Politics

US Doctors Stunned By Number Of Gaza Children With Headshot Wounds

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– US Doctors Stunned By Number Of Gaza Children With Headshot Wounds:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called Israel the “most moral army in the world,” but a high volume of deeply troubling wounds seen by American surgeons volunteering in Gaza is casting doubt on that claim.

Dr. Mark Perlmutter, an American surgeon with heavy catastrophe-zone experience, is among those stunned by the civilian devastation they’ve recently witnessed in Gaza, and especially by a high volume of what appear to be precision rifle-fire wounds on children — including toddlers.

“All of the disasters I’ve seen, combined – 40 mission trips, 30 years, Ground Zero, earthquakes, all of that combined – doesn’t equal the level of carnage that I saw against civilians in just my first week in Gaza,” Dr. Mark Perlmutter, an orthopedic surgeon and vice president of the International College of Surgeons, told CBS’s Sunday Morning.

What most struck him was his observation that the overwhelming majority of the patients he and his team treated were children:

“I’ve never seen that before. I’ve seen more incinerated children than I’ve ever seen in my entire life, combined. I’ve seen more shredded children in just the first week … missing body parts, being crushed by buildings, the greatest majority, or bomb explosions, the next greatest majority.” 

Perlumutter, a Jew who grew up in New Jersey and who now lives in North Carolina, was also disturbed what what he attributed to precise rifle fire directed at children, some of whom were “shot twice.”

“I have two children that I have photographs of that were shot so perfectly in the chest, I couldn’t put my stethoscope over their heart more accurately, and directly on the side of the head, in the same child. No toddler gets shot twice by mistake by the ‘world’s best sniper.’ And they’re dead-center shots.“

His description of the phenomenon was confirmed to CBS News by more than 20 other doctors who’d recently visited Gaza. An American doctor had such a problem grasping what he was seeing that he double-checked using CT scans, saying he “didn’t believe that this many children could be admitted to a single hospital with gunshot wounds to the head.”

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Trump: Israel Needs To End War Quick & Have Better ‘Public Relations’

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– Trump: Israel Needs To End War Quick & Have Better ‘Public Relations:

The day before Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is expected to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-A-Lago, the former US president has a message for Israel: end the war quickly and bring the hostages home as soon as possible.

Trump is urging a quick end the conflict, and in a rare moment of criticism said that Israel must better manage its “public relations.“ The war should stop quickly “because they are getting decimated with this publicity, and you know Israel is not very good at public relations,” Trump said a new Fox interview.

Trump has repeatedly blamed Biden’s foreign policy weakness for enabling the whole crisis in the first place, having previously asserted that the Hamas terror attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and resulted in full-blown war would not have happened if he had been in the White House.

In the fresh interview Trump also lashed out at yesterday’s anti-Netanyahu protests in Washington which included shocking scenes of people burning the American flag.

“You should get a one year jail sentence if you do anything to desecrate the American flag,” Trump said. “Now, people will say, ‘Oh it’s unconstitutional.’ Those are stupid people. Those are stupid people that say that,” he continued.

“We have to work in Congress to get a one-year jail sentence. When they’re allowed to stomp on the flag and put lighter fluid on the flag and set it afire, when you’re allowed to do that — you get a one-year jail sentence and you’ll never see it again,” Trump added.

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– Joe Biden on Shalom TV: ‘I am a ZIONIST’:

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Newsom Issues EO For California Cities To Remove Homeless Encampments After Supreme Court Ruling teaser image

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– Newsom Issues EO For California Cities To Remove Homeless Encampments After Supreme Court Ruling:

After years of encouraging rampant crime and degeneracy among the homeless population, and just in time for an election talking point, California Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order on Thursday for the removal of homeless encampments across the state.

The order directs state agencies to remove thousands of tents and makeshift shelters along freeways, shopping center parking lots, and city parks – and puts the decision in the hands of local authorities.

