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Debt Rattle April 21 2024

Apr 212024
 
 April 21, 2024  Posted by at 9:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  37 Responses »


Andrew Wyeth Christina’s world 1948

 

• House Passes $95 Billion Aid Package For Ukraine, Israel And Taiwan (ZH)
• American Aid ‘Keeps History On Right Track’ – Zelensky (RT)
• Who Gets What From Congress’ $61 Bln Bag of Goodies? (Sp.)
• David Sacks Warns Ukraine Will ‘Collapse Anyway,’ Despite Aid Bill (Sp.)
• US Aid Bill ‘Insufficient’ for Ukraine’s Needs, Bolsters US Military (Sp.)
• US Lawmakers Approve More Government Spying (RT)
• US Confiscation of Russian Assets Will ‘Supercharge’ De-Dollarization
• $500 Russian Drones Destroying $10,000,000 American Tanks – NYT (RT)
• ‘Pariah’ Israel Dragging US ‘Into Garbage Bin of History’ (Sp.)
• Trump Wants To ‘Kill His Opposition’ – Hillary Clinton (RT)
• Texas Is a Fading Conservative State (Paul Craig Roberts)
• A Collective “Common Enemy” Now Stalks Mankind (Karganovic)

 

 

24 hours without internet at home. A little bit of improvisation today.

 

 

 

 

Vivek Trump SS

 

 

Third eye

 

 

 

 

 

 

But not the border. Mike Johnson became speaker BECAUSE he said he’d protect the border.

• House Passes $95 Billion Aid Package For Ukraine, Israel And Taiwan (ZH)

The House on Saturday passed a set of foreign aid bills that would send $61 billion to Ukraine, $26 billion to Israel, and $8 billion to the Indo-Pacific region. In total, the foreign assistance package totals $95 billion – which only passed after Speaker Mike Johnson cut a deal with Democrats in order to force it through by a vote of 311 to 112. The Senate is expected to pass the package, which was negotiated in conjunction with the White House, marking a victory against conservative lawmakers who insisted on protecting the US border before sending money abroad to protect those of other countries. “We cannot be afraid of our shadows. We must be strong. We have to do what’s right,” House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican, said. Democrats and some Republicans waved Ukrainian flags during the vote, a rare moment of bipartisanship in a bitterly and narrowly divided House.

“Traditional House Republicans led by Speaker Mike Johnson have risen to the occasion,” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said. “We have a responsibility to push back against authoritarianism.” -Bloomberg. Earlier in the day, the House passed an $8 billion aid package aimed at countering Chinese aggression towards Taiwan, as well as a bill that would force Chinese-controlled ByteDance Ltd to divest from TikTok or face a US ban. The bill also allows for the confiscation of Russian dollar assets in order to help fund more assistance to Ukraine. Breaking down the Ukraine aid – of the $61 billion, $13 billion will replenish US stockpiles of weapons, and $14 billion will go towards US defense systems for Ukraine. $7 billion will go toward US military operations in the region. We assume the remainder will go directly to Ukrainian oligarchs.

The Israel bill, which passed by a vote of 366 to 58, includes $4 billion for missile defense. Notably absent was so much as a dime for the US border… “Nothing is done to secure our border or reduce our debt,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), whose outrage was shared with Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Paul Gosar of Arizona, who say they’re ready to boot Johnson from his Speakership. “Ukraine is not even a member of NATO,” Greene continued. Who would have known!

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The history of corruption, that is.

• American Aid ‘Keeps History On Right Track’ – Zelensky (RT)

The decision by the US House of Representatives to allocate tens of billions of dollars to Kiev will bring Ukraine closer to a “just end” in its conflict with Russia, President Vladimir Zelensky wrote on X (formerly Twitter), thanking Speaker Mike Johnson for his support. The nearly $61 billion package approved on Saturday contains funding for the purchase of weapons and military equipment, as well direct financial assistance to Ukraine. Passed after months of delays and political wrangling, the bill next moves to the Senate, which already indicated in February that it will approve it.“I am grateful to the United States House of Representatives, both parties, and personally Speaker Mike Johnson for the decision that keeps history on the right track,” Zelensky wrote, suggesting that the aid will “keep the war from expanding,” and “save thousands and thousands of lives.”

“Just peace and security can only be attained through strength,” he wrote. Zelensky added that Ukraine “will undoubtedly use American assistance to strengthen both of our nations and bring a just end to this war closer.” Republican lawmakers had previously refused to back the bill, tying their approval to demands for better protection of the border with Mexico and a crackdown on illegal immigration. Kiev was forced to deal with increasing ammunition shortages after aid from the US – Ukraine’s biggest sponsor – began to dry up. Biden blamed Ukraine’s recent setbacks on the battlefield, including the loss of the strategic city of Avdeevka, on “congressional inaction.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called Saturday’s vote “predictable,” adding that it will “further enrich the US and further ruin Ukraine,” and “cause more Ukrainians to die because of the Kiev regime.”

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“..very little change will be noted by those actually fightin..,”

• Who Gets What From Congress’ $61 Bln Bag of Goodies? (Sp.)

The House approved nearly $100 billion in assistance to Washington’s overseas allies, partners and client states on Saturday, with supporters of the aid managing to overcome opposition after a six-month deadlock in the chamber. Nearly $61 billion of the $95 billion from the proposed funding package is committed to fueling the conflict in Ukraine (at least $23 billion of that to be spent replenishing depleted US weapons stocks). Over $26 billion in additional commitments are made to Israel (nearly eight times what Washington normally sends Tel Aviv’s way in a given year). $8.12 billion is committed to stirring up tensions with China in Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific region more broadly. Passing the House, the aid package is now set to be voted on by the Senate, where leaders from both parties have been clamoring for months for the foreign assistance to be urgently passed. If it passes the Senate, the legislation will end up on President Biden’s desk for signature.

Supporters and opponents of the foreign aid package gave stirring speeches ahead of the Saturday’s House vote restating their positions. “I often say it’s never too late to do the right thing. But waiting to do the right thing comes at a cost,” Maryland Democrat Steny Hoyer said. “We saw that cost in Israel this week as an emboldened Iran launched an unprecedented attack on our ally. For Ukraine the cost of our inaction is great if incalculable. It is measured in Ukrainian lives, towns and territory lost…Today we act. We act to make it clear to the world that America is still the defender of freedom, democracy and international law.” Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a staunch opponent of further US assistance to Ukraine, military or otherwise, proposed an amendment to slash support for Kiev to zero. “The United States taxpayer has already sent $113 billion to Ukraine, and a lot of that money is unaccounted for,” Greene said.

“The federal government continues to fund the military-industrial complex, and this is a business model that requires Congress to continue to vote for money to fund foreign wars. This is a business model that the American people do not support. They don’t support a business model built on blood and murder and war in foreign countries while this very government does nothing to secure our border. The American people are over $34 trillion in debt and the debt is rising by over $40 billion every single night while we all sleep. But yet nothing is done to secure our border or reduce our debt.” Pointing to polling indicating that a majority of Americans disapprove of new aid to Ukraine, Greene said Congress has chosen to vote to “protect Ukraine” instead of protecting “the American citizens that pay your paycheck.” “

Ukraine is not even a member of NATO. But the most important thing you hear in Washington, DC is that we have to send Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars over to Ukraine and keep the money going, to continue to murder Ukrainians, wipe out an entire generation of Ukrainian men…What kind of support is that? It’s repulsive,” the Georgia Republican said. The tens of billions of dollars in new US aid doled out via the legislation passed by the House Saturday may prolong the Ukrainian crisis, but won’t be able to secure a NATO victory in the proxy war against Russia, says former DoD senior security policy analyst Michael Maloof. “Now, the money that’s going to Ukraine for the most part will probably go to US defense contractors in various states, but to make newer equipment for our own stockpiles, which will then allow the US to unload older stuff for Ukraine,” Maloof told Sputnik.

“It’s not going to be enough for Ukraine to overcome its current geostrategic position at this point, simply because they don’t have a consistent ability to arm,” the observer added, pointing out that along with the weapons themselves is the ability to find the men to use them, something the Kiev regime is having increasingly severe difficulty doing as it is. “Other money to be provided to Ukraine is intended to pay government employees,” US Air Force Lt. Col. (ret.) Karen Kwiatkowski, a former DoD analyst, told Sputnik. “Thus presumably it will include meeting soldiers’ needs but it goes to Kiev bureaucrats first. Given how it will be allocated, very little change will be noted by those actually fighting,” Kwiatkowski believes, estimating that of the $61 billion allocated, $45 billion will remain in the US and $16 billion will be sent to Ukraine as so-called direct aid.

“Likely the $16 billion that makes it to Ukraine will be instantly absorbed to pay government bills rather than the war effort,” she said, pointing to Kiev’s massive budget deficit. “They have no means to undertake a counteroffensive, and just given the amounts of artillery that they burn through, what even the US is proposing probably wouldn’t last more than six months at best. And it’s undetermined what Europe is going to provide. So I think the Ukraine basically is over. It’s just a mop up [operation for] the Russians. And it’s just going to take time for that reality to sink in to Zelensky, who should begin considering getting out of there fast because I don’t think the country is going to politically last much longer,” Maloof said.

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“If you vote to send our money abroad while waving a foreign flag, you’ll be called an American patriot. If you vote to keep our money at home to fund domestic priorities like the border, you’ll be called a foreign agent.”

• David Sacks Warns Ukraine Will ‘Collapse Anyway,’ Despite Aid Bill (Sp.)

Previously, the US billionaire investor David Sacks underscored the need to “cut a deal” and seek a detente with Russia to avoid a third world war. He told a gala for the Republican think-tank American Moment in Washington that US involvement in the ongoing proxy conflict in Ukraine was only prolonging the standoff. The collapse of Ukraine is inevitable, despite the US House of Representatives having passed a foreign aid package that includes $61 billion in aid for Kiev, American entrepreneur David Sacks wrote on the X social media platform. “These scenes of celebration are going to look particularly foolish when Ukraine collapses anyway. The federal government can print more money; it can’t just print more artillery shells and air defense missiles,” the investor wrote, reacting to the jubilant scene in the House, where some of the lawmakers were seen waving Ukrainian flags. He continued by saying, “And I should have added, they can’t print more soldiers.”

The post by Sacks was in reply to a similarly deprecatory one by GOP Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who posted footage from the House after the bill was passed, commenting that, “they vote to send more of your hard-earned money to a corrupt foreign regime. And just like that they shout ‘UKRAINE! UKRAINE!’ while happily working to secure Ukraine’s borders, not ours. The billionaire investor pointed out in his thread on X that, “It’s not “just” $61 billion. Ukraine will need massive annual cash infusions to stave off total defeat. So it’s $61 billion as the baseline for an annual appropriation in a new forever war.” He pointed out that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars also began with “annual appropriations in the $60B range. Those wars ended up costing trillions.” “Simple math,” the investor remarked, showed that the new funding bill could do no more than possibly buy Ukraine “precisely half of a Summer Counteroffensive.”

And, of course, everyone knows full well how that much-heralded counteroffensive attempt ended up last year – limited battlefield achievements coupled with massive manpower and hardware losses. According to Sacks, it is a bizarre world, where “If you vote to send our money abroad while waving a foreign flag, you’ll be called an American patriot. If you vote to keep our money at home to fund domestic priorities like the border, you’ll be called a foreign agent.” The entrepreneur recalled that according to US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, “CIA Director Burns had to warn [Ukraine’s President Volodymyr] Zelensky to stop stealing so much money. His subordinates were angry that he wasn’t sharing the spoils.” “Do you think that problem has been resolved and Zelensky will share more this time?” queried David Sacks.

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“Russia has been quite successful in its goal of ‘demilitarizing’ both Ukraine and NATO..”

• US Aid Bill ‘Insufficient’ for Ukraine’s Needs, Bolsters US Military (Sp.)

After more than 2 month of hard negotiations, the US House of Representatives has passed a multi-billion foreign aid package. However, the bill has sparked debate and criticism, with experts questioning its efficacy and allocation. David Pyne, a former US Department of Defense officer and executive vice president of Task Force on National and Homeland Security, offered a critical assessment of the aid package. He argued that the allocated funds are “woefully insufficient” for Ukraine’s wartime needs. The bill “will not change the outcome of the war which will inevitably end with a Russian victory and Ukraine being forced to accept Russia’s peace terms”, Pyne believes. Questions also arise regarding the distribution of the aid, since House Speaker Mike Johnson indicated that only a fraction, approximately $12-14 billion, would directly provide weapons to Ukraine.

However, Pyne raised concerns that a substantial portion, around 80%, would benefit US defense industries. He highlighted the potential for President Biden to utilize drawdown authority, enabling the redirection of additional funds from existing military stocks to Ukraine. Furthermore, Pyne shed light on Ukraine’s critical shortages of artillery shells and air defense missiles. He outlined Russia’s success in inflicting significant casualties on Ukrainian forces and emphasized the challenges in addressing Ukraine’s munitions deficits. “Russia has been quite successful in its goal of ‘demilitarizing’ both Ukraine and NATO, causing the US and its NATO allies to unilaterally disarm themselves of tens of thousands of its most modern weapon systems and transfer them to Ukraine”, stated Pyne.

Pyne highlighted the stark disparity between Russian and Ukrainian&NATO artillery capabilities, noting that “Russia produces over three times as many artillery munitions than all of NATO combined”. “Russian forces have been successful in inflicting half a million Ukrainian military casualties including about 250,000 killed in action and 250,000 seriously wounded with as many or more Ukrainian amputations over the past two years than France suffered… on the Western Front during World War One,” Pyne said. The assessment underscores the complexity of providing effective support to Ukraine amidst escalating conflict. As the aid bill moves forward, discussions surrounding its implementation, distribution, and broader geopolitical implications are likely to persist, as well as questions regarding US true purposes and intentions towards Ukraine as a nation.

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“..the FBI had illegally used its surveillance powers against American citizens more than 278,000 times in a 12-month period..”

• US Lawmakers Approve More Government Spying (RT)

The US Senate has passed legislation renewing and expanding an expiring law that enables the government to conduct warrantless surveillance of Americans under the guise of protecting them from foreign threats. The bill was approved by a 60-34 vote in the early morning hours of Saturday, authorizing a two-year extension of the so-called Section 702 program of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). President Joe Biden is expected to quickly sign the legislation, renewing the spying tool after it expired at midnight on Saturday. Section 702 is ostensibly about surveilling the communications of foreigners for intelligence purposes, including detection of possible terrorist plots against the US. However, many of the phone calls and messages that are tapped by Washington’s spying apparatus occur between foreigners and US citizens.

The FBI has accessed the 702 database of intercepted communications to investigate targeted Americans, such as Black Lives Matters activists, journalists, members of Congress, political donors, and possible participants in the January 2021 US Capitol riot. Such searches normally require investigators to secure a warrant, meaning a court has found probable cause to suspect that the targeted person has committed a crime. Critics of the program had demanded that reforms be made before renewing Section 702 to protect US citizens from unconstitutional spying. A 2023 investigation by the US FISA court found that the FBI had illegally used its surveillance powers against American citizens more than 278,000 times in a 12-month period. Congress voted down an amendment that would have required warrants for probes of communications involving Americans.

“Section 702 has been abused under presidents from both political parties, and it has been used to unlawfully surveil the communications of Americans across the political spectrum,” said Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union. “By expanding the government’s surveillance powers without adding a warrant requirement that would protect Americans, the House has voted to allow the intelligence agencies to violate the civil rights and liberties of Americans for years to come.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) hailed the fact that the FISA program was reauthorized “in the nick of time,” just as it was expiring. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) said that failure to renew the spying powers could cause US officials to “miss a key piece of intelligence,” such as a threat to American troops stationed overseas or a potential terrorist attack.

Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) lamented the fact that lawmakers declined to pass his amendments to the FISA bill, which would have enabled the government to continue spying on foreigners while protecting the civil liberties of Americans. His proposal was voted down by an 82-11 margin. “We could have ensured both constitutional rights and national security were protected,” Paul said. “Yet again, the Senate was asked to consider the question: ‘Can liberty be exchanged for security?’ And sadly, the majority of senators said, ‘Yes, it can.’”

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“..lack of control [by the owners] over assets is not a good basis of any currency.”

• US Confiscation of Russian Assets Will ‘Supercharge’ De-Dollarization

On Saturday, the US House of Representatives passed the cheekily-named REPO Act, which would enable US President Joe Biden to confiscate roughly $6 billion in frozen Russian assets held in US banks and send it to Ukraine.The provision is part of a package bill that also includes over $95 billion in aid to Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific, as well as a potential TikTok ban.The bill is expected to pass in the Senate and then be immediately signed by US President Joe Biden. While the $6 billion represents only a fraction of the more than $300 billion in Russian assets frozen by the G7 countries in 2022, most of that money is held in Europe and US lawmakers hope that it will encourage European lawmakers to do the same.

“We’re making good progress in how to access that funds on an agreed basis that I think we can take forward to the G7,” UK foreign minister David Cameron, whose government has already come out in support of seizing Russian assets, told reporters earlier this month. The decision to confiscate Russian assets and provide them to Ukraine represents a major escalation in the West’s sanction war against Russia. However, the move is short-sighted by the US because it will accelerate global de-dollarization, which will remove one of the most powerful tools the US has.

“It’s reinforcing the need to de-dollarize on the part of any third-party country. Be it Russia, be it China – be it anybody else, including any country in the G-7 that may be marginally supportive of the United States. This is pure and simple economic blackmail,” Paul Goncharoff, an analyst and management consultant at Dezan Shira & Associates in Moscow told Sputnik. “Now they’re wondering ‘Am I putting it into something that will be seized or frozen?’ So lack of control [by the owners] over assets is not a good basis of any currency.” “So it just supercharges de-dollarization. And that’s not good, especially when you have an America that is used to living on larger and larger debt raised by people placing the trust and buying treasuries and bonds,” Goncharoff added.

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“The drones’ accuracy exceeds 90%, the NYT said, adding that they are also capable of hitting heavy armor in its weakest spots..”

• $500 Russian Drones Destroying $10,000,000 American Tanks – NYT (RT)

Expensive American M1 Abrams tanks delivered to Ukraine are increasingly falling prey to Russian drones that cost only a fraction as much, the New York Times reported on Saturday. Even “one of the most powerful symbols of American military might” is not invulnerable to such attacks, it said. At least five US-supplied tanks out of the 31 provided by Washington have already been destroyed by Russia, the American media outlet said, adding that three others had been “moderately damaged.” In most cases, the tanks have been destroyed by first-person-view (FPV) kamikaze drones, also known as loitering munitions. Such drones are capable of actively maneuvering before hitting their target.

In at least one instance, though, an Abrams tank was taken out in a duel against a Russian T-72B3 main battle tank. The Russian military has published upwards of a dozen clips, mostly taken from drones, showing the destruction of US-supplied equipment. According to the NYT, the tanks turned out to be “more easily taken out by exploding drones than some officials and experts had initially assumed.” The media outlet cited an Austrian historian and military expert, Colonel Markus Reisner, who described such a situation as “unbelievable.” The paper also described the Russian UAVs as “highly-accurate, low-cost tank killers.”

The drones’ accuracy exceeds 90%, the NYT said, adding that they are also capable of hitting heavy armor in its weakest spots. The UAVs “can cost as little as $500,” the paper reported, are capable of “taking out a $10 million Abrams tank.” The paper also admitted that there was no “easy, or single” way to defend a tank against a drone attack. US-made Abrams tanks made their long-expected appearance on the front line in late February amid the Ukrainian effort to halt advancing Russian troops after the capture of the Donbass town of Avdeevka. A batch of 31 M1 Abrams tanks was pledged to Kiev early last year, ahead of the ultimately disastrous Ukrainian counteroffensive. The delivery was made in full only by mid-October, when the ill-fated push had already largely been exhausted.

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“The United States government for so long now, hasn’t seen a war they didn’t want to be a part of.”

• ‘Pariah’ Israel Dragging US ‘Into Garbage Bin of History’ (Sp.)

On Friday, the US vetoed granting Palestine full membership in the UN, which was promised to the Palestinians in 1948 when the state of Israel was created. The US has been Israel’s strongest supporter in the UN, previously vetoing three ceasefire resolutions before finally allowing a fourth to pass through abstention last month. Earlier, Israel struck Iran in response to Iran’s attack last week, which was itself a response to Israel attacking Iran’s consulate in Damascus earlier this month. The attack, which was described by both sides as minor, came after Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would not respond until after Passover, which runs from April 22 to April 30. Israel’s apparent insistence on launching a regional war in the Middle East is dragging the United States with it “Into the garbage bin of history,” and US lawmakers seem willing to watch it happen, journalist Esteban Carrillo, the head of news at The Cradle, told Sputnik’s Political Misfits on Friday.

While discussing the recent US vote against Palestinian statehood in the UN, Carrillo explained that it is working against US interests “It’s completely a case of the tail wagging the dog. And US politicians just seem so content to just go along with it,” he explained. “What does Netanyahu have over the heads of these people? Because it doesn’t seem like they are even willing to consider at this point stepping away from this pariah that is just dragging them down into the garbage bin of history.” Tensions between Iran and Israel seem to have cooled somewhat after Israel’s attack was so minor. Explosions were heard near an Iranian base outside of Isfahan, but Iran claimed there was no damage or injuries. A second attack against the city of Tabriz was likewise thwarted.

The attack, which Iran claims came from within its own territory, seemed designed to make Israel not appear “as weak as they are,” Carrillo explained. “After six months of flattening Gaza and killing tens of thousands of Palestinians, they have failed to achieve a single strategic objective against Hamas.” However, the small scope of the attack also seemed designed to allow Israel to “play tough guy” without igniting a larger conflict. “Iran’s response over [Friday morning’s] attack is essentially summed up in ‘what strike? What happened? Our air defenses took everything down,’” said Carrillo. But that doesn’t mean Israel is finished. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is still determined to keep the war going to ward off political and legal challenges facing him. “I don’t think that we’re out of the water yet in terms of [Israel] dragging the United States into a regional war,” Carrillo explained, adding earlier that it isn’t hard to convince US lawmakers to join fights. “The United States government for so long now, hasn’t seen a war they didn’t want to be a part of.”

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‘A vote for Trump is a vote for Putin’ – Hillary Clinton. Yawn…

• Trump Wants To ‘Kill His Opposition’ – Hillary Clinton (RT)

Former US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has claimed that the man who defeated her in the 2016 election, Donald Trump, is a wannabe strongman who aims to murder his political enemies. Speaking in a podcast interview posted on Friday by Democrat activist Mark Elias, Clinton said American voters had underestimated how “dangerous” Trump would be as president. She likened Trump, now the presumptive Republican nominee in this year’s US presidential election, to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Putin does what [Trump] would like to do – kill his opposition, imprison his opposition, drive journalists and others into exile, rule without any check or balance,” Clinton said. “That’s what Trump really wants.” Ironically, Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have themselves long been accused by some conservatives of eliminating people who pose a threat to their power or wealth.

In fact, investigative journalist Danny Casolaro coined the conspiracist term “Clinton Body Count” in the late 1980s, in reference to the allegedly mysterious deaths of people with connections to the Clintons. Casolaro was found dead in a West Virginia hotel room in 1991 with his wrists slashed 10-12 times. His death was ruled a suicide. Hillary Clinton also has made a habit of linking Trump to Russia and Putin. Her presidential campaign helped trigger allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 election by funding the since-discredited Steele dossier. She told Elias that Putin is just one of the US adversaries whom Trump would like to emulate, and that his other role models include Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

“We have to be very conscious of how he sees the world because in that world, he only sees strongman leaders,” Clinton said. “He sees Putin. He sees Xi. He sees Kim Jong-un in North Korea. Those are the people he is modeling himself after, and we’ve been down this road in our world history. We sure don’t want to go down that again.” If Trump is elected president again, Clinton warned, “it will be like having a dictator. I don’t say that lightly. Go back and read Project 2025. They’re going to fire everybody. The person in the government who knows about what may be the next pandemic? ‘Get rid of him, he didn’t vote for me, or I don’t like the way he looks.’”

She added: “It’s really important to think about what could happen to our world with Trump back in the White House – withdrawing us from NATO, not caring about what happens in Europe… the idea that he wants Ukraine to fail, the idea that he doesn’t want us to be able to surveil our enemies. I mean, this is a very scary prospect.” Clinton expressed optimism that Trump will not be able to defeat incumbent President Joe Biden in November because Democrats will be running the election in key states, including Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Arizona. Trump has maintained that all allegations against him are part of a politically motivated smear campaign. He dismissed the ‘Russiagate’ accusations as a hoax and witch hunt that aimed to sabotage his presidency and block him from forging better US relations with Russia.

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“Where there is no vision, the people are lost..”

• Texas Is a Fading Conservative State (Paul Craig Roberts)

Americans regard Texas as a Conservative state. It is not. The conservatism is only skin deep. The conservatism is limited to a small majority of the people. Professional organizations, such as the Bar Association, many city governments, the universities, and the public schools have been infiltrated and taken over by woke liberals. Texas universities are as crazed, corrupt, and anti-American as those in the Northeast and on the West coast. They serve the same agendas, such as indoctrinating white people that they are racist, legitimizing sexual perversity, redefining American patriots as Nazis and Trump Deplorables. The public schools teach that white people are racists and confuse kids about their gender. The Bar Association uses law as a weapon against Republicans, such as attorney Sidney Powell.

The Texas Bar Association disciplined Sidney Powell, first convicting her of misconduct and fraud for filing lawsuits challenging fraudulent vote counts in the 2020 presidential election, and revoking her license as punishment. The state appeals court found that the bar association had convicted her on the basis of zero evidence. It was just a vendetta by woke liberals devoid al all integrity against a Republican.This is America today. In the hands of blue cities and states and in the US Department of Justice (sic) law as law no longer exists. Neither does the US Constitution. What exists is a weapon to be used against Trump Republicans and dissenters from official narratives.

In America there are two systems of law. One system located in red states is a rule of law. The other in blue states is a system of law as a weapon to destroy opponents. We see this clearly in blue NY and blue Atlanta where show trials devoid of any evidence are being conducted against President Trump. We see it in the Justice (sic) Department’s continuing misuse of law to force attendees at the January 6 rally to incriminate themselves by pleading guilty in order to avoid a 20-year prison sentence for exercising their constitutional right to protest.

The totally corrupt Biden Regime has an open border policy for the explicit purpose of turning red states into blue ones by filling them with millions of immigrant-invaders in order to overload the voting rolls with Democrat voters. The Democrats assume that they have purchased the loyalty of the immigrant-invaders by allowing them in and supporting them on public welfare while giving them work permits so that they can underbid the employment of American citizens. Evidence was recently provided that Biden has flown at public expense 360,000 immigrant-invaders into Florida, and evidence was provided that the Biden regime has funded the Jewish NGO that is recruiting world-wide immigrant-invaders with $300,000,000. American citizens are helpless, because almost half of them are so utterly stupid that they vote for their own self-destruction by voting Democrat.

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“..Harari deserves credit for blood-curdling honesty, if not for the morality of his and his masters’ “visions.”

• A Collective “Common Enemy” Now Stalks Mankind (Karganovic)

Yuval Hariri, Klaus Schwab’s spokesman, recently made a statement that should send chills up everyone’s spine. “If bad comes to worse and the Flood comes,” Harari said, he and the likeminded cabal of shadowy world masters will “build an Ark and leave the rest to drown.” Elsewhere, Harari elaborates on the reasons for his fellow elitists’ cold-hearted indifference to the fate of the vast majority of Earth’s inhabitants: “If you go back to the middle of the 20th century …and you think about building the future, then your building materials are those millions of people who are working hard in the factories, in the farms, the soldiers. You need them. You don’t have any kind of future without them.” What he means is that you – referring to the dominant social and financial elites of that era – still “needed” the labour of millions in the various fields of economic endeavour in order to turn a profit.

Since then, how have things changed according to “futurologist” Harari? “Now, fast forward to the early 21st century when we just don’t need the vast majority of the population, because the future is about developing more and more sophisticated technology, like artificial intelligence [and] bioengineering, most people don’t contribute anything to that, except perhaps for their data, and whatever people are still doing something useful, these technologies increasingly will make them redundant and will make it possible to replace those people.” Elitist mouthpiece Harari deserves credit for blood-curdling honesty, if not for the morality of his and his masters’ “visions.” He is plainly signalling the view that this writer, the editors of this portal, its readers and the rest of mankind are expendable and apart from whatever economic utility they still might possess are bereft of any inherent dignity or value.

Harari and his immediate superior in the elitist nomenklatura, Klaus Schwab, technically are private individuals. Their organisational vehicle, the World Economic Forum, is a private NGO registered in Switzerland. Formally, they neither represent nor do they speak for any government or official structure with a proper claim to legitimacy. They have no licence to plan or arrange the future of humanity, beside the self-authorisation to do so which they and the oligarchical globalist power centres they commune and mingle with have arrogated to themselves. No one elected or empowered them to plan anybody’s future, other than their own, and even that strictly in their private capacity.= Yet disposing of the future of mankind is precisely what they presume to do, in Davos in plenary session once a year and the rest of the time in conspiratorial confabulation amongst themselves.

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Catfish
https://twitter.com/i/status/1781592640623886517

 

 

Horses dolphins
https://twitter.com/i/status/1781559109487124859

 

 

King

 

 

Octopus
https://twitter.com/i/status/1781604985345606000

 

 

Resting sharks
https://twitter.com/i/status/1781720652241846625

 

 

Reflex

 

 

Piggy bank

 

 

Great white

 

 

Rhino

 

 

Aquarium
https://twitter.com/i/status/1781745912303251759

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle March 20 2024

Mar 202024
 
 March 20, 2024  Posted by at 9:30 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  51 Responses »


Edgar Degas Leaving the paddock1866
Stolen from Gardner Museum March 18 1990, the single largest art theft in the world. Never recovered

 

• ‘Losing a War is No Fun’ (Manley)
• French Army ‘Ready For War’ – Top General (RT)
• France Preparing to Deploy Military Contingent in Ukraine: Russian Intel (Sp.)
• Ukraine’s Losses ‘In The Millions’ – Polish General (RT)
• Lindsey Graham Tells Ukraine To Draft Younger Soldiers (RT)
• US Military-Industrial Complex Jacks Up Prices Amid Ukraine Proxy War (Sp.)
• iPhones Won’t Work In Case Of World War III – Russian MP (RT)
• German Living Standards In ‘Unprecedented post-WW2 Slump’ (RT)
• Medvedev Reacts To Germany’s Putin Snub (RT)
• ‘Catastrophic’ Hunger Has Gripped Gaza (RT)
• Supreme Court Allows Texas To Start Arresting And Deporting Illegal Aliens (ZH)
• Guilty!—But Not Really Guilty? (Victor Davis Hanson)
• It’s Time for GOP To Unite Behind Trump (Marcus)
• How the Democrats Plan To Steal the Election (Lew Rockwell)
• Viagra May Prevent Alzheimer’s (RT)

 

 

B.S.

 

 

Lensman

 

 

O’Leary

 

 

Sachs

 

 

Navarro

 

 

AIPAC


https://twitter.com/i/status/1770019795762659476

 

 

Greenwald SCOTUS

 

 

 

 

“..the US will not suffer the consequences anywhere near to the degree the Europeans will.”

• ‘Losing a War is No Fun’ (Manley)

Russia’s economy has survived Western sanctions “far better” than predicted, recent reports show. Meanwhile, the European Union’s (EU) economy has been suffering drastically, causing working class voters to turn against aid for Ukraine. The Greanville Post published an article on Tuesday which claims the European Union has become the site of the 21st century’s “biggest political disaster”. The article writes that Paris, France—which once saw leftist planning agendas filled with “protests, gatherings and strikes”—now seems to be a city where there is little talk of the “economic, political and confidence collapse” of the biggest economic bloc in the world. Daniel Lazare, an independent investigative journalist and author, sat down with Sputnik’s The Critical Hour on Tuesday and discussed the recent piece. “Well, I think Europe is losing the war,” said Lazare. “And losing a war is no fun. The situation in Ukraine is going very poorly. Russia clearly is winning, its economy is doing very well. The European economy, by contrast, is stalling.

And if Russia does make progress in the war, if the Ukraine government breaks in some way, then the results for Europe will be devastating.” “I mean, this is not a faraway war for [the EU]. It’s a faraway war for America. But it’s a war on the doorstep of the EU. And the prospect of a Ukrainian collapse would cause panic in Poland, but also in Berlin and Paris, and Macron has been making crazy noises about sending troops to Ukraine, which is completely nuts. But then again, the guy is desperate and doesn’t know quite how to respond. And, the same kind of desperation is evident in other capitals as well,” he added. Sputnik’s Garland Nixon noted that European governments have not done a “good job” of trying to convince their public that they have to suffer and sacrifice for the “democracy of the neo-Nazis”.

“The US is also quite confident that, as you said, the ruble will be turned to rubble, the Russian economy would be smashed, that they’d be, you know, they’d be closed out of the energy market and would be crying for mercy very soon,” said Lazare of the West’s attacks on Russia’s economy. “But that didn’t happen. Quite the reverse. Russia was able to find outlets for its oil and gas. It developed markets with China and other nations. The US has wound up shooting itself in the foot. And the amazing thing is that this keeps happening again and again.” Sputnik’s Wilmer Leon added that the reason French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz don’t want to address the collapse of their biggest economic bloc in the world is because it was done at the “behest of the United States”. “The US really engineered this war,” said Lazare. “I don’t want to let France and Britain off the hook because they were solidly behind US efforts, but this is an American-led effort which really installed a nationalist government in Kiev, which was itching for a fight with Russia, which got one and then, followed by a full scale military invasion in February 2022.”

“The US thought it would win that war easily,” he continued. “But now the war is going very poorly. And it turns out that the US really had a very poor idea of what it was getting into. Now, the problem is that the US will not suffer the consequences anywhere near to the degree the Europeans will.” “So, it’s a case that they followed the US, they tag along happily behind it, and now they’ve got to pay the price for their own behavior. It’s crazy, and I do agree that there’s going to be a reckoning.” The EU’s working class is growing increasingly opposed to conflict with Russia as their economy suffers from Western imposed sanctions which saw them lose access to cheap and reliable Russian energy. The economic growth forecast for Germany, for instance, was cut down to 0.2% in 2024 from a previous projection of 1.3%, according to a recent report. Robert Habeck, Germany’s Vice-Chancellor, has said the country is performing “dramatically bad.”

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Far toos much war talk coming out of France.

• French Army ‘Ready For War’ – Top General (RT)

France is ready to face whatever developments unfold internationally and is prepared for the “toughest engagements” to protect itself, the chief of staff of the French Army, Gen. Pierre Schill, said in an interview published on Tuesday. In recent weeks, French President Emmanuel Macron has repeatedly refused to rule out Western troops being sent to Ukraine at some point to help Kiev in its fight against Moscow, which he described as an “adversary” of Paris. France’s forces are “ready,” Schill told Le Monde, stressing that “whatever the developments in the international situation, the French can be convinced: their soldiers will respond.” Schill said France has “international responsibilities” and is linked by defense agreements to “states exposed to major threats,” and must therefore have its forces trained and interoperable with allied armies.

He added that nuclear deterrence “is not a universal guarantee” because it does not guard against conflicts that would remain “below the threshold of vital interests.” Schill said that the Army must show itself a credible force through responsiveness in terms of force projection and the ability to carry out operations of increased scope. The general said that France currently has the capacity to commit a division of around 20,000 men within 30 days and has the means to command an army corps of up to 60,000 which includes allied divisions. In an interview with the TF1 and France 2 channels last week, President Macron said that France is “not waging war on Russia” by supporting Kiev, but labeled Russia an “adversary” and has stood by his remarks that a potential deployment of NATO troops to the country could not be “excluded.”

His statements drew a wave of denials from most of France’s fellow NATO members and officials – including Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg – about having any intention to deploy their forces to Ukraine. At the same time, Spain’s El Pais reported on Monday that the US-led bloc has already been involved “in virtually every possible aspect” of the conflict and that active and former military personnel from NATO states have been operating in the country overseeing Kiev’s use of Western-supplied weapons. Moscow has repeatedly described the conflict as a US-led proxy war against Russia, while Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned against escalation and said that a direct clash between NATO and Russia would be “one step shy of a full-scale World War III.”

French troops
https://twitter.com/i/status/1770143287040459213

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Macron’s bet: war with France means war with NATO.

• France Preparing to Deploy Military Contingent in Ukraine: Russian Intel (Sp.)

France is preparing to deploy a contingent of troops in Ukraine, with the first echelon to include about 2,000 soldiers, Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) chief Sergei Naryshkin has announced. “The country’s current leadership does not care about the death of ordinary Frenchmen and the concerns of the country’s generals. According to information received by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, a contingent of troops is already being prepared to be sent to Ukraine. At the initial stage, it will number about 2,000 people,” Naryshkin said in a statement Tuesday. According to the SVR head’s information, France’s generals are concerned about the difficulty of transferring such a large force to Ukraine and stationing it there unnoticed. Naryshkin warned that any French forces arriving in Ukraine “will become a legitimate priority target” for Russia’s military, with the same fate to await them as has already befallen those who fell during previous instances of French aggression against Moscow.

The SVR head also confirmed that those French nationals already in Ukraine (presumably fighting as mercenaries), have suffered losses not experienced by Paris since Algeria’s war of liberation against French control in the 1960s, hence concerns among the military leadership about the threat of discontent among mid-level officers in the French Army about the prospects of being deployed in Ukraine. President Macron has been the loudest voice among any NATO leaders in warning that he wouldn’t rule out sending troops to Ukraine “at some point.” “Maybe at some point – I don’t want it, I won’t take the initiative – we will have to have operations on the ground, whatever they may be, to counter the Russian forces,” Macron told Le Parisien last Friday. “France’s strength is that we can do it,” he added.

Macron riled up his NATO allies, particularly Germany, in early March by urging Europe not to be “cowards” in supporting the Kiev regime using all available means.If late February, he warned that he wouldn’t “rule out” sending French forces east. The president was roundly condemned by French opposition leaders for his remarks, with politicians both on the left and the right accusing him of playing with the lives of the French people and risking a new world war for the sake of his personal geopolitical ambitions. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova went further, accusing Macron of trying to recreate “French SS Division Charlemagne II to defend President Volodymyr Zelensky’s bunker.” The extent of the French mercenary presence in Ukraine was revealed in January, when a Russian missile strike killed and injured dozens of fighters in Kharkov.

NATO will not gain control over the Black Sea

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“..There are no resources in this country, there is no one to fight.”

• Ukraine’s Losses ‘In The Millions’ – Polish General (RT)

Ukraine’s losses in the conflict with Russia should be counted “in the millions,” the former chief of the Polish General Staff, Rajmund Andrzejczak, has claimed. Kiev “is losing the war” and does not have the resources to sustain the fight against Moscow, he added. In an interview with the Polsat broadcaster on Monday, the retired general described Ukraine’s battlefield situation as “very dramatic” and insisted that “there are no miracles in war.”
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s decision to replace his top general, Valery Zaluzhny, with Aleksandr Syrsky has failed to make a significant difference as the same issues remain for Kiev’s new commander-in-chief, Andrzejczak added. According to the retired general, Ukraine is suffering deficits in equipment and manpower, with losses taking their toll on its capabilities. “They are missing over 10 million people. I estimate that the losses should be counted in the millions, not hundreds of thousands. There are no resources in this country, there is no one to fight.”

“The Ukrainians are losing this war,” Andrzejczak stated, pointing to media reports suggesting that Kiev is running out of anti-aircraft missiles to protect itself from Russian strikes. Echoing warnings from several Western leaders in recent weeks, Andrzejczak called for arms production to be boosted and argued that the West should prepare for a full-scale conflict with Russia within two or three years. Russian President Vladimir Putin has insisted that Moscow has no plans or interest in attacking NATO. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu stated last month that Ukraine had lost more than 444,000 troops since the start of the conflict in February 2022. The hostilities have also triggered an exodus of Ukrainian refugees, with almost 6.5 million recorded worldwide, according to UN data.

Officials in Kiev have repeatedly complained that Western arms shipments have been inadequate. Those calls have grown louder as US President Joe Biden’s request to provide an additional $60 billion in aid remains stalled in Congress, due to Republican demands to strengthen American border security. Kiev is also mulling a new mobilization bill that would lower the minimum draft age for men from 27 to 25, with reported plans to send 500,000 new troops to the frontline. Against this backdrop, the Russian military last month pushed Kiev out of the strategic Donbass city of Avdeevka, also liberating several nearby settlements. The former stronghold has been on the front line since 2014 and was frequently used by Kiev to shell residential blocks in the nearby city of Donetsk.

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“You’re in a fight for your life, so you should be serving — not at 25 or 27.” “We need more people in the line..”

