Jan 282025
 
 January 28, 2025  Posted by at 10:25 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  Add comments


Pablo Picasso The artist and his model 1926

 

A Cabinet of the Cancelled (Paul Craig Roberts)
US Army Needs Huge Shakeup – Vance (RT)
Trump Targets ‘Gender Ideology’ In The Military (RT)
Denmark Can’t Protect Greenland – Trump (RT)
Trumps Opens The War Against Russia From Greenland (Helmer)
The Trump Pardons Trigger Judicial Rage (Turley)
Russia Must Help Overthrow Europe’s Dangerous Political Elites (Karaganov)
DeepSeek Pulls Rug Out On Nvidia, ASML (ZH)
Trump Says He ‘Immediately Halted’ Hiring of New IRS Agents (ET)
Trump’s Agenda Will Force Foreign Leaders To Adopt Pro-Growth Policies (ZH)
Argentina’s Milei Attacks European Liberal ‘Epidemic’ (RT)
EU Prolongs Sanctions On Russia (RT)
Ukraine’s Top Spy Believes Country Could Cease To Exist (RT)
The CIA Report: A Low Confidence Finding is the Height of Hypocrisy (Turley)
Glug Glug. . . . (James Howard Kunstler)
Taibbi Hints FBI Communications With COVID Scientists Will Be Exposed (ZH)
Devalued Dollar Will Crash the DOW – Martin Armstrong (USAW)
The Nation That Liberated Auschwitz Is Being Excluded From Memory (Romanenko)

 

 


Mars

 

 

Tucker

NC

Homan

Ritter
https://twitter.com/i/status/1883841607566340255

Maidan 2014

Brennan

Historical course of WWII map sequence

Roger Ver

 

 

 

 

“During the next four years the fate of America’s constitutional order will be determined.”

A Cabinet of the Cancelled (Paul Craig Roberts)

Abigail Shrier writes in the City Journal that the members of Trump’s “Cabinet of the Cancelled” understand the danger of government coercion because they have experienced it firsthand. And so has Trump and thousands of his supporters. Shrier does a service by reminding us of the intense attempt of the Biden regime to revolutionize our society by attacking our principles and replacing a merit-based color-blind society with a status-based society of privileges based on race, gender, and sexual preference. The Biden regime weaponized law in order to cancel people who spoke truth to the regimes’ official narratives and to silence people by censoring and imprisoning them. 1,500 Trump supporters were sentenced for attending a rally, and right-to-life protesters were imprisoned for opposing a practice that during the first part of my life the law considered murder.

With Biden regime protection, Child Protective Services considered it child abuse for parents to oppose sex change operations or fail to use a child’s pronouns chosen for him by DEI propagandists at his public school, and children were seized from “abusive” parents. Large numbers of traditional Americans found themselves living in a dystopian novel. An effort was made to destroy the US military with DEI and mandated vaccination. Traditional military families turned their sons away from military service. Covid “vaccines” were forced on those who had too much sense to submit to vaccination with an untested experimental and known dangerous substance. The great horror of abortion advocates spread into the male population. Both genders lost control over their own bodies to coerced vaccination.

The examples are endless. Tulsi Gabbard was placed on a government watch list and subjected to airport harassment simply for being critical of the Biden regime. Stanford University Medical School professor Jay Bhattacharya was “cancelled” by social media companies at the insistence of the Biden regime’s Surgeon General. Elon Musk’s companies were targeted with regulatory harassment because he returned free speech to Twitter, now known as X. Skepticism expressed about the safety and effectiveness of the Covid “vaccine” got doctors fired, their medical licenses confiscated by utterly corrupt “medical boards” acting on Big Pharma’s orders under the protection of Fauci and the Biden FDA. Others who interfered with Big Pharma’s profits were branded “enemies of the people” and threatened with arrest.

Americans were not even permitted to object to males participating in female sports or to men gaining access to female locker rooms by self-declaring themselves to be women. During the Biden attack on America, the most serious crime was not treason or mass murder. The most serious crime was opposition to DEI. As I explained yesterday, the enemies arrayed against Trump and his supporters are in control of all American institutions, public and private. The federal bureaucracy is against him. His appointees must be culture warriors, because they are greatly outnumbered by a force that has been conducting culture war against America for decades.

The agenda of the Woke Democrats is no less than the revolutionary overthrow of the United States and its replacement with a race and gender status-based hierarchy in which white heterosexual males are second class citizens in law. White males who vote Democrat are endorsing their own demise and are the epitome of insouciant dumbshits. During the next four years the fate of America’s constitutional order will be determined.

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“We fought many wars over the last 40 years, but haven’t won a war about as long as I’ve been alive..”

US Army Needs Huge Shakeup – Vance (RT)

The US has failed to win a single war in several generations despite spending staggering sums of money on its army, Vice President J.D. Vance has said, calling for a major military overhaul. In an interview with CBS News on Sunday, Vance defended the confirmation of Pete Hegseth as the new secretary of defense, which narrowly passed the Senate with a 50-50 tie broken by the vice president himself. Hegseth has faced criticism over his controversial public comments about Islam, limited leadership experience, and accusations of sexual assault, which he has denied. Vance described Hegseth as a “disruptor” and said he was the right person to usher in long-overdue change. “We fought many wars over the last 40 years, but haven’t won a war about as long as I’ve been alive,” Vance said.

“They’ve got us a military with a major recruitment crisis, a procurement price crisis that’s totally dysfunctional, where we buy airplanes for billions and billions of dollars, terrible cost overruns, the delivery dates are always delayed. So we need a big change,” he said. The US has “gotten into way too many wars that we don’t have a plan for winning,” Vance said, adding that “we have to really, top to bottom, change the way that we fund the procurement of weapons.” Hegseth “is the guy to lead the job,” he insisted, adding that the new secretary, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, is the one who sees “not through the perspective of the generals or the bureaucrats, [but] through the perspective of the men and women that we send off to fight.”

US President Donald Trump has vowed to end the current conflicts, having already credited himself with brokering the recent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, while vowing to prioritize domestic issues. Shortly after his inauguration, he ordered additional troops to the US-Mexico border to stave off the migration crisis. In November, the Pentagon failed its seventh consecutive audit, having been unable to fully account for its $824 billion budget. It has not passed a single audit since 2018, when it became a legal requirement to do so. However, officials have pointed to visible progress, promising to achieve a clean audit by 2028.

Hegseth


https://twitter.com/i/status/1883891120876478807

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“..moves to end attempts to “socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life.”

Trump Targets ‘Gender Ideology’ In The Military (RT)

US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order aimed at removing “radical gender ideology” from the US armed forces. The order, titled ‘Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness’, was issued on Monday, just over a week after Trump’s inauguration, as part of a broader effort to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in the federal government. The order says that military service should be reserved for those who are mentally and physically fit for duty. It outlines a policy focusing on troop readiness, lethality, cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity, and integrity. “This policy is inconsistent with the medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals with gender dysphoria,” the order states. “This policy is also inconsistent with shifting pronoun usage or use of pronouns that inaccurately reflect an individual’s sex.”

Newly confirmed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who narrowly won Senate approval last Friday, is tasked with implementing the directive. Within 60 days, Hegseth must revise medical standards for military service to align with the order’s objectives. Over the next month, he will set up a strategy to tackle the issues and submit it to Trump. The US will focus on “restoring the warrior ethos, rebuilding our military, and reestablishing deterrence,” Hegseth said in a message to the armed forces on Saturday. The executive order follows a series of actions by the new US president aimed at dismantling DEI programs within the federal government. On his first day back in office, he signed orders rolling back protections for transgender individuals and terminating DEI initiatives, describing these efforts as moves to end attempts to “socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life.”

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“They put two dog sleds there two weeks ago, they thought that was protection..”

If you’re a Greenlander, how much faith do you have in Denmark?

Denmark Can’t Protect Greenland – Trump (RT)

Denmark is not capable of adequately protecting its strategically important territory of Greenland, US President Donald Trump has claimed. Speaking to reporters on board Air Force One on Saturday, Trump appeared to ridicule the Danish plan to increase its military presence on the Arctic island. Trump first floated the idea of purchasing Greenland during his first term in office, and revived the idea following his victory in the presidential election on November 5. The US president has spoken of Greenland’s significance for US national security, refusing to rule out the use of military force to obtain it. Denmark has firmly rejected any suggestion that Greenland could be sold.Trump stated: “I do believe Greenland, we’ll get – because it really has to do with freedom of the world. It has nothing to do with the United States, other than we’re the one that can provide the freedom. [Denmark] can’t. They put two dog sleds there two weeks ago, they thought that was protection,” he said, as quoted by the Financial Times.

Trump was apparently referring to an announcement by Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen earlier this month. He said Copenhagen was planning to add two inspection vessels, two drones, and two dog sled patrols to its current force of 75 personnel, four ships, and a surveillance plane. “I don’t really know what claim Denmark has to it, but it would be a very unfriendly act if they didn’t allow that to happen,” Trump said over the weekend. He also claimed that the “people [of Greenland] want to be with us.” Speaking to local broadcaster TV2 on Sunday, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen emphasized “how good an ally Denmark has been” to the US. The Nordic country is a NATO member state that participated in US-led military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Frederiksen also reiterated that Greenland was not for sale, and its population has an exclusive right to determine its future. According to a Financial Times report on Friday, citing several anonymous European officials, the US president and the Danish prime minister had a “horrendous” phone conversation earlier this month. Trump was reportedly “very firm” about his intention to purchase Greenland, threatening Denmark with tariffs if it continues to resist his bid. The confrontational tone of the phone call is said to have “freaked out” officials in Copenhagen, making them realize that Trump’s intentions were “serious.”

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Just check the maps..

Trumps Opens The War Against Russia From Greenland (Helmer)

In the two great battles whose outcomes turned a small, defensive Anglo-Saxon island into an offensive global empire, the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and the Battle of Bosworth Field of 1485, the ruling English kings, Harold Godwinson and Richard III, launched downhill cavalry charges which almost overpowered the invading forces; almost reached the challengers William of Normandy and Henry Tudor; almost killed them. But Harold and Richard were killed instead; their kingdoms were captured. The lesson of those two cavalry charges led from the front by Harold and Richard has been erased in the story-telling which followed their deaths by the propagandists of William and Henry.

In the present battles with the US and the NATO allies on the Ukrainian battlefield, the Russians could provide an object lesson to the Danes on what they should expect to be done to them by President Donald Trump as he rushes to capture Greenland, confident that the threat of his charge will be enough to force the Danes to surrender, the Greenlanders to capitulate. Danish Prime Minister Mette Fredericksen heard it for herself. “It was horrendous,” said one of the sources in Copenhagen after she and Trump had spoken by telephone last week. Another source has added: “He was very firm. It was a cold shower. Before, it was hard to take it seriously. But I do think it is serious, and potentially very dangerous…It was a very tough conversation. He threatened specific measures against Denmark such as targeted tariffs.”

