RFK Jr says the quiet part out loud:
— Danny Haiphong (@SpiritofHo) November 8, 2023
Israel is a stronghold for us…It's like having an aircraft carrier in the Middle East…If Israel disappears, Russia, China and the BRICS+ countries will control 90% of the world's oil, and this will be a disaster.pic.twitter.com/OWmu2peyFF
thecradle | The catastrophic debacle of Project Ukraine and the revival of an intractable West Asian war are deeply intertwined.
Beyond the fog of Washington's “worry” about Tel Aviv’s genocidal rampage, the crucial fact is that we are right in the thick of a war against BRICS 11.
The Empire does not do strategy; at best, it does tactical business plans on the fly. There are two immediate tactics in play: a US Armada deployed in the Eastern Mediterranean – in a failed effort to intimidate Resistance Axis behemoths Iran and Hezbollah - and a possible Milei election in Argentina tied to his avowed promise to break Brazil-Argentina relations.
So this is a simultaneous attack on BRICS 11 on two fronts: West Asia and South America. There will be no American efforts spared to prevent BRICS 11 from getting close to OPEC+. A key aim is to instill fear in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi – as confirmed by Persian Gulf business sources.
Even vassal leaders at the OIC show would have been aware that we are now deep into The Empire Strikes Back. That also largely explains their cowardice.
They know that for the Hegemon, multipolarity equals “chaos,” unipolarity equals “order,” and malign actors equal “autocrats” - such as the new Russian-Chinese-Iranian “Axis of Evil” and anyone, especially vassals, that opposes the “rules-based international order.”
And that brings us to a tale of two ceasefires. Tens of millions across the Global Majority are asking why the Hegemon is desperate for a ceasefire in Ukraine while flatly refusing a ceasefire in Palestine.
Freezing Project Ukraine preserves the Ghost of Hegemony just a little bit longer. Let's assume Moscow would take the bait (it won’t). But to freeze Ukraine in Europe, the Hegemon will need an Israeli win in Gaza - perhaps at any and all costs - to maintain even a vestige of its former glory.
But can Israel achieve victory any more than Ukraine can? Tel Aviv may have already lost the war on 7 October as it can never regain its facade of invincibility. And if this transforms into a regional war that Israel loses, the US will lose its Arab vassals overnight, who today have a Chinese and Russian option waiting in the wings.
The Roar of the Street is getting louder - demanding that the Biden administration, now seen as complicit with Tel Aviv, halt the Israeli genocide that may lead to a World War. But Washington will not comply. Wars in Europe and West Asia may be its last chance (it will lose) to subvert the emergence of a prosperous, connected, peaceful Eurasia Century.
The catastrophic debacle of Project Ukraine and the revival of an intractable West Asian war are deeply intertwined.
Beyond the fog of Washington's “worry” about Tel Aviv’s genocidal rampage, the crucial fact is that we are right in the thick of a war against BRICS 11.
The Empire does not do strategy; at best, it does tactical business plans on the fly. There are two immediate tactics in play: a US Armada deployed in the Eastern Mediterranean – in a failed effort to intimidate Resistance Axis behemoths Iran and Hezbollah - and a possible Milei election in Argentina tied to his avowed promise to break Brazil-Argentina relations.
So this is a simultaneous attack on BRICS 11 on two fronts: West Asia and South America. There will be no American efforts spared to prevent BRICS 11 from getting close to OPEC+. A key aim is to instill fear in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi – as confirmed by Persian Gulf business sources.
Even vassal leaders at the OIC show would have been aware that we are now deep into The Empire Strikes Back. That also largely explains their cowardice.
They know that for the Hegemon, multipolarity equals “chaos,” unipolarity equals “order,” and malign actors equal “autocrats” - such as the new Russian-Chinese-Iranian “Axis of Evil” and anyone, especially vassals, that opposes the “rules-based international order.”
And that brings us to a tale of two ceasefires. Tens of millions across the Global Majority are asking why the Hegemon is desperate for a ceasefire in Ukraine while flatly refusing a ceasefire in Palestine.
Freezing Project Ukraine preserves the Ghost of Hegemony just a little bit longer. Let's assume Moscow would take the bait (it won’t). But to freeze Ukraine in Europe, the Hegemon will need an Israeli win in Gaza - perhaps at any and all costs - to maintain even a vestige of its former glory.
But can Israel achieve victory any more than Ukraine can? Tel Aviv may have already lost the war on 7 October as it can never regain its facade of invincibility. And if this transforms into a regional war that Israel loses, the US will lose its Arab vassals overnight, who today have a Chinese and Russian option waiting in the wings.
The Roar of the Street is getting louder - demanding that the Biden administration, now seen as complicit with Tel Aviv, halt the Israeli genocide that may lead to a World War. But Washington will not comply. Wars in Europe and West Asia may be its last chance (it will lose) to subvert the emergence of a prosperous, connected, peaceful Eurasia Century.
antiwar | More than 400 US officials from 40 government agencies have sent a letter to President Biden criticizing his unconditional support for Israel’s war in Gaza in the latest example of dissent from within the US government.
“We call on President Biden to urgently demand a ceasefire; and to call for de-escalation of the current conflict by securing the immediate release of the Israeli hostages and arbitrarily detained Palestinians; the restoration of water, fuel, electricity and other basic services; and the passage of adequate humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip,” the letter reads.
According to The New York Times, the majority of the signatories to the letter are political appointees who work throughout the government, including in the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the National Security Council. Some signatories helped get Biden elected and said they were worried his support for the onslaught on Gaza was opposed by many Democratic voters.
