#Trump UK Visit

[doyoulikethissong-poll]

Green Day - American Idiot 2004

"American Idiot" is a protest song by the American rockband Green Day. The first single released from their seventh studio album American Idiot, the song received positive reviews by critics and was nominated for four 2005 Grammy Awards: Record of the Year, Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, Best Rock Song, and Best Music Video. It is considered one of the band's signature songs. In advance of Donald Trump's visit to the UK in July 2018, a campaign to get "American Idiot" to the top of the UK song charts was launched. On the Official UK Charts dated 13 July 2018, the song re-entered the UK Singles Chart at 25 and the UK Singles Downloads Chart at number 2. In 2019, Billie Joe Armstrong began changing the lyric "I'm not a part of a redneck agenda" to "I'm not a part of a MAGA agenda" during live performances.

The single peaked at number 61 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Green Day's first Billboard Hot 100 chart entry. The appearance of "American Idiot" on the US singles charts occurred just prior to Billboard's inclusion of Internet download purchases into their Billboard Hot 100 chart data, which would have made a significant difference in the song's peak had it benefited from the new chart tabulation system. "American Idiot" became Green Day's first top-five single in the UK, peaking at number 3, and it debuted at number 1 in Canada, their only #1 single there. In Australia, the song reached number 7. At MTV's Video Music Awards, the music video won the Viewer's Choice Award and was also nominated for Best Art Direction. "American Idiot" was ranked the number 13 Single of the Decade by Rolling Stone magazine in 2009. VH1 also placed the song at number 13 on its Top 100 Songs of the 2000s in 2011.

"American Idiot" received a total of 94% yes votes!

[sonicasura]

You know what's annoying about the whole Gaza Genocide situation? The fucking pandering of the ICJ, ICC and the countries that honestly support Palestine. Entire Zionist occupation has been breaking international law constantly throughout this entire tragedy with no backlash.

USA and UK recently fucking bombed a section of Yemen with the Trump trial as cover. Israel continuously ignored rulings from ICJ to stop their bullshit. Even moreso when Hamas have actually been civil to ceasefire proposals and is willing to go to trial if arrest warrants for them were made.

Israel's government has proven to not be trustworthy with every single throwing a tantrum whenever something doesn't go their way. NO MORE. I say it's time for either UN peacekeepers or another country to go into Palestine and drag their asses OUT.

Netanhyu doesn't want any Israeli hostages to come back alive. From the message of Alexander Trufanov, one such hostage, they want to bring back corpses as it is much cheaper option. Proof further confirmed when a recent report showed an IDF soldier killing another before they could get captured by a Resistance Fighter or the recovered few soldiers in Jabaliya area.

The Israeli Government doesn't care about anyone out in Palestine coming back alive. Joe Biden wants to profit off the genocide, Jill Biden doesn't care either just in case anyone wants to bring up a potential divorce. We don't need bloody pandering with proposals and discussions when it comes to international law anymore.

Palestine alongside everyone else suffering from this genocide deserves direct action to be done. Israel, America and their allies have destroyed more war standards than fucking HITLER. Drag the IDF out of Palestine entirely. Slap on those arrest warrants. Then we can actually get the hostages from both sides back home as the Zionist regime responsible are tried for their crimes.

One massive step for Palestine will be a giant leap for the world. To do this means no one is above international law and the corruption deep in every government can finally begin to be rooted out. Should another genocide occur after this then justice shouldn't be allowed to pander again.

GET MOVING ICJ AND ICC.

For anyone in the United States, on June 8th, there's a protest to surround the White House for the Rafah Massacre. Netanhyu is visiting Congress so be on guard about more spontaneous law passing. Also please be careful as police brutality is guaranteed and who knows what they will dish out to remove Pro-Palestine protestors off grounds.

[dev-solovey]

Reading up on the history of American Idiot (album) and realizing exactly how revolutionary it was and I just have to yell about it for a hot second

So, before they started working on American Idiot, the band was having problems and they were thinking they were going to break up. But for a couple of reasons, they switched directions, most notably because they all felt strongly about the Iraq War and how it was manufactured by greed and warmongering from the Bush administration, which was amplified by the news media. I read a quote from Billie Joe Armstrong where he talked about how the news media was becoming "more of a reality show" than it was news, and he couldn't have been more right. In fact, that problem got worse, and now we're living in an era of rampant misinformation where everything is politicized to a point where just supporting human rights for marginalized people is considered controversial. The song American Idiot came out in 2004, and when Donald Trump first visited the UK at the beginning of his presidency, it was the top played song on every UK radio station, 12 years after it was released. Most things would be culturally irrelevant at that point.

When creating the album American Idiot, a lot of thought went into it - they had a very specific message in mind, and their goal was to send that message to youth. This is because they realized at some point that their fanbase was a bunch of teenagers, and even though they hadn't necessarily intended it that way, they suddenly had a platform with the youth of America and they decided they ought to do something good with it. The drummer, Tré Cool, said something along the lines of "I've never really liked the idea of preaching to kids, but I realized we don't really have a choice at this point." And I love that so much because like, so many people who get rich and famous just become completely out of touch, and when they get a platform, it's very easy to exploit that platform, influence them with terrible ideas, or encourage them to act in terrible ways for self-serving reasons (ex: JK Rowling, Andrew Tate, Dream, Logan Paul, Onision, etc etc). Green Day refused to allow themselves to get to that point. They know the platform they had gave them power and they made an active choice early on to be responsible with it. And a lot of that moral code comes from the fact that they came up in the DIY punk scene in Oakland, which held its members to a very high standard of ethics, a code that they still follow even after they were disowned by that scene when they signed on with a major record label in 1994.

The song American Idiot has a message of "this mass media hysteria is manufactured bullshit, don't fall for it," and it is not subtle about that message. It punches you right in the face. I remember being 12 years old and listening to it and thinking, "yeah, I don't want to be an American idiot." And now, at the age of 28, I am a staunch leftist who is firmly against the atrocities the US government commits, and I feel strongly about stopping misinformation. So I can say with absolute certainty that they succeeded.

I also get like, really upset when people say that American Idiot is the album where they sold out, because that's objectively not true, both for the reasons I've provided above, and also because of the song Wake Me Up When September Ends. Not a lot of people know the story behind this song, but it's actually a song that Billie Joe wrote about the experience of his dad dying of cancer when he was 10 years old. The story, as he tells it, is that when he came home from school, his mom gave him the news, and being (understandably!) upset, started crying, ran to his room and slammed the door. When she knocked on the door to try and talk to him, he shouted "wake me up when September ends!!" in response. It took him decades to be able to write this song, and it shows because it's the perfect grief song, having been played at benefits for 9/11, hurricane Katrina, and so on. The first time I heard that song it reduced me to tears, because you can hear the intense sadness in it. A "sellout" would never write a song like that!! (Side note: maybe stop tweeting at Green Day to wake up every October 1st, it's super tone deaf given the subject matter,,,)

Anyway, I think I'm done being autistic about Green Day (that's a lie, they'll forever be my special interest), so TL;DR:

Thank you, Green Day, for creating a generation of leftists who aren't about the bullshit

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #17

May 3-10 2024

Vice President Harris announced 5.5 billion dollars to build affordable housing and address homelessness. The grants will go to 1,200 communities across all 50 states, DC and Puerto Rico. 1.3 billion will go to HUD's HOME program which builds, buys, and rehabs affordable housing for rent or ownership. 3.3 billion is headed to Community Development Block Grants which supports housing as well as homeless services, and expanding economic opportunities. Remaining funds focus on building housing for extremely low- and very low-income households, Housing for people struggling with HIV/AIDS, transitional housing for those with substance-use disorder, and money to support homeless shelters and homeless prevention programs.

At the 3rd meeting of the Los Angeles Declaration group in Guatemala Security of State Blinken announced $578 million in new US aid to Latin America. The Los Angeles Declaration is a partnership between the US and 20 other nations in the Americas to address immigration, combat human trafficking, and support economic development and improved quality of life for people in poor nations in the Americas. The bulk of the aid, over $400 million will go to humanitarian assistance to the Venezuelan people. Inside of Venezuela over 7 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance due to decades of political and economic instability. Over 7 million more have been forced to flee the country and live in poverty across the Americas. The aid will help Venezuelans both inside and outside of Venezuela.

The Department of Energy lead an effort to get the G7 to agree to phase out coal by the early 2030s. The G7 is a collection of the 7 largest Industrial economies on Earth, the US, the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and Italy. To avoid catastrophic climate change the International Energy Agency believes coal needs to be phased out by 2035. However this has been a sticking point with the G7 since 1/3rd of Japan and 1/4th of Germany's energy comes from Coal. This agreement to phase out represents a major breakthrough and the US plans to press for even wider agreement on the issue at the G20 meeting in November.

President Biden announced a major investment deal in Racine, Wisconsin, site of the failed Trump Foxconn deal. In 2018 then President Trump visited Racine and declared the planned Foxconn plant "the eighth wonder of the world.". However the promised 13,000 jobs never materialized and the Taiwan based Foxconn after bulldozing 100s of homes and farms decided not to build. President Biden inked a deal with Microsoft for the land formally given to Foxconn which will bring 2,000 new jobs to Racine to help replace the 1,000 job losses during Trump's Presidency in the community.

