tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6153667248326157762024-02-22T11:10:53.732-05:00Don DeBar's BlogTruth and justice need a home for peace to exist.Don DeBarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05327834056988391706noreply@blogger.comBlogger104125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-615366724832615776.post-22352312078360475002024-02-08T09:37:00.001-05:002024-02-08T09:38:02.852-05:00Hillary calls Tucker Carlson "Useful Idiot" w/Putin<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZKOg8VvGrpFYQZCwnaBZ5nUHn_WZDYSqq8c-snHA5Dqhx9vX3f_lIukbueMvTmyCJZN5rEXO7oLc5tPzJKkX81a0BAbTuOdLBwj3IRd6lLJ4t1VgRZnPtjg6jysNetwluBsWT_3Y2WJWompkwTjDm-__FSmbbRFBnEDBr90Vtf3LeYK_q4NgVA7a1xtLH/s1280/PUTIN%20HILLARY%20whisper%20EM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="372" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZKOg8VvGrpFYQZCwnaBZ5nUHn_WZDYSqq8c-snHA5Dqhx9vX3f_lIukbueMvTmyCJZN5rEXO7oLc5tPzJKkX81a0BAbTuOdLBwj3IRd6lLJ4t1VgRZnPtjg6jysNetwluBsWT_3Y2WJWompkwTjDm-__FSmbbRFBnEDBr90Vtf3LeYK_q4NgVA7a1xtLH/w661-h372/PUTIN%20HILLARY%20whisper%20EM.jpg" width="661" /></a></div><br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkmWwZ2EhXfOjy9LJOFGYVqtfDqZEkiFv5dgx0_H55XmbQnrPsOsK-r-n67RbPc2DTqfWu45EBesloq41AYUFSBB4fbb-4UdovwKvYkH0-Y5c-1ejhjuf6MvrbGkZsdSUJeBb4k5YeZ0nhGRWSdB1qEAF-7QKa6E-BYHZYxlmtCLNGUc-XGGXM3YuE0ELy/s1199/HILLARY%20TUCKER%20useless%20idiots.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="692" data-original-width="1199" height="397" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkmWwZ2EhXfOjy9LJOFGYVqtfDqZEkiFv5dgx0_H55XmbQnrPsOsK-r-n67RbPc2DTqfWu45EBesloq41AYUFSBB4fbb-4UdovwKvYkH0-Y5c-1ejhjuf6MvrbGkZsdSUJeBb4k5YeZ0nhGRWSdB1qEAF-7QKa6E-BYHZYxlmtCLNGUc-XGGXM3YuE0ELy/w686-h397/HILLARY%20TUCKER%20useless%20idiots.jpg" width="686" /></a></div><br /><p></p>Don DeBarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05327834056988391706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-615366724832615776.post-89789690367170266732024-01-06T12:30:00.010-05:002024-01-06T12:30:48.622-05:00The ACTUAL Coup on January 6, 2021 <p></p><p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Was
the January 6 Capitol Breach used as cover for an actual coup?</span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><br />
</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Trump's
criticism of Pence's “failure” has deeper context</i></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><br />
</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">FEBRUARY 5, 2022 - This
past week, former US President Donald Trump again criticized former
Vice President Mike Pence for Pence's handling of the disputed 2020
presidential election. Trump said that Pence failed in his duty as
the President of the Senate at the January 6, 2021 Joint Session of
Congress to ensure the integrity of the election when there were
“obvious signs of voter fraud or irregularities.”</span></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">Recently,
Pence criticized Trump's earlier complaints about his handling of the
January 6, 2021 Joint Session of Congress, which, as a part of the
regular legal process of validating Presidential elections, was
convened to certify the legitimacy of the Electoral College votes of
the various states.</span></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">Trump
accused Pence of having acted as “an automatic conveyor belt for
the 'Old Crow' Mitch McConnell to get Biden elected President as
quickly as possible.” He was referring to the fact that, when the
proceedings were interrupted for more than 10 hours by the breach of
the Capitol, the detailed challenges that many expected would be
presented - of fraud, ballot stuffing and violations of Article 2,
Section 1 of the Constitution - in Georgia, Michigan, Nevada,
Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, were given short shrift in deference to
what a number of senior Congressional officials termed “the assault
on American democracy” represented by what was already being
called, both in Congress and on television, “the
insurrection.”</span></p><p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Trump maintains that, rather than allow the
proceedings to descend into an emotional morass that prejudiced the
outcome and dismissed the many valid issues raised about the election
without a proper hearing, Pence should have provided an atmosphere
for those many members of both houses who had announced their
intention to bring the challenges to do so in a professionally secure
environment, with confidence that the proceedings would be conducted
in a fair and objective manner.<br /><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Pence
answered Trump's criticism by saying that he “had no right to
overturn the results of the election.”</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Speaking
</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">to
the conservative Federalist Society in early February, the former
Vice President had charged that</span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
some Republicans “</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">believe
that as the presiding officer over the joint session of Congress, I
possessed unilateral authority to reject electoral college votes. And
I heard this week, President Trump said I had the right to ‘overturn
the election’. President Trump is wrong…I had no right to
overturn the election.”</span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
</span></span></span>
</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">Although
Trump had used the words “overturn the election,” he was
referring to the challenges to the vote counts that many expected
would be presented in the half-dozen so-called “swing states”
referenced earlier, including a Constitutional challenge arising as a
consequence of various procedural changes which had been made and
which allowed several million voters to use mail-in ballots for the
first time.</span></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">The
Role of the Joint Session</b></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">The
Joint Session – </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i>i.e.,</i></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">
the convening of both houses of Congress in one session - is held on
January 6 following presidential elections. The House and Senate
jointly convene, and the Electoral College results of each state are
presented in the alphabetical order of the names of the individual
states for certification by the Vice President, who presides over the
proceedings. As the votes counts are presented, the Vice President
asks the assembled Congress if there are any objections to the
certification of that state's vote. If an objection is raised by a
member of the House, and is joined by a member of the Senate, than
the two houses retire to their respective chambers, where the
challenge is presented in the form of a trial. If each house sustains
the objection, the vote is denied certification, and is not counted
in the totals.</span></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">There
had been allegations raised in a number of those “swing states,”
including Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona and
Nevada, of various types of outright fraud. There was also a claim –
a strong one that, for some reason, no court had touched the merits
of - alleging that recent changes in election practice were done
without enabling legislation by their state legislatures, and that
therefore the votes that followed from these changes, including a
huge and decisive number of newly-authorized mail-in ballots, were
void as being in violation of Article II, Section 1 of the US
Constitution. That Section provides:</span></p><p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">“</span></span></i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Each
State shall appoint, </span></span></i></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><b>in
such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct</b></span></i></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,
a Number of Electors...</span></span></i></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">”</span></span></i></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><i><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
(emphasis added.)<br /><br /></span></span></i></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">There
were enough votes in enough “swing states” which fell into the
latter category to hand the election to Donald Trump, if those
challenges prevailed.<br /><br /></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><b>The
Challenges</b></span></span></span></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The
first challenge was raised, prior to the Capitol breach, in the third
state to be offered for certific</span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">ation
- namely, Arizona. This prompted the two houses to retire to their
individual chambers to examine the evidence supporting the claims of
irregularity that were to be raised.<br /><br />It was when these
sessions were convened that the Capitol's security was breached, and
portions of the building were temporarily occupied. Each of the
Senate and House sessions bore the heavy imprint of the protesters
intrusion, and much of the debate was focused not on the facts and
law relevant to the claim, but instead on what was already being
termed "The Insurgency". <br /><br />Upon the return to the
Joint Session, most of the remaining challenges were deferred in
favor of a showing of unity against what Senate Democratic Leader
Chuck Schumer “a day of infamy” newly added to a short list that
included Pearl Harbor and 9/11, where </span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">“the
</span></span></span><em class="western"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">temple
</span></span></span></span></span></em><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">to
</span></span></span></span></span><em class="western"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">democracy
</span></span></span></span></span></em><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">was
desecrated.”</span></span></span></span></span></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">Event
details</b></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">At
the opening of the session, Alabama and Alaska reported their votes.
Each had favored Trump and Pence, with a total of 12 votes for the
two against none for their Democratic rivals. When the certification
of the vote for Arizona was called, Rep Paul Gosar (R-AZ) objected on
behalf of himself and 60 fellow Congressional Republicans. These were
joined by an objection from Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), thereby forcing
the matter into recess to consider the evidence, to wide applause
from the Republicans of both houses, at 1:14 pm ET.</span></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">It
was during this recess that the Capitol was breached. This provoked a
media narrative that a coup d'etat was being attempted, and that it
was connected to President Trump.</span></p><p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">For nearly 10 hours, TV
viewers were subjected to a bipartisan, kangaroo trial-in-absentia of
the President. Talking heads from MSNBC, CNN and Fox mused that Trump
had somehow masterminded what they called a coup attempt, with claims
(which turned out to be false) that one or more Capitol police
officers had been killed by the protesters.</span></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">Prior
to convening the Senate to consider the objections raised about
Arizona's electoral vote, the Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell addressed the chamber about the incident:</span></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">"The
United States Senate will not be intimidated. We will not be kept out
of this chamber by thugs, mobs or threats. We will not bow to
lawlessness or intimidation. We are back at our posts. We will
discharge our duty under the Constitution and for our nation. And
we're going to do it tonight...This failed insurrection only
underscores how crucial the task before us is for our Republic."</span></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">The
Democratic Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer, was even more melodramatic
in his framing of the incident:</span></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">"President
Franklin Roosevelt set aside December 7, 1941 as 'a day that will
live in infamy.' Unfortunately, we can now add January 6, 2021 to
that very short list of dates in American history that will live
forever in infamy."</span></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">He
was also unambiguous in his placement of blame for the incident:</span></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">"This
will be a stain on our democracy, not so easily washed away. The
final, terrible, indelible legacy of the 45th President of the United
States - undoubtedly, our worst."</span></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">Schumer
went on to say that those occupying the Capitol were “not
protesters” but "domestic terrorists" who had "violated
the temple of democracy" and “profaned this sacred chamber.”</span></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">Following
the ten hours of rhetorical carpet-bombing dropped on the floors of
both houses of Congress and across the media landscape, the Joint
Session was reconvened at 11:39 pm ET, ten hours and twenty-five
minutes after the objections were raised.</span></p><p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Not surprisingly,
the vote on the Arizona objections failed in the House 302 to 122.
