarily?

Dear American, Has it occurred to you to wonder why, while the streets of Budapest, Hungary, are filled with hundreds of thousands of people protesting the coming war with Russia that Biden is bringing us, there is no protest activity in America and elsewhere in Europe, and not a word in the media, and no opposition in Congress to the destruction of the Western world that war with Russia will bring? Dear American, My questions are for aware people, a status for which few Americans qualify. If Human history continues, which at this point of time seems doubtful, future historians will ask why the people did not protest their pending annihilation. How was it possible that entire populations could be so brainwashed that they were removed from the reality of their own destruction?

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“The prosecution does not plan to bring out the entire infamous laptop..”

• Jury Selection Begins In Hunter Biden Gun Trial (ZH)

Of all the things Hunter Biden has been accused of, and recorded himself doing, he’ll be in a Delaware courthouse this week on three federal felony gun charges. Jury selection begins in the case brought against him by special counsel David Weiss, who has charged the First Son with making a false statement during the purchase of a firearm, making a false statement related to information required to be kept by a licensed firearm dealer, and one count of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance. According to the indictment, Hunter bought a Colt Cobra revolver Oct. 12, 2018 – during which he “knowingly made a false and fictitious written statement, intended and likely to deceive that dealer with respect to a fact material to the lawfulness of the sale of the firearm … certifying he was not an unlawful user of, and addicted to, any stimulant, narcotic drug, and any other controlled substance, when in fact, as he knew, that statement was false and fictitious.”

Specifically, Hunter answered ‘no’ when asked if he was “an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance.” Eleven days after Hunter bought the gun, his brother’s widow, Hallie Biden, threw it in a dumpster behind a market near a school. An elderly man discovered the items and police later obtained them from him. Authorities placed the items into “an evidence vault” and no charges were brought. Searches of Mr. Biden’s account, undertaken as federal agents investigated him for tax crimes, uncovered evidence that led to the firearm charges. That included pictures showing drugs and texts relating to how Mr. Biden was using drugs. He later wrote in his memoir that he was addicted to drugs during the period he bought and owned the revolver. Maximum prison time on all charges could be up to 25 years (we’ll wait for you to catch your breath), and each count carries a maximum fine of $250,000 and three years of unsupervised release.

The trial begins almost a year after Judge Maryellen Noreika blew up a sweetheart plea deal, which would have conveyed broad immunity to Hunter on a wide swath of unrelated potential criminal charges. The deal sought to cap a five-year investigation into Hunter’s tax affairs and business dealings. After the plea deal unraveled, David Weiss requested and was granted “special counsel” status by Attorney General Merrick Garland.

During the trial, prosecutors will not be allowed to let the jury know about Hunter’s 2014 discharge from the Navy after testing positive for cocaine, nor his salacious child support case for his out-of-wedlock daughter in Arkansas. Judge Noreika also said that Weiss only has to show that Hunter was addicted to drugs, not that he was on them the day he purchased the gun. The prosecution does not plan to bring out the entire infamous laptop containing details of Hunter Biden’s life but will introduce certain portions. Noreika ruled that Hunter Biden’s team will be able to question aspects of the laptop in front of the jury. The laptop, which leaked in 2020 just before the presidential election, was decried as Russian disinformation by 51 former intelligence officials. Noreika also ruled that the special counsel cannot mention Hunter Biden’s pending federal tax trial in California during the trial in Delaware, which is also part of Weiss’s investigation and scheduled for a September trial. -Fox News

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“..We are in the long term now, and the contours of the new Germany are emerging.”

• Germany Begins To Militarize: When Have We Seen This Before? (Amar)

Recent German history is marked by two dates – 1918 and 1945 – that stand for extraordinary, catastrophic failures of, among other things, militarism. Most countries have militaries, many have substantial ones. But militarism is, of course, something else: In essence, the term stands for a syndrome: a type of politics and culture – an integrated Zeitgeistpackage, if you wish – that harmfully exaggerate the public importance, social prestige, and political power of a country’s military. Both pre-World War I and pre-World War II Germany were clear cases of this political pathology, and both paid dearly for it, with massive defeats in wars started – first with significant input from others, then entirely on its own – by Berlin. History can be a harsh teacher, and in this case, the lessons that Germany brought on itself were not only painful, but they also got successively worse: 1918 was a severe setback that led to regime change, deep economic crisis, and lasting instability; 1945 was a total defeat that came with national partition and a robust geopolitical downgrading that was to last forever. Or so it seemed.

When the two Germanies that emerged after 1945 united in 1990, everyone with any sense of history knew that things would change again. It is true that in purely constitutional terms, the new Germany is merely a bigger version of the former West Germany; the former East Germany was simply absorbed. Yet in every other respect – including political culture, geopolitics, and, quite fundamentally, what it means to be German – that bigger version of old West Germany was on a timer: In the short term, post-unification Germany phase one (just a bigger West Germany) was bound to be transitory, just like, for instance, post-Soviet Russia phase one (the 1990s). And as with post-Soviet Russia, the really intriguing question has always been what phase two would look like, while those who thought they knew in advance risked being humbled by history. (Remember that once fashionable idea that Russia was “in transition” to becoming a geopolitically docile copy of an imaginary Western standard model? No? Don’t worry. No one else does either.)

Now, however, it’s 2024. Over a third of a century has passed since German unification. Gerhard Schroeder and Angela Merkel, the quintessential leaders of that deceptively abiding phase-one version of post-unification Germany are history. We are in the long term now, and the contours of the new Germany are emerging.

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“..Russia could react asymmetrically to a Ukrainian attack on its nuclear deterrence, as Moscow would hold the US responsible..”

• US Close To ‘Fatal’ Miscalculation – Moscow (RT)

The US is close to making a “fatal” miscalculation in its attempts to deal with Russia and the Ukraine conflict, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has warned. The senior diplomat commented on Monday on the reported US decision to let Kiev use American weapons outside what Washington considers Ukrainian territory. The move is supposedly limited to a small piece of Russia’s Belgorod Region relevant to hostilities across the border in Ukraine’s Kharkov Region. ”I’d like to warn American actors against miscalculations that can lead to fatal consequences. For some unclear reason they underestimate how serious a response they could face,” Ryabkov told journalists. Up to then the stated US policy had been to ban such attacks, to prevent triggering “World War III.” Kiev has said it is disappointed by the change, as it wants permission to fire long-range American weapons deep inside Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned of “serious consequences” of potential long-range strikes “considering the [countries’] parity in strategic weapons.” Ryabkov urged American policymakers to “spend some of their time, which they probably waste on computer games, judging by their air-headed approach to serious issues” on considering Putin’s words.The official also warned that Russia could react asymmetrically to a Ukrainian attack on its nuclear deterrence, as Moscow would hold the US responsible. Officials in Washington “have given Kiev a permit for any crimes, any action, and do nothing to curb provocations by their clients… But the US does not get this for free and will feel consequences,” the deputy FM warned. Ukrainian sources have claimed to the media that Kiev targeted two early-warning radar stations in Russia last month, allegedly damaging one. The facilities in question are designed to detect intercontinental ballistic missile launches and provide a response window to the Russian leadership.

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Biden will be absent as well, sends Kamala.

• China Explains Snub Of Zelensky ‘Peace Summit’ (RT)

The Chinese government has said it will not be taking part in an upcoming Swiss-hosted conference on the Ukraine conflict, as the conditions necessary for such an event have not been met. Beijing has repeatedly stressed that any summit on settling the fighting between Russia and Ukraine must include “three important elements,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said during a media briefing on Monday. Those terms are recognition of the event by both Moscow and Kiev, equal participation of all sides, and a fair discussion of all peace proposals. None of the three conditions are likely to be fulfilled at the gathering, Mao explained, and therefore it would be “problematic” for China to participate in the summit – due to take place at the Burgenstock Resort near Lucerne on June 15 and 16.

The spokeswoman stressed that Beijing’s absence from the Swiss event does not mean a lack of support for peace between Russia and Ukraine. Mao went on to suggest that some countries who are sending delegations to the conference are not actually interested in ending the fighting. China has never “fanned fire or fueled the flames” when it comes to the Ukraine hostilities, Mao stressed, while expressing hope that all sides can understand China’s stance regarding the conference. On Sunday Ukraine’s leader, Vladimir Zelensky, lashed out at Beijing over its reluctance to attend the gathering in Switzerland, claiming that China has become “an instrument in the hands of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin” as he tries to discredit the conference.

Russia has not been invited to the summit, which is expected to address Zelensky’s so-called ‘ten-point peace plan.’ The scheme, among other things, demands a complete withdrawal of Russian forces from all territories that Ukraine considers its own, for Moscow to pay reparations, and for Russian officials to present themselves to war crimes tribunals. Russia instantly rejected the proposal as “unacceptable” when it was first floated by Zelensky in late 2022. According to Moscow, the plan disregards the situation on the ground and is a sign of Kiev’s unwillingness to seek a diplomatic solution to the crisis. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told RT last week that it was “absurd” to hold a summit on settling the conflict without Moscow’s participation. “This conference is completely without prospects,” he stressed.

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Differents accounts.

• Ready Reckoner For Killing – The Raisi Assassination (Helmer)

It was a frustrated Sherlock Holmes who told Dr Watson: “You will not apply my precept,” he said, shaking his head. “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?” That was in 1890 in the Arthur Conan Doyle story, “The Sign of Four”. Application of this Holmes rule of detection and deduction to the circumstances of the crash of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s helicopter on May 19 is now producing the inescapable conclusion that Raisi, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and the six others on board their aircraft were killed by the actions of one or both of the pilots, who intended their own suicide and the killing of their passengers. This appears not to have been the conclusion of the Iranian Air Force commanders who paid a condolence visit to the families of the pilots on May 21, two days after their deaths.

But with the release last week by the Iranian Army’s General Staff of its second report on the fatal crash, the elimination of weather, machine failure, external missile attack, on-board bomb, electronic sabotage, and pilot navigational error is now complete. Together with the first General Staff report, the detailed Teheran television interview of Raisi’s chief of staff, Gholam-Hossein Esmaeili, and the eyewitness testimony by telephone from the crash scene by the Tabriz ayatollah, Mohammad Ali Al-Hashem, the evidence remaining is that the highly experienced chief pilot, Colonel Seyed Taher Mostafavi made three mistakes — the first, to fly into the cloud bank after he ordered the others to climb above; the second, not to detect on his radar and other instruments the sharp mountain peaks in close proximity to his flight course at 2,200 metres; and the third, to crash in horizontal orientation, not vertically nose first. Hattricks are rare, but they are never mistakes, never accidental.

[..] This is how the eyewitness in the third helicopter, behind Raisi’s aircraft, described the altitude, cloud and weather conditions: “Esmaeili:..There was fog on the ground, but not in up the air where we were advancing with the helicopters. However, in one small compacted area, there was a small patch of clouds above a cliff. In terms of height, this cloud was at the same height as our flight’s height. It was there that the now-martyred helicopter pilot [Mostafavi], who was also the commander of the fleet, told the rest of the pilots to ascend above the clouds. We were third behind the president’s helicopter. We rose above the clouds and advanced for approximately 30 seconds. Our pilot suddenly realized that the main helicopter carrying the president was missing.” Esmaeili said the pilot of his aircraft estimated that 90 seconds had elapsed between the radio contact of Mostafavi giving the order to climb above the cloud bank and the “disappearance”. “…we also have no radio contact with it anymore. So I asked him when was the last time contact was made? The pilot answered, ‘A minute and 30 seconds ago when the pilot [Mostafavi] told us to ascend above the clouds.’”

Esmaeili is explicit. It had been Mostafavi who had been at the controls of Raisi’s aircraft and who gave the order to the others to climb above the cloud. Esmaeili also revealed the direct testimony of Al-Hashem, who was thrown clear of the helicopter fuselage at the crash and was not reached by the fire which consumed the other passengers in the cabin. “After some tries, calling the cellphone of the captain [Mostafavi] accompanying the president, someone picked up the phone. It was Ayatollah Hashem, the Friday Imam of Tabriz. He told us that he was not feeling well. He didn’t tell us anything special. I asked him what exactly had happened. He told us that he didn’t know what had happened, and when asked about his whereabouts, he said that he didn’t know. He only described what he could see, described to us what he saw, for example, how he was surrounded by trees. I asked him about the condition of the others, the Ayatollah replied that he’s alone and couldn’t see anyone else and he’s alone.”

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Next up: Doug Macgregor.

• US Force Scott Ritter Off Plane to Russia, Seize His Passport (Sp.)

Ritter was slated to participate in the annual St.Petersburg International Economic Forum as a guest speaker. “As I was boarding my flight out of New York I was pulled aside by three CBP officers, who seized my passport. When asked why, they said orders of the State Department. No further information was provided. My bags were removed from the flight, and I was escorted out of the airport,” the former US Marine intelligence officer told Sputnik. Scott Ritter added that his passport was not given back. He said he will appeal the decision. Ritter believes US authorities are afraid of his participation in the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).

“Is this done under the First Amendment to the US Constitution or the Fourth?” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova asked sarcastically, commenting on Scott Ritter’s removal from his flight to Russia and the confiscation of his passport The First Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees, among other things, non-interference with the freedoms of speech and assembly, while the Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and detentions. SPIEF is the largest annual Russian business event in the economic sphere, and is attended by dozens of politicians and entrepreneurs from around the world. This year, the forum will take place on June 5-8.

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A real life story.

“Mr. Kennedy’s thoughts on U.S. foreign policy,” as The Times’s obit explains, “were partly shaped by discussions with his captors.”

• Deaf and Blind: The Maladies of American Diplomats (Patrick Lawrence)

Here is a modest proposal, nothing too radical, just good sense. Turn over Antony Blinken and Jake Sullivan to the Iranian authorities on the understanding the two statesmen, very loosely defined, would spend 444 days at the U.S. embassy compound in Tehran. Let’s think of it as a reenactment. Said premises, long a mess of barbed wire, weeds, brambles, mold and anti–American graffiti, is now a museum. The Den of Espionage, as it is called, is dedicated to the shameful history of U.S.–Iranian relations leading up to that fateful day, Jan. 16, 1979, when the shah was deposed by a nation that had had enough of him. Those unkind Iranians had to rub it in: The old graffiti is now covered over with mocking murals featuring Mickey Mouse and McDonald’s. All the better, I say. My theory is that the Biden regime’s secretary of state and national security adviser would return from their year and 79 days in the embassy—sitting on the floor, sleeping in the offices, washing their socks in bathroom sinks, the whole nine—transformed almost beatifically into… into statesmen of high purpose and deep insight, the two being devoid of both as we have them now.