• Lindsey Graham Tells Ukraine To Draft Younger Soldiers (RT)

US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) has urged the Ukrainian parliament to pass a highly controversial mobilization bill that would lower the minimum conscription age from 27 to 25 to compensate for battlefield losses. At the same time, he advocated a scheme in which the US would provide Ukraine with loans instead of non-repayable aid. Kiev announced general mobilization in February 2022 shortly after the start of the conflict, with men between 27 and 60 eligible to be called up, although those over the age of 18 could also volunteer. In December, Ukrainian officials proposed a bill expanding the draft bracket, with reported plans to send as many as 500,000 fresh soldiers to the front line. On Monday, Graham traveled to Kiev to discuss continued US support for Ukraine with President Vladimir Zelensky. Speaking to reporters, he said that he hoped that those eligible to serve in the Ukrainian military would join the fight.

“I can’t believe [the conscription threshold] is at 27,” he added, as quoted by the Washington Post. “You’re in a fight for your life, so you should be serving — not at 25 or 27.” “We need more people in the line,” he said. Graham also stressed that Ukrainians need to serve regardless of whether the US sends arms to Kiev or not. “No matter what we do, you’re fighting for you.” The US has struggled to approve President Joe Biden’s aid request earmarking $60 billion for Ukraine due to Republican opposition demanding that the White House do more to enhance security on the southern border. Moreover, Graham appeared to endorse the approach of GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump who has advocated providing aid to Kiev in form of loans on “extraordinarily good terms.”

“I was very direct with President Zelensky. You can expect me to always be in your corner, but it’s not unfair for me to ask you and other allies: Pay us back down the road, if you can,” the senator said. Graham’s call for Kiev to extend the draft bracket comes as Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu last month estimated Ukrainian losses since the start of the conflict at more than 444,000 troops. Meanwhile, Zelensky has claimed that Kiev has suffered only 31,000 dead. Last year, President Vladimir Putin said that Western countries seemed determined “to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian.” He also noted at the time that while the West could provide Kiev with new arms, Ukraine’s manpower is not limitless.

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“..who the main beneficiaries of the spending bonanza really are (hint: it’s not the Ukrainians)..”

• US Military-Industrial Complex Jacks Up Prices Amid Ukraine Proxy War (Sp.)

Dedicated Ukraine proxy war supporter and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has laced into America’s biggest defense contractors, accusing them of price gouging. “Like a majority of Americans, I believe it is in the vital interest of the United States and the international community to fight off Russian President Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. But many defense contractors see the war primarily as a way to line their own pockets. The RTX Corporation, formally Raytheon, has increased prices for its Stinger missiles sevenfold since 1991. Today, it costs the United States $400,000 to replace each Stinger sent to Ukraine – an outrageous price increase that cannot even remotely be explained by inflation, increased costs, or advances in quality,” Sanders complained in an essay published in Foreign Affairs magazine on Monday.

“When contractors pad their profits, fewer weapons reach Ukrainians on the frontlines. Congress must rein in this kind of war profiteering by more closely examining contracts, taking back payments that turn out to be excessive, and creating a tax on windfall profits,” Sanders urged. The senator’s shock and outrage over the US military-industrial complex’s war profiteering is in itself a surprise. Serving as a congressman between 1991 and 2007 and as a senator from 2007 onward, Sanders has been part of Washington political establishment for over 30 years now. One might think that to be more than enough time to realize that obscene profitmaking is the name of the arms industry’s game.

The senator’s farfetched epiphany aside, his point stands. Since the 1990s, US weapons giants from Raytheon and Lockheed to BAE Systems to General Dynamics have jacked prices on everything from man-portable anti-tank and air defense missiles to artillery, tanks, drones and more. In other words, the Stinger certainly isn’t the only example of out of control costs at the Pentagon. The Kiel Institute for the World Economy estimates total Western military assistance to Ukraine to have hit $113+ billion in 2024. On first glance, that figure sounds impressive, representing nearly double Russia’s entire pre-conflict defense budget of $66 billion in 2021. Taking account of the seemingly out-of-control price increases of US weapons, however, a different picture emerges on the capabilities given to Kiev, and about who the main beneficiaries of the spending bonanza really are (hint: it’s not the Ukrainians).

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“..Apple will disable all iPhones in the Russian Federation, and Google will disable non-jailbroken Android phones..”

• iPhones Won’t Work In Case Of World War III – Russian MP (RT)

Western smartphones could stop working in Russia if the Ukraine conflict turns into a global war, Anton Gorelkin, deputy head of the Russian State Duma’s Information Policy Committee, warned in an interview posted to the YouTube channel Telega Reality. According to the MP, if the conflict “moves to another stage,” everyone will “up the stakes,” including the tech companies. “I’m talking about something that some experts call World War III. In this scenario, I fully expect that Apple will disable all iPhones in the Russian Federation, and Google will disable non-jailbroken Android phones,” he stated. He warned that in such a case the Russian authorities and tech experts could retaliate with similar actions regarding Western tech companies, although he did not specify what these actions could be. Gorelkin also admitted that Russia currently has no alternatives to replace Western smartphones or the software they use. He predicted, however, that things may change in 5-10 years, as Russia’s IT sphere is rapidly developing, especially since the exit of a number of foreign companies from the country’s market.

Gorelkin is not the first person to suggest the possibility that Western gadgets will stop working in Russia. Various experts warned that such a scenario was technically possible for all devices that require software updates from companies abroad, or have options that allow owners to remotely find and block a phone that has gone missing. However, so far Western tech companies have stopped short at removing undesirable applications from their app stores and disabling the use of the payment services Apple Pay and Google Pay on phones belonging to Russian users. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently weighed in on the possibility of the Ukraine conflict turning into a global war. During a question-and-answer session at his campaign headquarters in Moscow on Sunday night, he commented on recent statements from members of the US-led military bloc on the possibility of NATO troops being deployed in Ukraine. Putin said that such a move would be seen as a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia, which “would be one step shy of a full-scale World War III.”

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“.. real wages measured against pre-crisis forecasts dropped by 4% from April 2022 to March 2023, while output declined by 4.1%..”

• German Living Standards In ‘Unprecedented post-WW2 Slump’ (RT)

Germany’s 2022 living standards took the biggest downturn since World War II, a report released by the Forum for a New Economy on Monday has suggested. The decline is attributed to the energy shocks that sent prices for consumers soaring. Economists from the Berlin-based think-tank highlighted that the decline in Germany’s economic output recorded in 2022 is comparable to the financial crisis of 2008 and the short-lived decline during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. The failure to protect the country’s industrial sector from energy price spikes is expected to turn the 2020s into “a lost decade for Germany,” the analysts have warned, calling the crisis “the worst economic downturn in the country since World War II.” For years, Germany’s prized industrial sector had been fueled by relatively inexpensive Russian gas. However, since the Ukraine conflict erupted in 2022, Berlin has opted to forgo energy from Russia in favor of costlier alternatives, including American liquefied natural gas.

According to the report, real wages measured against pre-crisis forecasts dropped by 4% from April 2022 to March 2023, while output declined by 4.1%. Germany’s economy shrank by 0.3% in 2023, according to the federal statistics agency Destatis. However, the country managed to avoid a technical recession after the second-quarter figures were revised to 0.1% growth. Two consecutive quarters of negative growth are widely considered to mark a technical recession. The Bundesbank, Germany’s central bank, recently forecast growth of 0.4% in 2024. However, some financial institutions, such as the country’s two largest lenders, Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank, expect German GDP to decline again this year. Meanwhile, EU Commission’s most recent forecast for the Eurozone shows an expected increase in GDP of only 0.8% in 2024, down from the previous forecast of 1.2% growth made last November.

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“We cannot affect the outcome of the election… but just to spite them we need to make some stupid statement.”

• Medvedev Reacts To Germany’s Putin Snub (RT)

Berlin’s decision not to refer to Russian President Vladimir Putin by his proper title in government documents is ridiculous and possibly a sign of a mental disorder, officials in Moscow have said. The diplomatic snub was announced on Monday in an effort to discredit last week’s presidential election in Russia. Germany and other Western nations claim the electoral process was neither free nor fair. A government spokesperson said the move was symbolic, noting that communications between Berlin and Russia were severely limited anyway. Reacting to the news, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said the stunt “comes from shameful weakness.”

He claimed that Germany was essentially saying “We cannot affect the outcome of the election… but just to spite them we need to make some stupid statement.”If Germany does not recognize Putin as the legitimate head of Russia, how does it intend to negotiate with Moscow and what value would any outcome of such talks have, asked Medvedev, who is the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council. Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the decision not to use Putin’s official title looked like the result of a self-induced “wild phobia,” an inability to name the source of one’s fear. ”This is something that differentiates a healthy person from someone who is not. They appear to be in a state of paranoia,” she remarked during an interview.

Western rhetoric following Putin’s re-election had contrasted with the reaction of most nations of the world, which had congratulated the president, Zakharova noted. The US and its allies should “take care of themselves and their problems” instead of picking on other sovereign states, she suggested. The Russian president has dismissed Western criticism of his election win, claiming that it was made in bad faith by governments seeking to contain Russia. ”What did you expect? For them to stand up in applause or something? They are fighting against us, including with arms,” Putin said following his victory.

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“In Gaza we are no longer on the brink of famine. We are in a state of famine..”

• ‘Catastrophic’ Hunger Has Gripped Gaza (RT)

Famine conditions now exist in the northern part of Gaza, a UN monitor group warned on Monday. Around 300,000 people remain trapped in the area, following months of Israeli bombardment that has left over 31,000 people dead. The UN-backed report also warns that more than 70% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million faces “catastrophic hunger.” The Integrated Food-Security Phase Classification (IPC) said that mass death is now imminent without an immediate ceasefire and deliveries of food aid to the areas affected by the fighting. More than a dozen children in Gaza, including newborn babies, have starved to death and many more are at risk from soaring malnutrition. UN aid agencies warned earlier in March that urgently-needed humanitarian aid is being blocked from entering the Palestinian enclave.

The IPC estimated that two out of every 10,000 people will die daily from starvation, malnutrition, and disease if not helped immediately. “The actions needed to prevent famine require an immediate political decision for a ceasefire together with a significant and immediate increase in humanitarian and commercial access to the entire population of Gaza,” the report said. Israel has been criticized by its Western partners since it began launching retaliatory strikes against Hamas militants following their attack on Israel on October 7. “In Gaza we are no longer on the brink of famine. We are in a state of famine,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said at the opening of a conference on humanitarian aid for Gaza in Brussels on Monday.

He also accused Israel of “using starvation as a weapon of war.” Foreign Minister Israel Katz responded by saying, “Israel allows extensive humanitarian aid into Gaza,” and told Borrell “to stop attacking Israel and recognize our right to self-defense against Hamas’ crimes.” Efforts to reach a truce between Hamas and Israel are ongoing, with no breakthrough so far as the hostilities continue. Heavy fighting erupted on Monday in and around Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital complex. The Israeli Army said it was combatting Hamas militants there and advised civilians to evacuate.

Sachs Israel

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“..the federal government’s inability or unwillingness to protect the border..”

• Supreme Court Allows Texas To Start Arresting And Deporting Illegal Aliens (ZH)

The Supreme Court on Tuesday dealt a blow to the Biden administration’s attempts to keep the US border open – allowing Texas to enforce a new law giving local police the power to arrest migrants. With three liberal justices dissenting, the conservative-majority court rejected an emergency request by the Biden administration which claimed that states have no authority to legislate on immigration. The ruling means that Texas’ law can go into effect while litigation continues in lower courts. The law, SB4, allows police to arrest migrants who illegally cross into the United States from Mexico, and imposes criminal penalties. It also empowers judges to deport people to Mexico. “Texas is the nation’s first-line defense against transnational violence and has been forced to deal with the deadly consequences of the federal government’s inability or unwillingness to protect the border,” Texas argued in court papers.

The dispute is the latest clash between the Biden administration and Texas over immigration enforcement on the U.S.-Mexico border. A federal judge blocked the law after the Biden administration sued, but the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a brief order that it could go into effect March 10 if the Supreme Court declined to intervene. On March 4, Justice Samuel Alito issued a temporary freeze on the law to give the Supreme Court time to consider the federal government’s request. -NBC News. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said in court filings that Texas’ law is “flatly inconsistent” with Supreme Court precedent dating back 100 years. “Those decisions recognize that the authority to admit and remove noncitizens is a core responsibility of the national government, and that where Congress has enacted a law addressing those issues, state law is preempted,” she said, adding that the appeals court did not explain its reasoning for allowing the law to go into effect.

And what about the GDP? The new ruling may put a crimp in the Biden administration’s seeming plan to flood the country with low-wage labor in an effort to boost GDP, which Democrats now insist would benefit to the tune of $7 trillion thanks to illegal immigrants – who are allowed to work indefinitely whilst waiting for the US immigration system to process their asylum claims. Recall that 10 million illegals have entered the US under Biden, while virtually all of the job gains under Biden have gone to foreign-born workers, looks like their ‘great replacement’ theory scheme has just suffered a swift kick to the huevos. “This unprecedented surge in illegal immigration isn’t an accident. It is the result of deliberate policy choices by the Biden administration,” said Eric Ruark, Director of Research for Numbers USA, a nonprofit that advocates for immigration restrictions.

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“..Is there a pattern here of likely guilt that is contextualized into a not guilty assessment?..”

• Guilty!—But Not Really Guilty? (Victor Davis Hanson)

In 2011, then Homeland Security Advisor to President Obama, John Brennan, swore before Congress that drone-targeted assassination missions near the Pakistani border had not led to “a single collateral death.” That was an obvious lie with grave consequences, given that Brennan was sworn under oath and was one of the top officials in the US national security community. Yet there were no subsequent repercussions. In fact, the opposite occurred. Brennan was subsequently rewarded with a 2013 appointment as CIA. But the next year, once again, Brennan lied to Congress, assuring the Senate Intelligence Committee that his CIA had not secretly accessed senate staffers’ computers. Again, there were no consequences for his repeated lies. Instead, Brennan, upon retirement, went on to be an MSNBC/NBC analyst who helped to promulgate the Russian collusion/laptop disinformation hoaxes.

In 2013, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper also lied under oath to Congress when he laughably stated that the National Security Agency did not spy on American citizens. Later, when called out by senators, Clapper fudged in a televised interview. “I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful, manner by saying no.” Try that contortion with the IRS. Some members of Congress referred a criminal complaint of perjury against Brennan to then Attorney General Eric Holder. Nothing happened. Again, one of the chiefs of the American national security community was exempted after lying to members of Congress. Clapper went on to a lucrative position as a CNN national security analyst, and at one point he claimed that Trump was a Putin “asset.”

As far as Eric Holder, he had earlier defied a congressional subpoena and was held in contempt by the House. The Department of Justice, however, chose not to pursue the complaint. Later in the Trump administration, Trump adviser Peter Navarro would be sentenced to four months in jail for similarly resisting a congressional subpoena. Was it a crime or not to resist a congressional subpoena? The Justice Department’s Inspector General concluded that Andrew McCabe, the former FBI deputy director and interim director, had lied repeatedly to a variety of officials, including FBI Director James Comey, various FBI agents, and officials of the Office of the Inspector General. On some of these occasions, McCabe was sworn under oath. Yet in 2020, the Department of Justice chose not to pursue the IG’s criminal referrals. McCabe went on to become an outspoken CNN News contributor. Note that Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump’s National Security Advisor, was indicted—and convicted—for similarly lying to the FBI in 2017.

In 2016, an FBI investigation found that Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, had violated the law by transmitting and receiving classified information over an unsecured private server. Subsequently, she destroyed thousands of emails and some devices, some of which were under subpoena. FBI Director James Comey found that “any reasonable person” should have known it was illegal to transmit classified information in such a sloppy fashion. Comey, however, found that “Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.” Translated, that meant Hillary Clinton had likely broken the law, but it was unlikely that any prosecutor like Comey would indict the then-current Democratic nominee for president and former Secretary of State—at least in the fashion that state and federal prosecutors would later file over 90 indictments against Donald Trump.

In 2018, the now-former FBI Director James Comey on some 245 occasions claimed under oath to Congress that he did not know or could not remember essential facts in the FBI Crossfire Hurricane investigation of Donald Trump, which he had authorized. In addition, the Office of the Inspector General of the Justice Department found that Comey had broken the law by violating both DOJ and FBI policies, as well as the FBI’s employment agreement—especially by retaining in his personal safe copies of four bureau memos concerning a confidential conversation with President Trump. Elements in the memos from that meeting likely contained classified information. Yet Comey leaked it to a friend without a security clearance in order to make it public. Despite the damning IG report, the Department of Justice chose not to prosecute Comey. Is there a pattern here of likely guilt that is contextualized into a not guilty assessment—and not guilty due to the prosecutorial psychoanalysis of the jury—that a guilty verdict would be difficult to obtain?

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“For the first time in my 94 years on earth, I fear for the future of our democracy..”

“Joe Biden has fulfilled Barack Obama’s promise to “transform” America..”

• It’s Time for GOP To Unite Behind Trump (Marcus)

For the first time in my 94 years on earth, I fear for the future of our democracy. I see the federal government using its enormous powers with contempt for the governed instead of with the consent of the governed as our founders envisioned. Fundamental change in America is occurring by executive order or the force of the government’s police powers instead of through the legislative process required by the Constitution. From this, I fear that free market capitalism may be replaced by big government socialism. I also fear the erosion of our rights and freedoms, including parental rights, freedom of speech and religion, and due process. In the past, I always had the confidence that a president who was a threat to democracy could be voted out of office in the next election. I am no longer that confident today. My lack of confidence is because the media today is not the watchdog over government that our Founders intended it to be. It is instead the lapdog of government, shielding the public from the entire truth about the policies and actions of the current administration.

One vivid example of this became a meme: the television reporters declaring while doing their standups that the riots in 2020 were “mainly peaceful” as fires raged in the background. I was not surprised earlier this month by the reprise of “Russia collusion.” Nor will I be surprised if the media soon characterizes a Trump rally as an “insurrection.” The media may be the biggest threat to our democracy since only well-informed voters guarantee the future of it. There is more on the line in this year’s presidential election than ever before. It is a mistake to assume that this election will be a rerun of 2020. The presumptive nominees and the world have changed since then. President Biden can no longer portray himself as “kindly Uncle Joe” or a moderate Democrat. His recent State of the Union Address, which was the most divisive of any I recall, reveals he is a very angry man and not someone Americans would want as their uncle. His policies and the undemocratic means by which he implemented them confirm he has been pulled to the far left by far-left extremists in the Democrat Party.

The Biden administration’s policies invited an invasion along our southern border by millions of unvetted people, compromised national security, allowed crime to spin out of control in our streets, forced middle-class Americans to raid their retirement funds to put food on their tables, and divided America more than at any time in our history since the Civil War. Joe Biden has fulfilled Barack Obama’s promise to “transform” America. This is not a welcome transformation, as confirmed by Biden’s dismal job approval ratings. When Donald Trump was in office, his Democrats and their media allies portrayed him as a pugnacious New Yorker who “did not act presidential” and somehow craved dictatorial powers. They’re still doing this, although they’ve upped the rhetoric. Over the weekend, Nancy Pelosi invoked Adolf Hitler while attacking the former president. His detractors are unwilling to look past Trump’s rough edges and see the results he achieved during his first of what I hope will be two terms.

His policies achieved the highest wage rate in 50 years while keeping inflation in check, the lowest unemployment rate for minorities, and energy independence for America, among other stunning results. Moreover, his policies and the projection of his and America’s strength kept the country out of any new foreign conflicts. It is essential to our national security that America’s enemies fear our president. This does not mean that President Trump did not have to do better. He did, and he has done so since leaving office. Having become close to him in the last seven years, I have seen a side of him that is not seen by the public. He is truly one of the most misunderstood men in America, and I and other friends of his have urged him to let the public see the real Donald Trump. His recent praise of Nikki Haley was unifying and shows the magnanimous side of him that his friends often see. Expect more of the real Donald Trump to emerge.

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“..You live in a country where the Attorney General is abetting, in fact calling for voter fraud, and that’s the only chance they have to get their guy re-elected.”

• How the Democrats Plan To Steal the Election (Lew Rockwell)

This isn’t the first time the Left has stolen an election. It happened in the 2020 presidential election too. Ron Unz offers his usual cogent analysis: “There does seem to be considerable circumstantial evidence of widespread ballot fraud by Democratic Party forces, hardly surprising given the apocalyptic manner in which so many of their leaders had characterized the threat of a Trump reelection. After all, if they sincerely believed that a Trump victory would be catastrophic for America why would they not use every possible means, fair and foul alike, to save our country from that dire fate? In particular, several of the major swing-states contain large cities—Detroit, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and Atlanta—that are both totally controlled by the Democratic Party and also notoriously corrupt, and various eye-witnesses have suggested that the huge anti-Trump margins they provided may have been heavily ‘padded’ to ensure the candidate’s defeat.”

In a program aired right after Biden’s pitiful State of the Union speech, the great Tucker Carlson pointed out that Biden’s “Justice” Department has already confessed that it plans to rig the election. It will do this by banning voter ID laws as “racist.” This permits an unlimited number of fake votes: “If Joe Biden is so good at politics, why is he losing to Donald Trump, who the rest of us were assured was a retarded racist who no normal person would vote for? But now Joe Biden is getting stomped by Donald Trump, but he’s also at the same time good at politics? Right. Again, they can’t win, but they’re not giving up. So what does that tell you? Well, they’re going to steal the election. We know they’re going to steal the election because they’re now saying so out loud. Here is the Attorney General of the United States, the chief law enforcement officer of this country in Selma, Alabama, just the other day. [Now Carlson quotes the Attorney General, Merrick Garland:] “The right to vote is still under attack, and that is why the Justice Department is fighting back. That is why one of the first things I did when I came into office was to double the size of the voting section of the Civil Rights Division.

That is why we are challenging efforts by states and jurisdictions to implement discriminatory, burdensome, and unnecessary restrictions on access to the ballot, including those related to mail-in voting, the use of drop boxes and voter ID requirements. That is why we are working to block the adoption of discriminatory redistricting plans that dilute the vote of Black voters and other voters of color. [Carlson then comments on Garland:] “Did you catch that? Of course, you’re a racist. That’s always the takeaway. But consider the details of what the Attorney General of the United States just said. Mail-in balloting, drop boxes, voter ID requirements. The chief law enforcement officer of the United States Government is telling you that it’s immoral, in fact racist, in fact illegal to ask people for their IDs when they vote to verify they are who they say they are. What is that? Well, no one ever talks about this, but the justification for it is that somehow people of color, Black people, don’t have state-issued IDs.

Somehow they’re living in a country where you can do virtually nothing without proving your identity with a government-issued ID without government-issued IDs. They can’t fly on planes, they can’t have checking accounts, they can’t have any interaction with the government, state, local, or federal. They can’t stay in hotels. They can’t have credit cards. Because someone without a state-issued ID can’t do any of those things. But what’s so interesting is these same people, very much including the Attorney General and the administration he serves, is working to eliminate cash, to make this a cashless society. Have you been to a stadium event recently? No cash accepted. You have to have a credit card. In order to get a credit card you need a state-issued ID, and somehow that’s not racist. But it is racist to ask people to prove their identity when they choose the next President of the United States. That doesn’t make any sense at all. That’s a lie. It’s an easily provable lie, and anyone telling that lie is advocating for mass voter fraud, which the Attorney General is. There’s no other way to read it. So you should know that. You live in a country where the Attorney General is abetting, in fact calling for voter fraud, and that’s the only chance they have to get their guy re-elected.”

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“..the drug activates genes in neurons that affect cell growth, improves brain function and reduces the risks of inflammation..”

• Viagra May Prevent Alzheimer’s (RT)

Sildenafil, the generic name for Viagra, may not only treat erectile dysfunction and pulmonary arterial hypertension, but also ward off cognitive decline, according to research published by the Cleveland Clinic Genome Center earlier this month. The authors of the study, published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease on March 1, found that those who took sildenafil were 30% to 54% less likely to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. The researchers used real-world patient data from the MarketScan Medicare Supplemental database (2012-2017) and the Clinformatics database (2007-2020) to arrive at the conclusion.

The research was focused on those taking sildenafil or four comparator drugs, including bumetanide, furosemide, spironolactone, and nifedipine. Comparators are existing marketed drug products, or new drugs in development, including placebo versions. Gender, age, race, and concurrent diseases of the patients were factored in. The study concluded that the use of sildenafil was associated with reduced likelihood of Alzheimer’s relative to the control drugs. The results also showed that the drug activates genes in neurons that affect cell growth, improves brain function and reduces the risks of inflammation.

“We used artificial intelligence to integrate data across multiple domains which all indicated sildenafil’s potential against this devastating neurological disease,” said Feixiong Cheng, director of the Cleveland Clinic Genome Center, who led the study. Similar conclusions about sildenafil were made by researchers from University College London earlier this year. The study, published in the journal Neurology last month, included nearly 270,000 men who were diagnosed with erectile dysfunction and had no cognitive problems at the beginning of the research work. Those taking the drugs were 18% less likely to develop the dementia-causing condition.

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CO2

 

 

Rik Mayall
https://twitter.com/i/status/1770026300385743303

 

 

 

 

Dogshower

 

 

Frens

 

 

Owl
https://twitter.com/i/status/1769916272089952458

 

 

Luna

 

 

SF 1950s

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle February 6 2024

Feb 062024
 
 February 6, 2024  Posted by at 9:49 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  66 Responses »


Claude Monet Houses of Parliament, Sunset 1904

 

• “Don’t Be STUPID!!!”: Trump Slams Senate Border Bill (ZH)
• Texas Stripped of Powers in Border Security Bill (NW)
• Speaker Johnson: New Supplemental Funding Bill Even Worse Than Expected (Sp.)
• Senate’s Border Deal Teeters On Brink Of Collapse (Pol.)
• The Supreme Court Laid the Seeds for the Immigration Crisis (Turley)
• Jake Sullivan Refuses To Rule Out Attacks On Iranian Soil (MEE)
• Nicaragua Taking Germany, Canada, UK, Netherlands To ICJ For Genocide (AlM)
• UN To Probe UNRWA For ‘Neutrality’ (RT)
• Zaluzhny Agrees To Be Ukraine’s Ambassador To UK – Lawmaker (TASS)
• Kremlin Warns West Against ‘Deeply Illegal’ Asset Seizure (RT)
• Brace for Impact (Kunstler)
• Trump Facing ‘Long’ Prison Sentence – DNC Lawyer Marc Elias (RT)
• Judge Dismisses Alvin Bragg’s Felony Case Against Vax Card Forgers (PM)
• The Overthrow of Men (Paul Craig Roberts)
• US Panicking Tucker Carlson Will Continue Objective Reporting in Russia (Sp.)

 

 

 

 

Trump border bill
https://twitter.com/i/status/1754687463119806466

 

 

Schumer


https://twitter.com/i/status/1754525289114227117

 

 

DeSantis

 

 

Texas AG Ken Paxton: “The Biden-Senate immigration bill is complete disaster. “The open borders policies it enshrines would destroy our country. In addition to encouraging nearly 2 million illegal aliens annually to enter the country, paying out over $1 billion to the toxic NGOs that settle illegal immigrants all over the nation, empowering Mayorkas to abuse the asylum process on his arbitrary whim, and ending catch-and-release, this bill that gives Biden and Mayorkas everything they want does something far more sinister.

It requires that legal challenges to these provisions be heard by the highly partisan Washington, D.C. courts. They know exactly what they are doing: Texas has been able to create major slowdowns to Biden’s open borders doctrine because our Constitutional system allows us to sue the federal government in fair venues. What Biden, Mayorkas, and the Senate uniparty in the swamp want to do is PREVENT the Texas AG and all other state AGs from acting as a check on the federal government’s tyrannical abuses of power. That is unthinkable. It is un-American. This bill is an unacceptable mess that no serious leader could even think about passing.”

 

 

Tucker Russia

 

 

“After that one puff on Joe Rogan Podcast, Elon Musk agreed, at NASA’s request, to do 3 years of random drug testing. Not even trace quantities were found of any drugs or alcohol. Last month, even NASA said there isn’t any evidence of drug use.”

 

 

Elon Musk: “Many states automatically register anyone with a driver’s license to vote (no citizenship verification), ballots are then mailed out and “ballot harvesters” pick them up mail them in, making fraud traceability impossible..”

 

 

 

 

“..It takes the HORRIBLE JOB the Democrats have done on Immigration and the Border, absolves them, and puts it all squarely on the shoulders of Republicans..” “Don’t be STUPID!!! We need a separate Border and Immigration bill. It should not be tied to foreign aid in any way, shape or form!”

• “Don’t Be STUPID!!!”: Trump Slams Senate Border Bill (ZH)

The Senate’s $118 billion spending package, of which more than $60 billion would go to Ukraine, allows 1.5 million illegal migrants into the country per year, hobbles states like Texas by requiring legal challenges be arbitrated in DC courts, and funds NGOs who facilitate human trafficking to the tune of billions, is ‘dead on arrival’ according to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA). The bill’s most ardent supporters are a coalition of establishment all-stars, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and lead GOP negotiator, Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) – who was censured last week by the Oklahoma GOP for striking such a crappy border deal with Sens. Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ). As Punchbowl News puts it, the bill’s Sunday night release was like “pouring gasoline on the fire that is the Senate GOP internal war,” as “Senators and aides publicly and privately questioned whether a majority of the Republican Conference would back it.”

Some GOP Senators and outside conservative groups even called for an immediate leadership change over the package. During a Sunday evening press call, Lankford said critics of the proposal had already come out against it before the text was released. “If we have a crisis on our southern border, and we do… we should address that and do what we can to be able to solve that problem — not just hope that the problem gets better or hope that an election solves the issue,” Lankford said – completely ignoring the fact that President Joe Biden could close the border with the stroke of a pen, today, without $60 billion going to Ukraine and 5,000 migrants allowed in per day.

Lankford said in response to these statements that he’s “a little confused… at how it could be ‘worse than expected.’” The Oklahoma Republican added he wants to huddle with the speaker’s team. Of course, Johnson’s statement will undoubtedly cause some on-the-fence GOP senators to vote against the bill. “We’re at the beginning points of information,” Lankford asserted, dismissing the House GOP criticisms. “There are some people who just read Facebook posts… They made their decision based on the Facebook posts, not the text.” According to Donald Trump, “We need a Separate Border and Immigration Bill. It should not be tied to foreign aid in any way, shape or form.”

“Only a fool, or a Radical Left Democrat, would vote for this horrendous Border Bill, which only gives Shutdown Authority after 5000 Encounters a day, when we already have the right to CLOSE THE BORDER NOW, which must be done,” he said on Truth Social. “This Bill is a great gift to the Democrats, and a Death Wish for The Republican Party. It takes the HORRIBLE JOB the Democrats have done on Immigration and the Border, absolves them, and puts it all squarely on the shoulders of Republicans,” the former president continued. “Don’t be STUPID!!! We need a separate Border and Immigration bill. It should not be tied to foreign aid in any way, shape or form!”

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“This would prevent plaintiffs – like the State of Texas – from filing suit in Texas federal courts. This is corrupt..”

• Texas Stripped of Powers in Border Security Bill (NW)

Conservatives have attacked a provision of the new border security bill that would only allow legal challenges to be made in Washington D.C. The bill would strip the power of Texas and other states to challenge some of the its provisions in their local federal court. Conservative commentators were quick to denounce the provision, contained on page 221 of the bill. Bill Shipley, who was a federal prosecutor for over 20 years, decried the its court provisions on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday. “This would prevent plaintiffs – like the State of Texas – from filing suit in Texas federal courts. This is corrupt,” he wrote. After outlining the provisions under which immigrants can seek judicial review of a deportation order, the bill states:

“The United States District Court for the District of Columbia shall have sole and original jurisdiction to hear challenges, whether constitutional or otherwise, to the validity of this section or any written policy directive, written policy guideline, written procedure, or the implementation thereof.” The right of judicial review for illegal immigrants about to be deported has proved controversial. In 2022, a Louisiana federal judge blocked the Biden administration from ending Title 42, a pandemic-related border restriction that allows for the immediate expulsion of asylum-seekers and other migrants. Reacting to the latest provisions in the border security bill, conservative writer and self-style “deportation scientist” Mike Howell wrote on X that the bill “puts far left DC district court in charge.” Lawyer and author, Kurt Schlichter, wrote: “This is amazing” on X in response to the provision.

President Joe Biden’s administration secured a significant win over Texas Governor Greg Abbott in late January after the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to allow the temporary removal of razor wire installed by Texas along the southern border. The removal will remain place while litigation over the issue proceeds. The decision sparked anger among Republicans who support the measures taken by Abbott and his administration to fight illegal immigration in the state. Tensions over the measures escalated as the federal government raised environmental and humanitarian concerns about the deterrent. The Texas governor, an outspoken critic of Biden over immigration issues, has vowed that the fight “is not over” and called the razor wire “an effective deterrent” in a post on X, formerly Twitter, despite the legal blow. He also issued a statement declaring Texas’ “right to self-defense.”

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“As the lead Democrat negotiator proclaimed: Under this legislation, ‘the border never closes..'”

• Speaker Johnson: New Supplemental Funding Bill Even Worse Than Expected (Sp.)

US House Speaker Mike Johnson said Sunday that the proposed $118 billion supplemental funding bill with aid for Ukraine and Israel, as well as border security and national security measures, “is even worse than expected” and “will be dead on arrival.”Earlier on Sunday, the Senate, after weeks of negotiations with the White House, released the $118 billion national security supplemental bill that includes some $60 billion in additional aid for Ukraine, $14 billion for Israel, and about $20 billion for border security, among other priorities.

The proposed legislation would also immediately deport migrants who enter the US illegally, further restrict asylum eligibility, provide $650 million to build more border wall, and require a shutdown of the border to illegal migrants when illegal crossings exceed an average of 5,000 a week. “I’ve seen enough. This bill is even worse than we expected, and won’t come close to ending the border catastrophe the President has created. As the lead Democrat negotiator proclaimed: Under this legislation, ‘the border never closes,'” Johnson said on X (formerly Twitter), adding that the bill “will be dead on arrival” if it reaches the House.

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“Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), who struck the deal, even suggested he might vote against moving forward if his colleagues weren’t ready to move..”

• Senate’s Border Deal Teeters On Brink Of Collapse (Pol.)

The Senate’s bipartisan border and foreign aid deal is already close to failure, with Republicans preparing to block debate on the bill this week — and potentially for longer than that. The President Joe Biden-backed agreement is getting pummeled from the left and right, but it’s internal GOP angst that’s fueling the likelihood of a filibuster during an expected test vote on Wednesday. After Senate Republicans met for 90 minutes on Monday night to discuss the border deal that a trio of senators forged over the past four months, few of them emerged willing to say they would vote to advance the $118 billion package. Several members of GOP leadership came out against the legislation in the past 24 hours, further boxing in Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The Kentucky Republican, who supports the agreement linking border policy changes with aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, called Monday’s meeting an “interesting discussion.”

Inside the room, McConnell told Republicans that if they didn’t like the direction that the bill is going, they should vote against moving forward this week, according to two people briefed on the meeting who were granted anonymity to speak candidly. According to two attendees, McConnell did not forcefully whip for or against the bill. He instead discussed the specific policies and politics of the legislation, which is opposed by Speaker Mike Johnson and former President Donald Trump. Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), who struck the deal, even suggested he might vote against moving forward if his colleagues weren’t ready to move. “That’s not voting against the bill,” Lankford said of voting to filibuster the bill from coming to the floor. “So that’s not the final passage. That’s the beginning point.”

It’s a stunning turnabout from just a few months ago, when Republicans demanded border security policy changes to pair with $60 billion in Ukraine aid requested by Biden. Now Republican support for the legislation is vanishingly hard to find, with just a handful of GOP senators in support. Even moderate Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said she was unsure if she would vote to advance the bill. Lankford added that he’s not sure how much time members will actually want to evaluate the proposal — if that timeline goes beyond Wednesday. Many Senate Republicans want an open amendment process that could drag out debate indefinitely, if leadership allows it.

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“The southern border in 2024 is, constitutionally, suffering no more an “invasion” than the Capitol riot in 2021 was an “insurrection.” There is a difference between the colloquial and constitutional meaning of such terms.”

• The Supreme Court Laid the Seeds for the Immigration Crisis (Turley)

The upcoming impeachment vote on Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has caused a deep rift even among his critics, including some Republican members of Congress. Many view Mayorkas as an unmitigated disaster as Homeland secretary. The massive numbers of migrants crossing the border has become a growing economic and security threat to the entire nation. I have previously expressed my disagreement with the two articles of impeachment, which present their own inherent dangers to the underlying constitutional standards. But whatever happens in the House, the real crisis is not the employment status of Mayorkas. It is what brought the House to seriously consider this extreme remedy in the first place. The seeds of this disaster were planted by the Supreme Court over a decade ago, in Arizona v. U.S., if not earlier.

In that case, a 5-3 majority ruled against a state seeking to enforce immigration laws in light of what it described as a vacuum of federal action. The court declared that the states were preempted or barred from taking such action. While giving the state a small victory in allowing state officers to investigate the immigration status of a suspect with reasonable suspicion, it left little room for independent state action in the area.Despite President Obama’s orders giving some migrants effective immunity from enforcement (such as the youths that came to be known as “DREAMers”), he actually deported a significant number of illegal migrants. At the time, many of us asked where the line would be drawn in the future, often raising the hypothetical of a president who abandons enforcement entirely or to a large extent.

It took a decade, but that hypothetical seems dangerously close to reality. Mayorkas is carrying out the policies of President Biden, who continues to praise his work and the worst record of enforcement in history. One of the first things that Biden did when coming into office was to seek to shut down policies and construction used to deter unlawful migration. At the same time, both Biden and Mayorkas were widely viewed as supportive of those crossing the border as many Democratic cities declared themselves sanctuaries for undocumented migrants pursued by ICE. Now, even some Democrats are now criticizing President Biden for his lax policies and the failure to do more in securing the border, as hundreds of thousands pour into the country. Most are promptly released, and many are not even asked to appear for eight years at an immigration proceeding.

For the states, desperate times call for desperate measures. For example, Texas recently declared that it was acting unilaterally under Article I, Section 10, Clause 3 of the Constitution. That provision reserves the right of self-defense for a state that is “actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.” The current crisis is a practical invasion, overwhelming towns and cities across the country. No state faces a greater danger than Texas. However, “invasion” was clearly meant in the traditional sense of a foreign power or army. Similarly, “such imminent danger” was referencing “such” an invasion. The southern border in 2024 is, constitutionally, suffering no more an “invasion” than the Capitol riot in 2021 was an “insurrection.” There is a difference between the colloquial and constitutional meaning of such terms.

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“He said the two countries were “fuelling chaos, disorder, insecurity and instability” by supporting Israel in its war in Gaza..”

• Jake Sullivan Refuses To Rule Out Attacks On Iranian Soil (MEE)

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has refused to rule out air strikes on Iranian soil in the wake of a barrage of attacks on Iran-linked groups across the Middle East. Speaking to NBC News on Sunday, Sullivan was repeatedly asked if the US was considering attacks on Iran. “Well, sitting here today on a national news programme, I’m not going to get into what we’ve ruled in and ruled out from the point of view of military action,” he said. “What I will say is that the president is determined to respond forcefully to attacks on our people. The president also is not looking for a wider war in the Middle East.” Pressed again on the question, he continued to avoid a direct answer. “I’m not going to get into what’s on the table and off the table,” he said, before adding the strikes were “the beginning, not the end” of Washington’s response.

The US, along with the UK, launched strikes on Yemen’s Houthis overnight, hitting dozens of targets, just a day after they hit a number of Iran-linked groups in Syria and Iran. Speaking to reporters on Sunday, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak claimed the strikes on Houthi targets were in self-defence, adding he would not “hesitate to protect British lives.””Since the last set of strikes, we have seen the Houthis continue to attack shipping in the Red Sea,” Sunak said during a visit to Northern Ireland. “That is obviously unacceptable. It is illegal. It puts innocent people’s lives at risk and it has economic consequences. It includes attacks, by the way, on British-linked vessels. And that is why we have acted again in self-defence, in a proportionate way, and together with our allies.

“I have been clear that I won’t hesitate to protect British lives, British interests, and our diplomatic efforts are focused on bringing de-escalation and stability back to the region.” Iran-aligned groups have launched more than 160 rocket and drone strikes against US troops in Iraq and Syria since mid-October following the 7 October attacks on southern Israel and Israel’s decision to go to war on Gaza. Meanwhile, the Houthis, have mounted dozens of attacks against merchant ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, severely disrupting traffic through one of the world’s most important maritime trade routes. The Houthis have promised to continue disrupting Red Sea traffic until Israel stops its attacks on the residents of Gaza and allows humanitarian aid and basic supplies to enter the besieged enclave.

A Houthi military spokesperson said on Sunday that the rebel group, also known as Ansarullah, would not be deterred, adding that the strikes on Yemen would “not pass without a response and consequences.” Iran on Sunday warned that the strikes across the region appeared to “contradict” the stated desire by the leaders of the US and UK that the fighting in Gaza not expand into a regional war. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Nasser Kanani, said in a statement that the attacks were “in clear contradiction with the repeated claims of Washington and London that they do not want the expansion of war and conflict in the region”. He said the two countries were “fuelling chaos, disorder, insecurity and instability” by supporting Israel in its war in Gaza, which has so far left at least 27,365 people dead, according to the health ministry in Gaza.

