Donald Trump has told advisers that he wants to be handcuffed when he makes an appearance in court, if he is indicted by a Manhattan grand jury for his role in paying hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels, multiple sources close to the former president have said.

The former president has reasoned that since he would need to go to the courthouse and surrender himself to authorities for fingerprinting and a mug shot anyway, the sources said, he might as well turn everything into a “spectacle”.

That is the apocalyptic vision put forward by expert Charles Dunst in his new book Defeating the Dictators as he warns that democracy is now in a fight with autocracy for control of the future, and is in danger of losing unless it rapidly gets its act together.

In his new book, expert Charles Dunst warns that democracy is now in a fight with autocracy for control of the future. Pictured: China's president Xi Jinping (left) and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin (right) share a toast during their meeting in Moscow on Tuesday

But victory will not belong to whoever has the biggest army, he argues. It will be won by whoever can prove their system works best.

In his doomsday vision, America loses to China not because it lacks weapons - but because it lacks conviction in its own way of life.

The author's warning comes as China's President Xi Jinping delivered a chilling warning to the West, telling his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin that 'change is coming' in an ominous parting message as he left Moscow on Wednesday night.

Today is the anniversary of the “suicide” of Mark Lombardi in 2000.

Eight months before an idiot son of the Bush crime family “won” the election for president…

A year before Osama bin Laden became famous for 9-11…

Mark Lombardi, who had just achieved a major breakthrough in his career as an artist, reportedly hanged himself in his Brooklyn studio.

His art form?

Drawing intricately detailed diagrams of the relationship between the Bush family and its allies, the Bin Laden family, and other global criminals.

On at least two occasions in 2021, in May and November of that year, there were leaks from the Navy’s Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility in Hawaii that contaminated drinking water for thousands of military personnel and their families. A new court filing from Monday now alleges that there were additional toxins in the contaminated water. 

“While the United States eventually identified JP5,” reads the filing, “The government failed to notify the plaintiffs or warn about antifreeze or other additives to the JP5 that are harmful in their own right.”

The filing also alleges the government claims it had no reason to warn residents of Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam about the fuel leaks or the risks they posed to the water those residents used daily. 

An internal memo from the Hawaii Department of Health published on February 2, and given to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser by lawyers representing military families involved in an ongoing lawsuit over the fuel leak, found water samples collected in the weeks following the November fuel leak also contained diethylene glycol, a chemical compound used in aviation fuel to prevent the formation of ice crystals. 

Webmaster addition: No wonder people were getting sick!

For five years, former federal appeals court judge and Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff has been secretly advising the Supreme Court on security matters, Chertoff confirmed to Congress in a letter released Tuesday.

The arrangement went undisclosed until this year because there was no requirement for the high court to reveal it.

Chertoff’s acknowledgement of the work came in response to an inquiry from lawmakers who wanted more details on the role he and his firm played investigating the unprecedented leak of a draft of the pivotal Dobbs abortion ruling to POLITICO last year. Offering a rare glimpse into Supreme Court operations, Chertoff said that his consulting firm’s work for the high court dates back to 2018 and included a review of the Dobbs leak investigation led by the Supreme Court marshal’s office.

“Our firm was not asked and did not participate in the investigative process, including conducting interviews with subjects of the investigation,” Chertoff wrote in his March 15, 2023 letter.

A US judge has cleared the way for three lawsuits against banking giants JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank, alleging both companies knowingly benefited from their relationships with convicted sex predator Jeffrey Epstein. Manhattan District Judge Jed Rakoff issued the four-page accusation on Tuesday, with a fuller statement to be published “in due course.”

The first lawsuit against JP Morgan, filed by an unnamed “Jane Doe” representing a group of the pedophile’s victims, argues the US-based bank “knowingly benefited from participating in a sex trafficking venture” led by Epstein, who was a client there from 1998 through 2013, and “negligently failed to exercise reasonable care to prevent physical harm.” 

The US Virgin Islands’ own suit against JP Morgan alleges the bank enabled the late predator’s sex trafficking operation, though Judge Rakoff also threw out three of the four claims in that suit. 

Webmaster addition: What about the clients? When do they get their day in court for paying to have sex with underage children?

The success of the Russian-Chinese talks in Moscow is not the US’ business, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Russian TV Tuesday.

"Look, this is none of their business, none of the Americans’ business," he said, commenting on a question from a reporter about the reaction of Western states. He added that the negotiations are relations of Russia and China.

On Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, commenting on Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s state visit to Russia that the Chinese leader went there mere days after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

According to the US diplomat, China "'feels no responsibility to hold the Kremlin accountable" and provides "diplomatic cover" to Russia.