The letter says that the “overwhelming majority of Americans support a ceasefire,” citing a poll from Data For Progress that found 66% of voters believe the US should push for a ceasefire, including 80% of Democrats. “Furthermore, Americans do not want the US military to be drawn into another costly and senseless war in the Middle East,” the letter says.
President Biden and his top aides have called for “pauses” in the fighting but refuse to use the term “ceasefire,” demonstrating that they are committed to continuing support for the Israeli war, which has killed at least 11,000 Palestinians, including over 4,500 children.
Since October 7, the US has shipped weapons to Israel on a near-daily basis and is providing special operations support, including surveillance drone flights over Gaza. Besides the new letter, Biden’s full-throated support for the brutal war has drawn three dissent memos from State Department employees and an open letter signed by more than 1,000 employees of the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
al-jazeera | A billionaire real estate tycoon in the United States is rallying support for a high-dollar media crusade to boost Israel’s image and demonise the Hamas armed group amid global pro-Palestinian solidarity protests.
The media campaign — called Facts for Peace — is seeking million-dollar donations from dozens of the world’s biggest names in media, finance and technology, according to an email seen by news website Semafor.
More than 50 individuals are being courted, including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Dell CEO Michael Dell and financier Michael Milken. They have a combined net worth of around $500bn, Semafor said.
Some of the individuals, such as investor Bill Ackman, have publicly threatened to blacklist pro-Palestine students who are critical of Israel. On October 10, Ackman wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that he and other business executives wanted Ivy League universities to disclose the names of students who are part of organisations that signed open letters criticising Israeli policies in Gaza.
US billionaire Barry Sternlicht, who started the project, said the campaign would help Israel “get ahead of the narrative” as the world has reacted to the intensive Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip.
“Public opinion will surely shift as scenes, real or fabricated by Hamas, of civilian Palestinian suffering will surely erode [Israel’s] current empathy in the world community”, Sternlicht wrote in an email soliciting contributions from the wealthy figures shortly after Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel, according to Semafor. “We must get ahead of the narrative.”
Israel has carried out relentless air strikes on the besieged Gaza Strip since October 7, killing at least 11,078 Palestinian people, including 4,500 children, displacing 1.5 million people, and wrecking much of the territory’s infrastructure, Gaza officials say.
Hamas’s surprise attack on Israeli territory on October 7 killed some 1,200 Israelis, according to Israeli officials.
Sternlicht’s media drive aims to brand Hamas as a “terrorist
organisation” that is “not just the enemy of Israel, but of the United
States”, he wrote. The goal is to draw $50m in private donations, paired
with a matching contribution from a Jewish charity. Hamas is already
designated as a “terrorist” organisation by the US and the European
Union for its armed resistance against Israeli occupation.
strategic-culture | What is the ‘elephant’ (or elephants) in the room? Blinken’s recent regional diplomacy was ‘a bust’. None of the regional leaders that Blinken met would talk further about Gaza beyond demanding stridently, ‘no Palestinian population displacement into Egypt’ a ‘stop to this madness’ – the carpet bombing of Gazans – and the demand for an immediate ceasefire.
And Biden’s calls for a ‘pause’ – softly, at first, and the more strident now – is being bluntly ignored by the Israeli government. The spectre of President Carter’s impotence during the Iran hostage crisis hangs ever more soberly in the backdrop.
The truth is that the White House cannot force Israel to do its will – the Israeli lobby holds the more clout in Congress than any White House team. Thus, ‘no exit’ from the Israeli crisis is readily to be seen. Biden ‘made his bed’ with the Netanyahu cabinet and must live with consequences.
Impotence then, as the Democratic Party fractures beyond the simplistic division between centrists versus progressives. The polarisation emanating from the ‘no ceasefire stance’ is having stark destabilising effects on politics, both in the U.S. and Europe.
Impotence then, as the shape of the Middle East crystallises into sharp antagonism towards the West’s perceived accommodation of the mass slaughter of Palestinian women, children and civilians. The die may be too far ‘cast’ to brake the ongoing tectonic reset already underway. Western double standards are just too inescapably obvious now to the Global Majority.
The large ‘elephant’ is this: Israel has dropped more than 25,000 tons of high explosives since 7 October (the 1945 Hiroshima nuke was 15,000 tons equivalent). What exactly is Netanyahu and his war cabinet’s aim here? Ostensibly, the earlier military operation in Jabalia Camp was about targeting a Hamas leader suspected of lurking under the camp – but six 2,000 lb bombs for one Hamas ‘target’ in a crowded refugee camp? And why too the attacks on water cisterns, hospital solar energy panels and hospital entrances, roads, schools and bakeries?
Bread has almost disappeared in Gaza. The UN says all bakeries in northern Gaza have closed following the bombing of the last bakeries. Clean water is desperately short, and thousands of bodies are slowly decomposing under rubble. Disease and epidemic are appearing, whilst humanitarian supplies are being tightly restricted as a bargaining tool toward further hostage releases..
Editor of Haaretz, Aluf Benn, puts the Israeli strategy very plainly:
“The expulsion of the Palestinian residents, transformation of their homes into piles of construction rubble, and the restriction of the entry of supplies and fuel into Gaza are the “tiebreaking move” employed by Israel in the current conflict, unlike all previous rounds of fighting in the Strip”.
Of what are we talking here? This clearly is not about avoiding collateral civilian deaths occurring as the IDF battles with Hamas. There have been no street battles in Jabalia, or in and around the hospitals – as one soldier commented: “All we’ve done is ride around in our armored vehicles. The boots on the ground stuff will come later”. The pretext of a ‘humanitarian evacuation’ therefore is bogus.
geopoliticaleconomy | It is crucial to stress that Israel is an extension of U.S. geopolitical power in one of the most critically important regions of the world.
