US is ‘in a serious state of crisis’ as Biden’s withdrawal from presidential race 'hurts Democrats'

“I assume that Covid was the last straw since it apparently knocked him for a loop,” US constitutional historian and political commentator Dan Lazare said regarding Joe Biden’s sudden withdrawal from the presidential race.

He argued that by delaying his withdrawal for so long, Biden actually “hurt the Democrats,” and predicted that Kamala Harris, Biden’s VP and possible presidential candidate, will “do better on the campaign trail than most people expect.”

“Whether it’s fatal is unknown although I still think Trump will win,” Lazare added referring to Biden’s delayed withdrawal.

Lazare’s sentiment was shared by Daniel McAdams, executive director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, who suggested that Biden pulling out of the race at this time “puts the Democratic Party in total and complete chaos.”

“How can they bring out a candidate with just a few months before the election?” McAdams inquired. “Kamala Harris is extremely unpopular, more unpopular than President Biden. When she ran for president last time, she got literally zero votes. The question is, what will the party do?”

McAdams also wondered aloud about the fate of the votes cast for Biden during the Democratic Party primaries.

“How can their votes be changed, especially by the party that purports to defend our democracy? It seems people who voted for Biden are not going to get Biden,” he said, adding that “[t]he US right now is truly in a serious state of crisis. This week is going to be incredibly packed full of events.”

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🫢 Zelensky curse strikes again

Who’s next?

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Expert doubts whether Biden is 'capable of being President today'

Concerns about Joe Biden's ability to fulfil his role as president have also been raised by Daniel McAdams, executive director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

“Number two, if President Biden is not mentally capable of running for reelection, how is it possible that he will remain as president with his fingers on the nuclear codes? It seems like admitting he is not capable of running again means that he's not capable of being president today,” cautioned expert.

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The snake in the grass quickly shed its old skin

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President Biden’s senior staff was informed he would end his campaign at 1:45 p.m., one minute before Biden announced he was leaving the race on X, according to The New York Times, citing a person informed of the timing.

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Russian Foreign Ministry on the situation in the United States after Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the election race: this is their story, Russia does not interfere in their internal affairs.

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📹 Joe Biden campaign co-chair Chris Coons is crying on national television after his withdrawal from the presidential race..

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Kamala Harris confirms she is running for president and thanks Joe Biden for his support.

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Robert Kennedy Jr. called on Democrats to elect a candidate for US president through an open process, rather than simply choosing Kamala Harris.

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Russia is ready to counter US ‘satellite jammer’ space plans

The new “satellite jammers” the US intends to deploy in space to target Russian and Chinese satellites are meant to deprive Moscow and Beijing of “command, control, communication and intelligence systems during times of conflict,” says Bruce Gagnon, coordinator at Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space.

According to him, these US jammers are “intended as offensive weapons” and have “nothing to do with defense whatsoever.”

The US' development of jammers, however, “is forcing Russia and China to develop similar technologies,” Gagnon adds.

“In the case of Russia, I know they're developing ways to block these jammers, to counter these jammers,” he says. “So this is all leading to the rise or the increase or the growth of tensions, escalation of warfare capabilities and space.”

Gagnon also observes that this development takes place as the US “refuses to have a treaty to ban weapons in space,” which effectively forced Russia, China and India to pursue the development of “kinetic energy anti-satellite weapons.”

“For at least 25 years, Russia and China have gone to the United Nations General Assembly and introduced a treaty to prevent all weapons in space,” he laments, noting that the US and Israel “blocked this development of this treaty for more than 25 years” when it was brought to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.

Meanwhile, Alexander Mikhailov, head of Russian think tank Bureau of Military-Political Analysis, argues that the US' move to deploy satellite jammers in space suggest that Washington’s previous attempt to establish a ground-based satellite jamming system was unsuccessful.

Not only did that previous scheme require considerable investments into new jamming facilities on the ground, but the system that “the Americans previously touted as a tested, effective system that can suppress any satellite signal and would thus be able to blind or silence Russian and Chinese satellites – it turned out that this system does not work,” Mikhailov observes.

He also notes that Russian electronic warfare systems are much more advanced than the ones developed by the US, and mentioned multiple reports about Russian systems successfully jamming Starlink satellite signals.

He specifically mentions the Tirada 2-S systems that “successfully jam satellite communication signals and ‘blind’ the units covered in Starlink satellite dishes.”

Tirada 2-S, Mikhailov explains, is not only capable of suppressing satellite signals – it can also scramble communications and “create false narratives, not only jamming communication channels but deceiving those receiving satellite signals and the satellite in space that receives signals from Earth.”

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High tension in the French parliament

In accordance with tradition, the first session is chaired by the oldest MP, with the youngest MP being his secretary.

As secretary, 22-year-old Flavien Termet from Le Pen’s National Rally was supposed shake hands with MPs after they vote.

The MPs from the left alliance all refused to shake his hand.

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South Korea’s reactor venture highlights the loss of nuclear expertise by Western powers (Part 1/Part 2)

South Korea’s plan to build two nuclear reactors in the Czech Republic, “effectively making a bridgehead for nuclear plant exports to Europe,” raises a number of interesting questions, says Dr. Chris Busby, a physical chemist and scientific secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk.

“Why can’t Europe build its own reactors? Why is South Korea suddenly involved?” he inquires, noting that South Korea apparently also plans to export more reactors to the UK, the Netherlands, Poland and “other countries.”

“In Europe, if you (as a politician, as a State, as someone with no idea of the poisonous downstream effects) want to buy a nuclear power station, you have few choices. France, USA, Russia and South Korea. No one else is selling them, it seems,” Busby explains.

The United Kingdom essentially “gave up on building their own” and while France did “jump in… the French EDF just can’t seem to complete one, and costs go up and up and up,” he notes.

“As for the US reactors, they have all kinds of problems including cost problems. South Korea must have seen a gap in the market and dived in,” Busby adds. “The Czech government cannot deal with Russia because it is in the EU basket and mustn’t talk to the Russians. No doubt there was a good deal offered by South Korea, and the agreement was signed.”

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South Korea’s reactor venture highlights the loss of nuclear expertise by Western powers (Part 1/Part 2)

Russian political scientist and nuclear energy expert Alexey Anpilogov also suggests that South Korea’s foray into the nuclear reactor market is the result of the loss of expertise in nuclear power field not only in the United States but also in the EU and even in France who until recently “remained an island of stability of sorts for nuclear energy.”

“Because a large number of countries, like Germany and Italy, has given up nuclear power. Spain has also adopted a program of shutting down nuclear plants,” Anpilogov says. “And some countries, like Britain, have lost the expertise needed for building nuclear reactors while formally retaining their nuclear energy capabilities.”

Meanwhile, French nuclear power plant projects, both in France and in Finland, took much longer to complete than originally intended and cost a lot more than originally planned, he adds.

“In my opinion, it became apparent in the modern world that if you halt all production activity in some high-tech sphere even for 10-15 years, you end up losing key expertise because during that specialists [in that area] leave you so there is no more succession i.e. the passing of technology to new generations,” he explains.

Thus, the problems that could have been easily solved by American and European engineers in the 1970s or 1980s pose a serious challenge for their successors today, which, in the nuclear power field, leads to safety issues and to a serious increase of time and money spent on nuclear projects, Anpilogov concludes.

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