Russia, Ukraine Swap 150 POWs In First Exchange In Months
Zelensky and his Western backers, especially the US and UK, have long claimed that it’s ‘impossible’ to sit down with Russia at the negotiating table. Zelensky even just six months into the war had vowed not to re-enter negotiations with Moscow until Putin is no longer in power.
But as if inadvertently illustrating that negotiations are actually very possible and within reach, Ukraine has announced a successful major prisoner swap, which is a first in nearly four months.
The Friday swap involved each side sending back 75 POWs. A representative for the Ukrainian side, Vitalii Matviienko, said that “Ukraine is always ready” in response to the question of why these swaps had stalled in the last months. But ultimately each side has blamed the other for lack of more rapid progress.
Like with prior swaps, it was reportedly accomplished with the mediation of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). 150 total from both sides were freed in the rare successful deal.
According to an Associated Press description of the returned Ukrainians:
The Ukrainian POWs, including four civilians, were returned on several buses that drove into the northern Sumy region. As they disembarked, they shouted joyfully and called their families to tell them they were home. Some knelt and kissed the ground, while many wrapped themselves in yellow-blue flags.
They hugged one another, breaking into tears. Many appeared emaciated and poorly dressed.
Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for Treatment of POWs has said that Friday’s swap brings to the total number of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians freed since the war began to 3,210.
“Throughout all of this time, we have not stopped working for a single day to bring everyone home from Russian captivity,” Ukraine’s President Zelensky stated in the aftermath.
His office further described “These are privates, sergeants and officers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” and posted images of the newly freed Ukrainians on state social media channels.
Ukraine and Russia exchanged prisoners of war on Friday, each sending back 75 POWs in the first such swap in the past three months, officials said.
The Ukrainian POWs, including four civilians, were returned on several buses that drove into the northern Sumy region. pic.twitter.com/brdUVNnKcq
But about one-third of the former prisoners weren’t in good shape, as international media reports documented that many were injured and disabled, or else seriously ill. However, many also looked fit and well-groomed despite their lengthy captivity.
The Russian side has also confirmed in a Kremlin statement: “On May 31, 2024, as a result of the negotiation process, 75 Russian servicemen, who were in mortal danger in captivity, were returned from the territory controlled by the Kiev regime. In return, 75 prisoners of war of the Ukrainian armed forces were handed over.”
France Foils Planned Attack On Paris Olympics; Israel’s Mossad Warns Of Terrorism Ahead Of Games
Radical progressive leaders across the Western world, along with leftist non-governmental organizations, are continuing to facilitate an unprecedented migrant invasion into Europe and the US. This poses a significant national security risk as terror threats surge into summer.
Jumping across the Alantic to Europe, the French interior minister told AP News that security officers foiled an attack ahead of soccer events during the Paris Olympics.
Gerald Darmanin said in a statement that the members of the General Directorate of Internal Security arrested an 18-year-old man from Chechnya on May 22 on suspicion of being behind a plan to attack soccer events that will be held in the city of Saint-Etienne, southwest of Lyon. -AP
The report continued:
The man was preparing an attack targeting the Geoffroy-Guichard stadium in the city of Saint-Etienne that will host several soccer matches during the Summer Games. The planned attack was to target spectators and police forces, the statement said. The suspect wanted to attack the Olympic events “to die and become a martyr,” the statement also said. -AP
Besides the person from Chechnya, Israel’s Mossad was quoted by The Jerusalem Post as also saying there are rising threats of terrorism ahead of the soccer events in France.
Iran is increasing its support of terror in Europe through proxy criminal groups in the 60-day lead-up to the Paris Olympics, the Mossad revealed on Thursday.
It highlighted in particular the activities of two criminal groups — FOXTROT and RUMBA — alleging that they were “directly responsible for a violent activity and the promotion of terrorism in Sweden and throughout Europe” and that they receive funds and direction directly from Iran.
Israel’s spy agency charged that Iran was behind the grenade attack against Israel’s Embassy in Belgium this past weekend and the gunshots near the embassy in Sweden on May 17. –JPost
In recent days…
Pro-Palestinian Group Claims To Cut Fiber Cables At UK Defense Factory Making F-35 Targeting Systems https://t.co/fBkFvd3BBt
Let’s not forget in the US, the terror group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine has been linked to fueling chaos across colleges and universities. Through public records analysis, we have found links with PFLP to one sanctioned Iranian bank.
