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Debt Rattle April 6 2026

Apr 062026
 
 April 6, 2026  Posted by at 9:30 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  62 Responses »


Paul Klee Hammamet with Its Mosque 1914 (feels awkward)


• Time for Europe to Defend Itself (J.B. Shurk)
• EU Acting Like ‘Suicide Ship’ By Keeping Russia Sanctions – Fico (RT)
• US Does Not Rely on Strait of Hormuz Oil, but Impact Still Hits Pump Prices (ET)
• Trump Tells Iran ‘Time Is Running Out’ — and Then It Does (Robert Spencer)
• ‘Open The F**kin’ Strait’: Trump Threatens To ‘Blow Everything Up’ (ZH)
• Trump’s Address to the Idiocracy (Alexander Dugin)
• Battle for Bulgaria: The EU Opens a New Front in its Election War (RT)
• Providence Destroys Mural to Murder Victim as too “Divisive” (Turley)
• Forced Mobilization Failing To Stop Ukraine’s Manpower Collapse (RT)
• Only Strength Matters (Alexander Dugin)
• Asst Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon Campaigns Hard to Replace Pam Bondi (CTH)
• Czech Government Imposes Fuel Price Cap and Cuts Diesel Tax (RMX)
• ICE Use the DMV as Bait to Lure Illegal Alien Truck Drivers? (Tim O’Brien)
• Pfizer Cancels COVID Vaccine Trial for Lack of Interest (JTN)

 


 

https://twitter.com/HerdImmunity12/status/2040179403410301369?s=20 https://twitter.com/triffic_stuff_/status/2040048587107688881?s=20

 


 

 


 


“Americans shouldn’t fight for a suicidal continent.”

• Time for Europe to Defend Itself (J.B. Shurk)

]Four years ago, the Biden administration was working with the United Kingdom and the European Commission to pay for diminutive comedian Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s war with the Russian Federation over territories where supermajorities of the population identify as Russian. We were told that the Russian-speaking people of Ukraine “belonged” to Ukraine and that the only way to “preserve democracy” was to deny those people a democratic vote to join the Russian Federation. “Democracy” also apparently requires the installation of a Ukrainian dictator, a complete crackdown on an independent press, widespread censorship of public debate on social media, the denial of religious freedom, and a brutal campaign of press-ganging men into military service to die as cannon fodder for a corrupt Ukrainian regime that launders money from U.S. and European taxpayers into the bank accounts of the West’s political and financial elites.


Just as globalists in the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and across Old (and increasingly Islamic) Europe turned the “Reign of COVID Terror” into an opportunity to bilk taxpayers, enrich elites, and grow the totalitarian national security State, the same globalist scum quickly turned the Ukraine conflict into another “emergency” requiring more taxes, censorship, and public sacrifice. All of a sudden, anything criticizing the official public policies of Western governments was labeled “Russian disinformation.” If you disagreed with whatever the West’s vaunted “experts” said, you were dismissed as “Putin’s puppet.” Pro tip for information warfare enthusiasts: When government authorities identify dissent as “propaganda,” that’s propaganda!

The COVID propaganda project gave us a chorus of World Economic Forum buffoons posing as national leaders all singing, “We must ‘Build Back Better.’” When that schtick got old — or, rather, when ordinary citizens across the West started to show signs of resistance against their imperial rulers — the West’s globalists turned Ukraine’s Chief Munchkin into a “freedom fighter” battling the pernicious authoritarianism of Russia’s Vladimir Putin. The same yahoos — Biden, Trudeau, Macron, Queen Ursula, and the rest of the WEF’s rump-kissing claque — who screeched like wounded cockatoos, “Build Back Better,” now all huffed in unison, “Ukraine! Ukraine! Ukraine!” It never ceases to amaze me that the day after Canada’s “Freedom Convoy” protests against COVID “vaccine” mandates came to an end, the official launch of the new hit television drama, “WAR: Ukraine,” began.

It’s almost as if Western globalists yank us commoners along by the leash from one spectacular production of nonsense to the next (just to see how much money they can steal from our pockets when their hands aren’t busy groping small children). Some people in the U.S. and Europe were made to really care about a country that has long been considered so incorrigibly corrupt that other corrupt countries can’t help but blush. Lemmings who had been walking around with multiple paper masks over their faces to magically protect themselves from viruses that don’t fear masks all of a sudden waved Ukrainian flags with gusto as if they could identify Dwarf-King Zelenskyy’s money-pit-proto-nation on a map!

Nobody wanted to admit that the same übermenschen from sub rosa groups such as Bilderberg and the Trilateral Commission — who have made a financial killing from “green energy” and mRNA “vaccines” over the years — had simply returned to their favorite investment of all: actual killing. War brings new taxes, new regulations, new forms of censorship, new military investment, and new ways to exploit asymmetric information for financial gains. In short, wars bring profits! And what better place for corrupt globalists to make tons of money than to take advantage of the corrupt swindlers putatively governing the traveling circus known as Ukraine!

The United Kingdom (still smarting from its misadventures in the Crimean War one hundred and seventy years ago) demanded that Russia hand back Crimea to its MI6-managed Ukrainian friends. Queen Ursula of the pan-European (and increasingly Islamic) empire demanded that Russia respect the right of Europeans to overthrow any Ukrainian governments that Brussels doesn’t like (see the U.S.-E.C.-organized 2014 coup d’état in Ukraine, or what Western propagandists still shamelessly call the “Revolution of Dignity”). BlackRock and other multinational investment firms selflessly volunteered to help finance the war, purchase Ukraine’s assets on the cheap, and invest heavily in the subsequent reconstruction projects of a destroyed nation. Google and Facebook promised to censor all public debate averse to globalists’ interests as “Russian propaganda.”

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Absolutely.

And they can’t stop now: Von der Leyen, Starmer, Macron etc., they all bet against Putin. And their people will pay a steep price.

The only normal people are in eastern Europe. That’s the next battleground.

• EU Acting Like ‘Suicide Ship’ By Keeping Russia Sanctions – Fico (RT)

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has urged the EU to lift the sanctions on energy exports from Russia and resume dialogue, comparing the bloc’s policies to a “suicide ship.”Since the beginning of the US-Israel war with Iran in late February, oil prices have risen by 60% and gas prices by 70% in the EU, according to European Energy Commissioner Dan Jorgensen. The bloc previously experienced price hikes after deciding to phase out deliveries from Russia due to the Ukraine conflict. In a post on Facebook on Saturday, Fico blasted the EU for “ideological blindness and incompetence” and accused Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky of exacerbating the crisis.


“I am not calling for anything else – only for a return to common sense. The whole EU, and especially the European Commission, are beginning to look like a suicide ship when it comes to energy security,” Fico wrote. He called on the EU to lift “the absurd sanctions” and take “vigorous steps” to restore flows via the Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline, which delivers Russian oil to the EU through Ukraine.Kiev, which has long tried to pressure Slovakia and neighboring Hungary to abandon energy supplies from Russia, claimed that the pipeline was rendered inoperable by a Russian strike. Zelensky said last month that Ukraine would repair it if the EU prevents Hungary and Slovakia from blocking a $104 billion loan to Kiev.

Earlier this week, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban warned that the bloc could face “one of the most severe economic crises in its history” unless the sanctions on Russian energy are lifted. The bloc’s energy commissioner, Dan Jorgensen, has ruled out the easing of sanctions, despite warning on Friday of a potential “long-lasting” energy shock that could force member states to ration fuel.

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Asia.

• US Does Not Rely on Strait of Hormuz Oil, but Impact Still Hits Pump Prices (ET)

The Strait of Hormuz has been called the jugular vein of the world’s oil supply, and as Operation Epic Fury continues, Iran continues to have a chokehold on the critical supply route.


About one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas is typically shipped through the narrow waterway connecting the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea. But Iran’s attacks on commercial vessels have brought traffic through the strait to a virtual standstill since the start of the conflict on Feb. 28. In March, just 220 vessels transited the strait, according to data from maritime analytics platform Marine Traffic. Prior to the war, thousands of ships traversed the waterway each month. These actions have caused oil and gas prices to surge. Brent, a global benchmark for oil prices, has risen firmly above $100 a barrel overseas. The average gas price in the United States has surged past $4 per gallon.

President Donald Trump has threatened to launch strikes on Iran’s oil wells, power plants, and critical oil infrastructure on Kharg Island unless the strait is reopened. He delayed the strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure until April 6, pending talks with the regime. Here’s a look at how much oil travels through the Strait of Hormuz and where it goes. An average of 20 million barrels of oil and refined products flowed through the narrow gateway between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran each day in 2025. That’s roughly 25 percent of the world’s sea-borne oil trade, according to a February analysis from the International Energy Agency. The strait is only 21 miles wide at its narrowest point, with shipping lanes just two miles wide in each direction.



The vast majority of crude oil and condensate—a natural gas byproduct—went to Asia (91 percent), according to a U.S. Energy Information Administration analysis based on Vortexa tanker-tracking data from the first half of 2025. Of those Asian nations, China and India absorbed about half of the crude moving through the strait—37 percent and 14 percent, respectively—followed by Japan and South Korea at 12 percent each. Sixteen percent went to other countries in Asia and Oceania. The United States and Europe remained marginal buyers, receiving just 3 percent and 4 percent, respectively.

Roughly three-quarters of crude oil travel by tanker ship through the strait came from Saudi Arabia (38 percent), Iraq (22 percent), and the United Arab Emirates (14 percent). Iran shipped just 11 percent. Additionally, the strait accounts for nearly 20 percent of the global liquefied natural gas trade. Qatar, the world’s largest gas exporter after the United States, represents 93 percent of that volume. In 2025, Asia received almost 90 percent of the liquefied natural gas flowing through the strait. Europe received just over 10 percent. Of Asian countries, Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan sourced almost two-thirds oztheir total liquefied natural gas supplies via the Strait of Hormuz last year.

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The American people will not let them send ground troops. He’s got to win without them.

• Trump Tells Iran ‘Time Is Running Out’ — and Then It Does (Robert Spencer)

On Saturday morning, President Donald Trump gave the surviving rulers of the Islamic Republic of Iran another ultimatum: “Remember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT. Time is running out – 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them. Glory be to GOD! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”’This follows the president’s announcement on March 26: “As per Iranian Government request, please let this statement serve to represent that I am pausing the period of Energy Plant destruction by 10 Days to Monday, April 6, 2026, at 8 P.M., Eastern Time. Talks are ongoing and, despite erroneous statements to the contrary by the Fake News Media, and others, they are going very well. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”


Just a few hours after he issued the Saturday morning ultimatum, however, Trump wrote: “Many of Iran’s Military Leaders, who have led them poorly and unwisely, are terminated, along with much else, with this massive strike in Tehran! President DONALD J. TRUMP.” It was unclear whether this meant that the 48-hour ultimatum was still in place or not, but the “massive strike” certainly removed any lingering doubt that Trump was in earnest.

And so what will the rulers of the Islamic Republic do now? A great deal is riding on whether the rulers of Iran, whoever exactly they may be in the continued absence of the putative new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, decide to acquiesce to a deal with Trump. An agreement, any kind of agreement, between the mullahs and/or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the United States will not only end the present conflict. It will also ensure, at least for the immediate future, that the Islamic Republic will survive.

As much as its own people detest it, and as inhuman as it is toward them, the Islamic regime in Tehran has all the guns. The Iranian people, on the other hand, have neither weapons nor a leader, for anyone within Iran who dares to stand publicly against the regime is taking a tremendous risk, and anyone who looks as if he could emerge as the leader of a resistance movement is swiftly imprisoned and often killed.

Then there is the question of whether there is any real possibility that the Islamic Republic’s top dogs would honor the terms of an agreement with the United States even for a brief period. As The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Iran explains, the Islamic concept of taqiyya, lying to deceive one’s enemies, is a particularly Shi’ite concept, and the Islamic Republic of Iran is a Shi’ite nation, although a startling 2020 survey showed that a majority of Iranians are so disgusted with Islam itself after 47 years of the Islamic Republic that they don’t consider themselves Muslim anymore.

The doctrine of taqiyya was formulated in the middle of the eighth century, when the Sunni caliph al-Mansur was persecuting the Shi’ites. Taqiyya allowed Shi’ites to pretend to be Sunnis in order to protect themselves from Sunnis who were killing Shi’ites.

This was necessary because Sunnis were in the majority almost everywhere, and would not infrequently take it upon themselves to cleanse the land of those whom they referred to as Rafidites, or rejecters: those who rejected the caliphates of Abu Bakr, Umar, and Uthman, the first three successors of Muhammad, all of whom were chosen over the man Shia believe Muhammad chose for the job, Ali Ibn Abi Talib. Until the conversion of Persia to Shi’ism, taqiyya was an indispensable tool for the very survival of the Shi’ites. Sunnis practice it as well, as it is based upon the Qur’an (3:28), but the Shi’ites raised it to the level of a precisely and elaborately articulated theological concept.

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“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran.”

• ‘Open The F**kin’ Strait’: Trump Threatens To ‘Blow Everything Up’ (ZH)

Shortly after President Trump wrote on Truth Social, “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah,” the president spoke with Fox News reporter Trey Yingst for 15 minutes early Sunday. Trump provided Yingst with new details on the behind-the-scenes negotiations with the Iranians and what would happen if Iran does not reach a good-faith deal. Yingst said Trump told him, “If they don’t make a deal, and fast, I’m considering blowing everything up and taking over the oil.”


The reporter went on to say that the president added that if there is no deal, bridges and power plants will go down all over the country. Yingst asked the president about the possibility of an agreement with the Iranians. The president said those negotiating on behalf of Tehran have been granted amnesty for now so they can continue the talks. The reporter noted that Trump thinks a deal can be reached by Monday. Trump said, “I think there’s a good chance tomorrow. They’re negotiating now.”


International Energy Agency chief Fatih Birol told the Financial Times this weekend that governments must avoid panic hoarding and refrain from imposing fuel export bans as the Gulf energy shock ripples outward to Asia, Africa, Europe, and eventually reaches the US West Coast.”I urge all countries not to impose bans or restrictions on exports,” Fatih Birol emphasized in the interview. “It is the worst time when you look at the global oil markets. Their trade partners, their allies and their neighbors will suffer as a result.”

The FT noted that Birol was “careful not to name China directly,” but made very clear his warning was likely aimed at Beijing, which has already moved to restrict exports of critical refined products, including gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. Birol said that “major countries in Asia who hold major refineries” should reconsider their current bans, adding, “If those countries continue to restrict or totally ban exports, the impact on the Asian markets will be dramatic.”

Birol’s hoarding warning in Asia comes shortly after the IEA’s coordinated release of 400 million barrels from emergency reserves. Such hoarding by major countries would directly undercut efforts to stabilize global energy markets. He also warned that if the disruption in the Strait of Hormuz persists, losses of crude and refined products in April could reach roughly double the levels seen in March.Early in the US-Iran conflict, energy economist Anas Alhajji joined UBS analysts on a call in which he warned of panic hoarding risks in the oil market. He said that he questioned back in January why the Trump administration was hoarding Venezuela’s oil after the Maduro raid, instead of bringing it to market.

Alhajji noted then, “I’m not talking about conspiracy theories. We were criticizing the Trump administration, companies, and trading houses that bought Venezuelan oil, and asking why they weren’t able to sell it to end users and why they were hoarding it. Now we know.” He was implying that this hoarding was in preparation for Operation Epic Fury.Asia has been hit hardest so far. JPMorgan’s top commodities expert warned about the falling dominoes of how the energy shock transmits from Asia, then spreads to Africa and Europe, before reaching the US, especially California, shortly thereafter.

“Unfortunately, we see that some countries are adding to their existing stocks during our coordinated oil stock release,” Birol said. “They are stocking up. This is not helpful. In my view, this is a time for all countries to prove they are responsible members of the international community.” Jeff Currie of Carlyle recently outlined the hoarding risks in a note titled “A Crude Awakening”: “The physical shortfall is the trigger; the behavioral response is the multiplier.”

