7 pics total of Dave Rubin’s visit twitter, first 5 here
https://twitter.com/RubinReport/status/1618667912377810945?s=20&t=Y-EQg8T4uGg4mesAzDH4aA
Last 2
https://twitter.com/RubinReport/status/1618667912377810945?s=20&t=Y-EQg8T4uGg4mesAzDH4aA
On Eve of RNC Election, Ron DeSantis Predictably Endorses Harmeet Dhillon for RNC Chair
January 26, 2023 | Sundance |
The pundits are noting the man who never expends political capital on an issue where he might lose, has finally expended some political capital. However, what the pundits don’t realize is this has all be gamed-out, strategized and planned by the people who manage Ron DeSantis. {Direct Rumble Link}
First, Mike Lindell announced he was going to challenge Ronna McDaniel for the RNC chair. This sent a shockwave through the Big Club because the potential for support from President Trump loomed over the Lindell announcement. America-First Mike Lindell is not controlled by corporate money, Wall Street, the multinationals or billionaire Big Donors who ultimately control the RNC as a big private club.
So, what happened?… Facing the possibility that Ronna McDaniel might be unseated, a week after Lindell’s announcement, Harmeet Dhillon steps into the picture.
Dhillion is a tenured Big Club member and voice for the billionaire class who fund her. Remember, Dhillon was paid over $1 million by the RNC, separate and above any costs connected to the Trump legal defense fund. Dhillon makes her money from the RNC, and if Lindell won the chairmanship, in addition to her friend losing the seat, Dhillon was financially at risk. Dhillon enters the race as an insurance policy, on behalf of the Big Club donors.
Notice that this interview is pre-taped. Charlie Kirk (TPUSA) the same group who organized the national campaign blitz after DeSantis’ 5 days in the bunker, strategically timed after the Mar-a-Lago raid, pre-tapes an interview with Ron DeSantis where the managed principal endorses Harmeet Dhillon for RNC chair. On the eve of the RNC vote, the interview is aired for maximum exposure. All of this is planned, coordinated, strategized and mapped out in advance. WATCH:
It’s not organic. All of this is scripted. All of it. Every bit of it. Harmeet Dhillon is already part of the DeSantis Big Club operation. The RNC roadmap in 2008 was for John McCain. The RNC roadmap for 2012 was for Mitt Romney. The RNC roadmap for 2016 was for Jeb Bush, and the RNC, Big Club, Wall Street, Billionaire and multinational corporate roadmap in 2024 is for Ron DeSantis. None of this is organic. All of this is scripted.
Once you see the strings….
Ironically, while advocating for Harmeet Dhillon, Ron DeSantis compares the ideology of Washington DC with the extreme left-wing ideology of Harmeet Dhillon’s hometown, San Francisco. lolol I bet the background manager squinted a little at that remark.
The Big Money that Steven Crowder was talking about in his media conflict with The Daily Wire, that’s the big money behind TPUSA. It’s all a conglomeration of Big Banks and multinational financial institutions, all operated within the same ideological outlook, that are behind the financial system that Charlie Kirk must adhere to.
Charlie Kirk, just like Ben Shapiro, is a puppet to the people in power with the money. They all have something in common.
All of these networked interests and stakeholders must make sure theRNC as a Big Club organization, is protected from those like Mike Lindell who they do not control.That’s the essential underpinning of all of this. The same stakeholders who were/are opposed to Donald Trump but were forced to back down a little after he became president.
It’s all about the money folks. That’s all this is about… Multiple millions for the RNC, multiple billions for the donor class on Wall Street and multiple trillions for the multinationals who operate in combination with government.
There are trillions at stake, and everything is about the economics of the thing.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/01/26/on-eve-of-rnc-election-ron-desantis-predictably-endorses-harmeet-dhillon-for-rnc-chair/
https://rumble.com/embed/v24mj9y/?pub=4
Here’s Why the Big Club and People Managing Ron DeSantis Hate Donald Trump 1 of 5
January 26, 2023 | Sundance | 61 Comments
President Trump transmitted a message to congress, warning them not to cut Social Security and Medicare {Direct Rumble Link}. Many politicians and pundits will look at Trump’s position from the perspective of it being good to campaign for older voters, but that’s not the core of his reasoning.
In 2016 CTH was the first place to evaluate the totality of President Trump’s economic policies; specifically, as those policies related to the entitlement programs around Social Security and Medicare. We outlined the approach Trump was putting forth and the way he was approaching the issue. In the years that followed, he was right. He was creating a U.S. economy that could sustain all of the elements the traditional political class were calling “unsustainable.”
Before getting to the details, here’s his video message and policy as delivered yesterday. WATCH:
Fortunately, we do not have to guess if President Trump is correct. We have his actual economic policy results to look at and see how the expansion of the economy was creating the type of growth that would sustain Social Security and Medicare. This was/is MAGAnomics at work.
♦ On Social Security – Unlike many other 2016 Republican candidates, Donald Trump did NOT call for rapid or wholesale changes to the current Social Security program; and there’s a very good reason why he was the only candidate who did not propose wholesale changes.
With the single caveat of “high income retirees” (over $250k annually), which previously Trump said he was open to negotiating on, President Trump does not consider these programs as “entitlements”. The American people pay into them, and the federal government has an obligation to fulfill the promises made upon collection.
