AGI Archives - The Automatic Earth

At its peak in 1914, Europe controlled nearly 100 overseas colonies.

Within 70 years, almost all of them were gone.

The largest land empire in human history dissolved faster than it was built. pic.twitter.com/i9eLxxNARO
— Josh Barzon (@JoshuaBarzon) March 24, 2026

https://twitter.com/eagameover/status/2036647119788875867?s=20

Every country Islam has invaded has been taken over that you can no longer recognize what it once was only the destruction and oppression remains from these savages. pic.twitter.com/6qJF5QKhWQ
— Micki way (@mickitiki) March 24, 2026

Bill Maher: "I mean, this looks like game over [for Democrats]"pic.twitter.com/Uq6Le2J25I
— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) March 24, 2026

Raptor 3 is a revolutionary leap in rocket engines. Even experts doubted it at first, yet it fires at unprecedented efficiency.
Key advances:
No base heat shield needed, saving mass and boosting reliability
Fuel leaks safely burn off in open plasma
Higher payload capacity and… pic.twitter.com/yM0FLEE2M7
— Mars University (@MarsUniversityX) March 24, 2026

New evidence from Antarctica ice cores showing no link between CO2 and temperature over the last three million years has stumped Net Zero activists, says Chris Morrison. https://t.co/0fgQOG3SyQ
— Toby Young (@toadmeister) March 25, 2026

https://twitter.com/HungaryBased/status/2036495760355893703?s=20

Jensen Huang just described how he plans to outlive his own body.

Huang: “Very soon, I’m going to put a humanoid on a spaceship. And it’s going to be my humanoid.”

His robot. His frame. Launched into deep space while he is still breathing.

Huang: “Take all my inbox, take… pic.twitter.com/c75sjhwthm
— Dustin (@r0ck3t23) March 24, 2026

https://twitter.com/AdamMoczar/status/2036529282294468781?s=20

Orson Welles with a great story about Winston Churchill on The Dick Cavett Show, 1970. Churchill was a true gentleman…

pic.twitter.com/ojzmxScrOd
— The Ways of A Gentleman (@Gentleman_Ways) March 24, 2026

How many troops would Iran have? Half a million … give or take…? And then you send 2,000?

• Trump Sends 2,000 Paratroopers, Iran Dares Them To Come Closer (RT)

The Pentagon has officially issued orders for approximately 2,000 elite troops from the army’s 82nd Airborne Division to deploy within “striking distance” of Iran, according to US officials cited by the Washington Post and the New York Times. The contingent reportedly includes the division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, the core part of the Immediate Response Force trained to deploy within 18 hours for missions including seizing airfields, reinforcing embassies, and enabling evacuations.

An additional 2,500 marines are scheduled to arrive later this week to reinforce any potential ground operation, which the media has long speculated could include seizing Iran’s main oil export hub on Kharg Island.Tehran’s senior military adviser, Ali-Akbar Ahmadian, has previously dared American soldiers to just “come closer,” warning that Iranian armed forces have “trained in asymmetrical warfare” for decades. In the meantime, US President Donald Trump is reportedly seeking an “offramp” from the war with a list of 15 peace proposals – while Tehran has rejected holding any backchannel talks with Washington.
Here are the latest developments:
• President Trump claimed the US has already “won” and ongoing diplomatic talks with Iran are the reason why he postponed military strikes on Iranian power plants for five days.
• Israel’s Channel 12 has reported that Trump’s 15-point proposal demands that Iran dismantle its nuclear and missile programs, abandon its regional proxy network, and open the Strait of Hormuz to unrestricted maritime passage. In exchange, Tehran would allegedly receive a full lifting of international sanctions, assistance with its civilian nuclear program, and the removal of the “snapback” sanction mechanism.
• “We negotiate with bombs,” US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has said about the Pentagon’s role in the alleged behind-the-scenes talks.
h • Tehran has denied tat talks with the US are taking place, with Iran’s parliamentary speaker saying such claims are “fake news” and are being “used to manipulate financial and oil markets.” Oil prices fell more than 5% on Wednesday morning.

“It starts with no nuclear weapons, and they’ve agreed to that. … They’re not going to have enrichment — any of those things. … We are in about the best bargaining position. We’re way ahead of schedule.”

• Iran Caves to Trump (Matt Margolis)

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump announced that Iran has agreed to permanently abandon its nuclear weapons program as a central condition for ending U.S. military strikes on Tehran. “They’ve agreed,” he said. “They will never have a nuclear weapon. They’ve agreed to that.” Trump added, “We’re actually talking to the right people, and they want to make a deal so badly, you have no idea how badly they want to make a deal.” There is, however, a catch. Iran is still denying talking to the United States. Tehran has not stated that publicly — and denied even talking to the US. But Trump has made clear that the no-nukes demand is necessary for the US to stop its military campaign.

The president’s comments came as the US and Iran are preparing for another round of negotiations in an attempt to bring a ceasefire to the war — while also gearing for a major combat operation if talks fall apart. I’m trusting Trump on this. Trump’s optimism is clear, and it sure sounds like he thinks a deal is possible. He even described Tehran as “talking sense.” “They’re talking to us and they’re talking sense,” Trump said. Trump has been clear he wants Iran to give up its nuclear materials — down to the “nuclear dust,” as part of the ongoing peace talks. “We want the nuclear dust. We’re going to want that,” he told reporters as he left Florida on Monday, referring to the enriched uranium.
Meantime, the Department of War is gearing up to send thousands of troops from the Army’s 82nd Infantry Division to deploy to the Middle East, according to a source familiar with the plan. The Pentagon is expected to announce the deployment of a 3,000-person brigade combat team from the elite North Carolina-based unit in support of the US and Israel’s war on Iran, the Wall Street Journal first reported. Trump also revealed on Tuesday that there was also a“significant prize” tied to the Strait of Hormuz. “They’re going to make a deal. They did something [Monday] that was amazing, actually. They gave us a present,” Trump said. “The present arrived today, and it was a very big present worth a tremendous amount of money.”
Trump said he could not disclose what the gift was, but said it was “oil and gas-related” and was connected to the Strait of Hormuz.,The Iranian regime was previously charging some tankers millions of dollars to pass through the global shipping choke point, according to a report from Iran International. Trump added the unspecified present was “very significant.” “That meant one thing to me — we’re dealing with the right people,” Trump said. “… It was a very nice thing they did. … They said they were going to do it, and it happened. And they’re the only ones that could have done it.” When asked about control of the Strait of Hormuz, he said the U.S. will “have control of anything we want.”
“They can’t have certain things,” Trump said. “It starts with no nuclear weapons, and they’ve agreed to that. … They’re not going to have enrichment — any of those things. … We are in about the best bargaining position. We’re way ahead of schedule.”

They said no…

• US Sends 15-Point Peace Plan To Iran Amid Conflict In The Middle East (JTN)

The United States reportedly proposed a 15-point peace plan to Iran Tuesday as it looks to negotiate an end to the nearly month-long conflict in the Middle East. The proposal’s main focus is on Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear programs, which the U.S. has targeted with missile strikes during the conflict, according to the New York Times. President Donald Trump told reporters Tuesday that Iran has already agreed to never develop a nuclear weapon, marking a significant victory for the United States and Israel after Trump bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities last year.

“They’ve agreed,” the president said. “They will never have a nuclear weapon. They’ve agreed to that.” Iran has not publicly confirmed that it agreed to permanently stop its pursuit of nuclear weapons. One source told the New York Times that the plan also discusses maritime routes, which comes as Iran blocks ships from using the Strait of Hormuz. The plan comes the same day Trump said Iran has given the United States a “present” related to gas and oil, which he claimed signaled the U.S. is negotiating and working with the “right people” in Iran. “
They gave it to us, and they said they were going to give it, so that meant one thing to me: we’re dealing with the right people,” Trump said. “We have, really, regime change. You know, this is a change in the regime, because the leaders are all very different than the ones that we started off with that created all those problems.” The U.S. is also hoping that Iran will agree to a one-month ceasefire while the two sides negotiate the peace plan, according to the New York Post.

“We don’t produce enough artillery shells, bullets, drones, and everything else we need for a comparatively simple air war against a third-rate power like Iran. Against China? Fuggidaboudit.”

• The Pentagon Has a ONE POINT FIVE TRILLION DOLLAR Wish List (Stephen Green)

Following President Donald Trump’s Truth Social statement in January, the Pentagon will soon unveil a “generational investment” defense budget totaling a whopping ONE POINT FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS. Nevertheless, Aviation Week recently reported, “there are still hard decisions to be made.” You might think that a trillion-and-a-half bucks would buy the military everything we need it to have, but the “stuff” isn’t the problem; it’s the manufacturing. Stick a pin in that. Right now, we have six major acquisition programs — aside from the now well-established F-35 and Virginia-class subs — that might be performing better than you believe. They are:

