Green Irony: Massive US Lithium Source Found - In Fracking Wastewater

The global, government-coerced transition into "green energy" has geologists scouring the Earth for new sources of lithium -- the element that's required for batteries, like those used in electric vehicles.

Now, in a cosmic practical joke on environmentalists, researchers say they've found a lithium mother lode -- in Pennsylvania fracking wastewater. 

It turns out that the Marcellus Shale --  a long swath of sedimentary rock in the northeastern United States that holds huge amounts of frackable gas -- holds huge quantities of lithium too. Justin Mackey and other researchers at the National Energy Technology Laboratory in Pennsylvania were pleasantly surprise when they studied the contents of wastewater dredged up in the fracking process at 515 sites in the Keystone State, reports Science Alert.

Long before the frackers showed up, deep groundwater has been dissolving the lithium in the Marcellus Shale for eons. "It's been dissolving rocks for hundreds of millions of years—essentially, the water has been mining the subsurface," Mackey told the University of Pittsburgh's Brandie Jefferson. 

When they analyzed the wastewater data, they were stunned by the volume of lithium. The shale "has the capacity to provide significant lithium yields for the foreseeable future" he says. Their detailed findings were published in Scientific Reports. 

It's unclear if other fracking hotspots have abundant lithium too. However, even using conservative estimates of how much can be recovered from the wastewater suggests that Pennsylvania alone could cover more than 30% of America's 2024 demand. 

The lithium rich wastewater from oil fracking in the Marcellus Shale has the potential to provide 30% of the US demand for Lithium. Unfortunately New York bans the practice of fracking for this oil & its lithium rich wastewater. https://t.co/Ry3gZJexGD

— Izengabe (@Izengabe_) May 19, 2024

The US government is targeting lithium independence, with the Department of Energy specifically aiming for all of the country's lithium needs to be covered by domestic production by 2030. That's causing a mad rush -- and conflicts that pit green energy boosters against environmentalists and American Indians who are litigating to shut down promising sources. 

Case in point: the Thacker Pass mine in northern Nevada, which is supposed to be the nation's largest open-pit lithium mine. Indian tribes sued, claiming the mine is too close to the site of an 1865 massacre.  Environmentalists sued, saying the mining process will destroy animal habitats and harm groundwater. Now the federal Fish and Wildlife Service is doing a year-long study on the potential impact to a tiny snail. 

via ECIU

The United States is way behind other countries. Here's the 2023 lithium production leaderboard according to Investing News Network: 

1. Australia: 86,000 metric tons (MT)
2. Chile: 44,000 
3. China: 33,000 
4. Argentina: 9,600
5. Brazil: 4,900  
6. Zimbabwe: 3,400
7. Canada: 3,400 (tied for 6th)
8. Portugal: 380 
9. USA: Production numbers withheld, purportedly to protect proprietary company data

An artisanal mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo reportedly uses rotating 5,000-worker shifts (Junior Kannah/AFP via Getty and NPR)

Lithium and cobalt mining in third-world countries is often a highly toxic and hazardous enterprise. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, militias have reportedly abducted children and brought them to dig away to fulfill leftists' green dreams. 

Here's how Harvard's Siddharth Kara described the horror show: 

"You have to imagine walking around some of these mining areas and dialing back our clock centuries. People are working in subhuman, grinding, degrading conditions. They use pickaxes, shovels, stretches of rebar to hack and scrounge at the earth in trenches and pits and tunnels to gather cobalt and feed it up the formal supply chain.

"Cobalt is toxic to touch and breathe — and there are hundreds of thousands of poor Congolese people touching and breathing it day in and day out. Young mothers with babies strapped to their backs, all breathing in this toxic cobalt dust."

Compared to that, harvesting Pennsylvania fracking wastewater sounds positively idyllic. Whatya say, Greta?

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/19/2024 - 11:40

Why Has The Vatican Chosen This Precise Moment To Drop Bombshells About UFOs, Aliens, & "Apparitions"?

Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

For centuries, the Vatican has been carefully guarding their most precious secrets.  In recent years, that has been especially true regarding what they know about UFOs, aliens and the mysteries of the universe.  So why have they chosen this exact moment in history to publicly talk about these things?  The press conference at the Vatican on Thursday is the very first time that the Vatican has held a press conference about UFOs, aliens and “apparitions” since 1978. 

So this is a really big deal.  It is being reported that the Vatican has decided to issue new guidelines “on aliens and how it will deal with potential encounters in the future”…

The Vatican has announced that it is set to hold a press conference on “supernatural phenomena” tomorrow, and it will touch on aliens and how it will deal with potential encounters in the future.

According to a notice on the Vatican’s website, it will kick of at noon tomorrow, and will feature three prominent Vatican members.

Being held to “present the new provisions of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith for discerning between apparitions and other supernatural phenomena,” it will be led by Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandex, Messenger Armando Matteo and Daniela Del Gaudio.

If the Vatican feels a need to issue guidelines about how to “deal with potential encounters in the future”, that seems to imply that they believe that there will be “potential encounters in the future”.

What do they know that they aren’t telling us?

Probably a lot.

The last time that the Vatican did something like this was all the way back in February 1978…

The last time the Vatican’s doctrinal office issued norms for evaluating alleged apparitions and reports of supernatural events was in February 1978.

At the time, the prefect, Cardinal Franjo Seper, said the norms were necessary given how news of alleged apparitions spreads rapidly thanks to the mass media.

What has changed between then and now?

One thing that has changed is that the current pope seems to be quite interested in the topic of aliens.

In comments that he made near the end of 2023, Pope Francis seemed to suggest that aliens could actually be baptized…

However, Pope Francis did touch on aliens at the end of last year, when he was talking about how early Christians discussed associating with “Jews and Gentiles” – which, for some reason, he compared to aliens.

He said: “That was unthinkable. If, for example, tomorrow an expedition of Martians came, and some of them came to us, here…Martians, right? Green, with that long nose and big ears, just like children paint them…And one says, ‘But I want to be baptized!’ What would happen?”

He didn’t answer his own question, but added: “It was never the ministry of the closed door, never,”

So he plans to have an “open door” for the aliens?

What would that look like?

The producer of a new documentary entitled “God Versus Aliens” seems to believe that the Vatican wants to prepare us for the day when humanity finally makes contact with such beings…

The documentary ‘God Versus Aliens’ is to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival and reveal the Vatican’s secrets about UFOs.

The award-winning filmmaker Mark Christopher Lee says that the Vatican publishing new guidance on apparitions means that the full disclosure about the UFO phenomena is getting closer.

He said: “The Vatican has been studying UFOs for decades and even has its own Cardinal appointed to deal with first contact. From my research I believe that this new guidance on apparitions is proof that they know that UFOs are more than just physical crafts from other worlds and that they have a paranormal side to them.”

What most people don’t realize is that the Vatican has been on the cutting edge of the search for extraterrestrial life for a long time.

The Vatican Observatory in Rome is very well funded, and the Vatican also has a “research group” that uses the very high-powered equipment at the University of Arizona in Tucson…

Many people are surprised to learn that the Vatican even has an observatory. The history of the Vatican Observatory goes back two and a half centuries. During its history, there has been some turmoil and several moves to escape the light and other hindrances that large cities, such as Rome, pose to doing astronomy. Therefore, more than a half-century ago the Vatican Observatory established a research group at the Steward Observatory of the University of Arizona in Tucson, while the Vatican Observatory’s headquarters remained in Italy.

Needless to say, the Vatican isn’t going to tell us everything that they know right now.

But a couple of things have become quite clear.

Number one, the Vatican believes that extraterrestrial life exists.

Number two, the Vatican plans to develop a positive relationship with any “aliens” that do make contact with humanity.

Could all of this be setting us up for a great deception of absolutely epic proportions?

While he was still alive, author Tom Horn made the following observation…

Why the Vatican has taken this carefully designed and deliberate course over the last few years is the greater mystery, but implies knowledge on their part of facts yet hidden to most of the world that may hold far-reaching and historic implications. It also illustrates how Rome has wittingly or unwittingly set itself up to become the agent of mass end-times deception regarding “salvation from above.” That’s because, historically, there exists a clear pattern wherein man’s psychological need of a savior is displayed during times of distress—a time like today—when people look skyward for divine intervention.

It is true.

When things get bad enough, the world is going to be looking for a savior.

And if a “superior race” appears on the scene that seems to have all the answers, many people out there will fully embrace them.

For decades, books, movies and television shows have conditioned us to expect that someday we will interact with “aliens” from another planet.  100 years ago, everyone would have dismissed such talk as nonsense, but now we have been well prepared for the great deception that is eventually coming.

Sadly, the Vatican seems to be quite ready to welcome “aliens” as their new best friends, and that is extremely unfortunate.

*  *  *

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/19/2024 - 11:05

Inflation Isn't A Bug In The System, It's A Feature

Authored by J. Kennerly Davis via RealClearPolicy,

May brings more bad economic news for hard-pressed American households. “Transitory” inflation remains firmly entrenched at rates equal to or higher than those reported at the start of 2024.