To fully understand how Donald Trump views the solvency of Social Security, you must again understand his economic model and how it outlines growth.
The issue with Social Security, as viewed by Trump, is more of an issue with receipts and expenditures. If the aggregate U.S. economy is growing by a factor larger than the distribution needed to fulfill its entitlement obligations, then no wholesale change on expenditure is needed. The focus needs to be on continued and successful economic growth.
What you will find in all of Donald Trump’s positions, is a paradigm shift he necessarily understood must take place in order to accomplish the long-term goals for the U.S. citizen as it relates to “entitlements” or “structural benefits”.
All other candidates and politicians begin their policy proposals with a fundamentally divergent perception of the U.S. economy.
The customary political economy theory, carried by most politicians, positions them with an outlook of the U.S. economy based on “services”; a service-based economic model.
While this economic path has been created by decades old U.S. policy and is ultimately the only historical economic path now taught in school, President Trump initiated his economy policy with the intention to change the dynamic entirely, and that’s exactly what he did.
Because so many shifts -policy nudges- have taken place in the past several decades, few academics and even fewer MSM observers, were able to understand how to get off this path and chart a better course.
Donald Trump proposed less dependence on foreign companies for cheap goods, (the cornerstone of a service economy) and a return to a more balanced U.S. larger economic model where the manufacturing and production base can be re-established and competitive based on American entrepreneurship and innovation. This is the essence of MAGAnomics.
The key words in the prior statement are “dependence” and “balanced”. When a nation has an industrial manufacturing balance within the GDP there is far less dependence on the economic activity in global markets. In essence the U.S. can sustain itself, absorb global economic fluctuations and expand itself or contract itself depending on the free market…cont
https://rumble.com/v26croy-we-must-protect-medicare-and-social-security.html
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When there is no balance, there is no longer a free market. The free market is sacrificed in favor of dependency, whether it’s foreign oil or foreign manufacturing, the dependency outcome is essentially the same. Without balance there is an inherent loss of economic independence, and a consequential increase in economic risk.
No other economy in the world innovates like the U.S.A. President Donald Trump saw/sees this as a key advantage across all industry – including manufacturing and technology.
The benefit of cheap overseas labor, which is considered a global market disadvantage for the U.S., is offset by utilizing innovation and energy independence. This was the core of the economic program that created so much immediate GDP growth in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
2017: […] “This policy will be successful in moving the U.S. economy away from low-growth secular stagnation towards significantly more buoyant performance. We would not be taken by surprise by a doubling of the growth rate of real GDP in the U.S. over the next two years, nor by a further significant move up of equity valuations and a material further appreciation of the dollar.” ~ David Folkerts-Landau, Chief Economist, Deutsche Bank
The third highest variable cost of goods beyond raw materials first, labor second, is energy. If the U.S. energy sector was unleashed -and fully developed- the manufacturing price of any given product would allow for global trade competition even with higher U.S. wage prices. This is why President Trump traveled to Saudi Arabia as his first foreign trip, followed closely by a trip to Asia. He was putting the basics of his U.S. economic policy into place.
Additionally, the U.S. has a key strategic advantage with raw manufacturing materials such as: iron ore, coal, steel, precious metals and vast mineral assets which are needed in most new modern era manufacturing. President Trump proposed we stopped selling these valuable national assets to countries we compete against – they belong to the American people; they should be used for the benefit of American citizens. Period. This was the central point of the Steel and Aluminum tariffs.
EXAMPLE: Prior to President Trump, China was buying and recycling our heavy (steel) and light (aluminum) metal products (for pennies on the original manufacturing dollar) and then using those metals to reproduce manufactured goods for sale back to the U.S.
As President, Donald Trump stopped that practice immediately, triggering a policy expectation that we do the manufacturing ourselves with the utilization of our own resources. Then he leveraged any sales of these raw materials in our international trade agreements.
When you combine FULL resource development (in a modern era) with the removal of over-burdensome regulatory and compliance systems, necessarily filled with enormous bureaucratic costs, Donald Trump began lowering the cost of production and the U.S. became globally competitive. In essence, Trump changed the economic paradigm, and we no longer were a dependent nation relying on a service driven economic model.
The cornerstone to the success of this economic turnaround was the keen capability of the U.S. worker to innovate on their own platforms. Americans, more than any country in the world, just know how to get things accomplished. Independence and self-sufficiency are part of the DNA of the larger American workforce.
In addition, as we saw in 2018 and 2019, an unquantifiable benefit came from investment, where the smart money play -to get increased return on investment- became putting capital INTO the U.S. economy, instead of purchasing foreign stocks.
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With all of the above opportunities in mind, this is how President Trump put us on a pathway to rebuilding our national infrastructure.
The demand for labor increased, and as a consequence so too did the U.S. wage rate which was stagnant (or non-existent) for the past three decades.
As the wage rate increased, and as the economy expanded, the governmental dependency model was reshaped and simultaneously receipts to the U.S. treasury improved.
More money into the U.S Treasury and less dependence on welfare/social service programs have a combined exponential impact. You gain a dollar and have no need to spend a dollar – the saved sum is doubled. That was how the SSI and safety net programs were positioned under President Trump. Again, this is MAGAnomics.
