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SOTT Focus: NewsReal: Exceptionalist Overdrive: US Scorns Russia-China Alliance, Touts US Leadership


Sott.net
Sun, 26 Mar 2023 20:23 UTC
tiktok jinping putin newsreal
© Sott.net
US Congress members made a complete ar$e of themselves last week when grilling TikTok's CEO about his 'Chinese Communist Party ties' and his social media platform's 'malign influence on American children', paving the way - they hope - for the dehumanization the Chinese people in Americans' eyes, a prelude to some form of crazy 'war' against the world's most populous country.

Meanwhile, in the real world, the historic summit between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping inspired much fear and loathing from Washington's permanent bureaucracy - albeit disguised in weasel words and 'exceptionalist' dogma about 'the unbeatable power of US leadership'. The signs, however, are clear: the US is no longer the country most others look to - for anything...


Running Time: 01:32:22

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Airplane

Phillip Washington, Biden's pick to head FAA, withdraws name from nomination

Patrick Reilly
New York Post
Sat, 25 Mar 2023 16:35 UTC
phillip washington faa
© CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty ImagesPhillip Washington, Biden's nominee for the head of the Federal Aviation Administration
Washington pulled his name due to "an onslaught of unfounded Republican attacks" on his experience according to a White House official

President Joe Biden's pick to lead the Federal Aviation Administration is withdrawing his name from the nomination weeks after he was grilled by Republican lawmakers for not being qualified to head the agency, according to reports.

Phillip Washington, decided to pull his name from consideration due to "an onslaught of unfounded Republican attacks" on his service and experience, a White House official told CNN on Saturday.

Comment: Thank heavens this completely unqualified person will not be any where near an airport, other than as a passenger. Why Biden put forward such a ill-suited candidate other than the compulsive need to virtue-signal to his ever-shrinking base with 'diversity hires'?

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Yoda

Valdai director: The West's standoff with Russia and China is a big opportunity for the world's second-tier powers

Timofey Bordachev
RT
Thu, 23 Mar 2023 18:51 UTC
xi jinping africa china leaders
© XinhuaChinese President Xi Jinping chairs a China-Africa leaders' meeting in Osaka, Japan, June 28, 2019.
With the US distracted by its attempts to "contain" Moscow and Beijing, other players have a window of freedom

We can argue all we like about how the new international order will look but one thing is clear: it will not resemble any previous incarnation. History does not tend to repeat itself, which always means that recourse to historical analogies remains a sign of intellectual unpreparedness for contemporary events.

It's the same today - any attempt to find a firm basis for comparison between the past and the processes and phenomena of international life that we currently observe is inevitably confronted with convincing arguments as to why this or that analogy is not appropriate. It was even difficult in the past, when the main issue was the changing power capabilities of a relatively small group of states. It is all the more impossible to find examples now, in a completely changed international context. And it is very likely that paying attention to the context will help us to better visualize the contours of the order that will emerge in a few years, if not over decades.
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Yoda

Kremlin spokeswoman Maria Zakharova exposes CNN 'reporter' as propagandist CNN would fire if he weren't

Eric Zeusse
The Duran
Sat, 25 Mar 2023 18:44 UTC
Maria Zakharova Frederik Pleitgen Cnn
CNN hack Frederik Pleitgen attempts to spar with Kremlin spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, March 24, 2023
This CNN reporter, Frederik Pleitgen, at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, on 16 June 2022, challenged Russia's press spokesperson Maria Zakharova, by saying that "This is a rules-based forum for the whole world," referring there to the U.S. regime's self-created "rules" instead of to existing international laws, but then he abruptly switched to alleging that Russia's invasion of Ukraine "is a violation of international law." She documented that it is not.

In the process, and in response to Pleitgen's follow-ups, Pleitgen displayed not only ignorance of the history that had led up to and produced this invasion, but he rejected the very idea that the history that had left Russia no realistic alternative to invading after, on 7 January 2022, both the United States and NATO said, in response to Russia's 17 December 2022 formal presentation of their base-line essential national-security demands, which included a promise that Ukraine not be allowed into NATO, not only no, but that they refused even to negotiate about those demands.
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Rocket

Why hypersonic missiles DO actually matter

Scottie
ScottiesTech.Info
Tue, 21 Mar 2023 12:39 UTC
Game Over missile launch
I recently had the misfortune to read an article on CNN entitled: What to know about hypersonic missiles fired by Russia at Ukraine

I say "misfortune" because clearly, the individual who wrote it was trying very hard to downplay the significance of hypersonic weapons in the hands of the USA's declared adversary - aka Russia.

The above-mentioned article is actually an extended version of a shorter one at CNN published just a day earlier. That earlier article (now missing) was even worse - for both its purely propagandistic nature, as well as the author's breathtaking display of simple ignorance regarding the subject matter of his article.

But, whatever. So let's take a look at hypersonic missiles...
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Eye 1

Why Manhattan DA's hush money case against Trump doesn't look sexy anymore

Ekaterina Blinova
Sputnik
Sun, 26 Mar 2023 06:01 UTC
Donald Trump MAGA
© AP Photo / Matt Freed
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's "hush money" case against Donald Trump is bursting at the seams, with US legal experts ridiculing the DA's effort to put the former president behind bars, and some Democratic lawmakers warning against using the US court system as a pawn in a political game.

