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'Epidemic' label and disdain for Constitution: Biden's gun crusade isn't about safety - it's a power grab

Nebojsa Malic
RT
Fri, 09 Apr 2021 21:05 UTC
black gun owners second amendment oklahoma
© REUTERS/Lawrence Bryant
Black gun owners take part in a rally in support of the Second Amendment in Oklahoma City, June 20, 2020.
The Democrats' obsession with seizing Americans' guns while tolerating violent crime in the name of "equity" should have made it clear that safety wasn't their driving consideration. President Joe Biden just made it obvious.

In announcing a series of "commonsense" [sic] executive measures, and the nomination of a former ATF agent turned gun-grabbing activist on Thursday, the White House said they were meant to address a "gun violence public health epidemic." This comes after a year of unprecedented government infringement on civil rights in the name of public health in the form of coronavirus lockdowns and restrictions.

Of course, Democrat governors and public officials were exempt from those, as were people celebrating the Biden-Harris election, or rioting in the name of fighting another "public health epidemic," racism.

Comment: Fortunately that 'founding amendment' is deeply embedded in the American psyche. Woe betide the delusional denisons of the Beltway, should they actually try to alter or eliminate it..

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Attention

Kim compares North Korea's economic woes to 1990s famine


Independent, UK
Thu, 08 Apr 2021 20:54 UTC
kim jong un
© KCNA via KNS
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has called for waging another "arduous march" to fight severe economic difficulties, for the first time comparing them to a 1990s famine that killed hundreds of thousands.

Kim had previously said his country faces the "worst-ever" situation due to several factors, including the coronavirus pandemic, U.S.-led sanctions and natural disasters last summer. But it's the first time he publicly drew parallel with the deadly famine.

North Korea monitoring groups haven't detected any signs of mass starvation or a humanitarian disaster. But Kim's comments still suggest how seriously he views the current difficulties — which foreign observers say are the biggest test of his nine-year rule.

"There are many obstacles and difficulties ahead of us, and so our struggle for carrying out the decisions of the Eighth Party Congress would not be all plain sailing," Kim told lower-level ruling party members on Thursday, according to the Korean Central News Agency.

"I made up my mind to ask the WPK (Workers' Party of Korea) organizations at all levels, including its Central Committee and the cell secretaries of the entire party, to wage another more difficult 'arduous march' in order to relieve our people of the difficulty, even a little," Kim said.

Comment: For his earlier speech at the party congress, see: See also:

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Light Saber

The Deep State just made its 'declaration of war' against MAGA official


Revolver
Thu, 08 Apr 2021 00:00 UTC
Chertoff/Hayden/Clapper
© Unknown
Michael Chertoff • Michael V. Hayden • James Clapper
The Deep State just sent a declaration of war to American Patriots. This time, at least, they had the courtesy to all sign it.

On Wednesday afternoon, a collection of more than one hundred former government officials published an open letter to Congress demanding an "independent and bipartisan national commission" to "investigate" the January 6 disturbance at the U.S. Capitol.
Dear Members of Congress,

We are former senior national security, military, and elected officials who have represented or served Democrats, Republicans, or administrations of both parties. We write to encourage this Congress to establish an independent and bipartisan national commission to investigate the January 6th assault of the U.S. Capitol Complex and its direct causes, and to make recommendations to prevent future assaults and strengthen the resilience of our democratic institutions.

We also write to you with great urgency in light of what we collectively see as an exigent and growing threat. The events of January 6th exposed severe vulnerabilities in the nation's preparedness for preventing and responding to domestic terrorist attacks. The immediate security failings that permitted a lethal breach of the Capitol Complex by armed extremists raise serious questions and demand immediate solutions.

But January 6th was also the result of complex national security threats. These include coordinated disinformation campaigns, nontransparent financing of extremist networks, potential foreign influences, and white supremacist violent extremism, which the Department of Homeland Security identified in an October 2020 report as among "the most persistent and lethal threat[s] in the Homeland." As FBI Director Christopher Wray testified to you recently, "January 6th was not an isolated event. The problem of domestic terrorism has been metastasizing across the country for a long time now and it's not going away anytime soon." Understanding how these forces culminated in an attack on the infrastructure of our democracy is critical to preventing future attacks. [letter continues below]
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Stormtrooper

Why does Ukraine want war?

