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Republican 2024 Hopeful Ramaswamy Vows to Close Multiple US Agencies if Elected

Sputnik – 14.09.2023

WASHINGTON – Vivek Ramaswamy, a contender for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, said he would seek to reduce the size of the US federal government by closing down five agencies if elected president in 2024.

The plan is to “reduce the size of the federal employees down by 75% by the end of the first term,” Ramaswamy told Semafor on Wednesday.

The agencies that would be closed include the FBI; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF); the Department of Education; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; and the Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Services, he said.

Ramaswamy pointed out he would use executive action and bypass Congress to close the agencies.

In addition, Ramaswamy said he would also execute “a revision of at least 50% of federal regulations that failed the Supreme Court’s test.”

The plan does not entail replacing the agencies, however, it does envision relocating some employees to other government units, Ramaswamy said.

For example, 15,000 of the 35,000 FBI employees would be reassigned to roles within the US Marshals Service, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and the Drug Enforcement Administration, Ramaswamy added.

September 14, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

EU has ‘globalized’ Ukraine crisis – Hungary

RT | September 14, 2023

The European Union’s response to the Ukraine crisis is causing the world to fragment, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has claimed. He added that Budapest wants to see initiatives that can unify states, such as China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

The EU “has given a very bad answer to the war in Ukraine that unfortunately seems to be ending up in a world being divided into blocs again,” the Hungarian diplomat told CNBC on the sidelines of the Belt and Road summit in Hong Kong.

Brussels “should have isolated this war, but instead of that the EU has globalized” it, he said in the interview broadcast on Wednesday.

Szijjarto argued that a lack of communication between opposing countries has led to them giving up on achieving peace, while states that benefit from good East-West relations – such as Hungary – have been hurt economically.

The minister contrasted this to how the BRI aims to bring the world together for mutual prosperity and security, which is why Hungary welcomes China’s presence.

He criticized rich Western European nations who are now talking about decoupling from the Chinese economy or “derisking” due to political concerns. Quietly, they seek Chinese investment just like small nations, Szijjarto said.

“They can be hypocritical, they can afford [it],” he argued.

Unlike those countries, Budapest states its foreign policy openly, the diplomat said, warning that if ‘decoupling’ with China were to succeed, it would “kill the European economy.”

The Hungarian government has been a vocal critic of the Western response to the Ukrainian conflict since its outset. It has called for peace talks, while speaking out against sanctioning Russia and arming Ukraine. Most EU nations, following in the US lead, have pledged to support Kiev for “as long as it takes” to defeat Moscow.

September 14, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

Ex-Ukrainian PM Accuses Kiev of Stealing Billions From Budget in Arms Deals

Sputnik – 14.09.2023

Ukrainian authorities siphoned off over 100 billion hryvnias ($2.7 billion) from the state budget by purchasing overpriced and poor-quality ammunition, equipment and air defense weapons, former Ukrainian Prime Minister Nikolay Azarov said on Thursday.

“According to the most modest estimates, [the Ukrainian authorities] stole more than 100 billion budget hryvnias. The representatives of ‘Servant of the People’ [ruling party] spent most of the budget money to purchase ammunition. [They] bought old poor-quality stuff at a ‘gold price’,” Azarov wrote on his Telegram channel.

The ex-prime minister said that the same corruption scheme worked in air defense procurement, citing an incident when the authorities signed a contract for four air defense missiles, while in reality there were only three of them. After Russia’s missile attacks, all of the four get written off and “someone buys a new apartment in Paris,” Azarov added.

The Ukrainian government has been rocked by a slew of dismissals linked to military procurement, the latest being Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy defended his government’s poor anti-corruption record in an interview with a US broadcaster on Sunday, saying lavish financial and military aid provided to Kiev by the West had not been affected.

September 14, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | | Leave a comment

Ukraine joining NATO ‘would not promote peace’ – ex-French president

RT | September 13, 2023

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has warned that Ukrainian membership of NATO and the EU “would not promote peace” and would be perceived as a “provocation” by Russia.

