#trump moscow project

[rejectingrepublicans]

🤣

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

One minute YouTube video.

[mariacallous]

In late August 2023, Ilya Gambashidze was in a conference room at the office of Social Design Agency, a Russian IT company he founded that is based in Moscow, close to the world-renowned Moscow Conservatory. Gambashidze was relatively unknown in Russian politics at the time, but just a month earlier his name had appeared on a Council of the European Union’s list of Russian nationals subjected to sanctions for playing a central role in a sprawling disinformation campaign against Ukraine.

In the conference room, Gambashidze was laying out his plans for a new target: Along with his colleagues, he began drafting what would become known as the Good Old USA Project. The project was supposed to influence the outcome of the US presidential election in favor of former president Donald Trump, specifically targeting certain minorities, swing-state residents, and online gamers, among others, in a scheme that included a full-time team dedicated to the cause.

On Wednesday, Gambashidze and his company were named by the US Department of Justice among the architects of a disinformation campaign known as Doppelganger that has for the past two years been targeting Ukraine and, more recently, US elections. The Doppelganger campaign uses AI-generated content on dozens of fake websites designed to impersonate mainstream media outlets such as The Washington Post and Fox Business, using a network of fake social media accounts to disseminate pro-Russian narratives targeting audiences across the globe. Doppelganger is a Kremlin-aligned disinformation campaign that was first linked to the Kremlin in 2023 by the French government.

On Wednesday, the Justice Department announced the seizure of 32 internet domains it says are linked to the Doppelganger campaign which violate US money laundering and criminal trademark laws.

“Today’s announcement exposes the scope of the Russian government’s influence operations and their reliance on cutting-edge AI to sow disinformation,” FBI director Christopher Wray said in a statement. “Companies operating at the direction of the Russian government created websites to trick Americans into unwittingly consuming Russian propaganda.”

The Treasury Department had previously sanctioned SDA and Gambashidze in March for its part in the Doppelganger campaign. But the court documents unsealed on Wednesday contain a treasure trove of documents and meeting notes from Gambashidze and his colleagues, outlining in unprecedented detail the goals and tactics that the Kremlin has been deploying in order to influence the outcome of the 2024 US election.

The records also reveal the plan was discussed at the highest levels of the Russian government, with Sergei Kiriyenko, the first deputy chief of staff of the presidential executive office, playing a key role. The notes appear to show that President Vladimir Putin may have been updated on the campaign; in one meeting with Russian government officials, Gambashidze wrote that government officials told him they had “reported to the President about the project,” which the FBI agent who authored the affidavit said he took to refer to Putin.

The documents show that the orchestrators of the campaign targeted existing divisions within US society, using racist stereotypes and far-right conspiracies to target supporters of former president Donald Trump.

​​"They are afraid of losing the American way of life and the ‘American dream,’” Gambashidze writes in one document outlining his “guerrilla media” plan. “It is these sentiments that should be exploited in the course of an information campaign in/for the United States.”

The same document is full of racist and conspiratorial claims, including that Republicans are “victims of discrimination of people of color.” It adds that white middle-class people are being discriminated against with high inflation and rising prices, while “unemployed people of color end up being privileged groups of the population.”

And the goal of the campaign, from the beginning, was crystal clear: “To secure victory for [Donald Trump],” Gambashidze wrote in the Good Old USA Project planning document.

The Good Old USA plan openly admits that “none of the significant American politicians can be considered pro-Russian or pro-Putin,” and so rather than focus its efforts on trying to convince people that Russia is great, the plan called for promoting the idea that the US should be focusing its resources less on Ukraine and more on domestic issues, such as rising inflation and high gas prices.

“It makes sense for Russia to put a maximum effort to ensure that the Republican Party’s point of view (first and foremost, the opinion of Trump supporters) wins over the US public opinion,” the Good Old USA Project planning document reads. “This includes provisions on peace in Ukraine in exchange for territories, the need to focus on the problems of the US economy, returning troops home from all over the world, etc.”

As well as getting Trump elected, the campaign’s secondary goals included increasing the percentage of Americans who believe the US is doing too much to aid Ukraine to 51 percent, and reducing the percentage of Americans who have confidence in President Joe Biden down to 29 percent.

The plan lists a variety of audiences the campaign specifically wants to target, including residents of swing states, American Jews, “US citizens of Hispanic descent,” and the “community of American gamers, users of Reddit and image boards, such as 4chan.”

The document describes this category of gamers and chatroom users as the "backbone of the right-wing trends in the US segment of the Internet.” In recent months, the Trump campaign has embraced many of the most influential figures within these communities, including many who share deeply misogynistic rhetoric on a regular basis.

To spread their narrative, the plan called for the creation of YouTube channels that shared pro-Trump content as well as other viral videos (“music, humor, beautiful girls etc,” according to the documents) in order to appear at the top of search results for “US elections.”

Meanwhile, Gambashidze and his colleagues used Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit to create community groups of Trump supporters, with one sample name given as “Alabama for America the Great.” The document also reveals that the Russians planned to use Reddit as a vector to disseminate their propaganda as it is a platform “free from democratic censorship.”

Gambashidze’s plan outlined how Doppelganger would create 18 “sleeper cells” on social media platforms in each of the swing states, which would “at the right moment, upon gaining momentum, become an important instrument of influencing the public opinion in critically important states and portals used by the Russian side to distribute bogus stories disguised as newsworthy events.” It’s unclear if these so-called sleeper cells were created and, if so, whether they are still present on the platform.

The campaign also used targeted ads on Facebook to not only promote their narrative but also to gain valuable insight into what messages were sticking and which were falling flat. “Targeted advertising in Facebook allows tracking reactions of users to the distributed material in real time and directing the psychological response group to contribute to comments thereof,” the document reads. “With the help of a network of bots the psychological response group moderates top discussions and adjusts further launches depending on which group was affected the most.”

One of the key aspects of the Kremlin’s campaign is also to engage with influencers. According to the FBI’s affidavit, Gambashidze’s company ​​“extensively monitors and collects information about a large number of media organizations and social media influencers.”

