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Debt Rattle May 6 2025

May 062025
 
 May 6, 2025  Posted by at 9:41 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , ,  30 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Portrait of Dora with bun 1937

 

• 2025: Wars, Depressions, Defaults & Debt Crisis Begin – Martin Armstrong (USAW)
• Western Memory of WWII Is Basically Fan Fiction (Kortunov)
• Trump Bans Federal Funding For Dangerous Gain-of-Function Research (ZH)
• USDA Secretary Warns Chronic Diseases Will ‘Bankrupt’ America (ZH)
• Zelensky Testing US Patience – Jailed MP (RT)
• Trump Claims Putin Won’t Talk To EU Leaders (RT)
• Trump Reveals His Red Line in Ukraine Peace Push (Sp.)
• EU’s von der Leyen ‘Beyond Deplorable’ On Gaza – UN Rapporteur (RT)
• There Will Be Boundaries (James Howard Kunstler)
• Trump Offered Troops But Mexican President ‘Afraid Of The Cartels’ (JTN)
• Trump Is Destroying America, but He Is Making Israel Great (Paul Craig Roberts)
• German Opposition Proposes Replacement For NATO (RT)
• Yemen – They Defeated The Saudis, Then Biden, Now Trump (MoA)
• US Electricity From Fossils Fuels Below 50% for the First Time Ever (Rapier)
• Trump Blocks Harvard From New Federal Grants (ZH)
• Elon Musk Is a National Treasure (Margolis)
• Elon Musk: AI Will Replace Bloated, Inefficient Federal Gov’t (ZH)
• Chinese Space Program Copying Elon Musk’s Starlink (ZH)

 

 

 

 

Shoelace
https://twitter.com/ClownWorld_/status/1918998060354371646

DOGE

Aidar
https://twitter.com/DD_Geopolitics/status/1919313482136117736

Alex

Rogan RFK
https://twitter.com/JimFergusonUK/status/1919279392896995511

Welker

Anderson
https://twitter.com/AndersonAfDMdEP/status/1919560962660590025

Yeo

Bowes

 

 

 

 

The ever cheerful Martin Armstrong.

“If I am Putin, there is no way I am signing a peace deal. Putin signed a peace deal (in 2015) and what did they do? They built an army while Russia didn’t.”

“I have been talking to people in Washington, and I have told them to ‘Get the hell out of NATO.’ There are plenty of people warming up to that idea.” Armstrong predicts if that happens, capital will leave Europe and flow into the US as a safe haven.”

• 2025: Wars, Depressions, Defaults & Debt Crisis Begin – Martin Armstrong (USAW)

Legendary financial and geopolitical cycle analyst Martin Armstrong is back with an avalanche of problems coming to the world starting in 2025. Depressions, defaults, debt crises and wars are going to sweep the globe, according to Armstrong and his “Socrates” predictive computer program. Armstrong has called every big economic turn in the past three decades. He predicted Trump would win the 2024 Presidential Election in a landslide many months ahead of November. Armstrong called the huge stock crash of 1987 to the day. He predicted the dot com boom and bust in 2000. He was spot on calling for the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009, and now, we are headed for more big turns. Armstrong says, “The last one turned on May 7th of last year. That was the same day Putin had his inauguration, and it was the same day a couple of Ukrainian colonels tried to assassinate Zelensky.

From there, we are turning down into a global recession, which won’t bottom until about 2028. Central banks started cutting rates right after that, and I think Canada was the first. It’s going to be more of a depression in Europe, a very sharp recession in China, and it won’t be as bad in the United States. . . . When you create a debt crisis, that’s what causes a depression. The stock market going down is the least damage to an economy.” Europe has trillions of dollars of unpayable debt, and Armstrong says, “The leadership knows if they don’t have war, the people will come after them.” What will be the next big turn? Spoiler alert, it has to do with war in Ukraine and Russia. Armstrong says, “Europe does not want peace.”

Look at things the EU has said: that Russia is too big and has to be broken up. I have very good contacts very high up, and they really do think they can conquer Russia. It has $75 trillion in natural resource assets. They will then control that . . . Once they get their hands on that . . . they will rise to the top of countries of the world, like the Roman Empire will be resurrected or something.” But instead of the EU winning a war against Russia, Armstrong predicts, “They will lose bigtime. The third time is not going to be the charm. . . . The euro will disappear, not the dollar.” The timing of the next big turn for war? Armstrong says, “After May 15, war is turning up (in Ukraine) and it will be turning up into 2026. If I am Putin, there is no way I am signing a peace deal. Putin signed a peace deal (in 2015) and what did they do? They built an army while Russia didn’t.”

Armstrong predicts China will come in on the side of Russia, and there could be as many as “one billion dead and wounded” as a result. What should the US do? Armstrong says, “I have been talking to people in Washington, and I have told them to ‘Get the hell out of NATO.’ There are plenty of people warming up to that idea.” Armstrong predicts if that happens, capital will leave Europe and flow into the US as a safe haven. Armstrong also thinks gold will hit $5,000 per ounce at the next target, but it will not hit that price until war takes off in Europe and Ukraine. Armstrong also thinks the Democrat party will split in two, and they will not retake the House of Representatives in 2026. Does the conflict between Pakistan and India blow up or blow over? Armstrong says, “My computer (Socrates) says it blows up.”

Read more …

“.. it is often overlooked in contemporary Western discourse that the Soviet Union and China suffered the heaviest human cost of WWII – with casualties reaching 27 million and 35 million, respectively.”

• Western Memory of WWII Is Basically Fan Fiction (Kortunov)

Historians seldom completely agree with one another even on some of the most important events of the past. There are different views on various historical events, such as World War II (WWII). With new documents being declassified and new excavations at the sites of the main battles, we are likely to see new theories and hypotheses emerging that will feed more discussions and offer contrarian narratives of the most devastating military conflict in the history of humanity. However, there is a clear red line between looking for new facts and deliberately trying to falsify history. The former is a noble quest for truth and understanding, while the latter is a deplorable attempt to revise past events in favor of political goals or personal ambitions.

An honest scholar entering a research project cannot be completely sure what will be found at the end of the road; an unscrupulous politician presenting a falsified version of history knows perfectly well what picture to present to the target audience. Truth is skillfully mixed with lies, while fabrications are dissolved in real facts to make the picture more credible and attractive. The most graphic manifestation of the WWII falsifications is the now very popular assertion that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were jointly responsible for the beginning of the war. The narrative equating Nazis and Soviets is nonsensical because it completely ignores the history of fascism in Europe and repeated attempts by Moscow to convince London, Paris and Warsaw to form an alliance against it.

Only after the “Munich Betrayal” by the West, the 1938 pact among Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy that forced Czechoslovakia to cede territory to Germany without Czechoslovakian consent, did Moscow decide to go for a non-aggression treaty with Germany to buy itself time before invasion. Likewise, the dominant Western narrative of WWII increasingly frames the conflict as a stark moral battle between good and evil. As a result, there is a growing reluctance to fully acknowledge the pivotal roles that Russia and China played in the defeat of Nazi Germany and militarist Japan. Neither do they recognize the contributions of communist-led resistance movements in countries like France, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Greece.

This is largely due to ideological biases that exclude these groups from the dominant narrative of “heroic liberal forces” in the fight against the Axis nations, the coalition led by Germany, Italy, and Japan. Instead, the predominant view in most Western countries credits the US as the primary force behind victory, along with limited support from other allies. This reading of WWII has nothing to do with reality, but it nicely fits the now popular Manichean interpretation of world politics. Another typical distortion of history is the selective portrayal of the victims of the war, often shaped by a distinctly Eurocentric perspective. Much attention is given to the atrocities endured by Europeans under Nazi occupation or by Europeans in Asia at the hands of the Japanese, while the immense suffering of non-European populations frequently receives far less recognition.

Every human life is of equal value, and all victims deserve empathy. Even those who served in the German and Japanese armed forces during WWII should not be indiscriminately labeled as criminals; the notion of “collective guilt” must not override the principle of individual responsibility for verifiable war crimes. However, it is often overlooked in contemporary Western discourse that the Soviet Union and China suffered the heaviest human cost of WWII – with casualties reaching 27 million and 35 million, respectively. A significant portion of these losses were civilians, and the scale and brutality of wartime atrocities committed on Soviet and Chinese territories far exceeded those experienced in most other regions.

Contemporary politics inevitably shapes how we interpret the past, as people often seek historical narratives that align with their present-day beliefs and agendas. Yet history should be approached with integrity, not as a tool to justify current political positions. This is not about defending national pride or preserving comforting myths; every nation, regardless of size or wealth, carries both moments of honor and episodes of regret in its historical journey. A balanced national narrative includes both triumphs and failures. But when history is deliberately manipulated to serve short-term political interests, we risk blurring our understanding of the present and undermining our vision for the future. Such willful distortion is not only intellectually dishonest but could also lead to grave consequences.

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RFK is going places.

• Trump Bans Federal Funding For Dangerous Gain-of-Function Research (ZH)

President Donald Trump on Monday afternoon signed an executive order stopping federal funding for dangerous gain-of-function research in high-risk countries like China and Iran, as well as in nations with insufficient research oversight. Joined in the Oval Office by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and National Institutes of Health official Jay Bhattacharya, Trump underscored his commitment to protecting America’s public health and national security. The order equips U.S. research agencies to identify and terminate funding for biological research—both ongoing and future—that could threaten public safety or national security. It specifically targets federally funded studies abroad that risk triggering another pandemic, focusing on gain-of-function experiments like those conducted on bat coronaviruses by the EcoHealth Alliance and China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The measure also seeks to shield Americans from lab accidents and biosecurity incidents, such as those believed to have contributed to the COVID-19 pandemic and the 1977 Russian flu. “It’s a big deal,” Trump said of the order. “It could have been that we wouldn’t have had the problem we had.” Kennedy Jr., who emerged during the pandemic as one of the most vocal critics of vaccination mandates and forced lockdowns, celebrated the order, declaring, “In all of the history of Gain-of-Function research, we cannot point to a single good thing that has come of it.”

Bhattacharya also praised the order, noting that many scientists believe that dangerous gain-of-function research is “responsible for the COVID pandemic.” “This is a historic day,” Bhattacharya said. “This proclamation makes it so that—most science is possess no threat to human populations—but the fraction of research that has the risk of causing a pandemic and harming every single person on the face of the earth, this executive order puts in place a framework to make sure the public has a say that if such risk is being taken, only scientists alone won’t be able to decide that.”

Back in 2014, Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases funneled a $3.7 million grant through EcoHealth, with nearly $600,000 sent to WIV for bat coronavirus studies—research many Republicans slam as dangerous gain-of-function experiments that could have sparked the pandemic. Last month, the Trump White House unveiled a revamped COVID-19 website on titled “Lab Leak: The True Origins of COVID-19,” replacing the previous COVID.gov site that provided public health resources. The new site strongly endorses the lab leak theory, asserting that the SARS-CoV-2 virus likely originated from a laboratory incident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, involving gain-of-function research. In the final days of his presidency, President Joe Biden issued a preemptive pardon of Fauci—shielding him from potential prosecution over allegations he misled Congress about the research.

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RFK came just in time..

“..In America today, through USDA—this is not all the other agencies, this is just here at USDA—we spend $370 million a day on nutrition programs..”

• USDA Secretary Warns Chronic Diseases Will ‘Bankrupt’ America (ZH)

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has issued a dire warning about the United States’ chronic disease crisis, declaring that poor nutrition is fueling a healthcare cost surge that threatens to bankrupt the nation. During a recent Cabinet meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. outlined plans to reform the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) with Rollins, targeting sugary drinks and junk food that the USDA chief argues drive an unprecedented obesity epidemic. “We have 13 nutrition programs. Listen to this number. This is going to astound you. In America today, through USDA—this is not all the other agencies, this is just here at USDA—we spend $370 million a day on nutrition programs,” Rollins told All-In podcast host David Friedberg in an interview released Sunday. “So, not just SNAP, but food banks and all of the other ones. That’s just USDA. That is a stunning number. We’ve got to do better.”

The stakes are extraordinarily high, with Rollins pointing to alarming health trends that she warns pose an existential threat to the nation’s future, disproportionately harming the country’s most vulnerable and low-income populations. “Why are billions of taxpayer dollars being spent on sugary drinks and junk food in our supplemental nutrition program for food-insecure, lower-income populations? This contributes to an obesity and chronic disease epidemic unlike any developed country has ever seen. 74% of our adolescents would not pass the military readiness test today. This is a massive challenge facing America,” she told Friedberg, adding, “Taxpayers fund junk food and sugary drinks at the front end, leading to diabetes and other issues, while the back-end costs of treating chronic diseases are bankrupting states through Medicaid.”

Kennedy, a longtime champion of the Make America Healthy Again movement and a fierce critic of industrial food interests, is closely aligned with Rollins in transforming the nation’s food supply. “In the first administration, health care was under my portfolio in domestic policy. As conservatives, we’ve long discussed how to make America healthy again, focusing on the cost to the health care system,” Rollins said. “Enter Bobby Kennedy—while we don’t agree on everything, we align on most things. I was with him yesterday touring farms and discussing nutrition and agriculture. The opportunity for the agriculture and health leads to work together daily to solve this is key. You can’t solve it through government regulation, but through nutrition, empowering farmers, and getting good food into these programs.”

Last month, Kennedy unveiled a plan to eliminate eight artificial food dyes and colorings from the U.S. food supply by the end of 2026, collaborating with food companies to ensure a seamless transition. ABC News reported: Federal officials are taking steps to pull the authorization for two rarely used synthetic food colorings — Citrus Red No. 2 and Orange B — within the coming months. In addition, the six other petroleum-based dyes that federal health agencies are seeking to eliminate by the end of next year are Green No. 3, Red No. 40, Yellow No. 5, Yellow No. 6, Blue No. 1 and Blue No. 2. “I just want to urge all of you, it’s not the time to stop; it’s the time to redouble your efforts, because we have them on the run now, and we are going to win this battle,” Kennedy said of the historic move. “And four years from now, we’re going to have most of these products off the market, or you will know about them when you go to the grocery store.”

Read more …

“By imposing sanctions against media people and political scientists, Zelensky is also testing the US tolerance for his dictatorship..”

• Zelensky Testing US Patience – Jailed MP (RT)

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky is testing America’s tolerance for abuses of power by sanctioning his critics, jailed Ukrainian MP Aleksandr Dubinsky has said. Last week, Zelensky announced measures targeting his former top adviser Aleksey Arestovich, historian Konstantin Bondarenko, who published a biography of the Ukrainian leader, titled “The Joker,” and several other journalists and political analysts. Penalties have included asset freezes, restrictions on trade and financial transactions, travel bans and the revocation of state awards. “By imposing sanctions against media people and political scientists, Zelensky is also testing the US tolerance for his dictatorship,” Dubinsky, who was detained by Kiev authorities in November 2023 on charges including high treason, wrote in a post on Telegram on Sunday.

The fact that the restrictions were announced a day after the signing of the minerals deal between the US and Ukraine was no coincidence, he suggested. Zelensky is trying to find out “if there will be any reaction” to such a move from Washington when “the agreement is signed, but not yet ratified” by Ukraine’s parliament, the ousted legislator wrote. The deal, which was agreed upon on Wednesday after months of difficult negotiations, established a joint investment fund and gave the US preferential access to Ukraine’s natural resources. The American security guarantees which Zelensky’s government had been demanding were not part of the agreement, according to Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmigal.

“Furthermore, Zelensky is also needed to sign the peace treaty [with Russia]. This gives him the opportunity to test the limits of what is allowed. Europe is satisfied with him, and the US seems to be satisfied with him now too,” Dubinsky stressed. The Ukrainian leader sees the situation as an opportunity to get rid of his political opponents, he added. Legislators from Zelensky’s Servant of the People party, who are “joyfully applauding the tyranny… do not understand that they are next. A dictator does not need fellow travelers, he only needs a show of force,” the MP wrote. Zelensky remains in power in Ukraine despite his presidential term officially expiring last May. He canceled the election citing the martial law he had imposed due to the conflict with Russia. In mid-April, the Ukrainian leader prolonged the emergency measures another three months.

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“Trump said his administration is “closer with one party, and maybe not as close with the other,” regarding a peace agreement..”

• Trump Claims Putin Won’t Talk To EU Leaders (RT)

US President Donald Trump has claimed that EU leaders are imploring him to engage diplomatically with Russian President Vladimir Putin, as the Kremlin allegedly refuses to respond to their calls. The Trump administration is acting as a mediator between Russia and Ukraine in an effort to broker an end to the ongoing conflict. Most European NATO members have pledged continued military support to Kiev, with some discussing potential troop deployments to the region. Trump emphasized his role as a mediator during an interview with NBC News on Sunday, stating, “Do you know that the European Union leaders have asked me to call Putin so many times? Because he doesn’t return their phone calls.”

He remarked that his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, had not reached out to Putin at all, seemingly referencing the period following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022. Trump said his administration is “closer with one party, and maybe not as close with the other,” regarding a peace agreement, without specifying which is which. Moscow has consistently expressed a desire to resolve its differences with the West through diplomatic means, although its proposals concerning NATO expansion in Europe were dismissed in 2021. The Russian government had been open to engaging with EU leaders, notably German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who reached out to Putin last November. Kiev criticized Berlin for the move, which it labeled a form of appeasement towards Russia.

Russia aims for an indivisible security framework in Europe, where the safety of one nation cannot come at the expense of another, Putin stated during a government meeting in February. “We understand that not everyone welcomes the revival of Russian-American contacts. Some Western elites are intent on perpetuating global instability, and those forces will attempt to undermine or sabotage our dialogue,” he added. In March, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov criticized French President Emmanuel Macron for publicly stating his willingness to talk directly with Putin but never acting on it.

Read more …

Ukraine and EU don’t want peace. Trump and Putin do.

• Trump Reveals His Red Line in Ukraine Peace Push (Sp.)

US President Donald Trump said that the United States may one day decide to withdraw from the process of negotiations on the settlement of the Ukraine conflict. “Well, there will be time, when I will say: okay, keep going, keep being stupid, keep fighting … There will be time when I may say that,” Trump said in an interview for the NBC News broadcaster out on Sunday. The US leader noted that sometimes he is close to making such a decision, but then “positive things happen.” On Friday, State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said the US was not ready yet to exit efforts to reach peace in Ukraine, but would no longer act as a mediator if no progress is made. Trump said that there is a “very good chance” to reach peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. “I think we have a very good chance of doing it,” Trump said in an interview for the NBC News broadcaster out on Sunday.

At the same time, there is a possibility that the United States will not be able to settle the conflict due to “tremendous hatred,” which he sees between the leaders of Russia and Ukraine. The US president also said that Washington had reached significant progress in talks with one of the sides to the conflict. “I do believe we are closer with one party and maybe not as close with the other,” Trump said. He did not clarify with which side the US had made better progress. Russian President Vladimir Putin, at a meeting with US Presidential Special Envoy Steve Witkoff last week, reaffirmed Moscow’s readiness to negotiate with Kiev without preconditions, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. On Monday, Russia announced a ceasefire that would run from the start of May 8 to the end of May 10 to honor the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Victory in the World War II. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the ceasefire should be immediate and last for at least 30 days, and refused to uphold the three-day truce.

Donald Trump said that he intended to serve for only eight years in the White House despite his previous statements about entertaining the idea of a third term. “I’ll be an eight-year president, I’ll be a two-term president. I always thought that was very important,” Trump said. The US leader noted that his ultimate goal was to transfer the power to someone else. He intended to “have four great years and turn it over to somebody, ideally a great Republican to carry it forward.” Four years would be enough to do a good job, the president said. In late March, Trump told NBC News that he was “not joking” about the possibility of seeking a third term in the White House, although it is prohibited by the US Constitution.

Read more …

She’s not going to challenge israel. It would risk her nice job. Remember, she wasn’t elected.

• EU’s von der Leyen ‘Beyond Deplorable’ On Gaza – UN Rapporteur (RT)

The EU leadership should be held accountable for supporting Israel’s “war crimes” in Gaza, UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese has said. In an interview with The Intercept published on Saturday, Albanese singled out European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas. “The fact that the two highest figures of the EU continue business-as-usual engagements with Israel is beyond deplorable,” she said. “I’m not someone who says, ‘History will judge them’ – they will have to be judged before then. And they will have to understand that immunity cannot equate with impunity,” the UN expert added.

Albanese said she has been working on a report exposing the role of institutions and organizations –including banks, pension funds, tech companies, and universities – in crimes against the Palestinian population of Gaza. “All those implicated and involved in the unlawful occupation, in providing it with support, are aiding and abetting violations of international law and human rights violations, and a number of these amount to crimes,” Albanese said. “There can be individual responsibility and individual liability for those who have been aiding and abetting or enabling such crimes.”

Albanese has repeatedly urged von der Leyen to use her powers as head of the EU executive to stop the “genocide” in Gaza. She also criticized Kallas for not pressuring Israel to end its military operation during her visit to Tel Aviv in March, when the diplomat said “both sides lose” in the conflict. “A shocking low for the EU: one of its top leaders stands with Israel’s foreign minister, representing a state responsible for killing 50,000 people (in 16 months), 70% women and children, with Western-made weapons,” Albanese wrote on X at the time. The UN official claimed she and her family have faced death threats since she released a report in March 2024, insisting that Israel’s actions should be classified as genocide.

European Commission spokeswoman Gioia Franchellucci told The Intercept that Brussels was committed to international law, and that the bloc’s relationship with Israel allows officials to express their “positions and concerns.” “The association agreement with Israel is the legal basis of our ongoing dialogue with the Israeli authorities, and it provides mechanisms to discuss issues and advance our points of view,” the spokeswoman said. West Jerusalem launched its operation in Gaza following a surprise attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023, during which militants killed around 1,200 Israelis and took around 250 hostages. Over 52,000 Palestinians have been killed since the conflict broke out, according to the enclave’s health authorities.

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“Fascism is when Dad says ‘no'” —Aimee Terese on “X”

• There Will Be Boundaries (James Howard Kunstler)

It’s vain and futile to suppose that the disordered minds of Western Civ’s entrenched Wokester Jacobins might ever be subject to polite persuasion about anything they believe. They believe only in the power of pushing their fellow citizens around, and so, alas, the only persuasion that might conceivably work to stop their infantile assaults on liberty, truth, and decency is to push back harder until they suffer and break. This is something that most parents with young children instinctively understand. You don’t negotiate with two-year-olds. You tell them how things are and what sort of behavior is required of them, as plainly and simply as possible. Mr. Trump, having been the father of many two-year-olds over time, appears to get this. It has been apparent for years that Mr. Trump’s symbolic role as a father figure is the most deeply resented feature of his role in US politics.

It also appears that many men in this country likewise get this, perhaps because nature conditions them early on to understand that some day they might have to play the role of father, meaning they will have to push back hard against emotional disorder, hysteria, illogic, and untruth, and violence. Hence, you might see the peril of living in a land with so many fatherless households. This lamentable state of things defines the Democratic Party, where raging, inchoate, resentment-driven Jacobinism dwells, a party now with no leader, a household with no father, no one to regulate its frenzied, power-seeking behavior. This also tells you how the Democratic Party has become the party run by women, and by particular types of women — women who have traded the management of children and households for bureaucratic careerism, women too lacking in feminine appeal to attract mates, women attempting to become the men missing in their lives — and men wishing to become women, or pretending to be women.

And so you see how these disorders play out in the ongoing melodrama of men in women’s sports, a proposition so obviously insane that no healthy society has ever abided it for a moment until the American Jacobins ran with it as a cardinal political irritant to vex their opponents (and really for no other reason). The state of Maine’s governor, Janet Mills, clashed openly with Mr. Trump over his executive order to desist from allowing biological men in women’s sports. The matter is currently making its way through the courts.

This week, a “trans” athlete named Soren Stark-Chessa, beat the field of females in a Maine track-meet by a country mile in the 800-meter and 1600-meter runs. No one, except the political leadership of Maine, was fooled about the fairness of this, of course. Fairness is not the point. Intransigent defiance of reality was the point. It is always the point for Jacobin politicians. What is most obviously insane in matters like this, is that the female governor is so eager to punish and humiliate her younger fellow females in order to merely press a political point — that she is the boss of Maine, and nobody can tell her what to do, even if she deranges the cultures of schooling and sports. This illustrates, by the way, a principal difference in the way men’s and women’s brains work. Men typically understand boundaries, where things begin and end. It is a necessary cognitive device for regulating behavior in the household and for acting in the face of danger when required.

Sports is just a microcosm of our politics. The whole gestalt of Woke-Jacobin politics is driven by the wish to dissolve boundaries. That is, it is driven by female minds, and what the Woke-Jacobins might call female-adjacent minds. That is why the open border fiasco was another point-of-principle for the Democratic Party — and why “Joe Biden” the phantom president (actually the shadowy figures behind him) pretended that nothing could be done about it. Mr. Trump demonstrated that was a lie in a New York minute. The damage from four years of a wide-open border is immense, much worse than men running in girls’ races. The motive for it is also obvious: to jam as many illegal aliens as possible into the country so as 1) to disorder the next census count in swing states to keep congressional districts safe, and 2) to install a base of new “voters” — qualified to vote or not — who will be eternally grateful to the Democratic Party for letting them flood into the country and gifting them with housing, social services, transportation, free meals, and walking-around money.

And now, a Woke-Jacobin judiciary, assisted by an infrastructure of Lawfare ninjas, led by the outlaw Norm Eisen, and financed by George Soros, and what remains of Soros-adjacent NGOs, is using the courts to keep all those illegally-admitted aliens in place here at all costs. So, you see, they are attempting to dissolve a boundary crucial to the Republic’s survival: who is a citizen and who is not a citizen, and what are the privileges entailed? The objective is to keep this dispute alive in the courts long enough to affect the 2026 midterm elections in the hopes of winning Congress back. You can also see how this will oblige Mr. Trump to marshal the most aggressive legal force possible to crush this seditious legal insurrection. He has executive powers and perquisites in reserve that he has not used yet, or even revealed. He will defeat these monsters in the end just as he is methodically disassembling their scaffold of psychopathic ideology and their pipelines of funding. It will really be something to see.

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“..so afraid of the cartel she can’t walk,” then added that he believes she is “a lovely woman.”

• Trump Offered Troops But Mexican President ‘Afraid Of The Cartels’ (JTN)

President Trump confirmed Sunday that he offered to send U.S. troops into Mexico to help eradicate the country’s illegal drug trade and said the country’s president rejected the offer because she is “afraid of the cartels.” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Saturday that she rejected Trump’s offer to send troops into Mexico to combat drug trafficking. She said Trump told her: “How can we help you fight drug trafficking? I propose that the United States military come in and help you.’ And you know what I said to him? ‘No, President Trump.’”

Sheinbaum also said: “Sovereignty is not for sale. … We can work together, but you in your territory and us in ours.” Trump said Sunday on Air Force One that “it’s true” that he made the offer, The Hill newspaper reports. However, he claimed that Sheinbaum is “so afraid of the cartel she can’t walk,” then added that he believes she is “a lovely woman.” “She is so afraid of the cartels she can’t even think straight,” Trump said.

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“Hegseth let some confidential information out via some communication service to the delight of the Israel Lobby, which is using the mistake to have Hegseth removed.”

• Trump Is Destroying America, but He Is Making Israel Great (Paul Craig Roberts)

Presidents, like corporate CEOs and everyone else, have a limited span of control. They can’t know everything or focus on everything. Most presidential decisions are just acceptances of subordinate’s decisions. I know it. I have been there. I have seen it, both the President of the United States and the CEOs and boards of corporations are dependent on information that comes from below. And often in the case of government the information from below is from outside. We are now witnessing this in the Trump regime. Real ID is a George W. Bush/Cheney regime measure from the fake “war on terror” that was used by Washington to remove Arab governments opposed to Greater Israel. Until Trump, no president wanted the flack of imposing it on “free” American citizens, thus revealing to them how unfree they are. But the police state crowd see Trump’s concern with illegals as an opportunity to finally get their old handiwork from the “war on terror” Implemented. And Trump has obliged.

We are also witnessing the ruling establishment’s success in removing Trump’s people in the hopes of replacing them with one of theirs. Having learned nothing from failing to stand by General Flynn, Trump’s national security adviser for ten minutes in Trump’s first term, Trump has repeated his mistake. He kicked his national security advisor upstairs to be US Ambassador to the UN. Why? Because someone mistakenly included the Jewish editor of the leftwing magazine, The Atlantic, in on a meeting about bombing Yemen. Clearly, the invitee list was a staff responsibility. The real problem is that Atlantic editor Goldberg did not announce at the meeting that he doubted he was supposed to be present in a national security discussion.

Instead he kept silent, took notes, and published an article. I do think that his dishonest behavior displaying a total lack of integrity is indictable. Instead of kicking his national security advisor upstairs, Trump should have had AG Bondi arrest and prosecute Goldberg for revealing national security secrets. But Trump would be too afraid to treat an Israeli-protected person that way. So Trump sacrificed his national security advisor. Trump’s failure signals weakness or inattention, and now they are after his Defense Secretary. Same kind of charge. Hegseth let some confidential information out via some communication service to the delight of the Israel Lobby, which is using the mistake to have Hegseth removed.

People are confused about this, because Hegseth is a Zionist, a full-time supporter of Israel. What got Hegseth in trouble is that he listened to knowledgable Pentagon personnel who explained to him that a US war with Iran for Israel was fraught with danger. He was advised, correctly, that once the US ignited a war Washington had no ability to control it. The consequence could be the destruction of Washington’s bases in the Middle East and loss of every Navy aircraft carrier in the vicinity. Hegseth backed off, Israel hit the roof, and Hegseth had to fire the advisers who told him the truth. According to the liberal/left, the Democrats, and the media, Trump is tyrannical strength itself, imposing dictatorship on America, but neither Trump nor his administration have the strength to stand up to Israel. What Trump is going to do is to make Israel great, not America.

All over the Western world it is already the case in many countries, such as Great Britain and Germany that criticism of Israel or of Jews is a criminal offense, and it is becoming the same in every Western country, eventually even in Russia. In America the Trump regime is deporting students who protest Israel’s American-supported genocide of the Palestinians. Long ago Israeli propagandists convinced Americans that every Palestinian, even 3-year old children, was a terrorist who wore bomb vests in order to kill Israelis. All the while Israel killed Palestinians, 3-year olds included, by the bomb load. Even in the Red State of Texas, if you protest Israel’s genocide of Palestine, you are ineligible to have a state contract. America is totally owned by Israel. So is Trump. So how can America be “made great again”?

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Merz was just now as I write this, voted down in the Bundestag as the new chancellor. Trouble in the heartland.