I am inspired to these thoughts by a good obituary The New York Times ran in its May 18 editions on the death of a good man named Moorhead Kennedy. Moorhead Kennedy’s blood ran very blue: Upper East Side childhood, Groton, Princeton, Harvard Law, a career in the Foreign Service. Having learned Arabic, he was something of a Middle East man, his assignments over the years including Yemen and Lebanon. And then destiny placed its gentle hand on Kennedy’s shoulder: He was on a temporary assignment as economics attaché in Tehran when the fecal matter hit the fan. And so Kennedy was among those 52 Americans—diplomats, others in civil service jobs—who spent the famous 444 days captives of militant but nonviolent, I would say altogether righteous students who had broken down the embassy gates and climbed over its walls. They were of many stripes, secular and religious, but they were all repelled by the shah’s coercive insistence on Westernizing Iran in the worst kind of way—“Westoxicity,” as it came to be called.

Many of them spent their days poring through the embassy files and diplomatic cables to reconstruct just how, covertly and criminally, the U.S. had been attempting to overthrow the Iranian government for the second time in 26 years. I recall years later seeing black-and-white news footage of the hostages as they filed up the stairs to board an Air Algeria flight home on Jan. 20, 1981. One of the diplomats turned back a few steps short of the cabin door, shouted something the film did not record, and gave the Islamic Republic and all its citizens a great big middle finger. Ah, yes, I recall thinking, with what dignity are we represented to the world. nMoorhead Kennedy would have had as much reason to vent his anger as that vulgarian on the stairs. He was blindfolded and tied to a chair when students filed into his office. But something happened to Kennedy during the long months that followed. He began talking to those who had stormed the embassy. And most of all, he began listening to them.

I have long argued that the first signs that an imperium is in decline are when it goes blind and deaf; it can neither see others for who and what they are nor hear what they have to say. Kennedy proved to suffer from neither of these symptoms. As he later recounted his experience in an interview with a small public-affairs journal in Connecticut, Kennedy seemed to have brought a singularly open mind to what was supposed to be a brief assignment filling in for an absent colleague. “I was very interested in seeing a revolution in progress,” he told a reporter from CT Mirror in 2016. “It was a very fruitful time until, all of a sudden, I heard a shout from the Marines, ‘They’re coming over the wall!’ And then a whole new experience began.”

There is a wonderful photograph of Kennedy atop The Times’s obit, taken in the embassy during his captivity. It shows him sitting at his desk, calmly reading with his fingers to his chin. On the floor beside him are two colleagues whose beards make them look like they are among Kennedy’s captors. On his desk you see the paraphernalia of makeshift meals: a jar of mustard, a jar of Sanka repurposed as a sugar bowl, a box of Cocoa Krispies. I suspect Kennedy’s apparent composure had something to do with that unshakable aplomb you often find in American bluebloods. It is odd now to think you are looking at a man midway through a life-altering metamorphosis from which he had the integrity never to turn back. It was in the embassy that Kennedy began to reflect on what he was doing as an American foreign service officer and to conclude that what he was doing was emphatically not what he ought to have been doing because the nation he served had it all wrong. “Mr. Kennedy’s thoughts on U.S. foreign policy,” as The Times’s obit explains, “were partly shaped by discussions with his captors.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Musk Rogan

 

 

Flynn

 

 

Push

 

 

Beauty
https://twitter.com/i/status/1796969333786087812

 

 

Anaconda

 

 

Great Escape

 

 

Maldives
https://twitter.com/i/status/1797542542034313299

 

 

Baby elephant

 

 

Painter elephant

 

 

Dog+friends

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle August 12 2023

Aug 122023
 
 August 12, 2023  Posted by at 9:19 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  43 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Beach at Scheveningen in Calm Weather 1882

 

• AG Garland Appoints Special Counsel in Hunter Biden Probe (Sp.)
• Ukrainian Lives Cheaper Than American, Polish President Suggests (RT)
• What is Poland’s Role in Ukraine and Could Warsaw Invade? (Sp.)
• West Can’t Defeat Russia – Serbin President Vucic (RT)
• YouTube Deletes Scott Ritter’s Channels (Sp.)
• August Psychodrama (Kunstler)
• Ukraine Capitulation Way To Peace, But US, Kiev Resist – Medvedev (TASS)
• How Zelensky ‘Blackmails’ the US – Mercouris (Sp.)
• China Is Run By ‘Bad Folks’ – Biden (RT)
• Türkiye Believes Ukraine Peace Talks ‘Futile’ Without Russia (RT)
• Ukraine SitRep: The End Of The Counteroffensive (MoA)
• Musk Reveals New Location For Proposed Fight With Zuckerberg (RT)

 

 

 

 

Weiss delay

 

 

CDC Data Shows Excess Mortality for Ages 0–24 is at 44.8%.

 

 

Macgregor

 

 

 

 

Tucker Sund
Thompson said Pelosi was off limits for the committee’s “investigation” into Jan 6. Pelosi’s security chief, Jamie Fleet, told J6 committee the office started planning for January 6 IN THE SUMMER OF 2020.

 

 

 

 

High time for Congress to impeach Garland. He let Weiss run out time on the Hunter probe (5 years?!) , and now wants more powers for the same Weiss. To be used to run out more time (5 more years?!). If Weiss is special counsel, Congress can’t investigate. Meanwhile, both appear unaware that a special counsel must come from outside government, and Weiss is a US attorney. What a mess.

• AG Garland Appoints Special Counsel in Hunter Biden Probe (Sp.)

US Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday officially designated US Attorney David Weiss as a special counsel in the ongoing probe into Hunter Biden, marking what insiders have deemed a significant escalation in the investigation of the US president’s son. Weiss, who had been overseeing the investigation into Hunter Biden, approached Garland with the proposal to be appointed as a special counsel, emphasizing the need for an impartial and uninterrupted continuation of the inquiry as main incentives. “On Tuesday of this week, Mr. Weiss advised me that in his judgment, his investigation had reached a stage at which he should continue his work as a special counsel, and he asked to be so appointed,” Garland said in a statement. Weiss, whose nomination under the Trump administration was confirmed by Senate in 2018, brings a wealth of experience to the table.


In response, Hunter Biden’s legal representative expressed a strong belief in the fairness of the resolution process, highlighting the anticipation of a just outcome. However, not everyone has viewed the move favorably; in fact, critics, predominantly Republican lawmakers, wasted no time in expressing their reservations. US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan both voiced concerns, questioning the credibility of the appointment and citing past disagreements over plea deals. “This action by Biden’s DOJ cannot be used to obstruct congressional investigations or whitewash the Biden family corruption. If Weiss negotiated the sweetheart deal that couldn’t get approved, how can he be trusted as a special xounsel?” McCarthy wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter).

Weiss

Miranda Devine: “It’s like putting the fox in charge of the hen house to appoint David Weiss special counsel – the very US attorney who approved Hunter Biden’s sweetheart plea deal and oversaw an investigation that protected the president and allowed the statute of limitations on the most serious charges to expire.”
https://twitter.com/i/status/1690055160574447616

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Cute headline, but I found this the most remarkable:

“Polish President Andrzej Duda has accused his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin of seeking to conquer Europe..”

“He said the West needed to stop Russia now, before “American soldiers have to shed their blood and to lose their lives in Europe..”

• Ukrainian Lives Cheaper Than American, Polish President Suggests (RT)

Polish President Andrzej Duda has accused his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin of seeking to conquer Europe and has insisted that Russia must be stopped in Ukraine where it is “cheap” to do so. In an interview with the Washington Post published on Thursday, the Polish leader was asked to respond to American conservatives who oppose sending additional military and financial aid to Ukraine. “It is very simple,” Duda said. “Right now, Russian imperialism can be stopped cheaply, because American soldiers are not dying.” Unless “Russian aggression” is halted now, “there will be a very high price to be paid,” the Polish president said. President Putin is seeking to restore “czarist territory,” Duda claimed. He said the West needed to stop Russia now, before “American soldiers have to shed their blood and to lose their lives in Europe to restore peace and liberty to the world.”

Duda suggested admitting Ukraine into NATO as the best way to thwart the Kremlin. He admitted that he was disappointed that Kiev did not receive a formal invitation to the US-led block during last month’s NATO summit in Lithuania. He said he planned to push the Biden administration to make sure Kiev gets an invitation next year. Meanwhile, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu stated on Wednesday that Moscow would bolster its forces along its western borders in response to what he called a growing threat coming from the US and its allies in Europe, which are increasing their own military presence in the region.

The minister pointed to the recent accession of Finland into NATO and the potential joining of Sweden, as well as the increasing militarization of Poland, which he claimed “has become the main instrument of the anti-Russian policies of the US.” Shoigu also alleged that Warsaw is actively seeking to take over parts of Ukraine by forming a so-called Polish-Ukrainian military unit, whose official purpose will be defending Western Ukraine, but will in fact serve to occupy it. The defense minister also stressed that Russia needs to come up with a timely and adequate response to the increasing size of NATO forces in the immediate vicinity of the borders of the Union State of Russia and Belarus.

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History lesson.

• What is Poland’s Role in Ukraine and Could Warsaw Invade? (Sp.)

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu accused Warsaw of harboring ambitions to establish a permanent military presence in western Ukraine on Wednesday, saying Polish troops could be dispatched to the country, “ostensibly to ensure…security,” but “in fact – for the subsequent occupation of this territory.” Shoigu’s comments come in the wake of warnings by President Putin last month calling on Warsaw not to follow through with any “revanchist plans” to seize Ukrainian lands, with Putin recalling that Poland surrendered its claims to western Ukraine at the end of the Second World War after receiving German lands as “a gift from Stalin to the Poles.” “Have our friends in Warsaw have forgotten about this?” Putin asked.

Putin and Shoigu’s concerns were recently echoed by Russian Foreign Intelligence chief Sergei Naryshkin, who similarly said that Russia has picked up on chatter within the Polish leadership about efforts to “introduce control” in western Ukraine. Polish officials have dismissed Russian concerns about Warsaw’s intentions, or refused to comment. However, former NATO Secretary General Anders Rasmussen may have let the cat out of the bag in June when he said that “some countries,” including Poland, might “individually take action” and assemble a new “coalition of the willing” to deploy troops in Ukraine.

What are Poland’s Historical Claims in Ukraine? Poland’s claims to large swathes of Ukraine go back to the era of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth – the long-defunct Eastern European super-state which once controlled vast territories in present-day Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, parts of northwestern Russia, Lithuania, Latvia and a piece of Estonia between the 16th to the 18th centuries. The commonwealth disappeared from the map of Europe in the late 1700s after being partitioned by the Russian Empire, Prussia an Austria, with Poland only reemerging as an independent state in 1918, as Russia was engulfed in internal strife following the February and October Revolutions of 1917.


Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1619)

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“The economy would immediately flourish; energy prices would drop dramatically. Everything would be much easier. I think he knows that the key issue in the US election is the economy..”

• West Can’t Defeat Russia – Serbin President Vucic (RT)

All Western efforts to help Ukraine prevail over Russia on the battlefield are in vain, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Thursday, calling on Moscow and Kiev to engage in peace talks. Speaking to Happy TV, Vucic stated that while Western countries are providing Ukraine with massive military assistance, “now it is clear that there is nothing to it,” and an “easy end” to the conflict is nowhere in sight. “A war of attrition is being waged, and with all the strength of the West, Russia will not be defeated on the battlefield,” the Serbian leader opined. Vucic noted that while he is “not sure what Russia has to gain politically,” a truce between Russia and Ukraine would be the best outcome.

“I see initiatives coming from some Arab countries, I hope that something will bring us closer to peace,” the president said, adding that a cessation of hostilities would also be in the interests of US President Joe Biden, who is up for reelection in 2024. “The economy would immediately flourish; energy prices would drop dramatically. Everything would be much easier. I think he knows that the key issue in the US election is the economy,” Vucic said. He also stated that the same would be true for Russia and Ukraine, which the president believes are “exhausted,” although he noted that Moscow was holding up under Western sanctions “better than many expected.” In June, the Serbian leader warned of a possible escalation in the Ukraine conflict, saying that Kiev’s much-touted offensive – which Russia claims has failed to gain any ground – could trigger a strong response from Moscow.

Vucic’s comments come after a recent Saudi-hosted summit in Jeddah attended by officials from some 40 countries. While the list included Ukraine, some of its Western backers such as the US and the UK, and Moscow’s partners from the BRICS group (Brazil, India, China and South Africa), Russia itself was not invited. Moscow has argued that without its participation, any peace talks are pointless. While the summit did not end with an official communique, the Wall Street Journal reported that Ukraine refrained from pushing its peace formula requiring the withdrawal of Russian troops from all territory Kiev claims as its own. Ukraine, however, denied that it had given up on its plan, which rejects any compromise on the ground with Moscow.

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Macgregor next?

• YouTube Deletes Scott Ritter’s Channels (Sp.)

Google-owned video hosting giant YouTube has deleted Scott Ritter’s YouTube channel. A banner reading “This account has been terminated due to multiple or severe violations of YouTube’s policy prohibiting hate speech” greets anyone trying to navigate to Ritter’s channel. The company did not provide any information about the nature of these alleged “multiple or severe violations,” or how Ritter’s mostly Ukrainian crisis-related commentaries and interviews constituted “hate speech.” YouTube allows for user-based reporting of any alleged “hate speech,” prompting concerns from content creators over the years that the video hosting giant lets organized online activists to silence voices and views they might not like or agree with, or which challenge important state and corporate narratives.

Ritter responded to YouTube’s decision in a pair of tweets Friday, saying the move is an attempt by US-based social media platforms to silence him. “There was never any hate speech involved in any of the episodes of ‘The Scott Ritter Show’, unless one views unique content from silenced voices hateful,” Ritter wrote. “Knowledge is power, ignorance is weakness. YouTube, through its actions, makes America and Americans weak,” he added. Pointing out that his channel was removed the same day that “Ask The Inspector,” another of his channels, got scrubbed, Ritter emphasized that “this is a targeted effort by YouTube to remove/minimize my voice, and those of my guests and the people who took the time to ask probing questions about the pressing issues of the day.”