The Labor Department reports this week that the Consumer Price Index, or CPI, it’s official measure of the rate of change in the retail price of a basket of everyday goods and services, rose 0.3% in the month of April, the same as for the month of January. For twelve months, CPI increased 3.4% through April compared to 3.1% for twelve months through January. And wholesale prices, a good indicator of future retail prices, increased much more than expected in April, rising at the fastest annual rate since April 2023.

The cumulative effect of persistent inflation is devastating. Since President Biden took office in 2021 the CPI is up, and Americans’ purchasing power is down, by 19%. For basic necessities, the situation is even worse. Groceries are up 21%. Gasoline prices are up 47%. The cost of shelter 20%, and electricity almost 30%.

American workers cannot keep up. Since President Biden took office, average hourly earnings after inflation have fallen over 2.5%. A typical American family must pay $12,000 more per year simply to maintain the standard of living that it enjoyed when President Biden took office.

As bad as the official CPI numbers are, actual inflation is much worse. That is because the government calculates CPI using a methodology intentionally designed to understate actual inflation. It does so to conceal the destructive results that inevitably flow from its irresponsible policies.

Inflation is always and everywhere the result of government policies that increase the supply of money circulating in the economy faster than the productive sectors of the economy can expand their capacity to produce goods and services for purchase.

From day one, the Biden administration has flooded the economy with borrowed money in the form of transfer payments, subsidies, and grants designed to purchase the political support of favored constituencies such as those in the green tech sector. At the same time, Biden-controlled federal agencies have unleashed a tidal wave of crushing regulation designed to reduce the productive capacity of disfavored constituencies such as the oil and gas industry. The inflation that afflicts us was inevitable.

President Biden has asserted that fighting inflation is the “top economic priority” of his administration. Such a statement would be laughable if the subject matter was not so serious. This president has no intention of altering the policies that define and drive the progressive agenda. There is no war on inflation or, indeed, any serious attempt to bring it under control and stabilize prices. Inflation is baked into the progressive model of government that depends on the continuing disbursement of borrowed money to political supporters.

Under President Biden, the national debt has increased a whopping $13 Trillion and now stands at over $34.6 Trillion. Concerned commentators point out that it will require much sacrifice, potentially disruptive sacrifice, to pay off or even materially to pay down the national debt. They lament that elected officials seem to lack the will and have no plan to deal with the national debt.

In fact, the progressive political class does have a plan to deal with the national debt. Their plan is to perpetuate inflation and thereby to engineer a slow-motion stealth default on the debt that will enable them to continue to enjoy without disruption the political benefits that flow to them from their irresponsible debt-funded vote buying.

During the periodic “fiscal cliff” showdowns in Congress, it is often said that the United States cannot default on its debt. An outright default would certainly shred the government’s credibility in financial markets and dangerously undermine its ability to access those markets to raise funds in the future.

There is also a legal reason that the United States cannot default on its debt. Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, enacted to repudiate Confederate debt and put beyond question the integrity of the obligations of the United States, provides in part that “The validity of the public debt of the United States…shall not be questioned.”

Compliance with the Constitution requires that the obligations incurred by the government be repaid in full, dollar for dollar. But, over time, inflation steadily reduces the value of the dollars used by the government to repay the obligations it has incurred. The purchasing power, or value, of a dollar has decreased by 19% just since President Biden took office and is today worth only 81% of what it was worth in January 2021.

This dollar-cheapening inflation, created by irresponsible spend-to-elect policies, enables the government to pay off its debts for cents on the dollar, and effectively default on the obligations it has incurred as a result of those policies. Clearly, inflation is not a bug in the government’s financial system. It is an essential feature.

The Federal Reserve actively supports the spend-elect-inflate model of governance by pursuing policies designed to achieve and maintain a rate of inflation equal to 2% per year. Over a generation, that rate of inflation will reduce the value of a dollar by approximately 50%. That will certainly help the government avoid having to fully repay its debts, but it will be devastating to American households.

 By using inflated dollars to pay its debt, the government is failing to honor its financial obligations. It is defaulting on those obligations and cheating the institutions and individuals who purchased its securities. And it is violating the Constitution. Inflation is not only destructive economically; it is also unlawful.

 J. Kennerly Davis is a former finance executive at a Fortune 500 electric and gas company, and a former Deputy Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/19/2024 - 09:55

Boeing Whistleblower Autopsy Report Released As Police Wrap Up Probe

Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Police Department of Charleston, South Carolina, has finished its investigation into the death of former Boeing employee John Barnett, who could have played a prominent role in a lawsuit related to the jetliner maker’s quality issues.

The nose of a Boeing commercial airliner is seen in Sydney, Australia on March 14, 2019. (Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

In a statement provided to The Epoch Times, the Charleston police said they didn’t identify any evidence contradicting initial findings that Mr. Barnett died of “an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.”

The police were dispatched on the morning of March 9 to conduct a welfare check at a Holiday Inn hotel where Mr. Barnett, 62, was staying while preparing for his case against the aerospace giant. He was discovered sitting inside a vehicle with a “gunshot wound to the head,” with a notebook containing what resembles a “suicide note” located on the passenger seat.

A page of notebook found in John Barnett's vehicle. (Charleston Police Department)

“No evidence of forced entry was found and there were no signs of a physical struggle within the vehicle,” the police department said. “The vehicle’s key fob was discovered in Mr. Barnett’s pants pocket.”

The police also examined Mr. Barnett’s vehicle and recovered a Smith & Wesson handgun, a projectile that “caused the defect in the headliner” and a fired cartridge case. Those items were forensically evaluated by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division Firearms Department.

“Examinations concluded the recovered projectile was discharged from the Smith & Wesson which was registered to Mr. Barnett,” reads a May 16 report shared with The Epoch Times by Charleston County Coroner’s Office. “Furthermore, during the autopsy, the trajectory of the wound path was documented. All findings were consistent with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.”

According to the coroner’s office, surveillance cameras at the hotel parking lot continuously showed Mr. Barnett’s vehicle throughout the evening of March 8 through the morning of March 9.

“From the time the vehicle was backed into the parking space until the Charleston Fire Department gained entry to the vehicle, no other individuals were seen entering or exiting Mr. Barnett’s vehicle,” the Coroner’s office said in its report.

“A review of medical records and interviews with Mr. Barnett’s family, attorneys, and healthcare professionals, revealed Mr. Barnett was under chronic stress in the context of the lawsuit, suffered from anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, and grieved the death of his wife,” the Coroner’s report read.

“During his time in Charleston, his attorneys reported Mr. Barnett discussed increasing the dose of his anti-anxiety medication,” it continued. “The writings found in the vehicle were examined by the Charleston Police Department and found only Mr. Barnett’s fingerprints on the notebook. The writings contained information known only to his family.”

“The cause of death was determined to be: Gunshot Wound of the Head. The manner of death is best deemed, ‘Suicide,'” the coroner’s report concluded.

Mr. Barnett, who had worked for more than 30 years at Boeing before retiring in 2017, had become a vocal critic of the company’s safety and production quality practices. At the time of his death, he was a key witness in a lawsuit, in which he claimed that the aerospace giant retaliated against him for raising his concerns with the U.S. Labor Department.

“We are saddened by Mr. Barnett’s passing, and our thoughts are with his family and friends,” Boeing said in a statement shared with The Epoch Times at the time.

The death of Mr. Barnett, who carried out safety checks and oversaw aircraft production while working with Boeing as a quality manager, came amid intense public scrutiny sparked by a Jan. 5 incident, where a panel covering an unused door came off an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 during the flight.

According to a report by the National Transportation Safety Board, this mid-air technical failure occurred because the four bolts that were supposed to be holding the panel in place were missing. The incident prompted the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to ground all 737 Max 9s, order “enhanced inspections” on the planes, and open an investigation to see if the company failed to ensure proper production safety standards.

Mr. Barnett claimed that the Jan. 5 incident it might not have been an isolated occurrence. “This is not a 737 problem; it’s a Boeing problem,” he told TMZ in January when asked whether 737s could be trusted. “I know the FAA is going in and done due diligence and inspections to ensure that the door close on the 737 are installed properly and the fasteners are stored properly.”

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/19/2024 - 08:45

Biden Administration Considering China First Aviation Policy

Authored by Ned Ryun via RealClearPolicy,

Despite all the controversy surrounding the Biden Administration’s bad economic, immigration and domestic policy, they’re wanting to go next level on their not-so-great-terrible-policies. Biden wants to put the interests of Chinese airlines before the interests of American ones. 

The Biden Administration is reportedly considering using the discretion they have to increase flights by Chinese airliners in and out of the U.S. Reuters reported last month that “in February, the U.S. Transportation Department said Chinese passenger airlines could boost weekly round-trip U.S. flights to 50 starting on March 31, up from the current 35, about a third of pre-pandemic levels. U.S. carriers were authorized as well to fly 50 flights per week but are currently not using all those flights.” U.S. air carriers can’t increase flights because they don’t fly over Russian airspace for obvious reasons. This situation gives Chinese air carriers, and other foreign carriers, a big competitive advantage because they are continuing to fly over Russian air space.