Earlier on Easter morning, President Trump unleashed a fierce message on Truth Social: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell.” Is the pressure building on Trump from the rest of the world (and domestically) to end this ‘operation’? And/or are we getting closer to quagmire-inducing boots on the ground?

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“We must rely on our own strength and actively support our real allies. There are no such allies in the West. None.”

• Only Strength Matters (Alexander Dugin)

In the current situation, Russia needs to act much more firmly. The enemy does not understand nuance, hints, or the refined language of diplomacy. They consistently read our politeness as weakness. That is how they see it—nothing more. And they are preparing for a full-scale, frontal war against us, one they will launch when they believe they are ready. The US and Israel are currently focused on their war with Iran and Shiite forces in the Middle East. But the EU, Britain, and the Democrats in the United States are oriented specifically towards a conflict with us. If we behave in ways they interpret as weakness, there will be no chance of avoiding war. Only strength matters. This is a moment for strength: direct, credible, visible, and unmistakable.


It is also essential to disabuse them of the notion that they will choose when to start the war while we simply wait and comply.We must act with clarity and resolve, and we must act now. In global politics, a true sovereign is the one who shapes events and initiates decisive processes, rather than fitting into those set in motion by others. After the geopolitical disaster of the 1990s—the collapse of the USSR—the West concluded that we had lost our sovereignty. They have treated us accordingly ever since. There is no reason to expect any consistent logic from Trump’s behavior. c

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PCR: “Alexander Dugin on the clown emperor and the delusional war machine.”

“A war machine driven by decay and delusion “

• Trump’s Address to the Idiocracy (Alexander Dugin)

Trump delivered his address to the nation. It was brief. He appeared pitiful and broken. His cheeks sagged; his eyelids were swollen. He had clearly deteriorated. Yet at the same time, he threatened Iran with a continuation of the war. The timeline has shifted; now it is a matter of several years. A ground operation is more than likely, though Trump has not yet openly declared it. For now, using almost the exact same wording Hillary Clinton once used about Libya, he promised to “bomb Iran back into the Stone Age, to which it belongs.” It is difficult to say to which “age” the civilization of Jeffrey Epstein belongs, especially since in the West great epochs and periods of total decline seem to have been confused and rearranged.


Most of all, what we are seeing now resembles an idiocracy. Comments on Trump’s speech across social media are largely mocking, sarcastic, and negative, aside from desperate attempts by bots to soften the epic failure, repeating identical and crudely constructed praise. The overwhelming majority of Trump’s former supporters openly claim that “the old man has lost it” (“he’s gone”). Short videos comparing Trump to Boris Yeltsin—portraying Trump as a disgrace to America and Yeltsin as a disgrace to Russia—are appearing more and more frequently; in them, both seem to be dancing and gesticulating. At the same time, to give Trump his due, he does not drink alcohol. Only Diet Coke. His vices are of a different nature. Many in the United States are convinced that, having been caught in those very vices by Epstein and Israeli intelligence services, he became a victim of blackmail and therefore initiated the war with Iran, which he is now compelled to pursue against all odds, despite the American public’s complete lack of desire to fight.

Trump also stated that healthcare, the cost of living, and food security are not his concern. His concern is war. Such is this “president of the whole human world.” He was elected on promises that were strictly the opposite. In summary, Trump’s speech amounts to a complete political and psychological fiasco against the backdrop of an escalating major war. It increasingly resembles a Third World War. The United States (represented by Trump alone and the group of Zionist maniacs surrounding him) seeks to wage war for Israel against Iran, while European leaders aim their efforts against Russia. NATO is fractured, yet peace seems to have been forgotten by nearly all parts of the cracked—if not shattered—collective West.

Whether we want it or not, we too are participants in this world war—on our Ukrainian front. In a large-scale war, one must never underestimate the opponent, no matter how pitiful he may at times appear. One’s own strength must be increased rapidly and by any means. However degraded Trump himself may seem, the United States remains a powerful military force. And the European countries of NATO are still a fairly serious opponent. Therefore, for Russia, despite all our peaceful intentions, there is no other option but to fight—truly fight, not half-heartedly. Our enemies (if not these, then others) intend to wage war for a long time and with great ferocity, including against us. This cannot be ignored, and any talk or dreams of peace should be postponed to an indefinite future.

Peace or war, peace or war, peace or war? War!

Freedom or death, freedom or death, freedom or death? War!

— Egor Letov

(Translated from the Russian)

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The EU conquers its own territory.

• Battle for Bulgaria: The EU Opens a New Front in its Election War (RT)

Though the Hungarian election is only a week away, another threat is already manifesting for the EU’s elite: This time in Bulgaria, where left-wing populist and former President Rumen Radev wants to shut off the money tap to Ukraine, and his opponents want Brussels’ censorship machine to save them. Here we go again.On April 19, Bulgarians will vote in the country’s eighth parliamentary election in five years. Called after the resignation of Rosen Zhelyazkov following street protests in November, the election pits centrist Boyko Borissov – a former prime minister – and his pro-EU GERB-SDS coalition against the emerging left-leaning Progressive Bulgaria coalition, headed by Radev.


Who is Bulgaria’s Rumen Radev?
Radev served as Bulgaria’s president from 2017 until his resignation this January. He frequently clashed with Borissov during the latter’s tenure as prime minister, accusing him of incompetence and corruption – allegations substantiated in 2020 when an image of Borissov lying half naked on a bed next to a pile of money and a handgun spread on social media.The Radev-Borissov rivalry would not concern Brussels if Radev wasn’t a vocal opponent of the EU’s Ukraine policy.

Radev has opposed the bloc’s “self-destructive” sanctions on Russia since 2022, views a Ukrainian victory as “impossible,” opposes military aid to Kiev, and has declared that “ending the war in Ukraine requires more diplomacy and negotiations with Russia.” For a country with four NATO military bases and a ten-year defense deal with Ukraine, the issue is critical for Kiev’s backers.With two weeks to go, Progressive Bulgaria is leading Borrisov’s GERB-SDS by ten points, according to a polling aggregate compiled by Politico. Faced with this outbreak of popular democracy that challenges its fundamental policy positions, the Bulgarian establishment has called for EU reinforcements.

Is the EU meddling in the Bulgarian election?
The playbook will be familiar to anyone following our ‘Battle for Hungary’ series, with one difference: Brussels’ censorship tools are being deployed in Budapest to oust the incumbent Viktor Orban; in Sofia, they’re being used to squash a rising anti-establishment political force. Last week, caretaker Bulgarian Prime Minister Andrey Gyurov requested that the EU activate its ‘Rapid Response System’ (RRS), claiming that Russia is interfering against Borissov. Activated in Hungary last month, the RRS empowers EU-approved ‘fact-checkers’ to flag online content as ‘disinformation’ and request its removal from social media platforms such as TikTok and Meta.

Platforms that refuse to comply are liable to fines under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which came into force in 2022. The EU has activated the RRS in five elections since 2024 – in France, Germany, Hungary, Romania, and non-EU member Moldova – and in every case, an investigation by the US House Judiciary Committee this year found that fact-checkers “almost exclusively targeted” right-wing and populist candidates and organizations. “Moreover, the requirement that these fact-checkers be approved by the European Commission creates a clear structural incentive for the participants to censor Euroskeptic opinion and content,” the committee noted.

An EU spokesperson told Politico this week that it was ready to take action in Bulgaria, “in particular via the Rapid Alert System for real-time information exchanges.” Not to be confused with the Rapid Response System, the Rapid Alert System allows the EU to compile information about supposed ‘disinformation campaigns’, so that more severe measures, including the RRS, can then be taken.

How the EU is outsourcing its dirty work – again
Gyurov’s government is already preparing the proof the EU needs. Last week, the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry set up a temporary unit to “counter disinformation and combat hybrid threats,” which will be “advised” by former Bellingcat investigator Christo Grozev. Grozev, whose allegations of Russian poisoning plots were considered too outlandish by even Vladimir Zelensky’s officials, is a wanted man in Russia over his role in encouraging Russian fighter pilots to defect to Ukraine with promises of money and EU citizenship. According to the ministry, Grozev will “assist the organization with specific information exposing malicious influences,” which will then “be able to be addressed both at the national and European levels through mechanisms developed by the European Commission.”

If Grozev’s research is not enough, the Center for the Study of Democracy – an EU-funded think tank – has already published a report alleging that Bulgaria “faces sustained Russian information manipulation pressure,” and that certain “high-risk narrative pressure points” must be tackled. These include online content “framing leaders as corrupt,” “framing candidates as warmongers dragging Bulgaria toward conflict,” and “Promoting the claim that sanctions harm Bulgaria (and the EU) more than Russia.” The report explicitly calls for the activation of the RSS and the punishment of online platforms on which this content is posted.

Working hand in hand with the Bulgarian government, the EU is paying researchers to justify the use of its own censorship tools, in order to stifle legitimate political speech that harms its broader geopolitical agenda. This will come as no surprise to anyone who’s been following the Hungarian election. There, the activation of the RSS was justified by a report alleging that Russian President Vladimir Putin had dispatched a team of “political technologists” to Budapest to rig the election for Orban. The report was published by an EU-funded opposition journalist, and quoted anonymous EU spies. Tails are wagging dogs in the EU, and the “request” for Grozev’s involvement could easily be seen as another such case.

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Shameless freaks. That image will haunt me for the rest of my days. But will I ban it from my view? This girl was seconds away from being brutally slaughtered when the picture was taken. And that’s too divisive? What part of it is?

• Providence Destroys Mural to Murder Victim as too “Divisive” (Turley)

John Adams once wrote: “America … the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant.” Unfortunately, this week, the “grand scene and design in Providence [R.I.]” “illuminated” rather than eliminated the ignorance of our times. Liberals in that city, including the mayor Brett Smiley, demanded the removal of a mural in the memory of Iryna Zarutska, a young woman murdered on a train. Unlike memorials to figures like George Floyd or others, a memorial to the young white woman was deemed triggering and “divisive.”


On Aug.22, Zarutska was stabbed to death in a random and unprovoked attack on a light rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina. Shocking surveillance video of the incident showed suspect Decarlos Brown Jr. allegedly stabbing Zarutska in the neck before walking away. Brown has a long record in the criminal justice system with more than 14 arrests and prison stints of five years.Iryna Zarutska pictured moments before her death cowering in her seat on a Charlotte commuter train The mural was set on the exterior of The Dark Lady, an LGBT bar in Providence. The bar immediately became the focus of a cancel campaign and eventually caved.

Providence’s Democrat Mayor Brett Smiley then joined the mob and denounced the mural to Zarutska, calling it “divisive” and saying that it “does not represent Providence.” He seemed to strike out at artist Ian Gaudreau and said that the city would “support local artists whose work brings us closer together rather than divide us.” Providence is not the only place where these memorials have been defaced or destroyed. In Chicago, a mural to Zarutska was defaced. Gaudreau lashed out at the campaign and the local politicians who destroyed his artwork as an attack on free expression. Smiley and other Democrats, however, piled on the artist and the work as an attack on minorities and a message of white victimization.


Smiley told WPRI that memorializing this young woman is an effort of right-wing billionaires, and it found its way to our community.” Smiley suggested the usual claim that “I support diverse opinions but just not this one”: “I didn’t stifle anyone’s speech, it was his decision whether to continue with it or to take it down, but it certainly wasn’t bringing us together as a community…so I don’t think we’re a stronger, more united community because of this mural, and so I thought the best thing to do was just to take it down.”

What is most striking is how hypocrites like Smiley actively fuel this rage while insisting that they are the voices of tolerance. He and other liberals in Providence cannot tolerate even the image of a murdered young woman in their city. This is a city that loves to repeat its motto, “What cheer, Netop,” the greeting from 1636 from early interactions with local Native Americans, meaning “Greeting Friend.” It seems the faux welcoming culture doesn’t extend to those with opposing views or different values.

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Money laundering.

• Forced Mobilization Failing To Stop Ukraine’s Manpower Collapse (RT)

Ukraine’s military is sliding deeper into a manpower crisis, as a chronic shortage of volunteers forces authorities to rely on increasingly aggressive mobilization. Vladimir Zelensky’s vehement opposition to withdrawing troops from Donbass – which voted to join Russia in 2022 – remains a key roadblock in negotiations. Russia, and reportedly the US, is demanding that Kiev pull its forces out and open the way to a peace deal. But Zelensky, encouraged by his European backers, is choosing to continue fighting, apparently hoping that Ukraine can maintain its foothold in the region.


As warnings grow louder – including from within Ukraine – about the critical state of the army, teams of conscription officers have been unleashed to hunt down potential recruits. Violent confrontations repeatedly break out as people resist, and deaths have been reported both among the hunters and hunted. Meanwhile, morale among those sent to the front against their will is practically non-existent. Desertion has become a widespread phenomenon, reaching tens of thousands each month.

Many soldiers have spent years on the front lines with little or no rotation. With losses mounting, attention is turning to new sources of manpower. Officials are increasingly pushing to draft women and public campaigns have been launched with such an aim. However, critics say life on the front lines has brought nothing but abuse and misery for female personnel.

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Trump needs arrests.

• Asst Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon Campaigns Hard to Replace Pam Bondi (CTH)

AAG Harmeet Dhillon, DOJ head of the Civil Rights Division, is campaigning hard to be the person President Trump and Susie Wiles select to replace Attorney General Pam Bondi. Mrs Dhillon has a significant personality and political trait-parallel with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and that likely explains why many of the alligator emojis are supporting her not-so-subtle bid to gain the position.

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Only the first.

• Czech Government Imposes Fuel Price Cap and Cuts Diesel Tax (RMX)

The Czech government has moved to cap fuel prices and slash diesel taxes in an effort to curb rising costs due to the ongoing international energy crisis, announcing a system that will see the state set maximum daily prices for fuel across the country. Prime Minister Andrej Babis said the intervention follows concerns that fuel retailers were charging excessive margins, despite earlier pressure from the government to bring prices down voluntarily. Under the new system, the Ministry of Finance will determine a maximum fuel price each day, applying to all gas stations nationwide. Officials estimated that diesel, if the cap came into force on Thursday, would currently be capped at 46.43 Czech crowns per liter, or around €1.89.


“We monitored the margins and at the beginning of the conflict they were within the norm, but gradually they became excessive,” Babis said, adding that negotiations with distributors had only partially reduced prices. “We decided to intervene.” The government will also introduce a cap on retailer margins, setting the maximum allowable profit at 2.50 crowns (€0.10) per liter for both petrol and diesel.Alongside the price controls, ministers approved a targeted tax cut on diesel fuel. Excise duty will be reduced by 1.939 crowns per liter, equivalent to 2.35 crowns (€0.10) including VAT, in a move officials say is permitted under EU rules. The Ministry of Finance estimates the measure will cost the state budget around 1 billion crowns (€40.8 million).

Finance Minister Alena Schillerová said the combined approach of price caps and tax cuts was designed to immediately lower costs while preventing excessive pricing behavior in the market. “It is calculated as the average of wholesale indices from Cepro, Orlen, and MOL, plus a margin of 2.50 crowns and VAT,” she said, outlining how the daily maximum price will be set. The ministry will publish the price each weekday at 2 p.m. for the following day. Schillerová added that the margin cap was based on historical data adjusted for inflation, with the aim of eliminating what she described as disproportionately high pricing by retailers. The measures will formally take effect on April 8.

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Joe Biden’s 10+ million illegals.

• ICE Uses the DMV as Bait to Lure Illegal Alien Truck Drivers (Tim O’Brien)

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) may have dropped off the radar a little bit after things settled down in Minneapolis, but a flurry of arrests just outside Pittsburgh suggests that ICE is as active as ever and addressing a problem that’s been a long time coming. ICE arrested a reported 13 people at a driver’s license center in a quiet, rural location 40 miles north of downtown Pittsburgh on April 3.