Sometimes I think that the script being used by the Biden Administration to manage its foreign and national security policies has been written by George Orwell, though I am not sure if it based on 1984 or Animal Farm. Maybe it is a combination of the two. Either way, it would help explain why there is something seriously wrong here. For example, at the end of February Congress, confronted by a debt ceiling, began discussing cutting Medicare and Social Security while more recently a banking sector crisis seems to be developing so Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen decided to go off doing photo-ops in Kiev embracing Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky shortly after handing him the keys to the US economy. She explained to Zelensky how the White House had approved an additional $12 billion in aid to Ukraine during the previous week, including $2 billion for the military and $10 billion to support Zelensky’s government and other infrastructure needs. The US Treasury is now de facto the source of the Ukraine government’s entire annual budget.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida arrived in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv on Tuesday in a surprise visit to the Eastern European country to hold talks with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ahead of a G-7 summit that Tokyo will host in May.

The visit, which had been kept secret until right before arrival, comes a day after Kishida met with his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, in New Delhi. It is rare for a Japanese leader to make an unannounced trip to a foreign nation.

While lost in the explosive news about Donald Trump’s expected arrest, journalist Matt Taibbi released new details on previously undisclosed censorship efforts on social media. The latest Twitter Files revealed a breathtaking effort from Stanford’s Virality Project to censor even true stories. After all, the project insisted “true stories … could fuel hesitancy” over taking the vaccine or other measures. The effort included suppressing stories that we now know are legitimate such as natural immunity defenses, the exaggerated value of masks, and questions over vaccine efficacy in preventing second illnesses. The work of the Virality Project to censor even true stories should result in the severance of any connection with Stanford University.

We have learned of an ever-expanding coalition of groups working with the government and social media to target and censor Americans, including government-funded organizations.

However, the new files are chilling in the details allegedly showing how the Virality Project labeled even true stories as “anti-vaccine” and, therefore, subject to censorship. These files would suggest that the Project eagerly worked to limit free speech and suppress alternative scientific viewpoints.

Taibbi describes the Virality Project as “a sweeping, cross-platform effort to monitor billions of social media posts by Stanford University, federal agencies, and a slew of (often state-funded) NGOs.”

The UK's junior Defense Minister Annabel Goldie told Parliament on Tuesday, "Alongside our granting of a squadron of Challenger 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine, we will be providing ammunition including armor piercing rounds which contain depleted uranium."

"Such rounds are highly effective in defeating modern tanks and armored vehicles." News of Britain sending armor-piercing tank rounds for Challenger II tanks to Kiev triggered a fierce reaction from the Kremlin, with a strong-worded statement emphasizing that such a weapon will be treated as tantamount to using a nuclear dirty bomb.

The troubles of once-major Swiss investment bank Credit Suisse is undermining Switzerland’s reputation as a global financial hub, says Opimas CEO Octavio Marenzi, as cited by CNBC on Tuesday.

His warning follows a historic takeover of Credit Suisse by the UBS Group, its domestic rival. On Sunday the two banking giants announced a Swiss-government-brokered deal aimed at shoring up public confidence in the Western financial system and at averting a global crisis. UBS agreed to acquire the embattled bank for three billion Swiss francs ($3.2 billion) as part of a cut-price deal.

“Switzerland’s standing as a financial center is shattered,” Marenzi reportedly said, adding that “The country will now be viewed as a financial banana republic.”

What’s new: An investment official at the Vatican’s Secretariat of State received for years a “finder’s fee” from a Swiss bank, which accrued when the Vatican deposited money or conducted other transactions with the bank.

What will happen: Fabrizio Tirabassi is already suspended from his job during an investigation of financial scandals at the Secretariat of State, and could face prosecution for this latest revelation.

It is also possible he could try to cut a deal with prosecutors by providing information about his bosses, including at least two cardinals.

The Ukrainian defense industry believes it will be hard to launch drone strikes deep inside Russia this spring, considering Russia's electromagnetic defense is akin to "black magic," according to The Economist weekly.

The British paper quoted a Ukrainian defense industry insider as saying that Kiev expects to gain "significant and high-tech capacity" in the coming weeks and months as Ukraine prepares to mount an offensive against the Russian territories.

That said, only a few military systems can perform well against Russia's sophisticated electronic warfare systems. The industry source admitted to The Economist that Russian air defense forces are "very, very good at what they do.

