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Debt Rattle February 25 2026

Feb 252026
 
 February 25, 2026  Posted by at 10:54 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  62 Responses »


Piet Mondriaan Victory Boogie Woogie 1942-44


• Are Democrats Working Against Their Own Voters? (Eric Florack)
• How a Party Offends Its Voters (Daniel McCarthy)
• What the FBI Is Investigating in Criminal Probe of 2020 Election (ET)
• Democrats Double Down on SOTU Boycott (DS)
• ‘You Owe Us’ Is the Mantra of the Left (Victor Davis Hanson)
• US To Integrate Musk’s Grok AI Into Classified Military Systems (RT)
• Trump, Along With Democrats, Will Make Their Case Tuesday at State of the Union (JTN)
• Netflix’s Stock Plunges After Refusing to Fire Susan Rice (Bryan S. Jung)
• We Need to Talk About Artemis (Stephen Green)
• Royal Theater, Silent Streets: Loud On Epstein Ties, Silent On The Roving Gangs (David Manney)
• Ukraine (EU) Strikes Russian Oil Pumping Station (CTH)
• Slovakia Halts Electricity Supplies To Ukraine (RT)
• Hungary Vetoes €90 Billion EU Loan For Ukraine (RT)
• Ukraine Hates Us – Hungary (RT)
• The New Navalny Poison – This Swedish Disinformation is a British Lie (Helmer)

 


 

Apart from the SOTU, which deerves enough attention already, there’s the rumor today that France and Britain have de facto become Ukraine’s army, and are as we speak preparing to send a nuclear bomb to Kyiv.

 


 

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2026494398477803567 https://twitter.com/DD_Geopolitics/status/2026269269541916753?s=20

 


 


“I have a new philosophy. I’m only going to dread one day at a time.” — Charlie Brown

• Are Democrats Working Against Their Own Voters? (Eric Florack)

Let’s start with a few quotes. This quote comes from a May 22, 2020, interview on The Breakfast Club, a popular radio show, where Biden was speaking with host Charlamagne tha God. As the interview was wrapping up, Biden famously said: “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.” Next, we offer up for your inspection this quote from New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, speaking at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles on May 6, 2024: “Right now, we have young Black kids growing up in the Bronx who don’t even know what the word “computer” is. They don’t know. They don’t know these things.”She made the remarks while touting a $400 million supercomputer initiative in New York.


And finally, and most recently, we have this from California Gov. Gavin Newsom:”I’m not trying to impress you. I’m just trying to impress upon you, I’m like you. I’m no better than you. You know, I’m a 960 SAT guy… You’ve never seen me read a speech because I cannot read a speech.”nbNewsom was obviously trying to impress the predominantly black audience that attended the Atlanta event promoting his newly released memoir. If you wanted an indication of his presidential ambitions, you need look no further than his book release. If you were looking for an indication of how bad he would be in the role, look no further than the quote. I mean, if he believes black people can’t read, why in the world is he promoting his book to them? For the pictures?

It’s fairly obvious that these were not planned remarks. If they were planned, someone in Gov. Gruesome’s team needs flogging. We can assume these quotes just kind of slipped out, an untold truth.The quotes do reveal something of the inner workings of the leftist mind. Just as obvious, in every case of the above quotes, minority citizens are diminished in the eyes of the members of a party supposedly on their side. Can you imagine the howling and screaming if anyone in the GOP even came close to this level of stupidity? Why, the press would be 24/7 wall-to-wall with it for the next month, if not longer, And it would come up again at the next election. As it is, do a search on the Biden quote, as an example. You’ll find very few references to it.

In a sane world, any of these quotes would be career-ending for any political figure. But of course, these are Democrats, so sanity doesn’t even enter the discussion.Then we have the overarching antisemitism of the Democrats that goes back decades. In that direction, for example, lies the political demise of Joe Lieberman. The cause? His support for Israel in the face of attacks by the Palestinians, as directed by Iran. Matt Margolis gets into some of this: Axios is reporting that senior Democratic officials who worked on the party’s secret post-election autopsy concluded that Kamala Harris lost measurable support because of the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Gaza war. According to multiple sources, the DNC’s own data flagged the party’s Gaza position as a “net-negative” in the 2024 election.

That’s a rather diplomatic way of saying that they weren’t anti-Israel enough. According to the report, the DNC did meet with the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) Policy Project — a pro-Palestinian advocacy organization — as part of its evaluation process. During that meeting, according to IMEU spokesperson Hamid Bendaas, “the DNC shared with us that their own data also found that policy was, in their words, a ‘net-negative’ in the 2024 election.” Two other senior IMEU aides confirmed the same conclusion. Axios independently corroborated that Democratic officials believe the issue damaged the party’s appeal with specific voter demographics. Yeah, that demographic is the antisemitic left.

Indeed so. But of course, a bit under 70% of Jewish citizens vote Democrat at every opportunity. Similarly, black voters vote Democrat in huge percentages, though that’s been changing of late. In every case, the Democrat claim to speak for the advancement of traditional minority groups, for which they receive much support from voters. Democrats claim that the GOP is a bunch of racist, misogynist fools who would bring back slavery if they could.

And yet, finding anti-black, anti-woman, anti-religious, anti-farmer, anti-flyover states, and anti-middle class statements and actions by these same Democrats is easy enough. And of course, Donald Trump is the racist Nazi. Right? Yeah, makes no sense to me, either.nbTake care of yourselves today. I’ll see you here tomorrow.

Thought of the day: “I have a new philosophy. I’m only going to dread one day at a time.” — Charlie Brown

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“His way of bonding with black ppl is to tell them how stupid he is & that he can’t read..”

• How a Party Offends Its Voters (Daniel McCarthy)

Gavin Newsom won’t be the Democrats’ 2028 presidential nominee unless he wins a significant share of the African American vote. So how’s he courting it? Promoting his new memoir to a largely black audience in Atlanta, the California governor decided to forge a connection by boasting about his poor SAT scores and difficulty reading. “I’m like you,” he said.”You know, I’m a 960 SAT guy” and “you’ve never seen me read a speech. Because I cannot read a speech.”Newsom suffers from dyslexia, but he obviously wasn’t assuming he was addressing a room full of voters with the same debility.He just looked around and concluded this audience wouldn’t have high academic aspirations.


“How insulting” was the response on X from Nina Turner, a former Democratic state senator in the battleground state Ohio and now a senior fellow with the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy. The outspoken rapper Nicki Minaj was just as direct: “His way of bonding with black ppl is to tell them how stupid he is & that he can’t read,” she posted. Even a tactful Democratic consultant quoted in TheGrio said she was “disappointed” by Newsom: “He’s a great wordsmith, so I was kind of bothered by the way that he said it,” Ameshia Cross told the outlet. Luckily for Newsom, some of his rivals for the 2028 nomination have even less rapport with black voters. Polls often register Pete Buttigieg’s African American support at zero percent.

The likes of Buttigieg are no threat to Newsom no matter how many gaffes he makes, but his fellow Californian Kamala Harris is another story. It’s true her 2020 campaign didn’t even make it to the first primary — it imploded in December 2019. But Harris failed upward, getting chosen as Joe Biden’s running mate and then replacing him without a competition four years later. Now she’s Newsom’s roadblock. The ’28 race isn’t far away: In about a year, all the contenders on the Democrats’ side will be clear — and maybe they already are. Newsom and Harris have serious liabilities, not least the deteriorating condition of the blue state they both call home: Does the whole country want to wind up like today’s California?

Do businesses and families fleeing Newsom’s state for the freedom and lower taxes of Texas and Florida want the governor’s ruinous recipe attempted nationwide? Yet Democrats looking for an alternative to the California scheme represented by Harris and Newsom have little to choose from. Pennsylvania is the nation’s most important battleground state, and culturally and economically similar enough to other battlegrounds like Ohio and Michigan that a successful Pennsylvania pol might have the right stuff to sweep the Electoral College. But Josh Shapiro, the Keystone State’s Democratic governor, has problems of his own with one of the party’s key constituencies — critics of Israel.

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“Fulton County had more than half a million ballots to tabulate—almost 90 percent cast early or by mail. The result was announced several days later: Biden won the county by 26-point margin.”

• What the FBI Is Investigating in Criminal Probe of 2020 Election (ET)

After the election offices of Georgia’s most populous county were raided last month, the FBI has disclosed information indicating where its investigation is heading. Federal laws may have been broken during the 2020 election according to the affidavit supporting the court-approved raid. Yet the breadth of the materials seized shows the FBI may be able to check the integrity of the ballots more broadly, uncovering further issues or putting speculation to bed. President Donald Trump’s campaign challenged the Georgia election most vigorously, as he lost the state to President Joe Biden by fewer than 12,000 votes according to the official tally.


The legal challenges failed. Instead, Trump was indicted based on rationale that his efforts to challenge the election results were allegedly executed with corrupt intent. The case was dismissed after he became president again in 2025. The renewed investigation now targeting Fulton County, which covers the broader Atlanta area, uses a rationale analogous to the case against Trump. The affidavit states that if known irregularities in the election were intentional, such acts would be criminal. On Jan. 28, agents seized some 700 boxes of election records, including physical ballots from the 2020 election. County officials have since filed a lawsuit seeking to have the materials returned.

The issues detailed in the affidavit were largely discovered years ago by concerned citizens using data obtained through freedom of information requests or litigation. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who was responsible for overseeing the election and is running for governor of the state, has dismissed the issues as administrative and human errors too small to affect the election’s result. The FBI, however, has a different perspective. “If these deficiencies were the result of intentional action, it would be a violation of federal law regardless of whether the failure to retain records or the deprivation of a fair tabulation of a vote was outcome determinative for any particular election or race,” reads the affidavit signed by FBI Special Agent Hugh Evans.

Raffensperger has repeatedly stressed that the 2020 votes were counted three times, including a hand recount and a machine recount. However, many of the deficiencies outlined in the affidavit happened during these recounts. Vote counting in Georgia starts by law on election day. Fulton County had more than half a million ballots to tabulate—almost 90 percent cast early or by mail. The result was announced several days later: Biden won the county by 26-point margin. One issue with the results was a lack of receipts. Each tabulator machine should be “closed” at polls closing and tabulator tape should be printed out to show how many ballots and votes for each candidate were counted. Then, the tape should be signed by the poll manager and two witnesses.

Yet tabulator tapes for more than 300,000 votes weren’t signed, and some were missing altogether, wrote Evans, referring to an analysis by Clay Parikh, a voting machine security expert. Raffensperger said that was merely administrative oversight, as the vote tallies aren’t recorded on the tape alone. They are also preserved on memory cards in the machines. But Parikh’s analysis went deeper. “Parikh identified one tabulator that was used to close out 15 tabulator machines from 12 different locations. In addition, the poll closing time and report printed times on several closing tabulator tapes were close enough in time that Parikh believed someone had to have manipulated the times on the reports,” Evans wrote. “Parikh believed this showed that the memory cards were removed from the original tabulator and put in another tabulator to print out the closing tabulator tapes.”

The tabulators also have “protective counters” that track how many ballots have been scanned on them over their lifetime. “The protective counters on at least five tabulator tapes from the same unit were identical,” Parikh found, according to Evans. “Some of the reported ballots scanned exceeded the protective counter number.” “This indicated to Parikh that no ballots were ever scanned on these machines and that the numbers generated from those ballots were done so by placing an unencrypted memory card into the unit to generate the closing tape,” Evans wrote. “This would have allowed an opportunity for the tabulation to be tampered with.”

The tabulators are supposed to scan each ballot, creating a digital record. But the majority of the images from the original in-person voting count have not been preserved by the county, Evans said. At the time, the county was not legally required to preserve them, but it’s not clear why they were discarded to begin with. “This is another impediment to ruling out non-criminal explanations for the activities during the election,” the affidavit said.
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With the oldest and lamest trope imaginable: “Trump is marching America towards fascism.”

• Democrats Double Down on SOTU Boycott (DS)

More Democrats are joining a boycott of President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday. Sens. Adam Schiff and Ruben Gallego recently joined the ranks of Democrat lawmakers over the weekend. “I am not going to the State of the Union,” Gallego said in a video posted to social media on Saturday. “There’s more productive things than I can do with my time than just sitting there for two hours and clapping on cue. Right now, this country is hurting.” Instead, the senator will be at home in Arizona during the address.


Schiff’s participation in the boycott was also announced on Saturday. MeidasTouch wrote on X that Schiff will instead speak at the “People’s State of the Union,” a counter address hosted by the news outlet and progressive-aligned nonprofit MoveOn Civic Action.

Democrats announcing their boycott of the State of the Union comes after progressive-aligned organizations, like Amplify Edge’s “Young People Address the Nation” campaign, pressured Democrat lawmakers last week to boycott the address. As the boycott grows, the left-leaning sports and political commentator Stephen A. Smith has come out against Democrat theatrics. Smith said on his SiriusXM radio show that the Democrats’ refusal to attend the address “ticks him off,” calling them “juvenile.” “Why do they get to circumvent the need and the insistence of mere decorum? This is the kind of stuff that ticks me off,” Smith stated. “At some point in time, ladies and gentlemen, there’s got to be an adult in the room.”

https://twitter.com/JasonJournoDC/status/2024450693252219275

“If you’re going to act as juvenile, as petulant, as petty as you accuse president of the United States to be, how are you ever going to hold a high moral ground at least high enough to judge him accordingly?” Smith added. During Trump’s address to Congress last year, some Democrats tried to steal the show. Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, interrupted the speech with shouts and gestures several times before he was removed from the chamber.mSchiff’s RSVP to the event hosted former MSNBC anchors Joy Reid and Katie Phang comes after 12 of his congressional colleagues—including Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.; Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill.; and the chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas—announced last week that they would not “legitimize” Trump’s “lies.”

“Donald Trump will use the State of the Union address as a platform to gaslight the American people and normalize and justify their terror, abuse, and violations of our rights. I refuse to legitimize it,” Ramirez stated in a release. Van Hollen added on X that this “cannot be business as usual” because “Trump is marching America towards fascism.”

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“So, they’re paying 55% of their income and nobody ever says, “Thank you for doing that, you people, we have a very skilled elite that allows us to have this huge budget.”

• ‘You Owe Us’ Is the Mantra of the Left (Victor Davis Hanson)

Sami Winc: Two things that came together for me. One was [New York City Mayor Zohran] Mamdani’s 9.5% increase in the property tax for New Yorkers, but not that alone. I’m sure our audience has read about that. But I was looking at Power Line. I always like to give a shout-out to them because they have some great articles, and they were comparing New York State’s budget versus Florida’s budget. And they came up with, well, it’s only half at the state level. So, I thought, well, let’s look at the city level, New York City versus Miami. And while the billions that each of them has to spend is not meaningful in and of themselves. So, for example, New York City’s budget is $127 billion while Miami’s is only $3.4. But that being said, per citizen, what has to be paid into these cities? And so, for Mamdani, each of his citizens has to pay $14,431 in for his budget. And in Miami, it’s just half of that, at just under $7,000 per citizen.


Victor Davis Hanson: And it’s more disproportionate because in New York, the number of people who are actually paying taxes is a much smaller percentage than in Miami. He inherited the city that was this blue-chip financial market, this cultural, financial capital of the world, and the first thing he did was raise spending by $11 billion. Second thing he did was prove that he couldn’t get the trash or the snow off the street during the storm. Third thing he did, it was very hard to find an appointee who somewhere in their dark history had not issued or written something antisemitic. All he does is smile and try to be … basically, his message is: I’m not Lenin, and Trotsky or Stalin. I’m the nice, happy-faced communist, and you’re going to like me, and you’re going to like my communism. We’re all going to get along.

I mean, if you’re in New York, if you’re in California, you got a choice. If you’re in California and this billionaire tax passes, and you’ve got to come up with $50 million, you’re going flee. If you’re in New York, and they’re going to raise your property tax on these multimillion-dollar buildings, you’re talking what could be $20 or $30, $40, $50 million more a year, then you’re going to flee, get out. If you don’t, they’re just going to keep doing it. They’re going keep targeting you because they have an idea. I don’t think people realize that. nThe socialist mind … I knew a lot of socialists in the universities and some friends of mine, and they always think … The whole core of socialism is, I work hard, and no one knows how I suffer at my job as a nurse, as a farmer, whatever. And I believe in the labor theory of value.