According to WPXI-TV, the local East Franklin Police Department placed calls to ICE “after concerned citizens reported an abnormally large amount of individuals outside the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) driver licensing center in Kittanning, Pennsylvania.” The center, which is normally only open two days a week, was “overrun” by fighting-age young men from other countries applying for driver’s licenses and seeking other services. Witnesses said the center was filled with long lines.

https://twitter.com/ImMeme0/status/2040244230304510118

When ICE arrived, federal agents were able to arrest 13 illegal aliens from countries including Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan. At least one person allegedly resisted arrest and reportedly assaulted a law enforcement officer. Local residents praised ICE for its quick response to the situation and for taking their calls seriously. Jason Koontz, a DHS spokesperson, said, “Residents thanked ICE for investigating their concerns and responding to their calls.” This was more than your usual roundup of illegal aliens. These individuals may have been involved in more illicit activity. Here is more from Koontz:

The West Kittanning Driver License Center was processing medical form updates for current holders of non-domiciled commercial learner’s permit or driver license holders, which resulted in a large number of customers at West Kittanning today. If you’re wondering what “non-domiciled” means, the U.S. Supreme Court spent a lot of time on that very word when it heard oral arguments in the birthright citizenship case. Non-domiciled people are individuals who don’t live here. Their home is in another country. So, a group of foreign nationals who likely speak little or no English show up unannounced in a sleepy little country town in Pennsylvania, and, if I’m reading this right, they needed to update their commercial learner’s permit — not their driver’s license — as part of the process of updating their medical forms?

PennDOT issued a statement of its own: Pennsylvania uses the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database to verify legal presence for all non-domiciled commercial learner’s permit or driver license applicants. That federal system confirms immigration status in real-time. For non-domiciled commercial learner’s permits and driver licenses, we remain under a pause of issuing those documents, as directed by the United States Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). Per the direction of FMCSA, no non-domiciled commercial learner’s permits or driver licenses were issued or reissued.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported that Armstrong County Sheriff Frank Pitzer said when he forwarded information in the morning on the unusual activity at the driver’s license center, ICE did not give him any indication that it would follow up, visit the site, or arrest anyone. He said the federal agents showed up before 1:30 p.m., without any advance notice, and immediately commenced arresting the suspected illegals. The sheriff said some of the illegal aliens who were at the center when ICE arrived may have fled and may still be hiding in the area. As a result, local law enforcement is on the lookout for these stragglers.

Other reports are that this entire operation was a sting, organized by ICE. More to the point, ICE may have sent notices to commercial truck drivers that their licenses were expiring and instructed them to go to this specific Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) office at the assigned date and time. Apparently, dozens of illegal aliens showed up, and ICE was in the shadows waiting for them. Sting or no sting, the end result is very encouraging, and I’m here for it.

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Everyone was in on it. So no penalties. They’re all very busy trying to save face. And counting profits,.

• Pfizer Cancels COVID Vaccine Trial for Lack of Interest (JTN)

Five years after their wide deployment, first on a voluntary basis, then under threat of firing for nearly 100 million Americans at the direction of the White House, COVID-19 vaccines for at least low-risk groups may be on the way out amid higher regulatory requirements and indifference to the jabs by the vast majority of Americans. Pfizer and its COVID mRNA vaccine partner BioNTech abruptly pulled the plug on their trial for healthy 50-64 year-olds, telling trial investigators in a March 30 letter they were coming up short on the 25,000-30,000 enrollment needed to generate enough data to evaluate the jabs, Reuters reported, citing a letter it viewed.


Friday was the last day that Pfizer was scheduled to monitor trial participants for signs of COVID illness, the letter reportedly said. “Two sources from companies” that manage 9% of trial sites told the wire service that Pfizer told them in writing weeks earlier to stop recruitment. “This study is not ending as a result of any safety or benefit-risk concerns,” Pfizer and BioNTech told the wire service, citing their “inability to generate relevant post-marketing data” with lagging enrollment. They said they already told the Food and Drug Administration, which did not answer a query from Just the News, they were throwing in the towel.

Pfizer appears to see more dollar signs in the first serious vaccine candidate for Lyme disease since GSK’s vaccine reportedly crashed and burned in 2002 due to relatively low efficacy and strain coverage, no testing in children and widespread reports of serious adverse events. The drug maker is planning to seek regulatory approval with its partner Valneva for the Lyme vaccine despite admitting the trial missed its “primary endpoint” because not enough people got the tick-borne illness. Pfizer made the same big bet on its pricey COVID antiviral Paxlovid, which did no better than a placebo against “long COVID.”

Pfizer is also losing a purported ally in the Trump administration, Attorney General Pam Bondi, who before being fired last week was trying to tank clinical trial whistleblower Brook Jackson’s False Claims Act lawsuit against Pfizer for allegedly using fraudulent data to obtain emergency use authorization for its COVID vaccine and a related massive payout from taxpayers. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard arguments in December, is expected to rule in the case “any Friday now,” Jackson wrote on X Thursday. “You can’t certify a lie. So what is an FDA authorization built on fraud?”

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Debt Rattle March 12 2026

Mar 122026
 
 March 12, 2026  Posted by at 10:08 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  92 Responses »


Willem de Kooning Rosy-fingered Dawn at Louse Point 1963
When I still lived in Holland I would go to the StedelIjk Museum all the time just to see this painting.


• Trump Says Iran War To End ‘Soon’ As ‘Practically Nothing Left’ To Target (ZH)
• Thinking About the Unthinkable (Michael Hudson)
• Iran Sleeper Cells ‘Activated’; Threaten To “Eliminate” Trump (MN)
• It Seems Netanyahu Has Trump In Over His Head (Paul Craig Roberts)
• The Die Is Cast: Either Iran or Washington/Israel Prevail (Paul Craig Roberts)
• The Global Elites Lose Again (Heather Mac Donald)
• Volkswagen Loses Half Their Profit, Plans to Cut 50,000 Jobs (CTH)
• Top DOJ Prosecutor Says Tens Of Thousands Of Noncitizens On Voter Rolls (JTN)
• Epstein’s Accountant To Testify Before House Oversight Panel (JTN)
• Microsoft Backs Anthropic’s Bid to Block the Supply-Chain Risk Label (ET)
• Are Bad Bots Taking Over The Web? (ZH)
• Ukraine Can’t Explain ‘War Mafia’ Cash Convoy – Hungary (RT)
• EU Members Could Loan Billions Directly To Kiev – Politico
• Looks Like The EU Might Have To Pay Zelensky Just To Shut Up (Rachel Marsden)
• The Big Lie: America Is a Divided, Hateful Country (Rick Moran)

 


 

 


 

 


 


92 million people in an ancient civilization, and after just a few days you have ‘Practically Nothing Left’ To Target? Sounds delusional, perhaps.

• Trump Says Iran War To End ‘Soon’ As ‘Practically Nothing Left’ To Target (ZH)

President Trump on Wednesday said that the war with Iran will end “soon” because there is “practically nothing left to target.” “Little this and that… Any time I want it to end, it will end,” Trump told Axios during a five-minute phone call, adding “The war is going great. We are way ahead of the timetable. We have done more damage than we thought possible, even in the original six-week period.” “They were after the rest of the Middle East. They are paying for 47 years of death and destruction they caused. This is payback. They will not get off that easy,” Trump said.


So, Mission Almost Accomplished™ after the Trump administration has given estimates ranging from weeks to months for how long this might take.Yet while Trump is signaling that the operation has largely accomplished its objectives, US and Israeli officials say there’s been no indication of when fighting might stop. As Axios notes further, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday that fighting will continue “without any time limit, for as long as necessary, until we achieve all the objectives and decisively win the campaign.” Meanwhile, Israeli and US officials say they’re preparing for at least two more weeks of strikes in Iran.

* * * Update (0930ET): The most significant development in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday was the start of IRGC naval mining operations, which were met with massive U.S. firepower that destroyed 16 mine-laying vessels. As we continue monitoring the maritime chokepoint this morning after IRGC attacks on three commercial vessels, attention is now shifting to the IRGC’s drone production capacity, which appears to have been degraded. Bloomberg reports that 2,100 Shaheds have been fired so far in the 12-day conflict. U.S. forces struck IRGC production facilities, disrupting large-scale manufacturing. The report is based on comments from a senior European official.

“Since the Houthis have produced UAVs under bombardment, one would think the Iranians can, albeit not at the same rates, since facilities have to be dispersed and makeshift workshops used,” Sid Kaushal, a senior research fellow at the UK-based Royal United Services Institute, told the outlet.The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that Saudi Arabia’s kill-cost ratio, neutralizing $20,000 IRGC drones with $2 million-plus missiles, has spurred talks with a Ukrainian counter-drone company for cheap interceptor drones.

* * * America-Israel’s Operation Epic Fury entered its 12th day, with U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth indicating that the most intense phase of U.S. strikes is expected on Wednesday. Tehran responded with retaliatory strikes against Gulf neighbors, as Goldman’s foreign affairs chief warned of a growing risk of regional spillover (read here). Overnight, market attention centered on energy, with the IEA reportedly proposing its largest-ever emergency crude release to combat Brent and WTI prices, which have reached triple-digit territory. “The most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes. Intelligence more refined and better than ever. So that’s on one hand,” Hegseth said. “On the other hand, the last 24 hours have seen Iran fire the lowest number of missiles they’ve been capable of firing yet.”

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“Iran’s Grand Plan to End U.S. Presence in the Middle East..”

• Thinking About the Unthinkable (Michael Hudson)

Iran and Donald Trump have each explained why failure to fight the current war to the end would simply lead to a new set of mutual attacks. Trump announced on March 6 that “There will be no deal with Iran except unconditional surrender,” and announced that he must have a voice in naming or at least approving Iran’s new leader, as he has just done in Venezuela. “If the U.S. military must utterly defeat it and bring about a regime change, or else “you go through this, and then in five years you realize you put somebody in who’s no better.’”[1] It will take at least that long for America to replace the weaponry that has been depleted, rebuild its radar and related installations and mount a new war.


Iranian officials likewise recognize that U.S. attacks will keep being repeated until the United States is driven out of the Middle East. Having agreed to a ceasefire last June instead of pressing its advantage when Israeli and regional U.S. anti-missile defenses were depleted, Iran realized that war will be resumed as soon as the United States is able to re-arm its allies and military bases to renew what both sides recognize is to be a fight to some kind of final solution.

The war that began on February 28 can realistically be deemed to be the formal opening of World War III because what is at issue are the terms on which the entire world will be able to buy oil and gas. Can they buy this energy from exporters in currencies other than the dollar, headed by Russia and Iran (and until recently, Venezuela)? Will the present U.S. demand to control of the international oil trade require oil-exporting countries to price it in dollars, and indeed to recycle their export earnings and national savings into investments in U.S. government securities, bonds and stocks?

That recycling of petrodollars has been the basis of America’s financialization and weaponization of the world’s oil trade, and its imperial strategy of isolating countries that resist adherence to the U.S. ruler-based order (no real rules, but simply U.S. ad hoc demands). So what is at issue is not only the U.S. military presence in the Middle East – along with its two proxy armies, Israel and ISIS/al Qaeda jihadists. And the U.S. and Israeli pretense that it is about Iran having atomic weapons of mass destruction is as fictitious an accusation as that levied against Iraq in 2003. What is at issue is ending the Middle East’s economic alliances with the United States and whether its oil-export earnings will continue to be accumulated in dollars as the buttress of the U.S. balance of payments to help pay for its military bases throughout the world.

Iran has announced that it will fight until it achieves three aims to prevent future wars. First and foremost, the United States must withdraw from al its military bases in the Middle East. Iran already has destroyed the backbone of radar warning systems and anti-aircraft and missile defense sites in Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain, preventing them from guiding U.S. or Israeli missile attacks or attacking Iran. Arab countries have bases or U.S. installations will be bombed if they are not abandoned.

The next two Iranian demands seem to far-reaching that they seem unthinkable to the West. Arab OPEC countries must end their close economic ties to the United States, starting with the U.S. data centers operated by Amazon, Microsoft and Google. And they not only must stop pricing their oil and gas in U.S. dollars, but disinvest in their existing petrodollars holdings of the U.S. investments that have been subsidizing the U.S. balance of payments since the 1974 agreements that made to gain U.S. permission to quadruple their oil-export prices.

These three demands would end U.S. economic power over OPEC countries, and thus the world oil trade. The result would be to dedollarize the world’s oil trade and re-orient it toward Asia and Global Majority countries. And Iran’s plan involves not only a military and economic defeat for the United States, but an end to the political character of the Near Eastern client monarchies and their relations with their Shi’ite citizens.

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“Even those greater than you could not eliminate the Iranian nation. Take care of yourself not to be eliminated!”

• Iran Sleeper Cells ‘Activated’; Threaten To “Eliminate” Trump (MN)

US intelligence intercepts reveal Iran may be triggering covert operatives abroad, as Tehran issues direct warnings to President Trump following the airstrike death of its former supreme leader. U.S. intelligence has intercepted an encrypted message from Iran that appears to be an “operational trigger” for sleeper cells embedded in foreign countries, raising alarms about potential attacks. This development comes amid ongoing conflict, with Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, facing threats from multiple fronts after his father’s death in a U.S.-Israeli airstrike.


https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/2031106637662920797


passcodes, with characteristics suggesting it was meant for operatives outside the country. The alert describes the signal as resembling historical methods used to activate covert assets without internet reliance. “The signals could be intended to activate or provide instructions to prepositioned sleeper assets operating outside the originating country,” the alert stated.Concerns are heightened by reports of Iranian-linked operatives using routes like Venezuela to enter Western nations, potentially establishing networks near the U.S.

Security experts warn of threats from both organized cells and lone actors. Former DHS adviser Charles Marino told the Daily Mail that simultaneous attacks by 10-20 people in a cell are possible, targeting soft spots like concerts or sporting events. The upcoming World Cup, a National Special Security Event, is a particular worry. Tensions escalated further with Iran’s defiant response to President Trump’s comments on the new supreme leader. Trump stated on Fox that Mojtaba Khamenei would be unable to “live in peace” and expressed dissatisfaction with the appointment, warning Iran to brace for “death, fire and fury” if it shuts the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s security chief Ali Larijani dismissed these as “empty threats,” adding, “Even those greater than you could not eliminate the Iranian nation. Take care of yourself not to be eliminated!”


This exchange follows the conviction of Asif Merchant, a Pakistani national trained by Iran’s IRGC, for plotting to assassinate Trump during the 2024 race. Merchant was found guilty days ago, with the plot linked to revenge for Qasem Soleimani’s 2020 killing. In a related development, Merchant told FBI agents he suspected Iran was behind the July 13, 2024, Butler assassination attempt on Trump. He claimed it mirrored his own scheme, orchestrated under IRGC coercion with threats to his family. Prosecutors allege Merchant recruited hitmen targeting U.S. politicians, including Trump, Biden, and Haley. During his trial, he handed $5,000 to undercover agents. U.S. strikes have since killed the IRGC leader behind the plot, as announced by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Hegseth described Tuesday as the “most intense day” of attacks on Iran, with refined intelligence leading to more strikes. Iran has fired fewer missiles in recent hours, he noted. Iran’s IRGC announced that countries expelling U.S. and Israeli ambassadors would gain passage through the Strait of Hormuz, amid warnings from Saudi Arabia’s oil company of market “catastrophe” due to disruptions.] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated Israel is “not done yet” in Iran, while warning Lebanese residents ahead of strikes on Hezbollah. French President Emmanuel Macron assured Cyprus of support amid regional strains.