200 tribal governments and the US territories of American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, published climate action plans. The plans were paid for by the Biden Administration as part of a 5 billion dollar Climate Pollution Reduction Grants program. The federal government is supporting all 50 states, territories, DC, and tribal governments to draft climate action plans, which will be used to apply for more than 4 billion dollars in grants to help turn plans into reality

As part of marking Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), the Biden Administration announced a number of action aimed at combating antisemitism and supporting the Jewish Community. This included $400 million in new funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program. The Program has supported Synagogues and Jewish Community Centers with security improvements like bullet proof windows and trainings for staff in how to handle active shooter and hostage situations. The Department of Education issued guidance to all schools districts and federally funded colleges stressing that antisemitism is banned under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. These actions come as part of the Biden Administration's National Strategy To Counter Antisemitism, the first ever national strategy addressing the issue by any Administration.

USAID announced $220 million in additional humanitarian aid to Yemen. This new funding will bring US aid to Yemen over the last 10 years to nearly $6 billion. Currently 18 million Yemenis are estimated as needing humanitarian assistance, 9 million of them children, and the UN believes nearly 14 million face imminent risk of famine. The US remains the single largest donor nation to humanitarian relief in Yemen.

The Department of Interior announced nearly $150 million to help communities fight drought. The funds will support 42 projects across 10 western states. This is part of the President's $8.3 billion dollar investment in the nations water infrastructure over the next 5 five years.

[celticcrossanon]

BRF Reading - 13th of September, 2024

This is speculation only

Cards drawn on the 13th of September, 2024

Question: Where will Harry be living on his next birthday (i.e. in a year's time)?

Note: I had three destinations in mind and I drew a card for each one. These are the results.

Interpretation: The UK

Card One (The UK): The Knight of Pentacles

The Knight of Pentacles is the card for a sun sign Virgo, and Harry is a sun sign Virgo, so this says that Harry will be back in the UK for next year's birthday. The Knight is an action card, but it is the slowest moving of the Knights in the tarot deck, so this will be a very slow move - things will move forward inch by inch, slowly but persistently, and eventually he will be back in the UK. Pentacles is the suit of money, status, material things etc so that will be Harry's reason for moving back to the UK - money and status.

Card Two (America): The Nine of Pentacles

This is traditionally the card of the wealthy, independent, single woman or person, so it looks like living in America is associated with a divorce for Harry. The Nine of Pentacles is about achieving material success, being self-sufficient, having a solid financial footing - everything that Harry wanted to achieve in America but failed to do so. Nines are high up in the tarot deck, so this is quite high in status, but it is not a Knight, which is higher in status, and that higher status is what Harry will have in the UK.

This card is a strong indicator of Harry living in America as a rich single person, so he may move there and live on his family's money after the divorce, or he may visit there and live the high life while he is there on visits. However, the Knight of Pentacles as Harry's card trumps this one as an indicator of where he will live, so it looks like he will be based in the UK, although he may spend a lot of his time in America.

Card Three (Somewhere Else): The Page of Wands

Pages are messengers, and Wands are PR or creative endeavours, so it could be that Harry starts another creative endeavour in yet another country, or that he is putting out PR about moving to another country or working in another country at this time next year (like the whole 'Harry in Africa' PR we had a few years ago). Again, I feel that if he does plan to work in another country, it will not be permanent, and his base will remain in the UK.

Underlying Energy: Two of Pentacles in reverse

This card tells me that things are badly out of balance. This card is about spending your resources wisely, choosing between different investments, balancing your work and home life. In the reverse things have become out of balance, you are overextended financially, things are messy and chaotic, and/or you are overwhelmed.

This card tells me that Harry is in a mess financially (as we all sort of know). His life is not balanced, he has more outgoings than incomings, and his affairs are in a huge mess. This card also tells me that Harry will take more than he gives financially, he is not a good investment, and that looks unlikely to change for the rest of his life (so no new news there). This is an issue that will have to be addressed sooner or later - either Harry has to tidy up his affairs himself or he has to get someone to do it for him. This financial mess would also be the reason that Harry moves back to the UK - he wants to live off his family's money, having wasted/spent all of his own.

Conclusion

It looks like Harry may be living back in the UK by his next birthday, and he will most likely be single. He may have trips to America where he lives the high life and a rich, luxurious lifestyle, but I don't think he will be living there permanently (most of the year, possibly, but he won't be based there). He may go to other country(s) for 'work' to improve his PR image, or just talk about doing that in the press, but he will remain based in the UK.

Remember, this can change. This is how the energies are pointing at the moment, but they can change over the course of the year. If the crown passes to Prince William in the next 12 months, or if there is a behind the scenes regency, then Harry is going to find it a lot harder to come home than he is at the present.

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

She’ll be even loonier if she gets to go to Washington and mingle

Nothing is stopping her from doing that now.

Oh, wait. Except:

That time she bungled paid parental leave by calling senators on personal private lines.

The time she sent lemons to Jill Biden and then blabbed to everyone about how she was a close confidante to the First Lady.

The time she tried to use President Biden and Air Force One as her own personal Uber.

The time she crashed Michelle Obama's event at the London O2 arena and broke a bunch of protocol rules.

The time she gaslit the world into thinking she was besties with Michelle Obama by telling us they were having lunch and eating fish tacos, when really it was an email exchange.

The time she made public comments that the Obamas were personally advising her and Harry during Megxit and the Obamas had to put out a press release saying "no we are not."

The time she tried to access secure spaces in the United Nations headquarters without authorization and with private camera crews in tow.

The time she booked it to Uvalde with a private camera crew in tow to merch her grief as a mother while even the President knew to stay away from the community to let them grieve privately.

The time she, and her husband, used their British titles for a motivational commercial about voting.

Plus a few others like:

All the times she lied about the BRF, the family of the UK's head of state. (US government officials will prioritize the US/UK special relationship over the whines of one single woman.)

The time she was NFI to the US/UK state dinner, held at Buckingham Palace. (It was explained as maternity leave but yeah, she wasn't invited. If she was frothing at the mouth to wear a tiara in Fiji, she would've done the Trump State Visit for a tiara.)

All the times she hasn't been invited to the White House for state dinners or advocacy since 2021 since she has COVID vaccinations, motherhood, and supporting military veterans/families in common with Jill Biden.

The times the White House sent the Secretary of Transportation, the NASA Administrator, and other not-well-known government officials to represent them at 2022 and 2023 Invictus Games.

The time Nancy Pelosi's office laughed when a reporter asked them about Meghan's political prospects.

The time she aligned with the unimportant side of the Kennedy family (versus the "real" Kennedy).

And that's just the stuff that's been confirmed. We haven't even scratched the surface of the alleged gossip (like her work to lobby Newsome for Feinstein's recess appointment or her manipulations of Gloria Steinem).

So all that considered...makes one think that the establishment doesn't like Meghan and won't engage with her. Which says a lot about her standing in political Washington.

She loves the idea of Washington IG in theory, but she's gonna hate it once she's here. And that's just the dignitaries attending the ceremonies. We haven't even started to talk about the weather and what the humidity is going to do to her appearance (since the brief sounds like it's going to be a spring/early summer event).

[reality-detective]

* * * Las Vegas Shooting * * *

Part 2

What else was going on during the LAS VEGAS SHOOTING that they didn’t want us to know about?

There were two things/motives going on with this FALSE FLAG…possibly more.

Let’s talk about the first one. 👇

Let’s take a look at this VERY IMPORTANT Q drop.

We have talked about many of these elements… pointed out by Q…in reference to the Las Vegas shooting.

The other elements will be discussed as we dig further.

☝️That Q drop (#92) was dropped on NOVEMBER 5th!!

In the movie “Back to The Future”…the professor and Marty proclaimed “TIME TRAVEL was discovered on NOVEMBER 5th!”

One backstory to this presentation… May 30th, 2022 presentation titled “Capitulation/Trump’s World Tour.” This becomes relevant to the Las Vegas Shooting!

the Patriot Act several times now, and how that act, which was signed by President George W. Bush after 9/11…gave our government, the NSA, and the intelligence agencies the ability to spy on us Americans.

When Trump came into office, he was able to use the Patriot Act in his favor.

He was able to connect all the dots with the cabal… who was connected to who…who was funding who, etc.

TRUMP “HAD IT ALL!”

Trump knew about the Saudis' role in the plot on 9/11, their massive amounts of funding to the Cabal (including to the Clintons and the DNC), and the child trafficking.

Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, one of the biggest contributors to the Clintons and the DNC, not only owned the Four Seasons, but also was a large shareholder of Twitter, Apple, and Citigroup.

He was also not a fan of Donald Trump. They routinely got into it on twitter, such as the exchange below. 👇

After Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia and his infamous sword dance ceremony in May, 2017, there was a power change in Saudi Arabia.

King Salman was now at the helm with his son Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Bin Salman would go on to help Trump and the White Hats bring down Twitter, Google, and Facebook.

Those stories are also in the “Capitulation/Trump’s World Tour” presentations from May 30/31st, 2022.

The May 2017 meeting between Trump and King Salman (and his son Mohammad), was not just another meeting. It was a business meeting.