Speaking to French news station BFMTV on Wednesday, Sarkozy argued it is in Kiev’s best interests to remain “neutral” regarding Western blocs. The former leader also insisted that diplomacy with Moscow remains the most prudent option for Ukraine to end the current conflict.

“Bringing Ukraine into NATO would not promote peace,” said Sarkozy, who served as French president between 2007 and 2012.

NATO leaders declared at a summit in Lithuania in July that the bloc would only invite Ukraine to become a member “when allies agree and conditions are met.” NATO had already denied Kiev’s calls for a “fast-track” to full membership in September of 2022.

Moscow has frequently expressed its opposition to NATO’s eastward expansion. President Vladimir Putin cited the bloc’s involvement in Ukraine as among the key reasons when Moscow began its military operation against Kiev last year.

Ukraine has also pursued EU membership and was granted formal candidate status in 2022. In June, sources within the bloc told Reuters that Kiev currently meets two of the seven conditions required to be considered for full membership.

Rather than chasing closer ties with the West, Sarkozy told BFMTV there are “two solutions” available to Ukraine and its allies to bring an end to the hostilities. The first, he claimed, is the “annihilation” of Russia – before explaining that this is unrealistic because “we are not going to wipe out the second nuclear power in the world, or the world risks falling into total war.”

According to Sarkozy, a more achievable scenario is “diplomatic discussion.” The former president stated that his experience had given him a clear view of what can be achieved over the negotiating table. “They tell me Putin has changed and [that] we cannot have discussions with him,” Sarkozy said. “Those who say that are generally those who have never met him.”

Sarkozy reiterated to BFMTV his stance that Ukraine should pursue firm neutrality in its relationships with Russia and the West, arguing: “When you wave the muleta under the bull’s nose, you shouldn’t be surprised if he attacks.”

Sarkozy’s comments follow the backlash he received for an interview with French publication Le Figaro last month, in which he said Kiev should disregard joining NATO or the EU in favor of “an international agreement providing it with extremely strong security assurances to protect it against any risk.”

September 14, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Medical chief of Ukrainian Far-Right unit admits “huge losses” on the frontline

By Ahmed Adel | September 14, 2023

The head of the medical service of the Far-Right unit Da Vinci’s Wolves of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Alina Mykhailova, spoke about the difficult situation and, even more surprisingly, admitted to huge losses on the front.

“We are suffering great losses. There is no romance in this. What is happening at the front now is something you will not read in the news,” she said in an interview with Ukrainian media on September 12.

Mykhailova added that for the first time in her life, she was ready to give up absolutely everything and talk to anyone so that her battalion would survive. She also admitted that there is no prospect of a Ukrainian victory in the near future.

“The population is very calm with statements that today or tomorrow there will be victory. It will not happen today, nor tomorrow, nor, unfortunately, in a year,” Mykhailova, who is also a deputy in the Kiev City Council, concluded.

Since the beginning of June, the Ukrainian military has been conducting a counteroffensive in Donetsk, Artyomovsk and Zaporozhye with NATO-trained brigades and Western military equipment. However, they have achieved no success.

Although Mykhailova did not give a casualty figure, Russian President Vladimir Putin recently revealed that the counteroffensive has stalled and led to over 75,500 Ukrainian casualties – shocking for only four months of active combat. Many American and European journalists and military experts also argue that Kiev’s counteroffensive failed and noted the effectiveness of Russian defences.

US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley pointed out on September 10 that Ukraine may only have about 30-45 days of fighting left. However, despite this small timeframe left in the regular fighting season and the huge losses suffered by Kiev, the US and NATO are not fazed and continue to send more military shipments and money into the financial blackhole that Ukraine has become.

The Ukrainian military will be unable to advance any further from their already paltry gains once the season changes. Ukraine and the West have exhausted their ammunition stockpile, and they cannot get supplies quickly enough. Effectively, the Ukrainians cannot do much at this point, even if they want to.

Despite the Ukrainians not being able to do much at this point, as affirmed by Mykhailova, it did not prevent Milley from falsely claiming, “There’s still a reasonable amount of time, probably about 30 to 45 days’ worth of fighting weather left, so the Ukrainians aren’t done. There’s battles not done… they haven’t finished the fighting part of what they’re trying to accomplish.”

