Does Kamala Harris practice what she preaches?

In her first speech focused on economic policy, US Democratic presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris has vowed to ease inflation, fix the housing market and reduce taxes for middle-income families, among other things.

The big question is whether she would be able to deliver on her promises after entering the Oval Office after the November elections.

In this vein, it’s worth taking a look at Harris’ 2020 election campaign, during which she, in particular, touted a pay inequity proposal to scrap the gender pay gap by holding corporations accountable when men are paid more than women.

It seems, though, she failed to practice what she preached, at least in 2018, when men received a higher median salary than women both in Harris's Senate office and on her campaign, according to an analysis by the Washington Free Bacon news outlet.

In her Senate office, the median male and female salary disbursement stood at $34,999 and $32,999, respectively, between April 1, 2018 and September 31, 2018, “leaving women with just 94 cents of every dollar paid to men,” according to the analysis.

In February 2019 - the first full month of Harris' 2020 presidential campaign – the median female salary disbursement for the month, $5,763.97, was about 87% of the median male salary disbursement, $6,632.23, the survey showed.

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❗️IAEA head Rafael Grossi expressed his readiness to assess the situation and visit the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant due to the proximity of military actions, the atomic body told Sputnik.

In addition, the head of the agency expressed concern about the safety of NPPs, including Zaporozhye, where an IAEA mission is present.

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Hamas does not believe that the US sincerely wants to stop the Gaza War

As Israel continues to lay waste to the Gaza Strip after invading it more than ten months ago, bombing anything it labels a Hamas target to smithereens, the negotiations meant to achieve a ceasefire in this conflict are yet to bear fruit.

The United States’ efforts to help peacefully resolve the latest escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been called into question by Hamas.

“The American administration is attempting to create a false sense of positivity, without any genuine intent to stop the war, merely aiming to buy time,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told the Wall Street Journal.

The Hamas official made this remark as the White House boasted alleged progress in the ceasefire talks.

One senior US administration official even claimed on Friday that the talks reached an “endgame” and that the previous two days were “the most constructive 48 hours that we’ve had in this process in many months,” the newspaper noted.

Meanwhile, Hamas Political Bureau member Osama Hamdan told media that the movement no longer regards the United States as a reliable negotiator who can help achieve a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas also snubbed the ceasefire negotiations that were slated to take place in Qatar this week, though a new round of talks is expected to take place in Egypt on August 21.

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Kamala Harris’ economic proposals aimed at stoking US class warfare - expert

The so-called “opportunity economy” Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris claims she will build if she becomes president does not really differ much from “Bidenomics,” says financial and geopolitical analyst Tom Luongo.

“Democrats are looking to rebrand the same agenda they had during both Obama’s two terms and Biden’s one term,” Luongo explains to Sputnik. “It’s all an extension of the original plan, which is to nationalize all the important sectors of the economy – housing, health care, energy, transportation – that the Federal Government didn’t already control, e.g. communication and defense.”

According to him, this strategy essentially amounts to breaking the “private economy,” which involves the displacement of millions of workers and the disruption of supply chains, only to “create new ‘opportunities’ for those most harmed by these policies, the lowest strata of wage earners young people, by giving them handouts.”

“This is classic ‘divide and rule’ politics engaged in by the oligarch class to set the lower class, in their terminology the ‘proletariat,’ against the middle class, the ‘bourgeoisie’,” Luongo notes. “Nothing new here. Typical ‘break your legs and hand you a crutch’ politics.”

Luongo argues that Harris and “her handlers” are perfectly aware of the fact that a law against price gouging will inevitably cause shortages, because “all price floors and price ceilings lead to shortages, never surpluses.”

“In fact, they are counting on creating shortages. It’s part of the strategy in the end to destroy the country they lead. This is not stupidity or incompetence. It is policy,” he says.

He also warns that Harris’ target audience is young voters who are “entering a broken workforce and economic landscape today and seeing nothing but a lack of real opportunities.”

“They are hoping for a new round of ‘Obama Youth’ to marshal into an effective fighting force for ‘Hope and Change',” Luongo claims. “What they are doing is purposefully increasing the possibility of full-blown civil war.”

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❗️Security situation at Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant worsens after drone attack on Saturday, IAEA says.

