#Trump Ukraine Scandal

[cynicalclassicist]

Thoughts on Flux and Trump-Ukraine scandal...

It occurred to me a while ago and this may be the first time I put it down but... could the Grand Serpent and Vinder trying to expose them be based on the Trump-Ukraine scandal? The whole in a secret meeting with a politician from another power asking them to target relatives of a political rival does feel like an invocation of it. This must have been written while this scandal was in the news and it was a very serious scandal, even if some people try to brush it away as minor or just usual tit for tat politics it was worse than Watergate!  A President can be impeached, according to the constitution, for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” Which this most certainly comes under.

The Grand Serpent isn’t quite an overt Trump caricature in the way that Jack Robertson is. In fact, his infiltration of the British establishment with the Sontarans more invokes Russian infiltration that has goes on for some years. But comments like Vinder referring to loyalty to their constitution does certainly invoke American culture. And while this scandal didn’t really topple Trump, as we knew it likely wouldn’t, there is an implicit praise of those who call out this sort of establishment misconduct, even though they know it likely won’t really achieve anything.

#the grand serpent #trump-ukraine scandal #doctor who #it's a metaphor #doctor who: flux #Trump #Donald Trump #Joe Biden #Hunter Biden

[bambamramfan]

I realized I only feel alive at times like this.

I don’t think the new room-temp superconductive material will check out. But it might. And we might know within a couple weeks. And so there is an amazing frisson of excitement on the internet. Some of it is excitement over what a 0%-transmission-loss-power-grid future looks like or mag-lev trains everywhere. But more of it seems just the excitement to find out something new, together. We might be on the edge of a technological breakthrough, and we’re finding out from live-streams of kilns and twitter posts from Russian transgender catgirls. People are slamming refresh on prediction markets, and parsing over arxiv papers.

We are so, so, so locked into the same arguments over and over. Every movie, every political event, every scandal is just an opportunity to explain how it fits our already established political narratives. Which usually aren’t even wrong. But it’s so predictable. And therefore boring.

And then something happens that scrambles the tables so much that people don’t default to the party line, they’re saying their reactions off the top of their head, and they’re trying to get more information.

The biggest story of the modern era this way was of course COVID. And March 2020 did feel like that to me. And there was the initial invasion of Ukraine. Both stories of course reset eventually to a repetitive set of talking points, but for a while the world was alive with new possibilities and curiosity. Trump catching COVID, January 6th, the Canadian smog this summer were other shorter-lived examples. Maybe the moment every election night when people are refreshing county board of elections websites to tell their Discord.

I want to say I love these times because they are the Real. But you know those times are as filled with later-debunked rumor more than factual truths. And of course, we can find the Real on our own. But they feel like a world actually engaged with the Real, both alive and in some way dangerously deadly.

I can’t really get across how important times (so fleeting) like this are to me. Since it doesn’t matter most of the time. But it does tonight.

[odinsblog]

The Republican impeachment push against President Joe Biden has always rested on the thinnest of evidentiary ice, but with one of their key informants facing criminal charges for lying to federal investigators, the charade is now on the verge of falling apart.

On Wednesday, the House Oversight Committee — one of the three Republican-controlled committees overseeing the Biden impeachment inquiry — held a hearing in an attempt to salvage the effort.

Democrats brought in Lev Parnas, a former Rudy Giuliani crony who was a key figure in the Ukraine scandal that led to Trump’s first impeachment. During his testimony, Parnas declared that he had found “zero evidence of the Bidens’ corruption in Ukraine” and that “no credible source has ever provided proof of criminal activity […] no respectable Ukrainian official has ever said that the Biden’s did anything illegal.”

“The only information ever pushed on the Biden’s in Ukraine has come from one source, and one source only: Russia and Russian agents,” Parnas said. “The impeachment proceedings that bring us here now are predicated on false information spread by the Kremlin.”

(continue reading)

#politics #donald trump #republicans #election interference #lev parnas #biden impeachment #electioneering #election fraud #republican dirty tricks #russia #ukraine #russian propaganda #russian disinformation #russian assets #foreign agents

[simonalkenmayer]

Tucker Carlson out at fox

Don Lemon out at CNN

FOX already blaming Donald Trump for their dominion scandal and it’s spiraling size drawing in Supreme Court Justices

Trump and DeSantis attempting to out-Hitler one another

Courts going to the right

Politicians passing increasingly dangerous laws.

Ukraine attempting to join NATO, as China, who gets most of its oil from Russia, says “post soviet countries (like Ukraine) lack legitimacy in international courts”

India, Israel, and Saudi governments going increasingly right. Fighting in Sudan.

The world is sorting itself into two camps, just as I’d did before WWII.

Watching it implode is comforting insofar as it pleases me to have gotten predictions correct, and no further.

The next 2 years will be some of the most dangerous in the history of the world. Be vigilant. Be kind. Be brave. Be safe.

I am very glad the pandemic happened when it did, because people will know how to shelter.

I am not optimistic. I don’t want to frighten people but I want everyone to be safe.