Newsom’s EO comes after a decision by the Supreme Court earlier this summer which allows cities to enforce bans on sleeping outside in public spaces, AP reports.

The case was the most significant on the issue to come before the high court in decades and comes as cities across the country have wrestled with the politically complicated issue of how to deal with a rising number of people without a permanent place to live and public frustration over related health and safety issues.

“We must act with urgency to address dangerous encampments,” Newsom said in a statement.

Read moreNewsom Issues EO For California Cities To Remove Homeless Encampments After Supreme Court Ruling teaser image

White House Approves Nearly $3 Billion Weapons Sale To Saudi Arabia

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– White House Approves Nearly $3 Billion Weapons Sale To Saudi Arabia:

The State Department approved a proposed sale of military technical equipment to Saudi Arabia. Washington views Riyadh as a key partner in the Middle East, even as the Kingdom rules its people with an oppressive dictatorship and wages war abroad.

On Wednesday, a statement posted by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) said the “State Department has made a determination approving a possible foreign military sale to Saudi Arabia of System Logistics and Sustainment Support and related elements of logistics and program support for an estimated cost of $2.8 billion.”

The sale includes “Joint Mission Planning Software (JMPS) hardware and support; KIV-77/78 cryptographic devices” and “US Government and contractor engineering, technical, and logistics support services; and other related elements of logistics and program support.”

The DSCA statement explained that the State Department determined that the sale “will support the foreign policy goals and national security objectives of the United States by improving the security of a partner country that is a force for political stability and economic progress in the Gulf Region.”

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The Percentage Of Americans That Worry They Won’t Be Able To Pay Their Bills Is Higher Than It Was During The Great Recession

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– The Percentage Of Americans That Worry They Won’t Be Able To Pay Their Bills Is Higher Than It Was During The Great Recession:

Do you remember how painful the Great Recession was?  2008 and the years immediately following were definitely a very dark chapter in our history, but a new study has actually found that the percentage of Americans that worry they won’t be able to pay their bills is actually higher today than it was back then.  Slowly but surely, our economic strength has been fading and our standard of living has been falling.  Unfortunately, now we have reached a point where a very large portion of the U.S. population is really struggling.

According to a CNN poll that was just released, almost 40 percent of all U.S. adults “say they worry most or all of the time that their family’s income won’t be enough to meet expenses”…

Many Americans regularly worry they won’t be able to make ends meet.

Nearly four in ten (39%) of US adults say they worry most or all of the time that their family’s income won’t be enough to meet expenses, according to a new CNN poll. That’s up from 28% who expressed those concerns in December 2021, and it’s similar to the numbers seen during the Great Recession (37%).

To cope, significant shares of Americans said they are adding side jobs, cutting down on driving and putting more expenses on credit cards.

If you would have asked me before I saw the results, I would have been quite confident that the number during the Great Recession would have been higher than the number in 2024.

Just like everyone else, I remember the Great Recession as such a painful time.

Sadly, the economic pain that we are experiencing now is just beginning.

Read moreThe Percentage Of Americans That Worry They Won’t Be Able To Pay Their Bills Is Higher Than It Was During The Great Recession

More Guns, Less Butter: How Will The EU Wed Austerity To Militarization?

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– More Guns, Less Butter: How Will The EU Wed Austerity To Militarization?:

US President Joe Biden, long showing signs of decline, is now officially done for in five months time, if not sooner. The current odds-on favorite to be the next president speaks often about turning away from Europe. Governments are collapsing, and countries are fracturing across the EU. And the eurozone economy is a mess.

One might be tempted to come to the conclusion that it is time for the EU to start figuring out an exit strategy from its war against Russia. Trouble is, if the bloc’s crop of leaders were able to grasp the situation and act, they likely would have gotten out a long time ago – or never been game at all. Instead they kept digging deeper, and here again we have the EU doubling down.