• German Opposition Proposes Replacement For NATO (RT)

The co-leader of the German Left party, Jan van Aken, has called for NATO to be replaced with a new security alliance involving both Russia and the United States, arguing that the US-led military bloc “has no future.” In an interview with Die Zeit published on Saturday, van Aken said the party continues to support its 2011 platform, which called for Germany to exit NATO and help create a new collective security system. “We never wanted to abolish NATO without replacement but rather replace it with a cooperative security system,” van Aken said when asked whether Germany and its European allies could defend themselves without US support. He proposed a new model similar to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), focusing on peacekeeping and joint defense.

“Something like OECD 2.0. A peace and defense alliance, together with Russia and the US. But of course, if we were to rebuild it, it would certainly require another ten years of confidence-building measures. NATO would still exist that long, but it no longer has a future,” he stated. Van Aken also called for the withdrawal of US troops stationed in Germany. “Yes, and they should take their nuclear weapons with them,” he said, noting that the nuclear stockpiles in France and the UK are already “more than enough.” He confirmed that the vision of a demilitarized Europe remains central to the party’s agenda. “Of course I want to live in a country without an army. Don’t you?”

Last month, Germany unveiled a new military aid package for Ukraine, including vehicles, air-defense rockets, and howitzers. Incoming Chancellor Friedrich Merz has indicated support for supplying Ukraine with Taurus cruise missiles capable of striking deep into Russian territory. The Social Democrats, who are holding coalition talks with Merz’s Christian Democrats, have opposed the move as a needless escalation. Moscow has warned that supplying the missiles would make Germany directly involved in the conflict, arguing that Ukrainian forces cannot operate the Taurus without the help of German personnel.

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Israel should be in among those names. They all fall for the illusion that the Houthis are easy to beat.

“The Houthi can not be defeated. Soon a U.S. ship will get hit. From there the war could easily escalate into a war against Iran.”

• Yemen – They Defeated The Saudis, Then Biden, Now Trump (MoA)

In January 2024, the nine years long war Saudi Arabia waged against Yemen had just calmed down after the Saudis had been mostly defeated, the Houthi movement declared to shut down Israel related traffic through the Red Sea. The move was made in solidarity with the besieged people in Gaza. To cover for Israel’s genocide in Gaza the U.S. and UK decided to fight down the Houthi and to reestablish marine traffic through the Red Sea. Their bombing campaign showed little results. Eight month later a hawkish British commentator conceded defeat: “The Houthis have defeated the US Navy” – Telegraph, Aug 24 2024. Soon thereafter the Biden administration recognized that the effort was useless and refrained from launching further strikes on Yemen. In March 2025 the Trump administration repeated the error of the previous U.S. regime and engaged in a new bombing campaign against Yemen:

“Announcing Saturday’s strikes, Trump said “we will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective”. “Funded by Iran, the Houthi thugs have fired missiles at US aircraft, and targeted our Troops and Allies,” Trump said on social media, adding that their “piracy, violence, and terrorism” had cost “billions” and put lives at risk. Addressing the Houthis directly, Trump wrote that if they did not stop, “HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE”. But the Houthis have been unwavering in their response, saying the aggression would not diminish their support for Palestinians.” I made a short comment on the renewal of the U.S. bombing campaign: •”Bombing Yemen is stupid. The Saudis tried for years to get their way by doing that and were defeated.
• Yemen can and does shoot back.
• It is only a question of time until it hits a U.S. war ship and causes casualties.
• Then Trump will be hard pressed to escalate the war towards Iran.
• Iran can not be defeated.

The U.S. and UK military have since continued to bomb Yemen. There are signs that they have run out of identified targets as they are bombing just random stuff. Recently they hit a detention center that was holding African migrants killing some 60 of those. They dropped bombs on civilians near a quarry because some random guy on Twitter posted coordinates of the quarry claiming that it was a military site. Eight people died. On Sunday a Yemeni missile hit Israel’s main airport Ben Gurion. U.S. supplied Patriot and THAAD, as well as Israel Arrow air defense system had failed to intercept the missile. The Houthi warned of more to come:

“Houthi military spokesman Brig.-Gen. Yahya Saree posted on Telegram that the missile strike was in response to expand its operations against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The decision to expand operations was agreed upon by the Israeli security cabinet on Friday night. Several IDF reserve brigades will be mobilized for the operation’s expansion. The Yemen-based terror organization “calls upon all international airlines to take into consideration” their plans to target Israeli airports, Saree said in his Telegram post, and also recommended that airlines “cancel all schedules flights to the airports of the ‘criminal enemy’ to preserve the safety of their aircraft and their agents.”

Trump’s military campaign against Yemen, just like Biden’s previous one, has failed: “The Houthis have the upper hand. This is why (archived)” – The Times, May 4 2025. Despite concerted American efforts, the Iran-backed Yemeni group continues to launch missile attacks against Israel and merchant shipping in the Red Sea. President Trump has promised to “annihilate the Houthis” and a campaign that involved 202 strikes during its first two months, under the Biden administration, has intensified to the point that more than 800 have been delivered.
…
The Houthis combine the nimbleness of a non-state group and an insurgent army, while having Iranian support, and boasting an arsenal of strike weapons that would put most countries to shame. So, there is danger for British and American pilots — the Houthis have shot down 19 Reaper drones (which cost $30 million each) since this blitz started. And Monday’s attempt to hit the Truman shows their continued ability to threaten nearby shipping with a blend of ballistic and cruise missiles as well as uncrewed aircraft and boats, testing their defences from all angles.
…
Intercepting these occasional launches of long-range Iranian-made weapons is one of the most expensive issues facing the Pentagon. The Israeli Arrow missiles used to counter them are $4 million each, the American Thaad missile defence systems cost $8.4 million, and the ship-launched SM-3 anti-ballistic missile is an eye-watering $27 million. As for protecting naval vessels off Yemen, a salvo of defensive missiles costs millions, but the price of such a strike getting through, crippling a warship, could easily top a billion dollars.nA hit on a U.S. or British ship is sure to happen should the U.S. and UK continue its campaign. But there is no hope that any bombing will defeat the nobles of Yemen:

Ultimately though, the Houthis, ruling through a combination of activism and coercion, have withstood attempts by western countries and Saudi Arabia to coerce them so will retain some capability to continue launching missiles.
There are ideas of instigating a local ground campaign against the Ansar Islam ruled parts of North Yemen. The Saudis, with help of the Emirates and al-Qaeda had tried that too. It had failed and will fail again should the Trump administration be stupid enough to try it again. The Houthi can not be defeated . Soon a U.S. ship will get hit. From there the war could easily escalate into a war against Iran. There is a good chance that the U.S. would lose it. It is high time for the Trump administration to pull back from its Yemen campaign. The reopening of the Red Sea for all maritime traffic can only be achieved by reining in the Zionist maniacs. Unfortunately Trump lacks the balls to even attempt that.

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Old Oil Drum friend Robert Rapier. Doesn’t mention Spain.

• US Electricity From Fossils Fuels Below 50% for the First Time Ever (Rapier)

For the first time in history, fossil fuels supplied less than half of the United States’ electricity generation for an entire month, according to new data released by energy think tank Ember. This milestone, achieved in March 2025, represents a turning point in the evolving energy mix of the world’s largest economy. Historically, fossil fuels—primarily coal and natural gas—have dominated U.S. electricity production. But the steady rise of renewables over the past two decades has chipped away at their dominance. In March, wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear collectively overtook coal, oil, and gas, with fossil fuels accounting for just 48.9% of total generation. However, note that this is an estimate of total generation, including small scale systems that are not connected to the grid. According to EIA data, fossil fuels still account for about 64% of electricity generation by utilities.

What’s Driving the Shift? Several factors converged to make this moment possible. First, renewable energy capacity has expanded rapidly. Wind and solar are now mainstream technologies, supported by state mandates, federal tax incentives, and falling costs. Wind generation alone grew 12% in March year-over-year, and solar jumped by a remarkable 37%. Second, seasonal demand patterns played a role. March is typically a shoulder month for electricity demand—warmer than winter but not yet summer hot—which tends to reduce the need for gas-fired peaking power plants. Lower demand allows zero-marginal-cost renewables like wind and solar to play a more prominent role on the grid.

Third, coal continues its long decline. Once the backbone of U.S. power generation, coal’s share of the mix has been in free fall since the mid-2000s. In March, coal accounted for just 15% of overall electricity generation (and ~18% of electricity produced by utilities). Nuclear power also remains a steady contributor, generating around 19% of electricity, while hydro added another 7%. Combined, these non-fossil sources provide a rapidly growing part of the U.S. grid, with gas providing backup during peaks and seasonal extremes.

A One-Month Wonder, or a Trend? It’s important to view this milestone in context. April’s low fossil fuel share is partly seasonal, and likely to rebound in the hotter summer months when demand for air conditioning increases and natural gas generation ramps up. Indeed, in 2023, fossil fuels still provided 60% of total annual electricity generation. However, the trajectory is clear: renewable energy is rapidly scaling, and fossil fuels—especially coal—are losing ground. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), passed in 2022, has accelerated investment in clean energy infrastructure. Billions of dollars are now flowing into solar, wind, battery storage, and transmission upgrades. Analysts project that renewables will continue to take a growing share of the power mix, driven not just by policy, but by economics. In many parts of the country, new wind and solar projects are already the lowest-cost option for new generation.

Grid Reliability and the Energy Transition One lingering concern is reliability. Fossil fuels, especially natural gas, still provide critical dispatchable power when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. The challenge now is to scale clean, reliable alternatives, such as long-duration energy storage, advanced nuclear, and grid-interactive demand response. There are also regional differences to consider. Some states—like California and Texas—have made significant strides in renewable integration, while others remain heavily reliant on fossil fuels. Building out the national transmission grid will be essential to balancing these disparities and ensuring a reliable, resilient system.

A Glimpse Into the Future The March data doesn’t mean the U.S. has “solved” the energy transition—but it does offer a preview of what the grid could look like in the not-so-distant future. As technology improves, costs continue to fall, and policy support remains strong, it’s likely that fossil fuels will make up less than half of the annual electricity mix within this decade. For investors, utilities, and policymakers, the message is clear: the momentum behind clean electricity is real. Those who prepare for this transition—by investing in clean infrastructure, modernizing the grid, and rethinking electricity markets—will be best positioned for the energy system of tomorrow.

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Harvard demands to be a state within the state. But if your student body doesn’t reflect the country’s, why should they give you billions?…

• Trump Blocks Harvard From New Federal Grants (ZH)

Harvard University will no longer be eligible for government grants, the White House informed the acclaimed scandal-plagued, institution on May 5. Trump’s Education Secretary Linda McMahon sent a letter to Harvard President Alan Garber on Monday night to inform the university that it is not eligible for federal grants until it makes significant changes to its management, the official said. The letter cites low public confidence in higher education, Harvard’s continued racial profiling, and takes issue with the virtually untaxed status of Harvard’s significant financial endowment.

“Perhaps most alarmingly, Harvard has failed to abide by the United States Supreme Court’s ruling demanding that it end its racial preferencing, and continues to engage in ugly racism in its undergraduate and graduate schools, and even within the Harvard Law Review itself. Our universities should be bastions of merit that reward and celebrate excellence and achievement. They should not be incubators of discrimination that encourage resentment and instill grievance and racism into our wonderful young Americans”, McMahon wrote, before advising the university to no longer seek Federal grants, “since none will be provided.”

“The above concerns are only a fraction of the long list of Harvard’s consistent violations of its own legal duties. Given these and other concerning allegations, this letter is to inform you that Harvard should no longer seek GRANTS from the federal government, since none will be provided. Harvard will cease to be a publicly funded institution, and can instead operate as a privately-funded institution, drawing on its colossal endowment, and raising money from its large base of wealthy alumni. You have an approximately $53 Billion head start, much of which was made possible by the fact that you are living within the walls of, and benefiting from, the prosperity secured by the United States of America and its free-market system you teach your students to despise.”

On Friday, President Trump threatened to go after Harvard’s tax-exempt status: “We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve!” he wrote in a social media post. Two weeks earlier, Harvard filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, arguing its freeze on research funding is unconstitutional and “flatly unlawful” and called on the court to restore more than $2.2 billion in research dollars. Earlier this year, the Department of Education sent Harvard a list of demands, including combating anti-Semitism on campus and eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, that the university needed to fulfill or risk losing billions in federal funding, the Epoch Times reported In its response, Harvard said it was “not prepared to agree to demands that go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration.”

The Trump administration then froze $2.26 billion from the university, with nearly $9 billion in funding set aside for Harvard put under review. The administration had also pushed for Harvard to disclose information about potential foreign ties, with the Department of Homeland Security threatening to remove the university’s ability to enroll foreign students. Weeks later, Harvard released two reports describing how Jewish, Israeli, Zionist, Muslim, Arab, Palestinian, and pro-Palestinian students all reported feeling marginalized or targeted over their identities and views after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack on Israel and the campus protests that followed. “Especially disturbing is the reported willingness of some students to treat each other with disdain rather than sympathy, eager to criticize and ostracize, particularly when afforded the anonymity and distance that social media provides,” Garber wrote in a letter to the campus community.

Trump suggested on April 30 that his administration would no longer give government grants to Harvard if it did not agree to fulfill his demands to eliminate DEI and combat on-campus anti-Semitism. “A grant is at our discretion, and they are really not behaving well. So it’s too bad,” Trump said. Harvard has sued the administration to unfreeze its funds, and Garber said on Friday that it would be “highly illegal” for Trump to compel the Internal Revenue Service to revoke the university’s tax-exempt status. “If the government goes through with a plan to revoke our tax-exempt status, it would … be highly illegal unless there is some reasoning that we have not been exposed to that would justify this dramatic move,” Garber told The Wall Street Journal.

“The message that it sends to the educational community would be a very dire one, which suggests that political disagreements could be used as a basis to pose what might be an existential threat to so many educational institutions.” On Monday, the White House official announcing McMahon’s letter took issue with recent Harvard data showing that less than 3 percent of surveyed faculty identify as conservative, and suggested the school could do more to bring diverse viewpoints to campus. The official also accused the university of abandoning rigor and academic excellence, citing a plagiarism scandal involving former Harvard President Claudine Gay. All future funds to the university will be at the Trump administration’s discretion, the official said.

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“..self-driving cars, space colonization, brain-computer interfaces, and artificial intelligence..”

• Elon Musk Is a National Treasure (Margolis)

There’s been so much talk about Elon Musk’s patriotic work with the Department of Government Efficiency that I thought it would be a nice change of pace to talk about what Musk is up to with his tech companies. He gave a wide-ranging interview with Lara Trump on Fox News, where he laid out an ambitious vision for the future, spanning self-driving cars, space colonization, brain-computer interfaces, and artificial intelligence. Musk, who has become an increasingly visible figure in both the tech world and public policy, also discussed his growing collaboration with President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., where he’s pushing for innovation while helping respond to national emergencies. Lara Trump opened the interview by thanking Musk for his direct assistance during natural disasters.

“You have done so much to help people in this country,” she said, referencing how Musk deployed Starlink satellites to restore communication in North Carolina after hurricanes. Musk confirmed the effort and added, “Some people have said thank you,” but he didn’t ignore the critics either: “Maybe 20 or 25%… really don’t like me. That is obvious because they’re hanging me in effigy at these protest rallies. They’re being very violent about it.” Despite the noise, Musk’s supporters are still backing his ventures in droves. “There are a lot of people who have supported you by going out and buying Teslas,” Lara said. “My parents just bought their first Tesla to support you.” “Well, thank you,” Musk replied, expressing his gratitude to customers who stood by him. “A friend in need is a friend indeed.” I bought a Tesla last week myself.

Tesla remains a central focus for Musk, and he revealed that the company is on the brink of releasing a major breakthrough. “Tesla in a few months will release unsupervised full self-driving,” Musk announced. According to Musk, Tesla vehicles “will be driving around by themselves with no people in them.” He said this rollout will begin in Austin by June and expand rapidly across the country. “In the future, I think it’ll be unusual to see a manually driven car,” he predicted. “It’ll be like seeing a horse.” Another development Musk touted is the Tesla Optimus project — humanoid robots designed to serve as personal assistants. “Who wouldn’t want their own personal R2D2, C3PO robot buddy?” he asked. “That’s gonna be a massive, massive product.”

On the medical front, Musk highlighted incredible advancements from Neuralink. “The first part is called telepathy. It allows someone who has lost the use of their body to control a computer or a phone just by thinking,” he said. Remarkably, Musk claims users are already engaging with people on X through thought alone. He went on to describe the “Blindsight” project, aimed at restoring vision. “It will enable people who are blind to see — including people who have been blind from birth,” he said. He hopes to perform the first human implant within the next 12 months. Musk also believes that Neuralink may eventually allow people with severed spinal cords to walk again. “You can just think of it like some wires got broken,” he explained. “If you can bridge the signals, your body will work again.”

On the AI front, Musk emphasized the importance of truth in programming. “It’s very important that AI be programmed with good values, especially truth-seeking values,” he warned. “We must have a maximally truth-seeking AI… and if we don’t, it’ll be very dangerous.” When asked about what he wants his legacy to be long after he’s gone, Musk offered a simple but profound answer: “That I was useful in the furtherance of civilization, that I helped move civilization forward, added to the store of knowledge and capability, that I helped understand the universe.”

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But how do you control that? Which AI?

• Elon Musk: AI Will Replace Bloated, Inefficient Federal Gov’t (ZH)

Since President Donald Trump took office in mid-January, the Trump administration has employed Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to streamline government operations. This initiative eliminates redundancies, fraud, and waste while leveraging artificial intelligence to automate and reduce bureaucratic inefficiencies. On Sunday, Elon Musk attended the closed-door Milken Institute Global Conference, where he provided further details on deploying AI to eliminate government inefficiencies, potentially replacing some public sector workers, according to Bloomberg, citing an attendee of the prestigious conference at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles. Musk told financier Michael Milken at the closed-door event, which tickets start at $25,000 and features high-level individuals, including US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, Citigroup’s Jane Fraser, and Citadel’s Ken Griffin, how AI will replace some of the federal government’s workforce.

Musk also spoke about his brain implant company, Neuralink, and the development of Starship at his rocket company, SpaceX. DOGE and the Trump administration bet that AI can replace a sizeable portion of the government workforce—particularly those in administrative, data processing, and customer service roles—to dramatically reduce federal payroll costs, eliminate inefficiencies, and modernize public services. Last week, the latest data from global outplacement and executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas showed the government had led all sectors in job cuts this year, with 281,452 of those cuts attributed to DOGE-related cost-cutting.

In an interview, late last week on Fox News’ Jesse Watters Primetime, DOGE staffer Edward Coristine, nicknamed “Big Balls,” described some shocking examples of waste and mismanagement by unaccountable bureaucrats. Yet efforts to eliminate waste and fraud from the federal government have been met with intense opposition from the Democratic Party as the era of unchecked spending ends.

Starbase

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“..launching 84% of all mass to orbit globally. This is 15 times all Chinese launches combined in the quarter..”

• Chinese Space Program Copying Elon Musk’s Starlink (ZH)

Eric Berger, the senior space editor at Ars Technica, quoted a post on X from a China space observer detailing how Beijing appears to be copying Elon Musk’s Starlink space internet company, operated by SpaceX. “The Chinese space program copying SpaceX? Well, I never …,” Berger wrote. Berger quoted Blaine Curcio, founder of Orbital Gateway Consulting and an expert on China’s space industry, who identified SpaceSail—a Chinese space company backed by the Shanghai municipal government—as having unveiled its “commercial” version of Starlink satellites at China Space Day 2025.

The only problem China has is its launch cadence. For the year, SpaceX has 50 launches. This includes 48 Falcon 9 launches and 2 Starship launches. They have also launched 17 non-Starlink missions and 45 reused boosters. The latest count of Starlink satellites in low Earth orbit has surpassed 7,000, delivering high-speed internet to five million customers across 125 countries, territories, and other global markets. SpaceX’s third quarter 2024 launch report showed the US leading the global space race, launching 84% of all mass to orbit globally. This is 15 times all Chinese launches combined in the quarter, according to data from BryceTech.

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Fertility

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Motherland
https://twitter.com/leandroOnX/status/1919289642425196667

Putin

Mammo

Lemur

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle February 23 2025

Feb 232025
 
 February 23, 2025  Posted by at 11:01 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  27 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Maison 1931

 

• White House Teases Ukraine Deal ‘This Week’ (RT)
• President Trump Criticizes Elon Musk (Margolis)
• What Did You Do Last Week? (ZH)
• Federal Judge Rules in Favor of Trump Government Layoffs (AmG)
• Trump Admin Serious About Combatting Global Censorship (Nelson)
• Finally, The Americans Are Listening (SCF)
• Elon Musk Says ‘Reuters Is Lying’ (RT)
• “We Created A Monster With Zelensky” (ZH)
• Finally, It Was Graft That Netted Zelensky (Jay)
• US-Ukraine Ties Falling Apart – Former Ukrainian Diplomat (RT)
• European Military Chiefs Propose Sending 30,000 Troops to Ukraine (Antiwar)
• Foreign Troops Deploying To Ukraine Not Realistic – Zelensky’s Top Aide (RT)
• Musk Renews Attack On Zelensky Over ‘Murder’ Of Gonzalo Lira (RT)
• Russian Business Should ‘Cooperate’ With Musk – Putin (RT)
• It All Comes Down to Accounting (Jeffrey Tucker)
• This Should Be on Kash Patel’s FBI Priority List (Victoria Taft)
• Mexico President Sheinbaum Warns Against US Military Strikes On Cartels (ZH)

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1893012073149337910

https://twitter.com/i/status/1892986345431142605

USPS

Maine
https://twitter.com/i/status/1893040723781648683

Ron Paul

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Wonder what Zelensky and his crew think of that.

• White House Teases Ukraine Deal ‘This Week’ (RT)

US President Donald Trump is optimistic that a peace agreement to end the Ukraine conflict could be reached within days, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has said.Speaking to reporters on Saturday, Leavitt stressed that the Trump administration remains committed to swiftly ending the conflict, which is about to enter its fourth year. “The president and his team are very much focused on continuing negotiations with both sides of this war to end the conflict, and the president is very confident [that] we can get it done this week,” Leavitt said, without providing further details. According to Leavitt, Trump “believes very strongly that Russia is willing to make a deal, and he’s fighting to make a deal.” She added that National Security Adviser Mike Waltz “is going to be working around the clock all weekend to get a deal and end this conflict in Ukraine.”

When asked whether a potential summit between Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin could take place in Saudi Arabia or another location, Leavitt declined to provide specifics. “I don’t have anything to detail or to read out right now,” she said. Leavitt also noted that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is continuing talks on a potential deal granting the US access to Ukraine’s critical mineral resources. “It will recoup American tax dollars, and it also will be a great economic partnership between the United States of America and for the Ukrainian people as well, as they rebuild their country following this brutal war.” The Trump administration has been seeking a 50% stake in Ukraine’s rare earth mineral deposits, reportedly valued at approximately $500 billion, in exchange for continued US military and economic support.

However, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has rejected the initial offer, citing concerns over the lack of concrete security guarantees from the US. Leavitt’s comments also come after high-level talks between US and Russian diplomats in Saudi Arabia, aimed at restoring bilateral ties and paving the way for a Trump-Putin summit and the settlement of the Ukraine conflict. The negotiations notably excluded Ukrainian and EU representatives. Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday, Trump said he believed that “we are pretty close” to a deal on Ukraine. Russia has ruled out the freezing of the conflict, insisting it wants a permanent settlement of the crisis. Moscow has said that this could be possible if Ukraine commits to neutrality, demilitarization, denazification and recognizes the territorial realities on the ground.

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The kind of headline that gets people going. But that criticism? ”ELON IS DOING A GREAT JOB, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE HIM GET MORE AGGRESSIVE..”

• President Trump Criticizes Elon Musk (Margolis)

The mainstream media has been desperately trying to push any narrative that it can to undermine the new Trump administration, and, of course to drive a wedge between him and Elon Musk. Earlier this week, the Associated Press, apropos of nothing, questioned just how long there positive relationship would last. “It’s been a burning political question for weeks: How long will President Donald Trump — who doesn’t like sharing the spotlight — be able to do just that with Elon Musk, a billionaire also overly fond of attention?” the AP openly wondered this week. In a joint Fox News Channel interview that aired Tuesday, both insisted they like each other a lot and would stick with their arrangement despite what Trump said were attempts by the media to “drive us apart.”

At times, Trump sat back as Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity heaped praise on Musk in an attempt to counteract a Democratic narrative that he’s a callous and unelected force out to destroy the government and upend civil society through sweeping cuts being imposed by the Department of Government Efficiency.There were also moments when Trump and Musk were all but finishing each other’s sentences, as if they were part of a buddy comedy and not the president and his most powerful aide.

The article then went into detail explaining why their relationship “may not last.”Trump and Musk say they won’t turn on each other. But those closest to Trump often end up as his fiercest critics.His former vice president, Mike Pence, said Trump endangered his family in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol and attempted to bully him into violating the Constitution. His former attorney general, Bill Barr, refuted Trump’s falsehoods about widespread fraud in the 2020 election and has since said he “shouldn’t be anywhere near the Oval Office.”

Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime lawyer who testified against him in a hush money case, told a House committee in 2019, “People that follow Mr. Trump, as I did blindly, are going to suffer the same consequences that I’m suffering.”More recently, Trump shrugged off potential security risks while ending Secret Service protection for former top officials in his first administration, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former White House chief of staff John Kelly.Fair enough, I suppose. The article also noted that Trump has “shown repeatedly that he doesn’t like being overshadowed, even hinting at such where Musk is concerned.” Don’t you get the impression that the media is still trying desperately to drive a wedge between them? Something tells me it won’t stop, either.

And then on Saturday, Trump finally criticized Musk. It’s true. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he’d like to see Musk “get more aggressive.”ELON IS DOING A GREAT JOB, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE HIM GET MORE AGGRESSIVE. REMEMBER, WE HAVE A COUNTRY TO SAVE, BUT ULTIMATELY, TO MAKE GREATER THAN EVER BEFORE. MAGA! See that? He thinks Musk isn’t working hard enough! Liberal media, do your thing! Okay, so it’s not exactly the harshest criticism in the world. Nor was it when, earlier this week, Trump made a similarly backhanded criticism of Musk. “He’s a seriously high IQ individual,” Trump said in Miami. “He’s got his faults also, I’ll tell you that. But not too many of them.”

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So Elon gets more aggressive…

• What Did You Do Last Week? (ZH)

Panic has predictably ensued over Elon Musk’s requirement that all federal employees provide a five bullet point summary of what they accomplished last week, due by midnight on Monday (full details below).While newly minted FBI Director Kash Patel exempted agency employees from the requirement (with much of the intelligence community reportedly set to get the same pass), there’s a lot of upset feds out there. Senator Tina Smith (D-MN) lashed out, posting to X, “This is the ultimate dick boss move from Musk – except he isn’t even the boss, he’s just a dick.” (she said on the heels of a coordinated campaign to brand him ‘Co-President Musk’) To which the White House Rapid Response team replied, “What did you accomplish this week, Tina? Five bullets, please,” and Musk replied with a fire and ‘crying while laughing’ emojis. The Rapid Response team, which posts daily information about the Trump agenda, was happy to oblige.

New FBI Director Kash Patel sent an email to all agency employees on Saturday night instructing them to “pause any responses” to Elon Musk’s request that all federal employees provide summaries of their accomplishments over the past week or face termination. “The FBI, through the Office of the Director, is in charge of all of our review processes, and will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures,” reads the note from Patel. “When and if further information is required, we will coordinate the responses. For now, please pause any responses.”

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Eventually, he wins them all.

• Federal Judge Rules in Favor of Trump Government Layoffs (AmG)

On Thursday, a federal judge ruled that the Trump Administration can proceed with plans to carry out mass firings of federal employees. As reported by The Hill, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, who was appointed by Barack Obama, ruled that the labor unions which filed the lawsuit against the government layoffs had to take their case before the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) rather than a federal court. “The first month of President Trump’s second administration has been defined by an onslaught of executive actions that have caused, some say by design, disruption and even chaos in widespread quarters of American society,” said Judge Cooper.

“Affected citizens and their advocates have challenged many of these actions on an emergency basis in this Court and others across the country. Certain of the President’s actions have been temporarily halted; others have been permitted to proceed, at least for the time being. These mixed results should surprise no one.” Following through on another campaign promise, President Donald Trump has been firing thousands of federal workers, across all agencies, in an effort to shrink the size of the federal bureaucracy. To this end, President Trump also offered an unprecedented buyout offer, known as the “Fork in the Road” initiative, granting up to 8 months of paid vacation to all federal employees who submitted their immediate resignation. Over 75,000 employees accepted the offer before its expiration deadline. Several attempts to block the buyout offer ultimately failed in court.

The most recent case, which led to Judge Cooper’s ruling, was brought by a coalition of labor unions representing federal workers, including the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW), the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), and the United Auto Workers (UAW). Judge Cooper ultimately did not rule on the validity of the unions’ argument, which claimed that the executive branch’s actions are in violation of the separation of powers, but instead told the unions to make their case in a different setting. “The Court acknowledges that district court review of these sweeping executive actions may be more expedient,” the judge wrote. “But NTEU provides no reason why it could not seek relief from the FLRA on behalf of a class of plaintiffs and admits that it would ask other agencies to follow an administrative judge’s ruling in its favor.”

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“.. the Trump administration is fulfilling its promises early on. Vance’s Munich speech is the clearest demonstration yet that America will take the lead again in ensuring the protection of free speech for Americans and worldwide.”

• Trump Admin Serious About Combatting Global Censorship (Nelson)

President Donald Trump is well known for his America First agenda. Some have interpreted this as an isolationist stance of retreat from the world stage. If anything, the first few weeks have shown an energetic engagement on foreign policy. America First hasn’t meant disengagement with the world. Rather, it has meant taking seriously American foundational principles and believing those are core values that other nations will look up to when demonstrated proudly. One of those fundamental American principles is free speech, and the Trump administration is making sure that the world sees America vigorously fighting for it. This new posture of strongly proclaiming the American value of free speech on the global stage had its biggest demonstration yet for the new administration last week.

On Friday, Vice President J.D. Vance spoke at the Munich Security Conference. Rather than focusing on external global threats from Russia and China – as important and real as they are – Vance turned his attention to a major worrisome trend in Europe: the rise of aggressive censorship. Vance lamented the “retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America.” For Americans, censorship is itself an attack on democracy. As the Vice President stated, “Dismissing people, dismissing their concerns, or worse yet, shutting down media, shutting down elections, or shutting people out of the political process protects nothing. In fact, it is the most surefire way to destroy democracy.” Free speech is not supposed to just be an American value but a universally shared fundamental right, protected in international treaties and charters enthusiastically signed onto by European allies.

