Nuclear war is imminent – North Korea

The US should abandon its “hostile” policy if it is truly interested in dialogue, Pyongyang believes

The world is just a step away from nuclear conflict, North Korean Defense Minister General Kang Sun-nam said in a statement made public on Tuesday and presented at the XI Moscow International Security Conference.

The official blamed Washington’s desire for a regime change in Pyongyang for ratcheting up tensions. He also accused the US of increasing its military presence in the region by deploying nuclear-capable aircraft and a submarine to the area.

“Now, the question is not if a nuclear war breaks out on the Korean Peninsula, but who and when it starts,” Kang warned. In this year alone, the US sent “massive strategic arms” to the region, including a nuclear-capable submarine, an aircraft carrier group, and a nuclear-capable bomber, he added.

The US Navy’s Carrier Strike Group 11, led by its flagship, the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, arrived at a South Korean military port in late March, soon after Pyongyang unveiled its new, smaller nuclear warheads, which can supposedly be mounted on short-range ballistic missiles.

In late June, a US B-52 strategic bomber took part in the joint drills with South Korea. Just two weeks later, America also deployed its Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine, the USS Kentucky, to South Korea. Armed with 20 Trident II ballistic missiles, the undersea vessel carries a total of 80 nuclear warheads.

“The US, which has been waging a hostile state policy against [North] Korea … for 80 years, blatantly interferes with the independent development and security interests of the North and pushes the situation in North-Eastern Asia to the brink of a nuclear war,” Kang said.

Washington has to admit to its belligerent policy against Pyongyang and abandon its confrontational approach if it truly wants to resolve the crisis in a peaceful way, he added. Until America does that, any dialogue is impossible, he maintained, which means military force “remains the only way to secure peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.”

The general stated that all claims by the US and its allies about their willingness to resolve the issues around the peninsula through negotiations were nothing “but an empty echo” and the only way to prevent nuclear war is for Pyongyang “to possess military means of deterrence.”

Kang also declared that North Korea would no longer consider US drill suspensions or other similar steps to be genuine manifestations of goodwill by the US. Washington would need mere days to send its strategic bombers and a nuclear submarine back to the peninsula and can redeploy its military contingent there “in half a month” even if it fully withdraws from South Korea, the general believes.

“We are well aware of the fact that the aggressive intention of the US to strip us of our nuclear weapons and destroy our system through brute force cannot be changed even in the slightest,” he said.

The general’s words came just days after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ordered heightened preparations for war, including increasing the production of weapons. He also called for top officers to carry out drills with the country’s latest weaponry to ensure that troops were ready for a potential conflict.

The move was taken ahead of a planned major joint military exercise by the US and South Korea.

https://www.rt.com/news/581328-nuclear-war-imminent-north-korea/

Entire Minnesota Town’s Police Department Quits

The entire police department for a small town in southeastern Minnesota quit over a pay dispute.

The Goodhue Police Department, including the police chief, resigned over issues with pay.

“Since the resignations have been handed in by our police department, it has been recommended by our city attorney that at this point we need to pursue our other options,” mayor Ellen Anderson Buck said at a city council meeting. “So, at this point, there’s no reason to really talk about pay increases since we no longer have a police force.”

The city has a population of about 1,300.

Members of the Goodhue Police Department were being paid $22 an hour.

NBC News reported:

A small city in southeastern Minnesota could be left without a police department after the whole force recently resigned, according to officials.

The Goodhue Police Department resigned due to issues with the city’s pay, Mayor Ellen Anderson Buck said at a city council meeting Monday. The city is located in a county by the same name, and has a population of just over 1,000, according to its website.

The city council met to discuss options for police coverage following the department’s resignation. The meeting was initially called so the city could discuss salary increases for the department, but the entire team resigned before it could happen.

Police Chief Josh Smith submitted his resignation at a city council meeting on Aug. 9, the Associated Press reported. A full-time officer and five part-time employees resigned two days after learning about Smith.

At a July 26 city council meeting, Smith said there were “zero applicants” for the city’s police department and disclosed that other law enforcement agencies were trying to recruit him and his colleagues.

“So, right now with our current, trying to hire at $22 an hour, you’re never going to see another person again walk through those doors, that’s it,” Smith said. “Unless you guys do a dramatic change.”

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/entire-minnesota-towns-police-department-quits/

>>19366603

What Was a Clinton White House Lawyer Doing at Epstein’s Arraignment?

In July 2019, all eyes were on Jeffrey Epstein as he entered a Manhattan federal courtroom in prison blues and orange sneakers. The reclusive multimillionaire, used to luxurious jaunts around the globe with powerful friends, appeared disheveled as he was charged with sexually abusing dozens of underage girls.