According to the Good Old USA project document, the Kremlin was seeking to work with influencers who are “proponents of traditional values, who stand up for ending the war in Ukraine and peaceful relations between the US and Russia, and who are ready to get involved in the promotion of the project narratives.”

Among the types of influencers listed as possible collaborators are actors, politicians, media representatives, activists, and clergymen.

The affidavit references one document maintained by the Social Design Agency, which is not included in the unsealed court documents, that contains a list of more than 2,800 people identified as influencers. While this list is global, US-based influencers account for around 20 percent of the accounts being monitored, including many US lawmakers, according to an analysis of the list by the FBI.

The Social Design Agency also maintains another list, again not included in the court documents, that tracks over 1,900 “anti-influencers” from 52 different countries, with US-based accounts. The FBI agent who authored the document assessed that “anti-influencer” refers to accounts which post “content that SDA views as contrary to Russian objectives.”

In a note from one of the meetings with Russian government officials discussing the campaign’s use of influencers, Gambashidze wrote: “We need influencers! A lot of them and everywhere. We are ready to wine and dine them.” Though no links have been confirmed, hours before the Doppelganger affidavit dropped on Wednesday, Tenet Media, an organization that features a slate of right-wing commentators, was alleged in an unsealed Department of Justice indictment to have been largely funded by Russian state-backed news network RT.

The Social Design Agency operation appeared to be extremely well-run and well-resourced. There is a “project office” consisting of four teams that include one entire group dedicated to monitoring the social media posts from GOP lawmakers in order to generate ideas for topics to cover.

These would then be handed to a “text factory," with orders to whittle down the topics handed to them by the monitoring team to four to five main issues, along with eight to 10 basic posts for social media platforms and 40- to 60 comments to post under those social media posts for the network of bots. Another team was called the “manga editorial office,” which was charged with producing a daily output of three to four images, including memes. Finally, a video team was tasked with producing three to four videos each day.

“In order for this work to be effective, you need to use a minimum of fake news and a maximum of realistic information,” the document’s authors wrote. “At the same time, you should continuously repeat that this is what is really happening, but the official media will never tell you about it or show it to you.”

Antibot4Navalny, a group of anonymous Russian researchers who have been closely tracking Doppelganger’s activity, are doubtful that the affidavit will have a significant impact on the campaign’s activity.

“Frankly, I believe it's whack-a-mole as long as EU providers keep doing business with [Social Design Agency], and UK-registered shell companies keep helping SDA with its operation,” the researchers told WIRED, citing their own investigations earlier this year.

[hellochildrenoftheatom]

Queer Jews Project Day 30 - Roberta Kaplan

Roberta Kaplan was born and raised in Ohio. In college, she spent a summer abroad in Moscow and discovered her passion for activism by helping Soviet Jews. After graduating from Harvard Law School, she rose through the ranks at top law firm Paul Weiss – making partner in seven years.

Roberta’s had a long and prestigious career, but I’m going to highlight two cases of hers. First of all, she represented Edie Windsor and took down the Defense of Marriage Act. And more recently, Roberta represented E. Jean Caroll in her defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump. She won, forcing Trump to pay E. Jean Carroll $88 million in damages.

Learn more about Roberta Kaplan here.

Queer Jews Project

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

One of the most enduring—and ridiculous—#Resistance narratives of the Trump era was the idea that the President of the United States was a literal Manchurian Candidate, a man who had been compromised for years (perhaps even decades) by a foreign power, namely Russia.

Like most enduring conspiracy theories, this one was built on a kernel of truth. Donald Trump really was admiring of Vladimir Putin and had no apparent problem with the Russian dictator arresting dissidents or invading neighbors. In fact, Trump was far more conciliatory to Russia, a long-standing adversary, than he was to many of America’s closest allies.

When Trump’s troubling admiration of Putin was combined with other details—particularly salacious (and dubious) reports of Trump, as a private citizen, being videotaped in Moscow and salacious (and accurate) records of Trump doing business with shady Russian oligarchs—a conspiracy was born. Trump was compromised. Either through blackmail or bribery, America’s foreign policy was obviously being directed by Russia.

Nearly a decade into Trump’s political career, there is no evidence that he is compromised by Putin or any other foreign power. But as he runs for reelection, Trump is indeed compromised in a way he never has been before. Desperate to avoid prison—and needing cash to win reelection, so he can pardon himself—Trump is selling his administration’s domestic and foreign policy to the highest bidder. It’s hardly a conspiracy, either. As we speak, he is traveling from billionaire to billionaire with hat in hand, making explicit promises to sell his presidency.

Trump has raked in campaign contributions in the wake of his conviction last week on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records—$60 million alone in the 24 hours after the jury delivered a guilty verdict, nearly half of his total $141 million haul in May. But even with that sizable pot, his campaign is still trailing Biden’s. And given Trump’s use of campaign contributions to pay attorneys representing him in his numerous criminal trials, much of that money is being spent on legal rather than political expenses.

For Trump, the 2024 presidential campaign is an existential project. If he wins, he surely will direct the Department of Justice to drop two ongoing criminal cases against him—one involving his retention of classified information after leaving office in 2021, another involving his role in the January 6 insurrection. He could, as president, also pardon himself and several key witnesses who might otherwise be tempted to testify against him to avoid jail time or reduce sentences. To keep those cases from advancing, and ultimately kill them, Trump needs to win the 2024 election. To do that, he needs money—lots of it.

In recent weeks, one strategy for raising money has become clear: Trump is going to wealthy donors and interest groups and offering to cede policymaking to them—in exchange for massive campaign contributions. Last month, The Washington Post reported that Trump gathered oil executives at Mar-a-Lago and made a pitch: For the low cost of $1 billion, he would, as president “reverse dozens of President Biden’s environmental rules and policies and stop new ones from being enacted.” The pitch reportedly “stunned several of the executives in the room.” But it is nevertheless in keeping with Trump’s larger program. Despite promising during his first run for office in 2016 that he was, as a rich person, incorruptible—and that he would use his inside knowledge of a corrupt system to benefit his voters—Trump has always dispensed with subtlety and flaunted his corruption. Here, he is advertising his willingness to take a bribe: Give me what I want, and I’ll give you what you want.