Trump was more than willing to help Saudi Arabia’s decline in oil profits due to the boom in fracking. He allowed them to be listed on the New York stock exchange.

In return, he got the Saudis to make significant changes, such as liberating women, the end of illegal funding, no more contributions to American politics, no more supplying funds to terrorists or splinter groups, and of course to put an end to the child trafficking.

If they didn’t take the deal Trump threatened to declass everything he had on them from the NSA. King Salman took the deal. All of a sudden, women were allowed to drive, ISIS was retreating, and Syrian rebels suddenly ran out of ammunition.

Although King Salman cooperated…not all the royalties in Saudi Arabia were happy…especially those who were losing the power they once had.

They also didn’t want to become liberal.

Many came to resent King Salman, and started to plot against him, his son Crown Prince bin Salman, and President Trump.

At the forefront of this anti Trump/anti King Salman movement was Ahlaweed bin Talal, and the previous Deputy Crown Prince, Muqrin, and his son, Mansour.

DONALD TRUMP and the Saudi Crown Prince MOHAMMED bin SALMAN were meeting secretly in Vegas to discuss the impeding arrest of the Saudi Prince's.

The Las Vegas Shooting was an Assassination Attempt against Donald Trump and The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia…by Mossad, ISIS, The FBI, Australia, and possibly UK Spooks or intelligence operators.

DIVERSION

LAS VEGAS SHOOTING

The shooting out of Paddock’s window was supposed to be a diversion. There would have been a lot of gun shooting noises during the assasination attempt, so the attack on the crowd was to cover-up the gun fire that would have ensued.

The real shooting took place from black helicopters and men on the ground, with very little coming from Paddock’s room.

Remember the real story…Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the attempt on his life.

Steven Paddock was a C*I*A pilot who smuggled guns and children for the Saudis. His role at the Las Vegas shooting was the diversion tactic for the hit teams.

Eventually Trump and his team got wind of the assassination plot against them.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman was secretly ushered out of the building, and rescued by a helicopter that came in and rescued him.

Trump and bin Salman’s security detail also created a diversion story saying that Bin Salman was over playing cards at the Tropicana Hotel.

There are pictures of bin Salman leaving the entrance to the Tropicana…but it turns out that was just a decoy and a ruse in order to get bin Salman out of the Mandalay Bay hotel, which they did successfully.

The black helicopters belonged to the Mossad (Israeli Intelligence)…who fired machine guns at the crowd and at Bin Salman’s rescue effort.

This is the reason they turned off their transponders, to cover-up their role in the shooting.

How did TRUMP know Bin Salman was going to get assassinated?

What if Q drop 92…which gave us all the Las Vegas shooting hints…was purposely dropped on November 5th, because…according to the movie “Back to The Future” November 5th was the day time travel was invented?

Was time travel involved in the Las Vegas shooting?

I have mentioned that Donald Trump could be a time traveler!

On October 5th, 2017…just four days after the Las Vegas shooting...Chief-of-staff John Kelly summoned:

the Joint Chiefs of Staff,

NSA boss Mike Rogers,

Pacific Commander-In-Chief Harry Harris,

and combatant commanders to the White House.

This was to bring all hands on deck to back Trump against the deep state, and the cabal.

Continued in Part 3

All links connected 👇

[dorka]

Most mar a garbage day is megirta (egybol ossze is omlott a site)

Over the weekend, the always-excellent John Burn-Murdoch, over at The Financial Times, posted an alarming bit of demographic analysis that has now gone very viral. It’s from a column Burn-Murdoch wrote titled, “A New Global Gender Divide Is Emerging,” which shows a tremendous political gap forming between young men and women around the world.

Burn-Murdoch followed up the column with a lengthy thread on X hypothesizing as to what may be causing this gap and thousands of other users have offered up their own diagnoses, as well: Smartphones, video games, economic inequality, lack of education, an over-correction post-#MeToo.

Interestingly enough, though, the bulk of Burn-Murdoch’s reporting focuses on South Korea, the US, Germany, the UK, Spain, Poland, China, and Tunisia. Which, aside from China and Tunisia, were all countries I worked in, covering elections and far-right radicalization, in and around the time period those countries’ respective political gender gaps began widening. I’m not saying I have a tremendously in-depth understanding of, say, Polish toxic masculinity, but I did spend several days there following around white nationalist rappers and Catholic fundamentalist football fans. And, in South Korea, I worked on a project about radical feminists and their activism against the country’s equivalent of 4chan, Ilbe Storehouse.

In fact, between 2015-2019, I visited over 20 countries, essentially asking the same question: Where do bad men here hangout online? Which has given me a near-encyclopedic directory in my head, unfortunately, of international 4chan knock-offs. In Spain, it’s a car forum that doxxes rape victims called ForoCoches. In France, it’s a gaming forum that organized rallies for Marine Le Pen called Jeux Video. In Japan, it’s 2channel. In Brazil, it’s Dogolachan. And most, if not all, of these spaces pre-date any sort of modern social movement like #MeToo — or even the invention of the smartphone.

But the mainstream acceptance of the culture from these sites is new. Though I don’t actually think the mystery of “why now?” is that much of a mystery. While working in Europe, I came to understand that these sites and their culture war campaigns like Gamergate were a sort of emerging form of digital hooliganism. Nothing they were doing was new, but their understanding how to network online was novel. And in places like the UK, it actually became more and more common in the late-2010s to see Pepe the Frog cosplayers marching alongside far-right football clubs. In the US, we don’t have the same sports culture, but the end result has been the same. The nerds and the jocks eventually aligned in the streets. The anime nazis were simply early adopters and the tough guys with guns and zip ties just needed time to adapt to new technology. And, unlike the pre-internet age, unmoderated large social platforms give them an infinitely-scalable recruitment radius. They don’t have to hide in backrooms anymore.

Much of the digital playbook fueling this recruitment for our new(ish) international masculinist movement was created by ISIS, the true early adopters for this sort of thing. Though it took about a decade for the West to really embrace it. But nowadays, it is not uncommon to see trad accounts sharing memes about “motherhood,” that are pretty much identical to the Disney Princess photoshops ISIS brides would post on Tumblr to advertise their new life in Syria. And, even more darkly, just this week, a Trump supporter in Pennsylvania beheaded his father and uploaded it to YouTube, in a video where he ranted about the woke left and President Biden. Online extremism is a flat circle.

The biggest similarity, though, is in what I can cultural encoding. For ISIS, this was about constantly labeling everything that threatened their influence as a symptom of the decadent, secular West.

(X.com/jeremykauffman)

Taylor Swift, an extremely affluent blonde, blue-eyed white woman who writes country-inflected pop music and is dating a football player headed for the Super Bowl. She should be a resounding victory for these guys. Doesn’t get more American than that. But due to an actually very funny glitch in how they see the world, she’s actually a huge threat.

Pop culture, according to the right wing, should be frivolous. Because before the internet, it was something sold to girls by corporations run by powerful men. Famous pop stars through the ages, like Frank Sinatra, America’s first Justin Bieber, or The Beatles, the One Direction of their time, would be canonized as Great by Serious Men after history had forgotten they rocketed to success as their generation’s Tumblr Sexymen. But from the 2000s onward, thanks to an increasingly powerful digital public square, young women and people of color were able to have more influence in mainstream culture and also accumulate more financial power from it. And after Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign was able to connect this new form of pop influence to both liberal progressive politics and, also, social media, well, conservatives realized they had to catch up and fast. And the fastest way to do that is to try and smash the whole thing by dismissing it as feminine.

Pop music? It’s for girls. Social media? It’s for girls. Democrats? Girls. Taylor Swift? Girls and also a government psyop. But this line of thinking has no limit. It poisons everything. If Swift manages to make it to the Super Bowl, well, that has to become feminine too. And at a certain point, the whole thing falls apart because, honestly, you just sound like an insane loser.

[houseofbrat]

12 JULY 2024: William plays polo at a charity match. Kate and the children do not attend.

William confirms he will attend the Euro final on Sunday, 14 July 2024.

13 JULY 2024: Kate confirms she will attend the men's final at Wimbledon.

14 JULY 2024: Kate attends the Wimbledon men's final with Charlotte and Pippa.

William attends the Euro final with George to watch England lose to Spain.

15 JULY 2024: Katie Nicholl, Vanity Fair, "Kate Middleton Is Now “On Summer Break” After Wimbledon Appearance" [archive link]

Kate Middleton’s appearance at Wimbledon on Sunday delighted tennis and royal fans, but it may be some time before we see Kate in public again. According to royal sources, Prince William and Princess Kate are planning to spend most of the summer “below the radar” at their Norfolk bolthole now that Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis are out of school and Kate continues her course of preventative chemotherapy. While Kensington Palace would not give details on the family’s plans for the summer, a royal source confirmed that the Wales family are now “on summer break.” Sources close to the family say that although they will not be traveling abroad this summer while Kate undergoes treatment, they are excited to visit King Charles and Queen Camilla in Scotland next month. Sunday’s appearance at Wimbledon is likely to be Kate’s last official engagement until later this year.