This was what was heard and reported to a London newspaper. Prime Minister Fredericksen was shy; she told the Financial Times she does: “not recognise the interpretation of the conversation given by anonymous sources”. Officially, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman has declared Russia to be against both Fredericksen and Trump. Their claims, Maria Zakharova said last Thursday, “neglect the crux of the issue.” That, she explained, is the concerted Danish campaign to destroy the indigenous identity, culture, and reproduction of the Inuit Greenlanders, combined with the theft and poisoning of their land by US nuclear bomber and submarine bases. “Given the extensive history of colonial exploitation by Denmark and the United States, it is unsurprising that Greenland seeks independence and the establishment of a sovereign state,” Zakharova said.

No Russian currently engaged in the serious fighting against the US believes in displaying enthusiasm for either the cavalry charge or the parley. Instead, the Russians are preparing to fight Trump’s Greenland move as the opening of a new front to attack Russia from the north. The US plan of attack on the north front isn’t new with Trump. The recent history of that plan, retold from the Russian point of view, follows.

In the US Defense Department’s “2024 Arctic Strategy” paper, Russia is the principal target, along with Russian-Chinese cooperation in natural resource mining, trade and oil and gas shipping along the Northern Sea Route. “Major geopolitical changes are driving the need for this new strategic approach to the Arctic,” the paper declared, “including Russia’s full-scale [sic] invasion of Ukraine, the accession of Finland and Sweden to the NATO Alliance, increasing collaboration between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Russia, and the accelerating impacts of climate change. This increasingly accessible region is becoming a venue for strategic competition, and the United States must stand ready to meet the challenge alongside Allies and partners.”

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“Rhodes previously asked to speak to the House committee that investigated the riot, but the Democrat-controlled committee refused to allow it..”

The Trump Pardons Trigger Judicial Rage (Turley)

Even though President Trump had made it a campaign pledge to pardon those involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, the roughly 1,500 pardons Trump issued on his first day produced familiar reactions from politicians and pundits. In Philadelphia, District Attorney Larry Krasner pledged to pursue those pardoned or commuted with new charges on the state level — eclipsing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in repackaging federal crimes as state offenses. Others cited the pardons as evidence of an even greater plot or purpose. On MSNBC, former NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund head Sherrilyn Ifill declared that the pardons were all part of a plan to build an army of “brownshirts.” Not to be outdone, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) warned that Trump was issuing pardons to create a “reserve army of political foot soldiers to act on behalf of MAGA and Donald Trump.”

Such hyperbole, particularly the Nazi references, is now commonplace. Indeed, the left jumped the shark on the Nazi-mania and death-of-democracy mantra months ago. This week, however, some of the most strident comments seem to be coming from the federal bench itself. Indeed, some judges used dismissal hearings to launch into what seemed at points like cable-ready commentary. Take District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee who had previously presided over Trump’s election interference case. Chutkan had been criticized for failing to recuse herself from that case after she made highly controversial statements about Trump from the bench. In a sentencing hearing of a Jan. 6 rioter in 2022, Chutkan said that the rioters “were there in fealty, in loyalty, to one man — not to the Constitution.”

She added then, “[i]t’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.” That “one person” was still under investigation at the time and, when Trump was charged, Chutkan refused to let the case go. She then pursued Trump with a vigor second only to Special Counsel Jack Smith. In the latest hearing, Chutkan again decided to use the bench to amplify her own views of the pardons and Jan. 6. She proclaimed that the pardons could not change the “tragic truth” and “cannot whitewash the blood, feces and terror that the mob left in its wake. And it cannot repair the jagged breach in America’s sacred tradition of peacefully transitioning power.” In fairness, judges often express the gravity of offenses at sentencing, and most of us certainly share the strong revulsion over what occurred on Jan. 6. However, these cases are being dismissed after an election whose winner explicitly pledged to close the prosecutions through executive clemency.

The defendant in her courtroom was there to have a required dismissal entered in his case, not to hear Judge Chutkan speaking truth to power. In this case, she is the power. It is the power to rule dispassionately on the specific case before her. It is not the power to hold court on the merits of presidential decisions. Down the hall, Chutkan’s colleague Judge Beryl Howell, also an Obama appointee, lashed out at Trump’s actions, writing, “[T]his Court cannot let stand the revisionist myth relayed in this presidential pronouncement.” Yet, all of that paled in comparison to what their colleague U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, also an Obama appointee, did with his Jan. 6 cases. He ordered J6 defendants to seek prior approval before going to Capitol Hill or even coming within any of the 69 square miles of the nation’s Capitol. Thus Mehta practically banished Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and seven other defendants.

It does not appear that the Trump Justice Department requested such restrictions, but Mehta was able to impose them because those defendants had received commutations rather than pardons. A commutation does not require the dismissal of a case, and courts are generally allowed to set conditions for released defendants. However, these are new conditions imposed after presidential commutations. More importantly, they could affect the exercise of First Amendment rights from free speech to free association to the right to petition the government. For example, Rhodes and others would have to disclose intended meetings with members of Congress or participation in political events. Rhodes previously asked to speak to the House committee that investigated the riot, but the Democrat-controlled committee refused to allow it. (A Yale law graduate, Rhodes insisted that the hearing be conducted in public, the very condition Hunter Biden made with the support of some of these same members.)

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“Western Europe.” By Professor Sergey Karaganov, honorary chairman of Russia’s Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, and academic supervisor at the School of International Economics and Foreign Affairs Higher School of Economics (HSE) in Moscow.

Russia Must Help Overthrow Europe’s Dangerous Political Elites (Karaganov)

Any outcome of the Ukraine conflict framed as a ‘compromise’ would be celebrated in the West as a victory and perceived as a failure by Russia. This must be avoided at all costs.

First, Russia must openly confront Western Europe’s historical culpability. It’s not the ‘garden’ its elites imagine but a field of fat weeds thriving on the blood of hundreds of millions it has enslaved, murdered, and robbed. Calling Western Europe out for its crimes – from colonialism to warmongering – legitimizes our potential use of nuclear deterrence as a justified response to aggression.

Second, Russia must emphasize the inevitability of nuclear escalation in any conflict between NATO and Russia. This message is essential not only to limit an arms race but also to underscore the futility of stockpiling conventional weapons that will be rendered irrelevant in a nuclear confrontation. NATO’s leaders must understand that they cannot avoid the consequences of their actions.

Third, we must continue advancing on the battlefield, destroying the enemy’s forces with relentless precision. However, it is equally critical to declare that Russia’s patience is finite. For every Russian soldier killed, we must make clear that a thousand Western Europeans will pay the price if their governments persist in waging war against us. The public over there must understand that their elites are preparing to sacrifice them, and nuclear weapons will not discriminate between soldiers and civilians. Western European capitals will be among the first targets of our retaliation.

Fourth, Russia must communicate to the Americans that their continued escalation of the Ukraine conflict will lead to catastrophic consequences. Should they persist, we will cross the nuclear Rubicon, targeting their allies and bases worldwide. Any non-nuclear response will provoke a nuclear strike on American soil. This clarity will force Washington to reconsider its reckless policies.

Fifth, we must strengthen our military capabilities while continuing to adjust our nuclear doctrine. If diplomacy fails, we must escalate decisively, demonstrating our readiness to use advanced weapons to defend Russia’s sovereignty and interests. While new technologies such as the Oreshnik missile system enhance our capabilities, they are no substitute for nuclear weapons, which remain the ultimate guarantor of our security.

Finally, Russia must offer the United States a dignified exit from its self-inflicted Ukrainian disaster. We have no desire to humiliate America but are prepared to help it extricate itself from this quagmire, provided it abandons its destructive policies. At the same time, Western Europe must be sidelined from global decision-making. It has become the primary threat to itself and the world.

If America withdraws, Ukraine’s defeat will follow swiftly. Russia will reclaim its rightful territories in the east and south, while a neutral, demilitarized state is established in central and western Ukraine. Those unwilling to live under Russian law will be free to relocate. Peace can only be achieved by removing Western Europe as a destabilizing force and addressing humanity’s broader challenges alongside the global majority.True peace will only come when Western Europe’s backbone is broken once more, as it was after Russia’s victories over Napoleon and Hitler. The current elites must be replaced by a new generation capable of engaging in constructive dialogue. Only then can Europe rejoin the world as a responsible partner, not a source of perpetual conflict. The stakes are clear: This is not just a battle for Russia’s future, but for the survival of human civilization as we know it.

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Overnight DeepSeek experienced a “large scale cyberattack”. They’ll be fine.

DeepSeek Pulls Rug Out On Nvidia, ASML (ZH)

There is only one topic on traders’ minds this morning that threatens to upend the multi-year AI bull trend driving chip stocks to record highs: the (extremely) cheaper Chinese DeepSeek response to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, as noted in an overnight piece titled “Goldman Asks If China’s DeepSeek is AI’s Sputnik Moment.” Bloomberg’s Mark Cudmore said earlier that the emergence of DeepSeek is terrific news for global growth and productivity. However, he cautioned that the new free, open-source large-language model undermines the massive premium paid for AI research and development by US mega-cap stocks, warning that this development could serve as a catalyst to end 15 years of US stock market exceptionalism. Perhaps the pin that bursts the AI stock bubble in the US. If so, watch out below…

The buzz over DeepSeek has stoked questions about the tens of billions of money big tech firms have spent on AI models and data centers, along with broader trends to upgrade aging power grids. As a result, chip designer Nvidia plunged 12% in premarket trading in New York, while Netherlands-based chip companies ASML and ASM International tumbled 10% and 15%, respectively. In Asia, Japanese chip-related stocks traded lower. Bitcoin was hammered lower. For Wall Street analysts, the developments raise serious questions about elevated valuations of AI-related stocks and Silicon Valley’s business model of massive research.”It does put a lot of scrutiny at the level of valuations,” said Benedicte Lowe, equity derivatives strategist at BNP Paribas Markets 360, adding, “We are quite positive on US tech stock sector. But it puts pressure on the outlook and is a turning point for the companies at this stage in the cycle.”

Jefferies analysts told clients, “Concerns have immediately emerged that it could be a disruptor to the current AI business model, which relies on high end chips and extensive computing power and hence energy.” Goldman’s Jeremy Elster offered his take on DeepSeek and market reaction:

“Only one topic to start the week, threatening to undermine much of the narrative driving eu industrials and cap goods ytd… DeepSeek .. I will defer to Privo’s take on the background this morning: “what makes DeepSeek important is not necessarily that it’s Chinese or rapidly ascended to one of the most popular downloads in the Apple App Store but that it appears quite a fundamental advancement in the efficiency of AI technology. For a lot of complicated reasons it’s basically a huge upgrade to effectiveness of inference. By some measurements, 40-50x more efficient than other models. If you can do more with less it naturally leads the question to whether you need so much capacity”…(note) => In industrials / cap goods, reactions this morning are mostly of the “shoot first” variety towards capex and power equipment plays in relevant and adjacent verticals. GSXEACDC -6% is unsurprisingly most impacted (SU most datacentre exposed,- see full list of exposures in piece from Friday here: link). Also seeing the contagion to semi-cap (Atlas Copco, VAT Group).”