The Chairman and Co-Chair of the bipartisan Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party objected to this Biden Administration idea. They sent a letter on April 10, 2024, “we write to urge caution in the approval of new flights between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) until such time that the PRC abides by its existing bilateral agreement, and passenger demand begins to recover.” They argued that “PRC carriers are continuing to operate air routes at an anti-competitive commercial advantage that must not be allowed to increase without reciprocal parity in the number of U.S. carrier operated routes to the PRC.” They want to make sure that passenger demand, not the demands of the Chinese government, should be a factor; what a shocking concept. They also worry about the security of American passengers flying in Russian air space. 

There are estimates that U.S. carriers have been hit with $2 billion in annual lost revenues from flights because they can’t fly in Russian airspace. Foreign airliners have been using their advantage to fly more direct routes with lower fuel costs. This situation has prompted American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, the Air Line Pilots Association, the Allied Pilots Association and Association of Flight Attendants to sign a letter asking for this increase in flights to be stopped “until U.S. workers and businesses are guaranteed equality of access in the marketplace, free from the existing harmful anti-competitive policies of the Chinese government.” Seems like a reasonable request.

Members of Congress and everyone in the U.S. air industry think giving China a competitive advantage is a terrible idea, especially when they have been guilty of stealing American intellectual property (IP) and flooding the international market with subsidized mass-produced goods. Apparently, one must be senile to think any of this makes political or economic sense. Implementing an America First policy is what the American people want right now, and it is one reason why the smart money is on former President Donald J. Trump to return to the White House next January.

Let’s not forget that after Covid-19 hit, China stopped air service agreements with the U.S. and shut off U.S. carriers. The Chinese government imposed new limits on access and other regulations that discriminated against U.S. carriers that remain today. A strong response to these anti-competitive actions does not include rewarding Chinese carriers with increased access to U.S. markets. The same is not done for U.S. carriers operating in China. 

Fairness has been tossed out the window by the Biden Administration with this idea. Although it makes sense to allow the former bilateral agreement between China and the U.S., we can’t ignore the fact that China has a competitive advantage that should not be rewarded by the Biden Administration. 

Biden's China First policy, in addition to attempting to force Americans to buy an expensive electric vehicle by 2032 (likely made in China), is sending independent voters right back over to the Trump column this fall. The good news is that ideas like this are opening the eyes of the American people to the America Last policies being pushed by the Biden administration; in fact, so much so that even members of his own party in Congress are resisting allowing China to grab a bigger part of the aviation flight market share.

Ned Ryun is the Founder and CEO of American Majority.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/19/2024 - 08:10

Rep. Gooden Introduces Bill To Support Taiwan's Inclusion In Interpol

Authored byh Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas) on May 15 unveiled the Taiwan Interpol Endorsement and Inclusion Act, which would require the U.S. administration to advocate for the democratic island’s membership in the international police organization.

The Interpol logo during the 89th Interpol General Assembly in Istanbul on Nov. 23, 2021. (Ozan Kose/AFP via Getty Images)

The bill, first obtained by The Epoch Times, acknowledges Taiwan’s role in maintaining global peace and asks the U.S. government, including the president or his “designees,” to advocate directly for Taiwan’s inclusion in Interpol and any other “appropriate international organizations.” It suggests that leaving Taiwan out of Interpol, a global collective police force, is harmful to international crime-fighting efforts.

Co-sponsored by Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), the bill states that Taiwan is an “important contributor to peace and stability around the world.”

Since the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, U.S. policy has been to “preserve and promote extensive, close, and friendly commercial, cultural, and other relations between the people of the United States and the people of Taiwan.” In 1994, this was extended to the Taiwan Policy Review to support the country in participating in various international organizations.

Taiwan, a self-governing island claimed by the Chinese regime even though it has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party, has been excluded from participation from international bodies due to Beijing’s objections.

Mr. Gooden’s bill asks the United States to “advocate, as appropriate” for Taiwan’s full membership status in all “appropriate international organizations,” including Interpol. It instructs U.S. government representatives to “use the voice, vote, and influence of the United States” to push for Taiwan’s membership or “observer status” in those organizations.

Additionally, the bill instructs the U.S. president or his “designees” to use any “relevant bilateral engagements” between the Chinese regime and the United States, including leader summits and the U.S.-China Comprehensive Economic Dialogue.

It seeks to develop a strategy to make Taiwan a member of Interpol and other related organizations to include Taiwan in global crime-fighting efforts.

Mr. Gooden said that Taiwan has shown a capacity to “significantly contribute to international efforts, particularly in areas like drug control and global crime fighting.”

“It is common sense for Taiwan to be included as a full member in global security bodies like Interpol to enhance mutual safety and security.”

The bill notes that Taiwan was granted a full Interpol membership in 1964 but was ejected in 1984 when the People’s Republic of China applied for membership.

Additionally, the World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of the World Health Organization (WHO), granted Taiwan “observer status” between 2009 and 2016 under the name “Chinese Taipei.” During that time, Taiwan contributed “significantly” to international efforts in pandemic control, monitoring, early warning, and “other related matters.”

However, since 2016, the World Health Assembly has rejected further bids to include Taiwan as an observer. A group of bipartisan senators sent a May 15 letter asking WHO to include Taiwan in the organization.

“Taiwan is unable to swiftly share information on criminals and suspicious activity with the international community, leaving a huge void in global crime-fighting efforts and leaving the entire world at risk,” the bill states.

Mr. Gooden says that leaving Taiwan out of Interpol affects global security.

“Denying Taiwan membership in Interpol does not just hurt Taiwan; it leaves a gap in the global security network that criminals can exploit,” he said.

The bill suggests that including Taiwan as a member of Interpol is “beneficial for all nations and their police authorities,” as information sharing is “vital to peacekeeping efforts.”

The bill asks for a report no later than 90 days after it is enacted that details the United States strategy for obtaining Taiwan’s observer or membership status within Interpol and other appropriate international organizations, possibly the WHO as well.

“Including this key U.S. ally as a full member in Interpol is not only about supporting Taiwan but reinforcing the integrity and effectiveness of international law enforcement cooperation,” Mr. Gooden said.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/19/2024 - 07:00

George Washington Warned Against A 'Passionate Attachment' To Israel

By Brian McGlinchey at Stark Realities 

As war rages in Gaza, the intensifying debate over the US-Israel relationship spotlights a political paradox: Those Americans who view George Washington with deepest reverence — that is, would-be “conservatives” — are often the ones who most zealously violate the central tenet of his foreign policy philosophy.

Specifically, their fierce devotion to the State of Israel defies Washington’s admonition against “passionate attachments” to other countries — attachments that, he said, inevitably lead America “astray from its duty and its interest.”

That’s not to say that excessive advocacy for Israel is confined to the American right: As demonstrated by President Biden’s backing of Israel’s destruction of Gaza, the championing of policies that serve Israel to America’s detriment also runs rampant among establishment Democrats.

Regardless of your position on the political spectrum, Washington’s foreign policy advice merits your attention, and the US-Israel relationship serves as a case study that validates his warnings about the many evils that spring from “habitual fondness” for a foreign nation...including one that didn’t exist when his warnings were issued.

After deciding not to pursue a third term as America’s first president, Washington gave the country a parting gift: a farewell address delivered not from a podium, but from the front page of Philadelphia’s Daily American Advertiser.

Washington’s 7,641-word address reads like an owner’s manual for the young republic. He asked Americans to give “solemn contemplation” and “frequent review” to his guidance, which was “the result of much reflection, and no inconsiderable observation.”

Let’s review some key excerpts of Washington’s foreign policy guidance, starting with the principle he put above all others:

“Nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated.”

With this guidance, Washington echoed the wisdom of other American founders. Thomas Jefferson urged “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.” John Quincy Adams approvingly said, “[America] has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings…She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.”

In addition to “passionate attachments,” Washington denounced habitual hostility toward other countries. As we’ll discuss later, the US government’s passionate attachment to Israel is itself the font of hostilities equally unrooted in American interest.

“The nation which indulges towards another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.”

While it’s a little less universal these days, “habitual fondness” for Israel remains widespread in American politics, particularly on the right and center-left, and more so among government officials than citizens.

That habitual fondness is routinely manifested by pronouncements that would make Washington, Jefferson and Madison cringe. Drawing from a common well of fawning rhetoric, politicians frequently refer to a supposedly “unbreakable bond” between America and Israel. Another cliche sees officials stating there must be “no daylight” between the two countries. Endorsing DC’s unconditional backing of Israel, and showing utter disregard for future contingencies, President Obama proclaimed that “our alliance is eternal, it is forever.”

Many politicians go so far as to say Israel is America’s “greatest ally.” One can only imagine reactions in the UK, Canada, Australia and many other countries that have gone to war alongside the United States on multiple occasions in this century, sacrificing lives and limbs as Israel offers little more than encouragement.

