Pablo Picasso The classical head 1922
George
https://twitter.com/i/status/1868072338295550087
Rogan
https://twitter.com/i/status/1867888537238216846
Watters
Aren’t you sick of a government run by politicians, professors and economists? You know, people with no real life experience, who don’t know how things actually work. Well, this time it’s different — we’re bringing in men and women who know how to create things from scratch, and… pic.twitter.com/AURMhYYipK
— Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) December 14, 2024
Jesse Watters: "The MAHA movements go into food court. First of its kind lawsuits, accusing top food companies of designing addictive foods and drinks and marketing them to kids, causing chronic diseases. Coca-Cola, Kraft, Heinz, Nestle, just some of the major companies hit with… pic.twitter.com/ncF8zkpz6H
— Camus (@newstart_2024) December 14, 2024
Siri
This video is long but very informative…
Aaron Siri: "And this is the FDA's own website, their own information in which it's made explicitly clear that the follow-up for some of these vaccines is just five days. So if they go and see someone, if they check in on someone five… pic.twitter.com/HC72CWnhkS— Camus (@newstart_2024) December 14, 2024
RFK Amish
RFK Jr: A researcher named Dan Olmsted "was very curious about unvaccinated populations, and the Amish are one of those populations."
"So he went and he did a study of the Amish… Following the national trends, there should have been about 2,000 autism cases. And they were able… pic.twitter.com/8WRcOMJieP
— Wide Awake Media (@wideawake_media) December 13, 2024
Spring self cleaning.
• Self-Deportation Comes To Washington Ahead Of Trump’s Return (JTN)
Government bureaucrats are abandoning ship ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House, anticipating either their termination or an intolerable upending of the status quo at their agencies. Trump has vowed to thoroughly overhaul the executive branch agencies, in part through his new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. The duo have called for drastically reducing the size of the government bureaucracy by encouraging voluntary departures through the end of remote work and the relocation of key agencies out of the D.C. area. Thus far, it seems to be Trump’s appointees, and the prospect of working under them, that is doing much of the heavy lifting in driving out longtime agency employees. Former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., for instance, caused such an uproar within the Department of Justice over the prospect of his confirmation as attorney general that it prompted a litany of headlines about “anxiety” within the DOJ and potential mass retirements.
Though Gaetz withdrew his nomination, the phenomenon appears to go beyond the Florida lawmaker and high profile officials have resigned from other agencies ahead of their impending replacement. Trump’s backup pick of ex-Florida AG Pam Bondi appears to have DOJ officials quaking in their boots. Some key government officials, including those whose posts are not necessarily tied to political appointments, have taken it upon themselves to exit government service in light of the initiative and Trump’s return. Wray replaced James Comey as FBI director after Trump fired Comey in his first term. Wray could have conceivably stayed on for a few more years as the office has a ten-year service limit. But Trump previously made clear his dissatisfaction with Wray and nominated Kash Patel, a stalwart loyalist and former federal prosecutor at the U.S. Department of Justice to succeed him.
Rather than face termination, Wray resigned this week and cleared the way for Trump to put Patel in the post. Despite some internal agency grumblings, Patel seems to have a clear path to confirmation, with even moderate and neoconservative lawmakers expressing optimism that he will secure confirmation to the post. Wray’s management of the FBI came under intense scrutiny from conservatives, especially during the Biden administration, over its apparent politicization and targeting of conservative parents and Christians as potential “domestic terrorists.” . Patel, for his part, has previously described a system within the bureau wherein those responsible for mistakes often receive promotions to mask broader FBI errors.