In fact, it was current U.S. President Joe Biden, back in 1986, when he was a senator, who famously said that, if Israel didn’t exist, the United States would have to invent it:
If we look at the Middle East, I think it’s about time we stop, those of us who support, as most of us do, Israel in this body, for apologizing for our support for Israel.
There is no apology to be made. None. It is the best $3 billion investment we make.
Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interest in the region; the United States would have to go out and invent an Israel.
I am with my colleagues who are on the floor of the Foreign Relations Committee, and we worry at length about NATO; and we worry about the eastern flank of NATO, Greece and Turkey, and how important it is. They pale by comparison…
They pale by comparison in terms of the benefit that accrues to the United States of America.
First of all, it goes without saying that the so-called Middle East, or a better term is West Asia, has some of the world’s largest reserves of oil and gas, and the entire economic infrastructure all around the world relies on fossil fuels.
The world is gradually moving toward new energy sources, but fossil fuels are still absolutely critical to the entire global economy. And Washington’s goal has been to make sure that it can maintain steady prices in the global oil and gas markets.
But this is about something much bigger than just oil and gas. The U.S. military’s stated policy since the 1990s, since the end of the Cold War and the overthrow of the Soviet Union, is that the United States has tried to maintain control over every region of the world.
This was stated very clearly by the U.S. National Security Council in 1992 in the so-called Wolfowitz Doctrine. The U.S. National Security Council wrote:
[The United States’] goal is to preclude any hostile power from dominating a region critical to our interests, and also thereby to strengthen the barriers against the reemergence of a global threat to the interests of the U.S. and our allies. These regions include Europe, East Asia, the Middle East/Persian Gulf, and Latin America. Consolidated, nondemocratic control of the resources of such a critical region could generate a significant threat to our security.
Then, in 2004, the U.S. government published its National Military Strategy, in which Washington stressed that its goal was “Full Spectrum Dominance – the ability to control any situation or defeat any adversary across the range of military operations”.
Now, historically, when it came to the Middle East, the U.S. relied on a so-called “twin pillar” strategy. The west pillar was Saudi Arabia, and the east pillar was Iran. And until the 1979 revolution in Iran, the country was governed by a dictator, a shah, the monarch, who was backed by the United States and served U.S. interests in the region.
However, with the 1979 revolution, the U.S. lost one of the pillars of its twin pillar strategy, and Israel became increasingly important for the United States to maintain control over this crucially strategic region.
It is not just the massive oil reserves and gas reserves in the region; it is not just the fact that many of the world’s top oil and gas producers are located in West Asia.
It is also the fact that some of the most important trading routes on Earth also go through this region.
It would be difficult to overstate how important Egypt’s Suez Canal is. This connects trade from the Middle East going into Europe, from the Red Sea into the Mediterranean, and around 30% of all of the world’s shipping containers pass through the Suez Canal. That represents around 12% of the total global trade of all goods.
Then, directly south of the Suez Canal, where the Red Sea enters the Arabian Sea, you have a crucial geostrategic choke point known as the Bab al-Mandab Strait, right off the coast of Yemen. And there, more than 6 million barrels of oil pass through every single day.
ZeroHedge | As the MSM turns on President Joe Biden heading into the 2024 election, the Washington Post had an interesting piece on Thursday exploring a little-known connection between the Bidens and the du Pont family, which revolves around a 2001 case in which then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) was voted in as a prominent new member of a prestigious Golf Club in Wilmington, Delaware, founded by a du Pont heiress.
That year, Biden, known for his "Middle-Class Joe" image and modest financial status, joined the exclusive Fieldstone Golf Club, a symbol of prestige and power. This move painted a contrasting picture: a politician aligned with working-class values, yet rubbing shoulders with the state's most affluent family, renowned for their chemical company empire.
At the time, Biden walked a delicate line. On one hand, he campaigned as an Amtrak-riding “Middle-Class Joe” striving to make ends meet, and accurately described himself as “one of the poorest members of Congress” — reporting $221,000 in combined income with his wife that year and $360 in charitable contributions. -WaPo
Biden's connection to the du Ponts extended beyond social interactions. His staffing choices, political allies, and personal real estate investments all reflected a deep integration with this influential family. His acquisition of a mansion built by a du Pont member further underscores this relationship.
Yet, Biden's entry into the Fieldstone Golf Club raised eyebrows and led to a brief FBI investigation in 2007. The inquiry centered on how Biden obtained his club membership, especially as it involved an "unused" ticket from a company owned by the club's founder, potentially bypassing a substantial partnership fee. The FBI's probe, which included photographing Biden's personal locker at the club, eventually closed without any allegations of wrongdoing. It's unknown whether Biden was ever informed about the FBI investigation.
In response to an inquiry, the White House told the Post: "These bizarre suggestions from more than 20 years ago are confusing given the fact that the Post is reporting that President Biden was fully responsible for membership dues at the golf club and all out-of-pocket costs associated with it. Frankly, the Post’s own reporting suggests this supposed matter was closed 15 years ago with no finding of wrongdoing. If you want to dig deep on who’s funding a president’s golf habits, we might have some suggestions."
Yet, this story reveals the delicate balance Biden navigated between his public identity as a relatable politician and his private interactions with Delaware's elite. While maintaining his image as a defender of middle-class interests, Biden also sought inclusion in the state's upper echelons, epitomized by his association with the du Ponts and his membership at Fieldstone.
For someone raised in Delaware with Biden’s blue-collar background, “it would be quite an accomplishment” to rise into the same social circles as the du Ponts, said Joseph Hurley, a Wilmington attorney who grew up with Biden and represented Moseley.