When you elevate your America First economic thinking you begin to see that all of the “entitlements” or expenditures become more affordable with an economy that is fully functional.
As the GDP of the U.S. expands, so does our ability to meet the growing need of the retiring U.S. worker. We stop thinking about how to best divide a limited economic pie and begin thinking about how many more economic pies we can create. Simply put, we begin to….
…. Make America Great Again!
We know it works, because we have the results to cite.
It was the Fourth Quarter of 2019…..
Right before the pandemic would hit a few months later…. Despite two years of doomsayer predictions from Wall Street’s professional punditry, all of them saying Trump’s 2017 steel and aluminum tariffs on China, Canada and the EU would create massive inflation, it just wasn’t happening!
Overall year-over-year inflation was hovering around 1.7 percent [Table-A BLS]; yup, that was our inflation rate. The rate in the latter half of 2019 was firmed up with less month-over-month fluctuation, and the rate basically remained consistent. [See Below] The U.S. economy was on a smooth glide path, strong, stable and Main Street was growing with MAGAnomics at work.
A couple of important points. First, unleashing the energy sector to drive down overall costs to consumers and industry outputs was a key part of President Trump’s America-First MAGAnomic initiative. Lower energy prices help the worker economy, middle class and average American more than any other sector.
Which brings us to the second important point. Notice how food prices had very low year-over-year inflation, 0.5 percent. That is a combination of two key issues: low energy costs, and the fracturing of Big Ag hold on the farm production and the export dynamic:
(BLS) […] The index for food at home declined for the third month in a row, falling 0.2 percent. The index for meats, poultry, fish, and eggs decreased 0.7 percent in August as the index for eggs fell 2.6 percent. The index for fruits and vegetables, which rose in July, fell 0.5 percent in August; the index for fresh fruits declined 1.4 percent, but the index for fresh vegetables rose 0.4 percent. The index for cereals and bakery products fell 0.3 percent in August after rising 0.3 percent in July. (link)
For the previous twenty years food prices had been increasingly controlled by Big Ag, and not by normal supply and demand. The commodity market became a ‘controlled market’. U.S. food outputs (farm production) was controlled and exported to keep the U.S. consumer paying optimal prices.
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President Trump’s trade reset was disrupting this process. As farm products were less exported the cost of the food in our supermarket became reconnected to a ‘more normal’ supply and demand cycle. Food prices dropped and our pantry costs were lowered.
The Commerce Dept. then announced that retail sales climbed by 0.4 percent in August 2019, twice as high as the 0.2 percent analysts had predicted. The result highlighted retail sales strength of more than 4 percent year-over-year. These excellent results came on the heels of blowout data in July, when households boosted purchases of cars and clothing.
The better-than-expected number stemmed largely from a 1.8 percent jump in spending vehicles. Online sales, meanwhile, also continued to climb, rising 1.6 percent. That’s similar to July 2019, when Amazon held its two-day, blowout Prime Day sale. (link)
Despite the efforts to remove and impeach President Trump, it did not look like middle-class America was overly concerned about the noise coming from the pundits. Likely that’s because blue-collar wages were higher, Main Street inflation was lower, and overall consumer confidence was strong. Yes, MAGAnomics was working.
Additionally, remember all those MSM hours and newspaper column inches where the professional financial pundits were claiming Trump’s tariffs were going to cause massive increases in prices of consumer goods?
Well, exactly the opposite happened [BLS report] Import prices were continuing to drop:
This was a really interesting dynamic that no-one in the professional punditry would dare explain.
Donald Trump’s tariffs were targeted to specific sectors of imported products. [Steel, Aluminum, and a host of smaller sectors etc.] However, when the EU and China respond by devaluing their currency, that approach hit all products imported, not just the tariff goods.
Because the EU and China were driving up the value of the dollar, everything we were importing became cheaper. Not just imports from Europe and China, but actually imports from everywhere. All imports were entering the U.S. at substantially lower prices.
This meant when we imported products, we were also importing deflation.
This price result is exactly the opposite of what the economic experts and Wall Street pundits predicted back in 2017 and 2018 when they were pushing the rapid price increase narrative.
Because all the export dependent economies were reacting with such urgency to retain their access to the U.S. market, aggregate import prices were actually lower than they were when the Trump tariffs began:
[…] Prices for imports from China edged down 0.1 percent in August following decreases of 0.2 percent in both July and June. Import prices from China have not advanced on a monthly basis since ticking up 0.1 percent in May 2018. The price index for imports from China fell 1.6 percent for the year ended in August.
[…] Import prices from the European Union fell 0.2 percent in August and 0.3 percent over the past 12 months.
[Page #4 – BLS Report, pdf] – BLS press release.
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So yes, we know President Trump can save Social Security and Medicare by expanding the economy with his America First economic policy. We do not need to guess if it is possible or listen to pundits theorize about his approach being some random ‘catch phrase’ disconnected from reality. Yes folks, we have the receipts.
This was MAGAnomics at work, and this is entirely what created the middle-class MAGA coalition. No other Republican candidate has this economic policy in their outlook because all other candidates are purchased by the Wall Street multinationals.
America First MAGAnomics is unique to President Trump because he is the only one independent enough to implement them.
