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Eye 1

John Bolton says the quiet part out loud: Says he helped plan attempted foreign coups

Noah Carl
The Daily Sceptic
Wed, 13 Jul 2022 14:36 UTC
john bolton
John Bolton is a veteran U.S. diplomat and foreign policy hawk. As the man's Wikipedia page notes, he is "an advocate for military action and regime change by the US in Iran, Syria, Libya, Venezuela, Cuba, Yemen, and North Korea". So you could say he wants America to 'have a role in the world'.

Bolton served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006, and as National Security Advisor to President Trump from 2018 to 2019. But he spends most of his time writing op-eds calling for the U.S. to bomb various countries, or to topple their governments.

While Bolton is known for his provocative statements (such as when he openly called for "regime change" in Iran), yesterday he really said the quiet part out loud.

Comment: More from The Epoch Times:
Speaking to CNN, Bolton insisted that Trump could not have pulled off a "carefully planned coup d'etat aimed at the Constitution" because "that's not the way Donald Trump does things."

"It's not an attack on our democracy," Bolton said. "It's Donald Trump looking out for Donald Trump. It's a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence."

CNN host Jake Tapper responded, "I don't know that I agree with you, to be fair, with all due respect" adding that "one doesn't have to be brilliant to attempt a coup."

However, Bolton said he disagreed with this statement before referencing his own alleged experience helping to plan a coup.

...

"As somebody who has helped plan coups d'etat — not here but, you know, [in] other places — it takes a lot of work. And that's not what he [Trump] did," Bolton continued. "It was just stumbling around from one idea to another. Ultimately, he did unleash the rioters at the Capitol. As to that, there is no doubt. But not to overthrow the Constitution to buy more time to throw the matter back to the states to try to redo the issue."

"And if you don't believe that, then you're going to overreact, and I think that's a real risk for the committee, which has done a lot of good work mostly when the witnesses are testifying, not when the members are opining," he added. "It is invariably the case when you go too far trying to prove your case, you undermine it."

When pressed to provide further details regarding his alleged help with coups, Bolton declined to provide more information, stating that he was "not going to get into the specifics" before going on to mention Venezuela.

...

"[Venezuela] turned out not to be successful," Bolton said. "Not that we had all that much to do with it but I saw what it took for an opposition to try and overturn an illegally elected president and they failed."

"The notion that Donald Trump was half as confident as the Venezuelan opposition is laughable," he added, to which Tapper responded, "I feel like there's other stuff you're not telling me."

"I'm sure there is," Bolton replied while again declining to give further details.


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Arrow Up

Russia and China haven't even started to ratchet up the pain dial

Pepe Escobar
Strategic Culture
Wed, 13 Jul 2022 06:13 UTC
Lavrov
© REUTERS/POOL New
The Suicide Spectacular Summer Show, currently on screen across Europe, proceeds in full regalia, much to the astonishment of virtually the whole Global South: a trashy, woke Gotterdammerung remake, with Wagnerian grandeur replaced by twerking.

Decadent Roman Emperors at least exhibited some degree of pathos. Here we're just faced by a toxic mix of hubris, abhorring mediocrity, delusion, crude ideological sheep-think and outright irrationality wallowing in white man's burden racist/supremacist slush - all symptoms of a profound sickness of the soul.

To call it the Biden-Leyen-Blinken West or so would be too reductionist: after all these are puny politico/functionaries merely parroting orders. This is a historical process: physical, psychic and moral cognitive degeneration embedded in NATOstan's manifest desperation in trying to contain Eurasia, allowing occasional tragicomic sketches such as a NATO summit proclaiming Woke War against virtually the whole non-West.

So when President Putin addresses the collective West in front of Duma leaders and heads of political parties, it does feel like a comet striking an inert planet. It's not even a case of "lost in translation". "They" simply aren't equipped to get it.

The "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet" part was at least formulated to be understood even by simpletons:
Today we hear that they want to defeat us on the battlefield, well, what can I say, let them try. We have heard many times that the West wants to fight us to the last Ukrainian - this is a tragedy for the Ukrainian people. But it looks like it's all coming to this. But everyone should know that, by and large, we haven't really started anything yet.
Fact. On Operation Z, Russia is using a fraction of its military potential, resources and state of the art weapons.

Then we come to the most probable path ahead in the war theater:
We do not refuse peace negotiations, but those who refuse should know that the longer it drags, the more difficult it will be for them to negotiate with us.
As in the pain dial will be ratcheted up, slowly but surely, on all fronts.

Yet the meat of the matter had been delivered earlier in the speech: "ratcheting up the pain dial" applies in fact to dismantling the whole "rules-based international order" edifice. The geopolitical world has changed. Forever.