“It’s like, ‘I’ve really arrived,’ because the du Ponts were the family, the king’s-family type thing,” he said. -WaPo
Biden often cited the long role of the du Pont family in Delaware in his family story - writing in his memoir that his father moved the family from Scranton, PA to a suburb of Wilmington, which was made more economically stable thanks to so many well-paid DuPont employees.
"DuPont meant security for today and better times for the future," Biden wrote.
Years later, Biden recalled that his mother urged him to value his heritage with as much pride as the state’s best-known family. “Like I’m a du Pont or something,” Biden recalled. “You’re a Biden. Nobody is better than you, and everybody’s equal to you,” his mother told him.
Still, he envied the position and power of those who founded the DuPont company.
Elected to the Senate in 1972, he served in Congress alongside Rep. Pierre “Pete” du Pont IV, who later became Delaware’s governor and ran for president. Biden’s close adviser and Senate chief of staff, Ted Kaufman, had worked for DuPont as a plastics engineer.
epochtimes | An attorney for New York City Mayor Eric Adams confirmed on Friday that the FBI seized the mayor's phones and an iPad as part of an investigation into his campaign financing.
“After learning of the federal investigation, it was discovered that an individual had recently acted improperly. In the spirit of transparency and cooperation, this behavior was immediately and proactively reported to investigators. The Mayor has been and remains committed to cooperating in this matter," his attorney Boyd Johnson said in a statement.
"On Monday night, the FBI approached the mayor after an event. The Mayor immediately complied with the FBI’s request and provided them with electronic devices. The mayor has not been accused of any wrongdoing and continues to cooperate with the investigation."
Mr. Adams also denied any wrongdoing in a statement.
“As a former member of law enforcement, I expect all members of my staff to follow the law and fully cooperate with any sort of investigation—and I will continue to do exactly that. I have nothing to hide,” he stated.
Last week, the FBI raided the home of Brianna Suggs, one of the mayor's chief political consultants, after which the mayor also issued a statement that he was innocent of any wrongdoing.
“I feel extremely comfortable about how I comply with rules and procedures. I’ve stated this over and over again. I hold myself to a high standard, I hold my campaign to a high standard, and I hold my staffers at city hall to a high standard,” he said. He also said that Ms. Suggs was a "real professional" and would remain on his team for his 2025 reelection campaign.
“I am outraged and angry if anyone attempted to use the campaign to manipulate our democracy and defraud our campaign,” Mr. Adams said in the statement.
“I want to be clear, I have no knowledge, direct or otherwise, of any improper fundraising activity—and certainly not of any foreign money.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney in Manhattan declined to comment.
The FBI has not made public details of the investigation, but a search warrant was first reported by the New York Times, which reported that the federal investigation is related to alleged corruption in Mr. Adams's 2021 campaign and possible ties to the Turkish government.
The seized devices, which the FBI has likely made copies of, were returned days later.
The mayor's staff has confirmed that his office has met with the federal prosecutors, but did not disclose what they discussed.
After the raid on Ms. Suggs's home, media reported that the relationship between the mayor's 2021 campaign and Brooklyn-based KSK Construction Group's ties to Turkey is the center of the probe.
The KSK Construction Group owns apartment buildings and condominiums throughout the city. It is owned by the KiSKA Construction Corp., a company that possesses two branches of a Turkish hotel chain in the United States.
Mr. Adams has visited Turkey multiple times, including as part of official duties in different public offices.
“I’m probably the only mayor in the history of this city that has not only visited Turkey once, but I think I’m on my sixth or seventh visit to Turkey,” Mr. Adams said at a Turkish flag-raising ceremony in New York recently.
Two of those trips were made while he was the Brooklyn Borough President.
Campaign records show that he received donations from three members of a foundation opened by the son of the Turkish president.
At an event this week, the mayor answered reporters' questions about the probe and his ties to Turkey.
“We just thought it was a great opportunity to exchange ideas as we do with all these…countries and we want to attract businesses here,” he said of the trips, according to The City.
“So Turkey as well as any other country, I want to attract people to the city. There’s nothing specific about that one particular country.”
He added that he frequently told his staff to "follow the law."
“I just strongly believe you have to follow the law. It would really shock me if someone that was hired by my campaign did something that was inappropriate,” he said.
wired | Leaders in the United States Senate have been discussing plans to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) beyond its December 31 deadline by amending must-pass legislation this month.
A senior congressional aide tells WIRED that leadership offices and judiciary sources have both disclosed that discussions are underway about saving the Section 702 program in the short term by attaching an amendment extending it to a bill that is sorely needed to extend federal funding and avert a government shutdown one week from now.
The program, last extended in 2018, is due to expire at the end of the year. Without a vote to reauthorize 702, the US government will lose its ability to obtain year-long “certifications” compelling telecommunications companies to wiretap overseas calls, text messages, and emails without being served individual warrants or subpoenas.
Whether the authority is reauthorized before expiring on January 1 or not, the actual surveillance is likely to continue into the spring, when this year’s certifications expire.
Extending the program by attaching it to another bill that Congress can’t avoid is a risky political maneuver that will cause significant unrest among a majority of House lawmakers and a number of senators who are working to reform the 702 program. A top priority for privacy hawks is curtailing the ability of federal law enforcement to use 702 data “incidentally” collected on Americans. The 702 program collects communications from two sources: internet service providers and the companies that conduct traffic between them. The latter source is tapped less frequently but intercepts a greater quantity of domestic communications.