We have to march and organize and VOTE. That’s the thing that holds it at bay. It’s the only thing that keeps violence from happening—that all peaceful measures are exhausted.

[tomorrowusa]

Is it a coincidence that the election night map on TVN24 in Poland used the colors of the Ukrainian flag to designate which party was ahead in each województwo (province)? 🙂🇺🇦🇵🇱

In any case, here are the final results from the official election authority the Państwowa Komisja Wyborcza.

The official results in the number of seats per party were amazingly close to the exit polls. While the specific number of seats per party differed slightly, the Sunday night Ipsos poll and these official results both give the three pro-democracy parties a total of 248 seats.

The official turnout (74.38%) was more than a percentage point higher than the already high exit poll estimate. This is the highest turnout since the 1989 election which saw the end of communism in Poland.

When you vote, you win.

People who have lived under authoritarianism don't need to be prodded into voting.

Tim Mak is an American journalist in Ukraine. He tells about Marcin Banasiak, a Polish citizen who is doing humanitarian work in Eastern Ukraine. Long story short: Just to vote in Sunday's election, Marcin spent 26 hours traveling from Kharkiv to Warsaw. That required traveling almost the entire length of Ukraine and then over to Warsaw via the border city of Chełm.

Read Tim's account of Marcin's vote quest at Mastodon.

If Marcin can spend 26 hours (traveling one way) to help rescue democracy in Poland, we should not complain about the minor inconveniences related to voting in the US.

American historian and journalist Anne Applebaum lives in Poland with her husband Radek Sikorski who happens to be an MEP and former cabinet member in the previous Donald Tusk government. In The Atlantic (archived) on Monday she wrote about what led to the pro-democracy victory at the polls.

[A]bout 73 percent of Poles voted across the country, far more than the number that voted in 1989, and in some places the turnout was higher than 80 percent. In Warsaw, Gdansk, Lublin, and Wroclaw, as well as some European cities, voters stood in line for many hours, polling stations ran out of ballots, and some people were able to vote only long after the polls had been scheduled to close. At one Warsaw polling station near midnight, an election worker wept on live television, thanking her compatriots for showing up in such large numbers. How did they do it? Anger is a powerful emotion, and over the past year, PiS made a lot of people angry. Repeated PiS corruption scandals—corruption being one of the inevitable results of politicized judges, police, and prosecutors—certainly helped the opposition. So did high inflation, partly created by PiS’s decision to spend heavily on social programs as the election approached. So did the decision by PKN Orlen, a state-owned oil company, to lower gasoline prices in advance of the vote, thereby causing shortages around the country, as well as general mockery. But this turnout was produced by positive emotions too. Donald Tusk, the leader of the Civic Coalition, pointedly used the language of civic patriotism rather than angry nationalism. Thousands of volunteers came together to organize election-monitoring teams. Hundreds of thousands of people marched in two major demonstrations in Warsaw, carrying Polish and European Union flags; others joined a series of big public meetings around the country.

The new government, when it assumes office, won't be perfect – because no humans are perfect. But it will be enormously better. And similar to Democrats in the US after Trump, the presumed three-party coalition in Poland will spend a lot of time repairing democratic institutions degraded by PiS.

#poland #election results from poland #polska #wybory #wyniki #sejm #państwowa komisja wyborcza #victory for democracy #marcin banasiak #tim mak #ukraine #anne applebaum #radek sikorski #koalicja obywatelska #pis #register and vote

[seymour-butz-stuff]

Former President Donald Trump’s Big Lie about the 2020 presidential election is now being propagated in a new world history textbook for Russian high school students. As for President Joe Biden, he’s described in the new textbook as corrupt and tied to business interests in Ukraine. On Monday, Marc Bennetts, a foreign correspondent for The Times of London, posted images on X, formerly known as Twitter, with a translation from the new textbook written for Russian students in the 11th (graduating) grade. The textbook says Trump lost the 2020 election “as a result of obvious electoral fraud by the Democratic Party.” As for Biden, the textbook claims, "His entire political career has been accompanied by corruption scandals. He and his family have commercial interests in Ukraine." Of course, there’s no mention that Trump is facing criminal charges accusing him of attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election or that his claims of massive election fraud have been widely debunked in the courts as well as by former Attorney General William Barr and others who served in his administration. And despite concerted efforts by House Republicans to discredit Biden, they have yet to produce any evidence of wrongdoing.  And just look at the images used: Trump with a beaming smile on his face; Biden with his face covered by a black mask. Newsweek reported that Konstantin Sonin, a Russian-born economist who is now a professor at the University of Chicago, provided more details about the textbook. Newsweek wrote: When contacted for more information about the textbook, Sonin provided Newsweek with a PDF copy of the book. He also told Newsweek that he didn't doubt the authenticity of its contents and that the book's publication was announced earlier this year during a press conference by the book's authors and Sergei Kravstov, Russia's minister of education. In a post on X, Sonin displayed the cover of the textbook alongside the Trump entry. The textbook covers the period from 1945—the end of World War II—to the beginning of the 21st century. Sonin cited the Trump entry as an example of the “reverse cargo cult’’ that “is a staple of authoritarian propaganda.” “Under the ’cargo cult,’ the locals believe that imitating elections will bring as much prosperity as real elections in democratic countries,” Sonin continued. “Under the ‘reverse cargo cult,’ the locals believe that the fact that their own elections are fake means that elections in democracies are fake as well.”