In a separate Goldman note, analyst Francois Theis market outlined the DeepSeek reaction sent “Asian AI ecosystem in full profit taking mode (GS Japan AI -3.08%, GS Asia Power Grid -3.3%) and Nasdaq down significantly premarket.” Theis pointed out one key implication of the DeepSeek development: “First of all remains around Softbank’ Stargate return on investments and capex efficiency (and hence beneficiaries around supply chain and energy requirements).” JPM Market Intel desk told clients: “The DeepSeek story is forcing investors to question the market position of all the MegaCap Tech names and the entire AI supply chain.” Q&As about DeepSeek (courtesy of Bloomberg):

How does DeepSeek R1 compare to OpenAI or Meta AI? Though not fully detailed by the company, the cost of training and developing DeepSeek’s models appears to be only a fraction of what’s required for OpenAI or Meta Platforms Inc.’s best products. The much better efficiency of the model puts into question the need for vast expenditures of capital to acquire the latest and most powerful AI accelerators from the likes of Nvidia Corp. That also amplifies attention on US export curbs of such advanced semiconductors to China — which were intended to prevent a breakthrough of the sort that DeepSeek appears to represent. DeepSeek says R1 is near or better than rival models in several leading benchmarks such as AIME 2024 for mathematical tasks, MMLU for general knowledge and AlpacaEval 2.0 for question-and-answer performance. It also ranks among the top performers on a UC Berkeley-affiliated leaderboard called Chatbot Arena.

What’s raising alarm in the US? Washington has banned the export of high-end technologies like GPU semiconductors to China, in a bid to stall the country’s advances in AI, the key frontier in the US-China contest for tech supremacy. But DeepSeek’s progress suggests Chinese AI engineers have worked their way around the restrictions, focusing on greater efficiency with limited resources. While it remains unclear how much advanced AI- training hardware DeepSeek has had access to, the company’s demonstrated enough to suggest the trade restrictions have not been entirely effective in stymying China’s progress.

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“..no Federal civilian position that is vacant at noon on January 20, 2025, may be filled, and no new position may be created..”

Trump Says He ‘Immediately Halted’ Hiring of New IRS Agents (ET)

President Donald Trump on Saturday said he has halted any new hires of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents. “They hired—were trying to hire 88,000 new workers to go with you, and we’re in the process of developing a plan to either terminate all of them or maybe we move them to the border,” Trump remarked at a speech in Nevada, while also saying, “On day one, I immediately halted the hiring of any new IRS agents. “I think we’re going to move them to the border where they are allowed to carry guns. You know, they’re so strong on guns. But these people are allowed to carry guns. So we will probably move them to the border,” he said.

He was repeating a claim made in 2022 by Republicans that some of the IRS agents who would be hired would be able to carry firearms, although the bill did not designate money specifically for a large number of armed IRS employees. At the time, the IRS said it would also obligate about $8.64 billion of the new funding during the 2023 and 2024 fiscal years, and that 7,239 of the new hires during those years will be enforcement staff. In his administration, President Joe Biden approved plans to direct $80 billion to the IRS under the largely Democrat-passed Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. House Republicans later clawed back billions of dollars from the legislation, most recently in the attempt to avert a government shutdown in December.

The original 87,000 or 88,000 IRS agents figure appears to have come from a U.S. Treasury Department estimate in 2021 to determine the level of hiring of agents to maintain the agency’s efficiency in collecting taxes. Last year, the IRS said it was going to hire nearly 20,000 new employees and deploy new technology over the next two years as it ramps up an $80 billion investment plan to improve tax enforcement and customer service. Soon after taking office, Trump signed an executive order to freeze the hiring of federal civilian employees across the government, stating that “no Federal civilian position that is vacant at noon on January 20, 2025, may be filled, and no new position may be created except as otherwise provided for in this memorandum or other applicable law.”

“Except as provided below, this freeze applies to all executive departments and agencies regardless of their sources of operational and programmatic funding,” it adds. Aside from the hiring freeze, the president suspended Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act funding disbursements in what his office said was “terminating the green new deal,” including pausing funds “supporting programs, projects, or activities that may be implicated by the policy established in Section 2 of the order.”

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By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management.

“Biden was bad for business but good for prices,” [..] “And Trump will be good for business but bad for prices.”

Trump’s Agenda Will Force Foreign Leaders To Adopt Pro-Growth Policies (ZH)

Hope all goes well… “Builders make the most money,” I said at the luncheon, high in some tower, looking out over Dallas. “That’s why I’m sitting here today,” said the entrepreneur to my left, confident, smiling. “If you’re not building a company, the next best thing is to own equity,” I said to the oil, gas, tech execs, family offices. We discussed the new administration, geopolitics, markets, risks, opportunities, my worldview. Then I asked them all about Trump’s drill-baby-drill policy, America’s energy supply dynamics, demand. “Biden was bad for business but good for prices,” one said, many nodded. “And Trump will be good for business but bad for prices.” “The golden age of America begins right now,” said President Trump, vowing to annihilate the nation’s many challenges, sending a shiver through our country’s allies and adversaries.

Economists were quick to spread skepticism. You see, American growth is already quite robust, with GDPNow estimating Q4 real GDP of 3.0%. Unemployment is low at 4.1%. CPI inflation at 2.9% is higher than target but well off the 9.1% high in mid-2022. Nationwide gasoline prices are $3.14 a gallon, not far from levels in Trump’s first term, miles below the $5.03 mid-2022 highs. And the stock market is at all-time highs, with the Shiller P/E ratio at a level exceeded only in the 1999 bubble. So, economists argue that with a 6.3% federal budget deficit, the prospect of massive tariffs, slowing international trade, government layoffs, reduced immigration, and rising inflation, the US economy simply lacks the capacity to power ahead, even with Trump’s pledge to slash red tape. Perhaps they’re right, but economists (and central bankers) have been horribly wrong for so many years that it’s hard to do anything but take the other side of their consensus.

Our geopolitical allies and adversaries are another matter altogether. They’re simply praying Trump’s economic experiment fails. With the American economy already outpacing every country that matters, and with those nation’s electorates growing increasingly agitated, restless, riotous, the possibility of the US widening the chasm terrifies their leaders. The prospect of being held to account for their economic mismanagement, like the negligent mayor of Los Angeles, is too much to bear for the globe’s presidents, prime ministers, chancellors, paranoid dictators. And this, in an ironic twist, holds promise for a brighter global future, if the America First agenda forces panicked foreign leaders to adopt more pro-growth policies for their people.

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“..their blatant desire to eliminate dissent, criticism and ultimately freedom so they can continue to uphold a model in which they are the main beneficiaries.”

Argentina’s Milei Attacks European Liberal ‘Epidemic’ (RT)

Argentine President Javier Milei has criticized European leaders and condemned “woke ideology,” branding it an “epidemic” that must be cured. Addressing the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Thursday, he claimed that the “global hegemony” of left-wing politics and ideology is “starting to crumble.” Making his second appearance at the WEF, the outspoken president defended what he called the traditional values of the West, describing them as “the peak of the human species.” Milei then doubled down on his “cultural battle” against so-called “wokeism,” a term often used by right-wing political movements to criticize progressive policies addressing social inequalities. “What once seemed like a global hegemony of the ‘woke’ left in politics, educational institutions, in the media, in supranational organizations or even in forums like Davos, has begun to crumble,” he said.

According to Milei, wokeism seeks to penalize any kind of opposition “because beneath the rhetoric that they so often preach what truly lies is their blatant desire to eliminate dissent, criticism and ultimately freedom so they can continue to uphold a model in which they are the main beneficiaries.” He took aim at Britain, asking: “Is it not true that right now as we speak, in the UK, citizens are being imprisoned for exposing horrifying crimes committed by Muslim migrants? Crimes that the government seeks to conceal?” Milei was referring to a wave of protests in the UK last summer against Islam and mass immigration which resulted in large-scale arrests. British authorities responded to the riots in draconian fashion, with more than 1,000 people arrested, 480 charged, and 99 sentenced for their role in the disorder, according to figures published by the BBC.

The Argentine leader, who attended US President Donald Trump’s inauguration last week, also targeted the EU, accusing the bloc of scrapping the presidential election in Romania. “Didn’t the bureaucrats in Brussels suspend Romania’s elections simply because they didn’t like the party that had won?” he asked. Romanian right-wing candidate Calin Georgescu, a critic of NATO and the EU and a staunch opponent of sending aid to Ukraine, topped the now-annulled first-round vote in November, beating liberal leftist candidates. Romania’s Constitutional Court suddenly canceled the election ahead of the second-round vote, citing intelligence documents alleging “irregularities” in Georgescu’s campaign performance, which have subsequently been linked to a social media campaign run by one of his opponents.

Milei said that while there is no actual censorship in the West, there is the idea that anyone who doesn’t align with a woke ideology must be silenced. In Milei’s view, it is an “ideology that has colonized the West, a single thought regime on feminism, diversity, inclusion, immigration, abortion, environmentalism, gender ideology” representing “an epidemic that must be cured, a cancer we need to get rid of.”

Read more …

Europe will shoot its own foot until it falls off.

EU Prolongs Sanctions On Russia (RT)

EU foreign ministers have agreed to extend the bloc’s economic sanctions on Russia, after Hungary dropped a last-minute threat to block the extension over Ukraine’s refusal to restart the flow of Russian gas to the EU. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas announced the extension on Monday, claiming that the move will “continue to deprive Moscow of revenues to finance its war.” The EU has imposed 15 rounds of economic penalties on Russia since the Ukraine conflict escalated in February 2022, freezing Moscow’s sovereign assets and severing almost all trade and energy links between the bloc and Russia. These sanctions must be renewed every six months with the unanimous consent of all 27 EU member states.

Last week, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban threatened to “pull the handbrake” on this renewal if Kiev does not restart a transit deal with Russian energy firm Gazprom to allow Russian gas to flow into the EU via Ukraine. Hungary relies on Russia for around three-quarters of its natural gas imports, a small percentage of which flowed through the trans-Ukraine pipeline. Budapest dropped the threat after receiving “the guarantees it has requested concerning the energy security of our country,” Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto wrote in a post on X. In a statement seen by Reuters, the European Commission said it would “continue discussions with Ukraine on the supply to Europe through the gas pipeline system in Ukraine.” “The Commission is ready to associate Hungary in the process along with Slovakia,” it added.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico announced earlier this month that he would veto any future EU aid to Kiev over the gas cutoff, warning that he could also halt the supply of electricity to Ukraine and cut humanitarian aid deliveries. Slovakia depends on Russian gas to meet about 60% of its demand. Orban and Fico have repeatedly argued that Ukraine cannot defeat Russia on the battlefield, and that Western military aid to Kiev will only prolong the bloodshed. Both leaders have also insisted that the EU’s sanctions hurt European economies more than they hurt Russia’s, and Orban has repeatedly threatened to block the implementation of these sanctions in exchange for significant carve-outs from Brussels, including a partial exemption from the EU’s bloc-wide oil embargo and a guarantee that its nuclear sector won’t be affected by future sanctions.