“Those who are behind this should know – you won’t succeed. There is a vast social media world out there beyond YouTube. And for those voices who still use YouTube as the primary vector to your audience, understand this – conform or perish. If you’re doing a geopolitical show, and you’re still platformed by YouTube, ask yourself why. And be willing to live with the answer,” he added. Ritter is no stranger to censorship by major online platforms. Last year, he was suspended from Twitter after calling Joe Biden a “war criminal” and accusing him of “seeking to shift blame for the Bucha murders” on Russia. He was later reinstated, but suspended again after a “test, test, test” tweet stating that “Bucha was a war crime,” and that “Ukraine did it.” He has since been reinstated again. Ritter has faced a seemingly organized campaign against him on the microblogging platform, with users appealing to the site’s owner to have him permanently banned.

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“Joe Biden” is what has driven the Democratic Party insane. And now, of course, they can’t seem to get rid of him, like a demon riding them through an endless nightmare.”

• August Psychodrama (Kunstler)

One thing that has become clear in this cabbage soup of perfidy, is just how blobbed-up Volodymyr Zelensky was when President Donald Trump made that fateful phone call to him in August of 2019 inquiring about “JB’s” curious doings in Kiev over the years. Did Z follow-up that call immediately with one to Alexander Vindman in the National Security Counsel… who then called Eric Ciaramella of the NSC and CIA? Because, voilà, there was something supernatural about how fast we were off to Impeachment Number One!

And now the not-insane cohort of Americans is prompted to ask whether this war in Ukraine was provoked in any part to cover-up all the nefarious blobbery that preceded it — and not just Hunter and “Joe Biden’s” capers, but the machinations, too, of State Department blobette Victoria Nuland and her retinue in the Kiev embassy, Marie Yovanovitch, George Kent, and many others of the Blob persuasion. A review of all this suggests that “Joe Biden” is what has driven the Democratic Party insane. And now, of course, they can’t seem to get rid of him, like a demon riding them through an endless nightmare.

Instead, they have bent every last effort to get rid of “JB’s” supposed rival, Donald Trump, who has been inducted into a Lawfare-engineered chamber of horrors designed to slice-and-dice him into a million pieces and strew the shreds into the Potomac for the blue crabs to feed on. One can’t imagine a lamer case than the charges Special Counsel Jack Smith has cooked up against Mr. Trump for verbally expressing doubt about the probity of election 2020. Will Mr. Smith be able to prove any of this, assuming that it is now against the law in America to believe something and say so?

Logically, Mr. Trump’s defense might present reasons why he believed the election was rife with fraud, by introducing evidence of said fraud, of which there is actually an impressive amount now, despite whatever mendacious bullshit you see in The New York Times and on MSNBC. Do you suppose Judge Tanya Chutkan would do anything but allow that evidence to be introduced? And if she disallows it, is that not instantly grounds for a mistrial, since it would prove beyond a reasonable doubt there were good reasons, after all, for Mr. Trump to express what he believed?

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“the enlightened world once again shuddered upon learning of the allocation of tens of meaningless billions of dollars for the zombies from Country 404..”

• Ukraine Capitulation Way To Peace, But US, Kiev Resist – Medvedev (TASS)

The only thing Ukraine really needs is capitulation, which could very likely pave the way to peace, but neither Washington nor Kiev want such an outcome, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said. “The people suffering in the trenches of a divided country really need only to surrender, which could potentially pave the way to peace. But neither Washington nor Kiev want peace,” he wrote on his Telegram channel. Medvedev pointed out that, “the meat processing plant that is [Kiev’s] counteroffensive is now operating nonstop, sending thousands of unfortunate people to the slaughterhouse.” “But this operation is already powerless to help the Kiev regime, which has now advanced to the stage of post-mortem putrefaction. Nothing could regalvanize its corpse at this point,” the senior official concluded.


Commenting on the Biden administration’s latest request to the US Congress to appropriate another $13 billion in emergency military aid to Kiev, Medvedev noted that, “the enlightened world once again shuddered upon learning of the allocation of tens of meaningless billions of dollars for the zombies from Country 404 (a euphemism for Ukraine – TASS).” At the same time, “the kamikazes stuck in burning Western tanks will not see this [money allocated by Washington],” Medvedev asserted. “They will see nothing but death,” he added. At the same time, the senior official pointed out, this money is very important “for the gerontocratic elite of the US Democratic Party and its lackeys in the EU.” “After all, the myth of the ‘great counteroffensive’ is sustained by the myth of the ‘almighty dollar-based economy,'” he explained.

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“If the US dumps Ukraine, then the Kiev regime would collapse and the blame for that would be laid at the door of the Biden administration”

• How Zelensky ‘Blackmails’ the US – Mercouris (Sp.)

The Kiev regime openly opposes any scenario of a ceasefire in Ukraine and is likely to derail any Western-led peace initiatives, the analyst stressed. “I wouldn’t assess it as a high risk. I would assess it as a certainty,” Mercouris said. “They will do everything they can to disrupt negotiations. They will take steps of that nature. They will try to goad the Russians, as they’ve always been trying to goad the Russians into extreme reactions, which they can then capitalize on to sort of build up opposition to Russia in the West. So there will definitely be trying to do things like that. And of course, they will pull every lever that they can in the United States and Europe with people who are sympathetic to themselves. To disrupt and interfere with the negotiations. They will speak to the Green Party in Germany. They will speak to the political leaders in Britain. They will contact the authorities in Brussels. They will speak to their friends in Congress. They will do everything that they can to disrupt the process,” Mercouris emphasized.

Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky minces no words in chastising those advocating a ceasefire in Ukraine and negotiations with Russia. Kiev regime officials believe that a ceasefire or freezing the conflict would mean only one thing – Russia’s actual victory and Vladimir Putin’s personal triumph. Judging from Podolyak’s earlier statements, the Kiev regime desires nothing less than degrading and dismembering Russia. “[Russia] have to come up with a different name for themselves. They have to shrink in size, they have to change their rhetoric. They have to go to court and so on. I want you and me to consciously understand what our key task is, why we cannot stop in the middle of the road, already realizing what price we are paying for the fact that today it is possible to finally resolve this issue with Russia,” Podolyak said on August 3 in a TV interview.

[..] “That problem with Ukraine, given the mindset that exists in Ukraine, which does have support within Ukrainian society, it’s not just Podolyak and people like him who are talking like that,” Mercouris pointed out. “There are other people in Ukraine who very much take those views. It’s going to be very, very difficult to find any kind of way to get Ukraine to change, to change its stance. The one thing I would say is this: If you’re going to seek a diplomatic outcome to this war, it’s hopeless to think that you can do it by getting Russia and Ukraine to sit down and talk with each other. We came to a point last year when it seemed like that was going to happen, but it’s not going to happen from this point onwards I mean, Ukraine has said too much. It’s rhetorical stance has hardened beyond the point where negotiations are really practical,” the expert explained.

[..] The only possible way out, seen by the analyst, are direct talks between Washington and Moscow with regard to a peace settlement in Ukraine. Plausibly, Ukraine’s extreme dependence now on the United States and on Western powers could help Washington force the Kiev regime into accepting a peace framework agreed between Moscow and Washington. That being said, Ukraine’s excessive dependence on the US and NATO is a double-edged sword, as the Zelensky government has reached the point when it could blackmail the United States. The United States was incredibly unwise to overcommit and overinvest in Ukraine, according to Mercouris. “This is a very interesting point,” the analyst noted. “But again, history to some extent provides the explanation, because dependency actually can increase the leverage of the party that is apparently in that position of dependency.

Because what can happen in that situation is that, of course, if the United States starts to apply pressure, if it dials back economic and military aid, then what it risks in Ukraine is an uncontrolled collapse. It’s only US military and economic aid that is keeping this thing afloat at all. So the very fact that Ukraine is so dependent on the United States gives Ukraine leverage over the United States, because the one thing the United States will not want in Ukraine is an uncontrolled collapse, an uncontrolled collapse which would be blamed on the administration itself.” The Zelensky regime can play on that by reminding Washington that it has already invested too much in the Ukraine proxy war, and therefore it can’t just cut the Kiev regime off. If the US dumps Ukraine, then the Kiev regime would collapse and the blame for that would be laid at the door of the Biden administration, according to the analyst.

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Go talk to the drapes, Joe.

• China Is Run By ‘Bad Folks’ – Biden (RT)

US President Joe Biden has escalated his attacks on Chinese leaders, reportedly telling donors to his re-election campaign that China’s government is run by “bad folks” who may take dangerous actions as their economy teeters on the brink of collapse. Biden claimed on Thursday at a fundraising event in Park City, Utah, that Chinese President Xi Jinping’s government was in “trouble” because Beijing’s economic problems were a “ticking time bomb,” according to multiple media reports. He backed up his assertions with several erroneous claims about China’s economy and demographics. “They got some problems,” Biden told supporters. “That’s not good because when bad folks have problems, they do bad things.”

He falsely stated that China had the “highest unemployment rate going” and more people of retirement age than of working age. He mocked Xi’s signature Belt and Road Initiative as the “debt and noose,” alluding to the loans China provides to developing nations. The remarks were reminiscent of comments Biden made at a similar political event in June, when he referred to Xi as a “dictator.” Chinese officials lodged a formal complaint in Washington and called the insult a “political provocation.” Biden dismissed the controversy when asked at a press briefing about Beijing’s reaction, saying he didn’t think there would be “any real consequence.” At Thursday’s fundraising event, the 80-year-old US president said he wants to have a “rational relationship” with China, adding, “I don’t want to hurt China, but I’m watching.”

He didn’t specify which potential Chinese actions concern him, though US-China tensions over self-governing Taiwan have escalated in the past year. Biden claimed that China’s economic growth has slowed to 2%. Chinese GDP rose at a 5.5% pace in this year’s first half, compared with the US rate of around 2.2%. As Western economies feel the effects of historically high inflation, China is dealing with deflation. The country has more than three times as many people of working age as people 60 and older. China’s unemployment rate is around 5.2%, compared with 6.4% in the Eurozone. Spain and Greece both have double-digit jobless rates.

Biden has made incendiary comments about Xi’s government at a time when his administration is trying to improve strained relations between the world’s two largest economies. His “dictator” remark came just one day after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken concluded a long-awaited visit to China. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and US climate envoy John Kerry later made visits to Beijing. The Utah fundraiser was held at the home of Mark Gilbert, a former US ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa. Donors reportedly had to pay at least $3,300 to attend. Hosts paid $100,000, and guests who contributed at least $50,000 were allowed to speak with Biden and have a picture taken with him. Those paying $10,000 to $25,000 could get a photo with the president.

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Erdogan would love this on his resumé. Peacemaker.

• Türkiye Believes Ukraine Peace Talks ‘Futile’ Without Russia (RT)

Türkiye is convinced that any peace negotiations on Ukraine that do not involve Russia will yield “no results and no solution,” according to the Hurriyet newspaper. Ankara reportedly voiced its position during a meeting on the conflict hosted by Saudi Arabia earlier this month. The summit in Jeddah brought together some 40 nations, represented primarily by security advisers and senior diplomats. The talks, which excluded Russia, failed to yield any tangible results, with participants agreeing only that the UN Charter and Ukraine’s territorial integrity should be respected. Türkiye was represented by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s chief adviser on foreign policy and security, Akif Cagatay Kilic.

During the meeting, Ankara stated its position that “if Russia is not included in the search for a solution, there will be no results and no solution,” according to Hurriyet. The Jeddah talks showed that Türkiye remains the only party that speaks “openly and clearly” with both Kiev and Moscow, the newspaper claimed. Türkiye has strived to become a mediator in the conflict, which broke out in February 2022, from its very early stages. The country hosted direct talks last year between Kiev and Moscow in Istanbul, which yielded a preliminary peace agreement. However, the negotiations ultimately collapsed, with Russia accusing Ukraine of discarding the peace deal immediately after it was initiated.

Ankara also emerged as a key broker behind the so-called Black Sea grain deal. The UN-sponsored agreement lifted a blockade from Ukrainian Black Sea ports, enabling the country to export its agricultural produce. Russia repeatedly criticized the deal, stating that it veered away from its original purpose to send produce to the poorest nations, and ended up benefitting Western countries. Moscow also argued that none of the Russian demands envisioned under the deal, including unblocking its own agriculture and fertilizer exports, or the partial lifting of sanctions affecting the sector, were met. Russia refused to prolong its participation in the initiative in mid-July, de facto re-imposing a blockade on Ukrainian ports.

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Russia gets stronger at the same time that Ukraine weakens.

• Ukraine SitRep: The End Of The Counteroffensive (MoA)

Western media have finally changed course. They are now admitting that the much promoted Ukrainian counter-offensive has failed. In fact, they acknowledge that it never had a chance to win in the first place. The Hill, the Washington Post and CNN now agree that the Ukrainian army will never achieve its aims. That makes it difficult for the Biden administration to get Congress approval for $24 billion in additional ‘aid’ to Ukraine. It does not make sense to pay for a cause that is evidently lost. The Polish President Duda has also acknowledged that the counter-offensive has failed. Relations between Warsaw and Kiev have gotten worse and Polish interests will not allow for more support or active intervention. Nothing has come from the ‘peace conference’ which Saudi Arabia arranged on Ukraine’s behalf.

Despite the onslaught of bad news the Ukrainian army is still trying to take Russian positions in the south and east of Ukraine. But it simply does not have enough in men and material to break through the lines. Even if they would manage to get a local breakthrough there are not enough reserves to push for the necessary follow up. Just one of the NATO trained brigades has still been held back. All others have been mauled in their various deployment zones. In the northeast around Kupyansk the Russians have started their own offensive which has the Ukrainians on the run. Ukraine has ordered the evacuation of the area: A mandatory evacuation has been ordered for the Ukrainian city of Kupyansk and its surrounding areas, as Russia intensified shelling of Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region and claimed to have captured Ukrainian positions near the city on Thursday. But Kupyansk is a Russian city and people refuse to leave.

The Russian campaign is slowly speeding up. As the Ukrainian Strana.news reports (machine translation): “Also in Ukraine, it is recorded that from Kupyansk to Bakhmut, Russia has increased the number of attacks. “Over the past month, the total number of attacks in the Kupyansk, Limansky and Bakhmut directions has grown significantly. In July, during the week there were 6-6.5 thousand attacks, during the last week-9 thousand attacks, ” – said the representative of the National Guard Ruslan Muzychuk.” According to him, the Russian Federation does not experience “shell hunger”. Aviation is also actively used, and over the past few weeks, more than 50 air attacks have been taking place every day, and sometimes more than 80. That is bad news for the Ukrainian side which lacks the reserves to counter the Russian onslaught. There are also less weapons coming in from the West. F-16 fighter jets will be delayed for another nine months due to training issues. Tanks and other material are in short supply.

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Colosseum.