Vance highlighted one example in particular of the attack on freedom of expression, that of British Army veteran and ADF International client Adam Smith-Connor. Smith-Connor was charged in November 2022 for violating a “buffer zone” outside an abortion clinic in the UK when he had silently prayed outside of it. This past October, Smith-Connor was criminally convicted for his three minutes of silent prayer. Smith-Connor’s appeal will be heard in July. But that is just one example of what has become increasingly systematic attempts in Europe at ever larger scales to censor and control public discourse to exclude “wrong” opinions. Other cases abound, like that of Päivi Räsänen, the Finnish member of Parliament who has been hounded on “hate speech” criminal charges now for almost four years and investigations for even longer because she posted a picture of a Bible verse on then-Twitter.

But on a broader level, Europe’s Digital Services Act (DSA) would make every European social media user subject to the censorship regime and potentially export that censorship throughout the world, including America. The DSA imposes enormous penalties on large social media companies that do not comply with orders to censor so-called “illegal content,” broadly defined as anything that is illegal under EU or national law. Notably, this can include vague and subjective terms like “hate speech,” “misinformation,” and “disinformation,” which are readily weaponized against disfavored religious views, as the stories above show. Because large social media companies are often American companies, that means that the DSA could harm not just American business but lead to the censorship of Americans. Nearly every major digital service provider in the United States, from Adobe to Zoom, and most social media platforms, maintains these kinds of harmful policies prohibiting “hate speech” or “misinformation,” as reported by ADF’s Viewpoint Diversity Index.

If you oppose the government’s position and voice that opinion on social media, there’s a very real chance that a European bureaucrat will try to silence your voice as “misinformation.” Just look at Smith-Connor’s and Räsänen’s cases. The concern that Europe’s mania for expanding and exporting censorship – as bad as that is by itself – will be felt on American shores was the animating principle for Vance’s push for free speech in his European trip last week and has become a major theme. Earlier in the week, during his speech on AI, Vance directly criticized the Digital Services Act and “the massive regulations it created about taking down content and policing so-called misinformation.” “America cannot and will not accept that,” he said.

Vance is not pursuing this free speech posture toward Europe alone. Congressman Jim Jordan, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, sent the European Commission a letter at the end of last month “express[ing] our serious concerns with how the DSA’s censorship provisions affect free speech in the United States.” Last week, the Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the “Censorship-Industrial Complex,” highlighting censorship efforts abroad. One of President Trump’s first actions was an executive order preventing any federal efforts to facilitate censorship against Americans, especially under the guise of combatting “misinformation,” “disinformation,” and “malinformation.” This was a sharp turnabout from the Biden-Harris administration’s pressuring of social media companies to censor posts skeptical of government policies. Secretary of State Marco Rubio followed this up by announcing that he would terminate “any programs that in any way lead to censoring the American people.”

Vance and the Trump administration’s critics have tried over the weekend to make Vance’s position sound extreme, but instead have only confirmed how right he was to make a strong defense of free speech. No reaction was more egregious than CBS’s on Sunday, when Margaret Brennan absurdly blamed free speech for the Holocaust, while 60 Minutes promoted the German system of prosecuting thousands of cases of online “hate speech” and insults. Now that the weaponization of terms like “misinformation” and “disinformation” has been exposed, the rhetoric from opponents of free speech has become more direct. Vance’s speech has been a clarifying moment, laying down clearly the choice between free speech and censorship. When it comes to opposing global censorship, and especially when that censorship can affect Americans, the Trump administration is fulfilling its promises early on. Vance’s Munich speech is the clearest demonstration yet that America will take the lead again in ensuring the protection of free speech for Americans and worldwide.

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“The crucial paradigm shift has come about because of a fundamental, positive change in attitude on the American side for showing respect toward Russia..”

• Finally, The Americans Are Listening (SCF)

Trump, to his immense credit, has broken through the frozen relationship, delivering on his election campaign promise to re-engage with Russia to end the conflict in Ukraine and restore normal bilateral relations. For his part, Putin has consistently said he is willing to engage in diplomacy with a respectful American counterpart. Russia had offered a diplomatic way to avoid conflict back in December 2021, but that offer was rejected out of hand by the Biden administration and European NATO allies, as eloquently pointed out by Roger Waters in testimony to the UN Security Council this week. The same can be said for the Minsk Accords (tenth anniversary this week), the Istanbul agreement (March 2022), the INF Treaty (Trump unilaterally tore that up), the ABM Treaty (Bush Jr ditched in 2003), and the longer betrayal of post-Cold War detente (under Bush Sr and Clinton), and so on.

A lot of trust must, therefore, be restored because of the incorrigible history of American bad faith and treachery in its dealings with Russia and the Soviet Union. A historic summit is now on the cards for Trump and Putin, although no date or location has been finalized. In the meantime, the U.S. and Russian sides are to appoint envoys to deal with a wide range of issues in agreeing on a sustainable peace settlement. Foreign Minister Lavrov spoke favorably about the Riyadh encounter, saying that both sides not only listened but also understood each other.

That is a key point. For too long, the American side has not listened to nor understood Russia’s national security concerns. In particular, Russia’s repeated concern over the relentless and aggressive expansion of NATO toward its borders. Russia has made its terms crystal clear on what the end of the conflict in Ukraine entails. Among the terms, there can be no membership of NATO for Ukraine, and there must be a comprehensive security treaty for Europe.The considered and respectful response of the American negotiators this week indicates that the Trump administration is genuine about resolving the conflict with Russia and understands the deep historical background. In an editorial on January 31, we expressed doubt about Trump’s ability to do that. To his credit, however, he is proving our reservation to have been misplaced, at least so far.

It’s too early to get into the detailed terms of an agreement and how they can be implemented. At this stage, the essential achievement is the demonstration of diplomacy and politics working. A major part of the discussions in Riyadh involved restoring normal ambassadorial missions and diplomatic communications. That realm of normal functioning in inter-governmental communications was sabotaged under the Biden and Obama administrations over the past decade due to spurious claims made against Russia (the Russian election interference hoax, for example). All those obstacles have to be removed for diplomacy to proceed and succeed. At least, the American side is now realizing – and tacitly admitting – how destructive its policies had been.

It was significant too that Steven Witkoff – a career businessman – and the Russian economics chief Kirill Dmitriev were participants in the Riyadh discussions. Both sides talked about economic cooperation between the United States and Russia. That necessarily means the U.S. side revoking its illegitimate sanctions on Russia, including barriers to international banking.Trump and Putin are the central interlocutors. For his part, Trump has shown the basic decency to respect Putin as an equal and to bring the war in Ukraine to an end. Trump also wants to halt the wider geopolitical hostility toward Russia. The envoys he has appointed seem capable of implementing his aims. For Putin’s part, he has a depth of historical and intellectual understanding to ensure that the terms of the peace will be honorable and viable, not just with regard to Russia and Ukraine but on what the United States needs to do in order to re-engage with Russia and the rest of the world as a law-abiding power and not as an imperialist rogue state as it has been for decades.

To that end, the puppet regime in Kiev and the NATO vassals of Europe are irrelevant. Trump has rightfully shown contempt for the Kiev regime and the European lackeys. It was entirely appropriate that these non-entities were not involved at this early stage of peace diplomacy. Ukraine needs to elect a legitimate president, and at some later stage, the Europeans can be consulted about lifting their stupid sanctions on Russia. Next week, the British and French leaders are invited to Washington to hear more about Trump’s peace diplomacy.Russia has categorically ruled out any European NATO troops being deployed in Ukraine under the guise of peacekeepers. Trump needs to tell the European minions not to have any illusions about their importance and certainly to back off on any military adventures.

Russophobes like the EU’s Ursula von der Leyen and Kaja Kallas and NATO’s Dutch courage clown Mark Rutte should also be ignored. Their contributions are wholly counterproductive and beneath contempt. If the direct and earnest talks this week in Saudi Arabia are sustained, then it bodes well for the U.S. and Russian sides to stay engaged for eventually achieving a grand bargain on Ukraine and for world peace. The crucial paradigm shift has come about because of a fundamental, positive change in attitude on the American side for showing respect toward Russia. Respect and listening are two paramount ingredients in diplomacy that have long been absent in American politicians. President Trump has surprisingly delivered – so far. But can he succeed against the nefarious deeper forces of U.S. imperialism, which surely do not want peace with Russia or the world?

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It sounded a bit weird, true. But if Reuters says it…

• Elon Musk Says ‘Reuters Is Lying’ (RT)

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has accused Reuters of “lying” in response to its report that he was planning to threaten to cut off Ukraine’s Starlink internet access in order to provide the White House with leverage in its ongoing bargaining over natural resources.The agency reported on the matter on Saturday, citing three US officials familiar with the plans. According to Reuters, the Ukrainians were threatened with an “imminent shutoff” of Musk’s Starlink satellite service during a meeting between Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky and US President Donald Trump’s envoy Keith Kellogg in Kiev this week, should they not sign the deal on rare earths with Washington.

Musk took to his social media platform X later in the day, denying the existence of such plans and accusing Reuters of having fabricated the story.“This is false. Reuters is lying. They are second only to AP (Associated Propaganda) as legacy news liars,” the billionaire wrote. SpaceX has provided the Ukrainian military with Starlink internet since the escalation of the conflict with Russia in 2022, delivering more than 40,000 terminals over the course of the hostilities. The terminals have promptly become a key command and control tool for Kiev’s military.

Musk’s systems have also seen direct combat use, with satellite terminals repeatedly seen rigged to aerial and sea drones used by the Ukrainian military to provide them with reliable and hard-to-jam control access. SpaceX reportedly secured a new Pentagon contract to expand Ukraine’s access to the Starlink satellite network late last year. According to a Bloomberg report, a total of 3,000 Starlink terminals in Ukraine were granted access to Starshield, a more secure and militarized version of the system, under the deal.

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And killed a million in the process.

• “We Created A Monster With Zelensky” (ZH)

Axios has released a devastating report full of quotes from Trump admin officials which strongly suggests the growing rift with Zelensky is only about to worsen. The Ukrainian leader is seen as having overstepped by the White House. A US administration official involved in peace negotiations with Russia bluntly told the publication that “Zelensky is an actor who committed a common mistake of theater kids: He started to think he’s the character he plays on TV.” “Yes, he has been brave and stood up to Russia. But he would be six feet under if it wasn’t for the millions we spent, and he needs to exit stage right with all the drama,” the unidentified official said. This strongly suggests that Trump is pursuing a full political transition in Ukraine at this point.

Another official, also involved in negotiations described that “We created a monster with Zelensky,” and that “these Trump-deranged Europeans who won’t send troops are giving him terrible advice.” Speaking of which, one Saturday headline has revealed the European Union is still seeking ways to seize part of Russa’s frozen $280 billion in assets held abroad. So while Washington under Trump is trying to strike peace and compromise, the Europeans look content to try and sabotage what they already see as a ‘bad deal’ to end the war. Yet another US official was quoted in Axios as reviewing that “In the course of a week, Zelensky rebuffed President Trump’s treasury secretary, his secretary of state and his vice president, all before moving on to personally insulting President Trump in the press.”

The unnamed official followed with, “What did Zelensky think was going to happen?” Meanwhile a mineral deal is said to be close, with some Friday night headlines claiming a final deal was ‘hours’ away – but Zelensky’s office has said it’s still mulling over the first draft. “President Trump is obviously very frustrated right now with President Zelensky,” National Security Advisor Mike Waltz underscored in Thursday comments. The same Axios report has summarized what it calls Zelensky’s five moves that set off Trump in the following… Six administration officials tell Axios that during the past nine days there were five incidents that angered Trump, Vice President Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Waltz. Taken together, one administration official said, Zelensky “showed how not to do the ‘Art of the Deal’ ” when it came to courting Trump’s support:

• Feb. 12: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met Zelensky in Kyiv to offer a proposal that would give the U.S. access to Ukrainian mineral rights in return for de facto U.S. protection. Trump later told reporters Zelensky was “rude” and delayed his meeting with Bessent because he slept in.
• Feb. 14: At the Munich Security Conference, Vance and Rubio met Zelensky to get his approval for the mineral rights deal. But, the officials said, Zelensky surprised the Americans by saying he didn’t have the authority to unilaterally approve it without parliament.
• Feb. 15: Zelensky publicly rejected the offer at the conference. White House sources noted that his remarks to reporters — that the deal was “not in the interests of a sovereign Ukraine” — were markedly different from more positive-sounding comments he’d made on X the day before.
• Feb. 18: As Rubio, Waltz and presidential envoy Steve Witkoff sat down with Russian negotiators in Saudi Arabia to talk peace, Zelensky criticized the meeting for occurring without Ukraine at the table. An angry Trump then lashed out at Zelensky at a Mar-a-Lago press conference, falsely suggesting Zelensky had started the war with Russia and had an approval rating of only 4%.
• Feb. 19: Zelensky fired back, saying the U.S. president “lives in a disinformation space.” Trump then ratcheted up the pressure by posting on Truth Social that Zelensky, a former actor, was a “modestly successful comedian” who has become a “dictator without elections.” Trump has refused to criticize Putin as a dictator.

* * *
The Washington Post is also asking on Saturday: Can Zelensky salvage his relationship with Trump and save Ukraine? This after Trump accused Zelensky of being a ‘dictator’ this week, given his refusal to hold new elections, citing martial law – and after banning multiple political parties seen as too ‘pro-Russian’… Given this week’s anti-Zelensky rhetoric coming out of the US administration, the European allies are worried Trump will ‘give away more’ amid ongoing strong diplomatic engagement with Moscow (after already declaring that Ukraine won’t become a NATO member). Of course, Kiev is fearful of this too, which is why Zelensky’s advisors are imploring him to stop the rhetorical tit-for-tat and be silent on answering every ‘provocation’ come from the White House. Next week will be interesting to see where all of this goes.

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“..this time it will be Trump and Putin who ensure that the new leader keeps his word on peace and doesn’t become a billionaire several times over..”

• Finally, It Was Graft That Netted Zelensky (Jay)

The last few days have been a hellride for Ukraine’s caretaker President as he starts to grasps some harsh realities. Zelensky doesn’t have much time left as President now that the Donald is in office. He had warnings but failed to see them. In early October of last year he visited the U.S. and met briefly with Trump. Readers will remember how I predicted that it would be him – Zelensky himself – who would soon be seen to be part of the problem, rather than the solution, if he didn’t play ball with Trump. I predicted that it would only be a question of time before Zelensky would be framed as the chief culprit holding back a peace deal, and so therefore would have to go. At the meeting back in October, the body language looked really bad as they both awkwardly faced the cameras and Trump muttered something about ‘taking two to tango’ hinting even then that Zelensky’s position was unreasonable.

It didn’t take long. After a few days of firstly resisting Trump’s offer involving Ukraine’s mineral reserves, which was followed by a flat refusal to accept any outcome of Russia and U.S. making a deal, it was as though the former comedian was briefly living in a haze of delusion and comedy. He was literally trying to dig himself out of a hole and before long, his head was no longer visible. Just read the first two lines of a tweet by Trump. “Think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start, but a War that he, without the U.S. and “TRUMP,” will never be able to settle. The United States has spent $200 Billion Dollars more than Europe, and Europe’s money is guaranteed, while the United States will get nothing back”.

The leaked minutes of the first talk between Trump and Putin were very short but clear. Ceasefire first, then elections for a new president, then peace deal. Clearly no deal can be made with Zelensky in office as both an illegitimate president and secondly as someone who can only see 300 billion dollars given to him as the solution in his latest childish rant. The quickest, simplest solution to advance peace in Ukraine is to accept now that Russia is the victor and the one party who gets the spoils of war. Every war ends like this. Trump forcing presidential elections in Ukraine seems a fatuous, if not obvious move. But it was actually genius as it gives the vote to the masses if they want to continue with war, or start to rebuild their country.

Most will certainly vote for a new U.S.-friendly candidate, who Russia can work with, who will play the role which is required of him. No NATO aspirations at all, present boundaries stay as they are and something done about Nazi brigades. Add to that an audit which will reveal that at least half of all the aid and military equipment given to Ukraine was embezzled and sold, which has to be accounted for and paid back to the U.S. It will mean that Ukraine is and will remain a poor country for at least one generation as it will be in so much debt that it won’t be able to have any ambitions, regionally. It will literally be a basket case economy dependent on EU aid for a few generations to come with no hopes of either EU/NATO membership.

Of course, it didn’t need to be this way. But delusional viewpoints of both Zelensky and the EU have brought us to this. For him to even fight his corner and believe that he has any edge at all in these negotiations is laughable – and a point which Trump wants to demonstrate. Even the EU itself doesn’t believe it can stand up and face Russia and America, and whimpers in the corner sulking like a puppy which has just been kicked by its new owner. All the EU can do after its pathetic Paris emergency meeting is agree to a new level of sanctions against Russia. Putin must be laughing so hard his sides must be hurting. The next circus now to watch is the implosion of Zelensky and his infrastructure and of course the exposure of the racket which he has been at the centre of since the war started.

Even those who support him will have to accept that he made poor choices and a number of critical errors which have led to this, namely the Istanbul deal which he rejected after Boris Johnson’s intervention but also just the sheer scale of the embezzlement and money laundering. How do you fight mighty Russia when at least half of the military kit that the west is sending you gets sent to Libya to be resold? How do you keep a functioning state when the same percentage is funnelled away and kept for yourself and your cabal? This is what Ukrainians are going to wake up to in the coming weeks when the lid is lifted on all this graft. Zelensky had his last chance back in October and he blew it. It is now time for a new President to be installed just as easily as he was and Poroshenko before him, but this time it will be Trump and Putin who ensure that the new leader keeps his word on peace and doesn’t become a billionaire several times over. Trump’s tweet, in a nutshell, was “you’re fired”.

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“He was backed up by the Deep State, Nulands, Clintons, Soros, whatsoever. USAID and the CIA. That’s why he thinks he has the power to go against the incumbent president..”

• US-Ukraine Ties Falling Apart – Former Ukrainian Diplomat (RT)

The relationship between the US and Ukraine is now undergoing “total destruction,” with Vladimir Zelensky trying to fight President Donald Trump on behalf of America’s ‘Deep State’, Andrey Telizhenko, former 3rd Secretary at the Ukrainian Embassy in the US, told RT. The ‘Deep State’ itself, however, appears to be falling apart as well, he warned. Washington and Kiev have recently engaged in a bitter spat, with Zelensky and Trump, as well as other top officials, publicly trading accusations. Among other things, Zelensky has claimed that the US president was “living in a disinformation bubble” allegedly created by Russia. The Ukrainian leader also rejected a proposed deal that would give the US access to his country’s rare-earth minerals to compensate for military aid.

In addition, he has refuted Trump’s estimates on the amount of aid Kiev has received, claiming it had not received even half of the quoted sum. Trump, for his part, has branded Zelensky a “dictator without elections,” claiming the Ukrainian leader had an extremely low approval rating in his country. The ongoing spat amounts to a “total destruction of all relationships” between Washington and Kiev, Telizhenko said, suggesting that Zelensky has already missed his chance to have any say in potential negotiations to end the Russia-Ukraine hostilities. Zelensky has never had a particularly amicable relationship with the US president, the ex-diplomat noted, citing Kiev’s broken promises “to investigate the Biden crime family corruption“ in Ukraine back in 2019, during Trump’s first term.

“Unfortunately, they lied. They lied to President Trump then; they are lying to President Trump now. So now Zelensky has no credibility whatsoever. He’s an illegitimate president, and the relationship between Ukraine and the United States are falling apart,” Telizhenko stated. Zelensky’s behavior largely stems from his belief he still has the full backing of the US Deep State,” Telizhenko asserted, noting, however, that the elusive enigmatic force has been “falling apart” itself already. “First of all, Zelensky thinks he’s being backed by the globalists in the Deep State. That’s why he’s fighting Washington; that’s why he’s fighting the president of the US. He was never backed up by Biden. Biden was just a picture. He was backed up by the Deep State, Nulands, Clintons, Soros, whatsoever. USAID and the CIA. That’s why he thinks he has the power to go against the incumbent president,” Telizhenko explained.

The ex-diplomat also urged US leadership to purge any US operatives, whether intelligence and diplomatic, currently active in Ukraine, suggesting they have been effectively working for “Kiev regime” rather than Washington. “He needs to get them out of Ukraine, and then he can basically get a normal picture of what is happening in Kiev. Until then, the Trump administration will not understand and will be sabotaged on everything that is happening right now in Ukraine,” Telizhenko stressed.

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“Our military is so run down at the present moment, numerically and as far as capability and equipment is concerned, it would potentially be quite embarrassing..”

• European Military Chiefs Propose Sending 30,000 Troops to Ukraine (Antiwar)

The Times reported on Wednesday that European military chiefs have proposed a plan to deploy 30,000 troops to Ukraine to provide security guarantees as part of a potential future peace deal. The report said the UK and France are leading the discussions about deploying a “reassurance” force to Ukraine, an idea that’s been firmly rejected by Moscow. In response to the report, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated Russia’s opposition to the deployment of NATO troops to Ukraine. Peskov pointed to recent comments from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who said the “presence of armed forces from NATO countries [in Ukraine]… is completely unacceptable to us.”

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has also ruled out the idea of a NATO deployment to Ukraine, saying if a peacekeeping force is deployed, it must be a non-NATO mission. But the British and French plan envisions the US providing support for the European deployment. The Times report reads: “A US backstop, which is deemed essential for the plan, would likely be based on the ‘extraordinary strength in air power’ that NATO countries have. It could be in the form of US aircraft based in Poland and Romania, subject to the agreement of President Trump, an official suggested.”

The report comes after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was ready to send British troops to Ukraine. While Starmer is eager, others doubt the British military is really up for the deployment. Lord Danatt, head of the British Army from 2006 to 2009, has said the British military is too “run down” to lead the mission. “Our military is so run down at the present moment, numerically and as far as capability and equipment is concerned, it would potentially be quite embarrassing,” Danatt said. “If we were to deploy 10,000 troops each rotation for six months, that would effectively tie up 30,000 or 40,000 troops, and we just haven’t got that number available.”

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“..Brussels is preparing a military aid package of at least €6 billion ($6.2 billion) for Kiev, which would include 1.5 million artillery shells and air defense systems..”

This as Trump is trying to make peace.

• Foreign Troops Deploying To Ukraine Not Realistic – Zelensky’s Top Aide (RT)

Peacekeeping forces or soldiers from other countries being deployed to Ukraine is not a realistic prospect, Mikhail Podoliak, the top adviser to the country’s leader Vladimir Zelensky, said on Friday. Podoliak made the statement in an interview with Polish radio station RMF just days after a number of European top officials gathered for an emergency meeting in Paris. Ahead of the event, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was “ready and willing” to put his nation’s troops on the ground in Ukraine to help secure a peace deal. Podoliak, however, stated that a deployment of foreign peacekeeping forces or soldiers “do not seem very realistic scenarios for now.” Instead, he suggested that Europe should increase its defense spending and together with Kiev “focus on the development of arms” and continue support “in this way.”

The comments come after Russian and American officials met in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to discuss future negotiations on settling the Ukraine crisis. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly voiced his intent to bring the conflict to a quick resolution.Following the talks, Russia’s top diplomat, Sergey Lavrov, stated that Moscow firmly rejects NATO troops being deployed to Ukraine. The Russian Foreign Ministry has consistently warned that Moscow views any European peacekeeping contingent in Ukraine as a provocative step that could further escalate the conflict.

Starmer is scheduled to visit Washington next week, where, according to The Telegraph, he will present Donald Trump with a plan to send 30,000 European troops to Ukraine and will try to secure American protection for the deployment. Zelensky claimed in January that Ukraine may need 200,000 European soldiers to guarantee a peace deal. Last week, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ruled out deploying American troops as part of potential security guarantees to Kiev. According to Politico, Brussels is preparing a military aid package of at least €6 billion ($6.2 billion) for Kiev, which would include 1.5 million artillery shells and air defense systems. The package would be one of the EU’s largest military aid injections since the start of Russia’s military operation in 2022. It could be announced ahead of a visit by EU commissioners to Kiev on February 24.

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“Zelensky should not have murdered an American journalist. He didn’t even understand why that was bad..”

• Musk Renews Attack On Zelensky Over ‘Murder’ Of Gonzalo Lira (RT)

Billionaire Elon Musk, a close ally of US President Donald Trump, renewed his attack on Vladimir Zelensky, claiming the Ukrainian leader did not even realize it was “bad” to “murder” American journalist Gonzalo Lira. The filmmaker and blogger of Chilean origin died in early 2024 while he was incarcerated in Ukraine, pending trial for allegedly “systematically justifying the Russian aggression.” The journalist, who had resided in the country since 2010, was highly critical of Zelensky’s government. “Zelensky should not have murdered an American journalist. He didn’t even understand why that was bad,” Musk wrote on his social media platform X on Saturday. Earlier in the week, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO had squarely accused the country’s leader of “killing” the blogger.

Lira got in trouble with Ukrainian authorities over his coverage of the conflict between Kiev and Moscow on his YouTube channel, and faced accusations of disseminating “Russian propaganda.” The journalist had been highly critical of Western media efforts to portray Ukraine as a “democracy,” pointing to widespread corruption and compiling a list of Zelensky’s opponents who had been allegedly “disappeared” by the authorities. The journalist was initially arrested by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in May 2023 and was released on bail three months later, claiming he was systematically subjected to torture while in prison. He ended up in custody again later that year after jumping bail and attempting to leave the country to seek asylum in Hungary. At the time, his father, Gonzalo Lira Sr., suggested that then-US authorities gave “at least tacit approval of Gonzalo’s arrest.” After the journalist died in prison, his family accused Kiev of being complicit in his death, yet the Ukrainian authorities denied any wrongdoing.

While Musk had been vocal about the Lira affair before, the renewed attack on Zelensky comes amid a bitter spat between Kiev and Washington. Zelensky and Trump, as well as other top officials, have been publicly trading accusations over the past few days. The Ukrainian leader, for instance, accused the US president of “living in a disinformation bubble” allegedly created by Russia, when he shot down a proposed deal to give the US access to Ukraine’s rare earths as compensation for the military aid it had been receiving. Trump has branded Zelensky a “dictator without elections,” pointing at the fact his presidential term expired back in May 2024 and claiming the Ukrainian leader had an extremely low approval rating in his country. Other top US officials berated Kiev for showing disrespect to Washington, and demanded that Ukraine sign the rare earths deal or face consequences.

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“[Musk] will finish reforming the administrative bodies in the US and then get back down to business – science. You should cooperate with him..”

Neuralink looks like a good fit. And a new space station.

• Russian Business Should ‘Cooperate’ With Musk – Putin (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Russian companies should cooperate with Elon Musk once the billionaire completes his role in reforming the US government and shifts his focus back to science. Speaking at the Forum of Future Technologies in Moscow on Friday, Putin spoke with Gazprombank deputy chairman Dmitry Zauers while reviewing new technological developments. The president was shown a soft biocompatible matrix that could be used to find and prevent damage to areas of the cerebral cortex, such as speech zones, during open tumor removal surgeries. Zauers described this new technology as Russia’s answer to Musk, whose Neuralink company is also working on developing brain implants.

Putin was also shown a new type of battery being developed in Russia which is intended to be used in robotics, space systems, diving equipment and for the construction of autonomous stationary objects. Zauers said this was Russia’s “second answer” to Musk. During the presentation, the President suggested that Musk’s future work in science could present opportunities for Russian enterprises. “[Musk] will finish reforming the administrative bodies in the US and then get back down to business – science. You should cooperate with him,” Putin told Zauers. “We have agreed to work together in space, and we can work here too,” he added.

The Gazprom official responded by suggesting that Russian batteries could be installed in SpaceX spacecraft, noting that the energy capacity of the batteries used in Musk’s rockets is 10% less than those designed in Russia. Musk, the founder of SpaceX and Neuralink, has been at the forefront of private space exploration and brain-computer interface research. SpaceX has been developing reusable rockets, while Neuralink has been working on implantable brain-machine interfaces intended to assist individuals with neurological conditions. Since Donald Trump’s return to office last month, Musk has taken on an advisory role in the White House, assisting its efforts in reducing federal spending. The Trump administration has recently clarified in legal filings that Musk does not actually hold a formal government position and serves as an external adviser.

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“..we can argue all day about what the government should and should not do, but until we know for certain what is actually going on, such debates mean nothing.”

• It All Comes Down to Accounting (Jeffrey Tucker)

There are two portals of money in every institution: money coming in and money going out. Keeping track of that in both directions is the key to operations. The final number can reveal profits or losses, surpluses or deficits. Regardless, the accounting books are the beating heart of every institution. Accounting means accountability, holding people to account for their work. This is why the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), formed by Elon Musk with a business-based mindset, sets its sights on two primary institutions in the federal government: the U.S. Treasury payment systems and the revenue agency. That is where the money goes out and where the money comes in. Tying these together and tracing the funds with normal accounting standards is the key to eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse.

This is all about verifying what is true. It’s not enough just to look at printouts of Congressional budgets or long spreadsheets published by some other agency. The only way to discern what is absolutely true is to go to the source. The penetration of both ends of this have generated astonishing results, among which that many millions of Social Security recipients are apparently not alive. Or maybe they are and this is just a recordkeeping error. They are going to find out one way or another. The most shocking revelation from the very limited look at the U.S. Treasury books that judges have permitted DOGE concerns proper tagging of expenditures. They have documented that $4.7 trillion in government spending is not tagged with what’s called a Treasury Access Symbol (TAS) that ties the spending to a Congressional authorization.

Those are huge numbers. Maybe all these expenditures are legitimate and authorized. Or maybe not. Without the TAS tag, there is no way to know. That change in the books has now been made mandatory so that at least we have the beginnings of a valid and verifiable system of accounting in government. One does wonder. Every year, Congress debates the budget and there is horse trading all around with every politician fighting for a share of the loot. They estimate revenues. They forecast deficits and debts. After a version is produced that includes both the House and Senate, the final result is sent to the President for a signature. From there, we’ve always just assumed that the deeper machinery of the bureaucracy takes it from there.

But what if there is no real and necessary relationship between what Congress authorizes and what the President approves and what actually happens on the expenditure and revenue side? This seems to be the situation. How long has this gone on? Five former Secretaries of the Treasury have said that it has been almost 80 years since elected officials and their appointees have had access to the payment systems. They have been controlled for all living memory by a small group of civil servants who have long walled themselves off from the electorate. This is a stunning realization, one of many that has been unearthed by the forensics being undertaken by DOGE. It remains entirely possible that once this group of appointed outsiders have completed their work, which is in two years, the budget will be balanced even with lower taxes. That might sound crazy but it is entirely possible.