Democrats unanimously rejected the challenge, while only 60 % of
Republicans (122 to 82) voted to support it. Clearly, had the
incident not occurred, the vote would have still failed, but it would
been closer to a party-line roll call, in the neighborhood of 229 to
195.<br /><br />More importantly, the focus of the public, televised
hearing would have been on the evidence and law supporting the
challenge, rather than the behavior of protesters which was
irrelevant to the claims being raised and examined.<br /><br />Meanwhile
in the Senate, a mere 6 members supported the challenge, while a
bipartisan super-majority of 93 rejected it. Prior to the disruption,
</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">about
14 Senate Republicans had said they'd planned to vote in favor of the
objections, meaning some lawmakers clearly changed their votes after
the attack on the Capitol. In fact, at least four Senators who had
previously announced their support changed their votes. I</span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">t
was evident that the tag-team effort by McConnell and Schumer had the
desired effect on that proceeding. <br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br />“When
I arrived in Washington this morning, I fully intended to object to
the certification of electoral votes. However, the events that have
transpired today have forced me to reconsider and I cannot now in
good conscience object to the certification of these electors,”
Sen. Kelly Loeffler said in a floor speech. Her reason for
reconsidering had nothing to do with the validity of the challenges
or the evidence supporting them. Rather, she said, “The violence,
the lawlessness and siege of the halls of Congress are abhorrent and
stand as a direct attack on the very institution my objection was
intended to protect: the sanctity of the American democratic
process.”</span></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">Others
who reversed their positions included Sens. Steve Daines (R-MT) and
James Lankford (R-OK), and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers
(R-WA).</span></p><p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Again, where the issues with the conduct of the
election were to be the focus of the Senate's deliberations, instead
the bulk of the rhetoric dealt with the “insurrection” and the
:threat to our democracy,” etc., thereby denting the public – and
the world - a view of an actual, thorough examination of the claims
that the election was illegitimately conducted.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Return
to the Joint Session</b></span></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Upon
reconvening after the breach of the Capitol, Pence called the next
state's vote – Arkansas. There were no obljections.<br /><br />The list
of states was then ticked off in alphabetical order, and there were
no objections sustained until the votes of Pennsylvania were
submitted for approval. There, Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) and Senator
Josh Hawley (R-MO) objected; they were joined by 80 members of the
House. The Joint Session again recessed and the House and Senate each
retired to their separate chambers to consider the objection, at
12:15 am, January 7.</span></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">The
Senate spent less than 15 minutes debating the objections and voted
92 to 7 to reject them, thereby defeating the challenge before the
House debate had been concluded, and again with little-to-no
examination of the claims and the evidence supporting them.</span></p><p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">During
the House review, Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-PA) made comments that were
both apocalyptic – and, nevertheless, typical - for the session.
These included his opening statement that the vote on these
objections was not about "picking the President...”<br /><br />“Rather,
tonight, in this House, we will decide whether American democracy
survives." He said that if the objection succeeded, "it
will be the end of our representative democracy."</span></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">The
objection to the certification of the Pennsylvania electoral vote
failed 282-138. Again, in the absence of the Capitol breach, this
would likely have more reflected a much closer, party line vote in
the neighborhood of 229 to 195; again – and more importantly –
there would have been a much more thorough vetting of the actual
claims and evidence, and much less time spent on saintly rhetorical
pontification about the “immediate threat” to “the temple of
democracy,” etc.</span></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">Reconvened
Again</b></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">The
Joint Session again reconvened, this time at 3:24 am. After speeding
through the remaining list of state electors, Trump gained on Biden,
reaching 224 to Biden's 268, until they got to Vermont. It was the
three votes from Senator Bernie Sanders' state that put Biden over
the 270 vote threshold needed to win.</span></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">The
certifications of votes from Virginia (13 for Biden), Washington
state (12 for Biden) and West Virginia (5 for Trump) all went off
without objection. However, the vote from Wisconsin (10 for Biden)
was challenged by 72 House members and one Senator, who then withdrew
his objection.</span></p><p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">His withdrawal meant that the objection failed.</span></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">Wyoming
gave Trump its 3 electoral votes.</span></p><p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">The final tally was 306 to
232 in favor of Biden.</span></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">Conclusion</b></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">Had
the challenges in two or three of the six "swing states"
been sustained, the outcome of the election would have been changed
in favor of Trump.</span></p><p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">Even
failing this, a proper discharge of the duties of the Members of
Congress would have enabled something that had thus far been denied
since Election Day – a thorough public vetting of the claims made
by the then-sitting President that the election had been stolen
through fraud and specific unconstitutional means, with an
opportunity for those so claiming to present their case and the
evidence for all to see. This public vetting was denied by a long
list of state and federal courts that, in the main, rested not upon
the merits, but on technical issues such are ripeness, standing and
jurisdiction. And this lack of transparency was viewed by perhaps
half of the American public as evidence that there was something
shady being concealed.</span></p><p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">But rather than demonstratively holding
an open and obviously objective trial of the facts and law regarding
these claims, there was an atmosphere of fear and intimidation that
prevailed on Capitol Hill and that was transmitted for more than 10
hours via C-SPAN and the commercial news networks.</span></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">As
a consequence, the 2020 election lacks any sense of legitimacy in the
eyes of perhaps half the electorate.</span></p><p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Pence's
failure</b></span></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">It
was clear from his opening statement in the Senate chamber during the
review of the Arizona challenge that the Republican Senate Majority
Leader had no intention of allowing any serious challenge to the
certifications, thereby guaranteeing that Biden would be made
president and that the final opportunity to vet the claims made by
Trump and others would be lost. Pence did nothing to address this, or
the comments made by dozens of Senators and House members that
inflamed emotions both in chambers and among the general public.
<br /><br />Considering all this, as presiding official of the Joint
Session, Pence failed in the performance of his Constitutional and
statutory duties.</span></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;">Trump's
position was – and is - that Vice President Pence, as the President
of the Senate during the Joint Session, had an obligation to ensure
that each member of both houses felt free and safe to comment and
vote according to their own convictions and to the duties of their
office, without the cloud of a phony coup attempt hanging over them
and the proceedings generally. That was the basis for his remarks
disparaging Pence's performance as the presiding officer over the
proceedings, which he termed a failure because he felt the former
Vice President did not live up to the obligations of his office,
including his oath to uphold the Constitution.</span></p><p></p>Don DeBarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05327834056988391706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-615366724832615776.post-79475959744899333702023-11-19T08:55:00.002-05:002023-11-19T11:30:39.102-05:00Federal suit charges genocide, seeks order restraining further US aid to Israel <p><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA</span></p><p><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">From Proposed Order in re:</span></p><p><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">DEFENSE FOR CHILDREN INTERNATIONAL – PALESTINE;</span></p><p><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">AL HAQ;</span></p><p><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">AHMED ABU ARTEMA;</span></p><p><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">MOHAMMED AHMED ABU ROKBEH;</span></p><p><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">MOHAMMAD HERZALLAH;</span></p><p><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">A.N.;</span></p><p><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">LAILA ELHADDAD;</span></p><p><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">WAEIL ELBHASSI;</span></p><p><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">BASIM ELKARRA; and</span></p><p><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">DR. OMAR EL NAJJAR</span></p><p><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">Plaintiffs,</span></p><p><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"> v.</span></p><p><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., President of the United States,</span></p><p><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">ANTONY J. BLINKEN, Secretary of State,</span></p><p><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">LLOYD JAMES AUSTIN III, Secretary of Defense, in their official capacities, </span></p><p><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">Defendants</span></p><p><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">Case No.: 23-cv-5829</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">WHEREFORE, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Defendants, as well as their agents, employees, servants, attorneys, successors, and any person in active concert or participation with them, are ENJOINED from engaging in activity that supports, aids and abets, or otherwise furthers, the genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people in Gaza, including the transfer of any financial or material assistance to Israel. Defendants are ordered to meet their obligations to comply with customary international law to prevent genocide.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><a href="https://ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/attach/2023/11/PI%20Motion_w.pdf" target="_blank">Click here for full copy of proposed order</a></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/northern-district-gaza-civil-rights-complaint.pdf" target="_blank">Click here for full copy of complaint</a></p>Don DeBarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05327834056988391706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-615366724832615776.post-48385438264039782342023-11-12T21:55:00.002-05:002023-11-12T21:55:22.222-05:00WHO Chief: Israel took out 2/3 of Gaza's hospitals<p><br /></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho2XFBMF6fZFE5g3wT2ice3LIw0lgyvUZsInoPUbA-HLPEhEJEp9UXFjsmo041mUCDTmTwX1XNn_xbqvTvLiWkj1to5cZM6vUAU-GwekUO_LRUU87_DC5StFvGO2MAfUg1axS01JwO9d5t9z8z2utcMNgMAJiTdgj6rQe9ocCRmXSCBRTmURDNinqFdcLy/s1156/al-AHLI%20HOSPITAL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="774" data-original-width="1156" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho2XFBMF6fZFE5g3wT2ice3LIw0lgyvUZsInoPUbA-HLPEhEJEp9UXFjsmo041mUCDTmTwX1XNn_xbqvTvLiWkj1to5cZM6vUAU-GwekUO_LRUU87_DC5StFvGO2MAfUg1axS01JwO9d5t9z8z2utcMNgMAJiTdgj6rQe9ocCRmXSCBRTmURDNinqFdcLy/w422-h282/al-AHLI%20HOSPITAL.jpg" width="422" /></a></div><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Since the 7th of October, WHO has verified more than 250 attacks on health care in Gaza and the West Bank, in addition to 25 attacks on health care in Israel – hospitals, clinics, patients, ambulances. Last week, WHO documented 5 attacks on 5 hospitals in one day.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></div><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div style="text-align: justify;">In the past 48 hours alone, four hospitals have been put out of action, representing some 430 beds.