x.com/lukeharding1968/status/1957408685535174749
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We are all waiting for this idiotic meeting between the moron Trump and the dictator Putin. Who knows what will come out of it. Putin has already won a victory of a sorts by getting the meeting with Trump. “I’ve solved six wars in the last six months.” Says Trump. Imbecile.
“Putin shows no interest in achieving peace.” Bridgit Brink was a former ambassador to Ukraine. She is on MSNBC. She is running for congress. Putin has been clear that the eastern part of Ukraine belongs to Russia (NYT, 8/15/25). As another former ambassador to NATO says, Putin is seeking to divide the U.S. From the NATO allies. He wants to convince Trump to force Ukraine to make territorial concessions, limits on its military and perhaps even a rollback of nato military positions in Eastern Europe.
Sanger, David E. (8/15/25) NYT
- There has to be a cease-fire. Both Ukraine and Europe maintain that there can be no negotiation without a cease-fire. The question is how long such a cease-fire would last, and whether since Russian troops have been making gains on the ground Putin would even agree to one.
- The second issue is boundaries and whether Putin and Trump will try to redraw them, much as was done at the end of WWII. Trump has mentioned and then withdrawn from “land swaps.” (J.D. Vance said on Sunday that “we’re done with the funding of the Ukraine war business.” (Note: Bastard).
- Hegseth announced in the first month of the Trump administration that Ukraine would not be invited to join NATO. One of the problems during the Biden administration was to say that Ukraine would eventually become part of NATO without out setting a specific date.
- Putin is trying to expand the negotiations, bringing a business delegation with him hoping to convince Trump that U.S. interests in rare earths, critical minerals and other Russian assets would all be on the table.
- Putin is also dangling a new nuclear agreement with the U.S.
NYT (8/15/25)
- Trump called the president of Belarus, Lukashenko, while flying to Alaska to meet Putin. He “heaped praise” on this Putin ally.
The Telegraph (8/15/25) Jacobs, Sherelle. “Ukraine has lost. Britain must now prepare for Russia’s next onslaught.”
- It is time to put outrate, passion and wishful thinking aside and face facts; in what mat well go down in history as the West’s gravest foreign policy failure of the 21st century, Ukraine has lost the war against Russia.”
- Britain must accept that the Ukraine war is all but over – and prepare for an even bigger brewing conflict.
- “that Trump hopes to seal the deal by granting Putin access to Ukrainian rare minerals has added a neocolonial whiff to the stench of betrayal.”
- The end to this war “will plunge Europe into its most perilous moment since 1939.”
- The Biden Administration “was content to keep the war in permanent stalemate.” The Trump Administration is working to “nurture Moscow as an ally.”
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“I know you’re not comfortable, but I’ll pay you two hundred dollars if you bring me some girls,” Epstein told Robson afterward, adding, “the younger the better.”
“Jeffrey’s going to get me. You guys know that, right?” one victim told Recarey. “He’s going to figure this out. I’m not safe now.”
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Adam Entous and Jon Lee Anderson on the unexplained brain injuries that afflicted dozens of American diplomats and spies stationed in Cuba.
— Read on www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/19/the-mystery-of-the-havana-syndrome -
The restrictions target government officials from Grenada and Brazil, among other countries.
— Read on www.politico.com/news/2025/08/13/state-department-brazil-visa-restrictions-cuba-00508651 -
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/12/us/politics/russia-hack-federal-court-system.html
Investigators have uncovered evidence that Russia is at least partly responsible for a recent hack of the computer system that manages federal court documents, including highly sensitive records with information that could reveal sources and people charged with national security crimes, according to several people briefed on the breach.
It is not clear what entity is responsible, whether an arm of Russian intelligence might be behind the intrusion or if other countries were also involved, which some of the people familiar with the matter described as a yearslong effort to infiltrate the system. Some of the searches included midlevel criminal cases in the New York City area and several other jurisdictions, with some cases involving people with Russian and Eastern European surnames.
The disclosure comes as President Trump is expected to meet with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir V. Putin, in Alaska on Friday, where Mr. Trump is planning to discuss his push to end the war in Ukraine.