[..] It truly boggles the mind that fully $4.7 trillion in federal expenditures have routinely taken place without any real obligation to attach that spending to an authorized source. It makes one wonder if all the debates about the budget and all the voting and signing ceremonies have been nothing but theater for generations. What also intrigues me about this line of thinking and work is how, in the end, this is not really about big ideological and philosophical debates about the purposes and scope of government. This is really about something very simple: how the nation goes about balancing its checkbook. Until we get that part right, all the rest of the debates are so much hot air.

No matter your political outlook, you should be grateful that DOGE seems finally to be setting things right in the operations of government. There absolutely must be a standard of compliance with accounting practices that every single business, nonprofit, or household has to use in order to maintain economic viability. After DOGE does its work, government should continue to practice the precedent established in these days, weeks, and months. The whole reason for accounting and careful audits is to verify what is true and thus enhance public trust in their own government. Again, we can argue all day about what the government should and should not do, but until we know for certain what is actually going on, such debates mean nothing.

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“..we revel in the fact that the former congressional investigator, former federal prosecutor, former Department of Defense chief of staff, former Deputy Assistant to the President for the National Security Council, and former federal public defender is now in charge of the men, women, lawyers, suits, and thugs who tried to frame Donald Trump at the FBI..”

• This Should Be on Kash Patel’s FBI Priority List (Victoria Taft)

Now-confirmed FBI Director Kash Patel — take a moment to cheer — jokes about closing the utterly ugly current J. Edgar Hoover FBI building on the first day he walks into the office and opening it up the next day as “museum of the deep state.” The thing is, we have questions about the “new” headquarters location. We all laugh at the comical idea of the “museum of the deep state.” But we revel in the fact that the former congressional investigator, former federal prosecutor, former Department of Defense chief of staff, former Deputy Assistant to the President for the National Security Council, and former federal public defender is now in charge of the men, women, lawyers, suits, and thugs who tried to frame Donald Trump at the FBI. Oh, do we ever.

Kash Patel and Devin Nunes took several scalps suitable for framing in that museum. Patel’s investigation caught them red-handed. Think about it: the guy who cracked the Russian collusion scam against President Trump 45 is now the Trump 47 FBI director. Sit back, take a breath, and enjoy the irony. The American-born son of immigrants who came to find the “dream” nabbed the people trying to steal the dream from citizens. And now he’s our huckleberry. Look up “poetic justice” in some online dictionary, and Kash’s photo is there. There’s no secret about why the FBI 7th-floor swells wanted a new building. Look at that thugly thing that for decades has been the castle of FBI kings, queens, consorts, and jokers.

But there’s a new sheriff in town, and the thing is, as ungainly and impersonal as the current FBI building is, there may be even bigger problems with the plans for the new “campus.” Indeed, what gives with the proposed FBI headquarters in Greenbelt, Md.? I heard some lady on the radio the other day question the wisdom of placing the new FBI HQ in Prince George’s County. Her comment went something like this: Why would we build America’s top law enforcement headquarters in a place that flouts the law by declaring itself a sanctuary area? Good question. My second question is, why did Trump 45 green-light this project for Chris Wray? That’s a subject for another day, but it’s a good question. I’ll bet you he wants a do-over on that one. Happily, Trump 47 and Patel have an opportunity to do just that.

The General Service Administration has taken point on the new FBI building and that means that DEI, green climate catastrophe ridiculousness, and the campus-like atmosphere are paramount considerations, not actual crime fighting. Obviously. Greenbelt, however, is in Prince George’s County, which is a declared sanctuary for illegal aliens. The county has straight-up said it will not work with federal officers to arrest, question, jail, or deport illegal aliens. They are some of the same illegal criminal aliens that our federal officers are right this minute trying to roll up and deport to wherever they came from. As a refresher, MS 13, now a declared terrorist organization, is an entrenched gang in Maryland. Indeed, it is centered in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties, with Anne Arundel bringing up the rear.

The “cliques,” as they call themselves, “committed murders, attempted murders, stabbings, extortion and witness tampering,” in Greenbelt, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. Considering that Patel has discussed devolving FBI activities to the 50 states, is this vast expanse of a headquarters really necessary? Furthermore, considering that the feds are reducing headcount and few federal workers want to go back to the office, there’s an awful lot of empty office space available in D.C. Does the FBI really need that new 2.1 million square feet of office space on 61 acres of land? Why reward a citizenry that doesn’t want to work with the feds? Give them their wish. Go somewhere else. Patel should put the ambitions of men and women with an edifice complex on pause, maybe a permanent one, until he sorts out his top priorities and reports back to the American people.

And I can’t wait.

Read more …

Sheinbaum knows what to do. And that little time is left. Trump much prefers for Mexico to solve the issue, but there’s no progress to speak of.

• Mexico President Sheinbaum Warns Against US Military Strikes On Cartels (ZH)

In the wake of President Trump’s designation of several Latin American drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Thursday warned the White House against military action inside her country. “This cannot be an opportunity for the U.S. to invade our sovereignty,” she told reporters. “With Mexico, it is collaboration and coordination, never subordination or interventionism, and even less invasion.” Her remarks followed Wednesday’s US State Department announcement that it had designated eight Latin American drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. In addition to the notorious Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua that has been raising hell inside the United States, the list included Mexico’s two principal drug traffickers: the Jalisco Nueva Generacion and Sinaloa cartels.

The move fulfilled a promise Trump made during his 2024 election campaign. While the most likely initial actions will center on the legal and financial fronts, the terrorist designation opens the door for military action against the cartels. In the wake of the announcement, Trump advisor Elon Musk tweeted, “That means they’re eligible for drone strikes.” Sheinbaum, however, warned against unilateral US military action: “The Mexican people will under no circumstances accept interventions, intrusions or any other action from abroad that is detrimental to the integrity, independence or sovereignty of the nation… [including] violations of Mexican territory, whether by land, sea or air.” Earlier, Sheinbaum said she had approved US surveillance drone flights over Mexico. That claim came after CNN reported that the administration tapped the CIA to use unarmed MQ-9 drones to monitor the cartels.

The secret missions were communicated to members of Congress, with the description of the undertaking making no mention of a partnership with the Mexican government. There have also been indications of US Air Force RC-135V aircraft performing signal intelligence (SIGINT) missions inside Mexican airspace. Meanwhile, the Mexican Senate Commission has given the green light for US Special Forces deployment inside Mexico for “training missions.” Sheinbaum has said she opposes a terrorist designation out of concern that US government actions under such a designation may violate Mexican sovereignty, arguing that the two countries should work in mutual consultation and collaboration. Last week, Sheinbaum threatened to retaliate for a terrorist-designation by expanding Mexico’s lawsuit against several American gun manufacturers, including Smith & Wesson, Barrett, Colt and Sturm, Ruger & Co:

“If they were to decree organized crime groups as terrorists, we would have to expand the lawsuit in the United States because — as the Department of Justice itself has already acknowledged that 74% of the arms of criminal groups come from the United States — then how are the arms manufacturers and distributors affected by the decree? The lawyers are looking at it, but they could be accomplices.” The move toward the US terror designation began with a Day One executive order from Trump tasking the State Department with evaluating that avenue. “The cartels have engaged in a campaign of violence and terror throughout the Western Hemisphere that has not only destabilized countries with significant importance for our national interests but also flooded the United States with deadly drugs, violent criminals, and vicious gangs,” Trump wrote.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Wired

 

 

Libs
https://twitter.com/i/status/1893037843615748533

 

 

MJ

 

 

Baby
https://twitter.com/i/status/1893186941983584347

 

 

Shepherd
https://twitter.com/i/status/1893294685021470759

 

 

River

 

 

Lions
https://twitter.com/i/status/1893260437229072542

 

 

Episode
https://twitter.com/i/status/1893195557524414744

 

 

2nd
https://twitter.com/i/status/1892959541983170840

 

 

Kind of

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle February 8 2025

Feb 082025
 
 February 8, 2025  Posted by at 10:50 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  66 Responses »


M.C. Escher Gravitation 1952

 

• How It Worked (James Howard Kunstler)
• Trump Administration Sued Over USAID Clampdown (RT)
• USAID Corruption At ‘Unexplainable’ Level – Trump (RT)
• Trump’s Assault On USAID Could Change US Foreign Policy Forever (Bordachev)
• Hungary Moves To Expose USAID Funding (RT)
• 14 States to File Lawsuit Against DOGE Access to Gov’t Payment Systems (ET)
• Trump Nukes All Govt-MSM Contracts After Politico Firestorm (ZH)
• Time Mag Puts ‘President Elon Musk’ on Cover, Trump Has Epic Response (PJM)
• US ‘Will Lose The Next War Very Badly’ – Musk (RT)
• Zelensky Extends Forced Conscription And Martial Law Again (RMX)
• Trump Says He ‘Will Probably’ Meet Zelensky Next Week (RT)
• UK Trying To Prevent Peace – Ukrainian MP (RT)
• US-Russia War Would Be ‘Good For Ukraine’ – Zelensky’s Top Aide (RT)
• Border Czar “Expects” Kinetic Warfare Between US Troops & Mexican Cartels (ZH)
• TikTok’s Actual Offense? Innovating While Not Being American (Tamny)
• Elizabeth Warren DESTROYED by X Community Notes (Bartee)
• How Trump Suddenly Became A Feminist Champion (RT)
• Microplastic Found in Brain Weighs as Much as a Plastic Spoon (ET)

 

 


Jim Kunstler 2024

 

 

Turley

Alina

Tax cuts

X

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Many lawsuits have been mounted by blob-adjacent attorneys to make all this stop. But one big problem for them is that their gigantic legal fees [..] were previously paid by exactly those NGOs that are getting shut down now.”

• How It Worked (James Howard Kunstler)

If you wondered since 2016 how come the blob and the Democratic Party were aligned so exquisitely in their operations to destroy populism (personified by Mr. Trump) and to permanently entrench single party power in America for all time to come, it’s because an endless font of taxpayer money was streamed into countless non-governmental orgs creating a shadow civil service of Democratic Party activists that melded seamlessly with the big policy-making agencies.

The money was laundered through manifold layers of these orgs and their sub-orgs to pay for an ongoing “color revolution” in the USA — lawfare, election fraud, propaganda, censorship, career cancellation, medical fuckery, open borders, and other totalitarian ploys — while enriching political players at all those manifold layers from multi-millionaire congressmen and senators to thousands of NGO officials making six-figure salaries to street hustlers like Patrisse Cullors of Black Lives Matter and “anti-racism” racist Ibram X. Kendi and his $50-million Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University (recently axed) — and, of course, ultimately the former Potemkin president “Joe Biden” and his family.

It was all this money that drove eight years of sponsored insanity. Mainly, it kept the hands of the Democratic Party firmly on the levers of power so that nothing could be done about the insults and injuries they were inflicting on our country. So, is it a mystery now that nobody was prosecuted for burning the cities in 2020, or for magically creating millions of extra “Joe Biden” votes out of nowhere that year, or setting up the kickback machine from Ukraine to Congress, or forcing millions to get a janky vaccine?

Pam Bondi is going to be a busy girl. The DOGE has uncovered a government racketeering operation of which the USAID scandal is but one cog in a colossal engine of grift. What the public, including you readers, may not appreciate is how much planning went on over the past year to mount the DOGE effort, and how comprehensively the work of its many hundreds of computer techies (not just six whiz-kids) has laid bare the money-trails out of previously impenetrable government computers. Their algorithms have pierced the firewalls, revealing decades of fraud and deceit.

Mr. Trump’s cabinet officers have started the job of dismantling the machine by getting rid of the employees who set it up and worked for it. By Thursday, Secretary of State Rubio fired all but 300 of the 10,000 people working for USAID. CIA Director Ratcliffe offered the agency’s entire workforce a “deferred resignation” option that will allow them to bail out and still collect their salaries until September. Look for straight-up firings to ensue. Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove ordered the acting FBI director to terminate eight senior FBI officials and asked for a review of up to 5,000 involved in J-6 investigations (including, presumably, agents who engaged in abusive SWAT-team deployments).

Many lawsuits have been mounted by blob-adjacent attorneys to make all this stop. But one big problem for them is that their gigantic legal fees — hundreds of dollars an hour on the meter multiplied by x-hundreds of lawyers— were previously paid by exactly those NGOs that are getting shut down now. So, perhaps you see exactly how those levers of power worked. The money will have to come from somewhere else, and I doubt that Silicon Valley billionaire blob-supporter Reid Hoffman wants to piss away the rest of his fortune on this.

Some actual persons will have to be held accountable for all the mischief carried out in rogue agencies over many years. It has to start somewhere. I nominate Samantha Power as a first test case. She was in charge of USAID for nearly four years — until Jan 20, 2025 — including the duration of the Ukraine War. She was also personally very busy hands-on in arranging attempted color revolutions in Hungary (failed, against Viktor Orban), Georgia (failed), Mexico (failed), and Brazil (succeeded against Jair Bolsonaro). Ms. Power provided money from USAID-connected NGOs to foster instability in many more countries, including our country. It must have come as quite a shock to her that Kamala Harris did not win the 2024 election. USAID will not be paying for Ms.Power’s legal representation.

Much more will come to shock the blobsters and their legions — though just now, as the reformation of government begins, it’s comforting just to think of all those dedicated seditionists, Wokesters, Marxians, and Jacobins unable to make their rent payments or buy groceries all of a sudden. The paychecks have stopped coming for thousands who wanted to turn American life upside-down and inside-out. This happened most colorfully at the fake-news outfit called Politico this week. Turned out they were a subsidiary of the blob. Who knew? (Everyone who was paying attention to the jive they published.) Management had to send out a memo that reporters and editors would not get paid this week, or maybe ever again. Boo hoo.

It was also revealed this week that the Reuters News Agency, the Associated Press, The New York Times, the Wash-Po, and around 700-other news outfits altogether had been receiving financial support from USAID, the CIA, and other government entities. Now do you understand why the Democratic Party voters are so obdurately deluded and deranged?

USAID
https://twitter.com/i/status/1887844383224922586

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“The claimants alleged that Trump lacks the powers to dissolve USAID due to it being established under a 1998 law passed by Congress.”

• Trump Administration Sued Over USAID Clampdown (RT)

The largest US government workers’ union and an association of foreign service workers have sued the administration of US President Donlad Trump in an attempt to prevent the dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Washington’s primary vehicle for funding political projects abroad. Sources told Reuters on Thursday that the White House intends to keep fewer than 300 employees out of more than 10,000 at the independent agency, which had a budget of some $60 billion in 2023. Trump previously branded USAID “a criminal organization” run by “radical lunatics,” which he claimed had been involved in financing bioweapons research and used its funds to pay for positive coverage on the Democratic Party in the media.

The lawsuit, which was filed in a federal court in Washington, DC on Thursday by the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Foreign Service Association, called the clampdown on USAID “unconstitutional and illegal.” Trump’s order on his inauguration day last month to suspend all US foreign aid for 90 days and the subsequent decision by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to halt USAID projects around the world created a “global humanitarian crisis,” it claimed. The lawsuit named the president and the State and Treasury Departments as the defendants. The claimants alleged that Trump lacks the powers to dissolve USAID due to it being established under a 1998 law passed by Congress. “Not a single one of defendants’ actions to dismantle USAID were taken pursuant to congressional authorization. And pursuant to federal statute, Congress is the only entity that may lawfully dismantle the agency,” the lawsuit read.

Those behind the action seek a temporary and eventually permanent order from the court to restore funding for USAID, reopen its offices and block any further orders by the Trump administration to dissolve it. On Wednesday, hundreds of former and current employees protested in Washington against Trump’s plans regarding the agency. They carried banners reading: “USAID saves lives,” “Stop the coup,” “Save our democracy” and others. Democratic members of Congress, including Senators Mark Warner and Chris Van Hollen, and Representative John Garamendi, were among those to address the crowd. SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who largely oversees the dismantling of USAID as the head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), said on X earlier this week that the agency “is a ball of worms. There is no apple. And when there is no apple, you have just got to basically get rid of the whole thing.”

Read more …

“USAID stole billions of dollars, “much of it going to the fake news media as a ‘payoff’ for creating good stories about the democrats.”

• USAID Corruption At ‘Unexplainable’ Level – Trump (RT)

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) is riddled with almost unprecedented levels of corruption, and should be shut down, President Donald Trump has said. In one of the first executive orders after his unauguration, Trump suspended all US foreign aid, pending a three-month review, amid a wider push to cut down on government spending. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio subsequently halted a number of projects assigned to USAID, Washington’s main agency for administering funding to political projects abroad. Elon Musk, leading the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) which is evaluating federal agencies’ spending, has branded USAID a “criminal organization.”

“USAID is driving the radical left crazy, and there is nothing they can do about it because the way in which the money has been spent, so much of it fraudulently, is totally unexplainable,” Trump wrote on his social media site Truth Social on Friday. “The corruption is at levels rarely seen before. Close it down!” he said. The day before, the US president claimed that the agency funneled billions of taxpayer dollars into media companies to foster positive media coverage of Democrats. USAID stole billions of dollars, “much of it going to the fake news media as a ‘payoff’ for creating good stories about the democrats. the left wing ‘rag,’ known as ‘Politico,’ seems to have received $8,000,000,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday. The decision reportedly followed findings by Musk’s team that millions of taxpayer dollars were being spent on Politico Pro subscriptions.

Subsequently, the White House has directed the General Services Administration to terminate all media contracts funded by USAID, Axios wrote on Thursday, citing an internal email the outlet obtained as saying. Politico has denied receiving direct funding from the government, explaining that their premium subscriptions service was being used by some US agencies. According to Reuters, the administration plans to retain fewer than 300 of USAID’s over 10,000 employees. This significant reduction has prompted a lawsuit from a major government workers’ union, challenging the legality of the cuts. The American Federation of Government Employees and the American Foreign Service Association sued Trump, Rubio, as well as the Treasury and State departments, branding the crackdown on USAID “unconstitutional and illegal.”

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“As significant in its influence as the Department of Defense or the State Department, USAID has long served as a powerful instrument for advancing Washington’s global agenda..”

• Trump’s Assault On USAID Could Change US Foreign Policy Forever (Bordachev)

Over the decades, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has evolved into a “state within a state” within American foreign policy. As significant in its influence as the Department of Defense or the State Department, USAID has long served as a powerful instrument for advancing Washington’s global agenda. However, the recent actions of the new administration in Washington, led by Donald Trump, mark a significant shift, targeting this elite bribery agency with sweeping reforms. For Russia, these developments carry both challenges and opportunities.

USAID’s role in American foreign policy
USAID was created during the early years of the Cold War when the United States realized it could not defeat the Soviet Union in a direct armed conflict. Instead, it opted for a strategy of peaceful competition. Unlike the USSR, which sought to improve the lives of ordinary people in developing nations, the US focused on manipulating elites and influential actors. This philosophical divide between the two superpowers defined their approaches to foreign policy. Armed with substantial financial resources — approximately $40 billion last year — USAID has been the principal instrument of US interference in the internal affairs of other states. Its core mission has been the systematic bribery of elites to secure their loyalty to American interests. This strategy has been employed across Latin America, Asia, the Arab world, and, more recently, the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

USAID: An instrument of destabilization
Far from promoting stability or development, USAID’s activities have often led to internal crises and even the collapse of statehood. Ukraine stands as a stark example of this, where the agency’s involvement has contributed to deepening political and social unrest. In other cases, USAID has propped up regimes that offer special privileges to the US, though such instances are relatively rare. The agency’s operations are not about making the United States more attractive to the rest of the world. Soft power, often romanticized in academic circles, is not the result of foreign policy maneuvers but of a nation’s internal appeal. The US is attractive to some because it offers a lifestyle rooted in selfishness and individualism, not because of its diplomatic or military actions.

Trump’s offensive: Reshaping USAID
The Trump administration’s reforms of USAID represent a decisive attempt to curb its unchecked power. Personnel reshuffling, increased oversight by diplomats, budget cuts, and the appointment of Trump-loyal officials are all part of this overhaul. This assault is not driven by a desire to end US interference in other nations’ affairs — such a policy is too central to maintaining America’s global dominance. Instead, it is an effort to reassert control over a bureaucracy that has grown too independent and self-serving. Trump’s disdain for the agency stems from its inefficiency and its bloated structure, which prioritizes its own survival over achieving tangible foreign policy results. For a leader as authoritarian as Trump, allowing such a structure to operate autonomously is unacceptable. All achievements must now be tied directly to his leadership and energy.

Panama: A case study in simplicity
A recent example of this new approach can be seen in Panama. The Trump administration launched a decisive diplomatic offensive against the Panamanian government, pressuring it to abandon cooperation with China. Without the need for elaborate schemes or massive expenditures, the US appears to have secured control over the Panama Canal’s logistics systems. This success raises an important question: if political pressure can achieve results, why waste billions on bribing elites?

Implications for Russia
For Russia, these developments offer both strategic advantages and lessons. The internal divisions within the US caused by such reforms will inevitably limit its foreign policy options. Even a temporary suspension of funding for USAID’s activities will create confusion among grant recipients, undermining their confidence in Washington’s support. Moreover, the changes in Washington highlight the importance of avoiding the pitfalls of copying Western methods wholesale. Russia must remain cautious in adapting American tactics to its own foreign policy. Simplified, traditional approaches, as demonstrated by the US in Panama, often yield better results than overcomplicated schemes.

The legacy of USAID
USAID’s history is one of extensive political manipulation. Initially, it focused on recruiting elites and intellectuals in Latin America, Asia, and the Arab world. After the Cold War, its activities expanded to include officials, law enforcement agencies, and activists in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Recently, the agency has intensified its efforts in the Transcaucasus and Central Asia, aiming to destabilize these regions in light of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine. Despite its considerable financial resources and influence, USAID has failed to create lasting stability or prosperity in the regions it targets. Instead, its actions have often exacerbated tensions and conflicts, serving as a tool for advancing American hegemony rather than genuine development.

The way forward
The Trump administration’s actions against USAID signal a shift in US foreign policy, but they also expose the limitations of the American model. The reliance on bribery and coercion as primary tools of influence is unsustainable and increasingly ineffective. For Russia, this presents an opportunity to strengthen its own foreign policy strategies, emphasizing mutual respect and genuine cooperation. As the United States grapples with its internal divisions and reassesses its global role, Russia must continue to assert its interests while remaining vigilant against attempts to destabilize its neighbors. The lessons from USAID’s failures are clear: true influence comes not from manipulation but from fostering genuine partnerships. In conclusion, the Trump administration’s “riot” at USAID may not fundamentally alter America’s interventionist tendencies, but it does offer a glimpse into the vulnerabilities of its foreign policy apparatus. For Russia, this is both a challenge and an opportunity — to counteract American influence while charting a more effective and principled path in global affairs.

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“..these are people and organizations paid from abroad whose job is to overthrow the Hungarian government..”

• Hungary Moves To Expose USAID Funding (RT)

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has declared that he will implement measures ensuring the transparency of aid from the United States to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and media outlets critical of his government. Speaking on state radio on Friday, Orban emphasized the need to “eliminate these foreign networks” that meddle in the country’s domestic affairs, referencing US Agency for International Development (USAID) programs. An ally of US President Donald Trump, Orban highlighted the Trump administration’s plan to integrate USAID into the State Department, aligning it with the “America First” policy. “In America, we would call them agents, as they do not serve their own country but accept money from another power… We don’t call them agents… but these are people and organizations paid from abroad whose job is to overthrow the Hungarian government,” the prime minister said.

Orban, who has been in power since 2010 and faces the voters in early 2026, asserted that recipients of foreign funds must face “legal consequences” and be “squeezed out” as they pose a threat to Hungarian sovereignty. In late 2023, his government established the Sovereignty Protection Office to monitor and address the risk of political interference. Foreign financing for parties or groups running for office are banned in the country, with penalties of up to three years in prison. The European Commission launched an infringement procedure over the law in February 2024, citing its potential to undermine the bloc’s democratic values and fundamental rights.

Orban has a long history of taking measures against foreign-funded organizations, particularly those linked to Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros. He has repeatedly accused Soros of meddling in Hungary’s domestic affairs, undermining traditional family values, and promoting a globalist agenda. In 2018, Hungary implemented a “Stop Soros” law aimed at NGOs helping asylum seekers. That year, the Soros-funded Open Society Foundations announced it would move from Budapest to Berlin, citing a repressive environment under Viktor Orban. Hungary also forced the closure of Central European University (CEU), which relocated to Vienna due to regulatory challenges. The European Union has withheld funding from Orban’s government, accusing it of breaching democratic standards.

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Feels a bit like Audit the Fed.

• 14 States to File Lawsuit Against DOGE Access to Gov’t Payment Systems (ET)

A coalition of 14 state attorneys general said on Thursday that they will file a lawsuit to stop the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing sensitive federal payment systems. The coalition said that DOGE, an advisory committee led by tech billionaire Elon Musk, has no authority to access federal government systems—which they said contain Americans’ personal data, state bank account data, and “some of our country’s most sensitive data.” “This level of access for unauthorized individuals is unlawful, unprecedented, and unacceptable,” the coalition said in a statement released by New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin. “DOGE has no authority to access this information, which they explicitly sought in order to block critical payments that millions of Americans rely on—payments that support health care, childcare, and other essential programs.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent granted DOGE access to the Treasury’s payment system after Trump took office on Jan. 20. DOGE has been tasked with reviewing agencies for potential downsizing and termination, including the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), to reduce federal spending and boost government efficiency. The attorneys general also argued that President Donald Trump “does not have the power” to grant DOGE access to Americans’ private information or to withhold federal payments approved by Congress. They planned to pursue legal action to defend “our Constitution, our right to privacy, and the essential funding that individuals and communities nationwide are counting on.” The coalition includes Platkin and attorneys general from New York, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

On Feb. 5, a coalition of labor unions sued to block DOGE access to federal payment systems, alleging that it violates “constitutional limits on executive power” and “laws protecting civil servants from arbitrary threats and adverse action.” The plaintiffs—which include the AFL-CIO, the Service Employees International Union, and the Economic Policy Institute—sought a temporary restraining order or administrative stay against DOGE. Justice Department attorneys issued a proposed order on Feb. 5 saying the federal government will temporarily restrict DOGE from accessing information in the Treasury Department’s payment system and allow special government employees “read-only” access to payment records. “The Defendants will not provide access to any payment record or payment system of records maintained by or within the Bureau of the Fiscal Service,” it said.

The proposed order followed an incident in which Democratic members of Congress attempted to enter the Treasury building on Feb. 4, saying they wanted to provide oversight after DOGE was granted access to the federal payment system. Democratic lawmakers have been calling for the access to be revoked. Trump had previously said that Musk would not be able to take any action without approval from the White House and assured that the government would prevent him from acting in cases of conflict of interest. “Where we think there’s a conflict or there’s a problem, we won’t let him go near it, but he has some very good ideas,” the president told reporters at the Oval Office last month.

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“..the White House is also planning to cut USAID’s staff from roughly 10,000 employees to just 294..”

• Trump Nukes All Govt-MSM Contracts After Politico Firestorm (ZH)

In light of the firestorm over tens of millions of dollars going from the US government to various media outlets in the form of subscriptions, particularly Politico, President Trump has directed the General Services Administration to terminate “every single media contract” expensed by the agency, according to an email obtained by Axios. “GSA team, please do two things,” the email begins.
• Pull all contracts for Politico, BBC, E&E (Politico sub) and Bloomberg
• Pull all media contracts for just GSA – cancel every single media contract today for GSA only.

The move comes after internet sleuths discovered tens of millions of dollars going towards Politico Pro subscriptions, with particular focus on one $8 million allocation. On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the executive branch would cancel their contract with Politico……and today we find that it goes much further than just the rag that laundered the deep state’s ’51 intel officials’ Hunter Biden laptop propaganda. For example, the NY Times was also cut off. Politico responded on Thursday, claiming that they have “never received any government funding — no subsidies, no grants, no handouts. Not one dime, ever, in 18 years.” No, just tens of millions in Politico Pro subscriptions from the government. Like Hunter Biden received $200,000 for a painting of his excrement, which was totally not influence peddling.

Deep Cuts To USAID
Meanwhile, the White House is also planning to cut USAID’s staff from roughly 10,000 employees to just 294 – a 97% reduction, after Elon Musk’s DOGE team revealed that the international aid organization has essentially been funding woke pet projects and anti-American activities. On Tuesday, the administration put a stop on all USAID work and placed all employees on leave, with thousands of overseas workers to be recalled within 30 days. According to Reuters, Secretary of State Marco Rubio – who was placed in charge of USAID earlier this week, said that the Trump administration was identifying and designating critical programs that would be exempted from the stop work order and deep cuts. According to the report, over 2/3 of USAID’s workers are located outside the United States. As of 2023, the ‘aid’ organization managed more than $40 billion in projects. USAID’s website informed people that as of midnight on Friday, February 7, “all USAID direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave globally, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs.”

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“Is Time magazine still in business? I didn’t even know that.”

• Time Mag Puts ‘President Elon Musk’ on Cover, Trump Has Epic Response (PJM)

Leftists have been whining about “President Musk” ever since Trump announced the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency. Now, Musk is uncovering staggering levels of government waste (as well as active aid and comfort of America’s enemies — which, of course, those who like to illustrate the old adage that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing will insist is not treason). It was inevitable that the empire would strike back. Time Magazine is just an old wheeze of its former self, but in its latest issue, it lashes out at Musk and Trump with all the feeble wallop it can muster. The cover of Time’s latest issue, dated Feb. 24, carries no caption, but its meaning is unmistakable. It depicts Elon Musk staring determinedly and unapologetically at the reader, clutching a cup of coffee, and sitting behind the Resolute Desk, that is, the president’s desk in the Oval Office.

The cover story laments that “for now, millions of government workers find themselves at Musk’s mercy. One described her team at the Department of Homeland Security assuming a ‘defensive crouch’ as they awaited a visit from the DOGE. For an inkling of their fate, she added, her colleagues had turned to a book called Character Limit, which chronicles the way Musk took over Twitter two years ago and fired 80% of its staff, often with chaotic and lasting results.” Chaotic, yeah, got it. Multitudes of useless and unproductive employees were sent packing, and Twitter, that is, X, runs just fine. Time’s apocalyptic hit piece nevertheless piles on much more of the same. An unnamed bureaucrat says: “‘There’s only so much Democrats can do,’ she said, not wanting to give her name lest it attract more attention from DOGE.” Yes, of course, although this fear rings hollow after one of Musk’s employees, not some supposedly courageous government leftist, was just doxxed.