The West wants to see the offensive continue even though it has very evidently failed. For this reason, the US continues to increase aid even further, and the indications are that the West will continue this or at least try to sustain it.

US President Joe Biden has provided Kiev with $43.7 billion in military aid since Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. Recently, the US announced a new security package worth $600 million for Ukraine, which will include ammunition and anti-aircraft equipment.

By providing such equipment, Washington hopes to coerce Kiev to continue the offensive for another 30 days, perhaps even through the winter. For this reason, there has been a huge uptick in rhetoric about Ukraine supposedly breaking Russia’s first line of defence and making slow but steady gains. None of this corresponds with reality.

In the US, most people do not support the current policy of sending more money down the drain in Ukraine. Considering the 2024 presidential election, the Biden administration is under domestic pressure from a chorus of voices calling for a focus on domestic issues. This could be part of the West’s attempt to transfer responsibility for the failure of the counteroffensive to Ukraine itself.

The US has brazenly admitted it worked with the Ukrainians to plan the offensive for months, arming and training the military. Now, the West is criticising Ukraine for its failures.

As US elections are looming and Ukraine cannot win the war, the Biden administration needs to shift the blame and is pinning it directly on the Eastern European country. This demonstrates the confused nature of US policy as, on one hand, it is encouraging Ukraine to continue fighting by sending more weapons and money, but at the same time, narratives are being concocted to explain to US voters why billions of dollars have been wasted on a lost cause. Meanwhile, as Mykhailova highlighted, “there is no romance,” nor any victory for Ukraine through this war.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

September 14, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Decrepit Britain… Schools Collapsing and Challenger Tanks Blown to Smithereens

By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | September 13, 2023

Britain’s schools are not just out for summer. Autumn too, apparently. Hundreds of schools across England are being forced to close because they are in danger of falling down on the heads of children. That issue alone says a lot about the decrepit condition of Britain today.

Added to this embarrassing blow to British prestige is the reported destruction of its Challenger 2 main battlefield tank deployed with great fanfare in Ukraine earlier this year.

The supposedly invincible tank was first stopped in its tracks by a Russian mine, and then the turret was promptly blown off by an incoming Russian Kornet missile. It is thought to be first time, the Challenger 2 has been so visibly destroyed. Even the BBC’s reporting couldn’t cover up the shock from such a blow to presumed British military prowess.

In previous deployments during Britain’s criminal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Challengers were up against militarily weaker opponents. They earned an overblown reputation as robust fighting machines. Now up against withering Russian firepower, the British equipment is under more testing conditions – and not faring so well.

Thus, it was a bad week alright for Britain. Schools crumbling from cheap concrete structures and then the formidable Challenger tank being pummeled like a cardboard box under Russian attack.

Interestingly, there is a bodily connection to the seemingly unrelated British misfortunes in the form of Rishi Sunak, Britain’s unelected prime minister. He took over 10 Downing Street last October after his predecessor Liz Truss was ousted due to her gaping incompetence. Truss was only in the job a matter of weeks having taken over from Boris Johnson who was forced to quit over endless corruption scandals.

Sunak, a wealthy heir of Indian heritage whose super-wealthy Indian wife doesn’t pay her taxes in Britain, was shoe-horned into the prime minister job as part of a Tory Party shake-up. He wasn’t elected by the public for his present office. That’s British democracy for you!

As prime minister, Sunak made the decision in January this year to send Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine. The move was seen as a bold escalation and prompted other members of the NATO alliance to send heavier weapons to the Kiev regime. It was followed by Germany supplying its Leopard 2 tanks, the French donating AMX-10s, and there’s talk of the Americans eventually sending their M1 Abrams.

Sunak hailed his decision to donate 14 of Britain’s supposedly finest hardware as a game-changer that would allow Ukrainian forces to advance against Russian lines.

However, eight months later, the purported British game-changer has given the Ukrainian military no gains, neither have the German Leopard 2 tanks, nor all of the other sundry NATO “wonder weapons”.