Tehran saw massive airstrikes with “unusually large” explosions, as Trump vowed to end the war “very soon” but indicated further actions. Smoke billowed over the capital, and Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi ruled out resuming U.S. negotiations, citing past betrayals. Mojtaba Khamenei, wounded in the conflict and dubbed “vengeful” by some, has ties to the IRGC and is seen as more extremist. Protests in Iran include chants of “death to Mojtaba,” while state media rallies support.

Trump reiterated warnings on Truth Social, promising to hit Iran “twenty times harder” if oil flow is blocked. Iran insists it will determine the war’s end and continue missile attacks as needed. The Strait of Hormuz remains effectively shut, halting oil tankers and filling storage, spiking global prices and raising economic crisis fears. These intercepts and threats underscore the precarious security landscape, with potential implications for U.S. safety and international stability as the conflict persists.

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I may not agree all the time, but I highly appreciate the view of a soon 87-year old former (assistant) cabinet secretary.

• It Seems Netanyahu Has Trump In Over His Head (Paul Craig Roberts)

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked at a news conference on March 9 if in view of the lack of success of the Israeli-American missile and air strikes to defeat Iran, now that Trump was talking about boots on the ground could America look forward to a draft? Leavitt’s answer was that the President keeps all options on the table.I don’t think that this is going to go down well with American mothers and fathers. Yes, they are brainwashed about “Israel’s right to defend itself,” and “you can’t be an American if you don’t love Israel,” but that was before their sons faced conscription to go to war and to die for Israel.


So far we have only had propaganda, not factual news, about the success for lack thereof of the Israeli-American attack on Iran. But all the indications are that the war has not gone as Trump expected. My own opinion at this time is that the only way Trump can avoid defeat in Iran is to nuke Iran, which I am convinced was Netanyahu’s intent from the beginning. Netanyahu will be telling Trump, “You promised victory. You cannot accept a defeat.”

The Republicans who support the war, ranging from 76% to 85% depending on the poll are too stupid and insouciant to comprehend that they are supporting a war likely to end in nuclear war and their own demise. Patriots are the easiest to deceive, because they wrap themselves in the flag. But a deceived population is a poor basis for survival. Has Netanyahu maneuvered an utterly stupid American president into a draft in a midterm election year?

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Not both.

• The Die Is Cast: Either Iran or Washington/Israel Prevail (Paul Craig Roberts)

President Trump recently declared that he has won the war ahead of schedule. But evidence supports the opposite conclusion. For example, Washington is having to remove sanctions on Russian oil in order to release Russian oil to the market in a weak effort to compensate for Iran’s closing of the Strait of Hormuz. So much for Trump’s “victory.” Washington has already been forced to waive its ban on refiners in India from purchasing Russian oil. US Treasury Secretary Bessent said: “We may unsanction other Russian oil . . . There are hundreds of millions of barrels of sanctioned crude on the water … by unsanctioning them, Treasury can create supply.” One might have thought that the dumbshit Trump regime would have thought of this prior to taking the world to war.


Here we will get a test of Putin’s mettle. Will he sell out his BRICS Iranian ally in exchange for Washington removing its Russian sanctions? Will Putin think he can parlay his cooperation with Israel-America for a mutual defense treaty? Such treachery would be isolating and would cost Russia China’s trust, leaving both countries isolated for Washington to try to destabilize. As Putin has already walked away from Syria and refuses to win the conflict with Ukraine, will he also sell out Iran for hopes that have no chance of being realized? Just how unrealistic is Putin? Can Russia survive Putin’s unrealism?

Until Washington renounces the Wolfowitz Doctrine of US hegemony and Israel renounces the Zionist agenda of Greater Israel, no agreement with Washington means anything other than the stupidity of the Russian or Chinese or Iranian government in giving Washington and Israel time to regroup, resupply, and renew the attack.

On Dialogue Works I discuss with Nima the basic fact that the operative foreign policies are Israel’s agenda of Greater Israel and Washington’s agenda of American hegemony. https://www.youtube.com/live/OEplHZWNG-E Israel’s agenda means that Iran’s only option is to fight for survival. Iran cannot negotiate its survival. The Wolfowitz Doctrine means that China and Russia’s only choice is to prevail over Washington or accept subservience to Washington. It is impossible to negotiate equality with a government, the agenda of which is its hegemony. It is extraordinary that governments, commentators, and media cannot comprehend such obvious facts.

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I kid you not: Their political rivals say the AfD is actively seeking to overthrow the German constitution. Like the Schiffs and Pelosi’s said about Trump.

• The Global Elites Lose Again (Heather Mac Donald)

To the despair of the European establishment, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the most hated political force in Germany, keeps showing robust signs of life, whether in its impressive showing in a state election on Sunday or in a recent courtroom victory. On Sunday, the AfD more than doubled its previous vote share for the parliament of Baden-Württemberg, a key industrial state in western Germany. On February 26, a German court enjoined the country’s domestic spy agency from classifying Germany’s second most popular political party as a “confirmed right-wing extremist” organization. The “confirmed right-wing extremist” designation has been a key tool in the campaign among establishment and left-wing politicians to ban the AfD entirely. The AfD’s fate should not be a matter of indifference to American conservatives. The globalist elites must be broken everywhere if they are to be permanently broken at all.


Growing numbers of the German public defy their overseers and welcome the AfD as an antidote to the EU-Davos philosophy of open borders and the deindustrialization and immiseration that go under the banner of climate-friendly energy policy. The AfD polls second nationally to the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The CDU was once the cornerstone of postwar conservatism, but its leaders have pulled it to the left in order to marginalize the AfD. In February 2025, Chancellor (and CDU party head) Friedrich Merz cobbled together an ideologically incoherent governing coalition whose sole purpose is to shut the AfD out of power, despite the AfD’s receiving the second largest share of the German vote. The establishment proudly refers to this exclusionary strategy as the “firewall,” which allegedly protects German democracy from falling into the hands of purported neo-Nazis.

Despite the relentless agitation against it, the AfD is the leading political force in many East German states. It is rising fast in the West, including in several states, such as Baden-Württemberg, holding elections this year for their local parliaments. That’s where the government-imposed “right-wing extremist” label comes in. If one wants to see the Deep State in its most perfected form, Germany is the place to look.

The country’s domestic spy agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, has vast discretion to wiretap German citizens and to determine their political legitimacy. It assesses whether a political movement is an enemy of the “free democratic basic order” and “inimical to the Constitution.” Depending on how confident the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution is regarding the anti-democratic character of a party, it classifies that party as “a suspicious case,” a “suspected extremist” party, or a “confirmed extremist” party. These categories govern how much surveillance the Office for the Protection of the Constitution is allowed to conduct on party members—a startling amount by non-German standards, yet now almost shrugged off by its nationalist targets as an unavoidable condition of political existence.

Previously, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution had classified the AfD as a “suspected” right-wing extremist organization. But in 2025, the office bumped up the classification to “confirmed extremist” on the basis of a secret 7,000-page dossier of materials, collected from public sources and from years of wiretaps on party members’ phones. That “confirmed extremist” designation meant that the office was now certain that the AfD was actively seeking to overthrow the constitution. The reclassification was clearly the result of prodding from the previous minister of the interior, Nancy Faeser, a member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). The intention was to accelerate the movement to ban the AfD altogether.

So what makes the AfD so dangerous to German democracy? Has it called for suspending elections? For storming the Bundestag (parliament)? For jailing, banning, or censoring its political opponents? For preventing those opponents from participating in the parliamentary debate? For shuttering the internet to contrary opinion? Has it used violence against its enemies? Is it antisemitic? No, it is the AfD’s enemies who seek to ban and censor it, who deny it its parliamentary privileges, who have launched arson attacks against its leaders, and who have assaulted its members. The AfD has done none of these things to its opponents, nor has it called for doing so. It has abided by every legal ruling against it, however tendentious. The AfD is Germany’s staunchest supporter of Israel and German Jews; it alone has tried for years to cut off the U.N. slush fund that supports Palestinian terrorism.

Its representatives are the target of shunning that would make a teenage girl blush. If an AfD member enters a crowded elevator in the modernist Bundestag, he may suddenly find himself alone, as his fellow legislators flee from possible contamination. So what makes the AfD so toxic?

Its cardinal sin is to argue that mass third-world migration is destroying traditional German culture and identity. It is to point out that Germany’s open-borders policies are saddling the country with a crime- and terror-prone, welfare-dependent, culturally alien population that consumes taxpayer resources while only intermittently giving something back to German society. Its crime against democracy is in calling for the enforcement of laws already on the books regarding the deportation of criminal aliens and other migrants who have no right to remain in German society. At its core, its heresy is to assert that a country has a right to decide its level of immigration and resulting culture change, rather than that level being determined by the will of the migrants themselves.

These AfD positions do not threaten due process, popular sovereignty, or other democratic values. If the AfD is nonetheless antithetical to democracy, as we are told, then democracy at present means above all else a commitment to maximum demographic replacement. Speak out against unchecked immigration from the Third World, and you will be branded not just as a racist and xenophobe but as a threat to democracy itself, since democracy is now defined as the embrace of policies that erode national identity. (Such erosion is sought only in Western countries, however.)

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“..EU car companies buy Chinese car company carbon credits, to avoid the EU fines. The Chinese car companies then use the carbon credit revenue to subsidize lower priced Chinese EVs to the European car market, thereby undercutting the European EV car companies..”

• Volkswagen Loses Half Their Profit, Plans to Cut 50,000 Jobs (CTH)

The origin of this issue goes back to 2021 and the relaunch of the Build Back Better European green energy program to fight the non-existent climate change problem. We have been highlighting the consequences within the EU auto sector. We noted in October of last year, the EU’s mandated fines against auto manufacturers who do not hit their production goals for electric vehicle sales began in 2025. EU automakers unable to meet the regulatory compliance goal began purchasing carbon credits to avoid stiff EU fines. Many of those carbon credits were purchased from Chinese EV automakers, who then turned around and started using the extra EU revenue to discount Chinese cars sold in Europe.


At the same time as Chinese autos hit record highs in Europe, EU car sales are flat or declining. Now, Volkswagen is announcing they lost half their profits in one year and will be cutting 50,000 jobs in the next four years. (MSM – Europe) – Volkswagen just revealed its operating profit sank like a stone last year, dropping by more than half as tariffs, Chinese competition, and shifting strategies took a serious bite out of the bottom line. And that performance now has the VW Group’s execs reaching for the cost-cutting scissors, including plans to shed 50,000 jobs by the end of the decade.The German automaker reported an operating profit of €8.9 billion ($10.3 bn at current rates) for 2025. That’s down a hefty 53 percent from the year before and well below what analysts were expecting. Revenue, meanwhile, barely moved, slipping only slightly to around €322 billion ($374 bn). (read more)

This was very predictable. In essence, EU car companies buy Chinese car company carbon credits, to avoid the EU fines. The Chinese car companies then use the carbon credit revenue to subsidize lower priced Chinese EVs to the European car market, thereby undercutting the European EV car companies. The EU tariff applied to gasoline powered cars or hybrids from China is 10%. That tariff is not enough to stop the imports. The Chinese hybrid autos are substantially less than European car brands, and there’s no financial incentive for China to build auto plants in the EU zone especially when you consider the EU is subsidizing those cars by purchasing carbon credits.

When analyzed from a cost and consequence, the entire EU dynamic toward car companies is a little funny. However, for Germany this is a serious issue, and with the German industrial economy already stagnant – every impact to their auto industry only makes the situation worse. When you overlay the big picture of their expensive “green energy” costs, the EU find themselves in an unescapable downward spiral. Quite literally, all commonsense seems to have been lost in their green energy chase. By focusing on energy targets, specifically by trying to force production of European electric vehicles that are not favored by European car purchasers, the EU is shrinking their economy to the benefit of Beijing exploitation.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently travelled to China for a discussion with Chairman Xi Jinping. Chancellor Merz returned to German with a stark message about how the nation needed to quickly get productive in order to meet the far superior work ethic he saw in China. At the same time, the EU has destroyed its energy sector by chasing windmills and solar farms instead of maintaining the much cheaper coal and gas alternatives. Overall, Europe has made a series of really bad decisions, but those consequences will surface the hardest within the largest industrial economy, Germany. They’ve got major problems now.

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“Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon..”

• Top DOJ Prosecutor Says Tens Of Thousands Of Noncitizens On Voter Rolls (JTN)

The top Justice Department prosecutor for civil liberties and voting rights tells Just the News that her ongoing review of state voter rolls has proven tens of thousands of noncitizens made it into a position to cast ballots and that hundreds of thousands of dead or departed residents were not properly removed from state election systems. “It’s really frustrating that we’re being prevented from doing our job,” Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon said Tuesday night, criticizing state election offices and federal judges who are blocking her office from her historic effort to obtain and review every state’s voter roll ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.


Dhillon gave an early accounting of the initiative, disclosing during a wide-ranging interview on the Just the News, No Noise television show that 16 states have turned over their voter rolls to DOJ or signed memorandum of understanding to provide the data while 29 are facing litigation to compel them to turn over the lists. “We want every American citizen to feel confident in voting and feel confident in the outcome of that election, and that is why we’re undertaking this massive project,” she explained. While having access to less than half the state’s election databases, Dhillon said she has already found deeply disturbing statistics that are only bound to get worse as more states are forced to comply.

“We’re finding tens of thousands of noncitizens on the voter rolls, hundreds of thousands of dead people on the voter rolls, and duplicate registrations between states,” she said. Earlier this month, DOJ announced it had indicted an illegal alien from Africa for illegally voting in seven federal elections in Pennsylvania. Federal law prohibits foreigners from voting in federal elections.Mahady Sacko, who came to the United States illegally from Mauritania, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and the FBI in Philadelphia. He has been charged with voter fraud, officials said. “This criminal illegal alien committed a felony by voting in federal elections dating back to 2008. Illegal aliens should NOT be electing American leaders,” Deputy Assistant Homeland Secretary Lauren Bis said. “Our elections belong to American citizens, not foreign citizens. Congress must pass the SAVE America Act immediately to secure our elections.”

Dhillon revealed there are dozens more noncitizens who DOJ has confirmed voted illegally, but those cases have not yet been prosecuted because the U.S. Senate has not confirmed U.S. attorneys in many jurisdictions. “For every person that we’ve seen a story about, I know of dozens and dozens more cases, and U.S. attorney’s offices are wanting to bring these cases, but we have, of course, interference with the very appointment of these U.S. attorneys at the political level,” she explained. “So that’s above my pay grade, but it’s really frustrating that we’re being prevented from doing our job.

Dhillon said there are two reasons why states aren’t turning over voter rolls: some simply don’t want the DOJ to review their work and others are afraid of being sued by Democrat voting rights lawyers like Marc Elias or future Democratic presidential administrations. “You may ask, why don’t states clean it up themselves? Well, sometimes it’s just inefficiency, but more times it’s actually states wanting to clean up their voter rolls, and the Marc Elias’s of the world and even the DOJ (under Biden) are suing them to stop them from cleaning up their own voter rolls,” she said.

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I don’t care much for Epstein’s accountant. But this sentence stuck out. I had to read it twice and still have questions:

“Both Kahn and Indyke recently settled a lawsuit alleging they facilitated sham marriages for immigration purposes in which foreign-born victims married U.S. citizens whom Epstein abused.”

Does that state that Epstein abused US citizens who after that fact sham-married foreign-born victims -of Epstein?!

• Epstein’s Accountant To Testify Before House Oversight Panel (JTN)

An accountant for late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein will testify Wednesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in a closed-door deposition. Richard Kahn was Epstein’s accountant for more than 10 years and became an executor of his estate after his death, CBS News reported. Kahn was one of Epstein’s closest associates in his final years, as he managed the financier’s investments, finances and other matters, such as renovations on his private island. Another executor of Epstein’s estate, lawyer Darren Indyke, is expected to testify before the committee on March 19.