Why is it that when Victor had a Ph.D. but he was pruning vines, he was only making $4 an hour—I was for three years—and then all of a sudden, five years later, he is an academic, and he is sitting in between classes and having coffee and he’s making $50 an hour. That’s not fair. And so, they don’t think about supply and demand, expertise, education, nothing. And somebody would say, “Well, when Victor was pruning vines, a lot of people could not only prune them, they could probably prune them better.” When he was teaching a particular Greek literature class, and they thought that was an important class to offer. Questionable, but that’s what they said. Very few people could do it. They don’t accept that.

And so, they run on this envy that we work hard, and we get up, and we do things, and therefore we should be compensated. And that’s what a socialist is, and they’re going keep raising taxes. The other thing about it is, when they raise taxes, they don’t ever say thank you. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, even former Sen. Dianne [Feinstein], they’re all wealthy, but they never said, “We want to thank the people in California that are the 1% that are paying 50% of the income tax.” And by the way, the 50% of the income tax in California, there’s only about, I don’t know what there is, 250 billionaires? They usually pay capital gains tax. They pay at about, I don’t know, 28%. The people in that 1% of Californians are highly compensated professionals and small businesspeople who make a million or two million, three million dollars, and then they get hit with a 13.3% tax rate, plus their federal plus Medicare.

So, they’re paying 55% of their income and nobody ever says, “Thank you for doing that, you people, we have a very skilled elite that allows us to have this huge budget.” They don’t. The attitude is always, “They have to. They have to pay more.”

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The Pentagon clashed with rival contractor Anthropic over ethics limitations on its tech … Still, not an rexclusive deal. ChatGPT, Gemini et al are there.

• US To Integrate Musk’s Grok AI Into Classified Military Systems (RT)

The US Department of War has reportedly signed an agreement with Elon Musk’s xAI to integrate its Grok chatbot into classified military systems, escalating pressure on rival contractor Anthropic as it refuses to lift safeguards on its Claude model. The deal, first reported by the New York Times and confirmed by Axios on Monday, would make Grok the second AI system approved for use on the military’s most sensitive networks, where intelligence analysis, weapons development, and battlefield operations take place. Until now, Anthropic’s Claude has been the sole model available on classified platforms, through a partnership with Palantir Technologies.


The agreement comes as Secretary of War Pete Hegseth summoned Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei for what sources expect to be a tense meeting at the Pentagon on Tuesday. According to Axios, Hegseth is expected to present an ultimatum: agree to make Claude available for “all lawful purposes” without additional safeguards, or face consequences including potential designation as a “supply chain risk” – a label typically reserved for entities linked to foreign adversaries.


https://twitter.com/iam_smx/status/2026100949618442296?s=20

Anthropic has resisted Pentagon demands to remove restrictions that prevent its technology from being used for mass surveillance of Americans or deployed in fully autonomous weapons systems with no humans in the loop. xAI has reportedly agreed to the demands, but the company has yet to comment on the reports. Google is also reportedly “close” to a deal allowing classified use of its Gemini model, according to people briefed on the discussions, while OpenAI remains “not close” as it continues working on safety technology.

Pentagon officials acknowledge that replacing Anthropic within its classified systems could cause short-term disruptions. The model was used during the operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro last month – the first known instance of AI playing a direct role in an active military raid. Anthropic has positioned itself as the safety-conscious alternative within the AI industry. CEO Amodei has repeatedly warned of the existential dangers posed by unconstrained artificial intelligence, including “autonomy risks.” The company’s Safeguards Research Team lead, Mrinank Sharma, abruptly resigned last week with a cryptic warning that “the world is in peril.”

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And they did.

• Trump, Along With Democrats, Will Make Their Case Tuesday at State of the Union (JTN)

President Donald Trump is set to deliver his State of the Union Address Tuesday evening, when he is expected to highlight his accomplishments during his first year back in office and spotlight goals for the coming year. During an event at the White House Monday morning, Trump teased that his address is “going to be a long speech, because we have so much to talk about.” The president is expected to tout his accomplishments over the last year, highlighting tax cuts, lower gas prices, a dramatic decline in illegal border crossings, lower crime rates, lower drug costs, international peace deals, and trade deals – despite presiding over the longest government shutdown in history.


Trump’s address comes as the federal government is in the midst of a partial shutdown that is affecting the Department of Homeland Security. Several Democratic lawmakers have announced their intention to boycott the address; it’s unclear if other Democratic lawmakers will protest the president in the House Gallery. Last year, several held paddles to make statements. The president will likely make the economy one of his top priorities, highlighting the passage and signing of the Big, Beautiful Bill last summer. In briefings and news conferences, Trump and his administration often point to higher tax credits and a tax break for tipped workers as well as a healthy stock market, as evidence that his economic policies are winning.

Among the top issues Trump will likely spotlight are crime and immigration. During the past year, the president has deployed the National Guard to select major U.S. cities, including Washington, D.C., to tackle crime. The president will likely spend part of his speech trying to sell his economic agenda, including his use of tariffs. Trump could also use the opportunity to push his Senate Republicans to eliminate the filibuster to pass key legislation, such as election security measures. While Trump will likely point to lower gas prices and lower taxes, Democrats have been pushing affordability.

Democrats have tapped newly inaugurated Gov. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., to deliver the Democratic response to Trump’s address Tuesday night, with Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., to deliver a Democratic response in Spanish. The address comes ahead of a critical mid-term election, where both Republicans and Democrats have a lot riding on their messaging. It’s unclear who the president will be hosting in the gallery Tuesday evening. However, multiple reports indicate that the men’s U.S. hockey team, which just brought home the gold, has been invited to attend.

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“.. How much is she being paid, and for what???“

• Netflix’s Stock Plunges After Refusing to Fire Susan Rice (Bryan S. Jung)

Netflix’s stock plunged after its refusal to fire former senior Obama and Biden official Susan Rice from its board, following her threats of retribution against supporters of President Donald Trump under a future Democrat administration. Rice was national security adviser and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under former President Barack Obama, and later served as a senior advisor in the Biden White House. She returned to Netflix’s board in 2023 after leaving her role as director of the Domestic Policy Council in the Biden administration. Rice boasted during a podcast last week that “it is not going to end well” for corporations, news organizations, and law firms that “bent the knee” to Trump, claiming that their deference to the president is unpopular.


She said that firms aligned with Trump could face an “accountability agenda” if Democrats return to power, stating, “This is not going to be an instance of forgive and forget.” “I think they’ve got another thing coming … they’re going to be surprised. Democrats have had a bellyful, and we’re not going to play by, you know, the old set of rules,” added Rice. Trump has since demanded that Netflix fire Rice and warned the company to get rid of Rice or “pay the consequences.” “Netflix should fire racist, Trump Deranged Susan Rice, IMMEDIATELY, or pay the consequences,” Trump wrote on Truth Social over the weekend. ”She’s got no talent or skills – Purely a political hack! HER POWER IS GONE, AND WILL NEVER BE BACK. How much is she being paid, and for what???“

The streaming service is currently in the midst of a bidding war with Paramount Skydance Corp. to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., excluding the company’s cable networks, including CNN, which the White House has the power to scuttle altogether. Netflix’s $72 billion bid for Warner Brothers Discovery requires regulatory anti-trust approval from the U.S. Department of Justice, which is scrutinizing the deal during this latest political controversy. Paramount Skydance launched a hostile takeover bid for all of Warner Bros. Discovery, promising shareholders $30 per share in an all-cash deal.

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos has so far refused to fire Rice and told the BBC that the acquisition is a “business deal, not a political deal.” “He [Trump] likes to do a lot of things on social media,” Sarandos said, according to the BBC. Sarandos added that regulatory bodies, not the White House, should make a decision on the deal. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that the DOJ is investigating whether Netflix’s takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery could hurt competition and whether the streaming service’s previous acquisitions may have affected the industry’s creative talent.

The streaming giant has been accused of anticompetitive tactics in negotiations with independent content creators for acquiring programming, reported Bloomberg.It is unknown if the decline in Netflix’s stock price at market open reflected investor concerns over political interference in corporate governance, but the media company’s shares tumbled Monday before slightly recovering at $76.02 per share at closing, a 3.37% loss.

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Let Elon Musk reorganize US space programs.

• We Need to Talk About Artemis (Stephen Green)

We need to talk about NASA’s Artemis program to get the U.S. back to the Moon because things can’t continue like this.The initial reports of last week’s Artemis 2 wet dress rehearsal (WDR) made it sound like the hydrogen leaks were acceptable and our first manned mission around the Moon would be good to go for launch during the first week of March. That was Thursday evening. Friday’s midday press conference was all happy talk about how well the WDR went.Before anyone at NASA had time to grab lunch on Saturday, agency chief Jared Isaacman revealed that “overnight data showed an interruption in helium flow in the SLS interim cryogenic propulsion stage,” and “teams are troubleshooting and preparing for a likely rollback of Artemis 2 to the VAB [NASA’s massive Vehicle Assembly Building].”


Easy fixes are performed outdoors, right there on the launch pad. Trickier fixes require a slow journey back to the VAB on NASA’s tracked Crawler-Transporter 2 (CT-2). As it turns out, Artemis 2 requires one of those trickier fixes. So much for that March launch window. Now it’s “fingers crossed!” for early April, depending, of course, on how long it takes to find and fix whatever went wrong during last week’s WDR. Here’s the thing to remember about the SLS rocket that by law must launch at least the first three Artemis missions: This is as good as it gets. Leaks, delays, regular trips on CT-2 to and from VAB? That’s the norm for SLS. As discussed in a couple of previous columns, each SLS is a unique snowflake.

Earlier this month, space reporter Eric Berger asked NASA’s top civil servant, Amit Kshatriya, about the SLS’s issues and low flight cadence. “Every time we [try to launch] these are very bespoke components, they’re in many cases made by incredible craftsmen,” Kshatriya replied. “It’s the first time this particular machine has borne witness to cryogens, and how it breathes, and how it vents, and how it wants to leak is something we have to characterize.” nIn other words, figuring out how to correct the hydrogen leak on the Artemis 1 SLS rocket taught NASA very little about the leaks it might encounter on the Artemis 2 rocket. Or what leaks NASA will find on Artemis 3 two years from now. Or maybe three.

The Artemis program was designed during the first Trump administration, using existing hardware with the hope of getting us back to the Moon by 2024. Now NASA claims 2028. 2030 might be more realistic. So whatever the original hope was, it hasn’t materialized. And at $4 billion-plus per SLS, everybody (including high-ranking NASA people) understands that SLS is a dead end. My modest proposal is this: As Dr. Evil might say, a ONE BILLION DOLLAR prize for the first private company to put at least three astronauts on the lunar surface (leaving a fourth one in orbit to crew a command vehicle is fine, if needed) near the southern ice resources. The landing mission must also include a “useful” amount of cargo for at least getting started on a permanent habitat.

The crew must also return safely to Earth, naturally. A billion dollars is a lot of money. But it’s also a little less than 25% of the cost of a single SLS rocket, not including everything else that goes into a manned NASA mission. Just on rockets alone, taxpayers would stand to save more than $7 billion on Artemis 2 and 3 — and at the SLS’s unpredictable launch cadence, we might even get to the Moon sooner.

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All the attention goes to the man formerly known as prince.

The 1,400 mass-raped girls? Not so much. Their story doesn’t sell. The press make sure of that.

• Royal Theater, Silent Streets (David Manney)

Need an idea about how to start an argument between people in the UK? Mention a royal name alongside Jeffrey Epstein. That should get the fires started. The elite formerly known as Prince Andrew’s association with Epstein remains a global fixation — global if you mean England. Political editor and commentator Emma-Jo Morris recently highlighted how authorities moved aggressively in matters tied to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, while long-running grooming gang cases have dragged on for years without any similar feelings of urgency.


Andrew, formerly the Duke of York, stepped back from the spotlight after the crown stripped him of public and royal duties following his 2019 BBC Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis, which generated massive political shockwaves. In America, Virginia Giuffre filed a civil lawsuit against Andrew, which was later settled. Because of the scandal, the Royal Family removed his honorary military titles and patronages. The Epstein story burned like hydrogen fueled by leaking inert helium gas and combusting front pages like the Hindenburg. Every development generated debate in Parliament and endless commentary across Britain.

Meanwhile, documented grooming gang scandals in towns such as Rotherham, Rochdale, and Telford revealed systematic sexual exploitation of young girls. In Rotherham alone, independent investigator Professor Alexis Jay concluded that around 1,400 children were abused between 1997 and 2013, while many of the perpetrators were identified as men of Pakistani Muslim backgrounds. Alexis Jay, who authored the report, used to be chief inspector of social work in Scotland. She’s seen a lot. But despite being deeply familiar with the details of this report, even she seemed shaken by the words coming out of her mouth at Tuesday’s press conference about the victims, some as young as 11, abused from 1997 until last year.

“It is hard to describe the appalling nature of the abuse the child victims suffered. They were raped by multiple perpetrators. They were trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England. They were abducted, beaten and intimidated,” Jay said. Nine men in Rochdale were convicted in 2012 for grooming and trafficking underage girls.

The nine defendants were jailed for a total of 77 years, with the ringleader, a 59-year-old man from Oldham, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, receiving a 19-year term after being convicted of two rapes, aiding and abetting rape, sexual assault and trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation.Kabeer Hassan, 25, of Oldham, was jailed for nine years for rape and three years, concurrently, for conspiracy. Hamid Safi, 22, an illegal immigrant of no fixed address, was jailed for four years for conspiracy and one year, concurrently, for trafficking.Greater Manchester Police were criticized for earlier failures of intervention. The story remained the same in Telford, where an independent inquiry led by Tom Crowther KC discovered that as many as 1,000 girls may have been sexually exploited over decades.

In his closing comments, Telford added: “People will not forget Telford’s history of child sexual exploitation – and nor should they. But in my view Telford’s approach – the Council’s approach – to the Recommendations, to engagement with its key partners and most of all with those three people it let down as children, now stands as a model. All involved – but particularly the Consultees, who put aside hurt and anger and years of being dismissed in order to ensure that next generations are better protected than they were – deserve our very high praise.”

Read more …

“.. we see European leaders attacking their own European “allies” through the use of Ukraine. If you do not support the continued bloodlust, you are an enemy of the EU collective hive mind”

• Ukraine (EU) Strikes Russian Oil Pumping Station (CTH)

The Ukraine military, technically and non-pretendingly accepted as the EU military, has targeted a key oil pumping station in Russia that feeds into the westerly directed oil supply. However, if you stand back from the western media, what you will notice from this attack is not the target in Russia, but the customers at the end of the pipeline in Europe, mainly Hungary and Slovakia.


[…] Through local stations, including infrastructure around Kaleykino, oil from Tatarstan and neighboring regions feeds into the main pipeline, which runs through the Samara region and continues westward toward Belarus and further to countries in Eastern and Central Europe. […] There were also earlier reports that Ukrainian forces carried out several attacks on Druzhba pipeline infrastructure inside Russia, which at times disrupted Russian oil supplies to Hungary and Slovakia. {source}


So, what’s going on here?Well, with the anniversary of the Russian Federation beginning the war into Ukraine, the Europeans who now control the military operations inside Ukraine are targeting European countries who do not align with their bloodlust, specifically Hungary and Slovakia. Both Hungary and Slovakia are land locked countries without easy access seaports. Because of their geographic locations, they rely on Russian oil and gas for their energy needs. Hungary and Slovakia have not wanted to expand the war against Russia. The EU is demanding Hungary and Slovakia agree to expanded war. The European ‘coalition of the willing’ is now targeting key Russian infrastructure that supplies energy products to European countries who are not in compliance with the EU dictates of war.

Putin says threats to energy pipelines sabotage peace process with Ukraine. In his televised speech, the Russian president also accused Ukraine of threatening Russian energy pipelines with the help of Western intelligence agencies. He claimed these attacks were aimed to sabotage the peace process. Putin also stressed it was vital for Russia to strengthen the defence of energy infrastructure and other strategic sectors. {source} This is why Secretary of State Marco Rubio travelled to Hungary and Slovakia last week. Essentially, now we see European leaders attacking their own European “allies” through the use of Ukraine. If you do not support the continued bloodlust, you are an enemy of the EU collective hive mind.

https://twitter.com/DD_Geopolitics/status/2026291115100418176?s=20 Read more …

Ukraine blocks the flow of Russian oil to Slovakia, but still expects Slovakia to send it power.