“Every person implicated in your mistakes has an interest in covering up what they did, so they will promote you. That means the people at the very top are usually the most immoral, unethical people in the entire agency,” he wrote in his 2023 book “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy.” Patel has vowed a large-scale “house cleaning” effort to reform the bureau and is thoroughly on board with relocating portions of the FBI out of D.C. FAA chief Michael Whitaker announced on Thursday that he would resign in January, after serving since October 2023. The job is typically a five-year post and Whitaker’s departure opens the path for Trump to pick a replacement. His resignation led to bipartisan disappointment in light of broad approval of his handling of the position.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, for instance, said that Whitaker had “ably led the agency during a challenging period” while Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., called his resignation “unfortunate.” The FAA chief works with the Secretary of the Department of Transportation, an ordinarily non-contentious post that has attracted attention under the Biden administration amid train derailments and mass airport disruptions and closures. “This has been the best and most challenging job of my career,” he said. Trump has nominated former Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wisc., to serve as Transportation secretary, but has yet to announce a successor for Whitaker. Gensler announced in late November that he would step down on Jan. 20, despite his term ending in 2026, NPR reported at the time. Security and Exchange Commision (SEC) chairs serve a five-year term and the president can’t technically fire Gensler, despite his vow to do so. His resignation solved that issue for Trump, who nominated Paul Atkins to replace him.
“Paul is a proven leader for common sense regulations,” Trump said. “He believes in the promise of robust, innovative capital markets that are responsive to the needs of Investors, & that provide capital to make our Economy the best in the World. He also recognizes that digital assets & other innovations are crucial to Making America Greater than Ever Before.” Throughout Gensler’s tenure, he came under repeated scrutiny from Trump Media & Technology Group CEO Devin Nunes, who accused him of politicizing the SEC to slow-walk the company’s merger with Digital World, which ultimately went through after lengthy delays. That merger permitted the company to appear on the stock exchange and resulted in Trump making billions.
Though not a voluntary departure, Democrats lost another key official they had hoped to keep in place during Trump’s second term this week when independent Sens. Joe Manchin, W.V., and Kyrsten Sinema, Ariz., joined with Republicans to tank Lauren McFerran’s renomination to the National Labor Relations Board. The vote ended her tenure and cost Democrats their majority on the panel. The panel is a key intermediary between unions and the firms that employee their members. Republicans will accordingly have an opportunity to confirm two members to the panel and claim the majority on the board. The narrow, 49-50 vote saw Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, fly from Mar-a-Lago to vote, The Hill reported.
It’ll be busy.
• Trump Invites World Leaders, Not Their Messengers, To Inauguration (JTN)
Up until now, formal international representation at U.S. presidential inaugurations has usually been limited to ambassadors and other diplomats. National leaders have preferred one-on-one meetings with the incoming U.S. leader in the weeks and months following his installation rather than being another face in the crowd. That precedent will be broken on Jan. 20, 2025. The international guest list for Donald Trump’s inauguration as the nation’s 47th president is still not firm five weeks out. But indications are that – despite some high-profile leaders who said they won’t come – it’ll be the largest gathering of national leaders in Washington at least since the state funeral of George H. W. Bush in 2018. Reports are that Trump and his team have extended multiple invitations to world leaders, either directly or indirectly as the 78-year-old Trump looks to use the event to pat international friends on the back and strengthen ties with others.
The most notable head of state likely to be at the capitol on Inauguration Day is Benjamin Netanyahu: Israeli media reports the country’s prime minister is leaning toward coming to Washington, D.C. to help welcome Trump back to the White House for his second term. If Netanyahue does make the trip, it will be amid high tensions in the Middle East and despite a warrant for his arrest for alleged war crimes issued by the International Criminal Court that is binding in 124 countries (Israel and the U.S. are not among the them). Almost sure to come are Argentinian President Javier Milei and Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister. Milei and Meloni are both eager to strengthen ties with the White House: Milei attracted headlines last month when he enthusiastically danced to “YMCA” – the unofficial Trump anthem – while visiting the president-elect in Mar-a-Lago last month.
Regarding vocal supporter Meloni, Trump cut off an Italian reporter asking about her this week to gush, “She’s fantastic. She’s a fantastic leader and a person!” Viktor Orban of Hungary has met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago twice since July, and he is a good bet to come back in January, while there are reports that Trump personally called Nayib Bukele of El Salvador to invite him to attend. Donald Trump Jr. attended Bukele’s inauguration as his father’s envoy in June and it’s hard to imagine the El Salvadorian wouldn’t come to D.C. Among those unlikely to show up at the inauguration are Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. It is confirmed that Trump invited Xi to the Jan. 20 event even as ties between the countries were strained by Trump’s threats of record high tariffs on Chinese goods. But while the invitation is seen as having some symbolic value experts say there is little chance Xi would accept.
