Mike Johnson Archives - The Automatic Earth

“Is anyone paying attention to what’s happening in London?”

“You have a massive Muslim take over The United Kingdom right before our eyes”

Listen to American Senator Chip Roy comment on the plight of Britain ‼️ pic.twitter.com/A6ZYxVAt8t

— Concerned Citizen (@BGatesIsaPyscho) January 2, 2025

Vegas

So the Green Beret identified as the Vegas truck bomber was burnt "beyond recognition" and his weapons were disfigured but his military ID was intact? What luck! Oh and out of all guns, he shot himself with a Desert Eagle…

Does this make sense to you? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/MhZesiecFF

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) January 2, 2025

JUST IN: Family of accused Trump hotel truck bomber Matthew Livelsberger says he was a “big Trump supporter,” questions the incident.

Odd.

The uncle of Livelsberger told the Independent that he is confused by the explosion because his nephew could rig a bomb to blow up half the… pic.twitter.com/uJ4uDmfWzR

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) January 2, 2025

Ilias Makris

Why does Merchan do it? Because Trump would be the first -convicted- felon to assume the presidency. No need for a penalty, the conviction is the prize. And they know it will end up at the Supreme Court. And there’s still not one iota of proof.

• Judge Orders Trump Sentenced On Jan. 10 In Stormy Daniels Case (Hill)

A New York judge has ordered President-elect Trump’s criminal sentencing for Jan. 10, rejecting his demand that his hush money case be dismissed to accommodate his presidency following his election victory. Judge Juan Merchan signaled he is inclined to impose no punishment for Trump’s 34-count felony conviction, given concerns about his immunity from criminal prosecution upon taking the oath of office. Merchan said an unconditional discharge “appears to be the most viable solution” and he would allow Trump to appear virtually.

“While this Court as a matter of law must not make any determination on sentencing prior to giving the parties and Defendant an opportunity to be heard, it seems proper at this juncture to make known the Court’s inclination to not impose any sentence of incarceration, a sentence authorized by the conviction but one the People concede they no longer view as a practicable recommendation,” Merchan wrote. The jury of 12 New Yorkers in May found Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment his ex-fixer made to porn actor Stormy Daniels with the intention of unlawfully influencing the 2016 presidential election.

Daniels was paid during the campaign to keep quiet about an affair she alleged with Trump, which he denies. Merchan’s decision keeps Trump’s criminal conviction on the books, meaning he would be the first felon to assume the presidency, though Trump still can appeal the jury’s verdict. Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement following Merchan’s decision that there should be no sentencing, suggesting that the “deeply conflicted” judge’s ruling violates the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling. “This lawless case should have never been brought and the Constitution demands that it be immediately dismissed,” Cheung said. “President Trump must be allowed to continue the Presidential Transition process and to execute the vital duties of the presidency, unobstructed by the remains of this or any remnants of the Witch Hunts.”

[..] Trump was slated to be sentenced in New York in November. Since the election, his lawyers have argued his status as president-elect compels the case to be tossed entirely. The judge wrote that he was “not persuaded” and he would allow Trump to appear virtually at his sentencing to accommodate his transition duties as president-elect. “Having addressed and resolved all matters brought before this Court and the verdict now more than half a year behind us, all that remains outstanding in this case is the issuance of this Decision and the imposition of sentence,” Merchan wrote. “Scheduling sentence is a function that remains exclusively within the purview of the trial judge and can be easily set down for a date and time certain to minimize disruption and inconvenience, provided that applicable statutory obligations are met,” he added.

The judge also emphasized the importance of keeping the New York jury’s guilty verdict against Trump intact, writing that its importance could not “possibly be overstated.” “Indeed, the sanctity of a jury verdict and the deference that must be accorded to it, is a bedrock principle in our Nation’s jurisprudence,” he said. Merchan went on to reject an alternative suggested by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D), whose office is prosecuting the case, that the judge treat the case as if Trump had passed away. Trump’s attorneys called the scenario “absurd” and a “dark dream scenario,” but Bragg said the first-of-its-kind solution was warranted given the unprecedented circumstances.

The criminal justice system in NYC is so f’d that Alvin Bragg and this kangaroo court spend more time using it to hurt Donald Trump politically than keeping violent people off the streets and subways. Outrageous. My take tonight on @cnn. pic.twitter.com/oQVUU3faxv

— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) January 4, 2025

He won, and in round 1. Now he, and the rest of the GOP, will have to do what Trump wants.

• Mike Johnson Narrowly Re-Elected As US House Speaker (RT)

US House Speaker Mike Johnson has been re-elected, in a narrow, party-lines vote. Johnson was elected after a pause in voting, with multiple Republicans initially refusing to back him. Johnson was elected on Friday by 218 votes to 215, with Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie the sole member of the GOP to vote against him. All 215 House Democrats voted for New York Representative Hakeem Jeffries. With Republicans holding a slim 219-215 majority in the House, Johnson could afford only two defections. When voting opened earlier on Friday, Reps. Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Keith Self of Texas joined Massie in opposing Johnson’s nomination. However, both lawmakers changed their minds after speaking to Johnson during a brief recess.

Johnson replaced California Rep. Kevin McCarthy as speaker in October 2023, after a small band of hardline Republicans ousted McCarthy for his perceived loyalty to the party’s Democrat-friendly establishment. While Johnson was previously viewed as a member of the GOP’s establishment wing, he has spent much of his speakership portraying himself as a stalwart ally of President-elect Donald Trump. Trump lent Johnson his endorsement on Monday. In a post on his Truth Social platform, the incoming president described Johnson as “a good, hard working, religious man.”

“A win for Mike today will be a big win for the Republican Party, and yet another acknowledgment of our 129-year most consequential Presidential Election,” Trump added. Johnson angered hardline Republicans last year when he passed a series of mammoth foreign aid bills, including one that gifted $65 billion in military assistance to Ukraine. The Louisiana lawmaker has since said that he no longer has “an appetite for further Ukraine funding,” and has backed Trump’s repeated promises to end the conflict shortly after being sworn into office later this month.

From before the vote.

• Mike Johnson Vows Big Spending Cuts, Like $200b Student Loan Giveaway (JTN)

House Speaker Mike Johnson told Just the News he is confident he will be reelected and is eager to craft large government spending cuts starting with Joe Biden’s green energy and student loan giveaways. “I’ve been working with all of our colleagues here today. We have a very small margin. We can only shed two votes. I think we’ll get over that threshold, and we’ll get this done,” Johnson said Thursday night during an interview on the Just the News, No Noise television show. He said he’s confident that Congress will make “significant” cuts to the budget, and they’ll use the budget reconciliation process to accomplish that, which allows Congress to enact legislation on taxes, spending, and the debt limit with only a majority.

“We’ve got to reduce the size and scope of government. Government’s too big. It does too many things and does almost nothing,” Johnson said. He said while some parts of the budget, such as Social Security, will need to be preserved, some non-mandatory discretionary spending could be targeted such as the Biden student loan bailout, which he estimated could save $200 billion. “Unwinding the green New Deal and all these aspects of what the Democrats did for the last few four years will help us substantially. Then we’ll be going through with the fine tooth comb the rest of the budget. So it’s going to be a long, laborious process, but I think in the end, the results will be well worth it, ” he added. The vote happens at 12 p.m. Friday.

Raise the flags on Jan 20. Lower them again the next day. Done before. Problem solved.

• Trump Fumes Over Half-Mast US Flags At His Inauguration (RT)

US President-elect Donald Trump has expressed his disapproval over the decision to keep American flags at half-mast during his inauguration on January 20. The lowering of the flags was ordered by President Joe Biden in honor of former President Jimmy Carter, who passed away on December 29 at the age of 100. According to US flag code, flags should remain at half-mast for 30 days following the death of a current or former president – in this case, until January 28. In a statement released on Friday, Trump accused Democrats of being pleased that the flags will remain at half-mast during his inauguration, suggesting it reflects a lack of patriotism.

“The Democrats are all ‘giddy’ about our magnificent American Flag potentially being at ‘half mast’ during my Inauguration,” he said. “They think it’s so great, and are so happy about it because, in actuality, they don’t love our Country, they only think about themselves.” Trump claimed it would be “the first time ever” that US flags are flown at half-mast during a presidential inauguration, insisting that “nobody wants to see this, and no American can be happy about it.” However, the flags were flown at half-mast when former President Richard Nixon was sworn in for his second term in January 1973, after he ordered them lowered following the death of former President Harry S. Truman.

Historically, there have also been instances where the 30-day half-mast period was temporarily adjusted at the discretion of the sitting president. In 1973, following the death of former President Lyndon B. Johnson, Nixon ordered flags raised to full-mast for one day to honor returning American prisoners of war from Vietnam before lowering them again to continue the mourning period. Trump has previously expressed dissatisfaction with the practice of lowering flags. In 2018, following the death of Senator John McCain, flags were briefly returned to full-mast before being lowered again after public outcry. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre responded to Trump’s remarks, stating that the Biden administration does not intend to reconsider the decision to keep flags at half-mast during the inauguration.

“Trump appointed him to become chairman of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, which oversees the conduct and performance of America’s intelligence agencies.”

• Devin Nunes Reemerges (Victor Davis Hanson)

2024 proved to be the year of the reemergence of many once and unfairly pilloried public figures. Elon Musk weathered nonstop attacks on his X social media platform. Furor escalated over his newfound 2024 Trump advocacy—even as he ended 2024 with his iconic Tesla brand still the best-selling car in six states and the most popular electric vehicle in the entire nation. Tesla’s rising stock prices ensured by year’s end that Musk was by far the richest man in the world with a net worth of well over $400 billion. His recyclable SpaceX Super Heavy starship rocket booster mesmerized the nation as it returned to the launch pad to be caught by a huge mechanical arm. After January 6, 2021, the media swore that Donald Trump was supposedly washed up. He left office with a 34 percent approval rating. Over nearly the next four years, Trump would face 91 felony indictments and be liable for over $400 million in assorted fines.

Now he is a reelected president. Former oppositional world leaders traipse to Mar-a-Lago to seek his approval even before his tenure begins. His erstwhile critics at home are scurrying about in disarray. The Trump-hating media who swore Joe Biden was “sharp as a tack” and “fit as a fiddle” are mostly discredited and are, for now, still bleeding audiences. And Trump’s chief political adversaries, Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and the Obamas are increasingly either unpopular or irrelevant—or both. Yet one unremarked-upon return is that of former Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), who, after 20 years of representing Central California in Congress, retired on January 1, 2022, from the House to become CEO of the newly formed Trump Media & Technology Group, tasked to oversee its social media platform, TruthSocial. Nunes has regained public attention over the last two weeks after Trump appointed him to become chairman of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, which oversees the conduct and performance of America’s intelligence agencies.

And once more he too is the target of tired residual left-wing venom, as a “pugnacious Trump loyalist” in the words of the New York Times. Like almost all former chairs of this nonpaying advisory board, Nunes keeps his full-time job. His old critics claim he has conflicts of interest, given he serves Trump in both a private and public capacity. Of course, these complaints come from those who saw no conflict of interest when Vice President Joe Biden flew to China with his son on Air Force Two to shake down foreign communist oligarchs and apparatchiks by using his office to enrich, tax-free, the Biden family syndicate. And no one alleges that Nunes ever became rich, in the fashion of the two Pelosis, who leveraged privileged congressional insider knowledge to make “wise” investments.

But more importantly, why would Trump not pick Nunes to enact the board’s mission statement to oversee “the Intelligence Community’s compliance with the Constitution and all applicable laws, executive orders, and presidential directives?” After all, he shattered the Democratic hoax of Russian-Trump collusion between 2015 and 2018, even as his lead investigator, Kash Patel, the next FBI Director, was himself an object of FBI surveillance. As Nunes once pointed out, why did Obama’s non-intelligence officials, like UN Ambassador Samantha Power, seek to unmask dozens of names of U.S. officials, most of whom were political opponents? So, who could Trump better trust to oversee the intelligence and investigatory bureaus than someone who knows all too well the descent of these agencies into Trump-Derangement-Syndrome-inspired chronic dissimulation and illegal surveillance?

“You don’t hate the legacy media enough.”

• Musk Considers Suing Media Over Cybertruck Incident Coverage (RT)

Tesla CEO Elon Musk could take legal action against media outlets over their coverage of an explosion involving a Cybertruck in Las Vegas, renewing his criticism of mainstream media for perceived bias. The vehicle, which was parked outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on New Year’s Day and loaded with fireworks and gas canisters, exploded in the hotel’s valet area. The sole occupant of the Cybertruck, 37-year-old Army Special Forces soldier Matthew Alan Livelsberger, shot himself prior to the blast. Authorities are investigating the incident as a possible act of terrorism. The incident has sparked heated debate over media coverage. Conservative activist Robby Starbuck criticized outlets for headlines that allegedly impugned Tesla’s reputation. He reposted Business Insider’s headline and claimed that Musk “should consider suing outlets who framed the story like this.”

“Maybe it is time to do so,” Musk replied. The Cybertruck’s design may have actually helped minimize damage, according to Sheriff Kevin McMahill of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. ”The fact that this was a Cybertruck really limited the damage that occurred inside the valet because it had most of the blast go up through the truck and out,” he said.

Maybe it is time to do so https://t.co/2i4q5QZOUn

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 2, 2025

Another user on X expressed similar frustration, stating: “Media headlines are misleading audiences, suggesting the Cybertruck caught fire or exploded due to a malfunction. The truth is that explosives were placed in the back and intentionally detonated, likely as part of a terrorist act.” Musk responded to the post, writing, “You don’t hate the legacy media enough.” He also accused the legacy media of distorting the facts, targeting the Associated Press (AP) in particular. Referring to the agency as “Associated Propaganda,” Musk claimed it had twisted the narrative surrounding the explosion.

In December, Musk also criticized AP for its coverage of a deadly incident in Germany, accusing it of spreading biased narratives. Last year, Musk remarked that the “propaganda level” in traditional media outlets was “tediously high,” and he has repeatedly accused established organizations of skewing narratives to fit particular biases. Officials have acknowledged the symbolic nature of the incident, given Tesla’s connection to Musk and its proximity to the Trump International Hotel. “It’s a Tesla truck, and we know that Elon Musk is working with President-elect Trump, and it’s the Trump tower,” McMahill said. “There’s obviously things to be concerned about there.”

“Autopilot will not function unless it detects an attentive person in the driver’s seat.”

