The US and Western European establishment know how to interfere and influence elections abroad, which is why they fear what's happening now

There's a reason why 2024 has been called the year of the big elections. More than half of the world's population will be called to the ballot boxes, but this time it goes deeper than normal. Voting has always been important, of course, but in calmer - or rather more orderly - times, not every election was considered crucial. Now, on the contrary, consequential elections are routine. Almost every contest is capable of shaking up, if not changing, the course of events. And it's not just about who wins. More important is the sense of legitimacy, and the recognition by citizens that the results themselves are legitimate.

This should be a well-established, self-evident truth. Firstly, it has always been the case, and secondly, political institutions exist to ensure it. The era of rule by force alone is long gone, and even openly authoritarian regimes have to take account of the interests and demands of the population. And entrenched democracies have to find sophisticated ways to maintain stability and continuity in the face of mistrust of procedures.

USSS preparing to brief Congress soon about lessons learned from Trump assassination attempt on July 13

A high-ranking leader within the United States Secret Service (USSS) has been encouraged to retire nearly two months after the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, a source involved at the highest levels of the internal investigation told Fox News.

The official, Assistant Director Michael Plati of the agency's Office of Protective Operations, led the section in control of planning for protection of Trump, President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Sen. JD Vance and others, and is ending his tenure there this Friday, his 27th anniversary at the agency.

The Secret Service responded in a statement Tuesday that Plati "was not asked to resign or retire by anyone. This was a personal decision that he has made and we thank him for his 27 years of dedicated service to the federal government." Still, others involved in the investigation have not disputed the underlying narrative that he was encouraged to resign following the July 13 security failure in Butler that has sent shock waves through all levels of the agency.

Around a dozen Polish soldiers descended on a village in the country's south during a botched airborne exercise on Monday, just days after NATO praised its paratroopers as a "strategic asset."

The 2nd Reconnaissance Regiment based in Hrubieszow was conducting a "scheduled" parachute training exercise when a sudden change in wind speed and direction forced them off course, according to local media reports. As a result, at least 12 personnel landed several hundred meters from their intended target, causing damage to crops and private property in the village of Chechlo, in the province of Lesser Poland Voivodeship.

For years, the US executed Israel's regional destabilization program using phantom terrorists as justification for the 'War on Terror.' But 7 October 2023 killed Washington's never-ending war project - with a flip of the switch, US adversaries have now turned the 'Long War' on Israel.

Colonization ... is the best affair of business in which the capital of an old and wealthy country can engage ... the same rules of international morality do not apply ... between civilized nations and barbarians.

- John Stuart Mill, quoted by Eileen Sullivan in "Liberalism and Imperialism: JS Mill's Defense of the British Empire," Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 44, 1983.

The events of 11 September 2001 were intended to impose and enshrine a new Exceptionalist paradigm on the young 21st century. History, though, ruled otherwise.

Cast as an attack on the US Homeland, 11 September 2001, immediately generated the Global War on Terror (GWOT), launched at 11 pm on the same day. Initially christened "The Long War" by the Pentagon, the term was later sanitized by the administration of Barack Obama as "Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO)."

The US-manufactured War on Terror spent a notoriously un-trackable eight trillion dollars defeating a phantom enemy, killed over half a million people - overwhelmingly Muslims - and branched out into illegal wars against seven Muslim-majority states. All of this was relentlessly justified on "humanitarian grounds" and allegedly supported by the "international community" - before that term, too, was renamed as the "rules-based international order."

Cui Bono? (who stands to gain) remains the paramount question related to all matters related to 11 September 2001. A tight network of fervently Israel-first neocons strategically positioned across the defense and national security establishments by Vice President Dick Cheney - who had served as secretary of defense in the administration of George W Bush's father - sprang into action to impose the long-planned agenda of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). That far-reaching agenda had waited in the wings for the right trigger - a "new Pearl Harbor" - to justify a slew of regime-change operations and wars across much of West Asia and other Muslim states, reshaping global geopolitics for the benefit of Israel.

US General Wesley Clark's notorious revelation of a secret Cheney regime plot to destroy seven major Islamic countries over five years, from Iraq, Syria, and Libya all the way to Iran, showed us that the planning had already been done in advance. These targeted nations had one thing in common: they were resolute enemies of the occupation state and firm supporters of Palestinian rights.

The sweet deal, from Tel Aviv's perspective, was that the War on Terror would have the US and its western allies fighting all these serial Israeli-profiting wars on behalf of "civilization" and against the "barbarians." The Israelis couldn't have been more happy or smug about the direction this was going.

It's no wonder that 7 October 2023 is a mirror image of 11 September 2001. The occupation state itself advertised this as Israel's own "11 September." Parallels abound in more ways than one, but certainly not in the way Israel-firsters and the cabal of extremists leading Tel Aviv expected.

Update (1230ET): Putin says not so fast...

First, here's a UK Times report within the last hour:

Britain and the United States are on the verge of allowing Ukraine to use long-range missiles against targets in Russia after accusing President Putin of "escalating" the conflict by accepting ballistic missiles from Iran.