Police had arrested the 66-year-old financier two days before, and a packed crowd of journalists, lawyers, and victims now watched him plead not guilty to child sex-trafficking charges—more than a decade after he avoided serious prison time for molesting scores of teenage victims at his mansion in Palm Beach, Florida.

But while the press focused on Epstein, one high-profile spectator apparently went unnoticed—at least, unnoticed by most. Two eyewitnesses say former White House lawyer Kathryn Ruemmler was at Epstein’s court appearance that day in his support, The Daily Beast has learned.

Two people who separately attended the hearing said Ruemmler—who served as White House counsel during the Clinton and Obama administrations—had a “professional relationship” with Epstein and was seated behind his defense team.

At the time, Ruemmler was a partner at Latham & Watkins and global co-chair of the law firm’s white-collar defense and investigations practice.

“Epstein knew her,” one source with knowledge told The Daily Beast of her appearance in court in July 2019. “He had a professional relationship with her. I think he may have reached out to her to be involved in the case.” The source said Ruemmler’s appearance was “probably just a show of support.”

“She worked for a large, prominent firm,” the person said. “There was some exploration of her joining the [defense] team, but it wasn’t going to happen.”

Ruemmler did not return messages seeking comment. A spokeswoman for Latham & Watkins said neither the law firm nor Ruemmler represented Epstein; she did not return follow-up emails from The Daily Beast.

“I deeply value her smarts, her judgment, and her wit—but most importantly her uncanny ability to see around the corners that nobody else anticipates.”

— President Obama, on Ruemmler

Martin Weinberg, a lawyer for Epstein since 2008, said Ruemmler didn’t represent the financier and wasn’t a member of the defense team led by himself and Reid Weingarten. “I can state with certainty that Kathy Ruemmler did not represent Mr. Epstein and did not appear at any hearing at any time on his behalf,” Weinberg said in an email.

Ruemmler has previously represented the Clinton Foundation and George Nader, a key witness in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation who was sentenced to 10 years behind bars for child sex trafficking.

She left Latham & Watkins in April to become global head of regulatory affairs at Goldman Sachs. After the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last month, Fox News reported Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden possibly put Ruemmler on the short list of nominees to fill a future SCOTUS seat.

Indeed, Ruemmler and other Obama-era officials hosted a D.C. event for Biden last November as his fundraising waned before the primaries. According to the Washington Examiner, Ruemmler told the crowd the 2020 election came down to “character,” and “there is no one who has the strength and the quality of character, no one like Joe Biden.”

Ruemmler has long traveled the revolving door between public service and Latham & Watkins, whose phalanx of former high-ranking government lawyers inspired a Wall Street Journal blog to call the firm “the DOJ’s home away from home.”

At Latham, Ruemmler defended companies in high-stakes litigation, led internal probes into misconduct, and averted indictments through Department of Justice “declinations,” or decisions not to prosecute which are similar to non-prosecution agreements. (She did, however, secure a non-prosecution agreement for Microsoft Hungary, which last year paid $8.7 million in penalties to resolve a foreign bribery case.)

https://www.thedailybeast.com/what-was-clinton-white-house-lawyer-kathryn-ruemmler-doing-at-epsteins-arraignment

>>19366603

Jeffrey Epstein's Secret Meeting With CIA Boss: Never-Before-Seen Private Calendar Reveals Sicko's Shocking Link to Top Obama Advisor

Jeffrey Epstein's personal calendar has revealed scheduled meetings with several high profile figures, such as a former Obama administration attorney and the current CIA director, RadarOnline.com has learned.

The recently released documents, which belonged to the late convicted pedophile, detailed meetings set to occur after Epstein was arrested in 2008 on solicitation charges.

CIA Director William Burns, Bard College President Leon Botstein, Obama White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler and Professor Noam Chomsky were all named in the itinerary.

A spokesperson for Burns said the head of the CIA met with Epstein a decade ago when he was attempting to leave the government.

"The director did not know anything about him, other than that he was introduced as an expert in the financial services sector and offered general advice on the transition to the private sector," the spokesperson said. "They had no relationship."

According to the Wall Street Journal, Ruemmler had dozens of meetings with Epstein following her employment for the Obama administration. The meetings also reportedly took place before she became one of the top lawyers at Goldman Sachs.

The documents show Epstein was planning on Ruemmler joining him for a trip to Paris in 2015 and another visit to his private island in the Caribbean in 2017.