Andrew Korybko
OneWorld
Thu, 08 Apr 2021 00:00 UTC
tattered flag and tank
© Unknown
Metaphor: Tattered Flag, Hidden Tank
The whole world is watching with bated breath to see whether Ukraine and Russia will go to war over Donbass like many fear might be about to happen due to recent events. I asked earlier this week whether "Vaccines Are The Real Driving Force Behind The Latest Donbass Destabilization", pointing out the grand strategic interest that the US has in provoking a crisis that would put unprecedented political pressure on the EU to not buy Russia's Sputnik V like the bloc's top members are reportedly considering at the moment, but there's more to it than just that at the comparatively lower strategic levels.

Ukraine wants war with Russia due to a combination of domestic and international factors, including its ruling elite's desire to distract from a slew of domestic crises. These include its efforts to stamp out the increasingly popular opposition through a series of witch hunts, attract emergency Western financial aid to facilitate their struggling economy's recovery, and perhaps become important enough to the West that they can finally receive much-needed vaccines for their population that they've hitherto been denied for inexplicable reasons. Moreover, the powerful influence of ultra-nationalist (fascist) militias can't be discounted either.

On the foreign front, the US certainly never tires of causing trouble for Russia however and wherever it can. In the present context, any "continuation war" in Donbass could in theory impose unexpected financial costs on the country, among other potential consequences like serving as a pretext for more sanctions against it. Broadly speaking, the US might also hope that it can manipulate the optics of the conflict that it's arguably trying to provoke in order to pressure Germany to pull out of its agreement to finish the Nord Stream II pipeline, however far-fetched that outcome might be in reality.

Comment: Given his historical arc with Ukraine - should the situation escalate to conflict - it will truly be Biden's War.

See also:

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Stock Down

Deflationary gap and the West's war addiction

Alex Krainer
Zero Hedge
Wed, 07 Apr 2021 04:51 UTC
2 guys fighting
© Granger - Historical Picture Archive
In June of 2014, a group of American researchers published an article in the American Journal of Public Health, pointing out that:
"Since the end of World War II, there have been 248 armed conflicts in 153 locations around the world. The United States launched 201 overseas military operations between the end of World War II and 2001, and since then, others, including Afghanistan and Iraq."
To be sure, each of these wars was duly explained and justified to the American public and for all those Americans who believe that their government would never deceive them, each war was defensible and fought for a good reason.

Today we're being fed justifications for escalating hostilities against Russia, China and Iran: they're bad actors, they defy our 'rules-based' global utopia, they have a bad human rights record, they're communists or undemocratic or anti-LGBT or whatever else might work to generate consent for another big war. However, the fact that one nation initiated more than 80% of all wars in the last seventy years does require an explanation, which I submit below (originally published in 2011):

Deflationary gap

Although I studied economics at the university, I don't recall coming across the subject of deflationary gap. The textbooks I still have don't mention it, and a search on the internet yielded close to nothing on the subject. Wikipedia doesn't even have an entry for deflationary gap. Answers.com provides a single vague sentence about it.

That's strange, for we're talking about a systemic flaw of the capitalist economic system that predictably corrodes the democratic framework of society and leads to the rise of fascism and militarism.

Comment: The number and frequency of conflicts have dramatically risen since 2014 - a continuing trend unabated. As the article reasons, the economic dynamic supporting various societies is a primary factor in predicting human cycles of peace and war.

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Attention

ICE gave $87M no-bid contract to business with Biden ties, raising conflict of interest questions

Anna Giaritelli
Washington Examiner
Wed, 07 Apr 2021 02:45 UTC
Andrew Lorenzen Strait
© endeavors.org
Andrew Lorenzen Strait
The Biden administration did not solicit bids for a multimillion contract to house migrant families in hotels and instead gave the massive contract to an organization whose leadership has ties to the White House, including one official who was on the Biden transition team.

In its rush to stand up facilities to hold families who come over the southern border illegally in rising numbers, the Biden administration signed a deal that a member of Congress and people with knowledge of the matter said presented a conflict of interest and wasted existing government facilities.