And less than two weeks after that Post report, Trump made even more promises to oil and gas executives at a campaign fundraiser. He reportedly ended his speech by saying, “Be generous, please,” and was rewarded with more than $25 million in donations.

That’s not all. In late May, an interesting item appeared in a New York magazine profile of billionaire casino magnate—and part owner of the NBA Finals–bound Dallas Mavericks—Miriam Adelson. Adelson, a long-standing donor to right-wing Republicans and a staunch supporter of Israel, is expected to be Trump’s largest donor in the 2024 cycle. But her money comes with strings attached.

“One can assume she’ll press for the unfinished items of Trump’s Israel agenda from last term,” New York’s Elizabeth Weil wrote. “Top of that list: Israel annexing the West Bank and the U.S. recognizing its sovereignty there.” That would mark a dramatic shift in America’s policy toward Israel—and would make ending Israel’s destructive military campaign in Gaza significantly harder. But Trump is advertising that he’s open for business, and he has never shown any interest in Palestinian rights; it’s fair to assume he would see supporting annexation of the West Bank as a small price to pay for millions in campaign contributions. Last month, moreover, Trump promised donors that he would set back the pro-Palestinian movement by “25 or 30 years.” One easy way to do that: Allow Israel to annex the West Bank.

There’s little doubt that if Trump returns to the White House, he’ll again speak favorably of Putin and likely even support Russia’s annexation of Ukraine. But if so, it will be because Trump is fond of autocrats and disdains America’s alliances, rather than because Putin holds some kind of leverage over him. And yet, if Trump as president also does everything in his power to enrich the billionaire donors who have contributed so generously to his campaign, it will be hard to believe it’s because of a fondness for billionaires. Rather, he will simply be returning the favors that, for all the world to see, he promised them this year.

[partisan-by-default]

Musk also shared Russia-aligned talking points outside the context of the conspiracy alleged in the recent indictment, according to a report Tuesday by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Citing records from a Russian disinformation campaign, the news service said that an internet meme denigrating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and shared on X last year by Musk was made by a Moscow-based company called Social Design Agency. 

Musk did not respond to an email Tuesday asking about the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty report and about his sharing of Tenet Media content. Representatives for X also did not respond to a request for comment about Musk or about X’s handling of Tenet content. 

In posts on X, Musk has appeared unconcerned about Russia’s influence operations. The day the Tenet Media indictment was announced, Musk reacted with the “tears of joy” emoji to another user’s unproven theory that the covert project may have backfired by causing infighting among conservatives. 

The day after the indictment dropped, Musk accused The Associated Press of pushing anti-Trump “propaganda” in its coverage of Tenet Media. And he posted in defense of the right-wing podcasters \ Tenet had retained, agreeing with another conservative commentator, Ben Shapiro, that the men were deceived. 

[antidrumpfs]

How much damage has the Trump-Putin collusion inflicted on the US?

By Thom Hartmann - commentary Sept 2nd 2023

If Trump shared American secrets with Putin, our intelligence agencies are not going to call a press conference to let us all know. Similarly, short of a trial for treason, it’s extremely unlikely such an allegation — even if true — will show up in a court of law.

Lawyers, judges, and juries just don’t have the security clearances necessary, so the documents brought to court are almost certainly not among the very most sensitive: they’re just enough to get a conviction.

As former FBI general counsel Andrew Weissman told MSNBC last year:

“[There] is a subset of the secret or top secret documents that I think that's something we will not see more of because that is probably the intelligence community saying there are things so sensitive we do not want you to use that in court. The material in the indictment is shocking. You can imagine what was left out.”

And Attorney General Merrick Garland himself said:

“We do not do our investigations in public. This is the most wide-ranging investigation and the most important investigation that the Justice Department has ever entered into.”

That would be more important than Russian spies Robert Hanssen (life without parole), Aldrich Ames (life without parole), or Ethel and Julius Rosenberg (death penalty)?

The case in Florida is limited to Trump stealing sensitive documents and sharing them on two publicly known occasions (and didn’t even reference other known acts like Kid Rock’s allegation that Trump showed him Top Secret maps in the White House: this was apparently a regular thing for Trump).

That said, you can bet your bottom dollar that the FBI and other agencies are working as hard as they can to contain the damage done by Trump’s leaving documents that could cause “grave damage” to America in public places where spies could simply waltz in and take cell-phone pictures of them by attending a wedding or paying $200,000 for essentially unlimited access Club membership.

But what if it goes beyond that? What if Putin has owned him for years?

From Russian oligarchs laundering money through his operations — real estate is the most common device used worldwide for money laundering — to keeping him alive in his most difficult times, like those multiple bankruptcies in the 1990s when he almost lost everything? Or perhaps blackmailing him?

What if Putin got him the presidency, and he knows if America found out for sure it would destroy him?

Which begs the question: exactly how much damage might Trump have already done to our nation, and what does he have planned if he wins a second term?

In 2019 The Washington Post revealed that, throughout his presidency, Donald Trump was having secret phone conversations with Russia’s President Putin (over 20 have been identified so far, including one just days before the 2020 election).

The Moscow Project from the American Progress Action Fund documents more than 270 known contacts between Russia-linked operatives and members of the Trump campaign and transition team, as well as at least 38 known meetings just leading up to the 2016 election.

Read the entire Raw Story article with link at the top of post

[darkmaga-retard]

Russia Updating Nuclear Weapon Doctrine. Ukraine threatens Mongolia. Turkey Requests To Join BRICS. Keir Stasi. Trump takes the lead in six swing states. Biden Is Preparing to Implement Digital IDs.

