Last Week Today Episode 156 Show Notes for Monday, July 1st, 2024
Fallout from the US Presidential Debate, Julian Assange is Free, Trudeau is in Trouble, The Conservatives are Gaining Power in France, Tommy Robinson is in Canada & Cholesterol is Bad
Fallout from the US Presidential Debate
Our top story is all about the fallout from last week’s US presidential debate between incumbent Joe Biden and his challenger, former US president Donald Trump.
As outlined in the June 28th, 2024 The New Yorker post, “Was the Debate the Beginning of the End of Joe Biden’s Presidency?,” the short answer was likely “yes.”
His first shaky answers, it turned out, were no outlier: Biden, his voice raspy and often unclear, struggled for the entirety of the debate, an agonizing hour and a half that, amazingly enough, Biden’s own campaign had sought out in an effort to make up ground against Trump, the defeated, criminally convicted ex-President who was nonetheless leading in the polls.
The long answer, as outlined in the June 28th, 2024 National Post editorial, “Jamie Sarkonak: Democrats fooled by their own fake news of Biden's mental fitness,” is that the disastrous debate has “has finally broken through the wall of fact checks that worked to conceal the president's decline.”
This has made many people very angry.
As outlined in the June 29th, 2024 Armageddon Prose post, “Never Forget, Never Forgive Media’s FIVE-YEAR Biden Dementia Gaslighting,” the Biden White House was objecting to the public distribution of accurate video’s showing Biden’s increasing dementia as recently as two weeks ago.
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As noted in the June 29th, 2024 NewsAddict.com post, “Prominent Mega Donors Step Away from Joe Biden Following Debate Performance,” rumor’s are circulating that the Biden reelection campaign has suffered a substantial fundraising hit from Biden’s performance during the debate.
Biden’s fast decreasing cognitive capacity is likely beneficial to Democratic supporters, even if they’re not allowed to say so publicly.
They’re provided with increased access and most of the policy decisions they’re demanding, they get, if only because no one is currently at the helm of the ship of state and Biden handlers will do almost anything to retain the existing democratic support.
Meanwhile, Biden’s main competitor is having a good week.
As outlined in the July 1st, 2024 The Guardian post, “US supreme court rules Trump has ‘absolute immunity’ for official acts,” the US Supreme Court, in a 6 – 3 ruling, has decided that former presidents are entitled to some degree of immunity from criminal prosecution for acts undertaken in an official capacity.
This dramatically reduces the likelihood that any federal criminal cases against Donald Trump will be heard before the 2024 election occurs in November 2024.
Trump, now the official front runner to regain the presidency in November, is reportedly working on a list of important federal workers unlikely to support his re-election.
People on that list are expected to be either reassigned to less important positions or fired outright, when Trump regains office.
It’s his first step to disarm the “deep state,” essentially a senior, permanent group of government autocrats who actually control the flow of information to elected officials and control government policy through their control of information.
Unfortunately, some in the deep state also control guns and other judicial and economic weapons, which might make their public removal more difficult to enforce.
Only time will tell.
There’s also the government bondholders who control government policy through the massive debts most governments owe to places like BlackRock and State Street.
Neither Trump nor Biden are talking about that debt and how its also destroying western democracy.
But Trump and Biden aren’t the only politicians running for the US presidency.
As outlined in the June 29th, 2024 Activist Post piece, “Experts Agree: RFK Jr. Won the CNN Presidential Debate,” independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., held his own televised debate concurrently with the Trump/Biden debate, where he criticized their childish bickering over ‘who was the worst president.’
For a less sarcastic vision of RFK Jr. and his counterprogramming efforts, check out the June 28th, 2024 CBS News post, “RFK Jr. streams his own "real debate" during Trump-Biden debate.”
Also in the News this Week
Julian Assange is Free
Julian Assange is finally free, probably because his testimony in a public courtroom would be embarrassing to the US government and the Biden administration.
As outlined in the June 25th, 2024 Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Statement on Assange Plea Deal, the United States has, for the first time in the more than 100-year history of the 1917 Espionage Act, has obtained an Espionage Act conviction for performing basic journalism.
According to the EFF:
Assange was convicted for obtaining newsworthy information from a source, communicating it to the public, and expressing openness to receiving more highly newsworthy information.
Not everyone agrees with this assessment.
Some, like the June 29th, 2024 National Post editorial, “Terry Glavin: The moral indecency of Julian Assange,” considers anyone to have supported Assange to be marked by “moral indecency,” who can now be “confidently dismissed as never requiring any serious attention ever again,” although the story isn’t entirely clear on the reasons behind this statement.