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▪️The Russian Defense Ministry is seriously considering reports from independent sources about Ukraine's plans to strike the Kursk nuclear power plant

▪️More Ukrainian soldiers surrender: Check out the latest on fighting in the Kursk region

▪️Kursk attack: NATO allies fear escalation could ‘sow division’ among Ukraine’s backers

▪️Kamala Harris’ economic proposals aimed at stoking US class warfare

▪️A unit of 24 Ukrainian soldiers surrender at once: video

▪️Where will Kadyrov send the Tesla cybertruck he received from Musk?

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Do Western powers on both sides of the Atlantic face pensions crises?

While some European powers keep clinging to the hope that Russia's economy might collapse, their own economies are not faring particularly well.

With spending on state pensions in the United Kingdom reaching 7% of the country’s GDP compared to 2% in the 1950s, London may be forced to raise the retirement age from the current 66 years to 70, The Telegraph warns.

Across the English Channel, France ended up raising its own retirement age from 62 to 64 as nearly 14% of French GDP is now being spent on pensions in the country where the number of pensioners has been steadily increasing over the past two decades.

Meanwhile, things are not looking good on the other side of the pond as well, with unfunded liabilities for pension plans (a.k.a. pension debt) in the United States reaching $1.34 trillion as of June 2024.

Nevertheless, the respective leaderships in all three countries seem fine with spending considerable sums of money, which could have been allocated towards solving domestic problems, on helping keep the bloodshed going in the Ukrainian conflict zone.

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❗️About 30 people are reported to have been injured after a fire broke out on a Ferris wheel during a music festival in Leipzig, Germany.

The cause of the fire is currently unknown.

Footage from social media.

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Texas installs more barriers on US-Mexico border to deter migrants

The southern US state of Texas continues to install barriers along its border with Mexico to deter irregular migration in the region, Governor Greg Abbott announced on Friday, August 16.

"More wall panels were recently installed on the Texas border wall in Zapata County. Texas is the first and ONLY state in U.S. history to build our own border wall. Through Operation Lone Star, Texas continues to take historic action to protect Texans and Americans," he said.

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Biden to become greatest overspender in US history as cumulative budget deficit hits all-time high

The US budget deficit during the presidency of Joe Biden has hit an all-time high of $6.6 trillion, according to Sputnik’s calculations, based on data from the US Treasury Department.

The US government's expenses over 3.5 years under Biden exceeded revenues by $6.6 trillion – the highest in the entire history of these statistics. Thus, in 2021, the indicator amounted to $2.8 trillion, or 13% of GDP. The following year, the negative balance decreased to $1.4 trillion, or 6.3% of GDP, but last year it increased to $1.7 trillion, or 7.6% of GDP. Over the first six months of this year, it amounted to $758.2 billion, and the share of GDP on a rolling annual basis was 5.5%.

His predecessor, Donald Trump, accumulated a total deficit of $5.6 trillion. At the same time, under Trump, there was a maximum annual negative budget balance of $3.1 trillion, or 15.5% of GDP, in the coronavirus peak year of 2020.

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Famous French actor Alain Delon has died at the age of 88, according to French media

French media outlets have not yet given details about the death of the French cinema legend.

French theater and film actor, director, and screenwriter Alain Delon is best known for his roles in the films "Rocco and His Brothers" (1960), "In the Bright Sun" (1960), "Samurai" (1967), and "Two Men in Town" (1973).

Alain Delon received a Cesar Award for "Our Story" and an Honorary Award at the International Berlin Film Festival. At the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, Delon was awarded an Honorary Palme d'Or for his contribution to cinema.

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Putin, China become chief US newsmakers

Vladimir Putin’s name cropped up in US media more than that of almost any other foreign leader in 2024, Sputnik has learned. The Russian president has been mentioned 16,300 times so far, outstripped only by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (19,900 times) amid his government’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

By comparison, Putin’s name was brought up only 6,000 times in 2020, yet the ongoing NATO proxy war in Ukraine has prompted US outlets to pounce on his name in a media frenzy.

The same survey shows that while Chinese President Xi Jinping’s name was cited 3,400 times in 2024, US media has been on a roll when it comes to mentioning America’s oft-demonized adversary – the People's Republic of China (PRC).