An aide to Jim Jordan, the Republican chair of the House Judiciary Committee, said Jordan was firmly on the side of the reformers and would not support extending 702 through a temporary measure. Chuck Schumer, the senate majority leader, did not respond to a request for comment Thursday afternoon.
“America’s security and its citizens’ rights demand more than a short-term fix. Congress has had all year to scrutinize and address this crucial policy question,” says James Czerniawski, a senior policy analyst at the nonprofit Americans for Prosperity. “Doing a short-term extension punts the ball on the critical reforms desperately needed to this program to protect Americans civil liberties.”
While surveillance of US calls is illegal and unconstitutional without a warrant based on probable cause, the government is permitted to collect domestic calls for specific national security purposes under procedures created to minimize its access to them later. The US National Security Agency, which conducts electronic surveillance for the Pentagon, is only permitted to eavesdrop on foreigners who are overseas. Those foreigners, however, many of whom are likely government officials and not criminals or terrorists, frequently exchange calls and emails with people inside the United States, and those get collected as well.
Roughly a quarter of a million people are targeted by the program each year, and it is estimated that the number of individual messages collected reaches into the hundreds of millions.
While the NSA is not allowed to target the communications of “US persons” (an umbrella term for US citizens, legal residents, and corporations), the government has long been permitted to query the database for information on US persons without obtaining warrants.
It is known that the 702 program collects significant numbers of US communications, but the exact quantity is unknown, even to the government. The NSA argues that it would be unfeasible to count the number of Americans incidentally spied on without analyzing the collection thoroughly, further imperiling people’s rights. Privacy watchdogs who have classified knowledge of the program say the term “incidental” is deceiving, in that it makes the volume of the collection sound small.
The term is also frequently conflated with wiretaps that accidentally target Americans, which is called “inadvertent” collection. Incidental collection is factored into the program as an acceptable risk to Americans’ civil liberties, ameliorated by various internal procedures approved by the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Critics of the program say these procedures are frequently violated and do little to nothing to stop the FBI from warrantlessly accessing Americans’ calls and emails without evidence that they’ve committed a crime.
Daaaaammmmmmnnnnn!!!!!!
— Cody T (@The_Cody_T) November 9, 2023
Vivek took a wrecking ball to these clowns!
pic.twitter.com/fkelt7xtGI
newsweek | The Pentagon has further bolstered its naval strike capabilities in the Middle East amid Israel's war against Palestinian militant group Hamas, with United States Central Command—known as CENTCOM, and responsible for U.S. operations in the Middle East, Central Asia, and parts of South Asia—confirming the weekend arrival of a nuclear submarine in the region.
CENTCOM posted a rare announcement on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday noting that an Ohio-class nuclear submarine "arrived in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility," without offering further details regarding the specific location or the name of the vessel in question. Newsweek has contacted CENTCOM by email to request further information.
The U.S. Navy's Ohio-class offering consists of 14 ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) and four cruise missile submarines (SSGNs), the latter converted to fire Tomahawk cruise missiles rather than their original nuclear-armed ballistic missile loadout.
One SSGN can be armed with 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles, significantly more than the number carried by U.S. guided-missile destroyers and attack submarines. Tomahawk missiles can carry up to a 1,000-pound high-explosive warhead out to around 1,500 miles.
The Pentagon has been expanding its presence in the Mediterranean and Middle East regions amid Israel's showdown with Hamas in Gaza, prompted by the militant group's October 7 infiltration attack into southern Israel that killed at least 1,400 people, per figures published by the Associated Press. Roughly 240 people were also taken hostage.
Two American nuclear-powered aircraft carriers—the USS Gerald R. Ford and USS Dwight D. Eisenhower—were sent to the Mediterranean Sea amid rising regional tensions. As of last week, the Dwight D. Eisenhower was operating in the Red Sea. The Pentagon has also dispatched additional air defense capabilities to the region.
Israel's subsequent unprecedented land, air, and sea campaign in the Gaza Strip is ongoing, and has so far killed at least 9,448 Palestinians as of November 4, the Associated Press reported citing the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza.
The threat of regional escalation is looming over the latest conflagration in the besieged Palestinian coastal territory, with multiple Iranian-aligned groups involved. Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza—both funded and armed by Tehran—are continuing their attacks against Israel, and the Houthi movement in Yemen has launched ballistic missiles and drones towards Israel. U.S. forces are also in the firing line, with several American bases in Iraq and Syria repeatedly targeted by Iranian-backed militias.
Fighting is also ongoing along the Lebanese border between Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Hezbollah, a powerful Shiite militia aligned with Tehran.
On Friday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah distanced himself from the Hamas October 7 attack, saying the operation was "100 percent Palestinian in terms of both decision and execution." Meanwhile, he lauded what he called the "very important and significant" Hezbollah operations against Israel and vowed they would not be "the end" of the Lebanon-based group's involvement.
thecradle | Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on 7 November said that recent remarks by Israeli Minister of Heritage Amihai Eliyahu, in which he said dropping a nuclear bomb in the Gaza Strip is “a possibility,” raised a multitude of questions.
"It raised a great number of questions. Question number one: Does this mean we are hearing an official statement acknowledging [Israel’s] possession of nuclear weapons? Accordingly, the next set of questions that everyone has is: Where are the international organizations, including the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency]; where are the inspectors?" Zakharova said during a televised interview.
Estimates of Israel's nuclear stockpile range between 80 and 400 warheads, which can be delivered via aircraft, submarine-launched cruise missiles, and the Jericho series of intermediate to intercontinental-range ballistic missiles.
Its first deliverable nuclear weapon is thought to have been completed in late 1966 or early 1967, making it the sixth country in the world to have developed them.