Absurd: Radical Leftist Rashida Tlaib Speaks At Conference Connected With Terrorist Group https://t.co/kBfUR0Ep3y
The National Rifle Association (NRA) is celebrating a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruling that New York State officials violated its First Amendment rights.
On Thursday, the High Court ruled in National Rifle Association v. Maria T. Vullo that Ms. Vullo and New York State officials used their regulatory authority to coerce insurance companies, banks, and other financial institutions into cutting ties with the Second Amendment advocacy group based on the NRA’s political mission.
Ms. Vullo was the Superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) when the NRA claims the coercion took place. The DFS is the New York state regulatory agency overseeing banks, insurance companies, and other financial institutions.
According to the court’s opinion, state officials are free to express their views. They are not free to punish those who do not share their views.
“A government official can share her views freely and criticize particular beliefs, and she can do so forcefully in the hopes of persuading others to follow her lead,” Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the majority opinion on May 30.
“In doing so, she can rely on the merits and force of her ideas, the strength of her convictions, and her ability to inspire others. What she cannot do, however, is use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression,” she added.
NRA officials said in a press release that the decision will have far-reaching implications for the First Amendment.
“This victory is a win for the NRA in the fight to protect freedom,” recently-elected NRA President Bob Barr wrote. “Regulators are now on notice: this is a win for not only the NRA but every organization who might otherwise suffer from an abuse of government power.”
An NRA lawyer agreed in an email to The Epoch Times.
“This is a landmark victory for the NRA and all who care about our First Amendment freedom,” William A. Brewer III, who represented the NRA, wrote. “The opinion confirms that New York government officials abused the power of their office to silence a political enemy.”
Attorneys for Ms. Vullo did not respond by press time to an email seeking comment.
In court filings, the NRA claimed, Ms. Vullo used public statements, guidance memoranda, “back channel threats,” consent decrees, and multi-million dollar fines to force businesses to drop the NRA as a customer.
According to the NRA’s petition, in October 2017, DFS, under Ms. Vullo and then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s direction began an investigation into the Carry Guard.
Carry Guard was an insurance plan promoted by the NRA for people who carried firearms for self-protection. The plan covered certain costs if the policyholder was involved in a legal self-defense shooting.
The DFS investigation focused on insurance broker Lockton Companies, LLC, which administered the program, underwriter Chubb Limited, and the insurance marketplace Lloyd’s of London.
A couple of months after the Feb. 14, 2018, shooting at Marjorie Stoneman-Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and while the DFS investigation was still underway, Ms. Vullo sent two memoranda titled “Guidance on Risk Management Relating to the NRA and Similar Gun Promotion Organizations.”
The April 19, 2018, memos were sent to “New York State Chartered or Licensed Financial Institutions” and “All Insurers Doing Business in the State of New York.”
Ms. Vullo wrote, “There is a fair amount of precedent in the business world where firms have implemented measures in areas such as the environment, caring for the sick, and civil rights in fulfilling their corporate social responsibility.”
She warned of “the social backlash against the National Rifle Association, and similar organizations that promote guns that lead to senseless violence . . .”
Lawyer Slams State Tactics
Ms. Vullo pointed out that the companies are in the business of managing risk, “including their own reputational risks. . .”
Waukesha, Wisconsin-based lawyer and Second Amendment social media influencer Tom Grieve compared New York’s tactics to those used by organized crime in an email to The Epoch Times. He wrote that New York’s case was flawed from the start.
“I don’t know what is worse: that this issue had to go to the Supreme Court or that this is far from the first or last 2nd Amendment-related case that appears obvious at the outset of this term,” his email reads.
Mark W. Smith, constitutional attorney and host of the Four Boxes Diner Second Amendment YouTube channel says it’s instructive that the justices considered guidance documents, press releases, and other statements issued by the state and not just direct threats as evidence of coercion.
“The Court’s 9-0 decision, written by liberal Justice Sotomayor, sends a powerful signal that government officials cannot use threats and inducements based on their regulatory authority to attempt to throttle speech they don’t like,” Mr. Smith wrote in an email to The Epoch Times.
White House Lied To Congress About Israel-Gaza, Per Official Resigning In Protest
A State Department official has resigned in protest, saying theBiden White House lied to Congress on a critical report so American weapons could keep flowing to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) for its war in Gaza.
