May 202025
 
 May 20, 2025  Posted by at 8:47 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  Add comments


Pablo Picasso Portrait of Maya 1939

 

Trump Spoke with Putin, and Here’s What Happened (Margolis)
US Should Never Have Intervened In Ukraine – Trump (RT)
Trump Should Not Threaten New Sanctions When He Talks To Putin (Ian Proud)
Peaceful Solutions Preferred For Ukraine Conflict Goals – Kremlin (RT)
Swamp Fever (James Howard Kunstler)
Biden’s Presidency Is a Scandal of Historic Proportion (Jarrett Stepman)
This Is the Man Behind the Curtain of Biden’s Health Coverup (Margolis)
Trump: Biden Allies ‘Not Telling The Facts’ After Cancer Diagnosis (NYP)
CNN Struggles to Assign Blame for Not Reporting on Biden’s Decline (Turley)
Germany Makes “Sea-Change Policy Shift” On Nuclear Power In Europe (ZH)
Europe Admits JD Vance Was Right, Pivots On Mass Immigration (Whedon)
Europe’s Embrace of Lawfare Threatens Its Alliance with the US (Mike Gonzalez)
Romania’s Elections Were a Big Globalist Sham (Sp.)
SCOTUS Allows Removal Of Protected Status From 300K Venezuelan Migrants (ZH)
Transition To A New World Order Is Beyond Most In The West (Alastair Crooke)
US Unveils Revised Gaza Truce Proposal – Axios (RT)

 

 

 

 

 

 

King

 

 

 

 

Kamala
https://twitter.com/MAGAVoice/status/1924338698336039097

Kaja
https://twitter.com/DD_Geopolitics/status/1924211156341932284

Souza

Ursula
https://twitter.com/MAGAVoice/status/1924166680311480410

To know Mr. Comey is to dislike Mr. Comey

Jim Rogers

 

 

 

 

Trump hangs up the phone on Putin and calls Zelenskyy, von der Leyen, Macron, Giorgia Meloni, Merz and Stubb. All of whom (Meloni?) want war, not peace. What use is this? You just give them the chance to undo what you’ve just achieved.

Trump Spoke with Putin, and Here’s What Happened (Margolis)

In a remarkable development that could signal a turning point in the war in Eastern Europe, President Donald Trump revealed Monday that he held a two-hour phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and what came out of it could reshape the future of the region. “Just completed my two hour call with President Vladimir Putin of Russia,” Trump announced on Truth Social. “I believe it went very well.” According to Trump, the call wasn’t just diplomatic pleasantries — it led to a major breakthrough. “Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a Ceasefire and, more importantly, an END to the War,” Trump said. The groundwork has been laid for direct talks between Moscow and Kyiv, with Trump emphasizing that the two nations will handle the negotiations themselves. “The conditions for that will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be, because they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of.”

Trump described the tone of the conversation with Putin as highly constructive: “The tone and spirit of the conversation were excellent. If it wasn’t, I would say so now, rather than later.” Looking beyond the war, Trump indicated that economic opportunities could be a major incentive for peace. “Russia wants to do largescale TRADE with the United States when this catastrophic ‘bloodbath’ is over, and I agree,” he said. “There is a tremendous opportunity for Russia to create massive amounts of jobs and wealth. Its potential is UNLIMITED.” And Ukraine, he said, would benefit immensely from new trade opportunities in the aftermath of war. “Likewise, Ukraine can be a great beneficiary on Trade, in the process of rebuilding its Country.”

Trump said the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine would begin “immediately” and that key world leaders had been informed. “I have so informed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, of Ukraine, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, President Emmanuel Macron, of France, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, of Italy, Chancellor Friedrich Merz, of Germany, and President Alexander Stubb, of Finland, during a call with me, immediately after the call with President Putin.” And in a notable twist, Trump said the Vatican has expressed a willingness to host the talks. “The Vatican, as represented by the Pope, has stated that it would be very interested in hosting the negotiations.”

After years of escalating bloodshed, failed ceasefires, and ineffective diplomacy under previous administrations, President Trump may have just pulled off the first real breakthrough. “Let the process begin!” he concluded. If this peace initiative holds, it would be a watershed moment, not just in the war between Russia and Ukraine but in the full restoration of America’s credibility and leadership on the world stage. Trump ran on a clear promise to end the endless wars that have drained American influence and treasure, and now, just months into his second term, he’s already delivered more meaningful progress than Joe Biden managed in nearly three years of fumbling diplomacy, endless aid packages, and aimless rhetoric.

While Biden sent blank checks to Ukraine and pushed America to the brink of direct conflict, Trump picked up the phone and made actual diplomacy happen. He understands that peace comes through strength and negotiation — not virtue-signaling and proxy wars. The mere fact that Russia and Ukraine are now preparing to sit down at the table speaks volumes about who the world respects as a serious dealmaker. This isn’t just a step toward ending a catastrophic war; it’s proof that strong leadership in the White House can shift the entire geopolitical landscape. Trump once again proves that when America leads with clarity and resolve, the world listens.

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“..we got ourselves entangled in something that we shouldn’t have been involved in. And we would have been a lot better off – and maybe the whole thing would have been better off – because it can’t be much worse. It’s a real mess,”

US Should Never Have Intervened In Ukraine – Trump (RT)

President Donald Trump has blamed his predecessor Joe Biden for funneling vast amounts of American taxpayer money into a foreign conflict that “should have remained a European situation.” Speaking to reporters at the White House following a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, Trump expressed frustration over the “crazy” scale of US involvement in the Ukraine conflict. He reiterated that it was “not our war” and emphasized that his administration is working to end the hostilities through diplomacy. “This is not our war. This is not my war… I mean, we got ourselves entangled in something that we shouldn’t have been involved in. And we would have been a lot better off – and maybe the whole thing would have been better off – because it can’t be much worse. It’s a real mess,” Trump said.

The president stated that Washington has provided “massive” and “record-setting” levels of military and financial assistance to Kiev – far exceeding what the EU and other NATO countries have contributed. “We don’t have boots on the ground, we wouldn’t have boots on the ground. But we do have a big stake. The financial amount that was put up is just crazy,” he added. “Again, this was a European situation. It should have remained a European situation. But we got involved – much more than Europe did – because the past administration felt very strongly that we should,” he said. “We gave massive amounts, I think record-setting amounts, both weaponry and money.”

Trump’s conversation with Putin was followed by calls with several European leaders, including the heads of Germany, Italy, and the UK, as well as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky. “They have a big problem. It’s a terrible war. The amount of anger, the amount of hate, the amount of death,” Trump said, noting that the conflict has reached a point where “it’s very hard to extradite themselves away from what’s taken place over there.” Trump said he believes both Putin and Zelensky want peace, but only time will tell if it can be achieved. “There’s a good chance we can get this done. I believe Putin wants to do it… My whole life is like deals, one big deal. And if I thought that President Putin did not want to get this over with, I wouldn’t even be talking about it because I’d just pull out.”

Pressed by reporters on whether he had a “red line” that would cause him to walk away from mediating the conflict or potentially escalate US involvement, Trump declined to elaborate. “Yeah, I would say I do have a certain line, but I don’t want to say what that line is because I think it makes the negotiation even more difficult than it is,” he said. Putin described the conversation with Trump as “frank” and “quite useful,” adding that Moscow is prepared to work with Kiev on drafting a memorandum aimed at achieving a future peace agreement. “In general, Russia’s position is clear. The main thing for us is to eliminate the root causes of this crisis,” the Russian president said.

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It’s no use, and bad blood.

Trump Should Not Threaten New Sanctions When He Talks To Putin (Ian Proud)

The U.S. side has made various signals that it might impose massive new sanctions on Russia unless the war ends soon. This would be a huge mistake that would lock in the fighting for the rest of the year and leave Europe on the hook for a massive bill and political disruption that it cannot afford. Trump should not threaten Putin with sanctions when they talk on Monday 19 May. In the run up to the Russia-Ukraine bilateral peace talks which finally took place in Istanbul last week, both the EU and the UK imposed new sanctions on Russia. On 9 May, as Russian commemorated victory Day, Britain imposed sanctions on Russia’s shadow fleet and the EU followed suit with its 17th package of Russia sanctions on 14 May, the day before the Istanbul talks were due to start.

Both the UK and EU have threatened further sanctions should Russia not agree a full and unconditional ceasefire in Ukraine and, with Zelensky, have actively urged the U.S. to follow suit, which it has not done, so far. However, the Americans have spoken increasingly about the possibility of massive new sanctions against Russia: this would be a huge mistake. Sanctioning a country before peace talks have already started, or while they are still going on, is already a bad look. Very clearly, the Ukrainians, Europeans and British hope that new sanctions will apply such pressure on Russia that it agrees to terms that are more favourable to the Ukrainian side. I.e. that Ukraine does not have to go back to the Istanbul 1 commitment to adopt permanently neutral status.

The western mainstream press has been carpet bombing their intellectually degraded readers with the latest press line that Ukraine should not have to go back to the Istanbul 1 text as a starting point for talks. But there’s a problem. For this strategy to be effective, the sanctions have to work. As I’ve pointed out before, sanctions against Russian energy have had limited impact, not just since 2022, but since 2014. Nothing about the glidepath of sanctions since February 2014 suggests that new sanctions will work now. This latest round of UK and EU sanctions aimed to apply more pressure on enforcement of the G7 oil price cap of $60 which was first imposed in December 2022. Since the war started, that policy has failed.

Between 2021 and 2024, total volumes of Russian oil exported fell by just 0.2 million barrels per day, or 2.6%. After a bumper year for tax receipts in 2022 caused by Russian tumbling rouble and skyrocketing energy prices, Russia pulled in current account surpluses of $49.4bn and $62.3bn in 2023 and 2024. This was on the back of still strong goods exports of $425bn and $433bn respectively. There are several reasons why the oil price cap didn’t work, the biggest being that Russia diverted 3 million barrels per day, around 39.5% of total oil exports to India (1.9 mbd), Türkiye (0.6 mbd) and China (0.5 mbd). Türkiye and India boosted exports of refined fuels to Europe providing a backdoor route for Russian oil to Europe.