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

* * * * *

Meanwhile, the struggle in the House of Representatives today looked like a preview of the 2024 election. 

Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH), a staunch supporter of former president Trump and a key figure in the attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, is pushing hard for election as speaker, emphasizing how imperative it is for the House Republicans to enable the House to get back to business. As Karoun Demirjian outlined in the New York Times, Jordan and his allies have deployed a pressure campaign against those Republicans opposed to him, as she puts it, “working to unleash the rage of the party’s base voters against any lawmaker standing in his way.” 

This is the same tactic that the extremists have used for decades to move the Republican Party to the right. But there is a different dynamic at play in this speakership crisis. Jordan and his allies created the crisis in the first place by supporting Trump’s demands to shut down the government, tossing out former speaker Kevin McCarthy because he would not agree to shut down the government, and refusing to abide by the vote of the Republican conference to accept the choice of the majority: first McCarthy and then Representative Steve Scalise (R-LA).

There is another way in which this moment is different. Jordan is a flamethrower who was one of the original organizers of the right-wing Freedom Caucus. Republicans saw McCarthy, who was an excellent fundraiser, as a pro-business Republican who worked with the far right, but Jordan is the real deal: a far-right extremist. Republican donors have already suggested they are not enthusiastic about working with him to fund Republican candidates.

The third way this moment is different is that putting Jordan in the speaker’s chair makes him, along with Trump, the face of the Republican Party going into the 2024 election. Representative Pete Aguilar (D-CA) previewed the many downsides of Jordan as speaker when he nominated Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) for the speaker’s chair. Aguilar blamed extremism and partisanship for the unprecedented chaos of the House and urged the Republicans to embrace bipartisanship to do the work the American people had sent them to Washington, D.C., to conduct. 

Aguilar noted that Jordan was “the architect of a nationwide abortion ban, a vocal election denier, and an insurrection inciter.” He has “spent his entire career trying to hold our country back, putting our national security in danger, attempting government shutdown after government shutdown, wasting taxpayer dollars on baseless investigations with dead ends, authoring the very bill that would ban abortion nationwide without exceptions, and inciting violence on this chamber. Even leaders of his own party have called him ‘a legislative terrorist.’” 

Aguilar pointed out Jordan’s opposition to disaster relief, veterans’ relief, support for Ukraine, and military aid to our allies, including Israel, and added: “This body is debating elevating a speaker nominee who has not passed a single bill in 16 years. These are not the actions of someone interested in governing or bettering the lives of everyday Americans.” Jordan as speaker would mean the Republican Party would “continue taking marching orders from a twice-impeached former president with more than 90 pending felony charges.”

Even without mentioning Jordan’s involvement with the cover-up of a sexual assault scandal at Ohio State, Aguilar put Republicans on notice that placing Jordan at the head of the party would have brutal consequences in Democratic campaign ads. 

When House members voted for speaker, the Democrats were unified behind Jeffries, who won all 212 of their votes. Jordan won only 200 of the 217 votes necessary to become speaker, with 20 Republicans voting for someone else. His allies initially said they would call a second vote tonight but changed their minds, apparently realizing that another loss would weaken his candidacy significantly. They say they will hold another vote tomorrow.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#clown car #Marshall ramsey #Jim “Gym” Jordan #dysfunctional GOP #Letters From An American #US House of Representatives #the people's business #GOP extremism #women's rights #human rights #MAGA extremism

[1americanconservative]

Biden got caught with 5 sets of stolen classified documents in at least 3 different locations: 1. Personal office 2. Home office 3. Home garage (next to Corvette, as Biden admitted he knew) Biden moved the 1st set at least 2 times. Biden kept stolen classified documents from the Obama White House for 6 years. And stolen classified documents from the Senate for 10+ years. For 2 months, Garland colluded with Biden to cover up this scandal. Yet Garland went to a biased magistrate judge. Bruce Reinhart, who just recused from Trump's civil lawsuit 6 weeks prior. After Reinhart bashed Trump on Facebook. Somehow, this clear judicial bias went away 6 weeks later. When Garland and Reinhart ordered an unprecedented, unnecessary, and unlawful home raid on President Trump. To take Trump's presidential records Congress gave him permission to have under the Presidential Records Act. In the congressionally funded Office of the Former President. With congressionally funded staff, security clearances, SCIF, and Secret Service protection. In sharp contrast, Garland let Biden's attorneys do the searches for the first 4 sets of Biden's stolen classified records. After Garland got caught protecting Biden and had to send in the FBI, the FBI found Biden's 5th set of stolen classified records. After Biden's attorneys represented they did thorough searches. (How's this not obstruction of justice, like Garland is investigating against Trump?)