</div></span></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; white-space-collapse: preserve;">More than 100 of our UN colleagues have been killed - and counting.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; white-space-collapse: preserve;">And as we speak, there are reports of firing outside the Al-Shifa and Rantisi hospitals.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Half of the Gaza Strip’s 36 hospitals and two-thirds of its primary health care centres are not functioning at all. Those that are functioning are operating way beyond their capacities. The health system is on its knees, and yet somehow is continuing to deliver some lifesaving care.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rosZHH8jXPc" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">See video here of WHO report to UN Security Council</span></a></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><a href="https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-remarks-at-the-emergency-meeting-of-the-united-nations-security-council---10-november-2023" target="_blank">See transcript here of WHO report to UN Security Council</a></span></p>Don DeBarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05327834056988391706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-615366724832615776.post-16478286917822549512023-10-28T19:01:00.008-04:002023-10-28T19:19:26.611-04:00US, Israel vs. World at UN General Assembly<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc5pwZSCGi161SD5csBMi12aQZoGCBcugOa3ZQVEbFsBt41385yl8C9_Az1thAcMGbIvtUkpv4gYsdLhvtStfE5YDb5-pnBfoxWR0VOSDXJ0-tpi36CGak8CUCoj2FNr_c2-fknluIt4UWFGQO9-JpU59ZcdboYBRNNqnMOmox4ZN1QqePRZ1F-2PNAqh0/s2048/UNGA%20102723%20vote%20on%20gaza%20ceasefire%20res%20chart.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1090" data-original-width="2048" height="351" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc5pwZSCGi161SD5csBMi12aQZoGCBcugOa3ZQVEbFsBt41385yl8C9_Az1thAcMGbIvtUkpv4gYsdLhvtStfE5YDb5-pnBfoxWR0VOSDXJ0-tpi36CGak8CUCoj2FNr_c2-fknluIt4UWFGQO9-JpU59ZcdboYBRNNqnMOmox4ZN1QqePRZ1F-2PNAqh0/w653-h351/UNGA%20102723%20vote%20on%20gaza%20ceasefire%20res%20chart.jpeg" width="653" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The world demanded a cease-fire in Gaza Friday, with only the following nations voting "no" to a <a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/LTD/N23/319/20/PDF/N2331920.pdf?OpenElement" target="_blank">resolution</a> in the UN General Assembly:</span></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">Austria, Croatia, Czechia, Fiji, Guatemala, Hungary, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Tonga and the US.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></div></span><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large; white-space-collapse: preserve;">A Mouseketeer Roll Call of 45 US puppets from Albania to Zambia (including UK, the Baltics, Poland and Ukraine) abstained.<br /></span></div><div><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /><a href="The world demanded a cease-fire in Gaza Friday, with only the following nations voting "no" to a resolution in the UN General Assembly: Austria, Croatia, Czechia, Fiji, Guatemala, Hungary, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Tonga and the US. A Mouseketeer Roll Call of 45 US puppets from Albania to Zambia (including UK, the Baltics, Poland and Ukraine) abstained. https://apnews.com/article/un-resolution-vote-israel-hamas-gaza-truce-7eec00b0e28ef2036636b166b48ca030" target="_blank">Click here</a> for full article.</span></span></div></div>Don DeBarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05327834056988391706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-615366724832615776.post-87721065940919635222023-10-17T05:37:00.003-04:002023-10-17T05:41:28.222-04:00What can be done for the people of Gaza?<p style="text-align: justify;">Over 1 million people have been driven out of their homes by the bombings of the Israelis. No one can claim that a million people belong to Hamas.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">No one is bothering to make the claim. Impunity doesn't require anyone to make that claim.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4vGklJm1j_ahP-lHN5bVi4EEGkJ0gNdHai1zGTWTaNj0cfvHvnAF2CWbIvELF1mCudCQcH5GgGoJLc0WHZSg_tiUmfLhMaBfRx3vzl3CE4s6Vt70xPqULzWoJ7zXnXTBLRuCluUHJN0tffUpGdIg9mKakXT7x8eB3K2vcLBlCEMmY8-I-zM9hFSJe2brT/s768/israeli-airstrikes-damage-gaza-hamas-war-AP-101123-768x512.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="768" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4vGklJm1j_ahP-lHN5bVi4EEGkJ0gNdHai1zGTWTaNj0cfvHvnAF2CWbIvELF1mCudCQcH5GgGoJLc0WHZSg_tiUmfLhMaBfRx3vzl3CE4s6Vt70xPqULzWoJ7zXnXTBLRuCluUHJN0tffUpGdIg9mKakXT7x8eB3K2vcLBlCEMmY8-I-zM9hFSJe2brT/s320/israeli-airstrikes-damage-gaza-hamas-war-AP-101123-768x512.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: justify;">What kind of response came from people anywhere to what the Nazis did in places like Warsaw Ghetto?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Did anyone make any of their embassies feel the kind of siege that was placed against the people who were victims of the Nazis elsewhere?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Is there any historical precedent for this?</p>Don DeBarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05327834056988391706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-615366724832615776.post-22934862538887169402023-10-10T10:41:00.004-04:002023-10-10T10:43:07.645-04:00A Timeline for the Creation of the State of Israel in Palestine<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">From a Facebook post by </span><a class="x1i10hfl xjbqb8w x6umtig x1b1mbwd xaqea5y xav7gou x9f619 x1ypdohk xt0psk2 xe8uvvx xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r xexx8yu x4uap5 x18d9i69 xkhd6sd x16tdsg8 x1hl2dhg xggy1nq x1a2a7pz xt0b8zv xzsf02u x1s688f" href="https://www.facebook.com/fiona.bateson?__cft__[0]=AZXoHqZbcn_SwegqVh7KAD-7bJDrKXoTKlI2TMdV8UAJDMU5IXJcHjAuLUORCtFC5XZImqrz-A9gDbQcnd66u2NyEh5pTn001yFyGWncOP1uwpXCoJOg_GCNYcYF8fLt3nvn0Gwt68_b43KEpECYpMqp&__cft__[1]=AZXoHqZbcn_SwegqVh7KAD-7bJDrKXoTKlI2TMdV8UAJDMU5IXJcHjAuLUORCtFC5XZImqrz-A9gDbQcnd66u2NyEh5pTn001yFyGWncOP1uwpXCoJOg_GCNYcYF8fLt3nvn0Gwt68_b43KEpECYpMqp&__tn__=-UC%2CP-R]-R" role="link" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; border-color: initial; border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; touch-action: manipulation;" tabindex="0"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Fiona Bateson</span></a>:</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>For those in the back new to this, a simple timeline explanation. Educate yourselves and others.</i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>What is happening was inevitable due to the lack of knowledge or complete apathy of much of the international community. The rest of the simple timeline for those who still bother to actually read more than headlines is in the comments below.</i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Feel free to copy the text, save it to your device as a file, read it in full (several times if you have to), and figure out what to do once you fully understand.</i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Many scholars, experts, and academics over the years have warned about the consequences of apathy and misunderstanding, which we are all now beginning to see. </i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Turn off your television sets and learn, then act on what you now know. I won't get into why you've been deliberately mislead, that should be obvious - suffice to say in very simple terms, by 1916 it was obvious to those in power that oil was the future, henceforth the Sykes-Picot agreement which happened in secret between Britain and France, but that's another story. </i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Here I am, undoubtedly spitting into the wind again for the umpteenth time, sigh...</i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium; text-align: left;"><b><u>The Balfour Declaration:</u></b></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">More than 100 years ago, on November 2, 1917, Britain’s then-foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour, wrote a letter addressed to Lionel Walter Rothschild, a figurehead of the British Jewish community.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The letter was short – just 67 words – but its contents had a seismic effect on Palestine that is still felt to this day.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It committed the British government to "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" and to facilitating "the achievement of this object". The letter is known as the Balfour Declaration.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9xW3zkTlV1HivyPpS6mQaTmm8_wo4hWpMO6mNJJeEn-yqJKnl43BCZX3nUelfRcTHO4HIVmYN0uMS0V1sjsieP-WMV9xBiUS9NPYMJ9V2OlD2ZrImdzQTj2VZGcASBG-23Fjo6kFYpmY7MroYsoP4gDbn_SmeDdImzx8XO2nnDF4yeVu4RzTmfrEULSuY/s1053/Balfour_declaration_unmarked.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1053" data-original-width="800" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9xW3zkTlV1HivyPpS6mQaTmm8_wo4hWpMO6mNJJeEn-yqJKnl43BCZX3nUelfRcTHO4HIVmYN0uMS0V1sjsieP-WMV9xBiUS9NPYMJ9V2OlD2ZrImdzQTj2VZGcASBG-23Fjo6kFYpmY7MroYsoP4gDbn_SmeDdImzx8XO2nnDF4yeVu4RzTmfrEULSuY/w295-h336/Balfour_declaration_unmarked.jpg" width="295" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><p style="text-align: justify;">In essence, a European power promised the Zionist movement a country where Palestinian Arab natives made up more than 90 percent of the population.</p></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A British Mandate was created in 1923 and lasted until 1948. During that period, the British facilitated mass Jewish immigration – many of the new residents were fleeing Nazism in Europe – and they also faced protests and strikes. Palestinians were alarmed by their country’s changing demographics and British confiscation of their lands to be handed over to Jewish settlers.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Escalating tensions eventually led to the Arab Revolt, which lasted from 1936 to 1939.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In April 1936, the newly formed Arab National Committee called on Palestinians to launch a general strike, withhold tax payments and boycott Jewish products to protest British colonialism and growing Jewish immigration.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The six-month strike was brutally repressed by the British, who launched a mass arrest campaign and carried out punitive home demolitions, a practice that Israel continues to implement against Palestinians today.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The second phase of the revolt began in late 1937 and was led by the Palestinian peasant resistance movement, which targeted British forces and colonialism.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">By the second half of 1939, Britain had massed 30,000 troops in Palestine. Villages were bombed by air, curfews imposed, homes demolished, and administrative detentions and summary killings were widespread.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In tandem, the British collaborated with the Jewish settler community and formed armed groups and a British-led “counterinsurgency force” of Jewish fighters named the Special Night Squads.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Within the Yishuv, the pre-state settler community, arms were secretly imported and weapons factories established to expand the Haganah, the Jewish paramilitary that later became the core of the Israeli army.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In those three years of revolt, 5,000 Palestinians were killed, 15,000 to 20,000 were wounded and 5,600 were imprisoned.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">By 1947, the Jewish population had ballooned to 33 percent of Palestine, but they owned only 6 percent of the land.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The United Nations adopted Resolution 181, which called for the partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The Palestinians rejected the plan because it allotted about 56 percent of Palestine to the Jewish state, including most of the fertile coastal region. At the time, the Palestinians owned 94 percent of historic Palestine and comprised 67 percent of its population.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Even before the British Mandate expired on May 14, 1948, Zionist paramilitaries were already embarking on a military operation to destroy Palestinian towns and villages to expand the borders of the Zionist state that was to be born.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In April 1948, more than 100 Palestinian men, women and children were killed in the village of Deir Yassin on the outskirts of Jerusalem.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That set the tone for the rest of the operation, and from 1947 to 1949, more than 500 Palestinian villages, towns and cities were destroyed in what Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, or “catastrophe” in Arabic.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">An estimated 15,000 Palestinians were killed, including in dozens of massacres.