Read more …

Budanov is a prime candidate to succeed Zelensky.

Ukraine’s Top Spy Believes Country Could Cease To Exist (RT)

Ukraine could face collapse by summer if it does not agree to peace negotiations with Russia, the country’s top intelligence official has told lawmakers in Kiev, according to a report on Monday by local outlet Strana.ua. According to the website’s sources, Kirill Budanov, the chief of the Main Directorate of Intelligence, made his remarks during a closed-door meeting in the Ukrainian parliament. One of the people present at the conference told the outlet that there were sensitive briefings by top military officials, including officers of the General Staff. However, the source singled out Budanov’s account. “Someone asked him: ‘How much time do we have left?’ He responded, with his signature cold smile: ‘If there are no serious negotiations by summer, very dangerous processes could begin for the very existence of Ukraine.’”

Budanov’s reported warning comes as Kiev’s forces have been pushed back across the front line by Russian troops. Ukrainian officials and commanders have also complained of manpower shortages amid a troubled mobilization campaign, with recruitment officers often facing open resistance from reluctant draftees. Earlier this week, Strana reported that top Ukrainian officials were reviewing a plan by US President Donald Trump’s team to end the conflict within 100 days. While the roadmap has not been confirmed, its key points reportedly include direct talks between the US president and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to pave the way for a ceasefire along the front lines by April 20 and a peace agreement by early May.

According to the roadmap, it is believed that Ukraine would agree to abandon its NATO membership ambitions, stop cracking down on political forces advocating cooperation with Russia, and become a member of the EU by 2030. Kiev would also reportedly refrain from attempts to reclaim its former territories from Moscow without formally recognizing Russian sovereignty, with the West pledging to partially lift sanctions immediately after the peace deal. While Ukrainian officials have dismissed the roadmap as a hoax, the Kremlin has not commented on the report. However, Moscow has repeatedly said it is open to talks over Ukraine, signaling readiness for a Trump-Putin summit. Russia has ruled out the freezing of the conflict, arguing that Kiev would use such a pause to rearm itself, while insisting that peace could be reached only if Ukraine commits to permanent neutrality, demilitarization, and denazification.

Read more …

“Throughout history, censorship has never succeeded. It has never stopped a single idea or a movement. It has a perfect failure rate.”

The CIA Report: A Low Confidence Finding is the Height of Hypocrisy (Turley)

Every modern president seems to promise transparency during their campaigns, but few ever seem to get around to it. Once in power, the value of being opaque becomes evident. We will have to wait to see if President Donald Trump will fulfill his pledges, but so far this is proving the cellophane administration. Putting aside his constant press gaggles and conferences, the Administration has ordered wholesale disclosures of long-withheld files from everything from the JFK investigation to, most recently, the CIA COVID origins report. That report is particularly stinging for both the Biden Administration and its media allies. Newly-confirmed CIA Director John Ratcliffe released the report, which details how it views the lab theory as the most likely explanation for the virus.

Expressing “low confidence,” the agency still favored that theory over the natural origins theory, which was treated as sacrosanct by the media and favored by figures like Anthony Fauci. (Other recent reports have contradicted the equally orthodox view on the closing of schools, showing no material benefit in terms of slowing the transmission of COVID). Even a low-confidence finding shows the height of hypocrisy in Washington where politicians and pundits savaged any scientist who even suggested the possibility that the virus was man-made and likely originated in the Wuhan lab near the site of the outbreak. This follows a recent disclosure in the Wall Street Journal of a report on how the Biden administration may have suppressed dissenting views supporting the lab theory on the origin of the COVID-19 virus. Not only were the FBI and its top experts excluded from a critical briefing of President Biden, but government scientists were reportedly warned that they were “off the reservation” in supporting the lab theory.

As previously discussed, many journalists used the rejection of the lab theory to paint Trump as a bigot. By the time Biden became president, not only were certain government officials heavily invested in the zoonotic or natural origin theory, but so were many in the media. Reporters used opposition to the lab theory as another opportunity to pound their chests and signal their virtue. MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace mocked Trump and others for spreading one of his favorite “conspiracy theories.” MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt insisted that “we know it’s been debunked that this virus was manmade or modified,” MSNBC’s Joy Reid also called the lab leak theory “debunked bunkum,” while CNN reporter Drew Griffin criticized spreading the “widely debunked” theory. CNN host Fareed Zakaria told viewers that “the far right has now found its own virus conspiracy theory” in the lab leak. NBC News’s Janis Mackey Frayer described it as the “heart of conspiracy theories.”

The Washington Post was particularly dogmatic. When Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark) raised the theory, he was chastised for “repeat[ing] a fringe theory suggesting that the ongoing spread of a coronavirus is connected to research in the disease-ravaged epicenter of Wuhan, China.” Likewise, after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) mentioned the lab theory, Post Fact Checker Glenn Kessler mocked him: “I fear @tedcruz missed the scientific animation in the video that shows how it is virtually impossible for this virus jump from the lab. Or the many interviews with actual scientists. We deal in facts, and viewers can judge for themselves.” As these efforts failed and more information emerged supporting the lab theory, many media figures just looked at their shoes and shrugged. Others became more ardent. In 2021, New York Times science and health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli was still calling on reporters not to mention the “racist” lab theory.

In Kessler’s case, he wrote that the lab theory was “suddenly credible” as if it had sprung from the head of Zeus rather than having been supported for years by scientists, many of whom had been canceled and banned. As these figures were attacking reports, Biden officials were sitting on these reports. Figures like Fauci did nothing to support those academics being canceled or censored for raising the theory. The very figures claiming to battle “disinformation” were suppressing opposing views that have now been vindicated as credible. It was not only the lab theory. In my recent book, I discuss how signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration were fired or disciplined by their schools or associations for questioning COVID-19 policies.

The suppression of the lab theory proves the ultimate fallacy of censorship. Throughout history, censorship has never succeeded. It has never stopped a single idea or a movement. It has a perfect failure rate. Ideas, like water, have a way of finding their way out in time. Yet, as the last few years have shown, it does succeed in imposing costs on those with dissenting views. For years, figures like Bhattacharya (who was recently awarded the prestigious Intellectual Freedom Award by the American Academy of Sciences and Letters) were hounded and marginalized. Others opposed Bhattacharya’s right to offer his scientific views, even under oath. For example, in one hearing, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) expressed disgust that Bhattacharya was even allowed to testify as “a purveyor of COVID-19 misinformation.”

Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzik decried an event associated with Bhattacharya, writing that “we’re living in an upside-down world” because Stanford University allowed dissenting scientists to speak at a scientific forum. Hiltzik also wrote a column titled “The COVID lab leak claim isn’t just an attack on science, but a threat to public health.” One of the saddest aspects of this story is that many of these figures in government, academia and the media were not necessarily trying to shield China. Some were motivated by their investment in the narrative while others were drawn by the political and personal benefits that came from joining the mob against a minority of scientists. The CIA report does not resolve this debate, but it shows that there is a legitimate debate despite the overwhelming message of the media and the attacks on scientists. Of course, the same media and political figures responsible for this culture of intimidation have simply moved on. The value of an alliance with the media is that such embarrassing contradictions are not reported. At most, these figures shrug and turn to the next subject for groupthink and mob action.

Read more …

“. . .once Trump runs out of easy ways to unfuck the federal government, his administration will hit a crossroads moment, probably sooner rather than later.” — Matt Taibbi

Glug Glug. . . . (James Howard Kunstler)

That’s the sound of a swamp being drained. And much fetid water is still backed up over the 68.3 square miles that comprise the District of Columbia. You might be just realizing that the “Joe Biden” regime was not a government at all, but rather, a colossal racketeering operation. And let’s be clear and precise: racketeering is making money dishonestly. Thus: the grubby Biden Family itself at the top of that putrid food-chain, and their smalltime harvesting of mere table-scraps. Where trillions got creamed off by the big gators, the Bidens risked all for a measly few million, like newts gorging on gnats in a drainage ditch. Are you so cynical— as the Marxians are in their so-called “critique” of capitalism — that you think all human transactions of making-and-doing are dishonest? That is yet another misreading of reality, which the recent years of nonstop official propaganda and gaslight have catastrophically aggravated to the degree that half of America can no longer think at all.

Capitalism is not a political ideology despite the “ism” incorrectly attached to it, like the tail pinned on a donkey. Capitalism is simply the management of surplus wealth. The catch is, in a hyper-complex society, the management itself becomes complex to an extreme. And that can easily lead to mismanagement, which will deform and pervert the very mechanisms that superintend wealth, sometimes so badly that the wealth disappears altogether. These are the dynamics faced by the newborn Trump command. Both political parties, per se, have fallen into a dismal habit of racketeering in this sclerotic state-of-empire. But now Mr. Trump has seized control of the Republican apparatus, at least, and the Party’s entrenched ol’ crocs and pythons descry that under DJT the regular feeding frenzy is over.

Hence: the hand-wringing over Pete Hegseth setting foot in the Pentagon, as he will sometime this dawning day. The dollars pounded down that rat-hole in this century could have funded start-ups of several empires, but instead the swag just landed in the index funds of countless board members parasitically lodged in a dark cosmos of G.I. procurement circle-jerks. A lot of that can and will be stopped. And the ones who just won’t quit are liable to be found out. Now, the Democratic Party faces more perplexing quandaries. It, too, is constructed as a gigantic grift machine. But if you subtract the employees of the multitudinous NGOs and non-profit orgs set up in recent years to receive government largess — which have spawned like smelts in the San Joaquin delta — you would eliminate much of the party’s rank-and-file. (The rest are apparently embedded in government itself and the teachers’ union.) A whole lot of activists would lose their platforms for activism in the process.

[..] The first seven days of Mr. Trump have been sheer razzle-dazzle. He and the people around him have torn through the zeitgeist like front-end-loaders through a homeless encampment. He has yet to meet a crisis. Some of the obvious traps are avoidable. For instance: seeking further injury to Russia as a way of ending the stupid Ukraine war — started by us in 2014, thanks a lot Victoria Nuland & Company — since both the US and Russia are just about unconditionally desirous of stopping the damn thing as soon as possible. It’s had no benefit for anybody but the Raytheon war lobby and the Zelensky regime’s legion of grifters. Mr. Trump’s recent tough talk has been entirely for show, just a mass of rhetorical lube to un-stick the lingering “Joe Biden” stasis in that sad-sack corner of the world.