@NYPost

's

@MirandaDevine

has evidence Hunter Biden used classified material on Ukraine to illegally secure funding: https://twitter.com/mirandadevine/status/1617601994839187457?s=20… When will Garland's Special Counsel Rob Hur interview President Biden? Hunter Biden? Hur's been on the job for more than 3 months. Why the delay? Cover-up?

[bopinion]

2024 / 09

Aperçu of the Week:

"Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without."

(Siddhārtha Gautama, Indian wisdom teacher and founder of religion)

Bad News of the Week:

Various military scandals are currently rocking Germany. On the one hand, Russian (state) media have published a recording of a confidential conversation between senior air force officers that has been intercepted. And at a sensitive time. It concerns Taurus cruise missiles, which Ukraine desperately wants and which the German government, in particular Chancellor Olaf Scholz, is refusing. His official reason: German personnel were needed on site to ensure the weapon's functionality and, above all, its target settings. And Germany would therefore be a "direct participant in the war". This is precisely what the air force contradicts in this conversation, which was intended to coordinate a briefing on this topic for Defense Minister Boris Pistorius.

Was Scholz just misinformed or did he deliberately give a false reason and hope that nobody would find out? The former would be amateurish, the latter an unworthy political spectacle - and both are out of the question. The fact that the Federal Chancellor also revealed in the same context that the US and British military were already active in Ukraine is just as questionable and raises the same questions. Scholz is often accused of communicating too little. In these cases, less would have been more.

The circumstances of this confidential conversation are also alarming. It appears that the conversation was actually a WebEx meeting to which an unknown (apparently Russian) participant had dialed in. Just like that. And nobody noticed. I was fully aware that cyber espionage is dominated by the Russians. And that Germany is lagging behind in pretty much every aspect of digitalization. But the fact that it seems to be so easy to obtain secret military information should really only be a bad joke. It will be interesting to see what other recordings of confidential conversations the Kremlin still has in the drawer. And when and with what ulterior motives they will be released to the (western) public.

And on the other hand, in the last few days, an investigative team has brought to light an arms deal that fell through ten years ago. In a deal worth billions, the German armaments company Rheinmetall would have built state-of-the-art combat training centers in Russia to train Russian soldiers. Excuse me? You need to know that no German arms manufacturer is allowed to deliver abroad (outside NATO) without the approval of the German government. This has always been a source of debate in the case of Leopard II tanks for Saudi Arabia, for example. And the conservative-liberal coalition in power at the time (yes: Angela Merkel) had actually approved the Russia deal. Excuse me? When Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, Sigmar Gabriel, the then Social Democrat Minister of Economic Affairs, fortunately pulled the ripcord. Whereupon Rheinmetall actually wanted to sue the federal government for lost profits. Since then, the issue has been on ice.

Both scandals show one thing very clearly: Defense is not a normal business and weapons are not just any export goods. This goes hand in hand with an immense responsibility. After all, human lives are at stake - protecting the lives of one's own population and killing (at least) the soldiers of another population. Apparently, not everyone involved is aware of this fundamental importance. Otherwise they would not treat it so lightly.

Good News of the Week:

Addison Mitchell McConnell Jr. ("Junior" - really?) will be history. Finally. In the dawn of his political career, the 82-year-old turtle from Capitol hill has shown astonishing wisdom of age - for example, "There is no doubt, none, that former President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the storming of the Capitol" - but that does not change the overall balance of his political life's work. Which, from a European perspective, is questionable to say the least.

In my memory, the long-time leader of the Republican caucus in the US Senate stands for one thing above all: rejection. Holding China accountable for human rights violations? Rejected. Allowing the Democrats' social programs? Rejected. Reappoint judges if you can't nominate them yourself (over 1,000 times!)? Rejected. Not only favor the super-rich in tax reforms? Rejected. And so on...

So now Mitch McConnell has announced that he "only" wants to be a simple senator after the next presidential election. Well. Anyone remember his cognitive failures in several press conferences when he simply freezed? Like his Democratic opponent Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro Pelosi (who is two years older), McConnell is an argument for the urgent need for an age limit for full-time politicians. But that argument obviously doesn't apply to the top job either...

PS: The above criticism of Donald Jessica Trump came just minutes after the Republican caucus under his leadership acquitted him in his second impeachment trial precisely because of the storming of the Capitol. So much for consistency. But never mind: he's gone. And that's good.

Personal happy moment of the week:

My daughter has a student job in addition to her studies in political science and communications and her involvement in the student organization. The money for the 37th pair of sneakers has to come from somewhere. She currently works in the political department of a leading social media agency. She had doubts at first. Whether she would be able to meet the requirements. And whether the job would meet her expectations. Both seem to be working out. At the weekend, she was praised for her performance by both her agency and its clients. As if she wasn't just an inexperienced young student who didn't need to be taken seriously. But a fully-fledged contributor in the department. Her contract was also extended. Including a pay rise - just one euro, but it's all about the symbolism. After her social year in a kindergarten, this is the second time she has scored points in a job. That makes a clean 100%. And a very proud dad.

I couldn't care less...

