Apr 092025
 


Salvador Dali Christ of Saint John of the Cross 1951

 

Trump Assassination ‘Justified’ For Half of Left-Leaning Americans (RT)
Trump Slaps ‘Proud’ China With 104% Tariffs (RT)
White House Lacks Financial Literacy – ‘Tariffs’ Show (MoA)
Don’t Like Trump’s Plan for the Economy? Let’s Hear Yours (Victor Davis Hanson)
US Chamber of Commerce Considers Block on Trump’s New Import Tariffs (Sp.)
EU Commission Eyeing 25% Tariffs on US Goods (Sp.)
Von der Leyen Endorses Meloni As Main Tariff Negotiator (Sp.)
The Tariff Issue (Paul Craig Roberts)
President Trump Bestows Great Honor on Nation of Japan (CTH)
Musk Wants Trump To Cancel Tariffs – WaPo (RT)
Billionaires Slam Trump Tariffs (RT)
Officials Quietly Drafting Plan To Cushion Trump Tariff Fallout – Bloomberg (RT)
Apple Staged Emergency iPhone Airlift From India (RT)
More Than 900k “Biden-App”Migrants Told to ‘Self-Deport’ (NYP)
USAID Operations Rebooted in Several Crisis Zones (Sp.)
Judge Boasberg Scraps Trump Hearing On Deportations After Scotus Ruling (JTN)
Legal Experts Sound Alarm On Judge Blocking Trump’s Deportations (DC)

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/itscarterhughes/status/1909334208536846529

MAGA

Bessent

GOAT
https://twitter.com/iam_smx/status/1909347460960653353

Rubio

Bondi

 

 

 

 

Won’t surprise too many people. And that’s not good at all.

Trump Assassination ‘Justified’ For Half of Left-Leaning Americans (RT)

More than half of all left-leaning Americans believe there would be some justification for the assassination of US President Donald Trump, according to a new survey. The alarming finding was reported on Monday by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI). The organization monitors radical ideologies and examines what it refers to as “assassination culture” in America. The nonprofit conducted an opinion poll to assess whether American citizens would condone lethal attacks on Trump and his government efficiency tsar, Elon Musk. Among the 1,264 individuals surveyed, 31% and 38% expressed at least some justification for murdering Musk and Trump, respectively. The figures increased to 48% and 55% among respondents identifying as center or left-leaning. In the latter group, 9.1% would deem the assassination of Musk to be “completely justified,” while 13.2% said the same about Trump.

A majority of 57.6% indicated that attacking Tesla dealerships to protest Musk’s involvement with the Trump administration was at least somewhat acceptable. Commenting on the poll’s findings and claims that Democratic leaders have “incited” the situation, Musk branded the political organization “the party of violence.” He previously characterized arson attacks on Tesla-affiliated businesses in the US and abroad as “terrorism.” Last weekend, thousands of Americans marched in various cities to protest Trump’s policies and his support for Musk’s approach to reducing government spending. Critics have labeled the activities of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Musk, as an “illegal power grab” orchestrated by the president.

Trump barely escaped death during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania last July, when a shooter opened fire at him, killing and injuring several supporters of the Republican candidate. The NCRI said its survey confirms broader “troubling trends” within US political culture, suggesting that the endorsement of violence is rooted in a particular far-left ideology. The institute also posits that this ideology fuels the online “memeification” of Luigi Mangione, the alleged murderer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Some Americans view Mangione, against whom the Trump administration is seeking the death penalty, as a folk hero, arguing that his actions could be seen as justifiable vigilantism against a predatory corporate healthcare system.

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Went into effect at midnight.

Trump Slaps ‘Proud’ China With 104% Tariffs (RT)

The US has hiked tariffs on all Chinese imports to a staggering 104%, escalating the ongoing trade conflict and wiping out another $1.5 trillion from US stock markets on Tuesday. China was originally set to face a 34% tariff increase on Wednesday, as part of President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” measures targeting virtually all US trade partners. However, after Beijing responded with a proportional 34% duty of its own, the US president raised the blanket tariff to a total of 104%. “After all of the abuses they’ve perpetrated, China is attempting to impose additional unjustified tariffs,” Trump said at a National Republican Congressional Committee dinner in Washington on Tuesday. That’s why additional tariffs on Chinese goods are in place, effective midnight tonight at 104 percent. Until they make a deal with us, that’s what it’s going to be.

The White House published an amendment to the April 2 executive order in which Trump declared a national emergency over the US trade deficit and imposed a baseline tariff on all imports to the US. The administration said that nearly 70 countries had sought negotiations to mitigate the impact of the tariffs, as Trump pursues “tailored deals” with individual nations. The president went on to say that Beijing will have to “make a deal at some point,” claiming that “they just don’t know how to get it sorted because they’re proud people.” Until then, he added, China “will now pay a big number to our Treasury.” “Right now, China is paying a 104 percent tariff, think of it… Now, it sounds ridiculous, but they charged us for many items 100 percent, 125 percent,” Trump said. “They’ve ripped us off left and right. But now it’s our turn to do the ripping.”

Beijing previously condemned the escalating trade war as a form of “blackmail” and “economic bullying.” A spokesperson for the Commerce Ministry said on Tuesday that “China will fight till the end if the US side is bent on going down the wrong path.” The latest escalation has had a significant impact on US and global stock markets. Major indices such as the S&P 500, Dow Jones, and Nasdaq suffered further declines after a brief surge earlier this week, wiping out an estimated $1.5 trillion from US markets on Tuesday. Trump acknowledged that the fallout from his move was “somewhat explosive,” but defended his strategy, claiming that “sometimes you have to mix it up a little bit.” He insisted that the tariffs are necessary to address trade “abuses” and to promote domestic manufacturing, adding that the US is already generating $2 billion a day from the tariffs.


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A good fried pointed to this Moon of Alabama piece from a few days ago. It gives the impression that the Trump team is being sloppy with the tariffs. The only thing is, they say their numbers come “including Currency Manipulation and Trade barriers”. And those are not very clearly defined. But the impression of sloppy is still not a good thing.

White House Lacks Financial Literacy – ‘Tariffs’ Show (MoA)

‘The foundation of American economic prosperity is a society empowered with the knowledge and tools to make informed financial decisions to achieve the American Dream. … ‘ I welcome that message. Teaching financial literacy must start at the top. The members of the Trump administration obviously lack the knowledge and tools to make informed financial decisions. It is the only possible explanation for how they came up with these numbers:

China does not have a 67% tariff on U.S. goods (it’s 7.3%). The EU does not have a 39% tariff on U.S. goods (it’s 5.2%). The numbers are bollocks. So where do they come from? The official explanation from the U.S. Trade Representative is here. Its baloney:

“James Surowiecki @JamesSurowiecki – 0:22 UTC · Apr 3, 2025 “Just figured out where these fake tariff rates come from. They didn’t actually calculate tariff rates + non-tariff barriers, as they say they did. Instead, for every country, they just took our trade deficit with that country and divided it by the country’s exports to us. So we have a $17.9 billion trade deficit with Indonesia. Its exports to us are $28 billion. $17.9/$28 = 64%, which Trump claims is the tariff rate Indonesia charges us. What extraordinary nonsense this is.

Even given that it’s Trump, I cannot believe they said “We’ll just divide the trade deficit by imports and tell people that’s the tariff rate.” And then they decided to set our tariffs by just cutting that totally made-up rate in half! This is so dumb and deceptive. .. it’s actually worse than I thought: in calculating the tariff rate, Trump’s people only used the trade deficit in goods. So even though we run a trade surplus in services with the world, those exports don’t count as far as Trump is concerned.”

The last point is a major one, for China, but especially for the EU :

“EU-US trade in goods and services reached an impressive €1.6 trillion in 2023. This means that every day, €4.4 billion worth of goods and services cross the Atlantic between the EU and the US. … The total bilateral trade in goods reached €851 billion in 2023. The EU exported €503 billion of goods to the US market, while importing €347 billion; this resulted in a goods trade surplus of €157 billion for the EU. Total bilateral trade in services between the EU and the US was worth €746 billion in 2023. The EU exported €319 billion of services to the US, while importing €427 billion from the US; this resulted in a services trade deficit of €109 billion for the EU. …EU-US goods and services trade is balanced: the difference between EU exports to the US and US exports to the EU stood at €48 billion in 2023; the equivalent of just 3% of the total trade between the EU and the US.”

Despite that Trump has decreed a 20% on all goods from the EU. The natural countermeasure from the EU will be to put a 20+% tariff on all import of U.S. services. Trump also decreed a minimum 10% tariff on imports from every country. Products made by the penguins of the uninhabited Heard and McDonald Islands in the Antarctic will now come with a 10% surcharge.”

There is really no economic reasoning behind these numbers. “Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand – 4:16 AM · Apr 3, 2025 “To illustrate just how nonsensically these tariffs were calculated, take the example of Lesotho, one of the poorest countries in Africa with just $2.4 billion in annual GDP, which is being struck with a 50% tariff rate under the Trump plan, the highest rate among all countries on the list…. As a matter of fact Lesotho, as a member of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), applies the common external tariff structure established by this regional trade bloc. … So since the tariffs charged by these 5 countries on U.S. products are exactly the same, they must all be struck with a 50% tariff rate by the U.S., right? Not at all: South Africa is getting 30%, Namibia 21%, Botswana 37% and Eswatini just 10%, the lowest rate possible among all countries.

Looking at Lesotho specifically, every year the U.S. imports approximately $236 million in goods from Lesotho (primarily diamonds, textiles and apparel) while exporting only about $7 million worth of goods to Lesotho (https://wits.worldbank.org/CountryProfile/en/Country/LSO/Year/2022/TradeFlow/EXPIMP/Partner/by-country). Why do they export so little? Again this is an extremely poor country where 56.2% of the population lives with less than $3.65 a day (https://databankfiles.worldbank.org/public/…), i.e. $1,300 a year. They simply can’t afford U.S. products, no-one is going to buy an iPhone or a Tesla on that sort of income… The way the tariffs are ACTUALLY calculated appears to be based on a simplistic and economically senseless formula: you take the trade deficit the U.S. has with a country, divide it by that country’s exports to the U.S and declare this – falsely – “the tariff they charge on the U.S.”

And then as Trump did in his speech last night, you magnanimously declare that you’ll only “reciprocate” by charging half that “tariff” on them. As such, for Lesotho, the calculation goes like this: ($236M – $7M)/$235M = 97%. That’s the “tariff” Lesotho is deemed to charge this U.S. and half of that, i.e. roughly 50% is what the U.S. “reciprocates” with. It’s extremely easy to see why this makes no sense at all. ”

Lesotho has a comparative advantage over the U.S. as it can dig up and sell diamonds. But it lacks the purchasing power to buy U.S. goods and services. The calculations by the Trump administration ignore those basic facts. No tariffs were by the way introduced against Belarus, Russia and North Korea. This because of sanction, the U.S. has allegedly no trade relation with them. (Other than buying enriched Uranium for its nuclear power stations?) Did the Trump administration anticipate how this nonsense will explode in its face? It is Smoot-Hawley writ large.

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“If you don’t believe that what Donald Trump is trying to do on debt, budget, workforce, trade, then come up with a better agenda. And show why it will work and why his will fail..”

Don’t Like Trump’s Plan for the Economy? Let’s Hear Yours (Victor Davis Hanson)

Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. I’d like to talk about the economy and politics very quickly. Whether you like it or I like it or whether the administration likes it or whether the Congress or the American people like it, the success or failure of President Donald Trump will hinge on the status of the economy. It will overshadow the miraculous achievement on the border, where he went from a rate of about 2 million people a year to almost zero illegal immigration. It will even outrank the question of peace and stability in Ukraine or the Middle East. It’ll outrank everything. So, here’s my question. There is now outrage, hysteria over the last 24 hours to 48 hours that Donald Trump has outlined his tariff program to bring down the nearly $1 trillion trade deficit, and the stock market has taken hits.

So, here’s my question, though, when Sen. Cory Booker stands up for 25 hours, does he give an alternate agenda on the economy? Does Rep. Nancy Pelosi talk about the economy? She used to. Does The Wall Street Journal, when they criticize Donald Trump, why don’t they get a columnist and say, “These are the 10 points that are preferable in addressing our economic challenges”? Now, what are our economic challenges? Well, the first is debt. We owe $37 trillion. We’re paying $3 billion a day in interest. We’re running a $1.7 trillion deficit. So, if you were on the left and you were part of the machine that borrowed $7 trillion under President Joe Biden, created these huge new programs, why don’t you make an argument? Just say, “I believe in modern monetary theory. I believe, if we can just get down to 1% or 2% interest, you can service any debt because the bondholders, they’re wealthy anyway. So, that’s what we’ve been doing. And I don’t—I believe money’s a construct. It’s just an idea. So, there is no such thing as, you know, red or blue ink—any of that. So, just keep spending. There’s no problem—$37, $40 trillion.” Say that.

Or, if you’re on the right, say, “I prefer to look at the debt in a different way. If you’re going to cut, why select particular fraud, waste, and abuse areas? Why not just go across the board and treat everybody the same with a 4% or 5% or 10% cut?” Or, if you don’t believe in cutting government to reduce the debt, then say, “Let’s just go completely laissez-faire and let’s grow the economy so it’s growing at 4% or 5% gross domestic product. And it will solve the problem.” Or, if you’re in the middle and you’re an independent, why don’t you just say, “We had three balanced budgets. We were reducing the debt because former House Speaker Newt Gingrich controlled taxes and former President Bill Clinton controlled spending. And he was able to find an incentive plan to increase revenue and Bill Clinton decreased spending. OK? Why not we go back and follow their model?”

But the problem is none of these areas—right, center, and left—nobody in these disciplines is offering any alternative agenda. It’s just attack Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. Let’s go to trades. So, we have, again, about a trillion-dollar trade deficit. We haven’t had balanced trade for 50 years. Our opponents, challengers, allies, whatever you want to call them, feel that protected tariffs in China, in India, in Europe, in South Korea, in Japan have been very conducive to their economic miracle—postwar miracles. And they feel that there must be some wisdom in them because they continue to perpetuate them. They have not run deficits for a half-century. They’re not, in terms of GDP, debt, quite like we are. So, maybe you can argue that tariffs are just an American problem. An obsession. And they don’t really matter. Or you can say that we should have reciprocal tariffs based on each one. But tell us what you want to do.

Why don’t you just say that if you—and I have read this from scholars as diverse as the American Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute. This is just a construct, trade deficits, they don’t matter. Because the people, if they run up a surplus, they buy our bonds or they invest, and it’s a circular process—just say that. Or, if you believe that trade deficits matter, then you say, “Well, the answer is not through tariffs. It’s through greater productivity. And here’s how I want to do it.” But again, there’s nothing. And then we get, finally, into foreign investment. Donald Trump is bragging, I think justifiably so, that he may have $3 to $5 trillion in foreign investment. Nobody says a word about it. Nobody says this many trillion dollars will result in this many new jobs created. No, they just kind of ignore it. So, give us a reason why. Just say, “You know, the new massive amounts of foreign aid will have no effect on either our trade deficit or our budget deficit. It’s just a construct that Trump says.”

Or say that it will but it won’t nullify the pernicious effects of tariffs. But what I’m getting at, in conclusion, is what if Cory Booker had said, “I’m going to speak for 25 hours on why Donald Trump’s trade, debt, and federal workforce investment are all wrong. And here’s da, da, da, da”? Or what if House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said, “Here is our contract for America on the economy. The economy”? No one is giving any alternatives. No one is talking in any way that they have an antithetical and a better plan than Donald Trump. So, what we’re left with is just naysaying, nihilism, criticism. And the American people are confused. If you don’t believe that what Donald Trump is trying to do on debt, budget, workforce, trade, then come up with a better agenda. And show why it will work and why his will fail. But don’t just scream and yell and cause all hysteria and go to street theater because that’s no answer. It only amplifies the problem.

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Guess they can try.. But so could anyone.

US Chamber of Commerce Considers Block on Trump’s New Import Tariffs (Sp.)

The US Chamber of Commerce, the country’s most powerful corporate lobby, is considering filing a lawsuit against the administration of US President Donald Trump to block the entry of new import tariffs into force, the Fortune magazine reported, citing sources familiar with the discussions of the lawsuit. The Chamber of Commerce may claim that Trump’s use of emergency powers to impose tariffs was illegal. According to the publication, some of the organization’s largest members are calling for the lawsuit. Sources also say that other organizations might join the lawsuit. The head of the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Elon Musk personally asked US President Donald Trump to reconsider new US tariffs on imports from a number of countries, the Washington Post reported, citing two sources.

According to the publication, over the weekend, when Elon Musk unleashed a stream of messages on social media criticizing one of the White House’s top advisers, trade aide Peter Navarro, for Trump’s aggressive tariff plan, he personally approached the president. The attempt, however, has not yet been successful: Trump on Monday threatened to add new 50% tariffs on imports from China on top of those already announced if Beijing did not abandon its retaliatory measures, the newspaper said. On Sunday, Musk announced his support for the creation of a free trade area with the EU, despite President Trump’s previously imposed trade tariffs against the union. The US President signed an executive order on April 2 introducing “reciprocal” tariffs on imports from other countries, calling it a “liberation.” The basic minimum rate will be 10%, and 20% for goods from the European Union. The US President promised budget revenue from tariffs of $6-$7 trillion.

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They have no idea what to do, zero consensus.. And all 27 of them will have to agree.

EU Commission Eyeing 25% Tariffs on US Goods (Sp.)

The European Commission is proposing to impose reciprocal tariffs of up to 25% on a number of goods from the United States, in particular on clothing, yachts, fruit juices, nuts and diamonds, the RMF FM radio reported. Bourbon was excluded from the preliminary list after protests from France and Italy, which feared that the United States would impose 200% duties on wine, prosecco and champagne, the report said on Monday. EU countries are expected to vote on this proposal on Wednesday, the report added. However, the commission is still counting on negotiations with Washington, and it has proposed reciprocal zero tariffs on industrial products, including cars, the report read.

At the same time, French Minister Delegate for Europe Benjamin Haddad said that Paris is in favor of a tough response to the US tariffs and will support the European Commission’s decision to impose 25% tariffs on some US imports. On April 2, US President Donald Trump announced reciprocal tariffs on imports from other countries. For the UK the baseline rate of 10% was set. However for each country the tariff will be calibrated and will be half of what they charge companies importing US goods. Trump said this will be a “declaration of economic independence” for the United States. The EU is subject to 20% tariffs.

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Ursula von der Leyen is afraid of the White House.

Von der Leyen Endorses Meloni As Main Tariff Negotiator (Sp.)

As the White House prepares to receive the Italian PM on April 17, Ursula von der Leyen believes Giorgia Meloni is the only EU leader who can facilitate dialogue with Trump, the WP reports, citing Italian officials. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen supports the upcoming visit of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to Washington and believes that she is the one who is capable of facilitating dialogue between the European Union and US President Donald Trump, The Washington Post newspaper reported, citing an Italian official. On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump would receive Meloni in Washington on April 17.

“Von der Leyen is telling [Meloni] that if there’s one leader more in contact with the US, who’s capable of facilitating the conversation between the EU – not just Italy – and Trump, that’s her,” the official was quoted as saying by the newspaper on Tuesday. Von der Leyen was in favor of Meloni’s trip to Washington, the report added.

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“..returning to tariffs as the source of government revenues and abandoning the income tax. This is consistent with correct economics and with freedom. Such a change would be possibly the most important reform in American history.”

The Tariff Issue (Paul Craig Roberts)

The tariff controversy is being colored in the most scary ways possible, because the Democrats, media, and ruling establishment want rid of Trump. It is also important to understand that tariffs are not the only way to limit imports. There are other means, such as quotas. Quotas on imports into the US of Japanese cars were part of the US auto producers bailout negotiated in the final year of the Carter administration. I will attempt to put the issue in a correct perspective. It is not Trump’s intention, at least at the present time, to institutionalize a tariff regime. Trump is using tariffs as a threat to secure agreements that he thinks are in America’s interests. So far 50 countries have, according to reports, agreed to remove their tariffs on US goods. The countries responding aggressively seem to be China and our European allies.

I explained yesterday how Trump could better have gone about his task. Nevertheless, as the Commerce Secretary said, Trump’s tariffs are not expected to extend beyond a few weeks or a few months of negotiation. During this time there could be supply disruptions. Apparently, Trump is aware and has released an 11-page appendix that exempts all sorts of imported items that US producers require to continue their operations. Whatever disruption does occur, should be small compared to the Covid lockdown supply disruption, the basic cause of the current inflation. The Covid disruption was pointless and counterproductive. The tariff disruption, if there is one, is the cost of establishing a fair and uniform trading system. So, Trump is not being arbitrary or on a rampage to destroy international trade. Tariff negotiations, especially with so many countries and products can go on for years.

Trump might think that he only has two years to get anything done before the Democrats steal the midterm elections and bring his renewal of America to a halt. President Trump has spoken of tariffs in a wider and much more important context. Over most of American history until the First World War, tariff revenues were the source of government revenues. An income tax was unconstitutional and a violation of freedom. The definition of a free person is a person who owns his own labor. A slave does not own his own labor, and a serf only owns part of his labor. A person required to pay an income tax does not own that part of his labor that he must provide to government in order to avoid imprisonment. The difference between a medieval serf and an American taxpayer is the serf paid the tax in kind as hours worked, and the American pays the tax in money as a percentage of his income.

Classical economists, real economists unlike the faux ones of today, understood that factors of production–labor and capital–should not be taxed, because the supply of both to the economy is reduced by taxation. Supply-side economics is based on this principle. Thus, its emphasis on lowering the marginal rates of taxation. Reducing the supply of factors of production, reduces the economic growth rate and the national income. The century that the US economy has labored under income tax has costs us substantially in lost income. The classical economists said that taxation should fall on consumption not on factors of production. Traditionally, imported items are finished goods–German cars, French wines and perfumes. High priced goods are for the wealthy, so tariffs fall on the rich. The working class does not indulge in Porsche cars and Clicquot champagne. However, for about 30 years much of our imports have consisted of the offshored production of US firms.

When Apple, for example, brings its products made in China to the US to be marketed, they come in as imports and worsen the US trade deficit. Instead of beating up on China, Trump should call the US corporations that offshore their production for US markets to a White House conference and point out to them the consequences of their policy: the shrinkage of the American middle class, the loss of tax base, decaying infrastructure, and loss population of America’s former manufacturing cities, the pressure on city and state pension systems, the pressure of lower ratings on municipal bonds. Trump should ask the executives if they went too far in maximizing profits that benefitted a relatively few at the expense of the many, and what they think they should do about it. Capitalism ceases to serve the general interest when it separates Americans from the incomes associated with the production of the goods and services that they consume.

Trump has spoken of returning to tariffs as the source of government revenues and abandoning the income tax. This is consistent with correct economics and with freedom. Such a change would be possibly the most important reform in American history. It would be a difficult reform to achieve, because ideological, not economic, considerations intervene. Taxing the rich became the agenda of mass democracy. Taxing the rich was not seen as punishing a person for being successful. A successful person was portrayed as having become rich by exploiting labor. As fortunes were “stolen” by exploiting labor or resulted from government preference or legal privilege, income taxation was perceived as an instrument of justice. It is certainly perceived that way today by the liberal/left and the Democrat Party.

As an income tax is emotionally satisfying to the liberal/left, we are stuck with slower economic growth and less national income. It is disturbing that the liberal/left agenda has made American politics so highly partisan. What we see today is literal hatred of Trump, Republicans, conservatives, and white heterosexuals by the liberal/left. Hatred makes democracy dysfunctional. Politics cannot function as each side is intent on destroying any achievement by the other side. As democracy ceases to function, dictatorship becomes the means of governance. The liberal/left’s agenda to remake America by destroying its roots and recasting it into a different kind of society means the death of democracy and the rise of dictatorship. This is our real problem.

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“Prime Minister Abe knew what President Trump was trying to achieve. In turn, President Trump knew Abe would remain a fierce Japan-first trade competitor to the America-first program..”

President Trump Bestows Great Honor on Nation of Japan (CTH)

The decades long relationship between former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Donald Trump permeates through a recent announcement that Japan will be the first nation to enter the new era of trade negotiations with the United States. Shinzo Abe was assassinated in July 2022, as he traveled throughout Japan gaining support for increased national military development. As businessmen and later politicians Donald Trump and Shinzo Abe (RIP) had a decades long friendship grounded in mutual respect and competition. To understand the dynamic of President Trump giving the nation of Japan the position as the first nation to enter new trade negotiations, a high honor, is to understand the business relationship between the U.S and Japan in the post-World War II (40 yr) period between 1950 and 1990. The formative years for both Japanese industry and President Trump’s business empire.

For Europe the U.S. gave them money through the Marshall Plan, a process of one-way tariffs which helped them rebuild their nations. For Japan we gave them W Edwards Demming, an industrial engineer and extraordinarily brilliant mind in the processes of efficiency and industrial production. In essence, to generate the reindustrialization of both economies, we gave the EU a fish (money), but we taught Japan how to fish; how to be create and build exceptional industry. In the decades that followed, the EU rebuilt their capitalistic industrial base from the trade and tariff money we permitted them to exploit. The EU rebuilt from their historic systems, upgrading to newer industrial technology. Japan, however, learned deeper more technical skills from the Demming process of industrial capacity building, a critically strong excellence in quality manufacturing and attention to specific details in all processes.

It did not take long before the results of quality in design and Japanese manufacturing surfaced in the sector of automobiles, and later consumer electronics. The U.S. auto industry was slow to adapt to the Japanese quality focus and began losing market share to Toyota, Datsun, Nissan and Honda. Throughout this period, President Trump and Shinzo Abe were on opposite sides of the industrial competition. Trump railing about Japan, and later aggregate Asia exploiting our generosity; Abe smiling and joking with his friend that despite Trump’s grievances, tomorrow Eric will be purchasing 1,500 Sony televisions for his next Hotel. And so it went…. The friendship grew, the competition was intense but incredibly respectful, and both Shinzo Abe and Donald Trump became men of great influence whose partnership in competition was always visible.

Prime Minister Abe knew what President Trump was trying to achieve. In turn, President Trump knew Abe would remain a fierce Japan-first trade competitor to the America-first program. Tremendous respect and mutual admiration underpinned their geopolitical efforts. No single picture better exemplified the nature of Trump and Abe as the G7 summit picture taken in Canada as the ripple effects of Trump’s first-term trade and tariff program against China (mostly) started to hit the global economy. As China started to feel the pressure from President Trump forming new ASEAN partnerships, China started pulling back from ordering heavy industrial goods from Europe. The EU, specifically the German economy, felt the lessening of Chinese manufacturing via diminished orders. However, a respectful Japan positioned their trade agreements for benefit, but also for benefit of American workers.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe knew there was nothing to fear from President Trump’s global trade reset. Unless, that is, you were a nation taking unfair advantage of the generosity provided by America. It makes total sense in the big picture for President Trump to honor the legacy of Shinzo Abe, and the respectful connections to Japan by granting them the first position in the schedule of the global trade reset. Total sense.

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Musk’s private war with Navarro doesn’t define his relationship with Trump.

Musk Wants Trump To Cancel Tariffs – WaPo (RT)

Elon Musk has made direct appeals to US President Donald Trump, urging him to reconsider his decision to impose steep tariffs on American trade partners, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday. According to the outlet, many business and tech leaders who supported Trump’s candidacy have also criticized the move, calling it overly aggressive. Trump unveiled sweeping new tariffs on global imports last week, including a 34% duty on Chinese goods. In response, Beijing pledged to retaliate with a matching 34% tariff on American exports – prompting Trump to threaten an additional new 50% tariff. Over the weekend, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Musk – who serves as Trump’s government efficiency czar – fired off a series of social media posts criticizing White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, a central architect of the president’s aggressive tariff strategy.

“A PhD in Econ from Harvard is a bad thing, not a good thing,” Musk wrote. Musk also reportedly reached out to Trump personally. The attempted intervention has so far failed to yield results, two people familiar with the matter told the Washington Post. As the head of Tesla, Musk has long viewed tariffs as harmful to the company’s goals, given that both the US and China serve as major manufacturing bases and key markets. Many business leaders who supported Trump’s candidacy were also frustrated by their inability to influence the policy and suggested that a basic 10% rate combined with negotiations with other countries would have been sufficient, according to the Post.

People close to Musk reportedly made direct appeals to allies within the Trump administration, including Vice President J.D. Vance and Musk himself, advocating for what they saw as more rational, pro-free-trade policies. One of Musk’s associates, investor Joe Lonsdale, posted on X that he had recently urged “friends in the administration” to reconsider, warning that tariffs would harm American companies more than Chinese ones. Over the weekend, a group of business leaders began organizing an informal coalition to lobby members of the Trump administration for more moderate trade policies, one person familiar with the effort told the Post. Trump has defended his actions, stating that “sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something,” and promised that jobs and investment would return to the United States, making it “wealthy like never before.”

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They’re the big losers.

Billionaires Slam Trump Tariffs (RT)

A host of American financiers and billionaire investors have criticized President Donald Trump over the sweeping tariffs he announced last week, calling the measures “poorly advised” and warning of serious consequences for the US economy. On April 2, Trump imposed a minimum 10% tariff on all imports and introduced “reciprocal” duties ranging from 11% to 50% on dozens of countries he accused of maintaining unfair trade imbalances. China responded with a reciprocal tariff of 34% on US imports, while a number of other nations signaled willingness to negotiate with Washington but threatened countermeasures if talks fail. Global markets have reacted sharply, with major indexes in the US, Europe, and Asia falling for three straight days.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon slammed the tariffs in his annual letter to shareholders, warning they “will probably increase inflation” and the risk of recession, with the negative effects difficult to reverse. Ken Langone, billionaire co-founder of retailer Home Depot, criticized the tariffs as too high and rushed. In an interview with the Financial Times published on Monday, he described the additional 34% tariff on China – on top of the existing 20% – as “too aggressive, too soon,” and called the 46% levy on Vietnam “bullshit.” “I don’t understand the goddamn formula,” Langone said, urging a more measured approach, such as a 10% across-the-board tariff with waivers negotiated on a case-by-case basis. He added that he expects Trump to eventually pursue talks with trade partners because “right now, what everybody’s terrified of is a tariff war.”

Hedge fund investor Stanley Druckenmiller, a close mentor to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, posted a brief statement on X on Sunday: “I do not support tariffs exceeding 10%.” Billionaire investor Bill Ackman called the tariffs an “economic nuclear war” in a post on X. He called for a 10% flat tariff for “the privilege” of access to the US market but suggested pausing the reciprocal duties for 90 days to allow private negotiations. He lambasted Trump for relying on advisers for economic calculations, which he labeled incompetent. “The global economy is being taken down because of bad math,” he wrote.

Even tech mogul Elon Musk, Trump’s government efficiency czar, joined the criticism. He posted a series of comments on social media targeting White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, a key architect of the tariff plan, saying he “ain’t built sh*t” with the policy. Musk’s brother, Tesla board member Kimbal Musk, also condemned the tariffs, calling them a “structural, permanent tax on the American consumer.” Treasury Secretary Bessent said on Monday that Washington is open to “meaningful negotiations” in the coming weeks with trade partners, but only those who have responded “positively” to Trump’s tariffs. He criticized China for its response levies, accusing Beijing of “choosing to isolate itself by retaliating and doubling down on previous negative behavior.” China, in turn, described the new US tariffs as “economic bullying” and warned they could destabilize the entire global trade system.

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“..any tax proposals or initiatives Bessent may pursue would be aligned with “his full support for President Trump’s America First Economic Agenda.”

Officials Quietly Drafting Plan To Cushion Trump Tariff Fallout – Bloomberg (RT)

US officials are exploring ways to mitigate the potentially harmful effects of the sweeping tariffs announced by President Donald Trump, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing sources in Washington. The talks are reportedly being held without Trump’s knowledge and reflect internal unease over his shift in trade policy. Last week, Trump imposed a minimum 10% tariff on all imports and introduced “reciprocal” duties ranging from 11% to 50% on dozens of countries he accused of maintaining unfair trade imbalances. The new measures included an additional 34% duty on imports from China, on top of an existing 20% rate implemented earlier, and a 20% levy on goods from the EU, among others.

On Monday, Trump threatened to slap a further 50% tariff on all Chinese imports unless Beijing reverses the 34% hike it announced in response to the new US levies. A number of other countries have slammed Trump’s tariffs over the past few days and vowed to implement countermeasures. According to Bloomberg, Trump administration officials fear that retaliatory tariffs will damage US exports, hurting American firms trying to sell goods abroad. Sources said discussions are underway about a potential exporter tax credit, which would serve as a subsidy for US firms selling products and services overseas. The credit, which would require congressional approval, could be issued at the end of the year.