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“..the countries supporting “Israel” are obligated to cut off supplies to it “from the moment the state becomes aware of the existence of a serious risk of committing genocide.”

• Nicaragua Taking Germany, Canada, UK, Netherlands To ICJ For Genocide (AlM)

The Nicaraguan government started Monday proceedings to take Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Canada to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for their complicity in the genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza by providing the Israeli occupation with the weapons and means to carry out the horrendous act. The executive authority in Nicaragua published an official statement in which it revealed that it warned the governments of said Western powers that they might be jointly complicit in the “flagrant and systemic violations” of the Convention on Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and international humanitarian law in the Gaza Strip. In its note verbal, Nicaragua urged the four states to immediately cease the provision of arms, munitions, and technologies to “Israel” because it might use them to facilitate or commit violations of the Genocide Convention in Gaza.

The memorandum underlined that the countries supporting “Israel” are obligated to cut off supplies to it “from the moment the state becomes aware of the existence of a serious risk of committing genocide.”This has been achieved, the memorandum adds, since “the International Court of Justice issued, on January 26, a preliminary ruling in which it considered it reasonable that the Genocide Convention had been violated by Israel in Gaza.” The court recognized the right of Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide, adding that the Palestinians are a protected group under the Genocide Convention.The Court ordered “Israel” to take all measures to prevent genocide acts in Gaza, ensure its forces do not commit genocide, and take measures to improve the humanitarian situation.

“Israel” is required to submit a report to the court within a month, detailing its actions to comply with the order. Furthermore, it must implement measures to prevent and punish direct incitement of genocide in the context of its war on Gaza. South Africa hailed temporary measures issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the genocide lawsuit against “Israel” at the Hague, describing them as a “decisive victory” for the international legal system. A French left-wing legislator praised the temporary measures, describing the verdict as “historic”, noting that it “clearly established the risk of genocide in the Gaza Strip.”

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All they need to do is cast a doubt. There is nothing to replace the UNRWA.

• UN To Probe UNRWA For ‘Neutrality’ (RT)

The United Nations has said it will investigate its own agency for Palestinian refugees to ensure “neutrality” following allegations by Israel that at least 12 UN staffers assisted in the Hamas-led terrorist attack of October 7. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres announced the move in a statement on Monday, saying he had established an “independent review group” to probe “allegations of serious breaches” at the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The UN chief said the probe would seek to “identify the mechanisms and procedures that the Agency currently has in place to ensure neutrality and to respond to allegations or information indicating that the principle may have been breached.”

Though Guterres stopped short of outlining the alleged breaches, Israeli officials have repeatedly accused 12 UNRWA workers of involvement in last year’s Hamas cross-border raid, which killed around 1,200 people in Israel and saw more than 200 taken hostage by Palestinian militants. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz later hailed the decision, saying “We will submit all evidence highlighting UNRWA’s ties to terrorism and its harmful effects on regional stability.” Guterres previously acknowledged that nine of the 12 UN staffers allegedly linked to Hamas had been fired, while two remained unidentified and another had since been killed. Though the Israeli allegations have yet to be independently confirmed, more than a dozen countries have already opted to sever funding to the refugee agency, including the United States, Sweden, Britain and Germany.

Last week, a spokesman for the US State Department said that $300,000 set aside for UNRWA would be withheld pending the results of the investigation. Around $121 million had already been distributed to the agency since October 1, as Washington typically devotes up to $400 million to the office each year. While the review panel will focus on UNRWA’s “neutrality,” Guterres noted that a separate investigation into Israel’s charges would continue under the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services. He also went on to stress the agency’s critical role in Gaza, saying that more than 2 million people “depend on it for their survival amidst one of the largest and most complex humanitarian crises in the world.”

Read more …

I haven’t seen this confirmed anywhere else.

• Zaluzhny Agrees To Be Ukraine’s Ambassador To UK – Lawmaker (TASS)

Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny has reportedly agreed to be Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom and will leave Ukraine within days, lawmaker Yevgeny Shevchenko said. “I would like to say that according to my sources, Zaluzhny has agreed to be the ambassador to Great Britain. He is highly likely to go there and we know that those who leave the country as ambassadors are political retirees. None of them has ever returned to their former positions, this is Ukraine’s tradition. I hate to disappoint any Zaluzhny fans,” he said in an interview with Vadim Karasev, director of Ukraine’s Institute of Global Strategies. According to the lawmaker, if Zaluzhny opts to stay in Ukraine he has every opportunity to achieve great things in politics after resigning. “If he opts to be ambassador, he is not a politician any longer, 100% If he stays in Ukraine and begins to build a political career, he has good prospects, very good prospects,” Shevchenko said, adding that Zaluzhny’s resignation could be expected on February 8 or somewhere around there.

On Sunday, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said in an interview with Italy’s RAI television channel that he was looking at reshuffling the defense ministry. Reports about Zaluzhny’s potential dismissal appeared in the Ukrainian mass media and on social networks on January 29, when Zelensky allegedly suggested that Zaluzhny step down voluntarily. According to former lawmaker Borislav Bereza, Zaluzhny was offered a post as Ukraine’s ambassador to a European country, but turned this offer down. Ukraine’s media and social networks continue speculating about Zaluzhny’s future. Some say that his resignation stems from the failure of Ukraine’s “counteroffensive” in the summer of 2023 and Zaluzhny’s political ambitions. A number of foreign media outlets confirmed reports about Zaluzhny’s dismissal, citing their own sources.

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“Encroachment on someone else’s property undermines the foundations of the entire economic system..”

• Kremlin Warns West Against ‘Deeply Illegal’ Asset Seizure (RT)

Anyone who seizes Russian assets will face long-lasting consequences, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned on Monday. His comments came after the Financial Times reported that G7 nations are considering using frozen Russian funds as collateral to finance Ukraine. In an article published on Saturday, the newspaper claimed the Belgian government has proposed a plan under which Western governments would raise debt to finance the Ukrainian government, and then demand that Russia repay that debt. If Moscow failed to do so, the G7 would then seize frozen Russian assets being held in Europe and the US. The plan is seen as a way to circumvent the legal issue of confiscating Russian assets, a person with knowledge of the negotiations told the outlet. The idea is reportedly now the “leading option” to unlock frozen Russian funds and send them to Ukraine. However, none of the countries in question has officially confirmed any such plans.

Commenting on the reported proposal, Peskov said it would be “deeply illegal” and stressed that Russia will defend its interests. “There will be very, very long – for many decades – judicial prospects both for those who make these decisions and for those who implement them,” the spokesman warned. “Encroachment on someone else’s property undermines the foundations of the entire economic system,” Peskov added. At the same time, the presidential spokesperson insisted on waiting for official statements on the FT’s claims, noting that “even the most serious publications, unfortunately, make many mistakes.” Shortly after Moscow launched its military operation against Ukraine, the US and its allies froze an estimated $300 billion of Russian central bank assets, most of which are being held in Europe.

Since then, Kiev and its Western allies have floated the idea of seizing the assets and using them to fund the Ukrainian government. However, financial experts have warned that any such move could seriously damage the reputation of Western economic institutions and the euro’s standing as a global reserve currency, and would drive away foreign investors. Nevertheless, Brussels announced last week that EU member states had reached an agreement to transfer the income generated by Russia’s funds to Kiev without touching the assets themselves. Moscow, meanwhile, has repeatedly warned that any actions related to its assets by the US and its allies would amount to “theft” and would violate international law. The Kremlin has also cautioned that any seizures would trigger a tit-for-tat response from Russia.

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“..liable to inform Americans that their own political leadership is a party of mental illness..”

• Brace for Impact (Kunstler)

“Joe Biden’s” victory dance in South Carolina — down on the ol’ Democratic Party Plantation, where they grows votes — didn’t last long. By Sunday, a rogue satellite named Tucker Carlson was spotted orbiting over Russia, Russia, Russia, a country you have to say three times so that people get how serious it is. Carlson threatens to actually sit down in the same room with Putin, Putin, Putin — the antithesis of “Joe Biden,” since Putin actually operates as head-of-state — and convey Mr. P’s thoughts and opinions to the citizens of America via the rascally social media platform called “X.” Do you realize the danger of exposing Americans to what this Putin might say? Hearing him express his thoughts about the world situation in a leisurely format — which Putin does regularly among his own people (I’ve seen him do it!) — is liable to inform Americans that their own political leadership is a party of mental illness.

Even without this new provocation of a Carlson / Putin colloquy, folks in the land of the free and the home of the brave have begun to grok just how insane things have gone under “Joe Biden” blobism. And that darn conversation comes just egg-zackly at the moment when our Senate is attempting to package a bill tying a $60-billion taxpayer gift to Ukraine with a “border security” law that will forbid more than 8,500 foreigners on any given day to enter the USA illegally. Sweet deal, huh? Er. . . maybe not. On the House side of Congress, Speaker Mike Johnson says, “No way, José.”

So, do you really want to chance this Putin guy actually explaining calmly and clearly to folks here how our own State Department cooked up this war in Ukraine, and keeps it going month after month? Figures such as the ex-conservative Bill Kristol (now blob cheerleader), want to prevent the Tucker Carlson satellite from re-entering the USA after its Moscow visit. Mr. Kristol is apparently under the illusion that we are at war with Russia. Somebody please inform him that this is just not so. Strictly speaking, Russia is just another European nation that Americans can visit on a visa. That’s a fact, Jack. And if you happen to be there, and you’re a journalist, and Putin, Putin, Putin agrees to an interview, well. . . you sit down and talk to the guy. . . and record it. . . and let people around the world decide what to think about it.

I don’t know about you, but that sounds a little. . . I dunno. . . fascist-y to me. Which is the dirty secret of the Party of Mental Illness that folks in the USA are beginning to grok. All their blather about “our democracy” is a smokescreen for the lust to shutdown free speech at all costs and push everybody around. It will be interesting to see who shows up at the jetway when Mr. Carlson actually does land back in America. The FBI, you think? With a set of leg-irons (like they did with Peter Navarro)? Mr. Putin might also explain how immigration works in Russia, Russia, Russia, where you have to fill out an application, explain who you are, and be evaluated as worthy to enter. Not everybody makes the grade. But, surprise, surprise, surprise, not everybody seeks to enter a country with good intentions. Can you imagine that? The Party of Mental illness in America does not believe that anyone can have less than good intentions. At least that’s what they pretend (because they are mentally ill). So, anyone at all can drift across the Mexican border into the USA. They call that “diversity and inclusion.” It’s a thought problem.

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Hillary’s counsel.

• Trump Facing ‘Long’ Prison Sentence – DNC Lawyer Marc Elias (RT)

Former US President Donald Trump could be sent to prison “for a long time” when a verdict is delivered in his upcoming trial over alleged mishandling of sensitive government documents, an attorney linked to the US Democrats has warned.Last June, Trump was charged with 37 felony counts amid claims that he illegally retained highly sensitive national security information at his South Florida residence. These included top-secret details of Washington’s nuclear capabilities and its strategies in the event of an attack on the US or its allies. Prosecutors, led by Special Counsel Jack Smith, claim that Trump rejected requests by federal officials to return the documents – some of which were stored in publicly accessible locations in Mar-a-Lago, including in an unsecured bathroom.

Trump has denied all allegations of wrongdoing and has pleaded not guilty to the charges. “People forget how damaging the evidence is in that Florida case,” Marc Elias, who represented the Democratic National Committee (DNC) between 2009 and 2023, said on MSNBC’s The Weekend on Sunday.“It is literally about a former president of the United States stealing highly classified sensitive documents from the United States government, treating them cavalierly, showing them to people, storing them willy-nilly.” Elias said that the evidence, when it is delivered in the trial in over three months’ time, could be “devastating to him politically, adding that “it puts him in real prospect of going to prison for a long time.”

The indictment marked the first time that a former US president faced criminal charges from a federal government he once led. Trump received another federal indictment in August 2023 over his alleged attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 US presidential election.He also faces separate charges over allegations of falsifying business records in New York, and for a conspiracy to undermine election results in the US state of Georgia.Trump, who is the clear frontrunner to claim the Republican nomination to challenge likely Democratic candidate Joe Biden in November’s election. In a head-to-head poll published by NBC News on Sunday, Trump beat Biden by five points, 47%-42%. However, the same poll found that in the event that Trump is convicted of a felony Biden would lead by 45%-43%.

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“..Bragg and his office almost daily “move to dismiss significantly more serious counts or entire indictments” and avoid harsher penalties for far more violent and convicted felons..”

• Judge Dismisses Alvin Bragg’s Felony Case Against Vax Card Forgers (PM)

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg attempted to charge two New York residents with felonies for having false vaccine passports while he has let off others charged with far worse crimes scot-free. New York State Supreme Court Justice Brendan T. Lantry dismissed the felony charges against the residents, identified as J.O. and R.V. in the decision, who had bought the forged vax passports, usurping Bragg’s decision. The judge said the two were among 16 others that Bragg had “cherry-picked” to prosecute, according to the case. Lantry slammed Bragg in the decision decided at the New York Supreme Court on Jan. 30. The judge wrote in the opinion, “Clearly, Criminal Possession of a Forged Instrument in the Second Degree (Penal Law § 170.25) is not among the most serious crimes in the New York Penal Law, nor are the factual allegations against Defendants R.V. and J.O. particularly serious in nature.”

“Moreover, the factual allegations — that the Defendants purchased fake COVID-19 vaccination cards so that they could provide same to their employer (R.V.) and school (J.O.) — do not rise to the level of the majority of the crimes adjudicated in Supreme Court, New York County, namely homicide, sexual assault, drug sale, robbery, burglary, and other violent and non-violent serious felony offenses,” Lantry continued. The judge expanded on the decision that Bragg and his office almost daily “move to dismiss significantly more serious counts or entire indictments” and avoid harsher penalties for far more violent and convicted felons. Bragg also recently allowed a group of all but a single illegal immigrant to be released without bail after they allegedly beat up two NYPD officers. He later defended this saying that the video evidence was not enough to hold the foreign nationals. NYC government officials, including Bragg, have faced increasing scrutiny over the government’s lackluster effort to control crime in the city as well as the high influx of illegal immigrants.

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“If Putin or Xi just gave one little push the West would collapse like a house of cards.”

• The Overthrow of Men (Paul Craig Roberts)

In my lifetime I have watched the complete overthrow of American men. The only role that they have left is to be a hate object for feminists. I think the overthrow was initiated with the 1964 Civil Rights Act as implemented, contrary to the statutory language in the law, by the EEOC bureaucracy. Congress explicitly prohibited racial quotas, but the EEOC under the leadership of Alfred Blumrosen put in place a regulatory system that, at first, under the name of “affirmative action” gave racial preference to blacks in university admissions, hiring, and promotion. Soon after the preferences were extended to women, and later to the handicapped and now to sexual perverts. The consequence of Alfred Blumrosen is that white heterosexual males are second class citizens in law. They have been denied for a half century the 14th Amendment’s protection of equality under the law. Initially, the impact was limited, but as time passed more and more American men were held back in order to advance those with racial and gender preferences.

Feminists went on and on about a “glass ceiling,” and American men, weakened by their demonization, invited them on boards and into executive offices. This has gone on for so many decades that today a male CEO or University president is an endangered species, as exemplified by the recent controversy over Ivy League students’ protests against Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians. The three Ivy League university presidents called before Congress to explain why they had allowed students to commit anti-semitism by protesting Israel’s massacre of Palestinians were all women, with the President of Harvard being a black woman with plagiarism problems. Today many corporate boards are more concerned about whether they have enough women and blacks than they are with profits and the corporation’s future. Having pushed men aside, they started on boys. Boys could no longer be Boy Scouts. They had to take in girls or it was ruled discrimination against females.

But Girl Scouts didn’t have to take in boys. Boy’s Little League baseball had to take in girls or it was discrimination. Next school playground fights between a bully and one not content to be bullied, were no longer left to completion by the playground monitor–standing up for yourself was regarded as part of growing up. Today the police are called, and what was normal in my day has been criminalized. Boys cannot even play cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians without severe punishment. If a 6 year old points his finger and says bang-bang, the cops are called, and parents are told that their son is a sociopath who is dangerous to his classmates. When was the last men’s club extinguished for discrimination? When was the last men’s college extinguished? I went to three–Georgia Tech, the University of Virginia, Merton College, Oxford University. They are now sexually integrated, and their character is lost. Merton College now has female wardens (presidents).

Once the alumni from the past are dead, no one will have a memory of a men’s space. It will become a mythology like a unicorn. When boys don’t want to be boys: What is proof of men’s demise is that today in America boys find themselves so demonized as misogynist and racists and treated as society’s problems that some would rather be girls than boys and, often with their mother’s urging, subject themselves to chemical castration and breast implants. No male in the past could possibly have preferred to be a girl than a boy. The question for feminists who have aided and abetted the overthrow of the American male is: who is going to protect you as the society you helped to destroy comes crashing down on your heads?

The delegitimizing of the white heterosexual male is the same throughout the remnants of Western civilization. In Sweden there are reports that white Swedish men stand aside while immigrant-invaders rape Swedish women in public, because if they interfere they might be arrested for a hate crime. The British government, which is no longer British, has a tradition of protecting immigrant-invaders against the British people instead of protecting the British people against immigrant-invaders. What is happening conflicts with the protective mentality of white men. But they are prohibited from providing the protection. The Western World is devoid of maleness. Even the West’s war ministers are women. A couple of years ago I posted photographs of NATO’s European war ministers and Shoigu. If memory serves, every European war minister was female. If Putin or Xi just gave one little push the West would collapse like a house of cards.

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“..they will now see Putin as not only a human being, but also a very intelligent leader that is actually doing what’s best for his people. And that is everything that the American public wants.”

• US Panicking Tucker Carlson Will Continue Objective Reporting in Russia (Sp.)

Maverick US journalist Tucker Carlson has raised eyebrows after being spotted in Moscow this week, with observers speculating Carlson has arrived to interview Russian President Vladimir Putin. The popular American commentator has so far remained coy about the reasons for his visit, but he has expressed his willingness to speak with Putin in the past, allegedly making him the target of surveillance from US intelligence agencies. As Russiagaters melt down over the prospect Carlson will undermine US regime propaganda by practicing real journalism, geopolitical analyst and journalist Fiorella Isabel joined Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program Monday to discuss the situation. “The fact that this targeting [of Carlson] is happening in the way it is happening now signifies a fear from the United States,” said Isabel.

“They are fearful of a conversation that somebody like Tucker Carlson and Vladimir Putin could have because Tucker Carlson did leave Fox [News]. And since he did leave Fox, so much has happened in the world where, as you all were talking about before, there are major escalations, not only in the Asia-Pacific region, but also obviously with Iran via Israel-Palestine and via, of course, Ukraine.” “The United States is involved in every single one of these conflicts,” noted the journalist. “And I think that the aim is to really show what Moscow is like, what the Russian people are like, and give a different perspective.” Isabel speculated Carlson was indeed likely to speak with Putin while in Moscow, adding “I don’t think he would come for anything less.”

She also noted that Carlson has previously spoken with other leaders sometimes considered controversial in the United States, such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. “What we’re looking at here is that the United States and their proxies are clearly afraid of the response that such a popular figure like Tucker Carlson might have with an audience, in response to Vladimir Putin, who we have been told is this boogeyman and he is evil, and there is no redeeming quality to him,” said Isabel. “But based on Putin’s speeches and the things he says that many Western audiences don’t get to hear, that will drastically change, I think, a lot of people, or at least impact them in a way, in a time where we’re on the brink of a catastrophic nuclear event I think,” she added.

Tucker CNN

“I don’t think that’s an exaggeration. So I think that’s why at this pivotal moment, the powers that be are extremely afraid of this interview, to the point where they’re saying that they’re going to go after Tucker Carlson in a legal way for simply being here and trying to attempt to do journalism.” “They have gone so far off from what journalism was supposed to be that they don’t recognize that this is actually what you’re supposed to do, talk to adversarial figures or people that you may disagree with,” noted the analyst. Host Garland Nixon noted that demonization of foreign leaders is a traditional tactic of US propaganda as Americans are conditioned to revile figures like President Bashar al-Assad in Syria or President Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. The “danger” of Carlson’s interview, he noted, is that Putin would be humanized before an American audience.

Co-host Wilmer Leon agreed, arguing that Americans would see that Putin is not “crazy,” “unhinged,” or “evil.” Isabel noted that Putin has made highly subversive arguments for American audiences, questioning the fairness of US elections and noting that US foreign policy generally remains unchanged as new presidents enter the White House. “So I think, when Americans would view or hear somebody like Vladimir Putin, especially Americans that haven’t actually gotten a chance to listen to any of his speeches, they will be perhaps blown away in the sense that they will [say], ‘wow, this guy makes a lot of sense. And he just simply is saying what’s on our minds,’” said Isabel. “And I think that fear is what the West would fear, because they will now see Putin as not only a human being, but also a very intelligent leader that is actually doing what’s best for his people. And that is everything that the American public wants.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Gecko
https://twitter.com/i/status/1754751777927258324

 

 

Ardennes

 

 

Russia prop

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle January 28 2024

Jan 282024
 
 January 28, 2024  Posted by at 9:40 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  49 Responses »


Balthus Therèse dreaming 1938

 

• RFK Jr. Praises Texas In Battle With Biden Over Border (Hill)
• Biden Vows To Shut Border If Lawmakers Pass Budget Deal (RT)
• How Trump and US Conservatives Deal a Blow to Ukraine Aid Package (Sp.)
• US Promised To Seize Russian Assets – Kiev (RT)
• Seizing Russia’s Money Would Endanger Euro – Italian Central Bank (RT)
• EU and NATO Heading for the Abyss Over Foreign Policy Foibles (Jay)
• ‘No Threat’ Of Russia Attacking NATO – Germany (RT)
• Davos, Dictators, and the Real ‘Threats to Our Democracy’ (Hollis)
• WH’s New Strategy on Ukraine ‘Will De-Emphasize’ Retaking ‘Lost Territory’ (Sp.)
• Putin Vows To Eradicate Nazism For Good (RT)
• ICJ Ruling May Entail Dire Consequences for Israel (Sp.)
• Who is Kevin Morris? Even Hunter’s Lawyer Seems Unsure (Turley)
• Hunter Biden Partner Rob Walker Confirms Payments To Biden Family (JTN)
• Boeing’s Nosedive: How Greed Ruined A Great American Company (Johnston)
• 83 million? (Victor Davis Hanson)

 

 

The alleged rape supposedly took place in 1996. With a script straight out of Law and Order. 16 years later, she’s a big fan of her “rapist”.

Note: the 83 million is not for the “rape”, but for defamation. Which she says cost her her job at ELLE magazine. ELLE has denied this.

 

 

Tucker Texas cartels

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..Biden’s failure to secure the border leaves states no choice but to take matters into their own hands..”

• RFK Jr. Praises Texas In Battle With Biden Over Border (Hill)

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday backed Texas in its ongoing battle with the federal government over border authority, criticizing the Biden administration for its handling of the U.S. southern border. “Texas is right. Biden’s failure to secure the border leaves states no choice but to take matters into their own hands,” Kennedy wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “As President, I will end this humanitarian crisis once and for all. I will secure the border and destroy the business model of the drug cartels. A country without borders is not a country at all.” Kennedy joins a growing list of politicians, most of them Republican, who have thrown their support behind Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) fight against the federal government over the fencing and razor wire installed by Texas at the U.S.-Mexico border. In a major blow to Abbott, the Supreme Court ruled earlier this week that border agents can remove the razor wire erected on the border, siding with the Biden administration.

Abbott has defended the fencing as necessary for his state’s security, claiming he was forced to take matters into his own hands due to what he characterizes as a lack of action on the Biden administration’s part. The federal government, meanwhile, contends the state does not have the power to build the fencing, which it says prevents it from managing the border. Abbott railed against the high court ruling and contended his authority is the “supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes.” Texas appeared to continue installing razor wire after the ruling came down. Kennedy has previously spoken out against what he sees as a “border crisis” that is leading to the smuggling of drugs and humans. He called Biden’s border policies a “disaster” in a Newsweek op-ed last year. Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley also spoke out in support of Abbott on Thursday and called Biden’s position “absolutely ridiculous.”

RFK border

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“Biden already has authority to shut down illegal immigration. And now he’s telling us he’s willing to do that, but only if we pass a new law — one whose authors refuse to share with the public or even their own colleagues. Something’s not right here.”

Scott Adams: “The plan is to close the barn door after too many horses get out.”

• Biden Vows To Shut Border If Lawmakers Pass Budget Deal (RT)

US President Joe Biden has again urged Republican lawmakers to approve a long-stalled budget deal, vowing to shut down his country’s southern border as soon as he’s given the authority to do so. Republicans have been blocking the White House’s attempts to push through a $106 billion ‘national security package’ for Ukraine and Israel since October. They have demanded tougher security measures on the southern frontier be included in the agreement. ”For too long, we all know the border’s been broken. It’s long past time to fix it,” Biden outlined in a written statement on Friday. He described the border deal, now being negotiated in the Senate, as “the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border we’ve ever had in our country.”

“It would give me, as President, a new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed. And if given that authority, I would use it the day I sign the bill into law,” Biden vowed. Under the bipartisan agreement, the administration would, among other things, be required to shut the border down if the number of migrants trying to get into the US illegally on any given day reaches 5,000, the New York Times reported. This threshold had been surpassed “routinely” in recent months, the paper stressed. Finding common ground on the immigration deal would be “a win for America,” the president insisted. “If you’re serious about the border crisis, pass a bipartisan bill, and I will sign it,” Biden said, addressing the Republican lawmakers.

The Washington Post described the comments as “a remarkable shift” in the Democratic president’s rhetoric on the immigration issue. The media outlet underscored “the urgency” of the situation on the border for his re-election bid. Biden’s statement came as Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Friday that if the leaks about the deal’s content were accurate, it would be “dead on arrival” in the lower chamber. The likely Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, slammed the border deal earlier this week, warning that it “would be another gift to the radical left Democrats.” The agreement “will be meaningless in terms of border security,” Trump argued, reiterating that the only way to solve the immigration issue would be voting for him in November.

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“..the draft bipartisan agreement could allow up to 5,000 migrants to enter the US daily at the border..”

• How Trump and US Conservatives Deal a Blow to Ukraine Aid Package (Sp.)

Former US President Donald Trump and Republican policymakers have subjected a draft bipartisan US border security deal to harsh criticism, casting doubt on the future of military aid packages for Ukraine and Israel. The border security deal is seen by Democratic lawmakers as a necessary evil to ram a new multi-billion Ukraine aid bill through the US Congress. Last December neither chamber managed to reach a compromise on the provision of further funds to Kiev despite pleas and even threats from the White House. Eventually, Republican and Democratic senators come up with a draft border agreement. Even though the formal text of the deal has not been officially released yet, leaks keep coming irritating US conservatives, as per Just the News, an independent US media outlet.

Media reported that the draft bipartisan agreement could allow up to 5,000 migrants to enter the US daily at the border. To that end, the White House is reportedly requesting at least $14 billion to help cities to absorb the flow of migrants released by US border authorities into the country. Former President Donald Trump denounced that as a bad deal in every way: “I do not think we should do a Border Deal, at all, unless we get everything needed to shut down the invasion of millions and millions of people, many from parts unknown, into our once great, but soon to be great again, country!” he wrote on his Truth Social media site on January 25. The US mainstream media warns that the former president’s comment was a “serious blow to the talks”. Trump has emerged as the leading Republican presidential candidate following the party’s first two primaries this month, with the power to influence the outcome of the negotiations.

Punchbowl News reported that Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell told his colleagues on Wednesday that the situation had “changed,” and that Trump was going to build his re-election campaign around the border crisis. “We don’t want to do anything to undermine him,” McConnell allegedly said. However, on Thursday the GOP leader appeared to backpedal on his remarks, asserting to the press that he still backed the bipartisan migration deal. Deputy White House Press Secretary Olivia Dalton also signaled that the Biden administration as supporting the bipartisan immigration agreement. “The president has been clear, we need action on the border,” Dalton told reporters on Thursday. “We’ve been engaging in good faith, bipartisan negotiations with both Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans to that end. And we believe that there’s no reason that shouldn’t continue.”

Still, some US senators warn that the effort is doomed. US Senator Ted Cruz said on Wednesday that the Ukraine aid-border security supplemental bill is a train wreck and has no chance of passing the US House of Representatives. Senator Rick Scott echoed Cruz, saying that the bill will be dead on arrival in the House. Earlier this week the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft suggested that House Republicans may kill the foreign aid bill even if a bipartisan border security and immigration deal is passed. The lower chamber’s Republican majority has no appetite for throwing good money after bad to Ukraine, according to the institute. The DC-based think-tank also noted House Speaker Mike Johnson’s ardent support for a sweeping migration reform and his record of opposing Ukraine funding packages. Some House Republicans, such as Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, even threatened to introduce a “motion to vacate” and oust the speaker if Johnson passes funding to Ukraine.

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“..a US Senate committee approved the “Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity (REPO) for Ukrainians Act..”

• US Promised To Seize Russian Assets – Kiev (RT)

The US assured Kiev that the Russian assets that remain frozen in the West are going to be seized and used to rebuild Ukraine after the conflict, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmygal has said. The US, EU, and their allies blocked some $300 billion of Russian central bank assets as part of sanctions in response to Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine. Around $200 billion of that money is held in the EU. Politico reported on Thursday that it asked Shmygal if he was concerned that US funding for the Kiev government would come to a complete stop if Donald Trump won the presidential election in November and returned to the White House for his second term. ”We have all the assurances from the US about long-term support for Ukraine – for example, the seizure of Russian assets to fund the Ukrainian recovery,” he claimed.

On Wednesday, a US Senate committee approved the “Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity (REPO) for Ukrainians Act,” which should help pave the way for such a move by Washington. If it passes both houses and is signed into law by President Joe Biden, Washington could seize the Russian central bank assets, using such a measure against a country that it’s not directly at war with for the first time in history. Reuters reported this week, citing a senior official in Brussels, that the EU will be unlikely to join the US in confiscating the Russian funds as there’s no agreement on such a step between the bloc’s member-states. Earlier in January, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov warned that Moscow would respond to a possible seizure of its assets by the West, inducing tit-for-tat measures.

Previously, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that the confiscation of Russian funds would amount to “outright theft” by the West. He told reporters that it would undermine the trust in the US and EU financial systems around the globe. Shmygal also stated that Kiev is “working hard with the administration of President Biden and with Congress to have support for 2024.” As for the continuation of the aid in 2025, “we’ll see how conditions develop,” he stressed. ”I believe that any president of the US will support our fight for civilized values, our mutual values,” the Ukrainian PM said. The US has provided Ukraine with around $111 billion in economic and military support amid the conflict with Russia. But the flow of funds subsided dramatically in recent months as Republican lawmakers continue to resist attempts by the White House to push through another $60 billion in assistance for Kiev.

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“..weaponizing a currency inevitably reduces its attractiveness and encourages the emergence of alternatives..”

• Seizing Russia’s Money Would Endanger Euro – Italian Central Bank (RT)

The EU should not use the euro as a tool in sanctions wars and political disputes, as it would harm the currency’s image and standing, Bank of Italy Governor Fabio Panetta warned on Friday. He as commenting on discussions in Brussels regarding frozen Russian assets. The EU, US, Japan and Canada froze some $300 billion of Russian central bank assets in 2022 as part of Ukraine-related sanctions against Moscow. Some $200 billion of that is held in the EU, largely in the Belgian clearing house Euroclear. Brussels is currently working on plans to apply a windfall tax to the profits Euroclear is making on the frozen funds, while opting not to seize the immobilized money outright.

However, Italy is one of several EU member states, including Germany and France, that have been skeptical of moves involving the assets, arguing that using them could prompt investors from other countries to doubt the safety of their own holdings in the EU and quit the bloc’s market, ultimately weakening the euro. “This power must be used wisely,” Panetta said, referring to euro’s standing as a global reserve currency. “International relations are part of a ‘repeated game’: weaponizing a currency inevitably reduces its attractiveness and encourages the emergence of alternatives,” he warned at an event in Riga, marking the 10th anniversary of Latvia adopting the euro. According to the official, the recent surge in the use of the yuan in trade between China and Russia is “instructive in this respect,” because it was Western sanctions that prompted the trend, as they made it difficult for Russia to use US dollars and euros in cross-border trade.

“The Chinese authorities are explicitly promoting [the yuan’s] role on the global stage and encouraging its use in other countries, including those sanctioned by the international community following the invasion of Ukraine,” Panetta said, adding that the share of Chinese trade financed in the domestic currency has doubled in the past three years, allowing the yuan to overtake the euro as the world’s second most-used trade currency. The official warned if the need to “be alert to the possibility that politics will have a greater impact on international currencies in the coming years.” Western currencies have been largely phased out in Russia-China trade, as nearly 95% of all transactions between the countries are now carried out either in rubles or yuan. Russia is not the only major economy to use the Chinese currency for trade settlements, as more and more nations seek alternatives to the dollar and euro. These include Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Brazil and Iran.

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“..this BS is being fed into the echo chamber because a panic is setting in both on a EU level and national one as elections are looming and the smell of defeat is beginning to fill the lungs of the corrupt..”

• EU and NATO Heading for the Abyss Over Foreign Policy Foibles (Jay)

A number of odd statements have been coming from the EU in recent days, coupled with some even odder skulduggery giving rise to thought that the entire project is having its ‘last days of the Roman Empire moment’. Is it possible that the EU that we know is on its last legs and what we are witnessing is the final demise? Ursula von der Leyen, whose grandparents were probably Wafen SS officers has said that if she doesn’t get her way in finding new money for Ukraine she will have to resort to dirty tricks. Well, she didn’t actually say “dirty tricks” but this is what is implied. And what might those underhand moves might be? In fact, there is already a motion in the EU corridors to make Hungary effectively a non-EU member state, a sort of rogue member which is still in the EU but has no voting rights.

Given that the EU is anything but a democracy and that the institutions in Brussels are monolithic and consensus-driven (there is no ‘opposition’ in Brussels like in most democratic countries) it is hardly surprising to see nefarious activities which would make an African dictator proud of his handy work. The EU, or rather the super federalist elite which run it in Brussels like von der Leyen and her mates as Pfizer – yes, multinational corporations really wield the most power in Brussels and more or less own the European Parliament – are getting worried. The project is starting to indulge in in-fighting and creating a lot of mixed message in the media. Gardner-in-chief Josep Borrell wants a new shiny state for the Palestinians but Ursula is perfectly happy with the present genocide program. Perhaps she sees in investment opportunities in offshore gas off the coast of Gaza?

And so with the economy in the doldrums and the EUs most powerful member state Germany looking more and more like the Czech Republic in the late 90s, the uber elites like Ursula and the most vile MEP the European Parliament ever had – Guy Verhofstadt – are worried that the project can be hijacked by far-right MEPs come the next euro election in the summer. Ironically, in such a scenario where the European parliament’s main majority bloc would be a far-right group, the support for Netanyahu would peak and even save him from falling into his own quagmire of corruption charges, as the far-right in Europe support the Zionists, shifting from the once popular idea of wiping them out under Hitler’s ‘final solution’ plan.

But the EU would never be the same again. These MEPs support reversing the centralisation of power back to member states. And so it is hardly any surprise at all that Verhofstadt, a man so bereft of charm that he makes a pile of damp towels look exciting, gives another one of his fiery speeches in the European parliament with always the same theme: all our problems can be resolved if we has more money, more power and an EU army. The fault is with member states, the European parliament’s top wanker-in-chief argues as he throws his head around and animates very much like a power hungry leader in the 1930s who got us in this mess in the first place. Have you noticed lots of media reports pointing to war with Russia? Wonder what this is based on? Of course there is no imminent war with Russia but the pundits can’t help presenting one to us, proclaiming that Putin wants to take the odd European country, like a rich man who collects them like pets.

The reality is that this BS is being fed into the echo chamber because a panic is setting in both on a EU level and national one as elections are looming and the smell of defeat is beginning to fill the lungs of the corrupt who have been feeding from the same trough for too long. Create a panic about a war looming and enough stupid Europeans and Americans will accept spiralling consumer prices, high pump prices, insane utility bills (like in the UK), poor growth and no jobs. Few westerners see through the lies and see the ruse in the making. Even the Germans.

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“..this is just a “snapshot” of the current situation and there’s no way of knowing how things would turn out in the future..”

• ‘No Threat’ Of Russia Attacking NATO – Germany (RT)

There’s currently no threat of Russia attacking NATO or any of the partners of the US-led military bloc, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has suggested. Moscow’s military is now fully occupied with the Ukraine conflict, Pistorius explained, in an interview with the tabloid Bild on Friday. ”At the moment, I don’t see any danger of a Russian attack on NATO territory or on any NATO partner-country,” he added. However, the minister stressed that this is just a “snapshot” of the current situation and there’s no way of knowing how things would turn out in the future. Pistorius warned against underestimating the alleged risks related to Russia, saying that NATO needs to rely on “the principle of deterrence, as we know it from the times of the Cold War.” During that time, things between the West and Moscow were “much more predictable than the situation we have today,” he argued.

”We are coming out of 30 years of peace… from which we have all benefited. And now the journey is going the other way,” the minister said. NATO and Germany must “really pick up the pace” in order to be able to face the emerging challenges, he stressed. Germany has given to Ukraine “a lot of systems” that Berlin needed for itself since the outbreak in February 2022 of fighting between Moscow and Kiev, but “we will get them again,” Pistorius vowed. Earlier this week, commenting on the possibility of a direct conflict between NATO and Russia, the bloc’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that “we don’t see any direct or imminent threat against any NATO ally.” He stressed, however, that NATO “closely monitors what Russia does” and has increased its “vigilance and presence in the eastern part of the alliance” in order to be able to counter any moves by Moscow.

Pistorius told ZDF on Monday that Germany should be ready to respond to a possible Russian attack. In order to be able to resist an aggression “that you don’t know if and when it will occur, then that means you have to arm yourself – and that’s what we’re currently doing together with allies in NATO,” he explained. On Tuesday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov dismissed Pistorius’ speculation about a possible conflict between Russia and NATO, saying that, due to internal problems the EU faces, its politicians “now need to somehow pump up public opinion, artificially agitate it, by inventing an external enemy.” Speaking at UN headquarters in New York the following day, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed that “no one wants a big war,” especially Moscow. “We have lived through ‘big wars’ many times in our history,” he added. President Vladimir Putin last month rejected as “complete nonsense” claims that Russia could attack NATO. Moscow has “no geopolitical, economic… or military interest” in doing so, he pointed out. Russia is, on the contrary, interested in developing ties with the bloc, he said.

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“..American voters see where the threats of authoritarianism truly lie, and it isn’t with Donald Trump…”

• Davos, Dictators, and the Real ‘Threats to Our Democracy’ (Hollis)

The former Soviet Union collapsed politically because its centrally planned economy suffered disaster after disaster. Government takeover of the Venezuelan economy destroyed that once-prosperous country, plunging its residents into abject poverty. When the president of Sri Lanka banned nitrogen-based fertilizer, the country’s agricultural sector collapsed, as did its exports, leaving Sri Lankans without adequate food, fuel, or oil to heat their homes. Here in the United States, we have witnessed the nasty consequences of plenty of government policy failures: the health risks of COVID-19 shots; the spectacular failure of wind power in Texas during the 2021 winter storm; the inability of electric vehicles to start in the bitter temperatures across the northern U.S. two weeks ago; California’s water shortages and the struggling capacity of its electrical grid.

Egotists like WEF founder Klaus Schwab and his God-complex, like-minded cronies across the globe never consider that they could be wrong about anything. But they are always wrong about something. Trump voters do not want a dictator; they do not want an imperial presidency at all. They want a president who understands that free and independent businesses operating in a minimally regulated environment are the lifeblood of American prosperity. They recognize that an executive branch that refuses to enforce federal laws is failing in its primary constitutional obligations to the American public. They understand that a justice system that picks and chooses whom to prosecute based upon their race, ethnicity, or political belief is no justice at all. They are tired of inflation caused by misguided energy, trade, and environmental policies.

They are tired of our veterans suffering and dying with their physical and mental health needs unmet; tired of homeless people living in the streets; tired of open borders, of tens of thousands of Americans dying of fentanyl overdoses, and tired of unpunished crime, all while hundreds of billions of our hard-earned tax dollars get laundered through foreign wars into the pockets of multinational defense contractors, corruptocrat politicians, and warmongering toadies who never saw a foreign conflict they didn’t want to exploit. These Americans reject the globalist overlords pushing their anti-human philosophies down everyone’s throats, and they fear being enslaved by governments infiltrated by mindless drones in thrall to the latest apocalyptic power grab. The press and the Left can hand-wave and hyperventilate all they want about “threats to our democracy.” But American voters see where the threats of authoritarianism truly lie, and it isn’t with Donald Trump.

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Just give up.

• WH’s New Strategy on Ukraine ‘Will De-Emphasize’ Retaking ‘Lost Territory’ (Sp.)

