The Automatic Earth

Salvador Dali Portrait of Gala with Two Lamb Chops Balanced on Her Shoulder 1933

Pope of Greenland

John Fetterman is asked about his visit to Mar-a-Lago: “I demand that I need to be made Pope of Greenland.” pic.twitter.com/Dra2eTpS0t

— TheBlaze (@theblaze) January 9, 2025

Baron

so let me get this straight… Nikola Tesla dies, and the ONLY person allowed access to his safe—the one containing all his most secret inventions—is John G. Trump, a brilliant MIT scientist and, oh yeah, Donald Trump’s uncle, who conveniently says, “nothing to see here” while the… pic.twitter.com/2SYaqqSLRC

— stepfanie tyler (@wildbarestepf) January 10, 2025

Joe Mel
https://twitter.com/i/status/1877537741153644903

Shellen
https://twitter.com/i/status/1877548531394793891

17 seconds

Neuroscientist explains how a thought held for 17 seconds, will start to manifest… science meets ancient wisdom

What are your thoughts?
pic.twitter.com/77VjGbD8Zm

— Interesting STEM (@InterestingSTEM) January 9, 2025

Necessary first step. They can achieve a lot together. Build things, not destroy them.

• Putin Ready For ‘Unconditional’ Trump Meeting – Kremlin (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin is open to direct talks with US President-elect Donald Trump, but no specific details have yet been finalized, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. Previously, Trump announced that a meeting with Putin is being set up, suggesting that it will likely take place after he officially assumes office on January 20. Throughout his 2024 presidential campaign, the Republican repeatedly vowed to end the Ukraine conflict “within 24 hours” of entering office and said he would compel Moscow and Kiev to restart negotiations. Speaking to reporters on Friday, Peskov confirmed that Putin and Trump have expressed their readiness to communicate, adding that there are no preconditions to holding a meeting between the two leaders.

“President Putin has repeatedly stated his openness to contacts with international leaders, including the US president and, in particular, Donald Trump,” Peskov said. “No conditions are required for this. What is required is a mutual desire and political will to conduct a dialogue, to resolve existing problems through dialogue,” the spokesman added, noting that Moscow has recognized Trump’s readiness to solve problems through talks. “We welcome this.” Peskov stated that there are still no specifics on when and where the meeting would be held and that Moscow is currently acting on “the assumption of mutual readiness for the meeting.” He added that it is likely there will be “some movement” in this regard after Trump enters the Oval Office. Speaking to journalists at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida earlier this week, Trump said he might need up to six months after taking office to help Moscow and Kiev reach a deal.

His special envoy on the Ukraine conflict, retired US Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, told Fox News that he would like to set a 100-day timeline to end the conflict. While Trump has yet to lay out any specifics about how he would achieve a peace deal between Moscow and Kiev, some media reports have suggested that the president-elect’s team is considering a freeze of the conflict along the current battle lines. Moscow, however, has repeatedly stated that it seeks to end the conflict once and for all instead of putting it on hold, which it said could be used by Kiev to recuperate and rearm itself for a future conflict. Putin has stated that a ceasefire and peace negotiations with Ukraine can only take place after Kiev withdraws its forces from all Russian territories, abandons its NATO ambitions, and commits to a neutral and nuclear-weapons-free status.

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Trump at Truth Social: “The Radical Democrats have lost another pathetic, unAmerican Witch Hunt. After spending tens of millions of dollars, wasting over 6 years of obsessive work that should have been spent on protecting New Yorkers from violent, rampant crime that is destroying the City and State, coordinating with the Biden/Harris Department of Injustice in lawless Weaponization, and bringing completely baseless, illegal, and fake charges against your 45th and 47th President, ME, I was given an UNCONDITIONAL DISCHARGE. That result alone proves that, as all Legal Scholars and Experts have said, THERE IS NO CASE, THERE WAS NEVER A CASE, and this whole Scam fully deserves to be DISMISSED. The real Jury, the American People, have spoken, by Re-Electing me with an overwhelming MANDATE in one of the most consequential Elections in History. As the American People have seen, this “case” had no crime, no damages, no proof, no facts, no Law, only a highly conflicted Judge, a star witness who is a disbarred, disgraced, serial perjurer, and criminal Election Interference. Today’s event was a despicable charade, and now that it is over, we will appeal this Hoax, which has no merit, and restore the trust of Americans in our once great System of Justice. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

• Could Merchan Pull a Bait-and-Switch? (Turley)

The Supreme Court voted 5-4 to allow the sentencing of President-elect Donald Trump to go forward today. The bare majority was secured when Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett voted with their liberal colleagues, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. However, part of the rationale for the decision was that Acting New York Justice Juan Merchan indicated that he was going to issue an unconditional discharge without any jail or probation. The question is whether Merchan could pull a bait-and-switch and decide to impose punishment. It is highly unlikely but intriguing. Some of us predicted this result and specifically noted that Chief Justice Roberts would not want to issue a stay. Roberts prefers regular order and, like many jurists, prefers for cases to be finalized to allow for a complete appellate review.

They tend to oppose interlocutory appeals for that reason. In his earlier order, Merchan discussed various options and only said “an unconditional discharge appears to be the most viable solution to ensure finality and allow Defendant to pursue his appellate options.” That is where some of us said that this case would land after the conviction. After the election, such a sentence became all but certain. It is the only option that would avoid the constitutional problems — and likely reversal — for Merchan. The majority took that as a done deal and noted that the President-elect would not have to attend in person and would not face any punishment. The Court may believe that it has sealed Merchan’s suggestion in legal amber. There is little likelihood that Merchan will depart from the course, but could he?

The answer is probably yes. Defendants are allowed to address the court before sentencing and no sentence is finalized until the sentencing hearing. What if Trump came in and expressed open contempt for Merchan and mocked the case? Some judges might take such an allocution moment to increase punishment. Merchan could threaten contempt but that increasing punishment would go against the operating assumption of the Court’s 5-4 decision. The Supreme Court decision itself does not order Merchan to issue an unconditional discharge. It simply treats it as a done deal. It is not as a legal matter, but it is as a practical matter. Today, we will see the ignoble end to a raw form of lawfare by one of its most committed warriors. After millions in costs and years of litigation, it will result in no punishment.

