[John Day]

US-assisted Israeli attack on Yemen hits Sanaa Airport during UN visit
Sources told Al Mayadeen, that the Israeli aggression on Sanaa International Airport took place during the presence of two UN personnel in the airport: the WHO’s Director and the UN’s resident coordinator.
Moreover, the sources reported that the UN airplane’s co-captain had been injured and was transported to a hospital after the Israeli aggression on the airport, adding that two other airport employees were also killed as a result of the attack. https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/us-assisted-israeli-attack-on-yemen-hits-un-officials–infra

Israel is determined to “cut off the tentacle” of the Iranian “axis of evil” in Yemen and will continue “until it completes what it has started,” the prime minister of the Jewish state, Benjamin Netanyahu, said immediately after Israeli strikes on the targets of the Houthis on the Yemeni territory. https://tass.com/world/1893961

Houthis Target Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport In Overnight Ballistic Missile Attack
Despite yesterday’s wide-ranging Israel aerial assault on Yemen, the Houthis have hit back – showing they remain undeterred in their willingness to attack Israel – having launched an overnight ballistic missile on Tel Aviv.
The missile was reportedly intercepted by air defenses before it entered Israeli airspace, but a Houthi spokesman claimed that Ben Gurion international airport was targeted in a significant escalation. The Houthis even claim it was hit. https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/houthis-target-israels-ben-gurion-airport-overnight-ballistic-missile-attack

Israeli troops burn north Gaza hospital after forcibly removing staff and patients
Israeli troops stormed one of the last hospitals operating in the northernmost part of Gaza on Friday, forcing many of the staff and patients out of the facility, the territory’s health ministry said.
The Kamal Adwan Hospital has been hit multiple times over the past three months by Israeli troops waging an offensive against Hamas fighters in surrounding neighborhoods, according to staff. The ministry said a strike on the hospital a day earlier killed five medical staff.
Israel’s military said it was conducting operations against Hamas infrastructure and fighters in the area of the hospital, without providing details. It repeated claims that Hamas fighters were operating inside Kamal Adwan, though it provided no evidence.
Hospital officials have denied the accusations. https://www.arabnews.com/node/2584403/middle-east

December 26: Israeli operations in Gaza kill nearly 40 people in past day — Health Ministry
According to the ministry, “the death toll has reached 45,399 since the start of Israel’s military operation, while 107,940 were injured” https://tass.com/world/1893805

[John Day]

Our World Order https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/our-world-order

The City of London has commanded the western neoliberal financial order, but lost bets to destabilize and asset strip Russia, and now “holds” a lot of assets in parts of
Ukraine which are occupied by Russia. Those are pretend-assets, aren’t they? What is the leverage on them? “The west” is already in “an armed confrontation with Russia”, no?
“The World Is Becoming More Dangerous Than Ever”: London Calls on the West to Mobilize for War with Russia
The West should prepare for an armed confrontation with Russia. This was stated by former British Defense Secretary Tobias Martin Ellwood. According to him, the US and its allies should mobilize all forces, since it is impossible to win this confrontation by military operations alone…
..He adds that in the war of the future, which will likely be a possible confrontation between Russia and the West, it is unrealistic to count on success with only armed forces. The former head of the UK Ministry of Defense emphasized that he also means space and cyberspace​.
Society must understand what to do to protect our country. And that mindset is not there yet. It will probably take a major event for the West to understand that we are so afraid to take risks with the problems that are coming our way that our world order is starting to crumble. – the former British Minister of Defense emphasized.
This statement should not be underestimated, if only because it is written in purely British logic. And the retired military official’s mention of a “serious event” that is about to take place can hardly be called an accident or a slip of the tongue. Britain is a master at organizing various provocations. https://en.topcor.ru/55009-mir-stanovitsja-opasnee-chem-kogda-libo-v-londone-prizvali-zapad-mobilizovatsja-na-vojnu-s-rf.html

I found this story first: Did Israel explode a small nuclear bomb in Syria? Spike in radiation report says…
Reports have added that the European Union’s Radioactive Environmental Monitoring found that the amount of radiation increased in Turkey and Cyprus hours after the intense blast, pointing towards a small nuclear attack. https://www.india.com/news/did-israel-explode-a-small-nuclear-bomb-in-syria-spike-in-radiation-report-says-7490316/

Then I found this version on the links at Naked Capitalism: Nuclear attack in Tartus (Syria):
Radioactive fingerprint of nuke (Tartus) measured in Cyprus within ~16 hours after the attack. [Note that the dose rate peak cannot be ascribed to precipitation as higher precipitation occurred on Dec 5 with no discernible radiation increase] https://x.com/Ben68638515/status/1871046543958331531?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1871046543958331531%7Ctwgr%5E4e8dde317f9f86259724eca1073234f0f49e881f%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nakedcapitalism.com%2F2024%2F12%2Flinks-12-28-2024.html

[John Day]

Did Israel explode a small nuclear bomb in Syria?
Spike in radiation report says…
Reports have added that the European Union’s Radioactive Environmental Monitoring found that the amount of radiation increased in Turkey and Cyprus hours after the intense blast, pointing towards a small nuclear attack. https://www.india.com/news/did-israel-explode-a-small-nuclear-bomb-in-syria-spike-in-radiation-report-says-7490316/

[John Day]

Meryl Nass MD, UN General Assembly Adopts Controversial Cybercrime Treaty Amid Criticism Over Censorship and Surveillance Risks/ from Reclaim the Net
Another treaty from the UN system is adopted without a vote. More evidence that the US may want to exit this undemocratic system. https://merylnass.substack.com/p/un-general-assembly-adopts-controversial

Vaccine Injury Claims Spiked 27x After COVID-19 Injection Rollout
U.S. Government Accountability Office Report Exposes Critical Failures in the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/vaccine-injury-claims-spiked-27x

Mexico is the ancestral home of corn and corn genetic diversity. With Help From NAFTA 2.0, US Strikes Brutal Blow Against Mexican Food Sovereignty, Health and Global Biodiversity, by Nick Corbishley
“Both the USMCA and this ruling issued by the trade dispute panel are designed primarily to protect the interests of transnational corporations.”
It wasn’t even a close run thing: the panel’s three judges agreed with the US on all seven counts in the case. The panel has given Mexico 45 days to realign its policies with the ruling. Failure to do so could result in stiff penalties, including sanctions.
As we’ve noted before, this case may be an important battle for Big Ag lobbies and biotech companies but it is an existential one for Mexico, for whom corn is the cornerstone not only of its cuisine and diet but also its culture.
The dispute panel argues that Mexico’s provisions against GMO corn cannot be applied as they are not based on an adequate risk assessment, scientific evidence or relevant international standards. This is despite the mountains of evidence from peer-reviewed literature the Mexican government provided showing ample cause for concern about the risks of consuming GM corn and the residues of the herbicide glyphosate — most commonly known as Roundup — that often come with it.
By contrast, as Timothy A Wise, author of Eating Tomorrow and senior adviser at the Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy, documented in a recent piece for TruthDig, “when Mexico challenged the US to show that its GM corn is safe to eat in the far greater quantities and forms that Mexicans consume it, it received no response.” https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/12/with-help-of-usmca-biden-administration-strikes-decisive-blow-against-mexican-food-sovereignty-health-and-global-biodiversity.html

Biotic-Pump Model co-originator, Physicist, Anastassia Makarieva, Information processing by natural ecosystems. They have a built-in program of climate stabilization and run it super efficiently
The time is ripe to realize that Life also computes. Natural ecosystems out there in the sun perform calculations and process information.
How can we estimate and understand this computing power of Life? Energy from the Sun comes to Earth in the form of discrete particles called photons. The average energy of solar photons is proportional to the temperature of the Sun, which is about TS = 6,000 degrees Kelvin. The temperature of the Earth is about TE = 300 degrees Kelvin. This means that the thermal photons emitted by the Earth into space are 20 times less energetic than the incoming solar photons.
Imagine that we have a switch that randomly toggles between two possible states: on and off. To keep it in one state, we need to apply more energy than the energy of its chaotic thermal motion, which on Earth is approximately kTE (where k is the Boltzmann constant). High-energy solar photons with energy kTS provide this extra energy, enabling biological and ecological computations. A single solar photon has enough energy to turn the switch on or off nineteen times.
In other words, absorbing solar energy allows the molecular memory cells (the “switches”) of Life to rise above the thermal chaos and perform computations…
..Assuming that every act of a molecular memory cell rising above the thermal chaos counts as one operation, we can estimate the rate of information processing by Life from the known rate of its consumption of solar energy. With the global mean efficiency of photosynthesis of about E ~ 0.5 % and the global mean flux of solar energy absorbed by the planetary surface of about F ~ 170 W/m2, we find that the flux of information processed by living cells is about (EF/kTE ) ~ 2 x 1020 operations per second per square meter.
Compare this with a typical modern supercomputer, which consumes a hundred times more power per square meter but performs a billion times fewer operations per second…
..However, it is not only about computing power. The main question is WHAT is being computed? Why does Life need such enormous information processing power? What is written in these biological and ecological algorithms?
In short, it is sustainability. Life computes how to persist over time, without running out of anything, without polluting anything, and maintaining favorable conditions for its own continuation… Life is a distributed system of microscopic computers (living cells) that cover the entire Earth, assessing environmental conditions and reacting immediately if something goes wrong…
..There are two conclusions to be drawn from this exercise in assessing Life’s information-processing capabilities. First, sustainability is a hugely complex task, requiring the processing of vast amounts of information. It is no surprise that our achievements in this area are zero. Second, there is no technical substitute for biotic regulation of the environment. If we disturb natural ecosystems beyond their self-repair point, we will not be able to stabilize the climate even if we stop all emissions. https://bioticregulation.substack.com/p/information-processing-by-natural

[John Day]

Survivor of Azerbaijani Airlines plane crash claims there was explosion when plane tried to land in Chechnya
Subkhankul Rahimov claims pilots tried to land aircraft in Grozny, Chechnya 3 times in a row
A survivor of Wednesday’s Azerbaijan Airlines crash said the plane’s pilots tried to land in Grozny, Chechnya three times, followed by an explosion outside the plane, according to an audio recording shared by Russian TV channel RT.
Subkhankul Rahimov said that something exploded on the third landing attempt and that when he reached for his life jacket, he found a hole in it caused by shrapnel. He also said that he was hit by shrapnel after the explosion. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/survivor-of-azerbaijani-airlines-plane-crash-claims-there-was-explosion-when-plane-tried-to-land-in-chechnya/3434670

The photo shows the outside skin of the plane having lots of holes with edges that curl in, as if hit by shrapnel from outside.
We can’t be certain, but it’s likely that the Azerbaijan Airlines flight was hit by shrapnel from a air defence system as it was in the vicinity of Grozny. There might have been a drone attack in the area as well. Crew made heroic attempt to save situation before the crash. https://x.com/carlbildt/status/1872028200727146925?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1872028200727146925%7Ctwgr%5E7ae8ab7f3338a826d67ffe2b0ebd7499f7eb23c2%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nakedcapitalism.com%2F2024%2F12%2Flinks-12-26-2024.html

It just happened based on business modeling. Nobody made any decisions… McKinsey Agrees to Pay Another $650 Million to Avoid Trial Over U.S. Opioid Crisis https://cocotteminute.substack.com/p/mckinsey-agrees-to-pay-another-650

US ramping up biological warfare presence in Africa — Russia’s top brass
Major General Aleksey Rtishchev said that branches of the US National Naval Military Medical Center are stationed in Ghana and Djibouti where active work is carried out in natural disease foci, isolation and sequencing of pathogens. https://tass.com/defense/1892353

Just how broadly does this actually apply? Ashkenazi Jews descend from 350 people, study finds
‘Bottleneck’ dates back 600 to 800 years, genome analysis shows; researcher says among population ‘everyone is a 30th cousin’
A new (9/10/2014) study concludes that all Ashkenazi Jews can trace their ancestry to a “bottleneck” of just 350 individuals, dating back to between 600 and 800 years ago.
Researchers analyzed the genomes of 128 Ashkenazi Jews and compared them to those of non-Jewish Europeans in order to determine which genetic markers are unique to Ashkenazi Jews. They found that the Ashkenazi Jews’ genetic similarities were so acute that one of the study’s researchers, Columbia professor Itsik Pe’er, told the Live Science website that among Ashkenazi Jews, “everyone is a 30th cousin.” …
..Ashkenazi Jews are known to have origins in the Levant, which Israel is smack dab in the middle of. But exactly who “European” Ashkenazi Jews are has long been debated. An analysis of the gene database shows that the original Ashkenazi Jews were about half European and half Middle Eastern. They lived in the medieval era, about 600 to 800 years ago, according to the analysis – and numbered just 350 or so people. “Our analysis shows that Ashkenazi Jewish medieval founders were ethnically admixed, with origins in Europe and in the Middle East, roughly in equal parts,” said Shai Carmi, a post-doctoral scientist. https://www.timesofisrael.com/ashkenazi-jews-descend-from-350-people-study-finds/

[John Day]

Israeli airstrike in Bekaa shakes ceasefire 29 days after it came into effect
For the first time since the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah came into effect on Nov. 27, Israel breached the agreement deep inside Lebanese territory.
In the early hours of Wednesday, an Israeli warplane struck the town of Taraya near Baalbek. https://www.arabnews.com/node/2584293/middle-east

Israel kills five journalists in clearly marked press vehicle in Gaza
Al-Quds Today staff were targeted outside a hospital, as number of media workers killed by Israeli forces exceeds 200 https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-kills-five-journalists-press-vehicle-gaza

Israel strikes Yemen’s Sanaa airport, Hodeidah power plant
Israeli military attacks several sites, including airport in Yemen’s capital as the WHO chief boards a flight.
The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he and his United Nations colleagues were preparing to board a plane at Sanaa airport when it came under Israeli bombardment. “One of our plane’s crew members was injured. At least two people were reported killed at the airport. The air traffic control tower, the departure lounge – just a few meters from where we were – and the runway were damaged,” he said in a post on X, adding that they were all safe.
Tedros said the UN and WHO teams were in the country “to negotiate the release of UN staff detainees and to assess the health and humanitarian situation in Yemen”. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/12/26/israel-strikes-yemens-sanaa-airport-other-key-sites-reports

Syrian Christians Protest Presence Of Foreign Jihadists After Christmas Display Burned
“We demand the rights of Christians,” the protesters chanted, many carrying crosses. Other slogans demanded a future role in the country for all Syrians, and that churches and the religious freedom of everyone must be protected.
A regional source has described the initial Christmas tree burning which outraged Syria’s Christians as follows:
“Video footage that circulated on social media on 23 December showed a large Christmas tree burning in Hama’s Suqaylabiyah – a Christian neighborhood. The tree was set ablaze on Monday by foreign militants under HTS’s command. Some reports said the militants were from Chechnya, while others said they were Uzbeki fighters.
HTS deployed a military official to the scene of the burning to condemn the incident and vow punishment for those responsible.” https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/syrian-christians-protest-presence-foreign-jihadists-after-christmas-display-burned

Clashes erupt in western Syria after locals ambush HTS fighters
The ambush was reportedly carried out by former elements of the Syrian Arab Army, coming during an eruption of sectarian tensions across Syria https://thecradle.co/articles/clashes-erupt-in-western-syria-after-locals-ambush-hts-fighters

[John Day]

Biden Pledges More Arms To Ukraine After Christmas Strikes https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/biden-pledges-more-arms-ukraine-after-christmas-strikes