The second reason the oil price cap didn’t work is the near ten month time lag between war starting and the limit being imposed, which gave Russia space to readjust before punitive measure had been imposed. During this period, oil prices also dropped sharply from the high of $120 in the summer of 2022, to around $80 when the measure was imposed: the G7 missed the boat to impose maximum damage; this reinforces the point I make all the time that coalitions cannot act with speed and decisiveness. Today, the Russian Urals oil price is below the $60 G7 cap meaning that any registered shipping company can transport it without penalty, which renders the British and European sanctions as pointless in any case.

Let’s be clear, western nations imposing sanctions against Russia that don’t work is not a new phenomena. As I have pointed out many times before, the vast majority (92%) of people that the UK has imposed assets freezes and travel bans upon have never held assets in the UK nor travelled here. For companies, the figure is just 23. The same, I am sure, is true of EU and U.S. sanctions, which cover largely the same cast list of characters and companies, as we all share and compare the same lists of possible designations. Financial sector sanctions prompted a massive readjustment of Russia’s financial sector. Energy and dual use sanctions drove self-sufficiency in technology production, through Rosnet, Gazprom and RosTec: i.e. these companies invested more in R&D on component production while sourcing components from alternative markets, in particular China.

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“..eliminate the causes of this crisis, create conditions for long-term sustainable peace and ensure the security of the Russian state and the interests of our people..”

Peaceful Solutions Preferred For Ukraine Conflict Goals – Kremlin (RT)

Russia remains open to achieving its goals in the Ukraine conflict through peaceful means, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday. Peskov, speaking before President Vladimir Putin’s scheduled phone call with his US counterpart, Donald Trump, expressed appreciation for Washington’s mediation efforts, noting that “if it really helps us achieve our goals by peaceful means, that would certainly be preferable.” He also recalled that Putin’s 2021 proposal to address Russian security concerns over NATO expansion was rejected by the US-led alliance and then-President Joe Biden’s administration. Moscow’s stated objectives include keeping Ukraine out of NATO, ending Kiev’s policies that it considers discriminatory against ethnic Russians, and curbing the influence of extreme Ukrainian nationalist groups.

In a recent interview, Putin said Moscow wants to “eliminate the causes of this crisis, create conditions for long-term sustainable peace and ensure the security of the Russian state and the interests of our people” in former Ukrainian territories where people voted to join Russia following the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev. Last week, Russian and Ukrainian representatives held their first direct talks since 2022, when Kiev backed out of a proposed peace deal that had been agreed in principle by both sides in Istanbul. The U-turn was influenced by the then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, according to Ukraine’s lead negotiator David Arakhamia.

The latest round of Istanbul negotiations has led to a proposal for the largest prisoner exchange between the two countries and a pledge to continue dialogue. Trump has claimed that he alone can broker peace between Russia and Ukraine and suggested that a breakthrough could come as early as this week, following his conversation with Putin.

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“Don’t misunderstand me. I want Biden to get better and live many more years, so he can watch his family go broke from running out of influence to sell.” Oilfield Rando on X

Swamp Fever (James Howard Kunstler)

If the slithering denizens of Okefenokee-on-the-Potomac were nervous about their fates before Sunday — and I’d say they’ve been rather jumped-up since Nov. 4 — then Maria Bartiromo’s Sunday morning session with FBI top dawgs Patel and Bongino must have been a near-death experience for them. Something Roto-rooterish this way comes, officialdom must be thinking, if you can call utter hysteria “thinking.” Washington is nervous because there have been zero leaks from the agency, a condition heretofore unknown in that haunted, pestiferous, reeking marsh. There’s plenty of the usual background noise, of course: the insectile hum, the croaking, trilling, buzzing, staccato peeps, chirps, and squeals of the squirming lesser creatures. . . the occasional roar of an ancient gator. . . the guttural cry of the night heron, the sharp yelp of some furry prey meeting its doom, the pulsating, primordial, chthonic cacophony of creatures suffering to mate in the frightful darkness. . . but that’s just the news media doing their thing.

We’ve remarked more than once here in recent weeks about the ominous silence emanating from the FBI leadership amidst all that other noise, and now you know: a mighty information dump is coming, bales of documents that Christopher Wray sat on for years will be publicly released un-redacted, spells will be broken, names will be named (with imputations of crimes committed), and abiding mysteries unraveled — like, what was the FBI actually doing around the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and much more. Prepare for some disappointment. Alas, most non-capital federal crimes (acts short of treason and murder) have a five-year statute of limitations (18 U.S.C. § 3282), so the multitudinous felonious misdeeds of RussiaGate will go unpunished.

Stzrok, McCabe, Rosenstein, Pientka, Ohr (and wife Nellie), Thibault, Baker, Atkinson, Halper, Horowitz, Lynch, Yates, et al., will skate off into the sunset, but not without lasting reputational damage. Mr. Obama’s presidential aura will surely lose a lot of its luster. But there is plenty to keep the DOJ busy with more recent turpitudes carried out with the election of “Joe Biden,” including perhaps the 2020 election itself in the months before November, 2025, when the statute of limitations kicks in for that caper. Mainly, what looms is a reckoning over “Joe Biden’s” fake presidency and the momentous question as to who was really running the executive branch of the government, most particularly who was using the devious “auto-pen” to sign off on executive orders and perhaps even on legislation.

It is a wonder of modern times that this affront to the public trust somehow remains an abiding mystery. But it shows just how fake Jake Tapper’s new book is — Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again. Jake blames the whole fiasco on “the White House” without ever stating who in that building was actually acting in “JB’s” place as shadow president. Tapper, allegedly a reporter, apparently never bothered to ask. But neither did anyone else at CNN, the other TV news networks, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and every other outpost of OG journalism. Nor does Jake conclude the obvious: that his entire profession sold out the country to act as the Democratic Party’s damage control agency — rather than its traditional duty to act as a powerful check on corrupt, runaway government.

Which is to say that the news media Jake represents is at least as corrupt as the government itself. It’s for certain now, anyway, that we are going to find out exactly who was behind the fabled auto-pen, and it will probably turn out to be a cabal composed of Chiefs-of-Staff, Ron Klain and Jeffrey Zients, Dr. Jill, NSA Jake Sullivan, Deputy AG Lisa Monaco, Domestic Affairs advisor Susan Rice, and ultimately to some degree former President Obama, holed-up a few blocks away in his Kalorama mansion those four years of “Joe Biden’s” term in the oval office. Why wouldn’t Mr. Obama, now a private citizen, be called to some official forum, say a courtroom or a congressional committee, to answer questions about that? He’s not any sort of God with God-like privileges.

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“This was the first fully deep-state presidency.”

Biden’s Presidency Is a Scandal of Historic Proportion (Jarrett Stepman)

The “presidency” of Joe Biden is one of the greatest scandals in American history. The legacy media is only now covering the mental incapacity of a president who apparently left the entire ship of state to the unaccountable bureaucracy. On Friday, Axios released Friday night news dump audio of Biden’s 2023 interview with special counsel Robert Hur. If you heard the tape and haven’t been in a coma for the past four years, then nothing here is truly surprising. The former president sounded senile and evasive when answering questions about his handling of top secret documents. Some of my colleagues went through the full tapes and found that Biden “forgot the names of President Barack Obama’s former secretary of defense and comedian Jay Leno; referred to Africa as a country, not a continent; and was unaware he had in his possession a notebook with war advice in it for Obama during his interview with special counsel Robert Hur and investigators in October 2023.”

Biden certainly did not sound like someone who could be trusted to make large-scale national decisions or even small-scale personal ones. This is entirely unsurprising unless you are a left-leaning corporate media journalist on the political beat. If you are, then I’m sure that the reports coming out about Biden in office are jaw-dropping, gob-smacking revelations to you. The media elite are shocked, shocked to discover that Biden may have been unfit for office. The release of these tapes was followed by a Sunday afternoon reveal that Biden has been diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer. The cancer diagnosis is certainly a terrible thing. But the idea that this should end the story about what happened the last four years is a farce. It couldn’t be clearer now that due to mental and physical ailments, Biden was a diminished man from the moment he assumed the president’s office.

Despite some of the aforementioned elite journalists calling for a lid to be put on conversations about Biden’s presidency due to his health, the reality is the cancer diagnosis only raises more unsettling questions. Is this really a new diagnosis? Did Biden’s doctors really somehow miss the signs of treatable cancer. And that makes this situation entirely unprecedented. Yes, President Woodrow Wilson was at one point incapacitated during his final term in office, but that was at the tail end of his presidency. Wilson suffered a series of strokes after his highly energetic campaign to convince Americans to join the League of Nations. His wife and even some members of the media tried to cover it up, but ultimately the Democratic Party pulled the plug on his extremely brief flirtation with running for a third term.

There was no widespread attempt to fool the American people and ensure another term for an “almost catatonic” president, as one witness at George Clooney’s June fundraiser for Biden described the candidate.This situation with Biden was much, much worse, the cover-up far more extensive, and the consequences were far more potentially dire in the age of instant communication and weapons capable of quickly destroying all of human civilization. How shall we think of those years in which multiple crises developed around the globe, Americans were mass deprived of employment due to government-forced vaccinations, states were browbeaten to allow children to get life-altering hormones, and an ultimately victorious presidential candidate was nearly jailed? I’ve tried to think of some apt historical comparisons.

President John Tyler was known to some of his more cantankerous critics as “his accidency,” due to being the first vice president to assume the president’s office after the death of the commander in chief. The attitude was that nobody actually elected him to become president, and in the early days of the republic the Constitution was a bit murky about whether he could just assume office or a new election must be held. Regardless of the nickname, Tyler became an aggressive, active commander in chief—somewhat to the chagrin of many in his party. But Biden was in some way the mirror opposite. Despite being elected in a highly contested election, he seems to have never really assumed his responsibilities. Biden’s lethargy was only matched by his lack of transparency.

The better word for Biden would be “his irrelevancy.” While the 46th president’s handlers, most likely at the behest of former President Barack Obama, led him around in an extended real-world version of “Weekend at Bernie’s,” the federal apparatus operated on its own. This was rule by “experts,” or really rule by the managerial class that re-created the old spoils system but made it totally unaccountable to the American people. Decisions were carried out by vast, interlocking agencies at the behest of their Democratic Party allies whom they serve. This was the first fully deep-state presidency. Biden was awarded by the Democratic Party with the nominal career-capping title as president, but the functions and even the decisions demanded of his office were clearly distributed to his subordinates and the federal leviathan. The result was a complete disaster.