Administrators with the court system recently informed Justice Department officials, clerks and chief judges in federal courts that “persistent and sophisticated cyber threat actors have recently compromised sealed records,” according to an internal department memo reviewed by The New York Times. The administrators also advised those officials to quickly remove the most sensitive documents from the system.
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MONDAY 11 AUGUST 2025
Childless Cat Lady Working Away in one of the Sub-basements of the Ministry of Snark.
I am a news junkie. I have been one all my life. I grew up sitting at the dinner table every night listening to political discussions, and infrequently political arguments, since it was the 1960s my mother’s views of race and appropriate forms of social protest were different (to say the least) from my father’s.
I still usually spend hours every day listening to and reading news reports. But today? I cannot turn on the television. It I just too depressing, even for me. Trump is either staging a coup in the form of a federal take-over of Washington, D.C., or he is conducting a practice exercise for the real thing with which he will delight us at a later date. Whatever. In addition to this, Trump is supposed to meet Putin in Alaska on Friday to talk about Ukraine, or at least that is what they are saying is going to happen.
Trump, however, is going to betray Ukraine. That is what is going to happen and it will be both heartbreaking and enraging. The Ukrainians have fought for years, valiantly, for all of us, and Donald Trump (a scummier, less worthwhile person history has never produced) is going to throw them to the wolves. The only way I am going to survive the next three years is blind, rageful determination to see this hateful, greedy, crude, crass, tasteless, vulgar, cheap, ignorant, moronic, tawdry, repulsive, shallow, ignorant (did I say that?), bullying, (and I could go on) monster either dead or out of office. And even that outcome is wishful thinking. I have no doubt that if Trump is or can be made to be upright in 2028, he will be the Republican nominee. There is no legal system in this country.
On a happier note, the cats have had a good day, snoozing in their catio. Designing and getting the catio built is the most successful thing I have ever done in my life. It is a screened in porch with two tiers of shelving that they can lay on, sit on, roll around on while they watch a yard full of birds and squirrels (who are now completely unafraid of them). It’s like Catflix, watching catflix all day. The boys (seven of them) stay out there almost all day even though it’s hot as hell in coastal Georgia right now. It occurred to me earlier this afternoon when I was lamenting the fact that Hiram Bernard (youngest cat) was downstairs and not curled up at the foot of our bed while I worked, that the cats might stay out in the catio all day to get away from us because we are so needy. That’s pathetic. “Mommmmm, please. I just can’t take non-stop petting.” “Give it a rest, can’t you?”
Nigeria
Yesterday when I was trying to avoid the news, I happened on a 2025 Netflix Series called “Baby Farm.” It is a Nigerian drama series that centers around a seemingly benevolent NGO in Laos that takes in impoverished young women and turns them into “makers,” baby makers. The NGO sells their babies. “Does this happen?” My partner Mike asked as he passed briefly through the room, looking for something (keys, credit cards, flea administration records). “I assume so,” I replied. “It says inspired by real events.”
Unfortunately, I later confirmed that baby farming does indeed exist in Nigeria. Poverty is one reason. Young girls find themselves on the street and have little recourse other than to accept food and shelter from anywhere they can get it. Groups set themselves up masquerading as orphanages, charities or maternity homes. The young women often don’t even know that they are involving themselves with an illegal operation which will take their babies away and sell them on the black market.
The fact that the organizations seek to appear as charitable institutions makes them more difficult to find and shut down by the authorities. And, Nigeria does not have a reputation for having a very good legal system anyway. In the series, an especially poignant scene depicted a street walker, or prostitute, telling the main character, Andanna, about the fake NGO, and taking her to it. The prostitute was paid for steering the young girl into this virtual prison. I am sure this happens frequently – one sexually exploited woman leading another sexually exploited woman into even more structured and confining sexual exploitation.
Poverty contributes to the situation of both sets of women. Sexual exploitation is almost the only way to survive on the streets. Every time Andanna tells those who run the NGO she wants to leave, they say: “To go where?” That’s all it takes.
Notes: Nigeria and Baby Farming
- In July of 2025, the Nigerian Anambra State health ministry raided a suspected baby factory, arresting pregnant women and shutting down the facility. In 2024, the ministry raided a similar facility and rescued girls as young as 17.