Group publishes details about CIA mind control studies, Historic memos about brainwashing “Russian agents” and drugging US inmates with LSD have been put online
Starting in the early 1950s, the CIA secretly searched for ways to control human behavior with drugs, including the then novel hallucinogen LSD, hypnosis, and extreme maltreatment, such as sensory deprivation.
The experiments, including those done on unwitting subjects, largely stemmed from interest in anti-war sentiments expressed by US troops who fought in the Korean War and went through captivity…
..CIA Director Richard Helms and MKULTRA chief Sidney Gottlieb destroyed most of the original records in 1973 in what the Archive called “perhaps the most infamous cover-up in the Agency’s history.” …
..The Archive pointed the finger at pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Company as the supplier of “tonnage quantities” of LSD to the CIA.
It is “a history marked by near-total impunity at the institutional and individual levels for countless abuses committed across decades,” the group said. Some of the research was akin to what was previously done by “the Nazi doctors who were tried at Nuremberg.”
..The December 1974 expose of MKULTRA in the Times was penned by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh. The veteran reporter has authored several explosive stories over the decades, most recently claiming that the US government blew up the Nord Stream pipelines connecting Russia and Germany in 2022. https://www.rt.com/news/609860-cia-mind-control-records/

Trump’s nominee for top defence post thinks Middle East is ‘relatively unimportant’
Elbridge Colby has said the US should stop focusing on the Middle East, and turn its military’s attention to China
US President-elect Donald Trump has announced that he will be nominating Elbridge Colby for the position of under secretary for defence policy, awarding the senior post to a former Trump official who has advocated for reducing American troops in the Middle East and against striking Iranian nuclear facilities…
..Colby, the grandson of former CIA director William Colby, served in the Pentagon during the previous Trump administration, where between 2017 and 2018 he was deputy assistant secretary for strategy and force development…
..”The United States must limit much more substantially its strategic engagement in the Middle East. This is both necessary and feasible,” Colby said… ..”As is evidenced by the experience of recent decades, large ground interventions do not help resolve this issue and almost certainly exacerbate the problem.” Colby has been a public opponent of the US-led invasion of Iraq and said that he has opposed every US intervention abroad since then – including the increasing US military support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/trumps-nominee-top-defence-post-thinks-middle-east-relatively-unimportant

Buy Greenland, make Canada the 51st State, dominate Arctic mineral resources, right? Trump Wants to Buy Greenland—Described It as an ‘Absolute Necessity’ https://defconnews.com/2024/12/24/trump-wants-to-buy-greenland-described-it-as-an-absolute-necessity/

Get the jokes? President-Elect Trump Posts Christmas Message To “Wonderful Soldiers of China”, “Governor Trudeau”, And Greenland https://www.zerohedge.com/political/president-elect-trump-posts-christmas-message-wonderful-soldiers-china-governor-trudeau

[John Day]

Bond-investors vs. Citizens. Don’t be the first country to declare bankruptcy. France has a new government, again. Politics and crushing debt complicate next steps
France’s president and prime minister managed to form a new government just in time for the holidays. Now comes the hard part.
Crushing debt, intensifying pressure from the nationalist far right, wars in Europe and the Mideast: Challenges abound for President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Francois Bayrou after an already tumultuous 2024.
The most urgent order of business is passing a 2025 budget. Financial markets, ratings agencies and the European Commission are pushing France to bring down its deficit, to comply with EU rules limiting debt and keep France’s borrowing costs from spiraling. That would threaten the stability and prosperity of all countries that share the euro currency.
France’s debt is currently estimated at a staggering 112% of gross domestic product. It grew further after the government gave aid payments to businesses and workers during COVID-19 lockdowns even as the pandemic depressed growth, and capped household energy prices after Russia invaded Ukraine. The bill is now coming due. https://apnews.com/article/france-macron-bayrou-government-budget-96bb8e0e1740bdaf49d98cece0fac28a

Charles Hugh Smith, What If Solutions That Worked in the Past No Longer Fix What’s Broken?
You see the irony here: the more successful the old solutions were, the greater our compulsion to cling to them even as they fail.
On the surface, the present looks like the recent past. Yes, technology changes, but this constant churn of new technology has long been part of the system.
Make America Great Again is an explicit call to return to the solutions that worked in the past, specifically The Reagan Revolution of the 1980s, which was characterized by these policies:
1. The federal government is the problem, not the solution. The solution is to reduce the influence and financial footprint of the federal government.
2. Deregulation of private industries, starting with finance. Loosen regulations to enable financial / market solutions, even if they’re disruptive.
3. Focus on growth. Grow the economy by loosening up credit, drill baby drill, reducing regulatory burdens and taxes, etc.
4. Pursue a muscular global policy of America First. No more wishy-washy playing nice: choose sides, but choose carefully because there will be consequences.
5. It’s morning in America. We can get back on track by unleashing America’s native optimism and vigor.
These solutions from the past are compelling because they delivered decades of growth. Of course reality is complicated, and it wasn’t just these policies by themselves that spawned decades of expansion. Demographics, the “peace dividend” and many other factors helped.
And there were spots of bother: deregulation enabled the Savings and Loan debacle in which a third of the nation’s S&L associations closed as $180 billion went up in smoke, losses that cost taxpayers $132 billion in bailouts.
Beneath the political rhetoric, these policies boil down to Keynesian stimulus which has been the de facto go-to policy “fix” for 60+ years: loosen credit, increase government borrowing and spending, encourage risk-taking and “animal spirits.” https://charleshughsmith.substack.com/p/what-if-solutions-that-worked-in

NEW: Photos of Hunter and Joe Biden Meeting With Chinese Officials Emerge, Massive Cover-Up Exposed
The National Archives finally released long sought-after pictures of Joe and Hunter Biden meeting with Chinese officials. The president has long insisted he never facilitated nor had any involvement in his troubled son’s business dealings. Yet, a series of photos taken during Joe Biden’s time as vice president paint a very different story. [IMAGE: Xi Meets Hunter]
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2024/12/24/new-scandalous-photos-of-hunter-and-joe-biden-meeting-with-xi-jinping-other-chinese-officials-emerge-n2183586

Putin Reveals Biden Offered To Postpone Ukraine’s NATO Entry As Compromise
The comments came in the context of a question over Trump’s reported peace plan and the idea of freezing the front lines. Putin described that such a plan is nothing new, and added the following per state media translation: “I know that the current President Biden spoke about this, it’s no secret, back in 2021. He proposed exactly this to me – to delay Ukraine’s admission into NATO by 10-15 years, because [Kiev] is not ready yet,” Putin said, referring to the midsummer meeting he had with the US leader in Switzerland.
He stressed that no matter the timeline, Ukraine’s admission into NATO would be unacceptable “whether it’s in one year or ten years.”
“We, too, are striving to end the conflict,” Putin added, but stressed that this should happen by achieving all of Moscow’s military and political objectives, according to RT. Toward this end, Putin during the Q&A proposed Slovakia as a ‘neutral’ potential host country for future peace talks. https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/putin-reveals-biden-offered-postpone-ukraines-nato-entry-compromise

[John Day]

This looks predictable and observable, therefore intentional. High Electricity Taxes Are Crippling European Industry
European countries need to work out ways to lower taxes on electricity to revive the competitiveness of Europe’s energy-intensive industries, Leonhard Birnbaum, president of electricity lobby Eurelectric, told Reuters in an interview published on Monday.
Power prices in the EU are up to three times higher than in the United States, for example, which further erodes the competitiveness of energy-intensive industries including aluminum, steel making, chemicals, and cement production.
Europe is losing and will continue to lose competitiveness and jobs if it doesn’t tackle its high energy costs compared to other regions. https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/High-Electricity-Taxes-Are-Crippling-European-Industry.html

Sanctioned Russian LNG Shipment Travels Around World, Finds No Buyers
Bloomberg reports that an LNG carrier called “Pioneer,” carrying a sanctioned shipment of Russian LNG, circumnavigated the world for four months, failing to find a buyer willing to breach US restrictions. “This vessel (called Pioneer) was spotted on satellite images picking up the first shipment from the Arctic LNG 2 facility in early August — despite camouflaging the move with misleading location information — but then spent well over four months hunting for a customer.” https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/sanctioned-russian-lng-shipment-travels-around-world-finds-no-buyers

Again, on Christmas Day; Shadow-war? Finland-Estonia Undersea Power Cable Goes Dark As Russian Shadow Fleet Tanker Investigated
Bloomberg reports that Finnish authorities boarded the crude oil tanker named Eagle S. after a 658-megawatt Estlink 2 power interconnector and several data cables were disrupted.
The Estlink 2 electricity cable connecting Finland and Estonia was disrupted on Christmas Day, sparking concerns of another potential undersea cable sabotage incident in the Baltic region.
The Financial Times reports that Finnish authorities are investigating a crude oil tanker named Eagle S. The tanker flies the Cook Islands flag and is reportedly part of Russia’s so-called “dark fleet.”
Data from the ship-tracking website MarineTraffic shows the vessel slowed down at the time the 658 megawatt (MW) Estlink 2 power interconnector was disrupted. The tanker was transiting the Baltics on its way from St. Petersburg to Egypt. https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/finland-estonia-undersea-power-cable-goes-dark-russian-shadow-fleet-tanker

The Honest Sorcerer posits a world which escapes nuclear annihilation, which would destroy wealth, and kill some rich people. In this world, the rich have invested in good farmland, oil and gas wells, mines and factories as well as mortgages, so that they own all of the necessities of life after the financial crash, creating a neo-feudal economic system. Position yourself out of debt, with your basic necessities and a vegetable garden. Nuclear Neo-Feudalism https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/nuclear-neo-feudalism

Mark Zuckerberg Denies Hawaii ‘Doomsday Bunker’ Existence, Calls It A “Little Shelter
Bloomberg’s Emily Chang asked Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in an exclusive interview at their estate in Lake Tahoe about a 4,500-square-foot underground structure – considered by some as a ‘doomsday bunker’ – at his 1,500-acre ranch in Kauai, Hawaii.
Chang asked: “You do have a bunker there; is there something you know that we don’t?”
Zuckerberg’s response was priceless because he denied it was a doomsday bunker, calling it a “little shelter … basement.” https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/mark-zuckerberg-denies-doomsday-bunker-existence-calls-it-little-shelter

[John Day]

Political Realignments https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/political-realignments

“Albrt” presents, Twirling Toward Freedom, Figuring out what it would look like if Trump were really trying for a long-term political realignment
I said back in November there are reasons to believe that Trump might represent the end stage of a historic political realignment. That post did not attempt to define the nature or the likely course of the realignment, which leads to today’s hypothesis and counter-hypothesis: Trump and Vance could either consolidate power by improving the alignment of the Republican party with the working class, or they could further entrench the current model of a DC uniparty that works for the oligarchs, with two superficially warring factions carrying on a phony fight to the death over issues the oligarchs don’t care about…
..Since November, even the dumber organs of the mainstream media have recognized that the Republicans and the Democrats have started down the road of swapping core constituencies. The Democrats have more of the over-educated and the wealthy than they did 20 years ago, while the Republicans have more of the working class…
..At least one persuasive commentator, Musa al-Gharbi attributes this to the takeover of the Democratic party by the professional managerial class (PMC), who (to oversimplify) are not actually very good at managing things in the real world because they prefer to deal with abstractions. Al-Gharbi refers to the PMC as “symbolic capitalists.” …
..The first assumption this post makes is that a long-term realignment is in play. The second assumption is that the realignment has not yet been fully accomplished. The third assumption is that it should be possible for a non-expert (like me) to look at how the Trump-Vance administration implements its policies and tell whether they are serious about delivering concrete material benefits for working class citizens in order to consolidate the realignment. I’m going to try to identify some benchmarks in different policy areas that can be used to evaluate what happens over the next few years…
..So my test hypothesis is that Trump and Vance might make relatively rational decisions on a multi-year time frame with the goal of delivering real benefits to working people. The bar for achieving this is set very low… I’m talking about material benefits such as higher wages, better housing, price stability, or health care (as distinguished from “access” to health care through a corrupt intermediary a.k.a. insurance company). For purposes of this post it is important to distinguish material benefits (which the oligarchs want working people to have very little of) from culture war conflict and entertaining stunts…
..Trump and Vance might be unusually motivated to create a scenario where Vance can win the 2028 election. Among other things, Trump probably does not want to retire with the threat of another round of prosecutions hanging over his head. I’m calling it the Trump-Vance administration because I think showcasing Vance will be an important goal… If that does not happen, it will be the first indication that my test hypothesis is false.
The null hypothesis I’m testing against is that Trump and Vance will continue the legacy uniparty scam in which both factions have basically the same macro-policies cloaked in divisive culture-war language, psyops, and stunts. Trump is well-suited by personality and by experience for the stunt politics of the recent past so the sensible thing would be to expect more of the same…
..To hold the swingy members of the working class on the Republican side, Trump and Vance need to take actions that help the working class have a viable path to prosperity…
..This post only considers domestic policy benchmarks. U.S. foreign policy is insanely chaotic right now,… and will probably be hard to distinguish from the delusional, pro-genocide approach practiced by the Biden administration. A nuclear war could start at any time…
..Immigration was one of Trump’s biggest hot buttons on the campaign trail, and is also one of the areas where it will be easiest to tell if Trump and Vance are serious. I think the immigration issue works particularly well as a litmus test…
..The economists who claim that immigration helps to increase GDP are not necessarily wrong. The problem is that all the gains go to the oligarchs and the cadre of sub-oligarchs and PMC oligarch-servicers who benefit from cheap labor…
..The obvious way to reduce the number of undocumented non-citizens working in the U.S. is from the employer side, through administrative measures such as requiring employers to use E-Verify for real and cracking down on duplicate use of social security numbers. Trump actually did this for a little while late in his first term. If this type of enforcement is not expanded, then Trump is not serious about stopping employment of undocumented immigrants.
Trump did not campaign much on administrative measures involving employers, and instead promised massive deportations. Forcibly deporting enough people to make a difference would be extremely difficult…
..Lately Trump has shifted from talking about deportations to talking about ending birthright citizenship. Ending birthright citizenship is a red herring at best… Even if Trump were somehow successful in eliminating birthright citizenship, it would only apply to babies born after the change. Fussing about birthright citizenship is a stunt…
..Trump has dismayed some of his supporters by talking about expanding legal opportunities to work in the United States such as H-1B visas… H-1B visas are for “specialty workers” to fill jobs when employers claim there are shortages, so H-1B immigrants compete more with the PMC than with wage workers. Still, using H-1B workers to proletarianize the PMC does not help Trump-Vance earn the loyalty of the working class in the long run because it means that the children of the working class have less chance at upward mobility…
..Peter Turchin has said that in order to restore stability in the U.S, we need to “bring the relative wage up to the equilibrium level (thus shutting down elite overproduction) and keep it there.” End Times at 202. “Equilibrium level” means working class wages and conditions need to improve enough that a somewhat larger percentage of working class people decide it is OK to be working class, so they don’t need to go to college and try to become PMC. But some of the youngsters still want to move up. Importing a bunch of people to take existing PMC slots makes it much harder to achieve a stable equilibrium…
..In short, there are two tells with immigration. If Trump and Vance want to benefit citizen wage laborers, they need to require all employers to start using E-Verify or something similar, with real social security numbers. In order to benefit citizens who aspire to the next steps up the economic ladder, Trump and Vance need to reduce H-1B visas, not expand them. I don’t think either of these indicators can easily be fudged. If Trump and Vance limit immigrant work opportunities in this way, then I think the effects will be visible, and may even lead to significant inflation, particularly in food and construction…
..Tariffs and re-shoring manufacturing…
..A few weeks ago the big story was that Trump was going to restart American manufacturing by imposing massive tariffs. That story has now disappeared from the headlines in favor of immigration scare stories and whatever else Trump tweeted in the past 24 hours. Tariffs and industrial policy are difficult to do well. Imposing tariffs on goods that the United States has very little capacity to produce for itself will lead to short-term inflation and shortages followed by demand destruction rather than plentiful jobs.
Success on this issue will be harder to judge than immigration, because it requires evaluating whether Trump is appointing serious people and whether the solutions they come up with are working… One thing to look for is whether Trump can stop picking fights over tough-guy sanctions and move toward tariffs or other measures that actually give a boost to viable American businesses…
..The other thing to look for is whether re-shored businesses (if any) actually start offering jobs Americans would take. It’s not just wages—we need to see more private sector working-class jobs that offer benefits, or else we need to see socialistic benefits to replace employment-based benefits. Either one would make working class life more acceptable to many people, helping to create Turchin’s equilibrium and consolidate the potential political realignment…
..Drill Baby Drill…
..Trump repeatedly said that one of his highest priorities would be a “drill baby drill” energy policy. On its face this does not make a great deal of sense, at least not as it relates to gas prices. “Drill baby drill” is an inherently boom-bust policy that would most likely lead to big swings in fuel prices…
..If Trump were serious about boosting the economy through domestic energy production, he would develop a long-term plan to stabilize American energy prices using shale production at a target price to help decouple the U.S. from the wild swings of the world oil market. If you want to encourage business confidence, you need to allow businesses to plan for longer term investment. This is especially true in capital intensive industrial sectors. Trump probably won’t be able to use Biden’s method of depleting the strategic oil reserve because Biden is leaving it pretty depleted…
..Like the tariff issue, this one is hard to judge because it requires Trump and Vance to do something difficult and complicated. Nevertheless, if they start to shift the energy rhetoric toward stability rather than driving prices down, that would be a sign they are serious…
..Firing federal workers
Trump and his boy-wonder DOGE sidekicks Elon and Vivek have made a lot of idiotic statements about cutting the federal budget by firing huge numbers of people. My most constructive suggestion is to start with the National Endowment for Democracy. That’s the CIA sponsored organization that funds anti-democratic “color revolutions” in countries all over the world and was substantially responsible for starting the Ukraine war. If Trump and Vance actually succeeded in eliminating the National Endowment for Democracy, I would consider becoming a late-stage MAGA convert myself…
..Elon and Vivek can undoubtedly find a few offices full of DC wokesters to sacrifice, but that’s just another stunt. It won’t have a big impact on the budget, much less an impact on material conditions for the working class.
Based on summary numbers at federalpay.org, most federal employees (around 3 million) are associated with the Department of Defense, which Trump fans are stereotypically supposed to support. The next two biggest departments are the departments of veterans’ affairs (over 400,000) and Homeland Security (over 200,000)…
..The Department of Education, a favorite target of Republicans even before Trump, only has a little over 4,000 employees. The department has a $45 billion budget, but most of that is pass-throughs to local schools to pay for things like special education…
..It may be theoretically possible to improve the economy by making the federal government more efficient, but it is fiendishly difficult to do in practice… Highly visible stunts with chainsaws are more consistent with the null hypothesis that Trump and Vance intend to continue the kayfabe of the existing uniparty scam…
..Legalizing marijuana
This is an easy one. Trump toyed with this issue during the campaign, but did not commit. If Trump and Vance are really serious about doing something for the working class, they need to not only legalize marijuana at the federal level, they also need to erase past prosecutions and allow those convicted to rejoin polite society and qualify for decent jobs…
..Promoting alternatives to the college path…
..Telling young people that college is the only path to economic prosperity basically reinforces the power of the PMC, which is the real base of the Democratic party today and is Trump’s main enemy.
Trump hasn’t made any promises about this and I don’t think anybody has any particularized expectations, so the field is wide open. Pushing trade schools (assuming you can find some that aren’t scams) would help, and would also help fill the open jobs if undocumented immigrants in the construction industry disappear from the labor market, or if re-shoring of industry starts to happen on any scale…
..If the Trump-Vance administration figures out a way to break the iron grip of college on our culture and our economy, then a substantially bigger realignment is possible. https://albrtsblog.substack.com/p/twirling-toward-freedom