...that there will be strikes on our national rail company again. Company co-determination in all its glory - but the behavior of this union (of train drivers) seems increasingly unprofessional. And anything but solution-oriented.

It's fine with me...

...that when setting hashtags, the first suggestion for Donald is still Duck - and not Trump.

As I write this...

...I still have to empty half the cellar. Because one of the many difficult-to-understand regulations in Germany apparently requires a gas meter to be replaced every eight years. And it's in the worst possible place in our house. Thank you, bureaucracy!

Post Scriptum

Even if AfD & Co. don't want to admit it in their general xenophobia, the German labor market would no longer be able to function without immigrants and their children. According to the Federal Statistical Office, for example, nothing would work in cleaning professions with 60%, in gastronomy with 46% or in construction with 38% of the workforce having foreign roots.

The fact that the general proportion on the labor market is then only just under 25% is explained by the dominance of these - with the exception of medical professions - rather low-skilled occupations. For example, the proportion of apprenticeships is only 11%. The proportion is even lower for government occupations. Here, citizens with a migration background still play a very small role, with less than 6% in the police and judiciary.

Demographic change and the imminent retirement of the baby boomers are exacerbating the situation on the labor market. The shortage of skilled workers is already seen as a key risk for Germany as a business location. Society also has a role to play here. After all, together with the difficult German language and excessive bureaucracy, the widespread lack of a welcoming culture is the main reason why very few people consider Germany to be an attractive destination.

#thoughts #aperçu #good news #bad news #news of the week #happy moments #politics #peace #siddhartha #military #germany #scandal #russia #espionage #olaf scholz #taurus #rheinmetall #mitch mcconnell #republicans #capitolhill #social media #political science #daughter #strike #immigration #demographics #donald trump #railroad #sneakers #us senate

[daviddaniyikaye]

2024 GLOBAL PREDICTIONS BY DR. DAVID ANIYIKAYE

1. The Nigerian Economy will be in a very delicate state due to inflation & scarcity of funds. I see a highly challenging year for the economy because it's still in a transitional stage. There is a desire to ditch an over-reliance on the dollar. (The Yuan & digital currency in view) but the cabals will resist the move fiercely.

2. Crime rate will be on the rise in Nigeria. The rate of prostitution & selling of hard drugs next year will be insane. I see busy timelines for law enforcement agents.

3. Speculative ventures & investment companies will flood the market space; where most of them will be positioned to rip people off based on "opportunities" for fast cash.

4. Politically, I see a lots of decampment in Africa! New allies or hybrid parties will be formed.

5. There will be economic recessions globally; a downturn for the USA as the dollar gets more weakened. Joe Biden will not win the election, & a woman or a Trump could replace him.

6. Russia & China will have the upper hand in the global power dynamics of 2024. Putin will be flexing his muscles but must be wary of the effects of wrong decisions on the economy of Russia. India will experience huge growth economically, while the UK will experience a highly challenging year.

7. Ukraine will be completely defeated by Russia in 2024 & will be taken over for a build.

8. Tensions will continue in the middle east in 2024 but there will be the appearance of some powerful figures for conflict resolutions to prevent WWIII. Tensions will exist strongly between the USA & Iran, while Russia sides with Iran. The role of China will be crucial to avoid escalations.

9. There will be massive spiritual awakening like never before, globally.

10. Big year of success for Davido & afrobeats in general. Wizkid will be moving smarter to regain lost grounds.

11. A year marked with conflicts, civil wars in many countries, heavy restrictions globally & financial losses for big companies.

12. A year of judgement for many evil people who pretend to be angels of light. It's also a year of fruition & rewards for the righteous.

13. A fortunate year for travel & hospitality industries. The desire for travel will be very high generally in 2024.

14. Huge progress in scientific discoveries, inventions & technological advancement. (Cure for an incurable disease).

15. A year of intense office politics & legal disputes. There will be intense discord among leaders due to differing opinions but I see hard settlements. World powers could resort to underhand tactics to gain control (e.g Major cyber attacks).

16. Nigerian actress Bimbo Akintola should lay low & be more mindful in 2024 to avoid a tragedy, bad health or huge loss.

17. Obtaining funding & raising capital will prove to be more challenging for many countries. It will require diligent efforts & valuable alliances to gather resources in 2024. Africa will come into huge focus because of her resources.

18. Some countries might offer to help Niger Republic (E.g China). The country is in need of a leader, & must be very careful in forming alliances. I see a major coup happening in another African country.

19. Pray against earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, flooding or other kind of disaster in places around California, Mexico, Italy, Japan, Turkey, Syria & Indonesia.

21. Some high profile men & women being brought down to earth in 2024. It's a year of karmic repercussions for past evil deeds. I see more unveiling of more scandals & atrocities.

22. People born in the year 1982, 1994, 1970 & 1958 with birth-month between March & December must be very careful of launching or starting anything new in the year 2024. They should avoid anything that has to do with some spotlight or risky moves. Prayers should be done against evil enchantments, the face of God should be sought like never before.