• Elon Musk Dismisses ‘Cybertruck Bomber’ FSD Theory (ZH)

Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill told reporters on Thursday that the Cybertruck bomber, Matthew Livelsberger, a 37-year-old Green Beret, died by a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head just moments before the detonation outside Trump’s hotel in Las Vegas. This sequence of events is based on the official statements from law enforcement. However, speculation on X, particularly among internet sleuths, has brought up alternative theories regarding the timing of Livelsberger’s death. Rogan O’Handley, aka “DC Draino” on X, floated two scenarios about Livelsberger’s final moments: Now that we know the Vegas suspect was found with a bullet in his head, I see 2 possible scenarios: 1. He shot himself – he was planning to commit suicide & didn’t want to risk being burned alive. 2. He was shot by someone else & the Tesla was auto-pilot navigated to the Trump hotel

“A long fuse could’ve been lit, a timer could have been set, or the bomb could have been remotely detonated I wonder if anyone in the vicinity heard a gunshot That would help confirm where the car was when he was shot,” O’Handley wrote in another post. Tesla’s Elon Musk quickly dismissed the second scenario, stating, “Autopilot will not function unless it detects an attentive person in the driver’s seat.” Tesla vehicles have a cabin camera that monitors driver attentiveness and provides audible alerts when FSD is engaged. The camera is mounted above the rearview mirror.

“Like other Autopilot features, Full Self-Driving requires that the driver pay attention to the road, their surroundings, and other road users,” Tesla wrote on its website under the “Driver Attentiveness” section of FSD. Tesla said, “The cabin camera does not require full visibility of the driver’s eyes in order to monitor attentiveness. The system is still active, for example, if the driver is wearing sunglasses.” “If the cabin camera does not have clear visibility of the driver’s hand and arm locations, Full Self-Driving periodically displays a message reminding the driver to apply slight force to the steering wheel,” Tesla continued.

It noted, “If the driver repeatedly ignore prompts to apply slight force to the steering wheel or to pay attention, Full Self-Driving displays a series of escalating warnings and, if those warnings are ignored, disables for the rest of the drive and displays the following message.” What’s apparent from Tesla’s description of how FSD works suggests any scenario with Livelsberger shot in the head well before the bombing would be extraordinarily hard to trick the camera. X users should call on Musk to release the cockpit camera footage and any other recordings from the high-tech EV truck to disprove O’Handley’s second scenario. Additionally, footage from charging stations could provide valuable insights into what happened leading up to the bombing. We’re sure the FBI is already doing this..

He may have to wait until Farage is elected.

• Trump Calls On UK To Open Up North Sea, Get Rid Of Wind Farms (OP)

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has called for opening up the UK North Sea to oil and gas and getting rid of windmills, in response to the recent announcement by Texas-based Apache that it would cease oil and gas production in the region due to the uneconomical windfall tax. “The U.K. is making a very big mistake. Open up the North Sea. Get rid of Windmills!” President-elect Trump posted late on Thursday on social media platform Truth Social. Trump attached an article about Apache’s recent announcement that it would exit the UK North Sea. In November 2024, U.S. oil producer Apache said that it plans to cease oil production at its assets in the UK North Sea by 2030, due to the windfall tax on operators.

Apache’s parent company APA Corporation said in an SEC filing that its assessment of the impact of the windfall tax, officially known as the Energy Profits Levy (EPL), resulted in findings that continued production in the UK North Sea would be uneconomical. The ruling Labour Party’s Autumn Statement confirmed that the windfall tax on UK North Sea operators is rising to 38% from 35%, effective November 1, 2024. The tax will now expire on 31 March 2030, a year later than the previous tax regime. The government is also removing the 29% investment allowance.

Since the tax was initially introduced by the Conservative government at the height of the energy crisis in 2022, oil and gas companies operating in the UK North Sea have been calling for certainty in the regulatory and tax framework. Recent changes in policies and the rising taxes have driven away operators, who say that a lack of North Sea investments would only make the UK more dependent on oil and gas imports. U.S. President-elect Trump, for his part, has been a vocal critic of offshore wind. In the United States, offshore wind faces an uncertain future under Trump’s second-term administration. The President-elect has criticized offshore wind as the most expensive form of energy which, Trump says, also ruins the environment.

The last days of Volodymyr and the Banderites.

• ‘Unpredictable’ Trump Could Help End Ukraine Conflict – Zelensky (RT)

US President-elect Donald Trump could play a major role in ending the Ukraine conflict, Vladimir Zelensky has suggested. He made the remarks during an interview with Ukrainian TV that aired on Thursday, describing Trump as “unpredictable” and capable of achieving peace through “resolute” actions. During his presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly claimed he could end the conflict in 24 hours. His team’s reported peace plans call for a 20-year delay in Ukraine’s NATO membership aspirations, a freeze in the fighting, and the establishment of a demilitarized zone patrolled by European peacekeepers to monitor the ceasefire. According to Zelensky, Trump’s pledge to end the conflict in one day may be unrealistic, but strong US leadership which he represents could make a significant difference in achieving peace.

“Trump can be decisive. I think for us this is the most important thing. He can be resolute, he can really stop [Russian President Vladimir] Putin or help us stop Putin,” Zelensky stated. “A lot depends on Trump… I think Putin is afraid of him… I think he is strong and unpredictable and I believe he really wants to end the war,” he added, saying that with Trump on Kiev’s side it would be “easier” for Ukraine to gain support from its European allies and approach negotiations with Russia “from a position of strength.” Zelensky also called for firm security guarantees for Ukraine, including NATO membership, as the foundation for long-term peace. He stressed that any settlement must respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

In early December, Zelensky met with Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris for talks about possible steps toward peace. Following the meeting, Trump said Ukraine “would like to make a deal” with Russia and called for renewed negotiations and a ceasefire. Zelensky, however, later rejected Trump’s call, writing on X that a “ceasefire without guarantees can be reignited at any moment.” Moscow counts Kiev’s aspiration to join NATO as among the root causes of the conflict and has insisted that all the goals of its military operation, including Ukrainian neutrality, demilitarization, and denazification, must be a part of any potential peace deal. A settlement must also begin with Ukraine ceasing military operations and acknowledging the “territorial reality” that it will never regain control of its former regions that chose to join Russia.

Earlier this week, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russian authorities do not believe the fighting between Moscow and Kiev can be stopped at the moment. He reiterated Russia’s readiness for peace talks, but added that it will continue its advances on the front line as long as Kiev remains reluctant to negotiate.

That’s a big red line.

• Kiev Set To Comply With US Demand To Draft Teenagers – Moscow (RT)

Kiev will make a decision soon on how to respond to US demands that it lower the conscription age in the country to 18, in order to bolster troop numbers on the front lines of the conflict with Moscow, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) claimed on Friday. Concerns are growing in Western countries regarding the Ukrainian army’s capacity to withstand pressure from Russian forces, an SVR statement has claimed. US President Joe Biden could intervene to prevent this, according to the agency. Merely supplying advanced weaponry, including long-range missile systems, will not be enough to stabilize the front lines, the SVR added.

“Countries in Eastern Europe bordering Ukraine are quietly preparing to receive new waves of Ukrainian refugees, who this time will be fleeing not from an imaginary threat posed by Russia, but from the real danger of getting a one-way ticket to the front lines,” the press release claimed. According to the SVR, Western leaders are acutely aware that the conflict represents an “existential” challenge for Russia, and retreat is not an option. In a televised interview on Ukraine’s Telemarathon on Thursday, Zelensky acknowledged that desertions within the army surged in 2024 amid escalating war fatigue and a shortage of reserve forces.

“..4.2 million Ukrainians have been granted temporary protection status within the EU..”

• Zelensky Criticizes EU’s Use Of ‘Cheap Labor’ From Ukraine (RT)

Some Western countries regard Ukrainian immigrants as “cheap labor,” Vladimir Zelensky has said. He claimed that they want to keep those who benefit their economies, but would like to send the unemployed back home. In an interview on Friday during Ukraine’s Telemarathon, Zelensky expressed frustration with what he described as a selective approach to Ukrainians in some Western countries. ”Let’s be honest: There are many Ukrainians abroad. In some countries, they have been seen as a cheap labor force. And now, they realize Ukrainians are often more skilled than their own citizens,” he said. Zelensky went on to accuse his Western counterparts of trying to downplay the matter, adding that they want Ukraine to take back the unemployed, urging him to “just tell them to return.”

“I say: ‘Look, give me a bit more air defense, and I’ll tell everyone to come back immediately,’” he said, stressing that the appeal would be addressed to all Ukrainians, not only to the unemployed. “And they reply, ‘No, let those who work here stay, but the rest should return.” Zelensky went on to say that many Ukrainians are likely to return home once the conflict ends and reconstruction begins, as these efforts will potentially attract international investment and provide job opportunities. As of October 2024, approximately 4.2 million Ukrainians have been granted temporary protection status within the EU. The primary host countries include Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic, which collectively accommodate a significant portion of these individuals.

Employment rates vary significantly, with about 65% in Poland finding work, while only 18% in Germany have secured employment. Kiev has reportedly been trying to force Ukrainian men to return home, barring them access to consular services, while pressuring the EU to cut financial aid to refugees. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has denied the allegations, explaining that it wants to encourage rather than force citizens to return. In Ukraine, however, the authorities have been organizing raids for potential recruits on the streets as part of a mobilization campaign, often leading to violent clashes between military officers and draftees.

Nobody speaks for Western Europe.

• Western Europe Risks Losing Everything (Lukyanov)

In February 2022, I argued that Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine symbolized – whether intentionally or not – a profound break with the policies initiated in the Gorbachev era. At that time, rapprochement with the West was seen as a way for Moscow to integrate into a larger, Western-led system. That path, pursued in one form or another for over three decades, failed to produce the desired results. The reasons for this failure – whether due to unrealistic expectations or irreconcilable differences – are a debate for another time. What is undeniable now is that the turnaround has been dramatic, accelerated by recent geopolitical shifts.

The world Russia once aspired to join is now itself in turmoil. A German acquaintance recently observed that US President-elect Donald Trump and Tesla tycoon Elon Musk are shaking up the Western establishment much like perestroika destabilized the Eastern Bloc. In the 1980s, the GDR government banned the Soviet magazine Sputnik, fearing its progressive ideas would undermine their rigid system. Today, the EU scrambles to deal with Musk’s growing influence, as his bold actions and statements threaten to undermine the stability of its institutions from within. Western Europe, once the chief beneficiary of Gorbachev’s ‘new thinking’, now finds itself as the potential main loser.

Questions long thought resolved – like the inviolability of borders – are resurfacing. Trump’s earlier remarks about Canada joining the US no longer come across as mere jokes, given his past comments about Greenland and the Panama Canal. In the Middle East, borders have become fluid abstractions, while Russia’s statements about “ever-changing realities” suggest a willingness to challenge territorial norms in practice. The US, meanwhile, has abandoned its role as the champion of a ‘rules-based’ global order. Instead, it pursues a doctrine of dominance, driven by technological and economic superiority. Trump’s ‘peace through strength’ strategy relies on exerting pressure, not building consensus.

This marks a departure not only from Gorbachev’s vision of institutional harmony, but also from America’s own post-Cold War strategy of embedding its dominance within international frameworks. Russia, for its part, has grown disillusioned with the ‘new thinking’ that once promised integration and mutual respect. Now, it finds itself pushing back against a global order that has failed to recognize its interests. Ironically, it is the US – through its rejection of the very rules it once championed – that has thrown the system into disarray. Trump embodies this shift, signaling a world where strength dictates outcomes, leaving institutions as secondary players. Western Europe faces an uncertain future. Its reliance on American leadership has become a double-edged sword.

While the US remains a critical ally, its increasing unpredictability under leaders like Trump threatens to destabilize the very order Europe depends on. The EU’s struggle to manage Musk’s influence is emblematic of a deeper malaise – a failure to adapt to a world no longer governed by clear rules or shared values. Meanwhile, its internal cohesion is threatened as the political center cracks. Perestroika sought to harmonize the world through institutions, offering hope to a generation weary of confrontation. Today, we see its inverse: Institutions seen as obstacles, multilateralism discarded, and power wielded unapologetically. Trump’s mantra of ‘America First’ has evolved into a broader ethos of ‘me first’, in which nations prioritize their immediate interests over collective solutions. The path forward promises no easy answers. But, as was often said in the USSR before perestroika, no one ever promised it would be easy.

“Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, in 2024, agreed to play out their roles as uncontactable zombies, baying for the blood of Americans at the altar of a dying Moloch.” — Celia Farber

• The Twilight of Twilight (James Howard Kunstler)

I hope that the first lesson of the Bourbon Street massacre is not lost on you: There is no end of opportunity now for Jihadis and other maniacs to attack soft targets across the land. Americans are sitting ducks. And there is no shortage of jihadis and maniacs at large in our land, thanks to “Joe Biden” and Alejandro Mayorkas. Do you have any idea how much carnage can be created with what are called small arms, meaning, light weapons, guns, rifles, grenades, and improvised explosives used tactically in public places by enemies of our country? It looks like we are going to find out. And just regular motor vehicles, too, as in New Orleans and Las Vegas. Among the millions of foreign vagabonds ushered across the border illegally are perhaps tens of thousands fanatically avid for mayhem, many of them surely organized into cadres trained to carry out atrocities, just hanging back with their US government-issued debit cards, enjoying DoorDash deliveries in their government supplied hotel rooms, waiting for the signal to activate themselves.

Do you think we can harden the millions of targets out there, make them secure? Forget about it. Many of these are plain old streets in the cities, countless bridges and tunnels, endless runs of railroad track and highway, hundreds of airports, not to mention malls, schools, big box stores, office buildings, restaurants, sports venues, cruise ships, skating rinks, theaters, churches. It would only take a couple-three more episodes like the New Orleans incident to paralyze public life in America just as badly as the Covid-19 op did. Are tourists rushing back to Bourbon Street now? Will they return for Mardi Gras on March 4? And now, of course, the matter of drones has been brought to your attention. How many thousands (millions?) of these ingenious toys have been sold over recent years.

You can walk into Best Buy today and get one, ranging from a couple of hundred bucks to models with advanced guidance electronics at several thousand bucks. Timers are cheap. C-4 and Semtex plastic explosives are easy to purloin from military bases, or just traded on black markets. Drones can be launched from anywhere, including out of windows anywhere. They can be launched in swarms. You must also imagine that these Jihadis and other maniacs are primed to let loose on the imminently incoming Trump admin. The “Joe Biden” regime years were just the set-up period. Why open up with terror ops and show your hand prematurely while “JB” offered so much free and easy assistance in preparing the battlefield? And anyway, since so much of what “Joe Biden” was up to on his own initiative was obviously damaging to the USA in three dimensions — economically, strategically, and psychologically — then why interrupt all that serendipitous mishchief?