Taking things to mind-bending extremes, you’ll even encounter declarations that “real Americans stand with Israel” — perversely measuring American patriotism by the extent to which one is devoted to a foreign country.

"I will always stand with Israel": Congressman Brian Mast (R-FL)  wearing his IDF uniform on Capitol Hill (Bill Clark/Getty via Daily Beast)

For many — especially evangelical Christians — habitual fondness for Israel has a religious dynamic. Viewed through religious, rose-colored glasses, the State of Israel is transformed from a modern, man-made political entity — led, like all governments, by manipulative, power-hungry politicians who pursue all manner of ungodly policies — into something sacred that supposedly represents and carries out God’s will.

Exploiting the religious angle, Israel’s advocates — even a US representative speaking in a recent congressional hearing — claim that America is compelled to serve the State of Israel because the bible says God will bless those who bless the nation of Abraham and curse those who curse it — as if today’s modern political entity and what’s referenced in the bible are one and the same.

Validating Washington’s warning that habitual fondness for a foreign country makes one an unthinking slave to that affection, these same people ignore the Israeli government’s killing of Christians in Gaza and the mistreatment endured by West Bank Christians — to say nothing of recurring incidents of ultra-orthodox Israeli Jews spitting on followers of Christ.

Israel killed 18 people sheltering at Gaza's historic Greek Orthodox Christian Church of St. Porphyrius, in a devastating strike in October (Dawood Nemer / AFP via Getty Images)

Especially where government officials are concerned, passionate attachments to Israel can bring enormous financial rewards.

Case in point: Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, who’s arguably the most extreme advancer of Israeli interests on Capitol Hill. When he ascended to the Senate in 2014, Cotton benefitted from $960,000 in spending on his behalf by the Emergency Committee for Israel, in addition to $250,000 contributed to a Cotton-backing PAC by New York hedge fund billionaire and Israel-backer Paul Singer, and $100,000 from pro-Israel Boston billionaire Seth Klarman.

Then there’s Donald Trump, who’s not only made pandering to Israel a staple of his speeches, but, as president, took a variety of actions that had long been on the Israeli agenda. His reward: $20 million for his 2020 re-election bid from Las Vegas casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, in what was reportedly a quid pro quo for moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has personally affirmed the idea that habitual fondness has made America “in some degree a slave” to Israel. In a moment of candid conversation with West Bank settlers, Netanyahu was caught on video as he boasted, “I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily.”

Those who champion Israel’s interest on Capitol Hill do their own bragging. American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) lobbyist Steven Rosen famously pushed a napkin across a table and said, “You see this napkin? In 24 hours, we could have the signatures of 70 senators on this napkin.”

Patriotic Americans aren’t the only ones put off by that kind of influence. Marveling at the extraordinary sway his tiny country holds over the world’s foremost power, Israeli journalist and author Gideon Levy wrote:

“A new chapter is being written in the history of nations. Never before has a small country dictated to a superpower; never before has the chirp of the cricket sounded like a roar; never has the elephant resembled the ant - and vice versa. No Roman province dared tell Julius Caesar what to do, no tribe ever dreamed of forcing Genghis Khan to act in accordance with its own tribal interests.”

President Clinton used a different kind of colorful language as he confronted the upside-down power dynamic. After being lectured by Netanyahu during his first meeting with the Israeli prime minister, an angry Clinton exploded, asking his aides, “Who the fuck does he think he is? Who’s the fucking superpower here?!”

...read the rest at Stark Realities

Stark Realities undermines official narratives, demolishes conventional wisdom and exposes fundamental myths across the political spectrum. Read more and subscribe at starkrealities.substack.com  

* * *

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/18/2024 - 23:20

Ex-CDC Director Says It's High Time To Admit 'Significant Side Effects' Of COVID-19 Vaccines

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Dr. Robert Redfield, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said Thursday that many officials who tried to warn the public about potential problems with COVID-19 vaccines were pressured into silence and that it’s high time to admit that there were “significant” side effects that made people sick.

Then director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Robert Redfield, holds up a document while testifying in Washington, DC, on Sept. 16, 2020 in (Andrew Harnik-Pool/Getty Images)

Dr. Redfield made the remarks in a May 16 interview with Chris Cuomo on NewsNation, during which he lamented the loss of public confidence in public health agencies because of a lack of transparency around the vaccines, which he said “saved a lot of lives” but also made some people “quite ill.”

“Those of us that tried to suggest there may be significant side effects from vaccines ... we kind of got canceled because no one wanted to talk about the potential that there was a problem from the vaccines, because they were afraid that that would cause people not to want to get vaccinated,” Dr. Redfield said.

In his role as head of the CDC, Dr. Redfield was part of the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed, a project to surge COVID-19 vaccine development at a time during the pandemic when little was known about the virus and rapid vaccine rollout was widely seen as key to getting the outbreak under control and lockdowns lifted.

In September 2020, a few months before the first COVID-19 vaccines were given in the United States, Dr. Redfield testified before the Senate that COVID-19 represented the “most significant public health challenge to face our nation in more than a century,” and that the prevailing view among scientists at the time was that the overall case fatality rate of the disease was somewhere between 0.4 and 0.6 percent in the United States.

“If you were to look right now, individuals under the age of 18, it’s about 0.01 percent, 19 to say 69, it’s more like 0.3 percent. And if you’re over the age of 70, it’s about 5 percent now,” he testified at the time.

While there’s lingering controversy about the severity of COVID-19, a recent study estimates that the global case fatality rate was 8.5 percent in February 2020 but had plunged to 0.27 percent in August 2022, meaning that the estimated relative risk reduction over that time was a whopping 96.8 percent.

In his interview on NewsNation, Dr. Redfield said that the vaccines that were developed as part of Operation Warp Speed were “important” and saved “a lot of lives.” However, despite their benefits, the drawbacks of the vaccines must be a matter of open discussion, he said.

“They’re important for the most vulnerable people, those over 60, 65 years of age. They really aren’t that critical for those that are under 50 or younger. But those vaccines saved a lot of lives, but they also—we have to be honest, some people got significant side effects from the vaccine,” he said.

“I have a number of people that are quite ill and they never had COVID, but they are ill from the vaccine,” he continued. “And we just have to acknowledge that.”

Vaccine Controversy

The severity of COVID-19 remains a matter of debate because it’s unclear whether deaths were overcounted or undercounted due to various factors, such as lack of clarity around the role of underlying medical conditions in fatalities in cases where COVID-19 was listed as the primary cause, or underreporting of asymptomatic infections. Aside from the issue of whether people died “from” COVID-19 or “with” a positive test for SARS-CoV-2, there have also been questions about the role of secondary pneumonia caused by mechanical ventilation.

Either way, a study from January 2023 indicates that the global case fatality rate from COVID-19 has dropped dramatically over the course of the pandemic. Global case fatalities ranged from 1.7 to 39.0 percent in February to March of 2020, according to the study—but fell to below 0.3 percent in July to August 2022.

The researchers estimate that the risk of death from COVID-19 has dropped by 96.8 percent over the course of the pandemic.

Along with a decline in COVID-19 fatalities, there have been growing concerns about vaccine side effects, given that a significant number of vaccinated people have reported various adverse reactions.

The most common COVID-19 vaccine adverse events are those that affect the body generally, with fever, fatigue, and overall discomfort being the top three, according to the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). But there are others.

For instance, heart muscle inflammation (myocarditis) and inflammation of the lining outside the heart (pericarditis) have both officially been acknowledged by the CDC as a known side effect of Moderna’s and Pfizer’s mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.

Nervous system disorders have also been reported, with such disorders being the third most common in the Pfizer trials, coming after general and muscle-related adverse events.

There have also been papers linking spike-protein-based COVID-19 vaccines to skin problems, a dull ringing in the ears known as tinnitus, visual impairments, blood clotting, and even death. Recent reporting from EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders“ program indicates that the likelihood of death associated with COVID-19 vaccines (in close proximity to the shot rather than proven as caused by it) was over 100 times greater than for flu vaccines.

There are also concerns about a post-vaccination jump in excess deaths and disability.

The CDC still recommends that people of all ages receive a COVID-19 vaccine, saying that the potential side effects do not outweigh the potential harms of getting sick with COVID-19.

In a notice published in late April, the agency again called for adults aged 65 and older to get the latest version of the vaccines.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/18/2024 - 22:45

House Republicans Express Concern Over Sharp Uptick On Chinese Migrants Illegally Crossing Border

Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Republicans on the House Homeland Security subcommittee expressed concern as the surge of illegal Chinese migrants hit an all-time high in April after the Biden administration relaxed vetting rules last year.

Chinese migrants settle at Willow Camp before being processed by Border Patrol agents in Jacumba, Calif., on Dec. 6, 2023. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability Chairman Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) held the hearing on May 16 to address the “unprecedented flow of Chinese nationals” illegally crossing the U.S. southern border, which has topped 27,000 since Oct. 1.