EU diplomats have spent the past few weeks throwing a fit over Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s shuttle diplomacy efforts. In its very first session the newly elected Parliament produced a belligerent joint text, making all sorts of hardline demands, such as the removal of any restrictions on the Ukrainian use of Western weapons systems to strike Russian territory.

They also chose to reappoint one of the war’s biggest backers, Ursula von der Leyen, as president of the European Commission – the most powerful position in the EU. Let’s take a look at von der Leyen’s pitch as she worked to cobble together enough votes for her second five-year term and what the plan is now that she’s back. Emboldened by her reappointment, she is pushing for a defense union.

Politico describes this task as “the number one challenge of her second term: making huge amounts of EU money available to reindustrialize and re-arm the EU.”

Left unexplained is who would foot the bill for the ambitious  plans, but the Commission and the European Central Bank continue to consider the possibility of issuing Eurobonds to finance the purchase or manufacture of weaponry, an idea considered off-limits until recently. Some background on the potential “miracle” of Euro defense bonds from Euractiv: 

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These NATO States Are Embracing Conscription, Eyeing Future War With Russia

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– These NATO States Are Embracing Conscription, Eyeing Future War With Russia:

As NATO escalates its proxy war in Ukraine and inches closer to fighting directly with Russia, the Washington-led bloc is embracing mandatory military service. Many European members of NATO have expanded or reintroduced conscription as part of large-scale preparations for such a war, CNN reports. Already outpaced in terms of military industrial capacity by Russia, the alliance’s new battleplans will see an attempt to beef up weapons production and form 35-50 brigades of 3,000-7,000 battle ready troops.

Outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has insisted, “Today, we have 500,000 troops on high readiness, combat-ready battlegroups in the eastern part of the Alliance for the first time.” But the bloc is struggling to meet its goals of assembling 300,000 soldiers prepared to be activated within a month and another half a million in six months. There is also a question of whether the bloc can filed a military fit for a protracted war akin to the Ukraine conflict.

Following the end of the Cold War, several European states ceased conscripting their citizens. Although increasing numbers of NATO member countries have resorted to the draconian practice during recent years, especially in the Baltics and Scandinavia. Roughly a third of the NATO alliance practices some form of compulsory military service.

This year, for the first time since it was abolished in 2006, Latvia reimplemented its draft. Male citizens are subject to conscription within a year of turning 18 years old. Additionally, Norway has unveiled a long-term plan to increase its ranks of mandatorily conscripted troops, employees, and reservists by 20,000 as well as double the military budget. In 2015, Oslo became the first NATO government to establish a gender-neutral draft.

Read moreThese NATO States Are Embracing Conscription, Eyeing Future War With Russia

Ukraine Strongly Signals Willingness To Negotiate With Russia: China FM

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– Ukraine Strongly Signals Willingness To Negotiate With Russia: China FM:

The Ukrainian government has been showing an increased willingness to get to the negotiating table to end the war, with the latest development being a trip by the country’s top diplomat to China to explore avenues forward. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Wednesday met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, and communicated in a statement that “I am convinced that a just peace in Ukraine is in China’s strategic interests.”

“China’s role as a global force for peace is important,” he emphasized, while also stipulating that Kiev will only engage Moscow when Putin is “ready to negotiate in good faith.” However, he added that “No such readiness is currently observed on the Russian side.” This marks the first such trip of Ukraine’s foreign minister to China since the war began in February 2022.

Wang in a readout said that Russia and Ukraine had each “sent signals of their willingness to negotiate to varying degrees.”

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Funny Money: ActBlue Accused Of “MASSIVE Money Laundering Operation” As Trump Files FEC Complaint Over $91M Transfer To Kamala

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– Funny Money: ActBlue Accused Of “MASSIVE Money Laundering Operation” As Trump Files FEC Complaint Over $91M Transfer To Kamala:

Democrat donation platform ActBlue has been accused of a engaging in a “MASSIVE money laundering operation,” by which contributions from large donors are being funneled through hundreds of thousands of small donations made in the name of people who have no clue they’ve donated.

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