23. South Africa, France & India could form more economic alliance with Russia. India will be doing very well economically.

24. There will be significant climatic changes that are unfavourable globally. Sea levels will be rising exponentially. World governments will lay huge emphasis in the area.

25. Significant laws will be passed in relation to the use of AI as it gains more ground in the tech & media industry.

26. Dwayne Wade getting into some trouble legally. Gabrielle union could remarry or make a new relationship official & I foresee some sort of elevation of status for her.

27. Don Jazzy finally stepping down as the main boss of his label, to lead behind the scenes. He should be mindful of his health & not begin anything new for the spotlight to avoid a huge loss in 2024.

28. Fortunate year for Rihanna but artistes like Ty Dolla, Nicki Minaj, Lil' Uzi, Madonna, Lil' Baby, Lil' Wayne & Zlatan could be in the news for bad reasons. They should lay low in 2024 & be more prayerful.

#prophesy #predictions #new year 2024 #seer #spirituality #astrology #clairvoyance #follow #i follow back #inspiration #inspiring quotes #instant folllow back #motivating quotes #the prophesies begin

[deadpresidents]

[January 20th] is the second anniversary of the Biden Presidency. For the most part, up until now, he has been more unlucky than stupid, with his tenure marked by interlocking crises that would sorely test any Chief Executive -- including a lingering pandemic, highest-in-decades inflation, and a radicalized Republican Party that has refused to disavow Trump and his lies about the 2020 election. Democrats, for decades, have feared that conservative Justices on the Supreme Court would strike down Roe v. Wade, and with it the guarantee of women’s reproductive freedom. It finally happened on Biden’s watch. In Europe, Vladimir Putin has long threatened Russia’s neighbor Ukraine, but it was at the start of Biden’s second year in office that Putin unleashed the largest ground war in Europe since the Second World War.

Given such a dreary moment, the perennially upbeat Biden has come out of it not so badly. Even with a fifty-fifty Senate the last couple of years, he managed to pass an array of sweeping legislation boosting spending on infrastructure, health care, and climate-change mitigation. He assembled and held together a bipartisan coalition to send billions of dollars in military assistance to Ukraine. He’s held off, for now, the threat of a recession.

If anything, Republican overreach has offered Biden a political path out of the morass, with the 2022 midterm results far less catastrophic than expected, at least in part because of the GOP’s insistence on selecting Trump-backed extremists as nominees in battleground states. Trump himself has long been the most effective argument on Democrats’ behalf, and there is a reason this cartoonish con man became the first incumbent since Herbert Hoover to lost the House, Senate, and White House in just four years.

The past couple of weeks, though, are a reminder that Democrats cannot simply count on Republican excess in the name of Trump to carry them through. A screwup is a screwup, and this one by Biden -- whether or not it matters that much to voters, who often don’t care about the inside-the-Beltway scandals that obsess us Washingtonians -- will go down at a minimum as a self-inflicted bit of political malpractice. The big news at the midway point of his Presidency is that Biden seems determined to run again, no matter how risky it may seem to put the fate of his Party -- and the Republic -- in the hands of a gaffe-prone octogenarian. His opponents are real-life insurrectionists. What if next time his luck really does run out?”

-- Susan Glasser, The New Yorker

#President Biden #Biden Administration #Joe Biden #The New Yorker #Susan Glasser #Politics

[gsirvitor]

The mental gymnastics on “Biden let Putin invalid Ukraine” is insane, the US said that invasion is a “red line” and now that it has been crossed they are punishing Russia harder than anytime after the USSR collapsed. (Without risking any US lives)

I often like a lot of what you have to say but this is silly.

What I said is correct, under Bush, Obama and Biden, Putin has been able to take over other regions, while under Trump, a man they claim was Putin’s puppet, he made no advance.

Biden, and the Democrats, also antagonized Putin, did so for 4 years, all the while they made profits in Ukraine, with Biden even openly admitting he did what they tried to impeach Trump over.

If you think they're punishing Russia then you haven't looked around, Russia is suffering soaring inflation, but so is every nation, their sanctions have made little impact due to the fact Russia doesn't need to trade with the west to keep its economy going, hell, the only reason the Russian army is taking such a large hit is due to the fact it's corrupt as hell, most of their equipment isn't maintained as the funds to do it were embezzled, along with the fact Russia made the one mistake everyone has, they invaded during the cold, muddy months.

Russia has been made into the current political bogeyman, this is a new thing, ever since Trump was elected a concerted effort was made to vilify Russia, to make it out to be the biggest threat to western nations, when that's China, who conveniently gets a pass since it, like Ukraine, is used to make the US and other Western nations money.

The US shouldn't be sending money, no nation should, but we should be offering aid to those who flee, rather than further impoverishing our own nations to perpetuate the conflict.

You don't have to agree with me, but these are the facts.

[zvaigzdelasas]

Zelenskyy didn’t name names, but — in a live video interview with former U.S. President Bill Clinton — he warned that “in this world you cannot remain on the sidelines.”