Last Saturday, former President Donald Trump signaled that he could be arrested on March 21 in connection with an ongoing investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg concerning Trump's alleged 2016 payment of $130,000 in hush money to adult movie star Stormy Daniels.

Trump's announcement triggered a lively debate, with US conservatives lambasting Bragg for pushing what they called a heavily politicized case.

The potential indictment, mentioned by Trump, should have followed a series of testimonies by former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, a disbarred lawyer and convicted felon who turned against his former client.

While many saw Cohen as Bragg's future "star witness" in a possible trial against Donald Trump, Cohen's former legal adviser Robert Costello came forward on March 20 to testify before the Manhattan grand jury with more than 300 emails contradicting his former client's statements. In addition, another letter on behalf of Cohen to the Federal Election Commission was unveiled shredding Cohen's claims.

Comment: See also:

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Quenelle - Golden

Putin says Russia will station tactical nukes in Belarus

Dan Sabbagh
The Guardian
Sat, 25 Mar 2023 22:58 UTC
Putin Lukashenko
© SPUTNIK/ReutersFILE PHOTO: Russian president Vladimir Putin with Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko in Moscow in February. Minsk and Moscow "will stop at nothing" to protect their people, Alexander Lukashenko has said .
Russia has reached an agreement with Belarus to station tactical nuclear weapons on its smaller neighbour's territory, so bringing some of its arsenal closer to the rest of Europe, Vladimir Putin has said.

The Russian president made the announcement on state television, arguing that it would not breach non-proliferation agreements and that it would match similar arrangements that the US has with several of its European allies.

Putin said he was acting after negotiations with Belarus's president, Alexander Lukashenko, who he said had "long raised the question" of a nuclear deployment on his country's territory.

Comment:





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Pirates

Poland's PM boasts about €900 million payment for shipping arms to Ukraine


Top War
Sat, 25 Mar 2023 23:00 UTC
Mateusz Morawiecki
FILE PHOTO: Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki
The European Union will thank Poland for the supply of weapons to the Kyiv regime. This was stated by Prime Minister of Poland Mateusz Morawiecki, speaking to reporters following the results of the EU summit in Brussels.

Morawiecki noted that Warsaw is waiting for "very good compensation" for playing one of the leading roles in supplying Ukraine with a variety of weapons and military equipment. Earlier, the Polish leadership proudly stated that Poland is in second place after the United States in the list of countries providing military assistance to Ukraine.

Comment: This isn't helping dispel the suspicion that some of Poland's representatives intend to become even more involved in the proxy war: Poland's French embassy says they could 'enter conflict' in Ukraine against Russia

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Arrow Down

Biden irked by Kamala Harris not 'rising to occasion' or taking 'anything off his plate'

Steven Nelson
New York Post
Thu, 23 Mar 2023 06:51 UTC
KamJoe
© Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesUS President Joe Biden • Vice President Kamala Harris
Two former White House officials said President Biden is frustrated with Vice President Kamala Harris' performance — even if he remains committed to keeping her as his running mate in the 2024 election, a new report reveals.

The 80-year-old Biden, who has gone out of his way to praise Harris in recent public remarks, reportedly has griped about his No. 2's reluctance to take on risky assignments.

One former White House official told Reuters:
"A point of tension in their relationship is that I don't think that the president sees her as somebody who takes anything off of his plate" due to a "fear of messing up. If he did not think she was capable, he would not have picked her. But it is a question of consistently rising to the occasion. I think his running for re-election is less about her and more about him, but I do think that she and the Democratic bench [are] a factor."
Another former White House official told the wire service that Biden, already the oldest-ever president, intends to seek a second term in part because he's concerned that Harris may not be able to beat former President Donald Trump, who is seeking the GOP nomination.
BidHar
© AP/Alex BrandonPresident Biden • VP Harris
Former official: Biden doesn't believe Harris is 'rising to the occasion'

Comment: The 'low' and 'lower' hanging fruit.

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Chart Pie

Where the $1.3 trillion per year U.S. Military budget goes

Eric Zuesse
The Duran
Fri, 24 Mar 2023 00:00 UTC
pentagon
© defense.gov
Nobody can give a precise dollar-number to U.S. 'Defense' spending because the U.S. 'Defense' Department has never been able to pass an audit, and is by far the most corrupt of all federal Departments (and is the ONLY Department that has never passed an audit), and also because much of America's military spending is being paid out from other federal Departments in order to keep down the published annual U.S. Government 'Defense' expenditure numbers (which come from ONLY the U.S. 'Defense' Department). Those are expenditures for America's privatized and overwhelmingly profit-driven Military-Industrial Complex. (By contrast: Russia and China require, by law, that their armaments-firms be majority-owned by the Government itself.)

According to the best available estimates, the U.S. Government has been spending, in total, for over a decade now, around $1.3T to $1.5T annually on 'defense', and this is around half of all military spending worldwide by all 200-or-so nations, and is more than half (around 53%) of all of the U.S. federal Government's 'discretionary' (or congressionally voted for) annual expenditures.
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