Last month, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (an agency of the Department of Homeland Security) signed an $87 million contract to acquire and oversee an operation involving 1,200 hotel beds to house migrant families in Arizona and Texas. The contract was given to the nonprofit organization Family Endeavors, based out of San Antonio, Texas, which has no previous history as an ICE contractor.

But Family Endeavors does have a former senior official on the Biden transition team in its leadership: former ICE official Andrew Lorenzen-Strait, identified as a potential broker in the deal by Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia, who is tracking the contract, as well as two others with knowledge of the situation.

Comment: Desperate times, desperate measures, insider deals and deniable accountability - a Biden family trademark. Legalities? He probably thought nothing of it.

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Arrow Up

Biden $1.5T budget proposes major hike in social programs

Niv Elis
The Hill
Fri, 09 Apr 2021 11:00 UTC
Biden and trillion
© Andrew Harnik/AP/KJN
US President Joe Biden's budget proposal
President Biden on Friday proposed a $1.5 trillion annual budget for fiscal 2022, $118 billion higher than the regular 2020 appropriations, featuring a significant 16 percent boost in nondefense spending.

The $769 billion nondefense budget, which covers government departments such as Transportation, Health and Human Services, Justice and Education, is a $105.7 billion increase from the current level.

Administration officials, who say that the government has underinvested in domestic spending for years, noted that it would be roughly in line with the 30-year nondefense average of 3.3 percent of gross domestic product.

Defense spending, which some budget watchers expected to stay flat in the proposal, would increase by $12.3 billion, or 1.7 percent, to $753 billion, though none of that spending will take place through a decades-old "emergency" bucket of spending that many derided as a budget gimmick and slush fund.

In a stark reversal from four years of budget requests from President Trump, which sought to slash funding for major agencies but were routinely dismissed by Congress, the Biden proposal beefs up government agencies, including a 40.8 percent increase for Education, a 27.7 percent increase for Commerce, a 23.1 percent increase for Health and Human Services and a 16 percent increase for Agriculture.
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Target

Armed Iraq groups threaten to strike US forces if no withdrawal date is set


MEMO
Thu, 08 Apr 2021 01:40 UTC
Iraqi troops
© AP/Khalid Mohammed
Iraq's elite counter-terrorism forces
The Coordinating Body of the Iraqi Resistance Factions yesterday warned that it would direct large and accurate strikes against US forces in Iraq if no clear date is set for their final withdrawal from the country, Anadolu reported. The body, which includes Iran- backed militia groups such as the Iraqi Hezbollah Brigades, said in a statement:
"Today, the resistance finds itself obliged (...) to direct large and precise blows if this dialogue does not include a clear and explicit declaration of the final withdrawal date for the occupation forces: by land, air, and completely."
Yesterday, Iraqi and US officials held the third round of strategic dialogue to discuss a number of issues including cooperation in combating terrorism. In a joint statement after the talks, the two governments said the mission of US forces was now focused on training Iraqi troops to fight Daesh and as a result US combat troops wouldn't be needed in the country. They added that they had agreed on the eventual withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraq and that the two governments would hold further talks to work out the timing.

The Iraqi Resistance Factions said the meeting's final statement was "vague.. and does not contain any indication of the implementation of the Parliament's decision to expel American occupation forces from Iraq."

Comment: 'We don't need you. We can do it ourselves!':
Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi said Wednesday:
"A significant growth of our security services potential and the changing nature of the terrorist threat across the world have in recent months provided the ground for the pullout of some 60 percent of international coalition forces from Iraq ... This allows Iraq to move to the stage where there is no more need for the presence of foreign troops."
The prime minister said that foreign forces can soon be limited to advisory, logistical support and intelligence sharing functions until Iraq gains total self-reliance capabilities in these areas as well. The upcoming US-Iraq consultations will deal with a broad range of issues apart from foreign military presence, such as cooperation in politics, economy, health and culture, according to the prime minister's statement.