That official is Stacy Gilbert, a 20-year State Department employee who was a civil military advisor in the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. In February, a national security memo directive tasked the State and Defense departments with writing a report assessing whether Israel was complying with the Geneva Conventions, and whether Israel was thwarting the flow of humanitarian assistance. Working with other experts, Gilbert was tasked with answering the latter question.
That question had enormous implications: The Foreign Assistance Act prohibits aid to countries that thwart the flow of US humanitarian aid. Gilbert says she and other experts formed a clear consensus that Israel had blocked aid “in many ways,” and that they began crafting a report with that conclusion.
However, with the report still in rough draft form, Gilbert saidsenior officials shut her and other subject matter experts out of the project, and proceeded to rewrite the report over the ensuing days before it was due to be filed with Congress.
“When the report came out on May 10, and I read the conclusion…that Israel was not blocking humanitarian assistance, I decided I would resign, because that was absolutely not the opinion of subject matter experts in the State Department, USAID, the humanitarian community, organizations that are working in Gaza.”
The estimated Palestinian death toll in Gaza has crossed 36,000. In the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas invasion of southern Israel, Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant announced a “complete siege” of the 25-mile long strip. “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” he said. “We are fighting human animals and are acting accordingly.” Earlier this month, the UN World Food Programme said that northern Gaza is in the midst of a “full-blown famine.”
Despite receiving tens of billions of dollars in weapons and money for its war,Israel has ignored Washington’s pleas for mercy and thwarted the flow of aid through overland crossings — to the extent that President Biden ordered the construction of a pier off the Gaza coast to do an end-run around the IDF –spending $320 million and critically injuring a service member in the process. Upon completion, the pier promptly fell apart in rough weather and it’s being removed for repair and the price tag gets bigger.
Israeli citizens have done their own part to thwart the flow of aid:
Israeli settlers continued to attack aid trucks passing through the West Bank, blocking food from reaching Gaza as humanitarian groups warn that civilians are starving.
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) May 28, 2024
In a statement explaining her resignation, Gilbert wrote:
“There is abundant evidence showing Israel is responsible for blocking aid. To deny this is absurd and shameful…Some members of the US government…made a conscious choice to deny the facts on the ground in Gaza in order to continue military support for Israel’s disastrous conduct in this war…
Another State Department official who’d already resigned in protest of the Biden administration’s management of the Israel-Gaza war used Gilbert’s resignation as an opportunity to renew his own condemnation. “On the day when the White House announced that the latest atrocity in Rafah did not cross its red line, this resignation demonstrates that the Biden Administration will do anything to avoid the truth,” wrote Josh Paul, formerly of the State Department’s Bureau of Political affairs.
Gilbert says her motivation for resigning extends beyond the restriction of humanitarian aid:
“Israel’s killing of at least 36,000 Palestinians, deliberate destruction of the majority of buildings, and attacks on every major medical facility, schools, and stores, lives and livelihoods, can’t be ignored…I cannot continue working for a government that denies and enables Israel’s deliberate carnage in Gaza.”
Meanwhile, as the resignations keep piling up, US bombs keep dropping on Palestinian militants and innocents alike…
Yo! New IDF thirst trap video just dropped and it is 🔥🔥🔥
SARS-CoV-2 infection may cause severe pulmonary conditions such as pneumonia, inflammation, and acute respiratory distress syndrome, but until now, researchers have not understood the driving force behind lung damage caused by COVID-19.
In a recently published paper in Nature Communications, researchers at Columbia University discovered that a relatively new form of iron-dependent cell death called ferroptosis is the underlying mechanism causing extreme and potentially fatal pulmonary conditions in COVID-19 patients.
“This finding adds crucial insight to our understanding of how COVID-19 affects the body that will significantly improve our ability to fight life-threatening cases of the disease,” Brent Stockwell, chair of the department of biological sciences at Columbia and co-lead author of the study, said in a news release.
What Is Ferroptosis?
Human cells have powerful mechanisms for maintaining survival, but when those mechanisms become impaired, lipid peroxides—generated through normal metabolic activities—can accumulate to toxic levels, damage cell membranes, and kill cells through ferroptosis.
Ferroptosis was first identified in 2012 by Mr. Stockwell and differs from apoptosis—the most common form of cell death that occurs with aging and in some disease processes. Ferroptosis is an unusual type of cell death linked to altered iron metabolism, glutathione depletion, glutathione peroxidase 4 inactivation, and increased oxidative stress.