Time concludes with a plea for someone, anyone, to help: “Her official email account had been shut down, and she could no longer access her desk at the agency. Like thousands of her colleagues and millions of Americans, she was left to watch Musk’s moves play out, wondering how far he would go, and what, if anything, could stop him.” Oh, horror! The cover, meanwhile, is directed as much at Trump as at Musk. Time hoped to annoy the president, whom the left loves to lampoon as narcissistic and self-absorbed, by suggesting that he was not actually in charge of his administration. Trump, however, coolly refused to take the bait. As he met with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba at the White House on Friday, a reporter asked him: “Mr. President, do you have a reaction to the new Time Magazine cover that has Elon Musk sitting behind your Resolute Desk?”

The reporter and Time’s editors were no doubt hoping that Trump would hit the ceiling and launch into a long rant about how, not Musk, was calling the shots — something that the late-night comics could work with and use to try to regain the offensive from this administration, which has put the left on the defensive more than any other administration in recent memory. Trump, however, refused to play along, and instead tweaked the failing magazine, saying: “Is Time magazine still in business? I didn’t even know that.” This was an apposite response, as, unlike some other establishment publications that still like to pretend that they’re unbiased sources for news, Time’s hatred of Trump has been naked, open, and unapologetic. It made him Person of the Year for 2024, but this was no honor, as Hitler and Stalin both bore the title back when it was Man of the Year.

During Trump’s first term, Time ran a series of covers featuring him melting (twice), painting himself into a corner, barely keeping his head above water in a flooded Oval Office, melding into Vladimir Putin, heartlessly facing down a crying Hispanic child (presumably at the Southern border), and on and drearily on. On the other side of this crude propaganda was the magazine’s Soviet-style cover for its Aug. 26, 2024 issue, which featured Kamala Harris looking confident and resolute, her head tilted slightly upward as she looked calmly into a future that contained no challenges she could not overcome. The caption: “Her Moment.” This image could have hung in Tiananmen Square right next to the big picture of Chairman Mao and no one would have batted an eye.

But for Time magazine, it didn’t work: Harris lost the election anyway. And the Musk cover won’t work either. The Trump administration is clearly determined to be unsparing in rooting out government corruption. Only the corrupt could object.

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“The current strategy is to build a small number of weapons at a high price to fight yesterday’s war..”

• US ‘Will Lose The Next War Very Badly’ – Musk (RT)

The US risks major defeat in the country’s next war unless it urgently reforms its outdated weapons programs, Elon Musk has warned in a stark assessment of the nation’s defense capabilities. Musk, who heads SpaceX and Tesla, has been appointed as a “special government employee” to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under US President Donald Trump and is now among his key advisers. “American weapons programs need to be completely redone. The current strategy is to build a small number of weapons at a high price to fight yesterday’s war. Unless there are immediate and dramatic changes made, America will lose the next war very badly,” Musk wrote on X. The billionaire has long been a vocal critic of inefficiencies within the US defense sector, arguing that excessive bureaucracy and outdated military strategies undermine national security.

Musk’s DOGE department has actively worked to streamline federal operations, including those related to defense. General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, the maker of the Predator drone, has urged DOGE to reform the Pentagon’s contracting system, calling the current process too slow and bureaucratic to counter threats from nations such as China and Iran. L3Harris Technologies, a major defense contractor, has provided DOGE with recommendations to improve efficiency in the defense acquisition system. These include eliminating duplicative Cost Accounting Standard requirements and establishing a central contracting arm within the Office of the Secretary of Defense to manage joint procurement programs. DOGE has already canceled approximately $420 million in government contracts within its first 80 hours of operations, taking initial steps toward an ambitious goal of reducing federal spending by $2 trillion.

Musk’s critique also extends to specific defense programs. He has been particularly damning of the F-35 fighter jet program, labeling it a “sh*t design” and advocating for a shift toward unmanned systems, which he believes are more effective and economical in modern combat. Speaking at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York in February, Musk emphasized the transformative impact of drones and artificial intelligence (AI) on warfare, citing the Ukraine conflict as a prime example. “The current war in Ukraine is very much a drone war already,” Musk noted. “If there’s a major power war, it’s very much going to be a drone war.” He called for increased investment in drone production and a significant acceleration in manufacturing, warning against the pitfalls of preparing for past conflicts instead of future ones. “Countries pretty much are geared up to fight the last war, not the next war,” Musk cautioned.

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Trump is pushing for elections. Zelensky says no way.

• Zelensky Extends Forced Conscription And Martial Law Again (RMX)

.Ukraine has long stopped being a democracy and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky just made sure to keep it that way for another 90 days by signing a decree to extend martial law and continue general mobilization effort. The measures in force so far were due to expire on Feb. 7. Parliament voted to extend the provisions on Jan. 15. Ukraine was supposed to have a new vote long ago, but due to the war, Zelensky argued that it was not possible. Ukraine declared a nationwide state of general mobilization on Feb. 24, 2022, and has since extended it several times. Due to staffing problems in the army, a bill on tightening mobilization rules came into force on May 18, 2024. Martial law and conscription come despite the majority of Ukrainians saying they want to end the war and are willing to accept territorial losses in order to do so, according to the independent Gallup Polling agency.

In recent months, mobilization efforts have increasingly involved the use of violence and forced conscription, leading men to attempt to leave the country, often at the risk of their lives. Zelensky, who fears losing power if the war ends, has an incentive to keep the conflict going. However, support for Zelensky has rapidly declined among the Ukrainian population. Almost every week, reports are coming in about forced conscription in Ukraine being carried out using increasingly brutal means. Hungarian channel M1-Hirado recently ran a special compiling some of the latest footage of Ukrainians being beaten and shoved into vans in forced mobilization operations.

As Remix News has previously reported, desertion rates at the frontline are high, with many Ukrainians fleeing before they ever even enter combat. To make up for shortfalls, authorities from the so-called Territorial Recruitment and Social Support Center (TCK) are using increasingly aggressive methods to meet monthly draft quotas. After morning briefings, officers split into teams and search various locations around the city – cafes, restaurants, and even nightclubs – for men eligible for military service.

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“..He added that talks would most likely take place on US soil, as “I’m not going there.”

• Trump Says He ‘Will Probably’ Meet Zelensky Next Week (RT)

US President Donald Trump has stated that he will likely have face-to-face talks with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky as early as next week, adding that he would like to talk with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin soon as well. Since his inauguration last month, Trump’s administration has been sending signals regarding potential peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. However, no details have been forthcoming to date. Commenting on the prospect of such dialogue, officials in Moscow have expressed cautious optimism. Addressing the press during a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba at the White House on Friday, President Trump said: “I will probably be meeting with [Vladimir] Zelensky next week.”

He added that talks would most likely take place on US soil, as “I’m not going there.”“And I will probably be talking to President Putin. I’d like to see that war end,” Trump said, adding “President Putin and I have always had a good relationship.” Trump reiterated his long-standing point that the conflict would never have started had he been in office in February 2022. The US president also said that he would like to discuss the “security” of Ukraine’s rare-earth deposits with Zelensky. On Monday, he similarly stated that “we are looking to do a deal with Ukraine where they are going to secure what we are giving to them with the rare earths and other things.”

Trump once again accused NATO’s European member states of expending far fewer resources than the US on supporting Ukraine, promising to “equalize” the situation. Commenting on Trump’s latest remarks in a post on X, formerly Twitter, late on Friday, Zelensky wrote: “The coming weeks may be very intensive in diplomacy, and we will do what’s needed to make this time effective and productive.” “Right now Ukrainian and American teams are working out the details. A solid, lasting peace shall become closer,” he predicted.

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“The opposition lawmaker has been in custody since November 2023 facing a litany of charges, including high treason.”

• UK Trying To Prevent Peace – Ukrainian MP (RT)

The purpose of UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s recent visit to Kiev was to disrupt peace negotiations with Russia on the settlement of the Ukraine conflict, according to jailed Ukrainian MP Aleksandr Dubinsky. Britain’s foreign secretary visited Kiev on Wednesday and announced a further 55 million pounds ($68.7 million) in financial aid. Dubinsky claimed on his Telegram channel on Thursday that the actual purpose of Lammy’s trip was to disrupt the peace process. The opposition lawmaker has been in custody since November 2023 facing a litany of charges, including high treason. According to him, Lammy’s “urgent” visit to Kiev as well as Vladimir Zelensky’s “urgent” interview with British media “were necessary to prevent a peaceful settlement” and to “discredit” US envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg’s plan to resolve the conflict.

“What is needed for this? An urgent counteroffensive. I believe Zelensky has been brought his plan,” Dubinsky stated. During his visit, Lammy met with his Ukrainian counterpart, Andrey Sybiga, who urged the UK authorities to scale up investments in Ukraine’s arms production. Bloomberg reported earlier this week, citing insiders, that Keith Kellogg is expected to present a peace plan at next week’s Munich Security Conference. However, in an interview with Newsmax on Wednesday, the envoy clarified that while he will be holding discussions with EU leaders in Germany, he will not publicly unveil the proposition. Instead, he stated that the deal would be presented by US President Donald Trump himself.

Last Friday, Trump said that communication is ongoing between his administration and the Russian government and reiterated his goal of putting a swift end to nearly three years of hostilities. The UK has beefed up its military aid to Ukraine since the beginning of the year. Last month, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced a £4.5 billion boost, which includes the procurement of hundreds of air defense systems, drones, and other equipment to support Kiev’s war effort.

The Istanbul round of peace talks was scrapped in April 2022 when then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson made a surprise visit to Kiev to discuss military aid and urge Ukraine to keep fighting. David Arakhamia, then head of the Ukrainian delegation at the negotiations, later acknowledged Moscow’s claims that Johnson had played an influential role. While the British politician denied involvement, former US undersecretary of state Victoria Nuland later confirmed that the negotiations fell apart after the US and UK pushed Kiev to reject the Istanbul deal.

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Leave guys like Zelensky and Podoliak in place and you’ll never have peace.

• US-Russia War Would Be ‘Good For Ukraine’ – Zelensky’s Top Aide (RT)

A US-Russian war would be advantageous to Ukraine in the current conflict with Moscow, according to Vladimir Zelensky’s top aide, Mikhail Podoliak. In an interview with local media on Wednesday, published by RBK Ukraine he discussed the possibility of a US troop deployment in the country under President Donald Trump. When asked about the likelihood of US troops coming to Ukraine, Podoliak expressed skepticism but said that pressuring Russian President Vladimir Putin “does not necessarily require pushing for a direct confrontation” between the US and Russia, however such a conflict “would certainly be good for us.” This week, the US leader announced a plan to turn Gaza into a “riviera” owned by the US, not ruling out deploying US soldiers to implement it.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt later rejected the notion that Trump was reneging on a promise not to “entangle” the US in foreign conflicts, saying he had not “committed to putting boots on the ground in Gaza.” Moscow has accused Kiev of violating the rules of war and employing terrorist tactics due to an inability to overpower Russia militarily. Some supporters of Ukraine concede that its government has resorted to controversial methods of fighting, including a state-sponsored program of targeted assassinations. Among the victims was Russian journalist Darya Dugina, killed by a bomb in 2022. Ukraine is also suspected of orchestrating sabotage missions, including the Nord Stream pipeline attacks. Reports suggest that the Ukrainian military leadership authorized the highly-challenging underwater demolition mission against the Russian-German energy link, though alternate scenarios involve the US.

Trump has pledged to resolve the Ukraine conflict swiftly and has suspended most US foreign aid programs since taking office last month, with Kiev also affected. While military assistance reportedly remains untouched, Zelensky recently acknowledged that without US weapons, his army could face collapse. Historically, Trump has shown a readiness to resort to military action under tenuous circumstances. In 2018, during his first term, he ordered missile strikes on Syria, carried out jointly with the UK and France, in response to an alleged chemical attack. However, a subsequent investigation by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) revealed evidence that contradicted the US-endorsed narrative. The findings were allegedly suppressed, and the OPCW final report did not dispute Western justifications, prompting some inspectors to accuse their organization of scientific malpractice. Its leadership denied any wrongdoing.

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“..if US special forces operators kill cartel leaders, retaliatory attacks by cartel members could occur at Mexican beach resorts or, worse, on the streets of US cities.”

• Border Czar “Expects” Kinetic Warfare Between US Troops & Mexican Cartels (ZH)

Trump administration Border Czar Tom Homan told ABC News in an exclusive interview that he anticipates a potential kinetic engagement between the US military and drug cartels, though he did not specify a location. His remarks come as thousands of US troops have been deployed to the southern border. Additionally, earlier this week, a US Air Force surveillance aircraft conducted a signals intelligence (SIGINT) operation over cartel-controlled areas in Baja California. “Look, I’m looking at numbers this morning, about 14,000 arrests, and about 76% of them are criminals,” Homan told ABC News’ Kyra Phillips and Terry Moran when asked about the ICE raids. “We’re not going to neighborhoods looking for people different than us. These are well-planned, investigated leads,” the border czar said. When Homan was asked whether the US military could get involved if cartels strike, Homan replied: “Yes, and we expect them to,” adding that US troops “need to protect themselves.”

At the start of the week, in what appeared to be the shortest trade war in history, Mexico and Canada each committed 10,000 troops to their respective borders, while the US reinforced its southern border with thousands of soldiers in the last few weeks. By Monday evening, a USAF RC-135V/W Rivet Joint reconnaissance aircraft conducted a SIGINT operation over the southern half of Baja California, a region home to heavily armed Tijuana Cartel and Sinaloa Cartel members. [..] Last week, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had some strong words for drug cartels.

Dismantling Mexican drug cartels could be a very messy operation, which is why the Trump administration fortified the border with the military. The challenge, however, is that if US special forces operators kill cartel leaders, retaliatory attacks by cartel members could occur at Mexican beach resorts or, worse, on the streets of US cities.

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“..the political class is taking a page from the antitrust playbook in its attempt to wrest TikTok away from its owners on the cheap..”

• TikTok’s Actual Offense? Innovating While Not Being American (Tamny)

Ten days ago the shares of Nvidia corrected 17 percent. How could this have happened to such an “owned” and analyzed company? The answer, at least as of now, is that surprise over inexpensively trained and very capable DeepSeek forced investors to at least rethink Nvidia’s long-term dominance. The news on January 26th gave investors reason to at least question whether the current face of AI would perhaps be disrupted by dynamism within the sector that its chips had helped create. It’s worth thinking about Nvidia and the market meaning of DeepSeek’s surprising rollout with TikTok top of mind. China-fearful politicians have voted to ban TikTok in the United States unless it can find an American owner.

Forget for a moment that TikTok is already American owned, and simply ask the question about whether or not the same politicians would have pursued “sell or ban” legislation if TikTok were an unknown. Hopefully the question answers itself. TikTok’s problem is that it discovered the future of social media much more effectively than its American competition. At which point it can be said that the attacks on TikTok aren’t much different from antitrust attacks over the years on American companies like Amazon, Apple, Google, Live Nation, and many others. What’s important about those suits is that none of them took place when Amazon had the nickname “Amazon.org,” or when Apple was near bankruptcy, when Google was an unknown David to Yahoo’s Goliath, or when Live Nation was one of many cheaply priced entertainment companies trying to divine how the internet and streaming would upend the music industry.

It’s just a comment that antitrust ankle biters never discover dominance in its ascendance. Antitrust is by definition a look backwards, and an attempt to penalize the businesses that had the temerity to discover a previously unknown commercial future. TikTok’s travails are a manifestation of the previous truth. Having led the needs of social media users much better than the American competition, TikTok faces a forced separation from the investors and innovators that made it great in the first place. In short, the political class is taking a page from the antitrust playbook in its attempt to wrest TikTok away from its owners on the cheap. Which requires more thought beyond the odious antitrust flavor of TikTok’s theft.

Its ascendance from unknown to the world’s most popular social media company plainly discredits the excuses bruited by politicians as they attempt to take it. Former Rep. Mike Gallagher has excused his own long fingers with op-eds at the Wall Street Journal asserting that TikTok is “controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.” No, government-controlled businesses are never this popular. Other conservatives (including Gallagher) claim the problem with TikTok is that it will gather data on American users for the Chinese Communist Party. That’s similarly an empty excuse when it’s remembered that all user supported sites attain their value from the data gleaned from those users; data that is subsequently sold.

Which brings us back to the “sell or ban” legislation from a U.S. political class that should hang its collective head in shame. As is the case with all antirust attacks, the attempt to break up and take TikTok personifies obnoxious conceit about the future of a commercial sector defined by relentless change, including change at the top. Assuming the political class can pull off its attempted heist, rest assured that the thieving of successful businesses for innovating while not being American won’t end with TikTok. And that’s because antitrust by its very name is once again a look backwards. See the DeepSeek surprise if you’re confused.

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“At one point, nearly every candidate decried the practice, before realizing it may be a necessity for survival.”

• Elizabeth Warren DESTROYED by X Community Notes (Bartee)

If ever you needed proof that X Community Notes is vastly superior to corporate “fact checks” as a way for real journalists to do real work countering “misinformation” rather than as a bludgeon to suppress dissident narratives, this is it. Lying about being a Native American for DEI leg-ups, it turns out, isn’t the only dishonesty Elizabeth Warren peddles. This lie, however, is much more consequential in terms of policy impact: “I don’t take contributions from Big Pharma executives. I don’t take any corporate PAC money,” Elizabeth Warren says in the Senate hallway when confronted over her smears of RFK Jr.

But the contradictory proof is all right there in the X Community Notes window, just under the lying pharma tool, with links and links and links, rendering my job as a journalist exposing her blatant lies far easier: “Elizabeth Warren has in fact received donations from both Pharmaceutical companies and PAC organizations in the combined tune of millions of dollars.” Warren, in fact, is the second-biggest beneficiary of cash from pharma employees and/or PACs in the entire Congress, next to Bernie Sanders.

Via TIME, 2020: “In an ironic twist, that now makes Warren, who along with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has been the strongest opponent of super PACs in the 2020 campaign, the biggest beneficiary of such a group heading into Super Tuesday — the most prominent reversal yet among the candidates on the issue of high-dollar donations. At one point, nearly every candidate decried the practice, before realizing it may be a necessity for survival. Under campaign finance laws, donors can give unlimited amounts to a super PAC as long as the groups do not directly coordinate with the candidates they are supporting. Since launching her campaign, Warren has prided herself on her refusal to accept money from political action committees or federal lobbyists, and she has promised to disavow any super PAC that formed on her behalf.”

That pledge is still publicly available on her campaign website, but Warren has not distanced herself from Persist PAC. Instead, her rhetoric on the issue started to shift in the past month, as her once-promising campaign underperformed its expectations in the first three states to vote. “If all the candidates want to get rid of super PACs, count me in, I’ll lead the charge,” she told reporters on Feb. 20 in Nevada when asked if she would disavow Persist PAC. “But that’s how it has to be. It can’t be the case that a bunch of people keep them and only one or two don’t.”

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Just decrying men in women’s spaces doesn’t make you a feminist. It makes you a normal person.

Point in case: Trudeau calls himself a feminist, and he cheers on the craziness.

• How Trump Suddenly Became A Feminist Champion (RT)

It was US President Donald Trump – a man who looked at Playboy founder, Hugh Hefner, and thought, “Now there’s a guy with life figured out” – who somehow became the only person in charge willing to pump the brakes on the surreal spectacle of born males bulldozing women on the rugby field, then waltzing right into the women’s locker room along with them. All while intersectional third-wave feminists are on the sidelines, basically acting like the hype squad… for the “dudes.” After allowing a dude to smoke all the women in college swim championships, the NCAA American collegiate sports league announced on Thursday that it was suddenly putting an end to the practice, limiting the participation of transsexuals in women’s events to those whose assigned gender at birth was female.

The move came in the wake of Trump’s executive order earlier in the week withdrawing federal funding from institutions that allowed biological males to compete against women. “If you let men take over women’s sports teams or invade your locker rooms, you will be investigated for violations of Title IX and risk your federal funding,” Trump said. Under this Title IX civil rights law, considered a major victory for 60’s and 70s-era second-wave feminist icons like Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, and tennis icon and activist Billie Jean King, colleges receiving federal funding couldn’t just have sports teams and scholarships exclusively reserved for men anymore. Sports suddenly became a social elevator and opportunity springboard for young women, too. But all of that was clawed back, mostly to deafening silence from feminists.

How on earth did Donald “grab her by the p***y” Trump end up being the one to reestablish due north on this issue? One could argue that it’s feminism itself that has been ideologically corrupted by radical leftism, to the point where even the second-wave feminists – who were considered radical back when they were fighting for women to own property, have their own credit cards, or keep their own name in marriage – now seem almost conservative in comparison to this latest crop. Feminism didn’t need intersectionality. That is, to get mixed up with causes that detract from the straightforward focus on improving the lives of women.

There’s more than enough material to work with already when we still haven’t fully emerged from the turbulent wake of the MeToo movement, which shattered the long-standing omertà that mandated women’s silence about systemic second-class or abusive treatment as the price of fame and fortune in Western media and entertainment. I was personally once told, despite supposedly being hired for my political acumen at a certain New York-based American cable news outfit, to just sit there and laugh at my co-host’s jokes, deferring to him while crossing and uncrossing my bare legs on camera. The message was clear: You either leave or comply, because if you don’t, then some other ambitious woman with equally decent legs will.

And if you’re on the political right, good luck finding any feminists in your corner. Because leftist causes now take precedence over the defense of actual women, particularly if the woman in question doesn’t pass the ideological litmus test. Rather than fighting the creeping, increasingly institutionalized corruption-driven brand of globalist leftism, today’s feminists have embraced it, confounding their struggle with all sorts of other causes that dilute their original mission. If one wanted to hijack the feminist movement, and render it totally useless in the actual defense of women, it’s hard to imagine a better way of going about it than by confusing it with issues like climate change and gender bending.

Read more …

“..over just 8 years, the amount of microplastic fragments in the brain has increased by about 50 percent. Brain samples from 2024 contained microplastics equal in weight to a plastic spoon.”

“Brain tissue contained 7 to 30 times more microplastics than other vital organs like the livers or kidneys..”

• Microplastic Found in Brain Weighs as Much as a Plastic Spoon (ET)

Microplastics are making their way into human brains at higher levels than in other vital organs, according to new findings. The study, published in Nature Medicine on Feb. 3, confirms that tiny plastic fragments are passing through the brain’s protective blood-brain barrier, potentially impacting health and cognitive function. Researchers from the University of New Mexico (UNM) tested autopsy samples from 2016 and 2024. They found that over just 8 years, the amount of microplastic fragments in the brain has increased by about 50 percent. Brain samples from 2024 contained microplastics equal in weight to a plastic spoon. Brains affected by dementia showed significantly higher concentrations of these plastic particles. Finding such high concentrations in the brain was unexpected and alarming, Matthew Campen, lead researcher and toxicologist, told The Epoch Times during a press conference.

“People are simply being exposed to ever-increasing levels of micro- and nanoplastics,” said Campen. The particles are so small, they’re roughly the width of two COVID viruses standing side by side, he noted. The rate of accumulation “is simply mirroring the environmental buildup and exposure.” As plastic breaks down over time, it degrades and becomes small enough to enter the human body and brain. Brain tissue contained 7 to 30 times more microplastics than other vital organs like the livers or kidneys, making it one of the most plastic-polluted tissues yet examined. Researchers tested 52 human brain samples from both 2016 and 2024, all taken from the frontal cortex—the part of the brain responsible for judgment, decision-making, and muscle movement. In the brain, the microplastic concentration reached around 5,000 micrograms per gram—far higher than the liver and kidneys, which carried around 400 micrograms of plastics per gram.

The study also compared earlier brain samples from the eastern U.S. (1997–2013), which had lower microplastic levels, around 1,250 micrograms per gram. Their findings support a trend of gradual increases in plastic accumulation in the organs over time, with 2024 showing the highest levels. To visualize the amount of microplastics in the brain, Campen held up a plastic spoon. Since the brain weighs around 1,400 grams (or three pounds), having 5,000 micrograms of plastic per gram would amount to over 5 grams of plastic in total—roughly the weight of a plastic spoon. In deceased people with dementia, levels reached much higher levels of over 26,000 micrograms per gram. In the dementia samples, some particles were clumped together in areas with inflammation, raising concerns about a possible link between microplastics and brain tissue damage, according to the researchers.

However, while the study correlates microplastics to dementia, the study does not prove that higher plastic levels in the brain directly cause dementia symptoms. It is also possible that the disease process itself may hinder the brain’s ability to clear out the accumulated plastics, Campen added. Researchers found 12 types of plastic in the brain, with polyethylene (PE), commonly used in bottles, bags, and containers, making up 75 percent of the total. Other plastics included types commonly found in packaging, car parts, pipes, flooring, bottles, containers, fabrics, and other industrial products. “It was notable that these are largely mirroring proportions of polymers that we do see in our environment,” Marcus Garcia, study co-author and postdoctoral researcher at UNM, explained to The Epoch Times during the press briefing.

The particles in the brain were mostly sharp nanoscale shards and flakes. These tiny particles are small enough to cross the blood-brain barrier, although Campen says it’s still unclear how exactly the particles enter the brain. Researchers believe that micro- and nanoplastics may enter the body through eating, drinking, and breathing. These particles have been found in various parts of the body, including arteries, hearts, lungs, blood, and placentas. A study published on Jan. 30 found plastic pollution to be significantly higher in placentas from premature births. One possible reason for the buildup, according to Garcia, is that organs like the liver and kidneys are designed to filter toxins, while the brain has more limited clearance systems. Another theory is that brain tissue, which is about 60 percent fat, may better “trap” plastic particles.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

MTV

 

 

Solstices
https://twitter.com/i/status/1887853183935889715

 

 

Bik&smol
https://twitter.com/i/status/1887822482431729769

 

 

Peg leg

 

 

Elephant
https://twitter.com/i/status/1887480828810133504

 

 

Team
https://twitter.com/i/status/1887683356722184314

 

 

@AINTGOTTADOLLAR

 

 

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Debt Rattle February 3 2025

Feb 032025
 
 February 3, 2025  Posted by at 11:10 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  63 Responses »


Jean Metzinger Soldier playing chess 1915

 

• Musk Claims USAID Funded Bioweapon Research (RT)
• USAID Tried To Block DOGE Audit (RT)
• Trump’s Dismantling Of USAID A Seismic Shift In America’s Role In The World (ZH)
• Panama Will Not Renew “Silk Road” Deal With China After Rubio Visit (ZH)
• John Brennan’s Protests to Trump Lifting his Security Clearances are Absurd (AmG)
• Military Strikes On Cartels Inside Mexico “On The Table”: Hegseth (MN)
• Tariffs Could Cause ‘Some Pain’ – Trump (RT)
• Trump’s Big Stick Strategy Will Make America Respected Again (Vasile)
• European Leaders Will ‘Wag Tails’ For Trump – Putin (RT)
• EU Incapable Of Helping End Ukraine Conflict – AfD Leader (RT)
• Zelensky: Trump Talking To Putin About Ukraine Without Us ‘Very Dangerous’ (ZH)
• Zelensky Has No Idea Where Most Of ‘$200 Billion’ In US Aid Went (RT)
• Arab Nations Reject Trump’s Idea To Relocate Gaza Population (RT)
• Musk Urges Astronauts To Lead Mars Investigation (RT)
• Rosatom’s Quantum Breakthrough Set to Transform AI, Healthcare and More (Sp.)
• CBS To Provide Unedited Version Of Harris ‘Word Salad’ Interview (RT)
• Exhausted Media Begs Trump To Take A Day Off (BBee)

 

 

 

 

JD
https://twitter.com/i/status/1885894662369530009
https://twitter.com/i/status/1886077857274712318

Leavitt

DOGE

Cher
https://twitter.com/i/status/1885772428573319518

 

 

 

 

Gold

Mafia

FAFO
https://twitter.com/i/status/1885772683414999371

Tucker JFK

 

 

 

 

USAID was never an aid agency, that’s just a clever CIA disguise to wrap its front in. Full name is US Agency for International Development.

It’s over now. Trump will either kill it or make it part of the State Dept. Musk: “USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die..”

• Musk Claims USAID Funded Bioweapon Research (RT)

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has accused the US Agency for International Development (USAID) of financing bioweapon research, including projects that allegedly led to the emergence of Covid-19, branding the agency a “criminal organization.” Musk’s comment came in response to a post from user @KanekoaTheGreat on Sunday, which claimed that USAID had funneled $53 million to EcoHealth Alliance. The post alleged that these funds were used to support gain-of-function research on coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, potentially leading to the creation of Covid-19. “Did you know that USAID, using YOUR tax dollars, funded bioweapon research, including COVID-19, that killed millions of people?” Musk wrote.

Musk did not elaborate on the allegations, but the post he was responding to further asserted that “the CIA’s deception regarding COVID-19 origins becomes much clearer when considering USAID’s long history of serving as a CIA front organization.” “USAID is a criminal organization,” Musk wrote in another post, replying to a video about the alleged USAID involvement in internet censorship and “rogue CIA work.” EcoHealth Alliance, a US-based nonprofit organization, has been at the center of controversy due to its collaborations with China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology. The organization has denied that its work involved gain-of-function research, but in May 2024, the US Department of Health and Human Services suspended all federal funding to EcoHealth Alliance, citing concerns over the organization’s oversight of high-risk experiments and failure to report research activities promptly.

The CIA believes it is “more likely” that Covid-19 originated from a lab-leak incident rather than a natural source, the agency’s spokesman said last month after the confirmation of John Ratcliffe as CIA director. US President Donald Trump’s nominee, Ratcliffe, has been a vocal supporter of the lab-leak version, calling it “the only theory supported by science, intelligence, and common sense.” Following the confirmation, Ratcliffe also said the CIA’s assessment of Covid’s origins would be a “day-one thing for me.” USAID has a history of funding global health initiatives, including the PREDICT program, which aimed to identify viruses with pandemic potential and ran from 2009 to 2020 in partnership with EcoHealth Alliance. In 2021, USAID launched a $125 million follow-up program known as the Discovery & Exploration of Emerging Pathogens – Viral Zoonoses – but it was shut down prematurely in 2023.

Russia has repeatedly raised concerns about the network of biological research laboratories supported by the Pentagon and other US agencies around the globe, particularly in Ukraine and other countries near its borders, alleging that these facilities are involved in bioweapon research. Reporting about US biolab activities was one of the main priorities of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the Russian military’s top official on the hazards posed by weapons of mass destruction. He was murdered along with his assistant in Moscow in December in the bombing attack allegedly ordered by Kiev. In its latest reports, the Russian Defense Ministry has drawn attention to the transfer of unfinished Ukrainian projects to post-Soviet states and Southeast Asia, and said that Africa has now become a focal point of interest for the US government, which views the region as an unlimited natural reservoir of dangerous pathogens and a testing ground for experimental medical treatments.