The latest CBP numbers show that 3,324 Chinese nationals crossed the southwest border in April alone—more than the total crossings for the entire 2022 fiscal year.

This year’s total tops 27,000 encounters, surpassing the 24,000 illegal southwest border crossings during the entire 2023 fiscal year.

That’s a massive jump from recent years. In 2022, the number of Chinese migrant encounters was slightly more than  2,000 at the U.S. southern border. In 2021, that number was 450.

Nationwide encounters of Chinese migrants entering unlawfully are even higher.

When looking at encounters across the country this fiscal year, CBP data shows more than 48,000 encounters so far with illegal Chinese migrants, which includes migrants coming through ports of entry.

Mr. Bishop said during the hearing he is concerned that the vetting process, which has been decreased from 40 to five questions for Chinese migrants, does little to protect America’s national security. 

“As the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues its quest for geopolitical dominance and threatens our sovereignty, we must examine the risks presented by releasing ever-increasing numbers of minimally vetted Chinese nationals into our communities,” Mr. Bishop said in a statement.

The Democrats’ Homeland Security website dismissed those concerns, characterizing it as “another Republican Border ‘hearing’ with invasion rhetoric and fear-mongering.”

Mr. Bishop said Chinese migrants crossing illegally into the U.S. could have “nefarious motives,” noting federal indictments in North Carolina last month showed partnerships between Mexican drug cartels and Chinese transnational criminal organizations engaged in money laundering operations throughout the United States. 

Experts invited to testify indicated that the vetting process was unlikely to find any criminal background information on Chinese nationals who have never been in the United States because China does not readily share that information with American authorities. Border Patrol officers must rely on foreign nationals to answer questions truthfully.

Simon Hankinson, senior research fellow with the Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center, told the committee that the vetting process was insufficient.

“At best, this is a mockery of U.S. immigration law and sovereignty, and at worst, it is a huge national security and community safety risk. In addition to many Chinese with connections to the Communist Party, People’s Liberation Army, and other state entities, it is statistically probable that [Department of Homeland Security] DHS is releasing people with criminal records,” he said.

Migrants line up for immigration processing in Lajas Blancas as merchants offer services in both Spanish and Chinese in Panama on Feb. 17, 2024. (Bobby Sanchez for The Epoch Times)

Todd Bensman, a national security fellow with the Center for Immigration Studies, brought along passports and identification cards he found near the border. The stamps inside the passports prove their holders traveled through safe countries that would have granted protection, therefore disqualifying them for U.S. asylum, he said.

While most Chinese nationals were likely coming to work, Mr. Bensman said there was little doubt that “Beijing spymasters” also noticed a new opportunity at the wide open U.S. southern border.

However, Meredith Owen, an associate history professor at the University of Maryland, testified that most Chinese are coming to the United States to flee oppression and find jobs.

She highlighted past actions by the U.S. government targeting Chinese immigrants, which had dire consequences. The Chinese became the first and only nation to be singled out by U.S. immigration law with the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, she said.

The anti-Chinese movement that drove the creation of the act cited Chinese migration as a unique threat to the United States, she said.

“These fears led to extreme violence against Chinese immigrants, including mob violence and the burning of Chinatowns,” she said.

Committee member Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) said during the hearing she is concerned about how to fix America’s “broken“ immigration system and implied racism was the reason behind opposition to migration.

Chinese trash sits in a migrant encampment in Jacoumba, Calif., on Jan. 10, 2024. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

“We’re here today because Republicans are demagoguing and exploiting the xenophobic and white supremacist ideologies that are fueling the immigration debate in this nation,“ she said.

Since President Joe Biden took office, there have been more than 9 million encounters nationwide and some 7.6 million encounters at the southwest border alone.

House Republicans blame Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorka’s policies under the Biden administration for the border crisis. 

The House voted Feb. 13 to impeach the secretary for “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law“ and for the “breach of public trust.”

However, the Democrat-controlled Senate dismissed impeachment charges against him before holding a trial, leaving Mr. Mayorkas in office.

Democrats have pointed out that America was built on immigrants and benefits from their labor.

Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said during an immigration subcommittee hearing in January that “many illegal immigrants“ were needed for agriculture production or “our vegetables would rot in the ground.”

The House of Representatives impeachment team delivers the Articles of Impeachment of Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate in Washington on April 16, 2024. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

Republicans, however, question the surge of Chinese nationals coming across the U.S. southern border.

In April 2023, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) instructed Border Patrol agents to reduce the number of questions they asked Chinese migrants.

At the time, agents were facing a record number of illegal crossings from all nationalities.

The hearing became contentious at times, with committee member Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) saying Mr. Bensman’s organization had been labeled as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. 

This leftwing group has listed many conservative organizations as “hate” groups, such as parental rights groups headed by moms.

Ms. Ramirez accused Mr. Bensman of “uplifting the same invasion rhetoric central to the white nationalist and antisemitic Great Replacement conspiracy theory” on social media.

“There is no hateful antisemitic speech in my Twitter [now called X] feed,“ Mr. Bensman responded. “I am Jewish, and we don’t really get with white nationalists; that’s not our thing, so get your facts straight.”

Mr. Bensman also suggested she read a book titled, “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center." 

In 2023, Republican senators led by Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) wrote to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorka, suggesting some Chinese migrants entering the U.S. illegally may be tied to the CCP.

“There have been numerous documented instances of Chinese nationals, at the direction of the CCP, engaging in espionage, stealing military and economic secrets,“ according to the letter.

 The letter also noted that China is a significant source of drugs such as fentanyl being trafficked across the U.S. southern border.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/18/2024 - 22:10

Ex-CIA Ray McGovern: Russia & China - Two Against One

Authored by Ray McGovern via Consortium News

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s extremely warm reception of President Vladimir Putin yesterday in Beijing sealed the increasingly formidable Russia-China strategic relationship. It amounts to a tectonic shift in the world balance of power. 

The Russia-China entente also sounds the death knell for attempts by U.S. foreign policy neophytes to drive a wedge between the two countries. The triangular relationship has become two-against-one, with serious implications, particularly for the war in Ukraine. If US President Joe Biden’s foreign policy geniuses remain in denial, escalation is almost certain.

Via Associated Press

In a pre-visit interview with Xinhua, Putin noted the “unprecedented level of strategic partnership between our countries.” He and Xi have met more than 40 times in person or virtually. In June 2018, Xi described Putin as “an old friend of the Chinese people” and, personally, his “best friend.”

For his part, Putin noted Thursday that he and Xi are “in constant contact to keep personal control over all pressing issues on the Russian-Chinese and international agenda.” Putin brought along Defense Minister Andrey Belousov as well as veterans like Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and key business leaders.

Joint Statements Matter

Xi and Putin signed a strong joint statement Thursday, similar to the extraordinary one the two issued on Feb. 4, 2022, in Beijing. It portrayed their relationship as “superior to political and military alliances of the Cold War era. Friendship between the two States has no limits, there are no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation…”

The full import of that statement did not hit home until Putin launched the Special Military Operation into the Donbass three weeks later. China’s muted reaction shocked most analysts, who had dismissed the possibility that Xi would give “best friend” Putin, in effect, a waiver on China’s bedrock policy of non-interference abroad.

In the following weeks, official Chinese statements made clear that the principles of Westphalia had taken a back seat to “the need for every country to defend its core interests” and to judge each situation “on its own merits.”

Nuclear War

Thursday’s statement expressed concern over “increased strategic risks between nuclear powers” — referring to continued escalation of the war between NATO-supported Ukraine and Russia.

It condemns “the expansion of military alliances and creation of military bridgeheads close to the borders of other nuclear powers, particularly with the advanced deployment of nuclear weapons and their means of delivery, as well as other items.”

Putin has undoubtedly briefed Xi on the U.S. missile sites already in Romania and Poland that can launch what Russians call “offensive strike missiles” with flight time to Moscow of less than 10 minutes. Putin surely has told Xi about the inconsistencies in U.S. statements regarding intermediate-range nuclear missiles.

For example, Xi is aware — just as surely as consumers of Western media are unaware — that during a Dec. 30, 2021, telephone conversation, Biden assured Putin that “Washington had no intention of deploying offensive strike weapons in Ukraine.”

There was rejoicing in the Kremlin that New Years’ Eve, since Biden’s assurance was the first sign that Washington might acknowledge Russia’s security concerns. Indeed, Biden addressed a key issue in at least five of the eight articles of the Russian draft treaty given to the U.S. on Dec. 17, 2021. Russian rejoicing, however, was short-lived.

There has remained much speculation over whether the two leaders' respective translators were actually also carrying the 'nuclear footballs' while in Harbin:

Putin and Xi have been shadowed the entire visit by their respective guys presumably lugging their nuclear footballs. I think this is a new look for Russia and China. The message sent is about as heavy as it gets. https://t.co/adSDnSMoJy

— Jeff Wells (@JeffWellsRigInt) May 16, 2024

Foreign Minister Lavrov revealed last month that when he met Antony Blinken in Geneva in January 2022, the U.S. secretary of state pretended he’d not heard of Biden’s undertaking to Putin on Dec. 30, 2021. Rather, Blinken insisted that U.S. medium-range missiles could be deployed in Ukraine, and only that the U.S. might be willing to limit their number, Lavrov said.