That’s just the reality of the situation. They hate him for it…
Donald Trump American Solutions Part I
Donald Trump American Solutions Part II
Donald Trump “America First” Conservative Solutions Part III
Donald Trump “America First” Conservative Solutions Part IV
Author’s note as said in 2016: “If I absolutely did not believe this economic model was doable, I would never expand the concept and place advocacy upon it. I am an absolute believer that we can, as a nation, reignite a solid manufacturing base and generate an expanding middle class.”Yes, I bet on Trump, and he was right.
MAGA-Trump-1.jpeg
Here's Why the Big Club and People Managing Ron DeSantis Hate Donald Trump - The Last Refuge
theconservativetreehouse.com
https://rumble.com/v26croy-we-must-protect-medicare-and-social-security.html
27 Jan, 2023 11:34
EU mission a threat to regional peace – Moscow
Russia's Foreign Ministry says Brussels’ monitors in Armenia are seeking a foothold for the West
The expansion of the EU monitoring mission in Armenia on the border with Azerbaijan, which was announced this week, adds no value to regional stability and may make things worse, the Russian Foreign Ministry has warned.
“The EU’s attempts to get a foothold in Armenia and sideline Russia’s mediation effortsmay damage the core interests of Armenians and Azerbaijanisas they pursue a return to peaceful development of the region,”a statement released by the ministry on Thursday said.
Moscow described the EU as “an appendage of the US and NATO” and assessed that its “confrontational policy” can only “bring geopolitical confrontation and aggravate existing disagreements”. The mission’s stated civilian nature should not “deceive” anyone, Russia said.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell announced the border patrol mission on Monday. Its goal is “sustainable peace in the region”, according to the top diplomat. The EU mission is scheduled to run for at least two years, and follows on from a program launched in October, involving some 40 observers.
“If officials in Brussels were really interested in peace in the Transcaucasian region, they would have consulted with Azerbaijan about the terms of the mission,” the Russian ministry stressed.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have a decades-old dispute over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, a part of Azerbaijan with a predominantly ethnic-Armenian population, which claims to be an independent state. In 2020, the two nations fought a 44-day war, which ended with a Russian-brokered truce.
Last September, tensions flared up again on the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, with dozens of soldiers reported killed on both sides. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan requested military assistance from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a regional group that includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. The organization opted for diplomatic resolution and sent an observer mission in the wake of the clashes.
Yerevan “chose the EU before the CSTO mission could achieve its logical conclusion,”the Russian Foreign Ministry remarked, suggesting that the observers could be deployed again, should the Armenian government request it.
https://www.rt.com/russia/570556-ue-monitors-armenia-azerbaijan/
27 Jan, 2023 13:49
Mercenary monopoly: Why the US is really so worried about Russia's Wagner 1 of 2
Having used private contractors like Blackwater for decades, Washington is now 'concerned' about the new household-name PMC
Interference in other countries' affairs via private contractors has long been a staple of US influence operations. Now, Washington is trying to accuse Russia of doing the same, and it's suddenly a bad thing.
First off the mark doesn’t always win the race. Does anyone remember when BlackBerry mobile devices were everywhere and barely anyone had heard of an iPhone, for example? Well, the US created the BlackBerry of private military/security contractors – Blackwater – after decades of outsourcing military and intelligence operations through various front companies. And now they’re so preoccupied with the new iPhone equivalent – Russia’s Wagner Group – that Washington is tracking its activities (including unconfirmed ops) in Ukraine, Syria, across Africa, and Serbia, according to cables obtained by POLITICO.
“The US government is concerned about the extent to which Wagner is interfering in sovereign countries’ internal politics, violating human rights, and robbing them of their mineral wealth,” according to a “senior administration official” cited in the report. Leaving aside Washington’s newfound concern for developing countries’ sovereignty over their mineral wealth when that’s often the main underlying reason why they’re typically targeted by the US for some freedom and democracy through firepower in the first place, it’s hard to ignore that the presence of the Wagner Group seems to be concentrated in locations already known for being targeted by clandestine US and allied activities.
Last year, for example, Mali chose the Wagner Group for a new partnership after kicking out French forces whose efforts to secure the country were so spectacular that there were two coups d’etat in as many years. Wagner Group’s possible presence in Serbia is now being widely discussed. The PMC has allegedly established itself in a “cultural center”in Belgrade, but these claims, initially sourced from a Telegram post, have been denied both by Wagner head Evgeny Prigozhin and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, who also recently criticized Serbian-language Wagner recruitment ads that appeared on social media.
If these claims do turn out to be true down the line, it sounds like Serbia was looking for some hired help to prevent the country from becoming a flophouse for Western-backed regime-change chancers targeting Moscow and its top ally, Belgrade. And the presence of Western private military contractors in Ukraine has been well-established, with job offers reportedly popping up right from the outset of the conflict. “Wanted: multilingual former soldiers willing to covertly head into Ukraine for the handsome sum of up to $2,000 per day – plus bonus – to help rescue families from an increasingly grim conflict,” read one. Beyond this covert security role, one would have to be pretty naive to think that, under the cover of the fog of war, a little mission creep towards kinetic operations isn’t tempting.