Officials are also reportedly weighing a credit for importers to shield US companies from rising costs when sourcing goods from countries affected by Trump’s tariffs. These measures would aim to soften the economic blow to both exporters and importers once the tariffs take full effect. Sources told Bloomberg that neither Trump nor Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been formally briefed on the deliberations, and the proposals have yet to receive full backing from the administration’s economic team. A Treasury spokesperson confirmed the discussions but stressed that any talk of “specific provisions” are “still early.” The spokesperson added that any tax proposals or initiatives Bessent may pursue would be aligned with “his full support for President Trump’s America First Economic Agenda.” The White House declined to comment on the report.

Trump’s tariffs and the threat of retaliation have raised fears of a global trade war. Several investment banks have raised their recession risk forecasts for both the US and global economies over the past week. Stock markets have been rattled, with major indexes in the US, Europe, and Asia all trading lower the past three days. Despite the criticism, Trump has defended the tariffs as essential to correcting trade imbalances. On Monday, he claimed on social media that the measures were working and delivering significant economic benefits to the US.

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$3,000 for an iPhone? Make a deal with India.

Apple Staged Emergency iPhone Airlift From India (RT)

Apple transported five planeloads of iPhones and other devices from India to the US within a three-day period in late March, according to a report by the Times of India, quoting unnamed senior officials. The move was reportedly made to evade a new 10% reciprocal tariff introduced by US President Donald Trump, which came into effect on April 5. The company’s factories in India, China, and other key locations have shipped their products to the US in anticipation of higher tariffs, a source was quoted as saying in the report. The existing stock, which was imported at lower rates, will protect the company from higher costs for a while, until new shipments are made under the new tariffs, a source told the paper.

Although production has been partly shifted to Vietnam and India, the majority of iPhones are still manufactured in China. However, these countries are now facing tariffs as well, with Vietnam and India being hit with tariffs of 46% and 26%, respectively. Chinese products currently face a 34% import tax in the US. Apple is analyzing how different tariff structures across manufacturing locations will affect its supply chain, according to market watchers. Apple sells more than 220 million iPhones a year; its biggest markets include the US, China, and Europe, according to market data.

The cheapest iPhone 16 model was launched in the US at $799. This could now rise by 43% to $1,142. if Apple passes on the burden to consumers, Reuters said, citing calculations based on projections from analysts at Rosenblatt Securities. Apple currently does not plan to increase retail prices anywhere in the world, the Times of India added. Earlier today, a Wall Street Journal report said Apple is ramping up efforts to export more iPhones from India to the US in an attempt to mitigate the effects of the high tariffs on Chinese products imposed by Trump.

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The welcoming app to facilitate the entry of illegals.

More Than 900k “Biden-App”Migrants Told to ‘Self-Deport’ (NYP)

The Department of Homeland Security is urging nearly 1 million asylum seekers who entered the US through the CBP One app to “immediately” begin to “self-deport.” “Canceling these paroles is a promise kept to the American people to secure our borders and protect national security,” a DHS spokesperson said, following anecdotal reports from migrants that they had been told to return to their countries of origin. The CBP One smartphone app launched in January 2023 and through December 2024 was used to admit more than 936,500 people claiming persecution in their homelands, according to DHS data. Users were granted permission to live and work for two years in the US as they awaited the outcome of often backlogged local immigration proceedings. “Formal termination notices have been issued, and affected aliens are urged to voluntarily self-deport using the CBP Home App. Those who refuse will be found, removed, and permanently barred from reentry,” the DHS spokesperson said.

President Joe Biden’s administration launched the app to tamp down record-high illegal border crossings, but congressional Republicans accused Biden of illegally exceeding the traditional “parole” authority, which they said could not be granted categorically. The Trump DHS spokesperson said: “The Biden Administration abused the parole authority to allow millions of illegal aliens into the US which further fueled the worst border crisis in US history.” Precise data about the number of people impacted by the move are unclear for a variety of reasons — including the fact that some may have already been granted asylum, while others may be shielded by additional legal protections. The CBP One app was launched with a goal of facilitating the orderly movement of would-be illegal border crossers into the US from northern Mexico. Although geared to nationalities such as Haitians and Venezuelans flocking to the southwest border, Mexicans and citizens of other countries could participate.

Migrants who entered the US as part of programs for Afghan and Ukrainian citizens are not impacted by the latest announcement, according to DHS. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem also is revoking parole for 532,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who flew to the US at their own expense with a financial sponsor — effective April 24. Additionally, the Trump administration is moving to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 600,000 Venezuelans and about 500,000 Haitians — though that effort is paused by litigation. TPS grants 18-month reprieves for residents of designated countries and can apply to all residents of a particular nationality living within the US at the time of the protection’s declaration.

Illegal US-Mexico border crossings have plummeted since Trump took office in January with pledges to launch the largest mass deportation campaign in American history. That drive initially has focused on migrants accused of committing crimes — with Trump coercing their home countries to accept deportation flights, while sending some to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and others to a mega-prison in El Salvador.

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If you can keep out the politics, their infrastructure may be useful…

USAID Operations Rebooted in Several Crisis Zones (Sp.)

US President Donald Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) chief Elon Musk have repeatedly accused USAID of fraud, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the agency had long “strayed from its original mission.” At least 6 previously terminated USAID programs are being revived for emergency food assistance funding in Lebanon, Syria, Somalia, Jordan, Iraq, and Ecuador, Reuters reported. The move reportedly followed pressure from inside the administration and from Congress. US president Donald had previously frozen foreign aid and dismissed hundreds of USAID employees as part of DOGE-led efforts to slash federal programs and departments with little oversight, with Elon Musk calling labelling the agency a “criminal organization.” By bankrolling so-called civil society groups, USAID has long functioned as a covert enabler of American influence, sowing unrest and paving the way for regime change while packaging it all as “promoting democracy.”

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Turns out, he’s not (more powerful than) the president after all…

Judge Boasberg Scraps Trump Hearing On Deportations After Scotus Ruling (JTN)

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on Tuesday canceled a deportation hearing for the Trump administration after the Supreme Court ruled the U.S. could continue to carry out deportations under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. The hearing was to determine whether Boasberg would change the temporary restraining order he issued last month to block those deportations into a longer preliminary injunction, according to ABC News. On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the Trump administration could use the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport suspected gang members of Tren de Aragua. The ruling overturns Boasberg’s March 15 order that temporarily blocked deportations under the wartime act, by granting the Trump administration’s request to vacate temporary restraining orders Boasberg placed on the order.

Miller

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“..his job isn’t to create policy—that duty belongs to the Executive Branch and Congress,” he said. “Instead, Judge Boasberg was charged with applying the relevant law to the facts of the case..”

Legal Experts Sound Alarm On Judge Blocking Trump’s Deportations (DC)

As U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg continues to be a thorn in the side of the Trump administration’s effort to deport gangbangers, legal experts have begun to raise questions about his handling of the case. The Barack Obama-appointed judge in March blocked President Donald Trump from using wartime authorities to send suspected Tren de Aragua gangbangers to a mega-prison in El Salvador, prompting incredible pushback from the president himself. As the challenge to the deportations play out in court, some legal experts have argued Boasberg should recuse himself from the case entirely, while others say he appears to be “making policy from the bench.” Critics have pointed to the fact that Boasberg’s daughter, Katharine Boasberg, works for an organization whose founder openly celebrated her father’s decision to halt the deportations.

“Under Canon 3 (C) (1) of the ‘Code of Conduct for United States Judges’ it states that judges must disqualify themselves from a case ‘in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned,’” Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Given that his daughter works directly for an organization that supports illegal aliens, opposes deportation of aliens, and has voiced its support for Boasberg’s action in this very case, the impartiality of his judgment is obviously open to be reasonably questioned.” “He should have recused himself given his immediate family’s involvement in advocacy for illegal immigration,” Spakovsky continued.

The debate began on March 15, when Trump officially invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a seldom-used wartime authority, to expeditiously arrest and deport Tren de Aragua gang members. Boasberg quickly issued a temporary block on the flights and ordered any deportation flights in the air to turn around. However, three planes carrying 238 suspected and confirmed Tren de Aragua gangbangers and 23 MS-13 gang members managed to land at the El Salvador International airport. The Trump administration immediately ripped Boasberg for the decision. “Tonight, a DC trial judge supported Tren de Aragua terrorists over the safety of Americans,” Attorney General Pam Bondi stated after Boasberg’s order. “This order disregards well-established authority regarding President Trump’s power, and it puts the public and law enforcement at risk.”

In a court filing the following Monday, the Justice Department appealed the order and called for Boasberg to be reassigned. The administration further ripped the judge for “highly unusual and improper procedures” and accused the court of a “hasty public inquiry” into sensitive national security matters involving a criminal syndicate. “If a President doesn’t have the right to throw murderers, and other criminals, out of our Country because a Radical Left Lunatic Judge wants to assume the role of President, then our Country is in very big trouble, and destined to fail!” Trump posted on Truth Social. Questions over possible conflicts of interest arose after Boasberg’s family connections to a liberal organization surfaced. His daughter, Katharine, works for Partners in Justice, a nonprofit group based in New York City that provides client advocates to public defenders.

The group removed her biography from its website after Boasberg was assigned to the Alien Enemies Act case, according to the New York Post, but an archive of the page was saved. Before landing at Partners for Justice, Katharine worked at the Center for Justice Innovation, a left-wing organization that advocates for “racial justice” in the court system. Emily Galvin-Almanza, the founder and executive director of Partners in Justice, said Boasberg’s decision to block the wartime deportations was done “rightly” and she previously took to social media to rip the Laken Riley Act, a law mandating federal immigration authorities detain illegal migrants who commit theft-related crimes. The Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges makes clear that judges must recuse themselves from a case “in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned,” including instances when a child of a judge is “known by the judge to have an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding.”

However, there is debate over whether Boasberg fits this description. “Generally the employment of an adult child of a judge does not mandate recusal, even if the adult child is employed by a law firm representing a party in the case,” Richard Painter, a law professor for the University of Minnesota, said to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “However, if the adult child is at all involved in the representation of a party, recusal of the judge is generally required.” “Although nonprofits that don’t provide legal representation do not represent parties, I would apply the same rule,” Painter continued. “The involvement of an adult child’s employee in a matter is not sufficient grounds for recusal, but the involvement of the adult child herself is.”

Appointed to the bench by President Barack Obama in 2011, Boasberg has since presided over a number of high-profile court cases over the years, including those involving the Trump administration. In addition to the Alien Enemies Act case, the 62-year-old judge is also ruling over a lawsuit challenging top government officials’ use of Signal to discuss sensitive military operations in Yemen. Boasberg ripped the administration for allowing the deportation flights on March 15 to continue on to their destination in El Salvador, ostensibly in defiance of his order, and has demanded the DOJ answer a litany of questions regarding the flights. The administration has pointed out the judge’s written order didn’t get released until after the flights were already over international waters. While hesitant to declare whether Boasberg has any conflicts of interest in the deportation case, Matt O’Brien, a former immigration judge, questioned the immense scope of his ruling.

“The real problem with Judge Boasberg’s ruling isn’t any kind of bias. Rather, it is that, in this particular case, he rendered a decision which appears to have been intended to effectuate a specific policy outcome,” O’Brien, who now serves as Director of Investigations for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, said to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “However, his job isn’t to create policy—that duty belongs to the Executive Branch and Congress,” he said. “Instead, Judge Boasberg was charged with applying the relevant law to the facts of the case. Rather than doing his job he engaged in judicial activism (making policy from the bench).” Similar to O’Brien, the administration and other Republicans have voiced consternation over the level of authority a single district court judge is able to wield over an entire administrative branch of government.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, a top ally of the president, introduced legislation in March that calls for limiting federal court orders to parties directly before the court. If passed and signed into law, such a move would essentially squash universal injunctions and rein in the scope of judicial activism. The desire to see such reforms in the judiciary appears to be quite high within the GOP. Grassley’s bill, which was very recently introduced, already touts more than 20 co-sponsors in the upper chamber. “And by engaging in such behavior, Judge Boasberg intruded upon powers that the Constitution and the Immigration and Nationality Act very clearly assigned to the Executive Branch,” O’Brien said. “That upends our system of checks and balances and throws the whole machinery of government off kilter.”

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Jesus

85 million

Cancer
https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1909374230585635102

DMSO

Pasta

3D cube
https://twitter.com/gunsnrosesgirl3/status/1909527032414757129

Capy

Ripley

Puddle

 

 

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Mar 302025
 
 March 30, 2025  Posted by at 10:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , ,  33 Responses »


David Hockney A Bigger Splash 1967

 

How Donald Trump Is Reshaping America in Just 7 Weeks (Victor Davis Hanson)
It Wasn’t a Leak, It Was a Devious “Charlie Foxtrot” (Larry Johnson)
Vance Asked Trump To Fire Waltz – Politico (RT)
Why Did Jeffrey Goldberg Leave The ‘Bomb Yemen’ Signal Chat? (Max Blumenthal)
Trump Puts the System on Trial (RCW)
The Best Response For Developing Countries To US Tariffs: Sell US Debt (Proud)
xAI & X Merger Defuses Musk’s Tesla Share Liquidation Risk (ZH)
Iran ‘Doesn’t Care’ About Trump’s ‘Threats’ – Senior Commander (RT)
Federal Judge Halts Shutdown of Voice of America (ET)
Ex-Italian PM Reveals ‘Secret Mission’ For Zelensky (RT)
Zelensky Is a ‘Demon’ – Ukrainian MP (RT)
EU To Reject Russia-US Black Sea Deal – von der Leyen (RT)
The EU Wants to Use War as an Excuse for More Debt (Andreen)
Joe Rogan Guest Completely Shatters the Vaccine Narrative (VF)

 

 

 

 

1994

Birth rate

Painful homework

Details

Not
https://twitter.com/Sassafrass_84/status/1905679457160925611

No. 4

 

 

 

 

“.. it’s a revolutionary achievement. There’s nobody going across the border illegally, or at least, it’s statistically insignificant.”

How Donald Trump Is Reshaping America in Just 7 Weeks (Victor Davis Hanson)

Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. How should we characterize the first seven weeks of the Trump administration because we get so much information and misinformation? Almost a day doesn’t go by where The Wall Street Journal is predicting that we are headed for a recession, that our allies are furious at us, that the economy is on the brink. So, what are we gonna make of all this? I think it’s time to take a deep breath and envision the first seven weeks is something like the following: President Donald Trump is in a race. He’s in a race to enact fundamental, disruptive change, a counterrevolution, and it’s going to be rough for a while, as he pointed out. But the things that he has already done are going to have, shortly or maybe even midterm, fundamental advantages for the United States. The question is, can he message and can he explicate and explain what he’s doing so people hang on? Because the eventual reward will be great.

Now, what do I mean? We’re talking about tariffs, tariffs, tariffs, but even the mere mention of tariffs for all of these countries that have not been reciprocal and have imposed tariffs on us in a way that we would never think of imposing on them, that idea that we might return to parity, it’s had an enormous effect. Some $4 trillion of announced investment from the Europeans, from the Saudis, from the Chinese, from the Mexican government, from the Canadians even. That will create hundreds of thousands of jobs. And that is in the process of working out. When Donald Trump entered office in 2017, we were only pumping about 9 million barrels. When he left, we were pumping 12 million. The Biden administration immediately cut back. And then it decided, before the midterms, “Hey, Americans like affordable oil.” So then they continued the Trump plan and got up to 12, almost 13 million barrels.

Already in just seven weeks, we have increased the amount of oil produced per day in the United States by about a third of a million barrels. And we’re on schedule to get up to about 14 million barrels by the beginning of the year. And that is coordinated with an increase in Middle East production as well. So, we’re going to see a moderation of energy prices, which may explain, already, why the inflation rate was not nearly as high as was predicted. If we look at the border, it’s amazing. We were told that the border problem was unsolvable without comprehensive immigration reform. And there were 10,000 people swarming up per day. We don’t even—nonchalantly, nobody talks about it anymore. But it’s a revolutionary achievement. There’s nobody going across the border illegally, or at least, it’s statistically insignificant.

The big issue right now is the Left is cherry-picking judges to prevent, not the deportation of somebody who’s working, who’s never been arrested, who’s been here for five or six years, but criminals and people who already have been ordered out of the country or pro-Hamas, pro-terrorist supporters. But the point I’m making is, what we’re doing now is Phase Two. The border is essentially solved, as far as security, and in seven weeks. Now, we’re having a difficult task of trying to find out who these 12 million people were that former President Joe Biden deliberately and with intent—malicious intent—allowed to come into the country. But the point I’m making is this is an incredible success.

There’s a final point that I want to make. We hear about Elon Musk is not authentically American. He is a nepo baby. And we hear Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, threatening his person, along with threatening Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. All of this chaos and nihilism coming about Elon Musk and what he’s doing, but what he’s finding out, almost every day, in the Treasury, in the IRS, in the Department of Energy, in the intelligence communities, is a vast unreported siphoning off of hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions, to favorable and mostly left-wing entities, both abroad and here in the United States.

And already, he has cited areas where the Cabinet officers can cut $200 billion. That’s a fifth, only after seven weeks. He’s got a fifth of the way to go. He thinks he can cut a trillion dollars without touching entitlements. I don’t know if he can. But let me just sum up. If Donald Trump is able to fulfill this promise of commitment by foreign entities of $4 trillion in investment—$4 trillion—if he is able to cut a trillion dollars within a year or two, if he’s able to solve the Ukraine war, and if he is able to have a general peace in the Middle East, that will be the most substantial presidency—if he does nothing else—that we’ve seen in 50 years. Final word, everybody, keep calm. There’s events in process that if they are brought to fulfillment and fruition, this country will be a radically different and radically better place.

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They come off as a platoon of newbie nitwits. Run by Israel. Not pretty.

It Wasn’t a Leak, It Was a Devious “Charlie Foxtrot” (Larry Johnson)

Charlie Foxtrot is a polite euphemism for a crude military term — Clusterfuck. That describes the first scandal of the Trump Administration. Somehow, whether deliberate or accidentally, a Zionist journalist by the name of Jeffrey Goldberg was added to a Signal chat by Trump’s National Security Advisor, Michael Waltz, or by someone who worked for Waltz. Goldberg suddenly found himself part of a group chat of Trump’s top defense, diplomatic and intelligence officials. The group included CIA Director Ratcliffe, DNI’s Tulsi Gabbard, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, among other luminaries.

If you are not familiar with Signal, you create a group chat by naming a group and then adding members from your list of contacts. This tells us that Goldberg was part of Waltz’s list of contacts. Goldberg is a particularly slimy character, not because he published portions of the chat, but because he behaved as a political hack instead of a journalist. A journalist with that unexpected access, would have written an immediate story announcing that the US was going to start bombing Yemen just to make an example of it. What did Goldberg do? He waited till the bombing happened and then hoisted the Trump gang on its own petard. He made the story about Charlie Foxtrot, which he published on Monday in The Atlantic magazine.

This was not a leak. This was a gift to Goldberg. While the contents of the chat are not officially classified, the information being discussed was operationally sensitive. The chat exposed most of the Trump team as shallow and dismissive of the military and diplomatic implications of the decision to start bombing Yemen. If Waltz and company wanted to discuss the pros and cons of bombing Yemen, he should have convened a Secure Video Conference, aka SVTC (pronounced, CIVITS). Pete Hegseth’s remarks to the press, responding to the Goldberg article, makes a solid case that he is not qualified to serve as Secretary of Defense. Instead of admitting that this was a fuckup on the part of Waltz, he decided to attack Goldberg. Moreover, he pretends that the US was hitting hardened, military targets. That is a lie:

While I agree with Hegseth that Goldberg is a partisan hack, Goldberg did not insinuate himself into the chat or steal the material. Waltz, or one of his staff, did that. We will have to wait and see if the Trump team has learned anything from this debacle. I suspect Signal will no longer be used for sensitive topics. The portion of the chat that Goldberg published shows that JD Vance is not a Zionist crazy. He at least had reservations about the plan to bomb Yemen. The same cannot be said for the others — Pete Hegseth in particular. The following snippets from Goldberg’s article makes it clear that the decision to bomb was not based on some actual provocation or attack by Yemen. Nope, it was a malevolent symbolic gesture:

“The account labeled “JD Vance” responded at 8:16: “Team, I am out for the day doing an economic event in Michigan. But I think we are making a mistake.” (Vance was indeed in Michigan that day.) The Vance account goes on to state, “3 percent of US trade runs through the suez. 40 percent of European trade does. There is a real risk that the public doesn’t understand this or why it’s necessary. The strongest reason to do this is, as POTUS said, to send a message.” The Vance account then goes on to make a noteworthy statement, considering that the vice president has not deviated publicly from Trump’s position on virtually any issue. “I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now. There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices. I am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself. But there is a strong argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc.”

The account identified as “JD Vance” addressed a message at 8:45 to @Pete Hegseth: “if you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again.” “I will say a prayer for victory,” Vance wrote. . . . Hegseth’s counter to Vance’s concern that the American public won’t understand why were bombing the shit out of another faraway country is this: “Nobody [in America] knows who the Houthis are, so [we can just say] Biden failed and Iran funded them.” Well, guess what, boys and girls? Trump failed, just like Biden. The bombings over the last nine days have not deterred the Houthis from renewing their attacks on ships and Israel. And it has put US naval vessels in harm’s way without a good reason. Hegseth gives the game away… this is about blaming Iran.

It is incumbent on Goldberg to release the entire electronic conversation. Maybe I am being too harsh. Maybe Tulsi Gabbard or John Ratcliffe or the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency raised some objections. But it appears that everyone was supportive of the proposed operation. Shameful.

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“Like hell he’d give the liberal media and pearl-clutching Democrats a win..”

Trump’s no. 1 task right now is to stand up for his team. Loyalty.

Vance Asked Trump To Fire Waltz – Politico (RT)

Vice President J.D. Vance and other senior officials “gently offered” President Donald Trump to fire National Security Adviser Mike Waltz during a private discussion about the blunder in which Waltz accidentally included a reporter in a confidential chat about US military strikes in Yemen, according to anonymous insider sources cited by Politico. Two individuals allegedly familiar with the closed-door meeting at the White House on Wednesday night told Politico that Vance, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and personnel chief Sergio Gor advised Trump that it might be time to cut Waltz loose. The president reportedly agreed that Waltz had “messed up,” but ultimately decided against a dismissal.

“Like hell he’d give the liberal media and pearl-clutching Democrats a win,” Politico wrote on Friday, citing one insider as saying the administration “don’t want to give the press a scalp.” The leak, first reported by The Atlantic on Monday, revealed that Waltz had inadvertently invited editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to a confidential Signal chat where senior administration officials were discussing upcoming airstrikes on Houthi militants in Yemen. Waltz has taken “full responsibility” for the incident, calling it “embarrassing” in a Fox News interview and attributing the inclusion to a technical “glitch.”

President Trump has largely downplayed the controversy, dismissing the media response as a “witch hunt” and questioning the reliability of Signal. He also emphasized that no classified information was compromised and praised the military operation as “unbelievably successful.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt voiced the administration’s stance, stating on Monday that “President Trump continues to have the utmost confidence in his national security team, including National Security Advisor Mike Waltz.” Vance, for his part, has publicly aligned himself with the president’s decision. On Friday, he brought Waltz along for a high-profile trip to Greenland, where he dismissed media speculation and defended the national security team.

“If you think you’re going to force the president of the United States to fire anybody, you’ve got another thing coming,” Vance told reporters. Yet Politico claimed that Waltz’s position remains tenuous, citing one Trump ally who said, “They’ll stick by him for now, but he’ll be gone in a couple of weeks.” Other unnamed sources described longstanding personal and political tensions, alleging that Waltz has alienated colleagues by overstepping boundaries and acting more like a principal than a staffer. A spokesman for Waltz, Brian Hughes, pushed back against the narrative, calling the reports “gossip from people lacking the integrity to attach their names.” He emphasized that Waltz “serves at the pleasure of President Trump” and continues to have the president’s support.

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“..a gargantuan empire bombarding a poor, besieged country because it is controlled by a popular movement that is currently the only force on the planet taking up arms to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza..”

Why Did Jeffrey Goldberg Leave The ‘Bomb Yemen’ Signal Chat? (Max Blumenthal)

Atlantic Magazine editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg has won the admiration of his Beltway peers for the conduct he displayed after being accidentally invited into a smoke-filled “bomb Yemen” Signal chat with Trump’s national security honchos and top advisors. “Props to Jeffrey Goldberg for his high standards as a professional journalist,” declared Ian Bremmer, the trans-Atlanticist foreign policy pundit on his Bank of America-sponsored GZero podcast. “When he realized the conversation was authentic he immediately left, informed the relevant senior official, and made the public aware without disclosing intelligence that could damage the United States.” But what exactly did Goldberg do to deserve such high praise?

With a once in a lifetime opportunity to view and report on high level discussions on the US launching an illegal war on Yemen, Goldberg chose to avert his gaze and leave the scene as soon as he could, apparently because maintaining such unparalleled access would have compelled him to report on discussions that might have complicated a war being waged on behalf of the Israeli apartheid state to which he emigrated as a young man. Instead of exploiting his front row seat to the Trump admin’s war planning – a vantage point that would have yielded countless scoops and a bestselling book for any adversarial journalist – Goldberg bolted and dutifully informed the White House about the unfortunate situation.

From there, the story became a palace intrigue over an embarrassing failure of “opsec,” or operational security, and not one about the policy itself, which entails a gargantuan empire bombarding a poor, besieged country because it is controlled by a popular movement that is currently the only force on the planet taking up arms to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza. In the fourth paragraph of Goldberg’s Atlantic article about the principals’ Signal group, he strongly implied that he supports the war’s objectives, describing Ansar Allah, or the Houthis, as an “Iran-backed terrorist organization” which upholds a belief system that is (what else?) antisemitic. Given Goldberg’s admission that Waltz first reached out to him at least two days prior to mistakenly adding him to the Signal group, it appears the NSC director had been leaking to the Atlantic editor on behalf of the neocon faction in the Trump White House. And it seems clear why Waltz would have sought to cultivate Goldberg.

During the run-up to to the Iraq war, then-Vice President Dick Cheney cited Goldberg’s bunk reporting alleging deep ties between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda during multiple media appearances hyping up the coming invasion. Under Obama, Goldberg served as Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s errand boy, churning out tall tales about Tel Aviv’s imminent plan to attack Iran’s nuclear sites – unless the US did it first. Since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, the once-failing Atlantic has suddenly turned a profit, as Goldberg unleashed a firehose of propaganda against the keffiyeh-clad enemies of the magazine’s Upper East Side donor base. This month, with momentum for a strike on Iran building within the Trump White House, Goldberg was summoned once again move to the neocon message, and wound up with more access than he bargained for.

When asked in a March 24 interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins why he left the Trump principals’ Signal group voluntarily, Goldberg ducked the question. But as Ian Bremmer suggested, he did so out of deference to power and an abiding belief in a US empire hellbent on protecting Israel. And in the culture of Beltway access journalism, that’s considered a laudable trait.

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“..the judges’ resistance is expected—they’re bound up in and rewarded by the system Trump seeks to reform.”

Trump Puts the System on Trial (RCW)

President Trump’s supporters have denounced the federal judges seeking to stall or stop this administration’s government overhaul. But there is at least one person who, despite a show of outrage and condemnation, is neither surprised nor intimidated: Trump himself. The politically appointed judges have ordered, among other actions, that federal agencies reinstate thousands of fired probationary employees; that billions of taxpayer dollars be paid to questionable USAID projects and contractors; and that foreign-born criminals deported to their native countries be returned and granted due process. Regardless of the legal merits, the American people recognize these orders as obstructions to what Trump said he would do if elected, and what voters elected him to do. Yet the judges’ resistance is expected—they’re bound up in and rewarded by the system Trump seeks to reform.

Two-thirds of Americans believe the “system” is broken, but for years progressive politicians and their mouthpieces posited that the system couldn’t be fixed. Intellectuals on the Left, including New York Times columnist David Brooks, said America’s flaws were “systemic” in nature: systemic racism, systemic sexism, and systemic injustice. They whined and preached but offered no solutions for the millions of Americans of all races and both genders struggling and failing to unlock their potential to succeed. When Trump announced his candidacy for president in 2015, he too claimed the system was broken, but not because we are racist or sexist by nature, but because the system itself is old, soft, and corrupt, with leaders grown unresponsive to the people they are supposed to serve. That core belief guided his first term and remains unchanged at the start of his second.

For decades, politicians failed to respond to real problems because their agendas, even their identities, were phony, crafted by consultants and pollsters who aimed not for the truth, but for whichever lies or provocations were most efficacious in winning the next election. But one need not resort to craven and conspiratorial explanations of this sort, which hint that elected officials deliberately ignore the public will. The truth is simpler. They have to ignore voters, if only because they have no idea how to fix the problems we face. In one sense, the elites’ ineptitude is understandable: we have a highly complex society that has undergone a recent, rapid, destabilization brought on by technological advance. But to admit that they simply don’t know how to address any contemporary issue would be to concede that it is only their mere status as “elites” that qualifies them to rule.

Thus, to conceal their befuddlement, they explain their inaction by a vague demand that we address the “root causes” of every issue – which further justifies them in doing nothing. The bad faith inherent to the “root causes” strategy was nowhere more obvious than at the border. For years, establishment voices told us that border security measures would fail without addressing the “root causes” of the problem: central American poverty and climate change. These appeals allowed the political class to avoid doing what they didn’t want to do (securing the border) and to manufacture a duty to do the things they did want to do (diverting American revenue to foreign aid “relief programs” and enacting more restrictive environmental policies). Aside from those interventions, they assured us, there was nothing we could do about the illegal immigration crisis.

Speaking about politicians in 2015, Trump said: “I hear their speeches. They don’t talk jobs. [They] have no competence. [They] don’t know what’s happening.” His message of “America First” was clear and authentic, and it implied real action and solid outcomes: protect jobs, livelihoods, and futures of Americans. The hapless politicians had nothing to counter. “The Resistance” to the first Trump administration was advanced by the machinations of bureaucrats in the vast regulatory state. But with the president rapidly dismantling that apparatus, a new strategy was needed. For the Resistance 2.0, it seems the establishment will depend on the courts to thwart the democratically-expressed will of the people. But there is a higher court in this land, where American voters serve as judge, jury, and executor.

Earlier this month at the Department of Justice, Trump warned of the “violent, vicious lawyers” who persecute the president and bully the American public to get their way. Expect these lawyers to “play the ref,” Trump said, weaving in a story about former Indiana University basketball coach Bobby Knight, who once threw a chair across the court and screamed like a madman at the referees for a call to be overturned. The referee wasn’t going to change the first call, Trump said of Knight’s rationale for throwing the tantrum. “But he’s going to change for the next play. And sure as hell, he did.” Trump understands that activist lawyers and progressive pundits will put heat on the judiciary, and that, on occasion, they’ll get their way.

For 10 years, Trump has confronted the political class, calling out their incompetence and dishonesty, and the voters continue to reward him. Federal judges, egged on by the politically-motivated legal establishment, may try to frustrate the president in his pursuit of long-held promises to build a better country. But Trump is building his case outside the courts – and he’s betting on a sympathetic hearing with the American people, who will note the overt evidence of bias, corruption, and incompetence, whether it occurs in the media, executive branch, or the judiciary. Judges will rule on procedure and technicalities, but the people will evaluate the legitimacy of our institutions and credibility of our leaders.

In 2028, the jury will render its verdict.

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In theory perhaps. But how much US debt do you have to spare?

The Best Response For Developing Countries To US Tariffs: Sell US Debt (Proud)

As President Trump threatens the world with sweeping tariffs, he is trying to change the fundamental laws of economics through force of will. He won’t succeed. Rather than fighting back with reciprocal tariffs, developing countries should sell off U.S. debt. The Austrian American economist Ludwig von Mises once said that ‘the balance of payments theory forgets that the volume of trade is completely dependent on prices.’ The United States has such a gigantic trade deficit, at over $1 trillion each year, because it can buy foreign goods more cheaply than it can produce them domestically. Some countries may subsidise production to lower prices, others might export goods that are further down the value chain compared to what American producers will make.