Bureaucracy kills by creeping dysfunction: Dan Davies, The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions—and How the World Lost Its Mind – University of Chicago Press, 2024 How life and the economy became a black box—a collection of systems no one understands, producing outcomes no one likes.
Passengers get bumped from flights. Phone menus disconnect. Automated financial trades produce market collapse. Of all the challenges in modern life, some of the most vexing come from our relationships with automation: a large system does us wrong, and there’s nothing we can do about it.
The problem, economist Dan Davies shows, is accountability sinks: systems in which decisions are delegated to a complex rule book or set of standard procedures, making it impossible to identify the source of mistakes when they happen. In our increasingly unhuman world—lives dominated by algorithms, artificial intelligence, and large organizations—these accountability sinks produce more than just aggravation. They make life and economy unknowable—a black box for no reason.
In The Unaccountability Machine, Davies lays bare how markets, institutions, and even governments systematically generate outcomes that no one—not even those involved in making them—seems to want. Since the earliest days of the computer age, theorists have foreseen the dangers of complex systems without personal accountability. In response, British business scholar Stafford Beer developed an accountability-first approach to management called “cybernetics,” which might have taken off had his biggest client (the Chilean government) not fallen to a bloody coup in 1973. https://progressivegeographies.com/2024/12/26/dan-davies-the-unaccountability-machine-why-big-systems-make-terrible-decisions-and-how-the-world-lost-its-mind-university-of-chicago-press-2024/

Cybernetics and Systems Science: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/cybernetics#:~:text=Cybernetics%20is%20the%20scientific%20study,%2C%20robotics%2C%20and%20systems%20science

[John Day]

Glad to see you back, Ilargi. I hope all is well wit’cha.
😉

[John Day]

Trump trolls everybody: President-Elect Trump Posts Christmas Message To “Wonderful Soldiers of China”, “Governor Trudeau”, And Greenland https://www.zerohedge.com/political/president-elect-trump-posts-christmas-message-wonderful-soldiers-china-governor-trudeau

[John Day]

@Noirette: How much CAN actually be done in the process of terminal-decline?
Something, perhaps…
Can things be made worse?
NAAAH, That can’t possibly happen, Right?

[John Day]

@Doc Robinson, Re: Tedros in Israeli target-zone (shades of Maxwell Smart, Agent 86)

“Missed by That-Much” ;-/

[John Day]

Quoth Dr. D (but I beg to differ):
“Conclusion: what we learn is Facts, Data, even Morals…mean nothing. Nobody cares in the slightest. This is instead what a dismal Bernays, Huxley, etc told you. People just slot all information into their pre-existing biases and carry on with the movie they were already watching.”

About 70% of people “test reality” by seeing what the folks sitting next to them think, and that is usually good-enough.

About 3% of people are sociopaths, good at manipulating regular people for their own selfish ends.

About 5-7% of people figure things out for themselves, no matter what the majority thinks, and are confident enough to act on their assessments.

The other 20% or so of people have various intermediate settings for assessing “reality” and acting upon it, with and without group consensus.

Societal consensus on a topic occasionally does change, “Paradigm Shift” as happened after the 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam made it painfully obvious to the 70% that they had been lied to And Everybody Else Knew It Too.
There were already a committed core of people, maybe 25%, standing firmly against the lies and murder for profit.
That base was already standing there, but being ignored, and at the upper end of what a society can ignore. Others were already aware of their position…

All of this set the stage for the carefully-crafted sociopathic control narrative to fail suddenly in the face of New-Common-Knowledge and an established minority view which was viable in the context of the new common knowledge.

It DID take the damned huge Tet Offensive on TV at 5:30 every day to precipitate the paradigm shift, and that part got cancelled afterwards, and now we have the internet, but what would be as big as Tet to precipitate the Common-Knowledge situation this time?

[John Day]

[John Day]

A Midwestern Doctor. Why Does the COVID Vaccine Persist In The Body?
The consequences of the questionable decisions made to manufacture the mRNA vaccines
Recently, new data emerged showing that the COVID vaccines persist for up to 700 days within patients (and likely longer)…
​..Finally. even if a vaccine “works” it still has to be manufactured, and there are numerous cases of the tradeoffs being made resulting in a disaster. For example:
​ •To make the inactivated polio vaccine, the live polio virus had to be exposed to formaldehyde. However, the challenge with this was that if too much formaldehyde was used, it would damage the antigens on polio to the point they no longer matched those on the poliovirus, whereas if too little was used, some of the polioviruses would remain active and could then give the vaccine recipient polio. The creator of the vaccine (Salk) opted to prioritize efficacy over safety, which the government in turn supported, even when one of their own scientists (Bernice Eddy) warned them against releasing the vaccine (as it caused polio in her lab). That 1955 vaccine then infected at least 220,000 people with live polio virus in Cutter’s vaccine, of whom 70,000 developed muscle weakness, 164 were severely paralyzed, and 10 died.
​ Note: an identical issue had happened on a smaller scale (9000 infections, 12 severe cases, 6 deaths) in 1935 with an earlier version of the inactivated polio vaccine. Likewise, (as I showed here) there have been dozens of incidents where an insufficiently inactivated or attenuated diphtheria, rabies or yellow fever vaccines severely injured hundreds of people (as the attenuated vaccines faced a similar issue with it being easy to over or under attenuate).
​ •Growing viruses for vaccines requires having a cell culture to grow them in. Monkey kidney cells were chosen because they worked well for doing this, but unfortunately were contaminated with the cancer causing SV40 virus. In 1962, Eddy again warned the government about the vaccine, but they still chose to give it to the public (and retaliated against her for speaking out), which in turn led to a wave of cancer sweeping through America, which until the COVID-19 vaccines was unprecedented:
IMAGE
Note: many other viral vaccines (particularly the live ones) also have had harmful viral contaminants identified within them, but unlike SV40, that contamination has not been acknowledged. Most notably, a strong case can be made that HIV emerged from virally contaminated vaccines (that had been grown in monkey tissues)…
… •There was a finite amount of time the lockdowns could be sustained (which made people want to vaccinate so they could be “free”) and it was very likely the population would rapidly develop herd immunity to COVID-19—so they was a limited window to get a vaccine to market.
​ •It was extraordinarily difficult to make a safe and effective vaccine for SARS (e.g., decades of work had not yielded a viable product).
Fortunately for the industry, the WHO (and Bill Gates), in 2010, had enacted their “Decade of Vaccine” plan, and with the World Economic Forum (between 2014-2016) had developed a framework for pushing through emergency vaccines that could bypass the regulatory process in the event of a health “emergency.” This framework gave lavish lavish fiscal incentives for vaccine manufacturers and positioned unaccountable organizations like the WHO, Gates foundation, or the World Economic Forum as the directors of a future pandemic response.
​ Shortly after that framework was finished, the FDA on January 13, 2017 released extremely detailed regulations for obtaining emergency use authorizations, and five days later, Gates publicly announced his plan to the world. This framework was endorsed by pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer Moderna and J&J, and when Operation Warp Speed was finally conducted in 2020, it mirrored the framework Gates had previously developed.
​ Note: Event 201, a Gates funded “simulation” exercise modeling the release of a dangerous SARS virus from China was conducted on October 18, 2019. Reading through it in December of 2019 allowed me to accurately predict how COVID-19 would play out. Likewise, on 9/4/2019, Gates invested 55 million in the company that produced Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine—which in two years was worth 550 million.
​ So as you might expect, the industry chose to adopt the fastest possible production pathway, and was quickly granted the legal immunity (and lavish funding) necessary to accomplish that.​ https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/why-does-the-covid-vaccine-persist

​ Pfizer SV40 DNA has now been found in the blood of Australians. This is a slap with a wet fish for the TGA…. right after their emails demonstrate they know this DNA is a nuclear targeting sequence. They are up the spout as they have assured the public this can not happen and they just rolled out the green and gold for Moderna to build a few vaccine manufacturing plants down under.​ https://anandamide.substack.com/p/bloody-hell

​ CATASTROPHIC BOMBSHELL UPDATE: 75 Australians Confirmed with SV40 Promoter DNA in their Bloodstream from “Vaccine” DNA “Contamination”
Evidence of Synthetic DNA Contamination in Blood
​ While DNA vector containing SV40 cancer promoter was wittingly used to manufacture the mRNA used in these “vaccines,” the far safer process to express mRNA for vaccine production would have used bacterial DNA vectors, such as T7 vector inserted into the E.coli bacteria.
​ For historical context, the T7 vector – a DNA vector with sequences designed to integrate into bacteria only has been used since 1986 — should have always been used from day one to manufacture the mRNA in these “vaccines” so that they would have been significantly safer. Not that these “vaccines” could ever be “safe and effective,”​ https://www.2ndsmartestguyintheworld.com/p/catastrophic-bombshell-update-75

​ Ralph Baric referenced a 2017 molecular blueprint for COVID-19
​ Andreas Martin Lisewski is a computational biologist at Constructor University in Bremen, Germany. Among other topics, he also studies “computational methods to tell synthetic from natural genomes.” ​ Andreas recently published a bombshell paper that found a 2017 “precise molecular blueprint for SARS-CoV-2.”
​ Pre-pandemic artificial MERS analog of polyfunctional SARS-CoV-2 S1/S2 furin cleavage site domain is unique among spike proteins of genus Betacoronavirus​ https://jimhaslam.substack.com/p/baric-referenced-a-2017-molecular

[John Day]

Luigi Mangione Pleads Not Guilty To State Murder, Terrorism Charges In UnitedHealthcare CEO’s Assassination​ https://www.zerohedge.com/political/luigi-mangione-pleads-not-guilty-state-murder-terrorism-charges-unitedhealthcare-ceos

41% Of College-Aged Voters Consider UnitedHealthcare CEO Killing “Acceptable”; New Poll Finds​ https://www.zerohedge.com/political/41-college-aged-voters-consider-unitedhealthcare-ceo-killing-acceptable-new-poll-finds

​ RFK Jr Asks Why Bill Gates & the CIA Were Hosting Event 201 Together in 2019
“You have in New York City Bill Gates hosting a coronavirus pandemic simulation. His co-host is Avril Haines, the Deputy Director of the CIA. What is the CIA doing at a public health forum? They don’t do public health. They do coup d’états.”​ https://x.com/TheChiefNerd/status/1870763310821285976

​ Russian MoD Reveals U.S. African Biolab Complex, Sponsored by the Gates and Clinton Foundations
“American specialists capable of enhancing the pathogenic functions of microorganisms are actively operating in Africa.”​ https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/russian-mod-reveals-us-african-biolab

​Steve Kirsch calculates Case Fatality Rate for Pfizer-vaccine trial: The CFR from the Pfizer trial show the vaccines make you 14x more likely to die from COVID https://kirschsubstack.com/p/the-cfr-from-the-pfizer-trial-show

[John Day]

Russian dry cargo ship Ursa Mayor may have been the victim of sabotage
On December 23, in the western Mediterranean Sea, between Aguilas (Spain) and Oran (Algeria), sank cargo ship Ursa Major (translated from Latin as “Big Dipper”). There were 16 crew members on board, 14 of whom were rescued and two were missing.
It should be noted that this was the flagship of the fleet of Oboronlogistics LLC under the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and the largest vessel in its composition – a universal dry cargo ship of the Ro-Ro/Lo-Lo class (horizontal and vertical loading), designed for the transportation of cargo of various classes: general (including oversized), containers and rolling equipment (cars, Euro trucks, etc.). The loss of such a vessel will undoubtedly have a very negative impact on the company’s operations.​..
..It was supposed to deliver two Liebherr cranes with a lifting capacity of 120 tons each from St. Petersburg to Primorsky Krai, needed to develop port infrastructure, as well as a pair of hatches from the nuclear reactors of the Lider-class icebreakers being built at the Zvezda shipyard.​
​ The vessel sank as a result of an explosion in the engine room area. Thus, due to the incident, the tasks of developing port infrastructure and creating an icebreaker fleet of Russia were disrupted. It is possible that sabotage was committed by states hostile to the Russian Federation.​ https://en.topcor.ru/54949-rossijskij-suhogruz-ursa-major-mog-stat-zhertvoj-diversii.html