• Ford-class aircraft carriers (10)
• Columbia-class nuclear missile submarines (12)
• F-47 sixth-generation fighters/loyal wingman stealth drones (~185)
• B-21 Raider heavy bomber (145)
• Sentinel ICBM (400 operational, plus 200+ spares/test units)
The Fords are late and over-budget, but the teething problems and overruns seem to be largely behind us with the John F. Kennedy due to be delivered to the Navy next year. Keep making Fords, but keep options open for smaller drone carriers. There’s a similar story with the Columbia SSBNs. The first one will be late and enormously expensive. The rest of the class should do better. Now that Trump finally forced the Air Force to settle on an F-47 design, work should move forward about as well as these things ever do. I’d like things to move faster, but the first F-47 units ought to be combat ready in the early 2030s.
The Air Force just upped its request for B-21 stealth bombers from 100 to 145, yet that’s only a down payment on our actual requirement. The number we actually need — since the Raider will serve as conventional bombers and as our airborne nuclear deterrent — is probably 300. Then there’s the Sentinel ICBM, which I doubt we even need, provided we buy an additional 8-10 Columbia SSBNs. That program is ridiculously over-budget, mostly because the other half of the program — the underground silos to house them — is a hot mess. Figure it out, fellas, or let the Navy have all the heavy nuclear missiles.
I’d also note that the Virginia-class attack sub program is freakin’ amazing. The new Block V models are basically attack subs and guided-missile boats, all wrapped into one deadly package. We will and ought to throw more money at increasing their production rate and the total buy. There are two more programs almost in limbo. The Navy needs large numbers of small frigates and smaller numbers of larger destroyers/cruisers. If it takes an act of Congress to force a final design for both down the Navy’s stupid, stubborn throat, then do it. We don’t need gold-plated stealth ships; we just need tough, reliable surface combatants with plenty of missile cells.
It would also be nice to get at least four Trump-class battleships. But if you’re like me, that ONE POINT FIVE TRILLION DOLLAR figure made you gasp at first. On reflection, it shouldn’t. For perspective, President Ronald Reagan’s Cold War-winning defense budgets peaked in 1986 at $304 billion — or roughly $800 billion in today’s dollars. Dollar for dollar, that’s a little less than we’ll spend this year on defense, but in fairness, 40 years ago each defense dollar bought a lot more combat power. That’s because America’s most vital combat arm — our private sector’s ability to manufacture the best stuff and make it in quantity — either got outsourced or M&A’d into oblivion.
Among the “hard decisions,” if necessary I’d cut the Army to the bone — a rapid-reaction force able to tip the balance for our allies — and put even more money into revitalizing our defense manufacturing base. The cold, hard truth is that armies can be raised in a hurry should the terrible need arise, but manufacturing takes time. We don’t produce enough artillery shells, bullets, drones, and everything else we need for a comparatively simple air war against a third-rate power like Iran. Against China? Fuggidaboudit.
We require a defense manufacturing capability that’s both deep and broad — and supply chains that aren’t reliant on rival powers like China or Russia. The bill for more than three decades of unseriousness about our defense needs finally came due. I don’t just mean big-ticket items like aircraft carriers and stealth bombers. The Pentagon’s “generational investment” had better focus bigly on our ability to make the small-ticket items like missiles and shells that our troops rely on.
Going back to Reagan’s Cold War budgets, spending peaked at a little over 6% of GDP during the mid-’80s. Today, that would be $1.7 trillion, give or take — or a significant fraction more than Trump asked for. And yet it feels like such a struggle, such an impossible goal, to spend slightly less than we did four decades ago. I can explain why in exactly two words: health care. A spending item not even mentioned in the Constitution has nearly tripled as a fraction of the federal budget since 1986, ballooning from 10-12% to roughly 30% today.
Just four days of Medicare/Medicaid spending could buy another Ford-class aircraft carrier, cost overruns and all. It’s the same thing with the space program. If NASA had the budget (and the vision!) it had during Apollo, it’d have ten times today’s paltry $30 billion budget — and we’d have another manufacturing base at Moon City Armstrong by now.The hardest choice we must make is whether we want to be a welfare state in long-term decline, or the fit and fearsome America left to us by the Greatest Generation.

“(If cardboard could talk, Mojtaba Khamenei would’ve denied it, too.) “

• Trump Stole One of My Ideas. Unfortunately, Iran Stole the Other (Pinsker)

On March 19, I recommended that President Donald Trump should lie about holding secret communications with (anonymous) high-ranking Iranian leaders to sow “discord, distrust, and paranoia among the mullahs.” I even said Trump should call one of the leaders a “great guy” and claim that the two of ‘em got along splendidly: Why, he might even be good enough to run the country! Which, of course, would trigger a manic Game of Thrones in Iran, where every mullah with Supreme ambitions jockeys against the other. After all, tactically:

What we can’t decapitate, we ought to lobotomize. If the purpose of warfare is to break our enemy’s will to fight, turning Iran’s leaders against one another is our most logical next step. The PR benefit is huge — but far more importantly, it also signals to the Iranian people AND the mullahs AND the Iranian military/police that the current regime is on borrowed time. We know it, you know it — and they know it, too. That’s why they’re abandoning ship like rats off a sinking boat. On March 22, President Trump suddenly canceled plans to bomb Iran’s power plants, citing “very good and productive conversations” in his secret communications with unnamed Iranian leaders. Speaking of one Iranian in particular, the president added, “We’re dealing with the man who, I believe, is the most respected and the ‘leader’.”
The Iranians angrily denied the report, insisting that no one was speaking to Trump. From Al Jazeera: “Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said in a social media post on Monday that “no negotiations have been held with the US”. “Fakenews [sic] is used to manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped,” Ghalibaf wrote on X. That echoed earlier remarks from Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei, who also denied that any discussions with the US had taken place.”
(If cardboard could talk, Mojtaba Khamenei would’ve denied it, too.) Obviously, Iran or America is lying: Either Trump was communicating with one or more high-ranking Iranian leaders or he wasn’t. Because Trump wasn’t just claiming they were communicating. He also crowed about the “secret prize” that Iran just gave to America. If Trump was telling the truth — and America’s war objectives could be secured (and verified) without anyone else dying — then wonderful. The world would be a better, safer place. Take a bow, sign the deal, and let’s bring everyone home. My suspicion, however, is that this was a PR tactic to placate the markets, and a very clever tactic at that: It also put the Iranians on serious tilt.
From Iran International: “[Trump] is using ambiguity as a political and psychological weapon inside the Islamic Republic. By saying he has been talking to a very senior Iranian figure without naming that person, he is planting doubt and suspicion among what remains of the leadership. In current conditions, that matters. Iran’s leaders are living in hiding. Command centers are disrupted. Communications are limited out of fear of interception and assassination.mMeetings are difficult, if not impossible. In that setting, a statement like this will be deeply unsettling. Each senior figure will now be asking: Who is talking to Washington? Who is looking for an off-ramp? What is being hidden from the others?
By naming no one, Trump makes everyone in Tehran wonder who is talking to Washington. This does not affect only the top. Lower-ranking officials also hear the same message. If they begin to believe that some of their leaders are quietly searching for a way out, they will become more uncertain, more demoralized, and more open to defection.”

C’mon Ursula! Finish them off!

• EU Shelves Russian Oil Ban As Iran War Rattles Energy Markets (RT)

The EU has put plans on hold for a complete ban on Russian oil imports, news outlets have reported. The move comes amid renewed turbulence in energy markets driven by the war in the Middle East. The draft law, part of the REPowerEU roadmap to phase out Russian fossil fuels by 2027, had been tentatively scheduled for April 15 but has now been removed from the European Commission’s published work calendar, Euronews and Reuters reported on Tuesday. An unnamed EU official was quoted as saying the delay was because of current geopolitical developments. Commission energy spokesperson Anna Kaisa Itkonen said she had no new date to give.

Coordinated US-Israeli strikes on Iran and subsequent Iranian retaliatory attacks across the region have led to the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz to Western shipping, triggering a rally in oil and gas prices. Benchmark Brent has climbed to around $120 per barrel. The chokepoint normally carries around a fifth of the world’s daily oil supply. The IEA has warned that disruptions could potentially last months or years. The EU was already grappling with the fallout from its decision to cut energy ties with Russia following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict, as well as the costs of its green transition policies. Consumers across the bloc have since faced higher fuel and power bills, adding to broader cost of living pressures.
The price rally has prompted Washington to ease sanctions on Russian oil. Some European leaders have begun hinting at a rethink of their own. The oil blockade of the Druzhba pipeline by Ukraine, which had halted Russian supplies to heavily dependent Hungary and Slovakia, has exacerbated tensions within the bloc. mThe EU’s energy policies have repeatedly come under fire. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has described the REPowerEU scheme as suicide. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has warned that unless the bloc lifts sanctions on Russian energy, it will deal an extremely deep blow to the European economy.
Russian officials say the latest turmoil exposes deeper flaws in EU policy. Rosatom chief Alexey Likhachev told RT that the Iran war has revealed decades of mistaken decisions and an oversimplified approach to the energy transition. Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev has warned of an “oil and gas price tsunami ” for the EU after it rejected Russian supplies.

“Russia is well positioned for the predicted and emerging Era of Extreme Scarcity.” [..] EU bureaucrats will soon be forced to recognize this reality, acknowledge their strategic blunders, and atone.”

• Iran’s War-Winning Track, Russia’s Dog & Pony Trick (Helmer)

“Sergei Victorovich”, President Vladimir Putin said behind his hand to his Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov (lead image, left). “Do me a favour. When you’re talking to the Iranians, promise whatever they need to keep fighting and deter Trump. But keep it secret. And in public, waffle. Your job is to reassure the Americans we are powerless — you are powerless — I’m impotent.”

Just after lunch on Monday, Lavrov spoke with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who had initiated the call with urgency. The published Russian communiqué said: “The situation in the Persian Gulf zone, which was degraded by the United States and Israel, was discussed. Sergei Lavrov pointed to the categorical unacceptability of the US-Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, including the Bushehr nuclear power plant, which create unacceptable safety risks of Russian personnel and are fraught with catastrophic environmental consequences for all countries of the region without exception.
Mutual concern was expressed about the dangerous spread of the conflict provoked by Washington and Tel Aviv to the Caspian Sea. The Russian side noted the need for an immediate cessation of hostilities and a political settlement, taking into account the legitimate interests of all parties involved, primarily Iran. This position Russia will be guided by the UN Security Council. A.Araghchi thanked the Russian leadership for the significant diplomatic and other support provided to the Islamic Republic of Iran, including the supply of humanitarian assistance.” Araghchi has omitted to publish a record of what was really discussed.
“Pishka”, Putin said to Dmitry Peskov, his spokesman (centre). “When you’re asked questions about Iran, do me a favour — say nothing. Your job is to convince our people at home who vote for me that I know best, and that I won’t be getting them into more trouble than we already have.” Peskov hadn’t eaten his lunch on Tuesday when local reporters asked him to clarify the President’s attitude towards the Israeli Air Force attack on the Iranian Caspian Sea port, Bandar Anzali, through which Iran and Russia run heavy-cargo ship deliveries in both directions, both civil and military. “As for these reports”,he said, “we haven’t seen them. To be honest, I don’t have any information on the matter.” Peskov was following Putin’s order, if clumsily, because what he said was an obvious lie.
Four days before, Lavrov’s spokesman had confirmed the Caspian port attack. “The US-Israeli coalition continues pouring fuel on the flames of the war they have unleashed in the Middle East, which could cause this war to spread even further. On March 18, a bomb attack was carried out against the Iranian port of Bandar Anzali on the Caspian Sea. That major Caspian port is an important trade and logistics hub that is actively used in Russian-Iranian trade, including for food deliveries. The strike has affected the economic interests of Russia and the other Caspian states that maintain transport communications with Iran via that port. The regional countries and the international community have always regarded the Caspian Sea as a safe zone of peace and cooperation.
The aggressors’ reckless and irresponsible actions pose a threat of dragging Caspian states into an armed conflict. We once again firmly call for the immediate cessation of hostilities and resuming efforts to achieve a political settlement of the situation in the Middle East, which is increasingly affecting neighbouring regions.” In these private moments, deep behind the Kremlin wall, what Putin means to say is that Russia has now gone into recession, and the timing is very bad for the coming State Duma elections. Putin is asking his spokesmen to put up a smokescreen, an alibi for the difference between what the General Staff and intelligence agencies are doing and what he doesn’t want domestic voters or the Trump White House to blame him for.
Instead, he is counting on his spokesman for oligarch capital and Trump bribery, Kirill Dmitriev, to tweet several times a day on the fidelity of Russia as a strategic partner. “As the largest holder of natural resources in the world and a top-3 producer of most commodities, “ according to Dmitriev a few hours ago, “Russia is well positioned for the predicted and emerging Era of Extreme Scarcity.” “Russian energy is indispensable to easing the world’s largest energy crisis. EU bureaucrats will soon be forced to recognize this reality, acknowledge their strategic blunders, and atone.”

