[Last Refuge] Well, I have not written about the events with Wagner in Russia, in part because coincidentally I have a good source in St Petersburg who told me several days ago to look out for something with Wagner and Putin. Wagner’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was born in St Pete (Leningrad).
Moving down to Blinkin interview
SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: Morning, Margaret.
MARGARET BRENNAN:Can you tell us who in the Biden administration has been in touch with Russian leadership?
SEC. BLINKEN: Well, I instructed my own team at the President’s behest to engage with the Russians, first and foremost, to make sure that they understood their responsibilities in terms of protecting our own personnel, ensuring their safety and well-being, as well as any American citizens in Russia. So a number of people have engaged to make sure that the Russians got that message.
[WaPo] The brief but potent mutiny of mercenary chieftain Yevgeniy Prigozhin and his Wagner troops in Russia on Saturday marks a turning point in President Vladimir Putin’s 23-year rule. Before the revolt, Mr. Putin appeared invincible, leading a highly personalized power structure, bestowing wealth upon various clans in exchange for loyalty. Now, in a flash, he is humiliated and his structure cracked. The implications are deeply worrisome for Russia, for Ukraine and for the world.
How Mr. Putin reacts to this, in prosecuting the war against Ukraine and in exercising power at home, will be crucial.
Mr. Prigozhin is a creation of the Kremlin, an oligarch upon whom the state showered riches and whose Wagner troops carried out dangerous missions in Africa and most recently in the bloody contest for Bakhmut, Ukraine. Mr. Prigozhin had previously criticized the Russian Defense Ministry over a claimed shortfall of ammunition in Ukraine, and last week he blasted Mr. Putin’s war aims as false. But Saturday’s armed revolt — in which his troops captured a Russian military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don, conducted an armed convoy hundreds of miles toward Moscow, and shot down Russian helicopters and a plane, killing Russian servicemen — was like nothing that has gone before in Mr. Putin’s time. The president’s Saturday televised address reflected a sense of grave panic, accusing Mr. Prigozhin of "betrayal" and executing a "stab in the back" against the Russian people — and vowing punishment.
But then, nothing. Mr. Prigozhin was let off the hook, promised that he and his forces would not be prosecuted, and allowed to turn around. This resembles the weak Russia of the 1990s, unable to defend itself against marauders — a feeble state that set the stage for Mr. Putin’s rise as a strongman.
The legend that Mr. Putin promoted is of a man who never forgets a slight, a cornered rat who will always strike back, a ruthless former KGB officer who dreams of restoring empire. He was none of those on Saturday.
From the V Kontakte page Daniel Ivaschenko.
Now many are worried and panicking. Like a coup d'état in the country. Prigozhin and his private army are trying to seize power in the country. I see it differently.
Evgeny Prigozhin - part of the Russian elite, a loyal personour president. His restaurateur is in the past. And he would never go against his leader.
I am sure that, on the instructions of the head of state, he ran into the army and officials.
In 1991, our people sold their great homeland to the enemy for Western sausage, chewing gum and jeans. And came under occupation. For more than 30 years, we have been selling our valuable resources for paper money (dollars). Of course, the West has also formed its own elite in Russia. It is not for nothing that the children of some officials and oligarchs study abroad, their villas, money, etc. are also located there.
In 2022, Vladimir Putin declared war on the entire Western world and tried to withdraw our country from Western occupation. But it didn't work out right away. Since he was interfered with by internal enemies. They sabotaged the SVO, transmitted data to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Therefore, the situation at the front was sad. We did not take Kyiv, we lost half of the Kharkov and Kherson regions. And they continued to retreat.
Something urgently needed to be done. And the president brought the head of the Wagner PMC into play.
This unit changed the situation at the front, took the impregnable fortress of Bakhmut, and ground the best Bandera units.
But the problem of traitors was not solved. And so Prigogine began to conduct tough rhetoric. And in the end raised a "rebellion".
But this is insinuation. To figure out those who work for the enemy. And clean out the part of the elite that is subordinate to the Anglo-Saxons.
I hope everything goes according to plan! In the fall of 2022, I myself was in the NWO zone.
And I believe that we will defeat both internal and external enemies! Our cause is right! And God is on our side! ☦🇷🇺
Daniil Ivashchenko, public and political figure, entrepreneur, blogger.
OK, from the 49 Pan perspective. This Wagner group was Putin's killer elites. Who paid them? My guess is they are paid by the oligarchs... Putin has had/forced the strange deaths of many oligarchs, making them very nervous. Me thinks the oligarchs haver gotten to the Wanger group and the coup is on and paid for. Why did Wagner back off? The threat of killing the leaders family is a joke. I think Putin threatened to tactically nuke them. Its the only thing that would stop these thugs. There is 20,000 more Wagner associates in Africa, lets see where they move to, their placement will be strategic. Belarus is playing with fire allowing them there. This whole event was a movement to contact, and now Putin has an armed war on two fronts, and a internal one with the oligarchs that are losing treasure... Popcorn anyone??