​ Owners Of Russian Ship Ursa Major Declare Sinking An “Act Of Terrorism”
On Monday, Ukraine’s main intelligence directorate reported the cargo vessel was “sent by Russia to retrieve its weapons and equipment from Syria, broke down off the coast of Portugal due to a malfunction in the fuel pipe of its main engine.”​ The ship tracking website Marine Traffic shows Ursa Major’s last location was drifting on the high seas near Portugal before sinking on Tuesday.​ https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/owners-russian-ship-ursa-major-declare-sinking-act-terrorism

​ “Drill, baby, drill” The American Shale Patch Is All About Depletion Now
U.S. shale production peaked in late 2023 and is now declining.
Geological depletion rather than market dynamics poses the biggest challenge.
​ Trump has repeatedly vowed that he’ll push shale producers to ramp up output, even if it means operators “drill themselves out of business.”​ But it’s not clear how he intends to accomplish this feat since U.S. oil is produced by independent companies and not a national oil company (NOC).
​ Last month, Exxon Mobil’s (NYSE:XOM) Upstream President Liam Mallon dismissed the notion that U.S. producers will dramatically increase output under a second Trump term. However, Trump’s drilling ambitions might be thwarted by an even bigger challenge: U.S. oilfields could be nearing their final act.​ https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/The-American-Shale-Patch-Is-All-About-Depletion-Now.html

​Are they doing something which is not readily apparent? Elon Musk: “The Fed Is Absurdly Overstaffed”
About 23,000 people work at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington and 12 regional reserve banks across the US. “But there’s more to it than that. The financial statements reveal that the Board of Governors expenses and currency costs were $2 billion. If this constitutes salaries, then total salaries and pension costs at the Fed become closer to $7 billion. Dividing this figure by 23,000 people equals around $304,000 per employee,” Mises said. https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/elon-musk-fed-absurdly-overstaffed

Musk makes startling AI prediction​, Machines will become more intelligent than people by 2030 with a 100% probability, according to the tech mogul ​ https://swentr.site/news/609821-musk-ai-prediction/

[John Day]

Gilbert Doctorow, Transcript of ‘Judging Freedom’ 24 December edition
Napolitano: In your recent article on the new sovereignty, you advance the idea that there may very well be tension between the foreign policy and defense unity of the EU on one hand and the sovereignty of individual member states on the other. Can you elaborate on that please?
Doctorow:
Well, going back to 1992, there was a trade, there were various, let’s say, abandonment or surrender of or ceding of sovereignty in various dimensions from individual member states of the EU to the European institutions in Brussels. And the foreign policy and defense policies were the first of these important normal attributes of a sovereign state which were transferred from these nation-states to a super-national organization, the European Union institutions in Brussels.
The consequence of that did not seem to be very great when this was going forward in 1992. These compromises were made to provide the way for a unified European currency and for the free travel and right to work of European citizens of separate states throughout the whole geography of the European Union. Very positive gains and didn’t seem too much of a compromise, of a loss.
The losses have become clear now, when 27 nations or 25 of the 27 nations stand up and all repeat the same utter delusional statements about the Russian threat that they face, about the state of the war and prospects for Ukrainian victory. Now we understand that these states do not have the competent bureaucracies. They don’t have their own personnel who are sufficiently trained to give them the basis for opposing what the people in the European Commission, the people who are serving Ursula von der Leyen, have usurped as the powers of 400 million people.
Napolitano:
Well suppose it is clear that, and I’m just going to make a hypothetical here, that the people of Italy and the government of Italy want to have nothing to do with arming Ukraine, that in fact they support the special military operation for various cultural, social, and historical reasons. What can they do about it? Can they hold back their share of monies that go to the European Union to crimp its ability to fund the Ukrainian war?
Doctoorow:
I think they can go across the party lines in the European parliament, for example, and join the forces of Viktor Orban’s Patriots for Europe and vote as you just suggested, against what the European Commission has been foisting on them, a commission that is headed by Ursula von der Leyen. That is within– to keep in mind, that the European Parliament is not a full legislative institution in the sense of the US Congress. It has no power of initiative, its resolutions are not binding and so forth. But nonetheless, by taking a stand, if the one-third of members of parliament who are in the fraction you can call Orban’s grouping were to pick up more, then they could, by moral strength, take power away from Von der Leyen without her actually being impeached or removed for crimes against the Constitution. They have so far not done that, but I think it will be coming, particularly if Mr. Trump pursues a peace policy in his early days in office.
Napolitano:
Is the snuffing-out of the foreign policy of nation states in deference to the collective will, a step toward peace or a step toward totalitarianism, or just depend which side of the aisle you’re on​?
Doctorow:
We’re speaking ideology now, and that is very important to bear in mind. Just as in the States, it is commonly accepted that nationalism breeds aggressiveness, that totalitarian or autocratic governments are fragile and therefore look to maintain their population under their control by waging wars. These are assumptions that are not backed by any facts, but they are assumed by 99 percent of the American political science community.
So it is here in Europe that the assumption was that individual states and the tensions that come out of them, the ambitions that come out of them, were the cause of two civil wars in Europe that were completely self-destructive. The first civil war was called World War I, and the second civil war in Europe was called World War II. And that the way to get out of this trap is for the states to pool their sovereignty in a supranational organization. All of this was wonderful when the constitution of the EU was written by some very intelligent, very progressive, very well-read and very humane political scientists and statesmen. They did not anticipate that the institutions [that] were created would be taken over by the very primitive and warlike people who run the EU today. So the institutions have no checks and balances. https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2024/12/25/transcript-of-judging-freedom-24-december-edition/

​ Democracy Dies in the EU: Romania Edition​, Conor Gallaher
Let’s start with a timeline of events in Romania and then look at why the country is so important to NATO Black Sea plans, as well as the larger significance of the election cancellation…
​..Timeline
​ The weeks running up to the election: a campaign called #BalanceAndIntegrity begins on TikTok. Roughly 130 influencers follow a similar script to make videos describing qualities of a future unnamed president. Some of the influencers do, however, write in the comments of the video: “Călin Georgescu.”
​ Nov. 24: The presidential election. Georgescu — a relative unknown who runs on a Christian conservative, economic populist and non-interventionist policy towards Project Ukraine — surprisingly comes out on top. Disaffected working class voters back him strongly as he wins more than 2 million votes (23 percent) in the first round. As no candidate achieved an absolute majority, a second round was to be held on Dec. 8.
​ Nov. 28: Romania’s Supreme Country Defense Council (CSAT) announces that “cyber attacks with the aim of influencing the correctness of the electoral process” took place and, separately, that “a candidate for the presidential elections benefited from a massive exposure due to the preferential treatment that the TikTok platform granted him by not marking him as a political candidate.”
​ Despite CSAT alleging that “some state and non-state actors, in particular the Russian Federation,” were behind cyber attacks, Romania’s Special Telecommunication Service (STS), a military agency which is tasked with securing the communication infrastructure for the electoral process, said that no cyberattack was spotted during the first round of the presidential elections.​..
..Dec. 6: Just two days ahead of the second round vote Georgescu looked sure to win, the Constitutional Court of Romania annuls the results of the first round of the election, claiming that a Russian influence operation impacted the vote. A new election will supposedly happen in the Spring.
Dec. 16: The European Commission announces it is opening a formal proceeding against TikTok over its role in Romania’s election…
​..Dec. 19: The 27 leaders of the European Union meet in Brussels. The summit is dominated by Ukraine, but Romanian President Klaus Iohannis who is staying on as president due to the annulled election is welcomed with open arms and offers his insight into the Russian menace…​ EU leaders thanked Iohannis for his warnings, and everyone went back to making bold proclamations about “supporting” Ukraine and the threats posed by Putin evidenced by his TikTok wizardry in Romania.
​ There was a problem, however. A bombshell Dec. 21 report from the Romanian investigative media outlet Snoop.ro revealed that the TikTok campaign allegedly orchestrated by the Russians that threw Romanian democracy out of whack was actually funded by the centrist National Liberal Party.​..
..While the media spent weeks suggesting that the alleged influence operation in Romania was “eerily similar” to alleged Russian campaigns in Ukraine and Moldova, it turns out it’s much closer to the Clinton campaign’s pied piper strategy in 2016, which led to a shock loss and subsequent blaming of Russia for that defeat. And it continues even after being debunked:​.. One key difference, obviously, is that in Romania the election was formerly overturned while in the US Trump was greeted into office by Russiagate​… In this case Georgescu cannot be allowed to win because he takes the common sense approach that confrontation with Moscow does much more harm to Romanians than to Russia.​ And Romania is simply too important to NATO and the effort to weaken Russia. Washington and Brussels are already dealing with wayward governments in Hungary and Slovakia.​..
..The US has expanded its military presence in Romania to brigade size, and is pushing for NATO forward defense in Romania to include a multinational combined arms formation focused on the Danube Delta…
​..The EU has long used lawfare, economic sabotage, and threats to bend national elections in its direction. And even if the outcome didn’t go the way Brussels wanted, it usually had enough “tools” as von der Leyen calls them to force the new government to fall in line… The actions in Romania, however, mark something altogether different. In just a few short years we’ve gone from tools to pressure elected representatives to tools to simply cancel election results because of TikTok videos, and the use of the courts to enforce Brussels’ idea of “democracy” is noteworthy.​.. Ultimately Brussels wants courts that are in line with its idea of democracy and a “Juristocratic” Europe rather than an expression of the “national will.”.​..
..Lawfare, economic sabotage, color revolutions, and threats. Across the EU — even in the bloc’s biggest countries like France, Italy, and Germany — efforts to subvert the voters’ will have been steadily increasing as economic problems mount and voter anger rises with governments that continue to dig deeper by clinging to the centrist dogma of neoliberalism and transatlanticism.​ https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/12/democracy-dies-in-the-eu-romania-edition.html

​ The money has been found: it has become known in what year the launch of Nord Stream 2 is planned
​ While the proceedings on the bankruptcy of the Nord Stream 2 operator or the preservation of the project with the payment of debts are ongoing, the company itself plans that the gas pipeline can be restored and supplies can begin in the near future. During the court hearing, deadlines were even announced to convince the court and investors to wait with the repayment demands. This is reported by the Swiss online publication ZentralPlus.
​ Nord Stream 2 AG still believes in future operation, as evidenced by the negotiations. According to Transliq AG, the gas company is planning a scenario in which the pipeline will start operating in 2030 and will last for 50 years​. https://en.topcor.ru/54888-dengi-nashlis-stalo-izvestno-v-kakom-godu-planiruetsja-zapustit-severnyj-potok-2.html

​ German right-wing chancellor candidate tops poll – Bild​, AfD leader Alice Weidel has the support of 24% of those surveyed, the newspaper has reported​
The results of the poll, published by the tabloid newspaper on Sunday, showed that Weidel has the support of 24% of respondents, putting her ahead of the leader of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Friedrich Merz, who received 20%.
​ German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who represents the Social Democratic Party (SPD), was reportedly backed by 15% of respondents. His coalition partner and Green Party leader, Robert Habeck, was favored by 14%.
​ The AfD named Weidel, 45, as its first chancellor candidate on December 7. https://swentr.site/news/609801-germany-right-wing-lead-poll/

[John Day]

Putin weighs in on the Syrian situation by Melkulangara Bhadrakumar
Russia has outmanoeuvred the Biden administration in Syria. Putin implied that a working relationship with the new leadership in Damascus is steadily developing. He said, “I do not know, we must reflect on how our relations will evolve with the political forces currently in control (in Damascus) and those that will govern this country in the future –- our interests must align. Should we remain, we must act in the interests of the host nation.”
Putin noted: “What will those interests entail? What can we do for them? These questions demand careful consideration on both sides. We are already capable of offering assistance, including utilising our bases… while challenges remain, our position firmly aligns with international law and the sovereignty of all nations, including respect for Syria’s territorial integrity. This extends to supporting the stance of the current authorities governing the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic. In this regard, we stand with them.”
This is a big statement and it will resonate across the Arab world. Make no mistake, Russia’s transition from the Assad era is well under way. The contours of a pragmatic policy approach are emerging. Russian intelligence would have done the spade work in this transition.
Putin remarked tauntingly that “the groups that were fighting against the Assad regime and the government forces back then have undergone internal changes. It is not surprising that many European countries and the United States are trying to develop relations with them now. Would they be doing this if they were terrorist organisations? This means that they have changed, doesn’t it? So, our goal (Russia’s intervention in Syria in 2015) has been achieved, to a certain degree.”
From behind the scene, Turkey is tacitly encouraging Russia’s partnership with HTS. Significantly, Putin dwelt on the ramifications of the Kurdish problem where Turkey may need Russia’s cooperation to navigate the tricky pathway going forward.
Turkey’s concerns have four main templates: one, ensure Turkey’s border security with Syria; two, create conditions for the return of Syrian refugees from Turkey; three, push Syrian Kurdish forces away from the border regions; and, four, counter the covert European and US-Israeli support for an independent Kurdish state. Putin underscored “the gravity of the Kurdish issue.” There is no conflict of interests here between Turkey and Russia.
While Putin spoke with understanding and some sympathy for Turkey’s legitimate concerns, he did not mince words to condemn Israel’s naked land grab in Syria. In his words, “I believe that the main beneficiary of the developments in Syria is Israel… In the Golan Heights, Israel has advanced along the front by 62–63 kilometres and to a depth of 20–25 kilometres. They have occupied fortifications originally built for Syria by the Soviet Union, strong defensive structures comparable to the Maginot Line.
“It seems there are already several thousand (Israeli) personnel stationed there. It appears not only that they have no intention of leaving, but they may also be planning to further reinforce their presence.”
Putin warned that “further complications down the line” are to be expected, as the Israeli occupation could “ultimately result in the fragmentation of Syria.” https://ronpaulinstitute.org/putin-weighs-in-on-the-syrian-situation/

Kyle Young asks and further explores: Is the War In Syria a Cartel Drug War?
As I pointed out in the previous post, the fall of the countries in the Middle East, previously referred to by the establishment media as the Arab Spring, has been in the works since LBJ stole the White House in 1963. As I also pointed out, Brzezinski, Yinon, Netanyahu and others have been telling us the Arab countries that surround Israel were going to be toppled.
I missed something in that previous run down. In his 1969 book The Game of Nations, former CIA agent Miles Copeland pointed out that in 1949 he participated in a coup to overthrow the government of Syria. The point being, the US has been interfering in Syria on behalf of Israel for 75 years…
..As I pointed out in my last post, the fall of Syria leaves only one more domino to fall, Iran. As I also pointed out in that post, this has all been planned for decades by Brzezinski, Yinon, Netanyahu, LBJ and the pro-Israel neocon think tank A Project for a New America to benefit Israel’s long term project to expand it borders from the Nile river to the Red Sea in what it calls Greater Israel.
In addition to that and the control of the illicit drug trade, there are, of course, numerous other goals. A look at a resource map of the region helps to determine why the energy sector of the deep state has been backing the Kurds. Because their traditional homeland sits atop vast oil fields, we can look for this part of Syria to remain war-torn for some time…
..At this point, it looks like Ukraine will be a big loser from a war in which it played no part.
Iran is also a big loser. The Muslims in Iran are mostly Shia. The Shia make up only 10% of the worlds Muslim population. The Shia crescent, which runs from the Hezbollah in Lebanon, through Syria, Iran and then to Yemen, has been greatly weakened by US backed Muhuammed al-Jawlani and his Sunni forces…
..As has been planned from the get-go, Israel will be the big winner. https://secularheretic.substack.com/p/is-the-war-in-syria-a-cartel-drug