Read more …

Good conversation. The boys are somewhat optimistic.

Taibbi Hints FBI Communications With COVID Scientists Will Be Exposed (ZH)

Award-winning independent journalist Matt Taibbi revealed in an interview with conservative commentator Tucker Carlson that communications between FBI officials and scientists related to gain-of-function research and the origins of COVID-19 is expected to one day be made public. Watch: (relevant portion begins at 34:06)

MATT TAIBBI: There are so many different areas where they are going to have to investigate and reinvestigate that. We just went through a period where there was mass stonewalling of Congress when it was trying to investigate what happened with COVID. There were key people like Peter Daszak from the EcoHealth Alliance, who just didn’t answer subpoenas, right? There are documents that we know exist that we’re going to get now with FBI communications between the bureau and a lot of these scientists dating back ten years. And it’s going to tell a crazy story, a really interesting story. There’s a reason why Fauci’s pardon is backdated to 2014, because that’s the time period they are going to have to start looking, which is, when did we start defying the ban on gain of function research. We clearly did. That’s pretty established at this point.

Why were we doing it? What connection did that have to the Wuhan thing? What kind of advanced notice did we get? What kind of lies were told about it? Who were responsible for those lies? What information did we get about the inefficacy of the vaccine and how did that connect to statement by the CDC and the White House? This also connects to the censorship issue in a major way because there was a massive effort to control the public conversation about this that went through the health agencies. We know they’re looking at that. And that’s another executive order, by the way, the free speech order. It directs the Department of Justice to come up with a comprehensive review of all the censorship stuff, so we’re going to find out about that. I just think COVID is a gigantic rat’s nest of stuff. Every direction they look there’s going to find something revelatory.

TUCKER CARLSON: The question is: will that information reach the public? There is these intermediaries like the media. Congressional brand investigators, executive brand investigators like DOJ, inspector generals, they are always constantly releasing reports and no one reads them because no one picks them up in the media. Do we have enough interested reporters to designate what they find?

MATT TAIBBI: I think we do because what we think of as the media is dead. They no longer really matter. The media that matters right now are people like you, Joe Rogan and other independent podcasters out there. There’s this gigantic, thriving independent media out there that turned the last election. It was abundantly clear that the old media no longer had any ability to control the narrative about anything. They’re totally discredited.

Read more …

“..Armstrong’s computer program “Socrates” sees a global recession no later than 2028. Socrates also sees the possibility of “war as early as April or May of 2025.”

Devalued Dollar Will Crash the DOW – Martin Armstrong (USAW)

Legendary financial and geopolitical cycle analyst Martin Armstrong is back with a warning to President Trump, who is on record wanting a weaker dollar. Trump might try to force a lower value for the US dollar to help offset the trade deficit. Just this past week, Trump is demanding lower interest rates. Experts say this might also lower the value of the US dollar. Armstrong predicts, “Everything has an international value. If you lower the value of the dollar, then oil in terms of dollars will rise. Look at gold. It’s not making new highs right now because the dollar is going up, but chart it in Canadian dollars or Euros and it’s making new highs. . . . You dramatically lower the dollar and you are going to cause a crash–again. . . . It could be 40% to 50%.”

Armstrong has deep experience in the currency markets. In 1985, Armstrong was called in by the Reagan Administration about cutting the value of the dollar to spark trade. Armstrong warned if you cut the dollar, you will have a big crash within two years. What happened? Two years later, the stock market crashed more than 22% in one day in the infamous 1987 stock market crash. It is still the record for a one-day crash in percentage terms. Armstrong says, “In the end, they said we think foreign exchange had something to do with the crash. That was the best I could get out of them. They are not going to stand up and say, oh gee, we caused it (the crash) by lowering the dollar by 40%.”

Armstrong is going to write President Trump a letter warning him NOT to force the US dollar lower. How is the war picture shaping up now that Trump, who wants to be a “peacemaker,” is in office? Armstrong says, “You have French President Macron saying he wants to send troops into Ukraine. Britian has just now sent 20,000 or 30,000 troops into Romania. They want war. They are basically on the verge of a sovereign debt crisis. So, they have a choice. They default and say, oh sorry, we screwed up. Or, it’s not us, it’s Putin. We have to go get him. The German government fell the very next day after Trump was elected. You see this going on all over Europe.”

In closing, Armstrong sees gold (and silver) going up from here. The US is still the strongest economy by far, but Armstrong’s computer program “Socrates” sees a global recession no later than 2028. Socrates also sees the possibility of “war as early as April or May of 2025.” Armstrong tells President Trump, “Get out of NATO–ASAP.”

Read more …

“On January 27, 1945, the Soviet Red Army liberated Auschwitz, revealing to the world the unimaginable horrors of the Holocaust. This event became a symbol of the triumph of humanity over the worst atrocities of the Nazi regime.”

The Nation That Liberated Auschwitz Is Being Excluded From Memory (Romanenko)

Russia’s exclusion from the commemorations marking the 80th anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation is not just a diplomatic snub – it is an insult to history and to the memory of millions who suffered and died during World War II. This decision, part of a growing trend of historical revisionism, diminishes the decisive role played by the Soviet Union in defeating Nazi Germany and liberating concentration camps, including Auschwitz. It’s a troubling development that undermines the lessons of the past in favor of political expediency.

On January 27, 1945, the Soviet Red Army liberated Auschwitz, revealing to the world the unimaginable horrors of the Holocaust. This event became a symbol of the triumph of humanity over the worst atrocities of the Nazi regime. Yet, in 2025, Russian representatives were excluded from the anniversary ceremony at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland. Piotr Cywinski, the museum’s director, justified the decision by citing Russia’s actions in the Ukraine conflict, stating that a country “that does not understand the value of liberty has something to do at a ceremony dedicated to the liberation.”

This reasoning ignores a critical truth: Auschwitz’s liberation was accomplished by Soviet soldiers, many of whom paid with their lives. The USSR bore the brunt of the Nazi war machine, suffering the loss of an estimated 27 million military personnel and civilians during the war. To exclude Russia from commemorations of such a significant event is to erase the sacrifices of those who played an indispensable role in ending the Holocaust.

This act is part of a broader pattern of attempts to revise history, downplaying or ignoring the Soviet Union’s contributions to the defeat of Nazi Germany. In recent years, statements from Western leaders have increasingly glossed over the USSR’s role in World War II. For instance, during a Memorial Day speech, then-US President Joe Biden recounted the victory over Nazi Germany without mentioning the Soviet Union, a glaring omission that Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov criticized as a cynical diminishment of historical truth. Similarly, current US President Donald Trump once claimed that it was “American soldiers who truly won World War II,” conveniently overlooking the critical battles of Stalingrad, Kursk, and Berlin where Soviet forces dealt the decisive blows to the Nazi regime.

Even more troubling is the West’s apparent tolerance for neo-Nazi elements in Ukraine, a country central to the current geopolitical tensions. In 2023, the Canadian Parliament hosted Yaroslav Hunka, a 98-year-old Ukrainian who served in the Waffen-SS “Galicia” division – a unit implicated in war crimes. Hunka was given a standing ovation, a shocking display that later forced the resignation of Canada’s House Speaker Anthony Rota. Such incidents highlight a disturbing willingness to whitewash history in the name of contemporary political alliances.

Russia’s exclusion from World War II commemorations is not new. In 2024, Russian officials were barred from the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, France, with the French presidency stating that “the conditions for their participation are not there given the war of aggression launched in 2022.” Similarly, in 2020, Poland excluded Russian representatives from a Warsaw commemoration marking the outbreak of World War II. These decisions reflect a troubling trend: using historical remembrance as a tool of political messaging.

This selective approach to history is dangerous. World War II was a global conflict that required immense sacrifices from numerous nations, but no country paid a higher price than the Soviet Union. To erase or diminish that contribution is to distort the historical record and risk undermining the shared understanding that has underpinned the post-war international order. The decision to exclude Russia from Auschwitz’s 80th anniversary commemorations sends a troubling message about the value of historical truth in times of geopolitical conflict. If we begin to erase inconvenient aspects of history to suit present-day narratives, we risk losing sight of the lessons that history teaches us. The Holocaust and the broader atrocities of World War II were enabled by dehumanization, propaganda, and the denial of reality. To combat these forces in our time, we must commit to an honest reckoning with the past, even when it is uncomfortable.

By excluding Russia, the organizers of the Auschwitz commemorations missed an opportunity to reaffirm the shared commitment to remembering the Holocaust and the sacrifices made to end it. The liberation of Auschwitz was a moment of global significance, a reminder of what humanity can achieve when united against evil. That unity is undermined when we allow historical revisionism to take hold. In remembering Auschwitz, we must honor all those who contributed to its liberation, regardless of modern political considerations. The Soviet soldiers who freed the camp’s survivors deserve recognition, as do the millions of Soviet citizens who perished in the fight against fascism. To deny their role is not only an affront to historical truth but also a betrayal of the very ideals of liberty and justice that the commemorations seek to uphold.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Covid Menstrual

 

 

Cranes

 

 

Bird sounds

 

 

Subsun
https://twitter.com/i/status/1883535925428297735

 

 

Ears

 

 

Creating Zen
https://twitter.com/i/status/1883764778453360855

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle January 28 2025

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 74 total)
  • Author
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  • #180529

    Pablo Picasso The artist and his model 1926   • A Cabinet of the Cancelled (Paul Craig Roberts) • US Army Needs Huge Shakeup – Vance (RT) • Trump
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle January 28 2025]

    #180531
    Dr D Rich
    Participant
      Corporal JD Vance Hamel Bowman Blanton Vance Hamel USMC (fmr) born James Donald Bowman and occasionally J dot D dot and James David now and maybe J.D. on Revenge Leadership

    Subtitle: Adolph Hitler was a l.Corporal too

    Without so much as a hint of hypocrisy, Hamel Vance said:

      “They’ve got us a military with a major recruitment crisis, a procurement price crisis that’s totally dysfunctional, where we buy airplanes for billions and billions of dollars, terrible cost overruns, the delivery dates are always delayed. So we need a big change,” shooting at low hanging fruit, inverted demagoguery, sort of and did he use the GI Bill?

      The US has failed to win a single war in several generations despite spending staggering sums of money on its army, Vice President J.D. Vance has said, calling for a major military overhaul.

      In an interview with CBS News on Sunday, Vance defended the confirmation of Pete Hegseth as the new secretary of defense, which narrowly passed the Senate with a 50-50 tie broken by the vice president himself. Hegseth has faced criticism over his controversial public comments about Islam, limited leadership experience, and accusations of sexual assault, which he has denied.

      Vance described Hegseth as a “disruptor” and said he was the right person to usher in long-overdue change. “We fought many wars over the last 40 years, but haven’t won a war about as long as I’ve been alive,” Vance said as One of Those Guys in Uniform Over Those Losing Forty (his words) Like Tulsi Ritter Hegseth etc.