What the left will get is the labeling of Trump as a convicted felon, a fact that will then be repeated like a mantra by the media. Merchan can be expected to add to that rhetoric with punishment soundbites, as he has in the past. However, the result shows how this case was more inflated by the Goodyear blimp. It will be punishment by soundbite in a case based on a ridiculous criminal theory. He will be sentenced without our even knowing what jurors concluded happened in the case since Merchan did not require them to agree on the specific motivation or purpose of underlying acts. The benefit for President Trump is that he can finally appeal this case. While expectations are low for the New York court system which failed to prevent the political weaponization of its criminal justice system, it can now be reviewed in its totality and eventually go back the United States Supreme Court.

Lawfare

President Trump just released his first statement in the wake of the New York criminal case sentencing.

Here's what the president-elect had to say;

"The radical Democrats have lost another pathetic, un-American witch hunt after spending tens of millions of dollars wasting over… pic.twitter.com/daIWCdQp0C

— Overton (@overton_news) January 10, 2025

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“The ultimate penalty on Friday morning from Judge Merchan reflects the lack of seriousness in the case. It was more inflated than the Goodyear blimp..”

• The Verdict is in . . . for the New York Legal System (Turley)

With the sentencing of Donald Trump Friday, the final verdict on the New York criminal trial of the president-elect is in. The verdict is not the one that led to no jail or probation for the incoming president. Acting Justice Juan Merchan has brought down the gavel on the New York legal system as a whole. Once considered the premier legal system in the country, figures like New York Attorney General Letitia James, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Justices Arthur F. Engoron and Juan Merchan have caused the system to be weaponized for political purposes. Trump will walk away from this trial and into the White House in less than two weeks, but the New York system will walk into infamy after this day. The case has long been denounced by objective legal observers, including intense Trump critics, as a legal absurdity.

Even CNN’s senior legal analyst Elie Honig denounced the case as legally flawed and unprecedented while Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., simply called it total “b—s–t.” It is a case based on a non-crime. Bragg took a long-dead misdemeanor and zapped it back into life with a novel and unfounded theory. By using federal violations that were never charged, let alone tried, Bragg turned a misdemeanor into dozens of felonies and essentially tried Trump for federal offenses. Merchan not only allowed those charges to be brought to trial but then added layers of reversible errors in the effort to bag Trump at any cost. For that, he was lionized by the liberal media and many New Yorkers. However, Trump still managed to pull in 3.6 million New York votes, or 42.7%, in the 2024 election.

After all of the lawfare and every advantage (including a heavily biased media and a larger war chest), Vice President Kamala Harris lost hundreds of thousands of votes in 2024 in comparison to Joe Biden just four years earlier. Many polls showed that the public saw the Manhattan criminal case for what it was: raw lawfare targeting a leading political opponent. The election itself felt like the largest verdict in history as citizens rejected the political, legal, and media establishments in one of our nation’s most historic elections. The New York court system will now have a chance to redeem itself but few are holding their breath. The appellate court has still not ruled on an appeal of Attorney General Lettia James’s equally absurd civil lawsuit against Trump. Despite judges expressing skepticism over Engoron’s use of a law to impose a grotesque $455 million in fines and interest, we are still waiting for a decision.

Most are waiting for this criminal case to escape the vortex of the New York court system. With this appeal, this peddler’s wagon of reversible errors will finally pull up in front of the Supreme Court itself. With its ruling on Thursday night, the setting for a decision could not be better for Trump. The Supreme Court has again demonstrated that it has shown restraint and independence in these cases. In response to the ruling, Trump struck the perfect note Thursday night and declined to criticize the Court, stating that “This is a long way from finished and I respect the court’s opinion.” The ultimate penalty on Friday morning from Judge Merchan reflects the lack of seriousness in the case. It was more inflated than the Goodyear blimp, pumped up by hot rage and rhetoric. The sentence was the pinprick that showed the massive void within this case. The verdict is in. The New York legal system has rendered it against itself.

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45,000 Greenlanders. That’s 1 for every 8,000 Americans.

As someone noted: the US can make every Greenlander a millionaire. That would cost just $45 billion.

Note: the PM doesn’t seem to be overly happy with the role Denmark plays here. There’s definitely wiggle room.

• Greenland PM Says He’s Ready To Talk To Trump (RT)

Greenland Prime Minister Mute Egede has said he is prepared to speak with US President-elect Donald Trump, who has stated that ownership of the Danish overseas territory is an “absolute necessity” for American national security. Trump, who takes office on January 20, refused to rule out military force or coercive economic methods to secure US ownership of the island, in a statement on Tuesday. At a press conference alongside Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in Copenhagen on Friday, Egede was asked whether he had been in contact with Trump. “No, but we are ready to talk,” he said. Asked about Trump’s refusal to rule out force in his goal of acquiring the island, Egede replied that he thinks the statement was “serious,” but “Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders.”

Egede noted that international cooperation with allies is very important, and that the island will continue working with the US in the future. Greenland was allowed home rule by Denmark in 1979, and granted the right to declare independence via a referendum in 2009. The Arctic island’s pro-independence leader reiterated this ambition in Friday’s press conference. “The desire for independence, the wish to be in one’s own house, is probably understood by all people in the world,” Egede said. “We do not want to be Danish, we do not want to be Americans, we want to be Greenlandic.” Egede told journalists that an independence “vote will come soon.” The Danish prime minister noted “a strong desire among many Greenlanders to move towards independence,” an aspiration she described as “both legitimate and understandable.”