Israel has never openly tested its nuclear weapons nor signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), making it the world’s only unacknowledged atomic power. The country has also never been subjected to an inspection from the UN nuclear watchdog.
Asked in an interview with Radio Kol Berama last week whether an atomic bomb should be dropped on Gaza, Israeli minister Eliyahu answered: “This is one of the possibilities.”
Eliyahu, from the Jewish supremacist Religious Zionist party, stated further that “there is no such thing as uninvolved civilians in Gaza” and that, therefore, no humanitarian aid should be allowed into the besieged enclave.
He also expressed his support for depopulating Gaza and reconquering it to reestablish Jewish settlements there. Regarding the Palestinian population, he said: “They can go to Ireland or deserts; the monsters in Gaza should find a solution by themselves.”
Eliyahu added that anyone waving a Palestinian or Hamas flag “shouldn’t continue living on the face of the earth.”
In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suspended Eliyahu from participating in cabinet meetings and dismissed his statement, calling it "not based in reality."
Russia's UN envoy has previously stated that, as an occupying state, Israel has “no right" to self-defense.
moneycircus | Zionism has lost its mask; for it is, and has always been, a tool of globalist imperialism. (We’ll leave the religious aspects until a later article.)
Readers know well the story. The European empires were corporate ventures, beginning around 1600. Operating under royal charter or exemption, corporations carved out territories according to where the narcotics, textiles, spices, minerals and, later, the oil lay.
First they drew on the investment of shareholders, and later the lending of banks which provided a shot of steroids to the business of empire and war, paying for troops and mercenaries, and greater and ever more costly wars.
Today there is oil in them there hills, namely the Golan Heights, for which Rothschild-backed Genie Energy (its board is a Who’s Who of the deep state) secured a license in 2013.
There is oil off the shore of Gaza, in the Mediterranean, and lip-smacking plans for pipelines this way and that, with the potential to flow north to Europe or east to Asia.
We saw this coming more than a year ago — as an outcome of the Ukraine war — when the NordStream pipeline was detonated. See Europe, Gas And The Endgame (Sep 30, 2022)
Longstanding plans have resurfaced for a new canal to rival Egypt’s Suez, flowing from the Red Sea directly to the Levantine gas fields, disappropriating the residents of Gaza.
The British Empire’s favourite narrative is that as herders and nomads they are transients, having no land, nor rights thereto.
And so there are plans to expel much of the population of Gaza to allow for these projects.
See Gaza Depopulation Plan Revealed By Intel Leak (Oct 30, 2023)
While these economic machinations unfold, the general attitude is one of compliance, lock step and censorship. UK political leaders and corporate executives are firing any who call for ceasefire.
Florida has acted against students showing sympathy for Palestinians.
The U.S., France and Britain may outlaw public critique of Zionism just at the moment it is being exposed as an extension of globalism and imperialism.
Such gagging is straight out of the Covid censorship play book, and that is the connection they do not want you to make: exposing the lie that governments care about the people whom they so recently terrorised and poisoned.
For why should the same politicians who marched in lock step to the dictates of big pharma and the military care about Israel except for its role as a regional bridgehead? It is the world’s most-jabbed nation — the laboratory for Pfizer, as prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted.
Palestinians were not given the jab. He had other plans for them.
Note: Reasonable people believe that thimerosol and aluminum adjuvants alike are neurotoxic. Much the same way we believe that atrazine causes gender dysmorphia. I was chewing this cud on my way to CT last week, and again on the way back from NYC yesterday afternoon, lamenting the fact that the airline no longer gives away peanuts as a snack due to the congenitally weak fail tails who cannot abide exposure to peanuts. Either these genetically underprivileged feebs let us all down because weakness, or, they were exposed to something early in life which rendered them dysfunctional.
BigThink | Do you have an uncle who believes vaccines cause autism but refuses to study the reams of research showing them to be safe? What about a friend who avoids information about factory animal farming so they can eat cheap meat guilt-free? Or how about that CEO who claims their business is ethically minded, yet doesn’t investigate its supply chain for exploitation of the environment or the impoverished?
Each is an example of what psychologists call willful ignorance — the intentional act of avoiding information that reveals the negative consequences of one’s actions. Not to judge: We all have a place in our lives where we look the other way and pretend everything is fine. It may be personal, political, or professional in nature, but just below the conscious surface, we know our actions don’t align with our stated values.
“Examples [of] willful ignorance abound in everyday life,” Linh Vu, a doctoral candidate at the University of Amsterdam, said. “We wanted to know just how prevalent and how harmful willful ignorance is, as well as why people engage in it.”
To find out, Vu and a team of researchers performed the first meta-analysis on the current empirical evidence of willful ignorance, and it was published in the Psychological Bulletin, a peer-reviewed journal published by the American Psychological Association. They compared the results of 22 studies with a total of more than 6,000 participants. Here’s what they found.
The classic experiment for studying willful ignorance is known as the moral wiggle room task. It was designed by Jason Dana, an associate professor of marketing and management at Yale. Participants are randomly assigned the role of decision-maker or recipient. The decision-maker is given a choice: They can take either a $5 or $6 payout. If they take the $5 payout, the recipient will receive $5 as well. If they take the $6 payout, the recipient will receive $1.
When provided with this information by a researcher, the majority of decision-makers act altruistically. They sacrifice the slightly larger payout for themselves to give the recipient more money. On average, only about a quarter of decision-makers act selfishly. But this full-information condition is simply the control. The experiment really begins when the researchers become less forthcoming.