    How should one characterize JD’s behavior?
    1. Unironical Herculean Feat or
    2.. megalomaniacal Cognitive Dissonance or
    3. weak effort to invoke Reaganesque Teflon-like immunity for systemic failures while JD was Cpl Combat Corresponding in that same military system.
    4. Disloyal Criticism of Country and Uni?

    There’s so much to be said for remaining above the fray while having been right at the bottom of the same “unsuccessful” fray.

    Maybe VeeP Vance will clean house and recommend CiNC fire Journalism Major and CNO and Admiral Lisa Franchetti under JD’s Rule of The Last 40yrs Were Unsuccessful.

      ‘I don’t really care, Margaret!”

    I recommend they tap Bruce Meneley for The Top Navy Leadership Position. Hell, let’s help Cpl Vance think “out of the box” even more.

    #180532
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Vance lays it out

    • US Army Needs Huge Shakeup – Vance

    As Vance pointed out, The Empire of Lies Military Mafia hasn’t won a war since 1945, and the Russians actually won WWII.

    95% of German military causalities were inflicted by the Russians on the Eastern front, NOT the Western front.

    The largest “tank battle” on the Western Front involved a couple dozen tanks

    In high contrast:

    The Kursk Tank Battle ultimately became the largest tank battle in history.

    It involving some 6,000 tanks, 2,000,000 troops, and 4,000 aircraft.

    The battle resulted in a decisive Soviet victory, marking the end of the German offensive capability on the Eastern Front and clearing the way for the great Soviet offensives of 1944–45

    From Andrei Martyanov’s Blog

    Regarding the Empire of Lies Military education system and learning from experience.

    “… they still fail, because war economies of British Empire and the US, and war economy of USSR, or Russia–are two very different things.

    But they cannot see the difference and apply wrong lessons to the wrong subject……as per Trump–trash talk.

    The Russians take military affairs deadly serious as vital to the Motherland’s survival.

    The Empire of Lies spends a fortune on LOSING OVER DECADES because the Duh’merican military is about stealing their citizens tax money NOT defending the Republic.

    “For those [Duh’mericans] who still cannot grasp what is happening–Russian Armed Forces wrote a new book on urban combat and overcoming the largest and most heavily defended so called defensive line in Europe.

    They ARE studying this already in [Russian] military academies, in the ones which are not burdened by falsified military history.”

    How Duh’mericans roll………..

    .

    #180533
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    #180534
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Here’s Duh’merica in a nutshell

    And it thinks it can go toe to toe with the Russians and Chinese and Iranians

    Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

    What a pitiful sack-o-shit the Duh’merica military is.

    .

    .
    .
    .
    .
    .

    #180535
    Oroboros
    Participant

    Duh’merica: The Moon Shining Crack House on the Hill

    A Beacon to the World

    .

    .

    #180536
    those darned kids
    Participant

    I recommend they tap Bruce Meneley for The Top Navy Leadership Position.

    i recommend they scrap the entire u.s. navy and leave the world alone.

    #180537
    those darned kids
    Participant

    i kinda miss all the dei stuff with the u.s. military..

    after all,

    studies have shown that men fussing about their eye shadow are 73% less likely to flatten hospitals and schools with depleted uranium generational poisons.

    #180538
    Celticbiker
    Participant

    Why did the bankers flip the script in their dismal jewmelodrama? They gave you the thesis, borderless, tranny, antifa, no sense makes sense communism. Now it’s anti thesis, a Big Brother, top down corporate fascism. The sickle, then the hammer. So what strange beast of synthesis are they shooting for? Both are surveilance states who hate the individual. Both are massive, centralized and censor non conformity. Both bow to the real master,$. The same $ money masters who financed Lenin, financed Hitler. Old game. So how do you want it, Huxley or Orwell?

    #180539
    aspnaz
    Participant

    @Dr D Rich

    The Orange Jew still talks about the “Free World”, what the fuck is he talking about? He is so out of date, so fucking old, that he is a walking in cold war meme. There is no free world, there is no just world, there is no honest world, there is no morality in the western world governments, and very little in the people, so now the west is waiting for its knickers to be taken down and for the likes of Musk to roger them up the arse.

    Don’t expect anything better while you live in the west, Trump has not even contacted the Kremlin to schedule a meeting between himself and Putin, so the 24-hours promise on Ukraine was bullshit, as is everything that Trump does. Oh, he banned DEI in government, so who cares, there is a big difference between saying it and enforcing it, but all the Trump morons cheer and say “America, Fuck Yeah”. But he is still feeding weapons to Israel so that they can ignore their ceasefire and continue to kill relentlessly.

    The Orange Jew and Pedo Joe are the reasons why those with forethought ran away, got out of white man’s land, to a place more beneficial to a comfortable life.

    #180540
    aspnaz
    Participant

    Musk is now sueing the EU over tariffs on China-made EVs; so that his cars can be imported from Tesla factories in China, not Tesla factories in America … this is the man doing MAGA with the Orange Jew. Open your eyes fuck heads.

    #180541
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Can’t Picasso afford a model who has her boobs on right?

    “Davos: UN Introduces AI As “The Next Existential Threat”

    Soooo…the same people who are promoting and paying for it are also opposing it? Problem solved! Hey, you! Who don’t like this. Stop doing this expensive thing you don’t like.

    “Will Trump’s Threats Push Putin To Negotiate?

    Meta-lie. Putin was always negotiating. And meta-lie, we have nothing to do with this war, right? So why are we involved with ending it?

    “Russian Forces Officially Seize Last Strategic City In Southern Donbas Region

    What war? And Trump has given Putin 100 free days to go nuts.

    “Trump Effect: NATO Chief Pleads For Members To Quickly Step Up Defense Spending

    Did Denmark convince them, or what? So much for free health care and August off, I’m sure the people will be thrilled and just dying to pay for it.

    “Green Deception: Environmental Activists Serve China’s Energy Agenda

    Speaking of, where’s Decepticon, AFKTT go? Rather than engage with evidence (CO2 charts) or debate (Sweden has to go Green while China pollutes at will) he just disappeared. That’s too bad. I can’t understand that behavior when you believe it enough to stand up, act…and are therefore pinned down. You have to defend your logic. Then things can change, you can have to digest new ideas, even if your battle itself caused them to be forced down hour throat. That’s a good and honorable thing, acting, not hiding. Integral, as they are ACTING in accordance with their avowed Beliefs.

    Speaking of, this week, ran into a similar one: Liberals saying “All men are hunting down and raping all women” or some such. Hear it so often I forget the specifics. So this particular woman said she never went anywhere without a taser. All the men were like, “So? Who doesn’t? Good idea I should probably add a taser to my carry.” This points up the same investigation: they, that is the Left, the Feminine, declare in the loudest way, top of their lungs, that they totally believe they are in imminent and fatal danger. From Men, from AGW, and from Hitler. Right. Now. !!!!!!!!

    …And then do literally nothing. Not. A. Thing. MEN are the ones taking self-defense, the ones doing Concealed Carry. They BEG women to do likewise, the women call them paranoid. …WHILE saying they are the ones most at risk and men’s risk is essentially zero, as they are Privileged, the Patriarchy. Men, and Conservatives, beg and keep open every avenue on this, where they are open to training and arming every communist, every black person, every woman, the entire Left under 2A. Making pantries, stocking up for Hitler’s upcoming holocaust, building saferooms for Trans refugees. …Nothing. Not a single action is taken.

    They TALK. That is, perhaps by mass-complaining some * Man * will do it for them so they don’t bother? Very mysterious. This goes into the Funeral with Obama and Hitler yukking it up, virtually no surprise, no response from the Left. Shouldn’t that be concerning to them??? I mean, even if you spin the story Trump-as-Hitler would have Obama killed if he didn’t, wouldn’t THAT be the narrative? Nope. Universal Shrug. Trump is totally Hitler, this week’s actions prove it, but also … not.

    So...they both totally, fully, completely, religiously, passionately believe it…but also DON’T believe a word of it, all at the same time?

    You see, with my brain construction I can’t understand this, but clearly it is as obvious and invisible as water to more than half the nation. It’s like…abstraction. I SIGNAL, I SYMBOL fascists, but I don’t ACT on it any more than I jump when I read a book about ghosts or stock cans when I play a war video game.

    “Dan Caldwell, a longtime Hegseth advisor, is being smeared by FOREVER WAR advocates.”

    Of course he is: he exists.

    Trump was in…both L.A. AND North Carolina? Like I actually thought he did L.A. first, check me. I mean, he was on d—d camera. We are edging a few percent closer to an entirely truth-free world each day. Same as above, both was there and wasn’t, whichever gives me higher social status while speaking that sentence.

    And WHYYYYYY, a post-truth world? Why is it in the torture manuals? Because in a Truth-free world the only Truth is POWER. The POWERFUL establish all behavior and reality, law is merely, “Who will beat me less.” It’s easier for psychopaths that way.

    Dr. Phil “Sweeps are not occurring.” Yes, but they just report and say they are “We all know” anyway. Entirely post truth. Now Homan could be lying, sure. We’re watching. But there’s not even a passing disinterest in what is the truth or what “Officials” and “Authorities” say. Wait: I thought they trusted Authorities, Experts and we obeyed the Supreme Court? It’s an odd-numbered day?

    Homan, “We’ve got all government”. Gee, sounds like ¾ of those agencies should be erased or consolidated then.

    I think it was John Brennan here who said, “He didn’t really say the laptop was disinformation, No! He actually said it was true and Russian INFORMATION. Boy is my face red. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2IFBkiB0Vxg

    Oh wait, we have him on tape 100 times saying the #Opposite? Huh. It’s almost like the CIA trains people in lying.

    “Western Allies opened the second front after the Red Army liberated half of Eastern Europe.”

    Yes, that is, the only thing they cared about was Russia not taking Europe. Back up one level: the only thing they wanted from Europe, and a Europe united – under anyone, even Hitler, the original EU, yay! — was to attack Russia/Stalin and get it back for London. Zoom out, that’s what I see in every “Mysterious” action and “Accident”. Like Chamberlain.

    ““During the next four years the fate of America’s constitutional order will be determined.”

    Meh. Don’t oversell it. If we lose these four years, we’ll still fight for the Constitution and its values in another process.

    “[We] haven’t won a war about as long as I’ve been alive..”

    Let me guess, the reporter then opposed this fact and defended the Army.

    “”Our job is lethality, readiness, and warfighting.”

    Great: the entire society you draw from for soldiers are now cowardly, untrained, America-hating sissies. Who can’t meet physical requirements. This was true in WWI and they took measures to cause health, order, etc, in the general population. That is to say, he’s a flash in the pan, we’ll need +20 and possibly 40 years to fix it. …We almost certainly do not have that time. Oh well.

    • Denmark Can’t Protect Greenland – Trump (RT)

    I forget who I heard about this, possibly Luongo (or guest) who claimed he was dead serious about absorbing them. I disagree, but I’m listening.