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The Zionist movement captured 78 percent of historic Palestine. The remaining 22 percent was divided into what are now the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">An estimated 750,000 Palestinians were forced out of their homes.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Today their descendants live as six million refugees in 58 squalid camps throughout Palestine and in the neighbouring countries of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On May 15, 1948, Israel announced its establishment.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The following day, the first Arab-Israeli war began and fighting ended in January 1949 after an armistice between Israel and Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In December 1948, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 194, which calls for the right of return for Palestinian refugees.</span></p>Don DeBarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05327834056988391706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-615366724832615776.post-55172100485343259042023-10-09T09:33:00.011-04:002023-10-09T09:56:50.779-04:00Israel's blockade has starved and strangled Gaza since 2006<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #050505; font-family: arial; font-size: large; text-align: center; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFTn-zZKr9UyETc8mZHPcalxeImG8gfZSb7B2YxkbCsq-6BM-FA_ktHbO5V8x83BWYFG8J2yO-h4X8GQc2HykGdGnnQUB6ZBu6XsyX8s-0aShCRppiBP7w7CePcP5hh4mDcMKEuTvuwfEYHW_8Ni1IubeDNXv-teXea-zTL0mKP6dPgB8qjK69pcteXnWZ/s800/ISRAEL%20PALESTINE%20bombed%20mosque%202009%20110707-gaza-mosque.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="552" data-original-width="800" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFTn-zZKr9UyETc8mZHPcalxeImG8gfZSb7B2YxkbCsq-6BM-FA_ktHbO5V8x83BWYFG8J2yO-h4X8GQc2HykGdGnnQUB6ZBu6XsyX8s-0aShCRppiBP7w7CePcP5hh4mDcMKEuTvuwfEYHW_8Ni1IubeDNXv-teXea-zTL0mKP6dPgB8qjK69pcteXnWZ/w395-h273/ISRAEL%20PALESTINE%20bombed%20mosque%202009%20110707-gaza-mosque.jpg" width="395" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #050505; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><i><span style="font-family: times;"><b>A mosque in Gaza, bombed by Israeli military in 2009</b></span></i></span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Gaza has been under siege - an illegal blockade that violates international law, a per se war crime - since Hamas won the 2006 election.</span></span></p><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">That blockade is the genocidal starving of the people to force regime change.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">This past week's response was a simple act of self-defense, it's apparent ugliness an asymmetric response that is tiny in comparison to the massive ugliness of starving a city of 2 million in the worlds largest outdoor prison for the last past 17 years.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Biden, Schumer, McConnell, Pelosi, Jeffries and 530+/- members of <span><a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer;" tabindex="-1"></a></span>Congress - and other US officials - are directly culpable.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><a href="https://youtu.be/Fbvx7sgXdhU" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>See this video from 2009</b></span></a></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;"><span face="Segoe UI Historic, Segoe UI, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Cynthia - being Cynthia - dusted herself off after her first encounter and tried again to deliver supplies to the people of Gaza, under blockade by Israel to force a regime change after the 2006 election of Hamas.</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;"><span face="Segoe UI Historic, Segoe UI, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial; white-space-collapse: preserve;">
She found herself in Ramallah prison and called me from there - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_sMsCpNt4c" target="_blank"><b>listen to that call here</b></a></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"></div>Don DeBarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05327834056988391706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-615366724832615776.post-5548010686966854742023-10-02T09:50:00.002-04:002023-10-02T09:55:11.167-04:00Mass Discharge of Psych Patients At NYC Hospital<h1 class="mt-4 mb-3 h2" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-family: var(--font-family-header); font-weight: var(--font-weight-600); letter-spacing: -0.02em; line-height: var(--font-size-17); margin-bottom: 1rem !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 1.5rem !important; margin: 1.5rem 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Woodhull hospital evacuating patients in Brooklyn after storm-related power failure</span></h1><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: x-large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiocyHkROiEKna1THyuRkYamhjCoK2zEablCVQUauGlNQpWwVlfe9EV-P1-dVS4ZR_6Co4uXkZpnlbwOGKeUVpPpINg3eTFk9ZWl0PLB5BU1o6BlKr87znI899ui8RScZhkxHBhIrmtxqf6uHm22FYUrgZ9pext-nXGO_K2ejnROmzVwTsExOdK3Z7BVq2a/s3072/Woodhull_Hospital_jeh.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2304" data-original-width="3072" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiocyHkROiEKna1THyuRkYamhjCoK2zEablCVQUauGlNQpWwVlfe9EV-P1-dVS4ZR_6Co4uXkZpnlbwOGKeUVpPpINg3eTFk9ZWl0PLB5BU1o6BlKr87znI899ui8RScZhkxHBhIrmtxqf6uHm22FYUrgZ9pext-nXGO_K2ejnROmzVwTsExOdK3Z7BVq2a/w472-h308/Woodhull_Hospital_jeh.jpg" width="472" /></a></div><b style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: start;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b>NYC Health + Hospitals/Woodhull</b></div></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div><span style="font-size: medium;">More than 100 patients are being transferred from Brooklyn’s Woodhull Hospital to other facilities Saturday after the hospital lost power from Friday's torrential rains, officials said.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">New York City Health + Hospitals, the city’s public hospital system, announced the facility lost power Friday and had to switch to a backup generator. The utility company Con Edison said the hospital would have to shut down that generator too in order to make repairs, which could take several days.</span></div><div><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Read source news article <a href="https://gothamist.com/news/woodhull-hospital-evacuating-patients-in-brooklyn-after-storm-related-power-failure" target="_blank">here</a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Actually, a lot of these patients were "transferred" to the street, without notification to their families, lest they be "upset" by the City discharging their loved ones from the hospital's psychiatric care facility, without notice, onto the streets of Brooklyn.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Meanwhile, all the doctors AND nurses had fled the facility, with NYPD handling the discharges. One eyewitness was told "the only patients who would be allowed to stay are those who killed somebody."</span></div></div>Don DeBarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05327834056988391706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-615366724832615776.post-61258114019745679302023-09-27T19:41:00.001-04:002023-09-27T19:41:22.605-04:00BACK IN THE DAY: Biden on the TPP<p><span style="font-size: large; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large; text-align: justify;">"The Trans-Pacific Partnership is perhaps the most ambitious trade negotiation underway in the world. It will break new ground on important issues from the challenges of state-owned enterprises, to ensuring the free flow of data across borders, to enhancing regional supply chains, to ensuring transparency in cutting red tape. We’re also working to strengthen protections for labor and the environment… Our goal is for high standards for the Trans-Pacific Partnership to enter the bloodstream of the global system and improve the rules and norms." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">—Vice Pres</span><span style="font-size: large;">ident Joseph P. Biden, April 5, 2013<br /><br /></span></p><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://sgp.fas.org/crs/row/R42694.pdf" target="_blank">Click here to see original</a></div><p></p>Don DeBarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05327834056988391706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-615366724832615776.post-39112041845594089652023-09-27T13:55:00.005-04:002023-09-27T13:56:49.181-04:00Canada's Parliament Isn't the First to Whitewash Nazis for Zelensky<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Trudeau is full of BS, as are Biden, Schumer, McConnell and the whole "Slava Ukraina" crowd.</span></span></p><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">They know that Nazis are their proxies in Ukraine, just as they used jihadis as proxies in Libya, Syria and across Africa and the Middle East.</span></div></span><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">This has been going on for a long time.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></div></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium; white-space-collapse: preserve;">This piece by Christopher C. Black, a defense lawyer at the ICC, was written four years ago. It deals with the steady whitewashing of Nazism by the West over a period of many years, with the same manufactured history that was spewed in Zelensky's honor by Canada's Parliament last week - a history, BTW, that is now taught in Ukraine as part of the regular curriculum.</span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://journal-neo.su/2019/09/08/the-whitewashing-of-the-nazis/?fbclid=IwAR3kWQT4ZU9opnPLAd19KfNH0_vOTCZVGjudwZQzR64bI48ZJIGwwNBJSiU" target="_blank">Click here to read The Whitewashing of the Nazis</a></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibrAQQDpO_jIyc5gyoThZbIdd22bqP_AZliwKCpQU8rkF_EGgYTklrVw2eFZZCVjhspKBqHgDhL0FlPU7TAI7FQVm7U93GinZcCO0SoEAKPc0N_3HGbX7uFj5uJNMBApIkyNZeud8fS1k_TCZwquQAHpPk3LtXioDaNrmAPhVRKNH-fk01GIl4whWTRLB_/s740/Nazi%20camp.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="492" data-original-width="740" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibrAQQDpO_jIyc5gyoThZbIdd22bqP_AZliwKCpQU8rkF_EGgYTklrVw2eFZZCVjhspKBqHgDhL0FlPU7TAI7FQVm7U93GinZcCO0SoEAKPc0N_3HGbX7uFj5uJNMBApIkyNZeud8fS1k_TCZwquQAHpPk3LtXioDaNrmAPhVRKNH-fk01GIl4whWTRLB_/w483-h278/Nazi%20camp.jpg" width="483" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Don DeBarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05327834056988391706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-615366724832615776.post-66843547126598586072023-09-26T12:09:00.002-04:002023-09-26T12:09:55.378-04:00KPFK News, September 26, 2023 - End of MAD, End of us? w/Mark Sleboda<iframe style="background-image:url(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/i7gXvdZPTiQ/hqdefault.jpg)" width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/i7gXvdZPTiQ?si=x1IaXNtPrrphxPRw" frameborder="0"></iframe>Don DeBarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05327834056988391706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-615366724832615776.post-70275930581896089182023-09-23T20:37:00.001-04:002023-09-24T11:23:40.466-04:00Portraits of Warmongering US Presidents - 1945 to date<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6K2HKHMyi1Q-L6xCkSD75ZQ3zOLVzUWqfF66L9m8SNB3u9qrFZkftwpxQ1fVJt8uqqJdLxmlhV1iH2pa1IbhWYyllg3tmj9sq4VW4epb5b0PqPwiLw4_Pi8pROPnxmaSyWOLwevqdyXKQ0nWCmaVkJm1bllA2VaPSAtOnYavE4mTFMpfU8ri9uLJzJ1iD/s261/1%20TRUMAN.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="261" data-original-width="193" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6K2HKHMyi1Q-L6xCkSD75ZQ3zOLVzUWqfF66L9m8SNB3u9qrFZkftwpxQ1fVJt8uqqJdLxmlhV1iH2pa1IbhWYyllg3tmj9sq4VW4epb5b0PqPwiLw4_Pi8pROPnxmaSyWOLwevqdyXKQ0nWCmaVkJm1bllA2VaPSAtOnYavE4mTFMpfU8ri9uLJzJ1iD/s1600/1%20TRUMAN.jpg" width="193" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh18jXBz65341h4RRY8XerRBzoGdEiJPQGr4Mlgve7AZGq5Q1QE57_MVAgtphkr4CVNDXBu9pHXKPUTQShuLOm8wzOwekTezVe5i_C7CB9VAIYIA3Xu5OeueLNY3asIq5E8AdPC-EbisQa8bDxZcZdzqc6yQTCqCZXKqVbcIODWrIi9tsFa5QgJvo2nPTtp/s1250/2%20EISENHOWER.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; 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margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="786" data-original-width="640" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2L0LVKEHYLK6CTfuxIc3zynxH8xIdmpvRSCX74BR4WKYi2gxEIdeWqA9_cUjtCn7Ls3oGObOIZCiohBExDiX1CowXJiriEbCpA8Ax0p7LZdVwaRU_rL4-LG1pwky0GR7mzxkEnMtU1WbeQmoTWHeE-i41LV7uB-3zl6CyMLxsqtDbt1BH-7GOYmdSwvJk/s320/5%20JimmyCarterPortrait2.jpg" width="261" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbQ6xDcKxJIfskO0z49A4mTCVXnx-24Ph3KTuVXO4uxceCEN9uHeH5hrphgpRXzivqqVRJ5V_60y8U_VJYDJub-jtJS_K0Xdx0jgEn7Fde17_pe6mNXyqbLkG0Nus1xovh3lhT4uHwHqQVBRRUpy07UUxF8lCD2H7WkW51-NyYB3zScIyvCjdYz5ep-Jrv/s3000/6%20Official_Portrait_of_President_Reagan_1981.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="2399" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbQ6xDcKxJIfskO0z49A4mTCVXnx-24Ph3KTuVXO4uxceCEN9uHeH5hrphgpRXzivqqVRJ5V_60y8U_VJYDJub-jtJS_K0Xdx0jgEn7Fde17_pe6mNXyqbLkG0Nus1xovh3lhT4uHwHqQVBRRUpy07UUxF8lCD2H7WkW51-NyYB3zScIyvCjdYz5ep-Jrv/s320/6%20Official_Portrait_of_President_Reagan_1981.jpg" width="256" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="950" data-original-width="632" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE5JydZsI62ctZFhNaqDKdgf9R6SqFN1EAnnPgR_KdsIb_PsgjT-ceP4ka_wPy6Qrz8FAYBRF-NbBCUwoDG_0RxYTutdIlL7NNGgR0A0tolR6eK95IiHEuOV3qSjkTnSA2uJ1TrukV2P1XocwzaFMuNs2J-h7rPv_uFBfoRR5_c7yrR19V0y2jG7houqCP/s320/8%20Bill%20Clinton.