The Biden administration’s new strategy will “de-emphasize” Kiev’s recovery of the so-called “lost territories” this year and instead focus on Washington helping the Zelensky regime survive amid Russia’s ongoing special military operation, the Washington Post quoted unnamed sources as saying. The sources were apparently referring to the territories previously reunited with Russia as a result of popular referendums. They claimed that the Biden administration, “still smarting” from Kiev’s bungled counteroffensive in 2023, is “putting together the new strategy,” which includes helping the Zelensky regime strengthen its armed forces and economy in the face of the Ukraine funding impasse in the U.S. Congress.

The strategy’s other purpose is to help Kiev strengthen its fighting force and economy in the face of Ukraine funding-real impasse in the US Congress, according to the sources. “The emerging plan is a sharp change from last year, when the US and allied militaries rushed training and sophisticated equipment to Kiev in hopes that it could quickly push back Russian forces,” insiders pointed out. One source added that “it’s pretty clear” that it will be difficult for the Ukrainian Armed Forces to try to achieve “the same kind of major push on all fronts that they tried to do last year.” The idea is help Ukraine “hold its position on the battlefield for now, […] and “get them on a more sustainable path,” per the source. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu declared in late December that the Russian armed forces had achieved last year’s main goal by thwarting Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive.

“The main efforts of the past year were focused on achieving the goals of the special military operation. The main one was to stop the counter-offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which was loudly proclaimed by Ukraine and its NATO allies. This task was successfully accomplished,” Shoigu emphasized at the time. The statement came after Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov told reporters that Ukraine had lost some 160,000 troops and over 3,000 armored vehicles, including 766 tanks, as well as 121 aircraft and 23 helicopters in all areas during the six-month counteroffensive.

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“..in a number of European countries, Russophobia is being promoted as the state policy.”

• Putin Vows To Eradicate Nazism For Good (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed to crush modern-day forces that promote Nazism, singling out Ukraine and the Baltic states as countries where the authorities have embraced such ideologies. Speaking on Saturday at the opening of a memorial to Soviet civilians killed by Nazi German forces in Leningrad Region, the Russian head of state said: “these days the outcomes of the Nuremberg trials are effectively being revised.” He claimed that some countries have gone from rewriting history and whitewashing the Nazis to “arming themselves with Hitlerites’ ideology and methods.”

President Putin cited the Baltic states, in an apparent reference to their treatment of Russian-speaking minorities, which Moscow deems discriminatory. “The regime in Kiev lionizes Hitlers’ accomplices, SS members, and uses terror against” those who resist it, the Russian leader alleged, accusing the Ukrainian authorities of subjecting the elderly, women and children to “barbaric shelling.” According to President Putin, “in a number of European countries, Russophobia is being promoted as the state policy.” “We will do everything – everything to undercut and eradicate Nazism for good,” the Russian head of state pledged.

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“..South Africa was after the provisional ruling to force Israel to agree to a ceasefire in Gaza.”

• ICJ Ruling May Entail Dire Consequences for Israel (Sp.)

“Provisional measures is what South Africa wanted,” noted Carrillo, “that there is enough evidence to show that Israel has violated the 1948 Genocide Convention. “This is what South Africa wanted when they filed this suit because a final ruling by the courts can take months, it can take years. South Africa was after the provisional ruling to force Israel to agree to a ceasefire in Gaza.” Still, Carrillo noted that Israel often ignores world opinion and discounts measures taken against it in the international arena, such as when the Soviet Union led a 1975 effort in the United Nations to declare that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination. “Israel has a long history of disregarding the rulings or the opinions of international organizations,” said Carillo. “They do as they will, and they have the complete protection of the United States who at best is going to issue a lukewarm statement about protecting civilians. That’s what I think we should expect.”

However, host Jamarl Thomas noted the significant “moral weight” the decision carries as Carillo insisted Israel “did not refute any of the evidence, they did not disprove any of the South African evidence.” Amidst a rapidly emerging multipolar world order, Carillo suggested Global South countries and their allies may enforce material consequences against Israel for their actions in Gaza, where 70% of the more than 26,000 deaths are said to be of women and children. “We will have to see, because we are seeing a polar shift in the geopolitical sphere,” said the analyst. “Maybe we will see countries like Russia, maybe like China, or maybe like South Africa or other BRICS members, find a way to stop or to punish Israel in a way.”“Economically, Israel is already facing dire consequences,” Carillo claimed. “Its ports are empty, its workforce is completely depleted, and, among other things, their currency is on the downward trend.

So if you add on top of these, as you said, the moral weight of committing genocide and then more than likely not stopping, how are nations not aligned with the US, why would they continue dealing with Israel? Where is the benefit?”Israel also continues to face economic repercussions as a result of the effective blockade in the Red Sea enforced by the Houthi movement in Yemen. Despite Yemen’s status as one of the poorest countries in the Middle East, Yeminis have demonstrated strong support for the Palestinian cause, with hundreds of thousands taking to the streets to protest US and UK-led retaliatory strikes in the country. “There will always be resistance to oppression,” Carillo insisted. “Always. We know this through human history.”

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“The problem is that when you are “everything” to a client, you may end up with nothing when it comes to confidentiality.”

• Who is Kevin Morris? Even Hunter’s Lawyer Seems Unsure (Turley)

Kevin Morris testified last week in the House. The question that lingered then, and now, is who is Kevin Morris. The Hollywood lawyer, producer and Democratic donor has emerged as a major figure in the corruption scandal surrounding Hunter Biden.For years, some of us have complained that we are not sure what Morris was at any given moment.What became clear in the deposition is that Morris does not appear certain himself. He’s Hunter’s confidant, art patron, business partner, and his lawyer. That could prove his undoing … both for himself and his client. Morris seems to move effortlessly between roles in his relationship with Hunter Biden.Hunter met Morris when he attended a political fundraiser as a major donor. Soon thereafter, he warned Biden associates that Hunter’s unpaid taxes raised political problems during Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential run.

He later proceeded to pay off Hunter’s taxes and to subsidize his lavish lifestyle. He also took an apparent lead in planning public campaigns against the critics of the Bidens, reportedly pushing a scorched-earth approach to attack potential witnesses and accusers. Then Morris seemed to take on the role of Hunter’s bank and art patron. He reportedly gave millions to Hunter while insisting that they are loans, not gifts. Most recently, it was revealed that, despite accounts of buyers flocking to buy Hunter’s overpriced art, it was Morris all along who bought most of the pieces. The overpriced art could be used to excuse some of these “debts” — a type of special crafts project for the president’s son to write off millions. The most striking thing about the deposition from his House interview was the speed at which Morris seemed to put on and remove his various hats.

He invoked attorney-client privilege at least 17 times over questions related to his payments and work for Hunter Biden. Yet, while refusing to answer those questions, he admitted to an array of other financial ties and transactions with his “client.” To the extent that Morris was not acting as a lawyer but as a businessman or a friend, these conversations (and related records) may not be protected. In his deposition, Morris also discusses his ownership of 10% of Bohai Harvest RST LLC (BHR), through his acquisition of interest in Skaneateles LLC. Those are business interests associated with Hunter Biden Morris seemed to be working through his own identity crisis with the help of House investigators. While insisting that his legal representation of Hunter Biden was “global and complete,” Morris detailed how his relationship floated from loan giver to friend to patron to film producer.

His counsel insists that all loans and roles were clearly laid out for Hunter in writing and reviewed by outside counsel. House investigator: “How did it come up that you were going to purchase Skaneateles? Or why did you buy Skaneateles of all the companies that Hunter Biden was involved with? Why that one?” Morris: “That’s privileged. I am not going to answer that because of attorney-client privilege.” That prompted a quick intervention by his lawyer. Morris reversed and agreed it was not protected and said that he “evaluated it as a businessman, and I thought it was something that could be a very successful investment.” Morris’ confusion often left his answers in an unintelligible morass. When asked about his decision to do a movie on his client, Morris again seemed to merge his roles, saying these are “just materials being collected for representation that may be used in the future after the representation.”

Later, Morris seemed to invoke an open-ended, running privilege. At one point, Morris claimed he was “like a general counsel” in Hunter Biden’s “virtual corporation.” He explained, “Counsel, in my job, I represent high-profile individuals. … [H]igh-profile individuals have basically virtual corporations. And in those virtual corporations, they have all kinds of staff and assistants. You know, agents and managers … publicists. You know, whatever. And what I do is I oversee … sort of the squad. Sort of like a general counsel.” With that, Morris was viewed as asserting a type of floating privilege because “I am involved in everything. And the same is with Hunter. If you check my retainer agreements, you’ll see that it’s not — it says all matters.” The statement is both factually accurate and ethically dubious. It seeks sweeping privilege claims despite the layers of different relationships, from loaner to donor to lawyer to producer. If Morris is called to testify in court, this may not fly. The problem is that when you are “everything” to a client, you may end up with nothing when it comes to confidentiality.

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“..The relationship between James Biden, Hunter Biden, Ye, and other partners resulted in at least $9 million in payments to Biden-connected companies in 2017 alone after Joe Biden returned to private life..”

• Hunter Biden Partner Rob Walker Confirms Payments To Biden Family (JTN)

Hunter Biden associate Rob Walker appeared for a transcribed interview with the House Oversight Committee Friday as the latest witness in the impeachment inquiry and weeks before Hunter Biden is set to testify. According to a source familiar with Walker’s testimony, he confirmed reports that Hunter Biden’s work for the Chinese energy company CEFC began while Joe Biden was still Vice President, in 2015. In December, Just the News reported that the impeachment inquiry had assembled a growing body of evidence that Hunter’s work with the Chinese energy company started years before its million dollar payments began to flow into the Biden family coffers in 2017, following Joe Biden’s departure from office. “Today we learned that Joe Biden met with the now-missing Chairman of CEFC, Ye Jianming, as Hunter Biden and his associates received $3 million from a Chinese entity CEFC controlled. Evidence continues to reveal the Bidens sold the ‘Biden Brand’ to enrich the Biden family,” Oversight Chairman James Comer said in a statement released by the Oversight Committee.

“Today’s interview confirmed Hunter Biden and his associates’ work with the Chinese government-linked energy company began over a year before Joe Biden left the vice presidency, but the Bidens and their associates held off being paid by the Chinese while Joe Biden was in office,” he continued. “The Chinese company paid Hunter Biden and his associates $3 million shortly after Joe Biden left office as a ‘thank you’ for the work they did while Joe Biden was in office. Members of the Biden family received payments from the Chinese deal even though they did not work on it. This is the type of swampy influence peddling the American people want us to end,” Comer said. The relationship between James Biden, Hunter Biden, Ye, and other partners resulted in at least $9 million in payments to Biden-connected companies in 2017 alone after Joe Biden returned to private life.

The payments included a $3 million “thank you” in March 2017, a $5 million loan in August 2017, and a $1 million legal retainer fee to Hunter Biden from CEFC official Patrick Ho after he was indicted on bribery charges, according to documents gathered by Congress and federal prosecutors. Yet, evidence from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop and FBI interviews with Biden business partners provided to Congress show that the relationship dates back to at least 2015 and 2016. One email from Rob Walker to another of Hunter Biden’s business partners referenced an apparent letter from Hunter to Zang Jianjun, the executive director of CEFC China Energy, who worked directly for its founder and Chairman Ye Jianming.

In an interview with the FBI, Walker told investigators that he recalls two meetings that Vice President Biden had with CEFC officials, one after leaving office in 2017 and another while he was still in office. The interview was provided by IRS Whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joe Ziegler to the House Ways and Means Committee in their probe of the IRS and DOJ investigation into Hunter Biden. “Any times when he was in office or did you hear Hunter say that he was setting up a meeting with his dad with them (CEFC) while dad was still in office?” an FBI agent asked Walker. “Yeah,” Walker responded. After this admission, the investigators inexplicably changed course and did not follow up on what Walker had just told them.

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“..hunter killer assassins meeting boy scouts.”

• Boeing’s Nosedive: How Greed Ruined A Great American Company (Johnston)

The singular event cited as marking the beginning of Boeing’s downfall was its 1997 merger with McDonnell Douglas, which put it on a collision course with a culture steeped in cost-cutting and financial performance. Somewhat perversely, although Boeing had acquired McDonnell, it was the latter that took over. McDonnell’s executives ended up running the company and its culture became ascendant. Scores of cut-throat managers battle-hardened in the company’s perform-or-die culture were brought in. A federal mediator once likened the partnership to “hunter killer assassins meeting boy scouts.” The self-effacing and introspective Bill Allen, Boeing’s genteel CEO through the post-war era and the man behind the 707 gamble, described his company’s ethos as “to eat, breathe, and sleep the world of aeronautics.”

But a new generation of leaders was emerging who brought new priorities and a new vocabulary. It was no longer about making great airplanes; it was about “moving up the value chain.” What it was really about was maximizing shareholder value. Now looming like a colossus over Boeing was the figure of Harry Stonecipher, McDonnell’s CEO. The blunt, hard-nosed son of a coal miner, Stonecipher was known for vicious cost-cutting, emails written in all caps – and for jettisoning executives who didn’t hit financial targets. But Stonecipher was a ‘winner’: McDonnell’s stock price had risen fourfold under his tenure. What predictably ensued was nothing short of a complete transformation of Boeing from being a company run by engineers to one that prized financial profit over all, and was willing to cut all manner of corners to reduce costs and boost returns.

The quality of the product was, to put it mildly, severely compromised. Downstream from these changes are the spectacular failures we all know about: the outrageous cost overruns, delays and production issues in making the Boeing 787, which ended up being temporarily grounded for battery fires that regulators attributed to flaws in manufacturing, insufficient testing and a poor understanding of an innovative battery; the abject failure of the jimmy-rigged 737 MAX, which saw two deadly crashes and, most recently, a harrowing incident in which a sealed-off emergency exit blew out mid-air in an Alaska Airlines flight, leaving a gaping hole in the fuselage. m It is possible to see Boeing’s merger with McDonnell as simply an unfortunate mistake, and the rise of the likes of Harry Stonecipher as simply an instance in which the wrong person found his way to the top; and the outsourcing and cost-cutting as simply a misbegotten strategy.

But this would miss the wider trends at work in the American corporate landscape at the time. Boeing was hardly alone on this path. The writer David Foster Wallace once wrote that “America… is a country of many contradictions, and a big contradiction for a long time has been between a very aggressive form of capitalism and consumerism against what might be called a kind of moral or civic impulse.” What is evident is that starting roughly in the 1970s, this “aggressive form of capitalism” became ascendant in the US and for a long time overwhelmed – and is arguably still overwhelming – the “moral and civic impulse.” However, to view this as simply a moral failing is to miss the greater economic pressures at work.

The ‘70s were, in the words of historian Judith Stein, the “pivotal decade” that “sealed a society-wide transition from industry to finance, factory floor to trading floor, [and] production to consumption.” America had emerged from World War II with unquestioned manufacturing supremacy, but within a few short decades, US companies had begun falling behind. Whereas Japan, Germany, and, later on, China invested heavily in their industrial bases in the post-war period, the US came to emphasize innovation at the expense of capital investment. The 1970s were when nascent industrial powerhouse Japan pulled off its so-called ‘revolution of quality,’ which went a long way toward putting American manufacturers on the back foot.

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“..Trump will have to soldier on. He must stay controlled amid the tsunamis, not play into the hands of his accusers, and remember that he may soon be the only eleventh-hour hope to stop this mockery of American law, customs and traditions.”

• 83 million? (Victor Davis Hanson)

Donald Trump in furor stormed out of a New York courtroom for a while, in the defamation suit brought by author and dating/boyfriend/sex-advice columnist E. Jean Carroll. It was just settled against Trump for $83.3 million! The Carroll suit was largely subsidized by Reid Hoffman the billionaire capitalist, and mega-donor to the Democratic Party and leftwing causes. The subtext of Trump’s rage, aside from the outrageous monetary size of the defamation ruling, is that he was facing—and angered—a leftwing claimant, a quite hostile leftwing judge, and a leftwing New York jury. The civil suit serves as a mere preview of four additional leftwing criminal prosecutions, leftwing judges, and leftwing juries to come—all on charges that would never had been filed if Trump either had not run for president or been a liberal progressive. Yet here we are.

The E. Jean Carroll case is the most baffling of all five. She, the alleged victim, did not remember even the year in which the purported sexual assault took place, nearly three decades ago. Observers have pointed out dozens of inconsistencies in her story. It was never clear what were the preliminaries that supposedly (Trump denies meeting her) led both, allegedly, willingly to retreat together to a department store dressing room, where during normal business hours the alleged violence took place. Moreover, the sexual assault complaint came forward decades post facto—and only after Trump was running for and then president. Carroll eventually sued him for battery, but well after the statute of limitations had expired and thus the case seemed defunct.

Her claims of defamation injuries arise from being fired from her advice column job at ELLE magazine. She claimed that Trump’s sharp denials and ad hominem retorts led to her career ruin. But the loss for anyone of a column at 76 does not seem such a rare occurrence, and the absence of a salaried job in one’s late seventies for four years does not seem to equate to a $83 million hit. And note the allegation that her dispute with Trump led to her firing was strongly denied by the very magazine that cut her loose. But then another strange thing happened. In 2022, a new law (“The Adult Survivors Act”) was passed in the New York legislature. It also post facto established a twelve-month window (beginning six months from the signing of bill) that permitted survivors of long ago alleged sexual assaults suddenly to sue the accused long-ago perpetrator—regardless of the previous statute of limitations.

That unexpected opening suddenly gave Carroll’s prior unsuccessful efforts a rebirth. And she quickly refiled with the help of arch-Trump hating billionaire Hoffman. Yet the bill may have been introduced with Trump particularly in mind—given the legislator who introduced it, Brad Hoylman-Siga, was known as another Trump antagonist. More interestingly, he had earlier introduced and had passed another Trump-targeted bill. That “TRUST” act had empowered particular federal Congressional committees to have access to the New York State once sealed tax returns of high-ranking government officials—such as Trump. That bill’s generally agreed subtext was a green light for anti-Trump members of Congress to obtain legal access to Donald J. Trump’s tax returns.

So there is an eerie feeling that the New York legislature may have abruptly passed legislation that was aimed at the past conduct of Donald Trump but only after he entered the political arena. While these are not quite bills of attainder, there is something unsettling if they are post facto laws aimed at targeting the most famous and controversial man in America and the leading candidate for the presidency. In essence they were targeted statutes designed to make Trump’s prior legally unactionable behavior suddenly quite legally actionable. Trump will be subject to such special treatment all summer and fall. Prosecutors Bragg, James, Smith, and Willis will synchronize their court business for maximum effect.

Trump again will face leftwing prosecutors, judges, and juries on charges that are politically driven, involving alleged behavior that is either usually not criminalized or not to the same degree as Trump’s case. (Do we remember the nearly $375,000 federal fine belatedly leveled at an exempt Obama but only five years after his 2008 illegal garnering of, and not reporting, foreign campaign contributions?) The stakes are higher each day as Trump closes in on the nomination and thus becomes the hope of half the country to end the Biden madness. Somehow Trump will have to stay calm, give no opening to his legion of hostile prosecutors, while conducting a nonstop campaign against Biden (and for a while Hayley), and while fighting to keep his name on various state ballots.

So what we are witnessing is not even the extralegal efforts of Steele/Fusion GPS, Perkins Coie/DNC/Hillary Clinton in 2016, or the 2020 “Russian disinformation” ruse/change the voting laws/infuse half a billion dollars to absorb the work of the registrar machinations against Trump. We are way beyond all that. The legal system itself, hand-in-glove with leftwing politicos (compare campaign boasts of James and Willis, or prosecutorial visits to the January 6 committee and the White House) is turning the process of balloting and elections into an embarrassing farce. Still, Trump will have to soldier on. He must stay controlled amid the tsunamis, not play into the hands of his accusers, and remember that he may soon be the only eleventh-hour hope to stop this mockery of American law, customs and traditions.

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Wild dogs
https://twitter.com/i/status/1751228420925562943

 

 

Baby goat
https://twitter.com/i/status/1751252951375712290

 

 


The bearded vulture is the only known animal whose diet is almost exclusively bone

 

 

Fata morgana

 

 

Monarch
https://twitter.com/i/status/1751398451152044152

 

 

Clay
https://twitter.com/i/status/1751471302169227699

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle January 27 2024

Jan 272024
 
 January 27, 2024  Posted by at 9:53 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  45 Responses »


Amedeo Modigliani Jeanne Hebuterne 1919

 

• Gov. Abbott Tells Tucker He’s Not Backing Down (ZH)
• US Border Patrol Has ‘No Plans’ To Remove Razor Wire Installed By Texas (RT)
• Texas Is A Distraction: US Elites Will Keep The Border Wide Open (Cox)
• The Death of Nationality (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Trump Rages At $83M Damages In -Second- Carroll Defamation Case (ZH)
• Trump Derailing Ukraine Aid Package – WaPo (RT)
• Hunter and The Hunted (RT)
• Kremlin Denies Claims Russia Ready to Agree to Ukraine Non-Neutral Status (Sp.)
• How Yemen’s ‘Asabiyya’ Is Reshaping Geopolitics (Pepe Escobar)
• Russian Foreign Ministry Ties Red Sea Blockade To Gaza Blockade (Helmer)
• It May be Genocide, But it Won’t Be Stopped (Chris Hedges)
• EU Commission Chief Hopes For ‘Consensus’ With Protesting Farmers (RT)
• UK Needs Bigger Military – US Navy Chief (RT)
• Michelle, Ma Belle (Kunstler)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flashback

 

 

Obama 2005

 

 

Got to keep the money rolling…

 

 

Nap Murray

 

 

Watters Lake

 

 

 

 

Abbott may be starting something real. There’s a large truck convoy on its way to Texas.

• Gov. Abbott Tells Tucker He’s Not Backing Down (ZH)

Texas Governor Greg Abbott spoke with Tucker Carlson on Friday, telling him that he’s going to “do as much as possible to put up more border barriers and deny illegal entry,” and that “our head is down we are working regardless of what the Biden Administration is doing.” Abbott told Carlson that he’s “prepared” in the event that Biden tries to take over the Texas National Guard. “That would be a boneheaded move on his part, a total disaster,” he said. “We are prepared, in the event that that unlikely event does occur.” “We do have other armed state employees on the border as we speak right this minute, and that’s the Texas Department of Public Safety, as well as other law enforcement officers, as well as national Guard from other states. And you can be assured there will be more national Guard from other states and more law enforcement officers within the state of Texas and other states.”

Ten retired FBI officials and experts in counterintelligence sent a letter to Congressional leaders warning that the Biden administration’s policies have facilitated a “soft invasion” of military-age men into the United States from terror-linked areas of the world. The letter, written on Jan. 17, before Texas Gov. Greg Abbott invoked the invasion clause of the US Constitution, suggests that a terrorist attack is likely imminent. “The threat we call out today is new and unfamiliar. In its modern history the U.S. has never suffered an invasion of the homeland, and, yet, one is unfolding now,” the letter reads. “Military age men from across the globe, many from countries or regions not friendly to the United States, are landing in waves on our soil by the thousands – not by splashing ashore from a ship or parachuting from a plane bur rather by foot across a border that has been accurately advertised around the world as largely unprotected with ready access granted.”

“It would be difficult to overstate the danger represented by the presence inside our borders of what is comparatively a multi division army of young single adult males from hostile nations and regions whose background, intent, or allegiance is completely unknown. They include individuals encountered by border officials and then possibly released into the country, along with the shockingly high estimate of ‘gotaways,’ meaning those who have entered and evaded apprehension,” the letter continues. Of the more than 10 million illegal border crossers who have entered the US since Biden took office, more than 1.7 million are “gotaways” – those who have illegally entered and evaded capture since Biden has been in office. The majority of these are reportedly military age men.

“In light of such a daunting, unprecedented penetration by uninvited foreign actors, it is reasonable to assert that the country possesses dramatically diminished national security at this time. The nation’s military and laws and other natural protective barriers that have provided traditional security in the past have been thoroughly circumvented over the past three years,” the former FBI officials wrote. The letter calls on Congress to secure the border “against these young men and those already here illegally must be identified and removed without delay.” Earlier this week, Abbott invoked Texas’ right to self-defense, deeming the migrant crisis an ‘invasion.’ In response, a coalition of 25 Republican governors have signed a letter in support of the Texas resistance.

Open borders

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Doesn’t make Biden look strong.

• US Border Patrol Has ‘No Plans’ To Remove Razor Wire Installed By Texas (RT)

Federal agents are not planning to dismantle the razor wire installed by Texas on a portion of the US-Mexico border, Fox News has reported, citing a senior Customs and Border Protection (CBP) official. The news comes as the deadline set by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for Texas to “remove any and all obstructions” to access into Shelby Park in Eagle Pass expires on Friday. “Bottom line: Border Patrol has no plans to remove infrastructure (c-wire) placed by Texas along the border,” the official said. “Our posture remains the same. If we need to access an area for emergency response, we will do so. When that happens, we will coordinate with Texas DPS [Department of Public Safety] & TMD [Texas Military Department].”

The tensions between the White House and Texas over immigration intensified on Monday when the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government can take down the concertina wire erected by Texas Governor Gregg Abbott to stop illegal border crossings. Abbott is accusing President Joe Biden of refusing to enforce immigration law and has described the surge of migrants attempting to cross the border as an “invasion.” “Texas will continue to exercise its constitutional right to protect and defend our southern border,” Abbott wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday. “In President Biden’s absence, we will hold the line to keep Texans – and Americans – safe.”

In an open letter published on Thursday, 25 Republican governors backed Abbott saying that the federal government had “attacked and sued Texas for stepping up to protect American citizens from historic levels of illegal immigrants, deadly drugs like fentanyl, and terrorists entering our country.” White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre described Abbott’s actions as a “political stunt,” and accused him of creating “a dangerous situation” at the border. The governor is preventing Border Patrol from doing what “they need to save lives,” she told reporters this week.

Truckers border
https://twitter.com/i/status/1751055241762468185

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“..nearly two-thirds of US voters – including 55% of Democrats – agree that the country is under invasion.”

• Texas Is A Distraction: US Elites Will Keep The Border Wide Open (Cox)

Many of the beleaguered Americans who have watched their country be overrun for decades by never-ending streams of illegal aliens were cheered up by the latest salvo in Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s border-security feud with US President Joe Biden. It’s easy to see why. Watching the Biden administration wave in record flows of lawless migrants – with total disregard for the harms caused to American citizens – is painful, so seeing Abbott defy the federal government is soothing. Two days after the US Supreme Court upheld the federal government’s right to dismantle border barriers installed by Texas National Guard soldiers, the governor declared on Wednesday that the state’s right to self-defense “supersedes” all federal laws, so he will continue fighting the “invasion.”

The Republican governor insisted that because the Biden administration shirked its constitutional duty to defend US states against foreign invaders, Texas is filling the void to protect its own citizens. Therefore, the state troops will keep working to block the immigrant influx, regardless of what the Supreme Court says. Republican politicians – such as US Representatives Clay Higgins and Chip Roy, Senator Ted Cruz, and Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders – cheered on Abbott’s move. Former President Donald Trump, the leading Republican candidate to face Biden in this year’s presidential election, said Texas “must be given full support to repel the invasion.” He encouraged other governors to deploy their National Guard troops to help secure the border.

Sadly, the importation of millions of illegal aliens will continue to be forced on Americans, regardless of political stunts and regardless of whether the red team or the blue team is in charge. The trend has certainly gotten far worse under Biden, but Republicans have campaigned on the immigration issue for decades without taking the obvious steps needed to secure the border. Case in point: Republicans controlled both houses of Congress when Trump took office in 2017, but the border wall that he promised was never built. There were no mass deportations of illegal aliens. Nor were there mass arrests of the traitorous employers who enable the influx by hiring people who can’t legally work in the US. Taxpayers were forced to continue footing the bill, as always.

That’s the ruling-class expectation for law-abiding citizens: Work hard and shut up while paying for us to undercut your wages and make your communities more crowded and less safe. Those who whimper too loudly are branded with the scarlet R-word (racist).That same ruling class will make sure that Abbott’s border maneuverings have no significant effect. The Biden administration has fought much harder to block the state’s security measures than to police the border. Despite claiming that it doesn’t have enough border agents to secure the border, the administration had plenty of manpower to rip out the concertina wire that Texas troops were using to seal off high-traffic crossing points. When Texas put floating barriers in the Rio Grande River, the administration sued the state, claiming that Abbott was endangering migrants.

The Texas National Guard has seized control of a park at a key crossing point, but Biden can simply federalize those troops to get his way, as some Democrat politicians have already suggested. He wants to ensure that Border Patrol agents can do their important work of removing the state barriers to avoid inconveniencing the immigrants who flout US law. Biden has greased the invasion skids like no president before him. Nearly 2.48 million illegal aliens were encountered by Border Patrol agents in the government’s latest fiscal year, which ended on September 30, and there was an all-time high of more than 300,000 last month alone.

Those who are ‘encountered’ aren’t turned back. The administration has released millions of illegal immigrants and bogus ‘asylum seekers’ into the country, ostensibly to await court hearings. Those hearings won’t happen for years, or even decades, and many immigrants will simply skip them when their court date finally arrives. Millions more have come through the border as ‘gotaways’, without being ‘processed’ by the Border Patrol.

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“..citizenship cannot exist in a country without borders. Such a country belongs to whoever walks in.”

• The Death of Nationality (Paul Craig Roberts)

Ethnicity is the basis of countries. Germany consisted of Germanic people, the German language, and German culture. The same for France. The same for England. The same for the Dutch. The same for Spain. The same for Italy. The US was the exception. The original English population became multi-European. But a process was in place to assimilate them, and they became American. This tried and true process was abandoned in 1965 when the gates were opened to large scale non-European immigration. Shortly thereafter, the flood of illegal immigration joined the infusions of alien populations into the US. With the ethnic basis of America in decline, multiculturalism became the new value and took the place of assimilation.

Today the America of the past and the former ethnic-based European countries would be called apartheid states. Israel is allowed to have one, but no one else. The death of Western nationalities is everywhere to be seen. A new sign is the death of national armies. The Biden regime, having driven white heterosexual males from military service by discriminating against them, now speaks of inducting immigrant-invaders in exchange for citizenship. So is Germany. France, Denmark, and Slovakia already permit foreigners who are not citizens to serve in their armies. In effect, this is reliance on mercenaries and raises questions of security, motivation, and loyalty. It also raises the question of identity. What meaning does a flag have in a Tower of Babel?

A nation is more than a geographical location. `A nation exists where there is an ethnic or racial basis for unity despite class differences. This idea is so far gone in California that the state has passed a law that permits non-citizen immigrant-invaders to serve as police officers, leaving us with the anomaly of non-citizens arresting citizens. As it is the practice of the Biden regime to issue work permits to illegals, immigrant-invaders are qualified to be police officers in California. Compare this with the Biden Justice (sic) Department’s challenge to the Texas law that permits Texas police officers who are citizens to arrest and deport illegal aliens. What the comparison reveals is that citizenship no longer has any meaning. Indeed, citizenship cannot exist in a country without borders. Such a country belongs to whoever walks in. What does it mean to have a flag and a national anthem when there is no nation? What is the meaning of “national defense” when anyone can walk in?

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“Ms. Habba, you are on the verge of spending some time in the lockout,” replied the judge, cutting her off. “Now sit down.” “Fuck it,” Habba muttered upon sitting down..”

• Trump Rages At $83M Damages In -Second- Carroll Defamation Case (ZH)

Trump-@ejeancarroll verdict says Carroll proved more than nominal defamation by Trump. So Trump has to pay:
$7.3 million for compensatory damages.
$11 million for reputation repair.
$65 million in punitive damages.
Total: $83.3 million.

Carroll accused Trump of having sexually assaulted her in the mid-1990s at a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan. While the alleged attack happened decades ago, Carroll sued under New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which allows victims to sue for civil damages beyond the statute of limitations. “I am filing this on behalf of every woman who has ever been harassed, assaulted, silenced, or spoken up only to be shamed, fired, ridiculed and belittled,” Carrol said last year. Notably, the judge in the case (Kaplan), forbade Trump or his attorneys from arguing that he didn’t sexually assault Carroll. The judge reminded the jury to accept the earlier trial’s verdict. When he noted the trial established Trump “inserted his finger into her vagina,” the former president reportedly jolted from his seat and wore an expression of disgust.

Trump said on the witness stand that he denied Carroll’s claims because he “wanted to defend myself,” which the judge told the jury to ignore. In closing arguments for Carroll Friday morning, her attorney argued that Trump acted as if he was above the law by lying, saying that the former president “ignored the other jury verdict as if it never happened,” and even repeated the claims at a press conference during the second trial. “Donald Trump engaged in the very same defamation after the trial,” attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation) said. Trump then stood up, buttoned his suit jacket, and stormed out of the courtroom. After Trump stormed out, Judge Kaplan briefly interrupted the closing argument and said: “The record will reflect that Mr. Trump just rose and walked out of the courtroom.”

Prior to Friday’s closing arguments, Trump attorney Alina Habba became frustrated after the judge forbade her from including examples of tweets not entered into evidence during the trial. “No. No. Your honor, I have been—” Habba began to say. “Ms. Habba, you are on the verge of spending some time in the lockout,” replied the judge, cutting her off. “Now sit down.” “Fuck it,” Habba muttered upon sitting down. The jury reached its decision after slightly less than three hours of deliberations. “My advice to you is that you never disclose that you were on this jury,” the judge said, per Politico. Carroll’s attorney also Friday asked the jury to order Trump to pay at least $24 million in damages, according to multiple outlets; so $83 million is a huge victory for virtue. Add that to the $5 million Carroll was awarded in her 2023 case against Trump. Trump raged against the result on his social media site TruthSocial, calling it “absolutely ridiculous.” “I fully disagree with both verdicts, and will be appealing this whole Biden Directed Witch Hunt focused on me and the Republican Party,” he said.

Habba
https://twitter.com/i/status/1751015739568570666

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“McConnell is said to have described the ex-president as the Republican “nominee” in the 2024 presidential election, explaining that Trump wanted to run on the issue of the border crisis..”

• Trump Derailing Ukraine Aid Package – WaPo (RT)

Former US President and GOP frontrunner Donald Trump is undermining Republican efforts to strike a border deal with Democrats that will pave the way for more funding from Washington to Ukraine, The Washington Post reported on Thursday. The administration of US President Joe Biden has for weeks been asking Congress to approve a supplemental budget request which includes another $60 billion for Kiev. The Republicans have been blocking the package, demanding the White House to do more to address security on the US-Mexico border. The GOP and Democrats have been trying to resolve the impasse, with the potential border deal reportedly revolving around measures to make it harder for migrants to seek asylum and a mechanism to essentially close the frontier when the number of arrivals is extremely high.

However, according to WaPo sources, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell acknowledged in a closed-door meeting on Wednesday that Trump’s opposition to the deal complicates its future. McConnell is said to have described the ex-president as the Republican “nominee” in the 2024 presidential election, explaining that Trump wanted to run on the issue of the border crisis. Trump has publicly been critical of Washington’s efforts to fund Ukraine and has slammed the border deal, warning fellow party members that it “would be another gift to the radical left Democrats.” The agreement, he noted, “will be meaningless in terms of border security,” adding that Americans could change the situation only by voting for him.

Commenting on new concerns, Democrat Senator Chris Murphy suggested that Republicans will “make a decision in the next 24 hours as to whether they actually want to get something done or whether they want to leave the border a mess for political reasons.” He went on to warn if the GOP rejects the deal, Moscow will prevail in the Ukraine conflict, putting Europe at risk. Delays in Western aid to Ukraine have stoked fears among its backers that Kiev will now have a much harder time fighting Russia. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has warned that Kiev’s military “will move backward” without Western support while the country’s Defense Minister Rustem Umerov has described ammo shortages as “a very real and pressing problem.” Russia has repeatedly condemned Western arms deliveries to Ukraine, warning that they would only prolong the conflict without changing its outcome. It has also argued that the West’s support for the Kiev regime makes it a direct participant in the hostilities.

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“..it seems Derkach is right to say that anyone who talks about Biden’s corruption in Ukraine is in danger of being physically removed..”

• Hunter and The Hunted (RT)

”On January 19, 2022, US Secretary of State Mr Blinken arrived in Ukraine to meet with Zelensky. Quite a lot of people attended this meeting – at least 14 people. At the meeting, Mr Blinken told Zelensky the following: ‘You urgently need to resolve the issue with Derkach’. Zelensky began talking about some people from the opposition. But Blinken said, ‘If you don’t resolve this issue with Derkach, then we will resolve the Derkach issue with our partners.’ Those who were at the meeting were taken aback, because the position of the US secretary of state was quite harsh. Just think of it, the task for the president of Ukraine is to resolve the issue with Derkach,” the former deputy said. It is noteworthy that in 2021, the Ukrainian police discovered plans to assassinate Derkach and the head of the group of prosecutors in the Burisma energy company case, Konstantin Kulik, but did not initiate a criminal case.

The investigation tracked down the criminal gang from Eastern Europe hired to carry out the hit, as well as their base in Transcarpathia. The assassin himself was supposed to be an Albanian, but the information was leaked, and the gang escaped. There was also an attempt to assassinate former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin. According to former US Associate Attorney General and ex-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Shokin (whose dismissal Joe Biden has openly bragged about) was poisoned with mercury while on a trip to Greece. Nikolay Korpan – a doctor at the Austrian Rudolfinerhaus private clinic who treated presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko in 2004 – reportedly confirmed this to Giuliani. According to Korpan’s findings, while the permissible amount of mercury in the blood is no more than two units, Shokin was found to have 9.2 units and was starting to experience liver failure. It was clearly a murder attempt.

The number of witnesses in the Burisma case – a company though which Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden earned profits via alleged corruption schemes – is also steadily decreasing. Shortly before she was due to testify as a witness in the case, the wife of Nikolai Lisin – a former partner of Nikolai Zlochevsky – was found dead in her apartment. She had been responsible for accounting at Burisma and had been aware of transactions carried out in the interests of the Bidens. Lisin himself died in a car accident back in 2011. In light of this, it seems Derkach is right to say that anyone who talks about Biden’s corruption in Ukraine is in danger of being physically removed. The same can be said about his opinion that there is “a single organized crime group: Biden, Blinken, [Victoria] Nuland, the ‘deep state’ represented by the Department of State.

And then there is their ‘extension’ – either in the form of Poroshenko, or of Zelensky and Yermak.” As Derkach says, Zelensky and Yermak “attacked” the “organized crime group” headed by former President Poroshenko and took their place. “They have brought their own particular innovations into these matters. They have become even more cynical and cruel.” What are the Bidens and their partners in the Democratic Party trying to hide by waging war against whistleblowers in Ukraine? The fact that Hunter Biden abused his father’s official position, receiving a profit of several million dollars through corrupt schemes and violating US legislation on foreign agents, isn’t the only problem. There’s much more to it than that. In order to understand the scale of the potential profits for the Biden family, we need to go back to 2012.

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Of course that’s false.

• Kremlin Denies Claims Russia Ready to Agree to Ukraine Non-Neutral Status (Sp.)

Media reports that Russia is allegedly ready to agree to Kiev’s non-neutral status and change its position on Ukraine joining NATO are not true, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday. “It is completely not true,” Peskov told reporters. On Thursday, Bloomberg reported that Russia was allegedly signaling to the United States via indirect channels that it was open to talks on the future settlement of the Ukraine conflict, including possible security arrangements for Kiev, and was testing the waters to see if Washington was interested in engaging. Russian President Vladimir Putin was reportedly willing to back down from his condition of neutral status for Ukraine and even eventually abandon opposition to its future NATO membership if Kiev agreed to recognize Crimea as well as the four breakaway republics as Russian territory.

There is no decisive condemnation of the downing of the Russian Il-76 military plane transporting Ukrainian prisoners of war for an exchange from Western countries, but the situation requires a proper assessment from the world community, Peskov said. “There is still no decisive condemnation from Western countries of this horrific terrorist act, the horrific destruction of the plane that was transporting our people, first of all, after all, there were our pilots and our accompanying people, that is, the Russians died, but also a lot of people died. A large number of Ukrainian prisoners of war died. We have not heard a word of condemnation … Therefore, of course, what happened requires a proper assessment by the world community,” Peskov told reporters.

When asked if Russia plans to provide evidence of Kiev’s guilt in the incident, the official said that decisions will be made as all information is received. Moscow will carefully examine Germany’s intentions to develop a defense plan to contain Russia, Kremlin spokesman said. “We need to see what kind of plan it will be. It is no secret that Germany has embarked on a path of decisive confrontation with Russia. In this regard, there is no novelty here. But, of course, taking into account this well-known attitude of Berlin, we will need to carefully familiarize ourselves with such plans,” Peskov told reporters. Earlier this week, media reported that Germany is developing a new comprehensive defense plan implying the “containment” of Russia.

Read more …

“..Global insurers have only refused to cover US, UK, and Israeli ships — exactly as the Yemenis intended..”