Both Frederiksen and Egede rejected Trump’s proposals to buy Greenland in the past. “We are not for sale and never will be for sale,” Egede said in December, after Trump first expressed his renewed interest in the island. On Thursday, Frederiksen stated that she had proposed a conversation with Trump’s team. “Intensive work is underway with the Americans,” she told Danish TV2. Denmark and its number one ally, the US, share the common goal of “strengthening the security of the Western alliance.” Greenland hosts a US military base and ballistic missile early-warning infrastructure.

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“..China accounted for some 60% of global production and 85% of processing capacity of rare earths..”

• US Blocked Sale Of Greenland Rare Earths Developer To China (RT)

US officials pressured a Greenland-based precious minerals group not to sell a rare-earth project to Chinese investors, the company’s chief executive has claimed. Speaking to Reuters, Tanbreez Mining CEO Greg Barnes confirmed that the deposit was eventually sold to a US-based firm. The news comes amid US President-elect Donald Trump’s insistence that Washington should take over the island, which is rich in minerals and occupies a key strategic position in the Arctic. Barnes told Reuters that the privately owned developer struggled with funding for extraction and was forced to consider offers to sell its deposit at Kringlerne, in southern Greenland. He noted that he received a number of bids for the project from Chinese firms.

However, he also said that US officials, who visited the project twice last year, had repeatedly insisted that he not sell the deposit to a Beijing-linked buyer. According to the executive, he eventually decided to sell to Critical Metals, a New York-based mining development firm, as offers from Chinese and other companies had not clearly indicated how they would pay. Critical Metals CEO Tony Sage confirmed to the news outlet that “there was a lot of pressure not to sell to China” on Barnes. The latter was ultimately forced to accept a much less lucrative deal than what Chinese buyers offered, Sage claimed. Critical Metals paid Barnes $5 million in cash and $211 million in company stock. Neither Sage nor Barnes disclosed the names of officials they met or the Chinese companies that made offers. [..]

Rare earth minerals are critical components in advanced technologies and military equipment due to their strong magnetic properties, making them strategically important in industries ranging from electric vehicles to missile systems. The Tanbreez deposit is about 30% heavy rare earths. Among other minerals, the site contains gallium, which is common in semiconductors, transistors, and small electronic devices. Trump has voiced plans to acquire Greenland since his first term in office. The world’s largest island gained home rule from Denmark in 1979, and is already home to a big US military base. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Trump said the island was an “absolute necessity” for US national security, and he would not rule out either military or economic steps to acquire it.

Greenland’s government has firmly rejected Trump’s plans, calling them “an absurd idea.” Denmark has also opposed the proposal. There have been increasingly vocal warnings from Washington about the risks posed by China’s dominance in the global rare earths market. As of 2022, China accounted for some 60% of global production and 85% of processing capacity of rare earths, and the US has been concerned about dependency on Beijing for essential materials.

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“The US military has been permanently present in Greenland since World War II..”

• US Creates Infrastructure for Nuclear-Capable Jets in Greenland – Russia (Sp.)

The United States is creating an airfield infrastructure in Greenland for planes capable of carrying nuclear warheads, Russian Ambassador to Denmark Vladimir Barbin told Sputnik. Last month, US President-elect Trump, who is due to assume office on January 20, called it “an absolute necessity” for the United States to own Greenland, thus commenting on his decision to appoint a new US ambassador to Denmark. Greenland Prime Minister Mute Egede has since responded, saying that the island is not for sale. “The island-based US Pituffik Space Base [ex-Thule Air Base] today is a part of the US’ system for warning about a nuclear strike from the Arctic direction. It is undergoing comprehensive modernization, including radar systems worth billions of dollars. It is also building airfield infrastructure for F-35 fighter jets, which are capable of carrying nuclear weapons. Such jets have already used the base’s airfield for training,” Barbin said.

The US military has been permanently present in Greenland since World War II, the ambassador added. “Russia supports boosting stability in the Arctic. It is possible only on the foundation of creating a system of international security equal for all Arctic states,” Barbin said. “Greenland is interested in developing mutually beneficial international cooperation, including with the United States. The question of Greenland’s fate should be decided on the basis of the expression of the will of the Greenlanders themselves within the framework of the current Danish legislation and without any outside interference,” Barbin said. US President-elect Donald Trump, due to assume office on January 20, in December 2024 called it “an absolute necessity” for the United States to own Greenland, an autonomous territory within the Danish Realm, thus commenting on his decision to appoint a new US ambassador to Denmark.

Greenland Prime Minister Mute Egede has since responded, saying that the island is not for sale. Trump told reporters earlier in January that he cannot guarantee he will not use military force to take over Greenland. Later, Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said there are currently no military plans in place to take control over Greenland by force. Trump first announced his claims for Greenland in 2019, when he was serving his first presidential term.

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“The first person to congratulate Biden was Bibi. And not only did he congratulate him, he did it on tape,” Trump continued, adding: “I haven’t spoken to him since. F**k him.”

• Trump Shares Video Calling Netanyahu ‘A Deep, Dark SOB’ (RT)

US President-elect Donald Trump has shared a video of an interview with Jeffrey Sachs in which the American economist calls Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “a deep, dark son of a b***h.” Trump posted the clip on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday without comment. In the two-minute video, Sachs accuses former US President Barack Obama of arming jihadists in Syria in a bid to overthrow Bashar Assad’s government. Sachs also condemns former President George Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq, and accuses Netanyahu of goading Bush into launching the two-decade war and pushing for US intervention in Syria and Iran. “He’s still trying to get us to fight Iran this day, this week,” Sachs says at the end of the clip. “He’s a deep, dark, son of a b***h… because he’s gotten us into endless wars.”