The Mother of All Miscalculations

When Biden took office in 2021, his advisers assured him that he could play on Russia’s fear (sic) of China and drive a wedge between them. This became embarrassingly clear when Biden indicated what he had told Putin during their Geneva summit on June 16, 2021.

That meeting gave Putin confirmation that Biden and his advisers were stuck in a woefully outdated appraisal of Russia-China relations.

Read the rest at Consortium News

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/18/2024 - 19:50

Why Did The US Spend $320 Million On A Rube Goldberg Pier For Gaza?

Authored by Ann Wright via CommonDreams.org,

Instead of U.S. President Joe Biden marking a red line in the sand demanding that Israel allow aid into Gaza via ground transportation, his inept diplomatic team sent out a plea for help to the U.S. military.

While in the U.S. Army and Army Reserves for 29 years, I thought I had seen some pretty stupid things the military was told by politicians to do. It always begins with politicians deciding the easiest, most sensible solution to a problem would have too much political baggage and cost them votes in the next election. So, they look for a politically expedient solution, one that is invariably very expensive and convoluted.

Attempting a Military Solution for a Political or Diplomat Problem—AGAIN!!!

In this vein, all too often, politicians turn to the U.S. military for a solution to a non-military problem. Then some A-type personality in the military presents a hair-brained idea to the politicians, probably never thinking that the idea would be accepted. Then it is accepted to get the politicians out of a jam, and the next thing you know is that the Rube Goldberg, crazy idea is being funded.

This unbelievable scenario is what has happened with getting humanitarian aid into Gaza for the starving survivors of the Israeli genocide of Gaza. Instead of U.S. President Joe Biden marking a red line in the Israel/Gaza/Egypt sand demanding that Israel allow into Gaza the miles of tractor-trailer loads of food and medicine that have been stalled for months at the Rafah border crossing, Biden's inept diplomatic team sent out a plea for help to the U.S. military.

Palestinians in Gaza and citizens around the world will not forget that miles of supplies are just feet away from Gaza at the Rafah crossing and the U.S. will not use its pressure on Israel to open the gates at Rafah.

And the U.S. military, always looking for validation of its immense "capabilities," seized the opportunity to use one of its little-known assets—the Army's Joint Logistics Over the Shore, or JLOTS, system that provides bridging and water access capabilities—to help out the failed U.S. diplomatic efforts to get the U.S.'s "strongest ally in the Middle East" to end the starvation of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza by letting the massive truck convoys filled with food and medicines into Gaza.

Normally used to move military equipment across rivers where bridges have been blown up—many times by the U.S. military itself—and sometimes to transfer military equipment from a ship onto shore, the U.S. Army's small navy swung into action and began sailing to the Mediterranean in U.S. Army ships filled with barges that can be locked together to form landing docks and causeways.

Rube Goldberg Complex of Construction and Transportation Ideas

In a Rube Goldberg complex of construction and transportation ideas, the U.S. military anchored to the sea floor three miles off the northern coast of Gaza a floating dock system onto which large cargo ships can dock.

Cargo ships will off-load pallets and possibly container loads of humanitarian assistance—long-life packaged food and medical supplies—on the three-mile off-shore dock. This cargo will have undergone inspection by Israeli authorities in the port of Larnaca, Cyprus, 200 miles from Gaza.

The inspection process involves Cypriot customs, Israeli teams, the U.S., and the United Nations Office for Project Services. The U.S. Agency for International Development has set up a coordination cell in Cyprus.

Two-thousand trucks to offload ONE ship driving 1,800 feet on a causeway that will be dangerously affected by tides, winds, and waves is a recipe for disaster.

From the cargo ships, food and medical supplies will be transferred into the backs of U.S. Army trucks (probably 2.5-ton trucks) that have arrived on the floating pier brought there by two types of smaller Army boats—Logistic Support Vessels, or LSVs, and Landing Craft Utility boats (LCUs). LSVs can hold 15 trucks each and the LCUs about five.

The loaded 2.5-ton trucks will be driven back onto the LSVs and motored three miles to the second floating pier system constructed by the U.S. military.

The trucks will then be driven off the LSVs onto the second pier and down a two-lane, 1,800-foot (six U.S. football fields long) causeway anchored onto Gaza land by the Israeli military. The causeway will be anchored onto Gaza shores by the Israeli military because the U.S. military is forbidden to have "boots on the ground" in Gaza.

The truckloads of food and medical supplies will then be driven somewhere... and supplies distributed by some organization... yet to be determined according to the latest news reports.

The empty trucks will then be driven back along the two-lane, 1,800-foot causeway to the floating pier where they will be driven into the small LSVs, and the LSVs then sailed back three miles to the larger off-shore pier and the process begun again. The long causeway should be a cause of alarm for drivers, as the winds and waves so dramatically affected the construction of the causeway that most of the causeway was put together in the calm waters of Ashdod, an Israeli harbor, after winds and waves made construction of the causeway in place off Gaza impossible. Parts of the causeway are now being towed 20 miles from Ashdod harbor to northern Gaza to be linked into place.

While Thousands of Truck Loads of Cargo Wait at the Rafah Border Crossing, It Will Take 2,000 Truck Loads to Empty Each 5,000 Ton Cargo Ship  

if a large cargo ship has 5,000 tons of food and medical supplies to be off-loaded, and if each truck can hold 2.5 tons of cargo, it will take 2,000 trucks to take the cargo from one ship. If there are 15 trucks on each LSV, then the LSVs will have to make 133 trips to get the trucks to the 1,800 foot causeway.

If the LCUs that hold only five trucks are mostly used, then it would take 400 trips to get the cargo to shore.

Two-thousand trucks to offload ONE ship driving 1,800 feet on a causeway that will be dangerously affected by tides, winds, and waves is a recipe for disaster.

A graphic, not to scale, showing how the aid delivery system will work. (Photo: Department of Defense)

Will Israel Bomb the Docks, Piers, and Causeway? Remember the USS Liberty!

The possibility of probability is high that Israeli military jets, drones, and artillery may "mistakenly" target the pier complex... or Hamas or other militant groups may decide that the U.S. complicity in the genocide of over 35,000 Palestinians in Gaza outweighs the meager food and medical supplies the U.S. is bringing into Gaza, which presents another aspect of the recipe for disaster for the U.S. Rube Goldberg pier.

U.S. military personnel should remember the Israeli attack on a U.S. military ship, the USS Liberty. In 1967, the Israeli military bombed and torpedoed a U.S. ship off Gaza, killing 34 and wounding 171, and almost sunk the ship. The U.S. cover-up for its ally Israel's brutal, lethal attack on a U.S. military ship continues to this day, as does the U.S. complicity in the Israeli genocide of Gaza.

The World Will Not Forget

Palestinians in Gaza and citizens around the world will not forget that miles of supplies are just feet away from Gaza at the Rafah crossing and the U.S. will not use its pressure on Israel to open the gates at Rafah, instead offering an expensive, idiotic solution to an easily solvable problem.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/18/2024 - 18:40

Sternlicht's Starwood REIT Running Low On Cash As Redemptions Soar Amid CRE Storm 

Starwood Real Estate Income Trust (SREIT), a $10 billion non-traded REIT ranked second-largest behind Blackstone's struggling BREIT, faces a severe liquidity crunch as investor redemptions soar amid concerns 'higher for longer' interest rates will worsen the commercial real estate storm. 

The Financial Times reported at the end of last week that SREIT is "running low on liquidity as investors demand their money back" and tapped $1.3 billion of its $1.55 billion credit facility since the start of 2023.

Redemptions have jumped among concerned investors. In the first quarter, SREIT investors requested $1.3 billion of their cash back. However, the fund only returned $500 million of the requests in the quarter because of a 5% redemption cap. 

Now, Barry Sternlicht's SREIT is in dire straits. The current pace of redemptions suggests the fund will run out of cash in the second half of the year unless it disposes of properties or expands its credit facility. The filing from last week shows the fund has $225 million left to draw down. 

The outflows are similar to what happened to Blackstone's BREIT over the last few years. At least now, BREIT has been able to meet 100% of its redemption requests for the first time since 2022, according to a notice issued by Blackstone to investors on March 1. 

"Liquidity isn't something that people think about on the way up, but it can become a concern suddenly," Phil Bak, chief executive of Armada Investors, which invests in listed REITs. 

Bak said, "When it comes to private REITs, liquidity concerns have been dismissed, and they will become paramount again."

FT spoke with an individual close to SREIT who said 'greater liquidity' is expected soon after asset sales. They said, "Starwood could sell other assets to raise cash." 