We’re still talking about Ciaramella years later.

• House Intel Committee Releases Hidden Transcript (CTH)

For the past several years I have been advocating for ‘sunlight as the best disinfectant.’ Since September of 2025 I have been working through a painfully slow and convoluted process to share research, assist truth tellers and guide those who have the authority to deliver the sunlight. Today, I can happily report on progress. In 2019 an impeachment effort against President Trump was triggered when a member of the National Security Council named Alexander Vindman coordinated with a member of the National Intelligence Council named Eric Ciaramella to fabricate a false claim that President Trump leveraged his power and authority to demand Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy release information on Joe and Hunter Biden’s corrupt financial dealings in Ukraine.

At the time of the 2019 impeachment construct Eric Ciaramella was working for the CIA as an analyst within the National Intelligence Council (NIC). [SIDEBAR: In 2025 Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, working with CIA Director John Ratcliffe, removed the NIC from inside the CIA. To provide greater overall transparency within the intelligence community, the National Intelligence Council was moved into the purview of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI)]. Two years prior to the 2019 impeachment construct, in January 2017, the same CIA analyst, Eric Ciaramella, had worked on the fraudulent Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), at the behest of CIA Director John Brennan.
Key point: Eric Ciaramella was one of the key analysts who constructed the fraudulent ‘Russian interference ICA’ (2017) and later the fraudulent impeachment effort (2019). Eric Ciaramella became the “anonymous CIA whistleblower” in the 2019 impeachment effort. Before 2019, CIA analysts weren’t allowed to anonymously make claims against political officials. Because of the sensitive information they handled, any allegation of wrongdoing based on intelligence had to be made with their name attached. Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson changed or modified the ICIG rules permitting Ciaramella to remain anonymous and make a claim that ultimately led to an impeachment effort.
Eric Ciaramella allegedly fabricated intelligence information, shared it with Congress and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), and then remained anonymous. HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff was said to have assisted him. On October 4, 2019, as part of the House impeachment inquiry, Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson gave closed-door testimony to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) as part of their impeachment investigation. One of the key questions to ICIG Atkinson surrounded the authority of his office changing the CIA whistleblower rules that permitted Eric Ciaramella to remain anonymous.
During later questioning by then-Congressman John Ratcliffe, as part of the House impeachment effort, it came to light that Inspector General Michael Atkinson testified CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella, the anonymous ‘whistleblower’, had lied about key details when questioned by Atkinson. WATCH VIDEO:

[The look on Dan Goldman’s face during that questioning was both priceless and insufferable. John Ratcliffe is now CIA Director]
Because the anonymous whistleblower complaint by Ciaramella was the cornerstone of the impeachment effort, Chairman Adam Schiff sealed the transcript of ICIG Atkinson testimony, classifying it under the guise of national security interests and burying it in the HPSCI control system. It’s worth reemphasizing that Eric Ciaramella was both the analyst behind the disputed 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment for Director Brennan and, later in 2019, involved in the contested impeachment effort. Both operations involved impeding and targeting President Donald Trump.

Is there anyone who thinks this is normal?

• Jack Smith Subpoenaed Records on Kash Patel (ET)

The team behind the Arctic Frost investigation subpoenaed years’ worth of records on Kash Patel, who now heads the FBI, according to documents released on March 24. Former special counsel Jack Smith subpoenaed Verizon for Patel’s phone records from October 2020 through February 2023, the documents, made public by Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, showed. Patel was part of the Trump administration from 2019 through January 2021. After the Biden administration took office, Patel began a nonprofit foundation and worked as a consultant, frequently appearing in media to back Trump and his policies.

The subpoenas asked for various details about Patel’s accounts, including financial information and text messages, the records showed. Text and call logs were among the requested details. Patel disclosed the subpoenas in February, describing them as “outrageous and deeply alarming. He said that previous FBI leaders “secretly subpoenaed my own phone records”- along with those of now White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles- , using flimsy pretexts and burying the entire process in prohibited case files designed to evade all oversight.
Arctic Frost started in 2022. The effort, which involved Smith and FBI officials, featured subpoenas involving more than a dozen Republican members of Congress and the seizure of a phone used by President Donald Trump, whom prosecutors ultimately charged with interfering with certification of the 2020 presidential election for alleging that voter fraud took place. The case was dropped when Trump in 2024 won a second term in office.
Smith has defended the investigation, telling lawmakers in January that he properly investigated “attempts to interfere with the lawful transfer of power” and that the subpoenaed records were acquired “to understand the scope of that conspiracy, who they were seeking to coerce, who they were seeking to influence, who was seeking to help them.” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, first obtained records on Arctic Frost and released them in early 2025.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), chairman of the committee’s Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights, said during a hearing on Tuesday that Arctic Frost was “a modern Watergate” that targeted lawmakers and people involved with Trump’s reelection efforts, including Patel and Wiles. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said that the subpoenas of Patel made sense, because the FBI director “made himself a fact witness in that investigation” by making comments on podcasts. Whitehouse said that Patel’s grand jury testimony should be made public.

Democratsgate?!

• Docs Show Expansive FBI Surveillance Of Trump Allies, Possible Illegality (JTN)

Newly released records in the Senate investigation into the weaponization of government raise questions about whether the FBI went on a fishing expedition targeting Trump advisors who were never charged with crimes and whether Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prior testimony to Congress was truthful. The documents were made public by Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, before a Senate Judiciary Committee subcommittee hearing into alleged abuses by the Biden-era FBI and Justice Department in their investigations into then ex-president Donald Trump before and during the 2024 presidential election during its probe code-named “Arctic Frost.” Just the News previously reported that Biden’s FBI paid anti-Trump ‘Sedition Hunters’ as informants in the Arctic Frost probes.

Cruz: It is a modern Watergate”
If Watergate taught us anything, it is that even a single abuse of power carried out by a handful of individuals can shake the foundations of our Republic, said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex., Chairman of the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights. “What we confront today, the Biden administration’s Arctic Frost scheme, is not a single act, he continued in his opening remarks. “It is a modern Watergate trading a break-in at one office for a digital sweep into approximately 100,000 private communications, more than a dozen senators and 1000s of individuals lives. Cruz said that ultimately, ” just like Watergate, the judges, FBI and Justice Department officials involved should be “investigated, tried, impeached, and brought to justice.”
The scope of Smith’s probe, which centered on Trump’s challenge to the 2020 election results and the events of January 6, 2021, was truly expansive. Grassley previously released records showing that Smith’s office issued nearly 200 subpoenas in his sweeping Arctic Frost-linked case, secretly seeking records on more than 400 Republican personalities and groups. This included more than 160 Republicans–many closely connected to Trump. The Arctic Frost was one of four separate probes that targeted Trump and his allies stretching from summer 2016 to January 2025. The other probes were code-named Crossfire Hurricane, Round River, and Plasmic Echo, Just the News reported earlier this month.
As FBI Director, Patel has personally led the effort to review those probes, uncovering evidence of a far-reaching dragnet that in some cases may have been predicated on false, misleading or uncorroborated justifications, officials previously told Just the News. The newly-disclosed records show that the FBI ordered two sweeping subpoenas of FBI Director Kash Patel’s phone records, while he was a private citizen in Trump’s orbit. Each subpoena covered an approximately two-year time frame.
The FBI’s requests for information included demands for highly personal data of Patel’s, including Patel’s addresses (“mailing addresses, residential addresses, business addresses, and e-mail addresses”), a “call detail record” which lists inbound and outbound calls, text messages and voicemail messages, as well as sources of payment for the phone service, including credit card and bank account numbers. The FBI also demanded expansive internet session data including exact IP addresses, the document shows.
The FBI also sought–and was granted–non-disclosure orders (NDOs) from federal judges, shielding the existence of the subpoenas from Patel and his lawyers on the grounds that revealing them could result in his “flight from prosecution, destruction of or tampering with evidence, intimidation of potential witnesses and serious jeopardy to the investigation.”

Sure he misses the attention.

• ICE Airport Deployment ‘Test Run’ For 2026 Elections – Steve Bannon (RT)

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents helping at US airports should be treated as a “test run” for a wider role in the 2026 elections, Steve Bannon, a former White House strategist and prominent MAGA figure, has said. ICE agents have begun assisting the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) at airports across the US, after a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) led to staff shortages and long security lines at checkpoints. Speaking on his War Room podcast on Monday, Bannon told conservative lawyer Mike Davis that the airport deployment could be used “as a test run, as a test case to really perfect ICE’s involvement in the 2026 midterm elections.”