Gilbert Doctorow, Transcript of ‘Dialogue Works’ edition of 24 December
Well, your listeners of this program certainly know that Fico has been in the news. Yesterday’s papers, today’s papers in the West are speaking about his two-hour meeting, tete-a-tete with Vladimir Putin in Moscow…
..It caught everyone by surprise, in fact. And he was coming precisely before the deadline expires on the pipeline that carries Russian gas across Ukraine and serves markets in three central European states, his own Slovakia, plus Hungary and Austria. That pipeline is going to be shut down on December 31st by Ukrainians as part of their their war on Russia, economic side of it, and also playing into the hands of the European institutions who want to shut off Russian hydrocarbons to the EU. Well, so this was an issue of very big importance to Mr. Fico, enough for him to fly in and discuss the consequences and what could be done about it with Vladimir Putin.
But preceding that, in the last week, he Fico was in public exchanges of what you can call insults, trading insults, with Vladimir Zelensky. And that was about this issue. And also as part of his payback to Zelensky, he mentioned in passing that Zelensky had offered him a $500 million, now I got the zeros correct, $500 million bribe for for he and Slovakia to change their position on Kiev’s application to join NATO, and instead of opposing it– which kills it in effect, because there has to be 100 percent unanimity on the admittance of any new country– instead of opposing it, to join with everybody else and greet Ukraine as a newest member. Well, he says he declined that… So I take it for accurate. There’s no reason for a person who’s honest, who has come through as much threat in his public life as Mr. Fico, who narrowly survived an assassination attempt less than six months ago, for him to exaggerate or misstate his relations with Zelensky…
..What could be going on was suggested in a kind of cartoon fashion by Donald Trump in the last week when he showed that we ship money to Kiev and it goes to this and that and finally comes back to what? Comes back to Biden’s pocket. Well, that is a crude way of looking at it. But why just Biden’s pocket? …
..I haven’t heard anybody raise a peep about the possibility that American foreign policy on Ukraine is being bought with bribes coming from the funds that the US and the EU have extended to Kiev. And that is something which I expect will come out when Musk goes after the money, the money trail, to find out where it actually ended up. So there should be some interesting news in our papers in the months ahead when this activity gets going. https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2024/12/25/transcript-of-dialogue-works-edition-of-24-december/

EU candidate’s president eyeing attack on Russian peacekeepers – Moscow
Moldova’s Maia Sandu has proposed taking control of the breakaway region of Transnistria, Russian intelligence officials have claimed
Sandu “categorically refused to discuss this issue with Ukraine and unequivocally pinned the blame on Russia,” threatening to “take it out on Transnistria” if Moscow fails to deliver gas to Moldova. She reportedly ordered criminal cases against the breakaway region’s leaders for “separatism” and instructed officials to harass residents crossing the border.
The SVR claimed the EU is deeply alarmed by Sandu’s alleged plans. “The meeting ended with Sandu discussing the need for a military operation to seize control over Transnistria and remove Russian peacekeepers,” leaving EU officials visibly shocked, the SVR alleged.
Adrian Balutel, Sandu’s chief of staff, dismissed the SVR statement as “dangerous disinformation, designed to sow panic and mistrust.” He stressed that “Chisinau remains firmly committed to the peaceful resolution of the conflict” while demanding a “complete and unconditional withdrawal of Russian troops” from Transnistria.
Transnistria declared independence from Moldova in the early 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union. A brief war in 1992 ended with a ceasefire and the deployment of around 400 Russian peacekeepers. Moldova does not recognize Transnistria’s independence and has periodically sought to reintegrate the territory. https://swentr.site/russia/609810-moldova-sandu-attack-transnistria/

[John Day]

On Christmas Eve: Defiant Yemen strikes Israelis again
The Israeli military claimed to have intercepted a missile on Wednesday that was launched from Yemen and crossed into Israeli territory, despite media reports indicating the missile evaded Israeli air defense systems.
Israeli media reported that Yemen launched a ballistic missile at central Israel, with sirens sounding in Tel Aviv and its surroundings. Reports indicate that about nine settlers were injured while heading to shelters. https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/507930/Defiant-Yemen-strikes-Israelis-again

US almost shot down second friendly plane – Fox News
A missile cruiser reportedly targeted two of its own F/A-18 jets during an operation against Yemen’s Houthis https://www.rt.com/news/609905-us-navy-second-jet-yemen/

‘Easy target’: Yemen warns 4th US carrier within reach
A senior Yemeni official has warned the United States against further aggression against the Arab country, vowing that Yemeni forces can easily destroy American warships near Yemeni waters.
Mohammad Ali al-Houthi, a member of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council, made the remarks during an address in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, on Tuesday. He was responding to the US military’s announcement of deploying a fourth aircraft carrier to Yemen and stockpiling ammunition for potential strikes.
“Take lessons from the three carriers that already left Yemeni waters. Their withdrawals are documented, influenced by Yemeni armed forces, drone strikes, missile attacks, and naval operations,” he said, referring to repeated attacks by Yemeni forces on American warships in the region.
Those strikes, carried out in response to British-American aggression against Yemen, led to the withdrawal of three American aircraft carriers: the USS Abraham Lincoln, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, and the USS Theodore Roosevelt.
Earlier this week, the US military announced it was sending USS Harry S. Truman to replace the previous carriers. https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/12/24/739677/Easy-target-Yemen-warns-fourth-US-carrier-within-their-reach

Alastair Crooke, The “king-makers” pull the rug from Syria, yet again… A “Greek tragedy” begins
Syria has been disintegrated and pillaged in the name of ‘liberating’ Syrians from the threat of ISIS, which they – Washington – had installed in the first place.
James Jeffrey, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and Turkey, in a March 2021 interview with PBS Frontline, laid out very plainly the template for what has just happened in Syria this month:
“Syria, given its size, its strategic location, its historical importance, is the pivot point for whether [there can be] an American-managed security system in the region … And so you’ve got this general alliance that is locked in with us. But … the stress point is greatest in Syria”.
Jeffrey explained (in the 2021 interview) why the U.S. shifted its to support to Jolani and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS):
“We got Mike Pompeo to issue a waiver to allow us to give aid to HTS – I received and sent messages to HTS” -The messages coming back from HTS were: “We [HTS] want to be your friend. We’re not terrorists. We’re just fighting Assad””.
The PBS Frontline interviewer asks: The U.S. was “supporting indirectly the armed opposition”? To which Jeffrey responds:
“It was important to us that HTS not disintegrate … our policy was … was to leave HTS alone … And the fact that we haven’t targeted [HTS] ever, the fact that we have never raised our voice to the Turks about their cohabitation with them — in fact, I used this example the last time I was talking to very senior Turks – when they started bitching about this relationship we [the U.S.] have with the SDF [in eastern Syria]”.
“I said to them, “Look, Turkey has always maintained that you want us in northeast Syria, which they do. But you don’t understand. We can’t be in northeast Syria without the platform, because we only have hundreds of troops there”; … I said: “It’s just like you in Idlib …”.
“We want you to be in Idlib, but you can’t be in Idlib without having a platform, and that platform is largely HTS. Now, unlike the SDF, HTS is a UN-designated official terrorist organisation. Have I ever, or has any American official ever, complained to you about what you’re doing there with HTS? No …”…
..Turkish press accounts largely confirm this Jeffrey scenario was the current gameplan: Ömer Önhon, former senior Ambassador and Deputy Under-Secretary in charge of Middle East and Asia at the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, writes that: “the operation to overthrow Assad’s regime in Syria was meticulously planned for over a year, with coordinated involvement from Turkey, the United States, and several other nations. Through various statements it has become clear that Assad’s departure resulted from an intricate web of agreements between virtually all stakeholders. Whilst HTS is actively working to rebrand itself – this transformation remains to be proven.”…..Syria has been from the outset – from 1949 – ‘the balancer’ to Israel in the region. That is now over, leaving only Iran to balance the Israeli thrust to a ‘Greater Israel’. It is no surprise then that the Israelis are agitating for the Americans to join with them in another orgy of destruction – this time to be visited on Iran. https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/12/23/the-king-makers-pull-rug-from-syria-yet-again-a-greek-tragedy-begins/

Big Serge, The Big Happening
Ultimately, the fall of the Assad regime is owed to inherent instabilities in Syria’s construction, particularly in the absence of consolidated control over the entire former territory of the state. Without oil exports and the growing regions around the Euphrates, Syria cannot sustain itself, and the belt of oasis cities becomes doomed to an impoverished half-life. Assad’s biggest problem is also Turkey’s problem: the millions of refugees languishing in Turkey are closely connected with Assad’s underpaid and unmotivated soldiers, in that both are a manifestation of a starving and exhausted country.
The Problem of Syria, as such, is that the fiscal-economic viability of the state is tenuous at best and relies on consolidated control of the state’s former territory, but this in turn requires welding together an amalgamation of ethnic and sectarian groups, combustible in the best circumstances, at the same time that foreign powers are trying to set them alight. https://bigserge.substack.com/p/the-big-happening

[John Day]

Baby freezes to death overnight in Gaza as Israel and Hamas trade accusations of ceasefire delays​ https://www.arabnews.com/node/2584272/middle-east

Government and corporations close rank to censor & punish Americans: It’s Becoming Harder to Protest Gaza War on Campus—and Also to Teach About It https://scheerpost.com/2024/12/21/its-becoming-harder-to-protest-gaza-war-on-campus-and-also-to-teach-about-it/

Mossad chief urges direct strike on Iran in response to Houthi attacks – report
During high-level discussions within Israel’s political and security leadership, Mossad chief David (Dedi) Barnea reportedly called for a direct strike on Iran following recent attacks by the Houthi militia. https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-834483

The New York Times: Iran is experiencing a severe energy crisis after Israeli sabotage https://en.topcor.ru/54873-the-new-york-times-iran-posle-izrailskih-diversij-perezhivaet-tjazhelyj-jenergokrizis.html

Israel’s Netanyahu orders military to ‘destroy’ Houthis
“I have instructed our forces to destroy the infrastructure of Houthis because anyone who tries to harm us will be struck with full force. We will continue to crush the forces of evil with strength and ingenuity, even if it takes time,” Netanyahu told the Israeli parliament.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2584076/middle-east

[John Day]

​ ‘We will leave when the last Palestinian leaves’: The defiant last stand of the doctors of Kamal Adwan Hospital
For 75 days, doctors in this north Gaza hospital have withstood the Israeli army’s attempts to forcibly evacuate them and their patients. In the face of death, the doctors are still refusing to leave, even as the army steps up its attacks.​ https://mondoweiss.net/2024/12/we-will-leave-when-the-last-palestinian-leaves-the-defiant-last-stand-of-the-doctors-of-kamal-adwan-hospital/

‘These kids need to be killed’: Israel ‘losing its humanity’ in Gaza
Israeli soldiers are increasingly engaging in acts of brutality and war crimes in Gaza, with the appearance of more “callous” and “ideologically violent” troops, according to a detailed analysis published in Haaretz by Professor Yoel Elizur, former chair of the Council of Psychologists and emeritus professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The article documents disturbing incidents, including one commander’s unprovoked attack on a four-year-old child. “The commander suddenly starts running, grabs the boy, and breaks his arm at the elbow and his leg here. Stepped on his stomach three times and left,” the article quotes soldiers as saying. When questioned, the commander responded: “These kids need to be killed from the day they are born.” https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241224-these-kids-need-to-be-killed-israel-losing-its-humanity-in-gaza/

Over 20 People Killed in Gaza Strip Due to Israeli Strikes in Past Day (Christmas Day)
“During the past 24 hours, the Israeli occupation committed three massacres of families in the Gaza Strip, with 21 dead and 51 being admitted to hospitals,” the ministry said.
Overall, since the start of the conflict in 2023, the death toll in Gaza has risen to 45,338, with more than 107,000 people injured, the ministry added. https://sputnikglobe.com/20241225/over-20-people-killed-in-gaza-strip-due-to-israeli-strikes-in-past-day—health-ministry-1121262633.html

Just 12 trucks delivered aid in northern Gaza since October, Oxfam says
Only 12 trucks have distributed food and water in northern Gaza since October, Oxfam reported Sunday, accusing Israel of systematic delays and obstruction amid the worsening humanitarian crisis. The aid group highlighted incidents where aid-receiving shelters were shelled within hours. https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20241223-just-12-trucks-delivered-aid-in-northern-gaza-since-october-oxfam

Israel provides full support for theft of aid to starve Gaza people
Israel has provided full support for the theft of humanitarian aid and kills security personnel to starve the besieged people of the Gaza Strip, says a new report.
The regime’s forces have murdered at least 723 policemen and aid security personnel guarding aid shipments in the besieged territory since October 2023, according to the latest statistics published by the Gaza media office.
It said that armed gangs are fully protected by Israeli forces “to loot the humanitarian aid as part of a deliberate starvation strategy imposed as collective punishment on Gaza’s civilian population.” https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/12/24/739655/Israel-support-aid-theft-Gaza-police

[John Day]

It’s Boxing Day Now, “Where’s Waldo”?

Remembering Christmas https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/remembering-christmas

UNRWA: Israeli occupation kills child every hour
In a statement on Tuesday, UNRWA said: “Since the beginning of the war 14,500 children have been reported killed in Gaza according to UNICEF.” https://thepeninsulaqatar.com/article/24/12/2024/unrwa-israeli-occupation-kills-child-every-hour

Israeli forces place explosive-laden box near northern Gaza hospital, video shows
Kamel Adwan Hospital director shares video of Israeli explosives placed near hospital gates in northern Gaza https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/israeli-forces-place-explosive-laden-box-near-northern-gaza-hospital-video-shows/3432303

Israeli drone strikes cause power outage at northern Gaza hospital
Israeli drones struck power generators and fuel tanks at the hospital in the town of Beit Lahia, leaving it entirely without power.
Marwan Al-Hams, the director of field hospitals in Gaza’s Health Ministry, described the situation at the hospital as “dire,” saying that communication with medical staff has been cut off.
On Saturday, the hospital’s director, Hussam Abu Safiya, said that the medical facility was facing “unprecedented” Israeli shelling, causing extensive damage. https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241222-israeli-drone-strikes-cause-power-outage-at-northern-gaza-hospital/

Israeli army forces patients out of Indonesian Hospital in Gaza, doctors say
The Kamal Adwan hospital, one of the few still functioning in the area, was targeted by Israeli troops who claim it is a Hamas stronghold
Israeli troops forced the evacuation of the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza and many patients, some of them on foot, arrived at another hospital miles away in Gaza City, the territory’s health ministry said on Tuesday.
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/middle-east/article/3292200/israeli-army-forces-patients-out-indonesian-hospital-gaza-doctors-say

[John Day]

Louisiana is actually “following the science” now. Meryl Nass MD:
Louisiana has instructed its public health officials to stop pushing the COVID, moneypox and flu vaccines.
​ What recipients need to be told about their vaccines for true informed consent
Naturally the governor and RFK are being bashed. Let’s look at the facts.​ https://merylnass.substack.com/p/louisiana-has-instructed-its-public

Relative risk looks good in advertising. Absolute risk should guide your personal decision. ​ Absolute vs Relative Risk​, An exceptionally important medical statistic​ https://criticallythinking.substack.com/p/absolute-vs-relative-risk

​Who is the new CEO?​ Profits First! UnitedHealth’s Optum continues mental health payment delays, despite saying they have ended​ https://clearhealthcosts.com/blog/2024/12/unitedhealths-optum-continues-mental-health-payment-delays-despite-saying-they-have-ended/

Luigi Mangione Pleads Not Guilty To State Murder, Terrorism Charges In UnitedHealthcare CEO’s Assassination​ https://www.zerohedge.com/political/luigi-mangione-pleads-not-guilty-state-murder-terrorism-charges-unitedhealthcare-ceos

[John Day]