Since proposing the concept, Mr. Stockwell’s lab has demonstrated that ferroptosis can occur in healthy contexts as part of the body’s normal processes. For example, cell death can remove cells infected with SARS-CoV-2, inhibiting the replication and spread of the virus or counteract diseases like cancer, which involves rapid cell growth.
On the other hand, ferroptosis can be destructive, attacking healthy cells in patients with neurodegenerative diseases or causing severe manifestations of COVID-19 and possibly even long COVID.
The ability to stop ferroptosis could pave the way for treatments that improve COVID-19 outcomes, the paper’s findings suggest.
The Study
Researchers obtained lung tissue samples from the autopsies of patients who died of respiratory failure caused by severe COVID-19, including those with and without acute lung injury (ALI). Samples were also collected from patients who had mild COVID-19 and recovered.
Control samples were obtained from pre-pandemic healthy patients who showed no signs of SARS-CoV-2 infection or lung damage. Samples from autopsies with ALI and without a history of SARS-CoV-2 infection were also analyzed. Additionally, serum ferritin records were obtained, as serum ferritin is elevated in critically ill COVID-19 patients, correlates with disease severity, and supplies the iron that drives ferroptosis. Ferritin is a protein found inside cells that stores iron and allows the body to use it when needed.
The researchers analyzed cell death markers on COVID-19 lung tissue samples obtained from the autopsies and found “distinct molecular features of ferroptosis” in severe lung pathologies. Moreover, samples revealed elevated ferroptosis markers, including iron dysregulation, lipid peroxidation, elevated lysophospholipids, and depletion in polyunsaturated fatty acyl tails (PL-PUFAs).
PUFAs, or polyunsaturated fatty acids, while essential for cell membranes and immune regulation, are highly unstable and inflammatory. Due to their sensitivity to oxygen, PUFAs can be oxidized by free radicals and broken down into toxic derivatives.
In a secondary analysis, Syrian hamsters were intentionally inoculated with the same strain of SARS-CoV-2 found in patient samples. Researchers analyzed lung samples and found that ferroptosis occurred at an early stage of lung disease and accompanied disease progression.
To confirm their findings were caused by ferroptosis, the researchers measured cell death markers associated with other forms of cell death. They did not detect an increase in these markers in any lung samples, indicating that ferroptosis was the major cell death mechanism detected in fatal COVID-19 lung samples.
“Altogether, these data suggest a strong correlation between ferroptosis and COVID-19 lung pathology, and ferroptosis inhibition may serve as adjuvant therapy to reduce lung injury,” the authors wrote.
A May 2023 paper published in Frontiers supports the paper’s findings. In their review, researchers found that dysregulated cell death from ferroptosis can lead to uncontrolled cellular damage beyond the lungs and plays a role in the multi-organ complications observed in COVID-19 patients with severe disease.
Kim Jong Un Oversees Massive Missile Launch ‘Preemptive Attack’ Drills
A day after sending hundreds of feces and garbage-filled balloons into South Korea over the militarized border, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw a new military exercises showcasing the north’s ability to mount “preemptive attacks”.
North Korean media released several photos as well as footage of choreographed launches of at least eighteen short-range ballistic missiles from the Sunan area on Friday.
The projectiles reportedly fell into the Sea of Japan after going a distance of over 200 miles.
State media said this “salvo of a firepower sub-unit was carried out by operating the integrated fire-control system,” which was described as “a part of the national combined nuclear weapons management system.“
This appears an ongoing response by Pyongyang to the US-South Korea drills that began on May 27, involving over 90 aircraft, among them the advanced F35A stealth fighters.
Watch the impressive footage released by North Korean state media…
Kim Jong Un has attended a launch of 18 KN-25 ballistic missiles.
North Korea has transferred hundreds of these missiles to Russia, which has bombarded Ukrainian cities with them.
The North’s official Korean Central News Agency reported that the rocket firing drills were meant to demonstrate North Korea’s resolve not to hesitate in launching a preemptive strike on South Korea if threatened. It cited Kim as saying that the drills “will serve as an occasion in clearly showing what consequences our rivals will face if they provoke us.”
Photos showed Kim watching from a distance as at least 18 projectiles were launched.
The government of South Korea called on the north to North Korea must stop the “absurd, irrational provocations directed at us” or face unspecified “unbearable” consequences.
Starting almost a year ago, the US military began parking a nuclear-armed submarine, the USS Kentucky, at a South Korean port, which has outraged Pyongyang.