In the twilight of his twilight presidency, “Joe Biden” makes his final moves — that is, the people in the shadows behind “Joe Biden” make their moves — to fortify the progress he made working to destroy his own country, really anything that might hamper Mr. Trump’s ability to correct the deliberate desecration of our national life. And, of course, to shelter any of those persons responsible from a legal reckoning in the future. In a most garish example, “JB” awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal to former Rep. Liz Cheney for her role on Congress’s J-6 committee. This, you understand, was done in defiance of what is already known and alleged about the treasonous misconduct of that body — withholding and destruction of evidence, tampering with evidence, coaching witnesses, lying to the media about testimony received, and obstruction of justice. You might lay a conspiracy charge over all those misdeeds, since they involved the formal agreement, discussion, and knowledge of it all among committee members. That is, it was done clearly in concert. This is howThe New York Times put it:

The plea there is transparently and obviously mendacious, yet The Times, being the mouthpiece of the nervous DC blob, can’t resist laying out the game: how can you prosecute somebody for acts they’ve been given a presidential award for committing? Of course, a pardon will signal that Liz Cheney is, ipso facto, a criminal. And would “Joe Biden” then have to pardon every member of the J-6 Committee — since, being a conspiracy, are they not all culpable for the same crimes? But then, the J-6 Committee crimes against the people of America comprise only a small portion, a side dish, to the many other crimes committed by the officials working under “Joe Biden.” If he pardons Liz Cheney, won’t this president also have to pardon hundreds of other officials from Mayorkas, Wray, Garland, Fauci, Walensky, Austin, Blinken, Sullivan on down?

“..as much as 80 percent of Americans support voter identification laws across party lines..”

• California Rings in the New Year with New Push to Block Voter ID (Turley)

In California, Democrats are ringing in the New Year with a new push against voter identification. California Attorney General Rob Bonta has been hammering Huntington Beach because the city recently amended its municipal laws to require basic voter identification. While voters overwhelmingly support voter identification, Democrats in California recently passed a law making it a crime to ask for voter identification at polling places. Now, Bonta is asking for an appellate court to intervene to prevent Huntington Beach from asking for IDs before people vote. After Huntington Beach passed Measure A requiring voter identification in 2026, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill banning voter identification requirements. Bonta then sued the city but the California Superior Court ruled it too soon for a lawsuit.

California Superior Court Judge Nico Dourbetas wrote that “this matter is not ripe for adjudication, as [the change to] the City’s Charter is permissive and discretionary in character, and thus currently presents no conflict with state elections law.” Bonta, however, wants a ruling to prevent voter identification before the 2026 elections. Secretary of State Shirley Weber insisted that California residents are already required to verify their identity when they register to vote, but the city argues that it does not mean that the person voting is that same person. Democrats have continued to block voter identification laws and policies despite Gallop and other polling showing as much as 80 percent of Americans support voter identification laws across party lines. The Biden Administration was widely criticized for its effort to prevent Virginia from removing the names of people who previously stated that they were not U.S. citizens.

Thirty-six states have laws requesting or requiring voters to show some form of identification at the polls. While Weber denounced the laws as a form of voter suppression, there is no evidence that such laws have had any such material effect. Indeed, President Biden and Democrats widely denounced voting laws in states like Georgia as “Jim Crow 2.0,” but under these laws, Georgia and other states set records in the turnout of voters. Bonta’s actions show that Democrats will not yield on the effort to prevent voter identification at polling places. Instead, they seem to be doubling down with less than a third of Americans supporting the effort. So much for political resolutions to realign the party after the election losses in November.

Left joins right.

• German MP Calls For NordStream To Be Reactivated (RT)

Germany should respond to the rising energy prices caused by Ukraine’s halting of Russian gas transit by repairing and reactivating the Nord Stream pipelines, leftist German MP Sevim Dagdelen has said. Ukraine refused to extend its transit contract with Russia’s Gazprom beyond the end of 2024, effectively cutting off the flow of natural gas to some EU countries as of Wednesday. Under the old contract, Ukraine moved gas through its own pipeline network and into Moldova, Romania, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia, and then on to Austria and Italy. Ukraine’s decision caused EU gas prices to spike to €50 per megawatt hour, a figure unseen since October 2023. “Ukraine drives the energy price up further by stopping the transit of Russian gas in Europe,” Dagdelen wrote on X on Thursday, complaining that “the German government and the EU are happily watching the destruction of European industry due to high energy prices.”

Energy costs soared in Germany after the government renounced Russian oil and gas imports in 2022. Whereas the country once relied on Russia for around 55% of its natural gas supply, it has struggled to make up the shortfall, and its leading manufacturers – including Volkswagen, Bosch, and BASF – have all announced layoffs and plant closures. Prior to the start of the Ukraine conflict, Germany received gas from Russia via the Nord Stream 1 pipelines, while Nord Stream 2 was due to come online in 2022. Berlin revoked the certification for Nord Stream 2 several days before Russia’s military operation in Ukraine began, and both sets of lines were destroyed in an act of sabotage in September of that year.

While German investigators have reportedly settled on the theory that the pipelines were destroyed by Ukrainian saboteurs, American journalist Seymour Hersh maintains that they were blown up by the CIA and US Navy. The head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin, has blamed “professional saboteurs from the Anglo-American special services,” referring to the US and UK. In her post, Dagdelen called for the pipelines to “finally be put into operation,” and for the German government to “stop giving money to Kiev!” Dagdelen is a member of the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), a leftist political faction that supports rapprochement with Russia and shares the right-wing Alternative for Germany’s (AfD) anti-immigration stance.

The party’s leader, Sahra Wagenknecht, recently blamed the Ukraine conflict on the failure of the US to acknowledge Russia’s “red lines.” Back in September, Wagenknecht declared that “if Ukraine is responsible for the terrorist act against the German energy supply, the arms deliveries must end immediately and the question of compensation must be put on the table.” Dagdelen is not the first German MP to demand that Nord Stream be reopened. In September, AfD co-leader Tino Chrupalla called the undersea pipes “a lifeline of German industry,” and declared that “Nord Stream must be repaired, opened, and secured.”

Creative with words: “The economy is at the beginning of a strong aging spurt..”

• Germany Facing Longest Recession Ever – Handelsblatt (RT)

The German economy is on course for its longest post-war recession, with a third consecutive year of contraction projected for 2025, according to the Handelsblatt Research Institute (HRI). The institute predicts a 0.1% decline in 2025, following contractions of 0.3% in 2023 and 0.2% in 2024. This economic slump surpasses the two-year downturn of the early 2000s and reflects the compounded effects of an energy crisis, persistent inflation, and the Covid-19 pandemic. “The German economy is in the midst of its greatest crisis in post-war history,” HRI chief economist Bert Rurup said. Demographic challenges, such as an aging population, are adding to the strain. The HRI estimates Germany’s growth potential has fallen to just 0.5% annually. “The economy is at the beginning of a strong aging spurt,” Rurup noted. Official data from the Federal Statistical Office, expected on January 15, is likely to confirm the contraction in 2024.

While the HRI forecasts modest recovery in 2026, growth is expected to reach just 0.9%, far below pre-crisis levels. The German central bank has also adjusted its 2025 growth outlook, revising it down from 1.1% to 0.2% in December. Germany’s shift from affordable Russian gas to more expensive liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the US has driven up energy costs, severely affecting manufacturers and small businesses. Rising costs have led to shutdowns and bankruptcies across industries, including major players like Volkswagen. Before the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, Germany relied on Russian gas for over half of its energy needs. Following EU sanctions on Moscow, gas deliveries were drastically reduced or cut off entirely. In September 2022, the Nord Stream pipelines, which transported Russian gas to Germany, were destroyed by explosions. On January 1, 2025, Russia was forced to officially suspend gas transit to the EU through Ukraine.

Germany’s export sector, particularly high-value manufacturing, remains one of the few strengths in the economy. However, it also faces challenges from global uncertainties and high energy prices. The loss of affordable Russian energy and rising costs have made recovery difficult. Former Chancellor Angela Merkel recently criticized the decision to abandon Russian gas. In an interview with France 2 TV in December, she called the past arrangement a “win-win situation,” saying it provided Germany with low-cost energy, while now prices have “exploded.” The economic crisis has become a pressing issue for Germans. A poll in December conducted by public broadcaster ARD revealed that the economy is the top concern for voters. The early general election scheduled for February 23 follows the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s center-left coalition in November.

“Carter’s biggest annual deficit in constant 2024 dollars of purchasing power was just $240 billion during the recession year of 1980 [..] the Federal deficit clocked in at $367 billion in the month of November 2024 alone..”

• The Brewing US Debt Ceiling Crisis (David Stockman)

The MAGA folks are going to be in for a rude awakening. That’s because Donald Trump has been taking to the public stage in recent weeks promising a new “golden age” of American prosperity upon his return to the Oval Office, but nearly the opposite is just around the corner. What’s actually coming down the pike is the UniParty’s revenge— a financial and economic shitshow that is likely to dwarf all that has gone before. There is no mystery as to why. To wit, there is a demolition derby brewing in the bond pits that threatens to extinguish any even faint remaining hope that Washington’s Fiscal Doomsday Machine might be unplugged.

We are referring to the utter fiscal paralysis that stems from the combination of the GOP’s addiction to tax cuts and Big Defense budgets and the Dem’s demagoguery about Social Security, Medicare and the rest of the Welfare State. This means that down on the banks of the Potomac there is virtually no one left in the camp of fiscal rectitude. And, equally importantly, there is no political hay to be harvested by campaigning against the “borrow and spend” proclivities of an overweening central government, which has now become heavily insulated from the daily life of the people as they struggle to pay their bills and ward off the economic imprecations of inflation and taxes.

This embedded fiscal paralysis is actually something new under the sun, however. It was actually far different as recently as the late 1970s. Back then we found plenty of company among the GOP backbenchers in the US House as we launched full-throated political campaigns against the rising public debt and the “modest” rivers of red ink being incurred by “big spender” Jimmy Carter. We employ the quote marks here because as it has turned out Carter’s biggest annual deficit in constant 2024 dollars of purchasing power was just $240 billion during the recession year of 1980. Given that the Federal deficit clocked in at $367 billion in the month of November 2024 alone, it can be well and truly said that the Washington UniParty is now capable of generating more red ink in 20 days than Jimmy Carter did during his worst year.

Of course, that outcome earned him in short order a one-way ticket back to Plains Georgia. Yet that electoral rebuke was no fluke nor was it even due to the superior campaigning style of the Hollywood B actor who displaced him. Back then the deficit had immediate ramifications on main street because the Fed was not yet monetizing the flow of Treasury paper. Accordingly, the Treasury Department’s sharp elbows in the bond pits caused interest rates to materially rise and private sector borrowers to be “crowded out”.

Needless to say, representing a typical “town and country” district in Michigan, as we did, our political support base was especially attuned to the effects of Uncle Sam sucking up the available supply of private savings. Among these supporters, for instance, were car dealers, whose floor plan financing costs got jacked-up by rising interest rates, and Savings and Loan executives, whose book of fixed rate mortgages got nailed by sharply higher funding costs. There were also farmers, who suffered ballooning financing costs for fuel, fertilizer, tractors etc. and small manufacturers, who needed to finance inventories and equipment—among countless other productive citizens immediately and adversely impacted by Federal deficits.

Not surprisingly, therefore, the Federal deficit’s adverse economic impact on main street was rapidly and thoroughly transmitted to Washington via the incoming Congressional mail and hometown political pressure – a potent force that was not lost on the Congressional Democrats led by Speaker Tip O’Neill. In fact, we backbenchers used to send the Speaker into paroxysms of ill-temper with our deficit-howling on the floor of the US House because he knew full well that keeping his gavel in hand could be jeopardized in swing districts all around the country by GOP candidates on the warpath about spending and deficits—most especially during periods of rising inflation or other economic distress.

What existed until the era of Alan Greenspan and his subsequent heirs and assigns, therefore, was a form of politico-economic checks and balances. The Federal debt never really got out of hand because there was a feedback loop in the nation’s governance process that motivated the GOP to function as the anti-government party and Watchdog of the Treasury against the Dem’s self-designated role as the Government Party and champion of the people and the havenots.

The resulting tolerable political equilibrium is more than evident in the post WWII path of the Federal debt claim on the GDP. After bouts of bipartisan wartime finance, the debt ratio came down with regularity, falling from the 120% WWII peak to a bottom of just 31% in the early 1980s. Indeed, it was only after Paul Volcker was given his walking papers in 1987 by the easy money man at the US Treasury, James Baker, that this debt-containing governance equilibrium finally failed.

“..guidelines state that a single vaccine dose should not contain more than 10 nanograms of residual DNA [..] levels in Pfizer’s vaccines exceeding this limit by six to 470 times.”

• Study Finds DNA Contamination In Pfizer Covid-19 Vaccines (RT)

Pfizer’s mRNA Covid-19 vaccines contain residual DNA levels exceeding regulatory safety limits, according to a peer-reviewed study published this week in the Journal of High School Science. The research was conducted by student scientists at the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) White Oak Campus lab in Maryland. Residual DNA refers to small pieces of genetic material that may remain in vaccines or medicines after manufacturing. These fragments come from the cells or processes used to make the products. World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines state that a single vaccine dose should not contain more than 10 nanograms of residual DNA. The study, however, found levels in Pfizer’s vaccines exceeding this limit by six to 470 times.

Researchers analyzed vaccines obtained from BEI Resources, a supplier linked to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. They used NanoDrop and Qubit methods to measure DNA levels. Both methods showed contamination above acceptable thresholds. Residual DNA was found in six vials from two different vaccine lots. While the study stated that health risks posed by the DNA fragments are “currently unknown,” researchers warned that, in theory, they could integrate into human DNA and increase the risk of gene mutations. They also raised concerns that the fragments may contain oncogenes, which could lead to cancer. The authors recommended further testing to assess the potential risks.

The FDA has not yet commented on the findings. While reports of DNA contamination in Covid-19 vaccines have been circulating for years, US regulatory authorities have repeatedly brushed them off, stating that they pose no health risks. Kevin McKernan, founder of Medicinal Genomics, described the findings as a “bombshell,” and warned that DNA fragments might overstimulate the immune system, potentially “fueling cancer growth.” “Repeated exposure to foreign DNA through Covid-19 boosters may amplify this risk over time, creating conditions conducive to cancer development,” McKernan said in an interview with Maryanne Demasi, an Australia-based investigative journalist who first drew public attention to the study.

Nikolai Petrovsky, professor of immunology and head of Vaxine, an Australian biotechnology company, said the findings were a “smoking gun” and needed urgent attention from regulators. Petrovsky also accused the FDA of withholding information from the public, saying that the study “clearly shows the FDA was aware of these data,” given that it was conducted in its own lab under the supervision of its own scientists.

Tommy

pic.twitter.com/9PnTcdoU44

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 3, 2025

Vaccine

Watch this Evil Witch’s body language. She’s lying and she knows it.