Indeed, by nearly all accounts, the NATO-backed Ukrainian counteroffensive is rapidly turning from failure to disaster as troops and equipment get decimated by superior Russian firepower. Even former British army officers are acknowledging the disastrous defeat on the battlefield.

Under the unelected Sunak, Britain has pledged a total of £4.6 billion ($5.7 bn) in military aid to Ukraine. Britain is the second biggest sponsor of the Kiev Nazi regime after the United States, which has committed about $44 billion in military supplies to Ukraine.

Now get this. While Sunak has readily green lighted the supply of Challenger 2 tanks, as well as depleted uranium shells, Storm Shadow cruise missiles and RAF spy and fighter planes to the Black Sea, his personal neglect of school restoration projects in England has put hundreds of institutions at risk of collapsing.

Before his Tory Party appointment as prime minister, Sunak was Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, which is also known as the treasury minister. By tradition, the British chancellor resides in No. 11 Downing Street. It is seen as the second-most powerful political office after the prime minister owing to the fact that the chancellor controls the budgets for all other government departments.

While he was in the chancellor job during 2020-22, Sunak slashed funding for the repair of schools by nearly 50 percent. That was in spite of warnings from educational expert committees that a crisis was looming from dilapidated concrete structures. That crisis is now manifesting with the forced closure of over 100 schools across England as the new academic year begins this month. It has become a national scandal owing to fears that pupils’ and teachers’ lives are at risk from collapsing walls and roofs.

Rich boy Rishi Sunak can directly take the blame for much of the scandal even if he tries to worm his way out of accepting responsibility.

This guy like many other Western political leaders is a charlatan and a pathetic Yes-Man for the U.S.-led proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.

Sunak likes to wear tween friendship bracelets on his wrist and he is prone to giving Hindu peace signs when in public.

Meanwhile, in reality, the ultra-privileged occupant in Downing Street signs off billions of dollars worth of weaponry to Ukraine, paid for by the British taxpayers through relentless cuts in their public services, incomes and social conditions. War and poverty go hand-in-hand in Britain.

It is estimated that to rectify Britain’s decaying schools it would cost around $1 billion, which is about a fifth of what Sunak has pledged in military aid to Ukraine. And yet this warmongering charlatan is not even accountable to British citizens.

Evidently, the unelected British prime minister views the funding of a futile, bloody overseas war – which could spiral into a nuclear world war – as more of a priority than the education and safety of British children. Dare we say that’s because he is not a democratically elected leader. He is an abject vassal of American imperialism. Many of his predecessors in Downing Street could be said to have been of the same cringemaking weakness. But the incumbent and unaccountable Sunak is absolutely shameless.

The obscene misallocation of public funds by an unelected prime minister says everything about decrepit Britain. It’s a democracy only in name and even that has become a stretch.

September 14, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

EU states tell Zelensky they won’t hand over draft dodgers

RT | September 13, 2023

The Czech Republic announced on Wednesday that it would not send military-age men who arrived as refugees back to Ukraine to be conscripted. Germany, Austria and Hungary have already made similar declarations.

European conventions exclude extradition for charges such as desertion or draft evasion, Czech Justice Ministry spokesman Vladimir Repka told the outlet iDnes. However, he added that if Ukraine files individual extradition requests citing a specific criminal act they may have committed, Prague may give them more consideration.

Hungary has ruled out any extraditions outright.

“We are not investigating any Ukrainian refugees to determine if they have been called up for military service. Hungary will not extradite them to Ukraine,” Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén told the outlet ATV on Wednesday. “All refugees from Ukraine are safe in Hungary.”

German officials who spoke to state broadcaster Deutsche Welle earlier this week said that Berlin did not intend to send draft-eligible refugees back, since desertion and draft evasion are not crimes under German law. There are over 123,000 Ukrainian men of military age who are in Germany as refugees, according to official estimates.

Austria was the first to refuse extradition of military-age men. There are about 14,000 potential draftees among the 101,000 Ukrainian refugees in the country.

“That would be a massive encroachment on our statehood, we would never do that,” a spokesman for the Interior Ministry told the outlet Exxpress on September 7.