But, stepping back, the U.S. dollar is so powerful, that it renders American exports more expensive, irrespective of any distortions created by its trading partners. This is part of the exorbitant privilege in which the U.S. dollar acts the world’s leading reserve currency, amounting to 58% of total reserves. Foreign countries put their capital into the U.S. because it is a stable and safe, increasing the price of the dollar on foreign exchange markets because demand is always high. A strong exchange rate makes foreign imports cheaper and that helps to manage inflation in America.

President Trump clearly wants to boost his support in the blue collar heartlands of America, driving job creation in traditional American industry that has been undercut by foreign imports over many years. But he can’t have two cakes and eat them both. He can’t simultaneously slash the huge U.S. balance of payments deficit – helping blue collar workers – while at the same time maintaining the U.S. as the destination of choice for foreign capital. That would be to defy the logic of economics. To oversimplify slightly, America has built its bloated Federal apparatus on the back of cheap imports. The huge current account surpluses that exporting powerhouses like China, India, European and ASEAN countries have built up has produced a torrent of easy capital to prop up the U.S. state.

The U.S. has a debt mountain of around $35 trillion which is roughly the equivalent sum of debt held by foreign investors. Of that debt, around $8.5 trillion is in the form of U.S. Treasuries, literally loans to the U.S. government, with a similar amount invested in corporate debt and the rest largely in equity. That’s why Trump is going in so hard with Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative. He’s desperate to reduce the size of the U.S. state apparatus because he knows that the Federal house of cards is built on fiscal quicksand. He also probably figures that there’s a greater propensity among federal workers – who are facing massive job cuts – to lean democrat, than among factory workers.

That’s why the idea of a BRICS currency is so terrifying to Trump, because BRICS now accounts for 41% of the global economy by purchasing power parity. A BRICS currency poses a longer-term risk of making the dollar less appealing and, therefore, weaker, driving up inflation. Because the real challenge to the U.S. is not the federal debt itself but its ability to service its debt. The exorbitant privilege, coupled with the massively disinflationary tidal wave of the global financial crisis, ushered in a period of historically low inflation and low interest rates.

That era has ended, as ratings agency Moody’s pointed out this week. U.S. interest rates are now higher, at 4.25-4.5% driving up the costs of servicing the country’s enormous debt mountain. The threat to the U.S. right now is inflation and what that means for its debt servicing bill, if interest rates are held or, even, forced higher. There are parallels here for the 1970s, when rampant inflation, triggered by a number of factors including the oil crisis and America’s move to a fiat currency, led U.S. interest rates to soar at one point to 20%. During this period, foreign countries withdrew their investments, and the dollar slumped to 45% of total global foreign exchange reserves. And herein Trump’s challenge. He can’t export more without a weak dollar, and a weak dollar will make U.S. debt harder to service.

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“The combination values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion..” Is that $80 billion together or $133 billion?

xAI & X Merger Defuses Musk’s Tesla Share Liquidation Risk (ZH)

Elon Musk secured a multibillion-dollar margin loan using Tesla stock as collateral to finance his acquisition of Twitter (now rebranded as X). In recent months, Tesla’s share price has been cut in half due to a confluence of factors—slowing EV demand amid high interest rates, shifting electric vehicle policies under the Trump administration, market volatility driven by trade tensions, and pressure from a coordinated NGO-driven color revolution known as “Tesla Takedown,” aimed at crashing the stock to trigger loan repayment obligations tied to Musk’s pledged equity. In short, volatility in Tesla shares left Musk heavily exposed to potential loan repayment thresholds being triggered – which was set to occur at or below $114 according to reports – until now.

On Friday evening, Musk announced the merger of X with his AI startup, xAI, in an all-stock transaction that strengthens his financial position, protects Tesla shareholders, and renders the Tesla Takedown color revolution largely ineffective in achieving its intended goal. Musk outlined xAI’s acquisition of X: “xAI has acquired X in an all-stock transaction. The combination values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion ($45B less $12B debt). Since its founding two years ago, xAI has rapidly become one of the leading AI labs in the world, building models and data centers at unprecedented speed and scale. X is the digital town square where more than 600M active users go to find the real-time source of ground truth and, in the last two years, has been transformed into one of the most efficient companies in the world, positioning it to deliver scalable future growth.

xAI and X’s futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent. This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach. The combined company will deliver smarter, more meaningful experiences to billions of people while staying true to our core mission of seeking truth and advancing knowledge. This will allow us to build a platform that doesn’t just reflect the world but actively accelerates human progress. I would like to recognize the hardcore dedication of everyone at xAI and X that has brought us to this point. This is just the beginning.”

Musk privately owns and controls both xAI and X. The transaction is structured as a stock swap, with X investors receiving xAI shares in return. Both companies share overlapping investors, including Fidelity Management, Saudi Arabia’s Kingdom Holding Co, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, and Vy Capital. Musk, also the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, purchased Twitter in a $44 billion deal in 2022. X CEO Linda Yaccarino wrote on X last night: “The future could not be brighter.” Musk’s X post announcing the acquisition stated that the deal was about “blending” the AI startup and social media platform to create “a platform that doesn’t just reflect the world but actively accelerates human progress.” However, the move also eliminates the risk of Musk undergoing a forced liquidation of the $12.5 billion margin loan backed by his Tesla shares.

As we previously described at the beginning of the note, Tesla shares were halved for a number of reasons: Goldman Trading Desk Views “Trump As Bearish For US EV Market”. “Weak Demand”: Goldman Lowers Tesla Vehicle Delivery Estimate For Quarter. And this…”Tesla Takedown Revolutionaries Prepare Mobilization Nationwide, Tesla Takedown Organizers Plan Color Revolution To “Kill” Brand & “Death Spiral” For Investors. Last week, the Democratic Party and their Communist revolutionaries spelled out their sinister plans… “If we kill the Tesla brand” and “drive down the stock price low enough. We can force him to sell his stock to pay back the billions of dollars of debt he took on to buy Twitter.

“This will drive Tesla into a death spiral,” Micah Lee, The Intercept’s former Director of Information Security, explained on a recent Tesla Takedown teleconference with other far-left revolutionaries. Musk’s indebtedness from leveraging Tesla shares to fund the X deal is no longer a concern for Tesla shareholders. This strategic move also renders the Tesla Takedown color revolution funded by rogue Democrats less likely to force a liquidation.

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Irann Doesn’t think the US would be stupid enough. But Israel?!

Iran ‘Doesn’t Care’ About Trump’s ‘Threats’ – Senior Commander (RT)

Iran will not bow to US pressure to resume talks over its nuclear program, a top naval commander has said, stressing that Tehran is ready to strike back in the event of an American attack. In an interview with al-Mayadeen TV channel on Saturday, Alireza Tangsiri, commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy, pushed back against US President Donald Trump’s recent ultimatum urging the country to enter new nuclear talks. “I have no knowledge of Trump’s message, nor do I care to analyze it,” Tangsiri said. “I hear his threats, I observe his actions, and I prepare myself to counter them. We have the capability to strike all enemy bases, wherever they may be… No one can strike us and escape. Even if we have to chase them to the Gulf of Mexico, we would.”

Tangsiri also rejected any negotiations over Tehran’s missile arsenal or its backing of groups in the region. “Iran will never negotiate over its missiles or the capabilities of the Resistance Front,” he said. He also emphasized that the Islamic Republic seeks peaceful relations with its neighbors: “We always extend a hand of friendship to the countries in the region. As Muslims, we do not pose any threat to our neighboring countries.” The remarks came in response to Trump’s comments on Friday, in which he confirmed sending a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, seeking to negotiate a nuclear deal. “You’re gonna have to make a decision one way or the other,” Trump said. “We’re gonna either have to talk and talk it out, or very bad things are gonna happen to Iran. And I don’t want that to happen.” He added that if the US has “to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing.”

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said that while the letter seemed threatening, it still contained “some opportunities” for Tehran. The standoff follows years of tension over Tehran’s nuclear program. In 2015, Iran signed a deal with the US, the EU, Russia, and other world powers in which it agreed to limit its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. However, in 2018, Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the landmark agreement, calling it “a horrible one-sided deal” that had failed to achieve its goals. Iran has not ruled out indirect talks on the matter but has refused to do so under duress. It also maintains that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

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$1 billion a year for a woke relic.

Federal Judge Halts Shutdown of Voice of America (ET)

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from dismantling Voice of America (VOA), the government-funded international news service whose 1,200 reporters and employees were placed on paid leave earlier this month. The judge, J. Paul Oetken of the Southern District of New York, on Friday issued a temporary restraining order in favor of VOA employees and their unions. The order prevents the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees VOA, from shutting down the broadcasting network and its associated radio programs. VOA employees filed the lawsuit against USAGM, its acting Director Victor Morales, and special adviser Kari Lake on March 21.

The complaint accused the agency of failing to fulfill its legally mandated missions and violating both press freedom and the separation-of-powers doctrine when it took a “chainsaw” to the outlet, ordering the entire staff not to report to work, turning off the service, and locking the agency’s doors. In his ruling, Oetken stated that VOA was likely to succeed on its claims, noting that USAGM’s actions appeared unconstitutional. He said that Lake lacked legal authority to withhold congressionally appropriated funds or terminate USAGM staff, programming, or contracts. “By withholding the funds statutorily appropriated to fully administer USAGM, VOA, and its affiliates … the executive is usurping Congress’s power of the purse and its legislative supremacy,” he wrote.

The judge did not require VOA to resume broadcasts, but made it clear that employees must not be terminated while the court determines whether the shutdown violates the Constitution or other federal administrative laws. Friday’s order echoed a similar ruling by another district judge earlier in the week, which granted a temporary restraining order to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, blocking its funding freeze. The Trump administration has since stated in court filings that it has resumed funding for these outlets. President Donald Trump and his supporters have been critical of VOA for years over alleged bias against conservative Americans and in favor of America’s adversaries.

In 2020, the White House sent an email accusing VOA of spending taxpayers’ money to “speak for authoritarian regimes.” It took issue with, among other things, a VOA social media post featuring a video of a light show celebrating the end of the lockdown in Wuhan, the Chinese megapolis where the COVID-19 virus first emerged; as well as the agency’s characterization of China’s effort to control the outbreak as a “model” for other nations. “VOA too often speaks for America’s adversaries—not its citizens,” The White House said. “Journalists should report the facts, but VOA has instead amplified Beijing’s propaganda.”

The VOA first began broadcasting in 1942 in German-occupied territories as part of the Allies’ effort to engage Axis propaganda broadcasts with counterpropaganda. In the following decades, it became a staple in the propaganda war against the Soviet Union and other communist regimes. Over time, it evolved into a global news organization, now operating in more than 40 languages. Elon Musk, a tech billionaire and Trump’s top adviser for downsizing the federal government’s spending and workforce, has echoed calls to shut down VOA and its sister networks, arguing that they have outlived their purpose. “Yes, shut them down. Europe is free now (not counting stifling bureaucracy). Nobody listens to them anymore,” he wrote on X, accusing the outlets of being “radical left” and “torching $1B/year of US taxpayer money.”

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“You know, you are the first European who came to talk to us about this. The others are just asking us not to support Russia.”

Ex-Italian PM Reveals ‘Secret Mission’ For Zelensky (RT)

Former Italian Prime Minister Massimo D’Alema has claimed that he undertook a secret diplomatic mission to Brazil and China on behalf of Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky to garner international support, amid fears that Kiev would be abandoned by its Western backers. The revelation was made during a conversation with Italian politician Gianfranco Fini published by La Repubblica on Thursday. According to D’Alema, Zelensky approached him sometime in 2024, expressing fears of a potential catastrophe as Western support waned. “I happened to speak with Zelensky on the sidelines of an initiative on the Balkans. And he told me clearly that his country was at risk of disaster because ‘the Americans will withdraw sooner or later, and the Europeans are not reliable,’” the former prime minister told Fini.

“He asked me to go to Brazil and Beijing to find out if Lula and Xi Jinping could do something,” D’Alema claimed. Neither Brazil nor China has publicly confirmed any visits by the former Italian official. In Brasilia, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva reportedly dismissed the initiative outright, insisting that Ukraine is an “American problem.” “I went there, but Lula almost showed me the door, telling me that Ukraine was a problem for the Americans and that, according to him, I should be interested in Palestine instead,” D’Alema said. In China, D’Alema reportedly met with one of the Communist Party’s top foreign policy officials, and discussed the idea of an international peacekeeping force for Ukraine. At the end of the meeting, the Chinese official is said to have remarked: “You know, you are the first European who came to talk to us about this. The others are just asking us not to support Russia.”

The former prime minister also criticized the EU for fueling what he described as unrealistic expectations about the conflict. “Europe has done nothing but repeat that Russia could be defeated, when it was clear to everyone that the war could not be won by anyone,” he said.

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“They want to inspect the holy relics of our saints. They plan to carve them up, to open them up, to break them into pieces. To perform this sacrilege over them. It’s a huge tragedy for the entire Orthodox world..”

Zelensky Is a ‘Demon’ – Ukrainian MP (RT)

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky is waging a campaign of terror against his own people by signing off on a crackdown targeting the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), particularly the iconic Kiev Pechersk Lavra monastery, lawmaker Artyom Dmitruk has said. In an interview with RT on Friday, Dmitruk responded to reports that Ukrainian officials and police have entered the catacombs of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, the nation’s most significant monastery and the final resting place of several Christian saints. During the raid, authorities unlocked doors, broke into the caves, and changed locks. Dmitruk described their actions as sacrilegious and suggested that Zelensky was directly complicit.

“Zelensky is perpetrating genocide of the Ukrainian people. What we are seeing now and what we are witnessing now is the continuation of terror policies of Zelensky’s against [the] Ukrainian people. Zelensky is a demon in the body of a human being. You can call him whatever you want, a godless person, a terrorist, and so on and so forth. The gist of his actions is the same. Zelensky is following a demon’s will,” he asserted. According to the legislator, who claims to have fled the country over the persecution of the UOC, the stated goal of the “inventarization” of the monastery’s possessions is nothing more than a pretext. “They want to inspect the holy relics of our saints. They plan to carve them up, to open them up, to break them into pieces. To perform this sacrilege over them. It’s a huge tragedy for the entire Orthodox world,” he said, recalling that the results of the review would be classified.

“They are raiding the Lavra. They are trying to seize the property of the Lavra… If we speak from a legal point of view, it’s a crime,” Dmitruk stressed. The Ukrainian government has been cracking down on the UOC for months, which it views as having ties to Russia. This effort has included attempts to take over the Lavra, as well as church raids and arrests of clergy. The UOC, the largest religious institution in the country, severed ties with the Moscow Patriarchate following the start of the conflict. Zelensky has defended the move, insisting on the need to protect Ukraine’s “spiritual independence” from Russia. Moscow has condemned the measures, accusing Kiev of suppressing the canonical Orthodox faith and alleging that the West is encouraging these efforts.

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Nobody cares.

EU To Reject Russia-US Black Sea Deal – von der Leyen (RT)

The EU will not lift its sanctions against Russia for as long as the Ukraine conflict continues, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said. During talks in Saudi Arabia on Monday, Russia and the US agreed to move towards reviving the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which, according to the Kremlin, should include the removal of Western restrictions against Russian Agricultural Bank and other financial institutions involved in the international sale of food and fertilizers. In her interview with French broadcaster LCI on Friday, von der Leyen made it clear that Brussels will not support the idea of a maritime truce between Moscow and Kiev put forward by the administration of US President Donald Trump.

“The sanctions are very significant; they are painful; they have an impact on the Russian economy, and they represent a powerful lever,” she said when asked about the possibility of the EU fulfilling Russian demands to lift some of the curbs. According to the head of the European Commission, the restrictions “will remain in effect until a just and lasting peace is established in Ukraine.” However, she noted that “when the war is over, the sanctions might be removed.” Von der Leyen also said that for the conflict to end, “security guarantees for Ukraine” are needed as well as “a solid defense industrial base and a deterrent force” in the EU. The Black Sea Grain Initiative, originally brokered in July 2022 by the UN and Türkiye, envisioned the safe passage of Ukrainian agricultural products in exchange for the West lifting its restrictions on Russian grain and fertilizer exports.

Moscow withdrew from the deal a year later, citing the West’s failure to uphold its obligations. The Americans and Russians now see its revival as a step towards settling the Ukraine conflict altogether. Earlier this week, President Vladimir Putin asserted that the Russian economy has become the fourth largest in the world in purchasing power parity terms after those of China, the US and India, despite a record 28,595 sanctions being placed on it by Washington, Brussels and their allies. According to the Russian government’s data, the country’s economy grew 4.1% in 2024, surpassing the official forecast of 3.9%. Putin previously urged the Russian business circles against expecting the sanctions to be fully lifted, describing them as a mechanism of strategic systemic pressure on the country that the West intends to keep using.

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Eurobonds are a huge threat to every European: “The EU Debt Plan is About Centralizing Financial Control.”

The EU Wants to Use War as an Excuse for More Debt (Andreen)

The European political and financial elite knows that the war in Ukraine is lost but wants to use it as an opportunity to reach strategic independence from the United States. As the future chancellor of Germany Friedrich Merz said right after his electoral win on Feb 23: “It will be an absolute priority for me to strengthen Europe as soon as possible so much that it gradually really achieves independence from the United States.” Such strategic independence needs money and investment—a lot of it—not only to boost defense but much else, like energy and innovation; areas in which Europe is lagging behind the US and China. In order to have the pretext to implement this spending plan, the idea among the EU elite is to make sure that the war in Ukraine does not end too quickly. That way the conflict can be used to justify artificially injecting much needed money into the moribund EU economies.

First, there was a question of providing €20 billion euros of additional military support for Ukraine and that the EU self-imposed fiscal rules to be loosened using the existing “escape clause” in the event of “exceptional” circumstances, such as the bogus “defense of Ukraine” excuse. As Bloomberg stated, “under this plan, EU nations would be exempt from debt and deficit limits when financing military expenditures. This marks a fundamental shift in EU financial policy, as such exemptions have previously been impossible under EU rules.” Indeed, the EU elite does not want to follow the arbitrary EU fiscal rules: for Paris, the 3 percent limit of budget deficit to GDP is politically painful, and for Berlin, the limit of max 60 percent of GDP in terms of federal public borrowing seems like an artificial constraint.

Then there was a talk of a €700 billion euro defense package. Newsweek stated that: “Baerbock said the package could be worth some 700 billion euros ($732 billion).” French President Emmanuel Macron also confirmed this on March 2, 2025. “We will give a mandate to the European Commission to define our capacity needs for a common defense,” Macron said in an interview published in several French newspapers. “This massive funding will probably reach hundreds of billions of euros.” The official slogan of “help Ukraine defend itself” will give the EU political and financial elite an excuse to turn on the spigots of the European Central Bank at full thrust again; to shower the entire European economy with “free” money, and shore up its fragile economies, like it did after the euro crisis of 2011, with the enormous covid recovery fund in 2021, as well as with the Green New Deal.

This time, the idea seems to be to use joint EU bonds. Reuters writes: “The bigger amounts will have to come from some type of centralized funding, because most budgets in Europe are relatively stretched, particularly in Italy and France.” As was stated in the infamous Draghi Report from Sept 2024: “the EU should move towards regular issuance of common safe assets to enable joint investment projects among Member States and to help integrate capital markets.” Therefore, “common issuance should over time produce a deeper and more liquid market in EU bonds.”

Joint EU bonds are essentially bond issuances against the whole euro economy and would thus entail a low risk and a lower interest rate than country level EU bonds. This is perceived as necessary in order for the EU to hold its own in competition with the US and China that already have unified capital markets, as a speech Draghi gave to the EU Commission last year made clear. There are three main sources of war financing: printing money, increasing taxes, and borrowing. Making available “hundreds of billions” for the EU would likely be based on debt issued from joint EU bonds. Bloomberg noted that, if the spending were funded with tax increases, or cuts in other areas, that could wipe out any positive impact—or worse. Any immediate spending on the military would not help Europe because it would be mostly spent buying US weapons.

Therefore, what the EU elite has in mind now is likely to put in place what F. Merz said; a strategic independence from the US through a huge investment by joint EU bonds, released and used over the long term in order to slowly build up Europe’s industry, not only in the defense sector but also in other sectors. In a sense, this would-be debt plan is just the European Union emulating the United States playbook of using war for crony capitalist benefits, finally “understanding” how to cynically exploit the Ukraine war, just as the US has been doing since 2022 by feeding its military-industrial complex. But, in order for this to happen, the war must not end too soon for the European elite, which is why efforts are made in order to—outrageously—spoil any US peace plans and get the war to continue for now.

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All of a sudden, everybody knows Dr. Suzanne Humphries. Her X followers went from a few hundred to 62,000 overnight.

Joe Rogan Guest Completely Shatters the Vaccine Narrative (VF)

Everything you’ve been told is a lie—especially when it comes to polio. Dr. Suzanne Humphries reveals what really made all those polio cases disappear after the vaccine was introduced. Dr. Suzanne Humphries, former board-certified nephrologist and co-author of Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and the Forgotten History, just made a bombshell appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience and what she shared will completely change how you think about vaccines. Most people are told vaccines are “safe and effective” with no real downside. But Dr. Humphries pulled back the curtain on decades of deception, starting with a major turning point in 1986—when President Reagan signed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act into law.

https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1905055320449442103

Before that, vaccine manufacturers were getting hammered with lawsuits. Humphries explained that after the 1976 swine flu vaccine disaster, Guillain-Barré cases were piling up. It got so bad that the companies couldn’t even get insurance. They ran to the government and basically said: “Bail us out, or we’re done making vaccines.” So the government stepped in. First, it agreed to cover the lawsuits. Then came the 1986 law—sold to the public as a way to help injured families get compensation faster, but in reality, it became a kangaroo court system that rarely paid families deserving of vaccine injury claims. Companies like Wyeth (now Pfizer) admitted their vaccines were “unavoidably unsafe,” yet instead of making them safer, they were handed blanket immunity.

Humphries explained that this opened the floodgates for “creativity” by the vaccine makers. They could now play with adjuvants without fear of being sued. Profits soared, and the childhood vaccine schedule expanded rapidly. That freedom also meant cutting corners in safety testing. Most people assume vaccines are tested like other drugs—with placebo controls. But that’s not the case. Instead, vaccines are actually tested against other vaccines, which obscures negative outcomes. “The few studies that exist with saline placebos show how bad the vaccine actually is and how it makes you not only not respond to the disease when it comes around, but more susceptible to it in many cases,” Dr. Humphries explained.

When the conversation turned to polio, Dr. Humphries blew just about everyone’s mind on the internet. She challenged one of the most sacred beliefs in modern medicine: that vaccines eradicated polio. The truth is that polio wasn’t actually eradicated. “Polio is still here. Polio is still alive and well,” Dr. Humphries declared. It’s just that a few sleights of hand made the world believe otherwise. The real change that happened, according to Humphries, wasn’t the vaccine’s impact—it was the definition. “Polio is called different things today,” Humphries explained. “Whereas back in the 1940s, 1950s, the criteria for diagnosing polio were completely different to the year that the vaccine was introduced. The playing field, the goalposts—everything was changed… they were able to show a complete cascading drop of paralytic polio simply because of the way they changed the definitions of what polio is and what could cause it. After the vaccine rollout, cases that would’ve been diagnosed as polio were now labeled as Guillain-Barré syndrome, coxsackievirus, echovirus, or chalked up to lead or mercury poisoning.

https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1905055665367986241

She also pointed to another key factor: environmental toxins. The rise in polio diagnoses, she said, mirrored the use of toxic chemicals like DDT. When the conversation turned to polio, Dr. Humphries blew just about everyone’s mind on the internet. She challenged one of the most sacred beliefs in modern medicine: that vaccines eradicated polio. The truth is that polio wasn’t actually eradicated. “Polio is still here. Polio is still alive and well,” Dr. Humphries declared. It’s just that a few sleights of hand made the world believe otherwise. The real change that happened, according to Humphries, wasn’t the vaccine’s impact—it was the definition. “Polio is called different things today,” Humphries explained. “Whereas back in the 1940s, 1950s, the criteria for diagnosing polio were completely different to the year that the vaccine was introduced. The playing field, the goalposts—everything was changed… they were able to show a complete cascading drop of paralytic polio simply because of the way they changed the definitions of what polio is and what could cause it.”

https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1905056072642998351

After the vaccine rollout, cases that would’ve been diagnosed as polio were now labeled as Guillain-Barré syndrome, coxsackievirus, echovirus, or chalked up to lead or mercury poisoning. She also pointed to another key factor: environmental toxins. The rise in polio diagnoses, she said, mirrored the use of toxic chemicals like DDT. As use of neurotoxic pesticides like DDT, arsenic, and lead declined, so did toxic exposures that mimicked polio symptoms. Fewer kids were bathing in poisons that caused spinal nerve damage, so naturally, paralysis decreased. “The tonnage of production of DDT absolutely mirrored the diagnosis for polio,” Dr. Humphries explained. Even today, she added, “The countries that still make DDT… are where we’re still seeing this paralytic polio situation happen.”

And when it comes to the poliovirus itself? It’s not quite as harmful as people think. Humphries explained that polio is actually a “commensal”—a virus that lives in most people without causing harm. “95 to 99% of all polio is asymptomatic.” Dr. Humphries described a study of the Javante Indians, where “98 to 99% of every person they tested… had evidence of immunity to all three strains of polio,” yet none of the children were crippled. “They were like, ‘We don’t have any of that problem,’” she recalled. Dr. Humphries also cited a chilling story in history. In 1916, a Rockefeller lab in Manhattan set out with “the specific stated goal… to try to create the most pathological, neuropathological strain of polio possible.” Researchers injected monkey brains and human spinal fluid into monkeys.

And that experimentation came with devastating consequences. “There was a big problem with that, which was [polio] released into the public by accident,” Dr. Humphries explained. “And the world experienced the worst polio epidemic on record. 25% mortality.” In short, Humphries argued that polio didn’t vanish because of vaccines. It disappeared under a mountain of redefinitions, environmental triggers, manmade disasters, and a lot of propaganda. Dr. Humphries also raised concerns about a link between vaccines and food allergies. “It’s very well known that the vaccines that have aluminum in them skew the immune system,” she said. Aluminum is added to many vaccines to make the immune system react more strongly. But when that reaction happens, the immune system can mistakenly target other things in the body, like food proteins.

For example, if a baby is exposed to something like peanuts or eggs around the time of vaccination, the immune system might mistakenly tag those foods as threats, potentially leading to a long-term food allergy. “So that’s kind of the paradox there [with vaccines],” Dr. Humphries explained. And then there’s mercury. Did you know that if a mercury-containing vaccine drops on the floor, “the HAZMAT people have to come and take that away”? Yet we inject it into 3-month-old babies.

https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1905056642837643586

Read more …

 

 

 

 

RFK vaccines
https://twitter.com/ChildrensHD/status/1905757292546462177

 

 

Bhakdi

 

 

Cows

 

 

Maruay
https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1905998384189854189

 

 

Lovebird

 

 

Ninja

 

 

Coral forest
https://twitter.com/buitengebieden/status/1905674058189975930

 

 

Tartaria
https://twitter.com/wakenminds/status/1905352502939099184

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Mar 162025
 
 March 16, 2025  Posted by at 10:22 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  20 Responses »


Peter Paul Rubens Daniel in the lions’ den c1615

 

Everybody Believes Ukraine Won – Zelensky (RT)
Time Runs Out For Ukraine Forces In Kursk Region To Surrender – Kremlin (RT)
Russia ‘Must’ Accept Ceasefire Deal – Macron (RT)
Russia Needs Permanent End to Ukraine Crisis, Not Minsk 3.0-Style Pause (Sp.)
Merkel Slams ‘Putinversteher’ Witch Hunts (RT)
Trump Clarifies Ukraine Envoy’s Duties (RT)
Putin Aide Compares EU Leaders To ‘Affectionate Puppies’ (RT)
Viktor Orban vs. the Modern-Day Habsburgs in Brussels (Sp.)
With Starlink, Musk Has Similar Effect On Europe As He Does In US (JTN)
Moscow Invites Musk To Collaborate On Mars Exploration (RT)
Trump’s Overtures Toward Greenland Are Paying Off (DS)
The 4th Circuit Reverses Nationwide Injunction on Ending DEI Funding (Turley)
Trump Has Something To Say About the Biden Autopen Scandal (Margolis)
Trump Orders Cutbacks At State-Run Media (RT)
The Swamp Can Scream But DOGE Is on a Lawful Path to Success (DS)
Federal Judge Tells Trump He Can’t Use the Law to Deport Illegals (Margolis)
Federal Judge Appoints Himself President (BBee)

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/cb_doge/status/1900681542353236349


https://twitter.com/DefiyantlyFree/status/1900669533935071519

Candace
https://twitter.com/KarluskaP/status/1900646060827062695

O’Leary

Macgregor
https://twitter.com/DD_Geopolitics/status/1900960935638167986

 

 

 

 

I got nothing.

Everybody Believes Ukraine Won – Zelensky (RT)

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has claimed that Kiev has received widespread applause from its Western backers over its handling of the recent talks with the US in Saudi Arabia. The diplomatic success, he stated, puts Russia in a difficult situation that could be hard to “wiggle out of.” During a meeting in Jeddah on Tuesday, the Ukrainian delegation agreed to a US-proposed 30-day ceasefire. “Everyone congratulated Ukraine on a real victory in Jeddah, the victory of diplomacy,” Zelensky stated on Saturday, without specifying who exactly reached out to Kiev. “Everyone believes that this is a serious progress,” he claimed. At the time of the meeting, the Ukrainian military was facing a sustained Russian offensive along the entire front line, while Kiev’s troops suffered a major defeat in Russia’s Kursk Region.

A surprise attack allowed the Russian military to reclaim hundreds of square kilometers of territory within days and liberate Sudzha, the largest town in the area previously occupied by Ukrainian forces. The head of the Russian General Staff, General Valery Gerasimov, reported on Wednesday that the Ukrainian troops in the area were largely “isolated” or “encircled.” On Friday, US President Donald Trump called on Moscow to spare the lives of the “thousands” of Ukrainian soldiers trapped in the area. In response, Russian President Vladimir Putin has guaranteed merciful treatment to the surrounded fighters if they surrender. The Ukrainian General Staff swiftly branded all the reports about an encirclement a “manipulation” by Russia. Talking to journalists on Saturday, Zelensky denied that the Ukrainian troops had been surrounded in the Kursk Region.

The Ukrainian leader also demanded “unconditional” agreement from Moscow to the US-backed ceasefire proposal. “If Ukraine takes such a step, it has to be unconditional,” he stated. Putin welcomed the US ceasefire initiative by calling it “the right idea” and one that Moscow “certainly supports.” However, he maintained that certain issues, including the fate of the Ukrainian troops in Kursk Region, as well as mechanisms for monitoring the ceasefire, need to be addressed before any agreement could be reached. France and the UK have also demanded that Russia agree to an unconditional temporary truce, which prompted a sharp rebuke from former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who said the UK can stick such ideas back where they came from.

Read more …

“If they lay down their arms and surrender, we will guarantee them their lives and dignified treatment..”

Time Runs Out For Ukraine Forces In Kursk Region To Surrender – Kremlin (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s offer to Ukrainian forces in Kursk Region to surrender is still valid, but time is running out, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. “It is still in effect,” he stated on Saturday in response to a question from TASS news agency. “Their time is shrinking like the Shagreen skin,” he added, in reference to Honoré de Balzac’s novel ‘The Magic Skin’. On Friday, Putin guaranteed merciful treatment to Ukrainian fighters encircled in Kursk Region if they surrender. “If they lay down their arms and surrender, we will guarantee them their lives and dignified treatment in accordance with international law and Russian legal norms,” the president said. He indicated, however, that Kiev should order them to do so.

Putin’s statement was a response to US President Donald Trump’s call to spare the lives of the “thousands of Ukrainian troops” who are “completely surrounded by the Russian military.” “This would be a horrible massacre, one not seen since World War II,” he commented on Truth Social. Kiev launched a major offensive into Kursk Region in August 2024, successfully capturing the town of Sudzha along with numerous villages. Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky stated that the incursion across the internationally recognized border aimed to secure leverage for future peace negotiations.

However, the Russian military quickly halted the Ukrainian advance and has since been regaining territory. As of Wednesday, 86% of the land occupied by Ukraine was reclaimed, according to General Valery Gerasimov, the head of the Russian General Staff. He noted that the remaining Ukrainian units in the area are largely “encircled” and “isolated.”

Read more …

NATO and Kiev are stuck. Not Russia.