It was the US government that created the blueprint for modern day defense contracting when a certain Erik Prince – a son of the car vanity mirror inventor, Edgar Prince, one of the Republican Party’s top donors at the time and a pal of former US defense secretary (and later vice president) Dick Cheney – created Blackwater, which went on to obtain lucrative no-bid security contracts for the US government in Iraq and Afghanistan during Washington’s global war on terrorism. The company started to resemble a retirement home for officials and executives from the CIA and the Pentagon, who conveniently slid over to Blackwater to enjoy a lucrative payday. And despite the company developing a cowboy reputation from incidents like when Blackwater personnel opened fire and killed 14 civilians in Iraq’s Nisour Square in 2007, the US private security model has thrived under subsequent US administrations..
https://www.rt.com/news/570075-us-blackwater-russia-wagner-group/
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Blackwater brought to light the kind of covert operations that had long been outsourced by Washington for reasons of plausible deniability. The firm itself “created a web of more than 30 shell companies or subsidiaries in part to obtain millions of dollars in American government contracts after the security company came under intense criticism for reckless conduct in Iraq,” according to the New York Times. The company worked for foreign governments like Jordan to trainhelicopter pilots with US government funding, trained Canadian special forces for two years, and worked directly with the CIA in what the New York Times has described as a “secret program to track and assassinate senior Al-Qaeda figures.” So despite its rather benign-seeming official US government contracts for the protection of American personnel in conflict zones, it nonetheless served as a direct extension of Washington’s defense, intelligence, and foreign policy interests in the same way as others also funded by the CIA through aid programs.
In one such program, dating back to 2010, private contractors were hired with USAID money to execute influence operations in Cuba through the creation of a Twitter-like social media network called ZunZuneo. The idea was to reel in unsuspecting Cubans through “non-controversial content,” only to ultimately usher the mob towards civil unrest.
At the height of the Cold War, the CIA fundedjournalist and feminist activist Gloria Steinem’s work under the “Independent Research Service,” a front group that organizedinternational youth festivals with the objective of influencing youth from around the world presenting a more attractive alternative to Soviet revolutionism.
Air America infamously provided a covert front for the CIA and Pentagon to provide critical support for US military and intelligence operations in theaters across the world, ranging from the war in Vietnam to the botched Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, before being disbanded in 1974.
These examples that have made it out into the public domain are just the tip of the iceberg.
The real problem with the Wagner Group for the US and its allies is that it competes with Western counterparts and could serve to protect the interests of clients that depart from the Western agenda. If the US government has a problem with that now, they might do well to remember that they were the ones who set that particular ball rolling in the first place.
27 Jan, 2023 12:41
Trump ‘not far away from truth’ on Ukraine – Kremlin
Former president is right in sense that the current US leader could swiftly settle the Moscow-Kiev conflict, Dmitry Peskov said
Former US President Donald Trump has basically nailed it by suggesting that the White House could put an end to the Ukraine conflict in no time, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.
Hours earlier, Trump had claimed on his social media platform Truth Social that if he “were president, the Russia/Ukraine war would never have happened.” Even if it did and he were still US President, Trump “would be able to negotiate an end to this horrible and rapidly escalating war within 24 hours,” he argued.
Commenting on this remark at a media briefing, Peskov stated that Trump is “theoretically… not far away from the truth.”
“Indeed, should the US President wish to put an end to this conflict, he could do it very quickly, using the opportunity to simply give instructions to the Kiev regime,” the Kremlin spokesman said.
Such a result is impossible to achieve “overnight or in a couple of days, but in many respects the key to the Kiev regime resides in Washington’s hands,” he stressed.
However, Peskov continued, US President Joe Biden seems reluctant to embrace such a policy, opting instead for “pumping Ukraine with weapons even further.”
Earlier this week, the White House announced the decision to deliver 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine.
Russia has repeatedly stated that it is open to talks with Ukraine, but only if Ukraine “recognizes the reality on the ground,”including the new status of the regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye as parts of Russia.
Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that while Moscow is “ready to respond to all serious proposals” regarding how to overcome the Ukraine crisis, it is “the West which decides for Ukraine” and it doesn't give Kiev a chance to make any decisions on its own.
https://www.rt.com/russia/570561-trump-right-ukraine-peskov/
27 Jan, 2023 11:54
South Korea unveils path to ‘normalize’ ties with Pyongyang
Seoul will seek “direct and indirect” contacts with North Korea, the government said
South Korea will use NGOs and international bodies to tilt Pyongyang towards the restart of dialogue, the country’s Unification Ministry said on Friday. It added that the ban on North Korean media may be eased as a goodwill gesture.
The South Korean Unification Ministry, tasked with engaging with Pyongyang, said the government would “seek direct and indirect contact with North Korea through civic groups and international organizations in a bid to open up chances to improve strained inter-Korean ties.”
According to the Yonhap news agency, the Unification Ministry now plans to devise a more detailed strategy provisionally named the New Future Initiative on Unification. As one of the measures, the ministry said it was considering allowing people to read the Rodong Sinmun, the leading North Korean newspaper, at designated spots, but online access would not be allowed. North Korean media is currently banned in South Korea.
North Korea suspended nearly all cooperation with South Korea in 2019 after its negotiations with the US had broken down.
“It is important for North Korea to come back to dialogue with sincerity,” Unification Minister Kwon Young-se said. He added that, although Seoul has remained open to restarting negotiations with Pyongyang, his government was not considering making a concrete offer to North Korea at the moment.