Lioness of Judah Ministry

Sep 03, 2024

Russia Updating Nuclear Weapon Doctrine Due To Western 'Escalation' Of Ukraine War

US interventionism nudging the world toward armageddon

In the latest worrisome saber-rattling sparked by the US-led proxy war in Ukraine, Russia announced it's revising its doctrine on the use of nuclear weapons, saying a change has been necessitated by "escalation" initiated by the country's Western adversaries. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told TASS that the update was precipitated by an analysis of  "recent conflicts" including "Western adversaries’ escalation course" in the Ukraine war. The revision is "in the advanced stage," but Ryabkov said it was too early to project when it would be completed, given "we are talking about the most important aspect of our national security." While there's been no indication of the specifics, any revision seems certain to lower the threshold for nuclear weapon use -- and increase the potential for a global conflagration.  

Ukraine Presents White House With List Of Targets Deep Inside Russia

Huge drone attack Sunday damages several more Russian oil & gas facilities...

Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov has revealed to CNN that the Zelensky government has presented a list of significant targets which lie deep inside Russia to the Biden White House for approval to strike. His words in the new CNN interview come as Kiev is engaged in intensive lobbying with Washington to get President Biden to greenlight the use of US missiles for longer range attacks. Ukraine has also been begging to receive long-rage missiles toward that end. "We have explained what kind of capabilities we need to protect the citizens against the Russian terror that Russians are causing us, so I hope we were heard," Umerov told CNN’s Alex Marquardt on "The Situation Room."

NATO warns members against shooting down Russian missiles

Poland has suggested such a move would be its “duty” but the bloc appears to disagree

NATO does not want to become directly involved in a conflict with Moscow, the US-led bloc spokesperson said on Monday, addressing demands from Ukraine and statements by Poland’s foreign minister. Kiev has repeatedly asked its Western backers to shoot down Russian missiles and drones in its airspace, as its own air defenses became degraded. A security pact to that effect was signed with Warsaw in July. “NATO is not a party to the conflict and will not become a party to it,” a spokesperson for the bloc told the Spanish news agency Europa Press, adding that the bloc’s responsibility is to “prevent escalation.”

[bushtruenews]

Trump partnered with mafia-linked Alex Shnaider

For Toronto Tower, Trump partnered with mafia-linked Alex Shnaider, who paid $100M to a Moscow fixer representing Kremlin-backed investors who funneled millions into the project. For financing, they used Firtash & Mogilevich's primary bank.

In 2007 Trump touted the financing for “our” Toronto project as “a testament to the strength of the Trump name." The $40M investment from his Russian-Canadian partner, Alex Shnaider, came from Kremlin-backed investors. Trump later denied any knowledge about the financing.

In 2010, Alex Shnaider authorized a $100M bribe to a Moscow fixer representing Kremlin-backed investors to facilitate the sale of his Ukraine steel mill for $850M, a deal financed by Russian-state bank VEB [chaired by Putin at the time], proceeds of which flowed to Trump.

Alex Shnaider's father-in-law, Boris Birshtein, is a longtime friend and business partner of Sergei Mikhailov, known as Mikhas the leader of Moscow’s most powerful organised crime syndicate: the Solntsevskaya Bratva [linked to Mogilevich]. Shnaider also knows Mikhailov.

Birshtein & Mikhailov co-founded laundering front Seabeco [where Shnaider worked]. In 1996, after Mikhailov's arrest [and a witness shot dead], Belgian police raided Birshtein & Shnaider’s Antwerp houses, prompting Shnaider to move back to Toronto.

Another close associate of Shnaider father-in-law Boris Birshtein is Russian mafia boss Alexander Mashkevich [ran Seabeco’s Moscow office], who, along with his Eurasia Group partners, financed several Trump-Bayrock projects, including Trump Soho.

ICYMI: According the the Sep 11 Commission Report, Alexander Mashkevich & his 2 Kazakh billionaire partners [AKA" the Trio"], are Russian/Israeli Mafia & Mashkevich [who attended Trump's inaugural & private inauguration dinner] is a mafia boss.

Birshtein [father-in-law & business assoc of Trump's Toronto partner Alex Shnaider] is also a friend of Oleg Deripaska, and in 2009, brokered a deal for the CIA to recruit Deripaska to 'rescue' Bob Levinson [missing in Iran] in exchange for a VISA.

Shnaider's mafia-linked father-in-law, Birshtein, claimed “no involvement in Trump Toronto either directly or indirectly,” however, a Cypriot company controlled by the director of Birshtein companies, was listed in 2016 as a Trump Toronto creditor.

In addition to Alex Shnaider's Kremlin-linked funds, financing for Trump's Toronto project came from Austria's Raiffeisen Bank [$243M]. According to diplomatic cables, Russian mafia boss Semion Mogilevich is a partner in Raiffeisen [the primary bank of Dmitry Firtash].

[stephen-barry]

Trump’s real Project 2025 was written for him in Moscow by Vladimir Putin’s men

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/gop-trump-campaign-russia-propaganda-20240908.html 

[veale2006-blog]

World Events Unveiled: The CABAL's Defeat and the Looming Storm

The once-secretive ambitions of the CABAL deep state, particularly their grand design to use Ukraine as a pawn in a war against Russia and seize Moscow, have crumbled. Their objective, which aimed to capture Russia's vast resources, GDP, and a staggering 17.5 million tons of lithium reserves (a treasure trove coveted by the likes of BLACKROCK, CIA, MI6, MOSSAD, and the Deep State), has unraveled into failure.

What's more, their nefarious operations to orchestrate a world war, all while mainstream media sounds the alarm for World War III, are teetering on the edge of disaster. This scheme, driven by a staggering 1.2 trillion-dollar heist from taxpayers in the name of supporting Israel, is beginning to unravel.

The truth is that the U.S. finds itself in an economic quagmire, edging closer to financial collapse, with the capability to wage not one but three wars - against Russia, China, and the Middle East - practically non-existent.

The Ukraine war, contrary to Biden's public statements of Russian failure in capturing Kiev, is reaching its conclusion. Military assessments, war games, and the testimony of top-ranking Generals all point to the impending end of this conflict. Russia has secured the second-largest city in Ukraine, Kharkiv, and is steadily advancing westward, with Odessa on the horizon. European support for the U.S. and Ukraine war is waning rapidly.