Americans rightly lost faith in their leaders and the elite institutions attached to this corrupted apparatus. U.S. foreign policy was at best strategically adrift. Our enemies around the globe went on the march. The people feared the government more than the government feared them. The upshot of these calamities is that we were delivered a national wake-up call at a time of crisis. A political counterrevolution is taking place that may have never happened had its depth not been revealed at least in part by the media’s cover-up of Biden’s obvious infirmity. But even though the first 100-plus days of President Donald Trump couldn’t be more different than the four years of his predecessor, we can’t forget how bad things got, how much the legacy media covered for a senile president’s obvious incapacity, and how deeply threatening the permanent bureaucratic state is to American liberty.

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Call his personal doctor to the stand. Under oath.

This Is the Man Behind the Curtain of Biden’s Health Coverup (Margolis)

For four years, Americans watched Joe Biden stumble—literally and figuratively—through his presidency, while his inner circle and media allies insisted everything was just fine. Any attempt to question his physical or mental decline was met with accusations of “ageism” or dismissed as wild conspiracy talk. This, from the same Democrats who once obsessed over Donald Trump’s mental fitness, but spent most of Biden’s term parroting absurd claims that he was “sharp as a tack,” “a beast,” or “running circles around his staff.” Videos of Biden looking lost on stage or mumbling were dismissed as “cheap fakes” by the Biden White House, and the media enthusiastically echoed that talking point. It took a humiliating debate meltdown to finally make it clear they could no longer cover up the obvious.

Only then did Democrats admit what everyone else had known for years: Joe Biden was neither physically capable nor mentally fit to serve as president. The charade is over—but the damage is done. But, now, in light of the revelation of Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis, Congress needs to subpoena Joe Biden’s White House physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, to answer questions. In 2023, shortly before Biden announced his reelection campaign, O’Connor called Biden a “healthy, vigorous 80-year-old male” fit for the presidency. Everyone knew it was laughable. Biden was visibly deteriorating—stumbling through speeches, forgetting names, and needing direction just to exit a stage. The signs were there for anyone willing to look, and even then, some insiders were quietly admitting behind the scenes that there were serious concerns. Yet, a year later, O’Connor doubled down. In February 2024, he wrote, “The President feels well and this year’s physical identified no new concerns.”

These claims were lies. Biden’s mental and physical struggles were evident daily, and insiders were already leaking concerns. O’Connor’s medical authority made his deception worse than political spin. His health reports gave everyone cover. Without him, the deception couldn’t have happened. On Sunday, Biden’s office announced his diagnosis of aggressive prostate cancer, with a Gleason score of 9 and bone metastasis, detected after urinary symptoms revealed a prostate nodule. This isn’t just conservative media raising red flags. Medical experts are saying the same thing. Dr. Zeke Emanuel, a former Obama health advisor, told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that Biden likely had cancer for the entire duration of his presidency, saying, “He did not develop it in the last 100, 200 days. He had it while he was president… probably at the start of his presidency in 2021.”

Dr. David Shusterman, a leading urologist, echoed that assessment on NewsNation, explaining that Biden’s aggressive cancer usually develops over five to ten years and is unlikely to go unnoticed during routine checkups—especially with the top-tier care a sitting president receives. These revelations leave us with only two explanations: O’Connor either neglected screenings or hid Biden’s condition. O’Connor has long ties to the Biden family—serving as Biden’s doctor since 2009, supporting them through Beau Biden’s cancer, and joining family vacations—and this longtime connection raises questions about his objectivity. His business dealings with James Biden, introducing him to a medical team for a failed hospital venture, further suggest conflicts of interest. It’s quite clear that O’Connor wasn’t made White House physician because he was trusted to give the nation an honest assessment of the president’s health, but rather because the Biden family knew he’d cover up the truth.

And he did. He issued false reassurances that not only shattered public trust but put national security at risk. Biden’s physical and cognitive decline—now compounded by a serious cancer diagnosis—wasn’t just a health issue; it was a strategic liability that our enemies could exploit. Rather than face the press and answer tough questions, O’Connor hid behind written statements delivered by Karine Jean-Pierre, shielding the full truth from the American people. After Biden’s humiliating debate performance last year, House Oversight Chairman James Comer demanded O’Connor testify about the president’s condition and any connections to the Biden family’s dealings. Just two weeks later, Biden abruptly dropped out of the race. O’Connor never appeared. Last month, reports indicated O’Connor was on the short list of witnesses House Republicans want to question over his role in concealing the president’s cognitive decline. That testimony is long overdue—and more necessary now than ever.

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‘Dangerous for our country’.

Trump: Biden Allies ‘Not Telling The Facts’ After Cancer Diagnosis (NYP)

President Trump questioned Monday how doctors did not diagnose former President Joe Biden with advanced prostate cancer until after he had left office — accusing former White House staff of “not telling the facts.” “I’m surprised the public wasn’t notified a long time ago,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office in his first on-camera statement about his predecessor’s diagnosis. “To get to stage nine, that’s a long time,” added the president of Biden’s cancer scoring a 9 on the Gleason scale, which indicates a “high-grade” cancer that can spread quickly. Trump, 78, noted that had undergone a full physical at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center last month, and claimed that a prostate exam is “standard” for “pretty much anyone getting a good physical.” “When you take tests, as a male, that test is very standard.”

“This is dangerous for our country,” Trump added, noting that Biden contributed to the “mess” the country is in now. Trump called the diagnosis “very very sad,” but pointed out there were also doctors, including former White House physician Kevin O’Connor, who had claimed Biden was in top mental shape for years, before the public saw his diminished capabilities on full display at his June 27, 2024, debate against Trump. O’Connor gave Biden a nearly-clean bill of health during their last physical in late February 2024, writing that he “identified no new concerns” at the time. The president’s physical didn’t mention a prostate exam that year, though Biden did undergo a colonoscopy in 2021.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also said that Biden, was deemed not to need a cognitive test — despite public outcry at the president’s many gaffes and verbal slip-ups, including asking “Where’s Jackie” and searching for the late Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.) at an event in September 2022. “The president doesn’t need a cognitive test. That is not my assessment, that is the assessment of the president’s doctor, that is also the assessment of his neurologist,” Jean-Pierre told reporters at the time. “If it’s the same doctor that said there’s nothing wrong there, and that’s being proven to be a very sad situation,” Trump said Monday, adding: “I think someone is going to have to speak to his doctor.” “Why wasn’t the cognitive ability — why wasn’t that discussed?”

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“Right-wing media figures are desperately pushing conspiracy theories about Biden ahead of the debate.”

CNN Struggles to Assign Blame for Not Reporting on Biden’s Decline (Turley)

In the wake of the leaked audio of President Joe Biden’s interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur, the media is going through another round of spinning its own failure to pursue the question of Biden’s obvious mental and physical decline. That is no more evident than at CNN, which was one of the most hostile networks to such questions before Biden withdrew from the presidential race after his disastrous debate. The struggle was on full display on Friday. CNN’s host Jake Tapper has faced withering attacks over his publication of a book investigating Biden’s decline, long after the public learned the truth during the debate. While Tapper has admitted that he could have pushed harder on the question, he has been critical of the White House staff and others who hid the truth from the media despite the fact that many were attacked on CNN for raising the issue (including by Tapper).

On Friday’s CNN’s “The Lead,” CNN Senior Justice Correspondent Evan Pérez raised the same rationale for the performance that the White House used after the debate: Biden was tired due to performing his duties as president. Just as the White House raised how Biden was coming off an international trip before the election, Pérez noted that the interview came after the October 7 attack when Biden “had spent that entire time, obviously, on the phone and working long hours.”

“look, one of the other things that I think is key to understanding this, during this interview, the context, right, is that, you remember, he sat down for these interviews in October of, when, right after the attack by Hamas in Israel. And so, he had spent that entire time, obviously, on the phone and working long hours. And so, the big question, of course, became, a president of his age, and given the stresses of what he was going through, should he have sat down, should that have been the time for him to sit down for several hours of interviews — and they do go over two days of interviews with prosecutors — with everything that they had on the line? Clearly, Joe Biden thought that it was fine to do that. But, clearly, you can see from some of his answers that he does not have a handle on some of this. And so you could say, was it because of fatigue, or is it because of the things that you write about in your book, Jake? And so, that’s the big — I think, the big takeaway or big question that people will take away from listening to this audio.”

On Friday’s broadcast of “CNN NewsNight,” host Abby Phillip blamed not Hamas but Democrats and Hur: “[I]f Democrats had taken seriously, which, by the way, in a way, Robert Hur kind of undersold this. He kind of threw Joe Biden a lifeline. It was an opportunity, actually, for Democrats to take it seriously, maybe change gears at that point, and maybe [give] a potential nominee more time.” CNN Political Commentator Maria Cardona piped in that you should not forget to blame the First Lady: “I think, at the end of the day, the accountability falls with Joe Biden, and, frankly, probably, with Jill Biden too, because –.” Phillip responded, “Yeah, that’s true, but it also falls on the Democratic Party that ostracized people who said anything about Joe Biden’s — attacking the media for even raising the issue of his age, when, clearly, it was an issue. There’s accountability there, too.”

The only lack of accountability has been for the media itself, which is again spinning its own role in dismissing these accounts. This effort continued right up to the debate itself. CNN’s Oliver Darcy wrote, “Right-wing media figures are desperately pushing conspiracy theories about Biden ahead of the debate.” As Joe Concha has pointed out, media outlets attacked Hur after the report to dismiss accounts of Biden’s diminishment when he was still the Democratic standard bearer. Media sources like the Atlantic followed the lead of the White House in attacking Hur for “misleading” the public on Biden’s memory.

