By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Nothing exemplifies the loss of national sovereignty, and the abandonment of strategic autonomy, like handing the war decision over to the US. The submarine issue is simply a blind. AUKUS is just a distraction.

The Australia-US Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) joint statement records Australia’s surreptitious accession as the 51st state of the Union. That it has been done without a vote, or even a serious national or parliamentary debate, highlights the accompanying loss of democracy.

By Mike Scrafton

US senators battle over who can get pregnant

All Democrats voted in unison against an amendment defining pregnancy as occurring only in biological women

US Senate Republicans were fighting a losing battle in trying to block passage of President Joe Biden’s $740 billion climate, tax and health care bill, but they tried to score some ideological points by introducing an amendment acknowledging that only biological women can get pregnant.

Freedom of thought and freedom of speech only exist on the fringes of Western society, in such small numbers that they make no difference.

By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com

Listen to a reading of this article.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will lead the Russian delegation to the UN General Assembly, scheduled for the end of September in New York, the Kremlin announced on Monday. President Vladimir Putin does not intend to travel to the UNGA or even address the event online. It is unclear whether the US will allow Lavrov and another member of the delegation to enter the country, even for the UN event.

There are “no plans” for Putin to travel to the US or address the world body, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday. Instead, the Russian president signed a directive designating Lavrov as the head of the Russian delegation. 

President Joe Biden’s assassination of Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan was illegal under both U.S. and international law.

After the C.I.A. drone strike killed Zawahiri on Aug. 2, Biden declared, “People around the world no longer need to fear the vicious and determined killer.”

Some people are used as foils by the inner sanctum of the political hardshitters, like the US presidents and their semi-official friendly cronies. These foils, these guys and dolls, are called advisors. More often than not, the Powermen (they are mostly men or women with balls, like Thatcher) don’t listen to them. But the advice is taken on board as to find a way to bullshit and go around the advice. This is one of the tricks of POWER.

Caretaker UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson once described his job as foreign secretary – the post he held from 2016 to 2018 – as being “imprisoned in a steel condom.” Baroness Davidson, a former Scottish Tory leader and no friend of Johnson, revealed the saucy turn of phrase in a LBC interview.

Ruth Davidson resigned as the leader of Scottish Conservatives in 2019, shortly after Johnson became prime minister, and has been highly critical of him since. She later became baroness of Lundin Links in the County of Fife, and is presently sitting in the House of Lords as a life peer.

Asked about any anecdotes about Johnson during a LBC show at the Edinburgh Fringe festival, Davidson recalled a reference to his term running the Foreign Office.

US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi has stated that she has no regrets about her recent controversial trip to Taiwan and described it as “totally worth it” in an interview with the Today show on Tuesday.

The 82-year-old politician insisted that she had “overwhelming bipartisan support” for the visit and that she and her delegation were very well-received by the Taiwanese government and its people.

However, she stated that China’s position on her trip was irrelevant, and insisted that China would “not be allowed to isolate Taiwan” or dictate who can and cannot visit the island.

In a display of support, the US has protected Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky from any criticism ever since Russia attacked Ukraine in February. As it becomes evident the war has been lost, someone will have to take the fall, and it appears that Washington is preparing to throw the leader in Kiev to the wolves.

Ukrainian forces have “had the American military at their side” from the start of the conflict with Russia, the magazine Causeur cited a “well-placed analyst” in French intelligence as saying. Pentagon-hired contractors are allegedly “everywhere on the battlefield.”

The claim was published by the right-leaning outlet last week in an analysis of the five-month-long Russia-Ukraine conflict, which, it stated, “is not the fight of David against Goliath,” contrary to what many people believe.

Editor’s Note: This article was distributed by a Chinese government accepted source, but we believe it is worthy of a wider audience because it provides documentation of important ongoing dialogue within top circles in China unavailable elsewhere.

By Huáng Píng | 经济导刊（Economic Herald）

Sen. Bernie Sanders took to the Senate floor on Tuesday to offer a sweeping critique of the Democratic Party’s new reconciliation package, applying particularly close scrutiny to the legislation’s massive and destructive handouts to the fossil fuel industry.

A new imperialism stalks the Third World. It shares with the old an unquenchable thirst — for its labor, its land, its minerals, and its water. If colonization depended on the political strategies of divide and rule, the imperialists no longer have to rule today. Instead, they rely on local elites eager to aid their peoples’ exploitation in return for a share of the spoils — a process sanitized with the language of investments, trade deals and partnerships.