“Can you imagine Xi Jinping sitting outdoors in Washington, D.C., in January, at the feet of the podium, surrounded by hawkish members of Congress, gazing up at Donald Trump as he delivers his inaugural address?” the Associated Press quoted former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Danny Russel as saying. Russian media, meanwhile, has reported that Putin has not been asked to attend. Trump and Putin have had strong ties dating back to their bilateral summit in Finland during Trump’s first term. But asked whether Putin had received an invitation to the inauguration this week, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said only, “No, he has not” without elaborating. Putin’s absence may open the door for Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky to further lobby Trump for the U.S. to continue supporting his country’s war effort against Russia.
There is no formal indication that Zelensky will attend the inauguration, but the Ukrainian has been working hard to curry favor with Trump since his election victory – including a trilateral meeting this week in Paris during the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral. There, Zelensky thanked Trump for his “strong resolve” to end the 30-month-old war even though it is far from certain Trump would do so in Ukraine’s favor. The third leader in the Trump-Zelensky trilateral in Paris, for the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral, was French President Emmanuel Macron, the event’s host. As with Zelensky, it does not appear that Macron has formally been invited to the event, but, also as with Zelensky, Macron has rarely passed up an opportunity to cozy up to Trump in recent weeks despite past political differences.
Macron was the first world leader to formally congratulate Trump on his electoral victory in November (beating Italy’s Meloni by six minutes), and in Paris this week he showed he was willing to work with Trump despite the president-elect’s low approval levels in France and Macron’s domestic political challenges.
“After Trump sued for defamation, Stephanopoulos was a pissy little midget..”
• ABC To Pay Trump $15 Million For Defamation, Issue Apology (ZH)
ABC News and star anchor George Stephanopoulos have reached a settlement with Donald Trump for $15 million, after Stephanopoulos asserted that Trump was found “liable for rape” in a civil case while interviewing Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) last March. After the network played a clip of Mace discussing being a victim of rape, Stephanopoulos asked: “How do you square your endorsement of Donald Trump with the testimony we just saw?” “You’ve endorsed Donald Trump for president. Judges and two separate juries have found him liable for rape and for defaming the victim of that rape,” the host continued, referring to the case brought by Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll. During his contentious discussion with Mace, Stephanopoulos repeated the claim 10 times despite the fact that a jury only found Trump liable for “sexual abuse” – which under New York law is distinctly different from rape.
“After the federal jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse, but not rape, Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote in a later ruling that just because Carroll failed to prove rape “within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’” [..] The settlement was publicly filed on Saturday, revealing that the two parties have come to an agreement and avoided a costly trial. According to the settlement, ABC News will pay $15 million as a charitable contribution to a “Presidential foundation and museum to be established by or for Plaintiff, as Presidents of the United States of America have established in the past.” Additionally, the network will pay $1 million in Trump’s attorney fees.” -Fox News
After Trump sued for defamation, Stephanopoulos was a pissy little midget – telling CBS late-night host Stephen Colbert that he wouldn’t be “cowed out of doing my job because of a threat,” Fox notes further. “Trump sued me because I used the word ‘rape,’ even though a judge said that’s in fact what did happen. We filed a motion to dismiss.” “The settlement came after U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisette M. Reid recently ordered Trump and Stephanopoulos to attend an in-person deposition hearing next week ahead of the Dec. 24 deadline for the defendants to file a motion for summary judgment, in order to avoid a trial.