Russia ‘Must’ Accept Ceasefire Deal – Macron (RT)

Moscow must accept the US-proposed 30-day ceasefire deal and stop making “delaying statements,” French President Emmanuel Macron has stated. Kiev agreed to a month-long truce in the Ukraine conflict following talks with the US in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday. Washington subsequently resumed intelligence sharing with Ukraine and arms shipments to the country. No EU member states were represented at the negotiations. Speaking on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed that Russia is ready to discuss a ceasefire but that the terms need to be clarified to ensure it leads to a stable and permanent peace. On Friday, following talks with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky, Macron demanded that Moscow accept the proposed deal.

“Russia must now accept the US-Ukrainian proposal for a 30-day ceasefire,” he wrote on X, adding that he will continue working to drum up support for Kiev going forward. The UK has also demanded an unconditional armistice from Moscow. “Now is the time for a ceasefire with no conditions. Ukraine has set their position out. It is now for Russia to accept it,” UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy said in a comment to the press on Friday. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev dismissed the demand. “Britain and its minister can shove their idea back up the sh*thole it came from, diplomatically speaking,” Medvedev, who serves as deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, wrote on X.

Russia has condemned the increasingly hostile statements coming from European leaders about boosting their militarization, as the tide on the battlefield turns increasingly in favor of Moscow. Western states’ continued provision of military supplies to Ukraine makes the conflict a NATO-led proxy war against Russia, according to Moscow. Replying to British and French initiatives to deploy peacekeeping contingents to Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called such ideas “outright hostile” to Russia. Any troops of the US-led military bloc in the conflict, even under the guise of peacekeepers, will amount to the “direct, official, undisguised involvement of NATO countries in the war against Russia,” the top diplomat has said.

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“..issues ranging from the fate of Ukrainian troops trapped in Kursk, to Ukraine’s ongoing forced mobilization, to monitoring for violations, and arms supplies to Kiev must be dealt with before Russia agrees to a ceasefire..”

Russia Needs Permanent End to Ukraine Crisis, Not Minsk 3.0-Style Pause (Sp.)

Shortly after the US rolled out its 30-day Ukraine ceasefire proposal, President Trump appealed to President Putin to spare the lives of “thousands” of Ukrainian troops trapped in Kursk region. Sputnik asked a pair of veteran international affairs analysts about the risks and opportunities hidden in the US proposals. Donald Trump’s call on Russia to spare Ukrainian troops trapped in Kursk reminds veteran geopolitical analyst Brian Berletic of the Minsk peace agreements, the second iteration of which was signed in February 2015, “when Ukrainian forces were encircled and facing capture or annihilation at the hands of Donbass fighters.”

Back then, “US and European leaders eagerly urged a temporary ceasefire and the creation of conditions under which Ukrainian forces could recover, reorganize, rearm, and restart hostilities at a future date with factors leaning better in their and their Western sponsors’ favor,” the former US Marine recalled. “Now, Russian forces have delivered a significant defeat to Ukraine and its Western backers – including the United States – and once again there are urgent attempts to pause the fighting to buy time for the Ukrainians and ultimately buy time for Washington’s proxy war,” the observer said. The US’s 30-day ceasefire proposal “sidesteps” the “root causes of this conflict (US-led NATO expansion),” with the alliance’s European members being called on to more than double their defense spending, Berletic pointed out.

Accordingly, rather than a mere “freeze” of the conflict, Russia, which has “expanded its own combat power faster than Ukraine with Western backing can negate it” to achieve victories in Kursk and the incremental collapse of Ukrainian positions along the rest of the front, needs a “permanent conclusion to this conflict,” not a temporary freeze which would ensure its continuation “well into the foreseeable future,” Berletic emphasized. President Putin confirmed as much in his press conference Thursday. “We agree with the proposals to cease hostilities, but proceed from the assumption that this cessation should lead to long-term peace and eliminate the root causes of this crisis,” he said. Furthermore, issues ranging from the fate of Ukrainian troops trapped in Kursk, to Ukraine’s ongoing forced mobilization, to monitoring for violations, and arms supplies to Kiev must be dealt with before Russia agrees to a ceasefire, Putin added.

Veteran independent Argentine journalist Tadeo Castiglione argues that the US president’s appeal to Russia can be interpreted as a signal to speed up peace talks, and a message to Volodymyr Zelensky to call on his troops to surrender to avoid a massacre.“Throughout the three years of the Special Military Operation, Russia has respected international law, and ensured respect for all Ukrainian servicemen who surrendered,” something that could not be said about the other side, the veteran international affairs observer pointed out.

Kursk is outside the Special Operation Zone, Castiglione stressed, and for the Russian side, fighting on this front is considered an anti-terrorist operation, since Ukrainian forces invaded and attacked civilians beyond the NATO-Russia proxy war’s boundaries. “This is a crime on the part of the Ukrainian government. That is why Putin has emphasized that despite breaking the law on Russian territory, they will still be treated as prisoners of war,” Castiglione explained. Therefore, “if both sides really want peace, the first step must be the capitulation of Ukrainian units in Kursk,” the observer summed up.

Read more …

Her successors are far worse than she is, but she started the decline.

Merkel Slams ‘Putinversteher’ Witch Hunts (RT)

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has criticized the use of the term ‘Putinversteher’ (Putin understander) to silence those who discuss Russia’s perspective, arguing that it prevents meaningful dialogue and complicates diplomacy. In an interview with Berliner Zeitung on Friday, Merkel was asked how she felt about the term, which is often used to label people who address Russian President Vladimir Putin’s concerns over NATO expansion. “Not good, because there has to be a discussion about it. You have to plan ahead for diplomatic initiatives so that they are available at the right moment,” she said.

She also rejected the idea that seeking to understand Moscow’s position amounts to supporting it. “I find the accusation of being a Putinversteher inappropriate. It is used as a conversation-stopper, a way to shut down debate.” Asked if she has ever been called one, Merkel replied: “No one has ever called me that – it’s a strange word. Understanding what Putin does and putting oneself in his position is not wrong. It is a fundamental task of diplomacy and something entirely different from supporting him.” Her remarks come amid an ongoing debate in Germany over its policy toward Russia. The term ‘Putinversteher’ is frequently used to criticize those who advocate for diplomatic engagement with Moscow, portraying them as sympathetic to the Kremlin.

Speaking on European security concerns, Merkel warned that failing to address Russia’s interests could increase the risk of future conflicts. “There is no justification for him [Putin] invading another country, but the discussion about Russia’s interests must be allowed.” Merkel was a key mediator in the Minsk agreements, a 2015 road map negotiated along with then-French President Francois Hollande, which was officially intended to reintegrate the Donbass region into Ukraine. However, after the 2022 escalation, both Merkel and Hollande admitted that the accords were never meant to bring peace, but rather to buy time for Kiev to strengthen its military with NATO’s help.

Read more …

Kellogg speaks only to Zelensky. Trump doesn’t care what he says anyway. This way Zelensky thinks he still matters.

Trump Clarifies Ukraine Envoy’s Duties (RT)

US President Donald Trump has appointed Keith Kellogg to lead talks with Kiev. Earlier, media reports suggested that the retired lieutenant general was ousted from peace talks with Russia at Moscow’s request. “I am pleased to inform you that General Keith Kellogg has been appointed Special Envoy to Ukraine,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Saturday. He added that Kellogg will lead direct talks with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky and senior officials. “He [Kellogg] knows them well, and they have a very good working relationship together,” Trump said.

NBC News and Reuters reported on Thursday, citing sources, that Russian officials demanded that Kellogg be excluded from peace talks due to his pro-Kiev position. The retired US Army lieutenant general was absent from last month’s Russia-US talks in Saudi Arabia and this week’s US-Ukraine talks in Jeddah, where the delegations proposed a 30-day ceasefire. On Thursday, US special envoy Steve Witkoff traveled to Moscow to formally present the details of the initiative to Russian officials. Witkoff’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin was hailed as “very good and productive” by Trump.

Putin expressed support for a potential 30-day ceasefire in the Ukraine conflict, but has raised concerns regarding how it can be implemented. He also offered the Ukrainian forces encircled in Russia’s Kursk Region time to surrender, guaranteeing them their lives and dignified treatment. Regarding ties between Moscow and Washington, the Russian president acknowledged the Trump administration’s efforts to rebuild them, but said the process remains challenging. “We know the new administration, headed by President Trump, is doing everything to restore at least part of what was practically reduced to zero, destroyed by the previous American administration,” Putin said.

Read more …

“..Medvedev dismissed the ultimatum, telling Britain and Lammy personally to “shove their idea back up the sh*thole it came from, diplomatically speaking.”

Putin Aide Compares EU Leaders To ‘Affectionate Puppies’ (RT)

President Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy aide, Yury Ushakov, has echoed the Russian leader’s comparison of European leaders to puppies, commenting on how quickly they shifted to supporting the US push for a ceasefire in the Ukraine conflict. Last month, Putin predicted that European politicians, who “happily carried out any order from the president in Washington” under President Donald Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, would soon fall in line with changing US policy. Given Trump’s “character and persistence,” all of them would soon “stand at the master’s feet and gently wag their tails,” the Russian president said. In an interview on Friday with Russia 1 TV journalist Pavel Zarubin, Ushakov was asked to comment on European leaders’ recent shift to supporting the US-proposed 30-day ceasefire after years of steady military assistance to Kiev.

Everything is turning out as Putin “vividly” portrayed, the presidential aide said. “He described it as if they would be like affectionate dogs at the feet of their master. This is approximately what is happening now,” Ushakov stated. Following a virtual meeting of European leaders on Friday, France and the UK both demanded that Russia accept the 30-day ceasefire agreed upon by Ukraine and the US during bilateral talks in Saudi Arabia earlier in the week. “Russia must now accept” the truce deal, French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on X. UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy told the press that Moscow must accept the ceasefire without conditions. “Ukraine has set their position out. It is now for Russia to accept it,” he said. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev dismissed the ultimatum, telling Britain and Lammy personally to “shove their idea back up the sh*thole it came from, diplomatically speaking.”

The US and its allies in Europe severed diplomatic ties with Russia soon after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, pledging to support Kiev with financial and military aid “as long as it takes.” Moscow has long characterized the conflict as a Western proxy war against Russia. Trump has repeatedly signaled his intention to diplomatically wind down the conflict during his reelection campaign. Relations between Washington and Moscow began to thaw following a phone call between Putin and Trump, which was followed by high-level talks in Riyadh last month. European leaders who severed ties with Moscow can reestablish diplomatic contact whenever they choose, Putin said last month, though he noted they are “deeply entangled with the Kiev regime” and that it would be “very difficult or almost impossible for them to backtrack without losing face.”

Read more …

“For Orban, the War Against Soros Is Personal.”

Where do you think this weekend’s big anti-Orban protests come from?

Viktor Orban vs. the Modern-Day Habsburgs in Brussels (Sp.)

Hungary’s prime minister has released a 12-point ultimatum to the European Union, demanding peace, sovereign equality, the protection of Europe’s Christian heritage, the expulsion of “Soros agents” in the European Commission, and an EU “without Ukraine.” Sputnik asked two renowned experts of Hungarian politics what’s really at stake. Orban’s appeal, coinciding with the anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, signals recognition that Brussels bureaucrats have become the modern-day oppressors of Hungary, imposing an “ongoing tyranny” amid Budapest’s efforts to “pursue its own national, historical, cultural policies,” renowned international affairs commentator Dr. George Szamuely explained. It’s very much about “national autonomy, national self-determination [and] national identity” versus the universalist, globalist vision of the likes of Ursula von der Leyen, according to the observer.

The timing of Orban’s statement has to do with the rise of Trump, Szamuely says, with the Hungarian leader already serving “kind of ‘Trump before Trump’” anyway, opposed to mass illegal immigration, promoting a “Hungary First” vision, and consistently advocating for “immediate peace in Ukraine.” “Russia raised objections about Ukraine in NATO, but never in the EU. So it’s very interesting that Orban has done this,” Szamuely said, commenting on the Ukraine-related aspect of Orban’s 12-point demands. “He sees Ukraine in the EU as being a serious economic threat to countries such as Hungary and others in Central Europe, particularly with its cheap agricultural products that will be used to wipe out agriculture,” Szamuely explained.

“He probably sees that this is part of the plan on the part of the EU leaders Ursula von der Leyen, Kaja Kallas and the rest to destroy the economies of Central European states such as Hungary and Slovakia,” the observer added.
Veteran Hungarian journalist Gabor Stier agrees. “Orban is saying we have suffered from the war, and now will suffer from Ukraine’s membership in the EU, because the EU will collapse if Ukraine becomes a member…I agree with this 100%,” Stier, a senior foreign policy analyst at Hungary’s conservative daily newspaper Magyar Nemzet, explained. In this regard, Orban and Hungarians recognize a reality that EU elites and most ordinary Europeans don’t, according to the observer.

The Hungarian leader has “been very much the victim of George Soros’ infrastructure in Europe, which has been targeting him for 15 years, really, ever since he first came to power in 2010,” Szamuely said, commenting on the anti-Soros portion of Orban’s 12-point appeal. Up for reelection next year, Orban “sees Soros money behind the candidacy of Peter Magyar, who is going to be the leader of the opposition, the leader of the Tisza Party,” Dr. Szamuely explained. Besides this, Soros’ arsenal includes his NGOs, think tanks, newspapers, legal and lobbying groups, who target “nationalist populists” across the EU. “Whether it’s Fico and Slovakia, we’ve also seen what happened to Georgescu in Romania, and without question, if they can get Orban, that’ll be a huge victory for the color revolution,” Szamuely stressed.

Stier notes that Orban’s mission today is about “squeezing out everyone tied to Western networks, the so-called Soros structures.” “This is a part of the war that Trump is waging against the globalists. And [in Hungary] one of Trump’s European supporters is making great efforts to do the same,” Stier explained. Today’s global political landscape in the middle of an “ideological war between globalists and the sovereigntists, between ‘Sorosists’ and ‘Trumpists’,” Stier says. “It’s very important that Orban now feels Trump’s support and strength behind him, and this expands his room for maneuver. At the same time, in domestic politics, he must somehow mobilize his supporters, because while there is still a year before the elections, he will need to work very hard to win,” the observer summed up.

Read more …

There is no alternative.

“Ukraine is estimated to be already using nearly 50,000 proprietary Starlink terminals..”

With Starlink, Musk Has Similar Effect On Europe As He Does In US (JTN)

Since returning to the White House nearly two months ago, Donald Trump has tested the willingness of the U.S.’s European allies to deal with uncertainty regarding trade and security. On a smaller, but important, Trump ally and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has charted a similar path with his groundbreaking Starlink telecommunications systems. Using a vast network of low-orbit satellites, Starlink – a subsidiary of Musk’s SpaceX – can provide users with high-speed Internet access essentially anywhere in the world, even when users are on the move. The technology plays a key role in the high-tech war in Ukraine, and it’s also of use in remote parts of the world and can even be used for limited periods during power outages. There are downsides, of course. Though Starlink’s services have come down in price, they are still expensive compared to faster, traditional Internet alternatives. And they require a clear line of sight to the sky order to work correctly, making them ineffective in some urban contexts, mountainous areas, or dense forests.

Scientists also worry about filling up low orbits with “space junk” that could crash into spacecraft or other satellites, obscure astronomers’ views of the heavens, and increase the amount of space debris that falls to earth. But the biggest obstacle to the company’s spread may be Musk himself. Since taking a role in the Trump administration and weighing in on an array of hot button global issues, Musk has become a controversial figure. That is having an impact across Musk’s business empire, leading to plummeting sales of Tesla cars and a growing exodus of users from his X social media platform. Late last year, Italy began talks about signing a $1.6 billion deal to provide Starlink services to its diplomatic corps and military personnel stationed abroad. But the deal has run into trouble amid allegations that it is the fruit of the cozy relationship between Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and both Trump and Musk.

Musk also threatened to turn off access to Starlink in Ukraine (“Their entire front line would collapse if I turned it off,” Musk tweeted a week ago). He has since backtracked off the threat, but it has helped turn public opinion against him in Italy and elsewhere. In addition, Musk’s threat also cause s riff with Poland, when the country’s prime minister, Poland’s foreign minister over the use of the tech billionaire’s Starlink satellite internet system in Ukraine. Musk said on X that Ukraine’s “entire front line” would collapse if he turned the system off, Radoslaw Sikorski,responded to Musk by saying his country pay for Starlink’s use in Ukraine and a threat to shut it down would result in a search for another network. “Starlinks for Ukraine are paid for by the Polish Digitization Ministry at the cost of about $50 million per year,” he said. “The ethics of threatening the victim of aggression apart, if SpaceX proves to be an unreliable provider we will be forced to look for other suppliers.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio dismissed Sikorski’s claims and told him to be grateful, while Musk called him a “little man.” Musk has also drawn fire from leaders in the U.K., Germany, and France. Additionally, the Trump administration’s hardline criticisms of Europe are having an impact, according to Hashem Alkhaldi, founder of ReshapeRisks, a London-based geopolitical risk consultancy. “European political considerations are an increasingly important factor for Starlink,” Alkhaldi told Just the News. “U.S. companies, including Starlink, are now likely to be viewed as strategic threats rather than market partners.” Alkhaldi said the change has ramped up efforts in Europe to improve its “strategic autonomy” from the U.S. “Recent developments have only heightened this sensitivity,” he said, likely referring, at least in part, to Trump’s tariffs on the EU and threats to stop U.S. funding to Ukraine in its effort to fend off Russia’s invasion, leaving the task up to European countries.

The problem is, there isn’t a viable global alternative – at least not for the time being. European leaders said earlier this month that they’d step in to help Ukraine replace Starlink’s networks if access to Starlink was blocked. But it’s not clear how they could do that. A spokesman for the European Commission said the entity was looking into helping Ukraine by using Govsatcom – a pooled constellation of satellites from European Union member states – combined with the Iris2 sovereign satellite network that is at least five years from being fully operational. But that would only answer a small fraction of Kyiv’s operational needs. Shares in French satellite operator Eutelsat – for now, Starlink’s most direct competitor – shot up more than 500% in a week as tensions with Starlink escalated. But by most counts, Eutelsat operates just one satellite for around every 12 Starlink has deployed. In a similar circumstance in the U.S., Musk’s top two Teslas cars – Model Y and Model 3 – account for roughly 43% of the country’s electric vehicle sales.

“The Eutelsat network would be pushed to its limits to meaningfully fill the gap Starlink could leave in Ukraine,” Alkhaldi said. “Starlink has technological advantages over European companies, which haven’t had big incentives to grow since there aren’t that many service gaps in Europe. Add to that the fact that Ukraine has relied excessively on Starlink.” Even if it could work, a switch to a new technology would be slow and expensive. Ukraine is estimated to be already using nearly 50,000 proprietary Starlink terminals. Starlink terminals have also proved unusually resistant to Russian electronic interference. There’s no way to know whether the same would be true for Eutelsat and others. What may be more likely than a viable European alternative in the Ukraine war would be one from the other side of the world: China. China’s global communications satellite presence is still modest, but it is ramping up fast. And even as things stand, Ukraine leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy warns China is already wading into the fray on the Russian side.

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“..for the glory of humanity.”

Moscow Invites Musk To Collaborate On Mars Exploration (RT)

Russian sovereign wealth fund head Kirill Dmitriev has pitched a US-Russia partnership for Mars exploration to Elon Musk. In a post on X on Saturday, Dmitriev, who has also taken on the role of chief economic envoy in the US-Russia talks, noted the importance of space collaboration between the two countries “for the glory of humanity.” Dmitriev’s remarks came in response to Musk’s announcement of a planned 2026 Mars mission. The SpaceX founder stated that the company’s Starship spacecraft is set to depart for Mars next year and will be carrying a Tesla humanoid bot called Optimus. Musk also suggested that human landings on Mars could begin as early as 2029.

“Shall 2029 be the year of a joint US-Russia mission to Mars, @elonmusk? Our minds & technology should serve the glory of humanity, not its destruction,” Dmitriev wrote. He also noted that 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, the first crewed international space mission carried out jointly by then-spaceflight rivals, the US and the Soviet Union, in July 1975. Musk has not yet publicly responded to Dmitriev’s proposal, but the idea has garnered a slew of positive reactions from X users.

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“The message is that America wants Greenland, but that Greenland will ultimately need the U.S…”

Trump’s Overtures Toward Greenland Are Paying Off (DS)

Acquiring Greenland remains a priority for the Trump administration, and there are signs that a deal may be inching closer to happening.You may have missed it, but President Donald Trump referred to Greenland in his joint address to Congress in early March. Trump said to the people of Greenland, “We strongly support your right to determine your own future, and if you choose, we welcome you into the United States of America.” That short line, “and if you choose,” is significant because it undermines the silly conjecture that Trump is going to take the United States to war with Greenland and NATO or some such nonsense. Sumantra Maitra at The American Conservative wrote that the U.S. purchasing and integrating lands peacefully is very much in line with the country’s traditions.

“The idea that the U.S. would just simply annex Greenland, even by force if needed, is unappealing to a lot of Americans and worse for Europeans,” Maitra wrote. “Peaceful integration and mutually beneficial trade with foreign lands, on the other hand, is as American as, well, apfelstrudel” (the German phrase for apple pie). Gentle, but forceful coaxing is the way to go here to entice the people of Greenland without provoking anti-American backlash. Trump affirmed his commitment to this path on Thursday, too, saying how important he thinks Greenland is for security around the Arctic, through which Russian and Chinese ships frequently pass. The message is that America wants Greenland, but that Greenland will ultimately need the U.S. It will be a mutually beneficial relationship for all. Greenland’s recent elections were a mixed bag but they showed that the potential for a long-term deal is increasing.

The victorious Demokraatit party is considered center right. It’s generally pro-Europe and not currently in favor of U.S. acquisition but leans toward long-term independence. Notably, the second-highest vote-getting Naleraq party—that only trailed Demokraatit by a few points—is the one most strongly amenable to independence (from Denmark) and partnership with the U.S. They will almost certainly be part of the ruling coalition of the country, since the two parties’ combined vote percentage was over 50%. And most importantly of all, the left-wing parties hostile to Trump and the U.S. were soundly defeated. [..] Even NBC News admitted in an analysis of the election that while the pro-U.S. party didn’t win outright, the results are likely good for the White House. It should be noted that Greenland’s voters are typically very much to the Left of Americans. The rightward shift after Trump’s overtures is significant.

Greenland is almost certainly willing to “play ball,” so to speak. And for a good reason. The United States offers huge investment possibilities far beyond the capacity of any European country or collection of countries, and certainly of Greenland alone. Right now, both Denmark and Greenland are trapped in a suboptimal economic situation. Denmark can’t quite invest in Greenland to the degree necessary to make the partnership really pay off and it remains an underdeveloped financial burden as a result. Greenland is rich in natural resources, but the island has a tiny number of people and only a few marginal industries. A great power like the United States could step in and make things happen like never before. The key phrase here is “great power.” Greenland is of more importance now than it has been in decades because there’s been an unmistakable return to international great power competition.

A look at any map of the globe from the top should explain why Greenland is important. It’s straddled by Russia on one side, and China is highly interested in the region, especially its resources. Starting the long-term process of acquiring Greenland signals that the U.S. is not going to let another great power encroach on the territory. It will help build upon the U.S. presence and influence over the Arctic. And it will provide significant investment and job opportunities to Americans and Greenland residents. Trump said to the people of Greenland in his address, “We will keep you safe. We will make you rich. And together we will take Greenland to heights like you have never thought possible before.” The Trump administration’s focus on Greenland demonstrates that the U.S. is not content to be a fading power or an economic zone in a global, woke empire. Instead, it will act as a great nation, willing to defend its interests at home and abroad and unwilling to allow other powers to force their way into the Western Hemisphere.

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“Ending Radical and Wasteful DEI Programs and Preferencing;” “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government;” and “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity.”

The 4th Circuit Reverses Nationwide Injunction on Ending DEI Funding (Turley)

On Friday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed the much-covered nationwide injunction imposed by U.S. District Judge Adam Abelson in Baltimore regarding ending federal support for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. The three-judge panel ruled that Judge Abelson had gone “too far” in seeking to enjoin the federal government across the country. The Fourth Circuit recognized that the executive orders “could raise concerns” about First Amendment rights that might have to be addressed down the road. However, it found Abelson’s “sweeping block went too far.” It also pointed out that the orders were not nearly as unlimited and sweeping as suggested by the district court or the media.

Trump’s orders directed federal agencies to terminate all “equity-related” grants or contracts, and further required federal contractors to certify that they implement DEI programs which the Administration believes are discriminatory and violated federal civil rights laws. Those orders are also being challenged in other cases and include “Ending Radical and Wasteful DEI Programs and Preferencing;” “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government;” and “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity.” The district court found the orders in the Maryland case to be unconstitutionally “vague” and chilled free speech. That was a victory for the litigants, including the City of Baltimore, the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, the American Association of University Professors and the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United.

In their order, the panel explained that the orders were misrepresented in their scope. Judge Pamela Harris, a Biden appointee, wrote that: “The challenged Executive Orders, on their face, are of distinctly limited scope. The Executive Orders do not purport to establish the illegality of all efforts to advance diversity, equity or inclusion, and they should not be so understood.” Judge Harris also noted that the orders “do not authorize the termination of grants based on a grantee’s speech or activities outside the scope of the funded activities.” Likewise, she noted that the certifications only require pledges not to violate existing federal anti-discrimination laws. Nevertheless, Judge Harris noted that the officials could enforce these orders in unconstitutional ways: “Agency enforcement actions that go beyond the Orders’ narrow scope may well raise serious First Amendment and Due Process concerns,” the judge added.

Chief Judge Albert Diaz, an Obama appointee, agreed with Harris but wanted to emphasize that the enforcement of these orders should not stray from their narrow framing: “I too reserve judgment on how the administration enforces these executive orders.”Judge Diaz, however, went beyond that scope and engaged in a degree of editorialization on the value of DEI programs. “Despite the vitriol now being heaped on DEI, people of good faith who work to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion deserve praise, not opprobrium,” the judge wrote. “When this country embraces true diversity, it acknowledges and respects the social identity of its people. When it fosters true equity, it opens opportunities and ensures a level playing field for all. And when its policies are truly inclusive, it creates an environment and culture where everyone is respected and valued. What could be more American than that?… A country does itself no favors by scrubbing the shameful moments of its past.”

The only Trump appointee pushed back on the rhetoric of her colleagues in their defense of DEI policies. Judge Allison Rushing correctly, in my view, objected to the political dimension of such dicta. “Any individual judge’s view on whether certain Executive action is good policy is not only irrelevant to fulfilling our duty to adjudicate cases and controversies according to the law, it is an impermissible consideration. A judge’s opinion that DEI programs ‘deserve praise, not opprobrium’ should play absolutely no part in deciding this case.” I also found the tenor of the opinion of Chief Judge Diaz to be concerning. The review of an injunction is not an invitation or license to express one’s personal view of the moral or social value of government programs. I share the concern of all three judges with how these orders will be enforced to protect free speech rights. However, we have a court system to address any such abuses if they were to arise. If there are “as applied” violations, they can be raised in the context of a specific case with the courts. In the meantime, the Supreme Court has signaled that it is losing patience with nationwide injunctions from district court judges.

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“..unelected bureaucrats were running the country while Biden struggled to remember what day it was..”

Trump Has Something To Say About the Biden Autopen Scandal (Margolis)

The Biden administration has been caught in what could be one of the most jaw-dropping scandals in presidential history. As PJ Media previously reported, virtually every document during Biden’s presidency was signed by autopen. While the presidential autopen isn’t new—Barack Obama first used it to sign legislation in 2013—the scale of its use under Biden and the circumstances surrounding it are raising serious red flags. Legitimate questions have been raised as to whether use of the autopen was always authorized by Joe Biden, or even if he was aware it was being used to sign documents. The situation has become so alarming that President Trump addressed it directly during his Friday speech at the Department of Justice.

“Crooked Joe Biden got us into a real mess with Russia and everything else he did, frankly,” Trump begain. “But he didn’t know about it and he, generally speaking, signed it with autopen. So how would he know? That autopen is a big deal? I don’t know.” Trump continued, “You know, they’re having, who’s, who’s doing this? When my people come up, Will and all of the people, Steve, they come up and, ‘Sir, this is an executive order.’ They explain it to me and you know, 90% of the time I sign it, 99% of the time I say, ‘Do it,’ but they come up and I sign it. But you don’t use autopen. Number one, it’s disrespectful to the office. Number two, maybe it’s not even valid because you know who’s getting him to sign? He had no idea what the hell he was doing. If he did, all of these bad things wouldn’t be happening right now.”

Even more alarming are the revelations from former Biden White House insiders. One source told the New York Post that they suspect a key aide to Joe Biden may have unilaterally decided what documents to auto-sign. The plot thickens, with anonymous White House sources painting a picture of potential abuse of power. The source explained that “everyone” was worried that a particular aide was exceeding his or her authority, “But no one would actually say it.” “I think [the aide] was using the autopen as standard and past protocol,” the source said. “There is no clarity on who actually approved what — POTUS or [the aide].” Speaker Mike Johnson previously highlighted Biden’s inability to recall signing an LNG (liquified natural gas) exports executive order. Let that sink in—the “president” couldn’t remember signing a major executive order affecting our energy security. But was he even involved in the decision at all?

The left-wing media will try to sweep this under the rug, but the evidence is mounting. We’re potentially looking at a situation where unelected bureaucrats were running the country while Biden struggled to remember what day it was. Former White House staffers can dispute these allegations all they want, but the American people aren’t stupid—we could see what’s happening. This isn’t just about an autopen anymore—it’s about who was really calling the shots in the Biden White House. And the answer to that question should terrify every American who believes in democratic governance. With President Trump speaking of the scandal, you can bet this won’t go away anytime soon. Will we find out that Joe Biden hadn’t authorized and maybe wasn’t even aware that official documents were being signed on his behalf? What happens if we do?

https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1900579758162788741

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“..Under the order, the agencies must reduce their operations and staff to the bare minimum required by law..”

Trump Orders Cutbacks At State-Run Media (RT)

US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order aimed at significantly reducing operations at the agency that funds state-sponsored news outlets such as Voice of America and Radio Liberty. The move is part of Trump’s drive to root out wasteful spending, bureaucracy, and corruption in the US government, which has already resulted in the cancelation of programs and significant job cuts within the federal workforce. Signed on Friday, the executive order targets seven federal agencies, including one that provides funding for museums and one that deals with homelessness. It also targets the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees the state-owned Voice of America (VOA), along with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and Radio Free Asia, which are separate not-for-profit entities that are also fully funded from the US budget. All three claim to provide unbiased news to audiences in around 100 countries, but are widely seen as propaganda outlets.

Under the order, the agencies must reduce their operations and staff to the bare minimum required by law. Agency heads have seven days to submit compliance plans outlining which functions are legally mandated. Trump has frequently criticized US-funded media outlets, including VOA, accusing them of being biased. In a speech at the Department of Justice on Friday, he blasted the US media as “corrupt and illegal,” calling them “political arms of the Democrat party.” He singled out CNN and MSNBC, claiming they “literally write 97.6% bad about me,” and vowed to continue eliminating “rogue actors and corrupt forces” within the federal government.

Elon Musk, who leads Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has pushed for a complete shutdown of RFE/RL and VOA. In a post on X last month, the tech billionaire labeled them “radical left crazy people talking to themselves while torching $1B/year of US taxpayer money.” Since then, the Trump administration has reportedly taken nearly full control of the USAGM, imposed a 30-day freeze on its funding, and initiated layoffs, particularly among probationary employees at VOA. Kari Lake, Trump’s newly appointed head of VOA, has supported the cost-cutting measures, but suggested that the agency could still be salvaged. On Thursday, she announced plans to end costly contracts with major wire services such as AP, AFP, and Reuters. In a social media post, Lake said she was “finding a lot of nonsense that the American taxpayer should not be paying for.”

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“Trump can authorize Musk and DOGE to do what he simply cannot because of time and resource constraints on him. To argue otherwise is to suggest either that the president can be barred from ensuring that the laws be faithfully executed or that the chief executive must be omniscient..”

The Swamp Can Scream But DOGE Is on a Lawful Path to Success (DS)

Despite a smattering of preliminary injunctions and administrative stay orders from rogue federal judges, President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency is well on its way to accomplishing its worthy goals. And despite what some out-of-control judges are saying, it is acting well within the boundaries of the law. Already, DOGE has exposed wasteful, potentially fraudulent, and truly bizarre spending of taxpayer funds to the tune of $105 billion. For comparison, that’s equivalent to about half the gross domestic product of Kansas and more than twice that of Vermont. Unsurprisingly, DOGE’s work has elicited vehement howls from the parasites of government largess, particularly so-called nongovernmental organizations that have received billions of dollars. They have flooded the courts—engaging in very selective venue shopping to find “their” judges—with multiple lawsuits all alleging that Elon Musk and his team are acting outside of the law.