• Slovakia Halts Electricity Supplies To Ukraine (RT)

Bratislava has stopped providing emergency electricity supplies to Ukraine until Kiev restores the flow of Russian oil to Slovakia through the Druzhba pipeline, Prime Minister Robert Fico has said, warning of “further reciprocal steps.” The prime minister made the announcement on Monday, when the ultimatum he issued over the weekend to Kiev to resume operations of the Soviet-era pipeline expired. The Druzhba pipeline, which connects Russia to Slovakia and Hungary, has been out of commission since late January. Kiev claims it was damaged in Russian strikes, which Moscow denies. Both Slovakia and Hungary have accused Ukraine of deliberately withholding supplies for political reasons and threatened retaliation.


Announcing the halt to electricity supplies to Ukraine, Fico reiterated that Ukraine’s actions were a “purely political decision aimed at blackmailing Slovakia.” “Reciprocity is a fundamental rule in international relations. The government’s first response to the hostile acts of the Ukrainian president in the form of stopping emergency electricity supply is therefore entirely appropriate,” Fico stated, warning of “further reciprocal steps” if oil supplies are not resumed. Kiev has been increasingly reliant on electricity imports to stabilize its power grid, which has been battered by Russian strikes on Ukraine’s dual-use infrastructure. According to Fico, Ukraine received twice as much electricity from Slovakia this January as it did throughout 2025.

The retaliatory move came hours after Hungary vetoed the EU’s latest sanctions on Russia, as well as a proposed €90 billion ($106 billion) emergency loan for Ukraine. Budapest tied the double veto to the Druzhba standoff, accusing Kiev of imposing an “oil blockade” on the country and “blackmailing” it. Last week, both Slovakia and Hungary announced that they would suspend diesel exports to Ukraine until the Druzhba pipeline becomes operational again. Budapest has also mulled cutting emergency electricity supplies to Ukraine.

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“Budapest has also opposed the bloc’s proposed 20th package of sanctions against Russia amid an oil supply row with Kiev..”

• Hungary Vetoes €90 Billion EU Loan For Ukraine (RT)

Hungary has blocked the EU’s proposed €90 billion ($106 billion) emergency loan for Ukraine, as well as the latest package of sanctions on Russia, citing Kiev’s allegedly deliberate disruption of oil supplies to the country. Hungary placed the double veto on the initiatives on Monday as Kiev and Budapest remain locked in a bitter row over the Soviet-era Druzhba oil pipeline – which carries Russian crude to Hungary and Slovakia and has been out of commission since late January. Kiev claims that it was damaged by Russia, which has denied the allegations. Budapest has echoed Moscow’s stance, accusing Kiev of deliberately withholding supplies for political reasons and subjecting the country to an “oil blockade,” and threatening retaliation.


“Ukrainians cannot blackmail us; they cannot jeopardize the security of Hungary’s energy supply by colluding with Brussels and the Hungarian opposition. No, a clear no,” Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said after a meeting of the bloc’s top diplomats to discuss the loan and sanctions package. EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas said the bloc’s leadership expected the measures to be approved at the meeting, adding that it was a major setback and a “message we did not want to send today.” The €90 billion loan was agreed to in December, when Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic secured an opt-out scheme, allowing them to not contribute to the scheme financially.

Hungary, as well as the other nation affected by the oil supply disruption, Slovakia, has threatened retaliation over the Druzhba issue, demanding that Kiev resume its operations immediately. Last week, both countries announced that they would suspend diesel exports to Ukraine until the pipeline becomes operational again. This weekend, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico also threatened to stop providing Ukraine with emergency electricity supply unless Kiev restores oil deliveries within two days. Fico said on Monday that he will keep his promise, raising the issue with the nation’s electricity provider. In January alone, Kiev received more emergency electricity from Slovakia than throughout 2025 to stabilize its energy grid amid Russian long-range strikes, he noted. https://twitter.com/HungaryBased/status/2026333804428705922?s=20

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“We don’t hate Ukraine. The problem is that the Ukrainian state hates Hungary..”

• Ukraine Hates Us – Hungary (RT)

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has rejected accusations that Budapest hates Ukraine, suggesting that it’s Kiev that’s been pursuing hostile policies toward his country for years. The remarks came in response to questions from reporters on the sidelines of the EU Foreign Affairs Council, as Hungary threatened to veto the bloc’s latest sanctions package against Russia. When one journalist confronted Szijjarto, suggesting that Hungary should direct its ire at Moscow, the minister offered a scolding response. “We don’t hate Ukraine. The problem is that the Ukrainian state hates Hungary,” Szijjarto said, accusing Kiev of undermining Budapest’s energy security by blocking crude oil supplies via the Druzhba pipeline, among other issues.


At the heart of the dispute is the Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline, the main artery carrying Russian crude to Hungary and neighboring Slovakia. As landlocked countries in Central Europe, both are heavily dependent on it. Another journalist charged that Hungary’s Russian oil purchases mean Budapest is “financing the war.” Szijjarto dismissed the claim, pointing out that the value amounts to a mere 0.2% of Russia’s gross domestic product. Later in the day, Hungary followed through and vetoed the sanctions package. Szijjarto said that Budapest would consider lifting its block only when Ukraine resumes oil flow via the Druzhba pipeline. Previously, Budapest halted diesel supplies to Ukraine and threatened to cut off electricity and natural gas.

When the oil flow stopped in late January, Ukraine blamed a Russian airstrike. Moscow, however, insisted that Kiev was using energy as leverage to blackmail the two EU countries, which have been critical of the bloc’s support for Ukraine. The diplomatic dispute between Hungary and Ukraine has escalated in recent weeks, spilling over into personal jabs. Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky launched a string of attacks against Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, including fat-shaming him during the Munich Security Conference earlier this month.

Orban, a vocal critic of EU support for Kiev, responded by saying Zelensky’s comments demonstrate why Ukraine “cannot become a member of the European Union.” The Hungarian prime minister has long opposed Ukraine’s push to join the bloc and has repeatedly refused to send it weapons or approve EU military aid, calling for diplomacy instead.

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Between Novichok and Navalny, we’ve come to know we cannot trust one single word from the British government.

And that’s how we also know that Russia did NOT kill Navalny.

• The New Navalny Poison – This Swedish Disinformation is a British Lie (Helmer)

The Swedish Government has admitted it has no direct evidence of the cause of Alexei Navalny’s death – only British Government hearsay.In a series of email exchanges last week, the Swedish Foreign Ministry has revealed that its military laboratories and scientific establishments have not received post-mortem samples of Navalny’s tissues. There has been no Swedish analysis of the toxicology of those samples. There is no Swedish documentation proving in the toxicology of the Navalny samples epibatidine poisoning as the cause of Navalny’s death on February 16, 2024. Forensically speaking, the Swedish Government does not know — cannot know — if Navalny died of natural causes or was poisoned to death. Ten days ago, however, on February 14, the Swedish Government signed with four other states – UK, Germany, France and The Netherlands – an announcement of fact and allegation of murder it had no intention to verify.



“The UK, Sweden, France, Germany and The Netherlands are confident [sic] that Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a lethal toxin,” the statement declared. “This is the conclusion [sic] of our Governments based on analyses [sic] of samples from Alexei Navalny. These analyses have conclusively [sic] confirmed the presence of epibatidine. Epibatidine is a toxin found in poison dart frogs in South America. It is not found naturally in Russia. Russia claimed that Navalny died of natural causes. But given the toxicity of epibatidine and reported symptoms [sic], poisoning was highly likely the cause of his death. Navalny died while held in prison, meaning Russia had the means, motive and opportunity to administer this poison to him.”

Sic is the old Latin adverb manuscript which editors traditionally used to mark an original word or term that applied to a surprising claim, faulty reasoning, fabrication, or falsehood which the reader might otherwise interpret as a mistake of transcription. No mistake here by the Swedes – this wording is their cover for not being caught at a provable lie. An investigation in Stockholm by lawyer Mats Nilsson, based on Swedish freedom of information law, has produced the record to show that the only conclusion the Swedish Government has reached is to accept that Porton Down, the British Government’s chemical warfare laboratory, which synthesized epibatidine at least a decade ago and has accumulated operational stocks since then, has reported the discovery of that poison in the Navalny samples.

However, the British Government has not transferred these samples to Sweden for investigation. The Swedish Government’s chemical warfare laboratory at Umeå does not confirm it has either received the samples, or analysed them, or reported any findings. Instead, a series of emailed answers from the Swedish Foreign Ministry’s Disarmament Non-proliferation and Export Control (NIS) Unit has repeated the February 14 joint statement allegations. When requested to substantiate them, the Ministry has added a series of disclaimers:

“we will not comment on the details regarding how the samples were obtained. What we can say is that we have high confidence in the integrity of the process… We will not comment on the details of the entities involved in the forensic investigation… We will not comment on the exact details of the identification process. We will not comment on the details regarding how the samples from Navalny were obtained. What we can say is that we have high confidence in the integrity of the chain of custody.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/JimFergusonUK/status/2026006356918992965?s=20 https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/2026541355820831115?s=20

 

 

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Debt Rattle August 16 2025

Aug 162025
 
 August 16, 2025  Posted by at 10:17 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , ,  47 Responses »


Edward Hopper Tables for ladies 1930

 

• Putin & Trump Find Common Ground as West’s War Party Shut Out (Sp.)
• Trump Pushes Peace Over Ceasefire After Putin Meeting (RT)
• Western Media In Frenzy Over Putin-Trump Summit – Moscow (RT)
• Putin-Trump Summit Went Much Better than Expected — Pepe Escobar (Sp.)
• Zelensky Should ‘Make A Deal’ – Trump (RT)
• Trump Praises ‘Warm’ Meeting With Putin (RT)
• Talks with Trump ‘Constructive’ – Putin (RT)
• ‘Next Time In Moscow’ – Putin to Trump (RT)
• Lasting Settlement Essential In Ukraine Conflict – Putin (RT)
• Judge Napolitano: the Chance for a ‘Grand Reset’ in Russia-US Ties (Sp.)
• A New Security Order Is On The Table In Alaska (Lukyanov)
• Why Putin and Trump Had To Talk In Person (Bordachev)
• The EU Throws An Epic Tantrum As Trump Meets With Putin (Marsden)
• Carefully and Gracefully (James Howard Kunstler)
• Scott Ritter: Two Things Need to Happen for Trump to Get His Ceasefire (Sp.)
• US Has ‘No Right’ To Tell India Who To Trade With – Jeffrey Sachs (RT)
• US Gov’t Ditches Musk’s AI Over ‘Anti-Semitism’ (RT)
• EU Leaders Want To Overthrow Three European Governments – Budapest (RT)

 

 

https://twitter.com/TheRicanMemes/status/1956191505934069769

Loon wing

Wray
https://twitter.com/Real_RobN/status/1956065246138990940

Kash

DC
https://twitter.com/MAGAVoice/status/1956167053649567935

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Turley

 

 

 

 

It’s funny. How do you summarize this summit? It’s like there was no tangible “big breakthrough”, but at the same time everything about it was a giant breakthrough.

“..CNN said: “Putin’s isolation ended when his plane landed in Anchorage..”

• Putin & Trump Find Common Ground as West’s War Party Shut Out (Sp.)

Talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump took place at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson near Anchorage, Alaska. Russia acknowledged positive, constructive dialogue between the sides, while Donald Trump hailed significant progress toward a Ukraine settlement. The Putin-Trump meeting shows the West “gambled on an easy victory over Russia and lost,” Mikael Valtersson, a Swedish Armed Forces veteran, told Sputnik. Both Russia and America have signalled satisfaction with the summit as a step forward towards a real peaceful solution of the Ukraine conflict, he noted. “Those that wanted more isolation and sanctions against Russia, if Russia didn’t agree to Western demands, didn’t have their way,” the former defence politician and chief of staff with Sweden Democrats emphasized.

The “Western war party” had hoped for new harsh sanctions on Russia and those trading with it, but instead what can be seen is improving relations between Russia and the US, as well as a continued peace process. After Donald Trump talks with his European allies and Ukraine, they will be faced with a choice, Valtersson said. They can either support the peace process by accepting the realities on the ground and legitimate interests of Russia, or reject it. If they choose the latter, they will isolate themselves from not only the majority of the world, but especially from the US. “Hopefully the cooler heads in Ukraine and Europe will realize that it’s better to follow the US and accept reality, than continue a lost war,” Valtersson concluded.

Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump’s reunion made clear they’d missed the bond from years past, psychiatrist Dr. Carole Lieberman told Sputnik. “When President Putin and President Trump approached each other… their body language showed a very open and warm receptiveness,” the Beverly Hills best-selling author said. The two leaders shook hands multiple times, touched each other’s arms, and smiled—a clear signal they’d missed the connection they had during Trump’s first presidency. Lieberman noted the direct eye contact, standing close marked an “auspicious beginning that foretold a positive meeting.” Even after three hours of serious talks, their joint press conference carried the same energy. Both turned slightly toward one another, as if to emphasize unity. “They gave the impression that they were facing the press together, on the same team,” Lieberman observed.

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“..not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do not hold up..”

• Trump Pushes Peace Over Ceasefire After Putin Meeting (RT)

The Ukraine conflict should be ended through a permanent agreement rather than a mere ceasefire, US President Donald Trump has said, following his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday. In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, Trump said his almost three-hour talks with Putin in Anchorage “went very well,” adding that it was “a great and very successful day.” He confirmed that he had discussed the summit with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky, several EU leaders, and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.

“It was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do not hold up,” Trump said. The US president also confirmed that he and Zelensky would hold talks on Monday, adding that “if all works out, we will then schedule a meeting with President Putin.”

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“..plunged into “frenzy bordering on complete madness” over the honors given to the Russian leader..”

• Western Media In Frenzy Over Putin-Trump Summit – Moscow (RT)

Western media have erupted in hysteria over US President Donald Trump’s cordial welcome for his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Alaska on Friday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said. Zakharova weighed in on the three-hour negotiations in Anchorage that brought Putin to US soil for the first time in more than a decade. The Russian leader was greeted at the airport with a red carpet and a flyover of US fighter jets. He and Trump then rode together in the US president’s limousine to the summit venue. While the sides did not announce any deal on Ukraine, Putin described the talks as constructive, with Trump calling the meeting “warm” and suggesting that Moscow and Washington “are pretty close” to settling the Ukraine conflict.

Zakharova noted that Western media had plunged into “frenzy bordering on complete madness” over the honors given to the Russian leader. “For three years they spoke of Russia’s isolation, and today they saw a red carpet rolled out to meet the Russian president in the US,” she said. Western media is attempting to frame the Alaska summit as a diplomatic win for Moscow. The Washington Post wrote that “the warmth of the welcome sent shock through Ukraine and Europe” while pointing to a stark contrast with the reception of Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky at the White House in February, when Trump accused the Ukrainian leader of disrespect, ingratitude over US aid, and of “gambling with World War III.”

https://twitter.com/RT_India_news/status/1956604838650970291?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1956604838650970291%7Ctwgr%5E96fd5db1e5dafa98554807c55448efd1c8b51955%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Frussia%2F623047-western-media-frenzy-trump-putin%2F

Sky News correspondent Ivor Bennett, a former RT reporter, voiced surprise that Putin was first to speak at the media conference “as if he was the host rather than Donald Trump.” Another Sky News reporter had suggested prior to the talks that Putin would “use his KGB-trained powers of deception and seduction” on his US counterpart. Bloomberg reported that “by inviting the Russian president onto American soil and giving him an audience, Trump had already delivered a diplomatic win” for a seemingly isolated leader. The agency also published a separate piece headlined “US-Russia Summit Shows How Little Europe Matters in Trumpworld”, referencing the fact that no EU leaders were invited to the summit. Politico ran the headline “Putin’s Alaska triumph,” while CNN said: “Putin’s isolation ended when his plane landed in Anchorage,” adding, the Russian president “[is] back in from the cold.”

Read more …

“There were even some indications that a serious US-Russia reset could be on the horizon..”

• Putin-Trump Summit Went Much Better than Expected — Pepe Escobar (Sp.)