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8aatpvTJ1vqvsHSe-NcLnmaEWnH8zn8cQTJxa-yefiSLM_XFoRspoW-ySJ7sS2YinBBEcyn0aOfaM1ZWLjQIZpsSD-eNPQhg8EZyA7JXFg5ihSHOHZiZxac0ADrh7NZXHEGjXBRjYWKi71AGHOesM8-J5AbeTuGkwN5zeC4At5V_QP1sF7uDKjFvVgw6F/s3000/9%20George-W-Bush.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="2267" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8aatpvTJ1vqvsHSe-NcLnmaEWnH8zn8cQTJxa-yefiSLM_XFoRspoW-ySJ7sS2YinBBEcyn0aOfaM1ZWLjQIZpsSD-eNPQhg8EZyA7JXFg5ihSHOHZiZxac0ADrh7NZXHEGjXBRjYWKi71AGHOesM8-J5AbeTuGkwN5zeC4At5V_QP1sF7uDKjFvVgw6F/s320/9%20George-W-Bush.jpeg" width="242" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTTtgZxHK9hg6iRgU8H21eLoCOucc004cU_Izfq0zVr4MemH089XrtFJPwyptgjAhcSduUxab7QKl_HNb-6PmtdWTMUwqLWsLTOS351iuMcM08ucq_toulL-rMKlO4VSHW-kBBpJGxBc49E-4_KxH9-dugOQHRKDp4-RjvXgQDQcizO8Oj4wWrPeVC04e8/s1600/10%20Barack-Obama-2009.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1175" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTTtgZxHK9hg6iRgU8H21eLoCOucc004cU_Izfq0zVr4MemH089XrtFJPwyptgjAhcSduUxab7QKl_HNb-6PmtdWTMUwqLWsLTOS351iuMcM08ucq_toulL-rMKlO4VSHW-kBBpJGxBc49E-4_KxH9-dugOQHRKDp4-RjvXgQDQcizO8Oj4wWrPeVC04e8/s320/10%20Barack-Obama-2009.JPG" width="235" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRybOx-4GJ0lwqH7R9vU7FUlstFt7PtXhDKevC1HCBGHoc1LBfnNlIo0mwmaG0qwhfAbxQ_pgw7G3RA3JO-rdmb4bUJ_t3_LZNUwRq5kK6Lx9hiDrhccjXcdhFxvF6dFsHYYfden08drsNuOWvRgxOzcaZb8uoigT5KECQgKX1ny-vFMXigOMoyO9NaJgy/s1536/11%20BIDEN.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="1536" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRybOx-4GJ0lwqH7R9vU7FUlstFt7PtXhDKevC1HCBGHoc1LBfnNlIo0mwmaG0qwhfAbxQ_pgw7G3RA3JO-rdmb4bUJ_t3_LZNUwRq5kK6Lx9hiDrhccjXcdhFxvF6dFsHYYfden08drsNuOWvRgxOzcaZb8uoigT5KECQgKX1ny-vFMXigOMoyO9NaJgy/s320/11%20BIDEN.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p>Don DeBarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05327834056988391706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-615366724832615776.post-28354461033077981462023-09-20T08:38:00.004-04:002023-09-21T20:30:08.913-04:00"Ukraine grain" is actually owned by US/EU corporate giants<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>"Forced collectivization" - Vanguard style</b></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span face="-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", "Noto Sans Armenian", "Noto Sans Bengali", "Noto Sans Cherokee", "Noto Sans Devanagari", "Noto Sans Ethiopic", "Noto Sans Georgian", "Noto Sans Hebrew", "Noto Sans Kannada", "Noto Sans Khmer", "Noto Sans Lao", "Noto Sans Osmanya", "Noto Sans Tamil", "Noto Sans Telugu", "Noto Sans Thai", sans-serif" style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Here, Vanguard, et al are doing for real what Stalin and the USSR were accused of doing. Except it is all of Ukraine that is being "liquidated" - physically, and before the eyes of the world.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span face="-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", "Noto Sans Armenian", "Noto Sans Bengali", "Noto Sans Cherokee", "Noto Sans Devanagari", "Noto Sans Ethiopic", "Noto Sans Georgian", "Noto Sans Hebrew", "Noto Sans Kannada", "Noto Sans Khmer", "Noto Sans Lao", "Noto Sans Osmanya", "Noto Sans Tamil", "Noto Sans Telugu", "Noto Sans Thai", sans-serif" style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: medium;">When people talk about "Ukrainian grain" they're actually talking about grain that is now owned by US and EU mega-corporations such as Vanguard Group, Kopernik Global Investors, BNP Asset Management Holding, Goldman Sachs-owned NN Investment Partners Holdings, and Norges Bank Investment Management, which manages Norway’s sovereign wealth fund.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face="-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", "Noto Sans Armenian", "Noto Sans Bengali", "Noto Sans Cherokee", "Noto Sans Devanagari", "Noto Sans Ethiopic", "Noto Sans Georgian", "Noto Sans Hebrew", "Noto Sans Kannada", "Noto Sans Khmer", "Noto Sans Lao", "Noto Sans Osmanya", "Noto Sans Tamil", "Noto Sans Telugu", "Noto Sans Thai", sans-serif" style="background-color: white;">Several large US pension funds, foundations, and university endowments are also invested in Ukrainian land through NCH Capital – a US-based private equity fund, which is the fifth largest landholder in the country.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face="-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", "Noto Sans Armenian", "Noto Sans Bengali", "Noto Sans Cherokee", "Noto Sans Devanagari", "Noto Sans Ethiopic", "Noto Sans Georgian", "Noto Sans Hebrew", "Noto Sans Kannada", "Noto Sans Khmer", "Noto Sans Lao", "Noto Sans Osmanya", "Noto Sans Tamil", "Noto Sans Telugu", "Noto Sans Thai", sans-serif" style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face="-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", "Noto Sans Armenian", "Noto Sans Bengali", "Noto Sans Cherokee", "Noto Sans Devanagari", "Noto Sans Ethiopic", "Noto Sans Georgian", "Noto Sans Hebrew", "Noto Sans Kannada", "Noto Sans Khmer", "Noto Sans Lao", "Noto Sans Osmanya", "Noto Sans Tamil", "Noto Sans Telugu", "Noto Sans Thai", sans-serif" style="background-color: white;">How is the takeover of agricultural land happening?<br /><br />Whereas at least 4.3 million hectares are (as of March of last year) already controlled by agribusinesses in Ukraine, a law passed in March
2020 lifted the country’s 19-year moratorium on sales of agricultural land, allowing such transactions
since July 2021.
<br /><br />This law was rejected by a vast majority of Ukrainians, who massively protested against it in 2019 and 2020. The measure, imposed by Western financial institutions that have become major lenders to the
country since 2014, was passed at a time when mandatory COVID-19 stay-at-home orders were in
place across the country, effectively quelling further protests or demonstrations.<br /><br />The stated objective of this
law was to ensure the exit of “less productive farmers” from agriculture and promote further concentration of land.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face="-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", "Noto Sans Armenian", "Noto Sans Bengali", "Noto Sans Cherokee", "Noto Sans Devanagari", "Noto Sans Ethiopic", "Noto Sans Georgian", "Noto Sans Hebrew", "Noto Sans Kannada", "Noto Sans Khmer", "Noto Sans Lao", "Noto Sans Osmanya", "Noto Sans Tamil", "Noto Sans Telugu", "Noto Sans Thai", sans-serif" style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face="-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", "Noto Sans Armenian", "Noto Sans Bengali", "Noto Sans Cherokee", "Noto Sans Devanagari", "Noto Sans Ethiopic", "Noto Sans Georgian", "Noto Sans Hebrew", "Noto Sans Kannada", "Noto Sans Khmer", "Noto Sans Lao", "Noto Sans Osmanya", "Noto Sans Tamil", "Noto Sans Telugu", "Noto Sans Thai", sans-serif" style="background-color: white;">See detailed report - which is actually 18 months out of date - <a href="https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/sites/oaklandinstitute.org/files/pdfpreview/war-theft-faq.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face="-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", "Noto Sans Armenian", "Noto Sans Bengali", "Noto Sans Cherokee", "Noto Sans Devanagari", "Noto Sans Ethiopic", "Noto Sans Georgian", "Noto Sans Hebrew", "Noto Sans Kannada", "Noto Sans Khmer", "Noto Sans Lao", "Noto Sans Osmanya", "Noto Sans Tamil", "Noto Sans Telugu", "Noto Sans Thai", sans-serif" style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6wFvcydSWnCXhcAiVa0xZbvPYaBRiU0bKQUW3EJQabqHespYfMnTjAv2h1XNy0YYDLJdHth8kfxV83FZCt7HrYTTel6aI396NRcCX0NLZkMdmwcPgmQzrykP2Pg8LBXiDwtO3aiqsuIUuhKjOZdPzNekbjjejH_3xUqzVAsZU7Qs49KBhFT3qzwLJ-O-s/s749/ZELENSKY%20money%20laundry%20-%20cropped.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="749" data-original-width="711" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6wFvcydSWnCXhcAiVa0xZbvPYaBRiU0bKQUW3EJQabqHespYfMnTjAv2h1XNy0YYDLJdHth8kfxV83FZCt7HrYTTel6aI396NRcCX0NLZkMdmwcPgmQzrykP2Pg8LBXiDwtO3aiqsuIUuhKjOZdPzNekbjjejH_3xUqzVAsZU7Qs49KBhFT3qzwLJ-O-s/s320/ZELENSKY%20money%20laundry%20-%20cropped.jpg" width="304" /></a></div><br /><span face="-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Open Sans", "Helvetica Neue", "Noto Sans Armenian", "Noto Sans Bengali", "Noto Sans Cherokee", "Noto Sans Devanagari", "Noto Sans Ethiopic", "Noto Sans Georgian", "Noto Sans Hebrew", "Noto Sans Kannada", "Noto Sans Khmer", "Noto Sans Lao", "Noto Sans Osmanya", "Noto Sans Tamil", "Noto Sans Telugu", "Noto Sans Thai", sans-serif" style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><br /></span>Don DeBarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05327834056988391706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-615366724832615776.post-58125795696876699802023-09-11T02:46:00.000-04:002023-09-11T02:46:11.687-04:00Green Party candidate Cornel West's new campaign manager<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVzx4U00iTDo7hmWB-7fSkIqxRtBWWZDgetTDyi4Au1eqMhYtOeHAh5faG8yo5vAOsCliJ5VS0y561CGDGZY0c_oFjOCWbgKWRp62_G6kM1F4Xe8_Nt3sLMTWHETSIChMzH2AtpPfy233LeqQfkKz0Lts4zxTDXHPnuElZ0dazL1MB-ePkFqTXJARUPcr5/s1080/CORNEL%20WEST%20091123%20peter%20daou.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="523" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVzx4U00iTDo7hmWB-7fSkIqxRtBWWZDgetTDyi4Au1eqMhYtOeHAh5faG8yo5vAOsCliJ5VS0y561CGDGZY0c_oFjOCWbgKWRp62_G6kM1F4Xe8_Nt3sLMTWHETSIChMzH2AtpPfy233LeqQfkKz0Lts4zxTDXHPnuElZ0dazL1MB-ePkFqTXJARUPcr5/w523-h523/CORNEL%20WEST%20091123%20peter%20daou.jpg" width="523" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /><b>Some background:</b><br />While he was playing keys for Miles, et al in the studio, he was using his computer keyboard to assist the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and John Kerry (as well as the Clinton Global Initiative and Ted Turner's $1 Billion brainchild the United Nations Foundation).</span><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b>From his LinkedIn profile (as of September 11, 2023 at 2:15am EDT):</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">"Peter has spent more than two decades in national politics, serving in the following roles: Online Communications Adviser, John Kerry for President; Digital Media Strategist, Sen. Hillary Clinton; Internet Director, Hillary Clinton for President; digital consultant to organizations including AARP, the UN Foundation, Planned Parenthood, Clinton Global Initiative, Action Against Hunger, PR Newswire, Urban Initiative, and Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids."</span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-daou-5523666b/">https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-daou-5523666b/</a></span></p><p><span style="background-color: #0084ff; color: white; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"></span></p>Don DeBarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05327834056988391706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-615366724832615776.post-23822144449919890862023-09-10T13:46:00.006-04:002023-09-10T13:48:45.216-04:00More Ghosts from October 1962<p style="text-align: justify;"><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><i><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">More from "Thirteen Days" by Robert F. Kennedy, Sr.:</span></b></i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">During the so-called Cuban Missile Crisis, President John F. Kennedy was, in RFK's words, "distressed" that the Joint Chiefs, "with the notable exception of General (Maxwell) Taylor, seemed to give so little consideration to the implications of the steps they suggested (air strikes on Soviet missile sites and personnel, followed by invasion)..." or assumed "...that a (nuclear) war was in our national interest."</span></span></p><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span face="Segoe UI Historic, Segoe UI, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">In essence, </span></span><span style="color: #050505; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer;" tabindex="-1"></a></span><span face="Segoe UI Historic, Segoe UI, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">the President "was disturbed by this inability to look beyond the limited military field...this experience pointed out for us all the importance of civilian direction and control (of the military and intelligence apparatus) and the importance of raising probing questions to military recommendations."</span></span> </span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;"><i style="color: #050505; font-weight: bold; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></i></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><i style="color: #050505; font-weight: bold; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">And this:</span></i></div>
<div style="color: #050505; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
"Barbara Tuchman's 'The Guns of August (1914)' had made a great impression on the President (JFK).