“NGO” is really a misnomer when you consider that these organizations who call themselves “nongovernmental” are sucking so much money out of the federal government—like Planned Parenthood, which received over half a billion taxpayer dollars in just one year. No way are they “nongovernmental.” But contrary to what it might seem if you read the headlines of The New York Times or watch hysterical outbursts at MSNBC, so far the Trump administration has been relatively successful in defeating those trying to prevent DOGE from finding and stopping the waste of federal funds. To date, about 23 lawsuits have been filed to halt DOGE’s work. Only three have obtained orders adverse to DOGE—and none has successfully stopped DOGE from doing its much-needed work.

For instance, 19 states led by New York asked U.S. District Court Judge Jeannette Vargas to stop DOGE from changing how the Treasury Department performs its work, which included actually recording who payments were going to and what specific congressional appropriation authorized the payment. Gosh, what a radical concept—applying standard business accounting standards to the government! What did Vargas say to this wild request from New York? A resounding “no” to such “broad and sweeping” restraints on the executive branch. Instead, she issued a much narrower injunction limiting who could access personally identifiable information. A Maryland judge also entered a temporary restraining order barring “unauthorized” government employees—i.e., DOGE—from accessing personally identifiable information possessed by the Treasury Department on similar grounds.

Those injunctions presume that Congress can limit the president from reviewing information held by executive branch agencies or authorizing someone to do it for him. That’s a dubious idea when it comes to the president’s inherent executive authority under the Constitution to oversee federal agencies and make sure they are following the law—if necessary, by checking in on their day-to-day operations. And then on March 10, District of Columbia Judge Christopher Cooper ruled that DOGE must respond to a Freedom of Information Act request. In his view, DOGE’s actual structure and work didn’t matter as much as rhetoric around DOGE for determining whether DOGE is an agency that is subject to FOIA. Otherwise, however, DOGE’s challengers are striking out.

When unions sued to block DOGE’s access to data at the Labor Department and two other agencies, Judge John Bates, a George W. Bush appointee, denied their request for a temporary restraining order. Judge Randolph Moss, an Obama appointee, also refused to issue a temporary restraining order in another lawsuit challenging DOGE’s access to student loan data. And when the Electronic Privacy Information Center broadly challenged DOGE’s access to agency-held information, Judge Rossie Alston, a Trump appointee, also denied an injunction. Even Judge Tanya Chutkan, who presided over special counsel Jack Smith’s criminal prosecution of Trump and demonstrated on numerous occasions that she is no friend of Trump’s, could not find sufficient legal grounds to issue an injunction when 14 states claimed that Musk’s position and role were unconstitutional. As she explained, the states were only speculating that they would be harmed. But as a consolation prize, she did expedite the discovery process in their lawsuit.

That’s not to say that the judges hearing these challenges are not sympathetic to claims that DOGE’s structure or operations somehow raise constitutional flaws. Chutkan, for instance, speculated that Musk might need to be Senate-confirmed and pontificated that DOGE represents an unconstitutional power grab by the president. At the end of the day, however, such speculation—which lies at the heart of many of these lawsuits—is just wrong. Speculations by a judge are totally inappropriate unless the issue has been raised and briefed by the parties, and the judge has examined all the facts, thoroughly researched the law, and come to a conclusion on the merits—or lack thereof—of the claims being made. Keep in mind that it was President Barack Obama who launched the U.S. Digital Service, DOGE’s predecessor, in 2014 and appointed a tech engineer who formerly worked for Google to head the team. Even Obama had an Elon Musk—and no one cried foul then.

Trump’s executive order simply renamed the U.S. Digital Service as DOGE and reorganized it within the Executive Office of the President—and a president has complete control over the structure, organization, and staff of his Executive Office. Neither Congress nor any court can tell him what to do within that office. Aside from that realpolitik observation, Musk isn’t an officer requiring Senate confirmation. Obfuscating rhetoric aside, Musk has no actual power to change or cancel contracts, terminate or halt spending, or create any regulation. He is simply an unofficial adviser to the president with no executive authority of any kind. All he can do is make recommendations—which, as Trump reminded his Cabinet during their first meeting, agency officials can reject.

It is Trump who is vested with the authority under Article II of the Constitution to carry out Congress’ legislative mandates. Thus, he has a constitutional obligation to ensure that bureaucrats inside the executive branch are complying with statutory requirements and that taxpayers are getting the most bang for their buck.

On top of that, the president has inherent constitutional authority to instruct executive officials to gather whatever information is needed to carry out those duties, unless there is a specific statute that limits the president’s authority, is within the constitutional bounds of congressional authority, and does not violate the president’s constitutional position as the head of the executive branch. The notion that federal agencies should police themselves and that the president has no authority to do that (or to receive advice on how to do that from anyone he wants) is nonsense. It is fundamentally contrary to the constitutional mandate that the buck stops with the president. That’s why Trump doesn’t need Congress to pass a law authorizing DOGE to do its work. He has inherent constitutional authority as the chief executive to ensure that federal agencies are following the law.

At bottom, Trump can authorize Musk and DOGE to do what he simply cannot because of time and resource constraints on him. To argue otherwise is to suggest either that the president can be barred from ensuring that the laws be faithfully executed or that the chief executive must be omniscient. Neither is tenable—and the former is unconstitutional. Opponents of reform have retreated to the citadel of judicial activism in a last-ditch attempt to cripple the now-underway restoration of America’s political institutions. But contrary to their claims, DOGE is bringing much-needed sunlight to the swamp of bureaucracy that is the federal government today. And it is doing so well within the legal boundaries set by the Constitution. We can only hope that more unelected judges recognize that fact and stop acting like an imperial judiciary that can override the elected leader of the country.

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Wrong chair, dude.

Federal Judge Tells Trump He Can’t Use the Law to Deport Illegals (Margolis)

Judicial activism was hard at work again on Saturday when a federal judge blocked President Donald Trump from using the Alien Enemies Act to swiftly deport members of the notorious Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. The ruling not only halted deportations but also ordered any flights already in progress under Trump’s directive to turn back and return to the United States, effectively forcing the administration to keep these dangerous criminals on American soil. USA Today has more:

“The order came after Trump on Saturday issued a proclamation, which he signed the day before, that relies on the 18th-century law to deport members of the Tren de Aragua gang, which he said “continues to engage in mass illegal migration to the United States to further its objectives of harming United States citizens.” The Alien Enemies allows the deportation without a hearing of anyone from the designated enemy country who is not a naturalized citizen. The law has only been invoked three times while the country was at war, to hasten the removal of citizens of enemy countries. Hours before the proclamation’s release, Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington, D.C., granted a temporary restraining order Saturday and ordered the government not to deport five Venezuelan nationals cited in a lawsuit brought by two nonprofits, Democracy Forward and the American Civil Liberties Union.”

So, yeah, we have a federal judge telling a U.S. president he literally can’t use the law to deport criminal illegals. The judge converted a lawsuit into a class action during a hearing Saturday evening, extending the temporary restraining order to all non-citizens in the U.S. covered by Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act. The order will remain in place for at least 14 days while litigation proceeds. Trump’s proclamation, which invoked the Act, accused Tren de Aragua, a group designated as a foreign terrorist organization, of conducting hostile actions and irregular warfare against the U.S. at the direction of Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro. Another hearing is scheduled for Monday.

Boasberg claims the Alien Enemies Act does not “provide a basis for the president’s proclamation given that the terms invasion, predatory incursion really relate to hostile acts perpetrated by any nation and commensurate to war.” But, that’s not exactly true. “Congress approved the Alien Enemies Act in anticipation of another war against the United Kingdom,” explains USA Today. “It has been invoked three times: during the War of 1812, World War I and World War II, according to Katherine Yon Ebright, a counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.” However, there is ample precedent for using the law even when not during times of war.

Despite being invoked during wars, former Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Harry Truman each continued to enforce the law after the end of hostilities, Ebright said. Wilson used it to detain German and Austro-Hungarian immigrants for two years after the end of World War I in 1918. Truman used it for detentions and deportations for six years after the end of World War II in 1945. The Supreme Court upheld Truman’s extension in 1948 by reasoning the end of wartime authorities is a “political” matter. The Trump administration plans to appeal, of course.

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“Last night, the Constitution appeared to me in a dream and told me to do this..”

“At publishing time, Judge Dithers had been unseated as President by a higher court judge who declared himself President instead..”

Federal Judge Appoints Himself President (BBee)

The Trump Administration agenda was stopped in its tracks this week after a federal judge appointed himself the new President of the United States. “There’s nothing we can do,” said legal experts. “He’s a federal judge.” Sources confirmed that Judge Mortimer Dithers of the Northern District of California granted himself all the powers of the executive branch in an emergency move to stop Trump. “Last night, the Constitution appeared to me in a dream and told me to do this,” said Judge Dithers. “You can’t argue with that. Also, my word on this is law because I’m a federal judge.”

President Judge Dithers has already issued several executive actions, including orders for Tesla to stop making cars, Elon Musk to punch himself in the face, and Trump to not move his head next time someone shoots at him. “This is the bidding of your new leader,” said Judge Dithers. “So let it be done, by the order of your new Federal Judge President.” Trump later responded to the ruling on Truth Social by accusing the judge of “looking like a potato.” At publishing time, Judge Dithers had been unseated as President by a higher court judge who declared himself President instead.

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Clots
https://twitter.com/SenseReceptor/status/1900741265651581263

 

 

Elephant

 

 

Mother and
https://twitter.com/TheFigen_/status/1900323166557528133

 

 

Jurassic

 

 

Boji

 

 

Pizza
https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1900989010492760340

 

 

 

 

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Mar 022025
 
 March 2, 2025  Posted by at 11:05 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  53 Responses »


Giovanni Bellini Pietà c1460

 

Putin Should Be The ‘Leader of The Free World’ – Medvedev (RT)
Musk Tips Vance To Become US President (RT)
US State Department Slashes USAID Assistance To Ukraine – NBC (RT)
Zelensky’s Presidency Is Over – Scott Ritter (RT)
A Dose Of Reality For The West’s Spoiled Brat (Amar)
Zelensky Is Done – Kiriakou (RT)
EU Trapped As ‘Cheerleader of US Hegemony’ – Jeffrey Sachs (RT)
EU Wants Another Year of War – Rubio (RT)
Russian Experts On The Trump Talks Fiasco (RT)
Trump’s Smackdown of Zelensky Wake-up Call for West (Sp.)
EU Delusional if It Hopes to Fill Ukraine Void Without US – Analyst (Sp.)
WaPo Hit By Second Wave Of “Rapid-Fire” Mass Subscription Cancellations (ZH)
Far-Right Leaders Gather In Madrid To “Make Europe Great Again” (Vracar)
What’s Behind Keir Starmer’s Latest Defense Spending Boost? (Jay)
A Spectre Is Haunting Germany (Beppler-Spahl)
German Factories Counting On Return of Russian Gas – Bloomberg (RT)

 

 

 

 

Peace

jennings

Greenwald

Dubinsky

Stephen Cohen 2019

Waltz

Rubio

Susan Rice

Bolton

 

 

 

 

“Europe is a feeble, quarrelsome old woman who is utterly dependent on US protection.”

Putin Should Be The ‘Leader of The Free World’ – Medvedev (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin should be the ‘leader of the free world’, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said. His remarks came in response to the EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, who suggested that the bloc must assume the mantle from the US following Washington’s policy shift on Ukraine. On Friday, Kallas, along with several other EU leaders, reiterated their support for Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, who engaged in a heated exchange with US President Donald Trump in the White House on Friday. Trump accused Zelensky of not being grateful for American assistance and not being willing to negotiate an end to the Ukraine conflict, while the Ukrainian leader urged Washington to continue its military support for Kiev while warning that failure to do so would backfire on the US.

Kallas took a swipe at Trump, writing: “Ukraine is Europe! We stand by Ukraine. We will step up our support to Ukraine so that they can continue to fight back the aggressor [sic]. Today, it became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It’s up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge.” In an interview with RIA Novosti on Saturday, Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, agreed that the title of ‘leader of the free world’ should be transferred from the US to another party, but not the EU. The world “needs one, and he exists. His name is Vladimir Putin,” he said. Medvedev also argued that while EU leaders might try to show some defiance in the face of US pressure, they will ultimately cave in.

“They will make some noise, post identical messages on social media, and return to their pen. Europe is a feeble, quarrelsome old woman who is utterly dependent on US protection.” The former president also reiterated that Moscow remains open to negotiations to settle the Ukraine conflict, but stressed that they must proceed on Russia’s terms. “We have always been ready for negotiations, and any negotiations require reciprocal steps. But only those steps that correspond to the reality on the ground and our basic law.” Russia has praised the Trump administration for attempting to resolve the Ukraine conflict and listen to Moscow’s geopolitical concerns related to it, while blasting the EU for attempting to fuel the hostilities by continuing to support Kiev.

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“Best VP ever and our future President..”

Musk Tips Vance To Become US President (RT)

Tech billionaire and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) chief Elon Musk has called US Vice President J.D. Vance “our future President,” fueling speculation about Vance’s political ambitions. Musk’s remarks followed a post on X addressing the tense exchange between Vance and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer over free speech policies during an Oval Office meeting on Thursday. As Starmer met with President Donald Trump and administration officials at the White House, Vance defended his stance on digital censorship, echoing comments he made during last month’s Munich Security Conference. “We also know there have been infringements on free speech that affect not just the British,” Vance said.

“Of course, what the British do in their own country is up to them, but it also impacts American technology companies and, by extension, American citizens.” Starmer dismissed Vance’s concerns, insisting that free speech remained firmly protected in the United Kingdom. “We’ve had free speech for a very, very long time in the United Kingdom, and it will last for a very, very long time,” the Labour Party leader said. “Best VP ever and our future President,” Musk wrote in a post on his social media platform X on Friday. Musk has been vocal in his criticism of Starmer and has frequently aligned with Vance on key foreign policy issues, particularly free speech and US aid to Ukraine.

Musk’s endorsement comes as Vance and Trump engaged in a heated exchange with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky at an Oval Office meeting on Friday. Vance, the first to address Zelensky, criticized his recent public appearances highlighting war devastation, accusing him of hosting “propaganda tours,” and labeling the Ukrainian leader “disrespectful.” The confrontation led to the day’s events being cut short, while Trump reportedly dismissed Zelensky and told him to return when he was “ready to pursue peace.” Musk later also chimed it, saying the Ukrainian leader had “destroyed himself in the eyes of the American people” in an X post.

Musk, who was appointed to lead DOGE when Trump took office in January, has been tasked with reducing government inefficiency and cutting federal spending. His endorsement of Vance marks the second time in recent weeks that he has expressed support for the vice president, previously posting: “Best VP ever and hopefully our future President.” The 40-year-old Vance is the third-youngest vice president in US history. His relationship with Trump has evolved significantly since the president’s first term. Once a vocal critic of Trump, Vance opposed his candidacy in 2016, calling him “cultural heroin” for conservatives and questioning his character. However, he later shifted his stance, securing Trump’s endorsement in his successful 2022 Ohio Senate bid, a move that cemented his place within Trump’s political inner circle.

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“He imposed a 90-day funding freeze on the agency and transferred oversight of its programs to the direct control of the State Department..”

US State Department Slashes USAID Assistance To Ukraine – NBC (RT)

The US State Department has terminated a US Agency for International Development (USAID) initiative for a large-scale effort to restore Ukraine’s energy grid, which has been severely damaged by Russian strikes, NBC News reported on Friday, citing sources. USAID, Washington’s primary agency for funding political projects abroad, found itself in the crosshairs of President Donald Trump shortly after taking office, accusing it of corruption and inefficiency. He imposed a 90-day funding freeze on the agency and transferred oversight of its programs to the direct control of the State Department. As part of the crackdown, the State Department not only stopped a USAID program that invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Ukraine’s power grid, but also sharply reduced the agency’s footprint in Ukraine, the network said.

Before the reported cuts, 64 American government employees and contractors were on the ground supporting the agency’s mission; now only eight are expected to remain, with the Trump administration placing the remaining USAID personnel on administrative leave and ordering all but “critical” staff to return to the US, NBC reported. ”It significantly undercuts this administration’s abilities to negotiate on the ceasefire, and it’d signal to Russia that we don’t care about Ukraine or our past investments,” a USAID official working on the Ukraine mission told the outlet, adding that the decision would significantly undermine the country’s economic resilience. In 2024 alone, USAID allocated $825 million to support Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

The move comes as Russia continues to carry out drone and missile strikes on Ukraine’s defense-linked energy infrastructure to undermine the country’s military effort, resulting in recurring rolling blackouts. Moscow insists that it never targets civilians. The timing of the reported USAID pullout coincides with a meeting between Trump and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky in the White House, in which the US president accused Zelensky of being ungrateful for the substantial aid provided to Kiev, and of being unwilling to negotiate an end to the conflict with Russia. As a result of the heated exchange between the two sides, an agreement granting the US rights to Ukraine’s natural resources as compensation for past aid was not signed.

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“Ukraine cannot afford to have him as their leader, and I think you’re going to see Zelensky being exited stage right as rapidly as possible..”

Zelensky’s Presidency Is Over – Scott Ritter (RT)

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s presidency is over, former US Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter has told RT. Zelensky’s five-year term in office concluded in May 2024, but he has refused to hold new elections, citing martial law. According to Ritter, Washington is “fed up” with Zelensky, who US President Donald Trump recently labeled a “dictator without elections,” and is moving to unseat him. Ritter’s words come on the heels of a meeting in the White House between Zelensky, Trump, and US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday, in which a heated exchange took place after Trump told the Ukrainian leader that he would have to negotiate peace with Russia. Zelensky argued that Moscow cannot be trusted and insisted that the US continue supporting Kiev.

Trump said Zelensky is “in no position to dictate” to the US, accusing him of being ungrateful for America’s substantial aid and questioning his willingness to bring about an end to the conflict with Russia. “Zelensky is not a democratically elected president… This was a deliberate setup by the president of the US. The Trump administration is fed up with Zelensky,” he said, arguing that he brought it upon himself by openly antagonizing Trump. This is the end of Zelensky’s presidency. He will not recover from this. Ukraine cannot afford to have him as their leader, and I think you’re going to see Zelensky being exited stage right as rapidly as possible. According to Ritter, the relationship between Trump and Zelensky is now “fundamentally broken.” However, unlike Ukraine, he said, Russia has never “lost the discipline” in contacts with the US and disrupted peace efforts, despite “some fundamental disagreements” on how to resolve the conflict.

“Zelensky was the greatest impediment to the US and Russia to achieve a peace deal… He had to be removed, and now he has been removed,” Ritter explained. He went on to say that while Zelensky’s removal may be “the beginning of the political collapse of Ukraine,” it might not necessarily be a bad thing in terms of peace because “the war is all but over at this point.” Zelensky has so far dismissed calls to step down. In an interview with Fox News following the meeting with Trump and responding to a call from US Senator Lindsey Graham “to resign and send somebody over that we can do business with,” Zelensky said he won’t do so unless asked by the Ukrainian people.

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“Churchill was quite a monster – ask the miners or the Indians, for instance – who nonetheless played an important role in defeating Nazi Germany. But he was not a puffed-up provincial comedian.”

A Dose Of Reality For The West’s Spoiled Brat (Amar)

“A grandiose failure” – take it from the best Ukrainian news site. That’s how Strana.ua has summed up the visit of Vladimir Zelensky, past-best-by-date leader in embattled Kiev, to Washington. And no one who watched the no-holds-barred shouting match between Zelensky, on one side, and US President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance, on the other, can disagree. Indeed, no one is even trying to disagree: Independent of political bias, there is unanimity in Western mainstream media that this was a historic catastrophe for Zelensky and his version of Ukraine. “A disaster” and “bitter chaos” (The Economist); a “meltdown” that “could not have gone worse” (Financial Times); a “historic escalation” (Spiegel); a “disaster for Ukraine” and a “spectacular confrontation” (Le Monde); an “upbraiding” and “debacle” for Zelensky (New York Times) and so on and so forth… You get the gist.

And please don’t blame me for how boring a review of Western mainstream media is; it’s not my fault that the vaunted press of the self-appointed “free world” and “garden” of “values” offers less diversity of views than the Soviet media circa 1986. The basic idea is very basic indeed: “This was awful because poor Zelensky got bullied.” Some especially eager information war cadres are already fingering J.D. Vance as the one to blame. The Economist, for instance, simply “knows” that the US vice president set up the Ukrainian leader. But then, the same Economist also helped spread the moronic lie that Russia blew up its own Nord Stream pipelines. Intriguingly, Ukraine’s Strana.ua, already mentioned above, sees things very differently. Its take is that “Zelensky himself provoked the scandal by his rudeness” toward both Vance and Trump. The latter, these Ukrainian observers who know their own vain and erratic leader all too well think, were still holding back, staying “quite calm and respectful” toward Zelensky.

For what it’s worth, my personal impression is that Zelensky did provoke the fight; that Vance and Trump treated him harshly and humiliatingly in return; and that Kiev’s prima-donna-in-chief deserved every last bit of it – and then some. Yes, after more than half a decade of Western leaders and mainstream media first building an insane personality cult around him and then babying and coddling him, it was a relief to see him talked to in earnest. And yes, it was glorious. Because Trump is right: Yes, Zelensky has been recklessly toying with World War III. And no, his regime has not been “alone.” On the contrary, without massive Western support that it should never have received it would long have ceased to exist. Vance also has a point: Ukraine is running out of soldiers, and Ukrainian men are hunted like animals to be shipped off to a hopeless meatgrinder war.

Finally, both are right: Zelensky displayed crude disrespect. Don’t get me wrong: In general, I am all for massively disrespecting the American empire. But once you’ve chosen to be its puppet and sold your own nation to it, you might as well cut out the grandstanding. In short, at long last, a dose of reality for the West’s spoiled brat in Kiev. And no more daft Churchill comparisons, please. In reality, like Stalin, Churchill was quite a monster – ask the miners or the Indians, for instance – who nonetheless played an important role in defeating Nazi Germany. But he was not a puffed-up provincial comedian.

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“In the US Congress, we have workhorses and we have show horses. And Lindsey Graham is a show horse. So when you’ve lost Lindsey Graham, you’ve lost the war.”

Zelensky Is Done – Kiriakou (RT)

Vladimir Zelensky is done as the leader of Ukraine and should be removed, journalist and former CIA analyst John Kiriakou told RT, commenting on the verbal spat between Zelensky and US President Donald Trump at the White House on Friday. The meeting became heated when Zelensky resisted Trump’s demand to negotiate peace with Russia, leading the latter to accuse him of ingratitude and an unwillingness to end the conflict. Consequently, Zelensky left the White House prematurely, without signing an agreement that would have granted the US rights to Ukraine’s natural resources. The planned joint press conference was canceled. “For all intents and purposes, Zelensky is done. I wouldn’t be surprised if in three months Zelensky is living in London or some such place,” Kiriakou said on Friday.

He noted that Zelensky, who, citing martial law, refused to step down after his presidential mandate ended last year, will “have to be removed” because he “continues to be an impediment to peace.” “You know, they’ve got this provision in the Ukrainian constitution where they don’t have to have elections during a time of martial law…Maybe it’s time to take a second look at that, get him out, and elect somebody who can negotiate in good faith with the Russian government,” the analyst suggested. Kiriakou noted that without the support of Washington, which Kiev effectively lost when Zelensky antagonized Trump on Friday, the Ukraine conflict can be considered “over.” “[Zelensky] can’t rely on NATO… if the US pulls out. And it looks very much that the US is in the process now of pulling out. The conflict is over. It’s done. This is today’s reality,” he stated.

Zelensky has previously dismissed the possibility of stepping down. In an interview with Fox News following the meeting with Trump, he responded to a call from US Senator Lindsey Graham “to resign and send somebody over that we can do business with.” Zelensky stated he won’t do that unless asked by the Ukrainian people. According to Kiriakou, losing the support of such a pro-Kiev figure as Graham is yet another sign that Zelensky time at the helm is over, as is the conflict itself. “In the US Congress, we have workhorses and we have show horses. And Lindsey Graham is a show horse. So when you’ve lost Lindsey Graham, you’ve lost the war. [It] is a message to Vladimir Zelensky that it’s time to just stop,” the analyst said.

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He said it before “Zelensky went to Washington”. Things are different now.

EU Trapped As ‘Cheerleader of US Hegemony’ – Jeffrey Sachs (RT)

The European Union’s unwavering support for US hegemonic policies has ensnared it in a precarious position, according to award-winning American economist and public policy analyst Jeffrey Sachs. In an interview with RT on Friday, Sachs discussed the Ukraine conflict, the EU’s geopolitical stance, and the broader implications of Washington’s foreign policy. He emphasized the necessity for the EU to assert its independence from Washington’s influence, advocating for the establishment of its own foreign policy and the normalization of relations with Moscow. The bloc “needs to have its own foreign policy. It needs to re-engage with Russia”, Sachs stated, highlighting the significance of the EU’s $20 trillion economy and the critical need for it to operate in harmony with the global economy.

When questioned about the EU’s potential to detach from Washington’s influence, Sachs affirmed: “I think it can and should be”. He criticized the bloc’s approach of” following the US in a blind kind of way, just trying to be the great cheerleader of US hegemony.” Sachs argued that US unipolar dominance must evolve, expressing concern over the current state of international discourse, where everything is broken down, and the hate talk is nonstop for everybody. Addressing the Ukraine conflict, Sachs suggested that both the EU and Kiev have suffered by aligning too closely with Washington’s policies. Now they don’t know quite what to do, he remarked, referencing former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s famous observation: “To be an enemy of America is dangerous, to be a friend of America is fatal”.

In the interview with RT, recorded before Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s visit to Washington, Sachs described the trip for the signing of a meaningless document on mineral rights as “sad, desperate, confused”. The meeting between Zelensky and US President Donald Trump devolved into an openly hostile confrontation, during which Trump accused Zelensky of ingratitude and unwillingness to negotiate an end to the Ukraine conflict. According to Sachs, “a true peace” in the conflict could be achieved, as there is “no fundamental conflict between the US and Russia”. Moscow and Washington are currently engaged in negotiations following a phone call between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month, and subsequent high-level talks between Russian and U.S. delegations in Saudi Arabia.

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“Rubio emphasized that Washington is seeking peace for Ukraine, adding that if there’s even a 1% chance of that happening, it “needs to be explored.”

EU Wants Another Year of War – Rubio (RT)

Some EU countries would favor the conflict between Russia and Ukraine dragging on longer with the idea of weakening Moscow, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has charged, stressing that Washington’s goal is to end the hostilities. Rubio’s comments came after a heated meeting between President Donald Trump and Vladimir Zelensky on Friday, which triggered accusations from American officials that the Ukrainian leader showed “disrespect” and ingratitude towards the US. In an interview with CNN on Friday, Rubio emphasized that Washington is seeking peace for Ukraine, adding that if there’s even a 1% chance of that happening, it “needs to be explored.” He also suggested that some of his EU counterparts are not exactly on board with this approach.

He cited an unnamed European foreign minister as saying that the EU’s plan is to allow “the war go… on for another year and at that point Russia will feel so weakened that they’ll beg for peace.” Rubio criticized this approach, stating, “That’s another year of killing, another year of dying, another year of destruction, and by the way, not a very realistic plan in my point of view.” Rubio has also called on Zelensky to apologize for what he called an “antagonistic” approach during the meeting, rebuking him for his stance on an agreement granting the US rights to Ukraine’s natural resources, which was set to be signed at the White House but ended up in limbo due to the spat that ensued. While Zelensky – who urged the US to continue military support for Ukraine while warning that the failure to do so would backfire – was heavily criticized by Trump administration officials and Republicans, many EU leaders rallied to his support.

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the EU Commission, praised Zelensky’s “dignity” and reassured him that he is “never alone.” Friedrich Merz, Germany’s presumed future chancellor, said that “we must never confuse aggressor and victim in this terrible war.” Meanwhile, Kaja Kallas, the EU’s top diplomat, went even further, issuing a not-so-veiled rebuke to Trump. “We stand by Ukraine. We will step up our support to Ukraine so that they can continue to fight back the aggressor… Today, it became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It’s up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge.” Whereas Russia has praised the Trump administration for its willingness to find ways to resolve the Ukraine conflict, including examining its root causes, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has denounced the EU for what he described as a desire to further escalate the hostilities.

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4 “experts”. This is Fyodor Lukyanov’s contribution.

Russian Experts On The Trump Talks Fiasco (RT)

“Vladimir Zelensky underestimated the scale of the shift that occurred in American politics after Donald Trump’s arrival. He was misled by the fact that for three years, no one in the West considered it acceptable to publicly contradict Ukrainian representatives, especially Zelensky himself. Diplomats, politicians, and cultural figures from Ukraine were allowed almost anything. They are victims; they have the right. Permissiveness played a cruel joke on the Kiev leader. But the issue is not just about someone’s bad manners; that is a private matter. Such a model of behavior was possible as long as the Ukrainian conflict was perceived in the West as a battle of the right side of history against the wrong one. And in such a battle, almost anything is allowed. And no one will condemn it.

Trump views the war as an annoying nuisance, a mess in which all participants are to blame, especially his predecessor. The key takeaway from Trump during this truly historic interaction in the White House was: I am a mediator; I am not on anyone’s side; I want the war to end. And this is a fundamental shift. Strangely enough, Trump has taken a position of classic diplomacy, which is necessary to end wars. Zelensky and his supporters reject it, counting on a clear victory. But that is unattainable. Zelensky’s problem now is that, having made a fatal mistake in his choice of strategy in the White House, he has disarmed even his support group in Europe and within the US itself.

They may express as much outrage as they want about Trump and demand continued aid for Ukraine, but Zelensky’s mistake is glaring. The opportunity to sway the American president to a more favorable position has been lost. And two small remarks. First, Zelensky now has the opportunity to appreciate the restraint and even tactfulness of the Russian president, no matter how they feel about each other. Second – the war continues.”

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“Europe May Pay Lip Service to Zelensky, But Taking Over for the US is Burden too Big to Bear..”

Trump’s Smackdown of Zelensky Wake-up Call for West (Sp.)

The fierce clash between President Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky on live TV shocked US allies and prompted devastated Washington pundits to start writing requiems to ‘Pax Americana’. Sputnik reached out to a pair of veteran observers of international politics and defense policy to explain the blowup, and what comes next. “Zelensky came all the way to Washington to sign an open-ended, financially unlimited, no security-guarantee deal marketed in his own country as the opposite. Trump and Vance openly declared that he’s been defeated, is gambling with the lives of his own people, that he has no men left and that peace must be made,” renowned Turkish journalist Ceyda Karan told Sputnik, commenting on Friday’s epic slugfest.

“They said outright that Zelensky is going to drag the whole world into World War III. What’s striking here is that Trump is presenting the truth to the Western world, which has become accustomed to political correctness,” Karan stressed, outlining the most important takeaway from the verbal altercation. Zelensky tried “to play the role of a ‘hero being mistreated’ by the US president. The issue of Trump demanding the rights to Ukraine’s resources has been presented to the world as if Zelensky were a victim. However, he himself has been talking about this throughout the past year. When the US Congress had difficulty allocating new military aid to Kiev, it was Zelensky who offered resources, sitting next to Senator Lindsey Graham and listening to his rhetoric about ‘fighting to the last Ukrainian’,” the observer recalled.

He repeated this idea while meeting Trump on the eve of the 2024 election at Trump Tower in September, and again before Ukraine’s parliament at the end of last year during his speech on his so-called ‘victory plan’, “which was ridiculed even by Western media,” Karan said. “To replace the US, Europe at least has to double its support for Ukraine,” Swedish Armed Forces veteran and politician Mikael Valtersson told Sputnik, commenting on European leaders’ plans to organize a hasty summit on Ukraine support in the fallout from the Trump-Zelensky blowup. “Picking up the slack for the US would be “a very heavy burden for Europe to carry,” Valtersson explained, particularly amid “growing resistance among the European population to spending huge amounts of money on Ukraine,” which would only increase further if spending did.

If European powers do move forward anyway as the US seeks normalization, they would drive themselves into a corner trying “to continue isolating Russia” alone, without Washington’s backing, which would in effect mean they “will be isolated themselves.” Valtersson expects any public European “united front” behind Zelensky among the Europeans to “crack” over time as alternative parties seeking peace and realism in Russia policy rise, while other countries “pay lip service to supporting Ukraine” without actually ramping up commitments. “Europe will be divided into three groups; those that ardently support Ukraine, those that pretend to support Ukraine and those that fight for a detente and a peaceful resolution of the conflict,” the observer predicted.