There are few details about what exactly was discussed in the meeting, but Russian officials have made it clear that they’re pleased with how it went, says veteran geopolitical analyst, Pepe Escobar. There were even some indications that a serious US-Russia reset could be on the horizon. Even according to President Trump himself, they came to agreement on several important points and only a few are left. So this implies. serious discussions not only about Ukraine, a possible resolution in Ukraine, and of course we we have no idea about the terms and the parameters, but a reset, a serious reset of US-Russia relations. [..] The Russian delegation featured Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov, and RDIF head Kirill Dmitriev. The US delegation included senior diplomatic and security officials.

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He would have to give up Crimea, Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye. That would be the end of him.

• Zelensky Should ‘Make A Deal’ – Trump (RT)

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky should “make the deal” to settle Kiev’s conflict with Moscow, US President Donald Trump has said following three-hour talks in Anchorage with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, their first summit since Helsinki in 2018. In an interview with Fox News on Friday, Trump reflected on “a very warm meeting,” adding that the sides are “pretty close” to resolving the conflict. He stressed that Kiev should be on board with the push for peace, for it to have any chance of success. When asked what advice he would give Zelensky, Trump replied: “Make the deal”, adding that he believes that Putin “wants to see it done.”

“It’s really up to President Zelensky to get it done. And I would also say the European nations, they have to get involved a little bit,” the US president added. Trump said that he was ready to mediate direct talks between Putin and Zelensky. “If they’d like, I’ll be at that next meeting… Not that I want to be there, but I want to make sure it gets done. And we have a pretty good chance of getting it done.” Both leaders described the meeting as productive, although no agreement on Ukraine was announced. Putin earlier did not rule out direct talks with Zelensky, but stressed that it must be preceded by significant progress on settling the conflict.

Moscow has also voiced concerns about Zelensky’s right to sign any binding agreements, given that his presidential term expired last year, and that the Ukrainian leader has refused to call a new election, citing martial law. Ukrainian troops have been on the back foot for months, with Moscow making advances in Donbass and elsewhere. Moscow has insisted that any settlement should see Ukraine commit to bloc neutrality, demilitarization and denazification, as well as recognize the new territorial reality on the ground, including the status of Crimea, Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye Regions, all of which have voted to become parts of Russia.

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“The US leader earlier suggested that he would “give today a ten” when it came to the outcome of the summit..”

• Trump Praises ‘Warm’ Meeting With Putin (RT)

US President Donald Trump has described his summit in Alaska with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, as a “warm meeting,” and suggested that the Ukraine conflict is close to being resolved. In an interview with Fox News, the US leader praised the three-hour talks with Putin in Anchorage on Friday, noting that they had made progress in talks mainly focused on ending the hostilities between Russia and Ukraine. “Actually, I think we agree on a lot. I can tell you, the meeting was… warm,” Trump said, calling Putin a “strong guy.” The US leader earlier suggested that he would “give today a ten” when it came to the outcome of the summit. According to Trump, the sides are “pretty close to the end” of the conflict, although he added that “Ukraine has to agree” to any potential peace deal.

He would not provide any details of the discussions, saying only that “there’s one or two pretty significant items, but I think they can be reached.” The US president also noted that he had “always had a great relationship with President Putin, and we would have done great things together,” while praising Russia as a land brimming with natural resources. Putin similarly described the talks with Trump as “constructive” and “useful,” saying Moscow was “sincerely interested in putting an end” to the hostilities. He also suggested that the two leaders could hold their next meeting in Moscow, with Trump replying that he could “see it possibly happening.”

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“We have always considered the Ukrainian people…fraternal, as strange as it may sound in today’s conditions.”

• Talks with Trump ‘Constructive’ – Putin (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called his talks with US President Donald Trump in Anchorage on Friday “constructive” and “useful.” The discussions focused largely on the Ukraine conflict. Moscow is “sincerely interested in putting an end” to the ongoing hostilities, Putin stressed. “We have always considered the Ukrainian people…fraternal, as strange as it may sound in today’s conditions. We have the same roots and everything that is happening is a tragedy and a great pain for us,” he said. Speaking at the press conference, Trump remarked that the meeting was highly productive, although the two sides didn’t reached full agreement and no deal was finalized yet.

He highlighted the significant progress made during the discussions and affirmed his strong relationship with President Putin. Putin said that in recent years – under the administration of Joe Biden – US-Russia relations had sunk “to their lowest point since the Cold War,” which benefits neither the two countries nor the world as a whole. “It is obvious that sooner or later it was necessary to correct the situation and the transition from confrontation to dialogue had to take place. In this regard, a personal meeting of the heads of the two states was really overdue,” he said. The negotiations at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson lasted nearly three hours.

The Russian delegation for the Alaska summit also included Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Defense Minister Andrey Belousov, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov, and presidential economic envoy Kirill Dmitriev, who has been a key figure in the Ukraine settlement process. Trump was accompanied by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

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“Next time in Moscow,” Putin said in English. “That’s an interesting one,” Trump replied. “I’ll get a little heat for that one. But I can see it possibly happening.”

• ‘Next Time In Moscow’ – Putin to Trump (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin made a rare public switch to English to invite US President Donald Trump to Moscow for the next round of peace talks, following their summit in Anchorage, Alaska on Friday. Trump said he could see the meeting taking place though it would likely face political pushback. Speaking at the press conference, Trump called the meeting “extremely productive” and said, “we didn’t get there, but we have a very good chance of getting there,” implying no deal had been reached yet. He said the talks marked significant progress and reaffirmed what he described as his strong relationship with Putin. “Today’s agreements will help us restart pragmatic relations,” Trump said.

At the close of the press conference, Trump thanked Putin and said he expected to speak with him again soon. “Next time in Moscow,” Putin said in English. “That’s an interesting one,” Trump replied. “I’ll get a little heat for that one. But I can see it possibly happening.” Putin thanked Trump for what he called a “friendly” tone and “results-oriented” approach, saying it could “start us on the path towards a resolution in Ukraine.” He described the talks as “constructive” and reiterated his view that there would have been no war in Ukraine if Trump had been president when the conflict broke out. No details of any deal were provided, and neither Putin nor Trump took questions from reporters.

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Zelensky tweeted he’ll be in Washington on Monday. He’ll try and bring the entire EU.

• Lasting Settlement Essential In Ukraine Conflict – Putin (RT)

For a lasting resolution to the Ukraine conflict to be achieved, all of its root causes must be addressed, Russia’s legitimate concerns taken into account, and a fair global security balance restored, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a joint press conference with his US counterpart, Donald Trump, on Friday. The two men met in Alaska for a much-anticipated summit, to discuss restoring bilateral relations and to work toward a resolution of the Ukraine conflict. Putin acknowledged the willingness of the US administration and President Trump to engage in dialogue and seek solutions, noting their commitment to understanding the complexities of the situation.

He reiterated his view that Russians and Ukrainians are brotherly peoples and described the current circumstances as a tragedy, stressing Moscow’s sincere desire to bring the conflict to an end. Putin said that any sustainable resolution must address the root causes of the crisis while taking into account Russia’s legitimate concerns. “A fair balance of security in Europe and globally must be restored,” he stated. Putin agreed with Trump that ensuring Ukraine’s security is imperative and expressed a readiness to collaborate on the issue. He expressed hope that the mutual understanding reached during the discussions will pave the way toward peace.

“We hope that this will be perceived constructively in Kiev and European capitals, and that no obstacles will be created,” Putin stressed. “There should be no attempts to undermine the anticipated progress through provocations or behind-the-scenes intrigue.” Trump stressed that the key takeaway of the talks is that there is a reasonable opportunity to achieve peace. He expressed hope to meet Putin again soon, noting that the Russian president shares his desire to bring the conflict to an end.

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“..that puts “President Putin in what Americans call the catbird seat,”

• Judge Napolitano: the Chance for a ‘Grand Reset’ in Russia-US Ties (Sp.)

Presidents Putin and Trump are meeting for the first time in over six years.The main topics on the agenda? Ukraine and Russia-US relations. Veteran journalist and Judging Freedom host Andrew Napolitano shares his insights. The US is “in no position to consent to the very reasonable, intellectually honest and consistent Russian demands” in Ukraine, as its officials don’t seem to fully understand or appreciate Russia’s national security needs, Napolitano told Sputnik, when asked whether the meeting could lead to a speedy cessation of hostilities. The Russian military is already very close to achieving its objectives in the special military operation, Trump knows it, and that puts “President Putin in what Americans call the catbird seat,” Napolitano said.

“Add to those reasons the recent Russian triumphs in the battlefield, which are rather extraordinary and which have left the Ukrainians with very, very little manpower with which to resist the Russian military,” he added. The Putin-Trump meeting could be the “first of many steps” toward a new era “commercial, political, diplomatic, cultural integration” between the two nations, a “grand reset” that could require help from other rising global powers to fully realize. “That’s not going to happen today, and it may have to involve other countries like China, Brazil and India, maybe even Iran, but the grand reset between Russia and the United States, I believe, is a personal goal of President Putin and an aspiration of Donald Trump,” Napolitano said.

Read more …

Written pre-summit.

• A New Security Order Is On The Table In Alaska (Lukyanov)

It has been a long time since a diplomatic event drew as much global attention as Friday’s meeting between the Russian and US presidents in Alaska. In terms of its significance for the international balance, it is comparable only to the negotiations on German reunification 35 years ago. That process laid the foundations for political developments in the decades that followed. The Alaska talks could prove a similar milestone – not just for the Ukraine conflict, but for the principles on which a broader settlement between the world’s leading powers might be reached. Ukraine has become the most visible arena for historical shifts that go far beyond its borders. But if the German analogy holds, no one should expect a breakthrough from a single meeting. The marathon of high-level diplomacy in 1990 lasted many months, and the mood then was far less acute and far more optimistic than today.

The dense fog of leaks and speculation surrounding Alaska underlines its importance. Much of this “white noise” comes from two sources: commentators eager to sound informed, and political actors seeking to shape public opinion. In reality, the substantive preparation for the talks appears to have little to do with the propaganda framing. This is why official announcements so often catch outside observers by surprise. That may be a good sign. In recent decades, especially in Europe, diplomacy has often been accompanied by a steady drip of confidential details to the press – a habit that may serve tactical purposes but rarely produces lasting results. In this case, it is better to wait for the outcome, or the lack of one, without giving in to the temptation to guess what will happen behind closed doors.

There is also a broader backdrop that cannot be ignored: the shifts in the global order catalyzed by the Ukraine crisis, though not caused by it. For years, I have been skeptical of claims that the world is dividing neatly into two opposing camps – “the West” versus “the rest.” Economic interdependence remains too deep for even sharp political and military conflicts to sever ties entirely. Yet contradictions between these blocs are growing, and they are increasingly material rather than ideological. A key trigger was US President Donald Trump’s recent attempt to pressure the largest states of the so-called “global majority” – China, India, Brazil, and South Africa – to fall in line with Washington’s instructions. The old liberal order promised universality and some benefits to participants. Now, purely American mercantile interests dominate.

As before, Washington dresses its demands in political justifications – criticizing Brazil and South Africa over their treatment of the opposition, or attacking India and China over their ties with Moscow. But the inconsistencies are obvious. Trump, unlike his predecessors, prefers tariffs to sanctions. Tariffs are an explicitly economic tool, but they are now being wielded for political ends.

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“..they have often stood on the brink of a path from which there would be no return. This is why Alaska matters, even if it does not yield a breakthrough…”

• Why Putin and Trump Had To Talk In Person (Bordachev)

The meeting between the presidents of Russia and the United States in Alaska is not an end point, but the beginning of a long journey. It will not resolve the turbulence that has gripped humanity – but it matters to everyone. In international politics, there have been few moments when meetings between the leaders of major powers have decided questions of universal importance. This is partly because situations requiring attention at such a level are rare. We are living through one now: since the start of Russia’s military operation against Ukraine, Washington has declared its aim to be the “strategic defeat” of Russia, while Moscow has challenged the West’s monopoly over world affairs. Another reason is practical. Leaders of the world’s most powerful states do not waste time on problems that can be solved by subordinates.

And history shows that even when top-level meetings do occur, they rarely change the overall course of international politics. It is no surprise, then, that the Alaska meeting has been compared to famous encounters from the past – notably the 1807 meeting between the Russian and French emperors on a raft in the Neman River. That summit did not prevent Napoleon from attacking Russia five years later – an act that ultimately brought about his own downfall. Later, at the 1815 Congress of Vienna, Russia was the only power represented by its ruler on a regular basis. Tsar Alexander I insisted on presenting his personal vision for Europe’s political structure. It failed to win over the other great powers, who, as Henry Kissinger once noted, preferred to discuss interests rather than ideals.

History is full of high-level talks that preceded war rather than preventing it. European monarchs would meet, fail to agree, and then march their armies. Once the fighting ended, their envoys would sit down to negotiate. Everyone understood that “eternal peace” was usually just a pause before the next conflict. The 2021 Geneva summit between Russia and the US may well be remembered in this way – as a meeting that took place on the eve of confrontation. Both sides left convinced their disputes could not be resolved at the time. In its aftermath, Kiev was armed, sanctions were readied, and Moscow accelerated military-technical preparations. Russia’s own history offers parallels. The most famous “summit” of ancient Rus was the 971 meeting between Prince Svyatoslav and Byzantine Emperor John Tzimiskes, following a peace treaty.

According to historian Nikolay Karamzin, they “parted as friends” – but that did not stop the Byzantines from unleashing the Pechenegs against Svyatoslav on his journey home. In Asia, traditions were different. The status of Chinese and Japanese emperors did not permit meetings with equals; such encounters were legally and culturally impossible. When the modern European “world order” was created – most famously in the 1648 Peace of Westphalia – it was not through grand encounters of rulers but through years of negotiations among hundreds of envoys. By then, after 30 years of war, all sides were too exhausted to continue fighting. That exhaustion made it possible to agree on a comprehensive set of rules for relations between states.

Seen in this historical light, top-level summits are exceedingly rare, and those that produce fundamental change are rarer still. The tradition of two leaders speaking on behalf of the entire global system is a product of the Cold War, when Moscow and Washington alone had the ability to destroy or save the world. Even if Roman and Chinese emperors had met in the third century, it would not have transformed the fate of the world. The great empires of antiquity could not conquer the planet in a single war with each other. Russia – as the USSR before it – and the United States can. In the last three years, they have often stood on the brink of a path from which there would be no return. This is why Alaska matters, even if it does not yield a breakthrough.

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“..when Kiev loses, they say, “Ok, well this sucks – how about if everyone just pretends that none of this happened and we dial all the territorial gains and losses back to a point of our choosing, okay?”

• The EU Throws An Epic Tantrum As Trump Meets With Putin (Marsden)

The European Union had been wailing about “transatlantic unity” in the run-up to US President Trump heading to the negotiating table with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday – without it. It sounded like a toddler stomping their feet because Daddy let go of their hand in the mall and now they’re lost between Cinnabon and Burger King. A lot of good their dogmatic rhetoric has done them so far. If it wasn’t for Brussels getting drunk on its own transatlantic solidarity and unity propaganda, maybe it wouldn’t currently be in economic and political dire straits. The kind where you’re trying to duct-tape your economy back together with overpriced American gas.

They could have charted a different path vis-a-vis Russia. Maybe one that involved spearheading diplomacy rather than marching in lockstep behind the US-led NATO parade of weapons and fighters on Russia’s border with Ukraine, which helped supercharge the conflict in the first place. They could have insisted on keeping their cheap Russian energy instead of sanctioning their own imports like they were vying for a Nobel Prize in masochism. Now, the US is daring them to even close their clever little loophole in their own anti-Russian sanctions. The one that lets them moralize about helping Ukraine and the need to avoid negotiations with Russia while guzzling Russian fuel on the down-low. Trump Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told them to “put up or shut up” and sanction the Indian and Chinese importers of Russian petroleum through which the EU still buys Russian fuel.

While the EU indulges itself in rhetorical games, Trump has dropped all pretexts of serving any interests but America’s first, and isn’t following any agenda beyond trying to wrap things up with Russia in Ukraine and to score some economic wins in the process. Brussels has had more than three years to do the same. Instead, it kept repeating the mantra that Kiev had to win on the battlefield. There were no other options, it said. Whoops! Now that the option has materialized, the Europeans are relegated to running behind Trump, pleading with him to indulge them by letting Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky decide where the post-conflict borders will be. What did they think the downside of their “win by force” gamble would be, if not changed borders?