The outcome of former President Donald Trump’s New York records-falsification trial is most likely to influence undecided voters—a sliver of the electorate that could exert an outsized impact on the Nov. 5 presidential election.
“This is a pivotal moment in the 2024 race,” American political history professor Jeff Bloodworth told The Epoch Times as jurors began deliberations on May 29.
Mr. Bloodworth, who teaches at Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania, said suburban college-educated voters probably would allow the trial’s outcome to influence their votes.
The former president was convicted of 34 business-records falsification charges; an appeal is almost certain, legal experts said.
Polls have shown that a conviction was poised to sway some voters away from President Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Trump campaign pollsters predict the effect on votes will be minimal.
However, it appears that the verdict is having a big immediate effect on fundraising. Several online commenters said they made donations to the former president, but many visitors overwhelmed the website, causing it to crash temporarily and having to be restored several times.
Yet a small percentage of voters could make the difference between winning and losing the 2024 election. Polling consistently has shown a razor-thin margin separating the two major candidates: President Trump and the incumbent Democrat President Joe Biden.
Many voters are unwilling to change their declared allegiance to President Trump, President Biden, or a third-party candidate, such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Still, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released on May 22, about one-fifth of voters say they are open to reconsidering.
Many of those people are “double-haters,” Mr. Bloodworth’s term for voters who dislike both President Trump and President Biden. These voters care deeply about the outcome of the New York case, and they’re very likely to turn out and cast their ballots, he said.
He predicted that a guilty verdict against President Trump would drive those people “back into the Biden camp, like they were in 2020.” That election “was decided on the margins,” Mr. Bloodworth said, resulting in President Trump’s ouster. Now in the thick of his third run at the presidency, President Trump still says he believes he was the rightful winner—a claim that mainstream media and many Democrats reject.
In a statement accompanying the Quinnipiac poll, polling analyst Tim Malloy characterized Kennedy voters as “particularly swayable,” with 52 percent reporting they were likely to change their minds. President Trump’s supporters were “less-inclined to bail on their candidate,” Mr. Malloy said, with only 8 percent somewhat likely to defect. Almost double that number said they could drop their support of President Biden.
The Quinnipiac poll found that 70 percent of voters were following the New York trial closely, with 46 percent of respondents believing President Trump “did something illegal.”
About 6 percent of President Trump’s supporters say a conviction would make them less likely to vote for him—a number that “could tip the balance” in a very tight race, Mr. Malloy said.
Seven States May Matter Most
But the Trump campaign’s pollsters, Tony Fabrizio and Travis Tunis, reported that several weekly surveys found the New York trial would have a “negligible” effect on voters in seven swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Their research found that large percentages of Democrats and President Biden’s voters were following reports about the New York trial.
But voter segments that the Trump campaign is targeting—independents, undecideds, and “persuadables”—were “much less likely” to stay abreast of the trial, “with almost none following it ’very’ closely,” the pollsters said in a May 29 memo that the Trump campaign released.
“Voters in our key target states have already made up their minds on this trial. Most voters, especially our supporters, believe the case is politically motivated and a conviction would be [the] result of a biased show trial. Biden’s voters will believe President Trump is guilty no matter what,“ the memo said. ”And those in the middle are largely unconcerned, and their votes aren’t going to hinge on the results of the trial.”
Recent nationwide polling, including Quinnipiac’s, has shown the two candidates in a statistical dead heat. President Trump, however, has pulled ahead of President Biden in battleground states and has been chipping away at the incumbent’s lead in some states considered to be Democrat strongholds.
Several surveys show minority voters, such as blacks and Hispanics, drifting away from President Biden, whom they blame for inflated prices of groceries, fuel, and other necessities.
The Trump camp’s pollsters said the seven states they are focused on are most likely to decide the election, “not the national data the media would like us to focus on.”
They predicted national polls, “especially those conducted by the media,” will probably “show exaggerated shifts.”
Pollster Rich Baris doubts that polls can accurately gauge how voters will respond to the New York verdict.
When pollsters ask such a “bias-tainted question,” the results are skewed, Mr. Baris told The Epoch Times. That’s because “voters know the ‘right’ answer they are expected to give, even though they would never vote for Biden, regardless.”
Pollsters produced inaccurate results in 2020 when they found that President Trump’s impeachments would adversely affect his vote totals, Mr. Baris said.
“He ended up setting the record for the most votes ever received by an incumbent president,” Mr. Baris said.