16 JULY 2024: Will & Kate are looking to hire a new Assistant Private Secretary that can speak "conversational Welsh." [archive link]

Although the new hire would be responsible for Prince William and Catherine's public engagements in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, the future King and Queen want their new Assistant Private Secretary to specifically focus on Wales and believe it is "essential" that they speak conversational Welsh. [...] Almost two years after taking on their Wales titles, and after a testing year so far with The Princess' major abdominal surgery and cancer diagnosis, it appears Prince William and Catherine are driving forward with their plans, seeking "specific expertise on Welsh communities, affairs, government, and business". Handled by the largest executive search firm in the United Kingdom, Odgers Berndtson has posted a job advert for an Assistant Private Secretary ("APS"), Wales & UK on behalf of Kensington Palace.

18 JULY 2024: The attempted Donald Trump assassin had searched for images of Kate according to investigation.

23 JULY 2024: William announces more patronages. Kate does not announce any new patronages.

24 JULY 2024: Victoria Ward, The Telegraph, "Prince William refuses to reveal how much tax he pays." [archive link]

The Prince of Wales has chosen not to reveal how much tax he pays on the private income he receives from his vast property portfolio, marking a notable change in approach from when his father was heir to the throne. Prince William’s Duchy of Cornwall estate, the billion-pound business empire he inherited on the death of his grandmother, Elizabeth II, generated profits of £23.6 million in the last financial year. He is understood to pay income tax on the full amount, less household costs, which have also not been disclosed.

26 JULY 2024: Robert Jobson's book excerpt in The Daily Mail, "How the Queen and Charles clashed with William after he refused to stop flying his young family around Britain in his helicopter." [archive link]

One courtier explained: 'The King's relationship with both his sons has been difficult over the years. Even now he is King, with the Prince of Wales, there can be differences of opinion and tensions. Of course, they love each other, but they clash, and sometimes William needs handling with kid gloves.' Another courtier confirmed: 'You have to check first which way the wind is blowing with the prince. They don't see eye to eye on several issues, but why should they? [Prince William's] moment in the top job will come — perhaps he would do well to remember it is not yet. This is His Majesty's time.' When he loses his temper, William is a bit of a shouter — and his father tends to give as good as he gets. The difference these days is that their arguments usually blow over quite quickly. One recent source of disagreement is William's stubborn refusal to take his father's advice on safeguarding the succession. Earlier this year, the King had raised concerns with his son about the wisdom of William using his helicopter to fly his entire family around the country.

27 JULY 2024: People magazine (US), "Prince William and King Charles Clashed Over Use of Helicopter for Kate Middleton and Their Children, New Book Claims". [archive link]

According to Robert Jobson's soon-to-be-released biography, Catherine, The Princess of Wales, the King, 75, “raised concerns” with William, 42, over his helicopter use with Kate Middleton and their children, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, that sparked a tense disagreement between the pair.  In an excerpt from Jobson’s book, per The Daily Mail, King Charles brought up his worries on the matter after coming to terms with his mortality following his cancer diagnosis, which was announced in February. The King even presented experienced pilot William with “a formal document acknowledging the risks involved and taking full responsibility for his actions” amid their dispute, the new book claims.   Charles’ concerns echoed that of his late mother Queen Elizabeth, who previously requested William not fly with his family on a helicopter from Kensington Palace to his former residence of Anmer Hall in Norfolk, which is a 115-mile journey, according to Robson.  [...] It is also understood that the palace has fully evaluated the risk of the family flying together, compared with implementing a policy where separate travel assets are provided for one or more members of The Prince and Princess of Wales’ family.

30 JULY 2024: The Prince's Trust announces the date for its annual Christmas Carol concert, 09 December 2024.

Hilary Rose, The Times, posts an article about William van Cutsem, friend of Prince William and recently appointed as an adviser to the Duchy of Cornwall. [archive link]

The Earthshot Prize tweets about their third annual Earthshot Prize Innovation Summit, which mentions no commitment by William to attend.

03 AUGUST 2024: Daily Mail's Natasha Livingstone

07 AUGUST 2024: Tom Sykes, The Daily Beast, "Princess Kate Will Focus on Her Kids After ‘Brush With Mortality’: Sources" [archive link]

It is thought the smaller Wales family are unlikely to travel this year to Tresco, a small island off the coast of Cornwall, where they have often spent summer holidays. However, The Daily Beast has been told that the couple are aiming to be in Balmoral either for the opening of the grouse-shooting season on Aug. 12 or shortly thereafter. William and Kate both shoot. One friend of the couple told The Daily Beast: “Kate has been exceptionally open and honest about her health. Making two appearances before the summer break, at Wimbledon and Trooping the Colour, was a clear signal that she is doing well. That is what we are hearing privately as well—it’s not over but there is lots of optimism, lots of positivity.” [...] Another source, a Buckingham Palace insider, said they understood there was no sense that Kate was expected to be back on duty for the traditionally busy period of royal engagements that kicks off in the first week of September and runs through to Christmas.

11 AUGUST 2024: William & Kate appear for less than ten seconds in a video message for Team GB with multiple celebrity appearances, after the end of the Olympics.

13 AUGUST 2024: Lucie Heath writes about the Duchy of Cornwall.

The Duchy of Cornwall’s largest single landholding is 27,300 hectares on Dartmoor, which accounts for approximately one third of the National Park. Last year the Government published an independent review of Dartmoor, which concluded the landscape was “not in a good state”. Dr Alexander Lees, a biodiversity expert at Manchester Metropolitan University, said the Duchy of Cornwall has a big part to play in turning things around at Dartmoor and other sites it owns. “As one of Britain’s biggest landowners, the Duchy of Cornwall is in a position of strength to combat the entwined biodiversity and climate crises. However, massive additional investment in conservation is needed across these landholdings,” he said. Dr Lee said: “clearly there is a need to generate income to leverage restoration and rewilding across the estate”, but added it is “questionable” that some of this income comes from a car dealership when the Duchy has promoted reduced car use through its flagship Poundbury housing estate in Dorset.

14 AUGUST 2024: Rebecca English, Daily Mail, "Why Kate's year has been tougher than anyone realises - and why she's starting to glow again." [archive link]

What most will not appreciate is that Catherine had actually been unwell for some time in the run up to her initial abdominal surgery in January (further details of which have not been made public yet by Kensington Palace). It was only after that ‘planned’ operation, of course, which left her in hospital for two weeks, that her cancer was discovered.

The Daily Beast rehashes the "exclusives" from the Daily Mail.

16 AUGUST 2024: Dan Wootton reiterates that Kate may "NEVER" return to full-time royal duties.

Tusk Trust CEO says William wants to introduce his children to Africa.

"He is very knowledgeable and passionate about conservation and the environment,” Mayhew said. “He has a particular love for Africa. He has been incredibly supportive as our patron and proactive in supporting us. We find ourselves incredibly lucky.” Mayhew plans to meet up with Prince William in Cape Town, South Africa, when the Prince of Wales hosts the fourth annual Earthshot Prize Awards there in November. Soon enough, the Prince of Wales will want to introduce his three children — Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis — to the continent, Mayhew said. “I think it won’t be long before, you know, he will want to introduce them to Africa,” he said.

17 AUGUST 2024: Natasha Anderson, Daily Mail, reports on how Will, Kate, George, Charlotte, and Louis, spent the day at a large Nerf battle. [archive link]

The Royal family had a bit of a rumble last weekend as the Prince and Princess of Wales faced off against their children in a Nerf battle. Prince George, 11, Princes Charlotte, nine, and six-year-old Prince Louis joined in the festivities at the Gone Wild Festival at Holkham Hall, Norfolk for a high-intensity Nerf war with toy guns and smoke bombs. Excitable and 'unforgettable' Louis ran around yelling 'Nerf or nothing, let's do this!', according to Norfolk Nerf Parties boss Georgina Barron. The Princess of Wales, who has been battling cancer, even 'grabbed a Nerf gun, ran around, and played stuck in the mud with her kids', Ms Barron added, noting that hosting the family was the 'biggest honour' and 'unforgettable'. Ms Barron said the royals, who were not photographed at the event, had wanted to enjoy a 'wholesome family day like any other normal family'. Kensington Palace has been approached for comment. 

19 AUGUST 2024: People magazine (US), story about who's who in the Middleton family.

The Mirror, "Kate Middleton's 'tough' side and unlikely inspiration for 'ambitious' plans" [archive link]

The Princess of Wales has rapidly ascended the Royal ranks, becoming a favourite among the Royal Family due to her sense of humour and evident respect for her role. Even during her cancer treatment, she has displayed nothing but strength and determination. Kate, once shy and reserved, has transformed into a confident, playful, and occasionally assertive figure, commanding as much public respect as King Charles or Prince William could ever wish for. This trust that the King places in his "darling daughter-in-law" reportedly leads to her frequently being asked for her opinion due to her relatability.

20 AUGUST 2024: "Princess Charlotte, Lady Louise and the Duchess of Edinburgh go on special trip" [archive link]

Princess Charlotte, Lady Louise and Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh went on a special shopping trip in London, according to a source. Charlotte has a good relationship with her great-aunt and the two royals were joined by Sophie's daughter Louise during a trip to Chelsea. The royals headed to the Peter Jones store on King's Road which is said to be one of Charlotte's favourite stores. A source told The Sun: "There is a really warm connection between Sophie and her great-niece, which is very touching."