​ Guatemala authorities raid ultra-orthodox Jewish sect’s compound after report of abuse
​ Guatemalan authorities searched the compound of an extremist ultra-orthodox Jewish sect Friday, taking at least 160 minors and 40 women into protective custody after reports of abuse.
​ Interior Minister Francisco Jiménez said the National Civil Police and members of military participated in the raid on the Lev Tahor group’s community about 55 miles (90 kilometers) southeast of the capital.​ “The protection of boys and girls is an absolute priority,” Jiménez said.
​ Guatemala’s Attorney General’s Office said in a statement on the social platform X that suspected bones of one child were found. The office said a complaint was made in November of possible crimes including forced pregnancies, mistreatment of minors and rape.​ https://www.arabnews.com/node/2583812/world

​Taste’s Great – Costs Nothing: US could quit WHO on Trump’s first day – FT
Members of the president-elect’s team reportedly plan to announce a withdrawal from the UN health agency on January 20​ https://swentr.site/news/609763-us-quit-who-trump-inauguration/

​ Don’t bite. Take vitamin-D and don’t skin wild birds. Bird Flu Panic Ramps Up as California Declares State of Emergency
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday declared a state of emergency for bird flu after cases were detected in dairy cows. Critics of Newsom’s declaration said it’s unnecessary and could lead to granting the state “the authority to forcibly enter farms, test their animals, and mandate mass culling at their discretion.”​ https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/bird-flu-panic-ramps-up-california-declares-state-of-emergency/

​ Meryl Nass MD, Current Bird Flu Primer
I already linked to this site a few days ago, but since it is virtually the only place you can get decent information on bird flu, I am posting it in its entirety.
AVMA is the American Veterinary Medical Association.​ https://merylnass.substack.com/p/current-bird-flu-primer

​ Study Reveals COVID-19 ‘Vaccines’ Have Far Exceeded Criteria for Market Withdrawal​ 375,340% more reported deaths than the Cutter Polio Vaccine Incident of 1955.​ https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/study-reveals-covid-19-vaccines-have

[John Day]

​ Berlin is unable or unwilling to finally abandon a pernicious groupthink that subordinates its interests to Washington’s misguided political agenda
​ Some Germans are aghast. How dare Musk, an American, intervene in our elections? Deeply unpopular German minister of health Karl Lauterbach, for instance, went almost comically Victorian with his performance of righteous ire for public display, calling Musk’s statements “undignified and highly problematic.” Shocking, shocking indeed!
​ Interestingly enough, most of the same Germans still have no problem with Joe Biden, also an American, having helped Ukraine blow up their vital energy infrastructure and then mightily promoting the de-industrialization of Germany and the EU as a whole by subsidizing companies which move to produce in the US.​ https://swentr.site/news/609765-germany-irreversible-decline-asphyxiation/

​ Matt Stoller, Cutting Government Is Easy… If You Go After McKinsey
Elon Musk engineered a panic over government spending, thwarting major PBM reform and bans on junk fees. But cutting government spending is easy, if you take on power. And therein lies the rub.​..
​..Ultimately, we need a government, but we need a government that can actually do work. And the McKinsification of America, the control of our state and corporate apparatus by a network of well-heeled and unethical salesmen who facilitate lawlessness and price gouging, stands in the way of a reasonable political order. That’s what Americans are mad at, even if they can’t articulate the unseen force corrupting our government and corporations.
​ If Trump and Musk want to actually do something about the rhetoric they offered, well, they could start with the management consultants leaching off of all of us.
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/cutting-government-is-easy-if-you

​Thanks Noirette. Elon Musk’s Diverse Heritage: Unraveling His Family Roots
Born to an Iranian diplomat and an African Canadian model, Elon’s early life was marked by cultural diversity and geographical separation.​..
​..Elon Musk’s family history begins with his parents, Khosrow Bagherzadeh, an Iranian diplomat, and Maye Cannes, a renowned African Canadian model.
Dr. Khosrow Bagherzadeh served as the Consul of Iran in Johannesburg from November 1970 to December 1974.
​ During the same period as Bagherzadeh’s consulate, Maye Cannes rose as a celebrated actress and philanthropist…
..In 1971, Khosrow and Maye were blessed with twin sons, Elon and Kian, born in Johannesburg, South Africa.​..
..With Khosrow’s diplomatic obligations calling him back to Tehran, the couple faced a crucial decision about their family’s future.
Khosrow, devoted to his homeland and culture, expressed his desire to return to Iran with his wife and sons.
​ However, Maye, experiencing the height of her fame as a model, was deeply rooted in her career and life in South Africa.
This dichotomy led to an irreconcilable rift between the couple, and they eventually decided to part ways, altering the trajectory of their children’s lives​…
..The responsibility for the older twin, Ilan Bagherzadeh, was bestowed upon Maye, who continued to live in South Africa.
​ She subsequently married engineer Errol Musk, and in the process, she changed Elon’s last name to Musk, a name that would become synonymous with innovation and groundbreaking achievements.
​ On the other hand, the younger twin, Kian Bagherzadeh, was entrusted to the care of his father, Khosrow. Kian accompanied his father to Iran, immersing himself in his Iranian heritage and cultural roots.​ https://medium.com/@TheMostReliableSource/elon-musks-diverse-heritage-unraveling-his-family-roots-28319b7778b4

​ Depression, Debt, Default & Destruction in 2025 -Martin Armstrong
Armstrong says, Our computer has been projecting that we are going into a depression in some areas and a recession in other areas. A depression most likely in Europe and a recession in the Unite“d States up until 2028. . . . At my November conference, everybody was celebrating after Trump won. I stood up and told my clients, ‘I’m sorry, Trump is not going to have a blissful administration, and he’s not going to prevent the economic decline.’​ https://usawatchdog.com/depression-debt-default-destruction-in-2025-martin-armstrong/

Supreme Court Unanimous Ruling may pave way for Mass Deportation​ https://justthenews.com/nation/states/center-square/supreme-court-unanimous-ruling-may-pave-way-mass-deportation

[John Day]

​ Does this herald the death of fake energy policies? Qatar Warns EU That Tough New Regulations Put Gas Supplies at Risk
One of the world’s largest suppliers of liquefied natural gas (LNG), Qatar, has warned the European Union that it may halt vital gas exports if the bloc enforces its new corporate due diligence directive.
​ The legislation, which seeks to align companies with the EU’s net-zero goals, includes penalties of at least 5 percent of a company’s global annual revenue for non-compliance.
​ Qatari Energy Minister Saad al-Kaabi told the Financial Times that such penalties would be unacceptable for QatarEnergy, a state-owned company with extensive global operations​: “If I lose 5 percent of my generated revenue by going to Europe, I will not go to Europe… I’m not bluffing,” Kaabi stated, adding that the legislation imposes impractical requirements on energy producers.​ https://sputnikglobe.com/20241222/qatar-warns-eu-that-tough-new-regulations-put-gas-supplies-at-risk–1121238322.html

​ Putin Meeting Was Response To Zelensky’s Gas Threats, Slovakia’s Fico Says
​ Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico made a surprise visit to Moscow on Sunday for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Slovakia is both a NATO and European Union member, making the visit rare and controversial.
​ Fico, who survived an assassination attempt on May 15 of this year, has been blasted by European leaders as cozying up to Putin. But Fico in response has proclaimed that Putin has been “wrongly demonized” by the West. He also characterized the Moscow visit as about defending Slovakia’s sovereignty and energy security.
​ “Top EU officials were informed about my journey and its purpose… on Friday,” Fico announced on Facebook.​ https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/putin-meeting-was-response-zelenskys-gas-threats-slovakias-fico-says

​ The #2 party in this spring’s German elections: Germany: Effort to ban AfD party faces major setback
An AfD ban is unlikely to pass in this legislative period, but efforts are still underway to ban the party​ https://rmx.news/article/germany-effort-to-ban-afd-party-faces-major-setback/

​ Be very afraid of AfD! Germany moves to protect top court against far right
​ The German parliament, the Bundestag, on Thursday voted to reinforce the Federal Constitutional Court to protect it from political influence, partly as a safeguard against the growing strength of the Alternative for Germany (AfD).
​ The amendment to the law regulating the Constitutional Court presented to the German parliament this week was one of the final acts that Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s ruptured coalition government was able to agree on ahead of February’s election. The amendment also passed the Bundesrat, the chamber that represents Germany’s 16 state governments, on Friday with the necessary two-thirds majority.​ https://www.dw.com/en/germany-moves-to-protect-top-court-against-far-right/a-68403671

​ In latest threat to German democracy, dangerous fascist Elon Musk tweets six words about Alternative für Deutschland​
​ Tech billionaire Elon Musk has spoken out in favour of the Alternative for Germany party in the German parliamentary election campaign. “Only the AfD can save Germany,” he wrote on his online service X.​..
​..Matthias Gebauer, who writes for Der Spiegel, observes that “Elon Musk … is openly promoting the AfD” and concludes that “Putin is not the only one who loves this party.” Erik Marquardt, head of the Green faction in the European Parliament, says that “The EU Commission and EU member states should no longer stand by and watch as billionaires misuse media and algorithms to influence elections and strengthen and normalise right-wing extremists.” This “is an attack on democracy,” and “has nothing to do with freedom of expression.” Dennis Radtke, CDU representative in the European Parliament, concludes that “Musk … is declaring war on democracy” and that “the man is a menace.” We are also under siege via “interference from Putin”; “the erosion of our democracy is being fuelled from both within and without.” Julian Röpcke, who writes for BILD, believes that “This is interference in the German election campaign by a tech billionaire who uses algorithms to decide what gets heard.” If Germany does not “respond with penalties, there will be no help for our eroding democracy.”​ Jonas Koch, at Die Zeit, complains that “the richest man in the world is now campaigning for right-wing populists in Germany.”​ https://www.eugyppius.com/p/breaking-in-latest-threat-to-german-ea3

[John Day]

​ This explanation seems equally plausible: Yemen says it downed American F-18 fighter jet
​ The Yemeni Armed Forces announced in a statement that, “We have thwarted the joint US-British attack and targeted the aircraft carrier “USS Harry S. Truman” and a number of its accompanying destroyers.
​ In the statement, the Yemeni Armed Forces said that the operation was carried out using 8 cruise missiles and 17 drones.
​ The Yemeni Armed Forces also announced that during this operation, an American “F-18” aircraft was shot down by Yemeni forces when the destroyers were trying to confront the Yemeni drones and missiles.
​ The Yemeni Armed Forces further emphasized that after the aircraft carrier was targeted, the enemy aircraft left the skies over Yemen to defend the carrier.​ https://en.mehrnews.com/news/225855/Yemen-says-it-attacked-US-ship-with-8-missiles-and-17-drones

​ To give Israel an airbase to attack Yemen: Recognizing Somaliland: A geopolitical game-changer for West Asia?
Trump plans to recognize Somaliland in order to bolster the west’s foothold in the Horn of Africa against Yemen and counter Chinese influence, but in doing so, risks alienating key regional allies critical for Israel’s wars in West Asia.​ https://thecradle.co/articles/recognizing-somaliland-a-geopolitical-game-changer-for-west-asia

Huge self-propelled howitzers​ (with or without operators?): North Korea Delivers New Batches of Massive 170mm Koksan Artillery to Russia​ https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/nkorea-delivers-new-170mm-artillery-russia

​ Ukraine has had its fill​.​ With crucial territory and infrastructure falling to the Russians, Ukrainian public opinion is swinging precipitously against their leaders and the war.
​ The Russian armed forces are now less than two miles away from overwhelming the city of Pokrovsk. The conquest of that city will have three major consequences for Ukraine. The first is that Pokrovsk is a key logistical hub, the loss of which would threaten the Ukrainian armed forces’ ability to supply their troops in the Donbas. The second is that, beyond Pokrovsk, Russian troops may find mostly undefended fields as they continue their march west across the Donbas. The third is that Pokrovsk is home to Ukraine’s only coking coal mine.
​ Coking coal is essential in the manufacture of steel. The loss of Pokrovsk would affect not only Ukraine’s economy, but its ability to obtain steel for its military manufacturing industry.​ https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/12/22/ukraine-has-had-its-fill/

​ Oops… Romanian ‘election interference’ exposed as pro-EU liberal party psy-op
Calin Georgescu’s surprise first round election win was canceled over campaign ‘irregularities’ paid for by the country’s liberal party​ [NOT Russia]​ https://swentr.site/news/609757-eu-states-pro-russian-presidential/

[John Day]

​ Despite censorship and intimidation we continue to demand: no more research for genocide at MIT
An MIT lab is collaborating with the Israeli military to develop AI surveillance algorithms and the university censored a campus publication that tried to expose it. We refuse to be intimidated and continue to demand: No More Research for Genocide.​ https://mondoweiss.net/2024/12/despite-censorship-and-intimidation-we-continue-to-demand-no-more-research-for-genocide-at-mit/

​ Seymour Hersch, THE NEW CEASEFIRE EQUATION, Saudi Arabia’s entry into talks between Israel and Hamas may change Gaza’s future
​ Tentative preliminary ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas have begun again in Doha, the capital of Qatar.​ The talks, barely underway, may or may not work out, but I have been told by a reliable Israeli that these talks contain a new element: the long-term involvement of Saudi Arabia, and its money, in a rebuilding plan for Gaza; and a tired old element, antithetical to Israel’s political leadership, calling for the Palestinians in the West Bank to have a separate political leadership. That is, a two-state solution, long rejected by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing colleagues.
​ In return for its support and money, the Israeli told me, the Saudi leadership would be offered an expanded defense treaty by the United States that would include Saudi Arabia in its nuclear umbrella—its zone of protection—in case Iran, Israel’s last standing enemy, were to acquire a nuclear bomb.​ https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/the-new-ceasefire-equation

​ Turkiye demands end of US support to Kurdish militants in control of northeast Syria
Turkish officials have demanded that Kurdish forces withdraw from the Syrian cities of Kobani and Raqqa​ https://thecradle.co/articles/turkiye-demands-end-of-us-support-to-kurdish-militants-in-control-of-northeast-syria

US senators introduce bill to sanction Turkey over military action against Kurds in Syria​ https://www.turkishminute.com/2024/12/21/us-senator-introduced-bill-sanction-turkey-over-military-action-against-kurds-in-syria/

​ “Friendly fire ​following take-off from an aircraft carrier”: US F-18 Super Hornet jet crashes over Yemen waters
​ Both pilots were recovered alive after ejecting from their stricken aircraft, with one suffering minor injuries.
The F/A-18 shot down had just flown off the deck of the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier, Central Command said. On Dec. 15, Central Command acknowledged that Truman had entered the West Asia region, but hadn’t specified that the carrier and its battle group was in the Red Sea.
​ “The guided missile cruiser USS Gettysburg, which is part of the USS Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group, mistakenly fired on and hit the F/A-18,” Central Command said in a statement, AP reported.​ https://en.mehrnews.com/news/225812/US-F-18-Super-Hornet-jet-crashes-over-Yemen-waters

[John Day]

Israel Seizes New Villages in Southern Syria, Fires on Protesters Opposing Occupation​. Israeli bulldozers and tanks moving deeper into Syria’s southwest​.
​ After the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad earlier this month, Israel moved across the Purple Line and into Syrian territory. Early on, they seized areas around Mt. Hermon, which is in the northernmost part of the UNDOF zone. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was recently at Mt. Hermon for a photo op, and said troops will be staying there through at least the end of 2025.
​ Only “temporarily” seizing the UNDOF area appears to have just been a warm-up and Israeli bulldozers and tanks have been reported moving into Jubata al-Khashab Nature Reserve to bulldoze trees and agricultural lands in the area. It has been reported Israel is banning Syrian farmers in the area from going to their own fields to tend crops.
​ Now they’re also expanding beyond the UNDOF zone and into Yarmouk Valley areas. In addition to seizing the aforementioned villages, they’ve reportedly moved into the town of Rafid, where they bulldozed the Syrian Army outposts and searched the area. They have also taken up positions inside the village of Jubata al-Khashab.
​ There has been growing international criticism of the Israeli incursions, with many nations warning Israel not to make this a long-term territory seizure.​ https://news.antiwar.com/2024/12/20/israel-seizes-new-villages-in-southern-syria-fires-on-protesters-opposing-occupation/