The US Department of Defense has acknowledged providing support to some laboratories in Ukraine, but insisted that these efforts are focused on preventing the outbreak of infectious diseases and developing vaccines, and that the laboratories are owned and operated by their respective countries, not by the United States. Western officials have consistently dismissed Moscow’s investigations as disinformation aimed at discrediting “legitimate” public health initiatives. Moscow and Beijing have nevertheless demanded greater transparency from the US regarding its military biological activities. Last year, the two countries agreed to unite against biological security threats and strengthen the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention (BTWC).


https://twitter.com/i/status/1886167348282863630

Read more …

It’s easier to just not see the mission Trump and Musk are on.

• USAID Tried To Block DOGE Audit (RT)

Two senior security officials with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) have reportedly been placed on leave by President Donald Trump’s administration after attempting to prevent an audit by the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. A team of DOGE inspectors sought to review “classified material in restricted areas” at USAID on Saturday but were stopped by security officials, AP reported on Sunday. The inspectors allegedly lacked the necessary security clearance, and USAID security was “legally obligated” to deny them access to the requested data, the news agency claimed. “No, they tried to lie to cover up their corruption,” Musk wrote on X, dismissing allegations that the team lacked security clearance. Katie Miller, who serves on an advisory board for DOGE, also said that “no classified material was accessed without proper security clearances.”

Eventually, the inspectors gained access to the requested materials, including personnel records and “intelligence reports,” according to AP. Meanwhile, the USAID officials, identified as John Vorhees and his deputy Brian McGill, were placed on leave. The DOGE has yet to publish any details of its review of USAID activities, but Musk had already attacked the agency in a series of fiery posts on Sunday. “USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die,” Musk said, accusing the agency of “paying media organizations to publish their propaganda,” and even using US taxpayer dollars to fund “bioweapon research, including COVID-19, that killed millions of people.” Over the weekend, the official USAID website went offline, and its X account disappeared amid reports that the White House considered merging the agency into the US Department of State.

The DOGE was created by President Donald Trump as a presidential advisory commission dedicated to reducing government spending. Its goal is to cut at least $1 trillion in federal spending by July 2026. In late January, the DOGE claimed that it had already cutting federal spending by $1bn per day. It had allegedly saved over $1 billion solely by eliminating contracts related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Musk’s department has also been granted full access to the US Treasury Department’s payment system, which is considered sensitive and was previously restricted to a small group of career civil servants.

Read more …

“..many allies as well as an assortment of US-backed ‘opposition groups’ will feel completely abandoned.”

• Trump’s Dismantling Of USAID A Seismic Shift In America’s Role In The World (ZH)

The most consequential decision and executive order which came within the opening days of President Donald Trump’s administration has without doubt been his “reevaluating and realigning US foreign aid” — which sent shockwaves through Washington especially given federal funding has been cut to USAID in a shock blow to the agency. But it is also having a massive ripple effect throughout the world. Some foreign powers will welcome the news, while many allies as well as an assortment of US-backed ‘opposition groups’ will feel completely abandoned.

This has meant that pro-Western media outlets, NGOs, and ‘soft power’ organizations are in panic mode. This has basically overnight shutdown a multi-billion dollar regime change apparatus which pushed or often imposed American interests throughout the globe, especially in the very vulnerable Third World, as well as former Soviet satellite regions. The way this works on a practical, on the ground level is detailed in the well-known book Confessions Of An Economic Hit Man. As for Trump’s apparent efforts to dismantle the powerful USAID agency, we compiled some of the best current analysis from around the web outlining the huge significance of this move, which is nothing less than a historic reset (and we say a very welcome reset) of Washington’s relations with the rest of the world.

We’re looking at a seismic shift in the US’s relationship with the world, via Arnaud Bertrand:
1) The US is dismantling its foreign interference apparatuses (like USAID )
2) Marco Rubio stating that we’re now in a multipolar world with “multi-great powers in different parts of the planet” and that “the postwar global order is not just obsolete; it is now a weapon being used against us.”
3) The tariffs on supposed “allies” like Mexico, Canada or the EU: This is the US effectively saying “our attempt at running the world is over, to each his own, we’re now just another great power, not the ‘indispensable nation’.” It looks “dumb” (as the WSJ just wrote) if you are still mentally in the old paradigm but it’s always a mistake to think that what the US (or any country) does is dumb.

Hegemony was going to end sooner or later, and now the U.S. is basically choosing to end it on its own terms. It is the post-American world order – brought to you by America itself. Even the tariffs on allies, viewed under this angle, make sense, as it redefines the concept of “allies”: they don’t want – or maybe rather can’t afford – vassals anymore, but rather relationships that evolve based on current interests. You can either view it as decline – because it does unquestionably look like the end of the American empire – or as avoiding further decline: controlled withdrawal from imperial commitments in order to focus resources on core national interests rather than being forced into an even messier retreat at a later stage.

In any case it is the end of an era and, while the Trump administration looks like chaos to many observers, they’re probably much more attuned to the changing realities of the world and their own country’s predicament than their predecessors. Acknowledging the existence of a multipolar world and choosing to operate within it rather than trying to maintain an increasingly costly global hegemony couldn’t be delayed much further. It looks messy but it is probably better than maintaining the fiction of American primacy until it eventually collapses under its own weight. This is not to say that the U.S. won’t continue to wreak havoc on the world, and in fact we might be seeing it become even more aggressive than before.

Because when it previously was (badly, and very hypocritically) trying to maintain some semblance of self-proclaimed “rules-based order”, it now doesn’t even have to pretend it is under any constraint, not even the constraint of playing nice with allies. It’s the end of the U.S. empire, but definitely not the end of the U.S. as a major disruptive force in world affairs. All in all this transformation may mark one of the most significant shifts in international relations since the fall of the Soviet Union. And those most unprepared for it, as is already painfully obvious, are America’s vassals caught completely flat-footed by the realization that the patron they’ve relied on for decades is now treating them as just another set of countries to negotiate with.

Read more …

Got to love it: “John Bolton and John Brennan have been permanently banned from government buildings.”

• Panama Will Not Renew “Silk Road” Deal With China After Rubio Visit (ZH)

The Trump administration is not messing around. Let’s review. In the past thirteen days;
• Border crossings are down 94% after Trump declared a national emergency and sent US troops to the southern US Border .
• Special Envoy Ric Grenell flew down to oil-rich Venezuela, got 6 hostages freed (that Biden didn’t even care to check up on), and convinced Maduro to accept tens of thousands of migrants we’re about to deport.
• Trump halted almost all foreign aid for 90 days, including to Ukraine, while each program undergoes review to make sure they align with the new agenda.
• Elon Musk’s DOGE descended upon the US Treasury and revealed that we’ve been ‘auto paying’ all sorts of bad actors, including terrorist groups. DOGE then kicked the door down at Deep State slush fund USAID, where employees were placed on paid leave last week for trying to circumvent Trump’s orders, causing a massive Democrat freakout.
• Trump just slapped tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico for failing to control the flow of illegal immigration and fentanyl.
• Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent a worldwide cable announcing the end of DEI policies within State, prioritizing American interests, and told his Chinese counterpart that America is done kowtowing. See below for more!

And now, Rubio has convinced Panama not to renew its deal with China’s Belt and Road economic program, after applying pressure to the Panamanian government to immediately take steps to address US concerns over Chinese businesses operating ports near the canal – which President Trump says represents a threat to US national security. “Trump has made a preliminary determination that the current position of influence and control of the Chinese Communist Party over the Panama Canal area is a threat to the canal,” said US State Department spox Tammy Bruce. Trump had also refused to rule out the use of military force over Panama, while US officials said in a senate hearing last week that fines and restrictions on Panamanian-flag vessels entering US ports could be imposed due to the dispute over the canal.

Now, Secretary of State Rubio has convinced Panama to reverse course on their deal with China – with President Jose Mulino making an announcement following a “respectful and cordial” meeting with Rubio in which Panama also agreed to expand a July MoU so that Venezuelans, Colombians and Ecuadoreans can be returned from the perilous Darien Gap at U.S. cost, through an airstrip in Panama, Reuters reports. According to the PanAm Post, Panama will not renew the memorandum of understanding on the “Silk Road” signed with China. “We are going to study the possibility of whether it can be finished earlier or not. I think it is due for renewal in one or two years,” said Molino.

As one ZH reader, the esteemed Pooper Popper, noted earlier today…
• All federal prosecutors handling January 6th cases fired, computers locked and marched out of their offices by security.
• David Sundberg, the FBI Assistant Director at the helm of the January 6th investigations, has been fired.
• 20 leaders of FBI field offices have been escorted out of FBI buildings around the country
• The 51 intelligence officers who spread misinformation about Hunter Biden’s laptop and interfered in elections are now banned from entering federal properties.
• Federal employees are now required to return to the office, with non-compliance leading to termination.
• John Bolton and John Brennan have been permanently banned from government buildings.
• Jarold Harold Rogers has been indicted for compromising U.S. trade secrets to China.
• Ban on all use of pronouns in government communications.
• All 2 million Feds sent a resignation offer. At this rate both Canada and Greenland will be US territories by the end of the month.

Read more …

Trump wasn’t going to ask Brennan’s advice. Now he knows.

• John Brennan’s Protests to Trump Lifting his Security Clearances are Absurd (AmG)

Former CIA Director John Brennan is angry that President Trump signed an executive order last week lifting his security clearances. The president took this action because Brennan was one of 51 former intelligence officers who meddled in the 2020 presidential election by signing a letter they knew falsely claimed a damaging press story about a laptop owned by President Biden’s son Hunter was Russian disinformation.Brennan indignantly asserted in an MSNBC interview that President Trump’s action was “bizarre” and said he misrepresented the laptop letter, claiming that based on their intelligence experience, the signatories were “deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.” Brennan also said he needs to hold security clearances as a former intelligence officer so administration officials can consult with him on national security matters.

Brennan’s objections are absurd and justify the President’s executive order. Brennan’s claims defending the laptop letter are patently false. The 51 former intelligence officers did not sign the letter as a well-intentioned initiative to warn the American people about a possible Russian attempt to influence the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. They knew this wasn’t true. We know this because one of the principal organizers of the letter, former acting CIA Director Michael Morell, testified during an investigation by the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees about the letter’s purpose:“There were two intents. One intent was to share our concern with the American people that the Russians were playing on this issue, and two, it was to help Vice President Biden.” The House investigation also found that the letter signers were informed “of the intent of the statement prior to its publication, writing that the statement was meant to insulate Vice President Biden from serious electoral vulnerabilities created by his family’s influence peddling activities.”

This means there can be no doubt the laptop letter was an attempt by the 51 former intelligence officers to misuse their intelligence careers to provide political cover for Biden from damaging information that could have cost him the election. They knowingly misled the American people to give Biden a talking point to discredit the laptop story during the final presidential debate, held on October 22, 2020. There can be no doubt John Brennan knew about all of this. Brennan also made the preposterous argument that he only held security clearances as a former CIA officer so he could be a resource for the U.S. government. He said in an MSNBC interview: “The only reason I still had a clearance, as I have had for years since leaving government service, was for the benefit of the government. It was to facilitate classified discussions, should the CIA or any agency need to consult with me or other former directors and members of the intelligence community.”

I don’t doubt that the deeply incompetent Biden administration sought counsel on classified national security matters from disgraced former intelligence officers like John Brennan. However, there is zero chance that anyone in the second Trump administration will ever consult someone like Brennan on any issue. Brennan omitted the real reason he and most other laptop letter signers held security clearances after they left their intelligence jobs—to make money. High-level security clearances can be very lucrative for former U.S. government employees because they enable them to obtain highly paid contracts and jobs with defense firms and Beltway consulting companies that do business with intelligence and defense agencies. After intelligence officers retire, many retain their security clearances and return to their old offices as highly paid contractors.

Read more …

Better if Mexico does it, but it doesn’t.

“The military is orienting, shifting toward an understanding of homeland defense on our sovereign territorial border.”

• Military Strikes On Cartels Inside Mexico “On The Table”: Hegseth (MN)

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth Announced Friday that all options, including military strikes against cartels on Mexican soil are “on the table.” Hegseth asserted that nothing is out of the question “if we’re dealing with what are designated to be foreign terrorist organizations who are specifically targeting Americans on our border.”The development comes after Trump issued an executive order on his first day in office to designate “cartels and other organizations as foreign terrorist organizations.” The order stated that “The Cartels have engaged in a campaign of violence and terror throughout the Western Hemisphere that has not only destabilized countries with significant importance for our national interests but also flooded the United States with deadly drugs, violent criminals, and vicious gangs.”

Hegseth urged “We’re finally securing our border. We’ve been securing other people’s border for a very long time. The military is orienting, shifting toward an understanding of homeland defense on our sovereign territorial border.” “That is something we will do and do robustly. So we’re already doing it,” Hegseth continued, adding “Should there be other options necessary to prevent the cartels from continuing to pour people gangs and drugs and violence into our country — we will take that on.” “So the president will make that call. I’ll work with him in that decision making process. Ultimately, we will hold nothing back to secure the American people,” he emphasized.

While campaigning, Trump repeatedly vowed to use the military against the cartels, suggesting that special forces could be deployed in Mexican territory. Border czar Tom Homan also recently stated that Trump intends to “use the full might of the United States Special Operations to take ’em out,” and “ take ’em off the face of Earth.” During a recent discussion with Joe Rogan, former Green Beret Evan Hafer, noted that if Trump does decide to go to war with the cartels he could opt to use Delta Force and Seal Team 6 to destroy them. “These dudes are not going to understand what the fuck is going on,” Hafer promised, adding “They are in for a world of ultra violence they’ve never actually felt before… we could just kind of like erase the problem in about two years. It’d be gone.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1858851449725153571

Read more …

“WE ARE A COUNTRY THAT IS NOW BEING RUN WITH COMMON SENSE – AND THE RESULTS WILL BE.”

• Tariffs Could Cause ‘Some Pain’ – Trump (RT)

US President Donald Trump has acknowledged that Americans could feel “some pain” from newly imposed tariffs on foreign trading partners, but insisted the measures were necessary to restore economic strength. He also warned that further tariffs could be levied on the European Union and possibly the UK if trade practices are not addressed. The latest tariffs, which take effect on Tuesday, include a 25% duty on all goods from Canada and Mexico, with a 10% tariff applied specifically to Canadian energy exports. Imports from China will also face a 10% tariff. “WILL THERE BE SOME PAIN? YES, MAYBE (AND MAYBE NOT!),” Trump wrote in all caps on Truth Social on Sunday. “IT WILL ALL BE WORTH THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID. WE ARE A COUNTRY THAT IS NOW BEING RUN WITH COMMON SENSE – AND THE RESULTS WILL BE.”

Commenting on Canada’s retaliatory measures, announced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Trump suggested the possibility of imposing steeper levies. “If they want to play the game, I don’t mind. We can play the game all they want,” he told reporters upon landing at Joint Base Andrews from Florida. In a separate social media post, Trump renewed his call for Canada to become a US state, arguing that “without this massive subsidy, Canada ceases to exist as a viable country.”Addressing potential import taxes on the EU, Trump stated that with a trade deficit of $350 billion, “something is going to take place there.” He did not specify a timeline but suggested action was likely “pretty soon.”

He also called the UK “out of line” but expressed confidence that the situation “can be worked out.” Canada and Mexico have already responded to last week’s tariff announcement. Trudeau has imposed a 25% levy on US goods, including alcohol and cosmetics, and warned of further countermeasures. Mexico has also signaled it will implement retaliatory tariffs and promote domestic products in response to Washington’s policies. Meanwhile, China has announced “corresponding countermeasures” and plans to file a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization.

Read more …

“The Inconvenient Truth: Tariffs Are Effective..”

• Trump’s Big Stick Strategy Will Make America Respected Again (Vasile)

Under Biden, South and Central American countries had a free pass to send their citizens, freed criminals, and other migrants to America’s doorstep without repercussions. For the past four years, the Biden administration wrote a blank check to allow any and all migrants into our nation, without even a background check. This has led to a swelling of migrant gangs such as Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, which has been busy at work committing violent crime – including murders and rapes – on American soil. Thanks to Biden’s “humanitarian policy,” countries like Venezuela have emptied their prisons and have encouraged migrants to pass through with the promise of attaining the “American dream” in the form of free cell phones, food, and even housing at the expense of the American taxpayer. There’s one issue: Trump is back.

With U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ramping up deportation efforts of violent illegal aliens, the countries which for so long have benefited from the Democrats’ open-border approach are now forced to address the migrant crisis and take back the citizens they’ve abandoned time and time again. Colombia’s Petro is one of the first to actively resist Trump’s efforts to repatriate Colombian citizens, announcing: “From today on, Colombia is open to the entire world, with open arms.” Petro also tweeted out: “The U.S. cannot treat Colombian migrants as criminals,” and “We are the opposite of the Nazis.” Trump responded, declaring that an immediate 25% tariff on “all goods” coming into the States from Colombia will be enacted; in one week’s time, the tariff would be raised to 50%.

Petro responded in the like, announcing his own 25% tax on American goods, if Trump keeps to his word: “Your blockade does not scare me, because Colombia, besides being the country of beauty, is the heart of the world.” Despite Petro’s poetic declarations, it appears he is all bark and no bite; within 24 hours of sparring with President Trump, Petro bent the knee and agreed to take in America’s deportation flights, ensuring that Colombia will, “facilitate the dignified return of the compatriots who were to arrive in the country this morning from deportation flights … [th]is measure responds to the Government’s commitment to guarantee decent conditions.” In fact, Trump’s tariff threat was so effective, Petro quickly agreed to all of Trump’s terms regarding facilitating deportation efforts; so much for being “open to the entire world.”

Petro even offered his own presidential plane to pick up migrants in Honduras in a good faith effort not to disrespect American sovereignty again. This nimble victory on migration policy isn’t just a nod to how effective Trump’s diplomatic strategy is on the world’s stage. It also highlights a fear establishment politicians and the legacy media have been dreading: Protectionism works. While the talking heads of CNN, CNBC, NBC and others are quick to fear-monger and forecast the potential price hikes associated with hypothetical tariffs on foreign goods, they conveniently ignore one important aspect of announcing tariffs: leverage. For the past four years, America has been the world’s laughing-stock. Under Biden, we have experienced war in Ukraine, renewed Chinese efforts to invade Taiwan, the funding of Islamic terrorism in the Middle East, a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, and blatant spying on American soil.

The world has taken American for granted, betting on a weak and ineffective commander in chief to do their bidding and continuously fund their morally questionable policies. With Trump back in the picture, the threat of tariffs shows that America means business after four long years of inept (and absent) leadership. While academics, “classical liberals,” and politicians decry Trump’s use of tariffs as “anti-democratic,” they fail to address tariffs in action. Trump needed only to voice the possibility of tariffs if Colombia did not take back its own citizens. Petro knows better than to spar head-to-head with Trump, as do most other world leaders; the threat of tariffs is sufficient to get countries to step in line. No actual tariffs need to be put in place if American foreign policy is respected. Colombia is the textbook case: Trump rescinded his order after Petro conceded.

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Europe has no leaders.

• European Leaders Will ‘Wag Tails’ For Trump – Putin (RT)

The EU has always taken its political cues from Washington and will continue doing so with Donald Trump in office, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. Despite some EU leaders actively opposing Trump’s election, the newly inaugurated president “will restore order” and bring the bloc to heel “quite quickly,” Putin believes. The Russian president made the remarks on Sunday in an interview to Russia-1 TV journalist Pavel Zarubin. It has been decades since Europe last had strong politicians capable of forming opinions independently from Washington, Putin said, referring to the era of former French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder.

However, in recent years, the EU’s policies have been steered by “political small fries” who lack education and ability, Putin asserted. He noted that these individuals have “happily carried out any order from the president in Washington under Biden,” but “got confused when Trump suddenly won” the November election. “They just don’t like Trump, they actively fought him, interfered in political life, in the US election… Trump has different ideas about what is good and what is bad, including in gender policy, in some other issues, and they don’t like it,” Putin said. He believes, however, it won’t be long until the EU once again follows orders from Washington.

“I assure you, Trump, with his character and persistence, will restore order quite quickly. And all of them, you’ll see, soon all of them will stand at the master’s feet and gently wag their tails,” Putin argued. Many European leaders expressed concerns about Trump’s potential return to the White House throughout the presidential race last year, alarmed by his “America First” protectionist rhetoric, threats to impose tariffs on EU goods, criticism of the bloc’s low contribution to NATO defense spending, and calls to change course on the Ukraine conflict, among other things. After congratulating Trump on his election victory in November, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz were nevertheless quick to call on the bloc to act in a united manner in the face of Trump’s return to office.

So far, Trump’s executive actions have not directly targeted the EU. However, this past week he reaffirmed his intention to place “substantial” tariffs on goods from the bloc. Brussels has pledged to respond to these actions “in a proportionate way,” while French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou last week called on the bloc to stand up to Trump and his policies or face being “crushed.” “The US has decided to embark upon an extremely domineering form of politics… and if we don’t do anything, our fate is very simple – we will be dominated. We will be crushed. We will be marginalized,” Bayrou stated.

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Any time the “extreme right” makes this much sense is a good time.

• EU Incapable Of Helping End Ukraine Conflict – AfD Leader (RT)

Alice Weidel, the co-leader of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, has said that the EU and Germany in particular are unable to assist in finding a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict due to being run by incompetent politicians. The AfD wants peace between Russia and Ukraine and is “committed to negotiations,” Weidel said during a campaign event in the town of Neu-Isenburg in central Germany on Saturday. She stressed that Trump “was the only one who actually spoke about peace during his election campaign” last year. “I personally have great hopes that the US, together with Russia, will end this terrible war as quickly as possible,” the AfD co-leader stressed.

According to Weidel, the EU, and Germany in particular, are “unfortunately no longer capable” of delivering peace because “we only have this small group of politicians sitting up there, who do not understand what they are actually talking about. They do not have the training; they do not have the experience.” Berlin should have started “to fight for peace immediately” after the escalation between Moscow and Kiev in February 2022 and hold talks with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky but failed to do so, she argued.

When German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock “refuses to shake hands… that is not how serious foreign policy works,” the AfD co-leader stressed. She appeared to have been referring to when Baerbock refused a handshake with her Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov at a G20 summit in 2023. After his inauguration last week, Trump, who had repeatedly promised to quickly end the fighting between Moscow and Kiev if elected, said he was ready to meet Putin “any time” to find a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict.

The Kremlin replied by saying that the Russian president is also willing to talk to his US counterpart, but stressed that Moscow has not yet been approached by Washington about arranging contact between the two leaders. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio reiterated on Thursday that Trump believes that the fighting “needs to end now. It needs to end to a negotiation.” The AfD, which was established in 2013 and is known for its hardline anti-immigration stance, is currently polling around 20%, ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) at 16% but behind the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) at 31%. The German federal election is scheduled to take place on February 23.

Read more …

“Zelensky is essentially urging Trump to stand fast on the demand that Ukraine be invited into NATO. Of course, such a scenario could easily trigger WW3.”

• Zelensky: Trump Talking To Putin About Ukraine Without Us ‘Very Dangerous’ (ZH)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says that Russia and the United States are already talking about how to wind down the Russia-Ukraine war and this is “very dangerous” without Ukraine’s direct input. He said in an Associated Press interview published Saturday, “They may have their own relations, but talking about Ukraine without us — it is dangerous for everyone.” Zelensky issued this assessment the day after the Trump White House confirmed that discussions at a “general level” are happening with Moscow and that an in-person meeting between presidents will take place ‘soon’. According to an AP summary of Zelensky’s words: “Speaking in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Zelenskyy said Russia does not want to engage in ceasefire talks or to discuss any kind of concessions, which the Kremlin interprets as losing at a time when its troops have the upper hand on the battlefield.

He said U.S. President Donald Trump could bring Russian President Vladimir Putin to the table with the threat of sanctions targeting Russia’s energy and banking system, as well as continued support of the Ukrainian military. “I think these are the closest and most important steps,” he said in the interview in the Ukrainian capital that lasted for more than an hour.” Zelensky did express openness to eventually entering negotiations with Putin, despite current active legislation which forbids entering direct communication with Moscow so long as Putin is head of state. But he emphasized Trump and Kiev should be on the same page first. “I believe that, first and foremost, we (must) hold a meeting with him, and that is important. And that is, by the way, something that everyone in Europe wants,” Zelensky said, describing this would be based on “a common vision of a quick end to the war.”

But importantly, Zelensky defines a key part of this ‘common vision’ as a path to NATO membership. “I really believe that these are the cheapest security guarantees that Ukraine can get, the cheapest for everyone,” he said. Putin has rejected this as a non-starter, and Trump too knows that negotiations would never get off the ground if this is held to. Zelensky continued, after the conversation with Trump, “we should move on to some kind of format of conversation with Russians. And I would like to see the United States of America, Ukraine and the Russians at the negotiating table. … And, to be honest, a European Union voice should also be there. I think it would be fair, effective. But how will it turn out? I don’t know.”

He warned against allowing Putin to take “control” of the war of the narrative, but the reality on the ground especially in the east strongly suggests this has already happened. Zelensky said “It will be a signal that it is not for Russia to decide who should be in NATO and who should not, but for the United States of America to decide. I think this is a great victory for Trump.” Zelensky is essentially urging Trump to stand fast on the demand that Ukraine be invited into NATO. Of course, such a scenario could easily trigger WW3.

Read more …

I think he got his share.

• Zelensky Has No Idea Where Most Of ‘$200 Billion’ In US Aid Went (RT)

Washington has provided Kiev with just over $75 billion in military and other types of assistance, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has claimed, adding that he has no idea where US President Donald Trump’s estimate of $200 billion originated or where it could have vanished. Trump, who has been highly critical of his predecessor Joe Biden’s generosity toward Ukraine, has argued that NATO states and the EU should “equalize” their contributions with Washington’s support. “We are in there for $200 billion more than the EU. I mean, what are we, stupid?” Trump said last month. US Vice President J.D. Vance referenced the figure as early as last July, saying, “We have now spent $200 billion. What is the goal? What are we trying to accomplish?”

In an interview with AP published on Sunday, Zelensky insisted that Ukraine never received even half of that sum. “When it is said that Ukraine received $200 billion to support the army during the war – that’s not true. I don’t know where all that money went. Perhaps it’s true on paper with hundreds of different programs – I won’t argue, and we’re immensely grateful for everything. But in reality, we received about $76 billion. It’s significant aid, but it’s not $200 billion,” Zelensky said. Since 2022, the US Congress has authorized roughly $175 billion for Ukraine, but a significant portion of that funding has reportedly gone to American industries and various US government activities related to the conflict. According to Germany’s Kiel Institute, as of October 2024, the US had allocated approximately $92 billion in financial and military aid to Ukraine, while EU countries and the UK had allocated $131 billion.

Zelensky also insisted that he has seen little actual cash, as more than $70 billion of the aid came in the form of direct military assistance. “There are also many other humanitarian programs I’m uninformed about, except for knowing of their existence. Perhaps the US president’s administration will audit these programs and find additional billions, but I don’t know where those funds went,” he said. Among his first actions upon returning to office, Trump suspended US foreign aid for 90 days to review its alignment with his administration’s objectives, vowing to put “America first.” The cut affected many Kiev-related initiatives, particularly those funded by grants from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Over the weekend, USAID’s official website went offline, and its X account disappeared, amid reports that the White House was considering merging the agency into the State Department. The newly created US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, has reportedly sent inspectors to audit USAID’s activities. “USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die,” Musk wrote on Sunday. In a brief comment the same day, Trump also criticized the agency as being “run by a bunch of radical lunatics and we are getting them out.”

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“..achieve a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East, based on the two-state solution..”

• Arab Nations Reject Trump’s Idea To Relocate Gaza Population (RT)

A group of Arab nations has spoken out against the suggestion by US President Donald Trump that Palestinians from Gaza should be relocated to neighboring Egypt and Jordan. Trump claimed last week that Gaza has been turned into “literally a demolition site” by the fighting between Israel and Palestinian armed group Hamas, and that the best solution is to “just clean out that whole thing.” He vowed to “get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing [for Gaza’s population of 2.3 million] in a different location where I think they could maybe live in peace for a change.” According to the US president, the relocation “could be temporary” or “long term.”

Following a meeting of top diplomats in Cairo on Saturday, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, the Palestinian Authority, and the Arab League issued a joint statement, saying they “firmly rejected… the displacement of Palestinians through direct expulsion or coerced migration.” These actions would “threaten the region’s stability, risk expanding the conflict, and undermine prospects for peace and coexistence among its peoples,” the statement read. The Arab nations said they are looking forward to working with Trump to “achieve a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East, based on the two-state solution” between Israel and the Palestinians.

They also called on the international community to assist with a comprehensive reconstruction plan for Gaza to make sure that the Palestinians remain there. Last week, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi stressed that the relocation of Palestinians “cannot ever be tolerated or allowed.” Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, also expressed his country’s “firm and unwavering” opposition to the move. Shortly after the escalation between Israel and Hamas in October 2023, the previous administration of US President Joe Biden suggested that Egypt should take in the Palestinians from Gaza, but the Arab nations rejected the idea.

Around 47,500 Palestinians have been killed and over 111,500 wounded during the 15 months of Israeli attacks on Gaza, according to the latest data from the enclave’s Health Ministry. UN data suggests that 90% of Gaza’s population has been displaced by the fighting. Israel began its military operation in Gaza in response to a cross-border raid by Hamas, in which around 1,200 people died and 250 others were taken prisoner. A US-brokered ceasefire is currently underway between Israel and Hamas, with prisoner exchanges ongoing. The Israeli authorities say that 79 hostages still remain in Gaza, 35 of whom are presumed dead.

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An adventure.

• Musk Urges Astronauts To Lead Mars Investigation (RT)

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has called for astronauts to be sent to Mars to investigate a peculiar square structure observed on the planet’s surface that has recently generated much public discussion. On Friday, Musk responded to a post on X by podcast host Joe Rogan, who shared images from NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor showing a square-like formation on Mars. “We should send astronauts to Mars to investigate!” the US-based billionaire wrote. The photo was captured back in November 2001 but has recently gone viral on social media. The square formation has sparked discussions about its origin, with some speculating about it being artificial in nature.