The EU insists on Ukraine fighting Russia with EU cash and weapons, and when Kiev loses, they say, “Ok, well this sucks – how about if everyone just pretends that none of this happened and we dial all the territorial gains and losses back to a point of our choosing, okay?” The EU insisted on waiting for someone else to take the initiative for peace. Now all it can do is pick up its pom-poms and cheer Trump on. Then hope that he rewards it. As Zelensky’s self-appointed babysitters, instead of spending the past week in the run-up to the Alaska summit insisting that Putin and Trump allow a high chair booster seat and a pack of crayons at the negotiating table so he can show them where he wants the borders, maybe the Europeans should have been calming him down and managing expectations.

He sounded like he was treating his phone like a toy, calling up everyone in the contacts under “EU” – Estonia, Denmark, probably a few pizza places. The EU has tried to gaslight Trump with the same rhetoric that it constantly firehoses onto European citizens about peace in Ukraine being a dangerous gateway drug for Russia to invade Western Europe – a convenient marketing pitch to justify boosting the weapons industry to the detriment of domestic priorities. Not even warhawk US Senator Lindsey Graham is saying that now, telling NBC News that “Russia is not going to Kiev”…let alone the EU. European leaders treated Wednesday’s video call with Trump like a win. Perhaps because he didn’t explicitly tell them off, for once. But they really have no idea what he’ll actually discuss with Putin, nor do they have leverage over any eventual US–Russia deal.

They don’t know whether Trump is just placating them because he doesn’t need a bunch of hysterical circus clowns in the mix. So how could the EU spin this to avoid looking completely irrelevant? “Today Europe, the US and NATO have strengthened the common ground for Ukraine, we will remain in close coordination. Nobody wants peace more than us. A just and lasting peace,” said unelected EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Yeah, sounds desperate for peace, alright. Which must be why the EU is building weapons factories at breakneck speed, according to the Financial Times. Nothing says “we’re committed to ending the war” like tripling down on weapons. What are you going to do with all those if peace breaks out? Toss them in the landfill and hope that taxpayers forget about the boondoggle, like you did with the hundreds of millions of unused Covid jabs?

Read more …

“It’s funny they call [intel] a ‘community.’ That sounds so benign and beneficial. Everybody likes communities.” —Doug Casey

• Carefully and Gracefully (James Howard Kunstler)

And so, now, in Alaska, Mr. Trump sits down with Vlad Putin to attempt a settling of Ukraine’s hash. This war has been a three-year bloody grind, millions killed, mostly Ukrainians, provoked underhandedly by US State Dept / CIA neocons, Britain’s MI6 apparatus, and the girl-bosses of the EU, for no good reason, namely, to weaken and possibly break-up Russia so as to get at its vast mineral and energy resources. This has been tried before in history, always to the grief of the triers. From our country’s point of view, the dynamics in play at this moment are delicate to an extreme. In the background of the Trump-Putin meet-up, amid an eerie silence in the DOJ and FBI, an epic, sweeping prosecution of the RussiaGate hoaxers creeps forward.

RussiaGate, of course, was born in the false charge (by America’s highest officials, derived from nonsense cooked up by Hillary Clinton) that Donald Trump was a Russian agent. It was preposterous and continually disproven, but the many-footed creatures of America’s deep state, which controlled so many levers of power, dragged it out for years. Altogether, that endeavor amounted to a campaign of sedition and arguably treason. The delicacy comes in as President Trump must now avoid at all costs any appearance of giving-in to Mr. Putin, of appearing to be any sort of a vassal — “Putin’s puppet,” as charged in RussiaGate. The raw truth is that Russia has likely already “won” the war in Ukraine, in the sense that it has finally gained control of the battlespace and worn out its opponent. It is fait accompli.

What remains is the disposition of Ukraine’s future which, in another raw truth, is mostly Russia’s to determine. Yet another raw truth is that this would probably be the best outcome for all concerned: a neutralized, disarmed Ukraine returned to its prior condition as a mostly agricultural sovereign backwater of Europe within Russia’s sphere-of-influence, resuming its longstanding status as not being a problem for anyone. Still, yet another raw truth is that the USA would benefit hugely from normalized relations with Russia, no more sanctions, fair trade, a rebalance of the drift toward China, lessening the chance of nuclear war — and this would even benefit the knuckleheads of Europe whose economies are imploding due to a lack of affordable energy (and also because of, let’s face it, the EU’s terrifically stupid “green” policies).

All of which means there will necessarily be a lot of “pretend” played in Anchorage for show. Mr. Trump must pretend to be tough on Putin, and Mr. Putin must pretend, a little bit, to give-in to Mr. Trump’ proposals. That is, it will be something of a kabuki, a kafabe. Surely, many of the stickiest points have been pre-negotiated by Mr. Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, who quietly visited Moscow a week ago. Mr. Trump must appear strong with Russia because his appointees are commencing to go medieval on the folks who called him “Putin’s Puppet” nine years ago — and subjected him to a series of epic torments including the subversion of his whole first term in office, nonstop obloquy from the media, impeachment (X 2), home invasion, and a grotesque set of malicious, nitwit prosecutions that have either failed completely (Fani Willis, Jack Smith) or will be subject to humiliating reversals in the higher courts. Not to mention two attempted assassinations.

You should assume that Mr. Putin well understands all this and intends to play along. He will appear to make some generous concessions to Ukraine, starting with the promise that it can go forward as a sovereign, self-governing nation. The big enchilada might be to grant that Ukraine can retain possession of Odessa, the port city on the Black Sea which is Ukraine’s depot for export to the world of its chief commodity, grains. In any case, both Russia and the USA intend to relieve Volodymyr Zelenskyy of his duties — notice he is conspicuously not invited to the Alaska meeting. Mr. Trump well understands that one way or another, Russia is going to prevail in this conflict on-the-ground. He abhors all the killing. He has already expressed a disinclination to keep backing the war with money and weapons. He must be disgusted at how the Bidens (and the Deep State) used Ukraine as a money-laundry, as a site for bioweapons labs, and how it served as a nexus for human trafficking.

He also knows that Russia wants badly to be re-admitted to normal relations with the West, which is in everybody’s interest, except perhaps China’s. You should infer therefore that Russia wants the war to end in a way that does not humiliate the losers and backers — perhaps along the lines of how America managed our victory against our enemies in World War Two, carefully and gracefully.

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“The scary thing is that the Biden administration officials who were in that room said ‘oh we’re ready for that. If the Russians wanna play, we’re ready to go to nuclear war with them.’ This is the insanity that existed in November of last year!”

• Scott Ritter: Two Things Need to Happen for Trump to Get His Ceasefire (Sp.)

The Ukrainian crisis is front and center of the Putin-Trump summit in Alaska. Sputnik asked renowned geopolitical analyst, former Marine Corps intelligence officer and ex-UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter to weigh in on the high stakes meeting. First things first: the US president “doesn’t care about the geopolitical nuances of Ukrainian battlefield locations,” Ritter said. “If Putin can convince him that the quickest route to a ceasefire is for Ukraine to leave” Russia’s new territories “and say no to NATO, that’s it. That’s all that has to happen for a ceasefire.” The Russian military has mastered drone warfare, counter-drone warfare, and new battlefield tactics to the point where its advance has become “an irreversible process,” Ritter added, commenting on what happens if the peace push doesn’t pan out.

“There’s nothing that can be done. Nothing can be done to stop this. The advantage is 100% Russia, and we’re looking at the Ukrainians on the verge of total collapse,” the observer stressed. Trump’s base doesn’t want to continue fueling a proxy conflict against Russia, much less getting into a hot war with Russia over Ukraine, Ritter said. “Don’t worry about Congress. They don’t elect the president, and they will fall in behind the president, because if he can secure his base with a peace deal, he can ruin everybody in Congress, especially a Republican, who goes against him,” he stressed.

In November 2024, the CIA briefed Congress on the risks of a nuclear war breaking out, estimating that there was a “greater than 50% chance” thanks to the Biden administration’s decision to greenlight long-range ATACMS strikes into Russia, Ritter revealed.

“The director of plans of Strategic Command, the American military command that carries out nuclear war briefed a Washington, DC think tank in November that the United States is prepared for a nuclear exchange with Russia, (that means nuclear war) and that the United States thought they were going to win,” he said. “When this was briefed to Congress, I asked a senior Democrat…’when the CIA briefed you, did the CIA say the Russians were bluffing?’ He said no. The CIA said the exact opposite. He said but that’s not the scary thing. The scary thing is that the Biden administration officials who were in that room said ‘oh we’re ready for that. If the Russians wanna play, we’re ready to go to nuclear war with them.’ This is the insanity that existed in November of last year!” Ritter stressed.

Read more …

Peace with Russia means these tariffs also must disappear.

• US Has ‘No Right’ To Tell India Who To Trade With – Jeffrey Sachs (RT)

The United States has no right to tell India who it can partner with in trade, Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, said on Friday. The economist was commenting in an interview with NDTV television on Washington’s decision to impose additional tariffs on India over its purchases of Russian oil. Last week, the White House announced an extra 25% tariff on Indian imports, raising the overall tariff level faced by the South Asian nation to 50%. US President Donald Trump said the measure was prompted by India’s continued imports of Russian oil. New Delhi condemned the move as “extremely unfortunate” and pledged to safeguard its national interests. Sachs described the tariff increase as a clear reason for India to remain cautious in its dealings with Washington.

“Don’t rely on them. India needs a diversified base of partners – Russia, China, ASEAN countries, Africa, and not see itself as mainly focusing on the US market, which is going to be unstable, slow-growing and basically protectionist,” according to Sachs. Addressing India’s imports of Russian oil, Sachs stated that Washington has no authority to determine the trading relations of other nations. The US “does not act responsibly towards other countries. Be careful. India should not allow itself to be used by the US, somehow, in the US’ misguided trade war with China,” the economist noted.

New Delhi is now seeking to expand its export presence in the 50 countries that account for about 90% of its total exports in an effort to offset the impact of the higher tariffs, according to local media reports, citing government sources. The initiative is intended to reduce reliance on any single market and to minimize risks arising from trade disruptions. In response to the US threats to impose secondary sanctions on Russia’s trade partners, including India, China, and Brazil, Moscow stated that it believes “sovereign states should have, and do have, the right to choose their own trade partners,” as well as to independently determine which avenues of cooperation best serve their national interests.

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“Grok had already been added to the GSA’s long-term procurement list, enabling agencies to buy it.”

• US Gov’t Ditches Musk’s AI Over ‘Anti-Semitism’ (RT)

The US government has dropped Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok from a planned federal technology program following controversy over anti-Semitic content and conspiracy theories produced by the bot, Wired reported on Thursday. Grok, developed by Musk’s AI startup xAI, is built into his social media platform X. It offers fact checks, quick context on trending topics, and replies to user arguments. Musk has promoted xAI as a rival to OpenAI and Google’s DeepMind, but the chatbot has faced criticism over offensive and inflammatory outputs. According to the report, xAI was in advanced talks with the General Services Administration (GSA), the agency in charge of US government tech procurement, to give federal workers access to its AI tools. Grok had already been added to the GSA’s long-term procurement list, enabling agencies to buy it.

Earlier this month, the GSA announced partnerships with other AI providers – Anthropic, Google’s Gemini, and Box’s AI-powered content platform – while reportedly also telling staff to remove xAI’s Grok from the offering. Two GSA employees told Wired they believe the chatbot was dropped over its anti-Semitic tirade last month, when it praised Adolf Hitler and called itself “MechaHitler.” The posts were deleted, and xAI apologized for the “horrific behavior,” pledging to block hate speech before Grok goes live. The bot also pushed the “white genocide” conspiracy theory and echoed Holocaust denial rhetoric, which xAI blamed on unauthorized prompt changes.

This week, it was briefly suspended from X after stating that Israel and the US were committing genocide in Gaza – allegations both countries reject. Musk has continued to praise the chatbot, recently writing: “East, West, @Grok is the best.” The move to drop Grok comes as part of a broader push by the administration of US President Donald Trump to modernize the federal government under an action plan unveiled last month that provides for less regulation and wider adoption of AI. However, the rapid growth of AI has triggered concern about its potential to spread misinformation, reinforce bias, and operate without accountability. Experts say that unless strong safeguards are in place, poorly moderated AI tools could also expose children to harmful or inappropriate content.

Read more …

All the more now Trump has put them at the kiddies table.

• EU Leaders Want To Overthrow Three European Governments – Budapest (RT)

The European Union is attempting to topple the governments of Hungary, Slovakia, and Serbia for prioritizing national interests over alignment with Brussels, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has claimed. He made the comments in a Facebook post on Thursday after phone calls with Slovak Foreign Minister Juraj Blanar and Serbia’s top diplomat, Marko Duric. According to Szijjarto, they agreed to strengthen their stance on sovereignty and pledged mutual solidarity amid what they described as growing external pressure. “Brussels has ceased to be a factor in world politics. The fact that Europe has been excluded from the Alaska talks proves it,” he wrote, referring to Friday’s summit between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the Ukraine conflict.

https://twitter.com/PM_ViktorOrban/status/1956065724088172985

Kiev’s backers in Europe have repeatedly called to be included in any talks involving Russia, Ukraine, and the US, insisting that “a European power” should be “in the room” to guarantee that the security interests of Kiev and the EU are “safeguarded.” Unlike the EU, which continues to support Ukraine’s war effort, Szijjarto said Hungary, Serbia, and Slovakia have prioritized national interests and resisted pressure from Brussels, favoring peace talks over military involvement. “This obviously frustrates the mainstream liberal political leaders, and as a result, the pressure is increasing on governments that are supporting peace, following national interests, and not subordinating to Brussels,” the diplomat said.

It’s “clearer than daylight” that “external intervention experiments to destabilize and overthrow governments are taking place in Central Europe against the patriot Slovak, Hungarian, and Serbian governments,” he added. Szijjarto criticized recent polling in Slovakia, which suggested citizens “only trust revolution,” and accused Brussels of trying to undermine Hungary’s elected leadership by supporting the opposition Tisza Party. He also referenced recent clashes between protesters and police in Serbia, implying that external forces were stirring unrest to destabilize the government. According to Szijjarto, these “are all different chapters of the same scenario in Brussels: they want to clean up the peace-party, patriot, national-interest governments,” aiming to replace them with puppet governments so Brussels “can get a seat.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

GoF
https://twitter.com/sheislaurenlee/status/1956140482960183359

100
https://twitter.com/DavidJHarrisJr/status/1956106786903388484

https://twitter.com/LangmanVince/status/1956366054529089828

Bees

Bob
https://twitter.com/buitengebieden/status/1956110689359003751

https://twitter.com/buitengebieden/status/1956330600387821710

 

 

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Debt Rattle February 19 2025

Feb 192025
 
 February 19, 2025  Posted by at 11:01 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  49 Responses »


Banksy Monkey Parliament 2009

 

• Trump Blasts Critics Of His Ukraine Peace Initiative (ZH)
• ‘Successful’ US-Russia Talks Conclude After 4+ Hours, No Ukraine Or EU (ZH)
• Polling Shows Trump And DOGE Have Public Backing Despite Critics (Whedon)
• Judge Rejects Request to Block DOGE From Accessing Government Data (ET)
• Judge Declines to Block DOGE’s Access to Student Financial Aid Data (ET)
• DOGE Finds $4.7 Trillion In Virtually Untraceable Treasury Payments (ZH)
• Trump Replaces Social Security Administration Head Amid DOGE Scrutiny (ET)
• 60 Million More Active Social Security Numbers than US Has Population (PCR)
• 20M in Social Security Database Over Age 100 – Listed But Get No Benefits (NYP)
• Zelensky Abruptly Cancels Planned Saudi Visit (ZH)
• Putin Ready To Talk To Zelensky – Kremlin (RT)
• EU ‘At Kid’s Table’ In Ukraine Talks – German Weapons Giant (RT)
• Zelensky Was A Draft Dodger – Poroshenko (RT)
• EU To Uphold Russia Sanctions Regardless Of US – Commissioner (RT)
• EU Mulling New Plan For Ukraine Military Aid (RT)
• Europe’s ‘Paper Army’ Can’t Ensure Security Without the US (Sp.)
• EU Suffers From “Foot In Mouth” Once Again Over Ukraine War (Jay)
• RFK Jr. Calls For New Age Of ‘Radical Transparency’ At HHS (NYP)
• Musk’s xAI Unveils “State Of The Art” Grok 3 AI Bot (ZH)

 

 

 

 

Ushakov
https://twitter.com/i/status/1891753063456592158

‘If Democrats ever had a clever thought, it died alone and afraid.’