A guilty verdict in any of President Trump’s legal cases may have little effect on voting behavior, Mr. Baris said. A conviction “is already baked into the cake, meaning voters expect it and believe it’s politically motivated,” Mr. Baris said.
Houthis Report 16 Dead In Biggest Joint US-UK Airstrikes Since Gaza War Began
Early on Friday Yemen’s Houthis announced what appears to be the biggest mass casualty attack by the Western coalition since Red Sea hostilities began in the wake of Oct.7.
The joint British-U.S. airstrikes happened Thursday, and killed at least 16 people and wounded 35 others, according to Houthis statement. “We confirm this brutal aggression against Yemen as punishment for its position in support of Gaza, in support of Israel to continue its crimes of genocide against the wounded, besieged and steadfast Gaza Strip,” Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam said.
The strikes primarily focused on the port city of Hodeida, and the Houthis say that all killed there were civilians. According to a Yemeni account:
But the Houthis focused Friday morning on a strike they said struck a building housing Hodeida Radio and civilian homes in the port city on the Red Sea. Their Al Masirah satellite news channel aired images of one bloodied man being carried down stairs and others in the hospital, receiving aid. It said all the dead and nearly all the wounded from the strikes came from there.
The graphic footage of the attack aftermath can be viewed here.
While not acknowledging the death toll offered by the Houthis, the Pentagon confirmed that US F/A-18 fighter jets were involved in the operation over Yemen, having taken off from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier in the Red Sea.
Officials said additional warships also participated, which included attacks on “underground facilities, missile launchers, command and control sites, a Houthi vessel and other facilities.”
The UK Defense Ministry also revealed its involvement, with a statement saying Royal Air Force Typhoon FGR4s conducted strikes on Hodeida and locations south in Ghulayfiqah.
UK’s military said it targeted “buildings identified as housing drone ground control facilities and providing storage for very long-range drones, as well as surface-to-air weapons.”
“The strikes were taken in self-defense in the face of an ongoing threat that the Houthis pose,” British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced. “There’s an ongoing threat that the Houthis pose.”
This, for what it is worth, is Grant Shapps’ excuse for the bombing.
Retaliation for a cargo ship (Rubymar) that was hit more than 2 months ago, and avenging the deaths of Filipino and Vietnamese mariners (which apparently is now the RAF’s remit)https://t.co/cfRm8mr26y
But instead of deterring the Houthis, the Shia rebel groups immediately announced a retaliatory operation against the US nuclear-powered carrier from which the US fighters were deployed, as we reported earlier.
However, the Pentagon denied that the carrier was attacked. Politico’s Lara Seligman quoted an unnamed Department of Defense official who told her the Houthi’s claim about a missile attack on the USS Harry S. Truman in the Red Sea is “false information — there was no hit on the Ike or any attacks in its vicinity.”
Fed F**kery Turns $98BN (NSA) Large Bank Deposit Outflow Into $2BN Inflow
After a small inflow last week, total US bank deposits dropped a modest $4.7BN last week on a seasonally-adjusted basis…
Source: Bloomberg
But, on a non-seasonally-adjusted basis, US total bank deposits tumbled almost $110BN…
Source: Bloomberg
This decline happened as money market funds saw modest inflows, pushing back near record highs…
Source: Bloomberg
Exclduing foreign deposits, US domestic deposits fell $2.2BN on a seasonally-adjusted basis (large bank +$2.1BN, small bank -$4.3BN), while on a non-seasonally-adjusted basis, domestic deposits puked $121BN (large banks -$98BN, small banks -$23BN)…
Source: Bloomberg
On the other side of the ledger, Small banks saw loan volumes shrink by $10.6BN while Large banks saw loan volumes grow by $8.6BN…
Source: Bloomberg
Finally, US equity market cap remains dramatically decoupled from its historical tight relationship with US bank reserves at The Fed…
“The hour is much later than you think…on multiple fronts: Financial, political, medical and geopolitical.”
– Edward Dowd
In the pre-gloat hours before the verdict in Judge Juan Merchan’s courtroom, Lawfare caporegime Andrew Weissmann (“Mueller’s Pitbull”) confessed Valley Girl style from his MSNBC clubhouse perch, “. . . I mean, I am, like, now I have a man-crush on him, he is such a great judge!” Bromance on, looks like! If the two happen to frequent the same athletic club in downtown Manhattan, Judge Merchan better be careful in the post-workout shower when he bends over to pick up the soap. The Pitbull cometh!