On the other hand, Poland has already begun sending some Ukrainian men back, according to Hungarian media reports.

A senior lawmaker from President Vladimir Zelensky’s ruling party said in late August that Ukraine might seek extradition of draft-dodgers from the EU. The government in Kiev recently announced another round of mobilization in order to make up battlefield losses, which Russian President Vladimir Putin estimated at over 70,000 in the past three months of heavy fighting.

Zelensky fired all draft commissioners last month and ordered a review of all medical exemptions from military service, citing widespread corruption. New rules were adopted allowing for the conscription of people with mental disorders, chronic diseases, tuberculosis and HIV.

September 14, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

The New York Times Confirmed That Russia Is Far Ahead Of NATO In The Race Of Logistics

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | SEPTEMBER 14, 2023

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg belatedly admitted in mid-February that his bloc is in a “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” with Russia, and over half a year later, the New York Times (NYT) just confirmed that Moscow is far ahead in this competition. Here are the relevant highlights from their latest article about how “Russia Overcomes Sanctions to Expand Missile Production, Officials Say”, which will then be analyzed to update readers about the latest dynamics of the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine.

———-

* Russia’s military-industrial complex is performing better than ever

– “Russia has managed to overcome sanctions and export controls imposed by the West to expand its missile production beyond prewar levels, according to U.S., European and Ukrainian officials, leaving Ukraine especially vulnerable to intensified attacks in the coming months.”

* Its military-intelligence services are responsible for this astounding success

– “Russia subverted American export controls using its intelligence services and ministry of defense to run illicit networks of people who smuggle key components by exporting them to other countries from which they can be shipped to Russia more easily. “

*  Ukraine should brace itself for a nationwide missile onslaught

– “Officials fear that increased missile stocks could mean an especially dark and cold winter for Ukrainian citizens…Ukraine does not have enough air defense systems to cover the entire country, and must pick the sites it defends. An increased barrage of missiles could overwhelm the country’s air defenses”.

* Russia has successfully transitioned to a wartime economy

– “Today, Russian officials have remade their economy to focus on defense production…The senior Western defense official said that Russia had reallocated nearly a third of its commercial economy toward arms production.”

* Its artillery production is a whopping 7x more than NATO’s

– “As a result of the push, Russia is now producing more ammunition than the United States and Europe. Overall, Kusti Salm, a senior Estonian defense ministry official, estimated that Russia’s current ammunition production is seven times greater than that of the West.”

* And its shells cost 10x less to produce

– “It costs a Western country $5,000 to $6,000 to make a 155-millimeter artillery round, whereas it costs Russia about $600 to produce a comparable 152-millimeter artillery shell, he said.”

* Russia also now has more of some missile types than it did before the special operation

– “It does not have huge inventories of missiles, though they have more of some kinds — like the Kh-55 air-launched cruise missile — in stock now than they did at the beginning of the war, according to people briefed on intelligence reports.”

* Several backpacks’ worth of smuggled chips can make several hundred cruise missiles

– “In cases where Russia needs millions of one particular component, export controls can grind production to a halt. But the chips needed to make a couple of hundred cruise missiles would fit into a few backpacks, which makes evading sanctions relatively simple, Mr. Alperovitch said.”

* And only basic and widely available chips are needed, not high-tech and ultra-restricted ones

– “One of the challenges for the U.S. government is that Russia does not need higher-end chips that are easier to track, but commoditized chips that can be used in a wide range of things, not just guided missiles.”

* Russia is reportedly looking to North Korea to further bolster its arsenal

– “Even though Russia is on pace to produce two million rounds of ammunition a year, it fired about 10 million rounds of artillery last year. That has led Moscow to desperately search for alternative sources to increase its stocks, most recently by trying to secure a weapons deal with North Korea, U.S. and Western officials said.”

* That country or others could also theoretically help Russia procure additional materials

– “And although Moscow has been successful in smuggling processors and circuit boards, it is facing a shortage of rocket propellant and basic explosives, American officials said, material that can be harder to smuggle than circuit boards. Those shortages are likely to constrain Moscow if it tries to step up further production of ammunition, missiles or bombs.”