Trump posted the following video of Professor Jeffrey Sachs, who refers to Netanyahu as a "deep, dark son of a bitch".
– How can this be interpreted? Trump presents himself as the best friend of Israel, but he wants to end the expensive forever wars pic.twitter.com/Lcmk7O1Aud

— Glenn Diesen (@Glenn_Diesen) January 10, 2025

Trump was a close ally of Netanyahu during his term in the White House, and described himself as “history’s most pro-Israel US president.” He imposed sanctions on Iran at Netanyahu’s request, moved the US embassy in Israel to West Jerusalem, and brokered the Abraham Accords, which saw Israel normalize relations with Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, and Sudan. However, the two seemingly fell out after Netanyahu congratulated President Joe Biden while Trump was still attempting to challenge Biden’s electoral victory in the courts in late 2020. “I liked Bibi. I still like Bibi. But I also like loyalty,” Trump told Axios in 2021, using a nickname for the Israeli PM. “The first person to congratulate Biden was Bibi. And not only did he congratulate him, he did it on tape,” Trump continued, adding: “I haven’t spoken to him since. F**k him.”

Trump and Netanyahu have gotten back in contact in the meantime, with the pair speaking multiple times this year. Last month, Netanyahu said that he and Trump “had a very friendly, warm and important discussion” by phone, focused on Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza. Trump has publicly called on Israel to “finish up” the war. During a meeting with Netanyahu at the Republican’s Mar-a-Lago estate in October, then-candidate Trump reportedly told the Israeli premier that he wanted to see the conflict resolved by the time he takes office later this month. The incoming president has also warned Hamas that there will be “all hell to pay in the Middle East” if the Palestinian militants do not free their remaining Israeli hostages before inauguration day.

Netanyahu has repeatedly stated that the Israel Defense Forces will continue to wage war until they achieve “total victory” over Hamas, and that Israel will maintain “full security control” over the enclave afterwards. Netanyahu will not attend Trump’s inauguration, an aide to the PM told the Times of Israel on Thursday, without commenting further.

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Read the original for the history lesson.

• When The United States Tried To Conquer Canada (Pacini)

Thus we arrive at 2025, a year that is ushered in with Trump’s threats to trade relations with Canada and beyond. In light of what happened a couple of centuries ago, it is curious that in pursuit of his MAGA campaign motto, Trump has once again gone on the attack against Canada. It almost seems as if this thorn in the side never passes for Americans. The fact is even more interesting if one considers it from a strategic point of view: for the U.S., the ‘conquest’ of Canada or at least part of it, hand in hand with Greenland, would mean not only having access to the many energy delicacies found there, but also being able to position medium-range weapon systems towards Russia and China. Yes, the white war is more realistic than some mainstream analysts think. Geography is not an opinion and neither are international relations.

Going from the North, from the polar zone, is quicker than going round the entire world. However, there is the disadvantage of the inhospitable nature of the territory, so it is necessary to organize management strategies for this ‘new’ – so to speak – domain, so as to be able to play on a theatre of possible conflict with a certain familiarity. The urgency of this strategic acquisition is very strong. Indeed, a multipolar world is more complex to cope with than the old model, but it is still at an early stage, so the Nordic loophole must be played out with good timing. If we add to this the historical dislike for Canada, the combination works perfectly.

Politically, this can also be played out against liberalism and globalism: Trudeau is a progressive Dem leader, going against his presidency means gaining some support in the international conservative area. A more aligned Canada is convenient for the whole American bloc, according to the U.S. perspective. Moreover, Trudeau is too tied to Europe, so it is not convenient to keep him where he is. Let us therefore not be surprised if we see destabilization in the U.S.-Canadian border territories, beyond the usual migratory tensions: a continental infighting would be a nice play to achieve the strategic objectives of the northern route.

All this is consistent with the already well-known doctrine of the Northwest Passage, the sea route through the Canadian Arctic archipelago, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through polar waters. The increasing accessibility of the Northwest Passage, due to the melting of Arctic ice, has opened up new possibilities for maritime trade and the exploitation of natural resources, as well as for optimal military positions to ‘close’ Eurasia from above. However, this situation has raised a number of geopolitical issues, especially for the United States.

One of the main points of contention is the control of the sea route. Canada claims sovereignty over the waters of the Northwest Passage, classifying them as internal waters. The United States, on the contrary, considers the Passage an international waterway, arguing that it should be open to global navigation according to the rules of international law. This divergence reflects a potential conflict of interest, as recognition of Canadian sovereignty could restrict U.S. and other states’ freedom of movement. The presence of a navigable route in the Arctic increases the need to monitor and protect northern waters. For the U.S., this means developing military capabilities and infrastructure in the region to prevent intrusions from potential rivals, such as Russia and China, which are also expanding their influence in the Arctic.

Diplomatically, the U.S. could have sought a more balanced alliance with Canada to move beyond territorial issues, but American arrogance is apparently getting the better of them. The U.S. is planning quite a revival. Who knows if it will end up like the previous one? We only have to conclude with the irony of Dmitry Medvedev, who commented on X on the matter with these words: ‘It is not clear why the United States, as a country, should annex Canada, Greenland or even Great Britain and take back the Panama Canal. There is a more civilized way: Donald Trump and Elon Musk can simply buy the land, making it their own private property’. To each the president he deserves.

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“If I were Liz Cheney, I’d be very concerned about being prosecuted for witness tampering..”

• Double-Barreled Probes of Trump May Further Boomerang On Democrats (JTN)

The first Trump term was marked by two impeachments that threatened to tarnish the legacy of his administration, namely, the Ukraine impeachment scandal and the aftermath of Jan. 6. But now, after both of those efforts were undermined by new evidence, their legacy could rebound on President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats. Donald Trump survived both impeachment attempts by House Democrats during his first term, but ultimately lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden. When he departed the White House on Inauguration Day in January 2021, just weeks after the Capitol riot, Trump had the lowest approval rating of his presidency. Many suggested his political career might be over. Democrats moved to impeach Trump the first time with a simple storyline: The then-president abused his power by requesting an investigation of Hunter Biden’s dealings in Ukraine when Joe Biden’s son had done nothing wrong.

After the Republican Senate acquitted the president, this narrative was repeated by both candidate Joe Biden and friendly news anchors during the election. In the second attempt, Democrats tried to impeach Trump for allegedly inciting a riot against the Capitol building by claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election. After the second impeachment also failed, the Democrat-led Jan. 6 Select Committee echoed this narrative and ultimately asserted that Trump engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the election results and incited an insurrection. However, during Joe Biden’s term in office, evidence uncovered by dogged congressional investigators and the media have turned the premises of those dual impeachment pushes upside down, which in many ways exonerated the once and future president.