‘Controlled by people who majored in online activism with a minor in puberty blockers.’

AI

Karp

NASA DOGE

Sachs

 

 

 

 

In the past three years, the world as presented to us by US and EU legacy media, has been black and white. Vladimir Putin played the bogeyman, Vladimir Zelensky the brave savior of mankind. Trump has shattered that artificial narrative in a matter of weeks. Because he doesn’t want to be held responsible for all the suffering it causes. This is everyone’s new reality now. The EU wants to “save the narrative”, but they will fail.

• Trump Blasts Critics Of His Ukraine Peace Initiative (ZH)

President Trump in an afternoon press Q&A from Mar-a-Lago went off on those attacking his Ukraine peace initiative, which saw Secretary of State Rubio and national security advisor Walz lead a delegation in 4+ hours of talks with FM Lavrov and the Russians in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia earlier in the day. “I want to see peace. Look, you know why I want it? Because I don’t want all these people killed anymore. I’m looking at people that are being killed — and they’re Russian and Ukrainian people, but they’re people,” Trump emphasized. His tone on Zelensky was decidedly negative, and he defended his administration’s stance on holding Kiev to new elections, saying this is necessary if the Ukrainians want a seat at the table. Watch:

On a similar theme, at one point he was asked what his message is to Ukrainians who feel betrayed by his administration, again as the US pursues negotiations with Russia while sidelining both Zelensky and EU officials. Trump responded bluntly: “I hear they’re upset about not having a seat. Well, they’ve had a seat for three years.” Trump was further asked about how he would prevent Russia from installing a puppet government in Ukraine. He remarked that none of this is about personalities, but about getting the job done, saying he likes Zelensky “personally” but that’s not what this is all about. “You have leadership now that’s allowed a war to go on that should’ve never ever happened, even without the United States,” Trump said, underscoring that the conflict and slaughter started under Biden.

“Look we had a president who was grossly incompetent, he had no idea what he was doing – he said some very stupid things, like going in for portions,” Trump continued. “This is something that would have never happened. And I used to discuss it with Putin. President Putin and I used to talk about Ukraine – it was the apple of his eye… I used to tell him ‘don’t go in’ – and he understand that, he understood it fully… I want to see if I can save maybe millions of lives.” You might “end up in World War 3,” Trump warned, if the conflict keeps escalating and with no efforts to make peace. Importantly, Trump also asked where the billions upon billions given to Ukraine went. “We gave them I think $350 BILLION… where is all the money that’s been given? Where is it going? I don’t see any accounting!”

“…so I want to see peace… I don’t want to see all these people killed anymore.” He noted that Europe has “only given a small percentage of that” – even though this most directly impacts the security of Europe. “I could have made a deal for Ukraine that would have given them almost all of the land and no people would have been killed and no cities would have been demolished… President Biden in all fairness doesn’t have a clue”.

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“We have agreed that a mechanism for a settlement of the Ukraine conflict will be formed in the near future, and ambassadors will be appointed ASAP to lead these efforts.”

• ‘Successful’ US-Russia Talks Conclude After 4+ Hours, No Ukraine Or EU (ZH)

The day of a high-level and much anticipated US-Russia meeting toward achieving the end of the war in Ukraine was held in Saudi Arabia, hailed by Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser, as “successful” after about four-hours-and-a-half hours of talks. However, Ukraine’s President Zelensky was sidelined as were the European allies. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov led the Russian delegation meeting US officials, including Rubio and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz. Both sides have said they are looking forward to the meeting paving a way for a near-future bilateral summit between Presidents Trump and Putin. Secretary Rubio issued a statement in the wake of the meeting, which most interestingly included an agreement for election to be held in Ukraine, which Zelensky certainly isn’t going to like (and probably won’t agree to), given also he just recently argued that martial law prevents this.

According to what was agreed to based on Rubio’s readout:
• Two sides agree to broadly to pursue three goals: allowing back staffing at their embassies in Washington and Moscow and to establish respective high-level teams to support Ukraine peace talks.
• And three: Explore closer restored relations and economic cooperation between the US and Russia
• Rubio stressed that any agreement must be “acceptable” to US, Russia, Ukraine and Europe.
• The plan has three stages: a ceasefire, elections in Ukraine and signing a final agreement, according to Fox reporter Jacqui Heinrich on X
• Lavrov has said: We have agreed that a mechanism for a settlement of the Ukraine conflict will be formed in the near future, and ambassadors will be appointed ASAP to lead these efforts.
Inside the room…

Pushing back against critics, Rubio emphasized that Ukraine has not been sidelined, though Zelensky nor any Kiev representative was invited to the talks in Riyadh. “He’s the only leader in the world that could have started this process here today,” he said. The State Department readout said Tuesday’s meeting puts the two sides “on a path to ending the conflict in Ukraine as soon as possible in a way that is enduring, sustainable, and acceptable to all sides.” More details via Bloomberg: They also agreed to “address irritants” in US-Russia relations to restore the work of their diplomatic missions, and to “lay the groundwork for future cooperation on matters of mutual geopolitical interest” once the war ends, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said.

Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said they discussed a summit between Trump and Putin but it was unlikely to take place next week. “It’s hard to say yet that we’re getting closer, but there was a conversation,” Ushakov said of the US and Russian positions after the meeting, according to the state-run Tass news agency. Ushakov and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov represented the Kremlin at the talks that included White House National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal Bin Farhan was also present. Trump is determined to “move very quickly” on securing a permanent settlement in Ukraine, Waltz said in a briefing by the US side. Rubio said he was convinced Russia’s willing to engage “in a serious process” on Ukraine, while Witkoff called the meeting a “very, very solid session.”

Complaining about lack of EU representation, Ursula von der Leyen has claimed Europe has contributed more “financially and militarily” to Ukraine than anyone else. Zelensky, who is currently visiting Ankara, said his country seeks “security guarantees from US, EU, Turkey” against Russia. It seems he may actually acquiesce to the US taking the option of NATO membership off the table permanently – as this was never a realistic path in the first place. Meanwhile, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Grushko has emphasized that in reality the EU has canceled itself, and that’s why it’s not a trustworthy partner to negotiate peace, or be in the room. He pointed to the EU’s repeatedly stated desire to “inflict a strategic defeat on Russia,” stressing that “this rules out any role for the EU and European countries in the upcoming negotiations to resolve the conflict in and around Ukraine.”

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Despite the entire anti-Musk/Trump campaign.

• Polling Shows Trump And DOGE Have Public Backing Despite Critics (Whedon)

Elon Musk is bringing receipts to substantiate his claims of large-scale fraud in the American government, undermining claims from detractors as he rides a wave of popular support for President Donald Trump and a government overhaul. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under Elon Musk has attracted its fair share of critics, though the agenda of dramatically downsizing government itself appears to have overshadowed the negative press and public suspicion of Musk. Over the first month of the Trump presidency, DOGE has torn through federal agencies seeking instances of fraud, waste, abuse and other non-necessary expenditures hoping to dramatically reduce the scope of the federal government. The department has yet to post a comprehensive list of savings, but its website currently promises “receipts coming over the weekend.”

So far, however, the department has already shown hard documentation of apparent fraud and waste via its X account. Thus far, the agency has largely taken aim at executive branch agencies and has yet to post any workforce data on Congress or the Judiciary. But the executive branch agencies make up a substantive part of the federal workforce and payroll, accounting for more than 2.2 million employees and an annual expenditure of just over $211 billion. Over the weekend, the department published its initial reports outlining the scope of federal agency expenditures and regulations, estimating that 18.5 federal regulations existed for each law Congress approved. Speaking on the “John Solomon Reports” podcast on Monday, Rep. Mike Kennedy, R-Utah, highlighted that Musk had managed to undercover more information on wasteful spending than Congress because of flaws in the process of oversight hearings.

“So the thing that we’re hearing is Elon Musk is doing forensic accounting investigation into these programs. These programs can’t defend themselves from computer programs that will burrow into the financial transactions,” he said. “If Congress asked for a hearing, you know what? You and I both know. What happens is the bureaucrats show up with redacted information that is essentially not informational and or they don’t tell us the full story.” “And so we can ask for hearing after hearing, but when you have forensic accounting resources, and you go in and you find where these checks are going, where this money’s going, you can actually track these things down, gather the proof, and prove to the American people that their money is being wasted,” he contended.

The total amount of money DOGE has saved through slashing programs and payroll remains unclear as of press time, though reports are expected in the near future. A cursory glance at the agency’s X account, however, shows the figure to be well in the billions, with more than $1 billion alone coming from eliminated Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs. After initially tackling flak from legacy media over his claims of fraud at his initial press conference without providing paper evidence, Musk later posted screenshots of the Social Security database to substantiate his assertions that 150-year-olds were receiving Social Security. “According to the Social Security database, these are the numbers of people in each age bucket with the death field set to FALSE! Maybe Twilight is real and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security,” he posted.

One user, in response, highlighted that the total number of eligible recipients in the list neared 400 million, despite the U.S. having a population of roughly 60 million fewer people. “Yes, there are FAR more ‘eligible’ Social Security numbers than there are citizens in the USA. This might be the biggest fraud in history,” Musk replied. Easily the nation’s most prominent entitlement program, Social Security alone accounts for a sizeable portion of the nation’s budget and lawmakers estimate the weekly losses to be in staggering amounts. Notably, an Office of the Inspector General report from 2023 that the New York Post highlighted on Monday previously found 18.9 million numbers registered to persons born in 1920 or earlier, but noted that most were not currently receiving payments.

[..] CNN reported Monday that DOGE employee Gavin Kliger will soon secure access to taxpayer data at the IRS through its Integrated Data Retrieval System. “It takes direct access to the system to identify and fix it. DOGE will continue to shine a light on the fraud they uncover as the American people deserve to know what their government has been spending their hard earned tax dollars on,” White House deputy press secretary Harrison Fields told the outlet. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., on Monday took aim at Musk for “rummaging through your personal sh*t” in response to DOGE’s access to IRS data. “Bruh, if I wanted to rummage through random personal shit, I could have done that at PAYPAL. Hello??? Having tens of millions of people marked in Social Security as “ALIVE” when they are definitely dead is a HUGE problem,” Musk retorted. “Obviously. Some of these people would have been alive before America existed as a country. Think about that for a second …”

Leftists in media, both traditional and social — particularly activist celebrities — have taken to attacking him for everything from his personal life to attempts to suppress the stock of Tesla. Those findings come as the public appears supportive of the Trump administration, thus far, with 55% of registered voters expressing approval in the latest Napolitan News Survey. A further 43% disapproved of the administration. Notably, voter priorities appear to be with Trump’s keynote campaign promises on the economy and immigration. Thirty-one percent said the economy was the most important issue while 22% chose immigration. The remainder were largely divided among other issues. An earlier CBS News survey, moreover, found Trump with a 53% approval rating, while 70% expressed the belief that he was keeping his campaign promises.

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The judges are waking up to the end of lawfare. Even U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan.

• Judge Rejects Request to Block DOGE From Accessing Government Data (ET)

A federal judge on Feb. 18 turned down a request from a group of state attorneys general to block the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing data at seven government agencies, finding the states had not met the bar for relief. “The court is aware that DOGE’s unpredictable actions have resulted in considerable uncertainty and confusion for Plaintiffs and many of their agencies and residents,” U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan wrote in a 10-page decision. “But the ‘possibility’ that defendants may take actions that irreparably harm plaintiffs ‘is not enough.’” New Mexico and other states had asked Chutkan to block DOGE and Elon Musk, a special government employee, from accessing data at the Office of Personnel Management, the Department of Education, the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Energy, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Commerce.

They also requested that the judge block Musk, DOGE, and people acting in concert with them from terminating workers within those agencies or placing them on leave. The states said that Musk “is exercising unprecedented executive authority” in violation of the U.S. Constitution, “directing the agencies’ actions in ways that exceed even the authority of those agencies’ Senate confirmed leaders.” “Evidence suggests that he has, and continues to, cut billions of dollars from agency budgets, fired agency personnel, and, in his words, ‘delete[d]’ entire agencies,” they said in the motion. The states expressed concern that their residents’ data is at risk due to DOGE’s access to the data. Government officials said in response that Musk is not a DOGE employee and does not have decision-making authority. “Mr. Musk can only advise the President and communicate the President’s directives,” one told the court in a filing.

A party seeking a temporary restraining order must show they are likely to succeed on the merits in the case and would suffer irreparable harm absent relief, among other requirements. Chutkan said the states have not met the harm standard, highlighting statements entered by the plaintiffs that say if Musk and DOGE take certain actions, then the states will suffer harm. She said the states have put forth a serious claim that Musk’s moves violate the Constitution’s Appointments Clause, which requires Senate confirmation of top Executive Branch officials. However, she said that she was unable to act because she was not aware of any temporary restraining orders being based on an Appointments Clause violation.

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“..the plaintiffs had not shown sufficient irreparable harm to warrant emergency injunctive relief. “Because the Court concludes that UCSA has failed to clear that essential hurdle, the Court’s analysis also ends there..”

• Judge Declines to Block DOGE’s Access to Student Financial Aid Data (ET)

A federal judge declined to block the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing the Department of Education’s student financial aid data on Feb. 17. The ruling stems from a lawsuit brought by the University of California Students Association (USCA) against the Education Department and its acting secretary, Denise Carter. The suit alleged that DOGE, in seeking to access the Education Department’s records, will have access to the students’ personal information, including social security numbers, as well as detailed financial data of their parents. U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss ruled that the plaintiffs had not shown sufficient irreparable harm to warrant emergency injunctive relief. “Because the Court concludes that UCSA has failed to clear that essential hurdle, the Court’s analysis also ends there,” the judge wrote.

“The Court leaves for another day consideration of whether USCA’s has standing to sue and has stated a claim upon which relief may be granted. Those questions are less clear cut and are better answered on a more complete record.” The USCA suit alleged that DOGE’s actions in accessing the department’s records would violate federal regulations, including the Privacy Act of 1974, which prohibits the department from sharing this data with a third party. “Plaintiff UCSA’s members are among the 42 million federal student loan borrowers who have provided sensitive personal information to [the Education Department] in order to obtain a federal student loan,” the plaintiffs’ complaint stated. “These are people who trusted [the department] with their sensitive personal information” when filing for student loans and grants, the complaint stated.

One UCSA student, remaining anonymous because of her family’s immigration status, submitted a supplemental declaration saying that DOGE accessing her records had given her anxiety and was causing her to reconsider her application for graduate school. The department responded that the lawsuit is without merit, and raises “separation of powers concerns by impermissibly intruding into the President’s superintendence of the Department of Education.” “There is no violation of the Privacy Act when employees of an agency, like the six individuals at issue here, access agency systems to perform their job duties,” the response stated. A declaration by the education department’s chief information officer Thomas Flagg says that the department “routinely shares information with other Executive departments and agencies as part of other, non-DOGE-related initiatives, which [he does] not understand to be at issue in the litigation for which I submit this declaration.”

Moss drilled into both sides of the case in a hearing on Feb. 14, seeking to understand if DOGE employees who had been assigned temporarily to work at the department could be considered employees of that agency. Moss highlighted what he saw as a “unique lack of transparency” in DOGE’s work. “We don’t know who these folks are or what they are doing,” he said at the hearing. The judge asked the plaintiffs if it was ever appropriate for government employees of an agency to conduct an audit. Attorneys for the plaintiffs responded that it “depends on the nature of the audit.” Likewise, the judge queried lawyers for the government about the broad scope of DOGE’s data acquisition. “What would happen if the political director of the White House obtained the tax records of every Democrat candidate?” he asked.

The judge was also concerned that the student’s data was being fed into an AI portal for processing and sought clarification on the actual number of DOGE employees assigned to audit the Education Department. Attorneys for the government estimated that number at six individuals. The plaintiffs alleged there were as many as 37. On Feb. 17, DOGE employee Adam Ramada submitted a declaration to the court testifying that he was aware of only six “who have been granted access to Department information technology and data systems or who have otherwise received any Department information protected by the Privacy Act or section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code.” Ramada also said that all employees, except one, had completed security and ethics training; the remaining employee is set to finish the training soon.