21 AUGUST 2024: Tom Sykes, The Daily Beast, "Princes William and Harry May Only Reunite at King Charles’ Funeral: Source" [archive link]

Asked about the reports that Harry would not be invited to William’s coronation, the source said: “I believe it 100 percent. Why would William and Kate want all the distraction and circus that his presence would bring? I suspect that William will see Harry one more time in his life in the flesh—at their father’s funeral.” A former Buckingham Palace staffer told The Daily Beast: “Planning for William’s coronation is well underway, and as I understand it there are no plans to invite Harry. It’s hardly surprising when you look at how poisoned the well has become.”

US Weekly (USA) has cover story on William & Camilla, with sourcing from Christopher Andersen's book.

23 AUGUST 2024: People magazine (US), "Prince William's Return to Work Plans Revealed After Summer Break with Kate Middleton and Their Kids" [archive link]

On Aug. 22, Kensington Palace announced that the Prince of Wales, 42, will visit the Homelessness: Reframed exhibit at the Saatchi Gallery in London on Sept. 5. The display highlights the complexities of homelessness across the U.K. and offers the public an opportunity to better understand the stories of individuals who have been affected. Homelessness: Reframed is a collaboration between Prince William's Homewards program, which he launched with the Royal Foundation in June 2023 to help end homelessness for good, the Saatchi Gallery and the Eleven Eleven Foundation. The presentation opened on Aug. 7, and Prince William will visit before it closes on Sept. 20.

25 AUGUST 2024: Kate seen in a car on the way to church 'at Crathie Kirk, Balmoral, Scotland.

Daily Mail, "Inside Kate's slow and steady return to public life: How the Princess of Wales has won over the nation's hearts with appearances at Trooping the Colour, Wimbledon and Crathie Kirk following cancer diagnosis" [archive link]

Her appearance had been in doubt after she missed the final Trooping rehearsal the weekend prior to the celebration, with confirmation that she would attend only given at 6pm the evening before.  [...] And now, Kate has been seen in public for the third time since revealing that she has cancer - just two weeks after her video message praising Team GB.  The royal appeared in high spirits as she was pictured arriving for Sunday service with her husband William at Crathie Kirk today.  William drove the car, smiling as he chatted with his wife and opting for a navy blue suit for the occasion.  The Princess sported the same hat she donned last year for a Sunday church service, when she donned a beige tartan Marlborough trench coat from Holland Cooper with  dark brown wool felt fedora with feathers.

28 AUGUST 2024: The Daily Mail's royal editor, Rebecca English, confirms that William "never planned to" attend the Earthshot Prize Innovation Summit in September 2024.

29 AUGUST 2024: Matt Wilkinson, The Sun, reports that both William and Harry attended their uncle's funeral in Norfolk, "Warring Prince William and Harry REUNITE at their uncle’s funeral after Duke of Sussex makes secret dash to UK" [archive link]

The Duke of Sussex, 39, flew from his US home to join his brother, 42, at the service for Lord Robert Fellowes. A local in Snettisham, Norfolk, said: “We never saw them speak to each other and they kept their distance.” The princes both “discreetly” attended the funeral for Lord Fellowes — who was their mother Diana’s brother-in-law. They were said to have kept their distance from each other and sat at the back of the church. Sources close to US-based Harry had previously claimed he would not attend. But a close family friend said they were “very happy to confirm both princes were there”. Another source told how they only saw them at the end of the service at St Mary’s Church. They said: “I didn’t know they were there. They arrived very discreetly.” One local said: “William and Harry were both there but we never saw them speak to each other and they were keeping their distance.”

TIMELINE:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

[darkmaga-retard]

Kamala Harris has vehemently denied that she was in charge of overseeing the migrant crisis. “I can think of nobody who is better qualified to do this,” the president told reporters at the White House in 2021 when he appointed Harris as border czar. Biden announced that Harris would focus on the “root causes” that were causing millions of people throughout the world to enter America.

The term “border czar” may or may not have been used. However, Kamala was absolutely responsible for overseeing the situation at the southern border. Harris refused to visit the borer for weeks until Donald Trump took such a trip. “You haven’t been to the border,” Lester Holt said in an interview three years ago. “And I haven’t been to Europe, Harris smugly said. “And I mean, I don’t understand the point that you’re making. I’m not discounting the importance of the border.”

The Democrats openly promoted America has a free haven for anyone seeking shelter. That is the root cause. They reversed all of Trump’s immigration policies and opened the floodgates. Those who made it to America were provided with free health care, shelter, food, cell phones, pre-paid cards, and more. They were and are permitted to commit crimes without prosecution.

Over 1.82 millions have been apprehended at the border in 2024, an increase from the 1.79 who showed up during the same period last year. America has spent billions if not trillions on socialism for these future blue voters. Harris refuses to accept responsibility. She sees what is happening in the UK as the people are rising up against the government in an effort to expel these aliens.

[royal-confessions]

“One things you say about the BRF is that they can give you they can send you a message without talking you can tell by their body language, for example Donald and his trump clan came on a state visit to UK, the queen was wearing blue which is the color of the democratic party, wearing a brooch gifted by the obamas, wearing a ruby tiara which mean "to wear off bad vibes". I get it trump wasn't that respectful to the queen and the protocol, the RF wasn't excited to meet them.” - Submitted by Anonymous

[the-empress-7]

was it here where there was an anon who made a post about how harry is the biggest red flag of all red flags and this was from their experience from a defense background? if so may i ask if anon could give insight on what they thought on angle of why the heck did the obamas get a chopper into wc, driven back to wc by pp, get invite to kp drawing room, meet pg & why the heck was ph there 5th wheeling like no other? loveshield notice was issued when trump won 11.8.16. all happened in 2016

That was me! (That submission was to @honeytothebee and it went all over tumblr from there.) Apologies in advance; this is going to be a long one. Grab yourself a cuppa, make some dinner, get some wine, and strap in.

I liken the situation with Harry to the situation with Hunter Biden. Like Harry, Hunter has always been a mess and also like Harry, he and his family kept his mess well-hidden. (But also like Harry, if you knew where to look then you knew what Hunter’s skeletons were and where they were buried.) That is, the messes were well-hidden until A Thing happened. Before The Thing, there were leaks and rumors and one-offs, but they were all mostly blown off by the general public because of the shine from their families; the royal family in Harry’s case, the Biden-Obama Administration in Hunter’s case.

A Thing happened to Hunter and A Thing happened to Harry, and they lost control of the messes. Look at everything we know about them now that we didn’t know before these Things happened. Hunter’s Thing was his brother’s cancer (Beau was diagnosed in 2013 and died from it in 2015. Hunter first went off the rails publicly in 2013). Harry’s Thing was Meghan moving in in late 2017. In both instances, both men lost their stable family relationships to an external disruptor; Hunter – cancer, Harry – wife. Then there was a very messy handful of years. Harry’s still in the thick of it. Hunter, however, seems to have come out onto the other side now, (And to be perfectly candid, I can see the royal family looking at the Bidens’ success in rehabilitating Hunter as a model for how they might rehabilitate Harry if/when the time comes. However, like Hunter is to Joe, Harry will always be the albatross around Charles’s and William’s necks because of the damage he wrought during these messy years.)

Okay, so let’s dig into anon’s question. First I’ll share a whole lot of context for the Obamas’ visit in 2016 because it feeds into why Harry was at the dinner, then I’ll get into some more commentary about Harry’s red flags.

So first, why did the Obamas go to the UK in 2016? Officially because it’s tradition for a two-term POTUS to get a farewell tour their last year in office and these “farewell tours” almost always include a stopover in the UK for a visit with The Queen. Sometimes it’s a state dinner, sometimes it’s a private visit. Unofficially, because of Brexit, whose referendum was in June 2016. PM Cameron’s establishment were remainers. So was the American establishment. The Obamas were brought over in April 2016 to help Cameron with the campaign to remain. And during their visit, Obama gave a speech or made remarks that basically told the Brits “if you Brexit, see ya. EU comes first.” It was a not-subtle declaration that the UK/US special relationship as everyone knew it would be over if Britain left the EU which Cameron, and The Queen on Cameron's behalf, did not want happening.

Second, why did the Obamas get such special treatment from the royal family? Because they had a genuine friendship (which both Obamas confirmed in their books) and it wasn’t an official state visit. When the royals have a genuine friendship with a foreign head of state, they tend to be more informal and personal and when it isn’t an official visit, the whole mood is more relaxed. Prince Philip picking the Obamas up from the helicopter himself is the royal equivalent of you picking your friend up from the airport.

Third, if it wasn’t an official state visit, why did the Obamas get a private audience and dinner at KP? Because it was a symbolic passing of the torch. We know now that 2016ish was when William started being more closely mentored by The Queen. One of the duties as King/Queen is to host and entertain foreign heads of state, officially and privately. William and Catherine had been part of the official visits for some time, but they never had been involved in a private visit. It was thought that the Obamas were a safe, comfortable choice for William and Catherine to begin flexing those diplomatic muscles; William, Harry, Barack, and Michelle were said to be close and friendly (as one could be in that situation) so the evening was justified as a special meeting between friends, which would avoid setting a precedent and an expectation for the then-Cambridges to host every foreign head of state that visited privately.