In his lawsuit against Stephanopoulos and ABC, Trump was represented by Florida attorneys Alejandro Brito and Richard Klugh, who also represent the president-elect in his legal case against CNN. The settlement with ABC was filed in the Southern District of Florida Federal Court where both parties signed and agreed to the terms.” -Fox News. The settlement is the latest in a string of legal victories for Trump – ranging from the dismissal of his 2020 election fraud lawsuit, to his classifieds records case. Trump was also granted a request to file a motion to dismiss in his New York ‘Stormy Daniels’ case. Trump is separately suing CBS News for $10 billion in damages over “deceptive conduct.”
“Washington reportedly plans to deliver “hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds, thousands of rockets, hundreds of armored vehicles, and other critical capabilities” between now and January 20..”
• Biden Planning Last-minute Ukraine Arms Surge – CNN (RT)
The outgoing administration of US President Joe Biden is preparing a significant surge in weapons deliveries to Ukraine in the final weeks of his tenure, a senior official told CNN on Thursday. President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized Biden’s handling of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev, and campaigned on a promise to resolve the hostilities “within 24 hours.” However, since his election victory in November, he has not disclosed any detailed plans for achieving that goal. The US Department of Defense “is undertaking a historic effort to move massive quantities of weapons into Ukraine in the next five weeks,” the unnamed official told CNN. Washington reportedly plans to deliver “hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds, thousands of rockets, hundreds of armored vehicles, and other critical capabilities” between now and January 20, when Trump returns to the White House.
According to the source, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan is leading an interagency effort to facilitate the deliveries. In November, he directed Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to “accelerate” the movement of various arms, including armored vehicles and missiles. The unnamed official stressed that despite the increased military support, there are no American troops deployed in Ukraine, and that this situation will not change. Since the start of the conflict, US weapons have been transported to Ukraine via Europe, but the upcoming surge will reportedly involve a substantial number of flights and sea vessels to ensure swift arrival. On Thursday evening, Biden authorized a new $500 million weapons package for Ukraine, which includes air defense, artillery, drones, and armored vehicles.
Since the escalation of hostilities in February 2022, the US Congress has approved over $174 billion in aid to Kiev. Biden has also given the greenlight for Ukraine’s strikes deep into Russia using US-supplied missiles. Trump has slammed the decision as “a very big mistake”. In an interview with Time magazine earlier this week, he said such attacks are only “escalating this war and making it worse.” That echoed the view of Moscow, which has repeatedly warned that long-range strikes will only worsen the conflict and be seen as NATO’s direct participation in the hostilities. “In this case we take the same view of the reasons for the escalation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday, adding that Trump’s opposition to Ukraine’s use of American long-range missiles “appeals” to Moscow.
“..dozens of Americans have or will be coming home in body bags, and U.S. weaponry got crushed and surprise! Not a peep in U.S. corporate media..”
• Biden Aims to Go Out With a Bellicose Bang (Ottenberg)
Having failed thus far to ignite Nuclear Armageddon, what’s up next for the U.S. military industrial complex? I’ll tell you: New bases in Europe, 47 of them, to be exact, in Scandinavia in coming years. That’s Joe Biden’s legacy, a blood transfusion to NATO’s moribund carcass by adding Finland and Sweden and thereby ballooning the Empire’s global military footprint, a footprint of over 800 imperial foreign military bases already bankrupting us Welp, we’re gonna get 47 more, per journalist Patrick Hennigsen, and they’re gonna be near Russia. If you’re a Finn or a Swede, you might want to consider emigrating, since the pusillanimous NATO to which you now belong has set you up as a tripwire for the Atomic Apocalypse. That’s Biden’s legacy. Don’t think for a minute these bases make anyone safer. Quite the contrary. Besides being hugely provocative and thus endangering the local population, the bases’ U.S. soldiers are in harm’s way.