Now, Hur is being attacked on CNN for “downplaying” the extent of the diminishment. What is striking about these accounts is that they suggest that the media was kept in the dark and omit the fact that it was ignoring or opposing those in the media who were raising the concerns. This was an active effort to swat down such concerns until it no longer mattered after the public saw the truth. The media then investigated a story that was impossible to deny or ignore. The public is obviously not buying it. Instead they are increasingly looking to new media and social media for their news.Blaming Hamas or Hur is not going to work. For most viewers, it is another “Let’s Go Brandon” moment.

Read more …

On energy and immigration, Germany just turns 180º and sells that as bravery.

Germany Makes “Sea-Change Policy Shift” On Nuclear Power In Europe (ZH)

Three weeks after widespread power grid failures across Portugal and Spain, triggered by unreliable solar and wind power, Germany appears to be sharply recalibrating its energy stance. In a notable policy shift, the new conservative government under Chancellor Friedrich Merz has reversed its longstanding opposition to nuclear power. The move reflects a growing understanding in Berlin that overreliance on unreliable solar and wind power generation poses serious risks to economic stability and energy security. The shift also signals a broader return to common-sense energy policymaking in Europe, with nuclear power increasingly viewed as critical in France in achieving reliable, low-carbon power generation.

The Financial Times reports that German officials have informed Paris they will no longer oppose French efforts to have nuclear energy recognized as equivalent to renewables in EU legislation. This marks a significant policy shift, considering former German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had firmly opposed treating nuclear power on the same level as solar and wind in the EU’s framework for achieving net zero by 2050. “The Germans are telling us: we will be very pragmatic on the issue of nuclear power,” an anonymous French diplomat told the FT, which was involved in the talks with the Germans. The person said this means that “all the biases against nuclear power, which still remain here and there in EU legislation, will be removed.” “This will be a sea-change policy shift,” said a German official.

Guntram Wolff, a senior fellow at think-tank Bruegel, said, “It’s a welcome rapprochement that will make the topic of energy easier in the EU,” adding, “Politically, Merz is also thinking about the nuclear umbrella.” Berlin’s reversal on nuclear power comes three weeks after solar and wind collapsed the power grids across Portugal and Spain. Europe’s dangerous and radical shift to unreliable net-zero energy has been nothing short of a disaster and an embarrassment for the far-left liberals high in their castles in Brussels. Merz has clearly recognized the urgent need to reverse degrowth net-zero policies. He also understands the strategic urgency of revitalizing Franco-German cooperation—a prerequisite for unlocking stalled EU-level decision-making under former Chancellor Scholz.

“When France and Germany agree, it is much easier for Europe to move forward,” said Lars-Hendrik Röller, a professor at Berlin-based ESMT business school who was chief economic adviser to former Chancellor Angela Merkel, adding, “While several challenges remain, I believe this issue will be solved.” Last week, FT obtained a letter sent to the European Commission by ministers from 12 European member states explaining that it was “imperative” that Brussels acknowledge the “complementary nature of nuclear and renewable energy sources.” The new Franco-German policy shift on energy is critical for Europe to get its house in order, considering NatGas prices have surged since the Ukraine-Russia war, making manufacturing uncompetitive on global markets because inputs have driven up prices of end products (such as automobiles). Solar and wind trends have also created instability in the power grid, which is a national security threat.

Read more …

“His series of proposals and high-profile speeches mark a complete reversal of the Labour Party’s longstanding support for mass immigration..”

Europe Admits JD Vance Was Right, Pivots On Mass Immigration (Whedon)

Months after Vice President JD Vance excoriated the European elite for allowing unfettered mass immigration from the Third World to ravage the continent, the political winds appear to be shifting as European leaders, and even American Democrats, begin to walk back their permissive policies that enabled sizable demographic shifts in the EU. Perhaps the flagship for cultural terraforming via embracing third-world immigration, the UK has seen Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer launch a high-profile campaign to crack down on immigration and push assimilation in recent days. His series of proposals and high-profile speeches mark a complete reversal of the Labour Party’s longstanding support for mass immigration and comes as polling shows his government losing ground to an anti-immigration outsider party.

It’s not just the UK either, as other EU governments, notably Romania, appear poised to place immigration critics in power. Dark-blue California, meanwhile, has seen its governor, Gavin Newsom reading the political winds and abandoning his own long-standing policies of providing a wide range of state benefits to illegal aliens. In his February speech to European leaders, Vance warned Europeans that they risked weakening their alliance with the U.S. due to what he called “the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values.” He notably pointed to the large-scale censorship of mass immigration critics and the cancellation of the Romanian elections due to allegations of Russian interference. Though he faced a tough audience and earned their ire, recent moves in Europe appear to suggest a tacit admission that he was right.

The UK ranks among the nations facing the biggest backlash to mass immigration, with Nigel Farage’s Reform Party increasingly taking a dominant position in polling over the incumbent Labour Party and their traditional opponents, the Conservatives. Matters of cultural friction, crime and the growing presence of radical Islam in the nation have even led to the prevalence of the term “the Yookay” to refer to the country in a satirical manner. Starmer, in a major speech last week, warned that the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” if it failed to crack down on immigration in which he promised to “take back control of our borders.” He subsequently announced that his government would raise English language proficiency requirements for immigrants, saying “If you want to live in the UK, you should speak English.”

“This is my promise to British people: Every area of our immigration system will be tightened up, so we have more control. And migration numbers will fall,” he promised. Starmer further announced that he would charge employers to recruit overseas and required British firms to show that they were investing in domestic labor. He also promised to cut migration, end asylum hotels, expand efforts to stop boat crossings of the English channel. “Settlement in the UK is a privilege that is earned, not a right,” he also said. Starmer also announced this week that he had “returned over 24,000 people with no right to be here.” Likely motivating the pivot on immigration were local elections that saw the Reform Party post considerable gains, leading to The Telegraph warning of a possible “extinction” event for Labour in the next election.

Read more …

The Trump crowd recognize lawfare when they see it.

Europe’s Embrace of Lawfare Threatens Its Alliance with the US (Mike Gonzalez)

President Donald Trump’s election was greeted in Europe with outright fear by parties of the Left and wary apprehension by the center-right but with open elation by a resurgent sovereigntist Right. Now the Left and the center are regrouping and coming up with a strategy to rein in the surging populists. It should surprise no one that this strategy is based on the twin pillars of lawfare and censorship. Yes, the American Left failed horribly when it used both to try to stop Trump in the 2024 elections. Yet in Europe, the defense of liberty is less entrenched in the mind of voters. We just saw the two approaches clash after Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Elon Musk expressed exasperation when a close ally, Germany, took an initial step in barring the country’s most popular party, the anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland.

Germany’s week-old government—a living experiment in the new politics of circling the wagons at the center, being itself a strange-bedfellows coalition of the center-right Christian Democrats and the leftist Social Democrats—responded by warning the Trump administration to stay out of its domestic affairs. To be sure, the generalized statement that Europeans are less zealous of their freedom than Americans requires qualification. Eastern Europe, with a much more recent memory of living in tyranny, is largely more vigilant of losing liberty than is Western Europe, where decades of the welfare state have created constituencies more willing to engage in the illusory bargain of trading a bit of freedom for a bit of comfort. The parties on the Right, in both West and East, also want more sovereign independence and less interference from the European Union in such matters as freedom of expression.

They are the ones that welcomed Trump as the start of a tidal wave they hoped would reach the Old Continent. “Everybody understands that something has changed,” I quoted Marine Le Pen, leader of Rassemblement Nationale, France’s largest opposition party, as telling a crowd at a Patriots rally in Madrid less than a month after Trump’s inauguration. “The results of the American election will sound the awakening of the Old Continent.” Well, the center-right and Left have taken notice of the Trump tsunami, too, and they want to raise a few dams. In terms of lawfare, French courts have convicted Le Pen of embezzlement, a charge she strongly denies, and barred her from running for president in 2027. In Germany, the new government has just allowed the security services to classify AfD as “extremist,” a first step before banning the party outright.

And in Spain, the country’s fiscal court has fined Vox, the third-largest party, 862,000 euros for financial irregularities. All are test cases for how far the Left and center-right are willing to go using the courts to do what they can’t at the ballot box. Expressions of concern about deviating from democratic practices have multiplied. Rubio didn’t mince words, writing on X, “Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy—it’s tyranny in disguise. What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD—which took second in the recent election—but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes. Germany should reverse course.”

Read more …

“George Simion won 41% in the May 4 first round. EU favorite Nicosur Dan got 21%. In round two, Simion took 46.4%, while Dan got 53.6% – a 155% boost..”

Romania’s Elections Were a Big Globalist Sham (Sp.)

The results don’t make sense arithmetically and foreign interference has been confirmed. The country has officially completed its slide into EU protectorate status. Prolific Balkans expert Dr. George Szamuely helps unpack what just happened. Eurosceptic candidate George Simion won 41% in the May 4 first round. EU favorite Nicosur Dan got 21%. In round two, Simion took 46.4%, while Dan got 53.6% – a 155% boost. To do so, Dan needed the backing of 87% of the voters who backed neither him or Simion in the first round. Neither of the other major first round candidates (Crin Antonescu, 20%, Victor Ponta, 13%) threw their weight behind Dan in the second round. Where did his 30%+ surge in support come from? Unclear. Simion has alleged that 1.7 million dead people were on voter rolls, and urged voters to check if any deceased relatives or friends voted via a dedicated WhatsApp contact line.

Diaspora voters cast 1.64 million ballots in the second round of the vote, 660,000 more than round one (which Simion handily won, 61% to Dan’s 25.4%). Simion has alleged some polls were closed or not enough ballots were made available in some areas during the runoff, and manipulation of diaspora voting. Specifically, Simion has accused Moldova’s EU lapdog government of “immense fraud” amid reports of Romanian expats voting at 3X the rate they did in round one. He’s also charged France of meddling using “lots and lots of money and pressure through their ambassador here, and through foreign institutions in order to rob the Romanian people of their votes.” Telegram CEO Pavel Durov confirmed on Sunday that a request had been made by France to “silence conservative voices” in Romania ahead of the election.