    “• The Trump Pardons Trigger Judicial Rage (Turley)

    They definitely cannot let this go, and I ethusiastically welcome investigation and objection from the Left. It’s only through them that we can open the records and get it in public.

    “• Russia Must Help Overthrow Europe’s Dangerous Political Elites (Karaganov)

    Yikes! True, but yikes!

    Chinese fire drill on DeepSeek. They’re trying or hoping to tank us, if it hasn’t, it won’t. This will come cumulatively, though, we are priced to have a 90% crash and still be fair value. –No man or event can get around that math.

    “• Trump Says He ‘Immediately Halted’ Hiring of New IRS Agents (ET)

    CONFIDENCE. Twin of COLLATERAL. They’re tying to stop Europe’s annihilation of us.

    “”Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.” -Churchill.

    ““Biden was bad for business but good for prices,” [..] “And Trump will be good for business but bad for prices.”

    This may be a way to say “Wall Street vs Main Street”

    “• Argentina’s Milei Attacks European Liberal ‘Epidemic’ (RT)

    Continues to read as a Wall Street install.

    “• EU Prolongs Sanctions On Russia (RT)

    At this point they can or try to use this to cause pressure to flip – that is annihilate – troublemakers Hungary, Serbia, and anybody else they feel like. They don’t care if that kills Germany, because that’s only the German PEOPLE, who they hate as violently as all other Peoples.

    ““Throughout history, censorship has never succeeded. It has never stopped a single idea or a movement. It has a perfect failure rate.”

    Nah, it can work. Like any other rigged market. Worked to install the Bolsheviks in Russia then to have it withstand 70 more years. Outsiders NEED markets to be rigged bc you make money by trading the price illogic, then when that trade is done, trade to have the price re-discovered to reality. IDGAF WHAT the thing is, the price, or the distance. The only key is to use VIOLENCE, force, to MAKE the thing un-rational at my command.

    So the plan was to have US be the new Bolsheviks/Mensheviks, and collapse, where that censorship would endure in a contient-sized totalitarian state. I mean, obviously. They may have lost but don’t get cocky, there are generations of retards trained to murder everyone, and I can’t swing a cat without hearing – literally everyone – say, “Capitalism” this, and “F—k Capitalism.” Okay, fine. But when you say that, you don’t mean, “Bring back Monarchism”, you don’t mean “Let’s try tribalism”, there is one and ONLY one Uniparty of the Unifuture: Gay Race COMMUNISM. That means like 90% uptake on Communism, 90% hatred of “Capitalism” for two or more generations. We have to wait post-Zoomer, and that only IF you erase every schoolteacher who are 99% communism. And radically anti-family, pro trans. (oddly, wtf does that have to do with math?)

    “• Taibbi Hints FBI Communications With COVID Scientists Will Be Exposed (ZH)

    Disinfection of sunlight. Same as above, why censor? If it doesn’t work, as he claims. No, it works. Someday it falls, but that’s no consolation to generations before it doesn’t.

    “• Devalued Dollar Will Crash the DOW – Martin Armstrong (USAW)

    I need to listen to this, pretty sure it’s key. And yes, you can’t escape without punishment for what we’ve done. That is, lied and bent all markets from the TRUTH, Reality. The markets merely return to REALITY, but we won’t call it that, we will call it a collapse, and bad, when really it was the move away from Truth that was the bad period.

    “• The Nation That Liberated Auschwitz Is Being Excluded From Memory (Romanenko)

    Before 1940 the whole West was totally into this. They loved Eugenics, liked the “Solution” to the “Jewish problem” etc. We got there, 4 years late, dragging our feet, and suddenly Lo! We were against it all along! Who knew?? Suddenly anti-semites like Ford, etc, given Nazi medals of honor were pro-Jewish, I guess? And the Bush’s IBM, Harvard, NY Times….

    Lies don’t work? They just retconned open history for 80 years and if I say it, they’ll burn my house.

    Subsun: I haven’t seen one, what is it?

    #180542
    Dr. D
    Participant

    I know! It’s been like 10 days, why isn’t everything fixed already? Gawd!

    And an American citizen criticizing the military? I never heard the like! Treason, I say.

    #180543
    zerosum
    Participant

    MOTIVATORS
    suppressing opposing views
    truth to power.
    do more with less
    Deepseek – greater efficiency with limited resources.
    “cultural battle”
    ———–
    Truth
    Seeking further injury to Russia as a way of ending the stupid Ukraine war — started by us in 2014, thanks a lot Victoria Nuland & Company — since both the US and Russia are just about unconditionally desirous of stopping the damn thing as soon as possible.
    It’s had no benefit for anybody but the Raytheon war lobby and the Zelensky regime’s legion of grifters.
    Mr. Trump’s recent tough talk has been entirely for show, just a mass of rhetorical lube to un-stick the lingering “Joe Biden” stasis in that sad-sack corner of the world.
    ————
    Tucker Carlson
    Donald Trump is releasing more secrets than any president in history.

    Matt Taibbi on the top ten mysteries we’re likely to solve.

    https://x.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1883939641499258998?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1883939641499258998%7Ctwgr%5Eb451d7fe280ceb5be929580092d8d6672a3c8fbe%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theautomaticearth.com%2F2025%2F01%2Fdebt-rattle-january-28-2025%2F&mx=2
    —————
    Affront to history: The nation that liberated Auschwitz is being excluded from memory
    A growing trend of revising World War II history risks erasing the immense sacrifices made by the Soviet Union in the fight against Nazi Germany
    By Nadezhda Romanenko, political analyst

    https://swentr.site/news/611719-russia-exclusion-auschwitz-commemorations/

    This reasoning ignores a critical truth: Auschwitz’s liberation was accomplished by Soviet soldiers, many of whom paid with their lives.
    The USSR bore the brunt of the Nazi war machine, suffering the loss of an estimated 27 million military personnel and civilians during the war.
    To exclude Russia from commemorations of such a significant event is to erase the sacrifices of those who played an indispensable role in ending the Holocaust.

    Even more troubling is the West’s apparent tolerance for neo-Nazi elements in Ukraine, a country central to the current geopolitical tensions.
    In 2023, the Canadian Parliament hosted Yaroslav Hunka, a 98-year-old Ukrainian who served in the Waffen-SS “Galicia” division – a unit implicated in war crimes.
    Hunka was given a standing ovation, a shocking display that later forced the resignation of Canada’s House Speaker Anthony Rota.
    Such incidents highlight a disturbing willingness to whitewash history in the name of contemporary political alliances.

    The Holocaust and the broader atrocities of World War II were enabled by dehumanization, propaganda, and the denial of reality.
    To combat these forces in our time, we must commit to an honest reckoning with the past, even when it is uncomfortable.

    ——————

    #180544
    John Day
    Participant

    Chaos On Border: Mexican Cartels Fire At US Border Patrol Agents https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/chaos-border-mexican-cartels-fire-us-border-patrol-agents

    How long before this is 2-way drone-warfare? Really.

    #180545
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    An Ode to Pro Growth Policies

    Lend
    Spend
    Rinse
    Repeat
    The game ain’t over
    ‘Til the slaves can’t eat

    #180546
    jb-hb
    Participant

    AFKTT went away when I pointed out:

    –His own manifesto he posted, with references etc, is marxist and his speil is pure Critical Theory for Environmentalism (meat-suiting it)
    –I started posting those graphs of CCCP CO2 production vs everyone else

    It is telling that nothing else resulted in a change. Not in intellectual engagement nor leaving, but THAT did it right away. I wasn’t trying to get him to leave – I was trying to get him to think and discuss. No charts, no scientific analysis, no news articles revealing faked “studies” and “models” and “data” no appeals to compassion or reason. Nothing else seemed to compel him.

    So…they both totally, fully, completely, religiously, passionately believe it…but also DON’T believe a word of it, all at the same time?

    This is how James Lindsey went insane with his new “Woke Right” terminology.

    OF COURSE the people screeching that all men everywhere are always hunting down and raping women do not believe it. Certainly they want as many weak people as possible to internalize that as a sort of religious feeling of true-ness in spite of reality, but they don’t ACTUALLY believe it. It’s spiritually true. It’s socially true. But not true.

    From all their actions, they believe they live in a prosperous, benevolent, generous, and incredibly safe society.

    James Lindsey’s strange oversight is he cannot see how the marxist language is 90% NOT COMMUNICATION. It is only intended as a weapon. It’s nice that he’s wandering around inside their language cloud trying to figure it out, I suppose, but SOME perspective is useful.

    For instance, if there was actual fascism and Trump was actual Hitler, the first MONTH of his first term would have been a huge leftist bug-zapper, just hordes of newscasters, retired military and bureaucrats, entire think-tank groups, entire NGO’s full of people, obviously every Democrat of note, etc – just all fed into the firing squad. Every “Literally Hitler!” resulting in “Oh no, they’re getting dragged off never to be seen again! Why does this always happen when we call Trump Hitler???”

    All the claims are an admission that the claims are not true. Implicitly. Obviously. The accuser is assuming the accused is SO nice that they can abuse them this way with impunity.

    Increasingly in the past few years, we’ve seen cancel culture turning a FAFI corner. Leftists getting the same treatment they’ve been dishing out for at least a decade.

    Lindsey looks at similar mechanics resulting in Leftist woe and somehow thinks the Right is adopting the same IDEOLOGY – having wandered around in language that was weapon, not meaning, he assumes the observable real-world tactic resulting in enemies vanquished is ideology.

    (everyone else to the right of Mao was saying it was unfortunate, but until Leftists decide they don’t like being at war, until they decide to put down their weapons and be part of civil society again, they are getting what they can reasonably expect and this should continue until they DO cease war)

    So ah…. Germany invades Russia using mobile combined arms warfare. Russia adapts and starts using it back on them in 1942. Oh no! Russia has become NAZI!!! Germany notices the Russians are using tanks with sloped armor – oh yeah, that’s the right way to do it. Panther comes out in 1943 with sloped armor – oh no! The Germans have gone Communist!!!!

    Lindsey has the modern American Liberal disease – he cannot decide between his Leftism and his Liberalism. The result is that he has no antibodies. Can’t bring himself to simple, honest, self-defense. To his mind, the Right needs to be forever laying down, willingly losing, continually putting energy into maintaining the illusion of discussion where there is no discussion. When marxist language is a continual DOS attack waiting for a chink in the armor to appear.

    Sam Hyde’s video to Elon and his other one to Vivek – he gets it. I’m paraphrasing here, but something along the lines of “You cannot actually have a conversation with someone when their sole goal and purpose is to rip you off”

    Marxists are idiots sure. But let’s propose a battle to you. You against Hellen Keller. You get a suit of plate armor, she gets a pocketknife. Oh, but you have to lay down, not fight her in any way, and the battle lasts forever. So this evil malevolent Hellen Keller, not knowing quite what you are, never having encountered medieval armor before, nevertheless determinedly climbs all over you pecking away with the knife.