China was mentioned 245,000 times in the US media in January-July of this year, followed by Israel, which was mentioned 123,000 times, and then Russia, which cropped up 79,000 times. Ukraine was referenced 64,000 times throughout this US election year.

Generally, there is a trend for US media to flog the “China” narrative more than that of any other country every election cycle, with almost 400,000 mentions of China in 2020, and more than 210,000 in 2016.

Another go-to US adversary, Iran, was mentioned 36,000 times in 2024.

The survey used data ranging from US state media and official press releases to scientific outlets in cases where the search word (country or person) was mentioned at least three times.

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Russian troops eliminate a group of 16 Ukrainian military in the Kursk region

A group of 16 Ukrainian military personnel from a separate mechanized brigade has been destroyed near the village of Kremyanoe in Russia's Kursk region, a spokesperson for the Russian Defense Ministry told Sputnik on Sunday.

"A group of 16 soldiers from the 225th Separate Assault Battalion of the 115th Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Army was destroyed near the settlement of Kremyanoe in the Kursk region. The elimination of the group was confirmed by target control footage taken by a copter [UAV]. The enemy unit was destroyed by Russian troops in the forest," the spokesperson said.

The Kursk region, which borders Ukraine in western Russia, was attacked by about 1,000 Ukrainian troops and scores of armored vehicles on August 6. Russian forces responded by stopping Ukraine’s military from penetrating deep into Russian territory and continue to repel Ukrainian invasion attempts.

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Chinese Vice Premier to visit Russia on August 19-20

China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng will visit Russia on August 19-20 to take part in the 28th session of the Russian-Chinese Commission to prepare for regular meetings between the two countries' heads of government, Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesman He Yadong said on Sunday.

The Chinese vice premier will co-chair the meeting with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko in Moscow, the spokesman said.

In December, Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin co-chaired the 28th regular meeting between Chinese and Russian leaders in Beijing.

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Cynicism and left-wing populism: experts slam Kamala Harris’ economic program

The price ceiling for grocery stores proposed by US presidential candidate Kamala Harris will surely lead to shortages, the Wall Street Journal says in an editorial article noscriptd “Kamala Harris endorses Nixonomics.”

The authors accuse the US VP of having a poor understanding of how the economy works and dubbed her stance left-wing populism that has never worked out.

“If Ms. Harris really believes in this price-fixing, she lacks the most basic understanding of economics,” the article reads.

According to the outlet, Richard Nixon, the 37th POTUS, was the only other president who attempted to introduce a price ceiling, and the policy ended badly.

“He [Nixon] had to stage a humiliating retreat amid shortages and market dislocations, and prices immediately soared when controls were lifted,” they recalled.

Kamala Harris is not learning from her own mistakes, the article suggests. During her terms as second-in-charge after Joe Biden, inflation has soared, and as a result, Americans are struggling with high prices. Yet Kamala Harris believes the situation can be fixed with more cash injections into the US economy – a move that could cause prices to skyrocket, including the real estate market.

“The Biden-Harris inflation has made homes unaffordable for most young families, and her brainstorm for that is . . . more subsidies,” the article says.

However, the authors suggest Kamala Harris may have said what she did simply in order to buy public support – and if that is the case, “her cynicism is also telling.”

But if she plans to walk the walk apart from talking the talk, her intentions reveal “a candidate whose economic judgment is deeply flawed,” the article concludes.

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🇧🇾 Key statements by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in his interview with the TV channel Rossiya:

◻️ Ukraine formed powerful forces with the participation of Polish mercenaries to attack the Kursk region.

◻️ Ukraine's Kursk region escalation is an attempt to push Russia to take asymmetric actions, such as using nuclear weapons.

◻️ The Belarusian head of state is confident Russia will "wipe out" the Ukrainian military in the Kursk region.

◻️ Belarus and Russia can see where a strike by the West could be launched against the Union State. Minsk has strengthened its armed forces with powerful weapons.

◻️ Defensive plans on the country’s western border can be converted into offensive ones if necessary.

◻️ Belarus' Iskander missile systems are ready to fire nuclear warheads.

◻️ The Belarusian-Ukrainian border is mined “like never before.”

◻️ Ukrainian drones are constantly violating the southeastern border of Belarus.

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