* North Korea can also help Russia fill potential labor shortages in its military-industrial complex

– “The country faces a labor shortage that could make further industrial gains harder to achieve too.”

———-

North Korea Can Make Everything Even Worse For NATO

The NYT’s latest report proves that the West’s sanctions policy failed to curtail Russia’s military-industrial production, which actually ended up surging over the past 18 months as a result of clandestine procurement and the successful transition to a wartime economy. Moreover, whatever gaps still exist in production, material, and labor can conveniently be addressed by North Korea, thus adding crucial strategic context to Kim Jong Un’s visit earlier this week.

The preceding hyperlinked analysis elaborates more on this in detail, but the pertinent takeaway to the present piece is that Russia appears willing to share high-level military technology with North Korea across a variety of domains from submarines to satellites in exchange for ammo, materials, and labor. Regarding the last-mentioned aspect of their potential deal, the NYT reported earlier this year that North Korean workers are performing various jobs in Russia’s Far East region.

The Argument For Importing (More?) North Korean Labor

They of course framed this a form of “slavery” that also violates UNSC sanctions, but in the event that there’s any truth to the gist of their report regarding the continued presence of these laborers in Russia, then it could set the basis for importing more to work in that country’s military-industrial complex. After all, some of the tasks required are rather menial, so any potential labor shortage could be filled by low-skilled foreign workers who don’t have to speak Russian to perform their jobs.

Professor Artyom Lukin from Russia’s Far Eastern Federal University hinted at this in his interview with Sputnik on Wednesday: “Lukin postulated that there is a considerable need of workers in the Russian Far East and Siberia, and that North Korea may provide a solution to this problem by supplying labor to Russia. ‘I would venture a guess that in the following months we may see North Korean workers at construction sites and in the fields in Russia.’”

UNSC International Obligations vs. Russian National Security

Even though he was talking about their involvement in other industries, the point is that this esteemed expert from one of Russia’s top universities specializing in regional affairs extended credence to the prediction that Kim Jong Un’s visit could lead to (more?) North Korean laborers in his country. As was earlier argued, they could easily be put to work in Russia’s military-industrial complex if needed, which would adequately address whatever labor shortages it might be experiencing right now.

Although President Putin and his spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia’s cooperation with North Korea will comply with the UNSC sanctions that Moscow previously approved, the case can be made that its international obligations won’t take precedence over national security needs. If the Kremlin concludes that ignoring those obligations could protect its people, help make progress on the special operation, and thus accelerate the global systemic transition, then it’ll cut “prohibited” deals with North Korea.

The Rationale For Russian-North Korean Strategic Relations

Kim Jong Un’s proclamation that “Relations with the Russian Federation is the main priority for our country at present” strongly suggests that he shares this view, which is likely why he made his trip in the first place. The North Korean leader knows that China won’t risk the threat of Western sanctions by going against its UNSC obligations to give him the high-level military technology that he needs, but Russia has nothing to fear in this respect and is therefore open to a deal if he helps meet its needs too.

Circling back to the NYT’s piece, Russia’s commanding lead in its “race of logistics” with NATO will grow even further in the event that a “prohibited” military deal with North Korea results in addressing whatever production, material, and/or labor gaps might still exist. Should that happen, then Russia would be in the best possible position to launch another ground offensive in the coming future and/or resume last fall’s strategic strike campaign aimed at crippling Ukrainian infrastructure.

Concluding Thoughts

The purpose in doing so would be to maximally pressure the West into forcing Zelensky to agree to freeze the conflict or formally return to the peace talks that they sabotaged in spring 2022, which he already fears that they might do as evidenced by an analysis of his latest interview with The Economist. If they refuse to comply with Russia’s implied demand, then they’d risk the scenario of it achieving a breakthrough sometime next year powered by the support that Pyongyang might soon provide.

Despite this drastically raising the odds that their proxy war on Russia will end in an Afghan-like disaster, the US’ liberal–globalist policymaking faction might still refuse to settle for a ceasefire, thus either making the aforesaid breakthrough a fait accompli or prompting them to unprecedentedly escalate. It remains to be seen which of these two scenarios will unfold, but either way, Russia’s lead in its “race of logistics” with NATO will continue growing and ultimately be a game-changer one way or the other.