• Musk Reveals New Location For Proposed Fight With Zuckerberg (RT)

Elon Musk has claimed that his much-hyped potential fight against Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg will be held at a historic location in the Italian capital, Rome. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano have “agreed on an epic location” for the bout, Musk tweeted on Friday. According to the billionaire, “everything in camera frame will be Ancient Rome, so nothing modern at all.” He followed the announcement with a one-word tweet reading “Gladiator,” in what appeared to be a reference to Rome’s iconic Colosseum. The amphitheater dates back to the first century AD and hosted centuries of gladiatorial spectacles.

According to Musk, the billionaire-on-billionaire beatdown will be managed by his and Zuckerberg’s respective charitable foundations, rather than leading MMA promotion the UFC, as had initially been suggested. Musk has also said it will be live-streamed on both his and Zuckerberg’s platforms, X (formerly Twitter) and Meta, while proceeds will reportedly go to a veterans’ charity. On Meta’s Twitter-like Threads platform, Zuckerberg initially responded to Musk’s announcement that X would livestream the event by sniping: “Shouldn’t we use a more reliable platform that can actually raise money for charity?”

Musk’s plan to rebrand X as a live-streaming powerhouse failed to launch in May when the live announcement of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination was beset by technical glitches. Musk attempted to shrug off the problems as the result of “strained” servers, even though fewer than half a million people were listening. Musk initially challenged Zuckerberg to a cage match – adding the qualifier “lol” – in June after a follower reminded him that the Facebook billionaire was a trained martial artist. Musk, who bought Twitter last year with the aim of transforming it into an “everything app” along the lines of China’s WeChat, claimed that the world was falling “exclusively under Zuck’s thumb with no other options.” Zuckerberg shocked many – perhaps including Musk – by agreeing to the fight and even pushing to hold it sooner, accusing the Tesla tycoon of not being serious.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Bookstore
https://twitter.com/i/status/1689969234456014849

 

 

Uroplatus
https://twitter.com/i/status/1690031214130823168

 

 

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Debt Rattle April 11 2023

Apr 112023
 
 April 11, 2023  Posted by at 9:05 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  67 Responses »


Paul Cézanne River Bend (Coin de rivière) 1865

 

• The Pentagon Leaks Charade (Pepe Escobar)
• Explosive Pentagon Leak May Be An Insider Job – Reuters (RT)
• Secret Pentagon Documents First Surfaced On Internet In January – WSJ (TASS)
• Leaked Documents A ‘Serious Risk’ – Pentagon (RT)
• What’s Known So Far From The Leaked Intelligence Files (ZH)
• US Military Pilots Apparently Told To Fly Farther From Crimea – WaPo (RT)
• US Spying On Zelensky – CNN (RT)
• Leaked Pentagon Documents: Scenarios For Israeli Arms Pipeline To Kiev (TASS)
• Ukrainian Air Defense Missiles To Run Out By May – WSJ (RT)
• Zelensky Losing Control Of Intelligence Agents – Media (RT)
• The Future of US Nuclear Strategy (Scott Ritter)
• London Wants To ‘Scorch’ Ukraine Earth With Uranium Shells – Zakharova (TASS)
• The Tik Tok President (SN)
• India and China To Drive Half Of World’s Economic Growth – IMF (RT)
• Musk Responds To Criticism Over Medvedev Tweet (RT)
• Lawmaker Proposes To Unblock Twitter In Russia (TASS)
• A Nervous Hiatus (Jim Kunstler)
• The Three Most Important Lessons from Three Years of Hell (Kory)

 

 

 

 

We must win

 

 

 

 

WEF

 

 

 

 

Zelenko

 

 

Lacalle

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lots about the leaked files today, inevitably. Are they real? Who leaked them? What does it mean that they were first leaked 3 months ago? Why didn’t anyone say something then? Let’s start with Pepe.

“It oozes the impression it was redacted based on open data, and not actual intel. And all that packaged by some quite shoddy work.”

• The Pentagon Leaks Charade (Pepe Escobar)

The script reads like a spoof straight out of legendary Mad magazine 1960’s cartoon “Spy vs. Spy”: Secret Pentagon Documents Fall in the Hands of Malign Russia. Well, actually in the hands of millions accessing Twitter and Telegram. So here, at face value, we have a major leak essentially detailing Pentagon planning for the next stage of the NATO vs. Russia proxy war in Ukraine: the interminably debated Spring “counter-offensive” that may, or may not, start in mid-April, as well as war plans shared with FVEY – the Five Eyes. The leaked intel might – and the operative word is “might” – be advantageous to Russia were this not to be misdirection: and the possibility is quite real.

The inestimable Ray McGovern, who knows one or two things about the CIA, noted whether the Pentagon is “falsifying kill-ratio to gild Easter lilies in Kyiv? Recent leak of an apparently official NATO document shows 71,500 Ukrainians KIA and only 16,000 to 17,500 Russians, a far cry from earlier Pentagon ‘estimates’. All sounds so Vietnam-déjà vu!” So this may be Vietnam all over again – never count on the Pentagon learning from their mistakes – but could be something way more alarming, according to a top Beltway intel source, retired: “Our interpretation of this breach is that intel sources in the United States have released critical intel data in order to avoid a nuclear war with Russia.”

As it stands, the only certainty is that the spin war has gone berserk. So the leaker may have been a – disgruntled – U.S. insider. No, wait: the whole thing may be fake, as the Pentagon insists. In spin speak, that would be an attempt to “spread false information that could harm the U.S.”. Tweaked or not, the “secret” Pentagon comparative war dead ratio between Russians and Ukrainians still does not make sense. The numbers appear to reflect Bakhmut/Artemovsk casualties, where Russian casualty ratios were highest. Yet reliable on the ground Russian military correspondents assure the ratio is really 10 to 1, with the Russians employing the snail technique combined with a formidable artillery mincing machine.

[..] From the point of view of valuable military information, the indispensable Andrei Martyanov summed it all up: these “documents” contain none, apart from confirming that the Pentagon is absolutely clueless on the SMO: why is it happening, what is the modus operandi and what it plans to achieve. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov did cut to the chase: “We don’t have the slightest doubt about direct or indirect involvement of the U.S. and NATO (…) it cannot influence the final outcome of the special operation.” As Martyanov stresses, Russia maneuvers an extremely advanced ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) complex, including human intel on the ground, electronic warfare and satellite constellations: “In terms of war correlates and combat statistics – I wouldn’t touch anything coming from Pentagon with a long stick.”


There are indeed several serious issues with the Pentagon “top secret” intel. It oozes the impression it was redacted based on open data, and not actual intel. And all that packaged by some quite shoddy work. For instance, the insistence to “re-equip” Ukrainian air defense with missiles is not supported by data on where such missiles will be coming from. The name of the NASAMS – the middle range, ground based air defense system co-developed by Raytheon – is misspelled. In official NATO documents, weapons from the USSR and from Russia are indicated in NATO codification. There is no style uniformity: it’s a messy mix of official code designations and transliterations from Russian into English.

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They range from a “disgruntled employee to an insider threat who actively wanted to undermine US national security interests..”

Couldn’t have been someone who doesn’t like the risk of a nuclear war…

• Explosive Pentagon Leak May Be An Insider Job – Reuters (RT)

The Pentagon suspects that a US citizen rather than a foreigner may have been responsible for the apparent leak of classified information containing several bombshell revelations, Reuters has reported. Officials offered several explanations of what may have motivated the leaker. Photos of documents appearing to originate from the Pentagon, with many marked as highly classified, were posted online in March. However, Western media reported that they may be authentic only last week. There are four of five theories on why the person or the group behind the leak did it, one of the US officials interviewed by Reuters said on condition of anonymity. They range from a “disgruntled employee to an insider threat who actively wanted to undermine US national security interests,” the news agency said on Sunday. Part of the ongoing investigation focuses on looking into how widely intelligence is shared internally to limit the sample of possible culprits, according to the sources.


Reuters stressed that it could not independently authenticate the leaked materials. US investigators claimed they could not rule out that some of the documents could have been doctored to mislead the inquiry or to disseminate false information. Media outlets produced a number of explosive reports based on the leak, some of which indicate that the US is spying on its closest allies, such as South Korea or Israel. One story asserted that the Israeli spy agency Mossad was fueling protests against Benjamin Netanyahu, a claim that the serving prime minister rejected as false. Several of the documents purportedly show the Pentagon’s perception of and actions regarding the conflict in Ukraine. The Ukrainian president, Vladimir Zelensky, was one of the targets of US espionage, CNN has reported. Another story by The Washington Post claimed that in late September 2022 Russia “almost shot down” a British spy plane.

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Wait. They’re 3 months old?! What happened in the meantime?

• Secret Pentagon Documents First Surfaced On Internet In January – WSJ (TASS)

The classified Pentagon and US intelligence documents that recently appeared on the Internet first surfaced online in January, weeks before setting off alarms in the international community, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. According to the newspaper, the documents were posted “to a small group on a messaging channel that trafficked in memes, jokes and racist talk.” In January, an anonymous member of the chat posted files containing info on the Ukrainian conflict and intercepted messages on US allies, including Israel and South Korea, most of which were marked as classified. Hundreds of documents remained available to a narrow group of users of the Discord platform until early last month, when one of them posted some files to platforms with a wider audience. As soon as the leaked files attracted wider attention, the users rushed to delete their accounts and wipe the servers, fearing prosecution by US authorities or scrutiny from foreign intelligence agencies, the WSJ added.


US media reported earlier that the departments of Defense and Justice were investigating a leak of secret documents revealing American and NATO plans to build up Ukrainian forces before a counteroffensive. Numerous tranches of documents disclosing sensitive information about weapons delivery timeframes and troop strengths were posted on Twitter and Telegram. On Friday, the New York Times reported that another batch of classified US documents on Ukraine had been leaked on the Internet. The materials include sensitive briefing slides on the Middle East and China, the newspaper said. Those documents that appeared on the Internet may have been doctored, Reuters said. According to the news agency, the leak is seen as one of the biggest breaches of secret data since more than 700,000 documents, videos and diplomatic cables were released through WikiLeaks in 2013.

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“..the photos circulating on various social media platforms “appear to show documents similar in format to those used to provide daily updates to our senior leaders..”

• Leaked Documents A ‘Serious Risk’ – Pentagon (RT)

In the first official comment on the online publication of classified military intelligence documents, a spokesman for the US Department of Defense said on Monday that this represented a “very serious risk” to Washington. The documents pose “a very serious risk to national security and have the potential to spread disinformation,” Chris Meagher told reporters. A Pentagon team is working to assess whether the documents are genuine, but the photos circulating on various social media platforms “appear to show documents similar in format to those used to provide daily updates to our senior leaders on Ukraine and Russia-related operations, as well as other intelligence updates,” Meagher added, while insisting that some “appear to have been altered.”

While the initial revelations concerned the Ukraine conflict, the latest batch of files that appeared on Friday contained information about China, South Korea, the “Indo-Pacific military theater,” the Middle East, counter-terrorism operations, and Israel. “We’re still investigating how this happened, as well as the scope of the issue,” Meagher said, adding that “there have been steps to take a closer look at how this type of information is distributed and to whom.” The crackdown has restricted the flow of intelligence at the Pentagon and indicates “a high level of panic” at the military, the Washington Post reported over the weekend, citing anonymous sources inside the DoD. One official told Reuters there were four or five theories as to who could have been a source, ranging from a “disgruntled employee to an insider threat.”

Both Russia and Ukraine have brushed off the documents’ significance. According to the Kremlin, Moscow has long known about Washington’s direct involvement in the conflict. Meanwhile, Russian military analysts speculated the information in the Pentagon briefings may have been falsified to mislead Russia about the upcoming Ukrainian “spring counteroffensive.” Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s adviser, Mikhail Podoliak, had initially dismissed the documents as fake and accused Russia of spreading disinformation. By Sunday, however, CNN was reporting that Kiev had already changed some of its military plans in response to the revelations. Aleksey Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, tweeted on Monday that there was no “magic date” for the Ukrainian attack, and that it was actually taking place “every day” on the battlefield.

Read more …

More on the way.

• What’s Known So Far From The Leaked Intelligence Files (ZH)

Here are 14 more major revelations contained within the leaked intel document trove based on various media sources:


• Locations of CIA recruitment efforts focused on human agents which have access to closed-door conversations of world leaders
• Russia’s Wagner Group tried to obtain weapons from a NATO member: Turkey. Also, some of the internal future plans of Wagner are apparently known to US intelligence
• Details of sensitive satellite technology used to track Russian forces, namely the “LAPIS time-series video” – described as an advanced satellite system, which up until now has been a closely guarded secret
• Ukraine battlefield assessments prepared by the Pentagon
• The Guardian: “One slide suggested that a small contingent of less than a hundred special operations personnel from NATO members France, America, Britain, and Latvia were already active in Ukraine.”
• Descriptions of intelligence collection activities by the CIA, NSA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, law enforcement agencies and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)
• One Feb. 23 review of the battlefield situation in Ukraine’s Donbas forecasts a “grinding campaign of attrition” by Russia that “is likely heading toward a stalemate, thwarting Moscow’s goal to capture the entire region in 2023.”
• WaPo: “The U.S. intelligence community has penetrated the Russian military and its commanders so deeply that it can warn Ukraine in advance of attacks and reliably assess the strengths and weaknesses of Russian forces.”
• WaPo: “A single page in the leaked trove reveals that the U.S. intelligence community knew the Russian Ministry of Defense had transmitted plans to strike Ukrainian troop positions in two locations on a certain date in February and that Russian military planners were preparing strikes on a dozen energy facilities and an equal number of bridges in Ukraine.”
• WaPo: A summary of analysis from the CIA’s World Intelligence Review, a daily publication for senior policymakers, says that Beijing is likely to view attacks by Ukraine deep inside Russian territory as “an opportunity to cast NATO as the aggressor,” and that China could increase its support to Russia if it felt the attacks were “significant.”
• Ukraine’s robust Soviet-era air defenses — which have thus far minimized the participation of Russian aircraft – could run out of ammunition in next several weeks.
• A purported CIA intelligence update — claims Israel’s Mossad supported protests against Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Supreme Court reform scheme.
• One report says internal discussions show that South Korean officials are wary of requests to hand over artillery shells to the United States to replenish American stockpiles, out of concern they’d end up in Ukraine.
• Another report says that Ukrainian Air Defense is in peril if it’s not reinforced by Western allies

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“The MOD stated that the MQ-9 crashed on its own after going “into uncontrolled flight.”