Credit: Joshua Lisec on “X”
Of course, the Alvin Bragg victory in the artfully constructed “Stormy Daniels Payoff Case” decided late Thursday calls to question how come the Mueller Special Counsel Probe into 2016 election interference (actually run by Mr. Weissmann, due to Mr. Mueller’s declining cognitive ability) failed to spot the same web of evidence – hard as they toiled, and they had a good two years and millions of taxpayer dollars to git’er done?
My guess: too many white lawyers on the Mueller staff. Everybody knows now from watching the latest crop of television commercials that white people are unusually stupid and helpless and cannot cope with common problems without assistance from helpful people of color (POCs). So, God bless Alvin Bragg for finally fixing what Bob Mueller’s fifteen bloodhounds led by a pitbull somehow botched.
The former president is now convicted on thirty-four counts of book-keeping errors in furtherance of an alleged 2016 federal election violation that the Federal Election Commission declined to charge — that is, paying a porn star to sign a non-disclosure agreement about a sexual liaison — because it is not a crime under federal election law, and about which the head of the FEC, James E. “Trey” Trainor III, was barred by Judge Merchan from testifying on during the course of the trial for reasons yet unknown.
Of course, that is but one of a great many points of law that will merit appeal in what everybody — even some white people (people of non-color, PONCs) — knows was a case so crookedly contrived that it is fated to get tossed in the higher courts, and probably with harsh remonstrance to the degenerate officers of the court who brought it and adjudicated it. But you will have to wait on that because the mills of the law grind slowly.
Now, in the radiance of the full Woke gloat, we await Judge Merchan’s sentence, to be announced a mere few days before the Republican Convention in Milwaukee in early July. Jail time at Rikers? Home confinement (with ankle bracelet)? Severe travel restrictions? Reporting to a parole officer? Drug tests? Hey, No one is above the law! It is hard to imagine that the judge will demur from inflicting maximum humiliation on this wanton repeat violator (thirty-four times!) of book-keeping errors. It would tend to interfere with the presidential candidate’s campaign schedule, but so what? Where does it say in the Constitution that an election must be fair?
Or Judge Merchan could suspend all that pending appeal and just allow Mr. Trump to go about his election business free on bail. But why would he? After all the trouble he went to. And all the glory he’s reaping for it. “Joe Biden’s” party has Mr. Trump exactly where they want him, they think: pinned down like a moth in a shadow-box, inert and pathetic. (But, in reality, more like King Kong, chained in the rank basement below the stage of a Broadway theater before busting loose in midtown and upending subway cars so as to devour the little humans tumbling out like so many tic-tacs.)
Expect Mr. Trump’s lawyers to file writs to the SCOTUS requesting expedited attention to the denial of due process issues and the election interference question. The situation is comparable to the year 2000 presidential race, where the SCOTUS stepped in on probable cause that the lower court (in Florida that time) had violated the Equal Protection clause of the constitution.
In the meantime, through the luminescent fog of gloat, perhaps you did not notice that “Joe Biden” took a giant step yesterday toward commencing World War Three. The move was framed as the US gives Ukraine permission to use American missiles to strike deep within Russia. That was a bit disingenuous, you see, because Ukraine’s military lacks the know-how to actually launch the missiles, so American military “advisors” will have to be on hand to do it, meaning US military personnel will commit an act of aggression upon Russia.
Voila! That world war you’ve all been clamoring for. . .? The perfect climax to “Joe Biden’s” catastrophic, fraudulently-acquired term in office. I scent the acrid, burnt-flesh odor of miscalculation here, as of a bunch of American cities get turned into radioactive bonfires that will blot out that sublime luminosity of gloat.
Apparently, the “Joe Biden” team has never seen a Clint Eastwood movie — too lowbrow, I’m sure — and they don’t grok the role of the underdog in the American psyche. They have succeeded in making Donald Trump the greatest underdog in US history under the direst circumstances the nation may have ever faced — worse than Valley Forge, Bull Run, or the Ardennes Forest. Sinister forces are driving the country straight into a communo-fascist despotism alien to our nation’s very soul, demonic forces bent on depriving Americans of their rights, their property, and their liberty.
This is the “all-in-lost” moment in that movie. This is where the hero comes back from the edge of eternal darkness, raging like Kali the Destroyer to smite the cowards arrayed against him, against the country’s honor, against the people. You asked for it. Now you’re going to get it.