This is why the deep state has hurriedly ignited another conflict in the Middle East - a desperate ploy for funding and money laundering, all in a frenzied bid to evade an impending storm of arrests by the U.S. Military.

In the Middle East, Turkey has made a seismic pivot away from U.S. NATO allies, engaging in troop movements and naval exercises. Notably, Turkey is demonstrating its ability to mobilize two million soldiers in emergency combat scenarios, sending shockwaves through the corridors of the CIA, MOSSAD, MI6, and the Davos elite.

Pakistan has aligned with Turkey, while China supports both nations, and Russia backs several Middle Eastern countries, including Syria and Palestine. Putin's declaration of support for Palestine further underscores the changing geopolitical landscape.

As it stands, the U.S. military is ill-equipped for ground warfare in Russia, China, or the Middle East, with a glaring absence of missiles and weapons. In contrast, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Turkey, bolstered by China and Russia, boast a formidable arsenal. Iran's missile capability, in particular, poses a colossal threat, with odds of 16 to 1 in favor of Iran in naval confrontations.

The outcome is clear: the U.S. military finds itself at its weakest point in a century, a fact echoed in all military assessments, war games, and projections.

Behind this tumultuous backdrop, the real World War III event looms on the horizon, set for late 2024. President Trump has unequivocally stated that only he can prevent this catastrophe, and the impending mega scare event, complete with a full-scale nuclear standoff, will be the crucible of exposure for the U.S. Military Industrial Complex (including the CIA, Obama, Bush, the Clintons, the Rockefellers, and more).

Everything is hurtling toward a colossal reckoning: from Biden and the Hunter laptop revelations (just the tip of the iceberg) to the stolen 2020 elections, the Epstein saga, the CIA-Pentagon-Fauci trifecta behind the pandemic and lethal vaccines, all the way to the Deep State's orchestration of world wars. This was all foreseen, a narrative unspooling since the very beginning.

In these chaotic times, while the world appears on the precipice of World War III, it's crucial to remain calm. Yes, there will be skirmishes, nations picking sides, but as my previous communications have suggested, eventually, a sense of calm will prevail. Then, brace for a colossal, world-altering event, where nuclear bombs will remain dormant. The sole exception may be North Korea detonating a nuke over the ocean during the 2024 mega-massive scare event.

[mariacallous]

One of the Western populist right’s enduring myths about President Vladimir Putin’s Russia is that it is steeped in traditional values, a bastion of virtue standing in opposition to an increasingly godless West. In the United States, the fascination with Russia as a supposed global center of conservative virtue has especially gained currency in MAGA world.

This image of Russia as a traditionalist’s paradise led former Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson to offer both Putin and Russian far-right philosopher Alexander Dugin, one of Putin’s most vicious cheerleaders for genocide in Ukraine, the opportunity to expound their views to millions of Americans in a comfortable, uncritical setting. It is the reason that MAGA-aligned U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene talks about Russia as a strong protector of Christianity. And it’s why former Trump administration National Security Advisor Michael Flynn has framed Putin as a defender of “family and God.”

The contrast between myth and reality couldn’t be starker. The truth is that Russia is one of the world’s least religious societies, with only 9 percent of Russians attending religious services at least somewhat regularly, according to a poll conducted in 2022 by the Moscow-based Levada Center. By contrast, nearly one-third of Americans are frequent churchgoers. Just 1.4 million Russians—a mere 1 percent of the population—attended the most recent Christmas services. The Russian state also persecutes Christians who do not adhere to Russian Orthodoxy, including Baptists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and, of course, anyone connected to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

Nor is Russia a bastion of what true conservatives would consider traditional values. Based on data calculated by the Guttmacher Institute, the Russian abortion rate from 2015 to 2019 was nearly four times higher than that of the United States and more than twice as high as that of Ukraine. Russia also has the fourth-highest divorce rate in the world—60 percent higher than in the United States and more than 50 percent higher than in Ukraine. Those among the U.S. and European far right who project their own ideals onto Russian society ignore the obvious and copious evidence.

The false image of a god-fearing Russia is hardly accidental. It is the consequence of systematic efforts by Putin and his propagandists to craft talking points for the global right—an effort that has accelerated since Russia launched its all-out war on Ukraine in 2022.

It wasn’t always so. After the Soviet collapse in 1991, a Russia shorn of most of its empire struggled with its post-communist identity. Under its first president, Boris Yeltsin, the country waded into the waters of a Russo-centric patriotism. But his chosen successor, Putin, supplanted this worldview by nostalgia for the former Soviet and Russian empires, as well as adulation of brutal autocrats such as Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and Tsar Peter the Great.

Today, to both mobilize Russians for a bloody war and undermine support for Ukraine by appealing to the political extremes in the West, Putin and his ideologues have crafted a new mythology that depicts Russia as a bastion of traditional values rooted in religious faith.

This theme was front and center at Putin’s fifth inauguration as Russian president on May 7. In his address, he declared that “support for centuries-old family values ​​and traditions will continue to unite public and religious associations, political parties, and all levels of government.”

From their putative moral high ground, Putin and his propagandists in the Kremlin-controlled media have used the bully pulpit to rail against Western “woke-ism,” political correctness, and secularism, earning admiration among right-wing populists in the West. By projecting Russians and the Russian state as deeply religious and steeped in tradition—and by denouncing the Western establishment for its supposed attacks on traditional values—Kremlin propaganda has made serious inroads among cultural and religious conservatives in the United States and elsewhere.

This has helped create some measure of sympathy for Russia’s war against Ukraine among certain segments of the far right, which see Putin as a powerful voice on their side of the culture wars.

Margarita Simonyan, the head of Russia Today, the state media conglomerate responsible for most of Moscow’s global propaganda, crystallized the postulates and far-reaching ambitions of Russia’s traditionalist propaganda during a television appearance in February.