• How Yemen’s ‘Asabiyya’ Is Reshaping Geopolitics (Pepe Escobar)

Yemen’s Ansarallah resistance forces have made it very clear, right from the start, that they set up a blockade in the Bab el-Mandeb and the southern Red Sea only against Israeli-owned or destined shipping vessels. Their single objective was and remains to stop the Gaza genocide perpetrated by the Israeli biblical psychopathy. As a response to a morally-based call to end a human genocide, the United States, masters of the Global War Of Terror (italics mine), predictably re-designated Yemen’s Houthis as a “terrorist organization,” launched a serial bombardment of underground Ansarallah military installations (assuming US intel know where they are), and cobbled together a mini-coalition of the willing that includes its UK, Canadian, Australian, Dutch, and Bahraini vassals. Without missing a beat, Yemen’s Parliament declared the US and UK governments “Global Terrorist Networks.” Now let’s talk strategy.

With a single move, the Yemeni resistance seized the strategic advantage by de facto controlling a key geoeconomic bottleneck: the Bab el-Mandeb. Hence, they can inflict serious trouble on sectors of global supply chains, trade, and finance. And Ansarallah has the potential to double down — if need be. Persian Gulf traders, off the record, have confirmed insistent chatter that Yemen may consider imposing a so-called Al-Aqsa Triangle — aptly named after the 7 October Palestinian resistance operation aimed at destroying the Israeli military’s Gaza Division and taking captives as leverage in a sweeping prisoner swap deal. Such a move would mean selectively blocking not only the Bab el-Mandeb and the Red Sea route to the Suez Canal, but also the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off oil and gas deliveries to Israel from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE – although the top oil suppliers to Israel are in fact Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.

These Yemenis are afraid of nothing. Were they able to impose the triangle – in this case only with direct Iranian involvement — that would represent the US-assassinated Quds Force General Qassem Soleimani’s Grand Design on cosmic steroids. This plan holds the realistic potential of finally bringing down the pyramid of hundreds of trillions of dollars in derivatives — and consequently, the whole western financial system. And yet, even as Yemen controls the Red Sea and Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz, Al-Aqsa Triangle remains just a working hypothesis. With a simple, clear strategy, the Houthis perfectly understood that the deeper they draw the strategy-deprived Americans into the West Asian geopolitical swamp, in a sort of “undeclared war” mode, the more they’re able to inflict serious pain on the global economy, which the Global South will blame on the Hegemon.

Today, Red Sea shipping traffic has plunged in half, compared to the summer of 2023; supply chains are wobbly; ships carrying food are forced to circumnavigate Africa (and risk delivering cargo after its expiry date); predictably, inflation across the vast EU agricultural sphere (worth €70 billion) is rising fast. Yet, never underestimate a cornered Empire. Western-based insurance giants perfectly understood the rules of Ansarallah’s limited blockade: Russian and Chinese ships, for instance, have free passage in the Red Sea. Global insurers have only refused to cover US, UK, and Israeli ships — exactly as the Yemenis intended. So the US, predictably, changed the narrative into a big, fat lie: ‘Ansarallah is attacking the whole global economy.’

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”America’s grandeur has shattered, and today, it cannot even rally its traditional allies. A country that considers itself a superpower is engaged in war against resistance groups and the people of the region.”

• Russian Foreign Ministry Ties Red Sea Blockade To Gaza Blockade (Helmer)

For the time being, there are no official photographs of the meeting in Moscow on Thursday evening at the Russian Foreign Ministry between Mikhail Bogdanov, the deputy foreign minister and chief Russian negotiator in the Middle East and Africa, and Mohammed (Mukhameddov) Abdelsalam leading a delegation of the Ansarallah government of Yemen, known as the Houthi movement. The absence of photographs does not mean a blackout. Bogdanov’s communiqué said “special attention was paid to the development of tragic events in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict zone, as well as the aggravation of the situation in the Red Sea in this regard. In this context, the missile and bomb attacks on Yemen undertaken by the United States and Great Britain, which are capable of destabilizing the situation on a regional scale, were strongly condemned.”

This is the plainest signal to date of Russian backing for the southern front of the Arab war against Israel, and the link which the Houthis have made between the Israeli blockade of Gaza, the genocide of the Palestinians, and the Red Sea blockade which the Houthis have imposed on vessels owned or directed by Israeli shipowners, US naval fleet, and American-flagged and other vessels carrying military and civil cargoes to Israel or reload ammunition for future attacks on Yemen. At the same time across Moscow, unusually large delegations of officials of the Russian Security Council, led by Nikolai Patrushev, and Ali-Akbar Ahmadian, special presidential representative and Secretary of Iran’s National Security Council, have been meeting to discuss a detailed agenda which Patrushev’s communiqué calls a “wide range of Russian-Iranian security cooperation” and “the practical implementation of the agreements reached at the highest level.”

In an open statement for reporters, Ahmadian told Patrushev: “”America’s grandeur has shattered, and today, it cannot even rally its traditional allies. A country that considers itself a superpower is engaged in war against resistance groups and the people of the region.” The display of Russian support for the Axis of Resistance against Israel and the US is unprecedented. The Foreign Ministry and Security Council meetings confirm there is now a new definition of “terrorism” in Russian warfighting strategy, in which there is both public and secret support for Hamas, the Houthis, and other groups in Lebanon and Iraq fighting for national liberation against Israel and the US.

Bogdanov’s meeting with Abdelsalam was not the first high-level Russian contact with the Houthis, nor their first negotiation. The two officials had met in Moscow on July 24, 2019, when they discussed terms for ending the civil war in Yemen; Bogdanov was also meeting at the time with other Yemeni political factions. Abdelsalam said then: “The meeting discussed the most important issues related to the Yemeni policy and the steps of the national delegation [the Houthi delegation] in the Stockholm Agreement in addition to the regional crisis, in addition to the importance of the Russian role at the regional level, and its reflection on the situation in Yemen to calm the escalation and prevent further tension as Yemen represents a key point towards regional calm that will be positively reflected in the tense regional situation.”

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“Without a ceasefire, the order doesn’t actually work..”

• It May be Genocide, But it Won’t Be Stopped (Chris Hedges)

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) refused to implement the most crucial demand made by South African jurists: “the State of Israel shall immediately suspend its military operations in and against Gaza.” But at the same time, it delivered a devastating blow to the foundational myth of Israel. Israel, which paints itself as eternally persecuted, has been credibly accused of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Palestinians are the victims, not the perpetrators, of the “crime of crimes.” A people, once in need of protection from genocide, are now potentially committing it. The court’s ruling questions the very raison d’être of the “Jewish State” and challenges the impunity Israel has enjoyed since its founding 75 years ago.

The ICJ ordered Israel to take six provisional measures to prevent acts of genocide, measures that will be very difficult if not impossible to fulfill if Israel continues its saturation bombing of Gaza and wholesale targeting of vital infrastructure. The court called on Israel “to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide.” It demanded Israel “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance.” It ordered Israel to protect Palestinian civilians. It called on Israel to protect the some 50,000 women giving birth in Gaza. It ordered Israel to take “effective measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations of acts within the scope of Article II and Article III of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide against members of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip.”


Red Ink by Mr. Fish

The court ordered Israel to “take all measures within its power” to prevent the crimes which amount to genocide such as “killing, causing serious bodily and mental harm, inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.” Israel was ordered to report back in one month to explain what it had done to implement the provisional measures. Gaza was pounded with bombs, missiles and artillery shells as the ruling was read in The Hague — at least 183 Palestinians have been killed in the last 24 hours. Since Oct. 7, more than 26,000 Palestinians have been killed. Almost 65,000 have been wounded, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Thousands more are missing. The carnage continues. This is the cold reality.

Translated into the vernacular, the court is saying Israel must feed and provide medical care for the victims, cease public statements advocating genocide, preserve evidence of genocide and stop killing Palestinian civilians. Come back and report in a month. It is hard to see how these provisional measures can be achieved if the carnage in Gaza continues. “Without a ceasefire, the order doesn’t actually work,” Naledi Pandor, South Africa’s minister of international relations, stated bluntly after the ruling. Time is not on the side of the Palestinians. Thousands of Palestinians will die within a month. Palestinians in Gaza make up 80 percent of all the people facing famine or catastrophic hunger worldwide, according to the United Nations. The entire population of Gaza by early February is projected to lack sufficient food, with half a million people suffering from starvation, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, drawing on data from U.N. agencies and NGOs. The famine is engineered by Israel.

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Too late, Ursula.

• EU Commission Chief Hopes For ‘Consensus’ With Protesting Farmers (RT)

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has expressed hope that new “strategic dialogue” will defuse the ongoing farmers’ protests over environmental regulations. “We all have the same sense of urgency that things have to improve,” von der Leyen said on Thursday during a meeting with a group of community and business leaders in Brussels. She lamented what she described as “an increasing division and polarization when it comes to topics related to agriculture.” “We must overcome this polarization with dialogue,” she said, stressing the need to find “a new way forward and common and lasting solutions” for European agriculture. “I hope that you will build the trust to appreciate each other’s perspectives and to find common solutions for the future of agriculture in Europe. This dialogue aims to find a new consensus on issues with which we all struggle,” von der Leyen told the attendees.

Farmers in Germany have been blocking city streets with their tractors since last month, demanding that Chancellor Olaf Scholz reverse the proposed scrapping of a diesel fuel subsidy worth as much as €3,000 ($3,260) annually. The German government has defended the move on environmental grounds. The farmers, however, insist that the plan would put them out of business and threaten their livelihoods. Similar protests are underway in France, Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria, as farmers’ issues are expected to loom large over European Parliament elections later this year. The French government scrapped plans to reduce subsidies on diesel for farmers on Friday after protesters used tractors and other agricultural machines to block a major highway out of Paris and a road linking France to Spain.

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“Budget cuts have resulted in the British Army’s numbers falling to levels not seen since the 1700s..”

• UK Needs Bigger Military – US Navy Chief (RT)

The UK should reassess the size of its armed forces, US Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro has said. During a visit to the Royal United Services Institute in London on Thursday, the official pointed to situations the US and its allies see as threats, including the escalation in the Middle East, as well as the policies of Russia and China. Asked if the US is concerned whether Britain’s army has become too small, Del Toro replied: “I think it’s important for the United Kingdom to reassess where they are today, given the threats that exist today.” In his speech on Thursday, he argued that amid “near-term threats to the UK and the US,” investments in the Royal Navy are “significantly important,” noting that the US has “continued to make significant investments in national security,” even amid economic challenges. Del Toro claimed that the threats include the escalating crisis in the Middle East, Yemen, Iran, China, and Russia.

Asked whether US and UK operations in the Middle East – currently a naval and bombing operation against Yemen’s Houthis – could widen to include Iran, Del Toro said, “nothing is off the table.” A shortage of sailors forced the Royal Navy to decommission two of their frigates, the HMS Westminster and HMS Argyll, earlier this month, and the overall army numbers are reaching levels not seen since the 18th century.This comes one day after the head of the British Army, General Sir Patrick Sanders, made a speech warning the public to be prepared for conscription in case of war with Russia. Speaking at a military conference in London, the general pointed to Sweden’s reintroduction of national service as an example and warned that “as the prewar generation we must similarly prepare – and that is a whole-of-nation undertaking.”

Currently, the UK’s regular army numbers are just above 74,000, of which 20,000 will take part in NATO’s largest military exercises in decades – Steadfast Defender 2024; 90,000 troops from the bloc’s 31 member states, as well as Sweden, will participate in the war games across Europe. Moscow has expressed concerns about NATO’s expansion towards its borders, stating that it perceives the military bloc as a threat. Russian President Vladimir Putin has cited Kiev’s declared intention to join NATO as one of the key reasons for the Ukraine conflict.

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“..The Michelle gambit would only be the party’s final hoax. After that, the deluge..”

• Michelle, Ma Belle (Kunstler)

Well, all right, considering the party has really got no one else. Gavin Newsom is a California train wreck, despite the fabulous teeth and hair, Oprah can’t seem to make up her mind, and Taylor Swift will not be old enough to qualify for the office until December. The leading plan for the Dems goes like this: “JB” is offered a deal. . .step aside for Michelle to run in August. . . “JB” can make whatever face-saving excuses necessary, health, low energy, whatever. . . but he can serve out his term to the bitter end, and then sometime before noon January 20, 2025, he can pardon himself, son Hunter, brothers Jim and Frank, and a few other family members implicated in money-laundering all the bribes they scared-up over the years.

That is, assuming “Joe Biden” does not get impeached before August, in which case he might not be convicted in a Dem majority Senate trial, BUT, the mainstream media could not ignore the proceeding, and the public — including the wokest Woke partisans — would finally see the voluminous bank records authenticating the Biden Family bribery operations — the “proof” they have been forever and snidely calling for. Bad “optics” for the party. A late August kick off for Michelle Obama would minimize her public exposure until, really, the last two months of the race. (She reportedly hates being on display.) In theory, the vast electorate of suburban Democratic women across the land would bury the MAGA vote and enjoy months of orgasm awaiting the installation of a black, (first) female president, their final blow against the odious patriarchy of white supremacist rapists.

And best of all, under President Michelle, the blob could continue all its clandestine blobulations without fear of payback, assuring that our democracy will be defended by any means necessary, including the suppression and persecution of anyone who complains about it. Now that’s a plan! Except for one thing: none of the people chattering about this (James Rickards, Dan Bongino. . .) have mentioned that the Michelle plan actually represents a fourth term for Barack Obama. I mean. . . really . . . do you suppose that Barack will spend the next four years upstairs in the White House “residence” with an apron on, baking red velvet cakes and sweet potato pies while Michelle presides in the Situation Room, directing drone strikes against various people of the Koran? In the immortal words of Homey D. Clown: “I don’t think so!”

And what if the opposition — say, Mr. Trump, or Vivek, or Tulsi, or Tom Massie, or Rand Paul, or a dozen others in that camp — make the case that the “Joe Biden” regime was actually Mr. Obama’s third term, and look what mess he managed to make of the USA while running the puppet-show from his Kalorama redoubt: nine million illegal aliens ushered into the country with lavish benefits, phones, loaded debit cards, free four-star hotel rooms. . . the years-long assault of the drag queens and oral sex instruction for third-graders. . . the preposterous war in Ukraine engineered by neocon catspaws for the benefit of Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and the rest of the arms-makers. . . big cities full of homeless encampments and their noxious excretions. . . fentanyl killing 1,500 Americans a week. . . an extravaganza of flash-mob looting, shop-lifting, and car-jacking. . . the trillion-plus dollars in annual interest payments on the national debt. . . not a pretty picture. So, it comes down to: do you want another four years of that? And how did America end up under the thumb of an Obama dynasty, anyway?

I’ll tell you how: because the Democratic Party has become a criminal operation now solely dedicated to keeping its dignitaries, office-holders, and their factotums in the executive agencies out of prison for a range of crimes so vast that all the Lawfare specialists ever spawned in the hatcheries of Yale and Harvard would not run out of billable hours defending them in court before the sun turned into a red dwarf. The mighty effort consumes all the party’s energies these days, when they are not attending to the destruction of Western Civilization. The Michelle gambit would only be the party’s final hoax. After that, the deluge.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jelly
https://twitter.com/i/status/1750764275872723326

 

 

Rhino beetle

 

 

Blue morpho
https://twitter.com/i/status/1750945493817971060

 

 

Elegance

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle January 26 2024

Jan 262024
 
 January 26, 2024  Posted by at 9:15 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  66 Responses »


Jean-Léon Gérôme Truth Coming Out of Her Well to Shame Mankind, 1896

 

• What Happens In Texas Will Decide The Fate Of The Nation (Libby Emmons)
• 25 Republican Governors Back Texas In Standoff With Biden (RT)
• China’s Defense Ministry: NATO is a ‘Walking War Machine’ Sowing Chaos (Sp.)
• The Western World: RIP (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Five Variables Defining Our Future (Pepe Escobar)
• How Gaza Is Impacting The Great Power Standoff (Sweidan)
• Netanyahu Cannot Survive 10 Minutes Without US Support – Iran FM (Cradle)
• Gaza War’s Financial Reason Mainstream Media Won’t Cover – Ray McGovern (Sp.)
• Iran ‘A Legitimate Target’ – Israel (RT)
• Col. Macgregor Says at Least 400 Americans Died in Ukraine (Sp.)
• ‘Suicide Mission’: Ukrainian Troops Reveal Dire Situation on Battlefield (Sp.)
• Why Did Ukraine Shoot Down An Aircraft Carrying Its Own Soldiers? (Poletaev)
• West’s Anti-Russian Policy Now ‘At Its Peak’ – Peskov (TASS)
• EU Not Prepared For Potential Armed Conflict With Russia – Politico (TASS)
• Trump Advisor Navarro Sentenced To Four Months For Ignoring J6 Subpoena (ZH)
• Adam Schiff A “Liar” Who Was “Censured” – Garvey (ZH)
• RCMP Offering Police $75,000 Benefit To Change Genders (CS)

 

 

Lone Star rebellion. There are now 25 governors standing with Texas.

 

 

Tucker 22 million
https://twitter.com/i/status/1750427983448256552

 

 

Steve Harvey
https://twitter.com/i/status/1750371213757583484

 

 

Vivek Trump
https://twitter.com/i/status/1750250406242836517

 

 

Watters RFK

 

 

Vivek

 

 

Trump MbS
https://twitter.com/i/status/1750703007052841381

 

 

 

 

“..Texas, and the nation, are just open to the wolves at the door who seek to destroy the border and America..”

• What Happens In Texas Will Decide The Fate Of The Nation (Libby Emmons)

Texas has been doing the work the Biden administration refused to do: securing the US-Mexico border against invasion. They erected fencing only for Biden’s border minions to tear it down. They put buoy barriers in the river to stop people from crossing, but these, too, Biden’s border guards took down at his order. They even took the case to the Supreme Court to ask them to tell Texas to back off and let the illegal immigrants flood in. In a completely absurd ruling, the Supreme Court sided with Biden and said that federal officials may cut the wire barrier put up by Texas to protect their state and, in turn, the entire nation from invasion. It was a 5-4 ruling overturning a lower court ruling that Biden could, indeed, cut the razor wire. Conservative justices, including Amy Coney Barrett, ruled against the state in allowing the appeals court ruling to stand.

Texas is appealing, arguments will be heard February 7, there will be more lawfare between Texas and Biden, and for sure, the case is not closed. It’s possible that the Supreme Court is attempting to put power back in the hands of the legislatures, and not the courts or federal agencies, as they did with the Dobbs ruling, EPA v West Virginia, or as oral arguments indicated they may rule in the challenge to Chevron deference. But until then, Texas, and the nation, are just open to the wolves at the door who seek to destroy the border and America. Literally what the hell. After the Supreme Court vacated the injunction, saying only “The application to vacate injunction presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is granted,” Texas said no. By then, Texas National Guard had taken up a strong position at a major border crossing. They were keeping Biden’s border agents out and erecting more razor wire, which the White House said was “getting in the way,” which of course, for Texas, was the point.

Article IV, Section IV of the Constitution points out, “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.” “Shall protect against invasion.” Those are the wise words used. Yet for Joe Biden and his handlers, the words mean nothing. The Supreme Court has deferred to a pending decision by a lower court. All entities but Texas abandoned their sacred duty to uphold the laws of the US. The US border is open and available for trespass.

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That authority is the supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary..”

• 25 Republican Governors Back Texas In Standoff With Biden (RT)

A large group of Republican governors has issued a joint statement voicing “solidarity” with Texas Governor Greg Abbott and his stepped-up border protections, accusing the White House of leaving the country “completely vulnerable” amid an influx of illegal migrants. Published on Thursday, the open letter was signed by 25 GOP governors across the country, with Vermont Governor Phil Scott the sole Republican to leave his signature off the message. The state leaders were highly critical of President Joe Biden, who they said had “attacked and sued Texas for stepping up to protect American citizens from historic levels of illegal immigrants, deadly drugs like fentanyl, and terrorists entering our country.”

“We stand in solidarity with our fellow Governor, Greg Abbott, and the State of Texas in utilizing every tool and strategy, including razor wire fences, to secure the border,” the letter continued. “We do it in part because the Biden Administration is refusing to enforce immigration laws already on the books and is illegally allowing mass parole across America of migrants who entered our country illegally.” Abbott has been embroiled in a lengthy legal battle with Biden’s Justice Department over Texas’ efforts to stem the flow of illegal immigration into the US. The tensions were exacerbated by a Supreme Court ruling earlier this week which authorized federal Border Patrol agents to remove razor wire installed along the US-Mexico border by the Texas authorities. Abbott responded to the ruling by saying that Biden had “refused to enforce [immigration] laws and has even violated them.”

The Texas governor has likened the record-breaking migration numbers in recent years to an “invasion,” and invoked constitutional authorities for a state to defend itself against foreign incursions. “That authority is the supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary. The Texas National Guard, the Texas Department of Public Safety, and other Texas personnel are acting on that authority, as well as state law, to secure the Texas border,” Abbott previously argued. The standoff with federal agencies came to a head earlier this month when Texas used state National Guard troops to block federal Border Patrol agents from accessing a 2.5-mile stretch along the border with Mexico. Following that incident, the case was brought before the Supreme Court, which ultimately decided in favor of the federal government.

Last month, Border Patrol reported 300,000 encounters with illegal immigrants, representing an all-time high. While House Republicans have similarly accused Biden of facilitating an “invasion,” the Democratic majority has countered that blocking entry to asylum seekers would be “cruel” and “inhumane.” As part of a border crackdown dubbed ‘Operation Lone Star’, Abbott has sought to build barriers along the border and detained around 500,000 illegal immigrants. Texas has also bused over 97,000 migrants that the federal authorities had allowed into the country to Democrat-run jurisdictions of New York City, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC.

Texas
https://twitter.com/i/status/1750562978401792472

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“..wherever it appears, it brings disorder everywhere..”

• China’s Defense Ministry: NATO is a ‘Walking War Machine’ Sowing Chaos (Sp.)

NATO is a walking war machine that brings chaos wherever it appears, Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian said at a briefing on Thursday. “We have drawn attention to inappropriate statements by the NATO Secretary General regarding China. As a regional military organization, NATO has launched and participated in wars since the very days of its inception,” Wu Qian said. He observed that over the past few years, the alliance has been steadily shifting its focus towards the Asia-Pacific region, employing the nonexistent “China threat” as a means to provoke bloc confrontation and endangering regional security “It should be said that NATO is a walking ‘war machine,’ and wherever it appears, it brings disorder everywhere,” he pointed out.

Wu Qian has called on NATO to cease their fabrication of lies and cease engaging in dangerous actions that disrupt the Asia-Pacific region, and to treat China, along with the Chinese armed forces and its development in an unbiased and rational manner. During the World Economic Forum in Davos, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg emphasized that the US-led military bloc remains “regional” in nature and will continue to be so. Stoltenberg also engaged in classic blame game, stating that the Western bloc allegedly does not regard China as an adversary and does not wish to expand into Asia. “This is not about NATO moving into Asia, but instead about the fact that China is coming close to us,” he claimed.

South China Sea

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“And the fool responsible for this policy is running for reelection as president with the media’s and America’s elites’ support.”

• The Western World: RIP (Paul Craig Roberts)

I have come to the depressing conclusion that the white ethnicities that constituted the nations of Western Civilization have degenerated into such insouciance and stupidity that they have no possibility of survival. They sit mindlessly in front of TV absorbing their brainwashing and indoctrination. They can’t pay their rent, mortgage or car payments, but they pay endlessly for care of immigrant-invaders who are overwhelming their communities with material needs. In the US, North Carolina, once a Southern state, now an immigrant staging ground, has given over its high schools to serve as immigrant-invader “resettlement areas.” To Hell with the North Carolina taxpayers. Immigrant-invaders’ rights preempt those of North Carolina taxpayers, whose majority white population, according to the narrative, consists of white supremacist racists exploiters. North Carolina has also, at taxpayers’ expense, built a campus for a “head’s start” program for children of immigrant invaders. The program takes over a former school property for NC American citizens.

Wherever you look, you see the US welcoming at citizens taxpayer expense endless burdens from immigrant-invaders permitted to walk unheeded across the border into the Tower of Babel that the US has become. According to leaks, RINO Republican Senators are preparing an immigration bill that would force America to accept 1.8 million immigrant-invaders each year. Amazing to watch white people destroy their own country. No one in America can do anything about it. Instead of stopping the invasion and over-running of the country, the US government commits endless American resources to defending the aggressively expansive borders of Israel and Ukraine, while Washington dismantles the barrier put in place to defend America’s borders. And the fool responsible for this policy is running for reelection as president with the media’s and America’s elites’ support.

In what remains of European ethnic countries, the director of the EU’s “border protection agency, Frontex,” Hans Leitjens, said that “nothing can stop immigrants.” What he means is that the EU will not stop immigrant-invaders from bringing the Camp of the Saints to all of Europe and perhaps to Russia as well, considering the weakness demonstrated by a government that could be ruling the world. The dumbshit Hans Leitjens, obviously a proponent of Western annihilation, says that opposition to being overrun by immigrant-invaders constitutes “xenophobia and prejudice.” There you have it. If white ethnicities attempt to prevent their overthrow by invaders, they are xenophobic and racist. How did so many white ethnicities get converted to a point of view that doesn’t serve them? This is what white people have learned to expect from “their” governments. Don’t you think it is strange that the world’s white ethnicities are prepared to commit lives and endless resources to protect the borders of Israel and Ukraine, but nothing to protect their own borders? How can people this totally stupid continue to exist?

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“..the garden isn’t growing “because its philosophy is not industrialization. Its philosophy is to make monopoly rents, meaning rents that you make in your sleep without producing value..”

• Five Variables Defining Our Future (Pepe Escobar)

Losers Don’t Dictate Terms

1.The stalemate: That’s the new, obsessive US narrative on Ukraine – on steroids. Confronted with the upcoming, cosmic NATO humiliation in the battlefield, the White House and the State Dept. had to – literally – improvise. Moscow though is unfazed. The Kremlin has set the terms a long time ago: total surrender, and no Ukraine as part of NATO. To “negotiate”, from the Russia point of view, is to accept these terms.And if the deciding powers in Washington opt for turbo-charging the weaponization of Kiev, or to unleash “the most heinous provocations in order to change the course of events”, as asserted this week by the head of the SVR, Sergey Naryshkin, fine. The road ahead will be bloody. In case the usual suspects sideline popular Zaluzhny and install Budanov as the head of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the AFU will be under total control of the CIA – and not NATO generals, as it’s still the case.

This might prevent a military coup against the sweaty sweatshirt puppet in Kiev. Yet things will get much uglier. Ukraine will go Total Guerrilla, with only two objectives: to attack Russian civilians and civilian infrastructure. Moscow, of course, is fully aware of the dangers. Meanwhile, chatterbox overdrive in several latitudes suggest that NATO may even be getting ready for a partition of Ukraine. Whatever form that might take, losers do not dictate conditions: Russia does. As for EU politicos, predictably, they are in total panic, believing that after mopping up Ukraine, Russia will become even more of a “threat” to Europe. Nonsense. Not only Moscow couldn’t give a damn to what Europe “thinks”; the last thing Russia wants or needs is to annex Baltic or Eastern European hysteria. Moreover, even Jens Stoltenberg admitted “NATO sees no threat from Russia toward any of its territories.”

2.BRICS: Since the start of 2024, this is The Big Picture: the Russian presidency of BRICS+ – which translates as a particle accelerator towards multipolarity. The Russia-China strategic partnership will be increasing actual production, in several fields, while Europe plunges into depression, unleashed by the Perfect Storm of sanctions blowback against Russia and German de-industrialization. And it’s far from over, as Washington is also ordering Brussels to sanction China across the spectrum. As Prof. Michael Hudson frames it, we are right in the middle of “the whole split of the world and the turning towards China, Russia, Iran, BRICS”, united in “an attempt to reverse, undo, and roll back the whole colonial expansion that’s occurred over the last five centuries.” Or, as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov defined at the UN Security Council this process of BRICS leaving Western bullies behind, the changing world order is like “a playground scuffle – which the West is losing.”

3.The Lone Emperor: The “stalemate” – actually losing a war – is directly linked to its compensation: the Empire squeezing and shrinking a vassalized Europe. But even as you exercise nearly total control over all these relatively wealthy vassals, you lose the Global South, for good: if not all their leaders, certainly the overwhelming majority of public opinion. The icing in the toxic cake is to support a genocide followed by the whole planet in real time. Bye bye, soft power.

4.De-dollarization: All across the Global South, they did the math: if the Empire and its EU vassals can just steal over $300 billion in Russian foreign reserves – from a top nuclear/military power – they can do it to anyone, and they will. The key reason Saudi Arabia, now a BRICS 10 member, is being so meek on the genocide in Gaza is because their hefty US dollar reserves are hostage to the Hegemon. And yet the caravan moving away from the US dollar will only keep growing in 2024: that will depend on crucial crossover deliberations inside the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and BRICS 10.

5.Garden and jungle: What Putin and Xi have essentially been telling the Global South – including the energy-rich Arab world – is quite simple. If you want improved trade and economic growth, who’re you gonna link to? So we’re back to the “garden and jungle” syndrome – first coined by imperial Britain orientalist Rudyard Kipling. Both the British concept of “white man’s burden” and the American concept of “Manifest Destiny” derive from the “garden and jungle” metaphor. NATOstan, and hardly all of it, is supposed to be the garden. The Global South is the jungle. Michael Hudson again: as it stands, the jungle is growing, but the garden isn’t growing “because its philosophy is not industrialization. Its philosophy is to make monopoly rents, meaning rents that you make in your sleep without producing value. You just have a privilege of a right to collect money on a monopoly technology that you have.” The difference now, compared to all those decades ago of an imperial free lunch, is “an immense shift of technological advance”, away from North America and the US, to China, Russia and selected nodes across Asia.

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“..more than eight further countries reportedly joined the coalition, but demanded anonymity, given the potential political fallout from associating with Washington and Tel Aviv.”

• How Gaza Is Impacting The Great Power Standoff (Sweidan)

In response to Yemen’s Ansarallah-aligned armed forces’ Red Sea blockade of Israeli-linked vessels, the US Department of Defense announced the formation of “Operation Guardian of Prosperity … to uphold the foundational principle of freedom of navigation” in those waters, initially consisting of a coalition of ten countries, most of them insignificant partners. The coalition proved shaky from the get-go, with only the US and Britain actively involved in military strikes on Yemen. The reluctance of key European countries France, Spain, and Italy to join the naval alliance indicated a growing skepticism among the US’s traditional partners — both western and West Asian — about Washington’s commitment and capability to defend its allies in any impactful way. Interestingly, more than eight further countries reportedly joined the coalition, but demanded anonymity, given the potential political fallout from associating with Washington and Tel Aviv.

Crucially, the Pentagon’s stated purpose of securing navigation in the Red Sea does not align with the actual threat presented, revealing ulterior motives behind US actions. The Yemenis have repeatedly confirmed that they only intend to inhibit the passage of Israeli-owned or destined vessels — and that all other ships are free to pass. In short, the US/UK-led coalition is acting as a naval arm for Israeli military forces, seeking specifically to ensure unimpeded access for ships heading to Israeli ports via the Bab al-Mandab Strait. That’s not a position many other states will get behind if they want to maintain freedom of transport for their own shipping vessels. Ultimately, the American show of force in these waterways seeks to consolidate US naval dominance, which war-torn Yemen, West Asia’s poorest country, has contested. As outlined in the National Security Strategy for 2022:

“The US “will not allow foreign or regional powers to jeopardize freedom of navigation through the Middle East’s (West Asia) waterways, including the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al Mandab, nor tolerate efforts by any country to dominate another — or the region — through military buildups, incursions, or threats.” According to media reports following massive US airstrikes against Iraqi targets on 23 January, Iraqi resistance factions will now also follow Yemen’s suit by implementing a blockade of Israeli ports in the Mediterranean Sea. Current events are spiraling out of Washington’s control as onlookers increasingly question the utility and competence of US naval leadership in the world’s important waterways. Equally, there is recognition that other formidable forces and states have emerged, challenging US control over key global straits. In the words of British politician and writer Walter Raleigh, “Who rules the seas rules the world.” Under Sanaa’s watch, the US no longer can claim rule over the Red Sea or even its adjacent waterways.

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“So the key to solving the problem is in Washington before it is in Tel Aviv..”

• Netanyahu Cannot Survive 10 Minutes Without US Support – Iran FM (Cradle)

During an interview with ABC News on 23 January, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian asserted that the key to ending Israel’s genocide campaign in Gaza and averting a wider regional conflict lies in the hands of US authorities. “If the US today stops its backing — logistical and weapons, political and media support — of the genocidal war launched by Israel, then I can assure you that [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu will not survive for 10 minutes,” Iran’s top diplomat told ABC News Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz during. “So the key to solving the problem is in Washington before it is in Tel Aviv,” he said from New York on the sidelines of the UN Security Council meeting on West Asia. “The scope of the war has become wider. This means that the danger of having a wider war in the region has gone up,” Amir-Abdollahian added, blaming the US and Israel for escalating tensions across the region.

“Nobody is going to benefit from any war. We believe that the solution is never war,” the Iranian official stressed. When pressed by Raddatz about Iranian support for Yemen’s Ansarallah resistance movement, Amir-Abdollahian rejected the accusations, calling them “a TV show.” He later confirmed Iran’s full support for Hamas, saying the group is “a Palestinian liberation group that is standing against occupation.” “Of course, we never approved the killing of women and children, civilians anywhere in the world. We never support it,” he added when asked about the civilian casualties during Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October. During his visit to New York, Amir-Abdollahian met with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to discuss several topics, including ways to send humanitarian aid to the north and south of Gaza.

He also held talks with his French and Malaysian counterparts. “Today was an opportunity to talk and consult with some foreign ministers. The meeting and discussion with the foreign ministers of France and Malaysia both included positive, forward-looking, and constructive discussions, especially in bilateral areas”, Amir-Abdollahian noted. The Iranian foreign minister held talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov as well, as the two reportedly agreed on the need for a swift ceasefire in Gaza and conditions for providing humanitarian assistance to civilians. “General concern was expressed about the tense situation in the Red Sea, which has sharply degraded,” a statement released by the Kremlin said.

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“..Israel has overriding interest in protecting its ‘rights’ to the territorial waters of Gaza, where there are rich gas fields offshore. Israel claims sole ownership of those territorial waters.”

• Gaza War’s Financial Reason Mainstream Media Won’t Cover – Ray McGovern (Sp.)

Israel sees “a real economic interest” in Gaza, and that explains why no matter the extent of global outrage, Tel Aviv’s military campaign in the beleaguered enclave rages on, Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, told Sputnik. “The Israelis see a real economic interest in dominating Gaza. And that’s why, of course, [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu has made it very clear: no, they have no intention of leaving Gaza. It’s going to be part of Israel unless they are faced down by people who think it important to defend the Palestinians, and will act to end that genocide that’s going on right now, and that our government, the United States, is not only enabling, but providing arms for and other political support,” McGovern said.

In late December, the Biden administration bypassed Congress and approved more weapons and munitions for Israel. The package was pushed through via an emergency determination and covered a sale worth $147.5 million, all the while amid Washington’s rhetorical calls for an end to civilian deaths. “On the economic side, which is all-important, of course, Israel has overriding interest in protecting its ‘rights’ to the territorial waters of Gaza, where there are rich gas fields offshore. Israel claims sole ownership of those territorial waters. And, there’s this design for an East Med pipeline which would permit Israel to export to Italy and elsewhere in the European Union the natural gas it has seized by military force from the Palestinians in Gaza. And that’s something that you really don’t see in the in the mainstream press here, do you?” the pundit queried.

“So genocide is genocide, and unless that stopped, Israel will not only profit from ‘additional security’ for a while, but will also profit from having a better ‘claim’ or a semi- or a quasi-legal claim to the waters off Gaza, which, as people know, are very rich in gas deposits,” McGovern stressed. [..] Looking ahead, McGovern suggested that “a lot will depend on the outcome of the genocide in Gaza, whether that’s allowed to continue or whether we [the United States] will finally say […] ‘No more arms until you stop the murder in Gaza.'”

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Cue US.

• Iran ‘A Legitimate Target’ – Israel (RT)

Iran is now a “legitimate target” for Israeli attacks, Economy Minister Nir Barkat has told The Telegraph, raising fears of an armed conflict with Tehran. He also claimed that the war in Gaza is not being fought with enough aggression by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). “Iran is a legitimate target for Israel,” said Barkat. “They will not get away with it. The head of the snake is Tehran. “My recommendation is to adopt the strategy that President Kennedy used in the Cuban Missile Crisis. What he basically said then was, ‘A missile from Cuba will be answered with a missile to Moscow,’” the minister added, referring to the 1962 standoff between the US and the USSR.

Barkat’s rhetoric echoed a recent statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who blamed Iran for standing behind the militant groups in Gaza. He claimed that Israel was already carrying out direct attacks on Iran. “Iran is the head of the octopus and you see its tentacles all around from the Houthis to Hezbollah to Hamas,” said the prime minister. Israel claims that Iran was involved in plotting the October 7 attacks, when around 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 taken hostage in the surprise Hamas raid near Gaza. Israel retaliated by launching an aerial bombardment and ground operation against the Palestinian enclave, which has resulted in the deaths of around 25,000 people, according to local health officials. Iran has denied having any role in the Hamas assault on Israel, with Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani saying such accusations were “based on political reasons.”

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“..the Biden administration “won’t say this and it won’t be published by the media.”

• Col. Macgregor Says at Least 400 Americans Died in Ukraine (Sp.)

Former Pentagon Adviser Col. Douglas Macgregor said Wednesday that at least 400 Americans have died in Ukraine and accused authorities of the United States of concealing this information. “Our friend [US Senator] Lindsey Graham said we should be so grateful no Americans have died in Ukraine. This is a Lie. We know that at least 400 Americans have died whether they are contractors or in uniform,” Macgregor said on X without saying where the number came from. Macgregor added that the Biden administration “won’t say this and it won’t be published by the media.” The former Pentagon official also believes that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “will end up in one of his mansions in Cyprus or Italy or possibly end up in Florida” when the Ukraine conflict is over, adding that “this whole thing is a scam and the Ukrainians have been exploited by the United States.”

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“We no longer have ammunition. We are allowed to fire only three shells a day..”

• ‘Suicide Mission’: Ukrainian Troops Reveal Dire Situation on Battlefield (Sp.)

Futile attempts to attack positions of Russia’s military have been likened to suicide missions by a Ukrainian soldier in an interview with Le Figaro. With Russia’s military continuing its probing offensive in the Kupyansk area in the Kharkov region, Ukraine’s troops have less and less ammunition to withstand the onslaught. It is like suicide, a senior sergeant of Ukraine’s Armed Forces by the name of Mikhail told a journalist from the French outlet. The Ukrainian Armed Forces, which have sustained tremendous casualties and hardware losses since the failed summer counteroffensive, have “nothing to fight back with,” according to the publication, and are forced to hide and run away as “Russian shells hit positions under 500 meters away from them.” “We no longer have ammunition. We are allowed to fire only three shells a day,” the Ukrainian soldier told a French journalist.

He claimed that while “rationed,” the shells might suffice to hold positions, but any attempts at attacking the Russian military are out of the question. The Ukrainian Armed Forces simply do not have the resources, he said.“If we want to go on the offensive in the spring, we will require more people, ammunition, F-16 fighters and SCALP cruise missiles. Going into an attack without air support is suicide,” the serviceman was quoted as saying. Another interviewed Ukrainian soldier, Senior Sergeant Sergey, added:“We’re running low on ammunition, but we’re holding out for now. We have at our disposal only 40% of the number of shells that we need. If the Russians launch a serious offensive here, we won’t last long.”The Ukrainian soldiers showed no enthusiasm about the prospective outcome of the battlefront clashes.“If we are asked to attack, we will attack. But it would be suicide. We don’t have enough people or ammunition,” the French outlet quotes the Ukrainian troops as saying, adding that they are “suffering colossal losses in manpower.”

Last year, in mid-December, the same expression, “suicide mission,” was used by Ukrainian Marines when describing an attempt to cross the Dnepr River, as quoted by The New York Times. Recently, Celeste Wallander, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, said that the Pentagon is aware of the Ukrainian military’s concerns that they “do not have the stocks and the stores of ammunition that they require.” Referencing the stalemate in Congress regarding further aid for Kiev, Wallander added: “Without funding, we would not be able to match the pace that we have provided Ukraine with since the start of this conflict.”

Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder also acknowledged that the US Defense Department had put on “pause” sending additional weapons to Ukraine from its inventories “given the implications for our own military readiness.” “This of course prevents us from meeting the most urgent battlefield needs, to include things like artillery rounds,” Ryder said on January 23. In the wake of the botched Ukrainian counteroffensive, the Russian Armed Forces have been routinely knocking out Kiev’s NATO-grade weaponry, shredding the myth of the superiority of Western equipment to its Russian-made counterparts. Amid waning interest in aiding the corrupt regime of Volodymyr Zelensky, its Western allies have been disposing of outdated and ill-conditioned weapons by sending them to the Ukrainian military. Thus, after dozens of much-lauded Leopard 2 main battle tanks (MBT) were decimated by Russia, due to its limitations, the West began dispatching “upgraded” Soviet-era T-72s to Kiev.

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“..Immediately afterwards, statements about the involvement of Kiev’s forces began to disappear from the Ukrainian internet..”