‘Leading Vaccinologist’ Dr. Kathryn Edward’s gets absolutely annihilated by Attorney Aaron Siri…

“No, I don’t have any studies proving that the vaccines do NOT cause autism…” pic.twitter.com/1rISIj941J

— Liz Churchill (@liz_churchill10) January 3, 2025

Math

Maths techniques
pic.twitter.com/xJHuCFixdB

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) January 3, 2025

Bit

pic.twitter.com/Tl2dI8cWgB

— Doglover (@puppiesDoglover) January 3, 2025

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

Debt Rattle December 31 2024

Dec 312024

December 31, 2024 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 11:28 am Finance Tagged with: Boeing, Elon Musk, Fico, Jimmy Carter, Liz Cheney, Mike Johnson, POW swap, Starlink, Trump, Zelensky 45 Responses »

Leonardo da Vinci Saint John the Baptist 1513-16

• The Passing and Lessons of Jimmy Carter (Turley)

• Trump Endorses Mike Johnson For House Speaker (RT)

• Deep State Freezes Over: John Brennan Praises Trump Transition Team (ZH)

• Liz Cheney’s Pending Immunity Whiplash (Julie Kelly)

• Trump Beat Harris, Could Bolster Russia-US Ties and May Hasten NATO’s End (Sp.)

• Lavrov: Russia’s ‘Not Satisfied’ With Trump’s Ukraine Proposals (Antiwar)

• Musk To Provide Cellphone Coverage To Ukraine From Space (RT)

• Can Elon Musk Actually ‘Influence’ The German Election? (RMX)

• No, The Truth Is Not Just Another Story (Kunstler)

• Zelensky Is ‘All-time Champion’ of US-Aid Heist – Musk (RT)

• Russia and Ukraine Conduct Massive POW Swap (RT)

• Kiev Announces US Gift of $15bn From Seized Russian Funds (RT)

• Fico Dismisses ‘Nonsense’ Accusations From Zelensky (RT)

• Slovak PM Fico Slams ‘Irrational’ EU (RT)

• South Korea To Inspect Boeing Fleet After Plane Crash Disaster (RT)

• The Disappearance of the Male Role (Paul Craig Roberts)

Jennings

NOW – Scott Jennings on the Battle for House Speaker: 'Johnson's Done a Good Job, The President Trusts Him' | @ScottJenningsKY

Scott Jennings makes an important point: the longer Republicans fight over the speakership, the longer voters will have to wait for the MAGA agenda to… pic.twitter.com/RZJtB2q6hH

— Overton (@overton_news) December 30, 2024

Isolate
https://twitter.com/i/status/1873878819737837844

You can be a great person even if you’re not a great president.

• The Passing and Lessons of Jimmy Carter (Turley)

This morning, the nation is mourning the loss of one of the most genuinely decent men ever to sit in the Oval Office. Even for his critics, Jimmy Carter was a model of empathy and integrity as an American president. After his presidency, he proved an even greater role model, working tirelessly to help those without homes or hope. He gave us 100 years of a life committed to helping others and a lasting lesson on what it means to be truly a public servant. Both President Joe Biden and Donald Trump offered moving tributes to Carter. President Biden noted that Carter showed “what it means to live a life of meaning and purpose, a life of principle, faith and humility.” He added “Some look at Jimmy Carter and see a man of a bygone era with honesty and character. Faith and humility mattered, but I don’t believe it’s a bygone era,” Biden said. “We’d all do well to try to be more like Jimmy Carter.”

President Trump declared “The challenges Jimmy faced as president came at a pivotal time for our country and he did everything in his power to improve the lives of all Americans. For that, we all owe him a debt of gratitude.” Many were surprised when Biden took a jab at Trump after his comments. The media immediately saw the testimonial comments as an opportunity to get a dig on Trump and Biden seemed eager to oblige them. When a reporter asked Biden after his formal remarks what President-elect Trump should take from Carter’s legacy, Biden replied: “Decency, decency, decency. … Can you imagine Jimmy Carter walking by someone who needed something and just keep walking? Can you imagine Jimmy Carter referring to someone by the way they look or the way they talk?” It was a jarring disconnect from the moment of unity by both presidents.

It was also a curious choice of presidents for Biden to make the comparison. There is another thing that Carter would not do: pardon a family member in an influence-peddling scandal. Throughout his presidency, Carter was faced with allegations that Billy Carter took $200,000 from a Libyan dictator as a “loan” and only paid back $1000. There were also allegations of even more money derived from open influence peddling from foreign sources. Sound familiar? Indeed, Biden defenders immediately tried to use Carter to deflect criticism from the President by falsely claiming that he pardoned Billy. Grant Stern, an editor for the advocacy group Occupy Democrats, wrote: “Jimmy Carter pardoned his brother Billy Carter who took over $200,000 from Libya as its foreign agent. George H.W. Bush pardoned his son Neil Bush for his role in the S&L scandals of the 1980s. Nobody thinks those pardons defined either presidency. Joe Biden’s pardon of Hunter Biden won’t either.”

Neither of those pardons “defined either presidency” because neither pardons existed. (ABC The View co-host Ana Navarro even claimed various family pardons as including another president to defend the Hunter Biden pardon: “Woodrow Wilson pardoned his brother-in-law, Hunter deButts…But tell me again how Joe Biden ‘is setting precedent’?” Many immediately told her instead how Wilson did not have a brother-in-law named “Hunter deButts,” let alone pardon him). In reality, despite lingering questions and investigations, Carter refused to pardon his brother. Instead, he told the American people the truth:

“I am deeply concerned that Billy has received funds from Libya and that he may be under obligation to Libya. These facts will govern my relationship with Billy as long as I am president. Billy has had no influence on U.S. policy or actions concerning Libya in the past, and he will have no influence in the future.” Unlike Carter, President Biden lied repeatedly to the voters in denying that (1) Hunter had any dealings with the Chinese, (2) he ever met his son’s clients, (3) he knew of any of these dealings, and (4) he would ever pardon his son. He then pardoned Hunter for any and all crimes committed over the last decade, including potential crimes that many believe implicate the President himself in a multimillion dollar influence-peddling scheme.

The thinking is: Better Johnson than another battle like the one that made him speaker.

• Trump Endorses Mike Johnson For House Speaker (RT)

President-elect Donald Trump has endorsed House Speaker Mike Johnson for another term amid disagreements among Republicans over recent spending legislation. Trump expressed support for the candidacy on Monday on his Truth Social network, stating, “Speaker Mike Johnson is a good, hard working, religious man… Mike has my Complete & Total Endorsement.” Johnson responded by thanking Trump, saying “The American people demand and deserve that we waste no time. Let’s get to work!” The endorsement follows a contentious government funding debate that nearly led to a pre-Christmas shutdown. Johnson, who became Speaker last October, faced criticism from some Republicans for his handling of the bipartisan spending bill.

It failed to pass without significant Democratic support and did not include Trump’s provision to raise the debt limit. It also faced criticism from GOP members for not including significant spending cuts. Some more conservative lawmakers who were opposed to raising the government’s borrowing limit broke from Trump’s directive to back the plan. Meanwhile, Democrats argued that the new bill would fund significant tax cuts for the wealthy, disproportionately burdening working people. The House is scheduled to vote on the Speaker position on January 3. Johnson’s re-election requires near-unanimous support from the Republican majority. Congress cannot conduct any business, including certifying Trump’s electoral victory, until one is chosen. Some GOP members, including Representative Thomas Massie, have expressed reservations about Johnson’s leadership, particularly concerning fiscal policies.

“I’m not persuaded by the ‘hurry up and elect him so we can certify the election on J6’ argument,” Massie said last week in a post to X (formerly Twitter). “A weak legislative branch, beholden to the swamp, will not be able to achieve the mandate voters gave Trump and Congress in November,” he added. The Democrats lost control of the Senate during November elections, with the GOP winning 53 of the 100 seats. Maintaining control of both houses of the legislature will be crucial for crafting legislation aimed at delivering Trump’s agenda on much-debated issues, such as immigration and the economy. Since February 2022, the US Congress has approved more than $174 billion to prop up Ukraine in its ongoing military conflict with Russia. Johnson became Speaker last October, after a group of House Republicans ousted his predecessor Kevin McCarthy, ostensibly because he’d made a secret deal with the White House to send billions in additional aid to Ukraine.

In September, Johnson objected to Vladimir Zelensky’s visit to an ammunition factory in Pennsylvania, calling it “a clearly partisan campaign event” that amounted to “election interference.” He wrote a letter to Zelensky demanding the immediate firing of Ukraine’s ambassador to Washington, Oksana Markarova, for organizing the trip. In October Johnson told media he was increasingly against additional funding for Kiev and expressed hope it won’t be necessary if Trump wins the presidential election. “I don’t have an appetite for further Ukraine funding, and I hope it’s not necessary,” the Louisiana Republican told Punchbowl News. “If President Trump wins, I believe that he actually can bring that conflict to a close. I really do. I think he’ll call [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and tell him that this is enough.”

Pick your friends..

• Deep State Freezes Over: John Brennan Praises Trump Transition Team (ZH)

If you had Obama-era Deep State operatives praising the man who the establishment has demonized as a “threat to democracy” on your bingo card, come on down to claim your prize. In what is sure to raise eyebrows across the political world, former CIA director John Brennan issued rare kind words for President-Elect Donald Trump’s second transition team, saying it has thus far operated in “more serious and professional fashion than in 2016. “I know that there is engagement between the Biden Department of State and the incoming Trump team,” Brennan told MSNBC’s Alicia Menendez over the weekend. “You want to make sure that the incoming team has as much intelligence and analysis as possible that’s available so that when they take over on day one that they are fully informed about what the situation is,” the former CIA chief added.

“I do think that there are some people in the Trump administration who are coming in and really are trying to do everything they can to be as prepared as possible on January 20th,” Brennan told MSNBC on Saturday. “You have people like Marco Rubio who has been named to be the next secretary of state, who is well steeped in these issues and also takes them very seriously,” he concluded. Brennan’s praise follows a long history of sharp attacks on Trump, who he recently referred to as unqualified to be president, citing his temperate and what he views as a lack of support for Ukraine against its ongoing war with Russia. “According to me, he was not qualified at the time, and he is not qualified today. We could see in particular that he did not understand the importance of the United States’s relations with our foreign allies and partners. He has little recognition for the transatlantic relationship, for NATO,” Brennan told RTBF.

“And that would give Vladimir Putin the green light to try to almost swallow up Ukraine,” Brennan said. “And unfortunately, I think it will encourage Putin to look hungrily toward the rest of Europe.” In 2018, Trump spawned fury and cheers from critics and supporters alike when he revoked Brennan’s security clearance. Trump, in a statement at the time, tied his decision to revoke the security clearance to the Russia investigation, “There’s no silence. If anything, I’m giving him a bigger voice,” Trump told reporters at the time. “Many people don’t even know who he is, and now he has a bigger voice. And that’s OK with me because I like taking on voices like that.”

The then-president also noted that he had received a “tremendous response” for the move. “Security clearances are very important to me, very important,” he stated, adding that he “never respected”the former CIA head. Trump also said Brennan had “recently leveraged his status … to make a series of unfounded and outrageous allegations, wild outbursts on the internet and on television, about this administration.” In a separate statement, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said the decision was motivated by the “risk posed by [Brennan’s] erratic conduct and behavior.”

“..members of Congress are entitled to immunity under the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution, which shields lawmakers from criminal liability related to their legislative duties. Cheney’s sycophants are already signaling that is the route she will take..”

• Liz Cheney’s Pending Immunity Whiplash (Julie Kelly)

Few people worked harder over the past few years to put Donald Trump behind bars than Liz Cheney, the former (alleged) Republican congresswoman from Wyoming. Seeking revenge for Trump’s longtime criticism of her father’s “weapons of mass destruction” lie, Cheney sought to settle a family score by imprisoning Trump over the events of January 6. “No one is above the law!,” Cheney, in her grating sanctimonious style, frequently insists. Well, except for her. It now appears Cheney is preparing to fight any federal and/or congressional probe into her demonstrably corrupt role as vice chairman of the January 6 Select Committee. Text messages obtained by Representative Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga), chair of a House subcommittee looking into the J6 committee, prove that Cheney colluded behind the scenes with star witness Cassidy Hutchinson, who dramatically changed her testimony after connecting with Cheney.

The communications could represent witness tampering, subornation of perjury—every former White House official including the driver of the presidential vehicle on January 6 has refuted Hutchinson’s account of Trump’s behavior that day—and obstruction. Based on the results of his ongoing inquiry, Loudermilk determined that “numerous federal laws were likely broken by Liz Cheney” and called for the FBI to investigate her. Cheney immediately responded by playing the victim and, of course, by blaming Donald Trump. But the American people appear uninterested in Cheney’s excuses; a new Rasmussen poll shows strong public support, including three-quarters of Republicans, for an FBI investigation into the bitter and defeated nepobaby.

If Trump’s Department of Justice decides to proceed, Cheney undoubtedly will seek immunity protections in an attempt to keep records away from federal investigators; members of Congress are entitled to immunity under the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution, which shields lawmakers from criminal liability related to their legislative duties. Cheney’s sycophants are already signaling that is the route she will take. During recent interviews, Rep. Jamie Raskin, a close pal of Cheney’s and fellow “NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW” squawker, warned the clause can prevent the FBI from accessing her communications. Pressed by reporter Hugo Lowell during a recent podcast, Raskin pooh-poohed accusations that Cheney potentially broke the law. “That hardly is a crime in the United States,” Raskin said about Cheney’s secret collaboration with Hutchinson.

“In any event, she’s completely protected by the Speech and (sic) Debate Clause, which protects all of us in our legislative capacities both in terms of our direct legislative action and in doing the investigative research that needs to be done in order to legislate and to act as legislators in a comprehensive way.” Raskin said the same during a separate interview with CBS News. “They’ve been talking about going after Liz Cheney simply for doing her legislative work in a way that is completely covered by the Speech and (sic) Debate Clause. It is not a crime for someone to go out and find witnesses to a violent insurrection.” Now, that is really rich coming from Raskin and potentially from Cheney. As members of the J6 committee, both were instrumental in stripping privilege sought by Trump and his inner circle including his attorneys, which resulted in the production of presidential records to the Trump-hating partisans on the committee and testimony by White House officials who are usually protected by executive privilege.

But Cheney also urged the Supreme Court to act quickly in denying Donald Trump’s claims of presidential immunity from prosecution after Special Counsel Jack Smith indicted Trump in August 2023 on four counts for his alleged role in “conspiring” to overturn the results of the 2020 election, representing the first time in history a former president faced a criminal federal indictment. Despite the unprecedented nature of the question and troubling long term consequences for the country, Cheney acted as if the matter was a no brainer and accused anyone opposed as being, of course, a Kremlin stooge. A few days before the court held oral arguments in Trump v US, the landmark immunity case, Cheney published an op-ed in the New York Times urging justices to move with haste. “If delay prevents this Trump case from being tried this year, the public may never hear critical and historic (sic) evidence developed before the grand jury, and our system may never hold the man most responsible for Jan. 6 to account,” Cheney wrote on April 22, 2024.