Republican Senator Ron Johnson, who will chair the investigating arm of the powerful Senate Homeland Security Committee, said congressional Republicans, with a new Washington, D.C., trifecta, may still have an interest in getting to the bottom of Hunter Biden’s dealings in Ukraine and the conduct of the Democrat-led Jan. 6 Select Committee. “I think the American people deserve the truth here,” Senator Johnson, who represents Wisconsin, told the John Solomon Reports podcast. “President Trump has falsely accused your son of doing something wrong while serving on a company board in Ukraine,” CNN anchor Anderson Cooper claimed setting up an interview question for Joe Biden during the campaign. “I want to point out there is no evidence of wrongdoing by either one of you.”

Evidence uncovered by House Republicans and Just the News in the intervening years show that, in fact, there is significant documentary evidence that Hunter Biden and his father engaged in an influence peddling scheme in Ukraine while the younger Biden was serving on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma. The final report from House Republicans’ own impeachment inquiry into President Biden over the issue furnished several pieces of evidence to back this claim. Most importantly, evidence first reported by Just the News showed then-Vice President Biden changed official policy by calling an “audible” on a flight to Kyiv, linking a $1 billion loan guarantee for the struggling country to its firing of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma’s founder, Mykola Zlochevsky.

This evidence contradicted claims from several government witnesses and congressional Democrats during the 2019 probe that Joe Biden did not change U.S. policy and that the Ukrainian prosecutors were not investigating Burisma at the time Hunter Biden worked for the company. Now, Sen. Johnson says Joe Biden’s pardon of his son paves the way to call in Hunter Biden for his complete testimony on how his business role intersected with his father’s political responsibilities in Ukraine. “But what is interesting is, with the hunter Biden’s pardon, he has no Fifth Amendment right not to testify and tell the truth, and so he could be we could prosecute him for lying to Congress,” Sen. Johnson said. “He’s going to have to answer truthfully. So that’s a real possibility. Again, we’d have to get our ducks in a row. You know, you know me, I want documents, I don’t want to just come in for a show trial,” he continued.

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Good luck with that.

• Vast Majority Of Brits Want ‘Grooming Gangs’ Investigated – Poll (RT)

Three out of four Britons want Prime Minister Keir Starmer to launch a national inquiry into the sexual abuse of thousands of underage girls by ‘grooming gangs’, according to a new poll. Starmer’s ruling Labour Party has already rejected calls for such an investigation. Conducted by YouGov on behalf of the Women’s Policy Center and published on Thursday by GB News, the survey suggested that 76% of the public back demands for a probe into the abuse, while only 13% reject these demands. Some 84% of Conservative voters and 65% of Labour voters support an inquiry, as do 91% of Reform voters, according to the poll. Hours before the poll was published, Parliament rejected a Conservative-proposed amendment to a child protection bill that would have set up a national inquiry into the gangs by 364 votes to 111.

All 411 Labour MPs either voted against the amendment or abstained, while 101 of 111 Conservatives and all five Reform MPs supported it. The vote came after weeks of constant posts by SpaceX CEO and X owner Elon Musk drawing attention to the activity of the gangs, and to Starmer’s handling of the rapes during his time in charge of the Crown Prosecutorial Service (CPS) from 2008 until 2013. The gangs systematically raped and tortured tens of thousands of underage girls in towns across northern England over the last two decades, according to multiple government and media reports. Almost all of the perpetrators were Pakistani men, and the victims white British girls. Successive governments declined to investigate the scandal – which received mainstream media attention after a series of reports by The Times in 2011 – and several police departments covered up the existence of the gangs, inquiries later found.

Under Starmer, the CPS was heavily criticized for declining to prosecute a gang in Rochdale, and police in Rotherham told a 2015 inquiry that they considered the CPS unwilling to bring charges against the alleged perpetrators. Musk has called Starmer “evil,” and according to the Financial Times, is working on a behind-the-scenes campaign to oust the British prime minister. Starmer’s already dismal approval rating has sunk even further since Musk began attacking his handling of the rape gangs last week. According to a YouGov poll published on Monday, 63% of voters disapprove of his government’s performance, while just 16% approve, a fall of two points since December.

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They don’t investigate the gangs, or the politicians, police and media that let them rape unhindered. No, they’re after Musk, who exposes it.

• UK Gov’t Investigating Elon Musk’s TWEETS About Muslim Pedophile Gangs (MN)

Elon Musk’s tweets about Muslim pedophile gangs are being assessed by the UK Government’s counter-extremism unit, as a potential threat to the security of the country, it has emerged. The Daily Mirror reports that The Home Office unit has stepped up social media monitoring of accounts with large followings, including Musk’s, as pertains to the grooming gangs issue. Musk has posted hundreds of tweets in the past week related to the scandal, including openly calling Prime Minister Kier Starmer “evil,” accusing him of facilitating a cover up, and labelling Starmer and safeguarding minister Jess Philips as complicit in the “rape” of Britain. The Mirror report states that the UK government’s counterterrorism unit has “been involved in content analysis and wider risk assessment.” A government source told the Mirror “We keep a close eye on how disinformation and hate can proliferate, including online.”

John Woodcock, the government’s adviser on political violence and disruption, asserted that “Britain’s democracy isn’t a play thing for foreign billionaires – Elon Musk needs to back off and concentrate on his rockets and his cars or whatever he wants to obsess about next. Our electoral laws rightly forbid foreign donations and my recent review warns against our information channels being deliberately manipulated from abroad. We should be watching closely to ensure that doesn’t happen here.” The government’s website states that the counter-extremism unit “focuses on the highest harm risks to the homeland, whether from terrorists, state actors, or cyber and economic criminals,” While the tweets are being investigated, the government has rejected calls for a new national inquiry into the pedophile gangs scandal, with ministers voting down a move to legislate for an inquiry.