September 14, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Peace, War and 9/11

Redacted News is proud to present “Peace, War and 9/11.” In this captivating documentary filmed six months before his passing, eminent scholar and lifelong peace activist Graeme MacQueen shares his final words on 9/11, the 2001 anthrax attacks, and the goal of abolishing war.

“Peace, War and 9/11” is a production of the International Center for 9/11 Justice. It is directed by Ted Walter and Richard Heap. Executive producers are Ted Walter and Marilyn Langlois. It is distributed by Questar Entertainment/Hipstr.

September 14, 2023 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Video | | Leave a comment

US offers to pay Polish media for Ukraine coverage

RT | September 13, 2023

The US Consulate General in Krakow is soliciting Polish outlets to write about Ukrainian refugees “returning and rebuilding,” it emerged on Wednesday. Washington is offering $50,000 for the year-long project.

The project “to promote coverage in Poland by local and regional media representatives of stories in Ukraine” was first spotted by a Telegram channel based in Belarus. It can be found at the website of the US embassy in Poland, under the designation WAW-NOFO-FY23-05.

It was unclear when the solicitation was originally posted. However, the deadline for submissions is end of the day Friday, September 15.

According to the post, the goal is to “promote in-depth reporting by local and regional Polish media of the return of Ukrainian families from Poland to Ukraine and their social and physical rebuilding efforts, particularly those built on partnerships between Poles and Ukrainians.”

The articles should fuel “public understanding of the challenges and opportunities faced by Ukrainians” as well as interest in Ukrainian “efforts to return and rebuild” and the “enduring impact of support provided by Polish society to Ukrainian refugees.”

The solicitation suggests the project would actually be given to a Polish NGO, with US embassy staff having “substantial involvement in the grant implementation, including reviewing and approving selection of participants, trainers, and award decisions within the project.”

The NGO would get a grant of $50,000 (about 215,500 zloty at the current exchange rate) and then have Polish journalists compete for portions of the money. The embassy would evaluate their success by the “quality and reach of reports generated.”

The project also includes at least one workshop teaching the reporters “culturally sensitive and trauma-informed manner and how to create compelling human-interest stories in this context,” taught by “experts in the intersection between mental health and journalism in war zones” and others with the relevant experience.

The entire project is slated to run for a single year, though Washington reserves the right to extend that if it’s judged to be “in the best interest of the US Department of State.”

There are approximately one million Ukrainian refugees in Poland at the moment. Multiple surveys of those who settled in EU countries show that more than 40% do not intend to return even if the conflict with Russia ends. Warsaw has reportedly already started sending men of military age back, even as other EU members have refused to do so on human rights grounds.

September 13, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

Life Not so Peachy for Biden as Impeachment Looms

By James Tweedie – Sputnik -13.09.2023

Joe Biden is now facing a congressional probe into his alleged influence-peddling abroad. Ted Harvey, a former senator in the Colorado state legislature, said the allegations were more damaging than impeachment proceedings would be.

Moves to impeach US President Joe Biden will undermine his political support and leadership of the Democratic Party, says a former state legislator.

Republican House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced a formal impeachment inquiry into Biden’s involvement in his son Hunter’s shady business dealings abroad — including in Ukraine during Biden’s time as vice-president to Barack Obama.

Files on Hunter Biden’s abandoned “laptop from hell” and testimony by whistleblowers indicate that the Democrat president sat in on online meetings with his son’s partners where payments in return for political influence were negotiated.

Fellow Republican Ted Harvey told Sputnik that the three main grounds for impeaching a president were “treason, bribery or high crimes and misdemeanors,” and there was copious evidence Biden was guilty of “one of the top two, bribery.”

“The more that comes out about what then Vice President Joe Biden did and his son did and his family did, it rises to the level of bribery and there’s bank statements that show the money coming in,” he pointed out. “There’s bank statements showing that they were distributing the money to various family members.”