In the experimental condition, the decision-makers can still choose between the $5 or $6 payouts, but this time they are not told what the recipient will receive. There’s a 50-50 chance the recipient will receive $5 or $1. Importantly, the decision-makers can ask the researchers what payout the recipient will receive, and they can do so at no cost to themselves. In other words, while the decision-makers start out blind to the consequences of their actions, they don’t have to stay that way if they don’t want to.
This is such an extraordinary speech. I only ask of my followers to watch this. Then I leave you alonepic.twitter.com/rZLQKD2BMX
— Bruno Maçães (@MacaesBruno) November 6, 2023
PCR | US Representative Matt Gaetz has courage and principles, for the most part good ones.
It was Gaetz who had the courage and leadership ability to get rid of Rino McCarthy as Speaker of the House.
It is Gaetz who understands that hardly any member of Congress in either party represents Americans. Instead, they represent the military/security complex’s power and profits, the profits of the pharmaceutical companies, the profits of agri-business (ethanol for example), the profits of Wall Street, the profits of energy, timber, and mining, and so forth. And especially, the US Congress represents the artificial state of Israel and all of Israel’s agendas.
Indeed, Matt Gaetz himself cannot escape having to support an occupier of Palestinians’ land, claiming that it is Israel’s. The fact that even a brave man like Matt Gaetz has to support an aggressor against a people abandoned by the “moral” West shows how captured the US government is at all levels by vested monied interests.
Gaetz along with the entirely of the US Congress and the President are purchased by the billions of dollars that American taxpayers are forced to hand over to Israel each year. American taxpayers are forced to give Israel annually billions of dollars that are used to purchase our government. Israel, considered a rich country, does not need foreign aid, but any member of Congress who does not vote for Israel’s billions finds in his next election a challenger financed by Israel’s billions and himself a victim of Israel’s slander machine. The same thing happens if you vote against an excessive military/security budget or against the agendas of powerful organized interests. A government whose election is financed by interest groups has to represent those interest groups.
So, obviously, the solution is not term limits on members of Congress. The solution is to take the money that Congress gives Israel to buy our government out of politics along with the ability of corporations to purchase the US government, thanks to an unconstitutional ruling of the US Supreme Court that it is a “free speech right” for corporations and foreign interests to purchase the US government for their own use.
There you have it. The US government is a purchased entity. It has nothing whatsoever to do with American interests or protecting the interests of the American people.
What needs to be done?
Matt Gaetz, the conservatives and libertarians naively think that term limits is the answer. This is another of Americans’ insouciant mistakes. The real solution is to extend, not limit, the terms of members of Congress and to give Congress the police powers on which Congress’ enemy–the executive branch–has a monopoly. The corrupt Justice Department can frame up and arrest members of Congress, and Congress has no corresponding powers.
The founding fathers distrusted democracy because of their fear of ignorant mobs. For this reason they limited the terms of US Representatives to two years. So US Representatives and Senators are turned into whores prostituting themselves for reelection money as soon as they are elected. It is never possible for Congress or the President to represent American’s interests.
This is because of money. The solution is to take out of politics the ability of corporations, Israel, and foreign interests to purchase the services of the US Government, which as a result of interest group funding of election campaigns turns the US government into a whore. The Founding Fathers should have lengthened the terms of Congress and the President, prohibited all outside money from financing election campaigns, and financed at taxpayer expense free speech forums for candidates to debate their differences. They also made a mistake by creating a legislative body too large for a common interest to emerge. This failure of the Founding Fathers doomed America to the control of vested interests. The Democrats when they limited the terms of committee chairmen eliminated legislative power centers that could stand up to the executive branch and thereby weakened Congress as an institution.
Best ever response to the Zionist propaganda line: ‘why don’t the neighbouring Arab countries want the Palestinians?’@normfinkelstein : ‘you’re smiling but your stupid smirk won’t change the fact the argument you used was used by Hitler to justify the extermination of the Jews’ pic.twitter.com/8UPuNB9pLh
— sheree (@tinyfleu) November 5, 2023
globaltimes | The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is exacerbating. US Secretary of State
Antony Blinken has made four visits to Israel since October 7, but what
he talked about was the US support for Israel instead of a ceasefire.
With
each day that a ceasefire is delayed, Palestinians' animosity toward
Israel deepens. It will definitely create a longer-term and more
devastating disaster in the region already plagued by decades of war.
off-guardian | There is one thing that’s new about this latest propaganda drive since January, 2020. Whereas the others all united what we (very loosely) call “the left” (along with certain sectors of the GOP) against the “far-right” bogey, this one has abruptly split that gross alliance, as both parties—Trump et al. included—and the “liberal media” have (predictably) swung virulently Zionist, while the “woke” masses (predictably, and, often, virulently) “stand with Palestine,” along with some few politicians, movie stars and rappers. This livid falling-out has only weakened the antagonists, since both sides are disabled by a common blindness to what’s really happening to them both (and all the rest of us).
“We are the people of light, they are the people of darkness—and light shall triumph over darkness.” Thus spake Netanyahu two days ago, spelling out the Manichaean vision that “our free press” has, by and large, been variously pitching since October 7, and that has Zionists beside themselves with open genocidal rage, not just at Hamas, and/or its armed confederates, but at the Gazans overall, and, no doubt, all Palestinians.
It was, of course, the “sudden” horror of Hamas’s attack, and the endless invocation of the Holocaust by the Israeli government (and, therefore, by “our free press”), that now has Zionists not only cheering as the IDF kills thousands more than Hamas killed (and forcibly “relocates” many thousands more), but attacking anyone who isn’t cheering, too, demanding that whoever doesn’t “stand with Israel” be censored, fired, expelled from school or otherwise eliminated in a crackdown that makes “cancel culture” seem (almost) benign.