Moscow eloquently demonstrated this on November 25. That was when Russia retaliated for recent ATACMS assaults, manned and operated by U.S. personnel. Most of that personnel are now dead. That’s because Russia shot its unstoppable Iskander missiles at the launchers, killing at least 30 U.S. operators. Also “up to 40 fighters, mostly from the U.S. were eliminated in a missile strike on a command center…in the city of Kharkov on November 25,” RT reported November 28 [“Russian Defense Ministry reveals response to long-range Ukrainian strikes”]. This is the fate that may await U.S. soldiers on foreign military bases, because Russia’s extensive weapons menu is chock-a-block with all types of hypersonic missiles against which the west is defenseless. And Washington’s so busy provoking Moscow, that the kremlin will much more eagerly share this technology with its allies – China, Iran and North Korea – than it did before Joe “War Is My Legacy” Biden idiotically triggered Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
So dozens of Americans have or will be coming home in body bags, and U.S. weaponry got crushed and surprise! Not a peep in U.S. corporate media. That’s because our news outlets report American, ahem, “Ukrainian” strikes on Russia, using our vaunted but really mainly symbolic ATACMS, and report it with great fanfare, groveling before supposed superlative American weapons, but the consequences? The punishment? Not so much, since, Gee, that might make Biden and by extension Washington look bad. Can’t have that in American legacy news media. But hey, the Hindustan Times reported it, with headlines, like, “Russia Reduces Ukraine’s Western Weapons to Rubble,” and “Ukraine Loses All ATACMS, Storm Shadows? ‘NATO Train’ with Long-Range Missiles Blown Up by Russia.” How reassuring to know some nations still have a free press, even if they are halfway across the globe.
He wants the time to stop changing twice a year, whether that’s the “old time” or “new time”.
• Trump Calls For Ending Daylight Saving Time (JTN)
President-elect Donald Trump on Friday vowed Friday that the Republican Party would work to end Daylight Saving Time. “The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t! Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation,” Trump posted on Truth Social. The Senate, in March 2022, passed legislation to making Daylight Saving Time permanent, though it did not become law. “I think the majority of the American people’s preference is just to stop the back and forth changing… but beyond that, I think their preference is, certainly based on today’s vote and what we heard certainly is to make daylight saving time permanent,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said at the time.
It could only be messy.
• Biden Never Considered Specifics of the 1500 Clemency Cases He Commuted (PJM)
A “Massachusetts woman on Biden’s clemency list was sentenced for ‘lethal’ fentanyl trafficking conspiracy,” according to the Boston Herald. She led a “large-scale criminal enterprise that reaped hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits and caused untold misery.” “Former Dixon Comptroller Rita Crundwell stole $53 million from the little town, a crime so notorious that a documentary was made — highlighting that she perpetrated the largest case of municipal fraud in American history,” reports Politico. Perhaps most incredibly, the “Cash for Kids” judge in Pennsylvania who wrongly sent dozens of minors to a for-profit prison and got kickbacks for it, was released without any examination of the facts of his case.
“The White House commuted the sentence of the judge at the center of a notorious ‘kids-for-cash’ scandal without considering the specifics of his case, beyond whether it fit into a broad set of criteria,” reports Politico. We can assume the rest of the cases of the 1500 prisoners were also examined just as thoroughly. The governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, strongly disagreed with Biden’s decision to commute the sentence of former judge Michael Conahan, who was convicted in 2011 and sentenced to 17 years, only to be released to house arrest during the pandemic. “I do feel strongly that President Biden got it absolutely wrong and created a lot of pain here in northeastern Pennsylvania,” Shapiro, a Democrat, said at an event on Friday. Conahan, he said, “deserves to be behind bars, not walking as a free man.”
The mother of one teen wrongly sentenced by Conahan who then committed suicide, Sandy Fonzo, said she was “shocked…and hurt” by Biden’s clemency. “Conahan‘s actions destroyed families, including mine, and my son‘s death is a tragic reminder of the consequences of his abuse of power,” Fonzo told a local publication. “This pardon feels like an injustice for all of us who still suffer. Right now I am processing and doing the best I can to cope with the pain that this has brought back.” Rita Crundwell, the Dixon, Illinois comptroller who stole $54 million to fund a lavish lifestyle of expensive homes, dream vacations, and some serious bling, was sentenced to 20 years. She served less than half that time. “With my deteriorating health condition and the danger of the Covid 19 pandemic, I feel like I have been given a death sentence,” she wrote to the judge, asking to be released during the pandemic.