NATO prophesied a Second Russian Offensive (SRO) on the muddy heals of rasputitsa [Spring]. Then when queried, on February 13, about upcoming festivities, Secretary-General Stoltenberg imparted: “we are seeing the start already.” The SRO crept imperceptibly. April Fools’ came early.  

The Russo-Ukrainian War’s 800-kilometer front bisects the Donbass with a 240-kilometer incision. The SRO engages a segment of Donbass-situated line, with the Russian-held city, Donetsk, at its strategic core. The SRO’s operational theatre contiguously connects 5 small Ukrainian-held cities: (north-to-south) Bakhmut, Chavis Yar, Avdiivka, Marinka and Vuhledar

As missiles fly, Bakhmut sits 120 kilometers northeast of Vuhledar. Curves add length to lines; as do flanks of advancing Russian saliants. From the saliant northwest of Bakhmut to the southwestern environs of Vuhledar – the SRO’s battleline extends 160 kilometers; a third laying within or along urban terrain.

Under the 1984 Bayh-Dole Act, government scientists can collect royalties from drug companies for discoveries they make while working on the public’s dime

Taxpayers fund government research, while Big Pharma, the National Institutes of Health and NIH scientists keep all the profits

As a patent holder who profits from royalties, the NIH has a significant stake in regulations that impact patents and vaccine mandates, and may use its influence to benefit itself rather than the public

The NIH distributes $32 billion of taxpayer funds as research grants each year. As the largest federal grant-maker, the NIH has a monopoly on what research gets done and what doesn’t

Scientists vying for grants also recognize that in order to get funding, they have to play by the rules, and that means doing work that supports establishment narratives on public health policy

A former member of parliament died in an Egyptian prison on Monday in the third death in less than 48 hours and the eighth this year, a rights group told Middle East Eye.

According to the Committee for Justice (CFJ), the octogenarian detainee and former parliamentarian Ragab Mohamed Abu Zeid Zair died after his health deteriorated in his prison cell.

Zair was elected as a member of the first democratically elected parliament after the 2011 revolution, representing the Shebeen al-Kum constituency in Menofia governorate.

He was among thousands of then-army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's opponents who were detained in 2013 following his coup against Mohamed Morsi, the country's first democratically elected president.

Munitions with depleted uranium will have a serious negative effect on the health of servicemen who use them, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has said.

In a fragment of an interview to the Rossiya-1 TV, released via Telegram by journalist Pavel Zarubin, Shoigu said NATO had already used such munitions "during the [1999] events in Kosovo, Serbia." A subsequent investigation into their use revealed that the health of servicemen, who used them, was seriously harmed.

"There were consequences. There were consequences for the health of those who used those munitions. There were serious health conditions, and they were studied. However, they did not examine what kind of effect the munitions had on those against whom they were used," the Russian minister added.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has summoned Canada’s top diplomat in Moscow to lodge a formal complaint, after the Canadian foreign minister made “inadmissible remarks” earlier this month.

Melanie Joly told a news conference on March 10 that Ottawa was seeking “potential regime change in Russia.” Members of the cabinet are “seeing potential” for that outcome thanks to their efforts to isolate “the Russian regime” economically, politically and diplomatically, she stated.

The Canadian charge d’affaires in Moscow, Brian Ebel, was summoned on March 20 and issued with a formal protest over the remarks, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday. Moscow believes the comments to be “inadmissible and at variance with Canada’s obligations under the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.”

The West should prepare for a long-term conflict in Ukraine, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has warned. He predicted that after the fighting has stopped, the consequences of the confrontation will still persist.

Speaking at a meeting organized by the Rheinische Post newspaper in Duesseldorf on Monday, Scholz asserted that “we must prepare ourselves that it can last a long time,” adding that “even when the war is over, not everything will be normal overnight.”

“We should realize that this dreadful war of aggression and its consequences will keep us busy for a long time, and that we will have to deal with the clearing of the rubble for a long time,” Scholz stated.

Today, Iraqis mark the 20th anniversary of the horrific U.S.-U.K. bombing of Baghdad, dubbed “Shock and Awe.” In rapid succession, “coalition forces” dropped 3,000 bombs, including many that weighed 2,000 pounds, on Baghdad in what The New York Times called “almost biblical power.”

Although they launched an illegal war of aggression and committed war crimes in Iraq, 20 years later the leaders of the U.S. and the U.K. have never faced criminal accountability. By contrast, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has already charged Russian President Vladimir Putin with war crimes just one year after his unlawful invasion of Ukraine. He is the first non-African leader to be charged by the ICC, which frequently succumbs to pressure from the United States.