According to documents from lawsuits and the Justice Department’s Epstein files, Epstein, Kahn, and Indyke together operated a sophisticated and tangled web of businesses. The release of the files has shed more light on Epstein’s association with some of the world’s most powerful men, some of whom continued to associate with him after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting a minor for prostitution. After the House committee issued subpoenas to Kahn and Indyke in January, Daniel H. Weiner, an attorney for both men, said that allegations against them are “false.”

“It is worth emphasizing that not a single woman has ever accused either Mr. Indyke or Mr. Kahn of committing sexual abuse or witnessing sexual abuse, nor claimed at any time that she reported to them any allegation of Mr. Epstein’s abuse,” Weiner said. “Indyke and Kahn did not socialize with Mr. Epstein, and they have always rejected as categorically false any suggestion that they knowingly facilitated or assisted Mr. Epstein in his sexual abuse or trafficking of women, or that they were aware of Mr. Epstein’s actions while they provided legal and accounting services to Mr. Epstein.” Both Kahn and Indyke recently settled a lawsuit alleging they facilitated sham marriages for immigration purposes in which foreign-born victims married U.S. citizens whom Epstein abused.

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“Their true objective is unmistakable: to seize veto power over the operational decisions of the United States military. That is unacceptable..”

• Microsoft Backs Anthropic’s Bid to Block the Supply-Chain Risk Label (ET)

Microsoft on March 10 filed an amicus brief backing Anthropic’s lawsuit against the Department of War, seeking a court order to temporarily stop the Pentagon from labeling Anthropic as a supply-chain risk. Anthropic filed the suit on March 9 after the Pentagon designated it a supply chain risk to national security, a label that would hinder the Pentagon and its contractors from using Anthropic’s artificial intelligence technology in their work for the U.S. military. The designation stemmed from Anthropic’s rejection of the Pentagon’s request for unrestricted access to its Claude models over concerns that the technology could be used for mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons. The Pentagon has denied that it planned to use Claude for such purposes.


In its amicus brief filed March 10, Microsoft said it was directly affected by the Pentagon’s designation of Anthropic because it uses Anthropic’s technologies in products made available to the Pentagon. The tech giant said that a temporary block on the designation would “enable a more orderly transition and avoid disrupting the American military’s ongoing use of advanced AI.” Microsoft warned that U.S. warfighters could be hampered “at a critical point in time” if companies are required to immediately alter existing product and contract configurations used by the Pentagon. It also warned that putting the Pentagon’s designation of Anthropic into immediate effect will have “broad negative ramifications for the entire technology sector and the American business community.”

Microsoft said the Pentagon gave itself a six-month period to transition services away from Anthropic’s technologies but did not provide the same transition timeline for contractors that use Anthropic products. “Should this action proceed without the entry of a temporary restraining order, Microsoft and other government contractors with expertise in developing solutions to support U.S. government missions will be forced to account for a new risk in their business planning,” it stated. “Should companies choose to forgo the opportunity to work with the U.S. government due to the attendant risks, the U.S. government, its missions, and the people it serves would lose access to state-of-the-art technological solutions,” Microsoft said.

[..] Anthropic alleged in its lawsuit that the federal government designated the company in retaliation for its viewpoint protected under the First Amendment. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on Feb. 27 accused Anthropic of trying to dictate military operations by denying the Pentagon permission to use its Claude models for all lawful purposes. “Their true objective is unmistakable: to seize veto power over the operational decisions of the United States military. That is unacceptable,” Hegseth said in a post on X. The Pentagon used the Claude AI system for mission-critical functions, including intelligence analysis, modeling and simulation, operational planning, and cyber operations.

Read more …

We don’t even agree what is a ‘bad bot’.

• Are Bad Bots Taking Over The Web? (ZH)

The share of global web traffic generated by humans is shrinking, while bot activity is on the rise. According to Imperva Bad Bot Reports, in 2018, humans still accounted for 62 percent of web traffic, with malicious bots at 20 percent and benign bots at 18 percent. But over the past seven years, the balance of web traffic has shifted dramatically. As Statista’s Tristan Gaudiat shows in the chart below, humans now represent less than half of all traffic (49 percent in 2024), while malicious bots have surged to 37 percent, accounting for well over twice the traffic of benign bots (14 percent).


This rise in malicious bot activity reflects a growing cybersecurity challenge. Bad bots are often used to steal login details, collect sensitive data, spread misinformation and manipulate online ads. Industries like e commerce, finance and social media are particularly affected. Bot fraud is estimated to cost businesses billions each year. Yet, not all bots are harmful. Benign bots, such as search engine crawlers and chatbots, play a crucial role in indexing the web and improving user experiences. However, their declining share suggests that cybercriminals are outpacing legitimate automation. As AI and machine learning make bots more sophisticated, their growing share of web traffic is likely to remain a defining trend in the years ahead.

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Corruption ”R’ Us

• Ukraine Can’t Explain ‘War Mafia’ Cash Convoy – Hungary (RT)

Ukraine has failed to explain why an armored convoy carrying tens of millions of dollars in cash and gold, and supervised by people with ties to Ukrainian intelligence, was transiting through Hungary, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said. He also implied that the funds may be a sign of Ukrainian plans to meddle in Hungary’s upcoming elections. Tensions between the two countries escalated last week when Hungarian officials impounded two trucks belonging to Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank near Budapest, seizing $40 million and €35 million in cash and 9 kg of gold as part of a money laundering investigation. The funds were being transported from Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank to Ukraine.


Hungary said the convoy was being supervised by a former general of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), with other escorts also reportedly having military backgrounds. All seven escorts were deported back to Ukraine, while the assets and the trucks remain in custody. Ukraine, meanwhile, has denounced the seizure as “state banditism” and “blackmail.” Speaking on Tuesday, Szijjarto – who previously suggested that the convoy could be linked to a Ukrainian “war mafia” – rebuked Kiev over what he described as a failure to answer basic questions about the convoy and previous transfers of the same kind. “I think the last time such a transfer happened was in the Stone Age, when two banks settled €1.1-1.2 billion in cash between each other,” Szijjarto said.

The minister further questioned the convoy’s route, pointing out it had bypassed Poland – a NATO member with relatively good relations with Kiev – in favor of Hungarian roads. “So what is this money doing here? And what are the Ukrainian secret service people and people with military connections doing among the escorts?” he said. He also described it as “very suspicious” that the detained Ukrainians were being represented in Hungary by a law firm linked to the Tisza opposition party. Szijjarto suggested that the cash could be tied to alleged Ukrainian efforts to influence Hungary’s April 12 parliamentary elections. “The Ukrainians have an interest in a certain election outcome, and 500 billion forints are again floating around in Hungary. How strong the connection between the two is – that is what needs to be found out now.”

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“A €90 billion loan plan is currently being blocked by Hungary and Slovakia over Ukraine’s refusal to allow them access to Russian oil ..”

• EU Members Could Loan Billions Directly To Kiev – Politico

Cash-strapped Ukraine could receive as much as €30 billion ($35 billion) from individual EU members, Politico reported on Wednesday. The idea is being discussed as Hungary and Slovakia pressure Kiev to resume Russian oil supplies by blocking a joint €90 billion EU loan. Kiev claims supplies through the Soviet-built Druzhba pipeline are suspended due to damage from a Russian attack, with repairs not expected until late April – after key elections in Hungary. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has accused Ukraine of orchestrating an energy crisis to boost the opposition.The freeze on the joint EU loan was part of Orban’s retaliation for the alleged Ukrainian plot. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said his government would block the money even if Orban’s party loses at the ballot box next month.


Baltic and Nordic nations are considering bilateral loans to Ukraine totaling €30 billion to avert bankruptcy, Politico said, citing anonymous sources. Separately, Dutch Finance Minister Eelco Heinen reportedly told fellow EU ministers that the Netherlands intends to provide Ukraine with €3.5 billion annually through 2029. In late February, the International Monetary Fund approved an $8.1 billion loan to Ukraine, with $1.5 billion disbursed immediately to ease Kiev’s budgetary strain. The IMF agreed to postpone demands for financial reforms that the Ukrainian government declined to implement.

Supporters of Ukraine in the EU have proposed a similar scheme for its accession bid. Under the “reverse enlargement” idea, Ukraine would be formally admitted without meeting candidate criteria, enjoying limited privileges and obligations. The proposal has faced strong opposition from member states insisting that EU expansion must remain merit-based.The EU is also under additional economic pressure from the US-Israeli campaign to topple Iran’s government through military force. The Middle East conflict has disrupted oil and LNG supplies, and the resulting price shock poses heightened risks to European consumers, given the EU’s politically motivated rejection of Russian energy.

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Zelensky and the cabal all around him.

• Looks Like The EU Might Have To Pay Zelensky Just To Shut Up (Rachel Marsden)

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky have a little something for the ladies for Women’s History Month. They’re apparently going to spend the entire time beaking each other off on the global stage. Get your wads of bills ready to toss, girls! Especially you, Queen Ursula. Let’s peek in, shall we? Orban says he’s already on the verge of pulling out his tool. Guess we missed the part where they play footsie under the table first. “We have no military force for this, I can reassure everyone that this is not part of our plans. But we have political and financial tools,” the Hungarian PM said, in demanding that Zelensky open the tap on the Druzhba pipeline of Russian oil to Hungary that represents the landlocked country’s critical supply.


Orban has said he has no interest in taking his foot off the firehose of cash that the EU has been blasting out on itself and whatever else it has going on in the land of golden toilets amid the fog of war – all under the pretext of helping Ukraine, of course.“We hope that one person in the European Union will not block 90 billion or the first tranche of 90 billion, and that Ukrainian soldiers will have weapons” Zelensky said. “Otherwise, we will give the address of this person to our Armed Forces, to our lads. Let them call him and talk to him in their own language.”

Who could that “one person” possibly be? In any case, guess he’ll either be getting an email, or maybe a visit, depending on what the word “address” actually means here. Or maybe just a phone call with a bunch of guys breathing heavily down the line in a foreign language. Hard to tell. Zelensky, an actor, could probably use a better scriptwriter for his Godfather-style lines. Or maybe just drop a dead rat in the mail next time and skip the public speculation. The EU brass has told these two lovebirds to pipe down. But it really isn’t in Zelensky’s interest to do that. And Brussels seems to be making sure of it. If only because emerging info suggests that Zelensky is on the verge of ensuring that he gets rewarded for playing hard to get.

There are two possibilities shaping up. Either Orban feels enough pressure to drop his veto of the EU’s latest €90 million spending package in order to get the gas flowing during this heated Hungarian election period. An unlikely scenario given that his more pro-EU opponent in the April 12 national vote has left very little daylight between him and Orban on the issue of the need for Zelensky to restart the pipeline. Or, alternatively, Orban can double down and maintain his insistence, leaving Brussels with a new convenient pretext, since it’s being reported by Bloomberg that Brussels is considering the possibility of basically bribing Zelensky with EU money to “fix” the pipeline.

What’s that repair going to cost? Oh, let me guess – €90 billion, perhaps? And are European defense contractors also going to be involved in these “repairs”? Will they require golden toilets in the outhouses on-site? In which case, it’s not hard to see that it could end up serving as the ultimate workaround for much of same spending that’s being blocked by Orban – just rebranded as something that he couldn’t possibly pass up. What’s he going to do – block funding to Ukraine earmarked as “aid” meant to ensure that his Druzhba demands to get the oil flowing to Hungary are met?

No one seems to care too much anymore about whether the repair issue itself is even legitimate. Orban had proposed a fact-finding mission. Zelensky was like, bro, you don’t hear me asking to go peek into your closet to see if you have any weapons for me when you say that you don’t. Not the best analogy.

A better one would be to compare Ukraine to the local charity that asks whether you have old clothes to donate – and then insists on rummaging through your drawers to make sure that you’re not holding out. And Hungary’s request of Kiev is like ordering a pizza (from Russia, in this case), paying for it, watching the delivery guy arrive – and then the building’s security guard, let’s call him Vladimir Z., stands in the lobby eating slices and saying, “Sorry man, delivery seems to be delayed. Nothing I can do.” Or paying for express shipping and the mailman just keeps your package in his truck while telling you, “Yeah the postal system is slow these days. Really unfortunate.” .”

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“The Big Lie: America Is a Divided, Hateful Country With No Hope of Ever Being United Again”

• The Big Lie: America Is a Divided, Hateful Country (Rick Moran)

I am addicted to the internet. I freely admit it. As a news junkie, I am as well-informed as anyone in the country. I know a lot about a few things; I know something about a lot of things; and I know nothing about many things. I spend 10-14 hours a day online, reading, writing, researching, and thinking. While it’s my job, I would spend the time online anyway just because I can’t stand not knowing.And I’m trapped. The life I’m living is not “real” in the sense that most of the 320 million Americans live the same kind of life. Are they as angry as many of us? Do they fear for the future of the U.S. as much as most of us? Are they habitually offended by everything I write?


When I refer to “us,” I mean PJ Media readers and the online right and left: the politically aware, perpetually outraged, eternally wounded, aggrieved, displeased, and helplessly partisan among us who enjoy being outraged, get a rush from catching a political opponent in hypocrisy, and laugh at an enemy’s misfortune. Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen, co-founders of Axios, have a piece in that publication that we should all read to remind us that the “online political community” to which we ostensibly belong is only a tiny part of America. The “super majority” of Americans are “patriotic, hardworking, neighbor-helping, America-loving, money-giving people who don’t pop off on social media or plot for power.”

And the real shocker: “Most people agree on most things, most of the time. And the data validates this, time and time again,” they write. Axios: We’ve been manipulated by algorithms and politicians amplifying the worst of humanity. Our feeds and screens spread a twisted, inaccurate view of America.It makes it seem like the nation is hopelessly broken … Political enemies are evil … Facts are no different than fiction … Morality, honesty and service don’t matter … And salvation can only come from magical technologies or a powerful few.

What if we told you it’s a big lie that makes you stop believing your own two eyes? Every day, people battle over outrageous things said on X. Did you know that four out of five Americans don’t use X, and therefore don’t see what you see? Pew Research Center found last year that only 21% of U.S. adults use X, and just 10% visit it daily. The loudest platform in politics reaches barely one in five Americans. “Maybe, just maybe, it’s the very people on these platforms who are the crazy ones,” they write. “Maybe, just maybe, most people are simply normal, sane, real.”

We know this to be true. If we talk to our neighbors, co-workers, or members of our congregations, we know what they’re concerned about: family, work, bills, and everything else that goes into creating a normal life. They don’t give a crap about what AOC just said, Trump’s latest putdown, a Democrat calling us fascists, or a Republican calling Democrats communists.The overwhelming majority of the nation just doesn’t care. In a given year, you see hundreds of people frequently enough to appraise their character. Are they good people? Would they help shovel after a snowstorm or lift groceries for an aging neighbor? Do they volunteer and give to others? We bet the answer is a resounding yes. This is America’s Super Majority.

The numbers back this up. Americans gave $592.5 billion to charity in 2024 — a record, with individuals accounting for two-thirds of it.Over 75 million Americans formally volunteer each year, and 130 million informally help their neighbors. Gallup research out last month found that 76% of U.S. adults gave money to a religious or other nonprofit organization in the past year, and 63% volunteered their time. This isn’t a broken nation. This is a generous one, where the vast majority quietly do the right thing every single day. This is from two hard-headed, respected journalists who have been writing about politics for most of their lives, not a couple of starry-eyed kids. They’ve hit on something important that we should all try to keep in mind.