Fourth, why was Harry at that dinner? Because he had the closer relationship with Michelle than Catherine did. Harry and Michelle have worked together on several initiatives over the Obamas’ time in office to support veterans and military families, including the Wounded Warrior Games and Invictus Games. And, William, Catherine, and Harry were still very much The Trio in April 2016. They were a package deal and, frankly, Harry wasn’t the security risk then that he is now. (Timing wise, remember that Heads Together, the pinnacle of their trio-ness, launched in May 2016.)

So now the defense stuff/red flags and insider threat commentary.

In April 2016, Harry wasn’t a public risk. The only two red flags he had then were 1) he was a high profile public individual and 2) he traveled often. Where the government was concerned, he had a slightly higher risk than William because of his time in Afghanistan. (Pause for an aside: government and military are very separate things. The military reports to the government but the military doesn’t always tell the government everything. I suspect it’s the same way in the UK.) Where the military was concerned, Harry was an enormous risk but he wasn’t their problem anymore since he had separated in 2015. Where the royal family was concerned, Harry did have problems – anger issues, the “confirmed kills” comment, and lingering trauma from Diana’s death – but those issues were counterbalanced by these stabilizing forces: his home life/relationships with his family, he was in therapy and on medication that worked, and he found meaning and purpose in his work.

But publicly? As far as the public knew, Harry wasn’t a problem. And the royal family banked on that. They bet the house that Harry’s public reputation and his popularity would keep him in line. Since Harry’s work was a big part of the counterbalance against his demons, the royal family knew that as long as he found his work meaningful and purposeful, he would tow the line. That’s why he got so much that was equal to William and Catherine.

Harry met Meghan in July 2016 and then later issued the love shield in November 2016. But neither of these really did anything to Harry’s risk assessment. Publicly it added a third red flag: high-profile public girlfriend to whom, the love shield made clear, if anything happened Harry could be easily exploited and manipulated. But Harry was still largely under the control and influence of the royal family. Even though he was spending a lot of time with Meghan, it was still a long distance relationship where Meghan went home to Toronto and Harry went home to London. And when Harry was in London without Meghan, he always went back into the royal enclave and was the Good Lad Hal the general public knew him to be.

(Aside: That is another reason why Meghan knew it was important to get Harry alone and by himself. She probably pegged him from early on – sorry, pun unintended – as someone whose personality, behavior, and attitude were influenced by whoever he is with. As long as he was around the royals, he would still be their darling boy. To get him angry, resentful, and jealous enough to “see” her side, she had to make it impossible for Harry to see them or be around them. I suspect this is why she was so eager to spend the summer at that rental in the Cotswolds – away from his friends in London and the Cambridges in Norfolk – and didn’t mind moving to Windsor. They were placeholders that separated him from his family before she could spring moving overseas on him.)

Harry’s red flags didn’t become a problem until Meghan moved in with him in late 2017 and it disrupted Harry’s status quo. He is not someone who can tolerate change (Spare makes that very clear - if Harry is not in charge of change, he cannot handle it, which is also another red flag on its own). Once Meghan moved in with him, all those stabilizing counterforces that mitigated Harry’s risks were eliminated, one by one. She disrupted his relationship with Catherine. She exploited his trauma from Diana. She got him off his medications. She got him away from his therapist and into woo-woo California alternative lifestyles. She built a wall between him and William. She cancelled his friends. But he still wasn’t that much of a security risk to the royal family because Harry still had his public reputation and that was the only change he likely cared about. As far as the public was concerned, he was still a low security risk. I would argue that Harry’s risk as an insider threat didn’t start escalating internally until late 2018, after the Australia tour. This is when Meghan started damaging his public reputation. And once Harry’s public reputation began to slide, they lost total control over Harry and the red flags began piling up. Because that was the one change Harry didn't want and hadn't expected Meghan to evoke. She promised him change for the better, but look at him now (then): changed for the worst and declining.

The thing about insider threats, and espionage in general, is that what makes them so dangerous is that you don’t know what damage they’ve done until long after it’s happened. Forget about the horse bolting out of the barn. By the time an insider threat is discovered, the horse has already jumped onto a freight train and is over international borders. Despite all the warning signs that we’re trained to watch for and observe, a good insider threat – much like a good spy – will go undetected for a long time. Till A Thing happens that blows their cover. Someone gets suspicious (William having Meghan’s number from the start), there’s a whistleblower or a turncoat (Jason’s letter to Simon Case about the bullying), they get sloppy (Waity Katy, 2018 edition), they don’t cover their tracks as well (5 People friends), their stories become inconsistent (*waves hand at everything*), their equilibrium gets rocked (William kicking them out of KP).

What makes Harry particularly dangerous and nefarious is how well his red flags were hidden from the public. It’s one thing for the government, the military, and the head of state to know about an individual’s risk assessment – that’s their job. They keep these things hidden from the public as “matters of national security” because if the truth really were to come out, it threatens the public’s trust in their institutions. And Harry’s red flags were so well hidden from the public that when they all came out, and they all came out in rapid succession one after another after another, it absolutely shook the public’s trust in the institution. Just look at the conversations we are having this week: should he be allowed at the coronation? Is Charles an effective King? Why can’t they control him? Why aren’t they responding? Why aren’t they correcting the lies? Why can’t they tell us what the truth is? What even is the truth anymore? Should we believe them when they say it’s the truth? Why can’t Charles end this once and for all? WHAT IS HE WAITING FOR?! WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS RECONCILIATION SHIT?

Well, this is the stuff that nurtures rebellion, dissent, and revolution. That Charles is missing the forest (his country) for the trees (his darling boy), it’s long past time for the government to step in. I’ve said this before but this is a perfect gift to Sunak. Be the bad guy, kick Harry out of the coronation, and maybe the public will remember this too next time at the polls, not just your scandals like the cost of living crisis and the mail/rail/NHS strike.

If this was an espionage movie – say, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – this is the chase scene. The spy is stuck. His cover his blown. The enemy is closing in. His girl is gone and oh, by the way, she emptied his safe and stole his passport while he was sleeping. Does his handler intervene to help him escape? Does the enemy get him? Or does he turn out to be a double-agent who gets a hero’s welcome and a victory parade on his return home? In other words, does Charles rescue Harry and invite him to the coronation? Or does Charles leave Harry to suffer the consequences of his actions and lets the government block him from the coronation? Or does Harry flip on Meghan and expose her skeletons to protect himself?

Because that’s the other power of an insider threat with as many red flags as Harry’s got. Whether the insider threat realizes it or not, there’s always someone worse off than they are. And they always offer that person up in exchange for their freedom. That’s why Spare is so potent. Harry knows and understands there are threats against him, but he doesn’t understand that it’s coming from inside the house. He thinks the threat is William and Charles, which is why he attacks them in Spare and why he’s blackmailing them with Spare 2. He does not yet realize that the threat is Meghan. But Meghan does. She knows that her problems are taken care of if/when Harry becomes the bigger, more dangerous, threat and target. That’s why I feel she is keeping a low profile now. His red flags are finally bigger than hers.

But long story short – Harry wasn’t the same kind of threat and didn’t have the same red flags in April 2016 so he was included in the Obama visit. It probably would have been more of a public relations disaster for him to be excluded from the visit given how high his popularity was and how globally well-known his friendship with Michelle was over their mutual interest in supporting veterans and military families.

If Harry was the same threat in April 2016 with the same red flags that he has now, he absolutely would not have been part of the Obama visit. And I don’t even think there would have been a private audience/dinner at KP. It would have just been the private lunch at Windsor Castle with The Queen and Prince Philip. Any other meetings the Obamas had with any of the other royals, William and Catherine included, wouldn’t have been publicized till after the fact or it would have just been William meeting with Barack for 10 minutes (the way William met with Joe at Earthshot).

Because the bottom line is it wouldn’t have been just the UK concerned about Harry’s red flags, the US would have been concerned as well. And given the state of affairs in 2016, to paraphrase Disney – the UK needed the US more than the US needed the UK because of Brexit. If the Americans had concerns about Harry being in a meeting with Obama, the Queen would have blocked Harry’s involvement because she understood the UK needs our special relationship to survive Brexit. (And that is why we got all those royals coming to the US last year after The Queen’s funeral. I think it was within the span of four weeks, we had visits from Anne, Sophie, The Duke of Gloucester, William’s UN visit that turned into a virtual speech, and later, Earthshot.)

This deserves a standing ovation. I agree with your assessment which is deeply insightful and thoroughly well rounded. A huge thank you to you for sending this in.

In the end, it all comes down to the special relationship between US and UK. As of right now, Charles risks not only losing his own public's support but that of the UK's closest ally as well. Washington is watching, by the same token so are our joint enemies. If a Head of State is too inept to handle treasonous son, it creates beaucoup opportunities for those who loathe democracies. Charles might as well post a sign outside of BP saying "Here are all the chinks in my armor, aim your arrows this way".