</span><span style="font-size: large;">
'I am not going to follow a course which will allow anyone to write a comparable book about this time, The Missiles of October,' he said to me (RFK, Sr.) that Saturday night, October 26 (1962). 'If anybody is around to write after this, they are going to understand that we made every effort to find peace, and every effort to give our adversary room to move. I am not going to push the Russians an inch beyond what is necessary (to secure the removal of the Soviet IRBMs in Cuba)."</span></span></div></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;"><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><i style="color: #050505; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">There is a note at the end of this memoir from Ted Sorensen, speechwriter and counsel to JFK and advisor to the 1968 Presidential campaign of RFK:</span></b></i></div><div style="color: #050505; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: #050505; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">"It was Senator (Robert F.) Kennedy's intention to add a discussion of the basic ethical question involved: what, if any, circumstance or justification gives this government or any government the moral right to bring its people and possibly all people under the shadow of nuclear destruction? He wrote this book in the summer and fall of 1967 on the basis of his personal diaries and recollections, but never had an opportunity to rewrite or complete it."</span></div></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white;"><div style="color: #050505; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span face="Segoe UI Historic, Segoe UI, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;">There was no exemption taken for the case of Vladimir Putin. And Ukraine was politically and </span></span><span style="color: #050505; white-space-collapse: preserve;">militarily united with Russia in the USSR.</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white;"><div style="color: #050505; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;"><span face="Segoe UI Historic, Segoe UI, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Hey, Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, Nancy Pelosi and all the geniuses in Langley, Pentagon City and Foggy Bottom, the so-called Helsinki Group and such dens of moronic tripe as The Atlantic Council, CNN, MSNBC, Fox, NYT, WaPo and Democracy Now - are you listening?</span></span></div>Don DeBarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05327834056988391706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-615366724832615776.post-29615321707254947402023-09-09T02:52:00.006-04:002023-09-09T11:45:31.482-04:00The Ghost of October 1962 Hovers Over Us<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><b>"Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to the choice of either a humiliating defeat or a nuclear war."</b></i><br /><br />Those words were delivered in June, 1963 by then-President John F. Kennedy at American University in Washington, DC. It was the conclusory lesson he drew from the so-called Cuban Missile Crisis the previous year.<br /><br />An entirely different dynamic exists now between the White House, the Pentagon and the CIA than existed in October, 1962</p><p style="text-align: justify;">"Listen. You tell them those chains of command end at one place - me!" - President John F. Kennedy to Kenneth O'Donnell regarding Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Cuban Missile Crisis, per Thirteen Days by Robert F. Kennedy, Sr.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And for those who believe that the US can continue to give Ukraine bombs to drop on Russia without Russia holding the US culpable, there's this from that same book:</p><p style="text-align: justify;">"A missile is a missile...it makes no great difference whether you were killed by a missile from the Soviet Union or Cuba." - Secretary of Defense Robert S McNamara, in reference to US doctrine that a missile installed by the Soviet Union in Cuba, if fired upon the United States, would be treated as an attack by the Soviet Union upon the United States "requiring a full retaliatory response". October, 1962.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">At the conclusion of his memoir on the subject, Senator Robert F Kennedy, Sr. wrote:</p><p style="text-align: justify;">"At the outbreak of the First World War the ex-Chancellor of Germany, Prince von Bulow, said to his successor, 'How did it all happen?' 'Ah, if only we knew,' was the reply."</p><p style="text-align: justify;">If the current situation gets further out of hand, there will be no one to raise such questions.</p>Don DeBarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05327834056988391706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-615366724832615776.post-82520422525003967932023-09-01T12:46:00.009-04:002023-09-01T13:01:32.536-04:00PSL, again, sides with US intel agencies<p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Oh, boy.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;">I guess I'll need to update <a href="https://dondebar.blogspot.com/2022/02/marxist-parties-siding-with-state-are.html" target="_blank">my piece from February, 2022</a>.</span></div><span style="background-color: white;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">From the <a href="https://www.liberationnews.org/psl-editorial-four-indictments-and-a-presidential-election/" target="_blank">PSL's 'Liberation' website</a>:</div></span><span style="background-color: white;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>"Like the other three indictments, the facts of this case are clear. The effort to overturn the 2020 election result was carried out in plain sight. Trump and his allies concocted a fake story about massive fraud swaying the race in Biden’s favor, and then sought to pressure officials who had a role in the counting and certification of the vote total. This plot had an obviously racist character, focusing on predominantly Black parts of the state and attempting to disqualify large numbers of votes. A particularly disgusting element was the targeting of two Black women who were involved in routine ballot counting in Atlanta, exposing them to vile harassment and death threats."</i></div></span><span style="background-color: white;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The "facts of the case" are that a candidate raised a claim of illegality that went to the heart of the legitimacy of the election.<br /><br />One such allegation - that the changes in laws and regs which enabled the widespread use of mail-in ballots where they were not legally permitted before and which ballots "in plain sight" changed the outcome of the election in PA, GA, WI, MI, AZ and NV were done in violation of <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-2/section-1/clause-2/#:~:text=Each%20State%20shall%20appoint%2C%20in,Profit%20under%20the%20United%20States%2C" target="_blank">US Constitution Article II, Section 1, Clause 2</a> and, thus, should be disallowed - more than raises sufficient doubt to render the balance of the claim quoted, to be kind, as a pile of stinking bullshit.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Another - that the claim that two public officials were corrupt and acting in a partisan manner in the performance of their duties - is neither racist nor illegal. Rather, the recent decision by the Court to find for these two government employees in a defamation suit against someone who accused them of counting fraudulent ballots which altered the outcome of Georgia's presidential election is a frightening development where it becomes, literally, illegal to criticize a public official.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I have been watching PSL's positions on the various public controversies here that in perfect sync with the CIA, FBI, <i>et al</i> positions, to wit:<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Brexit was a right wing phenomenon.<br /><br />Trump supporters were fascist dupes.<br /><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>January 6 was a flareup of white supremacy.<br /><br />The truckers who were in rebellion against mandates - and a host of other concerns dealing with their material conditions, BTW - were supporters of a "reactionary movement" and, thus, should be opposed.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The latest is just another in a long line of positions that previously had me ask about the "analysis" underlying each of these claims:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Is this error, or something else?</div></span></span>Don DeBarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05327834056988391706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-615366724832615776.post-65650841179496205992023-09-01T10:50:00.000-04:002023-09-01T10:50:01.457-04:00Indonesia Disavows Pentagon’s ‘Joint Statement’ on China and Russia<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Last week, US Defense Secretary Austin issued a press release purporting to be a joint statement with the Defense Minister of Indonesia condemning China and Russia.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;">One week later, Indonesia's Defense Minister issued a statement denying the claims made by Austin.</span></div><span style="background-color: white;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"There is no joint statement and no press conference. What is important for me to underline is that our relationship with China is very good. We respect each other, we already have mutual understanding. I conveyed that in the US,” Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto said to reporters Thursday, adding “We are close friends with China, we respect America, and we seek friendship with Russia.”</div></span><span style="background-color: white;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In essence, Austin lied.</div></span><span style="background-color: white;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3504476/united-states-dod-and-indonesia-mod-joint-press-statement/ </div></span></span>Don DeBarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05327834056988391706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-615366724832615776.post-63980700872862694422023-08-23T07:52:00.007-04:002023-08-23T08:14:28.007-04:00Rep. Mike Lawler (NY-17): Stop killing with our money<p style="text-align: center;"><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>How much has the Hudson Valley's 17th CD sent to Ukraine since February, 2022?</b></span></span></p><div dir="auto" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Total sent to Ukraine since February, 2022: </span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">$150,000,000,000.00</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Population of the US:</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">330,000,000</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Population of the 17th CD of New York:</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">775,000</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>OUR SHARE OF UKRAINE SPENDING THUS FAR:</b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><b>$352,272,727.27</b></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Number of Ukrainians killed:</span></b></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Between 120,000 (per US) and 400,000 (ind.)</b></div></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Land area seized by Ukraine from Russia:</span></b></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b>NONE</b></div></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><span>The obvious purpose of this war that you have been</span><span> hired</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent;">to prosecute -</span><span> by interests from outside our district - is not to "liberate" Ukraine" or help the Ukrainian people. It is to weaken Russia so it can be looted by the people who hired you.</span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: #f0f2f5;"><div style="color: #050505; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Thus, every death that has occurred since this began during your term is blood on your hands.</span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505;"><br /></span></div><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Certainly, after the obvious failure of all this blood and money to change the status of Ukraine's former Donbass region (except to destroy it over a 9 year campaign of bombing and terror), <i>every death that follows from here is clearly blood on your hands</i>, and <b>at a cost thus far to the people of this district of more than THREE HUNDRED FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS.</b></div></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: #f0f2f5;"><div style="color: #050505; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">How many evictions could you have prevented among the people of the 17th?</span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505;"><br /></span></div><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505;"><div style="text-align: justify;">How much food could have been bought and delivered?</div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505;"><div style="text-align: justify;">How many roads fixed?</div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #050505;"><div style="text-align: justify;">How many schools repaired? Etc.</div></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Enough already! Cut the damned strings and start to represent us.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: #f0f2f5; color: #050505; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">Or make plans for your return to the private sector.</span></div>Don DeBarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05327834056988391706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-615366724832615776.post-55437670647604888912023-06-25T09:10:00.001-04:002023-06-25T16:00:19.703-04:00YouTube censorship of discussion of coup attempt in Russia masked as copyright policing<p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On June 24, 2023, the Wagner Group mercenary force moved from the battlefield in Ukraine, where it served as an adjunct to the Russian military in the Special Military Operation in Ukraine, into Russia, stationing in Rostov-on-Don. From there, the force began a march to Moscow. The action was taken, according to the head of the mercenary force, to remedy what he called "corruption" which he claimed without providing particulars.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The action eventually subsided after negotiations with the president of Belarus.