Here's the arguably key passage:
They should have understood that they have already lost from the very beginning of our special military operation, because its beginning means the beginning of a radical breakdown of the World Order in the American way. This is the beginning of the transition from liberal-globalist American egocentrism to a truly multipolar world - a world based not on selfish rules invented by someone for themselves, behind which there is nothing but the desire for hegemony, not on hypocritical double-standards, but on international law, on the true sovereignty of peoples and civilizations, on their will to live their historical destiny, their values and traditions and build cooperation on the basis of democracy, justice and equality. And we must understand that this process can no longer be stopped.
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Eagle

NATO — The most dangerous military alliance on the planet

Chris Hedges
Mint Press News
Tue, 12 Jul 2022 00:00 UTC
NATO
© illustration by Mr. Fish
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the arms industry that depends on it for billions in profits, has become the most aggressive and dangerous military alliance on the planet. Created in 1949 to thwart Soviet expansion into Eastern and Central Europe, it has evolved into a global war machine in Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and Asia.

NATO expanded its footprint, violating promises to Moscow, once the Cold War ended, to incorporate 14 countries in Eastern and Central Europe into the alliance. It will soon add Finland and Sweden. It bombed Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo. It launched wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, resulting in close to a million deaths and some 38 million people driven from their homes. It is building a military footprint in Africa and Asia. It invited Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea, the so-called "Asia Pacific Four," to its recent summit in Madrid at the end of June. It has expanded its reach into the Southern Hemisphere, signing a military training partnership agreement with Colombia, in December 2021. It has backed Turkey, with NATO's second largest military, which has illegally invaded and occupied parts of Syria as well as Iraq. Turkish-backed militias are engaged in the ethnic cleansing of Syrian Kurds and other inhabitants of north and east Syria.

The Turkish military has been accused of war crimes - including multiple airstrikes against a refugee camp and chemical weapons use - in northern Iraq. In exchange for President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's permission for Finland and Sweden to join the alliance, the two Nordic countries have agreed to expand their domestic terror laws making it easier to crack down on Kurdish and other activists, lift their restrictions on selling arms to Turkey and deny support to the Kurdish-led movement for democratic autonomy in Syria.
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Mr. Potato

US warns China it will defend Philippines if sea ruling breached, despite US not ratifying ruling in question and China calling it a sham


Yahoo
Wed, 13 Jul 2022 23:30 UTC
Philippines protest china
© AP Photo/Aaron FavilaProtesters hold slogans to mark the 6th anniversary of the issuance of the 2016 decision by an arbitration tribunal set up under the U.N. Convention of the Law of the Sea after the Philippines complained against China's increasingly aggressive actions in the disputed sea during a rally outside the Chinese consulate in Makati, Philippines, Tuesday, July 12, 2022. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken renewed a call to China to comply with a 2016 arbitration ruling that invalidated Beijing's vast claims in the South China Sea and warned that Washington is obligated to defend treaty ally Philippines if its armed forces, public vessels or aircraft come under attack in the disputed waters.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on China to comply with a 2016 arbitration ruling that invalidated Beijing's vast territorial claims in the South China Sea and warned that Washington is obligated to defend treaty ally Philippines if its forces, vessels or aircraft come under attack in the disputed waters.

Blinken's statement, issued by the U.S. Embassy in Manila on Tuesday, was released on the sixth anniversary of the 2016 decision by an arbitration tribunal set up in The Hague under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea after the Philippine government complained in 2013 about China's increasingly aggressive actions in the disputed waters.

China did not participate in the arbitration, rejected its ruling as a sham and continues to defy it, bringing it into territorial spats with the Philippines and other Southeast Asian claimant states in recent years.
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Popcorn

EU orders Lithuania to allow some sanctioned Russian through to Kaliningrad, but no military items


Al Jazeera
Wed, 13 Jul 2022 23:30 UTC
kaliningrad train
© Mindaugas Kulbis/AP PhotoKaliningrad
The European Union executive has said that sanctioned Russian goods could transit through the bloc's territory by rail, after tensions between Moscow and EU member Lithuania escalated over trade with Russia's Kaliningrad exclave.

Russia threatened reprisals against the Baltic nation after Vilnius imposed strict restrictions last month on goods travelling across its territory, mainly by rail, arguing it was simply applying EU sanctions.

Moscow demanded that Lithuania immediately lift the restrictions and said it had brought its grievances to European authorities.
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Quenelle - Golden

Whilst Canada withholds turbine, Gazprom cannot guarantee functioning of Nord Stream pipeline


Deutsche Welle
Wed, 13 Jul 2022 23:31 UTC
Nord Stream
The Nord Stream pipeline was shut for repairs but questions in Germany linger on if and when the taps will be turned back on again
The Russian energy giant said it did not know if a turbine engine would be returned from Canada. Moscow announced earlier that the pipeline, which runs from Russia to Germany, was shut down for repairs.

The Nord Stream pipeline was shut for repairs but questions in Germany linger on if and when the taps will be turned back on again

Gazprom, Russia's energy giant, said Wednesday that the functioning of Nord Stream could not be guaranteed even when a "critical" turbine for the pipeline returns from Canada where it is being repaired.