In what came to be called “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” 173,000 troops from the United States and the United Kingdom invaded Iraq. During the eight-year war, about 300,000 Iraqis and 4,600 Americans were killed. The United States spent $815 billion on the war, not counting indirect costs. It plunged the country into a civil war and millions of Iraqi refugees remain displaced. Two decades later, not one of the officials responsible has been brought to justice.

The U.S. State Department released an updated report on Human Rights in Ukraine and it honestly reads like a big bag of excuses. This is a report the State Department releases every year and every year they admit that Ukraine is a serious offender of human rights. Only this year, it is because of Russia. We go over this joke of a report and ask: Why is the U.S. supporting this corrupt place?

‘System Update’ host Glenn Greenwald discusses how the White House shut down a possible ceasefire in Ukraine a second time on ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight.’

Both houses of the New York legislature passed an alarming bill (A4132/S837) on Wednesday. The bill itself is not especially dangerous. What is very alarming though is the fact that it was passed indicates that the legislature is getting ready to try and pass another bill (S1531) that will make mandatory reporting of all adult vaccines, and perhaps vaccines refused, to the New York State Immunization Information System or the New York City Citywide Immunization Registry. Currently, if a medical worker follow the law, permission must be obtained to put a person’s information in the database.

We believe that S1531 has the best chance of passing this session out of all the many very bad vaccine-related bills.

The State wants this database for two simple reasons: to know who is and who is not complying with vaccine directives, and, therefore, identify targets for enforcement measures. As we all know, this is exactly what school vaccine databases are used for.

Here is a news video from May 15, 2014. A coup d’état, called Euromaidan, had already happened in Kiev. Crimea held a referendum and became part of the Russian Federation. Numerous nationalists flocked to Russian-speaking regions in eastern Ukraine to seize local power. Donbass rose up. Fighting broke out between supporters of the “Russian World” and Ukrainian armed formations near the cities of Slavyansk and Kramatorsk.

This video shows what happened in just one day, May 15, 2014. The armed conflict in Ukraine has been going on for nine years. It did not begin in February 2022, but in April 2014, when the so-called transitional government of Ukraine, led by Turchynov, began an “anti-terrorist operation” against the Russian-speaking residents of the country’s eastern regions.

Today, the battle between Ukrainian fighters and the DPR people’s militia broke out near Kramatorsk. Military formations of the Kiev regime used heavy armored vehicles and aviation. As a result of the clash, the Ukrainian militants lost 2 armored personnel carriers, 2 Kamaz trucks and 30 personnel killed and wounded. One member of the DPR militia was killed and another was wounded.

Earlier today, the Ukrainian militants retreated after the attack of the DPR militia near Slavyansk. The people’s militia continues the onslaught to free the corridor necessary for supplying the city.

Valery Bolotov, the people’s governor of the Luhansk region survived the assassination attempt in the morning. He was hospitalized with a gunshot wound. But this did not prevent the start of negotiations on the possible unification of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.

Irish member of the European Parliament Clare Daly recently excoriated her parliamentary colleagues for pushing for the conflict in Ukraine to continue with no effort at negotiation. An entire generation of Ukrainian men are being lost, she pleaded, noting that “recruits” are now being violently seized off the streets.

How a US delisted terror organization still threatens China...

As US-Chinese tensions rise ahead of a feared conflict, it should be noted that the US has been waging a violent proxy war against China both within its borders and along them for years.

This includes direct and indirect support for terrorist organizations including the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM). Despite admittedly being a terrorist organization, the US delisted it from its FTO list, allowing support to flow to the group.

She needs to understand that all NATO top brass, all those three-four star generals, do not know what real war is. Yes, they are that incompetent. Secondly, most of them are compromised and are not so much military men as politicos protecting their careers, including by toeing "a party line" formulated by even more incompetent and even more corrupt and cowardly West's political top. As I am on record--the only thing they can do is PR. Now, some of them begin to feel that they fucked up royally and some may face down the road some serious legal, forget about moral, they long ago lost morals, issues. 

Here Larry explains a bit the issue. 

For over 500 years, each saeculum saw America’s power, prestige, and wealth increase. The ravages of war, which ended each prior saeculum, left us stronger. World War II ushered in what friend and foe alike call “The American Century.”

Strauss and Howe warned in their 1997 book, The Fourth Turning, that history offers no guarantee that the next turning, about 2026, will be a continuation of that progression.

American society will be transformed into something different. The emergent society may be something better, a nation that sustains its Framers’ visions with a robust new pride. Or it may be something unspeakably worse. The Fourth Turning will be a time of glory or ruin.2