Davis replied that ICE agents should be “at the polling places,” noting that it is a federal crime for illegal immigrants to vote in federal contests. “If you’re an American citizen, you should be happy that ICE is there, because you’re not going to have illegal aliens canceling out your vote,” he said. Bannon described the airport ICE deployment as “another 5D chess move from President Trump,” arguing that agents are “trained to, wait for it, check IDs.”On Monday, ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations and Homeland Security Investigations units reportedly began supporting TSA staff at multiple airports. White House border czar Tom Homan, who is overseeing the operation, said immigration officers will not screen passengers but will handle entry and exit lanes to free up TSA staff.
TSA and ICE are both part of DHS, but immigration enforcement has been shielded from the funding gap by Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” a 2025 spending package that allocated about $75 billion to ICE through 2029. More than 400 TSA agents have reportedly quit since the partial shutdown started.Democrats in Congress have focused on ICE after its agents fatally shot two US citizens in Minnesota in January, who were allegedly attempting to obstruct a massive immigration crackdown in the state. Democrats have for months demanded that new checks on ICE agents be introduced, such as a requirement to wear identification, body cameras, and a ban on facemasks. Trump has told US media that ICE will assist TSA “for as long as it takes” and that he would consider deploying the National Guard if needed.

“.. in 2025 Ukraine purchased about 46% of all its imported gas from Hungary.”:

• Hungary Suspends Gas Supplies To Ukraine — Orban (TASS)

Budapest is suspending gas supplies to Kiev until it begins receiving Russian oil via the Druzhba pipeline. According to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the decision was made at a government meeting.”Until Ukraine supplies oil, it will not receive gas from Hungary. We will protect Hungary’s energy security, maintain fixed gasoline prices and reduced gas tariffs,” Orban said in a video address broadcast by Hungarian television channels.

Until recently, Ukraine not only transited Russian gas to Hungary but also received gas from Hungary via a pipeline capable of operating in reverse mode. According to the Gas Transmission System Operator of Ukraine, in 2025 Ukraine purchased about 46% of all its imported gas from Hungary. These supplies covered 20-30% of its monthly gas needs. The total volume of natural gas exports from Hungary to Ukraine amounted to about 2.5 bln cubic meters in 2025, increasing fivefold since 2022. Hungary transited gas through its territory that was supplied from other sources. Earlier, the Hungarian government warned that in response to Ukraine blocking oil supplies via Druzhba, it could halt gas and electricity supplies to Ukraine.
Russian oil has not been supplied to Hungary and Slovakia since January 27. Budapest is confident the pipeline is operational and that Kiev is blocking supplies purely for political reasons. As a retaliatory measure, Hungary blocked EU funding for Ukraine. Budapest warned it would not approve a 90 bln euro EU loan for Ukraine and would not support any other Brussels decisions in Ukraine’s favor until transit of Russian oil resumes. This position was presented by Orban at the EU summit on March 19.

Maybe his idea of what AGI is, is different from mine.

• Nvidia CEO: “I Think We’ve Achieved AGI” (ZH)

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang joined podcaster Lex Fridman for a 2-plus-hour conversation on the future of AI infrastructure, covering everything from chips, racks, and cooling systems to Nvidia’s broader strategy for the next computing era. Jensen spoke about how computers are evolving from retrieval machines into generative AI factories. The discussion also turned to one of the biggest questions in the AI cycle: whether AGI has already arrived. Near the two-hour mark of the conversation, Fridman asked Jensen about the “AGI timeline” and whether it is still five, ten, fifteen, or twenty years away, especially given the recent widespread use of agentic AI tools like OpenClaw.Jensen responded, “I think it’s now. I think we’ve achieved AGI.”

It is worth noting that Jensen has previously stated that the AGI timeline depends on how it is defined. At the 2023 New York Times DealBook Summit, Jensen defined AGI as software capable of exceeding normal human intelligence at a reasonably competitive level. At the time, he said he expected AGI to arrive within five years.Fridman’s question about the AGI timeline was based on a very narrower interpretation, and Jensen framed it this way: AI does not need to build anything lasting. It does not need to manage a complex business. It just needs to make a billion dollars.
“You said a billion,” Jensen told Fridman, “and you didn’t say forever.” Jensen said, for example, that all AI needs to do is create a web service or app that goes viral and is used by a few billion people at fifty cents per user. He pointed to the dot-com era, when some websites were no more sophisticated than what an AI agent can create today. So under that narrower interpretation, Jensen believes: “I think we’ve achieved AGI.”

Squeeze every last penny out of it?

I was just thinking that ‘Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter are two prime examples of what our world can achieve combining fantasy and craftsmaship.

• If Lord of the Rings Isn’t Dead, Stephen Colbert Can Finish It Off (Green)

The Fellowship of the Ring — the opening chapter of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, one of the greatest achievements in movie history — turns 25 this December, and since then, Hollywood has inflicted one indignity after another on Tolkien’s masterpiece. The worst may be yet to come.It’s hard to do worse than what Amazon Prime did to Tolkien with the ill-conceived, miscast, and excruciatingly costly Rings of Power. After spending a quarter of a billion dollars just to secure the rights to certain Tolkien appendices (!!!) from his estate, Amazon then turned Galadriel into a sword-waving girl-boss and Sauron into a likable bad boy. And those are the show’s better features, according to my wife, who keeps trying to watch the thing.

By the time the series comes to a merciful end with Season Five, Amazon will have spent more than a billion dollars on a series with sharply declining viewership, shrinking budgets, and, at best, mixed audience reception. Jackson himself hasn’t exactly covered himself in glory since The Return of the King, returning to the well at least twice too often with his follow-up Hobbit trilogy. He took a kids’ book you can rush through without much effort, and turned it into a bloated eight-hour trilogy filled with comically bad CGI. Even now, Jackson (having turned the director’s reins over to Gollum actor Andy Serkis) is hard at work producing The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum.
Because I guess audiences just can’t wait to see every last detail of what happened to the little runt in the cracks between The Hobbit and Fellowship. It’s what I call “strip-mining the IP.” New Line Cinema purchased the rights to The Lord of the Rings almost 30 years ago, and did them such glorious justice with the original movie trilogy. Inevitably, Jackson and New Line set about extracting every last bit of wealth until the original property looked like the Shire after the Scouring. What’s it called when the greedy mining company takes the tailings from its strip mine and runs them through the smelter one more time with all the reckless abandon of Gollum diving after the One Ring into Mount Doom?
Ah, yes — it’s called The Lord of the Rings: Shadows of the Past, and lame-duck late-night host Stephen Colbert will co-write it with his son, screenwriter Peter McGee, for Jackson and Warner Bros, which now owns New Line. Variety reported late Tuesday that Colbert, “a vocal Tolkien fanatic,” and McGee will write a screenplay “from chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring that didn’t make it into Jackson’s 2001 adaptation.” Or as the movie’s official logline put it, “Fourteen years after the passing of Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin set out to retrace the first steps of their adventure. Meanwhile, Sam’s daughter, Elanor, has discovered a long-buried secret and is determined to uncover why the War of the Ring was very nearly lost before it even began.” So Shadows of the Past won’t really take us back to 2001 and fill in the missing parts of Fellowship. It will take aging versions of Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin and saddle them with an all-new girl-boss.

“.. a corrupt German government kidnapped him in Mexico and imprisoned him in Germany after a fake trial on fake charges..”

• Free Reiner Fuellmich (Paul Craig Roberts)

I have written several articles about Reiner Fuellmich who was about to expose the fraudulent and orchestrated Covid Pandemic and to hold those responsible accountable. To prevent this, a corrupt German government kidnapped him in Mexico and imprisoned him in Germany after a fake trial on fake charges. Award-winning documentary film director Philippe Carillo has teamed up with Seba Terribilini to produce a film about the corrupt judicial system of present day Nazi Germany. I encourage readers to watch the two minute trailer and to contribute to the funding to get the documentary publicized. Very few people are willing to stand up and to expose the criminal behavior of governments. Carillo and Terribilina are two such people. It is our responsibility to support them. They are speaking for us.

Jensen Huang just explained why China is winning the technology race in two sentences.

Huang: “Our country’s leaders… they’re mostly lawyers. Most of their leaders are incredible engineers.”

One country sends engineers to lead. The other sends lawyers.

One builds. The other… pic.twitter.com/eOIMxI0LMD
— Dustin (@r0ck3t23) March 24, 2026

Freedom or Death: The Greeks never stopped fighting against the ottoman yoke; until they broke it and freed themselves.

The Greek Revolution of 1821, also known as the Greek War of Independence, was a pivotal armed uprising by Greek revolutionaries against 400 years of Ottoman… https://t.co/qUt3sHwlpE pic.twitter.com/ZcLbT3v4LR
— TheBlackWolf (@thewolvenhour) March 24, 2026

Today, the Greeks are celebrating the start of the “War of Greek Independence in 1821” that kicked Islam and the barbarians out of Greece and destroyed their mosques.

For me, however, the war is not over. I will celebrate when the Greeks of Cyprus are liberated and reclaim their… pic.twitter.com/TBIYevMNtr
— Homer Pavlos (@HomerPavlos) March 25, 2026

https://twitter.com/ictinus_x/status/2036584876699173359?s=20

Here is Elon Musk remembering his grandfather, who came back severely traumatized from fighting in World War II:

“One of the things that does concern me is that there are very few people alive today who actually viscerally understand the horrors of war, at least in the U.S. How… pic.twitter.com/YxWohHkBsW
— ELON CLIPS (@ElonClipsX) March 24, 2026

This is an Atlas moth

It’s Cantonese name is the snake's head moth, the tips of its wings look similar to the head of a cobra,

in a part of the world where cobras exist, this moths predators may find themselves startled long to facilitate its escape

pic.twitter.com/VFnLzE9BSf
— Science girl (@sciencegirl) March 25, 2026

This is when Ocean Ramsey and her team encountered what is possibly the largest great white shark ever recorded, approximately 6 meters long (~ 20 feet).pic.twitter.com/t5rO2D1Pwj
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) March 25, 2026

https://twitter.com/Old_But_Gold50s/status/2036633166065385898?s=20 https://twitter.com/Old_But_Gold50s/status/2036639220119527644?s=20

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Debt Rattle November 24 2023

Nov 242023

November 24, 2023 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:00 am Finance Tagged with: AGI, AI, cashless, ceasefire, desertion, Gaza, Hamas, insurrection, Pfizer, truce, Zelensky 35 Responses »

Jean-Michel Basquiat Self Portrait 1982

• Hamas is Winning the Battle for Gaza (Scott Ritter)

• Gaza: A Pause Before The Storm (Pepe Escobar)

• IDF Knew Real Hamas HQ While Lying About al-Shifa (CN)

• 1,000 Boats To Leave Türkiye For Gaza In New ‘Freedom Flotilla’ (Palinfo)

• How Zionists Rewrote the History of The Second World War (McCrae)

• How the Democratic Party Faked an American Insurrection (Robert Bridge)

• Zelensky Weighing Trump Peace Plan: ‘Time to Wrap This Conflict Up’ ? (Sp.)