Chicago’s WGN reported Thursday: “The judge denied release but the following year the Bureau of Prisons put her on home confinement even though she had only served less than half her sentence. Former US Marshal Jason Wojdylo met with Crundwell in prison several times as he worked to sell her assets.“She conveyed to me more of a sense of disgust that she had been sentenced that long,” he said back in 2021. “She was very visibly shaken by the fact she was serving a nearly 20 year sentence.” So she’s not sorry about her crime. Shouldn’t “remorse” have been one of the top criteria Biden should have looked at? With Biden’s mania for being “the first, “the best,” “the biggest,” and “the most,” it’s not surprising that he and his aides gave little thought to the specifics of the cases, as long as they “fit into a broad set of criteria” for release.
What a broken record sounds like in French.
• Macron To Push For Sending EU Troops To Ukraine (RT)
French President Emmanuel Macron plans to urge EU leaders to send a peacekeeping mission to Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire with Russia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported on Friday, citing sources. The force would be tasked with observing a truce, if peace talks between Moscow and Kiev are successful. According to the US state-funded news outlet, the French leader plans to discuss the issue at next week’s EU summit. The idea of sending Western peacekeepers to Ukraine was reportedly pitched by US President-elect Donald Trump at his December 7 meeting with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky and Macron in Paris. According to an earlier report by the Wall Street Journal, Trump has been drafting proposals for a diplomatic solution to the conflict, and wants European nations to play a leading role in monitoring a ceasefire.
The idea was later discussed by British and French officials, according to media reports, and Macron was said to have presented it to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk during their meeting in Warsaw earlier this week. Tusk, however, said no such plans are in place “for the time being” for either Poland or the rest of the EU. Warsaw, one of Kiev’s staunchest backers, will assume the EU Council presidency next month. Discussions on the topic are reportedly still at an early stage, and it is unclear which countries could be involved, and how many troops. A number of EU officials have also cautioned that it is premature to discuss peacekeepers’ deployment at this stage in the conflict. The EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, stressed on Thursday that Russia and Ukraine first need to agree to a ceasefire for any peacekeeping missions to be possible. She also noted that it would be “up to every single European country” to decide whether to participate in such an effort.
Sources told Radio Free Europe the matter is currently being raised to lay the groundwork for discussions with Trump, to ensure the EU’s presence at potential peace talks. The US president-elect has repeatedly pledged to end the Ukraine conflict within 24 of returning to the White House. His pick for special envoy on Ukraine and Russia, retired Army General Keith Kellogg, is reportedly among the authors of a draft peace plan that would freeze the conflict along the current line without recognizing Russia’s sovereignty over territories claimed by Ukraine, while suspending Kiev’s NATO membership bid. Russia has repeatedly ruled out freezing the conflict, insisting that a settlement is only possible if Ukraine withdraws its forces from Russian territory, including former Ukrainian regions, and if the goals of Moscow’s military operation – including Ukraine’s neutrality and demilitarization – are met.
“This experience may be in demand in the future if new regions very close to us appear in our country, because this is possible..”
• More Regions Could Be Added To Russia – Medvedev (RT)
The Russian Federation could welcome more territories into the country in the future, former President Dmitry Medvedev suggested on Saturday during the ongoing United Russia party congress. Commenting on the ruling party’s efforts in helping to incorporate and develop the new regions that have joined the country, Medvedev, who currently serves as the deputy chairman of the nation‘s security council and the head of the United Russia party, suggested that this experience could one day come in handy again. “This experience may be in demand in the future if new regions very close to us appear in our country, because this is possible,” he noted.
In 2022, four former Ukrainian territories, including the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, held public referendums where they decided to break with Kiev and become part of Russia. Before that, in 2014, the citizens of Crimea, a historically Russian region, had voted to leave Ukraine and return to Moscow. Ukraine and its Western backers have refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of these referendums; Kiev has continued to claim authority over these territories and vowed to retake all of them. Moscow however, has repeatedly urged Kiev to accept the new realities “on the ground,” with President Vladimir Putin calling the complete withdrawal of all Ukrainian forces from all Russian territories a key prerequisite for peace talks.