The REIT industry has been under severe pressure since Fed chair Powell began raising interest rates in early 2022. Tighter monetary conditions and higher interest rates for the medium term as inflation remains elevated have pressured CRE values of office towers. This has led to a 16% decline in SREIT's declared net asset value from its peak in September 2022 at nearly $10 billion. 

For the CRE industry, Goldman's Lotfi Karoui outlined days ago that the highest share of CRE loans on record will hit maturity walls in the next two years. 

Almost a trillion of CRE mortgages must be paid down, refinanced, or extended by the end of 2024.

The problem is that the Fed's rate cut cycle has been pushed out to at least the fall. Interest-rate swaps on Friday showed traders pricing about two quarter-point rate cuts by year-end, with about an 80% chance the first one will come in September. 

Between SREIT and BREIT, the smart money has been panic-running for the exit door. Redemption caps have saved these non-traded REITs from totally imploding. 

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/18/2024 - 18:05

Nickel Prices Log Best Week In Over A Year As Riots In New Caledonia Spark Supply Concerns

Nickel prices on the London Metal Exchange just had their best week in nearly a year and a half. The surge comes as social unrest rocks New Caledonia. A new report highlighted last week about surging demand for base metals driven by the clean energy push, as well as central bankers hinting at interest rate cuts. This has fueled an upswing in nickel prices and commodity prices. 

Let's begin with the unrest and riots that have gripped the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia. Additional French troops, including elite security forces, are en route to help authorities restore order. We outlined the latest on the riots in a note titled "France Blames Deadly New Caledonia Uprising On TikTok" on Friday morning. 

This note will be commodity-centric and focus mainly on the nickel market. Last year, New Caledonia was the world's third-biggest producer of the battery metal. The tiny Pacific island accounted for 6% of global output, according to the US Geological Survey.

So far, French miner Eramet SA's output in the country has been disrupted, and it is currently operating at minimum capacity. This news helped propel nickel futures trading on the London Metal Exchange to its best trading week since early December 2022, rising a little more than 11%. 

Nickel futures are trading at $20,880 a ton, or about the highest level since September 2023. 

"We have seen these riots . . . If New Caledonia has an ongoing problem, then it is going to make a difference," Dan Smith, an analyst at Amalgamated Metal Trading, a brokerage, told the Financial Times. He noted that traders had been"downbeat" on the nickel market in terms of being oversupplied and that this sudden price spike had caught traders off guard. 

However, Smith said the "overwhelming consensus" among traders was that the nickel market was "badly oversupplied," suggesting that the current rally would not last. "Demand is good for nickel [at the moment] but supply is even stronger," he added.

Ending the week was a report by the International Energy Agency that forecasted strong demand for nickel and other base metals critical for the transition to cleaner power grids as the powering up America and Europe theme takes off (read: "the Next AI Trade"). 

"The world's appetite for technologies such as solar panels, electric cars and batteries is growing fast . . . but we cannot satisfy it without reliable and expanding supplies of critical minerals," said IEA executive director Fatih Birol.

Rising nickel prices come as a massive dislocation of physical copper has sparked a squeeze in prices in New York. 

The Bloomberg Industrial Metal Subindex has soared. 

Spot commodity prices tracked by Bloomberg are also surging. 

Jeff Currie might be right about an emerging commodity supercycle. And, of course, high commodity prices are bad news for Fed Powell's inflation fight. 

All of this chaos is happening as the world splinters into a multi-polar state, an indication commodity prices will remain elevated. 

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/18/2024 - 16:55

Billionaires Funding Protests Donate Millions To House Dems

Authored by Susan Crabtree via RealClearPolitics.com,

For President Biden and congressional Democrats, the fierce party division over the campus protests and the war in Gaza is full of warning signs during the 2024 election year. The unrest is unlikely to stop when universities break for the summer; protesters are pledging to disrupt the August Democratic National Convention planned to be held in Chicago. 

Most House Democrats have been reticent on the antisemitic protests and encampments roiling college graduations this month, while a handful have vocally defended or even celebrated the student protests as displays of protected free speech. 

Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, said she was proud of her daughter, a Barnard College student who was suspended for participating in illegal protests and who was among 100 people arrested after demonstrations at Columbia University in April. Throughout the months of campus protests, members of the progressive “squad,” Reps. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Cori Bush of Missouri have applauded “courageous” anti-Israel student protestors while condemning efforts by university administrators and police to dismantle the encampments. 

A RealClearPolitics analysis of Federal Election Commission data shows one possible reason most Democrats are trying to avoid the campus fray: House Democrats’ reelection campaigns have accepted $6.5 million from three major political families, which have helped bankroll several student groups participating in the protests. The family members cut most of those checks over the last two years, although some of the donations to longstanding House members came over the last decade.

The names are well-known among Democratic funding circles: Soros, Rockefeller, and Pritzker. Yet before the anti-Jewish protests swept college campuses over the last few months, their financial ties to the student groups were not widely known. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a member of the same wealthy Pritzker family, is not among the donors. 

Several investigative media reports over the last month have uncovered the extensive financial ties between these families and student groups involved in organizing anti-Israel protests and activism across the country predating the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel and in its aftermath and during Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. 

The donors to student groups include George Soros, a billionaire philanthropist and Democratic campaign contributor who helms the Open Society Foundation and his family members; the Pritzkers, the owners of Hyatt Hotels Corporation; and members of the famed Rockefeller family, including relatives of the wealthy American Banker and philanthropist David Rockefeller. The donations have either gone directly to student groups involved in campus demonstrations or to umbrella foundations and organizations, which have, in turn, channeled the funds to the protestors. 

The House Democratic Congressional Committee and the House Majority PAC, which was founded by former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and is directly affiliated with the House Democratic leadership, collected most of those funds, nearly $5.5 million by those two Democratic campaign entities alone, FEC records show. 

Meanwhile, 30 House Democrats, including Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other members of the leadership, received a combined total of $856,858 from the Soros, Pritzker, and Rockefeller families, while a dozen Democratic candidates in competitive races received a total of $139,000. RCP did not examine Senate recipients. 

The House members in competitive races who received funds from at least one of the three families include Reps. Mary Peltola of Alaska, Mike Levin of California, Yadira Caraveo of Colorado, Johana Hayes of Connecticut, Eric Sorensen of Illinois, Frank Mrvan of Indiana, Sharice Davids, Jared Golden, Hillary Scholten, Angie Craig of Minnesota, Don Davis, Chris Pappas of New Hampshire, Gabe Vasquez, of New Mexico, Susie Lee of Nevada, Steven Horsford of Nevada, Paty Ryan of New York, Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, Andrea Salinas of Oregon, Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, and Matt Cartwright of Pennsylvania. 

Craig’s campaigns have received the most of any other House member from the three families: $96,490 since 2018. Lee’s campaign received the second most: $75,000 since 2017. 

The Democratic candidates who accepted donations from at least one of the three families include Kirsten Engel in Arizona; Adam Gray, Rudy Salas, George Whitesides, and Will Rollins in California; Lanon Baccam in Iowa; Tony Vargas in Nebraska; Lauren Gillen, Mondaire Jones, and Josh Riley in New York; Ashley Ehasz in Pennsylvania; and Michelle Vallejo in Texas.

Neither the DCCC nor any of the House members and candidates responded to RealClearPolitics’ questions about whether they had any concerns about the financial ties between the Soros, Pritzker, and Rockefeller families to these student groups. 

Several organizations have played key roles in pro-Palestinian student activism and protests and have received donations from Soros, Pritzker, and Rockefeller family members. The U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, a pro-Palestinian advocacy group, has received at least $700,000 in Open Society Foundation grants since 2018 and $355,000 from the Rockefeller Brothers since 2019. 

In 2023, the USCPR had three fellows – Nidaa Lafi, Craig Birckhead-Morton, and Malak Afaneh – all of whom have figured prominently in the nationwide protests, the New York Post reported in late April. The group provides up to $7,800 for its community-based fellows and between $2,880 and $3,660 for its campus-based fellows for spending at least eight hours a week organizing campaigns led by Palestinian organizations.

While all were involved in student protests over the last several months, the University of California at Berkeley’s Afanah, co-president of Law Students for Justice in Palestine, made the most headlines. Afanah commandeered a microphone during a graduation dinner at the law school dean’s home to speak out against Israel’s war in Gaza. She claimed a First Amendment right to disrupt the gathering and then accused the dean’s wife of assaulting her when she forcefully asked her to leave. 

The Open Society Foundations defended its funding of these groups and their right to “peacefully protest” in an April 26 X.com post. 

“We have a long history of fighting antisemitism, Islamophobia, and all forms of racism and hate, and have advocated for the rights of Palestinians and Israelis and for peaceful resolution to the conflict in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” the Foundations said. 

“Our funding is a matter of public record, disclosed on our website, fully compliant with U.S. laws, and is part of our commitment to continuing open debate that is ultimately the only hope for peace in the region,” the organization asserted. 

Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow are two additional organizations deeply involved in the student protests and backed by the Tides Foundations, which is Soros-funded. Jewish Voice for Peace, which openly describes itself as anti-Zionist, has also received $500,000 in funds from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund over the last five years. David Rockefeller Jr. sits on the Rockefeller Brothers’ board. The group has separately provided grants to both the Tides Foundation and the Tides Center, as Politico reported in early May. 

The Pritzkers founded the Libra Foundation, which seeds smaller nonprofits, many of which have participated in pro-Palestinian marches, according to the same Politico report. One of them is the Climate Justice Alliance, which has labeled President Biden “Genocide Joe” for his handling of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. 

Others benefitting from Pritzker largesse include Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity, which has helped promote anti-Israel protests, and the Immigrant Defense Project, which participated in a protest in D.C. earlier this year in which police arrested a number of participants. The Pritzkers also help financially support the Tides Foundation, which funds other small left-wing groups, including Adalah Justice Project, a prominent participant in the Columbia University protests and encampment, which police disbanded in early May. 

House Republicans have launched multiple investigations into the funding of the campus protests and encampments. Earlier this week, the chairs of two GOP-led House committees, the Education and the Workforce and the House Oversight and Accountability panels, sent Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen a letter requesting all suspicious activity reports, or SARs, connected to 20 organizations that have reportedly led, financed, and participated in the antisemitic protests on college campuses. SARs are documents that financial institutions and other professionals file with the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network to flag law enforcement to potential instances of money laundering or terrorist financing. 

“It’s no coincidence that the day after the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack, antisemitic mobs began springing up on college campuses across the country,” Rep. Virginia Foxx, who chairs the Education and the Workforce Committee, said in a statement.

 “These protests have been coordinated and well-organized, indicating that outside groups or influences may be at play. American education is under attack. It’s critical that Congress investigates how these groups, who are tearing apart our institutions, are being funded before it’s too late.” 

House Oversight Chairman James Comer pledged that his committee would follow the money trail and stressed that the antisemitism “thriving” on many college campuses “must not go unchecked.” 

Topping the list that Foxx and Comer sent Yellen is Students for Justice in Palestine, or SJP, which has close ties to several anti-Israel organizations. After the Oct. 7 attacks, Students for Justice in Palestine’s national steering committee distributed a “tool kit” for activists that proclaimed, “glory to our resistance” and included a template for an advertisement showing protesters beneath a Palestinian flag. The image contained a paraglider, an apparent tribute to Hamas’ use of paragliders who slaughtered 360 youthful concert-goers, raped others, and took 44 people hostage during the Oct. 7 attack. That tool kit drew criticism from the Anti-Defamation League, which accused it of “celebrating terrorism.” 

Students for Palestine has since been banned or suspended by Brandeis, Columbia, and George Washington University, among other colleges and universities. During his presidential campaign, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis banned the group from state campuses, referring to their alleged ties to Hamas.

“We had a group of Students for Justice in Palestine,” DeSantis said. 

“They claimed solidarity with Hamas. We deactivated them. We were not going to use tax dollars to fund jihad.”

A 2016 report from the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis stated that having a chapter on campus is “one of the strongest predictors of perceiving a hostile climate toward Israel and Jews.” 

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Jonathan Schanzer, a former Treasury official responsible for designating numerous terrorist financiers, said his organization has been watching the financial network behind Students for Justice in Palestine for several years. The group, he said, has an umbrella organization known as Americans Muslims for Palestine, or AMP, a nonprofit that was previously based in Chicago but more recently moved to Falls Church, Virginia. For the last several years, AMP has been embroiled in litigation, accusing it of being an “alter-ego” or shell organization for the Islamic Association for Palestine, or IAP, a disbanded organization linked to Hamas. 

In 2023, Schanzer testified before the House Ways and Means Committee that IAP had received numerous checks and deposited them into Hamas’ bank account, information uncovered during the litigation. In some cases, the deposits included the memo line “for Palestinian martyrs only,” Schanzer noted. 

Hatem Bazian, AMP’s founder, was a frequent speaker at IAP forums, and Osama Abuirshaid, who edited IAP’s newspaper, is now AMP’s executive director, Schanzer said. In addition, Abuirshaid has published articles in English and Arabic praising Hamas, noting in them that he has communicated with Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook. 

AMP created Students for Justice in Palestine, which started with just a handful of schools and has now expanded to 200 U.S. campuses with chapters. The group is a loosely connected network of autonomous chapters with no named leader. The structure allows it to avoid registering as a nonprofit and filing tax documents. Bazian, who founded the first chapter 30 years ago at the University of California at Berkeley, has described the student organization as “a symbolic franchise without a franchise fee.” 

Bazian, who is now the chairman of American Muslims for Palestine’s board and a lecturer at Berkeley, has downplayed its ties to the student organization. He says AMP has only provided printed materials and offered grants for students to attend conferences or host speakers but has no supervisory role or control over the Students for Justice in Palestine. 

Schanzer, however, strongly disagrees. While he stresses that FDD has not produced any evidence of present criminal wrongdoing implicating AMP, he argues that AMP and its organizers deserve intense scrutiny from members of Congress. AMP, he said, has, over the last two decades, provided checks to students at Northwestern, DePaul, and Loyola universities, among others. 

Last year, Bazian curiously criticized CNN’s Jake Tapper’s “racist” coverage of Rep. Tlaib, arguing in a post from his own X.com account that, “As Jews who believe in human rights and justice, we demand you do better.” Schanzer notes that Bazian is Muslim, not Jewish, and the tweet has led to suspicion that Bazian thought he was logged into Jewish Voice for Peace’s account but mistakenly tweeted from his personal account. 

Nine Americans and Israeli survivors and victims of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks are suing AMP and Students for Justice in Palestine, alleging that groups collaborated with Hamas to legitimize the Hamas attacks and provide public relations services for the terrorist organization. Meanwhile, the University of Florida chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine sued the state, challenging the Chancellor of the State University System’s order to state universities to deactivate the student group. 

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/18/2024 - 16:20

Ukraine Launched Its Largest-Ever Drone Attack On Russia While Putin Was In China

In what appears an intentionally-timed message, Ukraine's military launched its largest-ever drone attack on Russian territory while President Putin was visiting China where he held two days of meetings with Xi Jinping.

"Fifty-one UAVs were destroyed and intercepted over Crimea, 44 over the Krasnodar region, six over the Belgorod region and one over Kursk region," Russia's defense ministry announced of the Friday attack.

This means well over 100 kamikaze drones were sent across several regions, particularly around Belgorod and the Black Sea. Given the Kremlin is claiming its forces intercepted that amount, the total number of UAVs deployed across the border was likely far and above that figure, perhaps even double, as clearly some made it through anti-air defenses.

"Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said a mother and child were killed while traveling in a car, and authorities managed to extinguish the fire at the Tuapse refinery," as cited in Fox News. "The child was in critical condition. Doctors did everything possible to save him," Gladkov said.

Sevastopol was forced to cancel all schools and classes, and to close public buildings, and there was confirmation of damage there.

Ukraine is apparently seeking to retaliate for Russia's ongoing major Kharkiv offensive, while Putin has linked the new Russian operation to push deeper into the northeast sector of Ukraine with pro-Kiev forces' constant cross-border drone attacks and shelling.

Dozens of Russians have been killed and wounded in Belgorod over the last several months. When asked about the worsening situation, Putin told a press briefing in Harbin, China on Friday that "what is happening on the Kharkiv front is their own fault."

Referencing places like Belgorod city, Putin says "Civilians are dying there" - explaining that "It’s obvious... they are shooting directly at the city center, at residential areas. And I said publicly that if this continues, we will be forced to create a security zone, a buffer zone. That is what we are doing."

Russian media has reported that the aim is to establish this buffer zone at least 10km within Ukrainian territory, making it more difficult for Ukraine forces to shell Russian villages and cities. According to more of Moscow's intentions in the region via Russian state media:

Russia has no intention of capturing the Ukrainian city of Kharkov, which is close to the Russian border, President Vladimir Putin has said. Moscow’s forces have been making notable gains in the area in recent days.

Speaking to reporters at the Harbin Institute of Technology during his two-day visit to China, Putin commented on Russia’s operations in Kharkov Region, asserting that Moscow is achieving success on the battlefield by acting “strictly according to plan.”

Also on Friday Ukraine's President Zelensky warned the public that Russia’s summer assault "could consist of several waves. There was the first wave" in the Kharkiv region, and that the country should brace for more.

Zelensky is meanwhile still claiming his goal is still the "liberation of Crimea"...

"Zelensky said that after deoccupation, Crimea will become one of the best places to live in Europe: "It will definitely be - when the power of our resilience, our weapons, our diplomacy and the power of justice for Ukraine will ensure the liberation of Crimea from occupation.… pic.twitter.com/mtWnJLLWGp

— Ivan Katchanovski (@I_Katchanovski) May 18, 2024

There has lately been widespread media acknowledgement that Ukrainian lines are being pushed back rapidly, and Ukraine officials including Zelensky have lashed out at Western allies for a significant delay in weapons and ammo.

Tyler Durden Sat, 05/18/2024 - 15:45