A rep for Goldman Sachs said that the lawyer had a working relationship with Epstein when she was still employed with Latham & Watkins LLP. They continued, claiming that Epstein introduced Ruemmler to several potential clients, such as Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

Botstein said he met with Epstein to get him to donate to the liberal arts school.

"I was an unsuccessful fundraiser and actually the object of a little bit of sadism on his part in dangling philanthropic support," Botstein told the WSJ. "That was my relationship with him."

He claimed he visited Epstein in 2012 and thanked him for unsolicited donations.

"We looked him up, and he was a convicted felon for a sex crime," Botstein said. "We believe in rehabilitation."

Several other prominent figures were listed on the documents, including the chief executive of the Swiss private bank Edmond de Rothschild Group, Ariane de Rothschild, former Starbucks and Fedex board member Joshua Cooper Ramo, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Harvard University professor Martin Nowak and anthropologist Helen Fisher.

Epstein was found dead in his jail cell in New York City in 2019 after he was about to face trial for sex trafficking charges levied against him.

https://radaronline.com/p/jeffrey-epstein-secret-meeting-cia-boss-private-calendar-obama-advisor/

>>19366603

Jeffrey Epstein referred Obama White House counsel to JPMorgan as potential customer

Sex predator Jeffrey Epstein was involved in establishing the client relationship between Obama White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler and JPMorgan Chase in February 2019, four months before he was arrested on federal child sex trafficking charges, a new court filing revealed.

Ruemmler, who is now general counsel for Goldman Sachs, was touted by Epstein’s personal assistant to JPMorgan as a would-be customer, the filing shows.

The suggestion that JPMorgan take Ruemmler on as a client — which the bank warmly embraced — came almost six years after JPMorgan said it had effectively fired Epstein as a client after repeated red flags being raised about him for years internally at the bank.

And it came five months before Epstein killed himself in August 2019 in a Manhattan federal jail, where he was being held without bail pending trial.

Sex predator Jeffrey Epstein was involved in establishing a client relationship between Obama White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler and JPMorgan Chase

in February 2019, four months before he was arrested on federal child sex trafficking charges, a bombshell court filing revealed Tuesday.

Ruemmler, who is now general counsel for Goldman Sachs

, was touted by Epstein’s personal assistant to JPMorgan as an ideal customer, the filing shows.

The suggestion that JPMorgan take Ruemmler on as a client — which the bank warmly embraced — came almost six years after JPMorgan said it had effectively fired Epstein as a client after internal controls repeatedly raised red flags about him.

And it came five months before Epstein killed himself in August 2019 in a Manhattan federal jail, where he was being held without bail pending trial.

Ruemmler declined to comment through a Goldman Sachs spokesman.

CNBC separately emailed her to ask how she knew Epstein, and what knowledge she had of his history of being convicted in 2008 of a sex crime in Florida.

The Manhattan federal court filing detailing her connection to Epstein was filed by the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands, which is suing JPMorgan.

The American territory alleges that JPMorgan enabled and benefited from Epstein’s sex trafficking of young women to the Virgin Islands, where he had a home, during the years he maintained accounts at the bank, from 1998 through 2013.

JPMorgan denies any wrongdoing in the case, where the territory is seeking at least $190 million in damages.

The bank last month agreed to settle a similar lawsuit in the same court by an Epstein accuser, paying $290 million to her and other Epstein victims.

The case is scheduled to go to trial in late October.

“Even after his exit right up until his arrest in 2019, JPMorgan continued to work with Epstein,” the Virgin Islands said in its filing.

The filing says that JPMorgan admits “Epstein was involved in the establishment of a customer relationship with Kathryn Ruemmler,” who was the longest-serving White House general counsel under former President Barack Obama

The filing says that in February 2019 Epstein’s assistant, Leslie Groff, offered to introduce Mary Erdoes, a top JPMorgan executive, to Ruemmler, because she wanted to open an account with JPMorgan and Epstein thought the two of them “would bond.”

“Erdoes escalated the referral to Stacey Friedman, JPMorgan’s General Counsel, who responded ‘she is a rock star litigator at Latham. . . . I would think she would be a great client,’” the Virgin Islands said in its filing.

Ruemmler at the time worked at the law firm Latham & Watkins.

In 2020 she joined Goldman Sachs as a partner, and now is Goldman’s chief legal officer and general counsel.

The filing also said that Epstein at one time referred as a potential JPMorgan client Nicholas Ribis, a gaming advisor who for decades ran casinos for former President Donald Trump.

Ribis did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/15/jeffrey-epstein-referred-obama-white-house-counsel-to-jpmorgan.html