However, similar formations have been observed on Mars before. For example, the “Face on Mars” in the Cydonia region, initially thought to be artificial, was later shown through higher-resolution imaging to be a natural landform. Such interest in anomalies on the Martian surface aligns with Musk’s long-standing ambition to colonize the planet. He has previously emphasized the importance of making life multiplanetary, stating that becoming a spacefaring civilization is essential for the future of humanity. SpaceX has been actively developing its Starship spacecraft, which is designed to carry both crew and cargo to far-flung destinations including Mars.

In December, Musk set a potential timeline for his company’s space missions to the Red Planet. “Uncrewed Starships landing on Mars in 2 years, perhaps with crewed versions passing near Mars, and crewed Starships heading there in 4 years are all possible,” he wrote on X. He has also stated that he would want to see “direct, rather than representative, democracy” on Mars if it’s ever settled by humans. He has previously outlined plans to send a million people to Mars by 2050 using a fleet of Starships. US President Donald Trump announced in his inaugural address plans to send American astronauts to Mars, stating: “We will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars.”

Read more …

Change the world.

• Rosatom’s Quantum Breakthrough Set to Transform AI, Healthcare and More (Sp.)

A quantum research project conducted under the auspices of the Russian nuclear corporation Rosatom is poised to cement Moscow’s place as one of world’s technological powerhouses. Russia’s development of 50-qubit ion-based and rubidium neutral atom quantum computers in 2024 marks a key step in its quantum project roadmap. The next phase is going to be unveiled in Moscow on February 8. Russia’s accomplishments were made possible by a unique team of researchers and engineers of over 1,000 specialists, including about 600 scientists. By 2030, Rosatom intends to build a viable quantum industry in Russia, which entails industrial-scale manufacturing of quantum computers.

Quantum computing is expected to benefit Russia in the following areas:
• Healthcare and pharmaceuticals: development of new medicines thanks to the ability to model complex molecules, and prediction of future epidemics.
• Transportation and logistics: charting optimal transport routes and prevention of traffic congestion.
• Financial sector: minimization of risks and more accurate evaluation of credit ratings of various entities.
• Artificial intelligence: boosting machine learning, image recognition and data processing capabilities of AIs.

Read more …

So last year.

• CBS To Provide Unedited Version Of Harris ‘Word Salad’ Interview (RT)

CBS News has agreed to provide the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) with the unedited version of its controversial interview with former Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. The interview is at the center of US President Donald Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit alleging that the network deceptively edited the interview to benefit Harris in the run-up to the 2024 election. The scandal erupted in October when CBS aired two versions of the interview with Harris. A preview version that aired on ‘Face the Nation’ included a question about the Middle East conflict, to which Harris gave a long and convoluted answer. The other full-length version shown on ‘60 Minutes’ featured a much clearer and more concise answer.

Just days ahead of the election, Trump lodged a $10 billion lawsuit against CBS, calling the interview “word salad” and accusing the network of “deceitful, deceptive manipulation of news.” The action also claims that CBS tried “to tip the scales in favor of the Democratic Party.” On Wednesday, as part of the legal proceedings, the FCC, under Trump appointee Brendan Carr, sent a letter to CBS requesting the “full, unedited transcript and camera feeds” of the Harris interview. On Friday, CBS agreed to hand over the data, stating, “We are working to comply with that inquiry as we are legally compelled to do.”

The network has admitted that it edited the Harris interview, but dismissed claims that it attempted to doctor it. “Same question. Same answer. But a different portion of the response. When we edit any interview, whether a politician, an athlete, or movie star, we strive to be clear, accurate and on point,” CBS said. However, the New York Times reported on Thursday, citing sources, that CBS’ parent company, Paramount Global, is discussing a potential lawsuit settlement with Trump’s legal team. Some executives reportedly believe that the deal could improve the chances of obtaining regulatory approval for Paramount’s planned merger with Skydance Media, which falls under the FCC’s purview. The potential deal has reportedly caused concern among CBS reporters, with one unnamed correspondent telling CNN that “Trump’s lawsuit was a joke, but if we settle, we become the laughingstock.”

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It’s my turn now.

• Exhausted Media Begs Trump To Take A Day Off (BBee)

Only one week into the new administration and struggling to keep up with the constant flow of things being accomplished, the exhausted news media collectively begged President Donald Trump to take a day off. Journalists and broadcasters who are not used to working quite this hard urgently asked Trump’s staff if they could please ask him to just pause for one single, solitary day. “Please… please… just let up for a second,” said a visibly disheveled Jake Tapper. “The executive orders, the trips to disaster-ravaged areas of the country, the manhandling of foreign leaders and making them do things that help the United States… it’s impossible to keep up this pace. We’re not used to working this much. Why is a president doing so much anyway?”

Other members of the media were just as adamant that Trump needed to take a day off. “What, he’s just going to keep, like… doing stuff? Like every day?” asked CBS News anchor Margaret Brennan. “I’m starting to wonder if Trump knows anything about being president. He clearly doesn’t if he thinks it’s okay to be accomplishing important tasks every day. He should be taking our well-being into account. We’re not used to this. All the… working.” At publishing time, several members of the White House press pool had reportedly been rushed to the hospital to be treated for exhaustion after passing out from being overworked.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Baron
https://twitter.com/i/status/1886223104919339078

 

 

Get rich

 

 

Mammogram

 

 

Eagle
https://twitter.com/i/status/1885995199010152795

 

 

Chains

 

 

Anemone

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle January 6 2023

Jan 062023
 
 January 6, 2023  Posted by at 9:42 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  93 Responses »


Dorothea Lange One nation indivisible. San Francisco 1942

 

• Putin Calls for Ceasefire, Ukraine Rejects, Biden Pushes for More War (Celente)
• White House Rejects Putin’s Christmas Truce As But A “Cynical Ploy” (ZH)
• Ukraine Warns Germany Of ‘Russians Outside Berlin’ (RT)
• US Won’t Fulfill Ukrainian Request – WaPo (RT)
• 2022: The World As We Knew It Ended. Decades Of Conflict Lie Ahead (Timofeev)
• Russian “New Mobilization Process” For Major Offensive Imminent? (ZH)
• Arrest Of Russian Outlet’s Journalist Is Blow To Press Freedom – Moscow (RT)
• The Coup We Never Knew (Hanson)
• The Ginni Thomas Investigation Ends Without a Mention in J6 Report (Turley)
• Trump Announces Plan To Destroy The Drug Cartels With The US Military (PM)
• Sotomayor Felt “Sense of Despair” Because Babies Would be Protected (LN)
• These Doctors Pushed Masking, Lockdowns on Twitter. But They Don’t Exist (SFS)
• Swiss Organization To Provide Safe Blood Transfusions From Unvaxxed (NN)
• What Caused Damar Hamlin’s Cardiac Arrest? Experts Weigh In (CHD)

 

 

 

 

Have the vaccines saved lives?

 

 

 

 

 

 

EV

 

 

 

 

 

 

“..the West wants to destroy Russia, so it provided Ukraine with more weapons than it could ever imagine and Zelensky’s goals grew..”

• Putin Calls for Ceasefire, Ukraine Rejects, Biden Pushes for More War (Celente)

Ukraine rejected Russian President Vladimir Putin’s call for a unilateral, 36-hour ceasefire to mark the celebration of Orthodox Christmas, calling Putin “hypocritical” for even suggesting laying down arms, albeit briefly. Mikhailo Podolyak, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s top adviser, took to Twitter and said Russian troops must withdraw from all occupied territories, and only then will they have a “temporary truce.” “Keep hypocrisy to yourself,” he concluded. Reuters reported that the Kremlin released the statement from Putin calling for the truce after a conversation with Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church.

“Proceeding from the fact that a large number of citizens professing Orthodoxy live in the areas of hostilities, we call on the Ukrainian side to declare a ceasefire and allow them to attend services on Christmas Eve, as well as on Christmas Day,” Putin said, according to the report. Needless to say, Washington continued to promote war. President Joe Biden said the ceasefire was an effort by Putin to find breathing room. “He was ready to bomb hospitals and nurseries and churches” on 25 December and on New Year’s Day. I think he’s trying to find some oxygen,” he said. Annalena Baerbock, the German foreign minister, said if Putin was sincere with his peace goals, he would withdraw troops. “A so-called ceasefire brings neither freedom nor security to people living in daily fear under Russian occupation,” Baerbock tweeted, according to Al Jazeera.

Ukraine’s position has been clear since the outbreak of war: all Russian troops must leave the country before any negotiated settlement can occur. But the West wants to destroy Russia, so it provided Ukraine with more weapons than it could ever imagine and Zelensky’s goals grew. Kyiv now wants Crimea and said it will not negotiate until Russian leaders face war-crime trials, which will never happen. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, spoke with Putin on the phone Thursday and called for the ceasefire. He said “calls for peace and negotiations should be supported by a unilateral ceasefire and a vision for a fair solution.” Putin, again, indicated that he is willing to negotiate for peace, but he will not part with any new territory.

Zelensky, meanwhile, warned that he expects a major Russian offensive after Putin mobilized hundreds of thousands of troops. “We have no doubt that the current masters of Russia will throw everything they have left and everyone they can muster to try to turn the tide of the war and at least postpone their defeat,” Zelensky said. “We have to disrupt this Russian scenario. We are preparing for this. The terrorists must lose.”

Read more …

NATO wants to keep up the fight.

• White House Rejects Putin’s Christmas Truce As But A “Cynical Ploy” (ZH)

Update(1553ET): The White House has rejected Putin’s call for a Christmas truce in Ukraine. The Russian leader earlier in the day ordered a unilateral 36-hour ceasefire for his forces starting Friday, which will still apparently be in effect despite Ukraine rejecting it. Presumably Russian forces have been told to cease firing along the line of contact starting on Orthodox Christmas Eve day (Friday), unless they are fired upon from the Ukrainian side. The Biden administration cast it as a “cynical ploy” in order for Russian forces to regroup. Biden himself said the ceasefire proposal isn’t “serious” – as The Hill cites of the president’s words: President Biden said Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s call for a temporary, Christmas ceasefire is an effort to “find some oxygen,” dismissing that the Kremlin is serious about finding an off ramp for its assault against Ukraine.

The president said he was “reluctant to respond to anything Putin says,” but characterized the Kremlin as cynically attacking civilians over the December holidays. “He was ready to bomb hospitals and nurseries and church’s on the 25th and New Years — I mean, I think he’s trying to find some oxygen,” Biden added. At the State Department, spokesman Ned Price called Putin’s Christmas truce declaration a “cynical ploy… to rest, to refit, to regroup, and ultimately to re-attack, to re-attack with potentially even more vengeance, even more brutality, even more lethality, if they had their way.”

The majority of the populations in both countries are adherents of the Orthodox Church, with Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox Christians traditionally celebrating Christmas on Jan. 7th. Germany was earlier in the day among the first Western countries to reject Putin’s announcement as inauthentic. And yet, ironically enough, calls have rang out from the West for months since the start of the conflict for Russian troops to cease fighting. One would think that any pause in fighting, however temporary, would be welcomed by the West – but alas not.

Update (1109ET): Within a mere hour after President Putin declared there would be a 36-hour ceasefire for all Russian forces along the line of contact in observation of Orthodox Christmas, Zelensky’s office has issued a firm rejection, calling it “hypocrisy” and demanding that all Russian troops must leave occupied territory immediately. Zelensky advisor Mykhailo Podolyak announced on Twitter, that Russian forces… must leave the occupied territories – only then will it have a “temporary truce”. Keep hypocrisy to yourself. He had earlier responded to Russian Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Kirill by calling the proposed Christmas ceasefire “a trap”. Ukrainian officials are also calling this a ploy for Russian forces to regroup and to take the momentum out of the Ukrainian army counteroffensive, which has been making some gains of late.

Update (1015ET): Shortly after Erdogan spoke with Putin this morning, the Russian leader has ordered a temporary cease-fire in Ukraine Friday and Saturday to mark Orthodox Christmas. The statement from the Kremlin cites earlier appeal from Patriarch Kirill for ceasefire over the holiday. Russian Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Kirill had previously said in a statement posted to the church’s official website: “I, Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and of all Rus, appeal to all parties involved in the internecine conflict with a call to cease fire and establish a Christmas truce from 12:00 on January 6 to 00:00 on January 7 so that Orthodox people can attend services on Christmas Eve and on the day of the Nativity of Christ.” [..] Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas on Jan. 7th, and is a major holiday just as in the West during December (the Orthodox Church’s Julian calendar December 25 falls on January 7 on the West’s Gregorian calendar).

Bloomberg has meanwhile hinted at a negative response from Ukrainian leaders, given their initial reaction to Patriarch Kirill’s Christmas truce call: Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his forces to cease fighting in Ukraine for 36 hours starting Friday at noon, Moscow time, in what appeared to be a rare sign of conciliation in an invasion that’s heading for its second year. The Kremlin said Putin gave the order Thursday for Russian Orthodox Christmas. It follows an appeal by the patriarch of that church, which has close ties to the Kremlin. Ukrainian officials denounced that as a trap. Kyiv has demanded Russia remove its troops from Ukraine as a condition for any ceasefire.

Read more …

Almost funny.

• Ukraine Warns Germany Of ‘Russians Outside Berlin’ (RT)

Should Germany fail to provide Ukraine with tanks, it will soon have to use them to defend its own capital from advancing Russian troops, Alexey Danilov, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, warned on Wednesday. Speaking to Ukrainian TV, Danilov took a swipe at Germany’s leadership, particularly at Chancellor Olaf Scholz, criticizing him for refusing to send Kiev modern Leopard 2 battle tanks. If Scholz “wants the Germans to deploy German tanks to fight off the Russians outside of Berlin and Stuttgart, he could continue this game, conducting sociological surveys on whether they need to give us tanks or not,” he said. The official also highlighted the significance of the Ukraine conflict for Europe, adding that it poses “huge challenges” to the region.

“Those countries that understand that help us at 150% capacity. Those countries that are slowly wising up about the need to tackle this issue, they also started to act,” Danilov stated. While Berlin has been providing Kiev with large amounts of weaponry, it has been reluctant to supply it with modern Leopard 2 battle tanks. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had earlier explained that because no other country had made equivalent weaponry available to Ukraine, Berlin should not be the first one to do so. A December YouGov poll also showed that 45% of Germans do not want to send Leopard 2 tanks to Kiev, with another 33% saying they were in favor of such a step. Ukrainian officials have repeatedly voiced discontent over Germany’s stance on the matter, with Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba saying last month that Kiev does not understand why Germany is sending artillery but not heavy armor.

On Monday, Michael Mueller, who sits on the Bundestag’s Foreign Policy Committee, told the German media that Berlin would continue to refrain from any “ill-considered unilateral moves,” especially in the context of arms shipments. Such deliveries are possible only “in coordination with our NATO partners,” he said, adding that the US-led military bloc wants to avoid becoming a direct party to the Ukraine conflict. Moscow has long warned Kiev backers against sending weapons to Ukraine, arguing that it would only prolong the hostilities. President Vladimir Putin also accused the West of turning Ukraine into “a colony,” and using its people as “cannon fodder, a battering ram against Russia.”

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M1 Abrams main battle tank is scrap metal: “..tanks’ heavy fuel consumption and propensity to break down make them unsuitable for the Ukrainian military.”

• US Won’t Fulfill Ukrainian Request – WaPo (RT)

The US will not send M1 Abrams main battle tanks to Ukraine, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday, citing officials. Despite repeated requests from the Ukrainian government, no NATO power has donated Western-designed battle tanks thus far. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the official said that the Abrams tanks’ heavy fuel consumption and propensity to break down make them unsuitable for the Ukrainian military. One of the heaviest main battle tanks in service worldwide, the M1 Abrams weighs in at 60 tons, with the latest M1A2 variant increasing this heft to more than 73 tons. An M1 Abrams tank costs more than $450 per mile in fuel and repairs, according to a 1991 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report adjusted for inflation.

The Abrams’ poor reliability was noted by the GAO. After a decade in service with the US military, the report stated that the average M1 Abrams needs its track replaced after as little as 710 miles, with engines typically suffering catastrophic “blowouts” after 350 hours of operation. However, the US Army insists that the latest M1A2 variant, which rolled off production lines in 2020, “is the most reliable Abrams tank ever produced.” Ukraine has repeatedly requested delivery of the American-made behemoths, portraying them as crucial to its war effort. Mikhail Podoliak, an advisor to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, put them on his “Christmas wishlist” in a social media post last month, while Zelensky has himself repeatedly asked the US and its allies for tanks since March.

Zelensky and his officials have singled out Germany in particular, asking Berlin for Marder infantry fighting vehicles and Leopard main battle tanks on multiple occasions. Germany has thus far rebuffed these requests, with lawmaker and Bundestag Foreign Policy Committee member Michael Mueller telling reporters this week that sending the tanks could trigger “an escalation that none of us want to imagine.” France on Wednesday became the first NATO member to announce the transfer of Western-made “light tanks” to Ukraine, although the vehicles in question – six-wheeled AMX-10 units – are outdated, and technically closer to armored fighting vehicles than tanks such as the Abrams or Leopard.

The French AMX-10s are similar in weight to the US-made Bradley Fighting Vehicle, with both coming in at less than 30 tons. US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that the transfer of an unspecified number of Bradleys is currently being discussed in the White House. Russia has repeatedly warned the West against arming Kiev, saying that doing so will only serve to prolong the conflict, and risks making Western nations de-facto participants.

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“..It remains to be seen if the next cycle will not be the last for mankind..”

• 2022: The World As We Knew It Ended. Decades Of Conflict Lie Ahead (Timofeev)

In 2022, the remnants of the ‘end of history’ era finally became a thing of the past. However, there has not been a return to the Cold War either. Russian policy is mainly concerned about security interests. It is not derived from ideology, although it does include components of the identity of ‘the Russian world’, as well as historical motives for opposing Nazism. Russia does not offer a global ideological alternative comparable to liberalism – nor has China yet taken such initiatives. The end of the ‘end of history’ is notable for several other details. Firstly, a major power has risked giving up the benefits of the ‘global world’ overnight. Historians will argue about whether Moscow anticipated such harsh sanctions and the departure of hundreds of foreign companies so quickly. However, it is clear that Russia is vigorously adapting to the new realities and is in no hurry to return to US-centric globalization.

Secondly, Western countries have embarked on a very tough ‘purge’ of Russian assets abroad. Overnight, their jurisdictions ceased to be ‘safe havens’ where the ‘rule of law’ is followed. Now it is politics that calls the shots and Russia is the only harbor to which its citizens can return to relative peace. Stereotypes about the ‘stability and security’ of the West are breaking down. Of course, they are unlikely to begin a similar purge of other assets there. But looking at the Russians, outside investors are wondering whether they should hedge their risks. Thirdly, it turned out that in the West, they might face not only asset stripping, but outright discrimination on the grounds of nationality. Thousands of Russians ‘fleeing’ the ‘bloody regime’ have suddenly faced rejection and contempt. Others trying to prove that they are even bigger ‘Russophobes’ than their host partners are running ahead of the anti-Russian propaganda train. However, this does not guarantee that the stubborn dogmatists will embrace them.

The conflict between Russia and the West is likely to drag on for decades, regardless of how the conflict in Ukraine ends. In Europe, Russia will play the role of North Korea, while possessing much greater capabilities. Whether Ukraine has the strength, the will, and resources to become a European South Korea is a big question. Conflict between Russia and the West will lead to a strengthening of China’s role as an alternative financial center and source of modernization. A stronger China will only accelerate its rivalry with the US and its allies. The ‘end of history’ has ended with a return to its usual course. One of these is the collapse of the world order as a result of large-scale conflicts between centers of power. It remains to be seen if the next cycle will not be the last for mankind, given the risks of an open military clash between the great powers with a subsequent escalation into full-scale nuclear conflict.

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Ukraine makes up stories and the west duly repeats them.

• Russian “New Mobilization Process” For Major Offensive Imminent? (ZH)

Ukraine says it’s bracing for a major new Russian offensive, which will involve a large influx of new ground forces at a time Russian forces are under pressure and reportedly lacking enough manpower to maintain front lines, but did not give a timeline for the expected push. In fresh statements widely circulated Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia is planning a major “new offensive” which will involve a planned “new mobilization processes.” He suggested the new mobilization is imminent given recent Russian battlefield losses in the east, which includes the devastating strike on a barracks in the city of Makiivka, resulting an a huge Russian troop death toll.

“We have no doubt that the current masters of Russia will throw everything they have left and everyone they can muster to try to turn the tide of the war and at least postpone their defeat,” Zelensky said. “We have to disrupt this Russian scenario. We are preparing for this. The terrorists must lose.” Kiev had begun issuing these warnings of a major escalation by Moscow shortly after last month Putin referred to the Ukraine special operation as a “war” for the first time. As the The Hill also details: Some Ukrainian officials also warned last month about a potential new Russian offensive in January or February, including Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, a top commander in the Ukrainian army who told The Economist that Russia is preparing some 200,000 troops and could have another go at Kyiv.

Previously, Ukraine’s defense minister Oleksii Reznikov also issued a New Year message, and in it appealed to the Russian people, warning that Putin his about to declare martial law and close borders to men, in preparation for a new wave of mobilization. Reznikov called for Russians to resist these efforts and stand for peace in the video address… Within Russia, public opinion appears increasingly divided on how military and Kremlin leadership is executing the war, particularly in the wake of the Makiivka barracks attack, which left up to hundreds of Russian conscripts killed. Hawks within Russia in the meantime have continued pushing for a more muscular escalation in order to achieve the military objectives laid out since the start of the invasion. Others are calling for both sides to implement a Christmas truce this weekend in observation of Orthodox Christmas (Jan.7 according to the Julian calendar).

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“Just last month, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia protested French President Emmanuel Macron’s proposal to offer Russia security guarantees..”

• Arrest Of Russian Outlet’s Journalist Is Blow To Press Freedom – Moscow (RT)

The arrest of Sputnik Lithuania’s editor-in-chief is a violation of international norms of freedom of speech and the rights of journalists, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday. She called on international organizations to react appropriately to Latvia’s “overreach” in arresting Marat Kasem. “Riga has once again demonstrated that for it such values of a democratic society as media pluralism and the rights of journalists are nothing more than empty phrases,” Zakharova said in a statement. Earlier, the spokeswoman shared a video on her Telegram channel of Kasem speaking about the problems he was facing, noting that he had complained for years about pressure and mistreatment at the hands of governments in the Baltic states.

All the international organizations concerned with freedom of speech, who spent years ignoring Kasem’s safety concerns, should “finally justify their existence” and intervene, Zakharova argued. “It is not just a duty, but an obligation of the international community to do everything so these overreaching regimes would return to following the law,” she said. Kasem is a Latvian citizen, but has lived and worked in Moscow for the past several years. He returned to Latvia on family business just before New Year’s Eve. On Thursday, the authorities in Riga ordered his arrest and charged him with espionage and violating EU sanctions against Russia. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years behind bars. His lawyer has not yet been given the case files, and her request to release Kasem on bail has been denied. He is currently being held in Riga’s Central jail.

Moscow has complained about the ongoing persecution of several journalists in Baltic states back in 2021, prior to the conflict in Ukraine escalating. Kasem had been detained in Vilnius and deported from Lithuania as a “threat to national security” in 2019. His colleague Valentin Rozentsov, editor-in-chief of Sputnik Latvia, was detained and interrogated in Riga in 2018. The former Soviet republics have adopted a hardline stance on the conflict in Ukraine. Just last month, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia protested French President Emmanuel Macron’s proposal to offer Russia security guarantees, and demanded no exemptions on the ban on Russian fertilizer exports, despite EU concerns about potential famine in Africa.

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Lots of things changed and somehow became normal.

• The Coup We Never Knew (Hanson)

Did someone or something seize control of the United States? What happened to the U.S. border? Where did it go? Who erased it? Why and how did 5 million people enter our country illegally? Did Congress secretly repeal our immigration laws? Did Joe Biden issue an executive order allowing foreign nationals to walk across the border and reside in the United States as they pleased? Since when did money not have to be paid back? Who insisted that the more dollars the federal government printed, the more prosperity would follow? When did America embrace zero interest? Why do we believe $30 trillion in debt is no big deal? When did clean-burning, cheap, and abundant natural gas become the equivalent to dirty coal?

How did prized natural gas that had granted America’s wishes of energy self-sufficiency, reduced pollution, and inexpensive electricity become almost overnight a pariah fuel whose extraction was a war against nature? Which lawmakers, which laws, which votes of the people declared natural gas development and pipelines near criminal? Was it not against federal law to swarm the homes of Supreme Court justices, to picket and to intimidate their households in efforts to affect their rulings? How then with impunity did bullies surround the homes of Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, John Roberts, and Clarence Thomas—furious over a court decision on abortion? How could these mobs so easily throng our justices’ homes, with placards declaring “Off with their d—s”?

Since when did Americans create a government Ministry of Truth? And on whose orders did the FBI contract private news organizations to censor stories it did not like and writers whom it feared? How did we wake up one morning to new customs of impeaching a president over a phone call? Of the speaker of the House tearing up the State of the Union address on national television? Of barring congressional members from serving on their assigned congressional committees? When did we assume the FBI had the right to subvert the campaign of a candidate it disliked? Was it legal suddenly for one presidential candidate to hire a foreign ex-spy to subvert the campaign of her rival?

Was some state or federal law passed that allowed biological males to compete in female sports? Did Congress enact such a law? Did the Supreme Court guarantee that biological male students could shower in gym locker rooms with biological women? Were women ever asked to redefine the very sports they had championed? When did the government pass a law depriving Americans of their freedom during a pandemic? In America can health officials simply cancel rental contracts or declare loan payments in suspension? How could it become illegal for mom-and-pop stores to sell flowers or shoes during a quarantine but not so for Walmart or Target?

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The emptiness expands.

• The Ginni Thomas Investigation Ends Without a Mention in J6 Report (Turley)

The Jan. 6 committee issued its long-awaited report at 2022’s end, with the expected breathless punditry. Spoiler alert: It turns out the culprit of this “whodunit” was … wait for it … Donald Trump. What’s more interesting is the dog that did not bark. In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s story “Silver Blaze,” the local inspector asks Sherlock Holmes, “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?” Holmes responds, “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.” When the inspector objects, “The dog did nothing in the night-time,” Holmes replies, “That was the curious incident.” In the 895-page report, the “curious incident” is the lack of any reference to Ginni Thomas, Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife.

For months, members, the media and an army of pundits hammered away at the “smoking gun” texts Thomas sent to Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows and others calling the election stolen and demanding challenges to certifying the electoral votes. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) was the first member of Congress to call for Justice Thomas to be impeached over his wife’s 29 messages. Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) called for Thomas to resign immediately as a “corrupt jurist.” Former Sen. Barbara Boxer and others joined these calls. (Boxer was particularly ironic since she used the same underlying federal law to challenge the certification of George W. Bush’s election.) Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) demanded an investigation. On the committee itself, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) fueled the frenzy and demanded subpoenas for both Thomases.

The media also went into hyperbolic overload. Liberal sites demanded Thomas be impeached, citing “watchdogs” who turned out to be the same crowd that has long denounced the justice. MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan tweeted, “I have a question for Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats: Why haven’t you impeached Clarence Thomas yet?” CNN and MSNBC commentator Tristan Snell tweeted that the couple had to be subpoenaed: “At best, they are material fact witnesses. At worst, they are co-conspirators to be charged with seditious conspiracy.” Professor Laurence Tribe (who declared Trump should be charged with attempted murder) also demanded the justice and his wife be subpoenaed. MSNBC’s Zeeshan Aleem declared in June that the scandal “keeps getting worse” but “the silver lining is that it will likely intensify calls for overhauling the high court, and help strip more people of the illusion that the Supreme Court is an apolitical branch of government and a neutral arbiter of the law.”

Activists like Sarah Lipton-Lubet, Take Back the Court Action Fund executive director, declared that “there’s much more to the story of Ginni Thomas’ participation in the January 6 attack that the House Select Committee and the American public deserve to know.” Yet it turns out what we knew was largely all we needed to know. There was not “much more to the story.” The entire Ginni Thomas scandal merited nary a mention in the massive report. Indeed, it doesn’t appear the committee had anything more than what we knew when the controversy began. The texts were never denied, and they weren’t surprising since Ginni Thomas was publicly supporting Trump and his claims. She was willing, moreover, to answer the committee’s questions voluntarily.

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Something’s not going right.

• Trump Announces Plan To Destroy The Drug Cartels With The US Military (PM)

Former President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he would order the US military to declare cartels as enemy combatants if he were to be reelected president. Trump said that he would deploy the Navy and Special Forces to defend the security of the Western hemisphere. Trump made the announcement as President Joe Biden prepares to make his first trip to the southern border, after having previously said that there were “more important” things to deal with. “The drug cartels are waging war on America—and it’s now time for America to wage war on the cartels,” President Trump said in his announcement. “The drug cartels and their allies in the Biden administration have the blood of countless millions on their hands. Millions and millions of families and people are being destroyed. When I am back in the White House, the drug kingpins and vicious traffickers will never sleep soundly again.”

A statement from Trump lays out an action plan that he says will “destroy the drug cartels,” which includes steps such as:
• “Restore all Trump border policies and fully secure the border”
• “Deploy all necessary military assets, including the US Navy, to impose a full naval embargo on the cartels, to ensure they cannot use our region’s waters to traffic illicit drugs to the US”
• “Order the Department of Defense to make appropriate use of special forces, cyber warfare, and other covert and overt actions to inflict maximum damage on cartel leadership, infrastructure, and operations”
• “Designate the major drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations”
• “Cut off the cartels’ access to the global financial system”
• “Get full cooperation of neighboring governments to dismantle the cartels, or else fully expose the bribes and corruption that protect these criminal networks”
• “Ask Congress to ensure drug smugglers and traffickers can receive the Death Penalty”

“Joe Biden has spent the last two years dismantling the southern border,” the statement says. “Biden’s Open Borders policies are killing innocent Americans, ravaging American communities, enriching the cartels, and destabilizing large parts of Mexico and Latin America.” Trump’s statement points out that since Biden took office, 200,000 Americans have died from drug overdoses, with hundreds of thousands of pounds of fentanyl, heroin, meth, cocaine, and other illicit narcotics “pouring across our wide-open border and into American communities.” Enough fentanyl was seized at the border last year to kill every single American. “BOTTOM LINE,” Trump’s statement ends, “Biden has destroyed the border—President Trump will destroy the cartels.”

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From Abortion

• Sotomayor Felt “Sense of Despair” Because Babies Would be Protected (LN)

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor expressed a “sense of despair” and sadness Wednesday about recent decisions by the conservative-majority court, including the Dobbs v. Jackson abortion case. Sotomayor and two other justices dissented in the historic June ruling, which overturned Roe v. Wade and began allowing laws to protect unborn babies from abortion again. Research estimates at least 10,000 unborn babies were saved from abortions just in the first two months. Speaking at the Association of American Law Schools’ annual meeting in San Diego, Sotomayor said she feels “deeply sad” about the new direction of the court, according to Reuters. “I did have a sense of despair about the direction my court was going,” the Obama appointee said.