UK s Head of Counter-Terrorism Policing AC Matt Jukes is currently probing Elon Musk over his posts on 5yO› pertaining to the grooming gang scandal.

Matt Jukes served as Borough Commander in Rotherham from 2006-2010, which coincided with a peak in child sexual exploitation by& pic.twitter.com/AS3rKQGZIO

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) January 10, 2025

Ironically, the current head of counter-terrorism policing in the UK is an officer who served as Borough Commander in Rotherham, one of the areas most notorious for child sexual abuse at the hands of Muslim pedophile gangs, from 2006-2010. In comments to GB News, former Head of the Counter Terrorist Unit at Ministry of Defence, Major General Chip Chapman suggested that Musk’s tweets could influence others to take violent action, and that there is a history of ‘conspiracy theorists’ doing that in the UK.

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Don’t trust Zuck.

• Meta Nukes DEI Program; “Morale For Queer Staff In Shitter” (ZH)

Days after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg eliminated “politically biased” fact-checkers—and on the same day his Joe Rogan podcast episode was dropped—Business Insider leaked an internal memo revealing that Meta dialed back its diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. “The legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing,” Janelle Gale, vice president of human resources at Meta, wrote in the memo, adding, “The Supreme Court of the United States has recently made decisions signaling a shift in how courts will approach DEI.” Gale pointed out, “The term “DEI” has also become charged, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others.”

Meta is the latest mega-corporation to roll back toxic DEI initiatives, following Walmart and McDonald’s. Over a year ago, Robby Starbuck’s campaign to end DEI in corporate America ignited this trend. The tides have turned in corporate America, and the reelection of Donald Trump will accelerate and ensure Marxist DEI initiatives are replaced with meritocracy (not just in corporate America – but across the government and the military).

I need a new grim reaper meme with all of these companies. We ran out of doors.

• Walmart
• Tractor Supply
• John Deere
• Harley Davidson
• Indian Motorcycle
• Lowe’s
• Ford
• Coors
• Jack Daniels
• Caterpillar
• Boeing
• Toyota
• Stanley Black & Decker
•… pic.twitter.com/3Dkz6crVpv

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) November 26, 2024

* * *
Earlier, Joe Rogan dropped a podcast featuring Zuck. Zuck seems to be trying to get on the right side of history…

HOLY SHLIT. Mark Zuckerberg says the Biden admin called his employees and “screamed and cursed” at them to take down Covid/vaccine content. They wanted Meta to censor memes too.

When he pushed back, the Biden regime started investigating his companies.

“It was brutal.” pic.twitter.com/rNwZtoq0hO

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) January 10, 2025

Watch the full episode:

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Wherever the wind blows.

• Zuckerberg’s Sudden Censorship Thaw Is Not Free Speech (Marsden)

Why are some folks gobbling up the notion that having the newly restored right to fire off as many “c**ts,” *d**ks,” and “a*****es” as you want on Facebook is the best thing for free speech since the Magna Carta? Facebook’s safe space for easily triggered mental midgets is now supposed to suddenly transform into a beacon of free speech and debate. But only for some. Sort of. Who are apparently now free to call transgenderism a mental illness, for example. Everyone else will have to wait for their potential future liberation from the virtual hall monitor. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook and its parent company, Meta, has just announced that audiences won’t be subjected to thought policing through fact-checking anymore. Well, American audiences, at least. And not by professional gatekeepers designated specifically for the task. The language patrol will also apparently unclench a bit.

“Starting in the US, we are ending our third party fact-checking program and moving to a Community Notes model,” the company announced, citing the open collaborative model of Elon Musk’s X Platform. The move comes in the wake of Zuckerberg’s pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago where he met with incoming US President-elect Donald Trump – who was himself banned and restricted by Meta until last summer – and his perpetual sidekick, self-styled “free speech absolutist” Musk. Meta’s statement cites “societal and political pressure to moderate content,” claiming that it “has gone too far.” You think? It took Zuckerberg until August 2024 to admit to a congressional committee that “in 2021, senior officials from the Biden Administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire,” and that it led to “choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today.”

In the same letter, he said the FBI warned his team ahead of the 2020 US presidential election about a “Russian disinformation operation” involving the Biden family and Ukrainian energy company Burisma, on whose board President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, served. Zuckerberg says he now realizes that the story turned out to be legit, and not Russian fake news as the FBI claimed – but only after the New York Post dared to counter the official narrative that Facebook had colluded in protecting by censoring debate. Until now, designated “professionals” in various countries have been working with Meta to ensure narrative compliance. In Canada, for example, partner AFP Fact Check has recently posted that there’s “no evidence linking methane inhibitors for cows to human health problems.” It’s a reference to the Western establishment’s new strategy, introduced in Canada and elsewhere, of suppressing cow farts with feed additive called Bovaer 10 – all in a valiant effort to save the planet from climate change.

Some people have been asking whether the fart suppressor could somehow end up in milk or meat. But the fact checkers say that the government says it’s safe. So case closed. Until it isn’t, of course. But that would require alternative information to come to light, as is always the case when the public finds out after the fact that something officially authorized was in fact problematic. But good luck having that debate on Facebook, where you risk posting something that ends up being scarlet-lettered with an official message from the online Gestapo constantly scouring the website via algorithms for wrongthink.

At least in the US, this is all now supposed to be ending precisely where it began in the wake of the 2016 presidential election when Democrats and other assorted anti-Trumpers were in hysterics over the idea that Russia singlehandedly got Trump elected through social media. That led to pressure on outlets like Meta to censor fake news as defined by establishment-friendly fact checkers. The slippery censorship slope then led to a move by Meta to then prioritize approved “trustworthy” information sources in 2018 – a system that expanded further under the pretext of the Covid fiasco in 2020. After the Capitol riots in January 2021, Facebook dumped Trump’s account indefinitely, citing the need to prevent violence and disinformation.