• Why Did Ukraine Shoot Down An Aircraft Carrying Its Own Soldiers? (Poletaev)

On Wednesday, an Il-76 transport plane was downed in Russian airspace. It was reportedly carrying 65 Ukrainian POWs scheduled for a prisoner swap, escorted by three Russian military guards, as well as six crew members. All on board were killed. It seems the aircraft was destroyed by missiles launched from a US-supplied Patriot system. The incident prompts a critical question: What were the Ukrainian soldiers doing so far from their homeland that air transportation was necessary? The answer is simple: The POWs were initially held in the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics, but then came a Ukrainian HIMARS attack on a prisoner camp in Olenovka near Volnovakha on July 29, 2022, killing 53 people. This seems to have been the reason for the transfer, aiming to distance the POWs from high-tech precision weapons systems provided to Kiev by NATO. Today, we can say with absolute certainty that this did not help. Ukraine has once again shown the world just how dangerous it can be for its own citizens.

What happened? Around noon on Wednesday, Moscow time (9am GMT), footage spread online depicting the crash on snow-covered fields. A distinctive church seen on video meant the location was soon identified as being near the village of Yablonovo, Korochansky District, in Belgorod Region. Almost immediately, Ukrainian Telegram channels, both anonymous and verified (such as Unian and Ukrainskaya Pravda), were inundated with posts citing sources close to the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). These posts claimed that a) the plane was purportedly carrying missiles for Russia’s S-300 systems intended for use in attacks on Kharkov, and b) the downing was attributed to the Kiev’s actions. A short time later, the Russian Defense Ministry officially announced that 65 captured Ukrainian soldiers who were being transported to Belgorod for a prisoner exchange were on board the plane, along with six crew members and three guards.

Immediately afterwards, statements about the involvement of Kiev’s forces began to disappear from the Ukrainian internet, as well as any mention of the alleged cargo (missiles for the S-300 system). At 3pm Moscow time, the Russian Defense Ministry made an official announcement, stating that two Ukrainian missiles had been launched from the Liptsy suburb of Kharkov. The point of impact was approximately 100km away, a range well within the coverage of the AFU’s Patriot missiles of all modifications, including PAC-2 GEM-T and PAC-3 MSE. Concurrently, lists featuring the names of Ukrainian servicemen surfaced, which can be verified through the meticulous maintenance of Ukrainian POW databases by dedicated enthusiasts.

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“Countries that are permeated with Russophobic tendencies are dragging more and more military facilities, military equipment belonging to the alliance into their territory. This is, of course, a danger..”

• West’s Anti-Russian Policy Now ‘At Its Peak’ – Peskov (TASS)

The West is going all out against Russia, as evidenced by the current holding of the largest-ever NATO exercise, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. “The strategy of deterring our country, of putting pressure on it, has not gone anywhere. Sometimes it escalates, sometimes it subsides. Now it is probably at its peak. Such exercises are the best proof of this,” he said on Channel One. Peskov pointed out that the West holds a very clear anti-Russian position, which is determined by NATO, while the alliance’s rhetoric “is determined across the ocean, in Washington.” The Kremlin spokesman was asked about the West’s policy in the context of today’s visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to the Kaliningrad Region.

Commenting on the situation in the region, Peskov noted that “Kaliningrad is an integral part of Russia,” and it is important for the authorities to keep the entire region’s life support system in a workable condition. “There are certainly dangers present, merely in strategic terms. You see what militaristic moods prevail now in Europe, in the neighboring Baltics and so on. Countries that are permeated with Russophobic tendencies are dragging more and more military facilities, military equipment belonging to the alliance into their territory. This is, of course, a danger; it requires additional measures to ensure that the security of our country is reliably ensured,” the presidential spokesman emphasized.

Todd

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“..by talking about a possible armed conflict with Russia European politicians are diverting the attention of residents of their countries from economic issues..”

• EU Not Prepared For Potential Armed Conflict With Russia – Politico (TASS)

The European Union does not have the necessary defense potential to independently confront Russia without support from the United States in case of a potential armed conflict, the European version of the Politico newspaper wrote. “Europe is not only unprepared for [potential] war, it’s not preparing for war,” Banjamin Tallis from the German think tank DGAP said as quoted by the newspaper. Former US ambassador to Poland Daniel Fried shares this opinion. “The Europeans don’t have the capacity to defend,” Fried told Politico. The newspaper explains that since the end of the Cold War, the number of armed forces in EU countries has decreased by 2.5 times, from 3.4 million troops in 1989 to 1.3 million in 2022. Moreover, a number of countries have switched from the format of compulsory military service to military service under contract.

As a result, for example, the Belgian military is so short of ammunition and funding that soldiers will “have to throw stones” shortly after the start of any conflict, Politico points out, citing retired Belgian Armed Forces Lieutenant General Marc Thys. Without support from the United States, Europe is unable to resist Russia in the event of a potential armed conflict, the publication concludes. Statements by former US President Donald Trump about his intention to reduce the level of support from Washington towards European NATO allies raise alarm among officials of the community countries. Earlier, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that by talking about a possible armed conflict with Russia European politicians are diverting the attention of residents of their countries from economic issues. He noted that Europeans have always been inclined to search for an external enemy.

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When Eric Holder defies Congress: no problem.
When Peter Navarro defies Congress: jail.
When Hunter Biden defies Congress: no problem.
When Steve Bannon defies Congress: jail.

• Trump Advisor Navarro Sentenced To Four Months For Ignoring J6 Subpoena (ZH)

Former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro was sentenced to four months in jail on Friday for ignoring a subpoena from the Jan. 6 committee. The DOJ had sought six months in jail and a $200,000 fine. As we noted last week, Navarro was arrested at a DC airport in June of 2022 on two misdemeanor contempt of Congress charges for doing exactly what Obama AG Eric Holder did (with zero consequences), and more recently, Hunter Biden – ignore a Congressional subpoena when he told the Jan. 6 committee to pound sand. “The Defendant chose allegiance to former President Donald Trump over the rule of law,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Aloi in a 20-page sentencing memo submitted last Thursday night, Politico reported at the time.

Navarro was held in contempt in April of 2022 after he refused to provide documents and testimony to the Jan. 6 committee. A grand jury agreed with prosecutors that Navarro knew Trump hadn’t asserted executive privilege to bar him from testifying, and that even if Trump had – it wouldn’t have barred Navarro from testifying about certain non-covered subjects demanded by the Committee. “At no time did the Defendant provide the Committee with any evidence supporting his assertion that the former President had invoked executive privilege over the information the Committee’s subpoena sought from the Defendant, or otherwise challenge the Committee’s authority or composition,” wrote Aloi. “The Court was left with only the Defendant’s fan fiction version of what the Defendant wished or hoped the former President might have wanted but left unsaid.”

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After all his lies, how is he still in Congress? I genuinely don’t see how that works.

• Adam Schiff A “Liar” Who Was “Censured” – Garvey (ZH)

While the 2024 presidential race dominates headlines, there are plenty of noteworthy happenings going on in Congressional contests. Case in point, former baseball great Steve Garvey (R-CA) just called Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) a liar over allegations that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to rig the 2016 election. “I think you’ve been censured for lying,” the former athlete said to Schiff during a Monday night debate in Los Angeles. “And this is exactly what I’m talking about: career politicians who are trying to determine who we are by race or by color or by gender,” he continued. “They never listen. They have pre-arranged words to say.”

Schiff, who presided over Trump’s first impeachment, snarked back that he “was censured for standing up to a corrupt president” and “would do it all over again.” “That president has been indicted with … 91 felony counts — that president that you won’t refuse to support,” Schiff continued. “Yeah, he’s a danger. And I will stand up to him and [former House Speaker] Kevin McCarthy, and [Ohio GOP Rep.] Jim Jordan, and any of those MAGA enablers in Congress.” “You lied to 300 million people,” Garvey shot back, adding “You can’t take that back.”

As the NY Post notes: The California Democrat, who at the time of his allegations served as chair of the House Intelligence Committee, read portions of the now-debunked Steele dossier into the congressional record and said there was “ample evidence of collusion in plain sight.” “You honor me with your enmity. You flatter me with this falsehood,” Schiff following the floor vote. “Today I wear this partisan vote as a badge of honor, knowing that I have lived my oath.” Three independent federal investigations by special counsel Robert Mueller, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz and special counsel John Durham later found no such evidence existed.

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RCMP=Royal Canadian Mounted Police, aka Mounties.

• RCMP Offering Police $75,000 Benefit To Change Genders (CS)

Officers received a message from the RCMP’s Health Care Benefits team: “I am pleased to inform you that gender affirming care benefit provisions have been added to regular Member health benefits.” “Gender affirming care” is of course the term that refers to medical sex changes. It’s also used when describing giving puberty blockers to children who (perhaps temporarily) think they are in the wrong body, despite growing evidence that giving them such is harmful to their long-term health. The memo states that the substantial new benefit towards transgender-related medical intervention is part “of our ongoing commitment to creating a more modern, inclusive and representative workforce.”

“The benefit will be applicable for certain gender affirming procedures not covered by provincial/territorial health care plans to help individuals with their gender affirmation journey,” the memo states. The criteria for eligibility are specific: officers must be 18 or older, under doctor’s care for gender affirmation, have exhausted provincial coverage, and have undergone all medically necessary procedures as determined by a physician or nurse practitioner. Pre-approval is required via a gender affirmation request form. Effective retroactively to October 12, 2023, the policy aligns the RCMP with civilian members and Public Service employees who have been receiving similar benefits since July 2023.

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DDR

 

 

Pepsi

 

 

Elon predictions

 

 

 

 

Cheetah

 

 

Night Monkeys
https://twitter.com/i/status/1750537795196612668

 

 


It took Jason Stieva 15 months to make a 8 feet high, 7.5 feet long, and about 2.5 feet wide Ghost ship.

 

 


During the exceptionally cold winter of 1795, a French Hussar regiment captured the Dutch fleet on the frozen Zuiderzee, a bay to the northwest of the Netherlands. That was the only time in history when men on horseback captured a fleet of ships. Painting: Léon Morel-Fatio

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle January 25 2024

Jan 252024
 
 January 25, 2024  Posted by at 9:46 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  59 Responses »


Amedeo Modigliani Elvira Resting at a Table 1919

 

• Texas Governor Defies Biden (RT)
• The United States Has No Borders (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Israel Loses Control Of Its Borders (Harb)
• Ukraine A ‘Terrorist State’ – Senior Russian MP (RT)
• Time For West To Realize It Is Helping Nazis – Top Russian MP (RT)
• French Mercenaries Dying in Ukraine (SCF)
• The Plan For Reviving Donetsk (Helmer)
• US Has Lost Race for Hypersonic, Directed Energy Weapons – Senator (Sp.)
• Moscow Won’t Beg ‘Uncle Sam’ For Forgiveness – Lavrov (RT)
• Court Declares Trudeau’s Crackdown on the Truckers to be Unlawful (Turley)
• 70% of Nikki Haley Voters Not Registered Republicans (BB)
• Alaska Airlines Finds Loose Bolts On “Many” Boeing Jets (RT)
• Satan’s Agent: The World Economic Forum (Paul Craig Roberts)

 

 

 

 

Tucker CA


https://twitter.com/i/status/1750271296716620250
https://twitter.com/i/status/1750307168971022359

 

 

 

 

Kamala

 

 

Gorka

 

 

 

 

Elon BBC

 

 

NATO
https://twitter.com/i/status/1749862196677333308

 

 

 

 

 

 

He appears to defy the Supreme Court as well.

“Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, and Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte all announced that they stand with Texas and Gov. Greg Abbott.”

Note: immigration is now the no.1 issue for US voters.

• Texas Governor Defies Biden (RT)

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has refused to back down in his border-security row with US President Joe Biden’s administration, arguing that regardless of this week’s Supreme Court ruling in Washington’s favor, his duty to protect his constituents “supersedes” any federal laws. “The federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the states,” Abbott said on Wednesday in a statement. “The executive branch of the United States has a constitutional duty to enforce federal laws protecting states, including immigration laws on the books right now. President Biden has refused to enforce those laws and has even violated them.” As a result, Abbott claimed, more than 6 million illegal aliens have crossed into the US since Biden took office three years ago – exceeding the populations of all but 17 states – causing “unprecedented harm on the people all across the United States.”

The federal government’s failure to fulfill its constitutional duty has triggered a constitutional right of self-defense reserved to the state, he added. “I have already declared an invasion… to invoke Texas’s constitutional authority to defend and protect itself,” the Republican governor said. “That authority is the supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary.” Abbott issued the statement two days after the Supreme Court ruled that federal Border Patrol agents must be allowed to remove the concertina wire that the state had installed to prevent illegal aliens from crossing its border. The dispute escalated earlier this month when the Texas National Guard seized control of a park at a key border-crossing point and blocked federal officers from accessing the site.

The Texas National Guard and state troopers will continue working to secure the border, based on the state’s right to defend itself in lieu of the federal government doing its job, Abbott said. The Texas Military Department, which includes the state’s National Guard units, issued a statement on Tuesday pledging to “hold the line” to prevent illegal border crossings. “We remain resolute in our actions to secure our border, preserve the rule of law and protect the sovereignty of our state.” US Representative Chip Roy, a Texas Republican, applauded Abbott’s decision to fight Biden on the border crisis. “Washington is forcing our hand,” he said of Monday’s Supreme Court ruling. He added, “Consider that we are a nation so unserious and broken that we are paying Border Patrol to secure the border but will pay them instead to cut razor wire… to stop Texas from trying to do what Border Patrol’s core mission is.”

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“..We often hear that the Supreme Court is a Republican court, but in actual fact it is a Tower of Babel Court committed to the total destruction of the United States as a nation..”

• The United States Has No Borders (Paul Craig Roberts)

I don’t know if Americans have any comprehension of what is happening to their country. I think not. I think most Americans are lost in their insouciance and in their comfortable myths about the greatness and freedom of their country. Flag waving patriots who can believe no evil of their country are the easiest to tyrannize. A plethora of July 4ths and Memorial Days have done the job. Americans are upset about foreign borders such as Ukraine’s and Israel’s, but even those few who try can do nothing about America’s own totally undefended borders. Texas tried to do something, but the US Supreme Court just ruled that Texas cannot protect its borders or the borders of the United States. The Supreme Court, ruling of course in line with the tyrant Abe Lincoln’s destruction of states rights, said the Biden Regime can destroy the fence Texas built to protect Texas’ and America’s borders.

There you have it. The so-called “civil war” did not only destroy the Confederate States of America. Lincoln’s war also destroyed the United States of America when it destroyed states’ rights. The 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court forbids Texas from protecting its borders, and thereby the borders of the United States, from being overrun by immigrant-invaders. We often hear that the Supreme Court is a Republican court, but in actual fact it is a Tower of Babel Court committed to the total destruction of the United States as a nation. What the Supreme Court, like the Biden Regime, the whore media, the anti-American Woke universities, The Rino Republicans, and the Democrat attorneys general and prosecutors are creating is a non-nation, a tower of babel that has no common interests, no common morals, no common religion, and no common agenda. This is the SATANIC CURSE of “diversity and multiculturalism.”

How did Americans fall for a program designed FOR THEIR OWN DESTRUCTION?! They fell for it because they are generous and weak-minded. The Daily Caller reports: “federal Border Patrol agents began cutting wire fences that, among other uses, helped channel individuals— unlawful migrants and U.S. citizens alike—to a lawful border crossing at a port of entry,” Texas Solicitor General Aaron Nielson wrote. “Border Patrol began this practice of destroying Texas’s property, according to the district court’s findings, in order to ‘facilitate the surge of migrants into Eagle Pass,’ using boats to ‘literally usher’ people across illegally.” In other words, the Biden Regime cut the fence in order to allow entry into the US that could not be monitored. The fence was in place to insure that immigrant-invaders had to pass through lawful border crossings, where their numbers are allegedly recorded.

But this is not enough for the Biden Regime which is intent on replacing America’s white population, which once constituted a nation, with a Tower of Babel. Why are the Biden Regime, the Democrats, the Rino Republicans, the universities, the media, the corporations, and alleged human rights organizations so determined to deprive Americans of a cohesive nation and to replace the American nation with a Tower of Babel in which there is no common culture and no common values? If white Americans are actually sufficiently braindead to have voted Biden Democrats into office, the dumbshits have committed self-suicide. People this stupid cannot expect to survive. Yesterday I got a message from the US Department of Health and Human Services. It was about Medicare. It was in 30 foreign languages.

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“..widely spun myths of a “promised land,” a “land without a people,” the “only democracy in the Middle East,” and the “only secure place for Jews in the world.”

• Israel Loses Control Of Its Borders (Harb)

Israel once reigned supreme on the back of some immovable narratives: widely spun myths of a “promised land,” a “land without a people,” the “only democracy in the Middle East,” and the “only secure place for Jews in the world.” Today, those lofty soundbites lie in tatters, with the occupation state reeling from an unprecedented blow to its foundational ideas. This transformation has unfolded with unexpected intensity since the 7 October Al-Aqsa Flood resistance operation and Israel’s devastating, genocidal war on Gaza. But it is not just the challenge of narratives that has Israel on its back feet. For the first time in its 76-year history, Israel’s entire security calculations have been turned upside down: the occupation state is today grappling with buffer zones inside Israel. In past wars, it was Tel Aviv that established these “security zones” inside enemy territory — advancing Israel’s strategic geography, evacuating Arab populations near their state border areas, and fortifying its own borders.

This shift can be attributed to various factors, including vulnerabilities within the so-called “Arab Ring States” (Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon). Throughout its history, Israel has consistently exerted military and political dominance, enforcing security measures on neighboring states, with the unconditional backing of allies like the US and Britain. But in this current war, Tel Aviv is slowly understanding that the equations and calculations of military confrontation have fundamentally changed — a process that began in 2000 when the Lebanese resistance, Hezbollah, forced Israel to withdraw from most occupied territories in southern Lebanon. Today, Israel is horrified to find itself retreating from direct confrontation lines with its arch-enemies in Gaza and Lebanon. The formidable capabilities of the resistance now include drones, rockets, targeted projectiles, tunnels, and spanking new shock tactics, casting doubt on the feasibility of Israeli settlers remaining safe in any of Israel’s border perimeters.

There is now one common refrain among settlers in the north and south of occupied Palestine: “We will not return unless security is restored on the border.” But prospects for their return appear elusive at present. The Israeli Defense Ministry, which pledged a swift and decisive war to safeguard its settlers over 100 days ago, is now actively devising plans to shelter approximately 100,000 people along the northern border, deeper inside its territory. This measure could involve evacuating settlements that may come under fire during any future military escalation with Hezbollah in Lebanon. This situation implies three critical outcomes: any immediate return of settlers remains unlikely, additional evacuations are anticipated, and numerous Israeli families – in the interim – may establish permanent settlements in other, more secure locations at a much further distance from the borders with southern Lebanon and the Gaza envelope.

Channel 13

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“..there had been another IL-76 carrying 80 more Ukrainian POWs in the sky at the time of the incident. This plane was turned around after the crash..”

• Ukraine A ‘Terrorist State’ – Senior Russian MP (RT)

Ukraine should be designated as a terrorist state, and the government in Kiev should be branded a terrorist cell, the head of the State Duma Defense Committee Andrey Kartapolov has said, following the crash of an IL-76 military aircraft in Russia’s Belgorod Region. Earlier on Wednesday, the Russian military transport plane crashed near the village of Yablonovo, around 90km from the Ukrainian border. It was carrying 65 captured Ukrainian military personnel for a prisoner swap, as well as six crew members and three people accompanying the POWs. It is believed that there were no survivors.

According to Kartapolov, Kiev was well aware of who this plane was transporting and accused the Ukrainian forces of shooting down the aircraft using what he claimed were “three Patriot or Iris-T air defense missiles.” He also noted that there had been another IL-76 carrying 80 more Ukrainian POWs in the sky at the time of the incident. This plane was turned around after the crash, the MP said. Regarding the exact details of the incident, Kartapolov said “specialists will figure this out later,” but noted that Kiev had demonstrated an unbelievable degree of cynicism by destroying its own soldiers.

“There can be no negotiations with these ‘people,’” he said, calling on the international community to open its eyes and realize who it is trying to help. Ukrainian media have also reported that the country’s military destroyed the plane, citing government sources. Ukrainskaya Pravda, however, claimed that the aircraft had been transporting S-300 air defense missiles rather than prisoners. Some time after its initial report, the newspaper removed the reference to Kiev’s role in the incident, stating only that its military sources had confirmed the crash.

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The Ukrainskaya Pravda newspaper first said the plane was filled with missiles. That piece was swiftly deleted.

• Time For West To Realize It Is Helping Nazis – Top Russian MP (RT)

US and German lawmakers must finally realize that by sending weapons to Kiev, they are helping a “Nazi regime” that has stooped to knowingly killing dozens of its own prisoners of war, Russian State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin said on Wednesday. The lawmaker’s comments came shortly after the Russian Defense Ministry reported the crash of an IL-76 cargo aircraft carrying 65 captured Ukrainian service members, as well as several crew and accompanying personnel, in Belgorod Region bordering Ukraine. The soldiers were being transported to the area to be exchanged, officials said. Russian MP Andrey Kartapolov claimed that Kiev knew about the impending exchange and the flight route, but attacked the plane anyway.

He stated that the IL-76 had been downed by three missiles fired from either a US-made Patriot or German-made IRIS-T air defense system, and suggested that further prisoner exchanges were out of the question for the time being. Commenting on the tragedy, Volodin advised the Russian parliament to draft an appeal to the US Congress and German Bundestag, so that those lawmakers could “finally understand who they are funding.” “This is a Nazi regime, nurtured by [US President Joe] Biden, [French President Emmanuel] Macron, [German Chancellor Olaf] Scholz… they must understand their responsibility,” he added, urging Western legislators to impeach the aforementioned leaders.

Volodin claimed that Kiev had shot down its own troops in mid-flight: “Their mothers, wives, and children were waiting for them. They also killed our pilots… defenseless, who were on a humanitarian mission, using American and German missiles.” Russia has repeatedly condemned Western arms deliveries to Ukraine, arguing that they only prolong the conflict. Officials in Moscow have also said that Kiev is actively using Western-supplied munitions to target civilian infrastructure both in Donbass and elsewhere.

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“..these non-Ukrainian citizens are not protected by international humanitarian law and that Moscow has already made it clear that, if captured, they will be judged as neo-Nazi mercenaries..”

• French Mercenaries Dying in Ukraine (SCF)

Recently, Russian forces bombed military facilities in Kharkov, killing more than sixty foreign mercenaries, most of them French. The case gained great attention in the media for showing the high participation of foreign troops in hostilities against Russia, which makes it clear that NATO countries are participating in the conflict in an intense way, not only with the mere sending of money and weapons.The incident in Kharkov resumed discussions on the topic of the presence of foreign mercenaries on Ukrainian soil. Since the beginning of the special military operation, non-Ukrainian citizens have often died on the battlefield when fighting on Kiev’s side. Russia has already made it clear that eliminating enemy mercenary troops is one of its top priorities, which is why attacks like this recent one will continue to happen until foreigners stop arriving in Ukraine.

There are several reasons why mercenary soldiers enlist to fight in Ukraine. There are those militants who are ideologically committed to the ultranationalist ideology of the Kiev regime, who join the Ukrainian forces in “solidarity” with the neo-Nazi dictatorship. There are those ordinary citizens, mainly from emerging countries, who are attracted by the opportunity of a job in the military field, being induced to enlist. And there are also professionals from the private military sector who are hired by the Ukrainian state or Western countries to conduct operations in Ukraine. All these foreign troops play a vital role in the Western-Ukrainian war efforts. Foreigners help compensate Kiev for its losses, as they replace native fighters who perish in combat. At the same time, these soldiers, especially those from NATO countries, help the Western bloc acquire real direct combat experience with Russian forces – preparing the alliance for a possible future scenario of total war.

Currently, the Atlantic military alliance cannot send official troops to Ukraine, as this would represent the start of a direct war with Moscow. The real meaning of the conflict in Ukraine is precisely the use of Kiev as a proxy to wage war against Russia, however this could change in the future. As Ukraine rapidly loses and anti-Russian paranoia in the West continues to grow, it is possible that the situation will become out of control at some point. In this sense, one way for Western countries to prepare is by sending unofficial troops to the Ukrainian battlefield, where frictions with the Russians are already occurring. These soldiers tend to pass on field experience and data to officers in their countries, which is why they must be considered especially dangerous, with their elimination being a priority for Moscow.

However, one detail that draws attention in the recent case of Kharkov is the strong presence of French citizens among the mercenaries. In fact, there are undoubtedly many French nationals fighting for the Ukrainian regime. Last year, Paris’ intelligence admitted that at least 400 French fighters were on the Ukrainian front – around thirty of them being known neo-Nazi criminals. Considering that these are public data exposed by the French government itself, it is possible to say that the real number may be much higher. Paris is believed to be secretly encouraging large numbers of mercenaries to join Kiev’s forces, especially after political events in the African Sahel. With the recent wave of pro-Russian revolutions in African countries, the French sphere of influence on that continent has been severely diminished.

Paris appears to be trying to “compensate” for its frustration in Africa with massive support for Kiev, sending large numbers of mercenaries to defend the regime. This is also the opinion of Stevan Gajic, an analyst at the Institute of European Studies in Belgrade, who recently said in an interview that Macron is “hysterical” about Russia. Gajic believes that the French president’s recent speeches in Paris and Davos, calling for a “victory” against Russia, show how fanaticized he is in his anti-Russian hatred. Gajic stated that Paris is “especially frustrated” after the wave of revolutions in Africa and that he thinks “that’s another motive for such feverish support of the Ukrainian cause, and NATO’s cause against Russia”.

However, any kind of support for the Ukrainian regime is becoming embarrassing for the West itself. Just as NATO’s weapons are destroyed every day on the battlefield, foreign mercenaries are frequently targeted and neutralized. Instead of “wearing down” Russia or training its citizens for direct war in the future, the West is only losing influence and being demoralized. Furthermore, with massive deaths on the front lines, the tendency is for fewer and fewer mercenaries to accept fighting for Kiev. It is also important to remember that these non-Ukrainian citizens are not protected by international humanitarian law and that Moscow has already made it clear that, if captured, they will be judged as neo-Nazi mercenaries – in the same way that has happened with militants from fascist organizations such as the Azov Battalion.

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“..the sources are considering importing North Koreans to fill the manpower gap..”

• The Plan For Reviving Donetsk (Helmer)

There is no lack of confidence in Donetsk that the war will be won, but no conviction when exactly that will be. A Ukrainian heavy artillery salvo hit the Kirovsky district market, on the western outskirts of Donetsk city on Sunday, killing at least 27 people, and wounding about as many. The New York Times reported falsely “it was not possible to independently confirm which side launched the strike.” The reaction in Donetsk, and also in Moscow, is that the incident triggers serious questioning of how the Russian military operations can be failing still to drive long-range Ukrainian artillery, rockets and missiles far enough westwards to protect the civilians of Donetsk region; and also the three other accession regions of expanded Donbass; as well as the Russian border regions to the north of Belgorod, Bryansk, and Kursk.

The daily operations briefing and bulletin from the Ministry of Defense in Moscow are reporting exceptionally high casualty rates for the Ukrainian side – 860 last Thursday; 1,005 on Monday; 700 on Tuesday. The bulletin, which is blocked on the internet in many of the NATO allied states, also reveals a rising toll on the US and NATO-supplied long-range guns, and a changing ratio for Russian army operations each day from defence to offence. Still, sources in Donetsk and Moscow acknowledge that although the pace and impact of Russian operations along the line of contact have been growing in recent days, the east-to-west depth of the demilitarized zone required for long-term security remains a hope and military ambition — not yet the reality on the ground, or in the economy of Donetsk.

Donetsk business sources say they are actively planning for the reconstruction of the region’s mining and metals fabrication industries, and they are negotiating terms of financial assistance for both with the federal authorities, as well as the regional administration. The sources said this week they are sure that in the plans now being discussed there will be no return of the Ukrainian oligarchs who controlled Donetsk’s economy in the past, especially Rinat Akhmetov, Igor Kolomoisky, and Victor Pinchuk. The Donetsk sources said the most pressing problem at the moment is the lack of manpower to return from the fighting to work; the sources are considering importing North Koreans to fill the manpower gap. For the longer term, the conviction in Donetsk is that there will also be no return of the criminal gangs who had dominated the local economy in parallel with, and accommodated by the oligarchs. “From the Russian side,” said a business figure in the steel industry, “I am sure the recovery and reconstruction will be done with a heavy hand. No mafia.”

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“..That is like using a howitzer to shoot a duck..”

• US Has Lost Race for Hypersonic, Directed Energy Weapons – Senator (Sp.)

The United States has already lost the race to develop hypersonic and directed energy weapons to its rivals, Independent Senator Angus King said during a hearing of the US Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday. “We are woefully behind on the issue of directed energy,” King said. “On hypersonics and directed energy, we have lost the race or we are badly losing the race. We have a lot of catching up to do. This should be a hair on fire catching up priority.” In the Red Sea, the US Navy was currently forced to use multi-million dollar missiles to shoot down inexpensive drones fired by the Houthi rebels in Yemen that cost less than 1% of the price of the US systems, King said.

“The missiles we are using are costing $2 million to $4 million each. That is like using a howitzer to shoot a duck,” King added. Earlier on Tuesday, the National Defense Industrial Association and the Emerging Technologies Institute said in a new report that the Biden administration and the Defense Department had failed to give US business and industry the clear direction and leadership it needs to develop directed energy weapons systems and as a result it will not be able to produce such weapons for a long time to come.

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“Moscow bears no responsibility for US-Russia relations reaching an all-time low, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said..”

• Moscow Won’t Beg ‘Uncle Sam’ For Forgiveness – Lavrov (RT)

Moscow bears no responsibility for US-Russia relations reaching an all-time low, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said, insisting that the burden of restoring them lies solely with Washington. Relations between the US and Russia went into a tailspin after the start of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, with Moscow condemning Washington and other Western countries for introducing unprecedented sanctions and sending weapons to Kiev. The Kremlin argues the deliveries will only prolong the conflict but not change its outcome. Another major issue in bilateral relations has been NATO’s creeping expansion toward Russia’s borders, which Moscow views as an existential threat. Russia has said that Ukraine’s desire to join the US-led military bloc was one of the main reasons for the current conflict.

In an interview with CBS News on Monday, when asked about the potential for improving relations between Moscow and Washington amid the stand-off over Ukraine, Lavrov stressed that Russia would not take the initiative to repair them because it was not his country that spoiled them in the first place. We are not going to… run to Washington: ‘Uncle Sam, please forgive us. We were bad boys.’ We have nothing to complain about. The minister stressed that the ties between the two powers were shattered by “those who invented the Russian threat” and “those who ignored huge amount of goodwill shown by President Vladimir Putin during his first two terms.” According to Lavrov, Western policymakers decided that the Russian leader was “so nice,” and tried to “keep him in [their] pocket,” which was a mistake.

Lavrov went on to regret that the current generation of politicians in Washington had seemingly drawn no lessons from what he described as “unacceptable policies which the United States started to promote” in the early 1990s. The minister’s comments come after Putin admitted last month that he was a “naive” person early in his political career because he believed that there was no fundamental reason for Russia and the West to be at odds after the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, he said that he later realized that Western countries were seeking to bring about the partition of Russia into several entities in order to gain more global influence.

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“The characterization of political critics as terrorists has long been a signature of authoritarian governments..”

• Court Declares Trudeau’s Crackdown on the Truckers to be Unlawful (Turley)

Two years ago, I wrote a column denouncing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s use of a counter-terrorism law to shut down the Freedom Convoy trucker protests as an authoritarian attack on free speech. Now, a Canadian court has agreed and ruled that the use of the Emergencies Act was unlawful and “unreasonable.” Despite Trudeau’s attacks on civil liberties, he remains a favorite of the media as an iconic figure on the left. Various civil liberties groups have opposed the iron-handed measures of Trudeau, including The Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the the Canadian Constitution Foundation. The characterization of political critics as terrorists has long been a signature of authoritarian governments. The Canadian Parliament actually extended those powers, dismissing civil liberties concerns. Fortunately, despite the actions of Trudeau and the Parliament, there is an independent court system in Canada.

The use of the Emergencies Act allowed the government to arrest the leaders of the Freedom Convoy, freeze bank accounts of protesters, and seize donations of other citizens. Trudeau simply declared that the protesters were “threats to the security of Canada that are so serious as to be a national emergency.” In his ruling, Justice Richard Mosley wrote: “I have concluded that the decision to issue the Proclamation does not bear the hallmarks of reasonableness – justification, transparency and intelligibility – and was not justified in relation to the relevant factual and legal constraints that were required to be taken into consideration.” Trudeau merely cited the potential for violence without any compelling support for an imminent risk of violence. The court declared: “The potential for serious violence, or being unable to say that there was no potential for serious violence was, of course, a valid reason for concern. But in my view, it did not satisfy the test required to invoke the Act particularly as there was no evidence of a similar “hardened cell” elsewhere in the country, only speculation.”

In many ways, the court stated the obvious, but this was an obvious point that other courts and a majority in Parliament ignored: “I agree with the Applicants that the scope of the Regulations was overbroad in so far as it captured people who simply wanted to join in the protest by standing on Parliament Hill carrying a placard. It is not suggested that they would have been the focus of enforcement efforts by the police. However, under the terms of the Regulations, they could have been subject to enforcement actions as much as someone who had parked their truck on Wellington Street and otherwise behaved in a manner that could reasonably be expected to lead to a breach of the peace. [309] One aspect of free expression is the right to express oneself in certain public spaces. By tradition, such places become places of protected expression…To the extent that peaceful protestors did not participate in the actions of those disrupting the peace, their freedom of expression was infringed.”

Bravo.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1750227176773841104

https://twitter.com/i/status/1750299455532798201

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“..about 7 in 10 said they were registered as undeclared prior to Tuesday.”

• 70% of Nikki Haley Voters Not Registered Republicans (BB)

Nikki Haley relied heavily on the support of Independents and Democrats in the New Hampshire primary yet still lost by wide margins. Of Haley voters in the Granite State, CNN said, “about 7 in 10 said they were registered as undeclared prior to Tuesday.” CNN relied on an exit poll to make its shocking statement. New Hampshire’s loose requirements allow for voters to cross over, while future Republican caucuses and primaries will consist overwhelmingly of registered Republicans. Trump crushed Haley in the New Hampshire primary by double digits with results still outstanding. The Associated Press called the New Hampshire results within three minutes. In Iowa, where Trump won by a historic thirty percent, it took the Associated Press 31 minutes to call the race. Trump’s path to the nomination seems all but inevitable after his crushing victory. Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Debbie Fischer (R-NE) endorsed Trump within minutes of his victory.

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How to save Boeing this time? Who still feels safe in a 737 MAX? Also, a few days ago a wheel came off a 757 on a runway just seconds before take off.

• Alaska Airlines Finds Loose Bolts On “Many” Boeing Jets (RT)

Alaska Airlines, the US air carrier whose Boeing 737 MAX 9 jet suffered a midair blowout earlier this month, triggering a nationwide grounding of the model for safety inspections, has confirmed that it has found loose bolts on “many” of the planes in its fleet. ”It makes you mad that we’re finding issues like that on brand new airplanes,” Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci said on Tuesday in an NBC News interview. He added, “I’m more than frustrated and disappointed. I’m angry. This happened to Alaska Airlines. It happened to our guests and happened to our people.” Minicucci was referring to a January 5 flight bound for California from Portland, Oregon, that had to turn back after a door plug blew off at 16,000 feet, injuring several of the 171 passengers aboard.

The outcome could have been far worse, he said, had the seat next to the door plug not been vacant – one of just seven empty seats on the flight. “We had a guardian angel, honestly, on that airplane.” The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) responded to the near-catastrophe by grounding all Boeing 737 MAX 9 jets in the country for safety checks. The latest incident follows the temporary banning of the 737 MAX, Boeing’s top-selling airliner, by aviation regulators around the world in March 2019, after crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia killed a combined 346 people. The planes were cleared to go back into service around two years later, following repairs to their flight control systems. Minicucci said Alaska Airlines will send auditors to scrutinize the quality-control systems at Boeing to ensure that all of the jets it has ordered from the company are safe to fly. He added that the carrier will reconsider plans to buy a newer version of the 737, the long-delayed MAX 10, from Boeing.

Boeing issued a statement to NBC acknowledging that “we have let down our airline customers and are deeply sorry for the significant disruption to them, their employees and their passengers.” The massive defense contractor added that it’s taking steps to get the 737 MAX 9s back into service and improve its quality performance. Like Minicucci, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby is rethinking plans to buy more Boeing jets following the latest safety scare. United also detected loose bolts when it performed safety inspections of its grounded 737s. “I think the MAX 9 grounding is probably the straw that broke the camel’s back for us,” Kirby said on Tuesday in a CNBC interview. He added that Boeing needs “real action” to restore its reputation for quality.

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“..Russia, China, and Iran view the WEF as an ally in the destruction of the West. This is a mistake..”

• Satan’s Agent: The World Economic Forum (Paul Craig Roberts)

The World Economic Forum is the worst source of disinformation in the world. Even the name is disinformation as it is not a world forum representing the world. It is a group of stupid American and European corporate executives who have been conned by Klaus Schwab, the world’s worst ego-manic, into believing that you don’t count until you are a member and devote of the WEF. Schwab has sold the executive class the line that WEF attendees are members of the most prestigious country club and are members of a privileged caste that exists so far above “useless eaters” that the goal of culling the world population by 7.5 billion people is not shameful. At the recent WEF meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Schwab and his devotees took a hit broadside from Jaier Milei, the newly elected president of Argentina.

Milei told them that the Western world is in danger because the West’s leaders had abandoned freedom and adopted collectivism. Milei was talking about the WEF. Either he is a very brave man or he did not realize to whom he was speaking. I expect that he will have an “airplane accident” or be pushed out of office by some concocted charges from Washington. Washington’s diminishing influence and power has encouraged other long silent voices in Latin America to speak up. The distinguished Peruvian, Dr. Victor Andres Belaunde Gutierrez, took up Milei’s theme and unloaded on the WEA groupies as disgraceful and shameful: “The demonstrations of frivolity and intellectual mediocrity that the famous forum emits are increasingly scandalous. For example, the impression that the prostitute traffickers make during these meetings – why not some orgies while we save the world with 2100 euro-a-night women?”

“The pitiful spectacle of a supposed witch, sorceress, or God knows what, emitting sounds and spitting on the faces of some panelists, is decidedly pathetic. I cannot conceive how a person who has any notion of self-respect, would tolerate being a part of pranks of that caliber. Can people who willingly participate and applaud such farces be recognized as serious?” “Have they no shame? Is it that their need to belong to the cool people of the planet is so powerful? – Is it that the cool and sophisticated is now inevitably ridiculous and shameful?” The WEA is an anti-human cult devoted to the destruction of freedom and human life. In my opinion, it would be wondrous if the next time the collection of stupid and evil beings assemble, Russia, China, or Iran would launch a missile attack that completely destroys the WEF.

They won’t because Russia, China, and Iran view the WEF as an ally in the destruction of the West. This is a mistake, because the Russian, Chinese, and Iranian populations are also fated to be culled. Judging by the effort of the World Health Organization, the WEF’s ally, to centralize in its hands the health protocols of the entire world and its forecast of a doomsday pandemic, the culling device will be a biowarfare pathogen released on the world. No Western legislature is doing anything to shut down the illegal labs. As Russia knows where many of the illegal biowarfare laboratories are located, Russia should take them out with missile strikes. Evil has to be confronted and overcome or evil will prevail. Evil has already recruited the corporate and political leadership of the Western world. How much more advantage shall we permit Evil before we are overcome?

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Newman

 

 

Dead vax

 

 

 

 

Assange Stone

 

 

Love cats
https://twitter.com/i/status/1750145213509578961

 

 

Love
https://twitter.com/i/status/1750170343036088672

 

 

TigerIce
https://twitter.com/i/status/1750196777662230833

 

 

King in the mist

 

 


The Karakoram Highway, connecting Pakistan to China, is one of the highest paved roads in the world, at maximum elevation of 4,714 m. It is often referred to as the Eighth Wonder of the World.

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle January 24 2024

Jan 242024
 
 January 24, 2024  Posted by at 9:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  43 Responses »


Nicolas de Staël Paris la nuit 1954

 

• Trump ‘Honored’ By New Hampshire Win, Says Republican Party ‘Very United’ (Fox)
• Israel Risks Dragging Egypt Into War (Blade)
• Russia Will Do Everything to Integrate Egypt Into BRICS – Putin (Sp.)
• UN Agency Says 570,000 People in Gaza Strip Face Dire Hunger (Sp.)
• No Direct Threat From Russia – NATO (RT)
• Germans Told To Prepare For Another War With Russia (RT)
• Germany Can’t Afford Rearmament, Let Alone a ‘War’ With Russia (Sp.)
• Davos Admits Possibility Of Ukraine Defeat (ZH)
• Ukraine Spy Chief: Win “Not Even Conceivable” Without Mass Mobilization (ZH)
• The German Establishment Wants To Ban AfD (Amar)
• Pelosi’s J6 Committee Deleted Over 100 Encrypted Files (PB)
• No One Is Safe in an Era of Kafkaesque Absurdity (Brooks)
• Mayorkas Says Border Is Secure But Biden Says It Isn’t (MN)
• Supreme Court Rules Texas Must Replace Barbed Wire With Giant Red Carpet (BBee)
• Supreme Court Rules It’s Illegal For National Guard To Guard Nation (BBee)

 

 


New Hampshire Governor Sununu’s home town.