This ferocious drive against the Palestinians, and anyone who advocates on their behalf, is wholly based on the Official Story that “our free press” (as usual) will not question, even though the Israeli people don’t believe it, since there is overwhelming evidence against it—evidence that “our free press” will not report, just as it has long blacked out the agony in Gaza (and those eight years of Nazi violence in East Ukraine).
And as the Zionists have been disastrously misled by the Official Story, so have those who applauded Hamas’s bloody raids, voicing “exhilaration” over what they took to be a righteous counter-blow against the occupying power, like the heroic uprising in the Warsaw ghetto. While Gaza does recall the Warsaw ghetto, Hamas’s “surprise attack” does not recall that uprising, which actually did come as a surprise (and, of course, killed no civilians), whereas “October 7” clearly was an “inside job,” as the Israeli people know—an inconvenient fact for all who now want to see still more people die, whether Israelis, Gazans, Jews, Palestinians, Muslims or whomever else they hate, for whatever reason (or no reason).
So let us finally pose the crucial question: Who benefits from the catastrophe that may now sweep us all away, if we don’t break the spell of the Official Story? It’s surely not the Zionists, since Netanyahu obviously isn’t one, or he wouldn’t have forced “vaccination” on his people, through what may well have been the toughest “vaccine” mandate in the world. Despite his reputation, and his demagogic rhetoric, Netanyahu would appear to be a globalist, not a Zionist.
Certainly this latest melodrama is now speedily intensifying the repressive trends that started with the rollout of “the virus,” from ever-tighter censorship, to still “smarter” surveillance, to the splintering of opposition, to the exacerbation of the refugee crisis, and so on, as this acute OffGuardian piece makes clear:
The Israel-Hamas War is ALREADY Pushing the Great Reset Agenda”
Kit Knightly, Off-Guardian.org, October 20 2023
Now, let’s return to the only bit of good news in this whole hyper-barbaric episode—that the Israeli people get it, not just about Hamas’s “surprise attack,” but about the “vaccination” drive that Netanyahu forced on them, and which now has them “dying suddenly” week after week, along with other peoples the world over.
Could it be that Netanyahu actually is not the ultimate or only author of “October 7,” and that its purpose wasn’t just to save his hide politically?
Is it not possible that, just as “his” drive to “vaccinate” all the Israeli people was probably dictated from on high, he organized “October 7,” or okayed it, on the orders of the same powers who’ve been ravaging the world since January, 2020?
Not only is this crisis serving perfectly to foster still more chaos, division and economic ruination overall, but, more precisely, it has (at least for now) completely drowned out the Israelis’ quiet, shared awareness that “vaccination” is a stroke of democide, imposed worldwide not with the noble goal of “saving lives,” but—on the contrary—to end as many lives as possible, for the purpose of extreme depopulation everywhere (as Bill Gates once incautiously revealed, when he referred to the eventual concluding phase of global “vaccination” as “the final solution”).
The last thing that our masters want is for the Israelis’ consciousness of what’s been done to them to spread to other countries, so that enough of us wake up, and unify enough to put an end to these catastrophes at last.
And so those whose eyes are now so full of blood that they just want to see more people die—whether Jews or Palestinians—had better understand, for their own sake, that those behind the “vaccination” drive agree with you, and with your enemy, since they want nearly all of us to die, and the sooner the better.
So if you can’t stop hating any others to the point of wanting them all dead, go ahead and keep it up. It’s your funeral (assuming anyone will be around to bury you).
stephensemler | The White House deployed the Secretaries of Defense and State to Capitol Hill this morning to sell Biden’s $106 billion spending request, which includes billions in military aid for Israel. With rising concerns that Israel’s ongoing military offensive will amount to mass ethnic cleansing, a bunch of protestors thankfully attended the congressional hearing too.
The Protestors Are Right
As this newsletter’s resident budget boffin, I want to explain why the activists were right to protest this specific spending plan. Biden’s proposal lists up to $23.5 billion in funding related to Israel’s military offensive: $8.7 billion in direct military aid, $5.6 billion in potential long-term military support, up to $3.5 billion for State Department’s migration assistance programs, and up to $5.7 billion for USAID’s humanitarian aid programs.1
All of it supports the forced displacement of Palestinians. Based on my reading of the tea leaves — and the 69-page PDF from the White House Office of Management Budget detailing the $106 billion request — I believe Biden is prepared to subsidize ethnic cleansing2 on a historic scale. Here’s how.
The $8.7 billion in military aid would bankroll Israel’s ongoing violent displacement of Palestinian civilians by sustaining its bombing campaign and ground invasion. The other $5.6 billion in military spending is there to support a bloody, protracted invasion of Gaza (which Israeli military leaders openly admit is a real possibility) by boosting US weapons stockpiles in Israel that Israel can draw from upon request, and funding the president’s new authority to send Israel any weapon directly from Pentagon stocks (with minimal oversight). Biden’s plan would primarily manage the humanitarian fallout not by securing Gaza, but by financing mass migration. Judging by how they were written in the proposal, the intent behind the $3.5 billion request for migration assistance is to manage near-term displacement, and the $5.7 billion in humanitarian relief is to accommodate the long-term (and perhaps permanent) mass displacement of Palestinian civilians.
Israeli leaders have expressed interest in ultimately shrinking Palestinian territory and greatly reducing the number of people living in it, and formalized plans for the complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza have recently emerged from the country’s political establishment. As president, Biden could prevent Israel from weaponizing mass migration, but he chose to budget for it instead.
thinkingman | Have you ever heard of the Olmecs? They’re the earliest known civilization in Mesoamerica. Not much is known about them, ...