- In the UK, has restricted adoptions from Nigeria since 2021 due to fears of illegal trafficking in children (FreedomUnited.org).
- In 2024, British authorities confronted a “fake birth story” involving a woman already in the UK. Authorities deemed that this was an attempt to smuggle a Nigerian infant into the UK (Evans, 2025).
- The business of baby trafficking has been characterized as a “dirty” and “profitable” business (Human Rights’ Pulse, 2021). While there are human trafficking statistics, records of child trafficking are harder to find.
- There are other socio-economic factors that are involved in the profitability of the business. Childlessness is considered a humiliation in Nigeria and women can be pressured and abused by their own families for infertility. There is a high demand for male babies especially.
- The Nigerian legal adoption process is long and complicated, stricter and more expensive. This drives some couples to resort to the illegal market.
Reading Around: Nigeria and Baby Farming
(3/16/21) “Police Uncover Baby Factory, rescue 4 pregnant girls in Anambra. Guardian.
BBC (9/30/19) Nigeria police raid Lagos Baby Factory.
- In one raid in Nigeria in 2018, 160 children were rescued.
BBC (4/26/18) Nigeria “Baby Factory raided in Lagos.”
UNESCO REPORT 2006
Atlomo, Susan (7/8/21) Child Harvesting: A Closer Look. Human Rights Pulse.
- After a four-year-old girl was reported stolen while returning home from school, police discovered a facility where four pregnant girls were being held. Men on a motorcycle had grabbed the child and left with him.
- Illegal baby factories are on the rise.
- The social stigma of out-pof-wedlock pregnancies often forces young girls to leave their families or leads to them being thrown out.
- The patriarchal Nigerian society.
- Sometimes women are kidnapped and raped. They are then trafficked as prostitutes or child laborers.
- “The human trafficking industry itself generates about $150 billion annually.”
Lyons, Margaret (6/24/25) “Baby Farm Is a Harrowing Nigerian Drama. New York Times.
Evans, Rebekah (2025) “Nigeria’s “baby factories’: a Hidden Crisis. The Week.
Obaji, Philip (5/3/20) Survivors of Nigeria’s baby factories share their stories. Aljazeera.
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Today, bitcoin does seem to work as a currency for some international transactions, particularly in developing countries. That could be good, but it’s hard to tell which transactions are wealth preservation, which ones are tax evasion and which ones are capital flight. If I were a betting man I’d buy bitcoin, and you’re welcome to it. But I’m not a betting man, I’m an American academic who worries about deflation, and all I want is for bitcoin to stay the hell away from the dollar. That’s an argument, but I don’t think it’s a trade.
Similarly, I think the new US stablecoin law returns us to a 19th-century regulatory regime for dollars, where there’s no national deposit insurance and states race to the bottom with their regulations to attract business. How do I trade on my sense of doom? I can tell you about 1837, when paper bank notes failed, or 1932, when bank deposits failed. But I can’t tell you what year it is now. Is it 1825, in an expanding economy with room to run, or is it 1836? -
U,
Twenty years on, Tymoshenko’s trademark blonde braids are still in place, yet her attitudes towards Kyiv’s western allies have hardened. While she still fully supports Ukraine’s bids to join Nato and the European Union, she is angry over the refusal to allow Kyiv into the western military alliance in the years before Russia’s full-scale invasion. She has also accused the West of taking advantage of the war to “undermine” Ukraine’s independence, even as Russian bombs rain down on its towns and cities. -
MORNING
Well, here we are. Another Monday. Trump is working to destroy the economic system. Meidas (8/3/25) is reporting that Trump’s former biographer, Michael Wolff, is saying that Trump is phoning up close friends to say that he didn’t kill Jeffery Epstein. Wolff says he tried to get Epstein to release the information he has on Trump (including topless girls sitting in Trump’s lap) but Epstein was worried about what Trump would do to him. Meidas continues: “…Epstein was a threat to Trump, especially once Trump entered the White House. But Epstein also knew the dirt, the finances, the accusations, the real estate games with organized crime.” (Note: Hear more on Meidas Touch Podcast).