She further lamented how Trump tried to “delay” proceedings before her House committee by seeking privilege protections in court. “I know how Mr. Trump’s delay tactics work. Our committee had to spend months litigating his privilege claims…before we could gain access to White House records.” (This is untrue since Joe Biden repeatedly and quickly denied Trump’s privilege requests and Judge Tanya Chutkan, who later presided over Smith’s J6 indictment, also expedited the matter ultimately forcing the national archives to turn over presidential material that usually takes years to litigate.) So, according to Cheney’s logic, any assertion of executive privilege—a legitimate legal argument with decades of recent case law behind it—represents a “delay tactic.” Should be fun to watch Cheney explain her hypocrisy once the privilege tables are turned.

“I think Trump will acknowledge that Russia has achieved what it wants to achieve”..

• Trump Beat Harris, Could Bolster Russia-US Ties and May Hasten NATO’s End (Sp.)

With time already ticking for US President-elect entering office, the world is faced with a whole array of developments, such as military conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, the rapid growth of BRICS and deep fissures within the Western bloc. The 2024 US presidential race came to a dramatic conclusion when Donald Trump convincingly upset Kamala Harris, a win that took place not least because Democrats “clearly had no policies that the American people wanted”, Michael Maloof, former senior security policy analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, tells Sputnik. When it comes to Democrats’ pre-election efforts, they “always wanted to make this more of an anti-Trump campaign as opposed to coming up with policies that would remedy the higher inflation, the open borders” as well as “the increase in crime and drugs,” Maloof said.

Harris “just spoke in terms of platitudes” as she “sounded more like a cheerleader rather than someone wanting to be president with definitive policies; […] she had no answers for the increasing difficulties,” according to the pundit. The ex-Pentagon analyst suggested that there will be more opportunity to try to resolve Russia-US problems that were in place under the Biden-Harris administration because Trump is more than willing to meet with Mr. Putin, just as Mr. Putin says he’s willing to meet Trump. Both are “very strong leaders” with “healthy respect” toward each other, and they would manage to reach “some accommodation” on pressing issues, especially on Ukraine. “I think Trump will acknowledge that Russia has achieved what it wants to achieve”, Maloof pointed out.

The pundit claimed that under Trump, “you’re going to see perhaps the demise of NATO altogether”. NATO’s four-year aid to Ukraine “actually crippled them [the alliance’s members] economically, and I think that this is the beginning of the end, not only of NATO as a so-called ‘defense’ alliance, but also the EU itself”, Maloof concluded.

Russia will not budge.

• Lavrov: Russia’s ‘Not Satisfied’ With Trump’s Ukraine Proposals (Antiwar)

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Sunday that Moscow was “not satisfied” with reported proposals being discussed by President-elect Donald Trump and his transition team to end the war in Ukraine. Recent media reports have said Trump’s team proposed the idea of Ukraine pledging not to join NATO for at least 20 years as part of a potential peace deal. Another report said Trump wants European troops to deploy to Ukraine to monitor a future ceasefire. “Judging by numerous leaks and Donald Trump’s own interview with Time magazine on December 12, he is talking about ‘freezing’ hostilities along the line of engagement and transferring further responsibility for confronting Russia to the Europeans,” Lavrov said, according to the Russian news agency TASS.

“We are certainly not satisfied with the proposals made by representatives of the president-elect’s team to postpone Ukraine’s membership in NATO for 20 years and to deploy a peacekeeping contingent of ‘UK and European forces’ in Ukraine,” Lavrov added. Trump campaigned on ending the proxy war in Ukraine, but it’s still unclear how he intends to do that. The Financial Times recently reported that Trump assured NATO countries that US military aid would continue to flow to Ukraine after his inauguration.

“In a boost for allies deeply concerned over their ability to support and protect Ukraine without Washington’s backing, Trump now intends to maintain US military supplies to Kyiv after his inauguration,” FT reported. Lavrov said that Russia has not received any official offers from the US and noted that official US policy is still being steered by the Biden administration. “Until January 20 — the date of inauguration — Donald Trump has the status of ‘president-elect,’ and all policy on all fronts is determined by the incumbent president and his administration,” he said.

Test case.

• Musk To Provide Cellphone Coverage To Ukraine From Space (RT)

Ukraine’s largest mobile operator, Kyivstar, has signed a contract with Elon Musk’s Starlink to introduce satellite-powered cellular service, Kyivstar’s parent company, VEON Group, stated on Monday. The service, set to launch in the fourth quarter of 2025, will initially support SMS and over-the-top (OTT) messaging before expanding to voice and data functionalities in later stages. VEON described the agreement as a “game-changing” development to bolster connectivity in Ukraine amid frequent blackouts caused by Russian airstrikes targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure. The financial details of the agreement have not been made public. Ukraine will be among the first countries to adopt Starlink’s direct-to-cell services, according to Reuters. ”With access to Starlink direct-to-cell technology, Kyivstar customers will benefit from satellite-powered connectivity even when the terrestrial network is unable to service an area,” VEON Group stressed.

Starlink, which is a unit of SpaceX, put its first satellites enabling direct-to-cell service into orbit this January. Last month, the US Federal Communications Commission granted Musk’s firm approval to provide coverage to mobile phones in areas out of reach of land-based networks in partnership with T-Mobile. The government of Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky considered Musk among its backers early in the conflict with Russia, when SpaceX donated $80 million worth of Starlink satellite internet terminals to Ukraine. Kiev’s forces have relied heavily on the system for communications. However, the billionaire was involved in a spat with Ukrainian officials and social media users in October 2022 after he proposed a plan to settle the conflict. Musk suggested that Russia should “redo elections of annexed regions under UN supervision,” while Ukraine would commit to neutrality and drop its claim to Crimea.

Four former Ukrainian regions voted to join Russia in the fall of 2022, while Crimea held a similar referendum in 2014 after a Western-backed coup in Kiev. Zelensky reacted to the idea by launching a social media poll, asking followers “which Elon Musk” they “like more” – the one “who supports Ukraine” or the one “who supports Russia.” Additionally, Andrey Melnik, Ukraine’s former ambassador to Germany, went a step further by telling the billionaire to “f**k off.” A few days later, reports surfaced that the Ukrainian military began experiencing issues with Starlink services. Since then, Musk has repeatedly mocked Zelensky in his posts on X over the Ukrainian leader’s demands for more Western aid and for Kiev to be accepted into NATO. Earlier this year, SpaceX and Tesla CEO insisted that there is “no way in hell” that Russia will suffer defeat in its conflict with Ukraine.

He’s their ideal scapegoat.

• Can Elon Musk Actually ‘Influence’ The German Election? (RMX)

Following Elon Musk’s guest column in Welt am Sontag, there is a huge outpouring of anger from the establishment parties and press over his endorsement of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, including claims that Musk is participating in “election interference” and harming Germany democracy. However, can Musk actually shift the election result, and if the AfD scores a surprisingly good result, how will Germany’s power elite react? Just to get the first point out of the way, it is unlikely that Musk’s endorsement will move the needle all that much. Musk is already demonized across the EU for his takeover of X and shift towards supporting right-leaning candidates. In Germany, there is a constant stream of anti-Musk content produced on a daily basis. Musk writing an op-ed in Welt is hardly going to convince the majority of Germans, who likely already have an unfavorable opinion of Musk.

The AfD is already polling at 19 percent or so, and a poll in November set the party’s voter potential at 25 percent, which means there is a definite ceiling to the party’s support. Could Musk raise that ceiling? As Bild writes, Hermann Binkert from the opinion research institute INSA stated that “Elon Musk’s support for the AfD can help the party with a view to the federal election. Musk enjoys sympathy in Germany… A party that covers a broader spectrum increases its voter potential.” The Bild report also notes that in “In liberal-conservative circles, the successful entrepreneur’s praise could help to normalize the AfD as a party.” There may be some truth to this, but again, Musk’s endorsement can only go so far in Germany,. Musk also supports Donald Trump, but the vast majority of Germans still disapprove of Trump.

The outcome of the election will be made clear on Feb. 23, but if anything, the Christmas market attack in Magdeburg is more likely to shift more people towards the AfD than Musk’s opinion piece. On the high end of the scale, the AfD can expect a result in the range of 23 percent of the vote, but that would be a huge jump from where they currently stand. In all reality, the next upcoming government is likely to be CDU and the Greens or CDU and the SPD ruling once again, but a stronger AfD result could complicate any potential coalition agreement. SPD General Secretary Matthias Miersch told Handelsblatt: “The fact that the Springer publishing house is even offering Elon Musk an official platform to advertise for the AfD is shameful and dangerous.” He said the process shows “how far right-wing networks have now advanced.” Now, the Bavarian SPD parliamentary group has announced it will leave X.

There is plenty of outrage all around, with Teresa Stiens of Handelblatt writing that the Welt am Sonntag allowed itself to be “harnessed to the anti-democratic cart.” Former editor-in-chief of the ARD capital studio Ulrich Deppendorf wrote on X: “Musk’s appeal in the Welt am Sonntag is the low point in the long-standing history of the Springer publishing house.” Konstantin von Notz, the deputy parliamentary group leader of the Greens, wrote on X: “Offering a Western oligarch like Musk a platform to promote these enemies of democracy and those who despise the rule of law is simply an amnesia.” All of this is pretty amazing considering the actual Welt article actively attacks Musk and his AfD support — all in the same piece that Musk wrote! Has there ever been such a ridiculous “guest column” before where the author is attacked in his own piece?

The reality is that foreign billionaires have injected themselves into elections all over the world, and while George Soros remains the classic bogeyman of the right, there are good reasons why he has earned his reputation. Not only has he funded political campaigns, NGOs, and influence operations across the world, but he has also written opinion columns — far more aggressive ones — than Musk’s own guest column. In fact, Soros has even written for Welt, which nobody seemed to have any problem with. Soros has notably waged war against right-wing governments in a variety of op-eds, including this one targeting the Hungarian and Polish governments, and he has been doing all of this for decades. Despite all of his “election interference,” he is hailed as a hero, and more importantly a source of money, for the European establishment.

“The blob transformed the news into an engine for suppressing the facts or spinning them narratively when they could not be suppressed..”

• No, The Truth Is Not Just Another Story (Kunstler)

It must be obvious that the incoming government under Mr. Trump has one primary duty overall: sorting out truth from lies so the nation can reestablish a baseline reality to function upon. America is so punch-drunk from official lying that many intelligent people who ought to know better now proclaim that reality is unknowable, which is just a surrender to nihilism — the rejection of moral principle, a belief that the human project is meaningless. This awful condition has led to the point where you know for sure that “Joe Biden” cannot possibly discharge his duties as chief executive, and yet nobody cares enough to investigate who is running things behind the front he puts up. That would generally be the job of the news media, which is supposed to function as the public’s auditor. Now, of course, you are persuaded that this was never really their job, that it was a sham, but that is just another lie.

The news was not flawless, but neither was it presented as nothing more than opinion. The news existed to register what happened day-to-day. It was not so much concerned with why things happened, which was much more difficult to establish, and usually reserved for the pages labeled “opinion,” so that you knew it was somebody’s conjecture. I know this because I worked as a newspaper reporter in the 1970s. I actually found out what was going on about this-and-that, wrote it up, and saw it in print hours later. The facts. Journalism had some simple rules for reporting the facts about anything — and it’s hilarious that anyone thought it required a graduate degree from some credentialing mill like the Columbia U. School of Journalism.

The news was often meddled-with by interested parties, government and business, but they did not completely overwhelm the ant-like labors of x-thousands of reporters in the field, and the stream of fact they circulated. Not all of it was subject to dispute, meddling, or opinion because it was self-evident: Joe Blow got shot. . . a helicopter crashed in Ohio. . . a volcano erupted in Peru. . . . Only over time, the past thirty years especially, our government grew and grew and one of the things that grew out of it was the nefarious “blob” dedicated to protecting the self-enlarging perquisites and interests of that government. Blobs will absorb things they encounter, and in a predatory way, the US government blob absorbed the US news media. The blob transformed the news into an engine for suppressing the facts or spinning them narratively when they could not be suppressed, in order to maximize the advantage of the government and to protect the operations of the blob itself.

It is also a fact that this blob is aligned mostly with Democratic Party, because that party is most avid for the continuing growth of government, and its members overwhelmingly dominate in the officialdom that dwells inside the DC Beltway. The numbers speak for themselves on the DC voter rolls. So, a new government under Mr. Trump is feared cringingly by the news media. For one thing, the incoming government has tasked itself with reducing government substantially, eliminating many of its perquisites, and surgically excising the nefarious blob that is draining the purpose, meaning, and vitality out of our national life. The news media is terrified of being found-out for having acted as the blob’s chamberlain. We may find out exactly how that worked — how, for example, professional liars such as Joy Reid and Rachel Maddow of MSNBC were paid. What accounted for the amazing coordination of talking-points from day-to-day across all networks and newspapers?

We are about to find out how a whole lot of mystifying things have happened in recent years. For instance, those fantastic vote switcheroos in “Joe Biden’s” favor that occurred visibly right on TV in the wee hours of November 4, 2020? How did William Barr conceal the existence of Hunter Biden’s laptop from Mr. Trump’s defense attorneys in the 2019 impeachment over a phone call to Ukraine? Who really has been making “presidential” decisions behind the false front of “Joe Biden?” Who in White House news reporters’ pool among the Cable News networks, The New York Times, and The Washington Post happened to know which officials were running the White House operation (did they not have sources)?

How did the FBI engineer the Jan. 6, 2021, riot and with how many agents and operatives on-site? Who was in charge of the DNC pipe bomb caper? How has George and Alex Soros’s network of money-dispensing NGOs been allowed to buy law enforcement offices all over country? How did Merrick Garland’s errand boys get to New York Attorney General Letitia James and Fulton County DA Fani Willis? What has been done with the billions of dollars sent to Ukraine? Why is the CDC still advertising and promoting mRNA Covid vaccines that they must know have killed and disabled millions of people? Who thought it was a good idea to fill the ranks of the US military with transexuals? How did the order to throw the US-Mexican border wide open move through the chain-of-command, exactly? Things like that.

“..the Ukrainian leader “has genuinely pulled off one of the greatest money heists of all time.”

• Zelensky Is ‘All-time Champion’ of US-Aid Heist – Musk (RT)

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has referred to Vladimir Zelensky as an “all-time champ” in a post on social platform X following US President Joe Biden’s announcement on Monday of a $2.5 billion US arms package for Kiev. Musk’s remark came in response to another X user’s comment saying that the Ukrainian leader “has genuinely pulled off one of the greatest money heists of all time.” President Biden’s latest military aid package for Ukraine includes advanced weaponry, ammunition, and armored vehicles, with a total value of $2.5 billion. Biden emphasized the need to support Ukraine in his final weeks in office, specifying that $1.25 billion of the package would be drawn from US stockpiles under the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA).