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“NATO is finished,” the analyst speculated, since the EU’s main military wing is “paralyzed without its transatlantic partner.”

EU Delusional if It Hopes to Fill Ukraine Void Without US – Analyst (Sp.)

Volodymyr Zelensky’s meeting with Donald Trump in Washington was a disaster, with the Ukrainian leader forced to leave early after a public altercation with the US President. EU member states are “incapable of sustaining Ukraine’s military needs, let alone facilitating post-conflict reconstruction, estimated at tens of billions of dollars,” Joseph Siracusa, global futures professor, Curtin University, Perth, Australia, told Sputnik. After the Trump-Zelensky blowout, losing US muscle will be “fatal” for Ukraine, triggering a scramble for power in Kiev and the need to adjust to the reality of being “excluded from NATO though permitted to enter the EU,” he added. Furthermore, “NATO is finished,” the analyst speculated, since the EU’s main military wing is “paralyzed without its transatlantic partner.”

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Bezos needs to weed out the extremists. He must create X on paper.

WaPo Hit By Second Wave Of “Rapid-Fire” Mass Subscription Cancellations (ZH)

The Washington Post was hit with another wave of subscription cancellations—its second in months—following an op-ed by its owner, billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, in which he advocated for “personal liberties and free markets.” Bezos announced on Wednesday morning that the WaPo’s opinion pages will be “writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.” As Bezos explained on X: There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader’s doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views. Today, the internet does that job.

I am of America and for America, and proud to be so. Our country did not get here by being typical. And a big part of America’s success has been freedom in the economic realm and everywhere else. Freedom is ethical — it minimizes coercion — and practical — it drives creativity, invention, and prosperity. According to NPR News, this led to the immediate resignation of Opinions Editor David Shipley and the cancellation of 75,000 digital subscribers. The number of cancellations comes from a person who asked for anonymity because of the fear of repercussions at the Post.

The rapid-fire cancellations since Wednesday represent a historic level of reader fury over the changes. Yet they are only the most recent wave in a series of mass cancellations that began in late October. That was when Bezos killed a planned endorsement of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. Between then and Election Day, more than 300,000 subscribers canceled the Post, as NPR first reported last month. That was more than 12% of digital subscribers, which make up the vast majority of the paper’s paid circulation. The Post has aggressively wooed new subscribers to replace them, boosting circulation by 400,000, often at highly discounted rates, according to a Post executive. Google Search trends data showed “cancel Washington Post” surged the most in DC, Maryland, and Virginia, three states home to the radical left – and subs of WaPo that would be the most angry with Bezos shifting towards libertarian views.

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Far-right has become a meaningless term. Anyone not explicitly woke can apply. Is Trump far-right? Plenty people would say yes, but that doesn’t make it true. How about Orban? Putin?!

Far-Right Leaders Gather In Madrid To “Make Europe Great Again” (Vracar)

Representatives of the Patriots for Europe (PfE), a far-right bloc in the European Parliament, met in Madrid for a summit hosted by Spain’s Vox party on February 8-9. During the meeting, they attacked policies and trends that they say are stripping Europe and Europeans of their supposed greatness. Riding the wave of Donald Trump’s return to the White House, they announced their intention to “make Europe great again.” In attendance were Viktor Orbán, Marine Le Pen, and right-wing politicians from Estonia, Portugal, Greece, and Italy, among others. Their speeches stuck to familiar tropes, criticizing the European Union’s climate and migration policies and railing against “wokeism” and “progressive” domination over policymaking in Brussels. However, this gathering took place in a different context than far-right exchanges in previous years.

Trump’s victory has emboldened the far-right across Europe, reinforcing their belief that their moment has arrived. “The Trump tornado has changed the world in just a few weeks,” Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán declared. “Yesterday we were heretics, today we’re mainstream.” This boost in confidence also coincides with right-wing electoral gains across Europe. Most notably, Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD)—not part of the PfE—is polling in second place ahead of the upcoming elections. Much of the summit’s centered on sovereignty, though not the kind of sovereignty that promotes solidarity and self-determination. Instead, xenophobia and exclusion are at the center of the PfE’s vision of society, with some speakers going so far as to call for a “new Reconquista.”

“Migration policy is out of control, and the bottomless pit of immigration is emptying our coffers and filling our prisons,” said Marine Le Pen of France’s National Rally. When it comes to their own ranks, however, the far-right seems to be all about internationalism. PfE leaders eagerly discussed strengthening transatlantic alliances—not just with Trump’s administration, but also with far-right leaders in Latin America. “Patriots is a transatlantic party, but we are also open,” said Vox representative Jorge Buxadé just ahead of the meeting. “It is not only a transatlantic alliance with the North, with the US, but also with the South. That is where Vox plays a key role—bridging the connection with (Argentine President) Milei and (Paraguayan President) Peña.”

The speeches delivered on Sunday made it clear that European far-right leaders expect Trump’s presidency to bolster their influence and help them strengthen ties with like-minded political movements worldwide. Those attending the summit also looked to Trump’s presidency as a weapon against “wokeism” and what they describe as a progressive takeover of political institutions. In Europe, they frame this belief as a critique of EU leadership on climate change, industry, and governance. In his speech, Orbán went so far as to claim that “Europe has been kidnapped by the progressive ideology just like the mythological Europa was taken by the bull.”

While Ursula von der Leyen’s leadership faces criticism from all sides, left-wing parties focus on her austerity-driven policies, which have fueled poverty and inequality across Europe. The left’s critique is based on real economic struggles, advocating for social justice and peace, in reflection of the people’s demands. In contrast, PfE offers no such alternative. While some, including Lega’s Matteo Salvini, mentioned Europe’s deepening industrial crisis, their proposed solutions for popular discontent remain unchanged: xenophobia, securitization and militarization, climate denialism, and further cuts to public services. As a result, while PfE leaders believe their movement is the future of Europe, their reliance on the same neoliberal policies they claim to oppose suggests otherwise.

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A small dick?!

What’s Behind Keir Starmer’s Latest Defense Spending Boost? (Jay)

Who is Sir Keir Starmer and whose interests does he represent? Even his strongest supporters from the West are beginning to notice that there hasn’t been one single policy strategy since he became British PM, which is for the actual British public themselves. Traditionally one tends to think of Labour PMs wanting to make a splash with the poor in their first six months in office, but all Starmer has done has made this particular group even poorer. His recent announcement in the House of Commons (Britain’s parliament) like many others since he took office in the summer of 2024, surprised everyone, even his own MPs. He is raising the percentage of the country’s GDP usually prescribed to defense spending from 2.3% to 2.5%, which, in practical terms means that the £53.9bn usually put aside for defense spending in one year will rise a further £13.4bn from 2027.

What is behind this somewhat odd ruse? Britain’s relations with the U.S., it should be pointed out, are at an all-time low since Trump took office. Did the U.S. president give signals to Downing Street that this is what he wanted? Possibly. Given the terrible relations between London and Washington, it pulls the UK out of the hole that it largely dug itself with both its foreign secretary running down Trump in a YouTube rant and Peter Mandelson doing much the same, contributing towards a bard atmosphere. So can Starmer save it and work with Trump?

This is a harder question as the British PM is leading the charge on supporting the Zelensky regime further with military support. The timing is of course paramount as Trump’s swift moves to get a peace deal have gained momentum since Zelensky confirmed that he has agreed to a mineral deal. The deal itself does not guarantee a peace deal, but it certainly paves the way as now Trump has a stake in Ukraine and the country being peaceful. It also sends a signal to Putin. Almost at the same time the Ukrainian parliament voted to continue martial law in Ukraine, which, in theory allows Zelensky to continue as unelected President, we can conclude that Trump has let Zelensky buy some time.

But as usual it is the Europeans who are the real threat to Zelensky’s longevity. Starmer’s announcement of bigger defense spending is a signal that the UK will support a war in Ukraine indefinitely hoping that other EU countries will follow the theme. The problem of course is that this sets the EU off on a collision course with Trump, which many would argue threatens to be the start of an unprecedented rift, only corrected by him being replaced by a democrat President. Europe has never been so isolated from the U.S., as of now with its blinded dogma over Ukraine and a war it cannot stop fighting and losing. The more a rich man spends on a fake painting, the less inclined he is to accept its lack of authenticity. This is where Europe is now, with Starmer leading the pack of mad wolves talking about sending British troops there. Insane.

Of course, Trump and Putin will put an end to these wet dreams – would British soldiers even agree to go there? – by simply creating a peace plan which the rest of Europe will have to respect. To do this, priorities have to be drawn up. Trump gets his payback on minerals. Putin concedes this small request. Next, do we work with Zelensky or bypass him? Will Russian sanctions be part of a bigger deal? Almost certainly as it is no coincidence that Trump has already indicated in mainstream media that at some point these will be tackled head on. The delay is Trump working out what benefits he can extract from Putin if he is to lift sanctions. The important thing is that for the first time in contemporary history U.S. is not the belligerent buffoon starting wars around the world to embolden its hegemony and show the world what it can do with just mere military might. It is a peace broker, ending wars. And with the help of Russia.

Where does Europe stand in all this? Like children who have been left at a kiddies birthday party with no cake. Petulant, juvenile and completely deluded about who they are and what their capabilities are. Europe bays for more blood and even greater economic decline, while their own people suffer more and more. The most insincere aspect of Starmer’s speech in the parliament is when he talks about poor people suffering for the Ukraine war. His own government has gone from denying old people a heating subsidy to now his own police force threatening them with jail time if they don’t stop their mean tweets about Labour officials. Is it perhaps that Zelensky is so admired for being a dictator in Europe who has achieved so much more than his western counterparts, why he is so revered?

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The spectre of Elon Musk.

A Spectre Is Haunting Germany (Beppler-Spahl)

Just weeks before Germany’s general election, a spectre is haunting the country’s political class —the spectre of Elon Musk. Amid the allegeded threat of foreign interference in the election, the hand-wringing over how to stop the troublesome billionaire boss of X/Twitter—who has publicly backed the far-right populist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD)—has reached worrying heights. This was evident when Thierry Breton, the former European Union commissioner for digital affairs, peddled the idea that the elections might have to be annulled if Germans voted the wrong way. Breton was discussing the possibility of an election win for the AfD in an interview with French broadcaster BFMTV/RMC. Referring to Musk, he said: “Let’s keep calm and enforce our laws in Europe when they are at risk of being circumvented […]. We did it in Romania, and we will obviously do it if necessary in Germany.”

He was, of course, alluding to the shocking annulment of Romania’s presidential election in December after an outsider—a Putin-supporting anti-vaccine populist—had surprisingly won the first round. The EU elites tried to blame the result on foreign ‘disinformation’ spread via social media. No German politician has yet gone as far as Breton. But it would be a big mistake to dismiss the former EU bureaucrat’s statement as a mere slip of the tongue–even if he has, in the meantime, retracted. (After Musk labelled him “a tyrant of Europe”, Breton claimed that he had been misquoted, that it “was another fake news” or a translation mistake, tweeting: “The EU has NO mechanism to nullify any election anywhere in the EU.”)

Yet other influential figures, such as Germany’s president Frank Walter Steinmeier (SPD), have also issued similar warnings. When Steinmeier dissolved the Bundestag (German Parliament) in December, and announced snap elections, he said: “Outside influence is a danger to democracy. Be it covert … or open and blatant, as is currently being practised particularly intensively on Platform X.” Notably, to date, the president has not distanced himself from Breton’s threat to erase the election results. There is no doubt that Musk has been meddlesome. He has also emboldened the AfD leadership. In late December, he wrote an opinion piece for Die Welt claiming that “only the AfD could save Germany” from decline. Following Steinmeier’s warnings in December, he took to X, disparaging the president as an “anti-democratic tyrant”.

Then, on January 9th, Musk livestreamed approximately 70 minutes of conversation with Alice Weidel, the AfD’s candidate for chancellor. During the talk, he reiterated his endorsement for her party. Though not everyone in the AfD was happy with Weidel’s performance—she was long-winded, and often very crass—they naturally appreciated Musk’s backing. At the AfD’s party conference, held last weekend, Weidel’s references to Musk received enthusiastic applause. However, attributing the AfD’s success to Musk, rather than to the failures of Germany’s established politicians, is blatant nonsense. The party’s polling numbers have held steady at around 20% for weeks, and recent surveys indicate that Musk’s interventions have had negligible impact, at best. This narrative reflects a persistent and problematic anti-populist assumption: that voters are passive objects, easily swayed by ‘demagogues’ rather than acting on their own political judgment.

Back in January last year—long before Musk was getting up to mischief online—Frank Walter Steinmeier called for a large alliance against the AfD and said: “We will not allow this country to be destroyed by extremist pied pipers.” What he meant was that AfD supporters were following tricksters and shady characters, as the rats and the children of Hamelin followed the pied piper to their doom in the old German folktale. The insult to German voters in the analogy was obviously lost on the president. The establishment’s fear of Musk is, in truth, its fear of the electorate. The threat to cancel the election was just one of many that have been made in recent days. Following Musk’s conversation with Weidel, EU vice president Henna Virkkunen announced an investigation into whether the conversation violated the Digital Services Act. Germany’s Bundestag has also launched an investigation into whether it was an illegal “party donation.”

The idea that the speech had given the party an illegal monetary advantage (“geldwerter Vorteil“) has also been peddled by Robert Habeck, Germany’s hapless economics minister and the Green Party’s candidate for chancellor. If the allegation of a financial advantage is proven, “this would have considerable consequences” for the AfD, said Michael Brenner, a constitutional lawyer, adding that the party could face “a very substantial sum” in fines. Claiming that a single interview may have given the AfD an unfair advantage in the run-up to the federal elections is more than a little disingenuous. While mainstream parties like the SPD, CDU, and Greens regularly receive extensive media coverage through numerous interviews and talk shows, the AfD has frequently been excluded from such platforms.

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“The EU has pledged to phase out Russian energy by 2027. Germany’s Economy Ministry insists that independence from Russian gas remains a priority for the country.”

German Factories Counting On Return of Russian Gas – Bloomberg (RT)

Key German industrial leaders have expressed their desire to see Russian gas return to Europe once a resolution to the Ukraine conflict is found, Bloomberg has reported. Chemical and manufacturing sector representatives argue that affordable energy is crucial for Germany’s economy to recover, the agency wrote on Friday. European gas prices surged after the Ukraine conflict escalated in 2022. Pipeline gas imports from Russia mostly ceased due to sanctions and the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines in 2022. Nevertheless, EU nations have still been buying record volumes of Russian LNG, the cost of which has nearly quadrupled in three years, according to Eurostat. Christian Gunther, managing director of the Leuna chemical park, emphasized that bringing back Russian gas would be a logical step if peace is achieved.

“We must ensure the damage caused by this conflict is repaired,” he told Bloomberg, adding that resuming deliveries “would be the logical consequence.” In 2021, Russian pipeline gas accounted for 32% of the total demand of the EU and UK, while Germany relied on Russia for 55% of its consumption, according to the European Council and Statista. Since cutting ties with Russian energy, the EU has turned to expensive LNG imports, primarily from the US. The shift has driven natural gas prices on the continent to their highest levels in two years, prompting discussions in Brussels about price caps. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has warned that soaring energy costs could cripple the EU economy.

The EU’s latest sanctions package, introduced on Monday, tightens restrictions on Russian energy but stops short of banning LNG imports. Gunther earlier criticized Germany’s energy policy, pointing out the inconsistency of banning Russian pipeline gas while still importing LNG. Bloomberg reported that Sven Schulze, the economy minister of German’s Saxony-Anhalt state, believes permanently excluding Russian gas “would be a mistake.” US President Donald Trump has been urging Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky to negotiate a peace deal with Russia, warning that failure to do so could result in the loss of American support.

On Friday, during a heated meeting at the Oval Office, Trump reportedly told Zelensky to leave the White House and return when he was ready to pursue peace. Ukraine refused to extend its gas transit contract with Russia’s Gazprom beyond 2024, further reducing EU access to Russian pipeline gas. The only remaining supply flows through the TurkStream pipeline via Türkiye and Greece. “We need peace to reopen pipelines, ensure supply security, and lower prices,” said Manuela Grieger, former chair of the workers union InfraLeuna, told Bloomberg. The EU has pledged to phase out Russian energy by 2027. Germany’s Economy Ministry insists that independence from Russian gas remains a priority for the country.

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Seinfeld

 

 

USAID

 

 

Elon Epstein

 

 

Elon Soros

 

 

Cockatoo
https://twitter.com/i/status/1895858333938245676

 

 

Butterfly

 

 

Dinosaur

 

 

Galagos

 

 

Kid

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Feb 212025
 
 February 21, 2025  Posted by at 11:04 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  49 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Nude on a beach 1929

 

Trump Officially Signs Kash Patel In As FBI Director (ZH)
Trump’s Goal Is To ‘Abolish The IRS’ As Layoffs Loom: Lutnick (ZH)
Bessent Says Russia Could Win Sanctions Relief If Cooperative In Peace Talks (ZH)
Zelensky Would Lose If Elections Were Held Now – Economist (RT)
Trump ‘Very Upset’ With Zelensky – Rubio (RT)
Zelensky ‘Fooled’ Trump With Rare-Earth Mineral Prospect – Ukrainian MP (RT)
Western Leaders Back Zelensky Amid War Of Words With Trump (RT)
Musk Claims Ukrainians ‘Despise’ Zelensky (RT)
The Royal Society Moves to Expel Musk Over His Political Views (Turley)
Whose Gold, if Anyone’s, Is in Ft. Knox? (Paul Craig Roberts)
Trump Cannot Allow a Declining Europe to Drag the US Down (O’Keeffe)
“And Just Like That” – Does NATO Even Exist Any More? (Every)
EU Leaders Fear America More Than They Fear Russia (Bordachev)
Kremlin Responds To Reports Of Plans For Western Troops In Ukraine (RT)
MEP Verhofstadt Says Trump Is ‘NATO’s Greatest Threat’ (RMX)
Russia’s Long-Term Play Is Much Bigger Than Ukraine (Trenin)
Points Trump Is Now Making Are What Russia Said All Along (Amar)
Trump Wants China Nuclear Deal – NYT (RT)

 

 

 

 

Dangerous

Debt
https://twitter.com/i/status/1892348045553009109

Medicare
https://twitter.com/i/status/1892439128177856745

Fico
https://twitter.com/i/status/1892314041449685211

Renegade

 

 

 

 

Kash Patel will need the best protection that all political currency put together can buy. The FBI is a dangerous environment.

Trump Officially Signs Kash Patel In As FBI Director (ZH)

The Senate on Thursday confirmed Kash Patel to lead the FBI. Patel had widespread support of Republicans – even Mitch McConnell (!), who argued that the Trump nominee would reform the nation’s top law enforcement agency after decades of corruption. “Mr. Patel should be our next FBI director because the FBI has been infected by political bias and weaponized against the American people. Mr. Patel knows it, Mr. Patel exposed it, and Mr. Patel has been targeted for it,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said last week during a committee meeting to discuss Patel’s nomination, before the panel advanced Patel in a party-line vote.

Update (1550ET): In response to his confirmation, Patel said he was “honored” to have been confirmed, and he will now “rebuild trust in the FBI. “The FBI has a storied legacy—from the “G-Men” to safeguarding our nation in the wake of 9/11. The American people deserve an FBI that is transparent, accountable, and committed to justice. The politicalization of our justice system has eroded public trust—but that ends today. My mission as Director is clear: let good cops be cops—and rebuild trust in the FBI,” he said in a post on X, adding “And to those who seek to harm Americans—consider this your warning. We will hunt you down in every corner of this planet.” Update (1944ET): Trump has officially signed Patel in as the new Director of the FBI… Democrats, meanwhile are positively spooked…

Meanwhile, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) – who notably blocked the release of the Epstein client list that Patel has vowed to expose, held a press conference outside FBI headquarters on Thursday, slamming what he called Patel’s “bizarre political statements” spanning Jan. 6, to retribution – and accused Reepublicans of “willfully ignoring red flags on Mr. Patel,” who he argued has “neither the experience, the judgment or the temperament” to be FBI chief for the next decade. “Mr. Patel will be a political and national security disaster,” said Durbin. Patel, a vocal critic of the FBI, has worked in several roles during the first Trump administration, including acting deputy director of national intelligence. In prior comments, Patel said he wanted to clean out the bureau’s headquarters in Washington DC as part of a mission to dismantle the Deep State.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1892326242336251987

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“The IRS employs roughly 90,000 people across the country.”

Trump’s Goal Is To ‘Abolish The IRS’ As Layoffs Loom: Lutnick (ZH)

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Wednesday that President Trump’s goal is to abolish the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). “Think about it, Donald Trump announces the External Revenue Service, and his goal is very simple (…) his goal is to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and let all the outsiders pay,” Lutnick told Fox News host Jesse Watters. Trump has said that the External Revenue Service will force foreign trade partners to “finally pay their fair share,” and has previously floated the idea of abolishing federal income taxes as part of his plans for “tariffing and taxing foreign nations to enrich our citizens.”

Lutnick also said that Elon Musk and DOGE were “going to cut” $1 trillion, “and then we’re going to get rid of all these tax scams that hammer against America, and we’re going to raise a trillion dollars of revenue.” The IRS is responsible for collecting the federal taxes from individuals and corporations – taking in some $823 billion in individual taxes in 2024, roughly 52% of total revenue, according to the Treasury Department. Lutnick’s remarks come as the IRS is reportedly looking to lay off thousands of workers. According to the Associated Press, the agency will start by letting go roughly 7,000 probationary workers in Washington and around the country. Those with roughly one year or less of service at the agency – largely in compliance departments – will be affected, according to the report.

“The layoffs are part of the Trump administration’s intensified efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce through the Department of Government Efficiency by ordering agencies to lay off nearly all probationary employees who have not yet gained civil service protection. They come despite IRS employees involved in the 2025 tax season being told earlier this month that they would not be allowed to accept a buyout offer from the Trump administration until mid-May, after the taxpayer filing deadline. It’s unclear how the layoffs may affect tax collection services this year. As the nation’s revenue collector, the IRS was tasked during the Biden administration with targeting high-wealth tax evaders for an additional stream of income to the U.S., which is $36 trillion in debt. By the end of 2024, the IRS collected over $1.3 billion in back taxes from rich tax dodgers.” -AP

On Wednesday, the NY Times reported that the IRS would begin laying off roughly 6,000 employees on Thursday, and will target ‘relatively recent hires which the Biden administration had attempted to revitalize with a surge of funding and new staff.’ According to that report, IRS managers on Wednesday began asking their employees to bring their government-issued equipment to the office. “Under an executive order, I.R.S. has been directed to terminate probationary employees who were not deemed critical to filing season,” one email reads. “We don’t have many details that we are permitted to share, but this is all tied to compliance with the executive order.” According to former IRS official Dave Kautter, “There’s a flood of résumés from people at the I.R.S. looking for jobs throughout the tax community,” adding “Law firms are getting a fair number of résumés, accounting firms are getting a fair number of résumés.” The IRS employs roughly 90,000 people across the country.

Lutnick

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That’s not how you communicate with Russia.

Bessent Says Russia Could Win Sanctions Relief If Cooperative In Peace Talks (ZH)

The Trump administration has signaled that Russia could win sanctions relief if Ukraine war talks are successful. “Russia could win some relief from U.S. sanctions based on its willingness to negotiate an end to its war in Ukraine,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent conveyed Thursday in a Bloomberg interview. Per the breaking report: “Asked whether the U.S. was prepared to increase sanctions on Russia or reduce them depending on how talks to end the Ukraine war go, Bessent said: “That’d be a very good characterization.” The US Treasury chief then emphasized, “The president is committed to ending this conflict very quickly.” Trump’s stance on Ukraine has been met with growing beltway resistance, including from notable Republicans, amid a growing war of words with Zelensky, labeled a ‘dictator’ who doesn’t want to hold elections in a Wednesday Truth Social post by Trump.

The Ukrainian administration understands itself to be increasingly isolated by Washington, now near the eve of the war reaching the exact three-year mark, and there are reports that Zelensky is being told by his advisors to not respond to Trump’s provocative words. Trump is telling Zelensky he needs to hold elections. Any sanctions relief on Moscow would mark a huge shift in the conflict, and Europe would ultimately have no choice but to conform, despite the continuing hawkish statements issued from Brussels. Statements from Rubio also reflected this Trump stance days ago…

Russian markets have responded this week, with the Ruble hitting a six-month high: Russia’s ruble surged to its strongest level against the U.S. dollar in more than six months on Thursday, buoyed by renewed U.S.-Russia ties and hopes in Moscow for sanctions relief. The ruble has gained about 14% since U.S. President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, reversing losses from late 2024. On Thursday, Russia’s Central Bank set the official exchange rate at 88.5 rubles against the U.S. dollar, its highest level since August. While Russia does not have a fixed exchange rate, the Central Bank’s figure reflects market trends. The rebound follows a steep drop in the ruble last year when the outgoing Biden administration imposed its toughest sanctions on Russia’’ oil sector since the start of the war”.

Trump has held out the threat of more sanctions, but this new statement from Bessent signals where the US administration’s priorities are headed. Retired US Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, is in Kiev where on Thursday he had an (apparently) brief meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. A scheduled post-meeting news conference has been unexpectedly canceled, though no reason was immediately forthcoming, according to a Ukrainian official, presidential spokesman Serhii Nikiforov. The US side made no comment upon the presser’s cancelation. The Associated Press observes, “When the meeting began, photographers and video journalists were allowed into a room where the two men shook hands before sitting across from each other at a table at the presidential office in Kyiv.. What’s the latest in the growing feud that let up to this?

President Trump on Wednesday night continued bashing Ukraine’s Zelensky, this time describing that his officials treated Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent “rudely” during his visit to Kiev last week. Trump further said that Zelensky chose to sleep instead of meeting with the high-ranking American official to discuss the White House proposed mineral rights deal. “Zelensky was sleeping and unavailable to meet him,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. [..]The Treasury Secretary had “traveled many hours on the train, which is a dangerous trip,” Trump added, characterizing the whole visit as futile given the Ukrainians “told him ‘no'” on the deal for America to acquire 50% of the country’s rare earth minerals.

Trump’s anti-Zelensky rhetoric, which included him calling him a “dictator” yesterday, has grown to the point that many pundits see that the Ukrainian president’s exit is nigh. Trump is pressuring Kiev for new elections, which would require parliament to change the constitution. Vice President J.D. Vance also warned Wednesday that Zelensky will only bring harm on himself should be continue ‘badmouthing’ President Trump. This was in reference to Zelensky asserting that Trump is living in a Russian “disinformation space”. Vance’s warnings were conveyed in an interview published in the Daily Mail: “The idea that Zelensky is going to change the president’s mind by badmouthing him in public media, everyone who knows the president will tell you that is an atrocious way to deal with this administration,” Vance said. “We obviously love the Ukrainian people,” but “we obviously think that this war needs to come to a rapid close,” he added.

And Vance followed with a reminder: “That is the policy of the president of the United States. It is not based on Russian disinformation.” Elon Musk has defended the Trump admin’s fierce critique of Zelensky. For example, Musk had tweeted out the following list by prominent pro-Trump account @DC_Draino: Want to know why Trump called Zelensky a Dictator? Here are the FACTS:
• He’s in year 6 of his 5 year term
• Declared martial law Feb 2022 and has banned elections since then
• Banned 11 political parties
• Passed law in 2022 to censor journalists and combined all news into one gov’t station
• Journalists investigating his corruption get conscripted and thrown on the front lines to die

The list ended with the observation that “Even Saddam Hussein held elections!” We should add to this list the ongoing persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church by the Zelensky government, merely because it maintains spiritual communion with the Moscow Patriarchate. At this point, many pundits believe it’s only a matter of time before there’s a change in Ukraine’s government. European leaders are of course rallying around Zelensky, but the pressure and power of Washington is a different matter, and in essence Trump is warning that if the Zelensky doesn’t achieve peace, there will be drastic changes in Kiev.

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“He suggested that holding a vote amid the ongoing conflict with Moscow would undermine national unity.”

Zelensky Would Lose If Elections Were Held Now – Economist (RT)

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky would lose to his former Commander-in-Chief, Valery Zaluzhny, by a large margin if presidential elections were held in Ukraine today, the Economist has reported, citing “internal polling.” Zelensky’s five-year presidential term expired in May of 2024, and he has refused to hold elections since, citing martial law. Speaking late last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that Zelensky no longer has the legitimacy required to sign any official agreement. In an article on Wednesday, the Economist writes that “many Ukrainians are clearly frustrated with their war leader.” According to data cited in the report, Zelensky “would lose a future election by 30% to 65% to Valery Zaluzhny,” should the former commander run for office. Zaluzhny currently serves as Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK.

The Economist further claimed that, in sharp contrast to the 90% popularity he supposedly enjoyed during the early days of the conflict in 2022, Zelensky’s ratings hit a low of 52% last month. On Thursday, Ukraine’s Strana.UA media outlet cited a recent survey conducted by the Socis polling company indicating that only 15.9% would vote for Zelensky, with Zaluzhny enjoying the support of 27.2% of respondents. The question of Zelensky’s popularity at home was raised by US President Donald Trump on Tuesday, when he told reporters that the “leader in Ukraine… he’s down at a 4% approval rating.” He also pointed out that calls for the Ukrainian leadership to hold elections are “not a Russia thing,” but rather “something coming from me, and coming from many other countries also.”

Responding to the US president’s claim, Zelensky suggested on Wednesday that Trump had fallen for “Russian disinformation.” The politician also cited a January poll from the Kiev International Institute of Sociology (KMIS) that indicated 57% of Ukrainians trusted him. The Ukrainian leader’s remarks apparently did not sit well with Trump, who blasted Zelensky in a post on his Truth Social platform later that day as a “dictator without election.” The US head of state reiterated his allegation that the politician “is very low in Ukrainian Polls,” concluding that “Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left.” Speaking at the Munich Security Conference last Saturday, the Ukrainian leader claimed he was “ready to talk about elections, [but] Ukrainians don’t want this.” He suggested that holding a vote amid the ongoing conflict with Moscow would undermine national unity.

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“..officials in Kiev are making “absolutely unacceptable statements about other states,” adding that the downfall of Zelensky’s popularity is an “absolutely obvious trend.”

Trump ‘Very Upset’ With Zelensky – Rubio (RT)

US President Donald Trump is “very upset” with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, citing a disagreement over a proposed mineral rights deal. In a sign of growing tensions between the US and Ukraine, Trump on Wednesday branded Zelensky a “dictator without elections,” accusing him of mismanaging the conflict with Russia and misusing American aid. Zelensky, whose presidential term ended last spring, has refused to hold a new election, citing martial law. Moscow deems Zelensky illegitimate, insisting that legal authority now lies with the Ukrainian parliament. In an interview with Canadian-American journalist Catherine Herridge on Thursday, Rubio said he believes that “President Trump is very upset at President Zelensky – and rightfully so.”

The secretary added that he “was personally very upset” with the conversation top US officials had with the Ukrainian leader over a prospective deal that would grant the US access to Ukraine’s vast mineral resources, suggesting that Zelensky flip-flopped on the issue. According to Rubio, the Americans tried to reassure Zelensky that “we want to be in a joint venture with you – not because we’re trying to steal from your country, but because we think that’s actually a security guarantee,” while stressing that the US wants to get back some of the money it had spent to support Kiev. “He said, sure, we want to do this deal; it makes all the sense in the world – the only thing is I need to run it through my legislative process… I read two days later that Zelensky is out there saying: I rejected the deal,” Rubio said, adding: “that’s not what happened in that meeting.”

The diplomat argued that “there should be some level of gratitude” from Ukraine. “When you don’t see it and you see him out there accusing the president of living in a world of disinformation, that’s… very counterproductive.” Rubio was referring to Zelensky’s response to Trump’s claim that the Ukrainian leader’s current approval rating is 4%. Zelensky has not directly addressed Trump’s “dictator” remarks. However, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrey Sibiga stressed that “the Ukrainian people and their President Zelensky refused to give in to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s pressure,” adding that “nobody can force Ukraine to give up.” Commenting on the feud between Zelensky and Trump, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov suggested that officials in Kiev are making “absolutely unacceptable statements about other states,” adding that the downfall of Zelensky’s popularity is an “absolutely obvious trend.”