• US Military Pilots Apparently Told To Fly Farther From Crimea – WaPo (RT)

The US has apparently instructed its military to fly surveillance aircraft much farther from Crimea, Russia than they are allowed by international law, the Washington Post reported on Sunday, citing a leaked Pentagon document. The report comes after a trove of US classified files on the Ukraine conflict was dumped online last week. According to the newspaper, one document contains a map of an area where US spy planes may fly. It reportedly shows a boundary that starts around 12 miles (19.3 km) off the coast of Crimea, which is in accordance with international law, and a second line about 50 miles (80.4 km) from the shore marked as ‘SECDEF Direct Standoff’.

The map indicates that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “may have ordered US pilots to keep aircraft farther from the peninsula,” the Post wrote. On March 14, the US European Command (EUCOM) said Russian fighter jets forced it to bring down its own MQ-9 Reaper surveillance drone that was flying in international airspace above the Black Sea. According to EUCOM, Su-27s dumped fuel on the UAV and one of the Russian planes struck its propeller. The Russian Defense Ministry said the drone had entered a restricted area outlined by Moscow for its military operation in Ukraine.

The MOD stated that the MQ-9 crashed on its own after going “into uncontrolled flight.” Moscow also denied that there was physical contact between the drone and the planes dispatched to intercept it. Last week, the Pentagon and the Department of Justice launched separate probes into the leaks of top-secret files. One document circulating on social media appears to be a daily dispatch from the battlefield and shows the disposition of Ukrainian forces, as well as their training schedule. Another document seen by the Post claims that Russian jets nearly shot down a British reconnaissance aircraft over the Black Sea in September 2022.

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Duh…

• US Spying On Zelensky – CNN (RT)

The US has been spying on Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, CNN reported on Sunday, citing alleged intelligence reports that were leaked online last week. The supposed classified files are related to the Ukraine-Russia conflict, including a daily dispatch from the battlefield. The US allegedly surveilled the Ukrainian leader using signals intelligence, which the National Security Agency defines as communication intercepted from electronic devices. A source close to Zelensky was quoted as saying that the news is “unsurprising,” adding that officials in Kiev are “deeply frustrated” about the leak. According to CNN, a US intelligence report said that in late February, Zelensky “suggested striking Russian deployment locations in Russia’s Rostov Oblast” with drones because Kiev does not have long-range weapons that can hit targets that far.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last year that Kiev promised not to use American-made HIMARS multiple rocket launchers to strike targets deep inside Russia. Several newspapers reported at the time that, in order to avoid additional escalation with Moscow, Washington modified the launchers delivered to Ukraine so they could not fire longer-range projectiles. Drones have been used to attack airfields, oil depots, and other targets inside Russia after Moscow launched its military operation in the neighboring state in February 2022. The Russian Defense Ministry said last month that a Ukrainian modification of a Soviet-made Tu-141 Strizh (Swift) UAV was downed in Tula Region, 250km from the border with Ukraine.

Moscow claims that Kiev has used HIMARS and Western-supplied howitzers to kill civilians in Russia’s newly incorporated territories, which most countries still consider parts of Ukraine. The Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, joined Russia after holding referendums in September. Other leaked documents show that the US has also been spying on state officials in South Korea and Israel, two key allies of Washington. South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s office said Seoul plans to discuss the “issues raised” as a result of the leak with the US. The Israeli government, meanwhile, rejected the “mendacious” claim from a leaked Pentagon document that the country’s intelligence agency, Mossad, was encouraging its staff and citizens to participate in street protests against the planned judicial reform.

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Trying to draw in israel… as China and Russia are uniting the Arab world…

• Leaked Pentagon Documents: Scenarios For Israeli Arms Pipeline To Kiev (TASS)

The classified Pentagon and US intelligence documents that were recently leaked and appeared on the Internet sketch out potential scenarios in which Israel would supply Ukraine with lethal weapons, CNN reported. According to the media outlet, one of the documents, titled “Israel: Pathways to Providing Lethal Aid to Ukraine,” says that the Jewish state “likely will consider providing lethal aid under increased US pressure or a perceived degradation” in its relationship with Russia. NBC News, in turn, specified that a February 28 document assessed hypothetical situations that might drive Israel to provide military aid to Ukraine, as well as the types of weapons that could make up such deliveries to Kiev.

The so-called Turkish model is regarded as the most likely scenario, wherein Israel “sells lethal defense systems or provides them through third-party entities,” while openly advocating for peace and “offering to host mediation efforts.” Under an alternative scenario, Moscow’s support for Iran and Syria may prompt Israel to provide Ukraine with lethal aid. Earlier, Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh stated that the US Department of Defense “continues to review and assess the validity of the photographed documents that are circulating on social media sites.” According to her, “an interagency effort has been stood up, focused on assessing the impact these photographed documents could have on US national security and on our Allies and partners.”

According to Reuters, the leaked documents may have been doctored. They concern plans by the US and NATO to prepare the Ukrainian armed forces for a counteroffensive. Numerous files revealing information about weapons supply schedules and the number of troops were posted, particularly to Twitter and Telegram. The news agency points out that this could be the biggest leak since over 700,000 files, videos and diplomatic cables appeared on the Wikileaks website in 2013.

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“..Ukraine needs 16 Iris-T or NASAMS batteries and 12 Patriot or SAMP-T batteries. US President Joe Biden has authorized the deployment of one Patriot battery, while Germany has pledged another..”

• Ukrainian Air Defense Missiles To Run Out By May – WSJ (RT)

Ukraine will run out of most of its anti-air missiles by May, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing classified Pentagon documents leaked on social media. Facing the prospect of Russian air superiority, Kiev has been asking for more air defense systems from the West for months. According to a purported Pentagon presentation dated February 28, Ukraine is expending around 69 Buk missiles and 200 S-300 missiles per month, the newspaper reported. At this rate of fire, Kiev’s forces will be out of Buk ammunition by the end of this week, and will deplete its S-300 stockpile by May 3, it said. Sourcing missiles for these Soviet-built platforms is proving difficult for Kiev and its Western backers.

In their place, Ukraine has received three German Iris-T and eight American NASAMS anti-air systems. However, these systems consume around 64 missiles per month, and their limited number cannot cover as much territory as Ukraine’s S-300s, according to the document. To cover the shortfall, American military planners reportedly estimate that Ukraine needs 16 Iris-T or NASAMS batteries and 12 Patriot or SAMP-T batteries. US President Joe Biden has authorized the deployment of one Patriot battery, while Germany has pledged another and France and Italy have promised one SAMP-T system. None of these have reached Ukraine yet, a Ukrainian military spokesman told the Wall Street Journal.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has been asking the US and its allies for more air defense systems since last year, calling this equipment his “number one priority.” Zelensky and his aides have also pleaded for Western-made fighter jets like the American F-16, and while some European countries have said they are open to the idea, the US has thus far refused. The Pentagon has not yet confirmed the authenticity of the presentation, which is part of a trove of secret documents leaked and posted on social media over the last week. Other files in the leak detail the US’ war plans in Ukraine, its surveillance of its allies, and other “sensitive” material related to Ukraine, China, the Middle East, and terrorism.

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“..a bunch of rogue elements inside the [Ukrainian] government that are basically doing whatever they want..”

• Zelensky Losing Control Of Intelligence Agents – Media (RT)

The US believes that elements of Ukraine’s intelligence service carried out a cross-border attack on a Russian spy plane in Belarus without approval from the Ukrainian government, Breaking Points journalist Saagar Enjeti reported on Monday, citing leaked documents. The attack saw a drone inflict minor damage to a Russian A-50 early warning and control aircraft stationed at the Machulishchy air base in Belarus last month. Belarusian authorities arrested a number of suspects, one allegedly linked to the Ukrainian secret police organization, the SBU, which Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko accused of orchestrating the attack with help from the CIA. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry “categorically” denied any involvement by Kiev, while Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhail Podoliak blamed the attack solely on “local partisans.”

The Pentagon, however, assessed that the SBU carried out the attack without seeking the approval of President Vladimir Zelensky or his officials, Enjeti said in a video report on Tuesday. The alleged Pentagon documents containing the assessment were leaked on social media last week, and have since received considerable media attention. The report on the plane attack raises the question of “how much control does Zelensky actually have” over his own intelligence apparatus, Enjeti said. “Perhaps this lends credence to the idea that there are a bunch of rogue elements inside the [Ukrainian] government that are basically doing whatever they want,” he continued, citing a string of terrorist attacks within Russia as potential SBU operations. The Kremlin has repeatedly blamed Ukraine and its intelligence services for these attacks, which include the bombing of the Crimean Bridge and the assassinations of journalist Daria Dugina and military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky.

“Whenever Ukraine does something, who is doing it?” Enjeti asked. “Zelensky presents himself as the leader … but obviously there are elements of the government there that don’t listen to him. Who knows what they’re going to drag us into.” The US Department of Defense has not confirmed the authenticity of the leaked documents, although a department spokesman told reporters on Monday that the files posted on social media were “similar in format” to those used in Pentagon briefings and intelligence updates. The leak presents “a very serious risk” to Washington, he added. Other files in the leak detail the US’ war plans in Ukraine, its surveillance of its allies, Kiev’s rapidly depleting ammunition situation, and other “sensitive” material related to Ukraine, China, the Middle East, and terrorism.

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“Any man who draws upon the wisdom and patience displayed by President Kennedy to defuse the Cuban Missile Crisis would be on the right track when it comes to arms control.”

• The Future of US Nuclear Strategy (Scott Ritter)

The harsh reality today is that neither of the two potential sources of viable presidential candidates for the 2024 election — Democratic National Committee or MAGA Republicans — are positioned to effect meaningful, positive change regarding either U.S. nuclear posture or underlying arms control policy. That leaves the American people, and the world as a whole, with the inevitability of a massive nuclear arms race between the U.S. and Russia, which will unfold unconstrained by meaningful arms control treaty-mandated limitations. This is nothing short of a recipe for disaster, a witch’s brew of ignorance-based fear magnified by the lack of inspections designed to mollify concerns over the respective nuclear threats posed by two nations no longer willing to engage in meaningful dialogue and, as a result, perched on the precipice of an apocalyptic abyss.


In short, a vote for either Biden/the Democratic establishment or Trump/MAGA Republicans is a vote in favor of continuous nuclear-armed Russian roulette, where there exists only one certainty — eventually the pistol will go off. But in this case, it’s not a pistol, but a nuclear weapon that leads to general nuclear war and the termination of life on planet earth as we currently know and understand it. The rally held in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 19 provided a platform for some voices of sanity who have presidential potential, either as independent candidates, or rogue outliers within their respective party establishments. Tulsi Gabbard, Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul, and Jimmy Dore all addressed the threat posed by nuclear weapons and the need to control them through meaningful arms control.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1645331162687053824

But none who spoke have put anything in writing that would remotely constitute an arms control “standard” that could compete with either Biden or Trump — or their proxies — on the public stage. Moreover, other than Dore, a comedian, none of these individuals has announced an intention to run, making moot, for the moment at least, the notion of a third option on arms control and American nuclear posture. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, has announced his intention to challenge Biden for the Democratic nomination. While Kennedy, at this juncture, appears to be a long-shot, the likely mental and physical deterioration and possible incapacitation of Biden between now and November 2024, combined with the inadequacy of Vice President Kamala Harris as a presidential candidate, means the Democratic field could be thrown open.


Kennedy’s announcement puts him in position to be either the candidate himself, or to challenge whatever establishment figure the Democratic Party selects for the job. The question is whether Kennedy is willing or able to articulate a new American standard on arms control, one that embraces the best of the Trump Standard without the pugilistic arrogance Trump brings with it. Kennedy has not published a detailed position on arms control and the U.S. nuclear posture. But in a recent conversation with me, he spoke about the legacy of his uncle, Jack Kennedy, and how he took guidance from that legacy. Any man who draws upon the wisdom and patience displayed by President Kennedy to defuse the Cuban Missile Crisis would be on the right track when it comes to arms control.

Ritter US Army

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“The Serbs were the first victims and the Italians second in line, studying how depleted uranium affects the personnel using it..”

• London Wants To ‘Scorch’ Ukraine Earth With Uranium Shells – Zakharova (TASS)

The United Kingdom wants to turn the territory of Ukraine into a “scorched earth” by supplying Kiev with depleted uranium munitions, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said. The diplomat drew attention to statements from the UK Ministry of Defense, which said the day before that the impact of depleted uranium munitions on the health of military personnel and the environment would likely be “small.” “The UK, by supplying depleted uranium munitions to Ukraine, wants to turn its territory into a scorched and desolate land. No Russian will be spoken there, no Ukrainian will be spoken there, there will only be silence. Like in Pripyat and Chernobyl,” she wrote on her Telegram channel on Monday.

Zakharova recalled that depleted uranium munitions were mass-produced and used in NATO operations. “To a large extent, operations with such munitions in the NATO contingent were carried out by Italian servicemen. <…> Italian soldiers’ area of responsibility in Yugoslavia included territories where more than half of all the depleted uranium munitions were fired,” she added. “The Serbs were the first victims and the Italians second in line, studying how depleted uranium affects the personnel using it,” Zakharova said. She pointed to the growing number of lawsuits filed by Italians against the country’s defense ministry. “The underlying reason is the same – cancer. Cancer from handling depleted uranium munitions,” she said.

British Parliamentary Secretary of State Baroness Annabel Goldie said in a written response to a question by a member of the House of Lords in March that the United Kingdom would supply Ukraine with shells containing depleted uranium and having increased efficiency in destroying armored vehicles. The British Defense Ministry described depleted uranium as a standard component of armor-piercing ammunition, which has been used for decades. Commenting on the decision of the British authorities, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia would be forced to respond accordingly to the fact that “the West is already starting to use weapons with a nuclear component.” The Russian embassy in the UK warned London against transferring depleted uranium ammunition to Kiev. The diplomatic mission’s commentary stressed that the move was fraught with an escalation of the conflict, while the use of such munitions in Ukraine would affect the health of the local population.

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“The White Host brought more than a dozen influencers to a State of Union watch party and was asked by one “when are we going to get press briefing passes?”