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https://twitter.com/XFreeze/status/2031514430588989542?s=20 I looked at it and I’m out for now, because I’m not in the US. https://twitter.com/BinsaeedRashid/status/2031373783424975177?s=20 https://twitter.com/YahooFinance/status/2031459370454659517?s=20 https://twitter.com/XCorpHub/status/2031460080265433303?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle December 28 2024

Dec 282024
 
 December 28, 2024  Posted by at 11:11 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  47 Responses »


Giuseppe Arcimboldo Four elements – Earth 1566

 

• Trump, Peacemaker? (W. James Antle III)
• Ramaswamy’s Big Plans (Maitra)
• Musk Accused of Muzzling Critics of His Migration Agenda (RT)
• Musk and Ramaswamy Defend Hiring Foreign Engineers In Silicon Valley (JTN)
• Trump To End ‘Work From Home’ For Federal Employees (ZH)
• Marc Andreessen: Harmeet Dhillon Will Drop Hammer On Woke Corporations (ZH)
• Deep State, Media And Academics Circle The Wagons Against Kash Patel (Widburg)
• Zelensky’s Corruption Has Ruined Ukraine – Opposition Leader (RT)
• West ‘Must’ Send Ukraine More – Zelensky (RT)
• US Could Buy Nord Stream – Vucic (RT)
• US Spies Hid Covid-19 Lab Leak Evidence From Biden (RT)
• The King Is Dead: Trump’s Talk On ‘Taking Canada’ (Bordachev)
• What Bioweapons is the Pentagon Developing? (Sp.)
• Newly Released Photos Show Hunter, Joe Biden, Chinese Officials In 2013 (JTN)
• New Photo Shows Biden with Hunter‘s Business Associates (Turley)
• Forecast 2025 — Taking Out the Trash (James Howard Kunstler)
• 2024 Year In Review, Part 1: What Is A Fact? (Dave Collum)

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1872460861618462850

Jennings

Tucker
https://twitter.com/i/status/1872343807016264034

RFK

NYT
https://twitter.com/i/status/1872733935743979538

 

 

 

 

“If Trump has a mandate for anything after November, it is securing our own borders rather than redrawing those of other lands..”

• Trump, Peacemaker? (W. James Antle III)

President-elect Donald Trump has a real opportunity to reshape American foreign policy, beyond what he did in his first term. He has already expanded the discourse on the subject among Republicans from what was mostly a shared monologue from George W. Bush to Mitt Romney. Like Ronald Reagan 44 years ago, Trump was and to some extent still is caricatured as a warmonger. But despite his belief in U.S. military power and the righteousness of the anticommunist cause, “Ronnie Raygun” had countervailing antipathies toward killing and understood that nobody wins a nuclear war. Reagan believed in the “peace” part of peace through strength as much as the “strength” part. The same can be said of Trump, who is less ideological than Reagan in ways that both bode well and poorly for the success of his foreign-policy rebuild.

He has a diverse national-security team advising him, including some whose views may be in a state of flux. Smart people interpret this in different ways. Trump’s first term was decidedly a mixed bag on matters of war and peace. When you hear talk of a “soft invasion” of Mexico, though there are greater American interests at stake there than in much of the Middle East, and Trumpian empire-building it is difficult to avoid recalling John Kerry’s pleas for an “unbelievably small” war in Syria. It was one of the low points of Trump’s first term that to me underscores that he was actually different from the Lindsey Grahams of the world, even if he might occasionally take their advice: the Qasem Soleimani strike. Soleimani was a menace, but a war with Iran and more violence against our forces in Iraq were not in the U.S. interest.

As editor of The American Conservative at the time, I led this magazine in opposition to what Trump was doing. Tucker Carlson, then at Fox News, also rallied against another endless war. Iran retaliated. This gave Trump an opportunity for escalation that many Republicans would have taken and was encouraged by some in his orbit. Yet Trump did not take the bait. Soon other crises intervened and America turned its focus more or less inward. The risk was, and is, there. But Trump would rather go down in history as a dealmaker than a warmaker. That is central to his conception of himself and important to his foreign-policy instincts. And he may be more equipped for negotiations with adversaries abroad than earnest ideological opponents in Congress at home.

Trump has the domestic political cover to talk to people with whom Joe Biden or Kamala Harris could not. The forces opposed to such diplomacy within the GOP and on the right more broadly have been effectively marginalized by Trump’s eight years as leader of the party. Most are defenestrated Never Trumpers exiting stage left. If Trump has a mandate for anything after November, it is securing our own borders rather than redrawing those of other lands. That is not to say he cannot misread his moment, as so many of his predecessors have done, largely to their own detriment. But there is a reason the Trump phenomenon has persisted for nearly a decade through considerable adversity, some of it self-inflicted.

In the coming months, a newly inaugurated Trump will begin talks to end Russia’s war in Ukraine. He will face the temptation, which he has so far resisted, to become involved in Syria. He will need to deal with Iran. The war in Gaza continues. Moscow and Tehran have experienced setbacks which he will be advised to capitalize on in different ways. During this season of peace where many feel a longing for stability, there remains a great deal of war and chaos. The tumultuous Trump seems like an unlikely political figure to bring an end to all of this, which is one of the reasons he was voted out in 2020. And yet the opening is there. Let us pray that he chooses to take it and proves able to manage it skillfully in the American interest.

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“Many national-protectionists say we ought to commandeer the administrative state and use its powers against our opponents. I reject that idea in favor of shutting it down altogether…”

• Ramaswamy’s Big Plans (Maitra)

Mr. Ramaswamy, first of all congratulations on DOGE. Your catchphrase, “Shut It Down,” was popular during the campaign. Let me start with a broad question. What are the key areas you intend to highlight for reform, and why will some bureaucracies resist such efforts? Vivek Ramaswamy: We are focusing on three major kinds of reforms: regulatory recessions, administrative reductions, and cost savings. Our reforms will aim to restore the spirit of our founders and the Constitution. That founding spirit has been reinvigorated by two critical recent Supreme Court rulings: West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (2022) and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024). The West Virginia case gave lawmakers the charter to get rid of all regulations that fail the Supreme Court’s “major questions” doctrine. Meanwhile, Loper Bright overturned the Chevron doctrine that had long held that federal courts should defer to federal agencies’ interpretations of the law and rulemaking authority. We stand with the Court and maintain that the people we elect to run the government should actually run the government. Taken together, these two decisions provide a roadmap to undo a plethora of current federal regulations.

On the spending side, DOGE will examine wasteful contracts and highlight pork barrel projects. The bloated spending is created not just by bureaucrats but also by Congress, and we need to call it all out. Line-items will of course be examined, but so will whole agencies. We’ve been given an unambiguous mandate to shut it down. Our critics will surely allege overreach. In fact, our project will correct the overreach of thousands of regulations promulgated by administrative fiat and without Congressional authorization. Bureaucrats may oppose us out of self-interest, and so will other special interests that have benefited from wasteful spending or industry-favored regulations. It’ll require a new mindset for the federal government to overcome these objections, and there could be no better team to do it than the disruptors President Trump has named to the cabinet.

You have talked often about National Libertarianism, as opposed to National Protectionism. Can you elaborate for our readers what the difference is and why you prefer the former? VR: President Trump’s emergence in 2016 was especially compelling because he rejected Republican economic orthodoxy. Against a consensus at the time that saw America as an “economic zone,” within which immigration and trade were inherently good, he asserted that America First meant maximizing the wealth of American workers and manufacturers as key to restoring our national identity. As the America First movement has grown, two main schools have emerged: national libertarians and national protectionists. There are good America First leaders in both schools, but they approach key issues of trade, immigration, and the regulatory state from different angles. Consider immigration.

To be an American isn’t simply to be a resident of an economic zone; it is something far deeper than that. It is an identity rooted in the ideals of 1776. I view the goal of immigration policy as protecting U.S. national security, preserving U.S. national identity, and promoting U.S. economic growth, in that order. The national-protectionist viewpoint sees most immigration as a threat to working class Americans’ wages. In both cases, it will mean turning away many immigrants. Many national-protectionists say we ought to commandeer the administrative state and use its powers against our opponents. I reject that idea in favor of shutting it down altogether. We don’t want to replace a left-wing nanny state with a right-wing nanny state; we want to shut it down.

Speaking of the nanny-state, the Department of Education just failed to receive a clean audit for its third time in a row (budget: $242 billion). One key point people miss when they talk of higher education is the massive growth in university bureaucracy and tuition, as opposed to faculty growth. What tools can the federal government use to force universities to correct course? VR: These issues are deeply interconnected—the rising cost of college tuition and the massive expansion of university bureaucracies. The cost to educate a student hasn’t really changed much. If anything, with new distance-learning opportunities that many colleges piloted during the pandemic, this cost is likely to come down. What isn’t going down is the number of administrators, especially in the DEI departments across many major universities.

The pushback against this anti-meritocratic agenda is starting to make headway in corporate boardrooms, with Walmart announcing just recently that it would be ending a number of its race- and sex-based policies. But we aren’t seeing this same trend in higher education. Despite the Supreme Court ruling against race-based affirmative action in college admissions in 2023, colleges have sought to find workarounds. If the federal government really wanted to get serious about this, we’d follow the money. That includes reforms to accreditation, which is how a university qualifies for its students to be eligible for federal aid. The main accreditors have imposed DEI requirements on universities for them to remain eligible for this federal funding source. That is one specific area in higher education, largely behind the scenes, that is ripe for reform.

You once said that the $36 trillion debt problem is a symptom of a deeper illness: “We’ve replaced self-governance with a nanny state, administered by a cancerous bureaucracy. Fix that and the debt problem disappears.” How would you tackle the massive depression that might happen from the loss of such a massive jobs program? Is there a way to pad up the shock, lest it looks like Russia circa 1993? VR: America’s debt, now over $36 trillion, is definitely a great threat to our nation’s well-being—but it really is a symptom and not the disease itself. The real disease is the loss of self-governance in this country. What made America great the first time wasn’t our Founders’ fiscal prudence. It was the mission statement and operating manual that they left us: the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. There was a study a few years back that estimated the number of private sector jobs that each regulatory bureaucrat was responsible for killing. It found that, for every one regulator, there were 135 jobs killed. This was before the Biden administration let regulators run amok with the American economy. So, to me the bigger concern is that we’re stifling our innovation by keeping these regulators.

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The H-1B visa program seems fine. But yeah, it is being abused.

• Musk Accused of Muzzling Critics of His Migration Agenda (RT)

Elon Musk has announced a new algorithm on his social media platform X that appears to be disproportionately punishing conservatives who have vocally opposed bringing in more tech workers from India. Musk spent $44 billion to buy Twitter in 2022 in the name of promoting free speech and pushing back on censorship, and has since renamed the platform X. He has also been a prolific user. Earlier this week, one of his posts about H-1B visa workers kicked the proverbial hornet’s nest. “Just a reminder that the algorithm is trying to maximize unregretted user-seconds,” Musk posted on Friday. “If far more credible, verified subscriber accounts (not bots) mute/block your account compared to those who like your posts, your reach will decline significantly.” Accounts found to engage in “coordinated attacks” targeting others with mutes or blocks will themselves be categorized as spam, Musk added.

Musk’s announcement came a few minutes after he called critics of his immigration views “subtards,” insulting their intelligence. Meanwhile, several accounts that have openly disagreed with Musk on the issue of bringing in foreign workers have reported that their verification checkmark has disappeared. It is unclear whether the removal of their subscription status was a punitive measure by X, as the company has not commented on it. Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy have been tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to head DOGE, a special advisory body tasked with identifying government inefficiency. They appear to have stumbled into a minefield earlier this week, proclaiming their desire to expand the number of foreign workers recruited under the H-1B visa program so the US can “keep winning.”

“Thinking of America as a pro sports team that has been winning for a long time and wants to keep winning is the right mental construct,” Musk explained. “Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long,” Ramaswamy wrote, arguing that a “culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers,” so Big Tech had no choice but to bring in foreigners. Critics have pointed out that the H-1B program has strayed from its original purpose to bring in the “best and the brightest” talent to fill specialized roles. In practice, hundreds of X users argued, it has allowed US corporations to fire domestic talent and replace it with lower-paid, entry-level guest workers, mainly from the Indian subcontinent. They also brought up the fact that Musk immigrated from South Africa, while Ramaswamy’s parents came from India.

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“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.”

• Musk and Ramaswamy Defend Hiring Foreign Engineers In Silicon Valley (JTN)

Billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramswamy weighed in on a social media debate about the United States’ reliance on foreign engineers being hired in Silicon Valley. Musk and Ramaswamy have been tasked by President-elect Donald Trump to run the newly-created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is expected to crack down on federal spending. They have also been supportive of Trump’s proposed immigration plan, which promises mass deportations of illegal immigrants. Ramaswamy on Thursday claimed that there were not enough competitive U.S.-born engineering candidates for the open positions, and suggested the reason for that was because of American culture celebrated jocks and popularity instead of brainiacs.

“The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over ‘native’ Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation),” Ramaswamy wrote in a post on X. “A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture.” “Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer),” Ramaswamy continued. “A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.” Musk said on Wednesday that he would prefer to hire American engineers for his tech companies, but also cited the shortage of talent.

“OF COURSE my companies and I would prefer to hire Americans and we DO, as that is MUCH easier than going through the incredibly painful and slow work visa process,” the tech billionaire wrote in a post on X. “HOWEVER, there is a dire shortage of extremely talented and motivated engineers in America.” The debate resurfaced this week after Trump appointed Sriram Krishnan as senior policy adviser for artificial intelligence, who suggested Musk consider lifting caps on green cards for skilled immigrants, according to The Hill.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1872471673175433371

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“..bureaucrats relaxing in bubble baths, playing golf, getting arrested, and doing just about everything besides their jobs.”

• Trump To End ‘Work From Home’ For Federal Employees (ZH)

President-elect Donald Trump warned federal employees last week that they must return to the office, or “they’re going to be dismissed” – an announcement which comes on the heels of several major corporations taking swift action to end work-from-home, a pandemic-era policy that saw a considerable portion of the US workforce adapt to remote work. During the pandemic, approximately 2.3 million federal employees shifted away from traditional office spaces. This shift was not just a temporary adjustment, but a transformational move that many hoped would persist post-pandemic due to its perceived benefits in work-life balance and reduced operational costs. The Biden administration, acknowledging these benefits, continued to support telework, facilitating the reduction of government-owned real estate and integrating flexible work arrangements into the fabric of federal employment.

However, with Trump’s election, a quick pivot is on the horizon. Unsurprisingly, Trump’s call for a return to office has been met with resistance from federal employees and unions. Approximately 56 percent of the civil service is covered under collective bargaining agreements that include telework provisions, while a full 10% of federal jobs are now designated as fully “remote,” according to the Washington Post. Rep. James Comer (R-KY), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, agrees with Trump. “The pandemic is long over, and it is past time for the federal workforce to return to in-person work,” Comer said in a statement – adding that the Biden administration never provided evidence that work-from-home didn’t harm service. “On the contrary, the evidence suggests that Americans have suffered under these lenient telework policies,” Comer added.

Other GOP lawmakers have introduced bills mandating that chronically “absent” employees be seen in their office chairs, and Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who leads a caucus aligned with Musk and Ramaswamy’s commission, said this month that she tracked down “bureaucrats relaxing in bubble baths, playing golf, getting arrested, and doing just about everything besides their jobs.” -WaPo. Meanwhile, as the Epoch Times notes, big business has already been taking action to get people back into the office.

Starting Jan. 2, 2025, Amazon is requiring all of its 350,000 employees to return to the office five days a week to foster collaboration and strengthen company culture, according to an announcement made by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on Sept. 16. While companies including Boeing, Disney, Apple, Starbucks, UPS, Dell and banks such as Chase, Barclays, and CitiGroup have called employees back to work on at least a hybrid schedule, Amazon’s move has heightened the belief that remote work options are drying up. In recent months, various surveys have revealed that business leaders are becoming more resolute in their push to reinstate pre-pandemic work practices.