#3
The TacNuke threat makes sense. but it also means that level of weapons control is now a key component in the internal struggle between Putin and the oligarchs. Once the oligarchs gain their own nukes (if not already), the loser of the struggle might well go Gotterdamerung!
The TacNuke move to Belarus really muddies this up if the secret civil war explodes, as it could make Lukashenko a king-maker and very very rich.
[ZERO] Last year, NYU economist Arpit Gupta used the phrase "urban doom loop" to describe a decline of foot traffic in central business districts, which "adversely affects the urban core in a variety of ways," including lowering municipal revenues, and making it more challenging to provide public goods and services without increasing taxes. Bruce School, Future City, IL
Now, as Insider's Eliza Relman writes, the 'Urban Doom Loop' has hit the heartland, as Midwestern states are facing a crisis of their own; struggling to attract workers, residents, and visitors to their downtowns - a problem which predates the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to economists and urban planners, Midwestern cities need to make major changes in order to boost quality of life in their downtowns, instead of just being a place where people are forced to go to work.
#6
A continuation of processes that have been on the move for 50 years or so.
Who is concerned? Bankers who are invested in urban real estate, and politicians who wish to control said real estate. They tell the rest of us that it's important to be in an urban area, because because.
Since towns stopped needing to be inside defensible walls, what's kept cities going has mostly been convenience and inertia.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
06/26/2023 9:44 Comments ||
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#7
^ Several "blue" states are actually red if you subtract one or two large urban areas where the left controls all the levers of power.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/26/2023 9:49 Comments ||
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#9
There was some guy who said he could kill 25 key people and destroy the left in America. I think the same could probably be said for maybe a dozen big cities.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/26/2023 9:52 Comments ||
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#11
Several "blue" states are actually red if you subtract one or two large urban areas where the left controls all the levers of power.
2020 Election map by county
Quite a different picture from the tradition Red state vs Blue state view. It all depends on how you slice and dice the data.
#12
The Electoral College makes the Red State and Blue State model useful. The Blue Cities in the Mid West seem more like a Blue Donut of liberal suburbs surrounding an increasingly empty downtown. The Libs are dispersed but not far away from each other.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/26/2023 12:37 Comments ||
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#13
You go into a store looking for an item, you name it, any item, and the clerk tells you they don't have it in stock but you can order it online. After a while you don't bother going into the store anymore. Neither does anybody else so the store closes. More stores close. Tax revenue declines. The city dies. Everybody sits at home waiting for the Amazon, UPS or FedEx truck. But then the shirt you ordered doesn't fit because there are no dressing rooms online. The fabric doesn't feel right because some idiot at Amazon gave you polyester instead of cotton. You find the pants were Made in China because you can't read the label online. It costs you more to ship the item back to Amazon that the item costs so you throw it in the trash. All your socks have holes in them and you don't know where to get new ones.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
06/26/2023 15:11 Comments ||
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#14
Unless I have to visit some business in an office tower, you'd never find me downtown in a big city. Why would I be? To enjoy the vibrancy (crime and drug abuse)? To go to some club that is exactly where I don't want to be after last call? To get caught in a mostly peaceful mass shooting on some holiday I don't observe?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/26/2023 15:50 Comments ||
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#15
Last two times I was in a big downtown after dark, it was Dallas and Indianapolis and both times it was during the NRA convention and everyone I was walking around with was heeled.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/26/2023 15:52 Comments ||
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Pulling all the threads together.
[JustTheNews] From search warrants to charges, federal agencies put thumb on scale of justice and elections, new evidence suggests.
[American Thinker] We have seen for some time how off-the-rails the FBI has become, a danger to a free society. More and more evidence now shows it’s not just the FBI. Every federal employee with a badge and gun seems to think he’s a law unto himself. This week the spotlight is on the IRS, and the Congress has to step up and rein the agency in.
While Matt Taibbi was testifying before Congress on the administration’s extensive censoring of social media content, the IRS appeared at his door, ostensibly to question him about his taxes, but obviously to intimidate him for showing up government censorship.
#2
Riddle me this.
How can person file taxes using IRS approved commercial Federal and State Software. Have the IRS and State approve the submitted return.
Then several weeks later the IRS sends a check for overpayment the IRS found.
Then 2 months later the IRS sends a letter telling the taxpayer now they under paid and now owe $$?
The IRS system has become one #$%^-up mess to say the least.
A top to bottom overhaul and a balance budget amendment is a must.
Support a standard FLAT TAX that EVERYONE equally pays.
#5
BTW: anyone else recently getting more personal / Family US Mail that was "accidentally" damaged, opened along the seam, then placed in a clear plastic pouch to be delivered a few days later than usual?
File Pic Example from the US postal department expressing their apologies?
#6
Have the IRS and State approve the submitted return.
That already happens on an e-filed tax return. The tax authority gives you a 20 digit Submission Identification Number (SID) once it's accepted. In Taibbi's case the 2018 tax return had such a number but the IRS got caught in a lie (one of many) and said they never got the return.