And in September 2024, amid the most recent US presidential election campaign, Meta globally banned Russian media accounts, like RT, citing “foreign interference” – a move that effectively reduces the odds of users being exposed to unauthorized or alternative views that risk challenging the status quo. RT news articles posted on Facebook warn the user to proceed with caution when reading. No such call to engage critical thinking accompanies Western news sources, because they’re always in unfailing alignment with the objective truth. There’s no evidence yet that anyone outside the US will be spared from Meta’s digital thought safety patrol. Or even that Americans still won’t be subjected to less obvious censorship of information sources.

France is straight-up expressing concern over the rule loosening anyway. “France remains vigilant and committed to ensuring that META, along with other platforms, comply with their obligations under European law, particularly the Digital Services Act (DSA),” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement, citing the same European law that led to the EU threatening Musk with 150 bureaucratic monitors ahead of his planned online interview with German right-wing populist leader Alice Weidel, currently polling as the voters’ favored choice for chancellor ahead of next month’s parliamentary elections.

“Freedom of expression, a fundamental right protected in France and Europe, should not be confused with a right to virality, which would permit the dissemination of inauthentic content to millions of users without any filtering or moderation,” the French government said. Yeah, well, it would also mean the dissemination of debate and an increased opportunity for contributions of all kinds.

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“‘Climate Change’ has been identified: it’s a 28-YO man from Reseda in a black hoodie holding a lighter and some matches.” — Peach Keenan

• Apocalypse Still Unspooling (James Howard Kunstler)

“Life imitates art,” Oscar Wilde quipped, a most insightful glimpse into the human condition delivered as a wise-crack. Very Hollywood. Too bad there were no late-night talk shows in Oscar’s time. It took more than eighty years, but the apocalyptic burning of Los Angeles depicted at the climax of Nathanial West’s 1939 novel The Day of the Locust has finally come — the city of dreams turned into one big flaming nightmare. The adumbrations of this fiasco will darken our national life for years to come. Who knew that the best way to convert Utopian Woke Democrats back into a reality-based thought system would be to burn their houses down? The wealthy showbiz folk occupying the moral high ground of the Pacific Palisades voted Democratic by 90-percent. They were fully on-board with the agenda of the Party of Chaos, especially Diversity-Equity-and-Inclusion (DEI) and the open border that allowed a deluge of mysterious strangers to flood the country.

Now, reports come across the “X” wires that these mystery folk are cruising the wreckage in the canyons on scooters and in cars to loot anything left of value. The police are shown on video capturing a mystery migrant with a blowtorch suspected of starting the latest outbreak named the Kenneth Fire on the edge of the San Fernando Valley. Loud-and-proud DEI firefighters were stymied in their work by neighborhood fire hydrants that were disappointingly not “full of water,” as they put it. Is that how it works? Each hydrant is supposed to get filled up on a regular schedule by water pixies?

You know by now that LA Mayor Karen Bass was unavailable for the early innings of the conflagration, having flown to the West African nation of Ghana for the inauguration of the new president John Dramani Mahama. But she managed to scramble back in time to mourn the smoldering ruins of Malibu. Governor Gavin Newsom dallied on a smoke-filled street with CNN’s disaster specialist, Anderson Cooper, pretending to manage the situation, which was, in fact, completely out of control. Among the things the governor has been criticized for is poor forest and brush management. Mr. Newsom has been lately working to pass a $25-million bill to fund measures for “Trump-proofing” California. For that same $25-million, he could have hired 500 workers at $50,000-a-year to cut brush around Los Angeles County. That is, if he didn’t avail himself of work-gangs from the California penitentiaries.

Even “Joe Biden” was in town, to announce the creation of a new national monument, the Chuckwalla National Monument, south of Joshua Tree National Park — 125 miles out in the Mojave Desert from LA. But he had helpful phone conversations with Governor Newsom. . . promises of federal funding to build Malibu back better. I wonder if the folks still camping out in tents back in the Mountains of Carolina heard about that. This same week “JB” also announced another $500-million aid package for Ukraine. Anybody wondering why “America First” helped get Mr. Trump elected?

You can’t overstate the amount and degree of family devastation to be endured in the months and years ahead. For one thing, many homeowners recently had their fire insurance cancelled. Decades of punitive bureaucracy made rate increases difficult in wildfire-prone areas, so companies like Allstate decided to quit doing business in the state. So, many of the thousands of lost houses will be total losses. A great many of these were multi-million-dollar houses, even modest ones built in the 1960s, due to the extreme desirability of neighborhoods like Pacific Palisades, the Hollywood Hills, and Malibu Beach. Some middle-class people had their entire nest-eggs vested in these houses.

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“..170 million new jobs will be created by the end of the decade, while 92 million jobs will be displaced.”

• AI To Displace Millions of Jobs By 2030 – WEF (RT)

The deployment of artificial intelligence could deal a heavy blow to the worldwide labor market and result in massive layoffs in global companies, the World Economic Forum (WEF) Future of Jobs report published on Wednesday, warns. The study, which surveyed hundreds of large businesses worldwide, found that 41% of companies plan to slash their workforce by 2030 in response to the increasing capabilities of AI. Further, 77% of companies are preparing to reskill and upskill their existing staff from 2025 to 2030 for better human-machine collaboration. The report predicted that 170 million new jobs will be created by the end of the decade, while 92 million jobs will be displaced. The WEF noted that skills in AI, big data, and cybersecurity are expected to be in high demand.

“Trends such as generative AI and rapid technological shifts are upending industries and labor markets, creating both unprecedented opportunities and profound risks,” Till Leopold, the head of Work, Wages and Job Creation at the WEF, said. The WEF said that advances in AI, robotics, and energy systems, particularly in renewable energy and environmental engineering, are expected to boost demand for specialist roles in these fields. The report also identified job categories that will face the largest decline in numbers due to AI and other technological trends. They include service clerks, executive secretaries, payroll clerks, and graphic designers.