[lilithism1848]

Atrocities US committed against EUROPE

In late 2019, CIA agent Anne Sacoolas hit and killed a British teenage pedestrian named Harry Dunn with her car, while she was driving on the wrong side of the road, near the RAF Croughton base in the UK where she and her husband (both CIA agents) worked. After the Foreign and Commonwealth office rejected Anne Sacoolas request for diplomatic immunity, Anne fled the UK on a US Air Force plane. Both the US and UK governments lied to the Dunn family, saying that she was a US diplomat, and hid the fact that she had fled for months. In October, the Dunn family visited the White House and met with Donald Trump. According to Seiger, Trump tried to buy off the couple, promising them that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was “standing by ready to write a check.” Trump reportedly blindsided the Dunns, telling them that Sacoolas was in the other room waiting to meet with them. The couple refused the offer, demanding her extradition. Sacoolas’s lawyers have stated, “Anne will not return voluntarily to the United Kingdom to face a potential jail sentence for what was a terrible but unintentional accident.” As of February 2020, the extradition request is at an impasse, while at the same time the UK is complying with Julian Assange’s extradition to the US. RAF Croughton base houses agents from the NSA and CIA, and is famous for being exposed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden for forwarding information from German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone to the CIA. On march 2021, the US admitted that sacoolas was a CIA agent.

In 2003, the CIA kidnapped Italian milanese Imam Abu Omar, took him to Egypt, then tortured, including rape, genital electro-shock, and resulted in him becoming deaf in one ear, in the Imam Rapito Affair. On 23 December 2005, a judge issued a European arrest warrant against 22 CIA agents, but the US hasn’t responded.

In 2002, GW Bush signed into law the “Hague invasion act”, IE the American Service-Members’ Protection Act, which gives the US: “all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court”.

In 2001, due to the passing of the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, the US was forced to disclose the full extent of its collaboration and protection of nazi war criminals.

From March to June of 1999, After Serbs refused to acquiesce in the break-up of their republic, the US and NATO began bombing Yugoslavia killing ~500 civilians, leaving thousands homeless, destroying bridges, industrial plants, public buildings, private businesses, as well as barracks and military installations.

In February, 1998, A US marine core plane flying wrecklessly below regulations, cut a cable supporting aerial cable cars at a ski resort near Cavalese, Italy, killing 20 people, in the Cavalese Cable Car Disaster / Massacre of Cermis. The pilots destroyed the plane’s tape, and were found not guilty. Italian prosecutors were outraged that the US refused to forgoe the NATO treaty that gives all jurisduction to US military courts. By February 1999, the victims’ families had received USD $65,000 per victim as immediate help by the Italian government, which was reimbursed by the U.S. government. In May 1999, the U.S. Congress rejected a bill that would have set up a $40 million compensation fund for the victims. In December 1999, the Italian legislature approved a monetary compensation plan for the families ($1.9 million per victim). NATO treaties obligated the U.S. government to pay 75% of this compensation, which it did.

In 1995, the US conducted a campaign of airstrikes called Operation Deliberate Force, as part of an intervention in the Bosnian civil war.

From the 1950s-90s, the CIA and NATO ran a series of clandestine networks, headquartered in Rome, Italy called Operation Gladio. Its purpose was supplying aid (primarily money and weaponry) to right wing paramilitaries to attack left-wing movements, and carry out assassinations and bombings, as well as funnel money to centrist political parties. It had operations in Belgium, Finland, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Turkey, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Austria. In Italy, the group had 600+ members, and carried out car bombings during Italy’s years of lead. In Germany, it included former Nazi SS members—Staff Sgt. Heinrich Hoffman, Lt. Col. Hans Rues, and Lt. Col. Walter Kopp. CIA weapons caches are still being discovered in all the countries above.

Throughout the 1980-90s, the US, with the aid of the IMF and NATO, actively destabilized and aided in the breakup of Yugoslavia, with the goal of weakening and destroying the last surviving socialist bloc in Europe. These include stirring up ethnic tensions between the member countries, economic warfare, and military intervention. The Reagan administration in a 1982 secret memo, advocated “expanded efforts to promote a ‘quiet revolution’ to overthrow Communist governments and parties,” while reintegrating the countries of Eastern Europe into a market-oriented economy. In November 1990, the Bush administration pressured Congress into passing the 1991 Foreign Operations Appropriations Act, which provided that any part of Yugoslavia failing to declare independence within six months would lose U.S. financial support, demanded separate elections in each of the six Yugoslav republics, and mandated U.S. State Department approval of both election procedures and results as a condition for any future aid. In 1991, Yugoslav Army chief Veljko Kadijević stated: “An insidious plan has been drawn up to destroy Yugoslavia. Stage one is civil war. Stage two is foreign intervention. Then puppet regimes will be set up throughout Yugoslavia.”

In 1967 in Greece, the CIA installed Georgios Papadopoulos in a military coup, a CIA agent and former nazi collaborator, as the military ruler of Greece. He’s seen today as an relic of authoritarianism , xenophobia, and anti-communism. 1 Phillips Talbot, the US ambassador in Athens, disapproved of the military coup which established the “Regime of the Colonels” (1967–1974), complaining that it represented “a rape of democracy”—to which Jack Maury, the CIA chief of station in Athens, answered, “How can you rape a whore?

From the 1940s - 60s, the CIA provided an average of $5 million annually in covert aid towards financially supporting centrist Italian governments and using the awarding of contracts to weaken the Italian Communist Party’s hold on labor unions. It was also involved in bombings and assassinations as a part of Operation Gladio.

In 1956, Radio Free Europe (a CIA funded propaganda outlet) broadcasts Khruschev’s Secret Speech, which played a role in the Hungarian revolution, and also hinted that American aid will help the Hungarians fight. The US fails to provide any military aid to Hungary in their ensuing conflict with the Soviet Union.

From 1948 onwards, the CIA under Allen Dulles developed a program of media manipulation called Project Mockingbird, having major influence over the media, including >25 newspapers. The usual method was placing reports developed from intelligence provided by the CIA to cooperating or unwitting reporters, or employing media directly as American assets.

In 1948, the CIA corrupts the elections in Italy, where Italian communists threaten to win the elections. The CIA buys votes, broadcasts propaganda, threatens and beats up opposition leaders, and infiltrates and disrupts their organizations. The communists are defeated.

From 1948 onward, the CIA implements Operation Bloodstone, similar to Operation Paperclip, where the CIA actively sought out nazis and collaborators living in Soviet controlled territories, to work as spies in the USSR, US, Canada, and Latin America. Many of those who were hired as part of Bloodstone were high-ranking Nazi intelligence agents who had committed war crimes.

In 1947, in Greek civil war and ensuing right wing military junta of 1967-74, Truman and the CIA provided money, 74,000 tons of military equipment, and advisors to support anti-communist Greek dictators with deplorable human rights records. Support for right-wing dictatorships in Greece and Turkey were funded and sold under the Truman Doctrine, an anti-soviet foreign policy platform, despite the fact that it was Yugoslavia who provided support to the Greek labor movement rebels, and not the Soviet Union.

In the post-war period, while the USSR carried out de-nazification in East Germany, in West Germany many Nazis were kept in power. One study revealed that more than half of the leadership of the West German Justice Ministry were former members of the Nazi party, including dozens of former paramilitary SA members. Several former Nazi Generals, including Adolf Heusinger, and Hans Speidel, went on to become generals in West Germany, and then NATO.

During the invasion of Sicily in July 1943, eight unarmed Italian civilians, including an eleven year old girl, were killed by U.S. troops.

US soldiers killed 73 unarmed Italian and German prisoners of war in Santo Pietro, Italy on July 1943. The survivors were then shot at close range, directly through the heart.

The Rheinwiesenlager (Rhine meadow camps) were a group of 19 US prison camps built in the Allied-occupied part of Germany to hold captured German soldiers at the close of the Second World War, holding between one and almost two million surrendered Wehrmacht personnel. Prisoners held in the camps were designated Disarmed Enemy Forces and not POWs, to avoid international treaty regulations. Throughout the summer of 1945, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was prevented from visiting prisoners in any of the Allies’ Rheinwiesenlager. Visits were only started in the autumn of 1945, at a time when most camps had closed or were closing. During their visits, the delegates observed that German prisoners of war were often detained in appalling conditions. They drew the attention of the authorities to this fact, and gradually succeeded in getting some improvements made.” Between 3,000 to 10,000 died from starvation, dehydration and exposure to the weather elements because no structures were built inside the prison compounds.

A study by Robert J. Lilly estimates that a total of 14,000 civilian women in England, France and Germany were raped by American GIs during World War II. It is estimated that there were around 3,500 rapes by American servicemen in France between June 1944 and the end of the war and one historian has claimed that sexual violence against women in liberated France was common.

In 1952, the CIA recruited nazi scientist Emil Augsburg, who was involved in an SS think for planning the final solution, and protected him from war crimes accusations.

In July, 1945, the predecessor to the CIA, the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS), under the name Operation Paperclip, rescued and recruited 1,500 Nazi scientists, engineers, and spies. These included Reinhard Gehlen, Hitler’s master spy who had built up an intelligence network in the Soviet Union, SS intelligence officers Alfred Six and Emil Augsburg (who massacred Jews in the Holocaust), Klaus Barbie (the “Butcher of Lyon”, who was used by the US to further anti-communist efforts in europe), Otto von Bolschwing (the Holocaust mastermind who worked with Eichmann) and SS Colonel Otto Skorzeny (a personal friend of Hitler’s). The policy of collaboration with nazi spies was deemed necessary to counter the threat from the USSR.