Utah Senator Mike Lee referred to the package as “money laundering,” in another X post on Sunday. There have been bipartisan calls for audits that have questioned the transparency and accountability of the $175 billion in US assistance since the Ukraine conflict began. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has repeatedly questioned the allocation and oversight of Western resources sent to Kiev. In March, Musk stated that Kiev should give Washington “proper accounting of how it is used and a plan to resolve the conflict.” He has also accused top US officials – most notably former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland, known for her leading role in the 2014 Maidan coup in Kiev – of “pushing this war.” While SpaceX has provided the Ukrainian military with Starlink internet terminals, Musk has long argued that Kiev cannot hope to defeat Russian forces on the battlefield and that the conflict must end in a negotiated settlement.

During the summer, Musk endorsed White House aspirant Donald Trump, who has vowed to bring a swift end to the fighting. After winning the presidential election Trump pitched Musk and fellow billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy to co-head the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a body that will be tasked with reducing government waste and streamlining the federal bureaucracy. The billionaire has also reportedly engaged in direct communications with Zelensky in a phone call between the Ukrainian leader and Trump in November. According to Axios’ sources, Musk promised to continue supporting Ukraine through his Starlink satellites. Last month, Musk mocked Zelensky’s “amazing” sense of humor after the Ukrainian leader claimed in a radio interview that his country is “independent” and cannot be forced to the negotiating table by the US.

Not so massive.

• Russia and Ukraine Conduct Massive POW Swap (RT)

Ukraine has freed 150 Russian soldiers from captivity as part of a major prisoner exchange, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said in a Telegram post on Monday. Kiev received an equal number of its troops as well, it added. The swap deal was mediated by the United Arab Emirates, the ministry stated. All of the freed Russian soldiers were initially transferred to Belarus, where they were provided with the necessary medical and psychological assistance and an opportunity to contact their relatives and loved ones, the statement said. The soldiers are now to be moved to Russia for further treatment and rehabilitation, the ministry added. It is the first such exchange since October, when the two sides exchanged 95 servicemen each. That swap deal was also mediated by the UAE. In November, Moscow and Kiev also exchanged the remains of fallen soldiers, with Ukraine receiving 563 bodies and Russia 37.

Later on Monday, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky confirmed the exchange, but claimed that almost 200 Ukrainians had been returned. “The return of our people from Russian captivity is always very good news for each of us. And today is one of those days: our team managed to return 189 Ukrainians home,” he wrote on Telegram. Moscow had previously accused Kiev of being reluctant to take back its soldiers from custody. In early December, Russian human rights ombudsman Tatyana Moskalkova released a list of servicemen being held, whom she said the Ukrainian officials refused to consider for a prisoner exchange. “Zelensky does not need 630 Ukrainian citizens who were captured. He abandoned them,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova commented on the publication at that time.

In mid-December, the Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban suggested mediating a major prisoner exchange between Moscow and Kiev that could involve some 700 soldiers from each side. He later stated that Ukraine had rejected his proposal. An aide to Vladimir Zelensky then called Orban “a meddlesome messenger” of Russian President Vladimir Putin, adding that “no one” who supposedly works for peace needs such people. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia was willing to accept Orban’s proposal and even contacted the Hungarian embassy with some relevant proposals of its own.

“The IMF has warned that seizing these assets without robust legal frameworks could erode global trust in the Western financial system.”

• Kiev Announces US Gift of $15bn From Seized Russian Funds (RT)

The US will provide Kiev with $15 billion, leveraging future revenues from frozen Russian central bank assets, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmigal announced on Monday. The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has previously said about Washington’s purported illegal transfer of Russian funds to Kiev that Moscow may challenge it in court. The American funding is part of a broader $20 billion contribution under the G7’s $50 billion loan framework to Ukraine. The agreement was signed by Ukraine’s Ministry of Finance and the World Bank under the PEACE in Ukraine initiative, Shmigal claimed, in a post on his Telegram channel. The G7, comprising the US, Canada, Japan, the UK, France, Germany, and Italy, initially pledged the $50 billion loan in June 2022, using profits from frozen Russian assets as collateral. Of the estimated $300 billion immobilized, $213 billion is held in the Brussels-based clearinghouse Euroclear.

Euroclear froze the assets of the Russian central bank in late February 2022, shortly after the EU imposed sanctions on Russia in response to the conflict escalation in Ukraine. The frozen funds have already generated billions in interest, with the clearinghouse transferring €1.55 billion ($1.63 billion) to Ukraine in July. Moscow has vehemently criticized the asset seizures. Last Wednesday Dmitry Peskov condemned the measures as theft and warned of legal retaliation. He was reacting to Shmigal’s announcement that the US had already transferred to Ukraine the first installment of the $1 billion from the frozen Moscow central bank funds. Last month, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said there are plans to mirror the West’s actions, using income from frozen Western assets in Russia.

“We have also frozen the resources of Western investors, Western financial market participants and companies. The income from these assets will also be used,” the official said. The decision to use frozen Russian assets has previously stirred debate among G7 nations. European members of the club such as Germany, France and Italy have raised concerns over financial market stability and about the legal implications of such actions. The IMF has warned that seizing these assets without robust legal frameworks could erode global trust in the Western financial system.

“Our Ukrainian partners should not overlook the fact that Russian gas distributed through their territory brings high and significant revenues to Ukraine, which it greatly needs..”

• Fico Dismisses ‘Nonsense’ Accusations From Zelensky (RT)

Bratislava has strongly dismissed accusations from Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, who claimed that Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has opened a “second energy front” against Kiev and colluded with Moscow. The Slovak Foreign Ministry described the remarks as exaggerated and baseless. “We reject any nonsense about opening a second energy front, as baselessly fabricated” by Zelensky, as well as statements about “some invented alliance with [Russian President] Vladimir Putin,” the ministry stated on Sunday. The accusations were initially made by Zelensky in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday. He claimed Fico’s government was working to undermine Ukraine’s energy security “at the expense of the Slovak people’s interests.”

Fico had earlier warned that his country could cut electricity supplies to Ukraine if Kiev stops facilitating the transit of Russian gas across its territory to EU nations. Slovakia, whose economy heavily relies on Russian gas, receives its supplies through Ukraine via Soviet-era pipelines. Earlier this month, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmigal declared that from January 1, Kiev will cease transporting Russian gas and will exclusively utilize its pipeline system for delivering the fossil fuel from alternative suppliers. The existing contract with Moscow is set to expire on Tuesday and Ukraine has made it clear that it will not extend the agreement.

The Slovak Foreign Ministry emphasized on Sunday that Bratislava has prioritized energy cooperation with Kiev. “It was this current Slovak government that included the project to strengthen the connection of the energy transmission network as one of the priorities of the roadmap for Slovak-Ukrainian cooperation,” it stressed. The ministry noted that Slovak companies supply electricity to Ukraine on a commercial basis since they cannot be expected to finance the Ukrainian state. Additionally, it highlighted the humanitarian aid provided to Kiev since the escalation of its conflict with Moscow.

The Slovak ministry also pointed out Ukraine’s reliance on Russian gas transiting through its territory, which provides “significant income” for the government in Kiev. “Our Ukrainian partners should not overlook the fact that Russian gas distributed through their territory brings high and significant revenues to Ukraine, which it greatly needs,” the ministry stated. The ministry also criticized Zelensky’s alleged proposal during a European Council meeting to use Russian assets to “buy Slovakia’s consent” for Ukraine’s NATO membership, calling it “absurd” and warning against creating new conflicts. “We fully understand that Ukraine is exposed to a long-term war conflict but, precisely for this reason, they should not create new enemies and fabricate the emergence of some second front,” the statement added.

“The country is reliant on Russia for around 85% of its gas demand, primarily through pipelines transiting Ukraine..”

• Slovak PM Fico Slams ‘Irrational’ EU (RT)

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has sent an open letter to European Council President Antonio Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urging immediate action to address Ukraine’s imminent halt of natural gas transit through its territory to the EU. A transit agreement between Russia and Ukraine is set to expire on December 31. Kiev has refused to extend it, citing the conflict with Moscow. In a letter posted on Facebook on Sunday, Fico accused Kiev of failing to consider the potential impact its decision will have on the EU economy. Brussels’ acceptance of the situation is “absolutely irrational and wrong,” he stressed. Gas transit through Ukraine accounts for only 3.5% of EU consumption, the letter states, citing an analysis carried out by Slovakia’s main gas supplier and trader, SPP. Despite the modest share, any halt would disrupt the market, raising gas prices by roughly 30%, the document claims.

Such a price spike would translate to an additional annual cost of € 40-50 billion for European households and infrastructure, Fico argued. “It is in the interest of all EU citizens that European efforts to support Ukraine should be carried out rationally, and not in the form of self-destructive and extremely damaging gestures,” the Slovak prime minister noted. Kiev’s decision will lead to “reciprocal measures,” he warned. Fico also said Russia “will easily place such a small volume of gas in other markets,” thus mitigating its losses. The situation requires urgent attention from EU institutions and member states to mitigate risks of supply shortages, he added.

Landlocked Slovakia’s position within Europe’s energy network makes it highly susceptible to disruptions in natural gas supply. The country is reliant on Russia for around 85% of its gas demand, primarily through pipelines transiting Ukraine. Fico has repeatedly voiced concerns regarding EU energy policy. He has consistently advocated for pragmatic approaches to energy security, often clashing with Brussels on its approach to the Ukraine conflict, namely the issue of military support to Kiev and the issue of economic sanctions against Russia. European Union leaders have repeatedly expressed confidence in the bloc’s ability to manage without Russian gas, accusing Moscow of using energy as a geopolitical weapon. The European Commission and Council have yet to issue formal responses to the Slovak leader’s letter.

Incidents in South Korea with planes the whole world uses, lead to inspections only in South Korea? Explain please.

• South Korea To Inspect Boeing Fleet After Plane Crash Disaster (RT)

South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport is set to conduct a special inspection of all Boeing 737-800 jets operated by the country’s air carriers, Yonhap news agency reported on Monday. Yesterday, a Jeju Air Boeing 737-800, which was carrying 181 people from Bangkok, belly-landed, skidded off the end of the runway, and exploded after slamming into a wall at Muan International Airport, some 290km southwest of Seoul. The cause of the tragedy that claimed the lives of 179 people is currently under investigation, with preliminary findings pointing to a landing gear malfunction. Two crew members survived and are being treated for injuries. Boeing 737-800s are mostly operated by low-cost domestic airlines. Jeju Air currently has 39 of the planes in its fleet, while 62 are operated by T’way Air, Jin Air, Eastar Jet, Air Incheon, and Korean Air.

On Monday, local media reported that another Boeing 737-800 operated by Jeju Air had returned to an airport in South Korea shortly after departure due to the same landing gear issue. Earlier, South Korea’s acting President Choi Sang-mok ordered an emergency safety inspection of the country’s entire airline operation system “to prevent recurrence of aircraft accidents.” “Even before the final results are out, we ask that officials transparently disclose the accident investigation process and promptly inform the bereaved families,” Choi said, explaining that the top priority was to identify the victims, support their families, and treat the two survivors. Local media outlets had previously reported that the authorities believed that the airliner had been hit by a flock of birds, which caused its landing gear to malfunction. However, aviation experts questioned this theory in an interview with Reuters.

“When I was young men were raised to respect women. When a woman entered a room, the men stood. Doors were opened for women and their entrance proceeded the man’s. Car doors were opened for women who were helped in and out. At the dining table men stood until the women were seated.”

• The Disappearance of the Male Role (Paul Craig Roberts)

Over the course of my lifetime I have watched the role of men taken away. The role of the male as provider, defender, and disciplinarian is no more. It was destroyed by feminists. To clarify “feminist”: In the past when I have criticized feminists older women who had careers asked why I thought women shouldn’t have careers. Their idea is that a feminist is a woman who has a career. But women have always had careers as mothers, homemakers, grandmothers, school teachers, nurses, secretaries, writers, artists, musicians, scientists, and even spies such as Eve Gordon who made during World War II 112 parachute jumps into occupied Europe. Even in pre-feminist days, one of my aunts despite being married had a career outside the home. She enjoyed the discipline of getting to work on time, the interaction with other people, and meeting new ones.

By feminist I mean a person with an ideological agenda of obliterating the difference between men and women. When I was young men were raised to respect women. When a woman entered a room, the men stood. Doors were opened for women and their entrance proceeded the man’s. Car doors were opened for women who were helped in and out. At the dining table men stood until the women were seated. In those days men still wore hats. A gentleman passing a lady on the sidewalk was expected to tip his hat in respect. A man who struck a woman or used a four-letter word in a lady’s presence suffered a ruined reputation. Feminists derided the many ways in which respect was shown to women as “placing women on a pedestal.” Showing respect for women was somehow undervaluing them and treating them unequally. Feminists insisted on women being pulled down into the gutter with men.

Big brothers were taught to protect little sisters. It was little brother’s job to learn to protect himself, and fights on the school playground was part of the learning process. Today men are no longer taught to protect women. But it is a natural inclination in men. Studies have concluded that the introduction of women soldiers into conflict causes a loss of cohesion and focus, because men become distracted by concern for the women. Feminists were not happy until they destroyed men’s colleges, male leadership in politics, military, and business, men’s clubs and male organizations such as the Boy Scouts which was forced to take in girls. Even the military has been taken from men. How is there a band of brothers when the commander is female? Men have lost their role. They are no longer the provider. The wife might have, thanks to gender preferences in university admissions, employment, and promotion, the better job bringing in more income.

Studies conclude that boys suffer depression from loss of a role. Reportedly, the suicide rate of boys and young men has been rising. What the feminists have established is a new form of male deference to women. Males must stand aside and give up their role to women. Feminist were not content to only destroy men. They destroyed women also. The idea of a chaste woman was objectionable because it held women to a higher standard than men. Helen Gurley Brown, editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine, used the magazine to encourage women to be harlots. In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s Cosmopolitan was a fixture in the waiting rooms of doctors and dentists. I often wondered what my mother and grandmothers would have thought of a woman’s magazine, the cover of which heralded articles titled “How to be unfaithful to your husband without being caught,” “how to find a sex partner when on vacation without your boy friend,” “how to manage multiple sex partners.”

Today young women support themselves with their porn sites. Women brag on social media about having had 150 sexual partners, sparking rivals to vow attaining higher levels of wantonness. Female school teachers get themselves pregnant by their under age students. Mothers have 12-year old daughters on birth control pills. School children are sexualized at an early age to get them ready for the legalization of pedophiles, now euphemized as “minor attracted persons.” I often refer to the United States as a Sodom and Gomorrah Tower of Babel, which is what we have become. It will be a big chore for Trump to rescue us from this predicament.

Shell

Box turtles are so-called because they can completely close up their shell, much like a box.