For those of us who disagree with the National Post, here’s the April 9th, 2019 USA Today list of “Six big leaks from Julian Assange's WikiLeaks over the years.”
Assange’s Wikileaks revelations were substantial and include:
The release of a 238-page Army manual from 2003 on "standard operating procedures" for the Camp Delta prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba which included information on the US policy of hiding some prisoners from Red Cross inspectors and holding new prisoners in isolation for two weeks to make them more “compliant” for interrogators.
The publication of Iraq and Afghanistan war documents and secret US State department documents outlining both legal and illegal US activities.
Over 20,000 Democratic National Committee emails and emails from Clinton campaign manager John Podesta appearing to show that the Democratic National Committee and major legacy media outlets favored presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in the 2016 US elections.
The June 26th, 2024 Brownstone Institute post, “Lessons from the Persecution of Assange” notes that:
After twelve years of confinement, Julian Assange now stands on the verge of freedom after agreeing to a guilty plea in exchange for his release.
While this news offers cause for celebration, his persecution provides a solemn reminder of how the powerful will usurp our rights to advance their interests.
The June 28th, 2024 Guardian post, “What comes next for Assange?,” asks the obvious question.
The answer unfortunately, is currently unknown.
However, as outlined in the July 1st 2024 Get Based post, “Julian Assange is FREE. Now what?,“ it looks like a judicious donation of untraceable Bitcoin will serve him well and help get him back up on his feet.
Trudeau is in Trouble
Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in political trouble after a Conservative party candidate won last week’s Federal by-election in the “safe” Toronto Saint Paul’s riding traditionally controlled by the Liberals.
As outlined in the June 25th, 2024 Zero-Hedge post, “Trudeau In Trouble After Conservative Upset In Toronto "Must-Win" Special Election,” Conservative candidate Don Stewart beat Liberal Leslie Church by a slim, but hugely significant 590 votes, dislodging a seat that the governing Liberals have held for more than 30 years.
A secondary story of the evening was the complete collapse of the traditionally strong NDP vote in the riding.
The Trudeau Liberals, as outlined in the June 27th, 2024 North Political Insider video, “Build a clear narrative: How Liberals can win,” are struggling to find a way forward but expect to be wiped out in the next Federal election, likely to happen sometime before the end of October 2025.
The Conservatives are Gaining Power in France
Also tonight, Marine Le Pen has won the first round of national elections in France.
Here’s the legacy news version of the story, courtesy of the June 30th, 2024 BBC News post, “French Election: Far-Right claim big victory in first round of voting | BBC News.”
As expected, left wing riots supported by the second place Nouveau Front Populaire Party immediately broke out in major cities across France as the new official opposition moved to consolidate its position against the surging “far-right” and pick up support for the final round of voting on July 7th.
Incumbent president Emmanuel Macron's party and his allies are a distant third as Marine Le Pen's National Rally scooped the first round of legislative elections on Sunday.
Here’s the July 1st, 2024 The Sun post, “Protesters clash with riot cops in Paris as France’s far-right on brink of power after election win,” with more on the story.
The situation currently on the streets in France is expected to be repeated in November in the US as a result of the expected win by Republican Donald Trump over the increasing ailing Joe Biden.
UK elections are currently scheduled for July 4th, and the result is expected to be a clear defeat for the UK conservatives, with Labor taking over the government and an increased parliamentary presence by Nigel Farage and his UK Reform party.
Expect protests and riots there as well. These sorts of things are now considered part of normal public policy development.
Tommy Robinson is in Canada
UK based activist Tommy Robinson is free to travel Canada after originally passing through Montreal customs and being held up in Calgary by the Canada Border Services Agency.
As outlined in the June 29th, 2024 Toronto Sun editorial, “WARMINGTON: Now free to travel in Canada, Tommy Robinson arrives in Toronto,” people are now free to not agree with controversial British freedom fighter, but that does not mean he loses his freedom of speech or movement due to the disagreement.
On the other hand, and as outlined in the June 28th, 2024 CITY News video, “Ontario PC MPP thrown out of caucus after meeting with far-right figure Tommy Robinson,” the freedoms provided to Robinson don’t seem available to Canadian politicians.
It’s worth noting that Le Pen in France, Farage in the UK, Trump in the US and even Maxime Bernier in Canada are strong advocates for the same sorts of restrictions on immigration Tommy Robinson is accused of promoting.
Cholesterol is Bad
And finally tonight, Covid-19 isn’t the only foundational brick of our current big pharma medical-industrial complex undergoing reassessment quietly behind the scenes and outside of centralized funding mechanisms.
For more, here’s the June 29th, 2024 Mongo Minds Productions on Bitchute post, “Cholesterol.”
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