“..he intends to attend the parade so long as “the end of the world doesn’t happen.”
• Serbian President Vucic Confirms Moscow Trip For WW2 ‘Victory Day’ (RT)
The leaders of Slovakia and Serbia will travel together to Moscow to attend the May 9 Victory parade next year, President Aleksandar Vucic confirmed on Saturday in an interview with the news channel TV Informer. Both Vucic and Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico had previously been personally invited by Russian President Vladimir Putin to attend the celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War. Last month, Vucic said that he intends to attend the parade so long as “the end of the world doesn’t happen.” In a statement on Saturday, the Serbian president highlighted the importance of May 9 as the day of celebration of the WWII defeat of fascism, and stated that he will attend the celebrations together with Fico. The plans of the two leaders to conduct a joint visit to Moscow for the celebrations were initially revealed last month by Fico.
At the time, he also emphasized that the USSR had played a key role in liberating both Slovakia and Serbia from fascism and that his and Vucic’s visit would symbolize their recognition of the historic defeat of Nazism. Previously, Vucic had also stressed that both Serbia and Slovakia would not allow history to be rewritten and would work together to “defend the achievements of the fight against fascism and Nazism,” adding that the peoples of the two countries will always respect those who fought for the liberation of Europe. Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has stated that the number of leaders and high-ranking officials invited to next year’s May 9 celebrations is comparable to the last BRICS summit held in Kazan. Vladimir Putin has already invited the leaders and military units of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) countries, which include Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
“..after his party lost the White House in November, Biden suddenly reversed himself on his sensible positions..”
• Trump Says No to ‘Foolish’ US Missile Attacks on Russia (Lauria)
President-elect Donald Trump accused the Biden administration of “escalating this war” in Ukraine and “making it worse” by allowing U.S. long-range ATACMS missiles to be fired from Ukraine deep into Russia. “I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia,” Trump told Time magazine in an interview published on Thursday. He said: “Why are we doing that? We’re just escalating this war and making it worse. That should not have been allowed to be done. Now they’re doing not only missiles, but they’re doing other types of weapons. And I think that’s a very big mistake, very big mistake.” Last Thursday former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter was on a day-long venture in the labyrinth of House office buildings on Capitol Hill to lobby members of Congress and their staffs to prevent the U.S. from attacking Russia with ATACMS.
That alone, Ritter argued, would reduce the threat of a nuclear exchange with Russia, which had warned would be possible if the missile attacks continue. Among the steps Ritter recommended to Republican Congressmen was to get word to Trump’s transition team to get Trump to make an immediate statement that after he is sworn in he will order a cessation of ATACMS being fired into Russia. Such a statement from Trump, Ritter argued on Capitol Hill, would lessen tension with Moscow over the ATACMS and possibly avert catastrophe. Trump’s comments to Time was what Ritter had in mind. Trump said: ”I think the most dangerous thing right now is what’s happening, where Zelensky has decided, with the approval of, I assume, the President, to start shooting missiles into Russia. I think that’s a major escalation. I think it’s a foolish decision. But I would imagine people are waiting until I get in before anything happens. I would imagine. I think that would be very smart to do that.”
Just two months ago, in September, President Joe Biden had bowed to the realists in the Pentagon to oppose allowing long-range British Storm Shadow missiles from being fired by Ukraine deep into Russia out of fear it would lead to a direct NATO-Russia military confrontation with all that that entails. Putin warned at the time that because British soldiers on the ground in Ukraine would actually launch the British missiles into Russia with U.S. geostrategic support, it “will mean that NATO countries — the United States and European countries — are at war with Russia. And if this is the case, then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.” That was a clear warning that British and U.S. targets could be hit. Biden thus wisely backed off.