 

 

Vivek

 

 

Tucker Canada
https://twitter.com/i/status/1749645597827887333

 

 

Tucker Rand Paul

 

 

Fani
https://twitter.com/i/status/1749817785122013580

 

 

Kash Patel
https://twitter.com/i/status/1749514005725475192

 

 

Trump Jan 22

 

 

Kari Lake

 

 

Trump hotel jobs
https://twitter.com/i/status/1749671123778748611

 

 

 

 

Time for dirty tricks?!

• Trump ‘Honored’ By New Hampshire Win, Says Republican Party ‘Very United’ (Fox)

Former President Trump said he is “very honored” by his New Hampshire primary win Tuesday night, telling Fox News Digital that the Republican Party is “very united” behind his candidacy. Trump won the first-in-the-nation primary Tuesday night, defeating former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. Trump also won the Iowa caucuses last week. During an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital shortly after the race was called, Trump said he was honored. “I’m very honored by the result,” Trump said. Trump also said he is “looking forward to going against the worst president in the history of our country.” New Hampshire – where independent voters who make up roughly 40% of the electorate can vote in either major party’s contest and have long played an influential role in the state’s storied presidential primary – was considered fertile ground for Haley.

And Haley spent plenty of time and resources in the state, securing the influential endorsement of popular Republican Gov. Chris Sununu. But Trump dominated for a second week in a row, cruising to victory in both critical early voting states. When asked if he felt Haley would suspend her campaign, he said, “I don’t know. She should.” “She should because, otherwise, we have to keep wasting money instead of spending on Biden,” Trump said. “If she doesn’t drop out, we have to waste money instead of spending it on Biden, which is our focus.” Trump, who was joined at a rally Monday night in New Hampshire by his former opponents who then endorsed him, including Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, said the party is united.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended his campaign on Sunday and endorsed Trump. “The party is very united except for her,” Trump said. “The party is very united, and we’re looking forward to going against the worst president in the history of our country,” he said. But Haley, during a speech after the race was called, noted that she got close to half of the vote in New Hampshire. She said she is “the last one standing next to Donald Trump” and added that the race is “far from over.” “New Hampshire is the first in the nation, not the last,” Haley said. She is now looking ahead to South Carolina’s primary on Feb. 24.

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“..Netanyahu understands the importance of these strategic relations with Cairo and he will not damage those ties..”

• Israel Risks Dragging Egypt Into War (Blade)

It’s been more than a hundred days since Israel kicked off its Iron Swords operation in Gaza following the bloody attack of October 7, when more than 1,200 Israelis were brutally murdered at the hands of Hamas militants. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to punish those responsible for the massacre, which also left more than 5,000 people wounded. He further promised to eliminate the Islamic group that controls Gaza, and to de-militarize the enclave that has posed a threat to Israel’s security. But more than three months down the line, officials in West Jerusalem still seem to be scratching their heads over how to achieve those goals. The main challenge is the continuous flow of arms, technology, and money to Gaza, from which the militants of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad continue to fire rockets. And Israel believes it is coming from the Sinai Peninsula, smuggled through the border via the so-called Philadelphi Route.

The term emerged in 1982 following the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt and the subsequent demarcation of the border. According to that agreement, both sides deployed troops on their respective sides along the 14km line, a move that promised stability and security. But several years later, in 1987, during the First Intifada, Palestinians started digging tunnels under the axis, through which they smuggled goods and weapons, as well as militants and money. By 2005, when Israel evacuated its 17 settlements from Gaza and handed over control of the axis to the Palestinian Authority, the Islamic group already had hundreds of such tunnels, and their numbers continued to grow – especially after Hamas seized power in the enclave in 2007. “Initially, Egypt didn’t exert any significant efforts into stopping that smuggling, simply because it brought a lot of economic benefits to both sides,” said Dr. Ely Karmon, a senior research scholar at The International Institute for Counter-Terrorism.

“It was during this time that Hamas boosted its arms arsenal, smuggling in weapons, money and technologies. It was also then, when Iranian and Hezbollah experts and technicians arrived in Gaza and taught Hamas engineers on how to develop their own industry,” he added. Then, in 2011, came the Arab Spring. The long-term ruler of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, was deposed, and the radical elements in Sinai started rearing their heads. Terror attacks have become a regular phenomenon, especially after 2014, when Daesh (Islamic State/IS) took control over most jihadist groups on the peninsula, establishing the so-called Wilayat Sinai. “These groups were against the newly established government of President Abdel Fattah A-Sisi. They were targeting the army and killing civilians across the country, so Cairo came to realize that there was cooperation between Hamas and those terrorists and it decided to break that link,” said Karmon.

Over the years, Cairo exerted multiple efforts into fighting the threat emanating from Sinai. It boosted its military presence on the peninsula, launched counterterrorism operations, and flooded hundreds of tunnels that linked Gaza to Egypt. But experts in Israel believe not all the loopholes were eliminated. Even more so, they are still being used to smuggle militants, weapons, and potentially Israeli hostages. This is why in recent weeks, a number of Israeli politicians, including Netanyahu, have stated that the Philadelphi Route should be recaptured, with Israel establishing full control over the territory. Karmon maintains Israel has no intention of occupying the area. Instead, the idea is that his country would just beef up its military presence in the region to maintain security. “Recapturing the area would be very difficult to execute, simply because we have a peace agreement with Egypt. Of course, there are right-wing voices who are calling for the occupation of Gaza or the building of settlements there, but Netanyahu understands the importance of these strategic relations with Cairo and he will not damage those ties,” the expert asserted.

However, in Egypt some are still worried. Hany Soliman, executive director of the Arab Center for Research and Studies (ACRS) in Cairo, says Netanyahu’s words are backed by actions. These include negotiations with the Americans on the construction of an underground wall on the Egyptian side. The project, which promises to be 1km deep and 13km long, will be equipped with sensors and other technology, enabling digging to be detected, and as such deterring radicals from trying their luck. The project is set to be funded by the US. But the possibility of such an endeavor taking place depends largely on the will of the Egyptians, says Soliman, and they might not want to rush it. “Firstly, on the political and security levels, Egypt will not sign such a protocol, especially at a time when there is a lack of clarity on Israeli intentions and when there are concerns about Israeli attempts to pass and impose their displacement plan,” he said. “And, secondly, let’s not forget the Palestinian Authority. It has full rights to object to this project. They can claim that the occupation of the Philadelphi axis is inconsistent with the Oslo Accords and that it infringes on their sovereignty”.

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“During the Russian presidency of the BRICS this year, we will try to do everything possible for Egypt to effectively integrate into the work of the group..”

• Russia Will Do Everything to Integrate Egypt Into BRICS – Putin (Sp.)

Russia expects that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi will attend the BRICS summit in Russia’s Kazan scheduled for later in the year, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday. “We are waiting for you, dear Mr. Sisi, at the unification summit [of BRICS] in Kazan in October this year,” Putin said during the ceremony of the start of the construction of the fourth power unit of Dabaa nuclear power plant (NPP). Russia has planned more than 200 BRICS events, and Moscow expects that representatives of Egypt will take an active part in them, the president said. “New promising opportunities for building up our fruitful cooperation are opening up in connection with Egypt’s accession to the BRICS. I would like to emphasize that from the very beginning, Russia sincerely supported the desire of the Egyptian side to become a full member of this association. During the Russian presidency of the BRICS this year, we will try to do everything possible for Egypt to effectively integrate into the work of the group,” Putin said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi launched on Tuesday the construction of the fourth power unit of the Dabaa nuclear power plant (NPP) in Egypt via videoconference. Pouring the first concrete into the foundation of the building where the nuclear reactor will be located means the start of the construction of the entire new power unit. After this, the project will be implemented to full capacity — all four blocks of the nuclear power plant will be built simultaneously. Speaking about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict during the launching ceremony, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he is in constant contact with his Egyptian counterpart on the issue.

“And in general, Sisi and I are in constant contact … we regularly discuss all the most significant issues on the international and regional agenda for our countries. In particular, we exchange opinions and coordinate positions in connection with the tragic development of the situation in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and resolve issues of a humanitarian nature,” Putin said during the ceremony to launch the construction of the fourth power unit of the Dabaa nuclear power plant.

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“..catastrophic hunger. Intense fighting, access denials & restrictions + communications blackouts..”

• UN Agency Says 570,000 People in Gaza Strip Face Dire Hunger (Sp.)

About 570,000 people in the Gaza Strip face dire hunger, and the work of humanitarian organizations is difficult due to access and communication problems, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said on Tuesday. “570,000 people in Gaza face catastrophic hunger. Intense fighting, access denials & restrictions + communications blackouts are hampering UNRWA’s ability to safely & effectively deliver aid. As risk of famine grows, UN calls for a critical increase in humanitarian access,” the UNRWA said on X . On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a large-scale rocket attack against Israel from the Gaza Strip, while its fighters breached the border and opened fire on the military and civilians.

As a result, more than 1,200 people were killed in Israel and some 240 others were kidnapped. Israel launched retaliatory strikes, ordered a complete blockade of Gaza, and launched a ground invasion of the Palestinian enclave with the stated goal of eliminating Hamas fighters and rescuing the hostages. More than 25,000 people have been killed in Gaza so far as a result of the Israeli attacks, according to local officials. On November 24, Qatar brokered an agreement between Israel and Hamas for a temporary ceasefire and the exchange of some prisoners and hostages, as well as the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza. The truce was extended several times and expired on December 1.

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“At the same time, he stressed that the bloc nevertheless “closely monitors what Russia does”..”

• No Direct Threat From Russia – NATO (RT)

NATO sees no threat from Russia toward any of its members, the US-led bloc’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on Tuesday during a press conference in Brussels. His comments come as several countries, including Germany and the Baltic states, have raised concerns of a potential future Russian attack. Answering questions from journalists following the signing of major new investments in artillery ammunition productions, Stoltenberg stated that, “We don’t see any direct or imminent threat against any NATO ally.” At the same time, he stressed that the bloc nevertheless “closely monitors what Russia does” and has increased its “vigilance and presence in the eastern part of the alliance,” in order to prevent any attacks on allied nations.

Meanwhile, German news outlets have reported in recent weeks that Berlin was preparing for a scenario in which Russia launches an “open attack” on NATO as early as the summer of 2025 after securing a major victory in Ukraine. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius also warned on Monday that his country should be ready to respond to a possible Russian attack even though there is no real threat as of now. “Deterrence is the only effective means of positioning oneself against an aggressor from the outset,” Pistorius told ZDF, calling on Germany and its NATO allies to commit to strengthening their military capabilities. Similar concerns have been voiced by other NATO members, such as Estonia, whose Prime Minister Kaja Kallas suggested last week that the bloc has three to five years to prepare for a possible direct confrontation with Russia.

Moscow has dismissed any claims that it intends to attack any NATO members as “complete nonsense,” with President Vladimir Putin arguing that Russia has “no geopolitical, economic … or military interest” in doing so. At the same time, the Kremlin has for decades voiced concerns that it was the US and its NATO allies’ continuous expansion to the east that posed an existential threat to Russia. Moscow has cited this expansion, which it believes threatens its national security, as well as the refusal to rule out Ukrainian NATO membership in the future, as some of the key reasons for launching its offensive against Kiev in February 2022.

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There are more EU countries that tell these absurd stories.

• Germans Told To Prepare For Another War With Russia (RT)

Germany should be ready to respond to a possible Russian attack, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has warned. He said that to prepare for such a scenario, Germany and its NATO allies must commit to strengthening their military capabilities. In an interview with German public broadcaster ZDF on Monday, the defense chief pointed out that while Germany is not currently under a direct threat of attack, the country should do its best to be prepared for it. If Germany wants to be ready for an attack “that you don’t know if and when it will occur, then that means you have to arm yourself – and that’s what we’re currently doing together with allies in NATO,” he explained.

Pistorius went on to say that “deterrence is the only effective means of positioning oneself against an aggressor from the outset” as it signals to a potential adversary that the target is capable of striking back. To achieve such a posture, however, Germany must have “a credible deterrent” and be able to “wage a war that is forced upon us,” he noted. Commenting on a potential scenario in which Russia attacked the Baltics, Pistorius remarked that Berlin was setting up its “Lithuania Brigade” specifically to address those concerns. The unit, composed of about 4,800 soldiers is expected to be ready by 2027 and will be the first German force to be permanently stationed abroad since World War II. Pistorius suggested that amid the Ukraine conflict it would take Russia at least several years to be ready for a full-scale offensive, and that Western countries should use the time to intensively arm themselves.

The German tabloid Bild reported earlier this month, citing a classified document, that Germany is preparing for a scenario in which Russia launches an “open attack” on NATO in mid-2025, following major victories in Ukraine. Moscow mocked the prediction as a “zodiac forecast.” Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed claims that Russia could attack NATO as “complete nonsense,” arguing that Moscow has “no geopolitical, economic… or military interest” in doing so. Still, the Kremlin has for decades voiced concerns about the US-led military bloc’s expansion towards Russian borders, viewing it as an existential threat.

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“Not only is Germany’s justification for rearmament in question but also the nation’s ability to afford it..”

• Germany Can’t Afford Rearmament, Let Alone a ‘War’ With Russia (Sp.)

Germany must take into account the possibility of a military conflict with Russia and prepare for it over the next three-five years, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told ZDF on January 22. He insisted that the German Bundeswehr armed forces should become “a credible deterrent,” and that a German combat brigade would be deployed in the Baltics to become “fully combat-ready” by 2027. In December, Pistorius signed an agreement for the permanent deployment of a Bundeswehr brigade to Lithuania. and announced that the reintroduction of compulsory military service in Germany is now on the table. Does Russia really present an imminent threat to German national security? “If you ask me, and if you ask most people in my party, the answer is unequivocally no,” Gunnar Beck, Member of the European Parliament for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party who is currently Vice-President of the Identity & Democracy Group in the Parliament, told Sputnik.

“Ever since 1990, at the end of the Soviet Union, the Russian government has gone out of its way to intensify economic relations between Russia and Germany. We had extremely favorable energy contracts with Russia. And Russia was a growing export market for our agricultural and industrial goods. It’s due to our government’s policy, vis-a-vis Ukraine conflict that relations with Russia are now almost at an all time low. So, on the one hand, I think, German policy and EU policy has been a provocation. Nonetheless, I think that the Russian reaction to the sanctions in particular has been tough, but at the same time measured. So in my view, Russia is no immediate security threat to Germany. Categorically not.” Not only is Germany’s justification for rearmament in question but also the nation’s ability to afford it, according to Beck. German industry is in a dire state as a result of the government’s policies, he stressed.

“Germany currently finds itself in what is probably the most serious economic crisis since the Second World War,” Beck said. “The government’s policies (…) are affecting all leading branches of German industry, which is suffering from high inflation, lack of qualified labor, bureaucracy and high tax levels. As a result, our exports have declined significantly. So we are in crisis, and German industry, which has always been the backbone of German prosperity, in particular, is in crisis.” He listed three major reasons for the new talk of militarization: First, the German government’s energy and climate change policy; Second, unprecedented migration into Germany from outside Europe of unskilled workers and the astronomical cost to German public finances; Third, Germany’s policies on Ukraine and sanctions imposed on the Russian economy.

Berlin’s decision to follow Washington’s lead and slap sweeping sanctions on Russia has backfired on Germans on a much greater scale than on any of their Russian counterparts, according to the politician. “In my view, Germany is in no fit state economically and financially to embark upon a massive rearmament program,” Beck said. “If the German government seriously did so, the consequence would be a further significant worsening of the economic crisis. The only way to finance such rearmament would be through a complete reversal of all the other policies and massive remigration of migrants from Germany. The government has given no indication that it is prepared to do so. In other words, I think these declarations are probably largely symbolic. Germany simply cannot afford it.”

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“The situation is becoming undeniable and the fact that the elites are allowing discussion about a Ukraine loss suggests that defeat might be closer than we know..”

• Davos Admits Possibility Of Ukraine Defeat (ZH)

In a move that would have been unthinkable a year ago, the WEF has formed a discussion panel at their annual Davos conference titled “What If Ukraine Loses?” The panel represents, at the very least, an admission by the globalists that Ukraine could be defeated by Russia despite the deluge of money, armaments and intel assets that Ukraine has been given access to by western governments.Since 2022, the narrative has shifted from talk of complete victory over Russia including the retaking of the Donbas and even Crimea, to merely holding the current front and keeping a steady supply of ammo and recruits. The realities on the ground cannot be denied. The long vaunted “counter-offensive” that was supposed to crush Russian forces was a complete failure. No significant ground was gained and no significant victories have been won. It was a considerable propaganda error to hype up the counter-offensive the way Ukraine did, because when it turned out to be a dud all their other claims quickly came under suspicion.

At the end of 2023, the average age of Ukrainian soldiers was older than 40 (compare this to the US where the average age is 27). Rumors out of Ukraine abound that most younger soldiers are dead and that collection teams (government enforcers) now prowl the streets of cities like Kiev. They search for and kidnap any fighting age men they find, only to send them to the front with little or no training. These are the kinds of stories that go mostly ignored by the wider western media. When they are mentioned, it is usually in support of the Ukrainian government, chastising people who don’t want to fight and die in a globalist proxy war as “draft dodgers.” The level to which journalists have acted as a propaganda arm of NATO and Ukraine has been grotesque, but it does help to explain why so many Americans and Europeans were deluded about the war for so long. All they have heard about for the past two years is that Ukraine is on the verge of imminent victory.

It’s simply not true. This is likely why the WEF is now forced to address the issue at Davos – The situation is becoming undeniable and the fact that the elites are allowing discussion about a Ukraine loss suggests that defeat might be closer than we know. The panel itself is largely made up of Ukrainian representatives who are there to spin the facts, not have a frank discussion about the realities in the trenches. Journalist Niall Ferguson seems to be the only member with a modicum of honesty on the panel, as he admits the situation in Ukraine has degraded dramatically. He does, however, join with the Ukrainians in admonishing the American public’s growing opposition to monetary and military support. The underlying message? If Ukraine loses, it will be your fault.

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Make peace you fools.

• Ukraine Spy Chief: Win “Not Even Conceivable” Without Mass Mobilization (ZH)

“The shortage [of manpower] is palpable,” Ukraine’s military top spy chief, Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov, told Financial Times in a new interview, describing the most pressing situation facing the country after nearly two years of war.He warned that “it is not even conceivable to think that we can do without mobilization” — which reflects the consensus of the military’s leadership, and strongly points to staggering losses by the Ukrainian side, though an official running casualty count has never been revealed. Russia has also likely suffered immense losses, but can tap into much greater manpower and artillery, which is also allegedly being supplied from such nefarious actors as North Korea. As part of its report, FT has reviewed that Zelensky recently revealed that his army chiefs requested him “to mobilize about 400,000 to 500,000 new soldiers to replace those killed or wounded, and to rest those involved in the most intense fighting.”

Still, Budanov tried to paint an optimistic picture at a moment that even mainstream US press has lamented the current state of the war as a total failure and disaster for Ukraine: Ukrainian troops never managed to decisively breach Russia’s heavily fortified defences: the frontline remains almost the same as it looked a year ago. But Budanov maintains he was not wrong. “Although the original plans suggested something different, we kept our promise. This summer, our units repeatedly entered Crimea,” he said, referring to his commandos sneaking on to the peninsula to carry out raids on Russian bases. Not only have Ukrainian operatives done brief but ineffective raids into Crimea, but the last several weeks have seen stepped-up cross border drone and rocket attacks against Russian border regions, particularly targeting Belgorod city, resulting in dozens of casualties over months of sporadic waves of strikes.

Many war analysts have looked upon these attacks on Russian territory as a sign of increasing desperation. The Ukrainian strikes have been focused on civilian areas of Belgorod, and have little or no strategic value, but is more an act of ‘revenge’ and perhaps part of seeking to impose a “cost” on the Russian population in hopes of pressuring the Putin government. Kiev has been mulling a new mass mobilization since at least December, when media reports first cited Zelensky as saying, “This is a serious number,” while explaining further he has to look at more arguments to support this direction.” He added at the time, “I need concrete information on what will (then) happen with the one-million military of Ukraine,” according to The Kyiv Independent.

Any new mass mobilization is likely to be met with fierce pushback among the population and some government officials. Already there have been signs of fracture within the government over what to do as it’s increasingly clear Ukrainian forces are ‘losing’ – especially in manpower, arms, and ammo. Zelensky’s security services and military recruiters have also been accused of abusing their power under martial law, also amid allegations of corruption, with The New York Times having previously reported Ukrainian army recruiters have become “increasingly aggressive in their efforts to replenish the ranks, in some cases pulling men off the streets and whisking them to recruiting centers using intimidation and even physical force.” There have even been reports of men with diagnosed mental disabilities being subjected to attempted drafts. Currently, men ages 18-60 may be mobilized and still have no right to leave Ukraine, per the stipulations under martial law.

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On its way to first place.

• The German Establishment Wants To Ban AfD (Amar)

With really bad ideas, you can often ask two pertinent questions. First, why will it not work? Second, why would it be harmful if it did? That rule holds in Germany, where the really bad idea of banning the party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is currently getting much debate. The background of this debate is simple. Founded a decade ago, the AfD has established itself as a lasting feature of the political landscape. A populist right-wing party (roughly comparable to, for instance, the Austrian FPÖ), it brings together politicians and voters across a spectrum of positions. In the AfD, this spectrum ranges from very solidly conservative to far right. Still comparatively small, the AfD is significant. With currently just over 40,000 members, it holds 78 of 736 seats in the Bundestag, the central parliament in Berlin.

Importantly, it is also well-represented in 14 of 16 regional parliaments, where it occupies 242 seats of 1898 (for all regional legislatures taken together). In terms of its impact on national debates, it clearly punches far above this quantitative weight. Most importantly, however, the AfD is on a roll, on both the central and regional levels. If Germans were to vote for the Bundestag now – and thus in effect the chancellor’s office – the AfD would net 23%. That can be compared with the traditional center-left SPD, leading the hapless coalition government, at 14%. All parties from the ruling coalition (SPD, Greens, and the market-liberal FDP) together muster just 31% approval. On the regional level, the picture is largely the same, with particularly pronounced AfD advances in the area of the former East Germany.

For the Land of Brandenburg, for instance, a poll has the AfD in the lead with 28%, easily beating both the CDU mainstream conservatives (18%) and the SPD (17%). Adding insult to injury, AfD co-leader Tino Chrupalla is also surpassing the SPD’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz on the personal-popularity scale, which is admittedly a low bar, as Scholz has managed to become one of the most disliked German politicians ever. No wonder that Germany’s under-qualified and somewhat hysterical minister of the economy, Robert Habeck, in whose head all of Russia seems to live rent-free, is publicly hallucinating that the AfD wants to make Germany like Russia. (The irony is, of course, is that with Habeck’s own mismanaged ministerial portfolio, quite a few Germans would welcome having Russia’s growth rates.)

Such rhetoric, as well as the timing of when the idea of an AfD ban is being floated, betrays the fact that the attempt to popularize the idea of outlawing the AfD is an opportunistic response to its increasing electoral clout, which of course cannot be openly admitted. So, those in favor of a ban argue that the AfD is an extremist party. But crucially here, extremism has a specific, legally (and narrowly) defined meaning. According to the German Constitution (Article 21.2), the Constitutional Court (and only that court) can prohibit a party when it substantially endangers the constitutional order of the Federal Republic or its existence itself. An important and often overlooked caveat, is it is not enough for a party to display hostility to the constitutional order. A prohibition is only an option if the party does so in an “active-combative, aggressive manner,” as Germany’s Ministry of the Interior puts it.

Only two parties have ever been banned, a far-right one in 1952 and a far-left one in 1956. Other attempts to proscribe parties (or to be precise, the same party) have also failed twice: In 2003 and again in 2017, the Constitutional Court refused to outlaw the very far-right NPD (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands).

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Half the “evidence” is gone. How convenient.

• Pelosi’s J6 Committee Deleted Over 100 Encrypted Files (PB)

It has been confirmed that the House Select Committee on Jan. 6 deleted more than 100 encrypted files from their investigation just days before Republicans gained control of the House. The House Administration Committee’s Oversight Subcommittee, chaired by Republican Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, is conducting an inquiry into January 6, 2021. The panel is looking at the security shortcomings that day, as well as the “actions” of the previous select committee investigating the Capitol riot. Loudermilk told Fox News Digital last week that his inquiry has entered a “new phase” with increased backing from House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) who has pledged extra resources to the panel’s investigation. According to sources familiar with Loudermilk’s investigation, the former J6 select committee, chaired by Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) was required by House rules to turn over all documents from its investigation to the new, GOP-led panel after Republicans took control of the House of Representatives following the 2022 midterm elections.

According to Fox News Digital, Thompson promised Loudermilk that the J6 select committee would give over four terabytes of archival material, but the new committee got just around two terabytes. Loudermilk’s committee hired a digital forensics outfit to search hard drives for material they were not provided. According to people familiar with the investigation, the forensics team discovered 117 files that had been erased and encrypted. The sources revealed that the files were erased on January 1, 2023, just days before Thompson’s staff was scheduled to transmit the material to the new committee. The forensics team has successfully retrieved all 117 deleted and encrypted files. Loudermilk is now requesting answers and passwords to get access to the material. Loudermilk issued to Thompson asking access to his forensic team’s retrieved digital data.

“As you acknowledged in your July 7, 2023 letter, the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Select Committee) did not archive all Committee records as required by House Rules,” Loudermilk wrote. “You wrote that you sent specific transcribed interviews and depositions to the White House and Department of Homeland Security but did not archive them with the Clerk of the House.” Loudermilk added that Thompson “claimed that you turned over 4-terabytes of digital files, but the hard drives archived by the Select Committee with the Clerk of the House contain less than 3- terabytes of data.” The Republican Congressman said that after doing a forensic study of the data and archived hard drives, he was able to retrieve “numerous digital records from hard drives archived by the Select Committee.”

“One recovered file disclosed the identity of an individual whose testimony was not archived by the Select Committee,” Loudermilk wrote. “Further, we found that most of the recovered files are password-protected, preventing us from determining what they contain.” Loudermilk requested that Thompson provide him “a list of passwords for all password-protected files created by the Select Committee” so that his committee could “access these files and ensure they are properly archived.” Meanwhile, the congressman sent letters to the White House general counsel and the General Counsel of the Department of Homeland Security, asking for “unedited and unredacted transcripts” of White House and DHS testimony before the old select committee. Loudermilk’s committee is aware that transcripts of these interviews exist, but claims they were not given over by the Thompson-led investigation.

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“..the man Americans elected as the 45th president—and his team members—has been subjected to more bizarre allegations, secret investigations, partisan impeachments, preposterous indictments, and prejudiced legal proceedings than even Kafka could have imagined..”

• No One Is Safe in an Era of Kafkaesque Absurdity (Brooks)

“Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested.”—Franz Kafka, “The Trial.”

In Kafka’s early-20th-century novel, a reputable bank clerk is caught up in a prosecutorial nightmare. The story of Josef K. begins when court authorities suddenly arrive at his residence to tell him he’s to be indicted, but they can’t or won’t explain the exact nature of the charges against him. Josef K.’s accusers leave him with feelings of apprehension and anxiety. Throughout the novel, he struggles to defend himself within a hostile and complex legal process. At the end of the story, he’s led away to a summary execution. During the entire ordeal, the accused never really understands the reasons behind his mysterious prosecution. This dark story about the destruction of an innocent man led to the term “Kafkaesque” entering the English language as a way to describe situations in which honorable people are threatened by unfounded allegations. Kafka had a special talent for identifying the convergence between reality and absurdity.

A hundred years after “The Trial” was first published, the West has descended into an era in which absurd allegations are the new normal. In the Rainbow Reichs of the woke, witch hunting has become the order of the day.
One of the most notorious Kafkaesque events in modern history developed around the unforeseen political success of President Donald J. Trump.Over recent years, the man Americans elected as the 45th president—and his team members—has been subjected to more bizarre allegations, secret investigations, partisan impeachments, preposterous indictments, and prejudiced legal proceedings than even Kafka could have imagined. President Trump has endured some of the most savage and desperate partisan assaults in U.S. history. Despite it all, he has retained the loyalty of legions of ordinary citizens and is the leading candidate for reelection in 2024. Individuals throughout North America are praying that President Trump’s landslide victory in Iowa will lead to a decisive victory for the “Make America Great Again” movement.

[..] Few drag queen story hours feature the novels of Kafka, but the author’s insights remain valuable. Kafka understood that corrupt authorities have the capacity to ruin almost anyone they disapprove of. “The Trial” shows how Orwellian legal institutions can isolate individuals, make them appear guilty, and render them helpless. So far, President Trump has overcome the moral failures of the American judicial system, and he has an excellent chance of winning back the White House in 2024. Donald T. isn’t likely to suffer the same fate as Kafka’s Josef K. Francine C.’s future is considerably less certain. Without political support, financial resources, and professional help, challenges to the left by intrepid citizens are unlikely to continue. That’s why the suffocating nature of our Kafkaesque culture must be forthrightly resisted by honorable men and women.

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“The president’s been clear, he’s been clear that we need to move on the border, he needs resources to deal with the situation at the border.”s

• Mayorkas Says Border Is Secure But Biden Says It Isn’t (MN)

During the White House press briefing Monday, a reporter asked Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to explain why Joe Biden and DHS head Alejandro Mayorkas give conflicting answers when asked if the border is secure or not. As we highlighted, last Friday Biden admitted that the border is not secure and stated that has has not believed it has been secure for a decade, despite the fact that Mayorkas has stated and testified multiple times that he believes the border is secure. “On Friday, President Biden said that he does not believe the border is secure, which is different from what Secretary Mayorkas has testified multiple times on the hill, why do they have two different views of the security of the border?” the reporter asked during Monday’s briefing.

Jean-Pierre used the tired excuse that Biden is waiting on Congress to provide more funding for border security. “The president’s been clear, he’s been clear that we need to move on the border, he needs resources to deal with the situation at the border. That’s why they’re having this conversation at the Senate, on the senate level and that’s why he’s asking for more resources,” Jean-Pierre said, adding “There’s an issue at the border, we need to deal with it and we have to act now. There’s an urgent need to act now.” The claim that Biden is waiting for funding for more security is laughable considering that he is ordering Border Patrol to actively take down barriers erected by Texas state authorities and the National Guard:

Elsewhere during the briefing Monday, Fox News reporter Peter Doocy pointed out that “authorities in Fairfax County, Virginia, ignored an ICE detainer. They released an illegal immigrant from Honduras, who was charged with sexually assaulting a Virginia minor and production of sexual abuse material.” He then asked Jean-Pierre “Doesn’t that go to show that, as record numbers of people appear at the border, you guys have no idea what kind of people are coming into this country?” Jean-Pierre, of course, denied the charge and again blamed Congress. She also claimed that Biden has recently visited the border, when in reality he hasn’t been there for over a year, and even that only visit was little more than a pit stop.

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“..It says that in the Constitution somewhere. Like, in Section 3 Article B or whatever.”

• Supreme Court Rules Texas Must Replace Barbed Wire With Giant Red Carpet (BBee)

In yet another 5-4 decision, the United States Supreme Court has ruled that Texas must remove all barbed wire along the border and replace it with a massive, plush red carpet. “How will migrants be able to get in the country if there’s barbed wire in the way?” said a visibly confused Justice Sotomayor. “They might get hurt! An elegant red carpet makes much more sense. It’s soft and red and can helpfully point the way to gaps along our border and make our new migrants feel welcome. It says that in the Constitution somewhere. Like, in Section 3 Article B or whatever.”

The border patrol responded to the ruling immediately and is now hard at work cutting gaps in the barbed wire fence and rolling out a red carpet across the border. “Hooo boy! This is just like in the Hollywood picture shows!” said one officer while rolling out a carpet for a small band of Al Qaeda operatives and Somali pirates. “Welcome to America, friends! You’re all stars to us!” The ruling also specified that migrants be supplied with limousines, bodyguards, and expensive gift bags filled with face creams and jewelry. “It’s the least we could do,” said Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. “It says that in the fourth paragraph of the 38th Amendment, I’m pretty sure.” At publishing time, Texas Governor Greg Abbott had desperately attempted to deter migrants by lining the red carpet with bear traps.

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“Texas is being ordered to open its border completely and let millions of people flood the state and the rest of the country until everything Americans hold dear is left a smoldering ruin..”

• Supreme Court Rules It’s Illegal For National Guard To Guard Nation (BBee)

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court has ruled that it’s now illegal for the Texas National Guard to guard Texas or the nation. “Using the National Guard to guard the nation is an egregious misuse of the National Guard,” wrote Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who sided with the majority. “When the federal government has decreed that the nation not be guarded so that millions of illegal immigrants will swarm the border and settle in cities across the nation to swing the 2024 presidential election for Biden, states have no right to disobey that decree by guarding their states.” As a result of the ruling, Texas is being ordered to open its border completely and let millions of people flood the state and the rest of the country until everything Americans hold dear is left a smoldering ruin. “It’s the compassionate thing to do,” said Jackson. At publishing time, the government had asked the National Guard to return to its normal task of fighting endless foreign wars.

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Excess deaths


https://twitter.com/i/status/1749923876920762767

 

 


One of the two remaining northern white rhinos in the world, guarded 24 hours a day.

 

 

Acorn

 

 

Chicken hypnosis

 

 

Owl

 

 


Pecteilis radiata is a species of orchid found in China, Japan, Korea and Russia. It is commonly known as the white egret flower. It is easily grown from tubers, and rewards you with blooms shaped like white birds with wings spread in flight.

 

 

Pi

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle December 29 2023

Dec 292023
 
 December 29, 2023  Posted by at 9:30 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  50 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Boulevard de Clichy, Paris 1887

 

• How Yemen Changed Everything (Pepe Escobar)
• There Are No Innocent Ships At Sea (Helmer)
• Biden Needs To Come To Israel’s – And His Own – Rescue (MoA)
• US, Europe Likely On Track to Become ‘Failed Economies’ – Michael Hudson (Sp.)
• What Will Be Left Out of the USA? (Barton)
• Russia Has Become Significantly Stronger Over Past Year – Lavrov (Sp.)
• Ukrainian ‘Regime’ Must Be Removed – Medvedev (RT)
• 40 Million Ukrainians Must Fight – Regional Governor (RT)
• Scott Ritter: Maryinka’s Liberation ‘Major Victory’ for Russia (Sp.)
• ‘Zelensky Regime’ Doesn’t Want Peace – Lavrov (RT)
• US Sending ‘Bloody New Year’s Gift To Kiev’ – Moscow (RT)
• Ukraine Warns Of Pension And Salary Delays (RT)
• DOJ Threatens Lawsuit If Texas Enforces New Border Security Law (HC)
• Democrat Secretary Of State Kicks Trump Off Maine Ballot (ZH)
• Colorado Puts Trump Back On 2024 GOP Primary Ballot (NYP)
• Trump Takes Credit For Success Of Home Alone 2 (RT)

 

 

 

 

Tucker

 

 

 

 

Daniel Levy

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..those eleven US aircraft carrier task forces, for all practical purposes, are essentially worthless.”

“..using the “nuclear” option or cutting off potentially at least 25 percent, and up, of the world oil supply. As one Persian Gulf analyst succinctly describes it, “that would irretrievably implode the international financial system.”

• How Yemen Changed Everything (Pepe Escobar)

Yemen’s resistance movement, Ansarallah, has made it very clear that any Israel-affiliated or Israel-destined vessel will be intercepted. While the west bristles at this, and imagines itself a target, the rest of the world fully understands that all other shipping is free to pass. Russian tankers – as well as Chinese, Iranian, and Global South ships – continue to move undisturbed across the Bab al-Mandeb (narrowest point: 33 km) and the Red Sea. Only the Hegemon is disturbed by this challenge to its ‘rules-based order.’ It is outraged that western vessels delivering energy or goods to law-breaking Israel can be impeded, and that the supply chain has been severed and plunged into deep crisis. The pinpointed target is the Israeli economy, which is already bleeding heavily. A single Yemeni move proves to be more efficient than a torrent of imperial sanctions.

It is the tantalizing possibility of this single move turning into a paradigm shift – with no return – that is adding to the Hegemon’s apoplexy. Especially because imperial humiliation is deeply embedded in the paradigm shift. Russian President Vladimir Putin, on the record, is now sending an unmistakeable message: Forget the Suez Canal. The way to go is the Northern Sea Route – which the Chinese, in the framework of the Russia-China strategic partnership, call the Arctic Silk Road. For the dumbfounded Europeans, the Russians have detailed three options: First, sail 15,000 miles around the Cap of Good Hope. Second, use Russia’s cheaper and faster Northern Sea Route. Third, send the cargo via Russian Railways. Rosatom, which oversees the Northern Sea Route, has emphasized that non-ice-class ships are now able to sail throughout summer and autumn, and year-round navigation will soon be possible with the help of a fleet of nuclear icebreakers.

All that as direct consequences of the single Yemeni move. What next? Yemen entering BRICS+ at the summit in Kazan in late 2024, under the Russian presidency? The new architecture will be framed in West Asia The US-led Armada put together for Operation Genocide Protection, which collapsed even before birth, may have been set up to “warn Iran,” apart from giving Ansarallah a scare. Just as the Houthis, Tehran is hardly intimidated because, as West Asia analyst ace Alastair Crooke succinctly put it: “Sykes-Picot is dead.” This is a quantum shift on the chessboard. It means West Asian powers will frame the new regional architecture from now on, not US Navy “projection.” That carries an ineffable corollary: those eleven US aircraft carrier task forces, for all practical purposes, are essentially worthless.

Everyone across West Asia is well aware that Ansarallah’s missiles are capable of hitting Saudi and Emirati oil fields, and knocking them out of commission. So it is little wonder that Riyadh and Abu Dhabi would never accept becoming part of a US-led maritime force to challenge the Yemeni resistance. Add to it the role of underwater drones now in the possession of Russia and Iran. Think of fifty of these aimed at a US aircraft carrier: it has no defense. While the Americans still have very advanced submarines, they cannot keep the Bab al-Mandeb and Red Sea open to western operators. On the energy front, Moscow and Tehran don’t even need to think – at least not yet – about using the “nuclear” option or cutting off potentially at least 25 percent, and up, of the world oil supply. As one Persian Gulf analyst succinctly describes it, “that would irretrievably implode the international financial system.”

For those still determined to support the genocide in Gaza there have been warnings. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has mentioned it explicitly. Tehran has already called for a total oil and gas embargo against nations that support Israel. A total naval blockade of Israel, meticulously engineered, remains a distinct possibility. Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Commander Hossein Salami said Israel may “soon face the closure of the Mediterranean Sea, the Strait of Gibraltar, and other waterways.” Keep in mind we’re not yet even talking about a possible blockade of the Strait of Hormuz; we’re still on Red Sea/Bab al-Mandeb.

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“..whose prosperity is Operation Prosperity Guardian truly guarding?”

• There Are No Innocent Ships At Sea (Helmer)

Since the start of Israel’s genocide of Gaza, it has been the claim of the Israelis, their lawyers, and allies that there are no innocent civilians in Gaza, so they say that killing them all is neither a genocide nor a war crime. Israel’s President Isaac Herzog said it in India in October. US Congressman Brian Mast said it, following the Israeli lead. The US Navy analyst who spied for Israel and served half a life in US prison for his treason has declared it in print. A French-Israeli lawyer has argued the legality on French television. The reply the Arab militaries fighting against Israel have made is that there is no innocent oil tanker or container ship moving within missile or drone range of Israel, the Red Sea or the Indian Ocean unless it can prove it.

This answer by the Ansar Allah government of Yemen, aka the Houthi military, is that they will attack any vessel which they know to be owned or controlled by Israel through its shipping families, companies, and their cutouts. As a result, Houthi drone and missile attacks have exposed the elaborate scheme of corporate camouflage and false-flagging which Israel has been employing to conceal the vessel identities and movement of its international shipping operations. The Anglo-American maritime industry media, privy to these secrets, have not published them. The mainstream western press remains in the dark. In today’s Gorillla Radio podcast, this isn’t dark any longer. Not genocide in Gaza but money in shipowner pockets is blowing the gaff.

There is much more at stake. The effectiveness of the Houthi ship targeting campaign has so threatened the movement of vital cargoes into and out of Europe that shipping, port, and military officials in France, Italy, Spain, and Greece are now trying to avert a commercial disaster for themselves by arranging secret safe-passage deals with Yemen and Iran in exchange for which they are applying a blockade on Israel’s cargoes, vessels and ports. This is the secret which is torpedoing the Pentagon’s multinational Red Sea naval escort plan, called OPERATION PROSPERITY GUARDIAN. As the secrecy of Israeli shipping companies spills out, along with the secret dealmaking of the international shipowners with the Houthis, American shipowners are already complaining bitterly at being cut out of the profits. “If the main beneficiary of the operation,” editorializes gCaptain of California, a leading US maritime platform, “is one of the largest shipping corporations in the world [Denmark’s Maersk], then there is a question of whose prosperity is Operation Prosperity Guardian truly guarding?”