</span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">At the time of the action by the mercenary force, NATO was deeply involved in an operation called "Air Defender 23" which was - and still ongoing - the largest aerial force deployment in the history following World War Two. Led by the same German air force that invaded the Soviet Union 82 years ago this past Thursday, causing ultimately some twenty-seven million Soviet (mostly Russian) deaths, the drill involved 250 aircraft and a core military force of 10,000 troops. It began June 12 and was slated, officially, to end this past Friday.<br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The exercise on Russia's border was supposed to send a "significant message" to Moscow - according to Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz of the German Luftwaffe - "that we can defend ourselves."</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In addition to the 10 days of operations of the massive aerial armada which led up to the apparent coup attempt on Saturday, there were reports from several sources at multiple locations in the US of military mobilization for overseas movement.</span></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In that context, I appeared on PressTV Saturday at approximately 1:00 p.m. EDT - <b>see video <a href="https://youtu.be/m0mL-xjJZOQ" target="_blank">here</a></b> - and suggested that the actions taken by the mercenary group had been done in coordination with the NATO exercises and was likely engineered by the US.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I posted a video of the news/opinion piece on <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@dondebar/videos" target="_blank">my YouTube page</a></b> Sunday morning New York time, and received notice that it was "blocked" by YouTube, meaning the only way anyone would be able to see it is if they already had the link to it. YouTube claimed there was a copyright claim for 55 seconds of footage of the 9 minute 19 second report. The footage was video apparently taken of the mercenary group inside Russia that was shown in a split-screen with PressTV's Moscow correspondent, Marina Kortunova, reporting from Russia's capital about what appeared to be a march on the city by the mercenary group. According to YouTube, that 55 seconds of b-roll is the property of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Televisi%C3%B3n_Canaria" target="_blank"><b>Radio Television Canaria, S.A.</b></a>, a media group based in the Canary Islands.</span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">There is something called "Fairness Doctrine" which carves out a safe space from copyright law for a variety of uses. Certainly, the incidental use of generic scenes of public highways with an illegal hostile military force in order to report upon and interpret an apparent attempt at regime change in a nuclear power falls into this category. If Radio Television Canaria, S.A. disagrees, then I'd like to ask them to produce the release from the Russian government for them to capture and claim property in the images of Russian state property. I'd also like to explore the property rights arrangements between the renegade mercenary force in the midst of criminal treasonous action and Radio Television Canaria, S.A. whereby the latter was able to acquire property rights in the images of the former.</span> </p><p><br /></p><p> </p>Don DeBarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05327834056988391706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-615366724832615776.post-87419516936271570772023-06-20T10:57:00.002-04:002023-06-20T10:57:49.426-04:00RFK: Biden’s Foreign Policy? War.<p> </p><h1 style="color: #404040; font-family: "SF Compact Display", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 32px; line-height: 36px; margin: 0px;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id%3D611154%26post_id%3D129725684%26utm_source%3Dpost-email-title%26isFreemail%3Dtrue%26token%3DeyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo5NjE1MTg3MSwicG9zdF9pZCI6MTI5NzI1Njg0LCJpYXQiOjE2ODcyNzI1ODMsImV4cCI6MTY4OTg2NDU4MywiaXNzIjoicHViLTYxMTE1NCIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.Gc5nHcnm1Ffsrutdsvw7jDr5X0mzqqMWDMf-m_r1xtQ&source=gmail&ust=1687359313816000&usg=AOvVaw0OGLr9C4ebmOGXY2bDmG78" href="https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=611154&post_id=129725684&utm_source=post-email-title&isFreemail=true&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo5NjE1MTg3MSwicG9zdF9pZCI6MTI5NzI1Njg0LCJpYXQiOjE2ODcyNzI1ODMsImV4cCI6MTY4OTg2NDU4MywiaXNzIjoicHViLTYxMTE1NCIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.Gc5nHcnm1Ffsrutdsvw7jDr5X0mzqqMWDMf-m_r1xtQ" style="color: #404040; cursor: pointer; font-family: arial, sans-serif; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Biden’s Foreign Policy? War.</a></h1><h3 style="color: grey; font-family: "SF Compact Display", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px; margin: 12px 0px 0px;">The Biden administration deliberately provoked the Ukraine war and is doing everything it can to keep it going.</h3><div><br /></div><div><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" role="presentation" style="color: black; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; width: auto;"><tbody><tr><td><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" role="presentation" style="width: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="font-size: 13px; vertical-align: middle;"><div style="color: #404040; font-family: "SF Compact", -apple-system, -apple-system, -system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 11px; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; text-decoration: unset; text-transform: uppercase;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://substack.com/redirect/910a0fec-fe7a-4f12-b409-7c76f81dbb38?j%3DeyJ1IjoiMWw4djliIn0.3Fkc5l-ffp6GM125l4Lq0pfkbuy-d-UvC9uni_mUV58&source=gmail&ust=1687359313816000&usg=AOvVaw0AQb6D5dx1ylUQ1wCpEe92" href="https://substack.com/redirect/910a0fec-fe7a-4f12-b409-7c76f81dbb38?j=eyJ1IjoiMWw4djliIn0.3Fkc5l-ffp6GM125l4Lq0pfkbuy-d-UvC9uni_mUV58" style="color: #404040; cursor: pointer; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><b>ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR.</b></a></div></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr><tr><td><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" role="presentation" style="width: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="font-size: 13px; vertical-align: middle;"><div style="color: grey; font-family: "SF Compact", -apple-system, -apple-system, -system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 11px; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; text-decoration: unset; text-transform: uppercase;"><time datetime="2023-06-20T14:49:33.534Z"><b>JUN 20</b></time></div></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><br /></div><div><p style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a speech last Friday in Finland in which he dismissed the idea of a ceasefire in the Ukraine conflict and called for further transfers of high-tech weaponry and aircraft to Ukraine. </p><p style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">Blinken’s speech highlights once again that the Biden administration has no intention of ending this conflict peacefully. The plan, which members of the administration and foreign policy establishment have explicitly admitted on numerous occasions, is to use Ukraine to achieve the larger geopolitical goal of weakening Russia. In other words, the Ukrainians are cannon fodder in a U.S. proxy war against Russia.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">Blinken’s statement is consistent with reports in Foreign Affairs magazine last September citing numerous American former security officials that Russia and Ukraine had actually reached a tentative peace agreement in April 2022. That deal was <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/7b0108b1-668f-4cb8-8ac3-baed6daeb64a?j%3DeyJ1IjoiMWw4djliIn0.3Fkc5l-ffp6GM125l4Lq0pfkbuy-d-UvC9uni_mUV58&source=gmail&ust=1687359114166000&usg=AOvVaw2zUO6xoE3i7j_-NrwqCnzy" href="https://substack.com/redirect/7b0108b1-668f-4cb8-8ac3-baed6daeb64a?j=eyJ1IjoiMWw4djliIn0.3Fkc5l-ffp6GM125l4Lq0pfkbuy-d-UvC9uni_mUV58" rel="" style="color: #404040;" target="_blank">scuttled</a> after Boris Johnson, doubtless at the behest of the Biden administration, visited Kyiv on April 9. Later, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who was trying to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/f3a1339a-65b9-4fd7-9bb8-32f687653cab?j%3DeyJ1IjoiMWw4djliIn0.3Fkc5l-ffp6GM125l4Lq0pfkbuy-d-UvC9uni_mUV58&source=gmail&ust=1687359114166000&usg=AOvVaw3seZCAerse4t3zzzPXY82R" href="https://substack.com/redirect/f3a1339a-65b9-4fd7-9bb8-32f687653cab?j=eyJ1IjoiMWw4djliIn0.3Fkc5l-ffp6GM125l4Lq0pfkbuy-d-UvC9uni_mUV58" rel="" style="color: #404040;" target="_blank">mediate</a> between Putin and Zelensky, stated that the US and its allies blocked his mediation efforts.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">The pattern here is clear. Not only is the administration deceiving the American people about the motives for this costly and tragic war, but by continually escalating it they put the whole world at risk of nuclear conflagration.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">Even by the standards of the Neocons who engineered this war, it is not going well. The “spring counteroffensive” is a pathetic failure. I’m waiting to see how the administration will sugarcoat this calamity to shore up dwindling support for this disastrous misadventure, one in a long series of forever wars.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">I call upon President Biden to issue two apologies. First, to the American people for misleading them into supporting an ugly proxy war on false pretenses. Second and more importantly, to the Ukrainian people for maneuvering them into this war and ruining their country, all for the sake of U.S. (imagined) geopolitical interests.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">I also call upon President Biden and the world to heed the advice of John F. Kennedy in his 1963 Peace Speech, when he said: “Nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war.”</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #404040; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; text-align: justify;">In commemoration of that speech, today I will be delivering a definitive address on peace in New Hampshire that will set a dramatically different direction for American foreign policy in my administration and, with the support of the American people, in administrations to come. That speech will be <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/f0734666-4c49-4ad5-a14d-9db4db74c1e8?j%3DeyJ1IjoiMWw4djliIn0.3Fkc5l-ffp6GM125l4Lq0pfkbuy-d-UvC9uni_mUV58&source=gmail&ust=1687359114166000&usg=AOvVaw1zkOFvetPtaLtLRGdo1nX_" href="https://substack.com/redirect/f0734666-4c49-4ad5-a14d-9db4db74c1e8?j=eyJ1IjoiMWw4djliIn0.3Fkc5l-ffp6GM125l4Lq0pfkbuy-d-UvC9uni_mUV58" rel="" style="color: #404040;" target="_blank">livestreamed</a>.</p></div>Don DeBarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05327834056988391706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-615366724832615776.post-12176555740054218112023-06-12T11:45:00.009-04:002023-06-12T11:59:48.308-04:00Last time, the US prosecuted Nazi propagandists as war criminals<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: 1.75rem;"><b>The Nuremberg precedent</b></span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT serif", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; max-width: 34em; text-align: justify;">The role of propaganda and propagandists figured prominently at the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal, convened to render judgment on the Nazi leaders following World War II. The tribunal was an institution organized by the victorious Allied governments, serving in the final analysis the ruling classes of those countries.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT serif", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; max-width: 34em; text-align: justify;">Nonetheless, in their arguments US prosecutors set forth a democratic legal principle derived from the international experience of a half-century of carnage: that planning and launching an aggressive war constituted a criminal act and that those who helped prepare such a war through their propaganda efforts were as culpable as those who drew up the battle plans or manufactured the munitions.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT serif", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; max-width: 34em; text-align: justify;">The case made against Hans Fritzsche, one of the individuals chiefly responsible for Nazi newspaper and radio propaganda, is particularly significant. Fritzsche, born in Bochum, Westphalia in 1900, served in the German army in World War I and studied liberal arts at university, but left without a degree. He began a career as a journalist working for the Hugenberg Press, a newspaper chain that supported the right-wing “national” parties, including the Nazis.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT serif", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; max-width: 34em; text-align: justify;">Fritzsche began commenting on radio in September 1932, discussing political events on his own weekly program, “Hans Fritzsche Speaks.” That same year the regime of Franz von Papen appointed him head of the Wireless [Radio] News Department, a government agency. Fritzsche was generally sympathetic to the Nazi cause, but not a member of the party.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT serif", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; max-width: 34em; text-align: justify;">Underlining the importance with which the Hitlerites viewed radio as an instrument of propaganda, on the evening that the Nazis came to power, January 30, 1933, two emissaries of Joseph Goebbels, soon to be minister of propaganda and enlightenment, paid Fritzsche a visit. The latter was allowed to stay on as head of the Wireless Radio Department despite his rejection of certain conditions set by Goebbels, including the immediate firing of all Jews and all those who refused to join the Nazi Party.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT serif", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; max-width: 34em; text-align: justify;">The Nuremberg prosecution case against Fritzsche notes: “Fritzsche continued to make radio broadcasts during this period in which he supported the National Socialist [Nazi] coalition government then still existing.”