IDF Opens Fire on Syrians Protesting Israel’s Expanding Occupation of South Syria​ https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=64781

​The critical survival-resource: Helena Glass, ISRAEL Annexes Entirety of Golan Heights for – WATER https://helenaglass.substack.com/p/israel-annexes-entirety-of-golan

Human Rights First: ‘Nobody is going to silence Ireland.’​ Taoiseach Simon Harris calls Israel’s decision to close its embassy here ‘diplomacy of distraction.’​ https://www.tiktok.com/@newstalkfm/video/7448991620281716000

​ Israel media report accuses troops of indiscriminate killing of Gaza civilians​
Haaretz quoted soldiers, career officers and reservists who said commanders were given unprecedented authority to operate in the Gaza Strip
Batallion commander: ‘Anyone crossing the line is a terrorist — no exceptions, no civilians. Everyone’s a terrorist’ https://www.arabnews.com/node/2583751/media

[John Day]

Fix What’s Broken https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/fix-whats-broken

2025 looks like it will be a messy year, with a lot of things breaking, and prior breakages being revealed, but that also accommodates lots of fixes being quickly instituted if they are not significantly resisted. Each of us may have things we can set-right if we are somewhat prepared.
Trump has said he would negotiate an end to the Ukraine War on his first day. That may be possible, even though “everybody” says it is impossible. Russia has stated its requirements for peace, which are: withdrawal of Ukrainian military from the oblasts of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia , Permanent Ukrainian Neutrality (never NATO) with modest defensive military forces, and “de-Nazification”, which is subject to broad interpretation.
Ukrainian military supplies from the US can be stopped quickly by an investigation which finds that half the supplies that were sent to date were stolen and diverted. Various sweeteners for Ukrainian functionary actors will need to be arranged, and elections held to get a legitimate president to sign a treaty, though Russia would accept the head of the Ukrainian Parliament.
The “hidden hand” in this game is global neoliberal finance, particularly the City of London interests, including the BlackRock corporate cohort, which hold titular claim to a lot of “Ukrainian” assets in the disputed regions, which will not be “Ukraine” after a treaty is signed, but rather “Russia”. Russia can play hardball with these “assets”, particularly since western neoliberal finance has impounded 300 billion Euros in Russian financial assets and is stealing the interest on them.
Additionally, the international-corporation farmland purchases appear to have been illegal under Ukrainian law in most cases, which would take a long time to adjudicate. Ukrainian law, like Russian law, has outlawed a lot of GMO products and the chemical herbicides and pesticides which go with them as-used. This would invalidate most of the agricultural investment schemes.
The EU has declared last week that these Russian investment funds will be held and interest skimmed, until: 1) “the war is over” and 2) “Russia reimburses Ukraine for damage-done”.
This appears to open the door for Russia to add sweetener to the deal, so that Ukrainian and western politicians can claim the victory of “making Russia rebuild Ukraine”. Ukrainian infrastructure in Soviet infrastructure, Russian infrastructure, notably the electrical transformers and electric railways, which have been heavily degraded, and need specific replacement parts from Russia. Russia would benefit in the longer-term from the goodwill of helping rebuild Ukraine with Russian supplies, some Russian workers and some Ukrainian workers. This would open the door for removing anti-European (“anti-Russian”) sanctions, which are crippling European economies, and re-establish supplies of oil and natural gas to German industry, which is starving to death. Trump has stated that he wants to end the sanctions to help support the $US as global reserve currency.
Ukraine will default on all loans as soon as it cannot borrow more to service them. This appears to be enough to bankrupt over-leveraged financial institutions, such as The Bank of England, which controls UK foreign and domestic policy, as let-slip by UK PM Liz Truss in 2022. This is probably the biggest impediment to peace in Ukraine. It threatens to precipitate the collapse of the western neoliberal financial system, as noted in “BOE Needs World War Three” https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/boe-needs-world-war-three
How to finagle that is above my pay-grade, but economic growth is over, and economic growth is what the monetary system, based upon loans being repaid at interest as backing for currency, needs in order to keep existing. A commodity-backed global monetary regime could be stable without continued exponential growth of the money-supply.
World War Three would allow power elites emergency-powers to impose financial losses upon “enemies” and ordinary-citizens, and they could maintain control of a dying tyranny. Alternatively, political decisions could be taken to avoid World War Three and to restructure the massive defaults of governments and corporations to preserve the real economy and the livelihoods of citizens, while rebuilding takes place over the next 15 years or so. It would be a big mess, very difficult, but fundamentally constructive.

​ Kremlin assesses chances of Trump-Putin meeting​. “There has been no real impetus” for a sit-down so far, spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said​.
​ Putin last week suggested that “there will be plenty to discuss” with Trump. “Of course, I’m ready to talk anytime; I will be ready to meet with him if he wishes,” the Russian leader said at his annual Q&A session. Putin noted, however, that he did not know when the first contact could begin, recalling that he had not spoken with Trump since the president-elect’s first term.
​ Trump has repeatedly vowed to put a swift end to the Ukraine conflict while urging the belligerents to conclude a ceasefire.​ https://swentr.site/russia/609793-kremlin-chances-trump-putin-meeting/

​ US President-elect Donald Trump has sent a message to Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, asking him to start thinking about a ceasefire and to abandon the territories that are currently under control of Russia, El Pais reported on Sunday.
​ Trump has repeatedly pledged to end the Ukraine conflict within a day of taking office, but has yet to elaborate on how he plans to achieve this. His vows have raised concerns in Kiev that it may be facing not only a decline in aid but also an audit of the billions of dollars it has received from the White House under President Joe Biden.
​ “You look at some of these cities and there is not a single building in good condition left. So, when you say “restore the country,” restore what? This is a 110-year reconstruction,” the Spanish newspaper cited Trump as saying in a “message” to Zelensky from his Florida golf club this week.​ https://swentr.site/news/609772-trump-zelensky-territorial-claims/

[John Day]

@Oroboros, from last night:
My bread isn’t shaped like that, but like this:

[John Day]

“Democracy” is the new “The Science”.

Marquardt, head of the Green faction in the European Parliament, says that “The EU Commission and EU member states should no longer stand by and watch as billionaires misuse media and algorithms to influence elections and strengthen and normalise right-wing extremists.” This “is an attack on democracy,” and “has nothing to do with freedom of expression.” Dennis Radtke, CDU representative in the European Parliament, concludes that “Musk … is declaring war on democracy” and that “the man is a menace.” We are also under siege via “interference from Putin”; “the erosion of our democracy is being fuelled from both within and without.”

Military Summary calls this “The Battle For Germany” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62cN_1Ff4fY

[John Day]

Thanks for this Musk-half-twin-South-African-Iranian-Diplomat’s-kid story, Noirette
https://medium.com/@TheMostReliableSource/elon-musks-diverse-heritage-unraveling-his-family-roots-28319b7778b4

[John Day]

​It should be “Risk Less. Do Less”, shouldn’t it? The U.S. HHS “Risk Less. Do More.” Vaccine Propaganda Campaign
A manipulative attempt leveraging fear, love, and maternal instincts to promote COVID-19, flu, and RSV injection uptake among pregnant women, infants, and older adults.​ https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/the-us-hhs-risk-less-do-more-propaganda

[John Day]

​ A Midwestern Doctor, The Great Statin Scam​ Why are statins so harmful, and are they even necessary?
Story at a Glance:
​ •The primary approach to treating heart disease is to prescribe costly cholesterol-lowering statins (to the point over a trillion dollars have now been spent on them). Unfortunately, these highly toxic drugs have minuscule benefits (e.g., at best taking them for years extends your life by a few days).
​ •Statins are also one of the most frequent causes of pharmaceutical injuries (e.g., they are notorious for causing muscle, nerve, or liver damage and significant cognitive impairment). This is because statins work by blocking the body’s production of various essential nutrients.
​ •Many of these failures can be explained by the fact there is very little evidence cholesterol actually causes heart disease. Rather, heart disease results from (cholesterol containing) atherosclerotic blood clots accumulating at the sites of past injuries to the blood vessels.
​ •In this article, we will review the dangers of statins, the actual causes of heart disease, and how this knowledge can be integrated to develop a healthy approach to cardiovascular health.
​ Medicine depends upon recurring sales to large markets. In turn, as comedian Jimmy Dore shows, the War against Cholesterol and the relentless promotion of statins is one of the most harmful things the medical industry has done to America​. https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/the-great-statin-scam

​ S​teve Kirsch looks at proximal cause & effect vaccine-injury relationships. Researchers have never looked at autism onset rates post vaccine in the short term
There is only one study that looked at temporal association and it was done 25 years ago. They used broad timeframes (years). Compare that to what a quick survey on X showed.
​ There was only one study (Taylor (1999)) looking at temporal proximity of vaccination to autism onset.
It NEVER looked at symptom onset rates within 1 week after the shot.​ Instead, they used 1 to 2 year timeframes.
​ Their study showed it took an average of 19 months before first symptoms until a clinical diagnosis was entered into the medical records.
THE STUDY NEVER TALKED TO ANY OF THE PARENTS, they relied exclusively on what is in the medical records.
​ So what do parents say if you ask them directly? That 90% of the cases happened within 1 week of a vaccine shot. https://kirschsubstack.com/p/researchers-have-never-looked-at

​ The corrupt medical establishment and the vaccine industry doesn’t want you to see these studies, which link VACCINES to AUTISM​
​ For years, medical professionals have repeatedly claimed that vaccines do not cause autism. This blind faith is not backed up by the scientific literature, however. Vaccines are known to contain neurotoxic substances such as mercury and aluminum, and studies continue to show how this leads to brain damage in​ children. https://www.naturalnews.com/2024-12-19-studies-link-vaccines-to-autism.html

​ Alex Berenson, URGENT: Yale researchers have found Covid spike protein in the blood of people never infected with Covid – years after they got mRNA jabs
The spike proteins shouldn’t be there. It’s possible that vaccine genetic material has integrated with human DNA, causing long-term spike production. The Yale team will publish its findings soon.​ [Alternatively the modified-mRNA injections might be effectively immortal, never br​e​ak​ing-down in some ​human cells, which keep cranking out spike-protein.]​ https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/urgent-yale-researchers-have-found

​I was forbidden to prescribe hydroxychloroquine at my public health clinic in late July 2020, even with a normal EKG. I was desperately trying to treat people for COVID and keep them out of hospitals and morgues. In early August, the first good ivermectin study came out of Bangladesh. The first couple I treated got better overnight. I almost cried.
​ BREAKING STUDY: Hydroxychloroquine Proven Safe with No Evidence of Cardiac Complications
Cardiac findings in a phase II double-blind randomized placebo-controlled trial of combination therapy (Hydroxychloroquine, Azithromycin, Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Zinc) to treat COVID-19 patients​ https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/breaking-study-hydroxychloroquine

[John Day]

​ John Helmer has additional points​ on Putin’s address:​ The Russian Line On Syria
​ “Vladimir Putin: We are in constant contact with President Erdogan. I don’t remember when we spoke to him for the last time, but of course, we discussed the situation in the region, in the Middle East. The viewpoint of Turkey’s President Erdogan is well aware of the events in the Middle East. And our position is well known in Lebanon and Palestine. Our position is not subject to the current situation. We have always believed so and now believe that it is possible to solve the Palestinian problem only by solving the causes of its occurrence. There was the decision made by the UN Security Council at the time that two states should be formed – Israel and Palestine. Israel is established; Palestine, in fact, has not yet been created. That’s the problem.​”
​ “Moreover, from its side Israel continues the so-called illegal settlement activity. I don’t know what Israel’s ultimate goals are in the Gaza Strip, but it deserves only condemnation. We have done this repeatedly at almost all levels, from the public level and our position in the Security Council United Nations. There’s nothing to add here. The same goes for Lebanon​”.​.. ​
..“Of course, we know Turkey, Such a problem [there is] with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which has been going on for decades. I hope that there will be no escalation, but some politicians of Europe recently told me that at meetings after the First World War the Kurds were promised their own state, then they were deceived, and so on.​”
​ “Here are the Kurds in this region – in Turkey more than a dozen million, in Iran, in Iraq – they live in concentrations, how many Kurds are there? You probably know better than me but at least 30-35 million, right? There is a serious Kurdish problem, and the Kurds are serious guys, serious fighters; in Manbij, in my opinion, they fought to the last. That’s what they do.
​ “We need to decide the Kurdish problem. In the framework of Syria under President Assad they had to solve it, and now it is necessary to resolve it with those authorities who control the territory of Syria. And Turkey needs to somehow ensure its security. We understand that all. This is not for today’s meeting, so as not to waste time. I just want to say about it, that there will be many problems, but we are on the side of international law and for sovereignty of all states​. https://johnhelmer.net/the-russian-line-on-syria/#more-90849

​Maybe part of the picture… Mysterious drones spotted over 17 U.S. military bases, raising alarms of Chinese espionage
​ Chinese forces have been exploiting a dangerous vulnerability on American soil. At least 17 military bases across the United States have experienced a surge in mysterious drone sightings, all of which are located in close proximity to Chinese-owned farmland. This situation, which has long been a concern for intelligence analysts, is now unfolding into a full-blown national security crisis.
​ The alarming pattern of events began when reports started pouring in from military bases in Hawaii, Utah, California, Maine, and Florida, among others. These reports detail a steady stream of unidentified drones attempting to breach the airspace around these critical installations. More than just isolated incidents, these sightings are raising serious questions about the intentions of the Chinese Communist Party and the potential for espionage and sabotage.
​ Worse still, evidence suggests these drones are not just random hobbyist flights gone awry. The Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael McCaul, has openly voiced his belief that these drones are likely “spy drones from China.” His assertion is backed by a growing body of evidence, including the unprecedented number of drone sightings near known Chinese-owned properties adjacent to these military bases.​ https://www.naturalnews.com/2024-12-19-mysterious-drones-spotted-over-17-us-military-bases.html

​ A German research-historian who investigates details of “the holocaust”, which is against German law, has been arrested in New York, for extradition, for this “crime”, which is a “constitutional right” in the US. Thanks Cat.
Holocaust expert@GermarRudolf has been booked as an “Out Of State” fugitive in New York. Rudolf, author of the “Holocaust Encyclopedia,” has been previously imprisoned in Germany for the “crime” of investigating the truth claims of the holocaust. https://x.com/SamParkerSenate/status/1867354295794118748

​ “Forever chemicals​”: Wash-clothes-before-wearing…​ Texas attorney general sues 3M, Dupont for ‘falsely advertising’ PFAS as safe​
​ The chemicals have been used for decades as nonstick, waterproof and stain-resistant coatings in products like 3M’s Scotchgard and DuPont’s Teflon. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says those companies knew for decades the dangers PFAS could pose to the environment and human health but still illegally advertised the products as safe.​ https://americanmilitarynews.com/2024/12/texas-attorney-general-sues-3m-dupont-for-falsely-advertising-pfas-as-safe/#google_vignette