Speaking on the heels of Carlson’s fawning chat with Putin, Simonyan saw a major opportunity for Russia to find fellow travelers and new allies among those disgruntled by secularization in the West. Unlike Ukraine and its Western backers, which she called adepts of “satanism,” she described Russia as “the city on a hill” to which the world’s traditionalists can now flock to escape their stifling secular societies. She declared that traditionalist messaging is the “beacon of a wonderful idea” whose appeal can be likened to that of communism during the Soviet era. Russia, she continued, might even counter its severely shrinking population by attracting disgruntled traditionalists from around the world as immigrants to a new promised land of traditionalism.

To this end, the Kremlin announced a new decree on Aug. 19 that eases residency rules for refugees from countries where “traditional values” are under attack from “neoliberalism” and other supposed secular ills.

Aging Russian kleptocrats such as Putin, who formerly served in the security services of the atheist Soviet state, engage in performative religion at most. As the investigations conducted by the late Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny documented, the Russian ruling elite, including Putin himself, is obscenely wealthy and deeply corrupt. But state media outlets diligently portray them as god-fearing believers, generous patrons of monasteries, supporters of religious media, and sponsors of newly built churches—all paid for with money they have stolen from the Russian people.

These performative good works are applauded by the security service operatives who control the upper reaches of the Russian Orthodox Church. Purged and brought under complete state control under Stalin, the church has consistently promoted the aims of Soviet and now Russian policies. It is a vocal supporter of Putin’s war against Ukraine.

At the apex of performative piety stands Putin. Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, born Vladimir Gundyayev and believed to be a former security services operative, has lavished praise on Putin for being “truly the first Orthodox president” of Russia. The link between Putin’s proclaimed religiosity and something approaching a divine right to rule Russia has also become part of the new ideological canon—back to the roots, if you will, of Russian Orthodoxy as an imperial church.

“May God help you to continue to carry out the ministry that God himself has entrusted to you,” Kirill said during Putin’s inauguration in May. Given the long-standing collusion between the Kremlin and a compliant church, it is little wonder that religious leaders actively support Putin’s war and encourage Russia’s young to lay down their lives.

To mask the degradation of spiritual and religious life, Russia has built a vast Potemkin village of new churches. Around 30,000 new parishes have been added in the post-Soviet era, averaging nearly three every day since 1991. Given Russians’ negligible interest in religion, they stand largely empty.

Simonyan’s comparison of Putin’s traditionalist, pseudo-Christian posturing with the global appeal of communism is apt in ways that she did not intend. Like communism, whose façade of equality and social justice masked mass repression and the emergence of privileged, all-powerful elite, today’s Russia has little patience for moral and ethical principles. Instead, the Russian state and the Russian Orthodox Church serve the exigencies of a kleptocratic mafia that rules over a deeply damaged, militaristic, and highly unequal society.

Indeed, in time, Russia’s newest state ideology is very likely to become another God That Failed—the title of a landmark 1949 book in which six Western intellectuals broke with communism, declaring that it was just a cover for a new form of dictatorship.

For the moment, none of this matters to the Western populist right, which has blithely ignored the carnage that Putin has inflicted on Ukraine. Nor will Russia’s performative religiosity put those Westerners off; their projection of virtue onto Putin’s Russia has become too important a part of their cynical politics. If your enemy is the West’s liberal and tolerant society, then the enemy of your enemy is your friend.

[velvialifestylesummit]

Tarnished by the hegemonic projection of Trump to displace the major economic pipelines of Russia in Ukraine, the deeply mired war zone is truly the apocalyptic redline of Russia leading to the Skyfall of Moscow once the test zone for hypersonic warheads and SLBM is fully activated to trigger its borderless impacts including political implosion in Moscow. It is the best timing for America to trigger the projected disintegration of Russia through nuke detonation in Eastern Ukraine. It strongly implicates the inseparable relationship between Russia and Ukraine as displayed at the borderless radioactive fallout of Chernobyl meltdown in 1986. It is this unnecessary for Kyiv to deeply attack the locked targets in Russia as this will induce more retaliations from Moscow. The escalating tension of WWIII to be boosted by the melting zone of SLBM with twin detonation each carrying 100 million Celsius degree in Donbas region wll definitely raze the horrendous intrusions of polar bear from Russia. It is the actual war of American falcons versus polar bears of Russia amid the maturity of WWIII in 2024. As projected by Trump Presidency, the American people should be ready for the upcoming outbreak of WWIII before the end of this year.

[newstfionline]

Wednesday, August 21, 2024

Outraged Over Gaza, Protesters Show Left-Wing Divisions as Convention Opens (NYT) As Democrats gathered in Chicago on Monday, eager to project an image of a liberal movement fully united behind Vice President Kamala Harris, thousands of people marched a few blocks away, presenting a thorny counterpoint. For hours, protesters furious over the Biden administration’s support for Israel and its failure to end the war in Gaza held signs, chanted and pushed for Ms. Harris to break with the president on those issues. The loudest challenge to the opening day of the Democratic National Convention was coming not from Republicans, but from the progressive left.

Businesses Are Already Girding for Next Phase of the U.S.-China Trade War (NYT) If not for the trade war between the world’s two largest economies, Easy Signs would now be hiring dozens of workers at its factory in Allentown, Pa. It would be readying plans to build a second plant generating another 100 jobs. Based in Australia, Easy Signs manufactures banners and marketing installations for corporate events, using huge printers to press logos and slogans onto rolls of cloth. Its American business has been growing 70 percent a year. Still, the company is putting off an expansion. Its cloth signs are displayed on aluminum stands made in China. Those products are now subject to a series of tariffs reaching as high as 365 percent under a policy set in motion by former President Donald J. Trump and continued by the Biden administration in the name of protecting American industry from Chinese government subsidies. The costs of imported components could increase further should Mr. Trump win November’s presidential election and follow through on his threat to add a tariff of 60 percent or more on all Chinese goods, and 10 percent to all imports. “That’s definitely a scary concept,” said Andy Fryer, co-founder of Easy Signs. “The whole feasibility goes out the window.”