Just how accurate is Houthi targeting of concealed Israeli shipping connections? In the podcast I stumbled over the name of the MSC United VIII. According to its owner Mediterranean Shipping Company, “MSC confirms that on 26 December 2023 the container ship MSC UNITED VIII was attacked while transiting the Red Sea. The vessel informed a nearby coalition task force warship of the attack and as instructed engaged in evasive maneuvers. The incident occurred on 26 December 2023 at approximately 12:25 UTC while the MSC vessel was enroute from King Abdullah Port, Saudi Arabia to Karachi, Pakistan. Currently, all crew are safe with no reported injuries and a thorough assessment of the vessel is being conducted. Our first priority remains protecting the lives and safety of our seafarers, and until their safety can be ensured MSC will continue to reroute vessels booked for Suez transit via the Cape of Good Hope.”

In its concern for “the lives and safety of our seafarers”, MSC omitted to explain why the company management had decided to expose the vessel, the mariners, and the cargo by running the Red Sea gauntlet on behalf of the Israeli shipowners, Eyal and Idan Ofer; they are behind the vessel’s operation, and that was the reason for the Houthi attack. Here’s the full story. There’s more — MSC appears to be owned by an Italian family, the Apontes, who established the shipping line in Switzerland in 1970. In fact, Gianluigi Aponte, the MSC founder, is married to Rafaela Diamant, and she controls half the shares of the company. Diamant is Jewish and comes from Haifa. The Houthis know this; maritime reporters don’t.

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“..Hamas continues to fight back, even in rubble..”

• Biden Needs To Come To Israel’s – And His Own – Rescue (MoA)

For now Israel seems to lose its war against the Palestinian resistance. The October 7 attempt to gain hostages by Hamas and Islamic Jihad was successful. Israeli outrage about it should have been directed against the Israeli government and its army for their chaotic response. They likely killed more Israelis than Hamas did. But outrage was instead instigated against the external enemy. In this case all Palestinians. A united Israel urged its government to wage revenge. The government’s announced aim is to remove Hamas. That however is impossible to do to a social movement with deep roots in its society. The real aim is to remove all Palestinians from Gaza, to either kill them or to dump them in some foreign land. This would be followed by an attempt to remove all Palestinians from the West Bank before capturing and annexing the south of Lebanon.

However no foreign country is likely to support such a genocide and to take up the burden of millions of unruly refugees. The Israeli government still wants to satisfy its people but has no way to achieve that. Meanwhile the resistance against Israel, which has been built by Iran over several decades, is increasing its response. It aims to press Israel into conceding defeat and to liberate the Palestinians from their Zionist occupiers. Changing a society’s mind requires a slow and long response. In the north Hezbullah is slowly escalating its tit-for tat war with the Israeli army. Some 100,000 Israeli civilians have fled from the border zone. The Ansar Islam movement in Yemen has blocked maritime traffic to Israel’s Eilat port. The U.S. attempt to counter that has failed:

“Despite the US calling the Red Sea tensions “an international challenge” requiring a united response, the initial coalition support was limited, with only 10 nations, including Bahrain as the sole Arab state. The Pentagon later announced that 20 countries had joined the coalition, with Greece and Australia among the new members. In a setback to the US, France, Spain, and Italy have declined their participation in the alliance ..”

Local resistances in Iraq and Syria are attacking U.S. troops deployed in those countries. As long as its troops are there the U.S. can to nothing to prevent that. There are also threats to Israel’s Mediterranean coast line. Hezbollah has the ability to close down Haifa and and other Israeli ports. Missiles, cruise missiles and drones from Gaza, from Lebanon, Yemen and from resistance fighters in Iraq and Syria continue to target Israel day by day. With more than 350,000 Israeli troops mobilized and Palestinian workers from the West Bank banned, Israel’s economy is, for lack of workers, in deep trouble. Its military forays into Palestinian cities in Gaza have so far achieved little results but incurred significant losses. All the army can do is to destroy those cities block by block. But Hamas continues to fight back, even in rubble.

The current plan is to make Palestinian life in Gaza so miserable that leaving it will be for them the only alternative to certain death. But leaving whereto when no one wants to take them? That is a question Israel and its U.S. backers fail to answer. With the war going into a prolonged, unsustainable phase the Israeli government needs to do something else, or fail.

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“Without German exports and earnings, there is a “pressure on the euro to go down against the [US] dollar, and the euro is becoming a sort of failed currency..”

• US, Europe Likely On Track to Become ‘Failed Economies’ – Michael Hudson (Sp.)

The United States’ efforts to cripple the Russian economy through sanctions have backfired spectacularly not only against the US but also allies who joined the failed economic warfare tactics. Polls in the US show that 70-80% of Americans think their country’s economy “is getting worse and is being mismanaged,” says US economist and former Wall Street analyst Michael Hudson. During an interview with Sputnik, Hudson argued that the US’ gross domestic product growth occurs only for the 10% of the population, with the remaining 90% of Americans being left empty-handed. “So what you are having in the West is a bifurcated economy: it is very good to be a billionaire, it is very good to have stocks and even bonds; it is not good at all if you are a wage earner and have to pay for your housing and your food and your consumption out of what you’re earning,” he explained.

However, Hudson also indicated that across the pond, Europe is not faring any better as the “destruction of German heavy industry as a result of the Nord Stream blow-up and the sanctions against Russia have pushed Germany into a decline. The German economy’s woes, in turn, put the “entire euro’s exchange rate” at risk because of the significant role Germany’s export surplus played in the Eurozone balance and foreign exchange. Without German exports and earnings, there is a “pressure on the euro to go down against the [US] dollar, and the euro is becoming a sort of failed currency,” Hudson said. “So there is talk now in both Europe and America, ‘Is America a failed economy? Is Europe a failed economy?’ That’s really what we should be talking about, not simply whether the economy is growing or not,” he pointed out.

Hudson dismissed US President Joe Biden’s boasting about the American economy growing, with the American economist noting the growth is essentially a product of the US Federal Reserve “pumping money into the stock market and that is pushing up stocks.” “For Mr. Biden, the contributors to the Democratic Party are the financial sector, and for the financial sector, it is doing just fine. So Mr. Biden’s economy is thriving,” Hudson continued. “Unfortunately, the economy for the 90% is not thriving, that is not Mr. Biden’s economy and that is why Mr. Biden’s approval ratings have fallen to the lowest approval of any sitting president since World War II, since statistics began to be covered.” At this time, the United States faces a health crisis, housing crisis and a “general economic malaise,” he added. Hudson also weighed in on matters such as the ramifications of Western powers’ seizure of Russia’s foreign assets and the role of US dollar as an instrument of control wielded by Washington.

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“..the majority non-white population in the U.S. will become a reality. The Bureau says the change will occur in 2042..”

• What Will Be Left Out of the USA? (Barton)

The most decisive latest turning point that was to affect the U.S. ethnic make-up then, now and in the future was introduced by President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. In fact, it was signed by President Lyndon Johnson on October 3, 1965 and is known as The Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 also known as the Hart–Celler Act. The most essential changes introduced by the act amounted to abolishing quotas based on national origin. That meant the end of preferences for northern and western Europeans and selecting immigrants on individual merit and not race or ethnic origin. Apart from President Johnson, the proponents of the bill were Ted Kennedy, along with Attorney General and Senator Robert Kennedy, in part to honor their brother, the late president Kennedy. They did a lot to confuse the public. The lead supporter of the act Ted Kennedy for instance, while debating it in the Senate stated the following:

‘The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs.’ After signing the act an electoral backlash against Republicans ensued. Yet in 1960, one-third of “non-white” voters (the vast majority of them, black) supported Richard Nixon, the Republican Party candidate. It wasn’t so four years later. The Republicans nominated Barry Goldwater, an arch-conservative who also voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and whose law-and-order message may have struck many observers as a thinly veiled appeal to white backlash scored about 6% of non-white vote. With the relentless inflow of Third World migrants exceeding one million a year in recent years it would be right to ask whether the 1965 Act had a decisive impact on the presidential election of 2016. Yes, it did have.

Donald Trump won 52% of the white vote on a platform that writer and professor Josh Zeitz rightly classified as uniquely unappealing to minority voters. Hillary Clinton grabbed only 40% of the white vote. But as minorities grow in numbers and proportion of the U.S. population, the impact of the Hart-Celler Act will gain much more in significance. Any Democrat that will be a presidential candidate in 2024 is likely to have even more minorities to vote for him, and Trump (if he will be allowed to run for presidency) will face the depleted white vote if his program remains unchanged. To gain more votes his electoral platform will have to become minority inclusive. In view of the above, what is held in store for the future elections and the USA in general?

It was for the first time in 2011 that non-Hispanic whites accounted for a minority of births in the U.S. The U.S. Census Bureau reported that minorities – defined as anyone who is not a single-race non-Hispanic white – made up 50.4% of the nation’s population younger than age 1 on 1 July, 2011. The growth, it was claimed, was fueled by immigration and births. One doesn’t have to strain his imagination to realize that once the old generations pass away the majority non-white population in the U.S. will become a reality. The Bureau says the change will occur in 2042. According to The Pew Research Center, whites in the U.S. will account for 47% of the population by 2050. Are the above forecast to satisfy power hungry democrats and liberals? Apparently not.

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“He betrayed his people. And not just one, he betrayed two of his nations,” Lavrov concluded.”

• Russia Has Become Significantly Stronger Over Past Year – Lavrov (Sp.)

Russia has become significantly stronger over the past year, with the people opposing the West in the hybrid war it has unleashed, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with Sputnik and the Rossiya 24 broadcaster. “As a result of this hybrid war of the entire collective West against Russia, which was unleashed by the hands, bodies and all other components of Ukrainian society against us … Russia has become significantly stronger this year, and the unity of our people has increased significantly,” Lavrov said. The top diplomat added that the West’s plan to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia had failed miserably. “The West is indeed changing its tactics, probably even thinking about restructuring its strategy. Even if we claim that the ‘strategic defeat of Russia’ was the strategy, forgive me for repeating, then the strategy has failed miserably,” Lavrov stated.

He stressed that since US has labelled Russia as its “enemy”, Moscow is ready for any course of events. These days, the advance of a fairer economic order cannot be stopped, said Sergey Lavrov. “The movement towards a fairer world order, economic world order, is, of course, unstoppable”. He recalled that developing countries and BRICS members have been demanding IMF and World Bank quotas that would reflect their real economic standing, but the West has been reluctant. Russia’s top diplomat stressed that this case is yet another example of how the US violates the principles of honest free market competition. Lavrov added that the world majority grew very tired of the US dollar as the main reserve currency, because it has turned into a tool of political pressure.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with Sputnik and the Rossiya 24 broadcaster that he does not see any bright future for the European Union. “I do not see such a rosy future, or rather, I do not see a rosy future in a good sense for the European Union. In other senses, they have already defined this future for themselves,” Lavrov said. The top diplomat stressed that Russia plans to achieve all the goals of the special military operation in the wake of changes in Ukraine. “We are preparing to implement all the goals that were set. Demilitarization, denazification. You can’t escape it,” he said. Sergey Lavrov said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is a traitor. He recalled that recently the Ukrainian leader said that he had forgotten the Russian language and his words looked as if they were parts of a play.

The top diplomat added that years earlier Zelensky had urged to “leave Russians alone” and pretended that Russian was his language and at the same time he was a citizen of Ukraine. Russia’s foreign policy chief lamented that Zelensky was unable to stick to this position. “He betrayed his people. And not just one, he betrayed two of his nations,” Lavrov concluded.

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“..The removal of the Western-backed government of Vladimir Zelensky is an undeclared but a “most important and inevitable goal” of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine..”

• Ukrainian ‘Regime’ Must Be Removed – Medvedev (RT)

The removal of the Western-backed government of Vladimir Zelensky is an undeclared but a “most important and inevitable goal” of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine, former President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev has said. On Thursday, Medvedev, who now holds the position of deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, was asked by RIA-Novosti about the prospects of peace talks between Moscow and Kiev in 2024. The Russian military operation in Ukraine will continue next year with its goals remaining unchanged, he replied. According to the former president, those goals include “the disarmament of Ukrainian troops and the rejection of the ideology of neo-Nazism by the current Ukrainian state.” “The removal of the ruling Banderovite regime isn’t being openly declared, but it’s the most important and inevitable goal that must and will be achieved,” he said, referring to the Zelensky government.

‘Banderovite’ relates to Stepan Bandera (1909-1959), a Ukrainian nationalist leader who collaborated with the Nazis during World War II and is now revered as a hero by authorities in Kiev. “Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Nikolaev, Kiev, they are Russian cities, like many others under temporary occupation [by Ukraine]. All of them are marked in yellow and blue on paper maps and electronic tablets, for now,” Medvedev said. About talks, they are “of course, possible,” he acknowledged, adding that “Russia never rejected them, unlike the insane Ukrainian authorities.” The former president stressed, however, that Moscow has no deadline for any negotiations and that these may proceed all the way until “the complete defeat and capitulation” of the NATO-backed Ukrainian forces.

On Wednesday, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the authorities in Moscow “identify a lack of drive for peace on the part of the Zelensky regime. His representatives think in terms of war and use very aggressive rhetoric.” The US and the EU remain committed to “containing Russia with the hands and bodies of Ukrainians” and realize that without aid from these sources the Kiev government “is doomed,” the minister said. He also recalled that, more than a year ago, Zelensky officially banned himself from negotiating with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Instead, the Ukrainian leader has been promoting his so-called ten-point peace plan, which calls for Russia to withdraw from all territories claimed by Kiev, for Moscow to pay reparations, and for the formation of a war-crimes tribunal. Russian authorities instantly rejected the proposal as “unrealistic” and out-of-touch with the situation on the ground.

Arestovich
https://twitter.com/i/status/1740159924846694473

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Zelensky wants 500,000 new conscripts. He’ll be short: people, armory, uniforms, etc etc.

• 40 Million Ukrainians Must Fight – Regional Governor (RT)

Ukraine should mobilize its entire population to fight against Russia instead of the 500,000 recently proposed by President Vladimir Zelensky, the governor of the Nikolaev region, Vitaliy Kim, has said. Kim’s comments in a TV interview came after Zelensky stated last week that Ukraine’s military command had asked to conscript half a million men over the coming year. The secretary of Ukraine’s parliamentary national security committee, Roman Kostenko, explained that the mobilization drive is needed to cover casualties and form new units. Kim, however, argued that conscripting 500,000 people is “not enough” and that Ukraine needs to attract at least two million volunteers. Or better still, the governor suggested, Kiev should look to mobilize the country’s entire population of 40 million, claiming that the fight against Russia is similar to WWII.

In addition, Kim suggested that all enterprises in Ukraine should be mobilized and put on a war footing, regardless of the impact on profits. “The more we mobilize, the faster Putin will surrender,” the governor said. Zelensky’s proposal to mobilize 500 thousand people has raised eyebrows even in Kiev, with Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzny stating that he had never requested any specific numbers from Zelensky and has only demanded, as always, ammunition, weapons and human resources. Ukraine’s Finance Minister Sergey Marchenko has also seemingly been baffled by Zelensky’s proposal, stating that no concrete plans have yet been submitted to his ministry, and that it is unclear where Kiev would can get the money to fund the mobilization of half a million people, which would cost an estimate of 500 billion hryvnia ($13.2 billion).

However, some have suggested that Zelensky’s mobilization announcement may be an attempt to encourage the West to provide additional weapons and funds. According to former Ukrainian Prime Minister Nikolay Azarov, the Ukrainian leader could use the situation to tell Kiev’s partners: “see, we’re gathering an army of half a million. It must be equipped, it must be armed. These are huge costs and expenses.” While it is unclear when and how Kiev will conscript 500 thousand men, it has already started working on revising its mobilization laws, with lawmakers looking to reduce the conscription age from 27 to 25 and introduce electronic military summons. According to Russia’s estimates, an estimated 400,000 Ukrainian troops have been either killed or wounded since the start of the conflict in February 2022, including 125,000 during Kiev’s failed counteroffensive between early June and late November.

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“..part of the concerted effort being undertaken by the Russian military to create a situation for the civilians of Donetsk, where they can live in peace without the fear of daily bombardment..”

• Scott Ritter: Maryinka’s Liberation ‘Major Victory’ for Russia (Sp.)

Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that the Russian Armed Forces had liberated the town of Maryinka on Monday. Maryinka is a heavily fortified settlement situated on the outskirts of the city of Donetsk. “In the course of offensive operations, assault detachments from the Southern Group of Forces completely liberated Maryinka southwest of Donetsk,” Shoigu told Russian President Vladimir Putin during Monday’s briefing. Speaking to Sputnik, Scott Ritter, a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector recalled that from Maryinka, a town of around 9,000 people, Ukrainian forces carried out “merciless shelling of the civilian population of Donetsk and the surrounding area. “Capturing Maryinka and eliminating the source of this artillery and mortar fire represents a major moral victory for the Russian forces,” Ritter pointed out.

He dubbed Maryinka’s liberation “part of the concerted effort being undertaken by the Russian military to create a situation for the civilians of Donetsk, where they can live in peace without the fear of daily bombardment that has killed so many innocent civilians, including children.” According to Ritter, Maryinka is just “one of the battles for the Russian forces” who are pushing the Ukrainians out of previously heavily defended cities, towns, and villages, which he said means that strategic initiative is in Russia’s hands. He recounted that the Russian defense industry “is in full gear” producing new military equipment in significant quantities for the Russian forces that are deployed in the Donbass and the new Russian territories of Kherson and Zaporozhye. “Right now, it looks like Russia will sustain and maintain the strategic advantage,” per Ritter.

The ex-US Marine Corps intelligence officer underlined that it remains to be seen whether Maryinka represents “the beginning of a new phase of aggressive offensive operations or whether Russia will continue to pick away at these heavily fortified Ukrainian defenses before going on the full-blown offensive.” In any case, he reiterated, “one thing is for certain: the fall of Maryinka is a major victory for Russia.” “Morally, it stops the source of the daily shelling of the innocent civilians of Donetsk. And two, it represents yet another victory of the Russian Armed Forces over not just the forces of Ukraine, but the collective West and NATO,” Ritter concluded.

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“..Washington feels compelled to trigger crises worldwide as it sees global power slipping from its hands..”

• ‘Zelensky Regime’ Doesn’t Want Peace – Lavrov (RT)

The US and its allies will continue sending arms to Kiev since its goal of hurting Russia while sacrificing Ukrainians remains unchanged, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with TASS published on Wednesday. The top diplomat was asked whether the Middle East crisis has affected the amount of Western military assistance provided to Ukraine, potentially nudging President Vladimir Zelensky into a negotiated resolution of the conflict with Russia. According to Lavrov, “inflicting ‘a strategic defeat of Russia on the battlefield’ remains a priority for most unfriendly governments.” Officials in Washington and Brussels, he said, remain committed to “containing Russia with the hands and bodies of Ukrainians” and realize that without aid, the Ukrainian government “is doomed.”

“We identify a lack of drive for peace on the part of the Zelensky regime. His representatives think in terms of war and use very aggressive rhetoric,” the diplomat noted. According to Lavrov, the fact that a legal ban remains in force in Ukraine on negotiating with Russia as long as President Vladimir Putin keeps his office is sufficient to make such conclusions. The minister believes that Washington feels compelled to trigger crises worldwide as it sees global power slipping from its hands. As long as this attitude persists, “no one is safe from its political machinations. And the world increasingly realizes this.” Western leaders have pledged to support Kiev for “as long as it takes” to defeat Russia. This year, Ukrainian forces attempted to use heavy weapons provided by foreign donors to breach through Russian defensive lines but failed to achieve significant territorial gains.

Moscow estimates Ukrainian losses in the so-called counteroffensive at over 159,000 troops and more than 383,000 in total since the hostilities began last year. As a result of these casualties, Kiev plans to ramp up forced conscription to replenish manpower. As a result of Kiev’s lackluster results on the battlefield, Republican opposition in the US Congress blocked a White House request to appropriate additional funds for Ukraine. The holdouts have demanded that Democrats approve a major immigration reform as a concession. Meanwhile, in the EU, Hungary vetoed Brussels’ plan for long-term Ukraine assistance. The proposed packages are measured in the tens of billions of dollars and euros, respectively.

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“..The Americans “are pushing the puppet regime to the abyss, dooming thousands of ordinary Ukrainians to certain death..”

• US Sending ‘Bloody New Year’s Gift To Kiev’ – Moscow (RT)

The Russian ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, has criticized Washington for its recent arms package to Ukraine, stating that it reflects an intention to fight Russia “to the last Ukrainian.” The diplomat’s remarks came in response to the $250 million worth of military assistance, including air defense munitions, rockets, artillery shells, and small-arms rounds, approved on Wednesday by the administration of US President Joe Biden. Antonov called the latest round of military aid a “bloody New Year’s gift to Kiev” in remarks published on social media. The Americans “are pushing the puppet regime to the abyss, dooming thousands of ordinary Ukrainians to certain death,” he warned.

On the other hand, the official emphasized Russia’s recent success in acquiring the town of Maryinka in the Donetsk People’s Republic, a strategic Ukrainian stronghold. According to Antonov, the US tends to ignore such developments and instead focuses on highlighting “Ukrainian fetish ‘victories.’” The diplomat predicted that any arms provided by NATO nations to Ukraine would be “burned and destroyed” without altering the situation on the ground. The White House could not appropriate more funding for Ukraine after Republican opposition in Congress blocked its request. The lawmakers have demanded major concessions on immigration reform and southern border security as a precondition for their approval of spending additional billions of taxpayers’ dollars on Ukraine support.

US officials have indicated that this latest package would be the last under the current spending allowance. US President Joe Biden has accused those lawmakers opposed to more Ukraine spending of jeopardizing national security by tying it to domestic policy issues. He suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin might attack a NATO member after dealing with Ukraine. Putin dismissed this remark as “absolute nonsense,” saying that Biden was using exacerbated rhetoric to cover up his administration’s foreign policy failures. Moscow maintains that preventing NATO expansion into Ukraine is a key objective in the conflict.

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“..Ukraine has to achieve a sustained economic recovery so that those who fled the country after the start of the Russian military operation will return..”

• Ukraine Warns Of Pension And Salary Delays (RT)

The Ukrainian government could be forced to delay paying pensions and salaries to millions of citizens if the US and the EU do not provide more financial support, Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Sviridenko has warned. The country is facing a “huge risk of underfunding of certain social sectors” as it prioritizes defense and debt servicing amid the conflict with Russia, Sviridenko, who is also the economy minister, told the Financial Times on Wednesday. If Kiev does not receive more foreign aid, it may be forced to postpone salary payments to 500,000 civil servants and 1.4 million teachers, as well as delay benefits for 10 million pensioners, she added. The amount of Western assistance to Ukraine has reduced significantly in recent months.

US Republican lawmakers are resisting attempts by the administration of President Joe Biden to push through another $60 billion in aid for Kiev, while Hungary has vetoed the EU’s planned four-year, €50 billion ($55 billion) aid package for Ukraine. “The support of partners is extremely critical. We need it urgently,” Sviridenko said, estimating that Ukraine would require $37 billion in external assistance next year to function properly. The country’s economy, which according to the IMF saw 4.5% GDP growth this year, will be back in “survival” mode without more Western aid, she stated. Unnamed Western officials told the FT that Ukraine should be able to sustain itself for a few months by borrowing domestically or through monetary financing by its central bank. However, they warned that this could provoke a spike in inflation, undermine financial stability, and weaken the tax base, thus making the country even more dependent on foreign support.

Ukraine has to achieve a sustained economic recovery so that those who fled the country after the start of the Russian military operation will return, Sviridenko insisted. Unemployment is currently almost 19%, although at the same time numerous sectors are suffering labor shortages, the deputy prime minister said. Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov suggested on Wednesday that there is “discord” in the West regarding further support for Ukraine, considering that funds go “to a regime that uses it with unknown efficiency and for unclear purposes.” The US and the EU are “already well aware of the level of corruption [in Ukraine]. They understand that a large part of this money is simply being stolen,” he claimed. The shift in the public opinion in the US regarding the issue has been reflected by FT-Michigan Ross poll earlier this month, which revealed that 48% of Americans thought that Washington was spending “too much” on helping Kiev.

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The Texas governor can’t protect Texas from Washington.

• DOJ Threatens Lawsuit If Texas Enforces New Border Security Law (HC)

The Department of Justice is warning Gov. Greg Abbott that it will sue if Texas moves forward with legislation empowering state officials to remove people from the U.S. who they suspect of being in the country illegally. The new legislation, which Abbott signed into law earlier this month, is unconstitutional and will disrupt the federal government’s immigration enforcement operations, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton wrote in a letter to the governor obtained by Hearst Newspapers. The letter says that if Abbott does not confirm the state will forgo enforcement of the law by Wednesday, “the United States will pursue all appropriate legal remedies to ensure that Texas does not interfere with the functions of the federal government.”

The law, set to take effect in March, would allow any law enforcement officer in Texas to arrest migrants accused of unlawfully entering the state from Mexico and empower judges to order their removal. It is a major escalation of Abbott’s border security initiative, Operation Lone Star, and has been cast by the governor and other Texas Republicans as an invitation for the Supreme Court to revisit longstanding precedent leaving immigration enforcement solely to the federal government. El Paso County and two immigrant rights groups earlier this month sued to stop what they called the “patently illegal” legislation. The American Civil Liberties Union is representing them in the case. The Mexican government, which would have to accept immigrants ordered removed by state officials, has also said it will not go along with the law and has threatened to take action to stop it, as well.

Abbott, a former Texas attorney general, has said he believes the law was crafted in a way that “can and should be upheld in the courts on its own.” He has said the law is necessary to stem the record number of border crossings under the Biden administration and has accused President Joe Biden of failing to secure the border. The DOJ letter says the U.S. Constitution tasks the federal government with regulating immigration and controlling the international borders. The law “therefore intrudes into a field that is occupied by the federal government and is preempted,” the letter says. The Justice Department points to a landmark Supreme Court ruling from 2012 that held that only the federal government has the power to enforce immigration laws.

Abbott has cast the law as an opening for the high court to reconsider that ruling. In that case, the high court struck down portions of an Arizona law that authorized police to arrest anyone suspected of being in the country illegally. Then-Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that the federal government has “broad discretion” in setting immigration policy and that the state could not pursue policies that “undermine federal law.” “Indeed, the Supreme Court has confirmed that ‘the removal process’ must be ‘entrusted to the discretion of the Federal Government’ because a ‘decision on removability’ touches ‘on foreign relations and must be made with one voice,’” the letter says.

Read more …

She’s unelected, with unusual powers.

“She immediately suspended her decision. Meaning Trump stays on the ballot in Maine. This is just for show.”

• Democrat Secretary Of State Kicks Trump Off Maine Ballot (ZH)

A day after former president Trump’s lawyers demanded the Maine secretary of state recuse herself from her upcoming decision on the former president’s ballot eligibility under the 14th Amendment – citing her past statements about the Jan. 6 Capitol riot; Shenna Bellows – a Democrat – has kicked Trump off the state’s primary ballot. The letter from Trump’s lawyers seeking Bellows’ recusal cites two social media posts Bellows issued the day Trump was acquitted in his second impeachment trial, which concerned the Capitol riot. “The Jan 6 insurrection was an unlawful attempt to overthrow the results of a free and fair election. Today 57 Senators including King & Collins found Trump guilty. That’s short of impeachment but nevertheless an indictment. The insurrectionists failed, and democracy prevailed,” Bellows wrote on Twitter, the platform now known as X.

The letter also takes aim at a post Bellows issued on the one-year anniversary of Jan. 6, in which she reposted a news report highlighting Bellows’s efforts to protect election workers. “One year after the violent insurrection, it’s important to do all we can to safeguard our elections,” Bellows wrote. Thus, the lawyers argued, Bellows “has already passed judgment” on Trump’s “core assumptions.” But, as The Hill reports, unlike other states, where plaintiffs have sued over Trump’s eligibility in court, Maine’s system first allows the secretary of state to weigh in – unilaterally, Judge Dredd-style. As she explains, ‘she is the law!’ Challengers can then appeal in state court. Bellows determined that the former president could not run for office due to his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. She argued his actions violated the 14th Amendment.

Read more …

“..it has done so based on a subjective claim of insurrection the state lacks any constitutional authority to make.”

• Colorado Puts Trump Back On 2024 GOP Primary Ballot (NYP)

Colorado’s secretary of state said Thursday that former President Donald Trump will remain on the 2024 primary ballot for certification next week, as the state Republican Party appeals a court ruling that had found him ineligible for office earlier this month. “With the appeal filed, Donald Trump will be included as a candidate on Colorado’s 2024 Presidential Primary Ballot when certification occurs on January 5, 2024, unless the US Supreme Court declines to take the case or otherwise affirms the Colorado Supreme Court ruling,” Jena Griswold’s office said in a press release. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled 4-3 on Dec. 19 that the former president could not receive the Republican nomination because he had unconstitutionally participated in an “insurrection” against the US government on Jan. 6, 2021.

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment includes a clause that bars those who have taken an oath of office from being elected again to govern if they have violated the Constitution by having “engaged in insurrection or rebellion.” “Donald Trump engaged in insurrection and was disqualified under the Constitution from the Colorado Ballot. The Colorado Supreme Court got it right. This decision is now being appealed,” Griswold said in a separate statement. “I urge the US Supreme Court to act quickly given the upcoming presidential primary election.” On Wednesday, the Colorado Republican Party asked the Supreme Court to overturn the ruling from their state’s high court, saying the party “has been irreparably harmed by the decision” to disqualify the 77-year-old ex-president.

“The state has interfered in the primary election by unreasonably restricting the Party’s ability to select its candidates,” states the 45-page petition from the Colorado GOP and the nonprofit American Center for Law and Justice. “As a natural and inevitable result, the state has interfered with the Party’s ability to place on the general election ballot the candidate of its choice. And it has done so based on a subjective claim of insurrection the state lacks any constitutional authority to make.” The high court has yet to make a decision on the ruling, which would need to occur before a Jan. 5 deadline for candidate names to be certified by both parties for the Colorado ballot.

Read more …

For 2 seconds?

“I was very busy, and didn’t want to do it. They were very nice, but above all, persistent.”

“..another Hollywood guy from the past looking for a quick fix of Trump publicity for himself.”

• Trump Takes Credit For Success Of Home Alone 2 (RT)

Donald Trump has rejected a claim by movie director Chris Columbus that he “bullied” his way into his brief appearance in the 1992 hit movie ‘Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.’ He argued that the scene with him helped to make the iconic Christmas film a success. Writing on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday, Trump insisted that the sequel producers at the time were “begging me to make a cameo appearance.” In the film, a sequel to the 1990 classic ‘Home Alone,’ Trump is briefly seen speaking to central character Kevin McAllister in a scene, who was played by the then-eleven-year-old Macaulay Culkin. “They rented the Plaza hotel in New York, which I owned at the time,” Trump wrote. “I was very busy, and didn’t want to do it. They were very nice, but above all, persistent.”

But once an agreement was struck, “that little cameo took off like a rocket and the movie was a big success,” he stated. In his 2020 interview with Business Insider, Columbus said that Trump’s brief appearance came about as a condition demanded by him to permit the production team to use the Plaza’s lobby for a scene in the film. Trump owned the iconic New York hotel between 1987 and 1995. “He did bully his way into the movie,” Columbus recalled, paraphrasing Trump as having stipulated: “The only way you can use the Plaza is if I’m in the movie.” “Nothing could be further from the truth,” Trump insisted on Truth Social. “That cameo helped make the movie a success, but if they felt bullied, or didn’t want me, why did they put me in, and keep me there, for over 30 years?” Trump added that Columbus’ contradiction is an example of “another Hollywood guy from the past looking for a quick fix of Trump publicity for himself.”

Trump’s cameo has been a source of several headlines in recent years. In 2019, he claimed that an edited-for-TV version of the film for Canadian audiences removed Trump’s bit part at the behest of Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau. A spokesperson for the CBC television network said at the time that the scene, along with several others, were removed due to time constraints because it was “not integral to the plot.” Meanwhile, in 2021 the star of the Home Alone films Macaulay Culkin, who is now 43, said he was “sold” on the idea of Trump’s cameo being digitally removed from all future versions of the film. In the Home Alone films, Culkin plays a young boy who is accidentally separated from his family during the Christmas holidays, and who fights off a pair of thieves played by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern. The film made $359 million at the box office and was 1992’s third highest-grossing movie.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

Audrey

 

 

Too cool

 

 

Can’t stop
https://twitter.com/i/status/1740484270731518062

 

 

Wild animals

 

 

 

 

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Grasp Historical Initiative

Aug 092023
 
 August 9, 2023  Posted by at 5:10 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  20 Responses »


M.C. Escher Fish and Boat 1948

 

 

An article by our good- and longtime friend, John Day, family doctor in Texas, until he got canned for refusing the clot shot. Sometimes you think: did that really ever happen? It seems so weird.. But it did, and not that long ago. We lost thousands of qualified and highly capable doctors and nurses for…. well, nothing at all really, other than some people’s petty power games. We lost a lot of lives to those same games too. John looks ahead, rather than back:

 

 

John Day:

 

Western Civilization is at a tense point in history. The current economic arrangements are heavily parasitized, running low on feedstocks like cheap oil, and can’t grow any more, are in irreversible contraction within the current paradigm, legal and bureaucratic structures. The Henry Ford inspired industrial capitalism of the postwar years, where workers could afford the Fords they made, succumbed to the imperative to support the value of the $US, over the actual industrial economy of the US, after America’s vast hoard of gold ran out, draining into the wars in Korea and Vietnam.

In 1971 America’s production of “conventional” oil peaked as previously predicted, and Nixon was forced to default on gold support for the $US, because the gold ran out. The UK got the last of what there was, which was about 40% of what they claimed for the dollars they were handing over.The value of the $US had to be supported somehow. Nixon and Kissinger made the deal with King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, an expansion of the deal FDR made with the Saudis to provide security in return for respecting US/UK interests, and starving the Axis countries. Under the newer deal, the House of Saud could charge any price for oil, but it would be denominated in $US, and excess funds from sales would be invested in US Treasury securities.

The world would need to hold $US to buy oil, supporting the trade-value of the $US. The investment value of the $US also needed to be supported. Interest rates had to be high enough to provide a real return on investment, returning modest, secure profits, whether that was good for the American productive economy or not. After the $US price of oil tripled in the early 1970s, for political-economic reasons (Yom Kippur War, Arab Oil Embargo) there was a corresponding decline of relative $US valuation to that commodity, causing inflation, and a self reinforcing inflationary wage-price rise cycle.

 

Paul Volcker was appointed Fed. Chairman, as inflation was turning global investors away from the $US as a reserve currency. The dollar suddenly fell from 86% to under 60% of global financial reserves. Volcker raised the interest rates paid on $US (20%) until nobody doubted getting good return on their $US investments, even with inflation. That crushed industry, especially industrial investment, and worker’s wages. No honest man/industry could pay that kind of interest, so borrowing for factories stopped. Financial investments became extractive of real value at high interest rates. Real wages of workers have never again risen from that time. The minimum wage in the US now buys half of what the minimum wage bought in 1968.

This extraction of wealth from workers and industry has supported the value of the $US, and has funded American wars of empire abroad. Government borrowing has funded an increasingly meager form of welfare state within the US. At the same time the productive economy has been made uncompetitive and is increasingly outdated, as the artificially high $US valuation hurt American exports (too expensive) and no honest industry could pay going real rates on investments in US-based production.

Some semi-monopoly industries could be profitable, like aerospace, supported by American military spending. American weapons industries could be profitable, though over time quality fell, while systemic corruption and inefficiencies kept increasing prices. Global customers can now see the price-competitiveness and absolute performance of American weapons-systems in Ukraine. They cn also see how slowly American industry responds to increased demand for supply of munitions during a crisis.

 

These many decades of paying to support an empire by borrowing and extracting value from the world have hollowed out the value-production chain within the US, and have rewarded parasitic extraction schemes from the productive economy. Hard-squeezed farmers are being strip-mined to support the dollar, but they are now old, and there are just a few of them. America has been sold to investors and rented back to Americans, who are struggling to keep paying rent and bills. Europe is in a similar situation, having taken a somewhat different, but convergent path.

Most nations of the world have had falling prosperity per capita since 2008, or before, due to organizational-complexity, debt, and the rising price of energy products, especially oil. Global “conventional” oil peaked in 2005, causing price rises, and contributing to the 2008 financial crisis (as did other factors). Productive economic growth since then has been minimal, in a system which sees creating a loan and creating a car as equal positives in GDP calculations. Vast borrowing from the future has supported the workings of the system, as investors blithely expect to be paid the promised returns on their loans some day.

“Smart money” is buying real estate, railways, oil and gas wells, power plants and nuclear weapons factories. Manufacturing in countries with low overhead, like Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand attracts value-investors like China. When the western financial Ponzi scheme breaks down, who will be holding something solid? Will there be competing claims on it? Who will be holding the bag of a lot of unpayable debts? How will this be managed? War is the usual management technique to force cooperation under duress. There are CBDC schemes, Build-Back-Better, Own-nothing-and-be-happy, etc.

The plots to be sprung upon hapless humans appear to be held in waiting while the economic system still works. As corrupt as it is, global economy can still deliver the widest variety of goods, services and real-returns-on-investment ever seen. No gambler can stop while the game is still in play. People who are not “players” can take the initiative to act in this historical moment of pause. Each of us can act historically as we understand the context of the inevitability of crisis and upheaval, and the reason for the calm before the storm.

 

One might get out of debt and get out of all risk assets, maybe hold physical cash, food, water, propane, a camp-stove, and invest in a safe place in a small town, with mixed local industry, good soil, and a long, peaceful agricultural tradition. Having a good water-well with a solar-powered pump is a remmarkaby practical investment. [I think planning to rely mainly upon firearms is delusional.]

We are social beings. Figure that you will entertain family and maybe friends for extended stays when the financial system breaks down. Understand your regional economic stressors, and how they would flex under duress, like power going out and internet going down, even water, gas and sewer. No trash pick up for a few weeks is something many urban dwellers have experienced. A lot of things morph unexpectedly. How might we live and sustain ourselves in our new economic system? Will the weather try to kill us? Can we devise a low-input lifestyle, and hold a buffer of necessities?

Will forms of civil-war or gang/cartel war come to our area? Is there enough loose wealth to attract those predators? Do we look like prey? There are other strategic forms of initiative which one can take. I had long wondered how to spot the Holocaust, Bolshevik Revolution, Cultural Revolution or “killing fields” early enough to get away in time. We taught our kids about this recurring human pattern. We didn’t know what the definitive sign would be, but I stayed vigilant. When I saw the sign, which was the creation of a human underclass, without rights to bodily autonomy, employment, travel, or even speech, I knew that the dangerous time had arrived.

Paradoxically, I knew that I should not run, but that I should stand firmly and openly as a good example, to help keep history from revisiting the “killing-fields”. All of the historical cases we had studied as a family on our travels had already happened, so our focus looking back was to get away, because we were looking back upon an epoch which DID already happen, and which anybody should have fled.

 

When the future is uncertain, and you see two directions it might take, you might want to invest with your life or livelihood in the better direction, if you see it clearly enough. All of the other practical investments will serve you in any case, but turning history away from an event where groups of people are dehumanized is always a worthy investment. I wonder what would have happened in Texas if there had not been a significant minority of medical professionals who refused COVID vaccine-mandates and willingly lost their jobs. It was not that many people, but it was public, and selfless and principled, so society did take note. People did discuss it, and it did not just go away.

These sacrifices are still being made in the US. Even though the societal-terror has abated, doctors like Pierre Kory MD and Paul Marik MD, who treated people effectively with ivermectin and other life saving therapies, and spread knowledge about how to save lives this way, are now being decertified by their medical specialty boards. The Board of Internal Medicine just decertified them. Their hospitals and the Med Schools where they taught already renounced them to maintain federal funding. The Board of Family Medicine also decertified me early this year, for the same offense of “advising patients against COVID-9 vaccination”. Informed consent for dangerous medical interventions has always been ethically required. “Informed consent” is still legally required, but “I don’t think it means what you think it means”, as the saying goes.

How are we influencing history as it continues to develop and form? Where will our new paths carry us into these uncharted times? Will we look back with regrets? It is hard to know. As it turns out, I am relieved to have avoided the physical harms of the mRNA and viral-vector DNA injections. At the time I had to decide what to do I only thought of myself as not-a-candidate. I did know that ivermectin-based treatment worked very well, especially when started early, which I was prepared to do at home.

You can know yourself to be a historical actor at this pivotal moment. You can act strategically in your own interests, and for your family. You can help friends who will listen, and we can help blaze the historical path which we will trek as a human society.

 

 

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