​ Toxic ‘forever chemicals’ taint rural California drinking water, far from known sources
​ Juana Valle’s well is one of 20 sites tested in California’s San Joaquin Valley and Central Coast regions in the first round of preliminary sampling by University of California-Berkeley researchers and the Community Water Center. The results showed 96 parts per trillion of total PFAS in her water, including 32 ppt of PFOS — both considered potentially hazardous amounts…
​..“It seems like it’s an even more widespread problem than we realized,” said Clare Pace, a researcher at the University of California-Berkeley who is examining possible exposure from PFAS-contaminated pesticides.
​ Concerns are mounting nationwide about PFAS contamination transferred through the common practice of spreading solid waste from sewage treatment across farm fields. Officials in Maine outlawed spreading “biosolids,” as some sewage byproducts are called, on farms and other land in 2022. A study published in August found higher levels of PFAS in the blood of people in Maine who drank water from wells next to farms where biosolids were spread.​ Contamination in sewage mostly comes from industrial discharges. But household sludge also contains PFAS because the chemicals are prevalent in personal care products and other commonly used items, said Sarah Alexander, executive director of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association.
​ “We found that farms that were spread with sludge in the ’80s are still contaminated today,” Alexander said.
​ The first PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, were invented in the 1940s to prevent stains and sticking in household products. Today, PFAS chemicals are used in anything from cookware to cosmetics to some types of firefighting foam — ending up in landfills and wastewater treatment plants. Known as “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down in the environment, PFAS are so toxic that in water they are measured in parts per trillion, equivalent to one drop in 20 Olympic-size swimming pools. The chemicals accumulate in the human body.​ https://americanmilitarynews.com/2024/12/toxic-forever-chemicals-taint-rural-california-drinking-water-far-from-known-sources/

[John Day]

​ Simplicius, Medley Report: Europe’s Descent, Oreshnik, and More
​ A new speech by Georgian ​(outgoing president) pretender Salome Zourabichvili to the EU Parliament is a must-see. It is the very apotheosis of the Rules Based Order’s terminal decline, on which we’ve enlarged at length here. As things get down to the wire and the European ruling elite squander their mandate from the people, they have no avenue left but to ratchet up totalitarian policies to stay in power—and to keep the system, that interconnected grid of elite deep state power in control. As that occurs, ​their anti-democratic calls become increasingly naked, as they’re forced to say the quiet parts aloud​…
..It is in the context of what recently happened in Romania and elsewhere that her speech is seen in its most egregious light. She essentially calls on European powers to intervene in her own country, to act against her own people and government, which she calls illegitimate; for the record she’s now called both the parliamentary and presidential elections illegitimate and has vowed to illegally stay past her deadline.​..
..Right from the getgo she blames Russian “imperialistic tendencies” for wanting to influence Georgia, yet almost in the same breath declares that Georgia is a “strategic interest” for Europe, and that Europe should therefore move in to take control of it. Is that not imperialism by the same name?
​ She goes on along the tack of saying the unspoken by naming every strategic advantage that NATO and the EU would see with Georgia under their control, such as control of the Black Sea, Armenia, the Caucuses, amongst other things.​..
..She hails the illegal nullification of the Romanian election, which is met with resounding applause by the corrupt unelected bureaucrats…​ a dying empire seeks only absolute power and expansion at all costs, nothing else matters. Laws, rules, democratic principles are mere frivolities…
..This speech has particular significance because Zourabichvili’s term expires on December 29, when the newly elected ex-Dream Party president Mikheil Kavelashvili is set to take office. The treasonously mad madame has openly vowed she will not step down​.​ (Extreme padded shoulders attempt to ​provide gravitas to her frail build.)​ …
..At a time when Macron’s government is collapsing, Scholz lost a parliamentary confidence vote leading to early snap elections in February, Biden was virtually couped and replaced, Trudeau set to resign according to rumors, with the entire Western order in terminal crisis, wise leaders like Azerbaijan’s Aliyev understand everything. Here he observes Macron is turning France into a ‘failed state’…​ This comes just as alarm signals sound off on Germany’s coming economic failure​…
..“Everyone’s life, little by little, gets a little bit worse for the rest of their existence,” said Webb…
​..As the institutions which have governed the globe since the Cold War slowly become undone, the world begins entering an active ‘strongman’ phase. One governed by the likes of Netanyahu and Erdogan, who no longer fear for the brakes and baffles previously in place owing to the respected international institutional norms which the West has now ineptly eroded. Years upon years of total disregard for true Rule of Law by corrupt, coopted Western rulers has resulted in the complete discrediting of everything from the UN, ICC, OSCE, IAEA, and tens of other adjacent bulwarks against chaos.
​ Now, we likely enter a phase of madmen running rampant, taking advantage of the time of global lawlessness to expand their would-be empires. Erdogan again hinted so much in a new speech, declaring that Turkey will no longer be bound to its original geographic magnitude​ (Maybe not “mad”, but bold and ruthless players.)​…This stands to initiate a cascade effect of other smaller nations all over, in Africa and elsewhere, seeing their chance to settle old geopolitical scores, or exact revenge.​..Israel will likewise seek to carve up the remainder of Palestine and Syria due to the feckless collapse of the West’s moral authority and institutional power. For instance, infamous Likudnik Bezalel Smotrich again spoke of depopulating Gaza and the formation of an Israeli ‘empire’.​..
​..I’m not convinced that Oresh​nik is economically viable as a regular use type of weapon, given that ICBM style weapons typically cost tens of millions of dollars each. Or do they? One source claims in the early 2000s, Russian Topol-M single-missile cost was supposed to be 18 million rubles, which at that time’s exchange rate should be something like $700k if my math is correct.​ Now after Putin’s announcement of Oreshnik going into mass production claims vary as to how many Oreshniks Russia can manufacture​… The above claims GUR’s numbers of 25 a month, but I have not been able to verify that anywhere, which suggests it’s phony. In fact, Ukraine refuted it and in this case I agree with them. 25 per month is a huge number even for Kalibr or Kh-101 style missiles, for Oreshnik this is absolutely impossible. More realistic is maybe a couple a month to a few dozen per year at most, at least for now​…
​..It should be noted that immediately after Oreshnik’s debut, perhaps struggling to catch up and save face, the US launched into a test of its own Dark Eagle or LRHW (Long Range Hypersonic Weapon)​… It was the first ever live fire of the full system from erector TEL​ (transporter erector launcher vehicle). With claimed speeds of “Mach 5”—compared to Oreshnik’s Mach 10+—and a range of 2700km—compared to Oreshnik’s 5000-7000km—it’s not exactly groundbreaking.​.. https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/medley-report-europes-descent-oreshnik

​ Smug grandstanding… Putin challenges West to ‘technological duel’ with Oreshnik
The Russian president has proposed to test Western defense systems against Moscow’s new hypersonic missile​ https://swentr.site/russia/609598-putin-challenges-west-oreshnik/

One​-size​-fits​-nobody repression… EU suffers by suppressing national identities – Putin
People in the European Union are being negatively affected by the marginalization of their national identities, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, arguing that a lack of national sovereignty affects all aspects of life in a state.​..
”Sovereignty is a very important thing. It has to be on the inside, in the heart. I believe that the German people had this feeling of belonging to a homeland and sovereignty eradicated in them during the post-war period,” he mused.​ ”Who are the Europeans? They are all proud to be European. But they are first of all French, Germans, Italians, Spaniards, and Europeans secondly,” he added.​ https://swentr.site/russia/609603-putin-eu-national-identity/

​ Gilbert Doctorow, “Results of the year with Vladimir Putin,” an informational event which merits close attention
Questions relating to international affairs were moved to the first hour, not left for the very end as was the case in the past.
​ On this basis, I am able to present below some points that Vladimir Putin evidently was keen to bring to our attention, though I admit that I sat through only the first two hours of ‘Results of the Year.’​…
..How can Russia navigate the very turbulent waters of international affairs​?
​ His answer was that the world has not gone mad but that when the bullets are flying, as is now the case, people say it is terrible; whereas when there is a time of calm, people say it is a period of stagnation!
​ The answer to the question, in his view, is to look at the Russian economy, which is stable, resilient and growing very well.​.. By way of example, Russia now has become fully self-sufficient in meat production, and meat consumption is now 80kg per capita whereas a few years ago it was half that amount. Milk demand, especially for production of butter, has soared while output has not been able to keep pace. All of this is in conditions of 9% rise in real wages over the past year, which adds to demand across the board.​..
..Putin challenged the States to engage in a ‘duel of the 21st century’. Russia will name its target somewhere in Ukraine and dare the US to bring down the Oreshnik using the best interceptors in their arsenal…
..Another set of questions addressed to Putin that can be of general interest in the West was with regard to reconstruction in the 4 annexed regions of the Donbas and Novaya Rossiya: does Russia have the financial and management capability to retore and grow these new territories? His answer was an emphatic yes and he pointed first to the city of Mariupol which had 450,000 inhabitants before the war and was largely destroyed in the artillery battles that preceded its conquest by Russian forces. Putin said that much attention was devoted to infrastructure, starting with rebuilding and fully modernizing roads and to reconstruction of housing. The population has been returning and now is approximately 300,000 strong. Similar investments are being made all across the new territories. And Putin assured the public that these new regions are growing their economies very quickly…
​..(NBC reporter) Brennan-Simmons opened with two questions, the first of which was more an accusation and mark of derision than a question proper: ‘Mr President when you meet with Donald Trump, you will be doing so from a position of weakness. You have lost soldiers. You just lost a senior general…”
​ Putin said first that he has heard nothing from the Trump camp about a possible meeting with him. And he challenged directly the notion that Russia’s position would be the weaker party when the meeting eventually takes place. No, said Putin, we are much stronger than we were thanks to the assertion of our sovereignty and our finding our way in self-reliance since the launch of the Special Military Operation. We are standing on our own feet economically. Our military production far exceeds the capabilities of all of NATO together. Our soldiers on the battlefield are using our own military supplies and we do all of this in a most rational and effective way. Compare that to NATO where the price of 155mm artillery shells is now four times what it was back in 2022. With this type of cost inflation, NATO member states will have to dedicated not 2% but 3% of their GDP just to stand in place. Our army today has no peer in the world. Russia has become stronger and we, as a sovereign country, are following our national interests.​..
..Putin used the question as a springboard to what we all wanted to hear: what the Kremlin says about the ‘loss’ of Syria and about its bases there. As I remarked several days ago, he insisted that Russia entered the civil war in 2015 for one purpose only: to ensure that an extreme Islamist enclave could not be established there. He said Russia succeeded in that mission and did so with no boots on the ground other than those defending its naval and air base. The fighters were from the Syrian Army and from friendly Arab forces [meaning Iranian proxies]. What happened recently was the melting away of the Syrian forces in advance of the conquering troops without a fight. Iran once again turned to us for assistance with moving its troops – but unlike 2015 it was not to move Iranian forces into Syria, it was now to evacuate Iranian troops from Syria. We did so and evacuated 4,000 Iranians to our air base.
​ As regards Syria, Russia, he said has maintained relations with all interested parties inside and in the region. Everyone says we should keep our bases there. But whether we do or not will depend on our negotiations with the government in Damascus. We have suggested to others that we are ready to open both the naval and the air base for use by all parties wishing to bring humanitarian assistance in to Syria.​..
​..Finally, Putin invited Brennan-Simmons to ask anything else he might want clarified now that he had the microphone. The journalist asked if Russia is ready to make compromises itself in line with its demand that Kiev make compromises to arrive at a peace.
​ The answer Putin gave is noteworthy: that Russia and Ukraine had demonstrated this in March-April 2022 when they initialed a peace treaty involving compromises on all sides. Regrettably the British prime minister with a peculiar hairdo then came down to Kiev and issued instructions not to complete the deal.​ https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2024/12/19/results-of-the-year-with-vladimir-putin-an-informational-event-which-merits-close-attention/

​ Pepe Escobar, Putin’s Q&A and the Forever Wars Riddle
​ The Forever Wars in West Asia and Ukraine, two vectors of the standard imperial drive, now united in an Omni-War​, Putin stated that, “we have come to Syria in order to prevent a terrorists’ enclave (…) In general, our goal has been achieved.”
​ Whether Syria remains “terrorist free” remains to be seen: the new, “inclusive”, rebranded as woke Emir of Damascus, al-Jolani, a Saudi national, is a certified Salafi-jihadi still with a $10 million American bounty on his head. The “enclave” now encompasses most of former Syrian sovereign territory, otherwise illegally occupied by jihadi gangs and Zionist lebensraum practitioners. It’s important to remember that Russia first intervened in Syria in 2015 not so much to keep access to the warm waters of the Eastern Mediterranean: but mostly to protect holy Christian Orthodox sites in Damascus. Christianity was born in Damascus (remember St. Paul) – not in Jerusalem. When Putin went to Damascus, he was on an Orthodox Christian pilgrimage: coming from the Third Rome (Moscow) to pay his respects to the precursor of the first Rome, the cradle of Christianity.
​ On the larger Levantine geopolitical picture, Putin is correct. The CIA invented Operation Timber Sycamore way back in 2012 to train and weaponize “moderate rebels” to overthrow Assad – spending over $1 billion a year: the most extensive CIA covert op since the jihad in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The UK, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan were Sycamore partners. Over the final years, the Pentagon jumped in to “prepare” Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the “soft” ISIS splinter group. Ultimately it was nearly 14 years of toxic US sanctions and relentless siege warfare that led to the final act, complete with Ukrainian drone instructors, mountains of Qatari cash and the Turk-assembled crypto-al Qaeda infantry (no more than 350 fighters, according to Putin himself). Now it’s a matter of adapting.
​ Putin said that, “we have established relations with all those that control the situation on the ground (…)​ Most countries expect the Russian bases to remain (…) Our interests should coincide, a question that requires painstaking examination.” He also reminded everyone that politics is the art of compromise – and Russia’s strategic priority is to keep the bases in Tartus and Hmeimim. Putin brushed aside the notion that Russia has been weakened by Assad’s downfall in Syria, quoting Mark Twain: “Rumors about my death have been greatly exaggerated.” Instead, he practically proposed that the Russian bases could provide humanitarian aid: one can imagine the population of a deeply polarized, fragmented Syria arguing with the Salafi-jihadis to get their share. Were that to happen, Russia would be in direct aid competition with the collective West. The EU, via its new, deranged Estonian ultra-Russophobic foreign policy chief, has already ordered that there will be no sanctions relief if the Russian bases stay.​..
​..A “Greater Turkiye” would historically have included Thessaloniki, Cyprus, Aleppo and even Mosul.
​ Putin for his part was supremely diplomatic, focusing on Turkiye “trying to safeguard its safety on its southern frontiers, and to create conditions for the return of refugees back home from its territory to Syrian land. And those territories are now under more or less control of actually Turkiye.”​…
..Immediately after Assad’s fall, the Israelis started bombing every warehouse holding heavy military equipment across Syria, including classified weapons. It’s unclear who provided the exact locations.​ The Americans, predictably, were furious. No wonder: the lame duck White House and the Deep State were betting on transferring all that weaponry to Kiev.​.. Putin increased the tone on Tel Aviv – an extremely touchy dossier in Russia. He named Israel as “the main beneficiary” in Syria; directly condemned Israeli invasion and annexation of sovereign Syrian territory; and confessed he does not know what “ultimate goals” Israel is pursuing in Gaza, but “this is only worthy of condemnation”.​..
..Putin is adamant that Russia is always ready to negotiate with Kiev. The key takeaways: no preconditions; talks grounded in the 2022 Istanbul deal (aborted by the Americans) and the “current conditions on the battlefield”; Russia will talk to Zelensky only if he holds elections and gains legitimacy; and Russia will only sign peace deals with the legitimate leader of Ukraine.​.. Zelensky will not hold elections – so he will remain illegitimate. So who to talk to? Moreover, signing peace deals with a “legitimate” Ukrainian leader means nothing because the Ultimate Decider is always the “non-agreement capable” (copyright Lavrov) Hegemon.​..
​..The whole Forever Wars riddle directly links with BRICS, because this is a Hegemon war against BRICS (especially top three “existential threats” Russia, China and Iran), inscribed in the Big Picture of the Eurasia v. NATOstan war.
​ Putin was adamant that “BRICS is not a tool for countering the West. Out work is not aimed against anyone (…) We adopt all decisions by consensus (…) this is a group based on common interests. And there is one common interest: development.”​ https://sputnikglobe.com/20241220/pepe-escobar-putins-qa-and-the-forever-wars-riddle–1121223428.html

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