Nick Cohen chats to Washington-based journalist & substacker Ben Cohen about the November 5th presidential election - considered the most fateful and important poll in recent U.S. history, possibly since the election of 1861 that ushered in the presidency of Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War.

Ben @thedailybanter says dodgy billionaires and rightwing pollsters are trying to con people into believing that the election is still incredibly close with dubious polls and betting odds in order to help facilitate a determined Trumpist post-election "stop the steal" campaign to put the fascist Hitler fanboy and multi-convicted felon back in the White House.

But Ben says the quality polls still show Harris in the lead across the country and in the so-called "swing states" and that she "win comfortably". "I could fall flat on my face and be, and be laughed at by the rest of the industry," admits Ben to Nick. " But, I'm not convinced that it's going to be as close as people think it's going to be. I think Kamala Harris is going to win comfortably."

Ben is sure that the women of the U.S. will turn out in big numbers to vote for Harris - mainly thanks to the decision by the Trumpist Supreme Court to overturn Roe-Wade and give individual states power over abortion rights and IVF access. This election has become a fight not only for the White House and the fate of the free world - particularly Ukraine - but also over women's bodies. Ben tells Nick, "I think what people are underestimating is the women vote, who are going to come out. This is a post Roe-Wade environment where Donald Trump is widely regarded as being responsible for repealing abortion rights in America."

But how can the election be so close when it's between a distinguished public servant like Kamala Harris, who has run an immaculate campaign, and the preposterous sociopath Donald Trump, indisputably the stupidest man ever elected president and one who attempted to overturn the 2020 election through violence and lies? Ben blames the emergence of the radical right media in the U.S., "I couldn't understand it, but having lived in America for decades now, the infiltration of the Murdoch media and the right wing hate radio and the industry, the conservative media complex is powerful, he says."

So, could we be seeing a re-run of the so-called "Red Wave - that wasn't" saga of the November 2020 mid-terms when the Republicans talked up the prospects of a crushing defeat for Biden's Democrats, only for the washing ashore of a large damp squib?

Read Ben's The Banter Substacks here and listen to his podcasts here.

Nick Cohen's @NichCohen4 latest Substack column Writing from London on politics and culture from the UK and beyond explores the recent humiliating capitulation by the @washingtonpost proprietor & Amazon boss @JeffBezos to Donald Trump.

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Nick Cohen chats to The Guardian's celebrated and much loved Guardian parliamentary sketch-writer John Crace about the pitiful state of UK politics over the last 14 years - dominated by the interminable shitshow of Brexit - a calamitous epoch that's seen John stick his pen into a line of Tory duds from Cameron to Sunak.

It's been such a dog's breakfast that John has long come to the conclusion that even his dog Herbie could have done a much better job of running the country! So John @JohnJCrace has a new book out from Herbie's point of view - Taking the lead - a dog at Number 10 published by Constable. Herbie's political career starts with a chance encounter with Sadiq Khan's Labrador which lands our hound hero landed Herbie a job working as a special advisor to Ed Miliband in 2014. He then goes on to work with Cameron, the "Maybot" (aka Theresa May), Bunter Johnson and is then rewarded with a ringside seat for the Liz Truss clown car & Truss's blink-and-you'll miss it premiership.

In a highly entertaining interview, John even posits the perhaps rather ungenerous theory that Liz Truss may well have been responsible for the demise of Queen Elizabeth II - having visited Her Majesty at Balmoral just two days before her death. That may be a tough rap even for Truss! Or did the Queen have a premonition of the Kwarteng-Truss mini budget and associated follies and simply come to the conclusion - at her age and stage - that it was as good a time as any to shuffle off the mortal coil? You decide!

Nick Cohen's @NichCohen4 regular Substack column Writing from London on politics and culture from the UK and beyond is another must-read.

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Nick chats to the Swedish Axel Gordh Humlesjö, the award-winnning Swedish investigative journalist and author about Vladamir Putin's agents have corrupted the West's banking system to fund the an illegal and genocidal war against Ukraine and their own fraudulently funded life-styles.

Axel @axelhumlesjo co-authored The Honey Trap, a book that exposed how Putin's Kremlin laundered billions through one of Sweden's most important banks - Swedbank - initially by using honeytrap sex agents to gain Kompromat on senior bank executives.

The astonishing story of the corruption of Swedbank - often described as "the most Swedish of Swedish banks" - sheds a bright light on how the Russian state has targeted banks in the West to launder money, by-pass sanctions and fund its war against Ukraine. It's how Putin and his oligarch cronies effectively turned London into "Londongrad". It has enabled the Kremlin to gain astonishing influence over large parts of Europe's financial systems and to undermine the foundations of the West itself.

Axel explains to Nick @NickCohen4 how a lot a lot of the money has been funnelled through banks, different kinds of shady, companies and dodgy offshore accounts. Russia has then used this money in a range of different ways - trying to influence political elections and referendums and funding extremist parties. Even now Russia - yet again - is thought to be using it resources to secure the election of Donald Trump as president. Putin is desperate for his stooge to be back in the White House - confident Trump will do his bidding and betray Ukraine and force it to accept surrender on Russia's ignominious and dangerous terms.

Even more tragically though, Russia's state kelptocrats have even funnelled money from the people of Ukraine and others to line their own their own pockets and use it to by-pass sanctions and fund the Russian war machine.

Danske Bank - the largest bank in Denmark was also used by Russian entities in what was described as the world's biggest ever money laundering scandal.Almost €1 trillion of suspicious transactions flowed from Estonian, Russian, Latvian and other sources through the Estonia bank branch of Danske Bank from 2007 to 2015. In December 2022, Danske Bank pleaded guilty and agreed to a $2 billion fine in a case from the US Department of Justice.

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Swedish authorities are also starting to mete out punishment to the executives who destroyed Swedbank - including former chief executive Birgitte Bonnensen who the Swedish Appeal Court sentenced last month to 15 months in prison for gross fraud. But the damage to the West - it security and financial systems - is long-standing.

The Honey Trap, Swedbank, Russia and the World's Biggest Money Laundering Scheme by Axel and his colleague Lars Berge was described by the respected author of Putin's People and Washington Post journalist Catherine Belton as " A fantastic, page-turning book about how Russian intelligence infiltrated Sweden’s biggest bank and used it as a vehicle for money laundering. It is one of the most gripping spy adventures I’ve read..."

Nick Cohen's @NichCohen4 regular Substack column Writing from London on politics and culture from the UK and beyond is another must-read.

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