July 1, 2022

 

Associated Press

An overwhelming and growing majority of Americans say the U.S. is heading in the wrong direction, including nearly 8 in 10 Democrats, according to a new poll that finds deep pessimism about the economy plaguing President Joe Biden. Eighty-five percent of U.S. adults say the country is on the wrong track, and 79% describe the economy as poor, according to a new survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research … The poll shows only 39% of Americans approve of Biden’s leadership overall, while 60% disapprove … Just 14% say things are going in the right direction … Through the first half of 2021, about half of Americans said the country was headed in the right direction, a number that has steadily eroded in the past year. … The national dissatisfaction is bipartisan, the poll shows.

David Stockman

… Massive fiscal deficits year-after-year have become a way of life in the Imperial City, but even the CBO’s latest 10-year forecast is a shocker ... The [federal budget] deficit will exceed $3 trillion per year by the end of the decade … Such horrendous projections do not phase these clowns one single bit – as was underscored in spades by Congress’ shameful boondoggling on the Ukraine aid bill … Washington has empowered a madman, who is so smitten by his own strutting on the world stage that rationality itself has become the victim … Historians will someday wonder how today’s insanities actually came to pass, but there is actually no mystery. Washington has become the world’s capital of perpetual war because it was able – for a time – to perpetually issue debt and then monetize it at the central bank.

Tulsi Gabbard, Daniel L. Davis - Foreign Policy

.. The harsh realities emerging on the bloody battlefields of eastern Ukraine make it increasingly likely that the longer Kyiv seeks to achieve military victory, the more likely it is ultimately to be defeated. U.S. policy, guided by U.S. interests, should change to reflect this reality … Since Russia changed tack and prioritized firepower over maneuver in the Donbas fight, its forces have been pummeling Ukrainian troops with upwards of a staggering 70,000 shells per day and a significant number of heavy rockets. Additionally, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces are conducting as many as 300 air sorties over Ukraine per day. Ukraine, in contrast, is firing an estimated one-tenth as many shells — and sometimes flies only three to five air sorties per day.

Rainer Zitelmann - The National Interest

… After its reformation in 1925, the NSDAP [National Socialist Party] only accepted new memberships from the general public for about a combined twelve of the following twenty years. Time and again, membership recruitments were suspended … But, in spite of the regular recruitment stops, the party’s membership continued to grow strongly … Where the NSDAP did differ from other parties, however, was in the youthfulness of its supporters … In response, after the second suspension of new memberships in 1942, only graduates of the Hitler Youth and the BDM were accepted, along with war survivors and those who had left the Wehrmacht. The party was to remain young. There existed no single, all-encompassing motive to become a National Socialist.

Rainer Zitelmann – The National Interest

There are countless theories as to why so many Germans joined Hitler’s party, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP), but it is a subject that has seen relatively little empirical research … What attracted many people was the idea of the Volksgemeinschaft (“national community”), a concept that was often combined with anti-capitalism. Incidentally, this is particularly true of the anti-Semites among the NSDAP’s members, who often shared socialist ideas as well. … Quite a few party members came from “Social Democratic or Marxist-oriented families” … The experience of World War I also shaped many National Socialists. …Above all, however, Falter shows that there was never a single, overriding motive that explains why people joined the NSDAP. There were a multitude of very different motives and paths to the NSDAP.

Leon Degrelle

“We have the power. Now our gigantic work begins." Those were Hitler's words on the night of January 30, 1933, as cheering crowds surged past him, for five long hours, beneath the windows of the Chancellery in Berlin. His political struggle had lasted 14 years. He himself was 43 … Half a century later, few people understand the crisis Germany faced at that time … During the preceding years, a score of "democratic" governments had come and gone, often in utter confusion. Instead of alleviating the people's misery, they had increased it, due to their own instability …

Dave DeCamp - Antiwar. com

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Israel has been secretly coordinating with the US on many of its airstrikes in Syria, and senior officials at US Central Command have reviewed and approved many plans in recent years. Israel frequently bombs Syria and frames the operations as strikes against Iran or Hezbollah, although the air raids often kill Syrian government troops and members of Iraq's Shia militias. The latest Israeli airstrikes on Syria disabled the Damascus International Airport, marking a significant escalation in the air campaign. Current and former officials told the Journal that the main focus of the coordination is on airstrikes that pass near al-Tanf garrison, a US military base in southern Syria near the border with Jordan.

CNS

The Eighth Administrative Court of Appeals in Lyiv, Ukraine, ruled in favor of Ukraine's Ministry of Justice on June 21 and banned the Opposition Platform For Life, the main opposition political party. All funds and property of the party were ordered to be turned over to the government, which is headed by President Volodymyr Zelensky. Back in March, the Opposition Platform for Life held 44 seats in the Ukrainian Parliament … The Opposition Party for Life is a pro-Russian political party and has earned strong support largely in Eastern Ukraine … In May, President Zelensky signed into law a measure that bans pro-Russian political parties. In addition to the Opposition Party for Life, Zelensky banned 10 other political parties, including the Justice and Development Party, the Union of Left Forces, and the Party of Shariy.

Middle East Monitor

The New York Times is the latest US news agency to conclude that Palestinian journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, was most likely killed by an Israeli soldier. A month-long investigation by The Times found that the bullet that killed Abu Akleh was fired from the approximate location of the Israeli military convoy, most likely by a soldier from an elite unit. Evidence reviewed by The Times debunked Israeli claims, and showed that there were no armed Palestinians near Abu Akleh when she was shot … In a rare admission of Israel's impunity, The Times conceded that Palestinian deaths rarely attract international scrutiny, and soldiers accused of crimes against Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank are rarely convicted.