“Though most speakers don’t want to do an impeachment, I think that the evidence is getting to a point where they have no other choice than to at least do a very serious investigation and all of the subpoena powers that come along with that,” Harvey said. “And I think it’s only going to get worse for Biden and the Democrats as this unfolds over the next year.”

The pundit argued that Biden’s grip on power was looking more tenuous as Democrats were now “getting very nervous with where the president is in his poll numbers.”

“And then he goes on his trip to Vietnam and Asia, and he is embarrassing not only the country, but he’s embarrassing himself,” Harvey said. “I’m as a partizan of a Republican as you can get, but I felt sorry for the president. Our country is in a terrible position right now where somebody who is obviously lost his cognitive abilities is leading the free world.”

He said Democrats were reluctant to “throw him overboard” before the next election as “Kamala Harris isn’t much better, and it puts their party in even worse position from a public polling perspective.”

But McCarthy continues to drip-feed damaging information on the Biden family to the media — a move seemingly focused on attacking Biden politically, not legally.

“It’s good politics to not provide all of the information that they have on the president until it gets closer to the election, and puts the Democrats in a bind where they already have their horse that they’ve chosen to ride into the 2024 election” Harvey said. “And I think he’s going to be a very compromised the more information that comes out.”

An impeachment may backfire, especially as the Republicans lack the numbers in the Senate to carry it through.

“You don’t want to strengthen Joe Biden. If you look at Bill Clinton when he was impeached, he left office as the most popular president ever and still is the most popular president ever from a polling perspective,” Harvey noted. “Look at Trump — he was impeached twice, and now he’s winning the Republican nomination by 60 percent and he’s beating Joe Biden.”

September 13, 2023 Posted by | Corruption | , | Leave a comment

White House tells media how to cover Biden impeachment

RT | September 13, 2023

White House lawyers have reportedly written a letter directing CNN, the New York Times and other US media outlets to scrutinize Republican lawmakers more aggressively as they try to impeach US President Joe Biden.

CNN and other recipients of the letter acknowledged getting the missive on Wednesday. “It’s time for the media to ramp up its scrutiny of House Republicans for opening an impeachment inquiry based on lies,” Ian Sams, a spokesman for the White House Counsel’s Office, wrote in the letter. He added that the impeachment efforts should “set off alarm bells for news organizations.”

US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California) launched the impeachment effort on Tuesday, directing committees of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives to open a formal inquiry. He said allegations of influence-peddling and solicitation of bribes by the Biden family “paint a picture of a culture of corruption.”

Even before receiving any guidance from the White House, some US media outlets already appeared to be trying to protect the president. CNN and Associated Press, for instance, suggested that Republicans were trying to prosecute Biden without having evidence to justify their investigation.

Those outlets apparently ignored such evidence as the sworn testimony of IRS whistleblowers and the records of bank transfers that lawmakers have already revealed. By launching impeachment proceedings, congressional committees will gain more power to subpoena documents that could help prove or debunk the allegations.

Veteran US journalist Matthew Keys, who has worked for such outlets as Reuters and Fox News, said the White House directive on impeachment coverage was “not OK.” He added, “The White House should not be encouraging, influencing or interfering in the editorial strategies of America’s newsrooms, including CNN and the New York Times.” The letter could backfire, Keys said, because “any time the media does try to hold Republicans to account, those lawmakers can simply counter by questioning whether it’s actual journalism or something encouraged by the Biden administration.”

Legal scholar Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University, said the directive “has an uncomfortable feeling of marching orders to the media.” By trying to influence coverage of the impeachment inquiry, he argued, the administration “removes any pretense of separation between the Biden personal legal team and the White House Counsel’s Office.”

Sams, who also serves as a senior adviser to Biden, claimed that Republicans had failed in nearly nine months of investigation to “turn up any evidence of the president doing anything wrong.” He added that impeachment is “grave, rare and historic,” and the press must treat the claims of Republicans with “appropriate scrutiny.” The White House official attached a 14-page appendix to his memo providing talking points to address Republican “lies.”

Democrats previously controlled the House and twice impeached then-President Donald Trump.

September 13, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | | Leave a comment

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