Not just for kids anymore: Adults turn to lemonade stands as side hustles (Washington Post) There was no ice at Giant. There was no ice at CVS. And Malia Blake was getting anxious. Her new side hustle, intended to help her climb out of debt, was inspired by a woman she saw on TikTok do this to pay for pharmacy school. It depended on four ingredients: ice, water, sweetener and lemons. Lemonade stands used to be only for kids who wanted to make pocket change during their summer breaks. Now people in their 20s and 30s around the country have started squeezing lemons to pay off bills. They set up stands at farmers markets, local festivals and concerts. Proprietors say it’s very profitable, but the business is extremely weather dependent and has gotten highly competitive. Blake, 26, said she has around $40,000 in debt from student loans, credit cards and a car. “The cost of living is kind of high and I have a lot of expenses,” said Blake, who lives in D.C. and works in corporate communications. “I’m constantly looking for ways outside of my 9-to-5 [job] to put towards my debt and my future. Lemons are cheap. I thought I could do this, too.” Blake says she makes $1,000 to $1,500 in sales per event. She sells her lemonade for $8 a cup and offers five flavors: watermelon, mango, strawberry, hibiscus and plain. It takes her about one minute to make a cup.

Phone taps, sabotage and an assassination plot: Is Germany in Cold War 2.0? (BBC) Holes mysteriously found cut in army base fences. An alleged plot to assassinate Germany’s top weapons manufacturer. Phone taps on a high-level Luftwaffe call. These aren’t storylines lifted from a 1960s spy novel but real-life events in Germany, this year. Not all of these events can definitively be blamed on Moscow, but Germany is on heightened alert for possible acts of Russian sabotage, because of Berlin’s continued military support for Kyiv. As a hot war rages between Russia and Ukraine, there are fears that Europe has slipped into a new Cold War. But what does a rekindled Cold War look like for Europe’s biggest economy and a country that was once itself cut in half by the Iron Curtain? The biggest bombshell dropped just last month when CNN reported that US officials had told Berlin of an alleged Russian plot to kill the chief executive of Germany’s biggest arms company Rheinmetall. The 61-year-old is, to use a crude term, a real “somebody”, particularly in a world where Nato countries are spending billions to re-supply Ukraine and boost their own security. Had a plot to kill him been successful, it would have sent shockwaves through the West.

Ukraine Strikes Bridges in Russia, Aiming to Entrap Troops (NYT) Russian troops defending a pocket of territory wedged between a river and the border with Ukraine were at risk of becoming encircled, military analysts said Monday, after Ukraine bombed bridges that are the only routes for resupply or retreat. In their counterattack into Russia, which has been underway now for nearly two weeks, Ukrainian troops quickly broke through thinly manned border defenses, fanned out on highways and captured towns and villages, initially pushing deeper into Russian territory. The bombing of bridges, in contrast, takes aim at land between the Seym River, the border and an area inside Russia already controlled by Ukraine, with the potential to entrap the Russian forces positioned there. Three bridges span this stretch of river, all now destroyed or damaged, according to statements released by the Ukrainian Air Force and to social media posts by Russian officials and military commentators. The potential encirclement of its forces in the area adds another challenge to a Russian Army caught off guard by Ukraine’s startling incursion over the border on Aug. 6.

Azerbaijan raises alarm over Caspian Sea's 'catastrophic' shrinking (Reuters) Things are drying up between Asia and Europe. Really big things. According to the president of Azerbaijan, the Caspian Sea is drying up at a worrying pace. In a meeting held on Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azeri President Ilham Aliyev highlighted the sea’s “catastrophic” shrinkage, citing a decades-long trend of its waters slowly receding and the fact that rocks that were hidden under water just two years ago are now sticking out “a meter above the surface.” The Caspian Sea isn’t really a sea. It’s actually the world’s largest lake, though it is almost as salty as a sea. It’s steadily shrunk since the mid-1990s thanks to a combination of climate change-accelerated evaporation and the diversion of the Volga (Europe’s longest river) for irrigation projects.

Pakistan suffers internet slowdown as government denies setting up a national firewall (AP) People in Pakistan reported much slower internet over the past several days with some experts on Monday estimating its speed falling to less than half its usual capacity at times. The problem has affected millions of users, disrupting businesses and drawing nationwide complaints, while authorities have denied allegations that the installation of a national firewall was behind the slowdown. Since February, users have been either unable to use social media or allowed limited access following a governmental crackdown before the Feb. 8 parliamentary election. However, internet speed has now noticeably slowed down. Users are unable to quickly send emails or use the messaging service WhatsApp, with businesspeople and doctors saying it has negatively affected their daily work, particularly receiving statements and medical reports.

Contingency plans for the Taiwan Strait (Defense News/WP) It has become conventional wisdom among the halls of the United States government that China will launch a full-scale invasion of Taiwan within the next few years. And when that happens, the US military has a relatively straightforward response in mind: Unleash hell. Speaking to The Washington Post on the sidelines of the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ annual Shangri-La Dialogue in June, US Indo-Pacific Command chief Navy Admiral Samuel Paparo colorfully described the US military’s contingency plan for a Chinese invasion of Taiwan as flooding the narrow Taiwan Strait between the two countries with swarms of thousands upon thousands of drones, by land, sea, and air, to delay a Chinese attack enough for the US and its allies to muster additional military assets in the region. “I want to turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape using a number of classified capabilities,” Paparo said, “so that I can make their lives utterly miserable for a month, which buys me the time for the rest of everything.”

UN says a record number of aid workers were killed in 2023 and this year may be even higher (AP) A record number of aid workers were killed in conflicts around the world last year—more than half after the Israel-Hamas war started on Oct. 7—and this year may become even deadlier, the United Nations said Monday. The 280 aid workers from 33 countries killed in 2023 was more than double the previous year’s figure of 118, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs known as OCHA said in a report on World Humanitarian Day. OCHA said this year “may be on track for an even deadlier outcome,” with 172 aid workers killed as of Aug. 7, according to a provisional account from the Aid Worker Security Database. More than 280 aid workers have been killed in the war in Gaza, now in its 11th month, mainly in airstrikes. The majority of them are Palestinians who worked for the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees known as UNRWA, according to OCHA. It said that “extreme levels of violence in Sudan and South Sudan “ also have contributed to the death toll both this year and last.