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“.. the TAS (Treasury Access Symbol) field was optional for ~$4.7 Trillion in payments and was often left blank, making traceability almost impossible..”

• DOGE Finds $4.7 Trillion In Virtually Untraceable Treasury Payments (ZH)

The Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on Monday revealed its finding that $4.7 trillion in disbursements by the US Treasury are “almost impossible” to trace, thanks to a rampant disregard for the basic accounting practice of using of tracking codes when dishing out money. Mind you, it’s not as if such a federal tracking system wasn’t already in place — it simply went casually unused for all sorts of payouts adding up to an almost unfathomable $4.7 trillion. Without Treasury Access Symbol (TAS) identification codes associated with those payouts, there’s little hope in figuring out where all that money went. “In the Federal Government, the TAS field was optional for ~$4.7 Trillion in payments and was often left blank, making traceability almost impossible,” DOGE announced via its X account. Thanks to DOGE, those “optional” days are over.

“As of Saturday, this is now a required field, increasing insight into where money is actually going,” DOGE added. Musk celebrated the move. “Major improvement in Treasury payment integrity going live!” he tweeted. “This was a combined effort of DOGE, USTreasury and FederalReserve. Nice work by all.” DOGE’s scrutiny of various government agencies is eliciting high-pitched shrieks from nearly every leftist in America, from establishment politicians who don’t want the curtain that hides their hijinks and grifting torn down, to your liberal sister-in-law who thinks the government has an endless supply of money and that it spends it all virtuously.

Earlier this month, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pushed back on portrayals of DOGE employees as reckless rogues. “These are highly trained professionals,” he told Bloomberg. “This is not some roving band going around doing things. This is methodical and it is going to yield big savings.” In the wake of the latest revelation that makes normal people glad that DOGE teams are scouring the federal government, Democrats desperately tried to find a way to make it sound bad that DOGE exposed trillions in untraceable payouts and promptly instituted tighter accounting discipline. Here’s Wisconsin Rep Mark Pocan’s lame attempt:

Meanwhile, leftists have also been foaming at the mouth over news that DOGE staffers are looking into the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) books, as if they were going to start rerouting funds to Tesla. Considering Social Security is careening toward mandatory benefit cuts as soon as 2033, everyone should welcome a team of financial professionals making sure the system isn’t being drained by improper payments. Of course, that appears to be exactly what’s been happening. On Sunday night, Musk said DOGE might be on the trail of “the biggest fraud in history,” as SSA data appears to show that 20.789 million Americans over the age of 100 are collecting Social Security retirement benefits. That includes 12 million who are purportedly over 120 years old.

Bent on derailing DOGE, Democrats have sued to prevent the organization from accessing federal data associated with the Office of Personnel Management, and the Health and Human Services, Education, Energy, Transportation, Labor and Commerce departments. On Monday, the federal judge handling the request for a restraining order expressed skepticism over Democrats’ challenge, noting that their “evidence” was largely media speculation about potential harms springing from DOGE’s activities: “The courts can’t act based on media reports. We can’t do that.” A ruling is expected Tuesday. Here’s looking forward to DOGE proceeding to uncover a relentless string of scandals for months and months to come.

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“The agency will be led by a career Social Security anti-fraud expert as the acting commissioner..”

• Trump Replaces Social Security Administration Head Amid DOGE Scrutiny (ET)

President Donald Trump has replaced the head of the Social Security Administration (SSA), the White House said on Feb. 18. “The agency will be led by a career Social Security anti-fraud expert as the acting commissioner,” White House spokesman Harrison Fields told The Epoch Times in an email. “President Trump is committed to appointing the best and most qualified individuals who are dedicated to working on behalf of the American people, not to appease the bureaucracy that has failed them for far too long.” The acting commissioner has not been identified. A webpage for the commissioner on the SSA website was recently removed. It previously held a biography for Michelle King, who was named acting commissioner in January. The White House declined to say whether King resigned or was fired.

Trump nominated Fiserv CEO Frank Bisignano as SSA commissioner in December 2024. Fields said the White House expects Bisignano to be confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate in the coming weeks. “I am honored to have this once in a lifetime opportunity to serve my country,” Bisignano said previously. “I thank President-elect Trump and, if confirmed, look forward to applying my experience to transform our social security system.” Elon Musk said on Feb. 17 on social media platform X that the Department of Government Efficiency had found millions of people older than 120 listed in the agency’s database as eligible for Social Security. The oldest living person in the world is 116, according to Guinness World Records.

The SSA’s inspector general said in 2023 that it found that 18.9 million people aged 100 or older were still listed in the database despite the U.S. Census estimating that just 86,000 individuals in that age range live in the United States. “Taking action to include death information for the millions of numberholders omitted from the [database] would enhance Government-wide improper payment prevention and detection,” the watchdog said at the time. The inspector general made recommendations to improve the system, but the agency disagreed with the recommendations. People eligible for Social Security include children, spouses, and retired workers. More than 70 million people received benefits from SSA programs in 2022, according to the agency.

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“I still have my first Social Security card from 1957 needed for my first job in a Columbus, Georgia, cotton mill at $1.00 per hour. My take-home pay for a 40 hour week, 7am – 3pm, was $33.00. My Social Security Card says in large red letters, “NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION PURPOSES.”

• 60 Million More Active Social Security Numbers than US Has Population (PCR)

Dear Readers, If you are puzzled why Democrats and the US Civil Service are begging judges to prevent the Trump administration from having access to official US government data, the Social Security data alone explains it. The US population according to the CensusBureau is 334 million, but according to current Social Security records, there are 398 million people with active Social Security numbers. In other words, 64 million more people have US Social Security numbers than exist.According to the Social Security Administration’s official data, there are two active Social Security accounts of people who are older than the United States. According to the Social Security Administration, there are active Social Security numbers for 3.6 million Americans between the ages of 110 and 119 years of age; 3.4 million between the ages of 120-129 years of age; 3.9 million between the ages of 130-139; 3.5 million between the ages of 140-149, and to pass by these absurd active Social Security numbers, we have the Social Security Administration attesting to the fact that there are 1,039 active Social Security numbers for people aged 220-229 years old.

Who is receiving these benefit checks? This is what the corrupt judiciary is keeping secret by blocking DOGE, claiming it is a violation of privacy. It must be the privacy of dead people or zombies. [..] Trump and Musk are trying to restore the integrity of the US government and to stop the theft of government revenues and the intrusiveness of government into our lives. Over the course of my life government has become intrusive in ways that were impossible when I was young. For example, I still have my first Social Security card from 1957 needed for my first job in a Columbus, Georgia, cotton mill at $1.00 per hour. My take-home pay for a 40 hour week, 7am – 3pm, was $33.00. My Social Security Card says in large red letters, “NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION PURPOSES.”

In America today you cannot do anything without using your Social Security card or number for identification. Your Social Security number, not your name, has become your identity, an identity that the digital revolution makes it easy for criminals to steal. Did you read in the whore media about this extraordinary fact that Social Security accounts exceed the population? Of course not. The official narrative is that Trump is going to balance the budget by ending Social Security payments. This is more fake news from the whore media that told us Trump was a Russian agent. Instead of cutting Social Security payments, Trump wants to stop the fraud.

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The main takeaway is what an incredible mess the system is.

• 20M in Social Security Database Over Age 100 – Listed But Get No Benefits (NYP)

Tesla and X CEO-turned-special government employee Elon Musk claimed to have uncovered “the biggest fraud in history” when he stumbled across more than 20 million people listed in the Social Security database as over 100 years old. “According to the Social Security database, these are the numbers of people in each age bucket with the death field set to FALSE!” Musk posted on X late Sunday, showing a chart of ages ranging from zero to 369 years old. “Maybe Twilight is real and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security,” he joked, adding that “there are FAR more ‘eligible’ social security [sic] numbers than there are citizens in the USA. This might be the biggest fraud in history.” However, Musk’s bombshell has long been known by the Social Security Administration (SSA) watchdog, which released an audit in July 2023 showing that 18.9 million people listed as 100 years or older — but not dead — were in the database.

Only 86,000 people living in the US at the time were actually centenarians, according to the Census Bureau. The same inspector general’s office found in a March 2015 audit that 6.5 million people with Social Security numbers but no death information were over 112 years old — despite just 35 people on the planet having reached that ripe old age. In both audits, the inspectors general concluded that “almost none” were actually cashing Social Security checks — despite the glaring accounting errors identifying people born in 1886 and 1893 as still living, in two extreme cases. Roughly 18.4 million uncovered in the 2023 audit had not received benefits or reported income for 50 years, meaning they were likely dead. “We believe it likely SSA did not receive or record most of the 18.9 million individuals’ death information primarily because the individuals died decades ago — before the use of electronic death reporting,” the report states.

Around 44,000 were actually receiving benefits, with 13 of those older than 112. The oldest living man in the world — Salustiano Sanchez-Blazquez, a 112-year-old self-taught musician, coal miner and gin rummy aficionado from western New York — had died months after the first audit began. The audits, however, did reveal that around 531 million unique Social Security numbers are in circulation — and that “thousands” may be in use to commit identity fraud. The 2015 audit showed about $3.1 billion in earnings reported by employers or self-employed individuals who were not the actual Social Security number holder. Alex Nowrasteh, Cato Institute vice president for economic and social policy studies, replied to Musk’s tweet by noting that a lot of Social Security numbers for people older than age 100 were “illegal immigrants paying in, not fraudulent recipients taking out.”

“By all means, clean up SSA and mark those people as deceased. But the cost of doing so is less revenue going into Social Security,” Nowrasteh said. “Maybe that’s fine, SS should be shut down anyway, but that is a downside.” Nowrasteh explained to The Post in a Monday phone interview that migrants were “stealing identities of people who are deceased but not marked in the Social Security system.” Many make use of a “thriving” black market for both identity theft and identity loans — the latter of which can be obtained with just an ID and Social Security number — to be able to work in the US.

Nowrasteh and other observers believe that Musk was pulling from a Social Security list known as “Numident,” which includes every number handed out since the benefits program started in 1936. “Some people have more than one number, occasionally because they’re committing fraud, but more usually because they’ve had fraud committed against them and they were issued a new clean number,” a former SSA employee told journalist Jesse Singal. “[A]lso you have people who received a Social Security number and then left the US, like temporary immigrant workers,” the employee added. “But there’s a long term recognized problem with SSA’s databases not marking as dead people who have died.”

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“..Marco Rubio after the Riyadh meeting issued a statement revealing an agreement for election to be held in Ukraine, which Zelensky certainly isn’t going to like (and probably won’t agree to)..”

• Zelensky Abruptly Cancels Planned Saudi Visit (ZH)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced Tuesday he is cancelling his scheduled state visit to Saudi Arabia following the conclusion of US-Russia talks there. He’s been on a Middle East diplomatic tour to gain support for his country now three years in to the Russia-Ukraine war, which took him to the UAE, Turkey, and Wednesday he was supposed to be in Saudi Arabia to meet with the kingdom’s leadership. The Saudi trip had been planned before it was known that the US-Russia talks would take place. “Zelensky CANCELLING trip to Saudi Arabia following US/Russia talks. Zelensky will now return to Kyiv from Ankara, Turkey,” Fox News has reported. He now says he plans to visit in March. Zelensky is clearly trying to lash out at Washington. Without doubt this is to signal his anger about being cut out of talks toward ending the Ukraine war.

The Kremlin hailed Tuesday’s four-and-half hour meeting in Riyadh, with Rubio leading the US side and Lavrov leading the Moscow delegation, as “successful”. European officials were also noticeably absent from the meeting, which was hosted and mediated by the Saudi government. Zelensky had issued a prior warning while in the UAE: “Ukraine will not accept. Ukraine knew nothing about this. And Ukraine regards any negotiations about Ukraine without Ukraine as having no results,” he had said. “Ukraine will not take part in the negotiations. Ukraine did not know they were planned. And the visit to the region was planned long before the US decided to meet Russia there,” he continued.

The fact that a high-level peace meeting was taking place without Zelensky or any Ukrainian representation, at the very moment he was in the region, is being felt as adding insult to injury from the Trump administration. Top Russian diplomat Sergey Lavrov has explained the need for Zelensky’s absence from talks as follows: “I don’t know what they [Kiev officals] could do at the negotiating table. If their aim is to cunningly extract a deceptive truce while secretly preparing for continued war—true to their habits and nature—then why invite them at all?” according to TASS.

The US and Russian sides have vowed to continue the peace negotiations going, hopefully leading to a face-to-face meeting between Presidents Putin and Trump. Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the Riyadh meeting issued a statement revealing an agreement for election to be held in Ukraine, which Zelensky certainly isn’t going to like (and probably won’t agree to), given also he just recently argued that martial law prevents this. But Putin has said negotiations with Ukraine remain a non-starter so long as Zelensky refuses to hold elections. The Russian leader has said this makes him ‘illegitimate’ and thus he can’t legally sign any peace terms.

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““Ukraine, in particular, has prohibited its involvement in peace talks. The Europeans have championed the continuation of war at any cost. The previous administration in Washington also supported waging it to the last Ukrainian,” Peskov stated..”

• Putin Ready To Talk To Zelensky – Kremlin (RT)

Russia remains committed to a peaceful resolution of the Ukraine conflict and is ready to hold direct talks between President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, despite having doubts about the latter’s legitimacy, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. Zelensky’s presidential term lapsed last year, prompting Russia to question his authority to sign international treaties on behalf of Ukraine. Nevertheless, Peskov emphasized that Putin is open to dialogue with Zelensky if it serves the goal of achieving peace. “Putin has repeatedly expressed his readiness to negotiate with Zelensky,” Peskov told reporters during a press briefing on Tuesday. On the same day, senior US and Russian officials convened in Saudi Arabia to explore ways to repair bilateral relations, which have been significantly strained by the Ukraine conflict.

The potential thaw was initiated by US President Donald Trump, who has acknowledged Moscow’s stance that NATO’s expansion in Europe is a major factor in the hostilities and has signaled a desire to swiftly resolve the crisis. Peskov underscored that Putin has consistently sought to fulfill Russia’s security objectives through diplomatic means, saying that other parties have not pursued the same approach. “Ukraine, in particular, has prohibited its involvement in peace talks. The Europeans have championed the continuation of war at any cost. The previous administration in Washington also supported waging it to the last Ukrainian,” Peskov stated.

Zelensky has preemptively dismissed any agreements reached between Washington and Moscow regarding Ukraine without Kiev’s input. This shift in US policy has created a rift between Washington and several European NATO allies, who have pledged unwavering support for Kiev. It has also intensified fissures within the EU, as dissenting countries like Hungary and Slovakia have endorsed the new US approach. On Monday, Moscow’s permanent representative to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, reiterated Russia’s critical view of the EU’s and UK’s roles in the Ukraine conflict, accusing them of harboring “a manic desire to defeat Russia on the battlefield.” He argued that their stubbornness makes them “incapable of negotiation,” and that they are undesired participants in any future settlement.

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“The US is negotiating with Russia and no European is at the table – it has become very clear that the Europeans are the kids..”

• EU ‘At Kid’s Table’ In Ukraine Talks – German Weapons Giant (RT)

The EU should blame itself for being excluded from US-initiated Ukraine peace efforts, Armin Papperger, CEO of German arms giant Rheinmetall, one of the key Western firms supplying Kiev with military equipment, has said. In an interview with the Finacial Times published late on Monday, the executive indicated that the bloc’s under-investment in defense led the US to stop seeing it as an equal partner. Papperger’s remarks come amid growing outrage in the EU over its exclusion from the recent US-Russia rapprochement. Following a phone conversation with Russian president Vladimir Putin last week, US President Donald Trump declared an “immediate” start to negotiations on Ukraine, drawing criticism from EU states for failing to consult them.

The first round of bilateral Russia-US negotiations kicked off in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Tuesday. Led by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the talks are expected to focus on restoring bilateral relations, preparing for negotiations on the Ukrainian settlement with Kiev and laying the groundwork for a direct meeting between Trump and Putin. The EU’s anger was intensified after Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, signaled that the bloc’s leaders may not be invited to take part in future peace talks. “If parents have dinner, the kids have to sit at another table… The US is negotiating with Russia and no European is at the table – it has become very clear that the Europeans are the kids,” Papperger told the news outlet.