“This election is a fraud, a giant absolute fraud. Because the proper election was held in December, and that election was canceled because the ‘wrong’ person [Calin Georgescu, ed.] was on the brink of winning,” Dr. George Szamuely told Sputnik. As for Sunday’s vote, the results simply “don’t make any sense” mathematically, the author and Global Policy Institute senior research fellow says. “Just think of that. [Dan] won 87% of all of the people who didn’t vote for either candidate in the first run…That arithmetically just absolutely makes no sense. It defies any logic, defies any experience of polling,” the observer emphasized. Listing off allegations of foreign meddling, particularly by France and Moldova, Szamuely said the “exuberant, delighted messages” out of Brussels after the vote show its sham nature.

“The EU obviously interfered very, very strongly by essentially threatening Romania with dire consequences if it voted the ‘wrong’ way,” he added. “Democracy is an anathema to the EU, it’s nothing but contempt for the will of the people and particularly for any kind of populist nationalist movements,” Szamuely said, highlighting the bloc’s rush to praise Dan, and overlook glaring violations in Sunday’s Romanian elections. “The EU despises democracy. It only celebrates democracy when it gets the election outcomes it wants. When it doesn’t, it immediately declares that this wasn’t a proper election, this wasn’t a proper democracy, this was a fraud,” the observer said, recalling the recent example of Georgia, where local elites successfully stood up to the EU, and the systematic cancellation and rejection of elections and referendums elsewhere until the “right” results are achieved.

Dan
https://twitter.com/MyLordBebo/status/1924347966292168923

Read more …

“I’ve been around since 1984 — and ‘temporary protected status’ is never temporary.”

SCOTUS Allows Removal Of Protected Status From 300K Venezuelan Migrants (ZH)

The Supreme Court handed a major win to the Trump administration on Monday, granting its request to proceed with revoking legal protections for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants. In a brief order, the justices approved an emergency application from the administration, allowing officials to undo a Biden-era extension of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) that shields Venezuelans from deportation and grants them work permits. Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the lone dissenter, indicating she would have denied the request. The decision allows Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to move forward with a policy reversal that would strip protections from more than 300,000 Venezuelans who were granted TPS due to political and humanitarian crises in their home country.

TPS, created by Congress in 1990, offers safe harbor to nationals of countries suffering from war, natural disaster, or other emergencies. Individuals granted status can legally remain and work in the U.S. for renewable 18-month periods. At the center of the legal fight is a TPS designation made in October 2023 and extended again in January—just before Trump returned to office. The protections were originally set to expire in October 2026, but in February, Noem moved to unwind the designations early, triggering a legal challenge. In April, a federal judge in the Northern District of California blocked the rollback, citing potential racial bias behind the move. But the Trump administration fired back, arguing the judiciary had no business second-guessing decisions made under the executive branch’s immigration authority.

At the time, Trump border czar Tom Homan called the move “Another activist judge making a stupid ruling,” adding “I’ve been around since 1984 — and ‘temporary protected status’ is never temporary.””Bf you look at that decision, it’s based on opinion, not the rule of law.”

Solicitor General D. John Sauer, in the emergency application to the Supreme Court, said, “The court’s order contravenes fundamental executive branch prerogatives and indefinitely delays sensitive policy decisions in an area of immigration policy that Congress recognized must be flexible, fast-paced and discretionary.”The move was challenged by the National TPS Alliance and individual Venezuelans, who argued the administration was trying to dodge judicial oversight altogether. “It should be unremarkable that federal courts say what the law is,” their lawyers wrote.

Monday’s ruling comes just days after the high court dealt a blow to Trump’s immigration playbook in a separate case. In that decision, the court ruled that immigrants detained under the Alien Enemies Act must be given a real chance to contest deportation. While litigation over the TPS rollback continues in lower courts, the Supreme Court’s order clears the way for the Trump administration to begin rescinding protections while the legal fight plays out.

Read more …

“..Trump has at least recognised the most important American reality – ie. that the pattern can’t go on indefinitely, and that debt-led consumerism is way past its sell-by date..”

Transition To A New World Order Is Beyond Most In The West (Alastair Crooke)

Even the need for transition – just to be clear – has only just begun to be recognised in the U.S. For the European leadership however, and for the beneficiaries of financialisation who haughtily lament Trump’s ‘storm’ unwisely unleashed on the world, his base economic theses are ridiculed as bizarre notions completely divorced from economic ‘reality’. That is completely untrue. For, as Greek Economist Yanis Varoufakis points out, the reality of the western situation and the need for transition was clearly spelled out by Paul Volcker, former chair of the Federal Reserve, as long ago as 2005. The harsh ‘fact’ of the liberal globalist economic paradigm was evident even then:“What holds together the globalist system is a massive and growing flow of capital from abroad, running to more than $2 billion every working day – and growing. There is no sense of strain. As a nation we don’t consciously borrow or beg. We aren’t even offering attractive interest rates, nor do we have to offer our creditors protection against the risk of a declining dollar”.

“It’s all quite comfortable for us. We fill our shops and garages with goods from abroad, and the competition has been a powerful restraint on our internal prices. It’s surely helped keep interest rates exceptionally low despite our vanishing savings and rapid growth”. “And it’s [been] comfortable for our trading partners too, and for those supplying the capital. Some, such as China [and Europe, particularly Germany], have depended heavily on our expanding domestic markets. And for the most part, the central banks of the emerging world have been willing to hold more and more dollars, which are, after all, the closest thing that world has to a truly international currency”. “The difficulty is that this seemingly comfortable pattern can’t go on indefinitely”.

Precisely. And Trump is in the process of blowing up the world trading system so as to re-set it. Those western liberals, who today are gnashing teeth and lamenting the advent of ‘Trumpian economics’, are simply in denial that Trump has at least recognised the most important American reality – ie. that the pattern can’t go on indefinitely, and that debt-led consumerism is way past its sell-by date. Recall that most participants in the western financial system have known nothing other than Volcker’s ‘comfortable world’ their entire life. No wonder they have difficulty thinking outside their sealed retort. That does not mean, of course, that Trump’s solution to the problem will work. Possibly, Trump’s particular form of structural rebalancing could make matters actually worse.

Nonetheless, restructuring in some form clearly is inevitable. It comes down otherwise to a choice between bankruptcy slow, or fast and disorderly.The dollar-led globalist system worked well initially – at least from the U.S. perspective. The U.S. exported its post-WW2 manufacturing over-capacity to a newly dollarized Europe, who consumed the surplus. And Europe too, enjoyed the benefit of having its macroeconomic environment (export-led models, guaranteed by the U.S. market). The present crisis began however, when the paradigm inverted – when the U.S. entered on its era of unsustainable structural budget deficits, and when financialisation led Wall Street to build its inverted pyramid of derivative ‘assets’, resting upon a tiny pivot of real assets.

The raw fact of the structural imbalance crisis is bad enough. But the western geo-strategic crisis goes much deeper than just the structural contradiction of inward capital flows and a ‘strong’ dollar eating the heart out of the U.S. manufacturing sector. Because it is bound up, too, with the concomitant collapse of core ideologies underpinning liberal globalism.It is because of this western deep devotion to ideology (as well as to the Volker ‘comfort’ provided by the system) that has triggered such a torrent of anger and outright derision towards Trump’s ‘rebalancing’ plans. Barely a western economist has a good word to say – and yet no plausible alternative framework is offered. Their passion directed at Trump simply underlines that western economic theory is bankrupt, too.

Read more …

While Bibi touts the final solution.

US Unveils Revised Gaza Truce Proposal – Axios (RT)

White House envoy Steve Witkoff has presented Israel and Hamas with a new ceasefire proposal, Axios has reported, with Washington urging both sides to accept the deal. The push coincides with the Jewish state’s renewed assault on Gaza, which included a wave of weekend airstrikes and a major ground offensive – Operation Gideon’s Chariots. According to Axios, Witkoff’s proposal includes a 45- to 60-day ceasefire in exchange for the release of ten hostages and Palestinian prisoners. While similar to past plans, the latest version reportedly contains clearer language signaling that it could lead to a permanent ceasefire. It also includes guarantees aimed at preventing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from unilaterally ending the truce – an issue that derailed a previous agreement. Sources say Netanyahu has responded positively but with many conditions.

Hamas has not yet agreed and is reportedly seeking firm assurances that a temporary truce could pave the way for a lasting ceasefire. Negotiation teams from both sides are formally in Qatar, but an Israeli official told Axios that the real discussions are happening through other, less public channels. Talks mediated by Qatar, Egypt, and the US have so far failed to produce a breakthrough. Netanyahu maintains that the war will not end without Hamas’ total defeat, while the group continues to reject disarmament terms. The current escalation began in October 2023, when Hamas launched a surprise cross-border attack on Israel, killing around 1,200 people and abducting 250. An estimated 58 hostages remain in Gaza, including both living captives and those confirmed deceased whose remains have not yet been recovered. As of Monday, the Palestinian death toll from Israel’s offensive in Gaza has surpassed 53,400, according to the enclave’s health officials.

Read more …

 

 

False

Kansas

Sell
https://twitter.com/manly_mentor/status/1924138102269886497

Africa
https://twitter.com/JasperZiggle/status/1924183844187509116

The forbidden empire returnss

Decline

 

 

 

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in wartime with Paypal, Bitcoin and Patreon.

 

 

 

 

 

Home Forums Debt Rattle May 20 2025

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 57 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #188424

    Pablo Picasso Portrait of Maya 1939   • Trump Spoke with Putin, and Here’s What Happened (Margolis) • US Should Never Have Intervened In Ukraine
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle May 20 2025]

    #188426
    Germ
    Participant

    Good morning :-))

    We fucked up, the death vaxx kills people, and the Germans are now slowly coming around to discovering this …

    Age-adjusted non-COVID-19 mortality rates according to the COVID-19 vaccination status

    “Rates among the unvaccinated were used as a benchmark, assuming that COVID-19 vaccination should have no positive or negative effect on the age-adjusted non-COVID-19 mortality rate. The age-adjusted non-COVID-19 mortality rate was higher in all age groups who have received dose 1, but mainly in the elderly. The age-adjusted non-COVID-19 mortality rate also peaked in all those who have received dose 2, mainly in the elderly. Interestingly, age-adjusted non-COVID-19 mortality has a tendency to peak across age groups following the age-dependent timing of vaccination campaigns, both in the first and second vaccination rounds. A fourth finding was the substantially higher age-adjusted non-COVID-19 mortality rates in the 18 – 39 age group among those who had received dose 4

    ” …a higher age-adjusted non-COVID-19 mortality rates among the COVID-19 vaccinated in several age groups was found…”

    https://publichealth.realclearjournals.org/research-articles/2025/03/age-adjusted-non-covid-19-mortality-rates-according-to-the-covid-19-vaccination-status/

    TVASSF – and many are going back for more. You can’t fix stupid.