At the same time, newspaper Kyunghyang Shinmun quoted the Unification Ministry as saying that Seoul was hoping to push its neighbor towards negotiations by strengthening diplomatic and economic pressure on North Korea and by maintaining the alliance with the US. “We will create conditions, in which North Korea… will have no choice but to come to dialogue,” Kwon said, as quoted by the newspaper.
Last year, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s sister, Kim Yo-jong, rejected Seoul’s offer of economic benefits in exchange for denuclearization as “foolish.”
South Korea’s outreach plan comes after months of heightened tensions across the Korean Peninsula as Pyongyang stepped up missile tests last year and has enshrined the use of nuclear weapons into national law. Kim Jong-un, meanwhile, demanded that Seoul and the US stop conducting joint military drills, which Pyongyang considers a threat to its security.
Last month, South Korea accused its neighbor of flying several drones across the border, one of which had reached the outskirts of Seoul. “The North Korean authorities must immediately halt provocations that threaten the survival of our people and respond to our government’s offers for talks,” Unification Vice Minister Kim Ki-woong said on Sunday.
(A few short months ago they were buying weapons in the event of war, I wonder who spoke to them? Interesting picture, the demarcation line)
https://www.rt.com/news/570559-south-korea-normalization-plan/
27 Jan, 2023 11:17
EU claims to have found way to access frozen Russian funds – Bloomberg
Brussels reportedly wants to use the seized assets to rebuild Ukraine
The European Union has told member states that it has legal authority to temporarily leverage a hefty amount of Russian Central Bank assets to pay for the rebuilding of Ukraine, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The mechanism could reportedly involve as much as €33.8 billion ($36.8 billion) of the funds frozen by the bloc as part of the Ukraine-related sanctions imposed on Moscow.
According to the EU’s Council Legal Service, the plan is legally feasible if the assets aren’t expropriated and certain conditions are met. These include a termination date, a focus on liquid assets, and clarity that the principal and interest would be returned to Russia at some point, according to people close to the discussions.
The Group of Seven (G7) and the EU reportedly failed to find a clear legal basis for simply confiscating Russian assets.
Instead, Brussels is considering the idea of pooling the frozen assets together at EU or international level to generate returns that could be used to finance the rebuilding of Ukraine.
According to a number of estimates, the Russian Central Bank’s frozen assets amount to some $300 billion worldwide. EU officials had previously said almost €34 billion ($37 billion) of the funds are sitting in EU-based deposits. The figure is, however, still under assessment.
In November, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed that the bloc’s authorities should create a special structure to manage the frozen Russian funds and invest them with a view to using the proceeds for Ukraine.
The Russian government has repeatedly called the freezing of the country’s assets “theft,” and warned that the step contravenes international law. According to Moscow, the very idea of international reserves has been discredited by the use of the US dollar as a weapon in the sanctions war against Russia.
(The EU are nuts and this is done to provoke)
https://www.rt.com/business/570552-eu-russia-assets-sanctions/
27 Jan, 2023 10:10
EU state slams Kiev over 'brutal' military draft from ethnic minority
Budapest's Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has blasted Ukraine’s conscription of Transcarpathian Hungarians
Ethnic Hungarians living in Ukraine are being enrolled in its armed forces to fight Russia, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has claimed. Kiev's crisis “is not our war” but it hurts Hungarian people, the official stated, which is why Budapest wants it resolved swiftly.
Unfortunately, “peace is rarely spoken about, and those who talk about it are even stigmatized and criticized,” the top Hungarian diplomat argued, speaking on the sidelines of an open debate at the UN Security Council on Thursday. Hungarians are paying a price for it, both economically and with their lives, he added.
“In addition to Ukrainians, Hungarians also die in this war, since Hungarians living in Transcarpathia are being conscripted into the Ukrainian army, too. We’ve seen some footage in recent days of how brutal it sometimes is,”Szijjarto told journalists.
Ukraine has a significant ethnic Hungarian minority living in the region of Transcarpathia, which has long been the focus of tensions between Kiev and Budapest. Hungary has denounced Ukrainian laws that discriminate against non-Ukrainians in education and in other spheres of public life. Ukraine has claimed that its western neighbor undermines its authority with its outreach policies, including by offering Hungarian citizenship to people in Transcarpathia.
Some Hungarian media recently reported on claims that the Ukrainian government was conducting mass military mobilization of ethnic Hungarians, using all sorts of tricks to boost military numbers. Hundreds have been signed up, many against their will, to compensate for the loss of manpower in the east, the news outlet Pesti Sracok claimed. The report said that Kiev is rumored to be planning to get asmany as 10,000 people in Transcarpathia to take up arms within months.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenksky revealed last Sunday that he had ordered the Defense Ministry to boost reserves of manpower, to allow for rotation of troops on the frontline.
“Frankly, I cannot tell everything about how the mobilization processes go. They happen, they must happen, and we really need them,” he explained.
Ukrainian forces reportedly suffered heavy losses in recent weeks. Germany’s Federal Intelligence Agency (BND) estimates that Kiev suffered daily fatalities measured in three-digit numbers in the fighting for the key Donbass city of Artyomovsk, called Bakhmut in Ukraine, according to Der Spiegel.
https://www.rt.com/news/570553-ukraine-mobilization-hungarian-minority/
The Ghoul of Death Boris Johnson spotting off again! The US invaded and did a coup in Ukraine and its Russia’s fault
The West should have clamped down on Russia at the start of the Ukraine crisis nine years ago rather than waiting for large-scale hostilities to break out in 2022, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson claimed on Thursday.