In a statement, the Russian state energy company said, "Gazprom does not have a single document to allow Siemens to take out of Canada the gas turbine engine currently being repaired there."
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Better Earth

Global inflation and China's measures to stabilize her economy

Peter Koenig
Dissident Voice
Mon, 11 Jul 2022 00:00 UTC
Map/Money
© Medium/China Business Review/iStockChina - Shifting the World Economy
Under normal circumstances inflation occurs when too many monetary units (US-dollars, Euros, Chinese Yuan) chase too few goods. But we are not living in normal times. To the contrary. We are living in an increasingly divided world, not only in political terms - West vs. East / Global North vs. Global South - but also in monetary terms.

The gradual but ever faster faltering of the US-dollar hegemony, followed by related so-called hard currencies, like the Euro, the British Pound, the Japanese Yen, as well as the Australian and Canadian dollars - is giving eastern currencies, especially the Chinese Yuan and to some extent also the Russian Ruble a thrive towards stability.

Why is that? For a number of reasons. First, the Chinese Yuan and the Russian Ruble, as well as many other eastern currencies, are backed by their economies and in both cases also by gold. For that reason alone, they have an inherent stability that western fiat currencies - which are based on nothing - do not have.

A new and coming eastern currency stability mechanism may soon be a basket of some twenty commodities that are widely and universally used, in addition to the strength of the local economy.

This idea is not new, but has recently been reintroduced by Russia's Sergei Glazyev. As of 2021, he is the Commissioner for Integration and Macroeconomics within the Eurasian Economic Commission, the executive body of the Eurasian Economic Union. Sergei Glazyev is also President Putin's economic advisor.

Comment: The new financial dawn bodes a very rude awakening for the West.

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USA

Beggaring Europe: Switching cheap Russian gas for expensive American LNG

Daoud Baalbaki
The Cradle
Fri, 15 Jul 2022 00:01 UTC
Uncle Sam and LNG
© The CradleOnly one beneficiary of Europe cutting Russian gas...The United States
Europe's dependency on Russian natural gas has been a contentious issue for European Union (EU) policy makers for decades. Dozens of policies have been proposed over the years to diversify the continent's gas supply, or to switch to green energy sources in order to minimize reliance on Russian gas.

There are only two ways to transport natural gas - via pipelines, or by liquifying the gas, transporting it as cargo, then re-gasifying it at the destination. Both processes require time and considerable infrastructure investment.

Pipelines: In 2021, Russian natural gas accounted for about 46 percent of the EU's total natural gas imports with an amount of 155 bcm (billion cubic meters). Figure 1 shows that Russian pipelines provided about 41 percent (about 139 bcm) of these gas imports to the EU over the same period.

Norway is Europe's second-biggest natural gas supplier, followed by pipelines from North Africa and Azerbaijan.
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Arrow Up

Iran in South Caucasus: Turning losses into wins

Yeghia Tashjian
The Cradle
Mon, 11 Jul 2022 00:00 UTC
Aliyev and Raisi
© The CradleAzerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev • Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi
At the end of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war - which Azerbaijan won with Turkish support and Russian diplomacy - Iran was widely seen by analysts as the conflict's biggest loser, in terms of its regional strategic interests.

Without wasting much time, however, Tehran flipped those fortunes by very proactively engaging its soft power in the South Caucasus to advance its geo-economic interests. This is arguably due to Iran's concerns over Turkish-Azerbaijani expansionist designs in the region.

In the main, Iran has sought to revitalize its relations with Azerbaijan to mitigate Turkey's push for control over the Zangezur Corridor, a strategic transportation route bypassing Armenian territory close to the Iranian border.

The corridor's opening is said to be dependent upon the development of a comprehensive Armenian-Azerbaijani agreement. In this regard, Tehran is engaging with both countries simultaneously, and in doing so has helped reduce Baku's political pressure on Yerevan.
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Attention

Developing: What you need to know about the FBI Jan 6 Proud Boys informant leak...


Revolver
Tue, 12 Jul 2022 00:00 UTC
ProudBoys
© Erin Schaff/The New York TimesPROUD BOYS Robert Gieswein, military garb and Dominic Pezzola, center right, gray beard
Gateway Pundit recently published a leaked government document containing sensitive information in relation to an FBI confidential human source who had infiltrated the Proud Boys and who was present for the entire January 6 "riot," all the while communicating contemporaneously with his FBI handlers.

This is a developing story and Revolver will do an extensive follow-up in the coming weeks.

For now, here are a couple things to note:

While Revolver has not been able to verify the Gateway Pundit report in its entirety, we have been able to confirm the authenticity of the government documents.

Furthermore, we can add the following scoop: The Proud Boys Confidential Human Source (informant) referred to in the government documents leaked on Gateway Pundit is the very same Proud Boys informant referred to in a New York Times piece published September of last year.

The leaked documents corroborate the New York Times' coverage that the informant "maintained the group did not plan in advance to enter the Capitol and disrupt the election."

Comment: Gateway Pundit article mentioned above:

- FBI confidential human source INFILTRATED Proud Boys, ran FBI operation on J-6, reported PBs were INNOCENT

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