UKRAINE: Euromaidan Press
- Germany has raided a machine tool company for sending high-tech machines to Russia (Euromaidan Press).
- In response to Trump’s moronic trade wars, China has tightened export controls on rare earth elements which are essential for manufacturing weapons. “…China controls about 90% of the global rare earth minerals market. American manufacturers have become dependent on Chinese suppliers.” (Euromaidan Press) (Note: What on earth are we paying this enormous military/industrial complex for? Nobody saw this coming? This is exactly like the control China has on the ingredients for generic drugs. I just don’t understand why we would let ourselves get into a position where we are dependent on rival countries for essential resources. And then, why would any one person, just thinking of, well, let’s say Trump, be allowed to spark a trade war with that country?)
- Poland’s fighter jets are now scrambling nightly because Russians are testing the eastern border of Ukraine with drones (Euromaidan Press).
- On August 4, Ukraine launched a drone strike on the Saky airbase in occupied Crimea (Euromaidan Press).
- The Russian’s detained three Russian teenagers for driving to film a burning oil depot hit by Ukrainian drones (Euromaidan Press).
- Ukraine hit Major Russian rail hub delaying passenger trains in Southern Russia (Euromaidan Press).
UKRAINE: Reading Around
Sarotte, M.E. “Why they fight: What’s at stake in the blame game over Ukraine.” Foreign Affairs. May/June 2025
- Trump and Putin both blame other parties for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
- For anyone interested in the details of the story that the West promised, or committed to a non-expansion of NATO, this is an interesting read. Quote: “You should never have started it.” Donald Trump to Zelensky.
- It is a review of British historian, Jonatan Haslam’s new book , “Hubris: The American Origins of Russia’s War Against Ukraine.” Haslam is not the only one to argue that NATO expansion is directly responsible for Russia’s attack on Ukraine. He, in fact, claims that those participating in that expansion “knew exactly what they were doing.” Haslam claims that Russia was “promised” that NATO would not expand into the East in a bargain to secure German reunification.
- Sarotte, however, points out in his review that Haslam, like many others (including Putin), cherry pick selectively bits of evidence to construct this argument. While the possibility of NATO non-expansion was discussed during the negotiations about German unification, Sarotte details how the notion was presented and to whom, who was authorized, and not authorized, to offer such a deal, whether this strategy was pursued or dismissed (by H.W. Bush) in favor of “credits and other forms of funding.” And, the most crucial fact – that there was never any agreement in writing to such a transaction – has to be conclusive.
- Sarotte discusses what I have always found to be the most insulting implication of the entire “the West made them do it” argument. The interpretation “underestimates the will of central and eastern Europeans and, above all, Ukrainians.” “Ukraine deliberately sought to break away from Moscow.”
- Sarotte also describes some of the actions being taken by Russia during this period that made Eastern European countries more nervous about their new independence and more concerned to establish ties to the West. As Sarotte notes: “Membership (in NATO) was not imposed upon them.”
- In short, the situation after the talks about unification was a “Soviet diplomatic failure.” The Soviets did not establish a legally binding agreement preventing the expansion of NATO, but instead “settled for limits on NATO’s activities and infrastructure as it enlarged.”
TRUMP TYRANNY
Politics: Olga Lautman and Zev Shalev “Trump Tyranny Tracker” 4 August 2025
- Lautman is talking about the Russians sending a message to Trump without using formal channels. (Note: Not sure what this is about).
- The DOJ is intimidating state officials about releasing voting information. In Colorado, they demanded access to voting machines.
- Abott in Texas is threatening Democratic lawmakers with criminal prosecution for their efforts to prevent the redistricting.
- Palantir has gained new contracts with the federal government and access to vast amounts of data. Stephen Miller owns stock in Palantir.
- Laughtman: “THIS IS NOT TRUMP. THIS IS REPUBLICANS.”
Other
- New book by Robert Reich “Coming Up Short.”
Night, Pooper and Myra had a little ball of fur whirling around on the living room floor fight yesterday afternoon. Myra is getting more and more feisty. Night
Law, Power, and Justice 