• The Tik Tok President (SN)

According to an Axios report, Joe Biden’s campaign team is readying an “Army” of social media influencers and intends to station them within a briefing room at the White House. Biden’s handlers have apparently decided that the only way he’s going to win another election against Donald Trump is by securing the youth vote, a tough task given that he’s the oldest President ever. Deputy chief of staff Jen O’Malley Dillon said, “We’re trying to reach young people, but also moms who use different platforms to get information and climate activists and people whose main way of getting information is digital.” Going after the brainwashed Tik Tok obsessed woke crowd then, essentially. The report further notes that in February The White Host brought more than a dozen influencers to a State of Union watch party and was asked by one “when are we going to get press briefing passes?” prompting the administration to become “actually very responsive to it.” It’s like something out of Idiocracy:

Biden’s handlers have done this before, back in March last year they hosted around 30 TikTok stars and gave them a briefing on events in Ukraine. White House director of digital strategy, Rob Flaherty decried that the influencers should be getting information from “an authoritative source.” The news also comes amid revelations that George Soros’ son is a regular visitor to the White House, having been invited 14 times since Biden took office. Why? As we highlighted last week, Biden is drowning with voters on every issue, and only one third want to see him win another term. When it comes to Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents, a majority, 54 percent, said they would prefer a different candidate, with only 44 percent giving approval of Biden as the nominee. Among voters under the age of 35, Biden is favoured as a candidate by just 26 percent

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It won’t come from the EU. Or the US.

• India and China To Drive Half Of World’s Economic Growth – IMF (RT)

The global economic slowdown will continue this year, but Asia will remain “a bright spot,” says the International Monetary Fund (IMF). India and China will account for half of the global growth, with “some momentum” expected to come from emerging economies, according to IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva. The IMF chief forecast the world’s economy to grow at less than 3% in 2023, in line with the fund’s January estimate of 2.9%. Georgieva said the pattern would remain over the next five years, since the period of slower economic activity should be prolonged. She stated that the projections represent the IMF’s “lowest medium-term growth forecast since 1990, and [are] well below the average of 3.8% from the past two decades.”


Some 90% of advanced economies are expected to witness a decline in their growth rates in 2023, Georgieva said. She also said that low-income nations were being handicapped by sluggish demand for their exports, with their per-capita income growth remaining below that of emerging economies. According to IMF projections, poverty and hunger, which measurably increased during the Covid-19 pandemic, could still grow further. Georgieva’s comments come ahead of this week’s spring meetings of the IMF and the World Bank, where policy-makers will convene to discuss the global economy’s most pressing issues.

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“All news is to some degree propaganda. Let people decide for themselves..”

• Musk Responds To Criticism Over Medvedev Tweet (RT)

Twitter CEO Elon Musk has rejected calls to crack down on the account of former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev after the latter posted that Ukraine would eventually vanish from the world map. One user asked the billionaire why he allowed “Russian leaders back on the platform” and why he did not abide by the Western sanctions while attaching Medvedev’s tweet. In a post, the ex-Russian president claimed that Ukraine would sooner or later disappear because neither the global community nor its own citizens have a need for it. “All news is to some degree propaganda. Let people decide for themselves,” Musk replied on Sunday. Later, he also tweeted that the social media platform “will neither promote nor limit their [Russian officials’] accounts, but we will rapidly address any attempts at gaming the system.”


“It is a weak move to engage in censorship just because others do so. Letting our press be free when theirs is not demonstrates strength,” he added. In April 2022, after Moscow started its military campaign against Ukraine, Twitter slapped restrictions on Russian state-affiliated accounts, including the Kremlin official account. At the time, the social media platform said it would “not amplify or recommend government accounts belonging to states that limit access to free information and are engaged in armed interstate conflict.” Russia blocked Twitter in early March 2022 after the nation’s media watchdog, Roskomnadzor, accused the platform of spreading misinformation about the Ukraine conflict.

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“I think it’s time to review this measure, given the new policies of the new leadership..”

• Lawmaker Proposes To Unblock Twitter In Russia (TASS)

Anton Gorelkin, deputy head of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, suggested looking into the possibility of unblocking Twitter in Russia after the social network reinstated the accounts of a number of Russian state agencies. On Friday, Twitter once again restored the accounts of the Kremlin, the Russian Foreign Ministry, the Defense Ministry and other ministries, as well as Russian embassies abroad. “As for lifting restrictions on government agencies, many of them are in no hurry to reactivate their accounts, especially since Twitter is officially blocked in Russia. But I think it’s time to review this measure, given the new policies of the new leadership,” the lawmaker wrote on his Telegram channel on Monday.


According to him, if the social network is now aimed at neutrality, it is necessary to resume dialogue with it and continue working within the framework of the legislation of the Russian Federation. “For our government departments, Twitter can once again become a convenient platform to explain Russia’s position to Western audiences,” Gorelkin added. Access to twitter.com was restricted in Russia by order of the Prosecutor General’s Office dated February 24 [2022] .

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“..they are carrying out plans that were made years ago when conditions and assumptions were different. Those plans have implacable momentum. You can see how all this is going to end badly.”

• A Nervous Hiatus (Jim Kunstler)

[..] my more pertinent point du jour is about the journey from where I live in upstate New York to Washington DC and back. I made the trip by car because the affordable airplane routes all involved absurd hours-long connecting layovers in far-flung cities at fantastic prices, and there were no seats left on the soviet-grade Amtrak train service at any times that worked. It’s been a while since I traveled the New York to Washington corridor on-the-ground in a car, and the experience was maximally horrifying. The various Departments of Transportation of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland are working out there at heroic scale to upgrade their stretches of the interstate highways involved. The amount of concrete, steel, and asphalt getting laid down now boggles the mind, considering the essential bankruptcy at all levels of government. But more to point, they are doing this at the very time when the age of mass-motoring is drawing to close.

Government itself is now militating against it, with its poorly thought-out crusade against the internal combustion engine and its promotion of electric cars that Americans can’t afford to buy, while the electric grid can’t possibly support all that proposed battery-charging at the mass scale. (Let’s leave aside for now whatever nefarious influence the World Economic Forum exerts on all this). In any case, the standard of living is crashing in Western Civ now. Incomes are down, or lost altogether, inflation is up, and with it the price of cars. The car industry has reached its limit for trick loan schemes that enable the tapped-out middle-class to regularly replace their vehicles. Not to put too fine a point on it, the system is fucked.And yet, here we are, building ever more motoring infrastructure as if none of this is happening. The reason, naturally, is that immense bureaucracies like the DOTs have minds of their own. They are not responding to conditions as they are; they are carrying out plans that were made years ago when conditions and assumptions were different. Those plans have implacable momentum. You can see how all this is going to end badly.

Now, I planned my return trip with a layover night outside Philadelphia, so I could leave before the crack-of-dawn Easter Sunday, when few other cars would be on the road. That proved to be the case. But even nearly alone on the highway, and with pretty good navigational skills of my own, plus the help of GPS, I made several wrong turns. This was mostly because the signage contradicted the lady robot’s voice issuing instructions, as well as my own geographical heuristics, especially in the long stretch north up the whole length of New Jersey. There were a few times I felt I barely escaped getting killed making last-second turns. There were extended moments when I thought: I’m in Hell.

Anyway, I made it home alive and undamaged. I’d never want to do that trip again, and the way things are going, I may not have to. The Easter holiday was a strange hiatus in a year that promises fantastic turbulence in public affairs, including especially American politics and our wobbling economy. Financial markets and banks managed to levitate through the first weeks of springtime, but there is a bad odor of imminent failure in the air, at the same time that government’s war against its own citizens shows signs of hardening into the threat of digital currency, renewed efforts at censorship, persecution of political opponents, and a growing awareness of “vaccine” caused death. The natives are restless, the animals are stirring. Events creep toward criticality.

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“This risk of a treatment is unprecedented in the history of modern medicine.”

• The Three Most Important Lessons from Three Years of Hell (Kory)

Three years after COVID-19 hijacked the world, Hollywood celebrities are mocking the vaccine on “Saturday Night Live,” Bernie Sanders is hauling Moderna’s CEO before Congress, and a member of the Kennedy family is launching a primary challenge to President Joe Biden by railing on the vaccines that the White House continues to promote. How times have changed. In 3 short years, many perspectives dismissed as “fringe” or “anti-science” in 2020 have become obvious and even mainstream. As a doctor whose livelihood has been threatened for challenging some of these points of view, these developments give me no pleasure. Wherever else we may disagree, we must look to the future and prepare for the next public health emergency. Here are three places to start.


First, when a crisis hits, public health leaders should prioritize transparency and promote open debate. Throughout the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) restricted the flow of information and only published data that supported its narrow political objectives. But as we’ve seen, facts will eventually come to light, and the cover-up is always worse than the crime. Nowhere is this principle clearer than the origins of the COVID virus. Dr. Anthony Fauci is still saying it’s “very tough to tell” if the FBI and Energy Department are correct about the lab-leak theory. He is standing by his claims of “natural occurrence,” and lashing out at those who disagree as “insane.” Fortunately, his days of running amok with no accountability are over. The House of Representatives voted 419-0 to force the Biden administration to declassify all information about COVID’s origins. Former CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield has called for a moratorium on gain-of-function research. These are two important places to start.

24,000 pages
https://twitter.com/i/status/1645578142923345925

Second, don’t pretend there is a silver bullet. Complex public health problems demand complex solutions — every time. Biden, Fauci, and crew hung their entire COVID strategy on lockdowns followed by vaccines. In doing so, they made promises they could not keep and used absurd claims — like CDC Director Dr. Walensky insisting that vaccinated people couldn’t spread COVID or even get sick — to force an agenda that only set Americans against one another. Of course, Walensky was forced to admit she was wrong on this (and plenty more). Yet the US still requires international visitors to be vaccinated against COVID-19, and the world number one tennis player (Novak Djokovic), my favorite athlete, cannot enter our country to participate in upcoming tournaments. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis deserves credit for suggesting he could “run a boat from the Bahamas” for Djokovic to compete in the Miami Open tennis tournament that took place month, but it should not come to that. There are other options to treat COVID, including repurposing existing generic drugs. This is no longer a fringe cause. Russell Brand generated national headlines for taking the mainstream media to task for dismissing drugs like ivermectin, which have been promoted by the likes of Joe Rogan and Aaron Rodgers.


Third, policymakers must recognize that snap crisis decisions can leave people hurt. No one expects a perfect public response, but there must be safety net for those who get caught up in the single-minded approach. Consider vaccine associated enhanced disease (VAED), the ghastly scenario where a vaccine not only fails to prevent transmission but creates a more serious illness in a vaccinated person than one who is unvaccinated. According to the CDC’s “V-safe” safety monitoring system, 33 percent of people who received a COVID vaccine experienced severe adverse effects, and 7.7 percent have required hospitalization. I have never in my career prescribed any medicine or administered any therapy which even came close to a 1 percent risk of requiring medical attention as a result of that therapy. This risk of a treatment is unprecedented in the history of modern medicine.

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BBee

 

 

SNL

 

 


This is a 200 kilogram preserved blue whale heart

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1645666609141538816

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Photographer Wu Yung-sen has been deep sea diving and photographing marine life for four years. On a recent blackwater dive—unable to see the bottom and surrounded by impenetrable space—he chanced upon a rare larval Wunderpus octopus, totally transparent

 

 

Monkey tree frog

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle May 18 2022

May 182022
 
 May 18, 2022  Posted by at 8:52 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  54 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Young girl throwing a rock 1931

 

• After the NATO War is Over (Batiushka)
• The War in Ukraine. Scott Ritter’s Switcheroo (Whitney)
• Fate Of Hundreds Of Ukrainian Soldiers Unclear As Azovstal Resistance Ends (G.)
• ‘Defenders of Mariupol Are The Heroes Of Our Time’ (G.)
• ‘Conflict Observatory’ to Document Evidence of Russian War Crimes (Celente)
• McConnell Says Congress Hopes to Approve Sweden’s NATO Bid by August (ET)
• EU Diplomat: ‘We Are Reaching Our Limits With Sanctions Against Russia’ (Euractiv)
• Orbán Warns West is Subjecting Itself to “Suicide Waves” of Decline (SN)
• Putin: EU Oil Sanctions “Economic Suicide” Ordered By “American Overlords” (ZH)
• Over 120,000 Hunter Biden Emails Uploaded To Searchable Database (ZH)
• ‘The Real President Is Whoever Controls The Teleprompter’ – Musk (Fox)

 

 


Manhattan Project

 

 

Stella

 

 

Mercouris

 

 

“Just days ago it was announced that Russia expects record grain production this year (130 million tonnes). Russia may yet demand payment in roubles for all this as well.”

• After the NATO War is Over (Batiushka)

Make no mistake about it: The tragic war that is currently taking place on Ukrainian battlefields is not between the Russian Federation and the Ukraine, but between the Russian Federation and the US-controlled NATO. The latter, also called ‘the collective West’, promotes an aggressive ideology of organised violence, a politically- economically- and militarily-enforced doctrine euphemistically known as ‘Globalism’. This means hegemony by the Western world, which arrogantly calls itself ‘the international community’, over the whole planet. NATO is losing that war, which uses NATO-trained Ukrainians as its proxy cannon fodder, in three spheres, political, economic and military.

Firstly, politically, the West has finally understood that it cannot execute regime change in Moscow. Its pipedream of replacing the highly popular President Putin with is CIA stooge Navalny is not going to happen. As for the West’s puppet-president in Kiev, he is only a creature of Washington and its oligarchs. A professional actor, he is unable to speak for himself, but is a spokesman for the NATO which he loves. Secondly, economically, the West faces serious resistance to the 6,000 sanctions it has imposed on Russia and Russians. Those sanctions have backfired. In the West, we can testify to this every time we buy fuel or food. The combination of high inflation (10% +) and even higher energy prices, caused almost solely by these illegal anti-Russian sanctions, are threatening the collapse of Western economies, much more than threatening Russia or China.

As a result of this reverse effect of sanctions against Russia, the rouble is at a three-year high, standing at about 64 to the US dollar and rising, though immediately after the sanctions it had briefly gone down to 150 to the dollar. After strenuously denying that they would do it, already most countries in Europe (at least 17 for now), including Germany and Italy, have agreed to open accounts with Gazprombank, as Russia advised them to do and to pay for oil and gas in roubles. And this number is growing by the week. The problems will be even greater with food shortages, as the world food chain is highly integrated and the agricultural production of Russia and the Ukraine (now controlled by Russia) is at least 40% of the world’s grain production. Just days ago it was announced that Russia expects record grain production this year (130 million tonnes). Russia may yet demand payment in roubles for all this as well.

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I had not see this when I wrote my piece yesterday. A curious turn around.