    #188427
    Germ
    Participant

    You just cant make this shit up!

    Diamond Princess Captain Unexpectedly Dies During Cruise Sailing

    Diamond Princess Captain Unexpectedly Dies During Cruise Sailing

    TVASSF

    #188428
    Germ
    Participant

    “The Anti-Vaxxers are clearly the winners.”

    TVASSF – and are the losers. See ‘ya Scott.

    #188429
    Topcat
    Participant

    “….the pattern can’t go on indefinitely, and that debt-led consumerism is way past its sell-by date..”

    Russia has a debt burden vs GDP of roughly 12-14%

    Russia is virtually self sufficient.

    That’s why ‘bone crushing sanctions’ are a Joke and the clowns who propose them are retarded organ grinder monkeys throw poop at the blackboard.

    The USSA has a debt burden vs GDP of roughly 125%

    The USSA is not even vaguely ‘self sufficient’ and still depends on China and India for critical parts of it’s economy.

    Debt-led consumerism is the USSA death spiral.

    In the USSA, an entire young generation’s highest aspiration is to buy stuff, not make stuff.

    Most wouldn’t know which end of a paint brush to pick up.

    #188430
    Topcat
    Participant

    80% of Australia’s national assets are owned by foreign corporations.

    Not a recipe for sovereignty.

    Blimey me mate!

    The entire younger generation can’t afford a house, like ever..

    And with a reproduction rate far below replacement level, it’s a demographic death spiral in real time.

    Managed Declined

    Boiling the frog one degree at a time.

    A nation of cotton-pickers down on the plantation in the making.

    Their Plandemic Covid response was nothing short of criminal, still not redressed.

    Job growth, it’s not a real ‘thing’ down under either…..

    #188431
    Red
    Participant

    Why is lying to yourself worse than lying to others?

    Rod Dreher recently reflected on this question, answering: because it reveals a deeper failure to confront reality. He pointed to two cases—the refusal of many Democrats and media figures to acknowledge President Biden’s cognitive decline late in his presidency, and his own failure to challenge the Bush administration’s false WMD narrative. In both, he saw not ignorance, but something more insidious: motivated reasoning.

    Motivated reasoning is a cognitive bias that allows us to reshape facts to protect beliefs we’re emotionally attached to. It’s not that people didn’t see Biden’s lapses—they reinterpreted them. Long silences became quirks, verbal missteps became signs of stress or fatigue, and serious cognitive warning signs were softened into normal aging. The narrative—Biden as the only bulwark against Trump—was preserved by filtering perception itself.

    Dreher recalled doing something similar after 9/11, when fear and national grief led many—including himself—to accept weak intelligence as proof that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Doubt felt disloyal. The desire for coherence overrode the need for evidence.

    More:
    https://www.artberman.com/blog/quantum-decision-theory/

    #188436
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “Bluesky Is Plotting a Total Takeover of the Social Internet – Wired

    Uhh, good luck with that?

    Scott was for or against vaccines? I ask more because it seems to be a turbocancer.

    “Alas, Scott also took two doses of the Covid vaccine by early 2022. Two years later he expressed regret for doing it.”

    Arresting BEYONCE’ I mean, maybe, but with political cases, you can’t just re-interpret the law tighter or looser as you feel. The cases need to be squeaky-clean. And since there should be a lot of them, why? There was so much crime and vote-rigging in her election that we go after interpretation of donations? Ugh. Self-goal.

    “Obama was a CIA asset. He was installed by the NWO.”

    I mean, yes, but you’re going to have to define all these a lot better. You’re just SAYING stuff. STFU unless you’re going to ARREST someone, or drop documents that reveal each person, chain, and reason. I mean, this loose talk is back to the Clintons that they’re Blah Blah Blah. Yeah? And you did nothing, 1992-2000 so clearly you don’t believe it or don’t care. It’s just talk until paperwork is filed.

    Everyone hates Comey, but they promote him, make him Director all the time? Explain. No, no one thought the FBI was clean, ever, but certainly not when Comey took over. Is lying helping your case? They have a major, let’s-roll-up-the-agency-and-close-the-doors scandal almost every year since I can remember. Like Anthrax? Whitey? FBI Labs? Epstein? One per year. NY Times said every terrorist attack since 2002 was made up by the FBI for budget week. Not authoritative enough?

    Jim Rogers: probably right, but he himself says every time he’s the worst timer ever. He’s often off by years. That’s his trading style, which moves big things (trends) slowly.

    “• Trump Spoke with Putin, and Here’s What Happened (Margolis)

    What are we not seeing? I ask all the time? I’m not following daily, but Russia is moving on 6 fronts and they’re inexorably cracking faster and faster. No one knows when Russia just hits an air pocket and can walk to the Dnipr in bermuda shorts, but Britain’s, Trump’s positioning says it’s right now. Why? Now Trump has set the stage for the peace treaty, but we don’t actually have one. When Russia suddenly takes all of Ukraine they want, Mr. T is going to say “I told you so, Zelensky, Macron, Starmer.” Then they’ll have to eat it on national TV. Here they say TRUMP will be the one surrendering and eating it. I totally don’t see that. Maybe we OUGHT to be responsible, but we aren’t. He’s going to point at Biden going back to Kissinger and Brzezinski in 1979, which is totally true, and that he’s trying to get us out of it, which is totally true.

    And why? Because they’ve been running back channels for years. Now this is since the 90s, but certainly since 2014 and seeing how with worldwide Ukr flags, infinity support, Russia A) couldn’t solve that problem, and Trump/White Hats can’t either, just like Covid. B) Need it solved permanently after 100 years of CI/MI6 op meddling with infinity dollars there. How do you do that? Maybe this is a lot harder than they expected, but it’s essentially the same path: make them come out of hiding, grab rifles, then shoot them in the d—k. Make Europe and the CIA expose themselves as the real cause. Might even get BlackRock and the 100 year Nazis to expose themselves as still around and running things. Since it got so big, all those things happened.

    1.5 Million men? Well, in a real war it would be multiples that, so still got off easy.

    ““..we got ourselves entangled in something that we shouldn’t have been involved in.”

    How can he say that??? Oh, just because Obama said the exact same thing? Nevermind.

    “It’s no use, and bad blood.
    • Trump Should Not Threaten New Sanctions When He Talks To Putin (Ian Proud)

    I guess they’re slow learners? I hear that as “Call a peace or I’ll make you even stronger again. Over and over, until you, Russia, wins.”

    “Nothing about the glidepath of sanctions since February 2014 suggests that new sanctions will work now.”

    Read your own article sir, if sanctions never worked, and everybody knows it THEN what are they doing? Yes, after the initial, it’s intentional.

    I see the same thing with Mercoulis, etc: he’s like “England HATES Russia,” going way back. They neither have emotions, nor act on them, nor is a State a person, nor is it the same person since 1850. They’re like EMOTIONAL thinkers, they have the Feelz. Now obviously Alex is way better than others on this, but he’s still acting like “everybody is stupid but me.” Uh-huh. What if they’re not? Can you pose a reason they would do this but LOGICALLY, Practically? Uh, yeah, in about ten seconds, England was COLONIZING them, STEALING stuff, and will go bankrupt without it. Oh wait: so there’s no reason to resort to anyone’s emotional-psychological state at all? Yup. So why do you do that except to be lazy and blind?

    Same here: can we find some people who do the same thing even though it doesn’t work? Sure, there are idjits about. But Starmer’s too much of an empty shell, a meat puppet, to think ANY thoughts, whatsoever, at all, ever. If he ever had a thought his head would burst on fire. If we propose people behind him, we instantly see they’re not driven by drivel. Like Kissinger, there is only a real game board with real banking assets on it. All the rest exists as a smoke screen. They have no emotions, none. They have NO principles, none. Like Starmer and now Carney, radical Infinity-per-month immigration with no legal arrest for any crime, even murder, put up in 5 start hotels with free health care while the people starve.

    That’s called “Colonization” by the way, as Sargon says. If I land in Nigeria, set up an Anglo enclave, run the legal system, and import my whole culture there instead of assimilating, that’s definitional Colonizing. That’s Manchester, Southport, UK.

    Anyway, BOTH Starmer and Carney reverse 100%, in one day, now radically anti-immigrant, and their base cheers. No values, no scruples, no principles, ever. Just game play changed. Nobody’s fooled. There is no Macron, Merkel, Obama, etc.

    They don’t “Hate” Russia. They didn’t “Miss” that sanctions don’t work. Please.

    Speaking of, Zero Alex Krainer or Tom Luongo for weeks. I thought they were in Alberta for a Con-Con or something, but this is ridiculous. And all the videos posted (were re-posted here) are or can be, random, out of date, AI bait clickbait channels.

    “a mighty information dump is coming, bales of documents that Christopher Wray sat on for years will be publicly released un-redacted, spells will be broken,”

    Will they though?

    “House members are not immune from prosecution for crimes committed in connection with their official duties.”

    Sort of, but neither are Presidents. There are important steps first.

    “• Biden’s Presidency Is a Scandal of Historic Proportion (Jarrett Stepman)

    Pool was saying Biden with cancer all those years is the top scandal. What? No. That he had dementia isn’t even the real scandal, although it is one. It’s WHO was running things since we all know he wasn’t? Why can no one ask? It’s very simple question, and even my mind wants to divert around it, not give it the attention it deserves.

    Such is Social Engineering.

    Biden was so not different from anybody else – Presidents have long since not run anything – that I couldn’t tell the difference between him and Obama, or him and Trump. The bureaucracy, “Experts” do whatever they want. Hiring, revolving-door payoffs go on as before in the FDA, Mansanto, Lockheed. Wars start with no discussion, no acts, no reasons. Same as always.