David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, and Anthony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, said they would return to their respective countries to inform their leaders of the "operational details" surrounding Ukraine's use of weapons such as Storm Shadow missiles after meeting President Zelensky in Kyiv.

Blinken promised to work quickly on Ukraine's requests to ease the restrictions, saying he would take what he had learnt "back to President Biden."

— Putin escalating conflict, say western allies as missile approval moves closer

President Putin is currently speaking at the St. Petersburg International United Cultures Forum, which addresses current events related to Russia. He issued the following red line while speaking to a reporter on the sidelines of the conference Thursday:

Long-range arms for Kyiv would mean 'NATO countries at war with Russia'

The top US diplomat has repeated Washington's talking points while visiting Kiev.

Washington wants to see Kiev win the conflict against Moscow and join NATO, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said.

Blinken is visiting Kiev with his British counterpart, David Lammy, to reiterate Anglo-American support for Vladimir Zelensky's government.

"At the July summit, we declared that Ukraine's path to NATO membership is irreversible," Blinken said on Wednesday, reminding his hosts: "The US-led bloc has "established a command dedicated to support Ukraine's membership."

Blinken has made the case for Kiev's membership in NATO before. However, the bloc has officially declared, both in Washington this summer and last year in Lithuania, that this could only happen "when allies agree and conditions are met." Hungary and Slovakia have already said they will not agree under any circumstances, as bringing Ukraine into NATO would mean war with Russia.

The Harris-Walz campaign has been vibe-a-licious and content-free; its positions on domestic and foreign policy have (with apologies to Hollywood) essentially consisted of open defiance of any presidential campaign norms:

"Policy? We ain't got no policy. We don't need no policy. We don't have to show you any stinkin' policy."

But the campaign's policy on policy changed, sort of, the day before the debate, when it went ahead and posted some stinkin' policy anyway.

In a word, Harris' policy dump should be seen for what it is: Kamaflage. She uses words that score well with Republicans and moderates, but inverts the meaning of those words, creating an unintelligible stinkin' mess.

"Kamala Harris will create an Opportunity Economy where everyone has a chance to compete and a chance to succeed - whether they live in a rural area, small town, or big city."

Really? How is she going to do that?

"The world is a dangerous place to live — not because of the people who are evil but because of the people who don't do anything about it." — Albert Einstein

When The New York Times tells you that the United States Constitution is a threat to democracy — As it did on the front page of its August 31 edition — you know that you are in thrall to exceedingly subtle minds. The Times only employs persons, both birthing and other, of the subtlest minds. You can tell because they are credentialed by our country's finest institutions of educational credentialing.

They come to The Times fully equipped with the armamentarium of advanced, progressive, innovative, nuanced, cutting-edge modes of understanding our world — which, you'll agree, is a pretty goshdurned complex place, and rather niggardly in yielding its secret workings. Hence, The Times has concluded that the Constitution is flawed, perhaps fatally, because it allowed for the election of Donald Trump once, and now, possibly, a second time:

"It's no surprise, then, that liberals charge Trump with being a menace to the Constitution. But his presidency and the prospect of his re-election have also generated another, very different, argument: that Trump owes his political ascent to the Constitution, making him a beneficiary of a document that is essentially antidemocratic and, in this day and age, increasingly dysfunctional."

Foreigners are treated as second-class citizens in the Ukrainian Army, they said in an exclusive interview.

RT has conducted an interview with two Colombian nationals arrested in Russia on charges of mercenary activity, having fought for Kiev in its ongoing conflict with Moscow. Alexander Ante, 47, and Jose Aron Medina Aranda, 36, are currently in pre-trial detention pending a court hearing on their cases.

In the exclusive interview the men, explained their reasons for joining the Ukrainian military and talked about their experience of serving with Kiev's troops.

According to Ante and Aranda, most foreigners are lured into the Ukrainian military ranks with promises of large payments supposedly amounting to some $3,000 per month, or "fall victim" to Western propaganda.

"Many [people] fall prey to the propaganda," Aranda told RT, adding that Western media outlets portray the Russians as "murderers," and people "go to war to protect Ukrainians."

Amandine Roy and Natacha Rey will have to pay €8,000 in damages to France's first lady and €5,000 to her brother Jean-Michel Trogneux.

Two women who spread a rumor online that French First Lady Brigitte Macron was a transgender woman were ordered two women to pay damages on Thursday, September 12, by the Paris Criminal Court for defamation.


They received a suspended fine of €500 and were ordered to pay a total of €8,000 in damages to the wife of the French president and €5,000 to her brother Jean-Michel Trogneux, both plaintiffs at the trial held last June. Macron, who was absent from the trial, was not present for the decision either.


The two women spear a theory that has resurfaced regularly on social media since the election of Emmanuel Macron in 2017, according to which Brigitte Macron, née Trogneux, never existed, but that her brother Jean-Michel took on this identity after undergoing a sex change.


The claim went viral just weeks before the 2022 presidential election. Posts spread on social media claiming that the first lady, formerly Brigitte Trogneux, had never existed and that her brother Jean-Michel had changed gender and assumed that identity.