It was the second time that Biden had sided with the Pentagon against the neocons in his administration when it came to avoiding direct war with Russia. The first time was in March 2022 when his neocon Secretary of State Antony Blinken stepped out of line to announce that the U.S. would give NATO-member Poland a “green light” to send Mig-29 fighter jets to Ukraine to enforce a no-fly zone against Russian aircraft. Members of Congress and the media then piled the pressure on Biden to approve it until cooler heads at the U.S. Defense Department, the greatest purveyor of violence in history, stepped in to stop it. Biden ultimately sided with the Pentagon, and he couldn’t be more explicit why. He opposed a NATO no-fly zone over Ukraine fighting Russian aircraft, he said, because “that’s called World War III, okay? Let’s get it straight here, guys. We will not fight the third world war in Ukraine.”
But then, after his party lost the White House in November, Biden suddenly reversed himself on his sensible positions and defied the Pentagon to roll the dice that Russia’s warnings are bluffs that won’t lead to nuclear conflict. While he previously would not even authorize British long-range missile attacks into Russia in September, let alone U.S. ATACMS, he authorized the ATACMS, risking Russia taking direct action against U.S. targets. It remains to be seen if Trump’s words can reassure the Kremlin. Of course it was Trump who provided Ukraine with lethal aid. Barack Obama had refused, saying Ukraine was not a vital U.S. interest, as it was for Russia and there was no point in angering Moscow. Obama also worried that U.S. weapons could wind up in the hands of “thugs” — i.e., Azov, neo-nazi types in Ukraine.
“These journalists understand full well, most Americans understand … that the US is supporting terrorist..”
• Syria Will Be Chaotic For The Foreseeable Future – John Mearsheimer (RT)
Syria is set to go through a prolonged period of chaos now that Bashar Assad’s government has fallen, John Mearsheimer, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, has predicted. Last week, opposition forces, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) jihadists, launched a surprise offensive across Syria and took control of its major cities, including the capital Damascus. The erstwhile president has since resigned and sought asylum with his family in Russia. In the latest episode of Going Underground, published on Saturday, Mearsheimer suggested that it’s hard to imagine that a “coherent government” will soon be formed in Damascus that would be capable of controlling the entire country.
“How this all plays out moving forward is almost impossible to say, other than it looks like there will be considerable chaos in Syria for the foreseeable future,” the professor said, noting that the sudden regime change is only a “short-term success” for those who had backed the opposition forces, primarily the US. “We [the US] basically threw our lot in with a number of Al Qaeda and ISIS operatives and they won,” Mearsheimer said, adding that the White House and American media were now doing everything they can to “clean up” HTS leader Mohammed al-Jolani, who is still an internationally wanted terrorist and has a US-issued $10 million bounty on his head. “These journalists understand full well, most Americans understand … that the US is supporting terrorists” despite the media trying to portray the HTS victory as a positive development, the professor said.
As for how the HTS had managed to overthrow the Syrian government, which had for years been assisted by Russia and Iran, Mearsheimer suggested that the country’s military had long-standing critical issues that Assad had failed to address and was “hollowed out” and simply “couldn’t stand up to the rebels.” The professor claimed that while the fall of the Assad government was not a critical loss for Russia, it could prove to be an “existential” development for neighboring Iran and prompt Tehran to fast track its development of nuclear weapons. He admitted, however, that the country’s leadership has yet to make any indications regarding such a move and it would still take it several years to develop this kind of capacity.
SNL
49 years ago today, Richard Pryor hosted SNL.
The show was placed on a seven-second delay due in case Pryor would say expletives during the live show.
Word Association (1975)
pic.twitter.com/KdhYfYBkBi— Danny Deraney (@DannyDeraney) December 13, 2024
Chongo
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Voi
The Voi orphans are most definitely enjoying their midday mud bath and cool down!
Voi is at the heart of the Trust's past, present and future – even being our official beginnings, with David and Daphne Sheldrick raising the first orphans here. It's a place of transformation,… pic.twitter.com/7NrAGS3UyS
— Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (@SheldrickTrust) December 13, 2024
https://twitter.com/i/status/1867817314856628543
Bunting
https://twitter.com/i/status/1867924825143971840
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