The Ukrainian leader was speaking at the revived Clinton Global Initiative. After being on hiatus for several years following controversies linked to former first lady Hillary Clinton’s presidential run, CGI is once again being held this year on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.[...]

The event crowd shouted “I love you” to Bill Clinton as he arrived on-stage. Many appeared surprised when Zelenskyy beamed in, and gave the Ukrainian leader a standing ovation.

Zelenskyy, dressed in a dark T-shirt emblazoned with the hashtagged slogan “Stand With Ukraine,” spoke following recent Ukrainian battlefield victories against Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February.[...]

When a very sympathetic Clinton asked if Zelenskyy had “any other marching orders,” Zelenskyy talked of the need to find ways to ensure that his country’s future security is guaranteed — an apparent reference to a post-war deal with NATO or Western powers.[...]

The Zelenskyy interview underscored the ongoing influence of the Clinton brand, which has faced plenty of hits in the past decade.

CGI began in 2005 but went on hiatus after 2016 as Hillary Clinton was running for president.

The event had come under heightened scrutiny as critics questioned if the access it gave world leaders to the Clintons would lead to financial and other conflicts of interest for the former secretary of State should she reach the White House. Such concerns were often raised about the CGI-affiliated Clinton Foundation, which admitted it had made some errors in its financial disclosures.[...]

In the years that followed, amid scandals involving Clinton’s handling of government emails and questions about Russia’s role in paving the way for her loss to Donald Trump, CGI was temporarily shuttered.

Following Joe Biden’s ouster of Trump from the Oval Office, the political environment has become more favorable, but the UNGA event space is also more competitive.[...]

Jordan’s Queen Rania and education activist Malala Yousafzai were among this year’s attendees, along with local politicians Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Eric Adams. The Jordanian royal is one of the first supporters of CGI, and she spoke Tuesday of the importance of remembering the humanity of all refugees, noting how differently Western countries have treated Ukrainian refugees as opposed to Syrian ones.[...]

CGI mimics the World Economic Forum in many respects — down to the event’s color scheme — but participants are traditionally asked to make concrete commitments to tackle global challenges in areas such as public health, women’s empowerment and poverty. Many announce financial or other pledges during the event — with pledges sometimes running into billions of dollars, according to CGI organizers.

20 Sep 22

[simonalkenmayer]

Pro-life MAGA candidate Herschel Walker is in another scandal, as today it came out first that in 2009, he paid for his girlfriend’s abortion. Shortly after that, his son went on a rant on Twitter, calling his father a violent abuser and womanizer. He threatened the family so often they had to move multiple times to escape him.

Turkish citizen and ex-Turkish military, “Dr.” Oz murdered over 300 puppies, including disposing of a litter of dead puppies by throwing them into a bag with live ones and throwing them in the garbage. He should not be in the senate. He is not only a national security risk, but a psychopath.

Trumps former lawyer is now cooperating with the DOJ.

The J6 committee has obtained over 800k communications from the Secret Service, proving they lied about the events and deletion of text messages from J6.

Yesterday Elon Musk said that Ukraine should give up and hand Crimea to the Russians as a peace concession. The ambassador said “fuck you”. Literally.

Trump went on Truth Social and called Mitch McConnell’s wife and former Trump Cabinet member Elain Chao “China loving Coco Chow” and threatened Mitch’s life. Nothing whatsoever has been done about it.

Every single Florida Senate and House member voted NO on receiving Federal disaster aid for Hurricane Ian. Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, has been telling people not to donate to charity, but to the state, and then put his wife in charge of the fund. Then today Matt Gaetz decided to use the lack of funding as a talking point even though he voted against it

It was revealed that not only did Trump lie about returning the love letters from Kim Jong-Un to the National Archive, he also stole them. They were among the documents seized.

The Leader of the Oathkeepers just threw Trump under the bus, defending himself in court by saying everything he did on January 6th was legal because it was under Trump’s orders.

The Supreme Court has DECLINED to hear Mike Lindell's appeal which effectively destroys his efforts to block the $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit against him.

The US ARMY fell 16,000 troops shy of its recruitment threshold.

The next J6 hearing will be on 10/13

Happy ADHD month.

[reddancer1]

Heather Cox Richardson

March 22, 2023 (Wednesday)This week, news has been focused on the former president’s possible indictment for paying $130,000 in hush money to adult film performer Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about their 2006 affair before the 2016 election. The information currently being thrown about has been shaped by Trump himself and is obviously suspect (among other things, he has apparently raised $1.5 million since he claimed he would be arrested on Tuesday).

NOTE:  his supporters are such MORONS!  The grift goes on..........

Although Republican lawmakers have no more idea than any of the rest of us do what the Manhattan grand jury might have seen, or what charges might be brought against Trump, they have tried to gloss over the scandal by claiming it is about a non-disclosure agreement or that it happened seven years ago or that its investigation is “a political witch hunt perpetrated by one of the far left radical socialist district attorneys,” as Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY) said. But as journalist Aaron Rupar and Noah Berlatsky explained today in Public Notice, the payment was a big deal in the larger scheme of American democracy.