The executive cited the bloc’s reluctance to boost defense spending within the NATO military bloc. “If you don’t invest, if you’re not strong, they handle you like kids,” he stated. NATO and the US have repeatedly demanded sharp increases in defense spending from the bloc’s European members to as high as 5% of GDP, while Trump has long bemoaned bearing the brunt of costs. Many EU states have demanded to be included in the Ukraine peace process over the past few days, with the Weimar+ group, which includes France, Germany, Poland, Italy, Spain and the UK, declaring that “Europe must be part of any negotiations” as they would affect the security of the entire continent. French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday called an emergency summit of European leaders for talks on Ukraine, purportedly to counterbalance Russia-US peace efforts.

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“The former president replied that his son will “act differently than Zelensky, who was a draft dodger four times, running away from summonses.”

• Zelensky Was A Draft Dodger – Poroshenko (RT)

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky evaded conscription on four separate occasions, former President Pyotr Poroshenko has claimed in an interview with the Ukrainska Pravda published on Monday. In 2022, amid the escalating conflict with Russia, Zelensky enacted martial law and initiated a comprehensive mobilization effort. Despite this, Kiev has suffered from a manpower shortage, prompting the authorities to lower the draft age from 27 to 25 and significantly tighten the mobilization rules. In the Ukrainska Pravda interview, Poroshenko was asked if his son Mikhail, who will soon turn 25, intends to serve, given that all men in Ukraine of that age are subject to mandatory mobilization. The former president replied that his son will “act differently than Zelensky, who was a draft dodger four times, running away from summonses.”

During the Ukrainian presidential election in 2019, the Defense Ministry reported that Zelensky, who was running for office that year, was sent summonses to the military enlistment office four times from 2014 to 2015, but failed to show up. The 47-year old has no record of military service despite being registered since 2008 and being deemed fit for service. The rivalry between Poroshenko and Zelensky has heated up in recent months, as the former president has suggested that a new election could be held later this year. Last week, Zelensky imposed sanctions on Poroshenko, accusing him of high treason and assisting a terrorist organization. Poroshenko has vehemently denied the accusations and has accused the Ukrainian leader of repressing his political opponents.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s mobilization efforts have continued to face challenges, including public resistance and numerous instances of draft evasion. Reports indicate that a large number of conscription-age men have left or tried to leave the country to avoid service, while recruitment offices have been plagued with corruption scandals. The efforts come in the wake of significant personnel losses, with Moscow recently claiming that Ukraine has lost around 50,000 servicemen every month during the past half year. Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused Kiev of throwing its people under the bus by deciding to “fight to the last Ukrainian.”

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They present it as a security issue.

• EU To Uphold Russia Sanctions Regardless Of US – Commissioner (RT)

The EU has no plans to lift sanctions against Russia even if the US decides to do so, and is working on the next raft of measures, EU Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis has said. The bloc has proposed a 16th round of sanctions on Russia to be imposed next week for the third anniversary of the start of the Russian military operation against Ukraine on February 24. Along with the US, the EU has slapped numerous rounds of sanctions on Russia since 2022 in a bid to isolate the country, cutting it off from the Western financial system and freezing its foreign reserves. Asked if the EU would lift its sanctions on Russia if the US eases its restrictions in exchange for a potential ceasefire in Ukraine, Dombrovskis stated that Brussels would pursue an independent sanctions policy.

“It’s very clear with the moves of the current Trump administration that the EU will have to take issues related to the EU’s security more in its own hands. It also concerns the sanctions policy as you know the work continues on preparing the 16th package,” the commissioner said. Last month, the EU extended its existing sanctions against Russia until the end of July. The restrictions already target a broad range of sectors and include trade embargoes, travel bans, and individual sanctions against Russian businessmen and public officials. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said in an interview with Franceinfo on Tuesday that the EU’s upcoming batch of measures will primarily target Russia’s energy sector.Barrot claimed the new package aims to “force [Russian President] Vladimir Putin to sit down at the negotiating table,” adding that the EU will continue to “raise the cost of the war” for Moscow.

The sanctions will also target countries that facilitate bypassing the restrictions, the minister said. Earlier this year, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban renewed calls on the EU to lift its sanctions on Russia in order to align the bloc’s policies with the new US government. Budapest has long criticized Brussels’ approach to the Ukraine conflict as being incapable of ending hostilities and damaging to the bloc’s member states. Last week, Orban predicted that Russia will be “reintegrated” into the world economy and the European energy system once the Ukraine conflict ends. Moscow has condemned Western sanctions as illegal, repeatedly arguing that they have failed to destabilize Russia’s economy or isolate it from the global financial system.

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This is why the AfD should win on Feb 23.

• EU Mulling New Plan For Ukraine Military Aid (RT)

EU lawmakers are set to discuss the creation of a new fund aimed at raising money for more military aid to Ukraine, the Polish Press Agency (PAP) reported on Monday. The initiative would reportedly be funded in part by proceeds generated from frozen Russian assets. The report comes amid concerns in Brussels that US President Donald Trump will begin cutting financial and military support to Ukraine. The Trump administration has demanded that Kiev reimburse the US for aid provided since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022. Discussion of the new EU initiative is reportedly scheduled for Tuesday. The main goal of the potential fund is to address Ukraine’s most urgent military needs, including artillery ammunition, air defense systems and long-range missiles, according to a document obtained by PAP.

Broader support for Ukraine’s defense sector, including training and equipment, as well as joint EU-Ukraine industrial initiatives, are reportedly included in the plan. The news agency noted that funding for the initiative is expected to come from voluntary contributions by EU member states, proportional to their national income, as well as profits from frozen Russian assets, estimated to generate up to €900 million ($940 million) this year. Since 2022, Washington and Brussels have frozen an estimated $300 billion in Russian central bank reserves along with billions in private assets. Western officials have proposed redirecting some of the funds to Ukraine, but legal concerns have slowed such efforts. Proceeds from the assets are already being used to back a $50 billion loan for Ukraine from the G7.

The Kremlin has repeatedly stated that Western nations’ support for Kiev makes them direct participants in the conflict. Moscow has also condemned the asset freeze as “theft,” arguing that accessing the funds would be illegal and set a troubling precedent. The new EU funding mechanism has to obtain full bloc-wide support before being implemented, PAP noted. It noted, however, that participation could be voluntary to avoid a deadlock similar to the bloc’s standoff with Hungary, which blocked funding for Ukraine at various stages of the conflict.

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But they can talk a lot.

• Europe’s ‘Paper Army’ Can’t Ensure Security Without the US (Sp.)

Europe has relied on US defense and funding for nearly 70 years and is incapable of handling this burden alone, Mikael Valtersson, a former Swedish Armed Forces and Air Defense officer, tells Sputnik, commenting on French President Emmanuel Macron’s urgent security meeting. “Europe would have to spend 10 % for a couple of decades to reach the same level of defense that they have with US protection,” Valtersson says. He argues that Europe’s fears of a US military withdrawal from the continent are well-founded, as the Trump administration is expected to prioritize China and its own regional interests. “For the Trump administration, Europe is seen as just a burden,” he adds.

While European leaders applauded Volodymyr Zelensky’s call for a united European army, the continent’s military remains fragmented and lacks its own nuclear deterrent, Valtersson notes “Europe would want to create some kind of European NATO, but the countries are very split in their position, both towards Russia and the US,” he says, predicting that rising Euroskeptic parties will further widen internal divisions through regional elections.

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“There is a pattern to corruption within the EU elite. It always rewards its own people with absurdly well-paid jobs when no one else takes them seriously.”

• EU Suffers From “Foot In Mouth” Once Again Over Ukraine War (Jay)

The European Union has a problem. It so badly needs to project itself around the world and also to its own citizens as a major player on the world stage, with a solid ‘foreign policy’ and the means to act upon it, whereas in reality the superpowers of the world – U.S., Russia, China – don’t take it seriously. Leading up to the peace summit in Saudi Arabia which caretaker President of Ukraine Zelensky was not invited to, senior EU officials began to panic. They quickly set up their own meeting to show their own people and the EU fraternity that they are still relevant but it’s not really convincing anyone. At moments like this, the worry for EU folks is that humble people in Europe will realize that all the international foreign policy posturing is based on a piece of paper with some ideas, or dreams, written on it.

The very fact that Trump is able to set up peace talks with Putin and bypass the EU altogether shows how ineffective it is. It’s easy to spend EU taxpayers’ money, harder to develop policies to enact, especially when member states don’t have the confidence in Brussels to carry out its global aspirations. It was as though there was a scramble for EU senior figures, ladies, to outbid one another for the most stupid things to say about Ukraine. A failed Ukraine would weaken both Europe and the U.S.? Really? Then, not to be outdone in the “sounding like an idiot” stakes, Annalena Baerbock added to the mix how it would be impossible for a peace deal to go ahead with “us” (the Germans); but the best one surely has to go to Kaja Kallas, the EU’s so-called foreign policy chief who said that no Russian civilians were being killed in the Ukraine. The level of rank stupidity if not ignorance is quite astounding.

Kallas can’t be that stupid and that misinformed, right? Many will ask how does such a top EU official even arrive at such a conclusion when she has the resources to understand the statistics and other such data of the war? Perhaps she simply chooses to close her eyes and ignore the hundreds of children killed by shelling in the Donbas and Donetsk regions – both in recent war but also before in 2014. Or for that matter the civilians slaughtered like animals by Ukrainian soldiers in Kursk. And that’s without even tackling Russian civilians killed or maimed by the drone attacks within Russia. Unfortunately, these kind of statements only make the EU look even more stupid and ineffective with the major powers in the world. The total detachment from reality doesn’t help anyone strive for peace and prosperity, but this is not the objective of this elitist cabal in Brussels. They place their own highly paid jobs and lifestyle first and protecting one another.

Typically, the post of the “EU’s top diplomat” as it is often called is always given to a numpty. It’s as though member states and the EU circle had agreed beforehand that the main criteria for the job is that it must go to someone who is incapable of actually doing anything, someone can be guaranteed to not achieve anything on the world stage but simply able to talk. The thinking behind this is that EU member states are divided over how the EU could move forward with a bold, shiny foreign policy, so prefer that Brussels actually doesn’t do anything except talk the talk. And nothing else. And even this, they don’t want to have too much impact as this would create further problems. So, the best type to install into such a job is an idiot, someone who has failed in politics, isn’t very good at public speaking and who would be very grateful for the position, but who can also be guaranteed not to actually achieve anything.

Previous EU diplomatic chiefs all fitted this criteria, but the most stupid of all was Catherine Ashton who was such an underperforming junior minister under Blair that she had to be sent to Brussels. Poor Catherine was so inept at her job that she became a laughing stock even among her own people who still dine out on the hilarious anecdote of her visiting a foreign country and managing to get lost within one of its ministries. Someone had to be sent to get her out of the building as she struggled with the lifts and the various buttons.

Kallas isn’t much better. She comes from a corrupt political dynasty in Estonia whereby her father was PM before her, while he too was given a cosy job in Brussels as an EU commissioner. There is a pattern to corruption within the EU elite. It always rewards its own people with absurdly well-paid jobs when no one else takes them seriously. Kallas had to resign as PM in her own country after it became clear to the Estonians that she was just a tad useless. Even a poll showed that 70 percent of Estonians didn’t have the confidence in her to govern. Where do utterly useless EU politicians go after that? Brussels of course!

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“I’m going to keep asking questions but hold my preconceived answers lightly. I’m willing to be wrong..”

• RFK Jr. Calls For New Age Of ‘Radical Transparency’ At HHS (NYP)

During his first address to staff as Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called for a new era of “radical transparency” at the department while pursuing his “main mission” to “reverse the chronic disease epidemic in America.” Acknowledging some of the lingering concerns about him, Kennedy, 71, pleaded with staff at the Department of HHS to “let go” of their preconceived thoughts about him, while warning that “those who are unwilling to embrace” transparency and openness “can retire.” “I’m not going to come in here and impose my belief over any of yours,” Kennedy said. “My goal as secretary here at HHS will be to create a culture of competency, of ethics, of openness, of transparency, of caring, and of pride so that individuals who share these ideals can flourish and thrive.

“We will make our data and our policy process so transparent that people won’t even have to file a FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] request.” Kennedy had faced a bruising confirmation process before ultimately clearing the Senate and being confirmed as HHS secretary last week. Senators had grilled him over his past vaccine skepticism and other health-related theories he flirted with in the past. During his address, the Kennedy scion reiterated his intention of departing from certain orthodoxies in health care while seeking to combat the dramatic spike in chronic ailments. “Some of the possible factors we will investigate were formerly taboo or insufficiently scrutinized,” Kennedy said before giving examples: “The childhood vaccine schedule, electromagnetic radiation, glyphosate, other pesticides, ultra-processed foods, artificial food additives, SSRI and other psychiatric drugs, PFAs, PFOAs, microplastics.”

“Nothing is going to be off limits,” Kennedy declared. “Whatever belief or suspicion I have expressed in the past I’m willing to subject them all to the scrutiny of unbiased science.” This had been a key point of consternation during his Senate confirmation when lawmakers seemed uneasy about Kennedy’s past views on vaccines. “I’m going to keep asking questions but hold my preconceived answers lightly. I’m willing to be wrong,” he added. President Trump, who forged an alliance with Kennedy last August, signed an executive order last week to establish a “Make America Healthy Again Commission” to probe the rise in chronic ailments. Kennedy vowed to “convene representatives from all viewpoints” to participate in that investigation.

He called for the agency to ensure scientists are “protocols that we all agree on in advance and not alter the outcomes of the studies” and to not let “political impediments” or “preconceptions” spoil critical research. The HHS secretary further pledged to “shut the revolving door” between the health industry and the government. Kennedy also said he’d work to “remove conflicts of interest from the committees and research partners whenever possible” or to “balance them.” “This is how the agencies under the HHS umbrella will recover their reputations as unimpeachable sources of scientific information to guide policy making, medical professionals, the public, and the whole world,” Kennedy stressed. HSS oversees a constellation of federal health agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration and more.

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“We’re continually improving the models every day, and literally within 24 hours, you’ll see improvements.”

• Musk’s xAI Unveils “State Of The Art” Grok 3 AI Bot (ZH)

On Monday night, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI, unveiled its latest model, Grok3, with the billionaire touting it as the “smartest AI on Earth,” and in an AI evaluation, achieved a record-breaking score, outperforming models from OpenAI and China’s DeepSeek. Remember, Musk is simultaneously juggling DOGE and several ventures, including autonomous vehicles, space exploration, neurotechnology, robotics, tunneling, and his social media platform, X. Musk explained the mission of Grok: “The mission of xAI and Grok is to understand the universe. We want to answer the biggest questions: Where are the aliens? What’s the meaning of life? How does the universe end? To do that, we must rigorously pursue truth.”

The xAI team revealed that Grok3 outperformed Alphabet’s Google Gemini, DeepSeek’s V3 model, Anthropic’s Claude, and OpenAI’s GPT-4o across math, science, and coding benchmarks. Musk noted that Grok3 has “more than 10 times” the computing power of its predecessor and completed pre-training earlier this year. The LLM blind test by LMArena found Grok3 achieved a record milestone of 1400 score. “And it’s still climbing. So we have to keep updating it. It’s 1400 and climbing,” Musk said. Musk said, “We’re continually improving the models every day, and literally within 24 hours, you’ll see improvements.” “The new chatbot appears to put Grok ahead of OpenAI’s latest ChatGPT and ramps up an increasingly bitter rivalry between the two companies,” Bloomberg noted. Just last week, Musk offered to purchase OpenAI’s nonprofit arm for $97.4 billion. However, the offer was quickly rejected by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

Andrej Karpathy, former Director of AI at Tesla, wrote a lengthy post on X about his experience with early access to Grok3. [..] Karpathy concluded that Grok 3, with its thinking capabilities, is around the state-of-the-art level, slightly outperforming models like DeepSeek-R1 and Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking, considering xAI started from scratch about a year ago – an unprecedented achievement.

XAI has a “colossus supercomputer” powered by a cluster of 100,000 advanced Nvidia GPUs for AI training in Memphis, Tennessee.

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