In August 2020, the sides agreed to pull all foreign troops out of Iraq within three years. In October, a coordination group was formed to set up a timetable for the withdrawal. Since then, the US handed a number of military sites back over to Iraq, including airbases and army headquarters.
Removal of US troops is in progress:
Some 2,700 military advisers out of 5,200 have left Iraq according to Hussein Allawi, adviser for security sector reform to the Iraqi Prime Minister's Office. The Iraqi prime minister additionally ordered a technical committee to be set up for overseeing the negotiations process.
"The American side reduced the number of its troops, 2,700 American advisers left Iraq, and yesterday the US said that there will be no troops in Iraq in the future ... right now there are no foreign combat units in Iraq, all military personnel present are advisers who share information with Iraqi personnel, help structure the Iraqi army and provide support to the Iraqi air force when asked to do so by the Iraqi military command."
The adviser ruled out the possibility that Washington would change its mind, saying that "no one can violate Iraq's sovereignty."

During Wednesday's talks, after discussing security matters, the US and Iraqi sides discussed trade, economy and culture, including the return of cultural artifacts and archives to the country.
Whatever the underlying reasons were for the US troops to remain so long in Iraq, they no longer pertain:
After a first "strategic dialogue" under President Joe Biden's administration, the two nations said that the Iraqi military had made substantial improvements. The moves comes amid near daily rocket fire on US forces attributed to Shiite paramilitary groups linked to Iran, which led Biden to order airstrikes on affiliated camps in Syria.

But Biden, in a rare point of agreement with his predecessor Donald Trump, has been looking for ways to wind down what have come to be dubbed "endless wars." Trump had ordered a drawdown in his final months from Iraq as well as Afghanistan with the number of US troops in each country dipping to 2,500 by January 15.

A joint statement said:
"The transition of US and other international forces away from combat operations to training, equipping and assisting the ISF (Iraqi Security Forces) reflects the success of their strategic partnership and ensures support to the ISF's continued efforts to ensure ISIS can never again threaten Iraq's stability."
Iraq in the statement pledged to protect bases with US-led forces, who Washington said were present "solely in support of Iraq's effort in the fight against ISIS."


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Laptop

No doubt Hunter Biden's laptop 'was his all along'. Forensic expert verifies drugs, prostitution and porn pics


RT
Thu, 08 Apr 2021 21:22 UTC
Hunter Biden
© Reuters/Tom Brenner
Hunter Biden
A digital forensics expert has reviewed the contents of Hunter Biden's infamous laptop, and claims that the contents within - which reveal dodgy business deals, drug abuse and sexual misadventure - are "authentic."

Hunter Biden's laptop was the subject of a smoking-gun story by the New York Post just three weeks before the 2020 presidential election. Retrieved from a Delaware computer repair store in 2019 and handed to Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump's lawyer, the laptop contained a tranche of emails and texts that appeared to implicate the Biden family in numerous foreign corruption schemes, all while Joe was first in the White House as vice president.

Joe Biden himself dismissed the laptop story as "debunked" and "garbage," his campaign and party claimed it was fabricated by Russia, and much of the mainstream media refused to report on it. However, the Daily Mail hired a computer forensics firm to examine the computer, who declared its contents "authentic."

The firm, Maryman & Associates, is run by a 29-year FBI veteran, and "used the same forensic tools to pick apart the drive as federal and state law enforcement use in criminal investigations," according to a Daily Mail article published on Thursday. The firm concluded:
"The operating system timestamps appear to be authentic, and no evidence was found to suggest that the timestamps or data were altered or manufactured. No indications were found that would indicate the data was manufactured."
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Rocket

Senior NASA official to RT: A 'great working relationship' will allow Russia & US to travel 'further out into space together'


RT
Fri, 09 Apr 2021 19:20 UTC
Soyuz MS-18 ISS
© NASA/Bill Ingalls/Handout via REUTERS
The Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft carrying the crew formed of Mark Vande Hei of NASA and cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov of Roscosmos blasts off to the International Space Station (ISS) from the launchpad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan April 9, 2021.
Despite their disagreements on Earth, Moscow and Washington enjoy friendly relations in outer space and their continued cooperation will help advance human exploration of the cosmos, a NASA administrator told RT.

"We have a great working relationship with our Russian counterparts. We love working with them. We've worked together for a long time now," said Kenneth Bowersox, acting Deputy Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations at NASA, while visiting Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome.

Bowersox added that both countries understand each other's "weaknesses and strengths," and that while sometimes they don't see eye-to-eye on certain matters, like in any friendship they find ways to resolve their differences.

Comment:

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