• 2004, 2014, 2022: What Is Ukraine Celebrating? (Oncan)

• Dems Fear Ukraine Might Not ‘Survive’ Until 2024 as House Halts Funding (Sp.)

• Ukraine Has No One Left to Fight Because of Desertion (Sp.)

• Pfizer Sues Poland Over Covid-19 Vaccine (RT)

• Eurozone Economy ‘Stuck In The Mud’ – Economist (RT)

• Germany to Choose Lifeline for Its Embattled Economy Over Ukraine Aid (Sp.)

• Stark Warning Against UK Following Sweden By Going Cashless (Exp.)

• European Lawmakers Vote For Abolition Of Member State Vetoes (RMX)

• OpenAI Researchers Warned Board of AI Breakthrough Ahead of CEO Ouster (R.)

Nap/Macgregor

Dr. Areilla Oppenheim from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, did the first extensive DNA study in 2001 on Israelis and Palestinians, and concluded that emigrants on ships to Palestine before it became Israel were 40% Mongolian and 40% Turkish. There was no Semitic blood…

Ray McGovern: They Killed JFK, Will We Let Them Kill Peace?

Nap/Wilkerson

This is quite incredible. This is Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell when he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of State, who predicts the ultimate outcome of Israel's behavior will be the country's destruction.

He compares it to… pic.twitter.com/w6FNRMvetl

— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) November 23, 2023

Macgregor

Nap Celente

WATCH FULL VIDEO: Is #Israel committing genocide in #GAZA, and is #GenocideJoe a fair name for @POTUS? https://t.co/ApfzEoXKC6 pic.twitter.com/YdmCZT14Vo

— Gerald Celente (@geraldcelente) November 23, 2023

Joe Lauria: “Is it any coincidence that a 4-day ceasefire allowing cameras to show food trucks delivering aid to Gazans coincides with the 4-day Thanksgiving holiday, when Americans often debate politics and won’t be confronted with images of genocide and deprivation as they overeat? The killing will resume when they go back to work on Monday.”

Actress Melissa Barrera is fired from the next Scream film sequel for daring to speak for the persecuted #Palestinians – “I’d rather be excluded for who I include, than be included for who I exclude.”

If you think the pope is pro-Palestinian, wait until you meet Jesus.

“..Hamas baited a trap for Israel which the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu predictably rushed into.”

• Hamas is Winning the Battle for Gaza (Scott Ritter)

When Hamas launched its October 7 attack on Israel, it initiated a plan years in the making. The meticulous attention to detail that was evident in the Hamas operation underscored the reality that Hamas had been studying the Israeli intelligence and military forces arrayed against it, uncovering weaknesses that were subsequently exploited. The Hamas action represented more than sound tactical and operational planning and execution—it was a masterpiece in strategic conceptualization as well. One of the main reasons behind the Israeli defeat on October 7 was the fact that the Israeli government was convinced that Hamas would never attack, regardless of what the intelligence analysts charged with watching Hamas activity in Gaza were saying. This failure of imagination came about by Hamas having identified the political goals and objectives of Israel (the nullification of Hamas as a resistance organization by undertaking a policy built on “buying” Hamas through an expanded program of work permits issued by Israel for Palestinians living in Gaza.)

By playing along with the work permit program, Hamas lulled the Israeli leadership into complacency, allowing Hamas’ preparations for their attack to be carried out in plain view. The October 7 attack by Hamas was not a stand-alone operation, but rather part of a strategic plan possessing three main objectives—to put the issue of a Palestinian state back on the front burner of international discourse, to free the thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, and to compel Israel to cease and desist when it came to its desecration of the Al Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest place. The October 7 attack, on its own, could not achieve these outcomes. Rather, the October 7 attack was designed to trigger an Israeli response which would create the conditions necessary for Hamas’ objectives to reach fruition. The October 7 attack was designed to humiliate Israel to the point of irrationality, to ensure that any Israeli response would be governed by the emotional need for revenge, as opposed to a rational response designed to nullify the Hamas objectives.

Here, Hamas was guided by the established Israeli doctrine of collective punishment (known as the Dahiya Doctrine, named after the West Beirut suburb that was heavily bombed by Israel in 2006 as a way of punishing the Lebanese people for Israel’s failure to defeat Hezbollah in combat.) By inflicting a humiliating defeat on Israel which shattered both the myth of Israeli invincibility (regarding the Israel Defense Forces) and infallibility (regarding Israeli intelligence), and by taking hundreds of Israelis hostage before withdrawing to its underground lair beneath Gaza, Hamas baited a trap for Israel which the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu predictably rushed into.

“South Africans do know a thing or two about apartheid. They, like other critics of Israel, better be extra wary moving forward.”

• Gaza: A Pause Before The Storm (Pepe Escobar)

While the world cries “Israeli genocide,” the Biden White House is gushing over the upcoming Gaza truce it helped broker, as though it’s actually “on the verge” of its “biggest diplomatic victory.” Behind the self-congratulatory narratives, the US administration is not remotely “wary about Netanyahu’s endgame,” it fully endorses it – genocide included – as agreed at the White House less than three weeks before Al-Aqsa Flood, in a 20 September meeting between Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu and Joe “The Mummy” Biden’s handlers. The US/Qatar-brokered “truce,” which is supposed to go into effect this week, is not a ceasefire. It is a PR move to soften Israel’s genocide and boost its morale by securing the release of a few dozen captives. Moreover, the record shows that Israel never respects ceasefires.

Predictably, what really worries the US administration is the “unintended consequence” of the truce, which will “allow journalists broader access to Gaza and the opportunity to further illuminate the devastation there and turn public opinion on Israel.” Real journalists have been working in Gaza 24/7 since October 7 – dozens of whom have been killed by the Israeli military machine in what Reporters Sans Frontieres calls “one of the deadliest tolls in a century.” These journalists have spared no effort to go all the way to “illuminate the devastation,” a euphemism for the ongoing genocide, shown in all its gruesome detail for the entire world to see. Even the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA), itself relentlessly attacked by Israel, revealed – somewhat meekly – that this has been “the largest displacement since 1948,” an “exodus” of the Palestinian population, with the younger generation “forced to live through traumas of ancestors or parents.”

As for public opinion all across the Global South/Global Majority, it “turned” long ago on Zionist extremism. But now the Global Minority – populations of the collective west – are watching raptly, horrified, and bitter that in just six weeks, social media has exposed them to what mainstream media hid for decades. There will be no turning back now that this penny has dropped. The South African government has paved the path, globally, for the proper reaction to an unfolding genocide: parliament voted to shutter the Israeli embassy, expel the Israeli ambassador, and cut diplomatic ties with Tel Aviv. South Africans do know a thing or two about apartheid. They, like other critics of Israel, better be extra wary moving forward.

Anything can be expected: an outbreak of foreign intel-conducted “terra terra terra” false flags, artificially induced weather calamities, fake “human rights abuse” charges, the collapse of the national currency, the rand, instances of lawfare, assorted Atlanticist apoplexy, sabotage of energy infrastructure. And more. Several nations should have by now invoked the Genocide Convention – given that Israeli politicians and officials have been bragging, on the record, about razing Gaza and besieging, starving, killing, and mass-transferring its Palestinian population. No geopolitical actor has dared thus far. South Africa, for its part, had the courage to go where few Muslim and Arab states have ventured. As matters stand, when it comes to much of the Arab world – particularly the US client states – they are still in Rhetorical Swamp territory.

They simply want all hospitals gone, make the strip unlivable.

• IDF Knew Real Hamas HQ While Lying About al-Shifa (CN)

Although corporate news media have made it clear they don’t buy the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claim that al-Shifa Hospital has been a cover for a Hamas command and control center and weapons armory, Western media have failed to report a much bigger story. The IDF and the Israeli government already knew when they launched their propaganda campaign about al-Shifa that Hamas had no military command and control facility hidden there because it had already found the complex kilometers away. As Consortium News reported last week, for 15 years the Israelis claimed Hamas was operating its primary command and control base from a tunnel underneath al-Shifa. After the Israeli bombing campaign against Gaza began in October, the Israeli military amplified that message to press its contention that by hiding the Hamas high command, al-Shifa Hospital had lost its immunity from military operations under the law of war, and could now legitimately be taken over by force.

On Nov. 11, IDF spokesman Richard Hecht declared that al-Shifa was the “main hub of Hamas activity;” Newsweek reported the IDF regarded al-Shifa Hospital as “Hamas’s main command post” and the Times of Israel headlined “Hamas leaders again hiding under hospital”. The crescendo of Israeli propaganda about al-Shifa being a “human shield” for Hamas came with a long report published by The New York Times on Nov. 14. It was based on interviews with eight present and former intelligence and defense officials, describing a vast military command complex under al-Shifa with multiple levels. But something quite unexpected had happened during this new round of press stories on al-Shifa that completely demolished the entire IDF story line: the IDF had gained control of the real Hamas command and control center in an area where the Hamas leadership had previously had their above-ground offices in the Al Atatra neighborhood, in the extreme northwest of Beit Lahiya city, 8.5km away from al-Shifa.

After that office building was demolished, the IDF discovered a major tunnel facility that was quite certain had been the central headquarters for the Hamas high command — the command and control center for the entire war. As the IDF leaked to The Jerusalem Post in a story published Nov. 14, the discovery was made “several days ago” of a tunnel with an elevator that reached thirty meters underground, compared with only five meters underground in other tunnels. Furthermore it had been equipped with oxygen, air conditioning and more advanced communications than seen anywhere else. That major IDF discovery, made on or before the Nov. 11 false stories about al-Shifa, threatened to undermine the Israeli political campaign to justify the IDF’s takeover and destruction of Gaza’s hospitals on the grounds that they were “human shields” for Hamas.