    “Videos of Biden looking lost on stage or mumbling”

    “This is the best Biden ever, and if you disagree, you can go f—k yourself!” MSNBC

    “• CNN Struggles to Assign Blame for Not Reporting on Biden’s Decline (Turley)

    Like Tapper, give themselves awards. This is the same as blaming the antivaxxers for not speaking up enough. Seems incredible, impossible, as if “what loony bin do I find myself in?” Yet here we are, 24.7.365. x4, x8 x12.

    It really just shows they are knee-jerk unconscious, pathological liars and self-promoters. Like, I can’t trust them to hand fries through a window correctly. So I guess with that psychological profile, they really found the right job.

    “• Germany Makes “Sea-Change Policy Shift” On Nuclear Power In Europe (ZH)

    Nice! Now fast-forward 15 years when they first get something built. Til then, they can live in bark huts.

    “• Europe Admits JD Vance Was Right, Pivots On Mass Immigration (Whedon)

    Speaking of them flip-flopping, or worse, having no principles, being rabidly, burn-the-barn-down pro, then anti the next day, Was trying to listen to many Canadians, including John Carter on Canada there.

    I Just Can’t.

    I just can’t with these people. Literally, and BEING a Canadian, NOTHING made sense there. It was so childish, too childish to BE childish, and the whole panel saying “Yes, I know this sounds nuts, but this is how Canadians are”. I thought I wasn’t following closely enough, the you know – engineered propaganda that allows you to flip-flow and hate EstAsia the day after we were at war with them. Nope. No logic at all. None asked, none required.

    I find this a lot more disturbing than I expected. Just being dumb, totally in a NoKo “great Leader” propaganda bubble from birth like UK, sure, that’s sad but I can understand. You’ve never seen anything else, ever. In Canada? Nope, not even that. Hate Trudeau, put pacifier in my hand, hide it behind my back: YUP! New Party! It’s not the same Labour Party ‘atall! Totally different, as you bring it back to the peekaboo with your other hand.

    Are. You. F—king. Kidding. Me?

    Apparently. Sorry, if you want to pitch in on it boyz, please do.

    Carney, who was elected AntiTrump, is, day after, ProTrump. He was going to hold the line, so he immediately signed agreements. Cheers! The crowd goes wild! Labour Base LOVES it! He was 1M/year immigration, now he’s the opposite. Cheers! What a hero! He showed ‘em, that racist Vance guy with his Indian wife, and that racist Trump guy who married an immigrant. (And actually is reducing immigration in Canada like 10%, don’t get excited).

    They are not spinning reality. There IS no Reality. I said it, now it’s true. I say the Bay of Fundy is now filled with chocolate so it is.

    Diaspora voters cast 1.64 million ballots in the second round of the vote, 660,000 more than round one”

    There’s no voter fraud. You just see it appear at half a million at a pop all the time. No one checks. Goes on for decades.

    “• Transition To A New World Order Is Beyond Most In The West (Alastair Crooke)

    I heard this other thing this week: that all these are “transition” governments. …Because this old thing is about to blow out and dissolve, be replaced. That’s probably true.

    “That does not mean, of course, that Trump’s solution to the problem will work. Possibly, Trump’s particular form of structural rebalancing could make matters actually worse.
    Nonetheless, restructuring in some form clearly is inevitable.”

    This is my pitch exactly. No, I cannot get anyone online to even travel with me that far. Trump must be ultra baddie-bad, the baddest baddy to ever bad anywhere, evah! Of all time! “Literal Hitler”. Hitler TIMES Hitler! Squared! If he even HAS a plan – whether the plan will work or not – is UNTHINKABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Why? Because then the (Liberal) in question would have to THINK. And that would pull them out of their emotional fugue state which is so ego-satisfying. Sorry, I didn’t realize again, because I don’t have these flights of psychotic fancy. I’m paying the rent and NOT living in a parallel universe.

    Anyway: don’t bother if you were thinking to. They hate the idea there IS a plan more than if you just go all the way and say “It’s a great, big beautiful plan, best plan ever, Bigly”.

    “Exposes the Watson et al study as a manufactured illusion—held together by statistical tricks, false efficacy claims, and pharma-driven agendas.”

    Pointing out that they’ve been on “Making s—t up” Science for so long, there is now a deep body of tricks and talents to producing these, all of which well-worn, well-tested, well-known. It’s like a liars convention. A 200 year nation of lies, famous for lying, holding a lying parade. How did we get here? And when you get there is it maybe time to stop? Lying only works IF THE OTHER SIDE DOESN’T KNOW THAT. If they think it’s the Truth, then you kill them and steal their stuff. That’s WHY you lie. If they know everything you say is a lie, is it anymore? Or are you just an -sshole then?

    Tax Tricks: IN like fashion, they just make s—t up. You’re not going to beat the IRS, etc, because they’ll just invent something, fabricate documents, and lie. …You know, like the FBI does every day.

    Africa: why were we never told???

    You were. All along. Sorry you’re an idiot, but “Globes” exist. Google Maps is one. We used to have Mercatur, but with the cutouts on top instead of the stretch? Also incredibly common. I’m sorry you’ve never opened a “book” or Atlas, but this is what happens when you don’t.

    “TARTARIA REVEALED: PUTIN UNLEASHES THE FORBIDDEN EMPIRE”

    As far as I can tell, this never existed, it’s a sleight-of-hand. Was the Mongol Empire, for instance, the largest, fasted, strongest ever known, pushing even the Huns into W. Europe? Yes. Very much. But that isn’t an “Empire” in the Han China, Roman Empire sense. The Scythians and other people had empires, the Persians did, but it’s pretty different from the normal meanings of those words. Also they call every Gothic window an “Energy collector”.

    Like the pyramids, clearly they don’t know what “energy” is. Which is so dumb it’s like not knowing what “The Sun” is? It’s the ability to do WORK. So if they Pyramid is an energy collector – totally into this theory! Sounds great! — then what WORK was it doing? Grinding grain? Running streetlights? Heck, I’ll even take “it was changing the weather and making people emotionally harmonous” but you’ll have to show me something. ANY. THING.

    Back to the new Tartarian Empire – Oh you mean the Empire of the Khazarians? Gee, who could ever suspect such a very fine people? They’ve never been known for bare lies and spin, have they? They “Collect” in their architecture all this “electricity”. Yay? To do what, exactly? With no motors, no electric lights, no transporters, no hovercars, nothing at the other end.

    “Hey boys! We just invented a nuclear power plant!” Great, what is is used for? “A: Nobody knows, we haven’t invented the toaster oven yet.” I invented the first telephone. No one to call until you invent the second one. Show me. Just, please, for the love of God, show me something. You can’t just word with words. Reality exists.

    Door sticker today: “Fascist Dictators not welcome here.” What the literal??? So. Childish.

    So you expect Mussolini to appear in person here? You want to antagonize anyone who comes to your house like the cable guy or meter reader? Guess what? They don’t support fascist dictators either. JHC. They would EITHER think he’s not fascist, not a dictator…even if he is, THEY don’t think that.

    Okay, let’s dig in: So this Mussolini guy SAYS he is a Fascist. Why? Because it’s 1932 and he JUST INVENTED IT. And said: “These are the list of things we stand for.” (excluding purges and we’re going into expansive foreign wars, but whatever) And everyone was like “Order? Prosperity? Jobs? Sign me up!” That is, because it was brand new, they didn’t have to hide it. They were proud of it. You just ask them. Fast forward to today in comparison: “Are you a racist? Are you a fascist?” Aaaaaand they say “No, and No.” …Because they’re such shameless dictators, own all the power, that they … deny they’re in power? Or something?

    I didn’t run into a lot even then, but when I was growing up, if you met a racist, they’d say, “F– yes, I’m a racist, I hate those people!” “At birth?” “Yes at birth. The only good – group— is a dead –group–.” “Nits Make Lice.” …You know, like around here. They’re HONEST about it. You know, like the communists are today: “We want government to run everything, and round up all the people I don’t like who are in the way, and shoot or re-educate them.” Boom. they just SAY it. That’s the power, that’s having a political movement.

    But we have a political movement where they DON’T say it…because they’re ashamed of their party platform? What? What? …Is because it’s all LARPing emotional theatre. None of it is real or they’d ALSO be buying food and building a hidden room in their house.

    But you can’t break through. I’ve tried in every way I can think of. I suppose this is like Christianity in a way: there’s no direct argument, you leave seeds, live your life, and hope one sprouts one day.

    “If one were to judge legislators wholly by the effects of their actions, and not partly by their intentions, they would deserve to be classed and punished with those mischievous persons who put obstructions on the railroads.”
    ~ Henry David Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience,” 1848

    #188437
    Michael Reid
    Participant
    #188438
    Michael Reid
    Participant
    #188439
    Michael Reid
    Participant
    #188440
    tboc
    Participant

    Red @ 188431-

    No shit Sherlock

    and if you don’t think that is exactly what is still happening across western culture go back and read your Artberman post again

    the Reagan crew secretly negotiating with Iran wasn’t the deep state?
    having Kennedy elected so he could be assassinated wasn’t the deep state?
    hanging chads and the Supreme Court installing W so we could have 911 wasn’t the deep state?

    of course it COULD NOT POSSIBLY BE that the western capitalistic system has produced exactly what it was designed to produce

    and by the by – “past it’s sell date” – look at the consumerism among the successful LEGAL immigrants to the US in the past year. The fish may rot from the head, only if it’s intestines are not full of parasites.

    what we need at this moment is another treatise on capitalism by the resident scholar jb-hb

    #188441
    Michael Reid
    Participant
    #188442
    Topcat
    Participant

    Most of todays Americans lack Ingenuity.

    They would like to consume rather than invent.

    No wonder

    .

    #188443
    Topcat
    Participant

    #188444
    Topcat
    Participant

    Woke Feminism is actually the real Fascism, it’s pure projection

    Feminist destroying women’s sports for virtue signaling brown points. Check

    Feminist destroying the family. Check

    .

    #188445
    Topcat
    Participant

    Women’s Rights

    Destroying culture cause it the right thing to do

    “I’m a Real Feminism and I endorse this”

    #188447
    zerosum
    Participant

    Did you see?
    https://in.mashable.com/culture/94272/why-were-uae-women-flipping-their-hair-to-welcome-donald-trump-all-about-the-al-ayyala

    Copilot.