Speaking to Ukraine’s Rada TV Channel, Johnson claimed such a punishment “would have been serious, but we did nothing,” referring to the 2014 events in Donbass and Crimea.
At the time, a Western-backed coup in Kiev prompted a popular revolt in eastern Ukraine and led to Crimea seceding from Ukraine and voting to join Russia.
“What sanctions did we put on [in 2014]? They launched this diplomatic imitation called the Normandy process and achieved nothing. And [Russian President Vladimir] Putin concluded that the West would not stop him. That was a mistake,” he said, adding that this “fundamental lesson” was learned by all parties.
https://www.rt.com/russia/570543-johnson-diplomatic-imitation-ukraine/
27 Jan, 2023 14:50
Thousands of Italians sign up against Zelensky speech
The actor-turned-president is due to speak at the country’s largest song competition
Tens of thousands of Italians have signed a petition protesting Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’splanned address at a Eurovision-style song contest. Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini told reporters that the event “should remain the festival of Italian song and nothing else.”
The petition, which blames the Ukrainian conflict on NATO and on Kiev’s “brutal repression” of Russian-speakers in Donbass, has gained around 33,000 signatures, Reuters reported on Friday morning.
It calls on the organizers of the Sanremo Music Festival – a Eurovision-style contest held every year since the 1950s – to withdraw their invitation to Zelensky, who is set to speak via video link on the final night of the contest on February 11.
“Zelensky? I don’t know how he sings,” Salvini told journalists on Thursday. “If I have time to watch [state television] it will be to listen to songs, not to listen to anything else.”
Salvini said that while he supports the “Western position” on the conflict, the stage at Sanremo should “remain reserved for music.”
Former lawmaker Alessandro Di Battista is organizing a “counter-festival” to protest Zelensky’s appearance, Italy’s Il Post newspaper reported, while Gianni Cuperlo of the center-left Democratic Party declared that the organizers of the Sanremo festival shouldn’t “confuse” politics with entertainment.
In the 11 months since Russia’s military operation in Ukraine began, Zelensky has been on a PR blitz in the West. The former actor and comedian has addressed the Glastonbury music festival in the UK, spoken at the Cannes and Venice film festivals, and earlier this month appeared at the Golden Globes, all via video link from Kiev.
Zelensky himself requested permission to speak at Sanremo, Il Post reported.
Support for Zelensky and NATO’s efforts in Ukraine is lower in Italy than in most Western European countries. According to a poll published earlier this month, 50% of Italians oppose their country’s arms shipments to Kiev, while around the same number favor a quick end to the conflict, even if that involves Ukraine conceding lost territory.
Nevertheless, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has pledged her “full commitment to supporting the Ukrainian cause.”
https://www.rt.com/news/570574-zelensky-italy-speech-salvini/
US going full on Nazi when Zelensky adoration is more important than principles
https://www.rt.com/news/568838-lawmaker-calls-zelensky-speech-north-korea-style-act/
27 Jan, 2023 14:45
Kremlin responds to Nuland’s sanctions offer.
The senior US diplomat has rehashed old talking points that are unacceptable for Moscow, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said
The US is leaving no room for compromise on sanctions and potential negotiations with Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.
His statement came after US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland suggested that restrictions on Moscow could be eased if it hands back its newly incorporated territories to Ukraine.
“We still don’t see anything [new] in Madame Nuland’s words.We are absolutely not inclined to exaggerate their importance,” Peskov told reporters.
The spokesman added that Nuland “has practically repeated the set of theses that show… the lack of flexibility in the position of the US, which, in turn, is completely different from our position.”
During a hearing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday, Nuland said that Secretary of State Antony Blinken would “favor sanctions relief” if Moscow decides to “negotiate seriously and withdraw its forces from Ukraine and return territory.”
In December 2013, Nuland openly backed the anti-government protests in Kiev. She toured the capital’s main square, the Maidan, offering loaves of bread and other snacks to protesters and police officers. Two months later, a leaked phonecall revealed that Nuland was discussing who should be included in Ukraine’s new government with Geoffrey Pyatt, the US ambassador to the country at the time.
Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine in late February last year, citing the need to protect the people of Donbass, and Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk 2014-15 peace accords. The Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, together with two other former Ukrainian territories – the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions – became parts of Russia after referendums on the matter in September. Crimea did the same shortly after the 2014 coup in Kiev.
Ukrainian officials have insisted on the surrender of the territories by Russia as a precondition for future negotiations. In addition, President Vladimir Zelensky signed a decree last year stating “the impossibility” of holding talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Zelensky told Sky News on Wednesday that he was not interested in a meeting with Putin, who he said was “a nobody” to him.