Al-Shifa Hospital was the centerpiece of that campaign, based on the claim that it was hiding the high command of Hamas in a tunnel underneath it. Obviously the IDF and the extreme right-wing Israel government would want to stop all further publicity about the discovery of the actual Hamas high command’s underground base. No story about the discovery of the real Hamas high command bunker has been published inside Israel or elsewhere in the nearly two weeks since the detailed Jerusalem Post piece on Nov. 14. Somehow the Israeli government and media have been able to completely suppress the discovery of the Hamas headquarters, despite the fact that a number of foreign news media have offices in Tel Aviv and the story is still available on the internet.

“..the boats will carry 4,500 people from 40 countries, “including anti-Zionist Jews.”

• 1,000 Boats To Leave Türkiye For Gaza In New ‘Freedom Flotilla’ (Palinfo)

Approximately 1,000 boats have gathered in Türkiye on Wednesday before heading toward Gaza in an attempt to break the Israeli blockade in a similar attempt from over a decade ago. In an interview with Turkish news website Haber7, Volkan Okçu, one of the organizers of the protest, indicated the boats will carry 4,500 people from 40 countries, “including anti-Zionist Jews.” Among the 1,000 vessels would be 313 boats filled with Russian activists, and 104 filled with Spanish activists, he said. Only 12 Turkish vessels will join the flotilla, he told Haber7. However, Okçu said in a later tweet that he expected the number of Turkish vessels to be much higher.

The activist indicated to Haber7 that the flotilla is scheduled to leave Turkish coasts on Thursday. The maritime convoy is set to make a first stop in Cyprus before continuing toward the Israeli port of Ashdod. Some participants in the flotilla will also reportedly take their spouses and children on board.

“Hitler sought to radicalise Muslims for jihad against the British and French colonial powers, as had the Kaiser in the First World War.”

• How Zionists Rewrote the History of The Second World War (McCrae)

The truth about the relationship between the Third Reich and the Jews is more complicated than the induced horror of a trip to Auschwitz. Robert Oulds, in his masterpiece, World War II: the First Culture War (2023), describes what happened in Palestine, a less-known yet dramatic theatre of the Second World War. In the 1930s Hitler had supported a Jewish homeland, as was already emerging since the Balfour Declaration of 1917. But the Holy Land around Jerusalem was keenly contested. The British had suppressed the Arab Revolt of 1936 to 1939, but Palestine and the wider Middle East were volatile.. Hitler sought to radicalise Muslims for jihad against the British and French colonial powers, as had the Kaiser in the First World War. As Oulds explains: ‘Hitler planned to use Crete as a steppingstone to reach Cyprus and from there take Palestine from the British and Zionists who were in the process of colonising the Mandate.’

The Zionist paramilitary organisation, the Stern Gang, sought cooperation with the Nazis, to liberate Palestine from British control, but their overtures were coolly received. Hitler favoured the Arab nationalists. Meanwhile, twelve thousand Palestinians, mostly but not exclusively Christian, had volunteered to serve in the British army. According to Oulds, ‘the Nazis admired Islam because its adherents were prepared to sacrifice their lives for their cause. Furthermore, as the Nazis were opponents of Judeo-Christian heritage, they thought that Islam could be a useful tool in undermining the traditions which the National Socialists despised.’ Ironically, this was similar to the aim of the Frankfurt School, whose Cultural Marxist professors were predominantly of the Jewish intelligentsia targeted by Hitler.

Muslims, particularly from the Caucasus, Bosnia and the Crimean Tatars, were recruited to the Waffen SS. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem helped the Germans in this regard. However, Hitler’s Middle-Eastern endeavour was unsuccessful. Zionists showed little gratitude to the British for the initiation of the Jewish state. The Stern Gang killed about two hundred servicemen, many of whom had fought bravely in the North African desert against Rommel’s army. In 1946, ninety-one people died in the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, site of the British administrative headquarters. Twenty-eight lives were lost, including five British soldiers, in an attack on the El Kantara to Haifa express train in 1947. Other violent campaigns of terror and ethnic cleansing were waged by other Jewish terrorist organisations, including the Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi.

“And just like that the J6 Committee’s violent insurrection narrative has crumbled..”

• How the Democratic Party Faked an American Insurrection (Robert Bridge)

“Truth and transparency are critical,” Johnson said in a prepared statement. “This decision will provide millions of Americans, criminal defendants, public interest organizations, and the media an ability to see for themselves what happened that day, rather than having to rely upon the interpretation of a small group of government officials.” Democrats, however, who have milked the ‘insurrectionist’ narrative for everything it is worth, predictably chafed at the release, calling it a ‘risk to national security.’ “It is unconscionable that one of Speaker Johnson’s first official acts as steward of the institution is to endanger his colleagues, staff, visitors, and our country by allowing virtually unfettered access to sensitive Capitol security footage,” said New York Democrat Rep. Joseph Morelle, who sits on the Committee on House Administration. “That he is doing so over the strenuous objections of the security professionals within the Capitol Police is outrageous. This is not transparency; this is dangerous and irresponsible.”

For almost two years, Democrats, who managed to cherry-pick the most suggestive scenes of the footage, portrayed January 6th as everything from another September 11 to a second Pear Harbor. Last year, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), the photogenic member of the Democrat’s radical progressive wing, was shown visibly upset after having to “relive” the events of the Capitol riot. “I am so angry. Having to relive that footage,” she sobbed, rubbing her forehead. “I know it’s not just me. This is everyone.” “These attacks killed people, traumatized people and for any of you right-winger Trump loyalists, he sent his own people to jail, and promised his own people that he would pardon them.” The inconvenient truth, however, is that only one person was killed on the day of the Capitol riot – unarmed Air Force veteran and avid Trump supporter, Ashli Babbitt, who was shot by a police officer.

Now, Republicans are demanding justice be served and that the incarcerated protesters be immediately set free. “And just like that the J6 Committee’s violent insurrection narrative has crumbled,” said conservative commentator Charlie Kirk over X (formerly Twitter). “The Capitol Police facilitated the protesters passage through the building…the vast majority of J6ers should be immediately released.” However, with the Democrats still in control of Washington, D.C., together with the FBI, the Justice Department and other administrative offices, the Republicans will have to wait until November 4th – and possibly longer if they lose their White House bid – before any real justice is meted out. Meanwhile, federal officials have said there is no evidence that law enforcement officials helped coordinate the attacks.

“If you are asking whether the violence at the Capitol on January 6 was part of some operation orchestrated by FBI sources or agents the answer is emphatically no,” FBI Director Christopher Wray told Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) during a House Committee hearing. Higgins was questioning Wray about two Greyhound buses he said dropped off FBI agents dressed as Trump supporters at the Capitol on January 6, referring to the vehicles as “ghost buses.” Whatever the case may be, the fresh revelations were a silver lining in a shitstorm that has been following Donald Trump, who hopes to win back the White House next November despite multiple legal woes. “Congratulations to Speaker of the House Mike Johnson for having the Courage and Fortitude to release all of the J6 Tapes, which will explicitly reveal what really happened on January 6th!” Trump wrote on Truth Social Friday.

“Buying a ticket to the Trump Circus could really backfire for Zelensky..”

• Zelensky Weighing Trump Peace Plan: ‘Time to Wrap This Conflict Up’ ? (Sp.)

In a recent interview with US media, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signaled a belated interest in a peace proposal pitched earlier this year by former US President Donald Trump. In June, before a failed Ukrainian counteroffensive and a renewed Russian offensive, Zelensky had appeared incredulous at the suggestion of a negotiated settlement. In May, Trump claimed he “would have that war settled in one day, 24 hours” if he were president, saying he would sit down with both Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin, both of whom “have their weaknesses.” The following month, as Ukraine was preparing to launch a highly anticipated counter-offensive, Zelensky told a US newspaper he “couldn’t understand” Trump’s statement, noting that in the four years Trump was in the White House, he didn’t secure the return of Crimea – by then part of the Russian Federation following its secession from Ukraine – or the Donbass – then governed by the autonomous People’s Republics that had not yet been recognized by Moscow – to Ukrainian control.

However, the Ukrainian counteroffensive fell flat on its face, failing to secure all but the most meager of territorial gains for Ukraine at an appalling human and materiel cost, and now Russian forces have launched their own operations aimed at pushing Ukrainian forces out of claimed Russian territories. Speaking with a US television news outlet on Tuesday, Zelensky said he was “ready” to hear Trump’s proposal. “Let’s speak with him and give him this possibility to show what steps [are] of his peace formula,” Zelensky said. “He can share it with me,” the Ukrainian leader said. “Yes, we can stop this war if we will give Russia Donbass and Crimea, to my mind that our country will not be ready for that such [a] peace plan. That is not [a] peace plan.” However, earlier this month, Zelensky told another US news outlet that he would only need “24 minutes” to explain to Trump “that he can’t manage this war … he can’t bring peace because of Putin.”

The US has already funneled more than $113 billion in aid to Kiev since Russia’s special operation began in February 2022, according to US government statistics, and Biden has called on Congress to approve a massive $61.4 billion aid bill. On Monday, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin traveled to Kiev and declared the US would “continue to stand with Ukraine” and “will continue to support Ukraine’s urgent battlefield needs and long-term defense requirements.” Michael Shannon, a political commentator and Newsmax columnist, told Sputnik on Wednesday that Zelensky’s shift toward Trump was a risky intervention into US domestic politics that could seriously backfire. “It’s beginning to look like Zelensky’s blank check for US financial and military support has been returned for insufficient funds. The attitude on the part of the Biden administration and the left has been changing from ‘fighting to the last Ukrainian’ to ‘maybe it’s time to wrap this conflict up,’” Shannon told Sputnik.

“You can see evidence of this change in the coverage of the diplomatic portion of the conflict,” he noted. “The Regime Media is discussing negotiations without the previous preconditions. Zelensky can read the room and may be thinking that listening to Trump will signal an openness to alternative outcomes for the war.” However, Shannon also floated the opposite possibility: that Zelensky sees this maneuver as a ploy to provoke the White House into doubling down on support for Ukraine. “Or, it could be that Zelensky knows Trump is absolutely toxic to the Biden administration and he hopes that by meeting with Trump it will make a negotiated peace at this time anathema to the administration,” he explained. “Call it a ‘diplomatic bank shot’ if you will. A very risky bank shot. Zelensky would have been smarter to continue to ignore Trump.”