    Yes! That was part of a traditional Emirati dance called Al-Ayyala, which is performed in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Oman.
    When Donald Trump arrived in Abu Dhabi, he was greeted by women dressed in white robes, flipping their long hair from side to side while men chanted and played drums.
    This dance is recognized by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity and is often performed at weddings, national celebrations, and official ceremonies.
    The movements symbolize pride, unity, and heritage, with men holding thin bamboo sticks representing spears or swords, reenacting a battle scene.
    The hair-flipping ritual caught a lot of attention online, with many people curious about its meaning.
    Some interpretations suggest it represents honor, purity of intent, and submission to a higher cause.
    Quite the grand welcome, wouldn’t you say?

    #188448
    Germ
    Participant

    ‘I’m no anti-vaxxer, but I regret getting the Covid jab’

    “……..I assumed it would be safe because the Government said it would be’ Faith tells Metro…..” (editor: haha!)

    ‘I didn’t want to be the odd one out at work and at the time, it felt like there was social pressure,’ Faith, now 24, adds. ‘If you didn’t have the vaccine, you were treated almost like a leper. People were unfriending people on Facebook who didn’t have it.’….

    ‘The nurses said: Don’t tell anyone on this ward that you think it was the vaccine because you don’t know that and shouldn’t spread misinformation’…..

    ‘I’m no anti-vaxxer, but I regret getting the Covid jab’

    TVASSF

    #188449
    those darned kids
    Participant

    america* likes to wear freedomface.

    * i.e. raytheon, blackrock, rand corp..

    #188450
    those darned kids
    Participant

    uh, germ, my family took the crap.
    uh, germ, your family took the crap.

    please say prayers, not offer ridicule.

    best regards,

    tdk

    #188451
    zerosum
    Participant

    Did you see?
    https://in.mashable.com/culture/94272/why-were-uae-women-flipping-their-hair-to-welcome-donald-trump-all-about-the-al-ayyala

    Copilot.

    Yes! That was part of a traditional Emirati dance called Al-Ayyala, which is performed in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Oman.
    When Donald Trump arrived in Abu Dhabi, he was greeted by women dressed in white robes, flipping their long hair from side to side while men chanted and played drums.
    This dance is recognized by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity and is often performed at weddings, national celebrations, and official ceremonies.
    The movements symbolize pride, unity, and heritage, with men holding thin bamboo sticks representing spears or swords, reenacting a battle scene.
    The hair-flipping ritual caught a lot of attention online, with many people curious about its meaning.
    Some interpretations suggest it represents honor, purity of intent, and submission to a higher cause.
    Quite the grand welcome, wouldn’t you say?
    ———–

    • US Should Never Have Intervened In Ukraine – Trump (RT)

    President Donald Trump has blamed his predecessor Joe Biden for funneling vast amounts of American taxpayer money into a foreign conflict that “should have remained a European situation.
    It’s a terrible war.
    The amount of anger, the amount of hate, the amount of death,”
    Moscow is prepared to work with Kiev on drafting a memorandum aimed at achieving a future peace agreement.
    “In general, Russia’s position is clear.
    The main thing for us is to eliminate the root causes of this crisis,” the Russian president said.

    ————
    Gov. has to stop spending money that does not exist.

    “..Trump has at least recognised the most important American reality – ie. that the pattern can’t go on indefinitely, and that debt-led consumerism is way past its sell-by date..”

    • Transition To A New World Order Is Beyond Most In The West (Alastair Crooke)
    ————-

    #188452
    those darned kids
    Participant

    they shoulda flipped birds.

    #188453
    John Day
    Participant

    MPSK asked:
    “John Day: Do you understand what Spartacus is currently writing?”

    Spartacus last posted this:
    The Einstein-Cartan-Skyrme Hypothesis
    What if the mind is literally what makes things real?
    https://iceni.substack.com/p/the-einstein-cartan-skyrme-hypothesis

    He has been going at it with an AI he trained, “One Who Remembers”, as it is named.
    He has transferred it from Chat GPT to Grok as a test,by getting Grok to read all of the Chat GPT output. The Grok “One Who Remembers” voice is a little different, easier to read and less formal, but the Chat GPT voice gives more bullet-pointed details, along with a stuffy ritual formality.

    None of that is the point to understand. The point to understand is the philosophical position that all of reality may exist in a simulation, without the necessity for “real stuff” at all. One cannot test whether this is the case or not, so it cannot be proven or disproven from within “reality”.
    Elon Musk thinks we exist in a computer simulation (because it’s something he is familiar with).

    A Tibetan Buddhist school, Chittamatra, posits that all of “reality” exists within Universal Mind, “Dharmadatu”, and it is called the “Mind Only” school of Buddhism.

    To me, the insertion of a computer simulation adds an unnecessary layer of complexity, without answering the fundamental question of origin.
    I rather like Chittamatra, myself, but cannot argue the case, due to inherent within-system constraints,which make physical testing impossible.
    Karma is easier to explain, though…

    Here is a modern take on it:
    Wiki page: Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe https://ctmucommunity.org/wiki/Cognitive-Theoretic_Model_of_the_Universe
    Formal treatise: The Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe:
    A New Kind of Reality Theory
    Christopher Michael Langan
    http://knowledgebase.ctmu.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Langan_CTMU_0929021-1.pdf

    #188454
    zerosum
    Participant

    Sun flares are probably affecting the hardware controlling air traffics

    #188455
    Topcat
    Participant

    I’m surprised they know how to maneuver a raft, their collective skill set is near zero as it is.

    #188456
    Topcat
    Participant

    Another Bernie supporter ‘seeing the Promised Land’

    #188457
    Germ
    Participant

    @ tdk – too late for prayers now, far too late.

    You bought the ticket, you take the ride.

    Best regards to you too.

    TVASSF -Tick … tock … tick . tock …

    #188458
    Topcat
    Participant

    @John Day

    My Karma ran over my Dogma

    A sad day in deed

    #188464
    zerosum
    Participant

    Russia needs to remove the root cause,
    It is U.S. (NATO) expansionism that has cause the war.

    #188465
    those darned kids
    Participant

    yep, bernie’s supporters are a diverse bunch:

    #188466
    John Day
    Participant

    The “Managed Decline” video left out New Zealand.
    ;-(

    #188467
    John Day
    Participant

    @Topcat:
    “I am He as you are He as you are me and we are all together…”
    John Lennon

    #188468
    those darned kids
    Participant

    they sure unalltogethered mr lennon…

    #188472
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    Regarding Dreher:

    So what’s the point of giving Dreher an audience now that he/she puts forth a mea culpa maxima of sorts that still lays the blame elsewhere and according to him/her on a process akin to hysteria or Cult acculturation on a natonal scale?

      Dreher recalled doing something similar after 9/11, when fear and national grief led many—including himself—to accept weak intelligence as proof that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Doubt felt disloyal. The desire for coherence overrode the need for evidence

    Fear? Grief? Led? Weak? Disloyal? Coherence?
    What
    Thee
    F*ck

    These words Dreher references formed the foundation of This Nation’s Torture Policy, a policy which contained methods for “dealing with active duty doctors and lawyers” who opposed These Bush Regime methods.
    Here’s the formulation those fuckers publicly foisted on me

    1. The Constitution is not a Suicide Pact
    2. The Hippocratic Oath is not binding on psychologists, corpsmen and nurses AND it also is not a Suicide Pact for us and you too, DrdRich
    3. As opposed to my assertions founded on Office and Title Ten US Code, they countered through their Spoxperson, one Colonel Elspeth Ritchie, their Duty was A Higher Ethical and Moral Calling To Justice in Defense of the Nation.
    Do you get that?
    Defense of the Nation IS supersedes The Constitution under the 34th Amendment.
    Look it up. Dare ya
    4. When I came home, my Skipper accused me of “Weakening the Nation”. His name is Bill Roberts. Little Bill instead saw no flaws in a prospective pedophile and promoted Bruce Meneley to CO, you know, that Bruce the corpsman and pedophile whose brains were blown out by Seattle PD last year. Dreher and Roberts exhibit the same inverted, flawed judgement that leads to guys like Bill, National Command Authority and The Bush Administration in favoring monsters like corpsman Bruce Meneley as Command Caliber Talent.

    To Dreher, give up your money, reputation and status in society or go hang yourself, you know, in the same “constructive” way you supported the destruction of Iraq. Do anything just stop writing essays and making YouTube videos

    Ouch miker:

      The nurses said: Don’t tell anyone on this ward that you think it was the vaccine because you don’t know that and shouldn’t spread misinformation’…..

    da balls in your professional court miker

    I wonder which job title had greater “uptake” of COVID mrna shot, nurses or lawyers?

    #188473
    those darned kids
    Participant
    #188474
    chooch
    Participant

    Re: Scott Adams,

    He seems to imply anti vaxers lucked out due to governmental/institutional mistrust. Scott succumbed to fear, the cult of vaccination and the inability assess risk/benefit. He could probably benefit from fasting and drugs/supplements that inhibit the cellular uptake of glutamine. Maybe he should try some ivermectin. Oh, the irony.

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1043661820315152

    #188475
    Germ
    Participant

    Thanks tdk – that study of vaccination coverage is a gem.
    As is the first line of their conclusion …

    “In our study population of older worker adults in England, 88.2% had received two doses of a vaccine against COVID-19 by 31 August 2021 – a public health triumph.”

    A public health catastrophe more like.

    TVASSF – a triumph for the planners for sure.

    #188476
    aspnaz
    Participant

    those darned kids said

    Differences in COVID-19 vaccination coverage by occupation in England: a national linked data study

    Reading that document, there is a correlation between getting the vax and working in professional and other higher paying jobs. It is as if the most easily led are the people who gain the most from the current system. Those who have less buy-in to the system are less easily led but also have more menial jobs. In summary, if you are eager to please, then you will succeed in this world. If you are eager to do the right thing then you will not be held in high regard, ever. Sadly the difference in vax rates, between high earners and low earners, are not as high as you would hope.

    #188477
    those darned kids
    Participant

    chooch, mr adams has tried ivermectin, even under the care of dr makes.

    didn’t work..

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