There is a 'hinge' located on the plastron, or the lower part of the shell, that allows for total closure

pic.twitter.com/Itt6KThiIN

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) December 30, 2024

2025

2025 is a mathematical wonder.!! pic.twitter.com/WsUfhKF4C9

— 𝗟 𝗼 𝗹 𝗹 𝘂 𝗯 𝗲 𝗲 (@Lollubee) December 30, 2024

Rabbit
https://twitter.com/i/status/1873750783319285941

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Debt Rattle May 15 2024

May 152024

May 15, 2024 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:18 am Finance Tagged with: Erdogan, Michael Cohen, Mike Johnson, Putin, RFK jr, Supreme Court Justices, The Fixer 35 Responses »

Vittorio Matteo Corcos Conversation in the Jardin du Luxembourg 1892

• A Reckoning of Biblical Proportions (Turley)

• “Trump Is Innocent”: Mike Johnson Speech Outside Trump Trial In Manhattan (ZH)

• Putin Needs to Shake-Up Himself (Paul Craig Roberts)

• Supreme Court Justices Thomas and Alito Warn About State of America (ET)

• US Lags Behind Russia In Electronic Warfare – Ex-Pentagon Official (RT)

• Western Elites Want To Prosper At The Expense Of Others – Putin (RT)

• Russia-China Relations At Highest Level Ever, Still Strengthen – Putin (Sp.)

• Just How Confused Is US Foreign Policy Right Now? (Jay)

• RFK Jr. and AV24 Super PAC Sue Meta, Alleging Election Interference (ET)

• West Considering Large-Scale Conflict – Russian Spy Chief (RT)

• Erdogan Holds Emergency Meeting Following Coup Warning (Sp.)

Vivek
https://twitter.com/i/status/1790429079113543913

Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1790271559329788372

Bow
https://twitter.com/i/status/1790304550630339056

Bimbo

Absolute SAVAGE Mike Davis (@mrddmia) totally destroys Stormy Daniel’s pornstar friend after reacting to BBC interview:

“The BBC reporter didn’t like that I called her a ‘bimbo pornstar’ so I called her a bimbo pornstar about four or five more times, and then at the end of my… pic.twitter.com/30lSXRL3Ga

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) May 13, 2024

Rogan

"Where the ph*ck did we come up with 100 and whatever BILLION dollars to send to Ukraine?"

"And we don't have any money to try to do something about these insanely impoverished, crime-ridden, gang-ridden communities?"

"We don't do anything?"

"You want to make America great… pic.twitter.com/RoQ09TvzAA

— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) May 13, 2024

Bug wiping device

Bug wiping device to improve aerodynamic ability of flight craft such as gliders
pic.twitter.com/t1uJWqgosN

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) May 14, 2024

“..the New York Post revealed that Cohen has been peddling a reality show called “The Fixer..”

• A Reckoning of Biblical Proportions (Turley)

[..] my column in the New York Post on the first day of the examination of Michael Cohen. He is expected to start his cross examination today. How bad will it be? After lying to Congress, courts, banks, and most everyone else, it will be bad. Years ago, Cohen threatened a journalist and told him “what I’m going to do to you is going to be f—ing disgusting.” Well, that bad. On cross examination, Cohen faces a reckoning of biblical proportions.

Michael Cohen apparently wants a reality show but, if his testimony Monday is any indication, reality is about to sink in for not just Cohen but the prosecutors and the court. In stoking interest in his own appearance, the former Trump counsel promised the public that they should be “prepared to be surprised.” Thus far, however, Cohen has offered nothing new and, more importantly, nothing to make the case for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Just before he took the stand, the New York Post revealed that Cohen has been peddling a reality show called “The Fixer,” including working with Colin Whelan, who helped create “Joe Exotic: Tigers, Lies and Cover-Up.” Whelan appears interested to stay within that genre. The Cohen pitch came with a cheesy promo video where he promised viewers, “I am your fixer.” His first post-Trump client, Bragg, may have to disagree. Cohen had only one advantage for Bragg: His notoriously flexible morals and ethics, which allows him to say most anything to support his sponsors.

With the prosecution’s case almost over, Bragg needed Cohen to clearly state that Trump intentionally committed fraud to conceal some still poorly defined crime. The problem is that Cohen only confirmed that Trump knew he was going to pay for the nondisclosure agreement and that it would be buried before the election. None of that is unlawful. On his reality show promo, Cohen tells viewers that he is now there to fix their problems because “the little guy doesn’t usually have access to people with my particular set of skills.” Those skills seem to have escaped all of the witnesses who were compelled to work with him. Witnesses detailed how Cohen was ridiculed as someone “prone to exaggeration” and unprofessional. Former Trump associate Hope Hicks said that Cohen was constantly trying to insinuate himself into the campaign and that he “used to like to call himself Mister Fix It, but it was only because he first broke it.” Cohen only succeeded in confirming that he put together this payment and advised Trump to go forward with it. He assured him that it would effectively kill the story before the election.

None of that is illegal. The “Fix it man” assured Trump that he fixed it and now wants Trump to go to jail for following that advice. In the course of that representation, Cohen also admitted to taping his client without his knowledge, a breathtaking breach of trust and confidentiality. This is the man who, according to Stormy Daniels’ attorney, Keith Davidson, expected to be Trump’s Attorney General. Davidson said that Cohen was “depressed and despondent” and “I thought he was going to kill himself” when he realized that he would not be made a cabinet member. Cohen contradicted Davidson and insisted that he only wanted to be Trump’s personal lawyer. He also admitted that he was unaware that the publisher of National Enquirer, David Pecker, had long killed negative stories about Trump and other celebrities for decades. Cohen has yet to fix the problem for Bragg.

More importantly, he has added to the problem for Judge Juan Merchan. Many of us have ridiculed this case as devoid of any criminal act. Indeed, Merchan has allowed the prosecutors to proceed without clearly stating what crime was being concealed. It is not even clear why paying one’s lawyer a lump sum for his services and costs (including the NDA payment) was not a “legal expense” or how it was supposed to be entered on a business ledger. Absent a sudden epiphany in his final testimony on Tuesday, Merchan should rule in favor of a directed verdict — that is, throwing the case out before it goes to a jury. If he instead sends this farcical case to the jury, it is Merchan, not Cohen, who may have a better claim to a reality show as the ultimate “Fixer.”

“..Republicans are coming out of the woodwork to support him now that it’s safe..”

• “Trump Is Innocent”: Mike Johnson Speech Outside Trump Trial In Manhattan (ZH)

Johnson, Ramaswamy, Doug Burgum, Byron Donalds, Cory Mills, and Eric and Lara Trump all joined Trump today. Johnson gave a speech. “This is the fifth week that President Trump has been in court for this sham of a trial. They are doing this intentionally to keep him here and keep him off of the campaign trail,” he said. “And I think everybody in the country can see that for what it is.” “President Trump is innocent of these charges,” he later declared. Johnson told reporters that he went to his “friend” Trump’s trial voluntarily. “I called President Trump and told him I wanted to be here myself to call out what is a travesty of justice. And I think everybody around the country can see that,” said Johnson. “President Trump is a friend and I wanted to be here to support him.” “I came here, again, today on my own to support President Trump because I am one of hundreds of millions of people, and one citizen, who is deeply concerned about this,” he added.

* * *
Now that Donald Trump’s Manhattan ‘hush money’ trial has revealed itself to be yet another Democrat farce, Republicans are coming out of the woodwork to support him now that it’s safe. On Monday, GOP Sens. J.D. Vance of Ohio (a VP hopeful) and Tomy Tuberville of Alabama went to the courthouse. Now, in a display of loyalty to Trump (and of course, optics), House Speaker Mike Johnson is reportedly expected to attend Trump’s trial, according to Axios, Other names expected to attend are North Dakota Gov. Burgum as well as Vivek Ramaswamy, both Trump VP contenders. The flood of support comes after a former attorney for Stormy Daniels – who claims she had a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump, and was paid $130,000 right before the 2016 election, testified that payments made to her weren’t “hush-money,” and were instead a “consideration.” On Monday, convicted felon and perjurer Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer, testified that Trump was intimately involved in the scheme.

“Everything required Mr. Trump’s sign-off,” Cohen said, adding “What I was doing, I was doing at the direction of and benefit of Mr. Trump.” Johnson’s trip comes less than one week after House Democrats helped block an attempt by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) to oust him from office over his successful ‘America Last’ effort to fund wars in Ukraine and Israel. Trump, meanwhile, has repeatedly voiced support for Johnson – including during a joint appearance at Mar-a-Lago, after which he urged Republicans to table Greene’s motion to vacate.

Includes criticism of central bank head Elvira Nabiullina. Rare. “Stalin would have long ago shot her..”

• Putin Needs to Shake-Up Himself (Paul Craig Roberts)

Putin is conducting a large shake-up in the Russian government. He needs to give himself a good shaking as well. Ramzan Kadyrov, leader of Russia’s Chechen providence said on Russia’s Rossiya TV channel: “I believe that we need to attack more actively, we need to hit hard while there is time. This month we need to take the nearest territory, we definitely need to take Odessa and Kharkiv. Then sit this Zelensky down and force him to sign all the papers that Russia needs for the security of our state, citizens and the Russian-speakers who live on the territory of Ukraine.” This is the second Russian war leader after Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group, to express dissatisfaction with the glacially slow pace at which Putin is conducting the conflict. One wonders if Kadyrov will have a similar fate to Prigozhin.

I am not an expert on the Russian military. My impression is that the Wagner and Chechen soldiers are Russia’s best combat troops. It is a pity to waste such troops in a war conducted at a snail’s pace. The slow pace at which Putin has conducted the war has resulted in the war being greatly widened and thus made much more dangerous and difficult to resolve. Indeed, Putin is now in danger of NATO occupying Odessa before Russian troops can get there. If the West can keep Odessa and Kharkiv out of Russian hands, the war will be a defeat for Putin. It is inexplicable that Putin takes this risk. Putin’s dilemma is that a man who sees himself as an instrument of peace is a poor war leader. Curiously, Foreign Minister Lavrov says that the West has decided to prolong the war. No. The prolonged war was Putin’s decision. A war that should have been over in three weeks has lasted 27 months.

Putin’s neglect of the war’s requirements is the reason that Russians in the Russian city and region of Belgorod are slaughtered by drones and missiles on their way to work and why “Russian apartment buildings in Russian cities struck by high intensity weapons supplied to Ukraine by the West collapse on the inhabitants. The snail-paced conflict was supposed to save lives. Instead, casualties have multiplied many fold and spread to Russian civilians distant from the battlefield. Now there is a shakeup at the top of the Russian military with a civilian without military experience taking over as defense minister. I think Putin would be taken more seriously if he had appointed Ramzan Kadyrov as defense minister. Instead, Putin has stuck in an economist who, like Putin’s central bank director, is more concerned with the expense of the conflict–now one-third of the Russian budget–than they are about winning the war before it spins out of control.

The neo-liberal Putin supports as Russia’s central bank manager is a failure on all fronts. She left Russian assets in the West to be seized by Washington’s sanctions. She was unable to understand that Russia did not need loans from the West to develop economically. And now she imposes 16% interest rates on the Russian economy. Stalin would have long ago shot her. I have often wondered if Russia can survive Putin’s central bank director. Putin has done a good job of Russifying a population that was infatuated with the West. The population again thinks of itself as a distinct and proud national entity, not as a wannabe cog in globalist machinery run by Washington. Putin gets kudos for this, but his conduct of the war maximizes the likelihood of the conflict spinning out of control. Prigozhin understood this, and so does Kadyrov. Will Putin understand before his limited military operation spins into World War 3?

The entire justice system is shaking. Look at the Trump indictments. Thomas and Alito should stand up and be heard.

• Supreme Court Justices Thomas and Alito Warn About State of America (ET)

In separate remarks at two different events on Friday, Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito issued warnings about the state of affairs in America today, including support for freedom of speech “declining dangerously” and the nation’s capital becoming a “hideous” place where cancel culture runs rampant. Justice Thomas spoke at a conference of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Point Clear, Alabama, while Justice Alito delivered a commencement address at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, a Catholic college in Ohio, with both of the conservative-minded judges painting a dark picture—while encouraging action and offering hope. At the Alabama event, Justice Thomas was asked to comment by the moderator—U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle—about what it’s like to work “in a world that seems meanspirited.” “I think there’s challenges to that,” Justice Thomas said. “We’re in a world and we—certainly my wife and I the last two or three years it’s been—just the nastiness and the lies, it’s just incredible.”

Justice Thomas has faced heavy fire from Democrats who accuse him of skirting disclosure rules, of corruption in general, and of being too cozy with wealthy Republicans. They have not been able to point to any specific court cases in which the justice has misbehaved. Some activists have even pushed for Justice Thomas’s impeachment. By contrast, over 100 former Supreme Court clerks signed an open letter last year defending Justice Thomas’s integrity, calling him a man of “unwavering principle” whose independence is “unshakable.” They called various critical stories that have targeted him as “malicious” and “perpetuating the ugly assumption that the Justice cannot think for himself.” “They are part of a larger attack on the Court and its legitimacy as an institution,” the letter also stated. “The picture they paint of the Court and the man for whom we worked bears no resemblance to reality.” Public opinion polls suggest public trust in the Supreme Court recently fell to new lows.

Addressing the criticism, Justice Thomas said at the Alabama conference that Washington had become a “hideous” place where “people pride themselves in being awful,” while characterizing America beyond the Beltway as a place where regular people “don’t pride themselves in doing harmful things.” Justice Thomas also expressed concern that court writings have become inaccessible to the average person, engendering a sense of alienation. “The regular people I think are being disenfranchised sometimes by the way that we talk about cases,” Justice Thomas said, while expressing hope that this could change. Justice Alito warned graduates at the Catholic college in Ohio that freedom of speech and religion were both being assailed in today’s America, while expressing hope that young people would take up the mantle and fight for positive change. In his address, Justice Alito made a reference to pop culture, namely to a graduation speech delivered by the character Thornton Melon (played by Rodney Dangerfield) in the movie “Back to School.”

He jokingly cited Mr. Melon’s advice to graduates, which was not to go out into the world after graduating because “it’s rough out there” and instead move back in with their parents, let them pay all the bills, and “worry about it.” “As Mr. Melon said, it is rough out there,” Justice Alito said. “It’s probably rougher out there now than it has been for quite some time. But that is precisely why your contributions will be so important.” Justice Alito said that, outside the walls of the campus, “troubled waters are slamming against some of our most fundamental principles,” referring to freedom of speech. “Support for freedom of speech is declining dangerously,” he continued, noting that this problem is especially acute on college campuses, which he said are places where the exchange of ideas should be most protected.

“..We will invite failure along the way, but if you’re not willing to fail, you’re not going to succeed.”

• US Lags Behind Russia In Electronic Warfare – Ex-Pentagon Official (RT)

The US military has been surpassed by Russia and other potential adversaries in the field of electronic warfare, including jamming technology used to take down enemy weapons, a retired Pentagon official has reportedly lamented. Speaking at the SOF Week conference in Tampa, Florida, retired US Army Lieutenant General Mike Nagata warned that Washington is “still falling behind” its rivals in electronic combat. “The gap between where the United States should be and where we are, in my judgment, continues to expand not everywhere, but in far too many places,” Defense One quoted Nagata as saying. Jamming technology has become an increasingly important battlefield tool, as evidenced by the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Russian forces have been successful in sending HIMARS rockets and other US-made weaponry off course, using electronic signals to scramble their guidance systems.