Not much left to celebrate..

• 2004, 2014, 2022: What Is Ukraine Celebrating? (Oncan)

The catalyst for the Maidan coup, as it is now known, was the suspension of the association process with the EU by the Ukrainian government on November 21, 2013. Allegations of corruption further fueled pro-Western actions. A symbolic moment occurred on December 8 of the same year when the Lenin statue in Kiev was demolished, signaling a transformative shift for Ukraine. The activists leading the Maidan protests were primarily figures associated with Ukraine’s Western-backed ultra-nationalist and neo-Nazi movements. The Social-Nationalist Party, founded in 1991 and later renamed Svoboda (ironically meaning “Freedom”), played a significant role in the 2014 protests through its youth organization, Ukrainian Patriot.

Notably, neo-Nazi figure Andrey Biletskiy, founder of Trizub (established in 2002 and later transformed into the Azov Battalion), symbolizes the character of the Maidan regime, having been imprisoned for demolishing the Lenin statue in 2011 but subsequently released to enter parliament after the coup. Dmitry Yarosh, the founder of Praviy Sektor and a manager of Trizub, emerged as a leading figure in neo-Nazi organizations during and after the Maidan protests. Yarosh further gained influence as the chief advisor to the Chief of General Staff of Ukraine. The United States, a major international supporter of the Maidan protests, was notably represented by Victoria Nuland, who, as the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, distributed cookies to Ukrainian activists during the ongoing protests. Nuland’s involvement in shaping the post-coup administration, coupled with the claim that the USA spent $5 billion on Ukraine over two decades, highlighted the significant U.S. role.

The strong U.S. support for the Maidan coup also found expression in the appointment of Hunter Biden, the son of then-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, to the board of directors of Burisma, Ukraine’s largest energy company. Following the coup, the ultra-nationalist government’s initial actions aimed to erase the Soviet past, suppress Russian cultural presence, and undertake moves against Russians in the country. The Ukrainian administration implemented measures such as banning the Russian language in public spaces, erecting statues of Nazi collaborators (particularly Bandera), designating their birthdays as public holidays, equalizing the status of Red Army veterans and members of Nazi collaborator organizations, official affiliation of neo-Nazi groups with the Ukrainian army, and the banning, persecution, and killing of members of the Communist Party and socialist organizations.

Russians, predominantly located in the east of the country, formed anti-fascist unions and engaged in Anti-Maidan actions to protect against attacks. This resistance led to the establishment of the Federal State of Novorossiya, comprising the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. Despite the Minsk protocol signed by Ukraine, Russia, Donetsk, Lugansk, and OSCE representatives for a ceasefire, Ukrainian forces persisted in their attacks. A protracted war ensued, exacerbated by the special military operation launched by Russia.

Make peace you fools.

• Dems Fear Ukraine Might Not ‘Survive’ Until 2024 as House Halts Funding (Sp.)

The crisis in the Middle East, the possibility of a government shutdown, and the election of a new House speaker have shifted Washington’s attention away from Ukraine, with officials in the Pentagon and civilian agencies sending increasingly desperate warning signals that they’re running out of cash to sink into NATO’s proxy war against Russia. White House officials and Democratic lawmakers lobbying for the extension of US economic and military assistance to Ukraine have sounded the alarm over GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson’s perceived foot-dragging in setting up a vote on the issue. Citing recent attempts to include Ukraine funding into omnibus, must-pass funding measures, Democratic lawmakers pointed out that the next stopgap funding bill won’t be coming until late January or early February of 2024, and expressed fears about whether Kiev can hold out for that long.

“I don’t know that Ukraine can survive until February of 2024,” Democratic Senator Chris Murphy told Beltway media this week. “My sense is they start to run short of ammunition in the next several weeks.” “We have to bear down, get this done and get this supplemental passed soon because the brave Ukrainians who are fighting as winter is coming are looking at losing the supplies they’ve needed for ammunition, for missiles, for drones, for defense, for armor, and we cannot possibly afford to abandon Ukraine,” his colleague, Democratic Senator Chris Coons concurred. Johnson and his conservative Republican colleagues in the House of Representatives torpedoed President Joe Biden’s proposed $105 billion all-in-one funding bill this month containing money for Ukraine, Israel, cash for US brinksmanship with China in the Pacific, and the border crisis, instead pushing through a stopgap measure preventing a government shutdown and assuring funding for government services, but not a cent more.

The bill passed the Senate, and President Biden reluctantly signed it, despite earlier threats by the White House to veto the measure. For the Pentagon and US civilian agencies tasked with doling out cash to Kiev, Johnson’s reluctance to tee up a vote on Ukraine poses a real danger, with US military officials warning earlier this month that there was only about $1 billion remaining in the Ukraine war chest, and a USAID administrator revealing that its funds for direct budgetary support were all gone. “Without further appropriations, the government of Ukraine would need to use emergency measures such as printing money or not paying critical salaries, which could lead to hyperinflation, and severely damage the war effort,” USIAD assistant administrator Erin McKee said in congressional testimony earlier this month.

Senior White House aides informed media that part of the administration’s problem with Johnson is that it “does not yet have a clear read” on the politician’s negotiating style, and expressed concerns that the speaker may not be as malleable as his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy to backroom side deals (which helped culminate in McCarthy’s ouster).

“Ukrainian prisons are currently holding at least a few brigades of deserters. Their motive is clear: fear of death..”

• Ukraine Has No One Left to Fight Because of Desertion (Sp.)

The botched counteroffensive has caused the Kiev regime a serious shortage of human resources for mobilization, not to mention growing questions from Kiev’s Western allies and donors as to what they are actually providing money and weapons for. In 2021, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine initiated 117 criminal cases for desertion. Another 2,028 cases were classified as “unauthorized leaving of a military unit or place of service,” meaning that individuals left their units with the intention of returning. In addition, there were 33 cases of self-inflicted injuries.In the first nine months of this year, 4,638 soldiers deserted from the Ukrainian Armed Forces, 10,940 temporarily left service, and there were 161 cases of self-harm. Deserters face sentences of five to eight years in prison. In some instances, these cases often end with a pretrial agreement and a suspended sentence.

Ukrainian prisons are currently holding at least a few brigades of deserters. Their motive is clear: fear of death. Local media reported that a Russian missile destroyed several dozen soldiers in their barracks. One survivor fled, taking his rifle with him. His friends say he surrendered as a PoW. Nevertheless, he was sentenced to eight years in prison. Another soldier left his position after it was shelled, but returned later. He was sent to a military psychiatrist. He did not fully recover, disappeared again, then was arrested and sentenced to 2.5 years in prison. Another deserter admitted in court that he feared for his life during the attack on Liman. According to him, the operation was poorly planned and lacked fire support. Sentence: five years. Some try to flee abroad. In July, a deserter was caught on the border with Romania. He was also sentenced to five years.

They are also sent to penal battalions. This is not widely publicized, but it happens. At the front, however, they only trust those who surrendered at the first opportunity, and now they are only assigned to construction work. Officers are punished for the desertion of subordinates. Therefore, if a soldier declares that he would rather go to jail than face bullets, he will be kept in the rear. However, fatigue from the fighting is mounting for everyone. Losses are enormous and finding replacements are problematic. Many combat units are 30-40 percent short of personnel. Almost everywhere, there are hidden desertions. Soldiers, sergeants, and officers feign illness and try to stay at headquarters and in rear units – anything to avoid the front lines. And then “psychologists” rush to help, complaining that many people live by the principle “see no evil, hear no evil,” so the state should intensify propaganda.

Reminder: Von der Leyen “negotiated” with Bourla on WhatsApp (or a similar app) , because she was not required to save such talks.

• Pfizer Sues Poland Over Covid-19 Vaccine (RT)

US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has escalated its feud with Poland over excess Covid-19 vaccine doses that were ordered under a massive contract with the European Union, filing a lawsuit to demand payment for 60 million jabs that Warsaw didn’t need. The case was filed this week in Brussels, demanding 6 billion zloty ($1.5 billion) for the vaccines that Poland’s government declined after it stopped taking delivery of the jabs in April 2019. Warsaw was locked into buying its share of Covid-19 inoculations under a controversial contract that the European Commission signed with Pfizer in 2021 on behalf of EU nations. The bloc wound up ordering 1.1 billion doses under the contract, saddling EU states with a vaccine glut as the Covid-19 pandemic waned.

The EU prosecutor’s office announced an investigation of the procurement process amid allegations of corruption and secret backroom dealings. Polish officials questioned the role of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in making the deal. Von der Leyen admitted to privately communicating with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla for weeks during the contract negotiations, but the European Commission said last year that her text exchanges with the executive could not be found. The first hearing in Pfizer’s lawsuit is scheduled to take place on December 6. The company offered earlier this year to give the EU more time to complete its minimum vaccine purchases under the binding contract, but it insisted that it eventually be paid for the full number of doses to which the bloc committed. Poland refused to sign on to a revised EU agreement with the drugmaker.

Polish Health Minister Katarzyna Sojka told broadcaster TVN24 on Wednesday that there is some hope of resolving the Pfizer lawsuit “in a positive way.” She noted that Warsaw is not alone in the issue, as other EU states will face similar lawsuits. Pfizer decided to go forward with the lawsuit “following a prolonged contract breach and a period of discussions in good faith between the parties,” a company spokesman told Politico. Millions of Poles refused to receive Covid-19 vaccines, and Warsaw halted deliveries of the jabs as an influx of Ukrainian refugees in early 2022 strained the government’s finances.

“The situation is especially dire in the Eurozone’s two largest economies, Germany and France..”

• Eurozone Economy ‘Stuck In The Mud’ – Economist (RT)

The lingering economic downturn in the Eurozone signals that the region may plunge into a recession by the end of the year, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing economists and private-sector activity surveys. According to S&P Global, the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) in the region continued to shrink in November, plunging to 47.1 points, the sixth consecutive monthly reading below 50 – the threshold separating contraction from growth. The same trend was seen in both manufacturing and services. “The Eurozone economy is stuck in the mud,” Hamburg Commercial Bank chief economist Cyrus de la Rubia told the news outlet. According to the expert, everything points to “a second consecutive quarter of shrinking GDP” after a 0.1% drop in gross domestic product in the previous quarter, which would constitute a technical recession.