Trump bought Daniels’s silence because he was willing to break laws in order to get elected. Then–Trump fixer Michael Cohen paid Daniels for her story in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement. Cohen testified that he paid her through a shell company to keep Trump’s connection to the payment hidden. Then Trump reimbursed Cohen for “legal fees.” 

That’s a problem with regard to business filings and tax fraud. It is also a problem for the campaign finance laws intended to protect clean elections. Cohen’s payment was a contribution to the Trump campaign because it was made “in order to influence the 2016 presidential election.” The payment was intended to make sure voters didn’t hear another sex scandal in October 2016, just after the Access Hollywood tape came out in which Trump talked vulgarly about sexually assaulting women, when it might have hurt his chances at election. The $130,000 contribution was far above the individual limit of $2,700, and the Trump campaign did not disclose it. 

This is not small potatoes. When the issue came to light, Cohen pleaded guilty for his role in the payments, and he was sentenced to three years in prison. Cohen testified that he made the payments at Trump’s direction. 

This is also not an isolated incident. Trump has proved himself more than willing to cheat to win elections. In the 2020 presidential election season, before he tried to overthrow the election altogether, he tried to strong-arm Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky into announcing an investigation into the son of the Democratic candidate about whom he was most worried: Joe Biden. Trump knew that the media would run with an announcement of an investigation, wounding Biden’s candidacy by keeping the story in the news even without any real investigation behind it.

The Trump campaign had done much the same thing in 2016. According to the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee, which investigated the ties between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives, Trump’s people were willing at the very least to work alongside Russian operatives to weaken Trump’s Democratic opponent, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The Trump campaign also boosted Trump’s standing in the 2016 election season with the recurring refrain of the investigation into Secretary Clinton’s emails, convincing voters—falsely—that she had committed crimes. 

The pending issue of the hush-money payment is not just about 2016, and it is not just about Trump. That today’s Republican leaders have not condemned any of his attempts to cheat speaks volumes about the party. As Representative Ted Lieu (D-CA) pointed out today, when “Cohen was arrested, indicted, convicted, and went to prison for participating in an illegal hush money payment scheme to Stormy Daniels, not a single Republican leader complaining now said a thing about what happened to Michael Cohen.” So why the rush to defend Trump in the same case?

It appears Republicans have gotten to the point that they don’t believe they can win a free and fair election, and in their conviction that Democrats will destroy the country, they believe cheating to win is justified. They cannot condemn Trump because he delivered what they wanted: a victory. 

In a democracy, the way parties are supposed to win elections is by making a better case for being in power than their opponents do. Losing elections is supposed to make leaders think deeply about how better to appeal to voters. That system keeps all parties constantly honing their policies, thinking through problems, benefiting their constituents. 

Our election laws are designed to try to hold the playing field level, and a party should want to keep the system fair in order to keep itself healthy. But if a party is willing to cheat to win, it no longer has to work on policies that appeal to voters; it can simply game the system to dismantle the competition on which democracy depends and instead create a one-party state.

There are many legal problems in Trump’s front yard these days. Some, like his theft of documents with markings bearing the highest level of classification and his attempt to overturn the Georgia results for the 2020 presidential election, are heating up fast, and their significance is clear. 

But for all that the case we are currently hearing so much about seems less serious on its face than the other things charged to Trump's account, a hush-money payment to silence someone whose story might have affected the 2016 election is no laughing matter.

[thoughtportal]

Durham’s characterization of the meeting—that it had nothing to do with Clinton—lined up with what the Trump camp first claimed when the meeting was revealed a year afterward, in 2017. At that time, Trump Jr. issued a false statement dictated by his father that insisted the conversation had focused “primarily” on the adoption of Russian children by Americans. That was a phony cover story. Later on, when more information came out, even the elder Trump conceded that the point of the meeting was to gather negative information on Clinton from a foreign adversary. “This was a meeting to get information on an opponent,” Trump said. Yet years later, Durham was still pushing the original disinformation about the meeting propagated by Trump and his allies. 

In a subsequent exchange with Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), Durham misled the committee about another key element of the Trump-Russia scandal. McClintock observed that the “central charge in the Russia collusion hoax was that Trump campaign operatives were in contact with Russian intelligence sources.”

Replying to that remark, Durham said, “There was no such evidence.”

That’s not true.

While running Trump’s campaign in the summer of 2016, Manafort had regular contact with Konstantin Kilimnik, a former Manafort employee in Ukraine who has been repeatedly identified by US government officials as a Russian agent. 

In a detailed, bipartisan 2020 report, the Senate Intelligence Committee, then chaired by Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, called Kilimnik “a Russian intelligence officer.” A year earlier, the Mueller report said, “The FBI…assesses that Kilimnik has ties to Russian intelligence.” The US Treasury in 2021 declared Kilimnik was a “known Russian Intelligence Services agent implementing influence operations on their behalf.” The department added, “During the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign, Kilimnik provided the Russian Intelligence Services with sensitive information on polling and campaign strategy.” In 2018, Mueller indicted Kilimnik on charges of obstruction of justice. 

#article