In Uganda’s chaotic capital, boda-boda motorcycle taxis are a source of life and death (AP) The young men perched on motorcycles looked dazed in the morning heat. But at the sight of a potential passenger, they furiously kick-started their machines and tried to outrace each other for the business. For tens of thousands of men in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, this is how to make a living. For others, the speeding motorcycles embody the city’s chaos as an essential but menacing means of transport. The motorcycle taxis, known locally as boda-bodas, are ubiquitous in East African capitals like Nairobi and Kigali. But nowhere in the region have boda-boda numbers been surging more dramatically than in Kampala, a city of 3 million people, no mass transit system and rampant unemployment. An estimated 350,000 boda-bodas operate in Kampala, driven by men who come from all parts of Uganda and say there are no other jobs for them. The boda-boda men, who operate mostly unregulated, have resisted recent attempts to dislodge them from the narrow streets of Kampala’s central business district, frustrating city authorities and underscoring the government’s fears over the consequences of angering a horde of jobless men.

Nearly half of world’s migrants are Christian, Pew Research shows (Religion News Service) The world’s 280 million immigrants have greater shares of Christians, Muslims and Jews than the general population, according to a new Pew Research Center study released Monday (Aug. 19). “You see migrants coming to places like the U.S., Canada, different places through Western Europe, and being more religious—and sometimes more Christian in particular—than the native-born people in those countries,” said Achsah Callahan, the study’s lead researcher. While Christians make up about 30% of the world’s population, the world’s migrants are 47% Christian, according to the latest data collected in 2020. The study found that Muslims make up 29% of the migrant population but 25% of the world’s population. Jews, only 0.2% of the world’s population but 1% of migrants, are by far the most likely religious group to have migrated, with 20% of Jews worldwide living outside their country of birth compared to just 6% of Christians and 4% of Muslims.

[sa7abnews]

Anyone not supporting Ukraine gets shot – Serbian deputy PM

New Post has been published on https://sa7ab.info/2024/08/16/anyone-not-supporting-ukraine-gets-shot-serbian-deputy-pm/

Anyone not supporting Ukraine gets shot – Serbian deputy PM

An assassin could target President Aleksandar Vucic over Belgrade’s neutrality on Ukraine, his key political ally has claimed

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic is risking his life by refusing to back Western nations on the Ukraine conflict, a senior member of his government has claimed. Serbia, which is traditionally friendly towards Russia, has declined to impose sanctions on Moscow or support the policies of the US and Kiev’s other backers. Brussels, in turn, has insisted that Belgrade’s aspiration to join the EU will not be realized unless it changes course. In an interview with Russia’s RIA Novosti published on Monday, Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vulin said that Serbian authorities are concerned about the president’s safety, following attempts on the lives of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and former US President Donald Trump. “After the attempt on Mr. Fico, and later Trump, I told Vucic to be on guard,” Vulin said, “that’s because something happens to everyone calling for a peaceful resolution on Ukraine, they get shot at.” In May, Fico, a vocal critic of the Western Ukraine policy, survived a shooting by a 71-year-old man. His government blamed incendiary rhetoric by opposition politicians for motivating the shooter.

Read more

Thousands protest lithium mining in Serbia amid coup warning (VIDEO)

Trump, who claims he could end the Ukraine conflict in 24 hours if reelected, was grazed by a bullet during a presidential campaign rally in July. The shooter was killed by a counter-sniper. US investigators have not disclosed any suspected motive for the attempted assassination. Vulin also criticized organizers of a mass protest which took place in Belgrade last Saturday, claiming that its ultimate goal may be to topple the Serbian government. “As we know, [sometimes] ouster [of the national leader] means not only the change of power, but also physical elimination of the person imbued with the power,” the minister said. The demonstration, which attracted some 27,000 protesters, according to government estimates, was staged in opposition to a project to develop lithium mining, which critics claim will cause massive environmental damage. Belgrade granted a license to extract the valuable metal to the British-Australian company Rio Tinto in 2022, but later revoked it following public pressure. The project resumed last month, however, after a Serbian court overruled the government’s decision. President Vucic intends to put the issue to a referendum.

READ MORE: Serbian president says he received coup warning from Russia

Vucic also said last week that the Russian government had warned Serbian authorities that the rally may be a cover for a ‘color revolution’ – a hostile foreign operation that uses anti-government demonstrations and spiraling public disorder to force regime change.

[ramrodd]

How has Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter impacted his engagement in political controversies and spread of false or misleading news stories?

When it comes to poltiics and high finance, Elon Musk is like a teenager who believes he invneted sex.

COMMENTARY:

Well, the first thing he did was to expose the fraud of any claim to being part of a generation of Renaissance Oligarchs when he broke faith, along with FaceBook, with his layoffs to try tp c;asw back his inteperate decision to pruchase Twitter in the first place.

Virtually everything he has done since then indicates to me a con man trying to keep the balls in the air he needs to sustain his scam, pretty much like Trump has done since Bob Dole’s Tax Reform in 1986 putlled the plug on most of the equity in his real estate empire at that time, Like Trump, it looks to me like Musk is running on cash flow, which is why he needs the free money fiscal policies of the Trump bubble to keep moving forward

Musk is an industrial genius by my lights but he isn’t the player in the financial markets he wants to the wrold to believe he is. SpaceX is an important instrument of Reagan’s New Fedralism and Eisenhoser’s 1056 Presidential Platform:

if you replace the Pan Am logo in 2001: A Spce Odyssey with SpaceX, that’s where we would have been 40 years ago if Carter had been re-elected but Project 2025 obstructed it in pretty much the same manner as Moscow Mitch’s tenure as the Senate Leader. Moscow Mitch is a major player in Project 2025, alon with Gym Jordan and the House Freedom Caucus,

Musk is doubling down on Trump and Project 2025,