Although she did not mention the Dobbs case specifically, Sotomayor talked about feeling “shell-shocked” and “deeply sad” about recent rulings, adding: “It’s not an option to fall into despair. I have to get up and keep fighting,” Reuters reports. Sotomayor would have upheld Roe and continued to force states to legalize killing unborn babies for any reason up to viability, but she was overruled. Some of her arguments against Dobbs were based on false and misleading claims by the pro-abortion movement and have been debunked by researchers and doctors. The Dobbs decision may have been the most monumental ruling by the Supreme Court in decades. For nearly 50 years under Roe, American abortion laws were among the most extreme and permissive in the world.

Just a few other countries, including China and North Korea, allow elective abortions up to birth, as Roe did. As a result, more than 63 million unborn babies were legally aborted in the U.S. Now, because of Dobbs, state and local lawmakers may pass legislation to protect unborn babies again. Already 14 states are enforcing laws that limit or ban abortions and eight more are fighting in court to do the same. In November, voters also elected more pro-life lawmakers to their state legislatures in several states, paving the way for even more protections. Despite her pro-abortion leanings, Sotomayor recently did defend her conservative colleague Justice Clarence Thomas from unfounded leftist attacks, saying she knows he “cares about people.” Thomas joined the majority in Dobbs.

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Whatever.

• These Doctors Pushed Masking, Lockdowns on Twitter. But They Don’t Exist (SFS)

Last month, Dr. Robert Honeyman lost their sister to Covid. They wrote about it on Twitter and received dozens of condolences, over 4,000 retweets and 43,000 likes. Exactly one month later, on Dec. 12, Honeyman wrote that another tragedy had befallen their family. “Sad to announce that my husband has entered a coma after being in hospital with Covid. The doctor is unsure if he will come out,” they tweeted. “This year has been the toughest of my life losing my sister to this virus. This is the first time in my life I don’t see light at the end of the tunnel.” Again, the condolences and well-wishes rolled in. But there was a problem: Honeyman wasn’t real.

The transgender “Doctor of Sociology and Feminist studies” with a “keen interest in poetry” who used they/them pronouns was, in fact, a stock photo described on DepositPhotos, a royalty-free image site, as “Smiling happy, handsome latino man outside—headshot portrait.” Their supposedly comatose husband, Dr. Patrick C. Honeyman, was also fake. His Twitter photo had been stolen from an insurance professional in Wayne, Indiana. The two fake doctors, whose accounts urged extreme caution about Covid-19, were part of a network of at least four fake accounts that touted their ties to the LGBTQ+ community, vocally advocated for mask-wearing and social distancing, and dished out criticism to those they felt were not taking the pandemic seriously.

The Honeymans could not be reached for comment, as they do not exist. At publication time, Robert Honeyman’s account was no longer active. The fake doctors were uncovered by Joshua Gutterman Tranen, a self-described “gay writer” pursuing a master’s of fine arts at Bennington College. He saw Robert Honeyman’s tweet about their husband being in a coma, noticed people he followed also followed them, and thought that they might be part of the LGBTQ+ academic community. But after 10 minutes of googling, Gutterman Tranen concluded that Robert Honeyman’s photo was a stock image and their biography stretched boundaries of believability: an academic who left no traces on academic websites and had lost two family members to Covid in late 2022, despite masking and distancing.

The character looked like “liberal Mad Libs,” Gutterman Tranen said. “I’m a self-identified leftist, and I understand that people have a lot of different identities, but it felt concocted in the lab about how many identities and horrible experiences can we put on one person,” he said.

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“..Della Pietra has contacted hundreds of clinics all over Europe, all of which still don’t allow people “the human right of free blood choice.”

• Swiss Organization To Provide Safe Blood Transfusions From Unvaxxed (NN)

An organization in Switzerland called Safe Blood Donation has been set up to provide people all over the world with safe blood transfusions exclusively from people who remain unvaccinated against the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19). The organization was founded in late 2022 by Swiss naturopath George Della Pietra. According to the group’s website, the group’s goal is to provide people all over the world with a way to receive life-saving blood transfusions while refusing to take the vaccines developed against COVID-19. “Be it an emergency, a scheduled operation or because you need regular transfusions for other medical reasons. This is where Safe Blood Donation comes into play as an intermediary,” reads a statement on the organization’s website.

The group will essentially act as a middleman to connect people all over the world with medical partners who are willing to accept blood donations and provide blood transfusions to people with health needs, but are hesitant to go to hospitals where they will almost certainly receive blood from vaccinated individuals. Della Pietra created his organization due to the release of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines causing disputes all over the world over blood treatments and transfusions. Specifically, people who are skeptical of the benefits that come with taking the experimental vaccines and doesn’t want their body tainted by the unsafe products. [..] Della Pietra has contacted hundreds of clinics all over Europe, all of which still don’t allow people “the human right of free blood choice.”

Furthermore, dozens of clinics he contacted have all refused to become a partner of the new organization. Some of these clinics are sympathetic, but claimed they do not want to be mentioned for fear of reprisals from the mainstream medical community. The founder further noted that his main goal is not to run Safe Blood Donation as a blood bank, noting that “this is not possible at the moment” due to legal concerns, but to act as a quick referral service “to match blood donors and recipients” who are then sent to a medical partner’s clinic where the safe, unvaccinated blood transfusion will be handled. In return for providing people with this service, members are also urged to “make themselves available as blood donors” for other people looking for unvaccinated blood transfusions.

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“..in all cases there has been “airtight privacy” about whether they were vaccinated and what their diagnosis was..”

• What Caused Damar Hamlin’s Cardiac Arrest? Experts Weigh In (CHD)

Damar Hamlin’s sudden collapse on live TV during Monday night’s NFL game triggered an avalanche of media coverage, with experts weighing in on what might have caused the 24-year-old player’s cardiac arrest after what appeared to be a routine tackle. Some news outlets quickly concluded Hamlin’s heart attack most likely was caused by commotio cordis, a rare phenomenon that occurs when a small and extremely fast-moving projectile — such as a baseball, hockey puck or lacrosse ball — strikes the chest in a precise location, disrupting the heart’s rhythm. The condition affects about 10-20 people per year, usually teenage boys. Most mainstream media reports rejected the theory that Hamlin’s cardiac arrest might be linked to COVID-19 vaccines, using terms such as “far-right,” “vile,” “anti-vaxxer” and “conspiracy theorists.”

However, Dr. Peter McCullough told “Good Morning CHD” host Aimee Villella McBride why he believes the vaccines can’t be ruled out. McCullough, an internist, cardiologist, epidemiologist and leading expert on COVID-19 treatment, explained the possible role of the vaccines in cardiac arrest and other heart injuries among athletes. He explained that any physician watching replays of Hamlin’s collapse immediately starts thinking through a differential diagnosis of what could have caused it. He said: “Let me tell you that I did see head and neck contact with a tackle, which is not uncommon at all in football. Remember that the shoulder pads have a breastbone protector, [a] pretty substantial breastbone [protector], so they take helmets in the chest all the time.”

McCullough acknowledged that when a baseball hits an unprotected breastbone, it can precipitate a cardiac arrest, but said he was not aware of that happening in pro football, leading him to rule out commotio cordis. “And as I watched things unfold it was relatively clear that [Hamlin] was in a primary cardiac arrest,” he said. McCullough believes there is a public health obligation to disclose what happened. He said: “This is a player who is employed by a team, and the team and the league mandated the vaccine very publicly. “So we have a situation where we have a public figure, the public employer mandates the vaccine in a very public manner, there is a disclosure that 95% of the players have taken the vaccine, and the FDA says the vaccine causes myocarditis and the published peer-reviewed literature says that it can be fatal.”

“This is not a time for privacy,” McCullough said. “The public needs to know that diagnosis because he was under one of these mandates and this happened on the national and world stage.” McCullough said numerous athletes have collapsed on the field and been resuscitated, but that in all cases there has been “airtight privacy” about whether they were vaccinated and what their diagnosis was. “I think the Hamlin case is going to break through all this,” he said.

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Cut a tree

 

 

Chinese exercise
https://twitter.com/i/status/1610702098198413313

 

 

1842 farmer

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle September 21 2020

Sep 212020
 
 September 21, 2020  Posted by at 9:30 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  33 Responses »


Ray K. Metzker Europe 1961

 

• Leak Shows Biggest Western Banks Finance Cartels, Terrorists & Mobsters (ZH)
• Can We, Like, Stop Praising Sweden Now? (MB)
• How COVID-19 Spreads (CDC)
• People Not Rushing Back to Movie Theaters (NBCW)
• Mitch McConnell’s Kentucky Home Targeted In Supreme Court Protest (Fox)
• The War on Populism: The Final Act (CJ Hopkins)
• Hunter Biden Is “Riding The Dragon” (ZH)
• Biden’s Foreign Policy Advisors Loyal to Israel, Defense Contractors (CP)
• Down the 1619 Project’s Memory Hole (Quillette)
• JK Rowling’s Books Burned or Banned Around the World (Turley)
• World’s Richest 1% Cause Double CO2 Emissions Of Poorest 50% – Oxfam (G.)
• Ilargi: Why Trump Will Win (Yves Smith)

 

 

US new deaths lowest since July 5.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Biden 200 million

 

 

Lots of questions. My first and immediate one was: would this have been leaked to Assange if he had been available, and not to, of all places, BuzzFeed? Second: will the journalists and publishers (BBC et al) involved, now be treated the same way Assange has? There will be much more on this, but do keep watching out for criminal investigations. That will say a lot.

• Leak Shows Biggest Western Banks Finance Cartels, Terrorists & Mobsters (ZH)

In what looks like one of the biggest leaks of private banking records since the Panama Papers, Buzzfeed News has published a lengthy investigation into how the world’s biggest banks allow dirty money from organized criminals, drug cartels, and terror groups like Al Qaeda and the Taliban to flow through their networks. The “FinCEN Files”, as Buzzfeed calls them, offer “a never-before-seen picture of corruption and complicity.” A lengthy investigation by Buzzfeed and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists – the same group that handled the Mossack Fonseca leaks – Instead of combating financial crime, the current system of requiring banks to report all suspicious transactions to FinCen simply allows money laundering to flourish, while ensuring that any enforcement will be of the ‘whack-a-mole’ variety.

“These documents, compiled by banks, shared with the government, but kept from public view, expose the hollowness of banking safeguards, and the ease with which criminals have exploited them. Profits from deadly drug wars, fortunes embezzled from developing countries, and hard-earned savings stolen in a Ponzi scheme were all allowed to flow into and out of these financial institutions, despite warnings from the banks’ own employees. Money laundering is a crime that makes other crimes possible. It can accelerate economic inequality, drain public funds, undermine democracy, and destabilize nations — and the banks play a key role. “Some of these people in those crisp white shirts in their sharp suits are feeding off the tragedy of people dying all over the world,” said Martin Woods, a former suspicious transactions investigator for Wachovia.

Laws that were meant to stop financial crime have instead allowed it to flourish. So long as a bank files a notice that it may be facilitating criminal activity, it all but immunizes itself and its executives from criminal prosecution. The suspicious activity alert effectively gives them a free pass to keep moving the money and collecting the fees. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, is the agency within the Treasury Department charged with combating money laundering, terrorist financing, and other financial crimes. It collects millions of these suspicious activity reports, known as SARs. It makes them available to US law enforcement agencies and other nations’ financial intelligence operations. It even compiles a report called “Kleptocracy Weekly” that summarizes the dealings of foreign leaders such as Russian President Vladimir Putin. What it does not do is force the banks to shut the money laundering down.”

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Let’s.

• Can We, Like, Stop Praising Sweden Now? (MB)

I don’t expect the virus psychos to listen but here is the chart, courtesy of Greg Jericho at The Fake Left:

Sweden and EL Trumpo, hand in hand. Unleash the virus and unleash the economic decline.

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CDC update. Seemed easier as a pic. Do they still have any credibility left? You know, after Redfield’s “Act for one Man and one Mask”?

• How COVID-19 Spreads (CDC)

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Common sense. Works better than any lockdown.

• People Not Rushing Back to Movie Theaters (NBCW)

About three quarters of the country’s movie theaters are open, but Americans are not going back in significant numbers in the COVID-era, even with new films coming into the marketplace weekly. The biggest movies continue to limp along. According to studio estimates Sunday, Warner Bros.’ “Tenet” earned $4.7 million in its third weekend from nearly 2,930 locations, Disney’s “The New Mutants” added $1.6 million in its fourth weekend, “Unhinged” brought in $1.3 million and Sony’s rom-com “The Broken Hearts Gallery” picked up an additional $800,000 in its second frame. And newcomers aren’t faring any better. The faith-based “Infidel,” which stars Jim Caviezel, did the best with $1.5 million from just over 1,700 theaters.


This weekend also saw the limited release of two adult dramas, IFC’s “The Nest,” with Jude Law and Carrie Coon, and Bleecker Street’s “The Secrets We Keep,” with Noomi Rapace. Both played in under 500 theaters across the country and neither got much more than $200 per location. “The Nest” earned an estimated $62,000 from 301 locations and “The Secrets We Keep” brought in just under $90,000 from 471 theaters. “There’s no question that this is an extraordinarily challenging marketplace, especially for North America,” said Paul Dergarabedian, Comscore’s senior media analyst. “This is a slow roll out. It’s going to take some time.”

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Stay away from people’s homes and families.

But what curious details in the article, feels like a small town daily:

“After facing the towing of her vehicle, the woman went inside the store and bought a six-pack of beer but police arrested her anyway, the report said. The arrest prompted other protesters to start chanting, and one member of the crowd kicked a glass door and damaged it, the newspaper reported. Other protesters agreed to move vehicles that were blocking traffic on a nearby street, following a police request.”

• Mitch McConnell’s Kentucky Home Targeted In Supreme Court Protest (Fox)

At least one protester was arrested Saturday after a group of about 100 people gathered outside the Kentucky home of Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell. The Senate majority leader is a key figure in determining whether a nominee appointed by President Trump will succeed the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court before Election Day. “Ruth Sent Us,” and “No Ethics No Shame,” read some of the signs carried by crowd members in Louisville, local FOX station WDRB-TV reported. “Hey-hey, ho-ho, Mitch McConnell has got to go,” others chanted. Reports were unclear on whether McConnell was at home in Kentucky or in Washington on Saturday.


In addition to the impending battle over the court vacancy, McConnell, 78 – a member of the Senate since 1985 — also faces a reelection fight on Kentucky’s November ballot. One protester was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct and improper parking, after police determined she used a pharmacy parking lot without planning to patronize the store, the Courier Journal of Louisville reported. After facing the towing of her vehicle, the woman went inside the store and bought a six-pack of beer but police arrested her anyway, the report said. The arrest prompted other protesters to start chanting, and one member of the crowd kicked a glass door and damaged it, the newspaper reported. Other protesters agreed to move vehicles that were blocking traffic on a nearby street, following a police request.

2016/2020
https://twitter.com/i/status/1307877608487628802

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“..our protagonist is GloboCap (i.e., the global capitalist empire), or “democracy,” as it is known in the entertainment business.”

• The War on Populism: The Final Act (CJ Hopkins)

So, it appears the War on Populism is building toward an exciting climax. All the proper pieces are in place for a Class-A GloboCap color revolution, and maybe even civil war. You got your unauthorized Putin-Nazi president, your imaginary apocalyptic pandemic, your violent identitarian civil unrest, your heavily-armed politically-polarized populace, your ominous rumblings from military quarters … you couldn’t really ask for much more. OK, the plot is pretty obvious by now (as it is in all big-budget action spectacles, which is essentially what color revolutions are), but that won’t spoil our viewing experience. The fun isn’t in guessing what is going to happen. Everybody knows what’s going to happen. The fun is in watching Bruce, or Sigourney, or “the moderate rebels,” or the GloboCap “Resistance,” take down the monster, or the terrorists, or Hitler, and save the world, or democracy, or whatever.

The show-runners at GloboCap understand this, and they are sticking to the classic Act III formula (i.e., the one they teach in all those scriptwriting seminars, which, full disclosure, I teach a few of those). They’ve been running the War on Populism by the numbers since the very beginning. I’m going to break that down in just a moment, act by act, plot point by plot point, but, first, let’s quickly cover the basics. The first thing every big Hollywood action picture (or GloboCap color revolution) needs is a solid logline to build the plot around. The logline shows us: (1) our protagonist, (2) what our protagonist is trying to do, and (3) our antagonist or antagonistic force. For example, here’s one everyone will recognize: “A computer hacker learns from mysterious rebels about the true nature of his reality and his role in the war against its controllers.”

In our case, the logline writes itself: “After America is taken over by a Russian-backed Hitlerian dictator, the forces of democracy unite to depose the tyrant and save the free world.” Donald Trump is our antagonist, of course. And what an antagonist he has been! As the deep-state spooks and the corporate media have been relentlessly repeating for the last four years, the man is both a Russian-backed traitor and literally the resurrection of Hitler! In terms of baddies, it doesn’t get any better. It goes without saying that our protagonist is GloboCap (i.e., the global capitalist empire), or “democracy,” as it is known in the entertainment business.

Now, we’re in the middle of Act III already, and, as in every big-budget action movie, our protagonist suffered a series of mounting losses all throughout Act II, and the baddie was mostly driving the action. Now it’s time for the Final Push, but, before all the action gets underway, here’s a quick recap of those previous acts. Ready? All right, here we go …

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Full 40 minute movie. is Hunter’s basement the one below Joe’s?

• Hunter Biden Is “Riding The Dragon” (ZH)

In the lead-up to the November election political investigator and author Peter Schweizer, who currently heads the Florida-based Government Accountability Institute, has unveiled a bombshell exposé presenting damning evidence of Hunter and his father Joe Biden’s shady and hidden financial dealings with China. Directed by Matthew Taylor, whose prior works include Clinton Cash and Creepy Line, the 41-minute film entitled “Riding the Dragon: The Bidens’ Chinese Secrets,” details a pile of corporate records, financial documents, legal briefings as well as court papers which tie Hunter’s firm with a major Chinese defense contractor, namely Aviation Industry Corp. of China (AVIC), and multiple other PLA linked companies.


“It’s a relationship that grew while Joe Biden was vice president of the United States and shortly after he was appointed the point person on U.S. policy towards China,” Schweizer, who narratives the film, described upon the documentary’s release earlier this month. “This new firm started making investment deals that would serve the strategic interests of the Chinese military.” “It’s the story of the second most powerful man in the world at the time and how his family was striking deals with America’s chief rival on the global stage, the People’s Republic of China,” he added.

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“Biden’s campaign is so beholden to AIPAC that they have adopted racist tropes to define Palestinians, the same tropes used to justify apartheid policies.”

• Biden’s Foreign Policy Advisors Loyal to Israel, Defense Contractors (CP)

When Donald Trump was elected president, the foreign policy apparatus that Barack Obama’s administration built did not disappear. The power brokers went to think tanks and lobbying firms, cashing in on the uncertainty with help from defense contractors and other corporations. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s potential foreign policy would likely be a continuation of Obama’s aggressive approach with the use of extrajudicial killings and jailing of asylum seekers. Advisors have made clear that Biden would have no intention of making military aid to Israel conditional on Israel’s human rights abuses of Palestinians. Michèle Flournoy, a front-runner for Biden’s pick for Secretary of Defense, is already considered something of a glass ceiling breaker as the highest-ranking woman to have served as a Senate-confirmed Presidential appointee in the Pentagon.

In 2011 the Washington Post described her as “tall and slender with a regal manner” and “known for being extremely poised and rarely showing emotion.” In 2018, Flournoy co-founded WestExec advisors with Biden foreign policy advisor Antony Blinken, Former Deputy Secretary of State. Blinken, who is also a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times and global affairs analyst at CNN, is on leave from the firm to focus on the presidential campaign. The firm is a group of senior national security professionals who advise corporations, including former CIA deputy director David S. Cohen and Dan Shapiro, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel. WestExec does not disclose its clients, but according to the American Prospect, they work with Israeli artificial intelligence company Windward.

In July, as part of the Democratic National Committee, Shapiro called on members to oppose a measure to condition U.S. aid to Israel so “no US aid may be used to facilitate annexation or to violate Palestinians rights.” The measure was rejected by a wide margin. “While we understand that those concerns have not been addressed to the full satisfaction of all parties, we believe we have taken significant and overdue strides while sustaining the unity of our Party,” Shapiro said. Vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris has drawn criticism in the past for her relationship with the Israeli government. In May 2019, she met with representatives of American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) from California in her Senate office after saying she would not attend the conference. Her campaign communications director said at the time that “her support for Israel is central to who she is.”

In 2017, Harris visited Israel, where she was photographed speaking with two members of the Israel Defense Forces in front of a Raytheon Iron Dome missile defense battery. She visited a cybersecurity development program run by the Israeli Defense Forces, the Israeli National Cyber Bureau in the Prime Minister’s Office, and Ben Gurion University of the Negev. Finally, she met with Netanyahu in Jerusalem the day after he had announced a plan to deport 40,000 African asylum seekers. She told AIPAC the same year: “[The] first resolution I co-sponsored as a United States senator was to combat anti-Israel bias at the United Nations and reaffirm that the United States seeks a just, secure, and sustainable two-state solution.” Abed Ayoub, the legal director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), told the Middle East Eye: “Biden’s campaign is so beholden to AIPAC that they have adopted racist tropes to define Palestinians, the same tropes used to justify apartheid policies.”

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Rewriting history is not as easy as it may seem.

• Down the 1619 Project’s Memory Hole (Quillette)

The history of the American Revolution isn’t the only thing the New York Times is revising through its 1619 Project. The “paper of record” has also taken to quietly altering the published text of the project itself after one of its claims came under intense criticism. When the 1619 Project went to print in August 2019 as a special edition of the New York Times Magazine, the newspaper put up an interactive version on its website. The original opening text stated: The 1619 project is a major initiative from The New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.

The passage, and in particular its description of the year 1619 as “our true founding,” quickly became a flashpoint for controversy around the project. Critics on both the Left and Right took issue with the paper’s declared intention of displacing 1776 with the alternative date—a point that was also emphasized in the magazine feature’s graphics, showing the date of American independence crossed out and replaced by the date of the first slave ship’s arrival in Jamestown, Virginia. For several months after the 1619 Project first launched, its creator and organizer Nikole Hannah-Jones doubled down on the claim. “I argue that 1619 is our true founding,” she tweeted the week after the project launched. “Also, look at the banner pic in my profile”—a reference to the graphic of the date 1776 crossed out with a line. It’s a claim she repeated many times over.

But something changed as the historical controversies around the 1619 Project intensified in late 2019 and early 2020. A group of five distinguished historians took issue with Hannah-Jones’s lead essay, focusing on its historically unsupported claim that protecting slavery was a primary motive of the American revolutionaries when they broke away from Britain in 1776. Other details of the project soon came under scrutiny, revealing both errors of fact and dubious interpretations of evidence in other essays, such as Matthew Desmond’s 1619 Project piece attempting to connect American capitalism with slavery. Finally back in March, a historian who the Times recruited to fact-check Hannah-Jones’s essay revealed that she had warned the paper against publishing its claims about the motives of the American Revolution on account of their weak evidence. The 1619 Project’s editors ignored the advice.

Throughout the controversy, the line about the year 1619 being “our true founding” continued to haunt the Times. This criticism did not aim to denigrate the project’s titular date or the associated events in the history of slavery. Rather, the passage came to symbolize the Times’s blurring of historical analysis with editorial hyperbole. The announced intention of reframing the country’s origin date struck many readers across the political spectrum as an implicit repudiation of the American revolution and its underlying principles. Rather than address this controversy directly, the Times—it now appears—decided to send it down the memory hole—the euphemized term for selectively editing inconvenient passages out of old newspaper reports in George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984.

Without announcement or correction, the newspaper quietly edited out the offending passage such that it now reads: The 1619 Project is an ongoing initiative from The New York Times Magazine that began in August 2019, the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative.

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Rewriting history 2.0. Harry Potter meets George Orwell. It feels an eternity ago that I wrote “No More Washington or America”, about once you get started, there is no end.

• JK Rowling’s Books Burned or Banned Around the World (Turley)

In Harry Potter, Albus Dumbledore told the students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry that “It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.” Many are learning the truth of that line written by famed author JK Rowling as self-described progressives burn her books or ban them from shelves because she personally holds an opposing view of gender. Much like the boycott movement of Chick-Fil-A over comments by its CEO, people are seeking to punish Rowling through attacks on her literature. We previously discussed the embracing of art destruction as analogous to book burning, but now actual book burning is being embraced as a weapon of the woke.

A TikTok series show people around the world burning copies of Rowlings’ books. In one video of a burning pile of books by TikTok user @elmcdo, a voice is heard saying “You have to stop using ‘death of the author’ as an excuse to have your cake and eat it too. While the reader’s perspective is an important part of interpretation and meaning, it is impossible to completely divorce a work from its creator. The positive impact that J.K. Rowling’s work had on millions of readers does not negate how her hateful lobbying has affected the trans community.” That sums up the logic of every book burner in history. You cannot read a book because of the views or religion or identity of the author. It is better to burn the book to protect society.

Then there is Rabble Books and Games in Maylands, Perth. The owner owner Nat Latter proudly declared on Facebook that he had removed all fo the Harry Potter books from bookshelves to guarantee “a safer space for our community.” So you can buy a Rowlings book by having it retrieved from behind the back room like pornography. It is a form of censoring by making it more difficult to buy some books rather than others because you disfavor authors with opposing views. Latter seems to relish the role of a book censoring book seller: “Whilst stocking a book isn’t an endorsement (good grief, that would be a minefield), and we will always take orders for books that aren’t in stock, there are more worthy books to put on the shelf, books that don’t harm communities and won’t make us sad to unpack them.”

Does Latter also hide works with opposing views on gender from the Bible to the Koran to classic novels? Indeed, why not pull all of the work of authors like Hemingway and others for their views of women or race relations or other issues? Book sellers used to be people who wants to be gateways to knowledge and a world of different ideas and values. Now readers are being protected from even seeing the name of an author who personally holds opposing or offensive views. [..] These actions only prove again what Albus Dumbledore said (and J.K. Rowling wrote): “Dark times lie ahead of us and there will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right.”

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Not in the least surprising. The poorest half, 3.5 billion people, are good for just 7% of emissions.

• World’s Richest 1% Cause Double CO2 Emissions Of Poorest 50% – Oxfam (G.)

The wealthiest 1% of the world’s population were responsible for the emission of more than twice as much carbon dioxide as the poorer half of the world from 1990 to 2015, according to new research. Carbon dioxide emissions rose by 60% over the 25-year period, but the increase in emissions from the richest 1% was three times greater than the increase in emissions from the poorest half. The report, compiled by Oxfam and the Stockholm Environment Institute, warned that rampant overconsumption and the rich world’s addiction to high-carbon transport are exhausting the world’s “carbon budget”.

Such a concentration of carbon emissions in the hands of the rich means that despite taking the world to the brink of climate catastrophe, through burning fossil fuels, we have still failed to improve the lives of billions, said Tim Gore, head of policy, advocacy and research at Oxfam International. “The global carbon budget has been squandered to expand the consumption of the already rich, rather than to improve humanity,” he told the Guardian. “A finite amount of carbon can be added to the atmosphere if we want to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis. We need to ensure that carbon is used for the best.”

The richest 10% of the global population, comprising about 630 million people, were responsible for about 52% of global emissions over the 25-year period, the study showed. Globally, the richest 10% are those with incomes above about $35,000 (£27,000) a year, and the richest 1% are people earning more than about $100,000.

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Yves posted my essay from yesterday at Naked Capitalism, with this interesting comment. I know some people here feel poorly treated at NC, but I never have, and Yves and I have had a solid relationship for 12 years or so.

• Ilargi: Why Trump Will Win (Yves Smith)

Yves here. As Financial Times columnist Lucy Kellaway said: “The good thing about someone else’s prejudices is that they either confirm your own, or they make you cross – either of which is a blessing in these bland times.” Here Ilargi reveals a bias…but not, as some might suggest, of being pro-Trump, but of seeing this Presidential election as being personality-driven. I doubt that is correct, which is one of the many factors that makes this contest too difficult to call despite Trump lagging in polls. Historically, marketers did not like “psychographic” market segmentations because they would cross demographic and geographic lines, which made it difficult to target prospects cost-effectively.

With the Internet creating social media outlets that cater to people with particular views, like lovin’ gunz or believing in Russiagate, suddenly that sort of segmentation is not only viable but may actually be attractive. As readers know well, Sanders was running on policy, not personality. As one friend said, Sanders has all the charm of your cranky Jewish uncle telling you to take your feet off the coffee table. Under prodding, he did make some small efforts in his 2020 campaign to seem less scold-y by smiling more and telling a bit of his life story. And as readers also know, Sanders had strong support among young voters. The Democratic party leadership beat Sanders not by having better policies or a more appealing a candidate, but by using what amounts to machine politics: rallying different voter blocs that are loyal to the party either by design or default.

The extension of the machine policy mindset is the Democratic party strategm of invoking tribalism. This is particularly effective because their core, the professional-managerial class, is so convinced of its right to rule via merit that it is almost incapable of seeing itself as a class (see Thomas Frank’s Listen, Liberal for a brilliant description of its ethnography). But its shadow side, in Jungian terms, of the PMC is its stereotype of the white working class. In their minds, this uneducated, undisciplined lot is getting what it deserves, and having them have influence is an affront to the proper ordering of society. Hillary’s “deplorables” remark was no accident. Time recapped what she said:

“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?” Clinton said. “The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic—you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.” She said the other half of Trump’s supporters “feel that the government has let them down” and are “desperate for change.” “Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well,” she said. What is the subtext of Hillary’s remark? That Trump’s voters are lower income and less educated. The less educated part is correct, the lower income is not.

[..] What about the general election? A few weeks ago, the American National Election Study — the longest-running election survey in the United States — released its 2016 survey data. And it showed that in November 2016, the Trump coalition looked a lot like it did during the primaries…many of the voters without college educations who supported Trump were relatively affluent. It isn’t hard to imagine that higher income/less educated voters would resent the preening of the credentialed elites and would find Trump’s total lack of respect for what they hold dear to be attractive. But the gods look to have handed Biden a gift with the timing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death. It’s galvanizing Democratic Party donations and will probably persuade some voters who weren’t terribly keen about Biden to go to the effort of voting for him.

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