With respect to Taibbi's case I wanted to give him a monster e-mail pointing out the many things the IRS did that is (to put it mildly) inconsistent with their normal procedures. First among them is this - the IRS does not show up at your door unless you owe them a lot of money (say, $25K or more) and you've been blowing them off.
#10
Std Flat tax Italy.. 23% for everybody . Idiot!!! The power to regulate is the power to control!!!!
Posted by: Old Salty ||
06/26/2023 9:55 Comments ||
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#11
The IRS is doing more than taxes. They raided the gun shop in Montana and took ZERO financial information. The only thing they took were the FBI background check forms... Expect it to get more interesting as they get gunned up and dont need the sheriffs...
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
06/26/2023 10:18 Comments ||
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#12
The trafficking thing keeps coming up with Hunter, but it is not explained. The charge is not something that I feel comfortable researching myself. I saw enough unsolicited pictures when I used to use GETTR. My assumption is that he was a customer of hookers that were provided by pimps that are by definition traffickers. I do not state this assumption in defense of Hunter in particular or johns in general. If Hunter is the vendor rather than the customer in the trafficking charges, the plea deal that lets him walk will be even more egregious.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/26/2023 12:51 Comments ||
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#13
the IRS does not show up at your door unless you owe them a lot of money (say, $25K or more)
No.
They send the Sheriff.
No - they send an IRS agent. I do books on the Cape for someone who owes lots & lots to them (over $100K)and three years ago I was there when one IRS agent showed up from their Hyannis, MA office. I talked to him for a few minutes and he left. That's what happens in normal cases.
This is not new. The IRS went after TEa partyers and TEA party groups, pro-Israel and conservative Jewish groups, and others in an organized fashion heading into the 2012 presidential campaign — it’s all in the Rantburg archives. And it was so smoothly done that I have to assume that, like the FBI, the IRS has been doing this kind of thing for much longer, but there were no serious independent news groups able to get the information out to the general public, back when the mainstream media really did control the airwaves.
#16
Perhaps those employing an eminent tax accountant like Raj get the courtesy of an actual IRS staffer, while mere citizens like Skidmark get a member of local law enforcement running errands when they should be on their lunch hour.
#17
Well Rage, I got the Sheriff that delivered the letter from the IRS.
It can vary, that's for sure. Twenty years ago I worked with a lawyer who had a client who owed the IRS major cash; can't remember how much. One day they went to repo his Ford truck with 150,000 miles on it. The lineup of law enforcement involved was impressive - one local cop, one local sheriff, a Mass. state trooper, two IRS agents and one from the Treasury were all on the scene. Talk about overkill...
[Newspaste] J. Stanley Pottinger is best known today as one of the most prominent lawyers representing victims of infamous billionaire intelligence asset and pedophile sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein. As a former member of the Nixon and Ford administrations, J. Stanley Pottinger has also played a central role in some of the most infamous official cover-ups to take place over the last 50 years. Prepare yourself, for this series won’t only expose Pottinger’s extremely influential and close relationship to government, the Republican Party and the CIA, it will also rewrite American history.
[AmericanThinker] This week, as accounts of the whistleblowers who blew the lid off the hampered investigations of the President’s crackhead son Hunter were made public, I imagined a writer making a pitch to producers for a dramatic program called Wilmington, a political version, if you will, of Dallas with more than a hint of the Godfather. Clearly, my proposed dramatization covers so much ground, it will have to be serialized.
For one thing, there’s a very sordid background to the story. The family has a long history of corruption and drug use unhampered by legal prosecution.
Informed by writers like Jonathan Turley, Julie Kelly, Miranda Devine, Margot Cleveland, and Paul Sperry, this week the story reads like the sleaziest of television series. There’s incest, the president showering with his young daughter per her diary which she left behind in a hotel room; tax cheating and sexual peccadillos -- Hunter writing off payments to prostitutes and sex clubs as business expenses; millions in undisclosed bribes by Chinese and Ukrainian figures, often seemingly as part of a Mafia-type Biden muscling in which benefits and/or consequences are promised and/or threatened for non-payment.
There are more than a few hints of lawfare vendettas: Attorney General Merrick Garland, embittered at having been denied a seat on the Supreme Court, appears to have helped shove under the carpet extensive evidence of the Biden corruption. The newest revelations from whistleblowers to Congress follow on the Durham Report, which can provide the series with a female villain always a necessary subplot for noir tales:
“Former President Barack Obama and his director of national intelligence, James Clapper, were both briefed in 2016 on reports that then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton planned to vilify Donald Trump by claiming he was colluding with Russia to win the election in 2016.”
Intelligence and FBI heads -- Brennan, Clapper and Comey -- fabricated Russiagate to tie up President Trump and prevent him from exercising fully his rightful office. Read the rest at the link
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Last Refuge] Well, I have not written about the events with Wagner in Russia, in part because coincidentally I have a good source in St Petersburg who told me several days ago to look out for something with Wagner and Putin. Wagner’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was born in St Pete (Leningrad).