In fact, General Valery Zaluzhny, then Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, said in an interview last November that Russia had gained the upper hand. He called electronic warfare “the key to victory.” The Pentagon will need to be more creative in its use of radio technologies, especially space-based communications, to close the gap in the electronic warfare domain, said Nagata, who led US Special Operations Command Central (SOCCENT) in the Middle East. Russian jamming has reportedly reduced the accuracy rate of US-made Excalibur artillery shells to 6% from their normal level of 70%. Retired special operations officials told Defense One that Moscow had consistently invested in electromagnetic innovations for decades. While those advances were being made, the outlet said, US electronic-warfare efforts were focused on gathering intelligence in the Middle East.

Nagata said countering Russia’s jamming prowess will require more risk-taking in efforts to advance satellite communications and other technologies. “The US government, particularly its leadership – from senior military officers all the way to civilian policymakers – we have to be willing to take more risk in experimenting with, adopting and employing new technologies. We will invite failure along the way, but if you’re not willing to fail, you’re not going to succeed.” The Pentagon has reportedly been exploring the use of narrower and stronger signal bands to overcome jamming attempts. However, Mark Cancian, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told Business Insider that “game changers” should not be expected. “The other side always develops countermeasures that reduce effectiveness,” he said.

Of course. There’s no other way to be an elite.

• Western Elites Want To Prosper At The Expense Of Others – Putin (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin has set the stage for his state visit to China by praising efforts by Moscow and Beijing to build a “just, multipolar world order” as Western leaders try to retain global dominance by disregarding the sovereign interests of other countries. In an interview with Xinhua News Agency that was published on Tuesday, Putin said he and Chinese President Xi Jinping had achieved the strongest Russia-China relations in history by relying on “the principles of equality and trust,” as well as mutual respect for each sovereign nation’s interests. He contrasted that approach with Western attitudes toward other nations. “Earth is the cradle of humanity, our common home, and we are all equal as its inhabitants,” Putin said. “I am convinced that this view is shared by most people on the planet.”

However, he added, US led Western elites refuse to respect civilizational and cultural diversity and reject centuries-old traditional values, and have usurped the right to tell other nations whom they may or must not make friends and cooperate with. They seek to ensure their well being at the expense of other states, just like in the old days, and resort to neo-colonial methods to that end, Putin said. Putin is scheduled to begin his two-day visit to China on Thursday. Just as Xi chose Russia for his first foreign trip after being reelected last year, the Russian leader is heading to Beijing after winning his fifth term as president. The leaders sat down for more than five hours of face-to-face talks during Xi’s trip to Moscow in March 2023. During the meeting, the Chinese president reiterated his “long-term commitment” to strengthening the ties and practical cooperation between the two states.

The Ukraine conflict is currently among the top issues on that agenda. Putin noted that from the outset of the crisis, China had worked to find a diplomatic solution. Neither Ukraine nor its Western backers were ready for an “an equal, honest and open dialogue based on mutual respect and consideration of each other’s interests,” he told Xinhua. Even as the West tried to wreck the Russian economy with sanctions, trade between Russia and China surged to nearly $228 billion, more than doubling 2019’s volume. “Given global turbulence and economic issues in the West, such results prove yet again the strategic wisdom of our sovereign course and pursuit of national interests,” Putin said. Beijing has consistently refused to blame Russia for the fighting in Ukraine, arguing that the expansion of NATO and Washington’s “Cold-War mentality” are the root causes of the confrontation.

None of it includes the west…

• Russia-China Relations At Highest Level Ever, Still Strengthen – Putin (Sp.)

Relations between China and the Russian Federation are stronger than ever and continuing to strengthen, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday. “Today, Russia-China relations have reached the highest level ever, and despite the difficult global situation continue to get stronger,” Putin said in an interview with Xinhua News Agency, ahead of a state visit to China. Putin said that the unprecedented level of strategic partnership between Russia and China contributed to his decision to choose China for his first state visit after his most recent inauguration as President of the Russian Federation. Russia-China trade and economic relations are developing rapidly and are showing immunity to external challenges, Putin said.

“Trade and economic relations between our countries are developing at a fast pace, showing strong immunity to external challenges and crises. Over the past five years, we have doubled the Russia-China turnover: it reached US$227.8 billion last year, against US$111 billion in 2019,” Putin said in an interview with China’s Xinhua news agency. Putin said more than 90% of settlements between Russian and Chinese companies are made in the countries’ national currencies. “So it would be more accurate to say that bilateral trade currently totals about 20 trillion rubles [about $219 billion], or nearly 1.6 trillion yuan. China has remained our key business partner for 13 years, and in 2023, Russia ranked 4th among the PRC’s major trading partners,” he said.

“..Arafat was right..”

• Just How Confused Is US Foreign Policy Right Now? (Jay)

Arafat was right. He knew at the Camp David Summit of 2000 that if he signed the deal offered to him – 92 percent of Gaza and 100 percent of West Bank – of a new Palestinian state, that in a matter of only hours the Israelis would have cheated him and invaded, given that the most controversial point of the deal was that they would both have to be demilitarized.

Today the case to distrust America and Israel is even stronger. Our parents who witnessed the Camp David Summit and before that the Oslo Accords of 1993 – both Bill Clinton’s failed attempt at creating a two-state solution within Israel for the Palestinians – would not believe what we are witnessing now, since the massacre of October 7th. Israel has been not only allowed but goaded into what is clearly becoming obviously a policy of ethnic cleansing in Gaza and western media are asking us to believe that there is reason to this madness which lets Israel bomb innocent civilians while sending food aid. Israel successfully pulled the wool over the eyes of around half a million Gazans to move to Rafah which was supposed to be a ‘safe zone’ only to take the genocide to the next level and murder them en masse while they are there – all under the eyes of the so-called international community which witnesses the failure of international law which should have prevented the IDF from even making it to the border crossing itself with Egypt, incidentally part of the Camp David agreement in the 70s.

Is Biden really running the U.S.? The only inkling which might indicate that he is, would be the incoherent decisions and actions by him and his administration, not to mention the State Department which concluded in a report recently that probably Israel was breaking international law by almost certainly using U.S. weapons to bomb Gazans in Rafah. But the report seemed to be a self-lancing boil. While it pointed the finger, it also pardoned Israel for its war crimes, thus encouraging the government to continue, led by Netanyahu who, in the late 90s when he became prime minister in Israel delivered an award-winning performance for Clinton whereby he and his government showed it was committed to the ethos of Oslo and Camp David accords. In reality it was a bluff as he cheated even a naïve U.S. president leaving the Palestinians to exercise their only tool they had in the coming years: terrorism.

Biden, when he is lucid, is less naïve about the game of cat and mouse which Netanyahu is playing and winning. The move by him to temporarily block arms deliveries to the IDF is of course a bluff as he knows very well that for at least a couple of months Israel has enough stocks. The truth of the ruse is that the U.S. itself is very low indeed on ammo and that Biden is actually giving the manufacturers some time to replenish their own stocks while he attempts to beguile a gullible U.S. public that he actually cares about Palestinian lives. The reality is that he has no real problem with them being mowed down like rats in a pen. He simply can’t state that though so pretends to be disturbed about the genocide which, according to the Palestinian health authority has reached 37,000 deaths. Nothing compared to the Holocaust of WWII right?

Get out of jail free:

“The link was mistakenly blocked and was quickly restored once the issue was discovered.”

• RFK Jr. and AV24 Super PAC Sue Meta, Alleging Election Interference (ET)

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy and the super PAC backing him have filed a lawsuit against Meta Platforms, Inc., for election interference after it allegedly shadow banned the documentary “Who is Bobby Kennedy?” on Facebook and Instagram. American Values 2024 (AV24) announced in a May 13 press release that they have filed the lawsuit in a California district court for violating the First Amendment and “the American people’s fundamental right to a presidential election decided by voters, not by trillion-dollar corporations.” The complaint alleges that Meta “brazenly” censored speech supportive of Mr. Kennedy, then lied about its actions. According to the complaint, Meta “sent users messages threatening to suspend their accounts or otherwise punish them if they sought to watch, share or even post a link to the film. And they made good on these threats, disabling and suspending users who did so.”

In addition, the complaint says that Meta stated that the film contained improper sexual or violent content. When users attempted to comment, those comments were removed, the complaint alleges. “Under the Support and Advocacy Clause of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, private companies and their officers and employees cannot in concert seek to prevent by force, threat or intimidation any citizen from engaging lawful speech supporting or advocating the election of a presidential candidate,” the complaint says. After AV24 released the documentary, it began trending on X. However, Facebook and Instagram—both Meta-owned—allegedly suppressed “the organic reach of content they don’t want to spread,” the PAC said in a May 6 press release. The film was also labeled with a COVID-19 vaccine disclaimer that referred users to other sources such as the Center for Disease Control’s website, the complaint said.

In response to The Epoch Times’ request for comment on the allegation last week, a spokesperson for Meta stated, “The link was mistakenly blocked and was quickly restored once the issue was discovered.” In response to a request for an updated comment on the allegation of election interference in the lawsuit, a Meta spokesperson repeated the above statement. AV24 said in its lawsuit that Meta’s claim of accidental censorship is “implausible on its face” and contradicts “the numerous messages users received from Meta offering other, equally implausible explanations.” The documentary film, released May 3, is narrated by actor Woody Harrelson. The film is a biography of Mr. Kennedy aimed at providing a look into who he is as opposed to how mainstream media portray him.

It begins with Mr. Kennedy quoting from various media reports that paint him as a “mentally disturbed” conspiracy theorist instead of an environmental attorney who took on corporate malfeasance. It discusses how he went after the pharmaceutical industry after meeting with mothers who believed vaccines injured their children. “Right now big oil funds the Republicans, Big Tech funds the Democrats, Big Pharma and the military contractors make sure to donate to both,” Mr. Kennedy said. “Who is liberal now and who is conservative? Who’s left and who’s right? These labels make less and less sense. I’ve been fighting corporate corruption for 40 years. I know how they work. I know how to clean them up. And that’s why I’m running for president.”

“..such an escalation could actually occur if the West decides that it would be “reasonably safe” and beneficial to its interests..”

• West Considering Large-Scale Conflict – Russian Spy Chief (RT)

A number of Western leaders believe they would be able to maintain their hegemony if they plunge the world deeper into turmoil, information possessed by Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) suggests, according to the agency’s head, Sergey Naryshkin. The SVR chief’s statements come as French President Emmanuel Macron and several officials from the Baltic states have repeatedly hinted in recent months at the possibility of deploying Western troops to Ukraine. Russia has warned that such a move would escalate the conflict. Speaking during a plenary meeting of the Federation Council on Tuesday, Naryshkin stated that his agency had obtained information that “some Euro-Atlantic politicians consider it possible to unleash a large-scale military conflict in order to maintain their hegemony.”

He noted that there are “strong reasons” to believe that such an escalation could actually occur if the West decides that it would be “reasonably safe” and beneficial to its interests. However, the spy chief admitted that there are also “truly responsible” global and regional players in the world who, if united, could have the potential to “ensure the impossibility of unleashing such a conflict, including the use of nuclear weapons.” Russian special services will continue to monitor the development of the situation “very closely,” Naryshkin stated.

Macron has consistently refused to rule out the idea of sending NATO forces into Ukraine, calling such threats “necessary” to maintain the West’s “strategic ambiguity.” While NATO and most of its members, as well as the EU, have vehemently denied the possibility of such a move, Lithuania has backed Macron’s proposal. Meanwhile, Madis Roll, the national security adviser to Estonian President Alar Karis, has also stated that Tallinn was “seriously” considering sending troops to fill “rear” roles in Ukraine.

Moscow has repeatedly warned that any NATO troop deployment to Ukraine would be treated as a major escalation and would almost certainly lead to a direct confrontation between Russia and the US-led bloc. Russia’s Foreign Ministry has also pointed out that any NATO troops that appear in the conflict zone would “inevitably become targets for the Russian military,” as would any foreign-supplied weapons used to strike Russian territory, no matter if they are deployed in Ukraine or elsewhere.

There we go again.

• Erdogan Holds Emergency Meeting Following Coup Warning (Sp.)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has held an emergency meeting with the heads of intelligence and the ministry of justice after his fellow party member, Nationalist Movement Party leader Devlet Bahceli, had warned of a possible coup d’état being prepared by law enforcement agencies, the Turkiye newspaper on Wednesday. The dismissal of several police officers in Ankara’s security directorate accused of links to criminal organization Ayhan Bora Kaplan has caused widespread concern. Their homes had been searched to seize digital materials. Bahceli has said the situation could be a conspiracy against the government, and the suspension of several police officers alone cannot be avoided. The official, while addressing a party meeting in parliament, has warned of a possible repeat of the 2016 coup attempt in Turkey.

Erdogan held the emergency overnight meeting with Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc and National Intelligence Organization Director Ibrahim Kalin at the president’s residence following a warning from Bahceli, the report said. The Turkish president is expected to speak on the topic at an expanded meeting of the ruling party in the parliament on Wednesday. A Sputnik correspondent reported that Turkish citizens have since been actively posting messages in support of Erdogan on social media platform X with the hashtag #DevletimizinYanındayız, which translates as “we stand by our state,” and images of the Turkish president with words of support and quotes.

The Turkish government has accused Members of the organization of US-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen (FETO) of being responsible for a coup attempt in 2016. Over 80,000 people have been arrested in Turkey and some 150,000 civil servants and military personnel have been dismissed or suspended from their jobs over suspected links to FETO. Gulen, who has lived in self-exile in the US since 1999, rejected the accusations and condemned the coup attempt.

Hodkinson

Dr. Hodkinson: "It's Not a Time to Say 'I'm Sorry' – It's a Time to Put These Bastards in Jail"

"Should we forgive and forget?" "Absolutely not!" roared Dr. Roger Hodkinson.

"How can you look into the eyes of a pregnant woman and tell her that this experimental product is safe?… pic.twitter.com/NCPxtxoNKk

— DiedSuddenly (@DiedSuddenly_) May 14, 2024

Jordan Peterson

PETERSON: When people read the history of nazi Germany, they always think they’d be Schindler.

They never think they’d be the perpetrator. They think “I wouldn’t have done that.”

Did you watch people during the pandemic??? ☠️ pic.twitter.com/rSWvg93AhC

— Kat Kanada (@KatKanada_TM) May 14, 2024

My bitches
https://twitter.com/i/status/1790322921216315516

Ali

Man stumbles upon massive Alligator whilst out hiking ‼️

If Dinosaurs were real this is how I imagine they would look like….. pic.twitter.com/A2H2eTiDrx

— Concerned Citizen (@BGatesIsaPyscho) May 14, 2024

Pouch time