</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT serif", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; max-width: 34em; text-align: justify;">In April 1933, Goebbels paid Fritzsche a personal visit and informed him of the decision to place the Wireless News Service under the jurisdiction of the newly created Propaganda Ministry as of May 1, 1933. Apparently satisfied with the results of the first meeting, Goebbels arranged a second at which Fritzsche informed the propaganda minister of the steps he had taken to “reorganize and modernize” the agency, including ridding it of Jewish employees.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT serif", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; max-width: 34em; text-align: justify;">“Goebbels thereupon informed Fritzsche that he would like to have him reorganize and modernize the entire news services of Germany within the control of the Propaganda Ministry. ... He [Fritzsche] proceeded to conclude the Goebbels-inspired reorganization of the Wireless News Service and, on 1 May 1933, together with the remaining members of his staff, he joined the Propaganda Ministry. On this same day he joined the NSDAP [Nazi Party] and took the customary oath of unconditional loyalty to the Fuehrer.”</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT serif", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; max-width: 34em; text-align: justify;">After entering the Propaganda Ministry, Fritzsche went to work for its “German Press Division.” From 1933 to 1942 Fritzsche held various positions in that department, heading it for the four years during which the Nazi regime launched its invasions of neighboring countries. The Nuremberg prosecution argued: “By virtue of its functions, the German Press Division became an important and unique instrument of the Nazi conspirators, not only in dominating the minds and psychology of Germans, but also as an instrument of foreign policy and psychological warfare against other nations.”</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT serif", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; max-width: 34em; text-align: justify;">According to Fritzsche’s own affidavit: “During the whole period from 1933 to 1945 it was the task of the German Press Division to supervise the entire domestic press and to provide it with directives by which this division became an efficient instrument in the hands of the German State leadership. More than 2,300 German daily newspapers were subject to this control. ... The head of the German Press Division held daily press conferences in the Ministry for the representatives of all German newspapers. Hereby all instructions were given to the representatives of the press.”</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-KDmuvXSNtMOKdx7jMxLNIfnEzfFE0PfdqUXKYG0GXgptsnWhQkm6Ijgsdm0lmkoypwuFMS--vy8NCx6_-d5mj8RBcBFtvtvboVCLCXBIsRp8Gx5cLSC4rZqRXVGqZbk_q8F2Ngj38cmQ6-r6oy5cQT9YSCesxRugTUJ_mAn3D3ubG70olZAKWMiZQQ/s660/KIEV%20012546%20execution%20of%20nazis.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="414" data-original-width="660" height="325" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-KDmuvXSNtMOKdx7jMxLNIfnEzfFE0PfdqUXKYG0GXgptsnWhQkm6Ijgsdm0lmkoypwuFMS--vy8NCx6_-d5mj8RBcBFtvtvboVCLCXBIsRp8Gx5cLSC4rZqRXVGqZbk_q8F2Ngj38cmQ6-r6oy5cQT9YSCesxRugTUJ_mAn3D3ubG70olZAKWMiZQQ/w517-h325/KIEV%20012546%20execution%20of%20nazis.png" width="517" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Execution of Nazis, Kiev, January 25, 1946</i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span face=""Source Sans Pro", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face=""Source Sans Pro", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;"><b>The prosecution case:<br />Propaganda as an instrument of aggression</b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face=""Source Sans Pro", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><span><br /></span></span></div><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT serif", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; max-width: 34em; text-align: justify;">The prosecution case, argued by Drexel Sprecher, an American, placed considerable stress on the role of media propaganda in enabling the Hitler regime to prepare and carry out aggressive wars. “The use made by the Nazi conspirators of psychological warfare is well known. Before each major aggression, with some few exceptions based on expediency, they initiated a press campaign calculated to weaken their victims and to prepare the German people psychologically for the attack. They used the press, after their earlier conquests, as a means for further influencing foreign politics and in maneuvering for the following aggression.”</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT serif", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; max-width: 34em; text-align: justify;">Fritzsche was named head of the German Press Division in 1938 after the “primitive military-like” methods of his predecessor, Alfred Ingemar Berndt, created “a noticeable crisis in confidence of the German people in the trustworthiness of its press,” in Fritzsche’s words.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT serif", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; max-width: 34em; text-align: justify;">The Nuremberg prosecutor detailed the propaganda campaigns taken up by the German media, under Fritzsche’s immediate supervision, in relation to various acts of foreign aggression, including the incorporation of Bohemia and Moravia (1939) and the invasions of Poland (1939) and Yugoslavia and the USSR (1941).</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT serif", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; max-width: 34em; text-align: justify;">The Nazi press propaganda campaign preceding the invasion of Poland involved manufacturing or manipulating complaints of the German minority in that country. Fritzsche explains: “Concerning this the leading German newspapers, upon the basis of directions given out in the so-called ‘daily parole,’ brought out the following publicity with great emphasis: (1) cruelty and terror against Germans and the extermination of Germans in Poland; (2) forced labor of thousands of German men and women in Poland; (3) Poland, land of servitude and disorder; the desertion of Polish soldiers; the increased inflation in Poland; (4) provocation of frontier clashes upon direction of the Polish Government; the Polish lust to conquer; (5) persecution of Czechs and Ukrainians by Poland.”</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT serif", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; max-width: 34em; text-align: justify;">In regard to the Nazi propaganda surrounding the Yugoslav events, the prosecutor noted the “customary definitions, lies, incitement and threats, and the usual attempt to divide and weaken the victim.”</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT serif", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; max-width: 34em; text-align: justify;">Fritzsche describes how he received instructions on the eve of the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941: “[Foreign Minister Joachim von] Ribbentrop informed us that the war against the Soviet Union would start that same day and asked the German press to present the war against the Soviet Union as a preventative war for the defense of the Fatherland, as a war which was forced upon us through the immediate danger of an attack of the Soviet Union against Germany. The claim that this was a preventative war was later repeated by the newspapers which received their instructions from me during the usual daily parole of the Reich Press Chief. I, myself, have also given this presentation of the cause of the war in my regular broadcasts.”</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT serif", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; max-width: 34em; text-align: justify;">Thus, the presentation of an illegal invasion of a foreign country as a “preventative” or pre-emptive war did not originate with Bush, Cheney or Rumsfeld.</p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "PT serif", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; max-width: 34em; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: large;">The prosecution in the Fritzsche case raised an issue that is of the greatest relevance today: the role of Nazi media propaganda in inuring the German population to the sufferings of other peoples and, indeed, urging Germans to commit war crimes. It argued: “Fritzsche incited atrocities and encouraged a ruthless occupation policy. The results of propaganda as a weapon of the Nazi conspirators reaches into every aspect of this conspiracy, including the atrocities and ruthless exploitation in occupied countries. It is likely that many ordinary Germans would never have participated in or tolerated the atrocities committed throughout Europe, had they not been conditioned and goaded by the constant Nazi propaganda. The callousness and zeal of the people who actually committed the atrocities was in large part due to the constant and corrosive propaganda of Fritzsche and his official associates.”</span></p>From https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2003/04/nure-a16.html<p></p>Don DeBarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05327834056988391706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-615366724832615776.post-58808759493365684712023-06-09T06:51:00.000-04:002023-06-09T06:51:16.770-04:00These Congressional Lunatics Want WW III<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The latest attempt to escalate in Ukraine has the public (UGLY) face of this "bi-partisan" group of Congress-critters:<br /></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Jason Crow (D)<br /></span><span style="font-size: medium;">Jason Crow is an American lawyer, veteran, and politician serving as the United States representative for Colorado's 6th congressional district since 2019.</span></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Mikie Sherrill (D)<br />Rebecca Michelle "Mikie" Sherrill is an American politician, former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot, attorney, and former federal prosecutor serving as the U.S. representative for New Jersey's 11th congressional district since 2019. The district includes a swath of suburban and exurban areas west of New York City.<br /><br />Jared Golden (D)<br />Jared Forrest Golden is an American politician and a Marine Corps veteran serving as the U.S. representative for Maine's 2nd congressional district since 2019.<br /><br />Donald G. Davis (D)<br />Donald Gene Davis is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for North Carolina's 1st congressional district since 2023. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented the 5th district in the North Carolina Senate from 2013 to 2023.<br /><br />James R. Baird (R)<br />James Richard Baird is an American businessman and politician who serves as the U.S. representative from Indiana's 4th congressional district. Before being elected to Congress, Baird served from 2010 to 2018 as a member of the Indiana House of Representatives and as a Putnam County commissioner from 2006 to 2010.<br /><br />Tony Gonzales (R)<br />Ernest Anthony Gonzales II is an American politician and United States Navy veteran who has served as the U.S. representative for Texas's 23rd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives since 2021. He is a member of the Republican Party.<br /><br />Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R)<br />Mariannette Jane Miller-Meeks is an American physician and politician serving as a U.S. representative since 2021. She has represented Iowa's 1st congressional district since 2023 and represented the 2nd district from 2021 to 2023.<br /><br />Chrissy Houlahan (D)<br />Christina Marie "Chrissy" Houlahan is an American politician, engineer, and former United States Air Force officer. A member of the Democratic Party, she is the U.S. representative from Pennsylvania's 6th congressional district. <br /><br />Jimmy Panetta (D)<br />James Varni Panetta is an American lawyer, politician, and former Navy intelligence officer from the state of California. A member of the Democratic Party, he is the U.S. representative for California's 19th congressional district. Formerly his district was numbered the 20th congressional district.</span></p>Don DeBarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05327834056988391706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-615366724832615776.post-28213317593066769832023-06-07T14:28:00.006-04:002023-06-07T14:28:55.117-04:00US moves closer to direct military exchange with Russia<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So now Washington is aping the Luftwaffe - and bragging about it!</span></span></p><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Aside from the fact that <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/06/06/russia-ukaine-war-putin-counteroffensive-belgorod-border-drones-moscow/" target="_blank">this idiot</a> has it upside down - like the rag he's published in does frequently - the very event described is a failed air raid, successfully defended against by the Russians.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But consider this - if (it looks more like "when" than "if" at this point) these idiots try harder and take out some Russians in Moscow, there will certainly be a demand by the Russian people for their government to <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit;" tabindex="-1"></a></span>deliver swift and terrible retaliation.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Not against Kiev - although that, too.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: large;">Against US. American civilians. In American.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And against civilians in the UK and European Union.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Remember what the people here were like after 9/11?</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Biden is creating that mood in Russians. Don't listen to the assholes who promised 20 years ago that US soldiers "would be greeted with flowers" by Iraqis. Russians, like Iraqis, get righteously angry and fight back when attacked.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Unlike Iraqis, Russians DO have WMDs.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: medium;">LOTS of them.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; text-align: justify; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And they have the means to deliver them to any inch of land inside the US that they choose.</span></div>Don DeBarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05327834056988391706noreply@blogger.com