The situation is especially dire in the Eurozone’s two largest economies, Germany and France, de la Rubia said, noting that both are “in the grip of considerable weakness.” While Germany’s contraction somewhat eased in November and private-sector activity shrank at a slower pace than in the previous month, the country remains “in recession territory” and its economy may return to growth no sooner than next year, the analyst predicted. The state of affairs in France, meanwhile, was even worse, with the country’s PMI little changed at 44.5. Both manufacturing and services are suffering from weak demand, while the surge in unused business capacity triggered the first decline in private-sector employment in three years. This put the country’s economy “in a kind of a dead-end,” according to another economist at Hamburg Commercial Bank, Norman Liebke. Inflation in both France and Germany remained far above target levels and is unlikely to decrease sufficiently enough to stop weighing on their economies in the short term, de la Rubia said.

They didn’t choose, the Federal Constitutional Court made the choice for them.

• Germany to Choose Lifeline for Its Embattled Economy Over Ukraine Aid (Sp.)

The German Finance Ministry has announced a freeze on almost all new spending approvals for 2023, permitting only current liabilities and exceptional new obligations, after a Federal Constitutional Court ruling questioned the legality of several hundred billion euros in special funds. Berlin is facing a tough choice between financial support for German businesses and continuing to waste money on the “failed project” that is NATO’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. As “Ukraine fatigue” percolating throughout the West increasingly pulls the rug from under Kiev’s hopes for continued financial and military assistance being funneled to it, another blow might have been dealt to Europe’s efforts to sustain aid for the regime, the WSJ noted.

German Finance Minister Christian Lindner announced a freeze on public spending for the rest of the year on Monday. Applicable to almost the entire budget for 2023, the decision was made due to “the need to review the overall budgetary situation for the federal budget,” as per a statement from the ministry. The move came in the wake of a bombshell ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court last week. The judicial ruling stated that the €60 billion (over $65 billion) earmarked for the pandemic response cannot be repurposed for other initiatives, like advancing green manufacturing practices or boosting solar energy production. The court said Berlin was bound by the country’s constitutionally enshrined fiscal rules that limit budget deficits to 0.35% of gross domestic product in normal times.

The implications of the move are such that Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government is now facing a dilemma. The increasingly unpopular Scholz Cabinet had been counting on a flood of spending on “green-energy projects and technology,” along with multibillion-euro-worth subsidies to construct chip-making plants, the WSJ underscored. Now, Berlin will either have to go ahead with painful budget cuts or raise taxes, or even both. But most importantly, in the short term, Berlin will need to decide whether priority shall be given to boosting Europe’s collective defense, and directing more aid to the Kiev regime, or “cushioning the impact of surging energy prices and inflation on businesses and households,” the outlet said. Nevertheless, Berlin will continue supporting a €50 billion four-year Brussels budget package for Ukraine for next year, according to cited German sources conferring with the bloc’s officials on November 17.

There are reasons why it’s been used for centuries. Don’t throw it away, because you will get a lot of disadvantages.”

• Stark Warning Against UK Following Sweden By Going Cashless (Exp.)

Britain should not follow Sweden towards becoming a cashless society, the leader of a Scandinavian grassroots movement has warned. Björn Eriksson, a former president of international police organisation Interpol, set up his campaign group to fight against the ditching of notes and coins in Sweden. And in a warning to the UK against going cashless, he said: “My message would be keep the two systems side by side. “It’s true that it costs more to have a system of cash running parallel with a digital system, but look upon it as an insurance. “There are reasons why it’s been used for centuries. Don’t throw it away, because you will get a lot of disadvantages.” Mr Eriksson launched Kontantupproret – Cash Rebellion – in 2015 due to concerns that some people were being cut adrift by the decline of cash in Sweden.

He said: “It just happens that I tried to be more modern and suddenly I could see there is something curious with this. “Everybody seems to be happy, nobody’s talking about those left aside. And that was more or less the starting point.” He said those affected include pensioners, women fleeing abusive relationships, the disabled, refugees, voluntary organisations, small businesses and people living in the north of the country where internet coverage can be a problem. Just eight percent of people in Sweden used cash for their most recent payment, according to a 2022 survey by the country’s central bank, down from 39 percent in 2010. But Britain is not that far behind with figures from UK Finance showing 14 percent of transactions last year used notes and coins.

Banks are vanishing from high streets up and down the country with 5,753 branches shutting their doors since January 2015, figures from consumer group Which? show. And some shops, cafes, restaurants and other venues across the UK will now only accept plastic. In Sweden, many banks have stopped handling cash altogether and Mr Eriksson said it is increasingly difficult to pay with notes and coins in shops. He said: “If you take foods you still have the possibility but notice it’s very easy to pay with digital means, maybe you have five places where you can do it in a shop, while if you have cash it’s a long line and you have to wait and then you can use your cash. “If you want to have a cup of coffee in Stockholm and you walk from the Parliament to the Central Station, for example, there is nowhere you could get your cup of coffee because they have a little sign saying we are cashless.”

Are they trying to blow up the union?!

• European Lawmakers Vote For Abolition Of Member State Vetoes (RMX)

European lawmakers approved plans on Wednesday to remove the national veto for EU member states in the latest attempted power grab by Brussels to wrestle control away from national governments. A total of 291 MEPs supported the proposal put forward by the “Verhofstadt Group,” a group of MEPs led by the arch-federalist Guy Verhofstadt to amend the European Union treaties in favor of greater centralization and limiting the sovereignty of member states. The vote was only narrowly passed with a majority of just 17 after a faction of conservative parliamentary groups expressed considerable opposition to the move.

In the plenary debate on the matter on Tuesday, Verhofstadt claimed that veto rights had been used by member states disillusioned with the European Union’s trajectory to “blackmail” the bloc, a thinly veiled jibe at Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has refused to sanction the European Union’s proposed amendments to the bloc’s collective budget to further finance the Ukrainian war effort. In response, a former co-rapporteur to the Verhofstadt Group, Polish MEP Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, accused federalists in the European Parliament of attempting “to transform the EU into a superstate,” continuing his opposition to the plans outlined in a recent interview with Remix News.

The public is not supposed to notice that a putsch is about to take place, that the European Union as a community of sovereign states is being abolished and a superstate is being created without any consent of the people, says Polish MEP Jacek Saryusz-Wolski Saryusz-Wolski resigned from the working committee led by Verhofstadt in protest at the development of the plan that would further politicize the European Commission, give Eurocrats sole competency over several issues including the environment, education, and public health, and remove the need for unanimity among member states in key policy areas. The Polish MEP called the move “a silent putsch with communist roots.”

Vice Chairman of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group Rob Roos, contrasted the vote on Wednesday with the Dutch election being held on the same day, posting on X: “Today the festival of democracy takes place in the Netherlands, but in Strasbourg our democracy is being buried. “A European Parliament majority just voted for the abolition of the Netherlands’ veto in many areas. Vote for a party that defends our veto!” he added. The resolution in reality changes little. It gives an insight into the consensus of the parliament but treaty change ultimately remains a matter upon which unanimity among member state governments is required.

“OpenAI defines AGI as autonomous systems that surpass humans in most economically valuable tasks..”

Better listen to Elon, and not let Bill Gates run away with it.

• OpenAI Researchers Warned Board of AI Breakthrough Ahead of CEO Ouster (R.)

Ahead of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s four days in exile, several staff researchers wrote a letter to the board of directors warning of a powerful artificial intelligence discovery that they said could threaten humanity, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters. The previously unreported letter and AI algorithm were key developments before the board’s ouster of Altman, the poster child of generative AI, the two sources said. Prior to his triumphant return late Tuesday, more than 700 employees had threatened to quit and join backer Microsoft in solidarity with their fired leader. The sources cited the letter as one factor among a longer list of grievances by the board leading to Altman’s firing, among which were concerns over commercializing advances before understanding the consequences. [..]

After being contacted by Reuters, OpenAI, which declined to comment, acknowledged in an internal message to staffers a project called Q* and a letter to the board before the weekend’s events, one of the people said. An OpenAI spokesperson said that the message, sent by long-time executive Mira Murati, alerted staff to certain media stories without commenting on their accuracy. Some at OpenAI believe Q* (pronounced Q-Star) could be a breakthrough in the startup’s search for what’s known as artificial general intelligence (AGI), one of the people told Reuters. OpenAI defines AGI as autonomous systems that surpass humans in most economically valuable tasks. Given vast computing resources, the new model was able to solve certain mathematical problems, the person said on condition of anonymity because the individual was not authorized to speak on behalf of the company.

Though only performing math on the level of grade-school students, acing such tests made researchers very optimistic about Q*’s future success, the source said. Reuters could not independently verify the capabilities of Q* claimed by the researchers. Researchers consider math to be a frontier of generative AI development. Currently, generative AI is good at writing and language translation by statistically predicting the next word, and answers to the same question can vary widely. But conquering the ability to do math — where there is only one right answer — implies AI would have greater reasoning capabilities resembling human intelligence. This could be applied to novel scientific research, for instance, AI researchers believe.

Unlike a calculator that can solve a limited number of operations, AGI can generalize, learn and comprehend. In their letter to the board, researchers flagged AI’s prowess and potential danger, the sources said without specifying the exact safety concerns noted in the letter. There has long been discussion among computer scientists about the danger posed by highly intelligent machines, for instance if they might decide that the destruction of humanity was in their interest. Researchers have also flagged work by an “AI scientist” team, the existence of which multiple sources confirmed. The group, formed by combining earlier “Code Gen” and “Math Gen” teams, was exploring how to optimize existing AI models to improve their reasoning and eventually perform scientific work, one of the people said.

Altman led efforts to make ChatGPT one of the fastest growing software applications in history and drew investment – and computing resources – necessary from Microsoft to get closer to AGI. In addition to announcing a slew of new tools in a demonstration this month, Altman last week teased at a summit of world leaders in San Francisco that he believed major advances were in sight. “Four times now in the history of OpenAI, the most recent time was just in the last couple weeks, I’ve gotten to be in the room, when we sort of push the veil of ignorance back and the frontier of discovery forward, and getting to do that is the professional honor of a lifetime,” he said at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. A day later, the board fired Altman.

Sea angel
https://twitter.com/i/status/1727792704078168321

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