A September KPMG report highlighted that 83 percent of U.S. CEOs expect a full return to the office within the next three years, up from 64 percent in 2023. Likewise, an August survey by Resume Builder showed that 90 percent of businesses will have adopted return-to-office policies by next year, with 30 percent requiring full-time office attendance. The latest Flex Index, which monitors the RTO activity of 100 million employees across more than 13,000 companies, showed that 43 percent of U.S. firms on an industry-adjusted basis have employed a structured hybrid model in the fourth quarter, up from 38 percent in the third quarter and 20 percent in the first quarter of 2023. Additionally, 32 percent of firms had fully returned to in-office work.

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“But now, any large company that wants to distance itself from DEI has the best reason in the world: compliance. It’s illegal.”

• Marc Andreessen: Harmeet Dhillon Will Drop Hammer On Woke Corporations (ZH)

Billionaire investor and Donald Trump adviser Marc Andreessen thinks corporate culture is about to undergo a radical change. Speaking with Erik Torenberg on the Moment of Zen podcast, Andreessen said that the reign of extreme wokeness, particularly in corporate America and the media, is rapidly coming to an end. The catalyst? A combination of rising legal risks, the deflation of wokeness as a cultural force, and a change in leadership at the Department of Justice. Andreessen highlighted that with the appointment of Harmeet Dhillon to head the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, the federal government may soon begin to challenge and reverse many of the DEI-driven policies that have dominated corporations, universities, and other large institutions over the past decade. This shift, he argues, could trigger a major pullback in DEI initiatives across the private sector, as companies scramble to comply with the law and distance themselves from policies that may now be seen as legally and culturally untenable.

[..] Marc Andreessen: If you wanted to pick the most extreme possible attorney to put in charge of the Civil Rights division of the Justice Department to reverse DEI, it would be this lawyer named Harmeet Dhillon. She’s been a California lawyer and has been the scourge of woke corporations for the last decade. As it happens, she has just been appointed to run the Civil Rights division of the Justice Department. For those who don’t track this, the Civil Rights division of the Justice Department is the federal government’s prosecutorial arm that basically enforces wokeness. They’re the ones who have made sure that, for the last decade, these companies have had all these crazy policies under the penalty of being investigated, subpoenaed, and ultimately prosecuted.

There have been lots of prosecutions and court cases. The most famous case that the current head of the Civil Rights division brought was the case against SpaceX for not hiring enough refugees—despite the fact that SpaceX is a military contractor and is not permitted to hire non-American citizens under a separate law.The person running that division has been a true activist, as you’d expect from this administration. And then Dhillon, who, by the way, I don’t know but I’ve been following for years, and is clearly brilliant, she is the exact opposite of that. Every signal is being sent that they’re going to do a 180 on all these things, and they’re going to begin prosecuting companies for violations of civil rights laws in the form of reverse discrimination—discrimination against white people, Asians, Jews, and other unprotected classes.

So, signals are being sent by these appointments that there is going to be an assault to reverse the assault that companies and universities have been under. And then, of course, the Supreme Court ruled not that long ago that private universities are not allowed to do race-based admissions. It’s actually really funny because there’s some question as to whether the demographic shift of admissions in the last year was starkly different than the year before, as these institutions claim they’re coming into compliance with the Supreme Court. There’s some question as to whether discovery will show they’re actually in compliance or whether they’re still playing games. That’s another thing we may find out.

There’s also an open question as to whether this decision has essentially already been made or will be made for private companies as well. And there’s a lot of private companies that have been trying to figure out quietly how to distance themselves from DEI, both for legal reasons and for cultural reasons. Now, there’s another very interesting thing kicking in. I think there are a lot of large companies that were already done with DEI to start with. They were done with DEI for their own reasons because it’s backfired in many spectacular ways. But now, any large company that wants to distance itself from DEI has the best reason in the world: compliance. It’s illegal.

Let me just say for the record… I think every major corporation in the country is just in flagrant violation of actual civil rights law. You cannot have these hard quotas and racially, ethnically, and religiously biased hiring practices. It’s flat-out illegal. These companies have gone so extreme on this that they’ve ended up in what I think is clearly mass illegality. So, as Dhillon steps into her job, she’s not going to lack for a shortage of targets. If you don’t want to be a target, it’s a great ‘get out of jail free’ card to just voluntarily shut all this stuff down.

My guess is that starting pretty quickly, we’re already starting to see it. Boeing and a bunch of other companies have already put a bullet in their programs. Even the University of Michigan, which went completely overboard with this stuff, has actually shut their whole thing down. I think we’re going to see, my guess is, a run of companies that will take dramatic action here.

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“..an agency tasked with impartial enforcement of justice,” he said.”

A 100-year-old talking about the FBI.

• Deep State, Media And Academics Circle The Wagons Against Kash Patel (Widburg)

Kash Patel has promised that, if he becomes head of the FBI, he will reveal the secrets it’s unlawfully hidden, call to account the FBI employees (from the top down) who have violated the law, and end illegal FBI activities. Deep State operatives and their friends in the media and academia call this a form of impermissible loyalty to Donald Trump. Americans, however, call this laudable loyalty to the American people and the rule of law. It’s to be hoped that Republicans in the Senate listen to the American people and not to the siren song of the Swamp. One of the Deep Staters who seems very worried that the FBI will be forced onto the straight and narrow is William Webster, one of the deepest of the Deep Staters.

Webster started working for the federal government in the early 1950s and retired only 70 years later, in 2020. Over the course of his career, this centenarian has been a US Attorney in Missouri, a district court judge in Missouri, an appellate judge in Missouri, the director of the FBI, the director of the CIA, and the chair of the Homeland Security Advisory Council. I do not consider this a glowing resume. I consider it a terrifying one and wouldn’t trust Webster as far as I could throw him. According to Politico, Webster is sounding the alarm about Patel:

“A former head of the FBI and CIA is raising objections over whether Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard, President-elect Donald Trump’s picks to be directors of the FBI and national intelligence, respectively, are qualified to serve in the Cabinet. In a letter to senators on Thursday, William Webster, the only person to lead both the FBI and CIA, wrote that neither nominee meets the demands of top intelligence jobs. Webster, who is 100 years old, praised Patel’s patriotism but wrote that his allegiance to Trump was concerning. “His record of executing the president’s directives suggest a loyalty to individuals rather than the rule of law — a dangerous precedent for an agency tasked with impartial enforcement of justice,” he said.”

Now, maybe I missed it, but I don’t recall a squeak from Webster about the FBI’s heinous abuses under Obama or Biden, or when they were ostensibly reporting to Trump while trying to destroy. As best as I can tell, Webster was silent when Obama spied on congresspeople and journalists. He then maintained that silence about the Russia Hoax, the Ukraine hoax, the framing of the half-witted “Whitmer kidnapping” defendants, the attacks on parents speaking out at school board meetings, the spying on traditional Catholics, the all-out war against the January 6ers (something that stands in complete contrast to the pass that the FBI routinely gave leftist protestors), the way the FBI consistently protected Biden and his whole family, and the vicious persecution of pro-life activists…just to name a few examples of blatant FBI partisanship. Webster’s photos show a nice-looking old man, but when I imagine this government insider terrified of a clean broom coming into the FBI and forcing it to abide by the law, my mind’s eye summons up a very different image.

The panic about a new broom at the FBI also showed up in ludicrous fashion at The New Yorker, which chose to publish an academic’s essay putting J. Edgar Hoover up on a pedestal as a model of virtuous non-partisanship compared to Patel. I’m not exaggerating. This is how Beverly Gage’s essay opens: “Since President-elect Donald Trump announced his intention of appointing his political loyalist Kash Patel as the director of the F.B.I., critics have warned that we’re heading back to the bad old days of J. Edgar Hoover. The F.B.I. should be so lucky. Hoover, for all his many faults and abuses of power, was nevertheless an institution builder; he believed in the F.B.I.’s nonpartisan independence.” The essay goes on from there, a perfect hagiography of a virtuous man who cross-dressed, hid his homosexual relationships, and tried to destroy Civil Rights activists.

What’s so funny about this is that, as I vividly recall from my youth, the left despised Hoover because they believed that he was the ultimate partisan, using his vast, mostly self-acquired power to destroy communists and anyone else he didn’t like. Gage’s claim to write with such authority about the wonders of Hoover’s FBI tenure is that she is a Yale professor who wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography about Hoover. (Nowadays, the Pulitzer Prize is like a rattlesnake warning that a book or article is a leftist wet dream.) What’s so fascinating about her love affair with Hoover is how it differs from a two-year-old interview that Gage did with The Jacobin. There, she explains how the left rightly despised Hoover because of his blatant, noxious, dangerous partisanship.

Mary McCarthy famously said of the communist Lillian Hellman that “everything she says is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the.’” That could be written on the tombstones of America’s media, political insiders, and academics. As I said at the start of this essay, unless the Senators have nasty secrets that only the FBI knows, they will serve the American people best if they affirm the Kash Patel nomination.

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“Obviously, Fico is not the only one who was offered money in this fashion. How else would one explain the info-campaign in Europe in support of corrupt Zelensky?”

• Zelensky’s Corruption Has Ruined Ukraine – Opposition Leader (RT)

An “attempted bribe” of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has exposed Vladimir Zelensky’s corruption and the criminal nature of the Ukraine conflict, exiled Ukrainian opposition figure Viktor Medvedchuk has said. Last week, Fico said Zelensky offered him €500 million ($520 million) in exchange for support for Ukrainian accession to NATO. Zelensky confirmed the offer, which he called compensation to the people of Slovakia for the loss of Russian energy supplies after Kiev shuts down the gas transit next year. Medvedchuk – who was ousted from Ukraine after Zelensky’s government cracked down on his opposition party in 2022 – believes the episode exemplifies the “corrupt nature” of Zelensky’s rule. Medvedchuk’s political movement has urged the EU authorities to investigate the Ukrainian leader for attempted bribery of the Slovak prime minister.

NATO membership for Ukraine would shield Zelensky from bearing responsibility for “losing the war” with Russia, Medvedchuk said in a blog post on Friday, so he will spare no effort in pushing for this goal, including through criminal methods. After Fico’s refusal, Zelensky “found no better way forward than to accuse the Slovak prime minister of corruption,” Medvedchuk wrote. Zelensky has claimed that Fico is pursuing “shady deals” with Russia for his own personal benefit, after he traveled to Moscow last week for negotiations with President Vladimir Putin. Zelensky offered to pay €500 million from Russian sovereign funds that have been frozen by Western nations, which Kiev claims it has a right to use, according to Fico. Medvedchuk said he believes the Ukrainian leader could just as easily pay the “bribe” out of his own pocket.

Zelensky has embezzled significant amounts of money while running the country, critics claim. “Obviously, Fico is not the only one who was offered money in this fashion. How else would one explain the info-campaign in Europe in support of corrupt Zelensky?” the exiled politician claimed. ”Zelensky has exposed a huge graft scheme stretching all across Europe,” Medvedchuk went on to say. “The entire Ukraine conflict is based on one large corrupt scheme that involves leading parties and politicians in Europe and the US.” Western politicians that support Kiev are afraid that after they are voted out of power, the new leaders will “find out that they had been robbing their own people under the guise of helping Zelensky’s Ukraine,” Medvedchuk said.

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The broken record plays again from the beginning.

• West ‘Must’ Send Ukraine More – Zelensky (RT)

The West “must” send Kiev more weapons and faster in order to help the war effort against Russia, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has said. Since the conflict with Russia escalated in 2022, Ukraine has received over $200 billion in military, financial, and humanitarian aid from the US and its allies. Kiev is now completely dependent on the West for military logistics, according to the US media. “It is crucial that the US is now increasing its deliveries, this support is essential to stabilize the situation,” Zelensky said in a video message on Thursday evening. “I thank our partners for their assistance, but the pace of deliveries must accelerate to disrupt the tempo of Russian assaults. We need more strength in weaponry and strong positions for diplomacy,” he added. The video was in Ukrainian but had English subtitles, while two lines were posted in English on Zelensky’s X account.

Following Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election last month, President Joe Biden’s administration has sought to send as much money, weapons, equipment and ammunition to Ukraine as possible before handing over power on January 20. On December 2, the White House announced a $725 million package of military aid from Pentagon stockpiles under the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA). Five days later, Washington said another $988 million worth of drones and missiles had already been supplied under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI). A third package followed on December 12, consisting of $500 million worth of drones, armored vehicles and ammunition for HIMARS rocket launchers.

Congress approved a $61 billion request for Ukraine funding in April. The Republican majority in the House of Representatives has since ruled out the White House’s request for another $24 billion. The $895 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) approved earlier this week did not include any aid for Kiev. According to Al Jazeera, the White House may have up to $3.5 billion left in the PDA and another $2.2 billion under the USAI that it could “surge” to Kiev before Biden’s term expires. Russia has maintained that no amount of Western aid will change the ultimate outcome of the conflict or prevent Moscow from achieving the goals of its military operation.

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“Mark my words. One year until Nord Stream is up and running!”

• US Could Buy Nord Stream – Vucic (RT)

The sabotaged Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline could become US property in a year, and gas supplies from Russia to the EU would be resumed, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has said. Vucic shared his view about the future of the pipeline and its potential ownership in an interview with the German news outlet Handelsblatt published on Friday. “I dare to predict: In a year at the latest, Nord Stream will be owned by an American investor, and gas will flow from Russia to Europe through the pipeline,” the Serbian leader said. “Mark my words. One year until Nord Stream is up and running!” The pipeline, which was built to deliver Russian gas to Germany and the rest of Western Europe, was ruptured by explosions at the bottom of the Baltic Sea in September 2022.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1872720585576616405

Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported that US financier and investor Stephen Lynch had asked permission from the US Treasury Department to buy the sabotaged Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline if it is put up for auction next year. The financier said a deal for the Russian pipeline could be seen as a strategic opportunity for long-term US interests. The ownership of the pipeline would give the American government a tool to exert pressure in any peace negotiations with Russia to end the Ukraine conflict, Lynch told the WSJ. Lynch reportedly said he could buy the Nord Stream 2, which has been valued at around $11 billion, for “pennies on the dollar,” adding that it would be a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” for the US to take control over the EU’s energy supply.

While no one claimed responsibility for the 2022 attack on the pipeline, Western media outlets have reported that people linked to Ukraine were behind the operation. Moscow has argued that the US benefited from the attack due to its position as a supplier of liquefied natural gas to Europe, and pointed the finger at Washington as a possible culprit. The head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergey Naryshkin, said last month that his agency had information about the “direct involvement” of professionals from the US and British special services in the Nord Stream sabotage. London and Washington, as well as Kiev, have denied any involvement.

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Everyone’s covering their asses.

• US Spies Hid Covid-19 Lab Leak Evidence From Biden (RT)

US intelligence officials “silenced” researchers who found evidence that the Covid-19 pandemic was the result of a Chinese lab leak, the New York Post reported on Thursday, citing sources. According to the outlet, researchers’ analysis included “dozens” of data points to back up a lab leak version, but none of them made it to the 2021 report ordered by President Joe Biden, which stated that the virus was “probably not genetically engineered.” The researchers involved were John Hardham, Robert Cutlip, and Jean-Paul Chretien, who at the time worked at the National Center for Medical Intelligence, part of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, tasked with studying biological weapons threats and infectious diseases. They conducted a scientific study of Covid-19 and concluded that the virus was most likely made in a lab.

According to their findings, the virus contained a biological characteristic that allowed for easier transmission to humans, similar to a feature described in a Chinese study several years back. They also found that a Chinese military researcher applied for a patent for a Covid-19 vaccine mere weeks after the virus was first sequenced in 2020, which meant he must have had the sequence much earlier. Moreover, the researchers found that scientists at China’s research laboratory for coronaviruses in Wuhan, the city in which Covid-19 was first detected, previously worked with US researchers on viruses which won’t have traces of being scientifically-manipulated. The damning findings, however, were overlooked in the report on Covid-19 origins prepared by the director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, which was presented to Biden in August 2021. The researchers were also reportedly forbidden from sharing their findings, including with Congress and the FBI.