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The Ukraine rare earth story becomes bewildering. Javier Blas says Ukraine has “no significant rare-earth deposits other than small scandium mines.” Others say they do have deposits, but these cannot be “dug up” in a profitable manner. And Zelensky wants a $500 billion deal for them?! Trump needs research.

Zelensky ‘Fooled’ Trump With Rare-Earth Mineral Prospect – Ukrainian MP (RT)

Vladimir Zelensky wildly misled US President Donald Trump when he boasted about Ukraine’s mineral deposits, Artyom Dmitruk, a member of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada, told RT. Zelensky offered the US a partnership to develop Ukraine’s minerals. “The Americans helped the most, and therefore the Americans should earn the most. And they should have this priority, and they will,” he told Reuters this month. He claimed that Ukraine has Europe’s largest titanium deposits, while Prime Minister Denis Shmigal wrote in an op-ed for Politico that the country’s subsoil contains “22 out of the 30 minerals listed as critical for the EU.” Speaking to RT on Thursday, Dmitruk argued that Zelensky’s tactic was deceptive. “It is an issue on which Zelensky has once again fooled the whole world, and, more specifically, Donald Trump and his team,” Dmitruk said.

“First, all of these resources, the rare-earth minerals, are currently located on the territories with active combat. Second, no one can say what the price of extracting these resources will be,” he added. “If these precious resources could have been mined so easily and on such a large scale as Zelensky promised, and if it would have been profitable, the companies in Ukraine would have started doing it long ago. It is yet another lie, another farce that Zelensky attempts to exploit.” A critic of Zelensky’s government, Dmitruk fled Ukraine in 2024 after being charged with assaulting a police officer. He denies any wrongdoing and insists that the prosecution is politically motivated. Speaking to RT, Dmitruk blamed “the party of war” in Kiev for the hostilities with Russia. Ukraine will face “an internal war and destruction” unless “the party of peace” prevails and negotiates a deal with Moscow, he argued.

On Wednesday, Zelensky confirmed that he refused to sign a deal that would have granted the US 50% ownership of Ukraine’s rare-earth minerals. “I cannot sell our country,” he said, stressing that Kiev demands that the West provide security guarantees against Russia. The feud between Trump and Zelensky escalated this week when the US president labeled him “a dictator without elections” and claimed that he is deeply unpopular at home. Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, told Fox News on Thursday that Ukrainians “need to tone it down” and sign the proposed minerals agreement. In an op-ed for Bloomberg on Wednesday, commodities expert Javier Blas wrote that Trump’s expectations of a deal for Ukraine’s rare-earth minerals are grossly exaggerated. He said Ukraine “has no significant rare-earth deposits other than small scandium mines.” Zelensky acknowledged earlier this month that around half of its rare-earth deposits are “under Russian occupation,” according to Reuters.

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What exactly do these “leaders” lead?

Western Leaders Back Zelensky Amid War Of Words With Trump (RT)

European leaders, including those from the UK, Germany, and the Czech Republic, have rallied behind Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky after US President Donald Trump described him as a “dictator without elections.” In a post on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday, the Republican accused the Ukrainian leader of mismanaging the conflict with Russia and misusing American financial aid. Trump went on to claim that Zelensky “refuses to have elections” and “is very low in Ukrainian polls.” Trump’s post was apparently sparked by an accusation from Zelensky that the US president was in a “Russian information bubble.” Zelensky’s five-year presidential term expired in May 2024 and he has refused to hold elections since, citing martial law. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stated that he does not consider Zelensky to be the legitimate head of the Ukrainian state any longer.

Commenting on Trump’s remark, Czech President Petr Pavel wrote in a post on X on Wednesday that characterizing Zelensky as a dictator “requires a great deal of cynicism.” He also called into question the feasibility of holding elections in Ukraine amid the ongoing conflict with Russia. British Prime Minister Kier Starmer’s office reported he had phoned Zelensky and expressed support for “Ukraine’s democratically elected leader.” The official similarly argued that “it was perfectly reasonable to suspend elections during war time,” citing Britain’s own practice during World War II. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz chimed in in a post on X on Wednesday, writing that “it is simply wrong and dangerous to deny President Zelensky democratic legitimacy.”

Several prominent US Democrats have also sided with Zelensky. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer stated that “it is disgusting to see an American president turn against one of our friends and openly side with a thug like Vladimir Putin.” He suggested that the Ukraine conflict directly affects the “security of the American people.” Senator Adam Schiff also accused Trump of betraying Kiev and appeasing Moscow. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted on Thursday that the “rhetoric of Zelensky and many representatives of the Kiev regime in general leaves a lot to be desired.” Officials in Kiev “often allow themselves to make statements directed toward other heads of state, completely unacceptable things,” Peskov concluded.

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“If Zelensky was actually loved by the people of Ukraine, he would hold an election..”

Musk Claims Ukrainians ‘Despise’ Zelensky (RT)

A poll suggesting that Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky is popular at home was rigged in his favor, billionaire Elon Musk, a key ally of US President Donald Trump, has claimed. “It should be utterly obvious that a Zelensky-controlled poll about his OWN approval is not credible!!” Musk wrote on X on Thursday. The post was in response to an unsourced claim on X that the US government provided grants to the Kiev International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), which released a poll suggesting that 57% of Ukrainians have confidence in Zelensky. “If Zelensky was actually loved by the people of Ukraine, he would hold an election,” he added, claiming that Zelensky is “despised by the people of Ukraine” and “would lose in a landslide.” “I challenge Zelensky to hold an election and refute this. He will not,” he wrote.

The owner of SpaceX, Tesla, and X went on to argue that Trump was “right to ignore” Zelensky and should pursue a deal with Russia independently. The public feud between Trump and Zelensky erupted earlier this month after Ukrainian and EU officials said they were blindsided by Trump’s decision to restore direct negotiations with Russia. Zelensky, who was not invited to the US-Russia talks in Riyadh on Tuesday, argued that the US president is “living in Russian disinformation space.” Trump responded by labeling Zelensky, whose five-year presidential term expired last year, “a dictator,” and said he failed to achieve a ceasefire with Moscow. He also claimed that Zelensky’s approval rating is 4%.

According to the KIIS, Zelensky’s popularity surged to 90% during the initial months of the conflict in 2022 and has since fluctuated between 60% and 50%. Polls also consistently suggest that if an election is held, Zelensky would lose to Ukraine’s former top general, Valery Zaluzhny, who is now the ambassador to the UK. Ukrainian officials have insisted that it is impossible to hold a new election under martial law. Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated that he no longer considers Zelensky the legitimate leader. Trump also recently said Ukraine should hold an election.

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“..more than 2,700 scientists have signed an open letter that cited his public attacks on figures such as Anthony Fauci..”

The Royal Society Moves to Expel Musk Over His Political Views (Turley)

Founded in 1660, the Royal Society is one of the most prominent scientific organizations in the world with associations to such luminaries as Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin. Despite that proud history, British scientists are pushing to politicize the society and expel Elon Musk because they disagree with his political views. It is not simply anti-intellectual but self-destructive for a society committed to the pursuit of scientific knowledge. Few individuals in history have had a more pronounced impact on scientific and technological advances than Musk. His work on Space X alone has reshaped space technology. The upcoming mission to rescue the stranded scientists only highlights his transformative role and that of his company.

However, more than 2,700 scientists have signed an open letter that cited his public attacks on figures such as Anthony Fauci but also noted that ‘The situation is rendered more serious because “Mr. Musk now occupies a position within a Trump administration in the USA that has over the past several weeks engaged in an assault on scientific research in the US that has fallen foul of federal courts.” It is unclear what cases are being referenced, since there have been several rulings against efforts to enjoin DOGE and Musk. More importantly, such litigation has only just begun. Whether the challengers or the Administration “has fallen foul” is yet to be determined. Others made it clear that they simply disagree with Musk’s views.

Professor Dorothy Bishop, a University of Oxford psychologist, resigned earlier from the society, stating “I just feel far more comfortable to be dissociated from an institution that continues to honour this disreputable man.” Others accused Musk of spreading “disinformation,” a much-abused category in the United Kingdom as a basis for censorship. Many of these scientists seem selective in their outrage. I do not recall the Royal Society rushing to the defense of the many scientists who were fired or silenced over their dissenting views on COVID-19. That includes the lab theory that led to scientists being denounced as conspiracy theorists or racists. Now, federal agencies agree that the theory is legitimate and indeed favored by some offices.

Some experts questioned the efficacy of surgical masks, the scientific support for the six-foot rule and the necessity of shutting down schools. The government has now admitted that many of these objections were valid and that it did not have hard science to support some of the policies. While other allies in the West did not shut down their schools, we never had any substantive debate due to the efforts of this alliance of academic, media and government figures.

Not only did millions die from the pandemic, but the United States is still struggling with the educational and mental health consequences of shutting down all our public schools. That is the true cost of censorship when the government works with the media to stifle scientific debate and public disclosures. There is an alternative. The Royal Society could confine its review to the scientific contributions of figures like Musk. The subjectivity of this criticism should be antithetical to a scientific organization. Science is ideally a field that transcends political, social, and religious divisions. Few figures in history have advanced the cause of space travel and green technology as Musk. I hope the Royal Society will decline to engage in such political exclusions, but I am hardly hopeful. However, in carrying out this expulsion, they will do far more harm to their society than to Elon Musk.

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“The only institutions capable of purchasing tons of gold at $2,900 per ounce are the Federal Reserve and US Treasury by creating the money with which to pay for the gold.”

“The good news for Trump is that ending the conflict with Russia protects the dollar’s role as reserve currency.”

Whose Gold, if Anyone’s, Is in Ft. Knox? (Paul Craig Roberts)

If there is gold in Ft. Knox, whose is it? Many bullion dealers believe that any gold in Ft. Knox is not ours. Over the decades the gold was “leased” to bullion dealers who sold it into the gold market, thereby protecting the value of the dollar by holding down the gold price. “Leasing” the gold means that the US can still claim to own the gold. A sale has to be recorded or reported, but not a “lease.” Gold might also have disappeared through rehypothecation, which is the use by one party of another party’s asset to back their own financial or borrowing practices. The gold of other countries is also in Ft. Knox. Earlier this century, Germany requested its gold from Ft. Knox, and was told that the gold would be returned in seven years. This indicates that the gold was used by Washington for some other purpose and was unavailable to be returned to Germany.

For years Rep. Ron Paul and Sen. Rand Paul have tried to get a gold audit. Neither of these legislators were even permitted to enter Ft. Knox to see if any gold was there. Now that Elon Musk has announced a gold audit, holders of gold contracts have suddenly started to demand settlement in gold delivery rather than in cash and pocketing the profits. The amount of gold delivery being demanded from Comex, the US gold futures market, and its London equivalent is enormous, putting the ability to deliver under enormous strain. The only institutions capable of purchasing tons of gold at $2,900 per ounce are the Federal Reserve and US Treasury by creating the money with which to pay for the gold. The rise in the price of gold reflects the increase in physical purchases.

It seems clear enough that the Fed or Treasury is desperate to put gold back into Ft. Knox in advance of the audit. Previously, the Comex or futures market was used to hold down the price of gold by dumping huge amounts of short selling in the futures market all at once, often when there was no active trading, as Dave Kranzler and I have explained. The gold futures market is unique in that it can be shorted without the contracts being covered, unlike shorting equities. In effect, shorting gold is like printing money. The supply of paper gold in the futures market is increased simply by printing paper contracts. The increase in the paper supply of gold suppresses the price, because the price of gold is determined in the futures market, not in the physical market.

The current demand for gold delivery when the contracts come due, instead of settling in cash, has made it impossible to hold down the price of gold. There is speculation that President Trump intends to return the dollar to partial backing in gold in order to protect its status as reserve currency from a BRICS alternative. Unless and until US debt can be brought under control, the US dollar’s reserve currency status is essential for the financing of US budget and trade deficits. World central banks hold their reserves in US Treasuries. Thus, an increase in US debt simply means an increase in the reserves of central banks, something that is welcomed. If the dollar were not the reserve currency, financing the massive US debt would likely be impossible.

Trump’s attempt to restore normal relations with Russia, if successful, would require the end of the weaponization of the US dollar that is causing so much of the world to look for a different means of settling trade balances. This would take the pressure off of the dollar from the threat of an alternative reserve currency and reduce the urgency of getting US debt under control, but the pressure of mounting interest payments to foreign central banks on their Treasury holdings would still exist. The good news for Trump is that ending the conflict with Russia protects the dollar’s role as reserve currency.

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“..as Trump finally moves to end US involvement in the war in Ukraine, European leaders are scrambling to find ways to independently double down on the same security set-up that helped bring the war about in the first place..”

Trump Cannot Allow a Declining Europe to Drag the US Down (O’Keeffe)

Last week, leaders of European governments got very upset with the new Trump administration. First, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said a return to pre-2014 Ukraine-Russia borders was an “unrealistic objective” in the coming peace negotiations and that European leaders shouldn’t assume American troops would be present on the continent forever. Then, Vice President JD Vance gave a speech at a security conference in Germany in which he admonished European governments for repeatedly violating the liberal democratic principles they loudly proclaim to defend. He cited the recent reversal of an election in Romania after the result went against what the ruling regime and its Western European allies wanted, as well as a plethora of crackdowns on political dissent from some of Washington’s closest allies on the continent.

Finally, President Trump announced that the US government would begin direct talks with the Russian government to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine. Those talks began on Tuesday without any involvement from other European governments, including Ukraine. Needless to say, these statements and developments greatly angered European leaders who were evidently convinced the US would continue to station troops, send weapons, and provide funding for the continent’s security while letting the governments act however they wanted and while treating them as the primary parties in the proxy war we’ve been bankrolling. By all indications, the Trump administration’s goal here is to pressure European governments to spend more of their own taxpayers’ money to fund NATO. Which is unfortunate, because Europe is deep in a self-inflicted decline right now, and US taxpayers should not be forced to take part in it at all.

From an American perspective, the decline of Europe is tragic as some of the best aspects of our institutions and culture can be drawn back to the period of Europe’s rise. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Western Europe splintered into many small political units. The relatively small territories of these states, along with the presence of strong non-state institutions like the Church and an international merchant class, meant power was highly decentralized. As scholars like Ralph Raico, Nathan Rosenberg, and L.E. Birdzel Jr. have demonstrated, the highly decentralized set-up of Europe in the Middle Ages was the primary factor in generating the prosperity that went on to give the West more power and a safer, more comfortable standard of living than any other civilization in history. A respect for private property rights virtually unseen up to that point helped to create a justice system that only compounded the West’s success.

Unfortunately, the immense amount of wealth also allowed governments to siphon some of it off and grow very powerful. Chief among them was the British government, which used its people’s wealth to build the first truly globe-spanning empire. The British and other European ruling classes presented their lavish governments and foreign expansionism as a sign of national glory. But the rise of these large, powerful states represented the steady abandonment of the very institutions that had fueled Europe’s growth. The astonishing productivity of the Industrial Revolution kept the party going through the 1800s. But, famously, a series of war guarantees pulled nearly all of Europe into the largest, bloodiest war the world had seen in 1914. The sheer brutality of the war and the decisive defeat of the Central Powers—brought about by the US’s unnecessary entrance—set the stage for the rise of the Nazis and the second world war.

And WWII obliterated what remained of European power. In the decades since, much of Western Europe has sunk to the level of becoming de facto vassals of Washington, DC while moving even further away from decentralized institutions and a respect for private property rights. Which brings us to the European situation that Trump, Vance, and Hegseth confronted last week as they took the reins of the American government. Western European governments have instituted totalitarianism in the name of averting the rise of totalitarianism and built up another large network of war guarantees in the name of preventing another world war. The European establishment is seemingly still so traumatized from WWII that it acts like history began in 1933 and ignores all the important lessons from before that date.

After Vance’s comments last week, European officials went in front of the media and mounted a passionate defense of their totalitarian crackdown on dissent. And, as Trump finally moves to end US involvement in the war in Ukraine, European leaders are scrambling to find ways to independently double down on the same security set-up that helped bring the war about in the first place. The decline of Europe is a sad thing to watch. But the reaction from European officials to Vance calling them out on some aspects of that decline confirms that the people currently in charge over there will not be changing direction any time soon. If Europe is really set on shrinking back into obscurity through domestic totalitarianism, economic stagnation, or by setting off a new continent-wide war, American taxpayers should not be forced to help.

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“..it seems everywhere but the Indo-Pacific region is expendable..”

“And Just Like That” – Does NATO Even Exist Any More? (Every)

Even shrugging off three-plus weeks of shocking headlines, some in markets must surely wake up today “And just like that…” realize the world around them has changed dramatically. We no longer live in a market dream Manhattan with glamour, lunches, petty insults, and expensive shoes. Rather, we are in a reality with clamor, golf games, petty insults, and expensive jackboots. President Trump has called President Zelenskyy a corrupt “dictator” who ‘started the Ukraine War,’ warning he must make a deal while he ‘still has a country left.’ That sounded like Kremlin terminology to many European ears. Yet the US walking away from Ukraine without them even being at the table is no shock historically: does one not recall the fate of the Afghan government? Or President Mubarak? Or the South Vietnamese?

In response, Europe is assembling a crisis group of the EU, except Slovakia and Hungary, and everyone in NATO, except those two… and the US. This leads some to wonder if NATO can hold together. Yet without it, what can the others do? Even as the UK and France float air support for Ukraine, bringing them close to confrontation with Russia, that still requires US logistics: some ‘Great Power’ and ‘strategic autonomy’. Where next if the US defence umbrella which markets have been able to lunch and golf under since 1945/1991 folds? That question is also aimed at the EU. As Professor of European Studies @stefanauer_hku warns: “EUrope is finished. And it’s not just that France and Germany might no longer find it possible to work together (as @BecirovicMuamer points out). There will be conflicts between those countries who continue seeking security from the US (e.g., Poland) and those who won’t.”

Making his point, the Financial Times says European bond yields are rising and curves steepening on the prospect of that higher defence spending, i.e., Denmark just raised its arms spending by a massive 70%; as Ireland’s finance minister, the president of the group of Eurozone finance ministers, states the EU should stick to its spending rules rather than increasing defence investment – and who knows more about defence spending than… Ireland? Beyond the fiscal side, unless one boosts industrial production in tandem, which involves “What is GDP *for*?” choices, then higher defence spending just sucks in imports – and of whose weapons, if Europe and the UK don’t make them, and the US is seen as unreliable?

This isn’t solely an EU issue: China just sailed a warship 150 nautical miles from Sydney, showing its new power projection. Australians may tell themselves that it was just scouting for beach-side property in the eastern suburbs, but that is not much comfort. The jobs numbers today Down Under (+44K vs. +20K consensus) may have been good enough to keep the RBA on hold after their recent cut, but it’s no longer the major focus in Canberra, one might think. Indeed, the Washington Post reports Defence Secretary Hegseth has ordered 8% Pentagon budget cuts for each of the next FIVE years, which would almost halve current spending. Even addressing layers of fat and invoice-padding, it seems everywhere but the Indo-Pacific region is expendable. Of course, Congress may not agree, but if it does, many will be asking who has their back. One would assume the long end of curves will go back up to reflect that defence spending and uncertainty.

In what would otherwise be headline news, Elon Musk has floated sending $5,000 checks to each American from apparent DOGE savings, as Trump said he favoured sharing 20% of the total saved. Of course, this is all past (mis?)spending and that would just bring the US deficit back again. Undeterred, Commerce Secretary Lutnick stated a White House goal is to remove the IRS, as Trump backs the House budget bill that includes $4.5 trillion in tax cuts: note the 100% expensing for new US factories, the 15% for anything made in America, and lower taxes on oil producers in an attempt to drive energy prices down further. And that’s as President Putin floats an energy summit between himself, the US, and Saudi Arabia, who together control 40% of the world’s oil, following on from the US and Russia already suggesting that they may develop Arctic oil together.

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“Donald Trump’s representatives, rather than signaling a strategic retreat, have simply mocked EU leaders for their dependency.”

EU Leaders Fear America More Than They Fear Russia (Bordachev)

The uproar over the transatlantic rift on display at the recent Munich Security Conference will linger for some time. We will see more statements from Western European politicians, editorials in British newspapers urging Europe to stand up to Washington, and appeals for strategic autonomy. Yet, despite all this sound and fury, nothing fundamental is likely to change in US-EU relations. The real issue at hand isn’t whether Washington will abandon Europe. That is a false pretext – a smokescreen crafted by EU leaders to justify continued submission to their American patrons. Europe remains at the center of global politics not because of its own strength, but because it sits at the fault line of the US-Russia confrontation.

The presence of American nuclear weapons on European soil, the thousands of US troops stationed across the continent, and the continued relevance of NATO underscore one simple fact: Washington has no intention of loosening its grip on its European allies. The behavior of today’s European politicians is best captured by the old American folk tale of Brother Rabbit. Cornered by Brother Fox, the rabbit pleads, “Do anything, but don’t throw me into the thorn bush!” – knowing full well that the thorn bush is his safest refuge. European leaders perform similar theatrics, lamenting the prospect of being abandoned by the US, knowing full well that Washington will never truly leave. From Berlin to Paris, Rome to Madrid, Western European leaders publicly decry the risks of American disengagement. But this is grand theater. Their real fear is not Russia – it is the possibility that Washington might actually listen to their complaints and allow them to fend for themselves.

The truth is that none of the major EU states – Germany, France, or Italy – wants to engage in a war with Russia. Their citizens have no appetite for it. Unlike in 1914 or 1939, there is no mass mobilization of the public for conflict. Even Poland, despite its aggressive rhetoric, knows that its electorate has no stomach for prolonged military entanglement. A few thousand mercenaries may be sent to Ukraine, but they will not change the tide of war. The exception to this pragmatism lies in the small, vocal anti-Russian states – the Baltic republics, the Czech Republic, and some Scandinavian governments. But if Germany and France ever decided to pursue real diplomacy with Moscow, the concerns of these minor players would be irrelevant. Historically, the Nord Stream gas pipelines were constructed despite worsening Russia-EU relations because Berlin’s economic interests dictated it. The same could happen again, given the right conditions.

The greatest fear among Europe’s most ardent Atlanticists – especially in the Baltic states and Kiev – is not Russia. It is the potential for Germany and France to strike a separate deal with Moscow. Such a scenario would relegate them to irrelevance, a prospect that terrifies them more than anything else. But Western Europe’s ability to chart an independent course is constrained by American influence. The US maintains its dominance through military presence, economic penetration, and intelligence operations in key European countries. Germany and Italy, both defeated in World War II, remain under de facto American oversight. As long as this reality persists, Europe will remain geopolitically captive – whether it wants to be or not. Donald Trump’s representatives, rather than signaling a strategic retreat, have simply mocked EU leaders for their dependency. And yet, these same European politicians continue to toe the American line, repeating tired narratives about the Russian threat and the need to defend Ukraine. Why? Because they fear the consequences of American retaliation.

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“..the “presence of armed forces from NATO countries [in Ukraine]… is completely unacceptable to us.”

Kremlin Responds To Reports Of Plans For Western Troops In Ukraine (RT)

Moscow is concerned by reports that NATO member states are considering deploying troops to Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said, reiterating that such a scenario would be unacceptable to Russia. On Wednesday, The Telegraph and Bloomberg cited anonymous Western officials as saying that the UK and France were preparing to present US President Donald Trump with plans for the establishment of a “reassurance force” for Ukraine, should Kiev and Moscow agree a peace deal. In an interview with Fox News the same day, US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz confirmed that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron would visit Washington next week. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Peskov said Moscow is “certainly following all these reports most closely.”

Claims about the potential arrival of service members from NATO states in Ukraine “are causing concern,” he added, citing the ramifications this would have for Russia’s national security. “This is a very important topic to us,” Peskov said. He noted that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had stressed on Tuesday that the “presence of armed forces from NATO countries [in Ukraine]… is completely unacceptable to us.” The remark followed high-level Russia-US talks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where the two nations agreed to work toward normalizing bilateral relations. According to The Telegraph and Bloomberg, the Anglo-French plan would involve around 30,000 troops being stationed in key Ukrainian cities and ports, as well as at nuclear power plants. The scheme purportedly envisages equipping the contingent with surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft as well as patrol vessels to monitor a potential peace agreement between Kiev and Moscow, with the US providing air cover in case of escalation.

In an article for The Telegraph on Sunday, Starmer proclaimed that the “UK is ready to play a leading role in accelerating work on security guarantees for Ukraine,” including by “putting our own troops on the ground if necessary.” Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, warned earlier this month that Western troops operating in Ukraine without Moscow’s consent would be seen as legitimate targets. A number of EU leaders, most notably French President Emmanuel Macron, have been floating the idea of sending military personnel to Ukraine since at least last February. Deliberations over such a move have reportedly intensified in recent months. Since Trump assumed office in January, his administration has signaled its willingness to scale down American involvement in Ukraine.

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Verhofstadt has for many years been the worst Brussels has to offer.

MEP Verhofstadt Says Trump Is ‘NATO’s Greatest Threat’ (RMX)

In an incendiary post on X, Belgian MEP Guy Verhofstadt called U.S. President Donald Trump the “greatest threat” to NATO, marking a sharp escalation in rhetoric, and potentially a threat to Trump himself. “Trump is Putin’s puppet, and he’s making it clear: NATO’s greatest threat isn’t abroad, it’s sitting in the White House. Blaming Zelensky for Russia’s war is outright Kremlin’s propaganda. He’s not just betraying the Atlantic alliance—he’s working to dismantle it. Europe, wake up NOW before it’s too late,” wrote Verhofstadt. The remarks come after an increasing war of words between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who Trump has now labeled a “dictator.” The U.S. president is seeking a peace deal to end the war in Russia and has sharply turned against Zelensky.

Trump said he had “4% support” in the country and needed to call new elections. He has also raised questions about what he says is $350 billion in missing funds. Zelensky was known to keep offshore accounts before the war and was named in the Pandora Papers. Accusations have swirled about Zelensky’s assets but much of it remains hidden in offshore bank accounts. Officially, he has approximately $4 million in assets. As for Verhofstadt, the very wealthy left-liberal politician is known for his deep hatred of politicians who oppose his agenda, with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán one of his top targets.

In 2022, for instance, Verhofstadt called Orbán a “traitor” for his efforts to end the war in Ukraine. However, labeling Trump the “biggest threat” of NATO has borderline militaristic implications and calls into question what Verhofstadt thinks Europe should do about what he believes to be the biggest “threat” to the largest military alliance in history. The comments section to his post is lively, with some asking if Verhofstadt’s comment constitutes a threat in itself. Others point out to the incredibly lopsided amount of American military spending in comparison to Europe.

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“Trump and his team see the European Union not as a great power, but as a weak and divided entity that clings to illusions of parity with the United States..”

Russia’s Long-Term Play Is Much Bigger Than Ukraine (Trenin)

The reopening of US-Russia dialogue has triggered alarm, especially in Western Europe, where many see it as a potential repeat of Yalta — a grand power settlement taking place over their heads. Much of the commentary has been exaggerated. Yet, the pace of global change has clearly accelerated. The words and actions of US President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, and other key Republican figures over the past ten days suggest that Washington has stopped resisting the shift to a new world order and is now trying to lead it. This is a well-known US tactic: when the tide of history turns, America prefers to surf rather than sink. Trump’s administration is not clinging to the crumbling post-Cold War unipolar order; instead, it is reshaping US foreign policy to secure America’s primacy in a multipolar world.

As Secretary of State Marco Rubio bluntly stated, multipolarity is already a reality. Washington’s goal is to be primus inter pares — first among equals — rather than a declining hegemon. Trump’s vision for North America is straightforward: from Greenland to Mexico and Panama, the entire region will be firmly bound to the US, either as part of its economic engine or under its military umbrella. Latin America remains an extension of this sphere, with Washington ensuring that outside powers — China, for example — do not gain undue influence. The Monroe Doctrine, in spirit, remains very much alive. Western Europe, however, is another matter. From Trump’s perspective, the continent is like a spoiled child — too long indulged, too dependent on American protection. The new US stance is clear: Europe must pay its way, both in military and economic terms.

Trump and his team see the European Union not as a great power, but as a weak and divided entity that clings to illusions of parity with the United States. NATO, meanwhile, is viewed as a tool that has outlived its purpose — one that Washington is willing to use, but only under its own terms. The US wants Western Europe as a geopolitical counterweight to Russia but has little patience for the EU’s pretensions of independence. While Europe remains an irritant, China is Trump’s real focus. His administration is determined to ensure that Beijing never surpasses Washington as the dominant world power. Unlike the Soviet Union during the Cold War, China poses a far greater economic and technological challenge to US supremacy. However, Trump sees an opportunity in multipolarity: rather than engaging in a global Cold War, America can leverage great power balancing to keep China in check.

India plays a central role in this strategy. Trump has already hosted Prime Minister Narendra Modi, signaling Washington’s commitment to deepening economic and technological ties with New Delhi. While India’s relations with China have somewhat stabilized since last year’s Modi-Xi meeting at the BRICS summit in Kazan, their long-term rivalry remains. The US is eager to nurture this divide, using India as a counterweight to Beijing in the Indo-Pacific region. This wider geopolitical context frames the latest shifts in US-Russia relations. Trump appears to have concluded that his predecessors — Joe Biden and Barack Obama — made critical miscalculations that pushed Moscow into China’s orbit. By aggressively expanding NATO and isolating Russia through sanctions, Washington inadvertently strengthened a Eurasian bloc that now includes Iran and North Korea.

Trump has recognized the failure of Biden’s Ukraine strategy. The goal of delivering a “strategic defeat” to Russia — militarily, economically, and politically — has failed. Russia’s economy has withstood the unprecedented Western sanctions, its military has adapted, and Moscow remains a pivotal global player. Now, Trump is seeking a settlement in Ukraine that locks in the current frontlines while shifting the burden of supporting Kiev onto Europe. His administration also aims to weaken Russia’s ties with Beijing, Tehran, and Pyongyang. This is the real logic behind Trump’s outreach to Moscow — it is less about making peace with Russia and more about repositioning America for the long game against China.

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Time for the two to meet.

Points Trump Is Now Making Are What Russia Said All Along (Amar)

Let’s play a game: It’s called “Putin says, and so does Trump.” Because, recently, after years of disagreeing on, really, everything – from the order of the world to the meaning of simple phrases such as “not one inch” – the leaderships of Russia and the US have suddenly found not merely a common language, but a lot to agree on. In particular regarding Ukraine, which used to be the Ground Zero of their great disagreement. That’s a good thing in case you wonder. As in, the good things that keep the world from burning, literally. The US president has just observed that World War III had become a real possibility under the preceding Biden/Harris (or whoever was really in charge) administration. And he’s correct: There’s a reason why the metaphorical fingers of the famous Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists have crept “closer than ever” to “midnight.”

Now, the American president agrees with the Russian one that Ukraine’s leader Vladimir Zelensky is one election short. Indeed, in a withering social media post, Trump has been blunt: Zelensky is a “dictator.” Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin also see eye to eye concerning the root cause of the Ukraine War, namely NATO’s – that is, let’s be frank, America’s – predictably catastrophic yet perniciously obstinate policy of overreach. That in turn, means Trump and Putin also share a sensible and rather traditional assumption which – somehow – many in the West’s elites have managed to forget: namely that all great powers have legitimate security interests in their neighborhood.

With thinking in Washington and Moscow converging this far, it is no wonder that there is agreement now as well on centering their relationship on sensible and mutually respectful dialogue on national interests. And speaking of national interests, Trump has been clear that he can’t recognize any in sinking ceaseless billions into the Zelensky regime, its war, and its humungous corruption. True, the American president may have gotten his precise figures wrong, but for all the NAFO-id “fact-checkers” (i.e. info-warriors) out there: Don’t be silly: Trump’s key point stands, whether the US has wasted 500 or somewhere between 100 and 200 billion dollars on this bloody and stupid business.

So does, by the way, his characterization of Zelensky as a “dictator.” I know, for many in the West it feels like root canal extraction to finally face that reality, but the Zelensky regime is authoritarian and its leader had no right to give himself a waver on his last election. Therefore, his term ran out on 20 May 2024. Since then, like it or not, Zelensky’s legitimacy has at the very best been in an extremely murky gray zone. Moreover, he did not turn so bossy because of the military escalation of February 2022. In reality, his many prewar opponents and critics in Ukraine were accusing him – correctly – of severe authoritarian tendencies in 2021 already.