    The western leftist liberal (a non resolvable contradiction) is ok with being “principled” and going ahead with this fight because of their “rules” and their “advantages” and their “safety” and eventually she gets you in the eye slit. She is not tired. She is not discouraged. She is not the least bit worried by all the parts of you that are NOT eye-slit.

    #180547
    kultsommer
    Participant

    Amazing traditional carpentry vid above and this:

    President Trump: “The release of DeepSeek AI from a Chinese company should be a wake-up call for our industries that we need to be laser focused on competing to win.”

    #180548
    kultsommer
    Participant

    There is always that “flat-tire-enthusiasm” in acknowledgment of massive Soviet contribution to defeat Nazis just because most of the fighters on their side wore red star on their caps and helmets.

    Well….Nutcracker is still not yet cancelled as a regular part of the scheduled Christmas celebration programs.

    #180549
    jb-hb
    Participant

    “Nutcracker is still not yet cancelled as a regular part of the scheduled Christmas celebration programs.”

    The Western academic marxists pondered the failure of the USSR for decades and decided this was exactly the problem.

    Ghostbusters 2016 was the iconic first blatant move, but no stone has been left unturned since then.

    YES, good point. They decided allowing the Nutcracker to survive was their big mistake Everything is downsteram from culture – we should have destroyed the culture completely. This time will be different.

    #180551
    kultsommer
    Participant

    Protests in Serbia – triggered by “mere” collapse of concrete canopy at the railway station building that killed 14 people and non-disclosure of murky contract with the company who did the renovation on said station.
    It takes a little – not in the USA though, for many reasons.

    https://x.com/NationalIndNews/status/1883964482122309932?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1883964482122309932%7Ctwgr%5E863b4ce5d68f7ef67efe3c090c3398ce83b201cc%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.unz.com%2Faanglin%2Fcolor-revolution-in-serbia-results-in-high-level-resignations%2F

    #180552
    SeaBirds
    Participant

    Kultsommer #180548

    Nor has Russian classical music been sanctioned on radio programmes or in concert halls. I suggest that’s because lovers of fine music can’t bear to live without it, – and we know that many of them happen to be Jews :>)

    RIM,
    thanks for including the Romanenko. Sadly, lost to all yesterday in the holocaust commemorations, but those of us who follow RT, was the moving picture of Putin with head bowed at another memorial, commemorating the 80th anniversary of the breaking of the seige of Leningrad.

    #180553
    John Day
    Participant

    January 6 rioter pardoned by Trump is killed by police in traffic stop
    Indiana state police say Matthew Huttle, who was given six months in prison, was shot after allegedly resisting arrest https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/27/jan-6-pardon-police-killing-matthew-huttle

    #180554
    maryballon
    Participant

    I was surprised that Tucker and Taibbi did not include on their list of ” the unexplained”–911!! They agreed to the boxcutter in the cockpit!

    #180555
    jb-hb
    Participant

    kultsommer, your current attempts at inversion are pragmatic, but nonsensical – which, of course does not matter to you if you think they are effective.

    Yesterday – look at how Russia and US are doing compared to each other. Russia had 70 years of Communism – see, not so bad then.

    Russia has had 30 years of not-communism to recover, all the while with a severe object lesson on what does not work in the minds of every person in the nation.

    The US has had a flowering of the Long March Through The Institutions. The more marxist it has become, the worse it has gotten.

    We just had marxists burn down a major city due to the typical combination of incompetence and active malevolence. The typical marxist blueprint:

    1. Take control
    2. Get all our cronies into all the positions
    3. Run things “properly” on smart, socialist, materialist, equitable lines
    4. Things begin to fail horribly
    5. Blame enemies.
    6. Fuck it, we’ll use slave labor.

    We watched California go through stages 3-6 in the space of what, a WEEK? It took them a WEEK to go from smug superiority to paranoia to slave labor.

    Ergo, Communism not so bad, other systems, not so good?

    Perfect photo negative of reality. Is inversion all you have left?

    Tchaikovsky survived. See? Communism not so bad.

    Uh, the communists outlawed way more books, art, and MUSIC than Hitler.

    Composers of that time period had to watch their step or be sent off to the Gulag — not composers doing musicals or operas or ballets with lyrics and/or a libretto. TOTALLY INSTRUMENTAL composers!

    marxist analysis had to be applied to all things, so there were people analyzing the NOTES being played deciding if the musical stuff being done sounded “capitalist” on various arbitrary stupid bases.

    But you carefully imply-without-saying the inversion that somehow communism was a preservation of pre-communist music. It survived. People in Russia know very well to value the things they almost lost completely and forever. Books banned, horses pissing in the churches being used as stables. What a debt to communism they must feel!

    #180556
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    @aspnaz

    I’m no fan of Trump.
    I do believe Donald is due, due process long and hard for the hit he put on a 9yo girl, Nawar al-Awlaki, but Marchan and Smith and Pelosi et al will never prosecute him for that vile, unforgivable act. Let those chips fall where they may. Roll the dice. Courtroom drama is a coin flip at best and for the rest, the game is rigged.

    #180557
    kultsommer
    Participant

    jb-hb
    Do you wake up every morning thinking about the new topic to feel utterly miserable about?

    Hope that “professor” DBS will not lame-jump to your rescue. You did not send him thank you card, as a friend, for his last effort.

    #180558
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    The Nutcracker Ballet reference is a bit arcane for this audience, leaning distinctly toward the obscurely erudite side of discourse (maybe even a little bit disdainfully snobbish?) but after a little catch-up research I now see that it actually is apt and appropriate, so you get a pass this time.

    The Nutcracker/Prince protagonist is clearly the Czar of Russia ( Nicholas II at the time, 1890-ish , and his nemesis in the story, the Mouse King (who the Nutcracker Prince defeats in a grand battle for Primacy) is Franz Josef I the long reigning Emperor of the mighty Austrian Empire.

    At the time that the ballet was written and scored the more or less Germanic (mostly more) Dynasties of Europe had been stifling Russia for a hundred years. Hapsburg, Hohenzollern, aka “Windsor” and the entire inbred lot of them have feared their giant cousins to the north and done everything they could to prevent the Bear from gaining access to warm water ports and trade routes into the greater world.

    Note that when Russia …..er, I mean The Nutcracker Prince…. whups Joe’s mousy ass (in the ballet story) that the riches and treats of the world are opened to the homeland and come flooding onto the stage (into the homeland) in the persons of the Sugar Plum Fairy and many other sweets.

    Clever story, and the message is right on the mark. The Germans have been scared of the Russians for a long long long long time, and the story just keeps repeating itself. It seems to be one and only thing that the Brits, Krauts and Israelites can always agree on : STOP THE RUSSIANS

    Don’t fool, yourselves. Today’s events might look like a battle between ideologies, and on a spiritual plain it most certainly is, but down here on Earth it’s a no-holds-barred BRAWL for Real Estate, and you better not forget it.

    As the two old saying go, Don’t mess around with Slim, and God is on the side of the big battalions.

    #180559
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    Might be an attractive deal for US service members who were discharged for refusal to receive the COVID-19 vaxx. Full back pay for the past 3 years?

    Sec. 2. Redress. Consistent with the policies announced in section 1 of this order, the Secretary of Defense or the Secretary of Homeland Security, as appropriate, shall take all necessary action permitted by law to:

    (a) make reinstatement available to all members of the military (active and reserve) who were discharged solely for refusal to receive the COVID-19 vaccine and who request to be reinstated;

    (b) enable those service members reinstated under this section to revert to their former rank and receive full back pay, benefits, bonus payments, or compensation; and

    (c) allow any service members who provide a written and sworn attestation that they voluntarily left the service or allowed their service to lapse according to appropriate procedures, rather than be vaccinated under the vaccine mandate, to return to service with no impact on their service status, rank, or pay.

    https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/reinstating-service-members-discharged-under-the-militarys-covid-19-vaccination-mandate/

    #180560
    kultsommer
    Participant

    @V Arnold
    Believe me or not, glad to see that you’re doing OK.

    #180561
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    Free-Diving a couple of thousand years of European History leads me to think that they’re basically all a bunch of congenital Nazi’s or not far from it even during the best of times. Strictly top-down absolute despotic militaristic wannabe Kings and Emperors, and let the serfs fall where they may.

    #180562
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    The difference between a died in the wool Commie and a jack-booted Nazi is basically just a difference in spelling. Authoritarian dictatorship in both cases, and a bottle of poisonous medicine no matter how you read the label.

    #180563
    those darned kids
    Participant

    dr d rich:

    “I do believe Donald is due, due process long and hard for the hit he put on a 9yo girl, Nawar al-Awlaki, but Marchan and Smith and Pelosi et al will never prosecute him for that vile, unforgivable act.”

    indeed. i’ve been highlighting this here. it’s a fraction of the mayhem caused by mr trump et al., but its wickedness is so blatant that only the most heartless of souls could not be offended.

    #180564
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    Definition of “Free Diving History” means diving into a fathomless and heavily polluted pool of it and going as deep as you can for as long as you can until your soul cries out for oxygen and you are forced back to the hard flinty surface we know as Present Time.

    Free Diving History usually makes you want to take a shower immediately after.

    #180565
    those darned kids
    Participant

    doc robinson: “Might be an attractive deal for US service members who were discharged for refusal to receive the COVID-19 vaxx. Full back pay for the past 3 years? ”

    it’s attractive for the d.o.d. as they will know that these healthy soldiers will have not been intentional poisoned by the d.o.d.

    #180568
    those darned kids
    Participant

    let’s go soviet-armenian:

    #180569
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    If you have 15 minutes,
    there are profound things at 1:25:00

    truths

    #180570
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    So Google sez it will rename the Gulf of Mexico as Gulf of America, but only for it’s United States users.

    So a Gringo looking at Google maps will see “Gulf of America” printed on the map, but everybody else in the world, looking at what they ASSUME is the same map, will actually be seeing a DIFFERENT map, that reads “Gulf of Mexico” instead.

    Nothing dystopian, crazy or dangerous in that!

    What’s next? Will Greenland get re-labeled as North Maine, or maybe Panama becomes South Texas.

    Will maps even still be maps if what they portray depends on where you are when you look at it?

    I said just yesterday that things would be getting crazier faster, but maybe I understated the case.

    #180571
    kultsommer
    Participant

    @Michael Reid

    “The some on TAE “panel” may see you as a Michael Re(i)d, since what B&W view of the World dictates.
    Absolute inability of some to watch the video with calm demeanor and possibly spot where the two are “possibly right” is astonishing.

    #180572
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    A Fable

    A Communist and a Nazi stumble into each other in the dark and a terrible fight ensues. It is ferocious and merciless until the two of them realize, at the same time, that they better stop trying to kill each other and go find a farmer to rob or else they’re both going to starve to death.

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