• The War in Ukraine. Scott Ritter’s Switcheroo (Whitney)

On Sunday, the foreign policy blogs were abuzz with the news that Scott Ritter had done “an about-face in his assessment of the war”. It appears that the ex-Marine had examined recent developments in Ukraine and concluded that it’s going to be much harder for Russia to win than he had originally thought… Naturally, the news of Ritter’s reversal sent shockwaves across the internet, especially among the people who follow events in Ukraine closely and who greatly admire his even-handed analysis. Some of these people clearly felt betrayed by Ritter’s comments and blasted him as a “concern troll” which refers to a person who feigns sympathy while actually feeling the opposite. This is a terrible way to treat a guy who’s devoted so much of his time to informing people about an issue of which they might know very little without his research. Besides, Ritter is no hypocrite. Quite the contrary.

It’s fair to say, however, that Ritter has probably been the most outspoken proponent of the “Russia is winning” theory, a hypothesis that runs counter to everything we read in the legacy media or see on the cable news channels. Unfortunately, Ritter’s views on the matter have changed dramatically, and that’s due almost entirely to developments on the ground. As Ritter candidly admits, “The military aid the west is providing to Ukraine is changing the dynamic and if Russia doesn’t find a way to address this meaningfully… the conflict will never end.” That’s quite a turnaround from a statement he made just weeks earlier that, “Russia is winning the war, and winning it decisively.” So, what changed? What are the so-called developments that led to Ritter’s volte-face?

Here are a few excerpts from the interview that triggered the fracas. Ritter was joined by Ray McGovern and host Garland Nixon on Saturday Morning Live. (The quotes are copied from video. I accept blame for any mistakes.) Scott Ritter (start at 47:50 minute mark) — “The thing that frustrates me… is that, it was my assessment that it would be very hard for Ukraine to absorb this new equipment and material (Material– the additional lethal weapons that have recently been shipped to Ukraine) but the howitzers are already operating against Russia. (And) They are having an effect in the Kharkov region. Not all 90 of them, but they have several batteries in place that are being used. How did this happen?

And this is why I have radically changed my overall assessment, because I had been operating on the assumption that Russia would be able to interdict the vast majority of this equipment, but Russia has shown itself unable or unwilling to do this and– as a result– the Ukrainians are having meaningful impact on the battlefield. Not in the areas of main contention, like the Donbass, but on the periphery. This is why Russia has carried out tactical withdrawals north of Kharkov, because in order to match Ukraine’s best capabilities, Russia would have to divert resources from its main effort which Russia has decided not to do. So, they are re-configuring the battlefield. (trading land in different areas)…

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The Guardian. Rewriting history. Update: “959 Ukrainian soldiers surrendered at Azovstal since Monday: Russian ministry”

• Fate Of Hundreds Of Ukrainian Soldiers Unclear As Azovstal Resistance Ends (G.)

The fate of hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers who have ended weeks of resistance at the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol remains unclear, after the fighters surrendered and were transferred to Russian-controlled territory. Ukraine’s deputy defence minister said they would be swapped in a prisoner exchange, but some Russian officials said on Tuesday they could be tried and even executed. MPs in Russia’s State Duma said they would propose new laws that could derail prisoner exchanges of fighters who Moscow claims are “terrorists”. Russian investigators have said they plan to interrogate the soldiers and could charge them with “crimes committed by the Ukrainian regime against the civilian population in south-east Ukraine”.

On Tuesday evening, seven buses carrying Ukrainian soldiers left the Azovstal plant in the port city and arrived at a former prison colony in the Russian-controlled town of Olenivka in Donetsk, Reuters reported. Russia called the Azovstal operation a mass surrender, while the Ukrainian army said the soldiers defending the steel plant had “performed their combat task” and that the main goal was now to save their lives. For weeks, hundreds of troops have been holed up in a warren of tunnels and bunkers underneath the steelworks, as Russian forces took control of the rest of the city after turning much of it into an uninhabitable wasteland. Many of those stuck at Azovstal had serious injuries, with limited medical care and dwindling supplies.

In the last few weeks, civilians who had also taken cover in the plant were rescued after a deal was brokered by the International Committee of the Red Cross to allow them to leave for Ukrainian-controlled territory. Ukraine had been pushing for a deal that would also allow the fighters to retreat to Ukrainian-controlled areas, or for their evacuation to a neutral country. However, with that not forthcoming, Ukrainian officials announced in the early hours of Tuesday that the defence of the plant was in effect over. Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, promised that the fighters who surrendered would be treated “in accordance with international standards”, but this was immediately undermined by statements from two other Russian officials.

Leonid Slutsky, a Russian MP who took part in negotiations with Ukraine earlier in the war, suggested Russia should lift its moratorium on the death penalty for fighters from the Azov regiment, one of the main forces defending the steelworks, calling them “animals in human form”. “Nazi criminals should not be exchanged,” said Vyacheslav Volodin, one of Russia’s most powerful officials and the chair of the State Duma, during a speech on Tuesday. “Our country treats those who surrendered or were captured humanely. But with regards to Nazis, our position should be unchanged: these are war criminals and we must do everything so that they stand trial.”

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More Guardian. What is wrong with these people?

• ‘Defenders of Mariupol Are The Heroes Of Our Time’ (G.)

Cut off from the world and low on food and ammunition, many of the hundreds of defenders of the Azovstal steel plant in Mauripol were wounded, some missing limbs. Their capitulation had been inevitable for weeks. That moment came late on Monday as more than 260 – bearded, filthy, emaciated, and including 51 severely injured – laid down their arms and were evacuated amid a wider concession of defeat after 82 days of fighting in the besieged port city. “The ‘Mariupol’ garrison has fulfilled its combat mission,” the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said in a statement. “The supreme military command ordered the commanders of the units stationed at Azovstal to save the lives of the personnel … Defenders of Mariupol are the heroes of our time,” it added.


And while several hundred fighters remained inside the plant, their commanders admitted their mission had “concluded” while officials continued with negotiations to “evacuate them”. Late on Monday, five buses carrying troops from Azovstal were seen arriving in nearby Russian-controlled Novoazovsk. In one, marked with a Z like many Russian military vehicles in Ukraine, men were stacked on stretchers on three levels. In a long-denied victory for the Kremlin, a battle that has gripped the world’s attention appeared finally over, leaving a city in ruins and perhaps thousands of civilians dead. With its urban areas sprawling along the coastline of the Sea of Azov in the shape of a comma, the siege of Mariupol came to define one of the most brutal episodes in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.

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“Wouldn’t it be worthwhile for the department to set up another website devoted to allegations of war crimes committed under the Obama, Clinton, Bush, and Biden administrations in Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, and Syria?”

• ‘Conflict Observatory’ to Document Evidence of Russian War Crimes (Celente)

The U.S. State Department announced the launch of the “Conflict Observatory” program that will document evidence of war crimes committed by Russian troops during the Ukraine War to use in possible future prosecutions. The intention of the program is to “capture, analyze, and make widely available evidence of Russian-perpetrated war crimes and other atrocities in Ukraine,” the statement read. The website will share this “documentation to help refute Russia’s disinformation efforts and shine a light on abuses.” “This new Conflict Observatory program is part of a range of U.S. government efforts at both national and international levels designed to ensure future accountability for Russia’s horrific actions,” a statement read. Wired reported that outside organizations, and international investigators would be able access the program’s database.

Ned Price the State Department spokesperson, told reporters on Tuesday that the program is important because “no country – no matter how large, how potentially powerful, what types of weapons they may have in their arsenal – can escape accountability for the types of atrocities that we have seen Russia’s forces perpetrate against the Ukrainian people.” Ukraine has accused Russian forces of atrocities and said it has identified more than 10,000 possible war crimes, Reuters reported. “However long it takes, those responsible for war crimes and other atrocities in Ukraine will be brought to justice. A new, publicly available Conflict Observatory will collect open-source evidence for future prosecutions,” he tweeted later.

ConflictObservatory.org resembles a news site. One of the headlines read, “Evidence of Widespread and Systemic Bombardment of Ukrainian Healthcare Facilities.” The Yale Humanitarian Research Lab, which is part of the effort, along with Esri, Alcis, and Quiet Professionals LLC, reported that it identified 22 healthcare facilities in Ukraine “that sustained damage from apparent Russia-aligned bombardment between 24 February and 29 March 2022.” “The HRL verified damage through cross-corroboration of very high resolution satellite imagery and open source information. Based on a review of nearly 300 facilities across five cities and regions, the HRL has concluded that Russia-aligned forces have engaged in widespread and systematic bombardment of Ukrainian healthcare facilities.”

[..] NBC News published a report in April that challenged Washington’s claim that Russia was planning a chemical attack against Ukrainian forces, with one unnamed official going as far as to say that the claim was an effort by the U.S. to get into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s head. The report cited three U.S. officials who said there is no evidence that Russia is planning a chemical attack against Ukraine. While the mainstream media has generally ignored the latest D.C. lies, Antiwar.org was the first to point out the contradiction in the NBC News report that included a U.S. official who said the intelligence tied to chemical weapons was not “rock solid.” So the State Department wants to create a website built on evidence that is not rock solid? Wouldn’t it be worthwhile for the department to set up another website devoted to allegations of war crimes committed under the Obama, Clinton, Bush, and Biden administrations in Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, and Syria? Don’t hold your breath.

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Who benefits? Not Finland and Sweden, they’re just painting targets on their own backs. Raytheon for the win.

• McConnell Says Congress Hopes to Approve Sweden’s NATO Bid by August (ET)

“We hope to approve it before August,” he said. “We are confident it will be approved.” McConnell also shared a statement on Monday following his visit to both Sweden and Finland where he reiterated his support for both nations joining NATO, stating that both would “bring tremendous value as new NATO members and would strengthen the alliance significantly.” “Sweden and Finland already have long track records as two of the United States and NATO’s most capable friends and partners, even from outside the alliance,” the Senate Republican leader said. “Both countries have massive geographic importance, professional and well-equipped armed forces, strong military industrial bases, and significant interoperability with U.S. and NATO forces. Both nations’ robust commitments to defense funding mean that their accession would directly address longstanding concerns about burden-sharing and the financial contributions of our allies,” McConnell said.

He added that he would do “everything in my power to ensure that our part of their accession process moves smoothly and expeditiously.” Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson told reporters in Stockholm on Monday that the decision to join NATO was driven in part by Finland’s recent move to join the alliance. Finnish leaders, with backing from lawmakers in the country, announced plans to officially seek NATO membership over the weekend. “Should Sweden be the only country in the Baltic Sea region that was not a member of NATO, we would be in a very vulnerable position. We can’t rule out that Russia would then increase pressure on Sweden,” Andersson said. The vote to approve new membership into NATO must be unanimous among all members.

However, Turkey has threatened to block the bid by Sweden and Finland, citing their alleged willingness to support terrorist organizations, including the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and followers of Fethullah Gulen, who Ankara accuses of being behind the 2016 attempted coup in Turkey. “Neither of these countries has a clear, open attitude toward terrorist organizations,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at a joint news conference with his Algerian counterpart Abdelmadjid Tebboune on Monday. “How can we trust them?” Erdogan also described Sweden as an “incubation center for terrorist organizations,” and claimed that some members of Sweden’s Parliament supported the PKK. He also pointed to the fact that both Sweden and Finland imposed arms export embargoes on Turkey in 2019 after its incursion into Syria.

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Oh, you’re well past your limits…

• EU Diplomat: ‘We Are Reaching Our Limits With Sanctions Against Russia’ (Euractiv)

“If there was such a mess with Russia’s oil, imagine what would happen with a proposal to ban gas”, an EU diplomat told EURACTIV after the end of the EU foreign ministers meeting on Monday. “The 7th package of sanctions against Moscow will be extremely difficult […] We are very close to reaching our limits. What will the 7th package include?” the diplomat wondered.The diplomat explained that at the foreign affairs meeting yesterday, although there is ongoing progress in talks with Hungary to lift its veto over Europe’s proposal for an embargo on Russian oil, the atmosphere indicated that “we even took a step back”. “Hungary is doing everything to get guarantees […] essentially to get the money from the Recovery Fund and even more than that”, the diplomat said.


According to the diplomat, a deal between the Commission and Budapest is highly likely after the executive presents on 18 May its REPowerEU plan to phase out Russian fossil fuels. “It’s in no one’s interest to take the issue to the EU summit level […] Viktor Orbán knows he will be under huge pressure there, so he also wants a solution before that”, the diplomat noted. The diplomat stressed that Orbán’s stance on the matter brings other governments in a difficult position back to their homes, considering that if Budapest gets what it wants, it would be hard for others, such as Bulgaria, to explain why they did not get similar concessions. “The same happened with Spain and Portugal when they got the gas price cap,” the diplomat concluded.

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“They forget that man alone can never be free, only lonely..”

• Orbán Warns West is Subjecting Itself to “Suicide Waves” of Decline (SN)

In a speech to mark him taking the oath of office, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán warned that the west is subjecting itself to “suicide waves” of decline in the form of self-inflicted economic wounds, mass migration and an obsession with identity politics. Orbán’s conservative Fidesz party swept to victory in the election last month with another two-thirds majority, despite a massive effort by globalist interests to derail his candidacy. During a speech in parliament, Orbán cautioned that the continent faced perilous times ahead. “Everything that has happened since 2020 points in one direction: Europe and the Hungarian people in it have entered an age of danger,” said Orbán. “The decade began with the coronavirus epidemic and continued with the war. The sanctions from the war brought an economic downturn.”

“The war and sanctions policy caused an energy crisis, and U.S. interest rate hikes brought an age of inflation,” he added. The Hungarian leader went on to lament that Europe was entering an “age of economic downturn” and a worsening mass migration problem. Orbán said we are now witnessing the “suicide waves of the Western world” characterized by the replacement of Christianity with a vacuous cult of identity politics. “Such is the program of the great European population exchange, the essence of which is to replace the missing Christian children with migrants. Such an experiment is a program of gender madness and a liberal Europe that transcends nation-states and Christianity, and puts nothing in their place,” said Orbán.

“They forget that man alone can never be free, only lonely,” he added.

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“Of course, such an economic suicide is a domestic affair of the European countries..”

• Putin: EU Oil Sanctions “Economic Suicide” Ordered By “American Overlords” (ZH)

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that EU countries are committing “economic suicide” by refusing Russian energy resources amid a push to impose an oil embargo, but which has been thus far blocked by Russian energy-dependent Hungary and a handful of others. As quoted in RIA Novosti, Putin described that the oil sector is busy undergoing a “tectonic shift” which will only be made worse by “ill-thought-out” sanctions by the West. The address was given virtually to an energy conference of the country’s industry heads. “Changes in the oil market are tectonic in nature and doing business as usual, according to the old model, seems unlikely,” he said. “In the new conditions, it is important not only to extract oil, but also to build the entire vertical chain leading to the final consumer.”