“The scientists who had the subject matter expertise were silenced,” a source close to their work told the New York Post, adding that Biden and other officials were “completely unwitting” about the evidence that the virus was likely the result of a lab leak. An earlier report by the Wall Street Journal claimed that US intelligence officials also had a hand in excluding the FBI’s findings on the Covid-19 origins from Biden’s report. The FBI was the only US agency at the time to conclude the lab leak theory was likely. However, FBI scientists were not invited to the White House briefing at which Biden was presented with Haines’ report, and their findings were overlooked in it. Earlier this month, the US Congressional Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic published a 520-page report, also concluding that Covid-19 most likely emerged from a laboratory in Wuhan. The report claimed that the Chinese government, agencies within the US government, and members of the international scientific community “sought to cover up facts concerning the origins of the pandemic.”

In 2020, then-President Donald Trump claimed without providing evidence that the virus originated from a Chinese lab. Beijing denied the claim, calling it a reelection tactic aimed at boosting Trump’s standing among Republican voters. The following year, during Biden’s presidency, White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci faced scrutiny over his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic’s origins. Critics allege he downplayed the possibility of a lab leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which received US funding for coronavirus research through grants approved by his agency. Emails and congressional hearings have raised questions about whether Fauci sought to suppress discussions of the lab leak theory to protect scientific collaboration. While Fauci has consistently denied any cover-up, the debate has fueled demands for transparency about US involvement in such research.

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“For smaller nations, sovereignty has often been reduced to a performative ritual — valuable only insofar as it serves the interests of global powers.”

• The King Is Dead: Trump’s Talk On ‘Taking Canada’ (Bordachev)

Donald Trump’s most notable contribution to world politics since his re-election as US president has been stirring the pot with audacious comments: annexing Canada, buying Greenland, and reclaiming the Panama Canal. These remarks have sparked retaliatory statements from governments, a flurry of internet humor, and even some thoughtful analysis. While most observers dismiss these musings as an attempt to emotionally destabilize negotiating partners — a hypothesis supported by Trump’s grumblings over Western Europe’s energy purchases from the US — there’s a deeper layer worth exploring. Beyond the entertainment value (and let’s admit, we all need some lighthearted headlines amidst global tensions), Trump’s provocations might just be making a larger point: state sovereignty is no longer the unshakable concept we once believed it to be.

In a world where power increasingly relies on military might, sovereignty has shifted from being a formal status to a practical question of control. Today, imagining Canada, Greenland, or Mexico as part of the United States seems absurd. But in the near future, we might find ourselves seriously questioning why states unable to secure their own sovereignty should retain it at all. For centuries, territory has been the bedrock of international politics — more tangible than rules, norms, or international agreements. In fact, the “inviolability of borders” is a relatively recent invention. For most of history, states fought over land because it was the ultimate resource: essential for war, economic development, and population growth. Nearly every conflict until the mid-20th century ended with redrawn borders.

The idea that every nation has an inherent right to statehood emerged in the 20th century, championed by two unlikely allies: the Russian Bolsheviks and US President Woodrow Wilson. Both sought to dismantle empires — Russia’s for ideological reasons, and the Americans to expand their own influence. The result was a proliferation of weak, dependent states that became tools of Moscow and Washington’s foreign policy, their sovereignty little more than a bargaining chip for elites reliant on external support. After World War II, the colonial powers of Europe crumbled. Many former colonies gained independence but were unable to secure it on their own, becoming dependent on superpowers like the US or USSR. Even larger states like China and India required significant foreign support to chart their paths forward. For smaller nations, sovereignty has often been reduced to a performative ritual — valuable only insofar as it serves the interests of global powers.

This dynamic has persisted into the neoliberal era. Countries like Canada, whose budgets depend heavily on economic ties with the US, highlight the absurdity of sovereignty under such conditions. What’s the point of maintaining state institutions if a country’s development hinges entirely on external relationships? Trump’s comments expose the cracks in this system. Why should the US continue to prop up Canada’s independence when the costs outweigh the benefits? Sovereignty, once treated as sacred, increasingly looks like a relic of a bygone era —useful only for elites to extract rents while selling loyalty to stronger powers.

In this shifting global landscape, territory and control are once again becoming the central pillars of international politics. The idea that the “rules-based order” will guide the world toward fairness and equality is a pleasant fiction, but reality has other plans. International organizations like the UN, originally designed to secure Western dominance, are losing their grip as new powers emerge. Building a fairer world order will take decades, and it will only be possible if states can prove they are truly sovereign — self-reliant and responsible for their decisions. Until then, sovereignty as mere ritual will continue to erode. Trump, in his typically brash and provocative way, is already pointing out the absurdities of the current system. Whether intentionally or not, he’s raising questions about the material realities of sovereignty in the 21st century — and doing so in a way only he can.

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“The Pentagon’s apparent goal is to develop a bioweapon that would affect Russians but remain harmless to Westerners..”

• What Bioweapons is the Pentagon Developing? (Sp.)

The US is conducting military biological research aimed at discovering new harmful bacteria and viruses tailored to infect certain races, nationalities and even residents of specific regions, Igor Korotchenko, military analyst and editor-in-chief of “National Defense” magazine told Sputnik. The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) disclosed on December 27 that convicted US spy Eugene Spector had gathered and transmitted biotech data to the Pentagon to aid in creating a high-speed system for genetically screening Russians. The Pentagon’s apparent goal is to develop a bioweapon that would affect Russians but remain harmless to Westerners, Korotchenko said. To that end, the US needs to collect bio-material and genetic samples from various ethnic groups living in Russia.

“[Spector] aided the Pentagon’s military biological branches in collecting and transferring relevant samples with the aim of identifying potential vulnerabilities in the genetic code of certain categories of the Russian population,” Korotchenko explained. The Russian counter-intelligence services are aware of and actively preventing the Pentagon’s bio-research activities within Russia, the expert noted. Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, head of the Russian Armed Forces Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defense Troops, had previously exposed the Pentagon’s sophisticated bio-weapon program operating in Ukraine.

In August, Kirillov revealed that prior to 2022, the US had obtained up to 16,000 biological samples from Ukraine with the aim of developing viruses and bacteria dangerous to ethnic Ukrainians and Russians. General Kirillov was assassinated in a bombing on December 17. Russian investigators stated that the terror attack was carried out on orders from Ukrainian special services.

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All pardons are in place?!

• Newly Released Photos Show Hunter, Joe Biden, Chinese Officials In 2013 (JTN)

The National Archives has released photos of Hunter and Joe Biden meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other Chinese high-ranking officials in 2013 during the Obama-Biden administration. The photos were obtained by the conservative legal foundation, America First Legal. The president had long insisted that he never had any involvement in Hunter’s business dealings. In another photo, Biden is seen presenting Hunter to then-Vice President Li Yuanchao, according to Newsweek. The photos include instances in which Joe Biden is pictured with Hunter’s business associates from BHR Partners, including Jonathan Li and Ming Xue.

The newly surfaced images take on added significance in light of the full and unconditional pardon on Dec. 1 that Biden granted his son after insisting he would not do so. The pardon not only covered the offenses that Hunter was convicted of, namely illegally obtaining a firearm and failing to pay over $1.4 million in taxes between 2016 and 2019, but also any other “offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024,” according to Newsweek.

Michael Ding, America First Legal Counsel, said: “Even while President Biden has pardoned his son, Hunter, for anything and everything ‘he has committed or may have committed or taken part in’ going all the way back to the year 2014, more evidence comes out each day showing how his family leveraged Joe Biden’s even longer career in public office for private gain. America First Legal will not stop fighting to uncover the full story of the Biden family’s corruption.” Rep. Andy Biggs, of Arizona’s 5th congressional district, said in a post on X: “Joe’s pardon of Hunter doesn’t disqualify Congress from continuing our investigation into the Biden Crime Family Syndicate. In fact, Hunter’s pardon means he waives his Fifth Amendment protections. We must have him testify under oath—he can’t hide from the truth forever.”

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Hunter and Xi. Hmm.

• New Photo Shows Biden with Hunter‘s Business Associates (Turley)

“Lies.” That response was a mantra for President Joe Biden, who denied ever meeting or knowing about his son’s foreign dealings. Despite the pronounced lack of interest by most media outlets in the alleged multimillion dollar influence-peddling scheme, the House and conservative groups have doggedly pursued the matter and found overwhelming evidence that the President has repeatedly lied about his interactions with foreign clients. Now, a new photo further contradicts the President, who recently pardoned his son for any crimes committed over a ten-year period. America First Legal has been engaged in a prolonged legal fight with the National Archives to get access to the undisclosed evidence. It recently won critical rulings forcing the release.

The discovery includes this photo of then-vice president Joe Biden meeting with Hunter and his clients. It adds to an already ample photographic and testimonial record contradicting the President’s past denials. The House has released records showing $27 million in payments from foreign sources to Hunter Biden and his business partners from 2014 to 2019. Hunter used official trips with his father to facilitate some of these associations. Despite denying meeting with these clients or knowing anything about his son’s dealings, it was later revealed that Biden was repeatedly put on a speakerphone with clients, attended dinners, and took pictures with them, including BHR Partners CEO Jonathan Li. A key witness said that he sat down with Joe Biden specifically to discuss these foreign deals with this son. Joe Biden later wrote college recommendation letters for Li’s son and daughter.

In the summer of 2019, Li wired Hunter Biden $250,000 that originated in Beijing and had Joe Biden’s Delaware home as the beneficiary address. There were diamonds as gifts, lavish expense accounts, and a sports car, in addition to massive payments that Hunter claimed were “loans.” There are messages like the one to a Chinese businessman openly threatening the displeasure of Joe Biden if money is not sent to them immediately. In the WhatsApp message, Hunter stated: “I am sitting here with my father, and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the Chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”

After years of ignoring the influence-peddling scandal, the media is not likely to suddenly pursue the story. In the meantime, Democrats have praised or rationalized Biden for pardoning his son despite the fact that it covered possible crimes that might implicate not just Hunter but his father in corruption. Only two out of ten Americans support the pardon. However, Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Senate majority whip, called it a “labor of love.” And, as we learned in a certain 1970 film, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry” . . . particularly when you have pardon power.

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A long year from Jim.

• Forecast 2025 — Taking Out the Trash (James Howard Kunstler)

I would guess that you’re feeling as if anything might happen now. It’s hard to rule out even the possibility that we could all be vaporized before moving onto the next mundane chore of the day. The world order is dangerously in flux. America’s Woke-Jacobin “Joe Biden” regime was defeated in the 2024 election, but they were apparently just a front for the sinister entity we call the “blob” or the Deep State, which in recent years has consistently and garishly acted against our country’s interests. So, the blob abides, and it probably weaves schemes in the deep background of daily life even as a new government awaits. But if the Woke-Jacobin Biden-istas were tied-in with the so-called “globalist” enterprise centered around the EU bureaucracy, with assistance from the World Economic Forum’s network of zillionaires and bankers. . . well, that coalition looks rather broken now. It’s doing a hurt-dance. It’s on the run, a little bit.

What is not broken for the moment — a tenuous moment — is the new Trump regime’s determination to correct the disorders of Western Civ, starting with the affairs of the USA, according to age-old reality-based norms of behavior and good-faith relations between the people and their government. Trust was broken and must be restored. The President-elect has assembled an extraordinary team of reformers, if they can get to their posts without subversion. And, of course, Mr. Trump himself has to evade further attempts to rub him out, to knock him off the game-board before he can take office, and then he must survive the months beyond his inauguration. So, you are correct to be nervous.

Paradoxically, Mr. Trump has to initially manage the US government as if it deserves a sense of reassuring continuity, which, in many respects it does not deserve. So many institutions and relationships between them have been perverted and damaged. How do we pretend that the upper layers of management in any federal agency — the strata who really run things below the top “political” appointees — can continue in-place as if all that perversion never happened? The Department of Justice and the FBI are filled with lawyers and agents who abused their power egregiously and went to war against the American people. The agency’s work will just have to stop for a while. The nation can probably endure if investigations and prosecutions are suspended for sixty days while the personnel issues get sorted out — who goes and who stays.

But what about the Defense Department and the CIA? The country must be able to defend itself. These departments are the lairs of the more dangerously entrenched blob actors. Both DOD and the CIA have come to be organized as racketeering operations. Both are involved in domestic money-laundering activities at the giant scale, and in rackets abroad — such as the many grifts around Ukraine, in which giant financial entities like BlackRock are partnered-in. (You know, for instance, don’t you, that BlackRock was poised to acquire control of Ukraine’s natural resource base, until Mr. Putin’s resolve ended that fantasy.) And the CIA is suspected of being deeply involved in the Mexican crime cartel operations, both around drugs and human trafficking. The imputations are sickening. The DOD and the CIA will fight desperately to preserve their perqs and projects, and to stay out of jail. But until now they have not really been challenged.

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David B. Collum, Betty R. Miller Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology – Cornell University, writes his annual report that takes a full year just to read.

• 2024 Year In Review, Part 1: What Is A Fact? (Dave Collum)

Let’s see how you do on the Collum Conspiracy Test (CCT) to obtain your CCT score (CCTS). Read the 30 declarative statements listed below that are in conflict with standard narratives. Keep score on a Post-it by giving yourself:
• Zero points if you disagree or have no idea what the statement means.
• One point if it troubles you that the statement might be correct.
• Two points if your response is “Yup” or “Hell yeah!”

I’ll give you my CCTS when you are done. Now for the quiz…

  1. 9/11 was an inside job.
  2. Kamala Harris was groomed by her mother via MKUltra to become a Manchurian candidate.
  3. Pizzagate is real and tied to Satanic rituals.
  4. The QQQ index has a price-earnings ratio that exceeds 100.
  5. Lindsay Graham is the love child of Nancy Pelosi and Peanut the Squirrel.
  6. One million children a year disappear to consumers who are never identified.
  7. The 2020 election count was rigged.
  8. We never landed on the moon.
  9. Anthropogenic climate change is a hoax and a grift.
  10. The Covid-19 vaccine and crisis-based healthcare policy responses tied to the pandemic killed more people than did the Covid virus.
  11. 75% of prescription medicines have no efficacy.
  12. Greater than 75% of those in Congress and the Senate are controlled by blackmail.
  13. Steven Pollock did not fire a single shot in Las Vegas.
  14. The authorities are hiding evidence of alien contact and alien technology.
  15. US tactics and policy during World War II were under the control of Joseph Stalin.
  16. The world is flat.
  17. JFK and RFK were whacked by operatives tied to intelligence.
  18. The DOD—think chem trails and HAARP—is modifying weather for tactical purposes.
  19. The world leaders are shape-shifting reptiles.
  20. The holocaust was fake.
  21. FDR knew the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor and let it happen.
  22. Jeffrey Epstein isn’t dead.
  23. The Covid virus was generated in the lab under the auspices of the US bioweapons program.
  24. Michelle Obama is a biological male (Big Mike).
  25. The Clinton Foundation trafficks children.
  26. Ryan Routh and Thomas Crooks are/were intelligence assets.
  27. There is something seriously wrong with the Sandy Hook shooting narrative.
  28. Directed energy weapons (DEWs) are being tested by starting forest fires.
  29. Fluoridation of water is not about making our teeth stronger.
  30. The mainstream media does not need revenues, which are easily covered by the deep pockets of the Deep State, but desperately needs viewers.

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Ed Dowd
https://twitter.com/i/status/1872735868709941748

 

 

Who’s first

 

 

Rhino

 

 

Snow

 

 

Boss
https://twitter.com/i/status/1872437329794646192

 

 

Trix
https://twitter.com/i/status/1872436052092506457

 

 

 

 

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