“The presence of both graphic designers and legal secretaries just outside the top 10 fastest-declining job roles, a first-time prediction not seen in previous editions of the Future of Jobs Report, may illustrate GenAI’s increasing capacity to perform knowledge work,” the report said. The report stressed that the impact of AI extends beyond job displacement, highlighting the potential of the technology to augment human output, rather than replace it outright. The WEF concluded that “human-centered skills” such as creative thinking, resilience, flexibility, and agility will continue to be critical.

Meanwhile, high-profile figures and scientists have raised concerns in recent years over the potential dangers posed by AI. Last year, computer scientist and author Paul Graham warned that the use of AI for writing will result in the majority of people losing the skill in a few decades. The labor market will change significantly because of the adoption of advanced technology, according to Daniil Gavrilov, the head of the Artificial Intelligence Research Laboratory at T-Bank AI Research. Everything a human is capable of doing can be done by AI, and machines can do it well, he said in an interview with RIA Novosti last year. Gavrilov noted that in the short and medium term, employees will have to master AI skills in order to remain competitive.

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“If Newsom was a Republican… you guys would have him nailed to the wall for what they’re doing over there.”

• DeSantis Blasts Media Coverage of California Wildfires (RT)

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has blasted the US media for what he perceives as partisan coverage of natural disasters in the country. California is battling some of the worst wildfires in recent history, with officials reporting ten fatalities in Los Angeles County as of Friday. Republican politicians are blaming the authorities in the Democratic-leaning state for undercutting the ability of emergency services to tackle the disaster with skewed policy priorities. On Wednesday, President-elect Donald Trump called on Governor Gavin Newsom to resign for allegedly mismanaging water reserves in California. DeSantis confronted members of the press on Thursday evening, after one of them suggested that the call was inappropriate. The on-camera exchange took place during a press conference held by a group of Republican governors at Trump’s residence in Mar-a-Lago.

“Is it appropriate for people in your industry to try to create division and to try to create narratives anytime these things happen?” DeSantis reacted. “If Newsom was a Republican… you guys would have him nailed to the wall for what they’re doing over there.” The governor cited coverage of incidents in his own state, such as the deadly collapse of a condominium in the Miami suburb of Surfside in 2021. His people in Florida just assume that any such occurrence would be “politicized by the media,” he said, and other Republican state officials have similar expectations. Considering their track record, pro-Democratic journalists are in no position to complain about the party’s messaging now, DeSantis stated.

“You could criticize the president-elect, but I think you also have to hold these other people accountable, and I have not seen that,” he concluded, referring to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and other elected officials in California. Bass was among the primary targets for conservative critics during the crisis. She was part of the US delegation to Ghana, which attended the inauguration of President John Mahama on Tuesday, and did not return home until Wednesday evening. By that time, more than 1,000 homes had been burned and some 100,000 people across the region had to evacuate, according to media reports. The mayor underestimated the risks to the city, when the National Weather Service in Los Angeles issued a warning of extreme weather conditions on Thursday last week, the New York Times has suggested.

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“Welcome to Terror and Genocide R Us.”

• Empire of Chaos, Reloaded (Pepe Escobar)

All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. Sun Tzu, The Art of War.

The Empire of Chaos is relentless. Lawfare, destabilizations, sanctions, kidnappings, color revolutions, false flags, annexations: 2025 will be the year of BRICS – plus BRICS partners – as choice targets under fire. Inestimable Prof. Michael Hudson coined “chaos” as official US policy. That’s bipartisan – and it runs across all silos of the Deep State. In the absence of long-term strategic vision, and amidst the progressive imperial expulsion from Eurasia, all that’s left for the Hegemon is to unleash chaos from West Asia to Europe and parts of Latin America – a concerted attempt to Divide and Rule BRICS and thwart their collective drive affirming sovereignty and the primacy of national interests. US Think Tank had already floated a year and a half ago the notion of swing states. Not the parochial American electoral version, but its transposition to geopolitics.

All six candidates at the time were BRICS members (Brazil, India, South Africa), or potential BRICS members or partners (Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye). The code for “swing states” was unmistakable: all these are targets for destabilization – as in if you do not abide by the “rules-based international order”, you’re going down. Saudi Arabia, wary of its wealth parked in London and New York financial markets, is still cautiously hedging its bets: theoretically Riyadh is a BRICS member, but in practice not really. Turkiye has been invited as a partner (no official response yet). And then there’s Southeast Asia powerhouse Indonesia, which has just been admitted as a full member this week – under the Brazilian BRICs presidency. Call it BRIIICS: the predominant vector of a seismic recalibration of the geopolitical tectonic plates – bound to reshape trade, finance, and governance.

BRIIICS and selected partners are configuring a formidable network – bent on rewriting the rules of the game: currently 10 full members and 8 full partners – and counting, making up 41.4% of global GDP by PPP and roughly half of the world’s population. This is what the Empire of Chaos is up against. Imagine China-India-Russia-Iran-Indonesia-South Africa-Brazil-Egypt-Saudi Arabia as the transcontinental pearls of the emerging multi-nodal world. Huge populations; massive natural resources and industrial might; myriad development possibilities.

The ruling elites of the Empire of Chaos have nothing to offer as a counterpoint to this growing geopolitical powerhouse – complete with its own development bank (granted, that needs a lot of work); full commitment to develop and test alternative payment systems; and a sprawling transcontinental trade alliance bent on progressively sidestepping the US dollar. Instead of working on diplomacy, dialogue and cooperation, the Empire of Chaos – and the vassalized collective West – do “offer” something to the Global Majority: their full support for an ethnic cleansing genocide, and their full support for a suit-and-tie terror gang of “moderate” head choppers taking power in a former sovereign Arab nation. Welcome to Terror and Genocide R Us.

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Musk
https://twitter.com/i/status/1877690442889708006

Snow
https://twitter.com/i/status/1877317916359606466

Drown

Elephant alerts keeper of drowning animalpic.twitter.com/quNNZaDKUC

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) January 10, 2025

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