In February 1945, 527 airplanes of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) dropped more than 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices on the city of Dresden, Germany, killing ~25,000 civilians.

In the summer of 1942, the US turned away a series of ships of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. Most notoriously, in June 1939, the German ocean liner St. Louis and its 937 passengers, almost all Jewish, were turned away from the port of Miami, forcing the ship to return to Europe; more than a quarter died in the Holocaust.

Ben Urwand revealed how the Nazis’ man in Hollywood Georg Gyssling censored and rewrote film scripts to remove scenes and dialogue that criticised the Nazi regime. He also repeatedly removed references to the suffering of Jews in post-WW1 Germany. The DOD continued this policy after the war, helping rehabilitate Germany’s image and cover up for anti-semitism. Before 1939, Los Angeles authorities were impeding antifascist Jewish groups while letting Fascists in Hollywood run amok. 

In 1926, the House of Representatives and Senate, at the request of Fascist Italy, voted to forgive 80.4% of Italy’s WWI war debt.

The US maintained a policy of neutrality during the rise of Hitler and Mussolini, discounting the rise of anti-semitism and European fascism. It was not Hitler’s attacks on the Jews that brought the United States into World War II, any more than the enslavement of 4 million blacks brought Civil War in 1861. Italy’s attack on Ethiopia, Hitler’s invasion of Austria, his takeover of Czechoslovakia, his attack on Poland-none of those events caused the United States to enter the war, although Roosevelt did begin to give important aid to England. What brought the United States fully into the war was the Japanese attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941.

In the 1936-39 Spanish civil war, the Roosevelt administration sponsored a neutrality act that had the effect of shutting off help to the Spanish government while Hitler and Mussolini gave critical aid to Franco, aiding yet another fascist victory in Europe. American President Richard Nixon later toasted Franco’s “firmness and fairness”, and, after Franco’s death, he stated: “General Franco was a loyal friend and ally of the United States.

[tomorrowusa]

Trump found a place in his playlist for a Titanic song at his Bozeman, Montana rally.

You can't make this stuff up.

Is the Trump campaign trolling itself? That’s what some people were asking online after Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” started playing just before the former president hit the stage at his rally on Friday in Bozeman, Montana, reported Daily Mail. “Is Trump’s campaign being trolled from within? Someone on his staff decided to play Celine Dion singing ‘My Heart Will Go On’ from Titanic at his Montana rally. Many consider Titanic a metaphor for Trump’s sinking campaign,” wrote NBC Universal exec Mike Sington on X. Another X user added, “Seems to me it’s a cry for help from a sinking ship. Has anyone checked on his campaign managers, are they being held hostage or maybe water boarded.” The irony of a ship sinking slowly into oblivion was not lost online, and many took the gaffe to be an omen that Trump’s popularity and grip on the spotlight is loosening. One X user tweeted that the song was actually to plug a new film called “Trumptanic” that will “collide” with failure come November.

Perhaps you remember that at the beginning of the UK election campaign, now former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made an appearance in front of the place where the Titanic was built.

Sunak follows up Downing Street soaking by a visit to site of Titanic

Sunak's Conservative Party suffered its most disastrous electoral defeat ever in July.

Identifying with the Titanic is usually something which candidates try to avoid. The Titanic is associated with hubris and with losers like Trump.

[shetheyshenanigans]

I think so many people/countries would benefit if you guys had Reeling In The Years

For those who are Not Irish (so sorry), RITY is a TV programme we have here in Ireland. It airs every Friday, and each episode details the events of a certain year. They play video clips from that year with subtitles informing the viewer of the context, with both National and international news.

For example, RITY for tonight was 2018. For national news, it discussed the 8th Amendment Referendum which decriminalised abortion in Ireland, the breaking of the Cervical Check scandal where hundreds of Irish women got false negatives during screenings for cervical cancer and were told they were healthy when they in fact had cancer (rip Vicky Phelan), the Papal visit where Pope Francis spoke about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, the Irish presidential election of that year, the record temperatures and forest fires that year, and the formal apology made to Garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe.

In international terms, there was Meghan Markle/Prince Harry's wedding, Trump's visit to both the UK and meeting with Kim Jong Un, the Brexit deal made with the EU, the forcible separation of immigrant children and parents at the US border, and the rescue of the soccer team from the Thai caves.

I was twelve during 2018. I read the newspapers occasionally and my parents always had the 6 o'clock news on, but generally I didn't really know much about what was going on in the world. The first episode of Reeling In The Years described the events of 1962, and even my parents hadn't been born yet. It is such an important show, because every episode reminds you or teaches you about the past in both Ireland and the wider world.

"Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it" etc etc. Reeling In The Years ensures that Irish people know their past and are informed of what went on in the world, even during years they weren't alive or paying attention. And we need reminders too. The abortion referendum was six years ago, but in an age where abortion laws are under threat in the US and a recent referendum on a woman's place in the home and the definition of care was struck down, we need to remember that we are a country who cared about women, and that we can do it again.

The last episode of Reeling in the Years that I watched was 2016, the year the people of Ireland decided overwhelmingly in favour of allowing gay marriage. I was ten. I didn't even think about boys, let alone girls, but now I care. Now I know the attitudes of the time, the decisions that were made and how they affect me now.

People need to know their past in order to build their future.

[mariacallous]

Not to diminish the capacity of the British for public disorder, but there is something darkly comic about watching, split-screen style, the contrast between the UK and US in the run-up to their general elections. While in the US, the former president and frontrunner becomes a convicted felon who shares videos referring to the possibility of establishing a “unified reich”, the UK’s prime minister enjoys a drink in a cafe by the river as a boatload of Lib Dems, holding placards and waving vaguely sardonically, gently bobs down the river behind him.

In the US, the threat of political violence becomes ever more present, with a movie imagining civil war in the republic topping the box office and Trump facing further charges of election interference. In Britain, a news alert at the top of the week announces: “Drink thrown at Nigel Farage during campaign visit to Clacton.” (It was a banana milkshake, and of course it was Clacton. Where else could it have been?) Britain has experienced sustained political violence more recently than the US, as British people love to point out to Irish Americans fondly valorising ye olde IRA. But held up against what’s happening in in the US, and for all the Tory party’s awfulness of the past 14 years, Rishi Sunak’s appeal to the British electorate on Tuesday night made him look about as threatening as a Beatrix Potter villain.

This is not how things are in the US, where a week on from Trump’s historic felony conviction, the fallout couldn’t be worse. Any sense of triumph experienced last week at the reading out of 34 guilty counts against Trump was curtailed, instantly and viscerally, by the verdict’s implications. This was not the same moment of giddy jubilance as when Trump was found liable for sexually assaulting and defaming E Jean Carroll (twice) and ordered to pay her $83.3m.

But that was the civil courts. In Judge Merchan’s court last Thursday, Trump became a convicted felon – a turn of events that, no matter how keenly we might have sought and anticipated it, seemed at the moment of reckoning to be a truly shocking and frightening development. We talk about Trump as a figure who, over the past eight years, has expanded the Overton window to a degree no one imagined possible. Last week, it stretched to accommodate the prospect of a man found guilty of a hush-money plot to influence a previous election possibly winning the next one.

And accommodate is the word. For anyone clinging to the delusion that a criminal conviction would, finally, trigger a grain of conscience in Republican high command, the disappointment was swift and unsettling. For a moment, oddly, only Trump himself seemed deflated. Whether as a result of age (he turns 78 next week), his recent weight loss or the stress finally catching up with him, after the verdict he looked hollow-faced, like an empty espadrille peeping out from a fringe of rush matting. It hardly mattered. If Trump was quiet, his proxies in the form of Mitch McConnell, Susan Collins and a slew of other Republican leaders leapt, shamefully, to his defence.

Susan B Glasser in the New Yorker handily collated the worst of these, from a tweet by Nick Ayers, the former Trump White House staffer, who wrote “Kangaroo court. Banana republic”, to the Republican senator for Kansas, Roger Marshall, calling the verdict “the most egregious miscarriage of justice in our nation’s history”. Marco Rubio, making up in hyperbole for what he lacks, as Trump himself has pointed out, in stature, claimed that “the public spectacle of political show trials has come to America”. And there it was: criminality sanctioned and embraced at the highest levels of government, with the implicit invitation to act accordingly to all who follow him.

And let’s not forget Nikki Haley. When she was running against Trump during the primaries, Haley threw some of the toughest criticism of any Republican his way. Well, that was then. The day after Trump’s defence team rested their case, up popped the former governor of South Carolina to confirm that, come November, she would be voting for a man she once called “diminished” and “unhinged”. In response to which, I find myself regressing to childishness. How could you?! Are you out of your mind? When all of this ends in Trump seizing an illegal third term and passing legislation to enable the deployment of US troops on domestic soil, what will you put in your press release? Or, at that point, will you be too busy angling for secretary of defense?

We know where undermining public faith in a country’s justice system can lead. And we know that Trump will do anything to secure his own victory. Now we know something else, too. When the guilty verdict rang out 34 times last week, my heart sank and an odd thought – in keeping with all the other absurdities thrown up by Trump – came to mind. Better that he had been found not guilty than convicted and the quiet part said out loud: that there is no line. That no one on his own side will do anything to stop him.