Moscow has previously stressed that demands to give up land are unacceptable. Peskov said on Thursday that Zelensky was untrustworthy as “he did not intend to implement the [Minsk] agreements and was preparing for war.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claimed last month that the Ukrainian leadership was dominated by “brazen Russophobes” incapable of negotiating.
https://www.rt.com/russia/570569-peskov-nuland-ukraine-sanctions/
Kek
26 Jan, 2023 22:03
Nobody told me we’re at war – NATO state's president
The US and Germany might be at war with Russia, but that is news to Croatia, said Zoran Milanovic
Commenting on the German foreign minister’s declaration that Europe is “fighting a war against Russia,” Croatian President Zoran Milanovic said on Thursday that this was news to him, and wished Berlin better luck than in WWII.
Croatia “should in no way help” Ukraine militarily, Milanovic said while visiting the port city of Split. “Do you want us to enter the war?”
Framing the Ukraine conflict as one between Washington and Moscow, he reminded reporters that he was criticized for merely echoing the words of Kiev’s defense minister, about the current conflict being a “proxy war”between NATO and Russia.
“Now the German foreign minister says we must be united, because I quote, we are at war with Russia. I didn’t know that,” Milanovic said. “Maybe Germany is at war with Russia, but then, good luck, maybe this time it turns out better than 70-odd years ago.”
The Croatian president was baffled to hear such a claim from the leader of the German Greens, which he said used to be a pacifist party equally against the US and the USSR, and not from Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
“If we are at war with Russia, then let’s see what we need to do. But we won’t ask Germany for its opinion,” Milanovic added. “Let them figure out who is the actual chancellor over there. I’ve been in politics for a long time, and our country has been through a lot, butI’ve never seen this kind of madness before.”
When it comes to tanks, “Russian or American,they burn just the same,” Milanovic said, noting that deliveries of armor to Ukraine – announced by the US and Germany this week – will only prolong the fighting,
“Those tanks may burn, or they may reach Crimea, but Croatia will have nothing to do with it,” he insisted. The social-democrat president has frequently clashed with the nationalist parliamentary majority over Croatia’s Ukraine policy. Just last month, Milanovic opposed Zagreb’s participation in the EU program to train Ukrainian troops, saying it clashed with Croatia’s constitution.
Unless the US and Russia are holding some kind of talks,the world is “slowly sliding into World War Three,” Milanovic added. “Some people think it has already begun, but I have my reservations.”
https://www.rt.com/news/570537-croatia-ukraine-war-russia-president/
Yes, yes, yes! Everyone should pull their money out of the black company trying to destroy America
No wonder she’s fighting like a dog and promising millions to the 168.
I never liked her anyway. I hope Lindell wins because Harmeet is not much better than Ronna. All of Harmeets supporters say she is anaccomplished attorney, which is even a bigger reason not to hire her for RNC. They suck the money out if everything they touch
Biden Releases Latest Plan to Funnel Illegal Migrants into the United States
Hiding the scope of the border disaster by playing a shell gameThe Biden administration released its latest plan to funnel illegal migrants into the United States, summarized in a fact sheet inaptly titled “Biden-Harris Administration Announces New Border Enforcement Actions” because there’s little “enforcement” in it. My colleagues will be analyzing the massive (and illegal) “parole” for up to 360,000 aliens per year included in the plan, but I just wanted to quickly translate a few of the White House’s proposals into English.
Current Law. When aliens are apprehended entering the United States illegally, DHS has two choices on how to process them: (1) expedited removal under section 235(b)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA); or (2) “regular” removal under section 235(b)(2) of the INA.
Expedited removal is exactly what it sounds like: A fast-track process by which aliens who have no documents allowing them to be admitted (including illegal entrants) are quickly removed.
The defect in that fast-track process is the requirement that aliens who have asserted a fear of harm or who have expressly requested asylum are to be sent to an asylum officer from USCIS to determine whether they have a “credible fear” of persecution.
Credible fear is a screening process to determine whether the alien may be eligible for asylum, and consequently the standard for credible fear is low: “a significant possibility, taking into account the credibility of the statements made by the alien in support of the alien's claim and such other facts as are known to the officer, that the alien could establish eligibility for asylum”.
That defect would not be fatal were it not for a decision made under the Obama administration in December 2009 to release on parole aliens who had received positive credible fear determinations from an asylum officer.
That directly contravened a requirement in section 235(b)(1) of the INA that aliens subject to expedited removal be detained, from the moment that they are apprehended until they are either granted asylum or removed.
Up until FY 2010 (the fiscal year in which that Obama parole directive was issued), only about 5 percent of aliens subject to expedited removal claimed a fear of harm or requested asylum. In FY 2010, that rose to 7 percent, then to 15 percent in FY 2013, 25 percent in FY 2015, and 39 percent in FY 2016.
Would-be illegal migrants — and more importantly their smugglers — realized that a credible fear claim was a “quick ticket” to entry into the United States, particularly given that the credible fear standard was low and that the rate at which asylum officers issued positive credible fear determinations (81 percent between FY 2008 and the fourth quarter of FY 2019) was consequently sky high.
By the time Trump took office in FY 2017, 44 percent of aliens subject to expedited removal were claiming credible fear, a figure that climbed to 48 percent of the more than 178,000 aliens in expedited removal proceedings by FY 2018. Trump at that point could not detain the more than 65,000 aliens who had received positive credible fear determinations, and so he could not reverse the Obama-era release policy…
https://cis.org/Arthur/Biden-Releases-Latest-Plan-Funnel-Illegal-Migrants-United-States
It will be edited and then its back to court