He called out the current EU-US trajectory of seeking to inflict maximum punishment on Moscow as a strategy ensuring higher energy prices and higher inflation. That’s when he observed: “Of course, such an economic suicide is a domestic affair of the European countries,” based on the AFP translation. At the same time, Putin additionally pointed out, Europe’s “chaotic actions” would eventually serve to boost oil and gas revenues for Moscow, also as Russia diverts energy supplies to “friendly” countries. He urged Russian industry authorities to be more proactive in leveraging the situation for the nation’s benefit. Putin described a scenario of Europe feeling the brunt of the crisis worst, according to state media:

“Rejection of Russian energy resources means that Europe will systemically become the region with the highest energy costs in the world. Yes, of course prices will rise and resources will go to this region, but it will not be possible to radically alter the situation. This will seriously – and according to some experts irrevocably – undermine the competitiveness of a significant part of European industry, which is already losing the competition to companies in other regions of the world,” Putin said, speaking at a meeting with officials devoted to energy issues on Tuesday. He added that Western officials and populations had long been overconcerned with “climate issues” – betting too big on the effectiveness of alternative energy, in a theme the Russian president has stressed for years.

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But key ones are missing?

• Over 120,000 Hunter Biden Emails Uploaded To Searchable Database (ZH)

A former Trump White House staffer has uploaded more than 120,000 emails found on Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop to a searchable database this week, which can be found at the (slowly loading) website: BidenLaptopEmails.com. In addition to searching, visitors can download the emails as well. Set up by former Peter Navarro aide Garrett Ziegler, who worked in the Trump administration Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, the emails contain infamous hits such as the “10 for the big guy,” in which Hunter Biden’s business partner James Gillar suggested he should hold 10% of a multi-million-dollar deal with the Chinese. Ziegler posted the emails through his organization, Marco Polo.

“Another email in the database, previously published by DailyMail.com, shows Hunter describing an extraordinary apparent quid pro quo with a Mexican billionaire’s son, outlining how he got him into the White House and inauguration, and thanking him for visits to his villa. Some messages did not appear to be included in the database. One email published by DailyMail.com shows Hunter inviting his foreign business partners and associates to a 2015 dinner at Washington DC restaurant Café Milano. In the email he reveals that his father will secretly be joining – and says that the dinner is ‘ostensibly to discuss food security’. The White House at first denied the then-vice president was there, but eventually admitted it when photographs emerged from the event.”-Daily Mail

That said, the Daily Mail notes that the above email is not included in Ziegler’s database, which contains 14,603 fewer emails than a batch of 142,838 analyzed by cyber forensic firm Maryman & Associates last year for the Mail. “Here are the 128k emails from the Biden Laptop, which is a modern Rosetta Stone of white and blue collar crime under the patina of “the Delaware Way,”” reads the website, referring to a term frequently used by Joe Biden. “Prior to the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, a number of ancient languages were mere gibberish and hash marks. Similarly, the emails on the Biden Laptop illuminated previously convoluted webs of the people you see leading the charge for global governance; truly, the emails can be considered a translation tool for Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) gathering.”

Read more …

“The path to power is the path to the teleprompter.”

• ‘The Real President Is Whoever Controls The Teleprompter’ – Musk (Fox)

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, whose purchase of Twitter remains ongoing, slammed President Biden in a podcast interview Monday and warned that if the government continues printing money, inflation will get worse and the U.S. might follow the path of Venezuela. Musk, who said he has voted “overwhelmingly for Democrats,” slammed the Democratic Party and Biden in particular. He suggested that Biden is something of an empty suit. “The real president is whoever controls the teleprompter,” the Tesla CEO said. “The path to power is the path to the teleprompter.” “I do feel like if somebody were to accidentally lean on the teleprompter, it’s going to be like Anchorman,” the CEO added, referencing the 2004 film in which Ron Burgundy reads whatever is written on the teleprompter, even if it would ruin his career.


“This administration doesn’t seem to get a lot done,” Musk said. “The Trump administration, leaving Trump aside, there were a lot of people in the administration who were effective at getting things done.” He also claimed that the Democratic Party is “overly controlled by the unions and by the trial lawyers, particularly the class action lawyers.” He argued that when Democrats go against “the interests of the people,” it tends to come from the unions and the trial lawyers, while when Republicans do that, “it’s because of corporate evil and religious zealotry.” “In the case of Biden, he is simply too much captured by the unions, which was not the case with Obama,” Musk said. The Tesla CEO defended Obama as “quite reasonable,” but insisted that Biden prioritizes the unions ahead of the public.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

Stella

 

 

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The Greatest Generation

May 102022
 
 May 10, 2022  Posted by at 1:41 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , ,  16 Responses »


Ivan Aivazovsky Constantinople in Moonlight 1846

 

 

This is a letter by Scott Ritter, former US Marine Corps intelligence officer. It was published on RT as “An Open Letter To The American People – as Russia celebrates its WW2 victory over the Nazis”, but since RT is mostly banned in the west, I’ll post it here. It absolutely deserves that.

 

 

Scott Ritter: An Open Letter To The American People – as Russia celebrates its WW2 victory over the Nazis

 

 

To those who have forgotten the sacrifices the ‘Greatest Generation’ made to defeat Hitler.

In his 1998 classic, ‘The Greatest Generation’, famed NBC journalist Tom Brokow examined the lives and experiences of some of the millions of American men and women who fought in the Second World War.

“At a time in their lives when their days and nights should have been filled with innocent adventure, love, and the lessons of the workaday world,” Brokow observed, “they were fighting in the most primitive conditions possible across the bloodied landscape of France, Belgium, Italy, Austria, and the coral islands of the Pacific. They answered the call to save the world from the two most powerful and ruthless military machines ever assembled, instruments of conquest in the hands of fascist maniacs. They faced great odds and a late start, but they did not protest. They succeeded on every front. They won the war; they saved the world.”Brokow had “come to understand what this generation of Americans meant to history. It is, I believe, the greatest generation any society has ever produced.”

I was born in 1961, some two decades after the United States entered the Second World War. By this time, the defeat of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan had receded into the history books, replaced by a new and even more menacing foe, the Soviet Union. My father was a US Air Force officer whose career path up to 1977 looked like a Cold War-era tourist map, with service in Vietnam, Korea, and Turkey. I grew up with the mantra “better dead than red”drilled into my head, convinced that the service my father was providing to our nation was essential for the survival of the free world.

In 1977, my family moved to West Germany. My father had been reassigned to the 17th Air Force, headquartered at Sembach Air Force Base. We opted to live off base, in “the economy” as we called it, eventually settling into a magnificent house in the village of Marnheim owned by a German family who had been renting it out to US servicemen for decades. The house had a history, too. In 1945, it had served as a temporary headquarters for General George S. Patton as his 3rd Army advanced through the Rhein Pfaltz region of Germany during the Second World War.

We were three decades removed from that war when we moved to Germany, but reminders of that conflict were all around us. I spent the summer of 1978 working in a meat inspection facility staffed by what we euphemistically called “DPs,” for “displaced persons.” When the Second World War ended, millions of Europeans who had been enslaved by Nazi Germany found themselves liberated from their prison-like existence, but with no home to return to. This population included many children. The United States provided many of these permanently displaced persons with jobs and a place to live.

For thousands this existence became a way of life, and they were employed in service of America’s expansive military presence in West Germany. By the time I became acquainted with the “DP” community, some 33 years later, these children had grown into adults who were deeply grateful for the opportunities provided by the United States. They were also deeply resentful of the German people for having imprisoned them and destroying the Europe of their childhood. The experience of the “DPs” was a wake-up call for an American teenager who, by living among the Germans, had grown to view them as simply a foreign-speaking mirror image of myself and my family. But it wasn’t that simple.

 

In January 1979 West German television broadcast, over four consecutive nights, the ABC miniseries ‘The Holocaust’. After each episode, the Germans ran a live panel of historians who would take questions from the audience (it is estimated that over half of Germany watched the series.) Like most Americans living in Germany, I had missed out on the series when it was originally aired in the United States the previous year. My family tuned in and, out of curiosity, remained tuned in during the panels.

We were shocked by what we heard – the children of Germans who had been alive during the Second World War were calling the panel, in hysterics, denouncing their parents and their nation for allowing such a thing to happen. The distinguished academics and psychologists that had been assembled for these panels were stunned into silence by the outrage and anger – they simply had no answer to the question of not only how such a thing had been allowed to happen, but why they had not been taught about it growing up. Germany, it seemed, had tried to erase the criminality of its Nazi past from its present reality.

As focused as my family was on living less than one hour’s drive from the border between East and West Germany where, on the other side, hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers were stationed, poised (in our minds, at least) to launch an attack at any moment which would bring our idyllic life to a sudden and horrific halt, we could not escape the constant reminder of what had transpired on the European continent a scant three-and-a-half decades past.

One of the most poignant reminders lay across another border, this one to the west, where, near the Luxembourgish town of Hamm, the Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial was located. The final resting place for more than 5,000 Americans who died fighting in the Battle of the Bulge, Hamm was also where General Patton was laid to rest following his accidental death in December 1945 (his widow believed he “would want to lie beside the men of his army who have fallen.”)

My parents made it a point to take us to Hamm on several occasions while we lived in Germany; it was a short, scenic drive, and the cemetery itself was beautiful, a fitting memorial for those who had made the ultimate sacrifice. We would always visit the nearby Sandweiler German Cemetery, also in Luxembourg, where the remains of more than 10,000 German soldiers who died fighting the Americans were interned. Both cemeteries were a somber, sobering experience.

 

But it wasn’t until my Uncle Mel visited us that the reality of what those cemeteries represented hit home. Mel was the living embodiment of Tom Brokow’s ‘The Greatest Generation’, having served in the European theater during World War II, coming across the Normandy beaches a week or so after D-Day. His unit – a transportation company tasked with driving trucks along the famous “red ball express,” had enjoyed a relatively easy time of it in France. Part of Patton’s 3rd Army, they participated in the liberation of France, and by the time they rolled up to the Benelux (Belgium-Netherlands-Luxembourg) border with Germany, had suffered no major casualties.

Mel had asked to visit some of the areas he had passed through during the war. Most brought back good memories, but at one location he stopped talking. Here his unit had been bracketed by German artillery, and in an instant more than 200 of his comrades were killed or wounded; many of those who died were buried at Hamm.

The crosses and Stars of David that were so beautifully laid out on the manicured grass suddenly had faces, names and personalities that could not be ignored. What had been a peaceful haven transformed instantly into a horrible reminder of the awful cost of war. To this day, I can’t pass a military cemetery without visualizing the circumstances of the events that took the lives of those buried there. All the hopes, dreams, and aspirations that I and others have been able to act out during our lives were denied these young men, usually under circumstances that the average person cannot imagine.

And the persons responsible for their deaths were the same Germans with whom I so peaceably co-existed back across the border. The same ones whose children became infuriated at their parent’s forgetfulness about the nature of the regime which killed so many millions in pursuit of the ambitions of one of the most odious ideologies of all humanity – Nazism.

In college, I studied Russian history; indeed, my honors thesis discussed the historical links between the Tsarist and Soviet militaries. I was intimately familiar with the campaigns and battles fought between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, and the horrific toll paid by the Soviet nation, whose casualties numbered in the tens of millions.

 

But it wasn’t until I had the opportunity to live and work in the Soviet Union, as part of a US inspection team stationed outside a Soviet missile factory in Votkinsk, tasked with implementing the provisions of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty, that I realized the extent to which this sacrifice marked the daily reality of the Soviet people. In downtown Votkinsk, there was a monument to the citizens who lost their lives during the war, as well as those who had been awarded the title “Hero of the Soviet Union” for their wartime service.

Everywhere one traveled in the Soviet Union there were similar monuments constructed in communities that had made it an essential reality of their being never to forget the sacrifices made by their version of the “Greatest Generation” in saving not only their fellow citizens, but much of Europe as well, from the scourge of Nazi Germany.

This remembrance continued even after the Soviet Union collapsed; the heritage of the Soviet Union was passed to the new Russian Federation, which sustained the duty of honoring those who had served. Russia celebrates this service on May 9 – “Victory Day” – marking the defeat of Nazi Germany. One of the great traditions of this celebration was the image of those aged veterans of that conflict, bedecked in their campaign medals, parading before a grateful nation.

Even as time and old age removed the Russian “Greatest Generation” from the society and nation they had served, the Russian people continued to honor them, with the children and grandchildren of the departed veterans marching in their stead, holding aloft a photograph of the veteran, part of what is called “The Immortal Regiment.” Unlike the Germans, the Russian people don’t forget.

 

Sadly, I cannot say the same thing about the American people. There will be no Victory in Europe celebration in the United States this year, just as there hasn’t been for years past. We have forgotten our “Greatest Generation” and the sacrifices they made for our future. There is no American “Immortal Regiment” of family members marching proudly down the main streets of US towns and cities honoring the cause for which these young men and women served. We have forgotten what they even fought for.

There was a time when the United States and Soviet Union fought together to overcome the scourge of Nazi Germany and the ideology it espoused. Today, when Russia is locked in a struggle with the progeny of Hitler’s Germany, in the form of the ideological descendants of the Ukrainian nationalist, Stepan Bandera – one would logically expect that the United States to be on Moscow’s side. 

Bander’s followers fought alongside German Nazis as members of the Waffen SS, slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent civilians, many of them Jewish. By rights, Washington should be ensuring that the hateful cause so many had given their lives and livelihoods to eradicate from Europe never again raised its evil banners on European soil.

Instead, the United States is providing succor to the present-day adherents of Bandera, and by extension, Hitler; their hateful ideology disguised as Ukrainian nationalism. American military personnel, whose traditions are born from the heroic sacrifices made by hundreds of thousands of their fellow soldiers, sailors, and airmen who gave their lives to defeat Nazi Germany, are today providing weapons and training to Ukrainians whose bodies and banners bear the markings of Hitler’s Third Reich.

On May 9, Russia will celebrate Victory Day, marking the 77th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany. Unfortunately, the struggle against Nazi ideology continues to this day and, sadly, the United States finds itself on the wrong side of history, supporting those whom we once were sworn to defeat, while fighting against those whom we once called allies. I can’t help but think that Tom Brokow’s “Greatest Generation” would be ashamed by the actions of those for whom they sacrificed everything, and who have still proven insufficient for the task of honoring their memory in action and in deed.

 

 

 

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