And make no mistake: this is not a “soft” authoritarianism. It hasn’t “merely” muzzled the media, as even the staunchly bellicist New York Times has admitted. Instead, this is a regime with teeth and claws and a great appetite for harsh repression. Ask the members supportterts of the 11 – yes: 11 – opposition parties the Zelensky regime has long suppressed. Or the clergy and believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) that has simply been banned. There are also individuals suppressed by police-state methods and even murdered in detention. Consider the cases of, for instance, the socialist activist Bohdan Syrotiuk, currently being subjected to a political trial, and the libertarian Gonzalo Lira, a US citizen and social media journalist, whom Ukrainian authorities tortured and killed for his criticism of the proxy war and the Zelensky regime (and also robbed him).

As should be clear by now, Trump and Putin and more broadly Russia and the US are not agreeing because of some dark Russian information war magic. Zelensky’s silly – and very arrogant – attempt to depict the American president as a helpless victim of Moscow’s “disinformation” only made Trump even angrier. And rightly so. Because the reason for the new spirit of agreement between Washington and Moscow is simple: Regarding Ukraine, the US government under Trump has rediscovered reality.

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“..he had proposed talks with China and Russia to discuss reducing all three nations’ nuclear stockpiles and cutting defense budgets in half..”

Trump Wants China Nuclear Deal – NYT (RT)

US President Donald Trump is seeking to strike a broad agreement with China that includes nuclear weapons security, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing White House advisers. According to the NYT, the desired deal would extend beyond trade relations, incorporating substantial Chinese investments and commitments to purchase more American goods. It should also address nuclear security – an issue Trump intends to discuss personally with Chinese President Xi Jinping, “more than half a dozen” current and former Trump advisers told the outlet. Michael Pillsbury, a China expert who advised Trump during his first-term trade negotiations, told the NYT that Trump had shared with him “a few months ago” his desire to secure a deal with Xi “that benefits both sides.”

Significant obstacles remain, according to the advisers, particularly as the Trump administration has yet to clearly define what it wants from Beijing. China remains one of the ”biggest national security threats” to the US but is also a major trading partner and a pivotal actor on a range of issues, including nuclear security, technology and pandemic preparedness. The Pentagon has said recently that China is the main defense priority for the US, describing it as a “peer competitor” with both the capability and intent to threaten US national interests in the Indo-Pacific region. Last week, Trump told reporters at the White House he had proposed talks with China and Russia to discuss reducing all three nations’ nuclear stockpiles and cutting defense budgets in half. He said he hoped to meet with Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin “when things calm down.”

According to the NYT, some Chinese analysts have downplayed the likelihood of a deal as the country’s officials remain cautious about Trump and expect tensions to continue. However, they’ve been reportedly working on a proposal that could bring the US president back to the table. Relations between the two countries worsened during Trump’s first term, escalating into a trade war, after he imposed billions in tariffs on Chinese goods in 2018, citing unfair trade practices and intellectual property theft. China retaliated with its own levies on American exports, deepening the standoff. In early 2020, both sides reached a Phase One trade deal, but many commitments fell short, partly due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Trump has recently imposed new tariffs on key trade partners, including a 10% duty on Chinese imports on top of existing levies. China strongly opposed the move, retaliating with tariffs on key US exports while urging Washington to return to negotiations. Both China and Russia have expressed a willingness to collaborate with the US regarding nuclear disarmament. Beijing has reaffirmed its “no first use” policy in response to Trump’s reported proposal of future nuclear talks. Russia’s deputy UN ambassador, Dmitry Polyansky, has said that substantive discussions on disarmament could restart if Washington shifts its stance. The last binding bilateral nuclear arms treaty between the US and Russia is set to expire next year.

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Puppy

 

 

Sea

 

 

Train
https://twitter.com/i/status/1892525388317769823

 

 

Donkeys

 

 

Swim
https://twitter.com/i/status/1892231692691152989

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

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


Giuseppe Arcimboldo Four elements – Earth 1566

 

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

 

 

 

 

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

Jennings

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

RFK

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

 

 

 

 

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

Trump, Peacemaker? (W. James Antle III)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ramaswamy’s Big Plans (Maitra)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A 100-year-old talking about the FBI.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The broken record plays again from the beginning.

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

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

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

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

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

US Could Buy Nord Stream – Vucic (RT)

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

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

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

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

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Everyone’s covering their asses.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Bioweapons is the Pentagon Developing? (Sp.)

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

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

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

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All pardons are in place?!

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

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

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

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

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Hunter and Xi. Hmm.

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

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

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

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

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

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A long year from Jim.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read more …

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

Who’s first

 

 

Rhino

 

 

Snow

 

 

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

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

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Nov 132024
 
 November 13, 2024  Posted by at 9:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  92 Responses »


Wilhelm Trübner A Gorgon‘s head 1891

 

Did US Deep State Allow Trump to Win? (Sp.)
Trump Builds No-Nonsense Team (JTN)
Musk And Vivek Ramaswamy To Head Department Of Government Efficiency (ZH)
Can Trump Succeed? (Paul Craig Roberts)
Gorka Urges Trump To Intervene In Senate Leader Race, Endorse Rick Scott (JTN)
Marco Rubio Emerges As Finalist For Trump’s Secretary Of State (JTN)
Trump Names John Ratcliffe As CIA Director (ZH)
Florida Surgeon General Ladapo Ready To Serve Trump Admin (Attkisson)
Judge Merchan Delays Decision On Trump Guilty Verdict In Hush Money Case (JTN)
MSNBC, CNN Ratings Collapse After Election While Fox News Flourishes (ZH)
Zelensky Tries to Woo Trump With Revised ‘Victory Plan’ (Sp.)
UK Could Send Troops To Ukraine – Boris Johnson (RT)
Trump Will Abandon Two Key Principles Of US Foreign Policy (Gevorg Mirzayan)
What Rough Beast? (Juan Cole)
A 1984 Conference Forged Israel’s Influence Over US Media (Klarenberg)

 

 

 

 

Senate
https://twitter.com/i/status/1856400926937846131

Bannon

Sachs

Kamala broke

Voter ID
https://twitter.com/i/status/1855955650687246392

 

 

 

 

“They [the US establishment] need a charismatic, populist firebrand to boost recruitment and spearhead the rush to war..”

Did US Deep State Allow Trump to Win? (Sp.)

On election day Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton suggested that the vote count might take days as in 2020, triggering election rigging suspicions among X users. However, Donald Trump was declared the winner the day after the election. Amid pre-election claims from conservative commentators that the US establishment would not allow Donald Trump to win, some American commentators have suggested that Trump voter enthusiasm was “too big to rig” while others speculated that the purported vote-rigging mechanisms in place had been stopped by the ruling elites. According to this argument, the elites reasoned that Trump could be maneuvered into pro-war positions and would be more successful in marshaling public support than Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and, as such, the deep state ‘allowed Trump to win.’

Some commentators presume that the US establishment sees Trump and his popularity as a convenient vehicle for new overseas campaigns as part of his efforts to “make America great again”. Patriots often think of greatness in terms of military dominance, they say. “They [the US establishment] need a charismatic, populist firebrand to boost recruitment and spearhead the rush to war. Harris can’t do that. Harris had trouble attracting even a hundred supporters to her rallies,” wrote US political commentator Mike Whitney, suggesting Iran could be the next target. The fact that Trump has appointed Elise Stefanik, a firebrand for Israel, as US ambassador to the UN lends credibility to Whitney’s suspicion. It would be easy to seduce Americans into a new military adventure if they are led by a popular leader, warned former Ronald Reagan official Dr. Paul Craig Roberts on his website.

“MAGA Americans are tired of losing wars,” wrote Dr. Roberts. “They want to win. The military/security complex will have Trump supporters in the streets waving the flag. They will wave the flag and expect Trump to win. It is all part of making America great again. It is a war recipe for disaster.” Transparency website OpenSecrets and financial tech startup Quiver Quantitative have shown that US defense contractors funded the Trump campaign generously. Similarly, during his first term, Trump supported what at the time was seen as the largest military budget in US history in 2018. In 2020, the US press called him one of the military-industrial complex’s “biggest boosters”. Likewise, the Big Three financial powers – Wall Street giants BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street – weren’t disturbed by Trump’s possible victory. Their post-election prognoses were largely positive, foreseeing a rise in the US market, growth for tech and crypto and the dollar strengthening under Trump.

“I’m tired of hearing this is the biggest election in your lifetime,” BlackRock CEO Larry Fink stated at an October 21 conference, as quoted by The Financial Times. “The reality is, over time it doesn’t matter.” He stressed that the world’s largest asset management firm “work[s] with both administrations and are having conversations with both candidates”, signaling that Trump will be fine for Wall Street. Moreover, there appeared to be one instance in which Trump surpassed his contender Harris in the eyes of BlackRock. The firm has been making headlines this year for its aggressive accumulation of crypto-currency assets. It launched its iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) on January 11, whose trust quickly grew into the world’s largest fund. Trump appears to be on the same page as BlackRock concerning crypto-currency even though he was previously skeptical about it.

While on the campaign trail, Trump promised to turn the US into “the crypto capital of the world”. He also announced plans to change some areas of government about crypto and suggested creating a strategic Bitcoin stockpile. In contrast, his contender Harris sounded less enthusiastic about crypto and advocated a “regulatory framework” for it, much in the vein of Joe Biden’s financial oversight approach which placed certain limits on their use. It’s hardly surprising, then, that crypto-currencies, especially Bitcoin, shot up in value on the news that Trump won. Needless to say, BlackRock benefitted from the development. The deep state is entrenched and institutionalized and has many ways to maneuver Trump to its purpose or block his efforts altogether, according to Dr. Roberts. During Trump’s first term, dissent from the intelligence community, the military, the State Department and media disrupted his plans.

The American media is already working hand-in-glove with the ruling establishment to position Trump contrary to his intentions, both in his appointments and in foreign policy. Trump has had to deny that he is going to appoint former colleagues Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley to his administration in order to assure his supporters that the mistakes of his first term will not be repeated. However, other reports that Trump allies Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. are being pushed aside into advisory positions without executive authority lead some to wonder if the Trump administration is over before it begins. The deep state’s policy of revolving doors connects the government, intelligence agencies, academia, Wall Street and big industries. A majority of Republican members of Congress are themselves part of the establishment.

Meanwhile, Trump supporters, including General Michael Flynn and Infowars host Alex Jones, warn about a possible new attempt on the president-elect’s life. In some sense, one could say that the deep state is now holding a metaphorical gun to Trump’s head. Time will tell whether Trump will manage to outplay the establishment.

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“Trump has already filled early positions on his team with get-it-done leaders who are more interested in execution than limelight.”

Trump Builds No-Nonsense Team (JTN)

Donald Trump sent an unmistakable message with his first few personnel choices for his second term, dispatching to the halls of power players like Elise Stefanik, Tom Homan, Lee Zeldin and Stephen Miller who take a no-nonsense approach to their jobs and will focus on everyday Americans’ wants and needs rather than those of global elitists and Washington special interests. And if the president-elect’s new team can stay focused on making America affordable again by defeating inflation, making the country secure again by fixing the border and rounding up criminals and restoring common sense to public policies from energy to transgenderism, one of the nation’s top pollsters believes he can cement a lofty place in history. “Donald Trump now has the opportunity to become the most influential president since Ronald Reagan,” pollster Scott Rasmussen wrote Monday in a private report to clients of his Napolitan Institute.

“If over the next four years he and the Republican Congress can achieve the three main priorities established by the American people, he will have presided over a fundamental political realignment and paved the way for ongoing GOP success.” [..] Rasmussen cautioned, however, that Trump’s legacy of impact will be determined by how well he can align a Congress that often finds excuses not to act behind executing his agenda. “Trump’s lasting influence and the potential realignment are far from assured,” Rasmussen wrote. “They depend entirely upon whether or not the incoming administration can do what voters are hoping for: making the economy work, securing the border, and returning to common sense about gender identity. If they fail, voters will move on, and the Trump era will be just a blip in the nation’s history.”

The need for a GOP Congress to act in convincing ways in 2025 led one of Trump’s former advisers to urge the president-elect to intervene in Wednesday’s battle for Senate majority leader, which pits establishment Sens. John Thune and John Cornyn against Florida’s Rick Scott, who has increasingly become a MAGA favorite. “I would like to see President Trump full throatedly say who he wants,” former White House aide Seb Gorka told the Just the News, No Noise television show Monday night. “And I would like that to be Scott because otherwise the swamp has that magnetic, huge, sucking vacuum power, and they’ll do what they normally do. So a public, you know, pro Scott action from the president is what we’ve got to see. That’s my humble request, Mr. President.” No matter how the Senate leader race ends, Trump has already filled early positions on his team with get-it-done leaders who are more interested in execution than limelight.

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“75% headcount reduction across the board in the federal bureaucracy, send them home packing, shut down agencies that shouldn’t exist..”

Musk And Vivek Ramaswamy To Head Department Of Government Efficiency (ZH)

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been selected by President-elect Donald Trump to head the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), where they will “slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies,” according to an official release from the Trump-Vance transition team, which called this “potentially, the “Manhattan Project” of our time.” According to the statement, “Their work will conclude no later than July 4, 2026” – the nation’s 250th anniversary. Musk previously predicted he could cut at least $2 trillion from the US federal budget, while Ramaswamy suggested firing federal workers based on their social security numbers. “Here’s how: if your [Social Security number] ends in an odd number, you’re fired,” he wrote on X.

In September, Ramaswamy told podcaster Lex Fridman: “Get in there on day one, say that anybody in the federal bureaucracy who is not elected, elected representatives obviously were elected by the people, but the people who are not elected, if your social security number ends in an odd number, you’re out, if it ends in an even number, you’re in. There’s a 50% cut right there. Of those who remain, if your social security number starts in an even number, you’re in and if it starts with an odd number, you’re out. Boom. That’s a 75% reduction done. Literally, stochastically, okay, one of the virtues of that, it’s a thought experiment, not a policy prescription, but one of the virtues of that thought experiment is that you don’t have a bunch of lawsuits you’re dealing with about gender discrimination or racial discrimination or political viewpoint discrimination.”

He also said: So the way I would do it, 75% headcount reduction across the board in the federal bureaucracy, send them home packing, shut down agencies that shouldn’t exist, rescind every unconstitutional regulation that Congress never passed. In a true self-governing democracy, it should be our elected representatives that make the laws and the rules not unelected bureaucrats. And that is the single greatest form of economic stimulus we could have in this country, but it is also the single most effective way to restore self-governance in our country as well. And it is the blueprint for, I think, how we save this country.[..] …most people who have run a company, especially larger companies know this, it’s 25% of the people who do 80 to 90% of the useful work, these government agencies are no different. And how many government workers do we have?

“This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people,” Musk said on Tuesday in a statement provided by the Trump transition team. Earlier in the day, Trump said the new government efficiency effort would develop a plan to eliminate “fraud and improper payments,” conducting a “complete financial and performance audit” of the federal government. Trump also said that the panel would partner with the White House’s Office of Management and Budget. In the last fiscal year, the federal government spent more than $6.75 trillion – of which more than $5.3 trillion was spent on Social Security, health care, defense and veterans’ benefits.

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“A weak appointment as Attorney General and the Trump administration is finished before it begins..”

Can Trump Succeed? (Paul Craig Roberts)

I have been speaking with MAGA Americans and, as I suspected, there is little comprehension of the vast impediments to renewal. The swamp that Trump is to drain is entrenched and institutionalized, but Trump supporters think that with Trump elected and the Senate and House in Republican hands the job is done. Nothing could be further from the truth. The majority of Republicans in the Senate and House are RINOs, not Trump supporters. They are part of the establishment and comfortable in it. Mitch McConnell is forever as he is in the process of demonstrating. This Wednesday McConnell is holding the election of the Senate Majority Leader. His two candidates, chosen without any input from Trump, are John Thune and John Cornyn, neither being MAGAs. Senator Rick Scott, more likely to be helpful to Trump, is running against the establishment’s candidates.

If the establishment prevails, Trump’s strong appointments are likely to be blocked or to languish unconfirmed. The prospect of being blocked can discourage an appointee from accepting the appointment. The establishment can also hamstring Trump by rushing through many unfriendly judicial appointments. Trump Americans need to understand that the enemy has not folded its tents and left the field. Here is Trump himself warning: President-elect Donald Trump on Nov. 10 publicly mentioned one condition for the next leader of the Senate Republican Conference: He or she must clear the way for recess appointments for Trump administration officials. “Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments (in the Senate!), without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner,” Trump wrote on social media platform Truth Social on Nov. 10, addressing the upcoming Senate leadership vote.

He noted that such votes can take “two years or more,” which is “what they did four years ago, and we cannot let it happen again.” “We need positions filled IMMEDIATELY!” he wrote. Aside from the request, Trump also said that Republicans should not confirm any judges in the coming months before his inauguration “because the Democrats are looking to ram through their Judges as the Republicans fight over Leadership,” adding, “THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.” I know from experience that there are many ways in which things can go wrong. [..] The euphoria that Trump and his supporters are experiencing can easily lead to deadly mistakes. Appointments that face confirmation challenges can be avoided in the interest of not having a defeat before the new administration is underway. Consequently, when the new administration is underway, it will lack the strength it needs to succeed.

The Biden regime can enter into Ukraine and Middle East agreements that lock-in the Trump administration. A weak appointment as Attorney General and the Trump administration is finished before it begins. In order to succeed, Trump will have to bring the power of the people against the establishment. This means he will have to fight. With the wrong appointments the fight will never begin. Compromise for the sake of unity will be the weapon of the establishment and the presstitutes. Trump said he was going to unify the country. How does one unify with enemies who tried to kill you and who are opposed to the Constitution of the United States? Perhaps Trump should have thought about this before he handed the unity weapon to his enemies. Trump and his supporters must not forget that Trump is leading an insurrection against the establishment.

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“Hours after Donald Trump wins the most conclusive mandate in 40 years, Mitch McConnell engineers a coup against his agenda by calling early leadership elections in the senate. Two of the three candidates hate Trump and what he ran on.”

Gorka Urges Trump To Intervene In Senate Leader Race, Endorse Rick Scott (JTN)

One of Donald Trump’s former first-term advisers urged the President-elect on Monday night to directly intervene in the race for the next Senate Majority Leader by endorsing Florida Sen. Rick Scott. Sebastian Gorka, who currently has a popular show on Salem Radio Network after serving as a deputy assistant to the president for security affairs in 2017, became the latest prominent conservative to throw his weight behind Scott’s bid. But Gorka went further by personally appeals for Trump to get involved in the race. “I would like to see President Trump full throatedly say who he wants,” Gorka told the Just the News, No Noise television show Monday night. “And I would like that to be Scott because otherwise the swamp has that magnetic, huge, sucking vacuum power, and they’ll do what they normally do. “So a public, you know, pro-Scott action from the president is what we got to see. That’s my humble request, Mr. President,” Gorka added.

The Senate GOP Leader’s job, which is being vacated at the end of the year by Sen. Mitch McConnell after two decades, is expected to be decided Wednesday by a secret ballot. The race pits establishment Sens. John Thune and John Cornyn against Scott, who has increasingly become a MAGA favorite and easily won re-election to his Florida seat last week. Leaked “whip” head counts of senators’ preferences have shown Thune in the lead, followed by Cornyn and Scott. That has kicked many Trump supporters into action in a bid to increase Scott’s chances. “I will be supporting Rick Scott for Senate Majority Leader,” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., wrote on X. “The status quo of $2 Trillion annual deficits is unsustainable.” Billionaire Elon Musk joined the chorus over the weekend, endorsing Scott. Many others have followed suit.

“The people who just gave Donald Trump a sweeping mandate do not want Thune or Cornyn to lead the US Senate,” Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA and conservative grassroots leader who helped the Trump campaign win all seven swing states, wrote on X. “They want Rick Scott. It’s very clear.” Talk show host Tucker Carlson made a blisering attack on Thune and Cornyn. “What the hell is going on in the US Senate?” Carlson wrote on X. “Hours after Donald Trump wins the most conclusive mandate in 40 years, Mitch McConnell engineers a coup against his agenda by calling early leadership elections in the senate. Two of the three candidates hate Trump and what he ran on.

“One of them, John Cornyn, is an angry liberal whose politics are indistinguishable from Liz Cheney’s. The election is Wednesday, it’s by secret ballot, and it will determine whether or not the new administration succeeds. “Rick Scott of Florida is the only candidate who agrees with Donald Trump,” Carlson added. “Call your senator and demand a public endorsement of Rick Scott. Don’t let McConnell get away with it again.” Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a lifelong Democrat who turned Trump supporter this election, also expressed support for Scott, who is viewed as more conservative than Cornyn and Thune. “Without Rick Scott, the entire Trump reform agenda wobbly,” Kennedy wrote on X.

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“Little Marco.”

Marco Rubio Emerges As Finalist For Trump’s Secretary Of State (JTN)

Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a hawk on China and Iraq, has emerged as the finalist to be President-elect Donald Trump’s Secretary of State in his second term and his nomination could be announced as early as Tuesday, according directly familiar with the deliberations The New York Times, CNN and other legacy news outlets first reported Monday night that Trump had settled on Rubio. Just the News independently confirmed Trump had settled on the Florida senator. Rubio, a Cuban-American, would be the first Latino to serve as the nation’s top diplomat if nominated and confimed by the Senate. He has large experience on the foreign stage and ran unsuccessfully against Trump during the 2016 primaries, where his future boss humorously named him “Little Marco.”

But Rubio was an ally as Trump began his remarkable comeback to win the presidency in 2024. Trump has been filling out his national security team, on Monday formally naming Rep. Elise Stefanik as UN ambassador and Rep. Mike Waltz of Florida as his national security adviser. Advisors told Just the News on Monday night that Trump also was closing in on naming Scott Bessent as his Treasury Secretary nominee. Bessent, a 62-year-old hedge fund manager who once worked with liberal philanthropist George Soros, emerged in recent years as a top Trump adviser on the economy.

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Can you spell hornet’s nest?

Kash Patel was supposed to get this.

Trump Names John Ratcliffe As CIA Director (ZH)

President-elect Donald Trump has announced he has selected John Ratcliffe as director of the CIA. “John Ratcliffe has always been a warrior for Truth and Honesty with the American Public,” Trump wrote in a message sent on the evening of Nov. 12, the latest in a flurry of Tuesday evening appointments. “I look forward to John being the first person ever to serve in both of our Nation’s highest Intelligence positions. He will be a fearless fighter for the Constitutional Rights of all Americans, while ensuring the Highest Levels of National Security, and PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH.” Ratcliffe, an attorney, served as director of national intelligence during the first Trump term. As Nathan Worcester reports, via The Epoch Times, Ratcliffe was previously a Republican congressman from Texas and an anti-terrorism and national security chief for Eastern Texas.

Originally from Illinois, Ratcliffe earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame before obtaining a law degree from Southern Methodist University. He was later U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas and, from 2004 until 2012, mayor of Heath, Texas, a community in metro Dallas-Fort Worth. While in Congress, he was a member of the House Intelligence Committee and the House Judiciary Committee. During Trump’s first term, Ratcliffe made a name for himself as a staunch Trump loyalist. Trump dropped an early attempt to elevate Ratcliffe to the director of national intelligence position in 2019. But the following year, he renewed the effort, nominating him in May against the backdrop of the COVID-19 response.

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Kennedy, Malhotra, Bhattacharya, Ladapo. Not a bad start.

Florida Surgeon General Ladapo Ready To Serve Trump Admin (Attkisson)

The 2024 campaign is the first since the end of the COVID-19 emergency. And important figures who turned from mainstream to maverick as a result may play crucial roles in an effort to transform the medical establishment. One key player is Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who spoke with me a few weeks before the Nov. 5 election about what he’d like to do in the next Trump administration. “I actually would like to be secretary of HHS,” he said. “And the reason I would like to do that is because I’m in it for impact. Like, if I can’t have impact, I’m not in it.” Dr. Ladapo’s desire to have impact became clear during the pandemic. When Covid hit, he was a professor of medicine at the University of California, researching heart health. He became one of the mainstream figures to break away and speak out early against what they considered the disastrous shutdowns, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention mandates and government misinformation.

“The pandemic was really just something remarkable,” he said, “because … somehow you got so many people with good intentions to engage and really enroll in things that are obviously very clearly immoral and badly intended. And so that’s a remarkable thing.” Born in Nigeria, Ladapo earned his medical degree and a doctorate in health policy at Harvard University. In September 2021, he was tapped by Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis to be his state’s surgeon general. “I felt very clearly that my objective, my role, was to reset the tone,” he said. “And the tone was ‘fear, fear, fear, fear, fear.’ You know, ‘Must do this, must do this, must do this. Everyone get in line, everyone get in line, everyone get in line,’ And I just wanted to rip that all apart and remind people that people and individuals are what matter, and their will matters and their preferences matter and good health matters.”

That includes, he says, safety of the controversial Covid vaccines. In January, he said the Food and Drug Administration had failed to examine unique risks, and he concluded that “these vaccines are not appropriate for use in human beings.” Dr. Ladapo isn’t the only esteemed medical figure who bucked the establishment over Covid and is now allied with now President -elect Donald Trump. Others who’ve been speaking with Trump officials about taking a role in the new administration include Stanford’s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. He was among the first to formally organize opposition to the shutdowns. He also co-authored The Great Barrington Declaration, a petition that raised concerns about establishment Covid response strategies and was signed by over 63,000 scientists and medical practitioners.

Also, Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a top British cardiologist. He became an activist on Covid vaccine safety after he says his father, also a cardiologist, died from the vaccine. Another person who stands to factor in, in a big way, is attorney and children’s health advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He joined the Trump campaign with a “Make America Healthy Again” mantra. He may take on a new role to oversee an end to corruption in public health agencies.

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“.. the hush money trial was “tainted” by evidence that should be protected under presidential immunity…”

Judge Merchan Delays Decision On Trump Guilty Verdict In Hush Money Case (JTN)

Judge Juan Merchan on Tuesday agreed to delay issuing a decision on whether to toss out President-elect Donald Trump’s guilty verdict on state charges of falsifying business records until Nov. 19. This pause in the proceedings to consider what effects Trump’s victory in the presidential election means for the case moving forward was requested by Trump’s legal team, which wants Merchan to dismiss the guilty verdict. Trump was found guilty in May after a six-week trial on 34 counts of falsifying business records during the 2016 presidential election to hide a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels so that she would stay quiet about an alleged sexual encounter. The former president pleaded not guilty to the charges. The chargers were brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg last year.

In July, after a landmark Supreme Court ruling outlining presidential immunity, Trump asked Judge Merchan to toss out the guilty verdict. The Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 opinion earlier that month that presidents have presidential immunity for some “official acts,” but not unofficial ones. The high court did not specified what would constitute official versus unofficial acts, leaving Merchan to parse the evidence cited in the case. Trump attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove argued that the hush money trial was “tainted” by evidence that should be protected under presidential immunity.

“Because of the implications for the institution of the Presidency, the use of official-acts evidence was a structural error under the federal Constitution that tainted [the District Attorney’s] grand jury proceedings as well as the trial,” the lawyers wrote. The lawyers argued specifically that testimony from former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks and former Special Assistant to the President Madeleine Westerhout as well as other testimony about the inner workings of the executive branch should not have been admitted under the high court’s ruling. Merchan was originally set to rule in September, but delayed the decision to “avoid any appearance” that he was attempting to influence the election.

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“Though the networks could try to manufacture another phony scandal, who would believe them?”

MSNBC, CNN Ratings Collapse After Election While Fox News Flourishes (ZH)

Mainstream propaganda outlets MSNBC and CNN have seen an absolute collapse in viewership following the 2024 presidential election. According to Neilsen data, last Thursday’s total views on Fox News came in at 2.6 million – of which 375,000 were in the coveted 25-54 age demographic, Mediaite reports. In comparison, MSNBC only had 596,000/71,000 25-54 viewers and CNN brought in 419,000 / 91,000 25-54. Fox News was up some 60 percent year over year for the day, while MSNBC and CNN were down 23 and 40 percent – respectively. In prime time the news was even more bleak for CNN and MSNBC as they shed 30 percent and 54 percent of their viewers, respectively, compared to the same day last year.

MSNBC host Alex Wagner had her lowest-rated show ever in terms of total viewers, while Chris Hayes’s show brought in its worst numbers since May of 2016. On Friday, seven MSNBC shows recorded their lowest Friday ratings for the year. While Fox averaged 4.4M viewers Wed-Fri in prime time and 701,000 in that key demographic, MSNBC had just 808,000 total viewers for the same period (90k in demo), and CNN had 611,000 total average prime time viewers (159k in demo). No wonder CNN’s Chris Wallace is about to explore podcasting. Fox’s Elizabeth MacDonald breaks down the carnage at MSNBC by time slot between Oct. 30 and Nov. 8:

Morning Joe 1st hour – down 39.6%
Morning Joe 2d hour – down 36.9%
Andrea Mitchell – down 39.7%
Ari Melber – down 49.6%
Joy Reid’s Reidout – down 54.6%
All-in w Chris Hayes – down 47.2%
Alex Wagner Tonight- down 53.6%
Lawrence O’Donnell – down 60.6%
Stephanie Ruhle – down 67%

Three weeks ago Axios, citing Gallup, pointed out that Americans’ trust in media has plummeted to a historic low… What’s interesting is that Democrats have the highest trust in mass media, yet their networks are ghost towns. As Outkick.com reports further; CNN and MSNBC’s futures are bleak. The two networks maintained relevancy during Trump’s first term by aggressively promoting the Russia hoax. Though the networks could try to manufacture another phony scandal, who would believe them? Trump’s decisive victory demonstrated that the left-wing cable news networks have lost their influence. CNN and MSNBC exhausted every resource at their disposal to stop Donald Trump from achieving victory, eventually stooping to a plot to depict him as the second coming of Adolf Hitler, the most ruthless dictator in modern world history. It didn’t work. The lies, the hysteria, and the besmirchment only made Trump more popular and sunk CNN and MSNBC deeper. Here is how race lady Joy Reid is handling the results:

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“..the Ukrainian leader proposes inviting Ukraine to NATO, lifting restrictions on strikes deep into Russian territory, and deploying a “comprehensive non-nuclear deterrence package” in Ukraine.”

Zelensky Tries to Woo Trump With Revised ‘Victory Plan’ (Sp.)

Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky showed his “victory plan” to Donald Trump back in September, with two clauses designed specifically to spark the US president-elect’s interest in potential resource-related deals, Financial Times reported on Tuesday, citing several European and Ukrainian sources. According to the newspaper, Ukraine is adjusting its “victory plan” for the future Trump administration, emphasizing potential business deals, access to raw materials and the deployment of troops in an attempt to secure his support. According to the sources, Ukraine’s allies in Europe and the US, including leading representatives of the Republican Party, gave advice on how best to formulate proposals that would stimulate close cooperation with Kiev, rather than stop critically important assistance to the country.

One of the two tailored clauses suggested replacing part of the US’s contingent in Europe with Ukrainian troops after the end of the conflict. The other, which was first developed by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham (listed in Russia as a terrorist and extremist), involves the sharing of Ukraine’s most important natural resources with Western partners. Zelensky unveiled his “victory plan” in mid-October, insisting that it could help end the conflict in Ukraine no later than 2025. The document includes five clauses and three secret addendums. In particular, the Ukrainian leader proposes inviting Ukraine to NATO, lifting restrictions on strikes deep into Russian territory, and deploying a “comprehensive non-nuclear deterrence package” in Ukraine.

Zelensky’s plan drew criticism in the EU and NATO for outlining in detail the multiple obligations of Ukraine’s Western allies but not assigning any to Kiev itself. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova slammed it as a set of incoherent slogans that pushed NATO into a direct conflict with Russia, while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the real peace plan for Kiev would be to realize the futility of the Ukrainian policy. He said that Kiev should “wake up” and understand the reasons that led it to the conflict.

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“Donald Trump has lots of different voices in his ears and there’s a front of the Republican Party, quite a lot of them actually, who take the wrong line on Ukraine..”

UK Could Send Troops To Ukraine – Boris Johnson (RT)

The UK cannot let Ukraine suffer a defeat in its ongoing conflict with Russia, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told GB News in an interview published on Tuesday. London could go as far as sending in troops if Kiev “goes down,” he warned. According to Johnson, Russia’s success in Ukraine would spark a security crisis for the US and its allies on a multitude of fronts. “It’ll be the Baltic states. It’ll be in Georgia. You’ll see the impact of a Ukrainian defeat in the Pacific theater. You’ll see it in the South China Sea,” the politician said, without specifying what exactly could happen in those regions. He also described military and financial assistance to Kiev as a “sensible investment” and a “good” way to spend public funds, arguing that the UK would supposedly have to pay much more otherwise because “our collective security will be really degraded by a resurgent Russia threatening all sorts of parts of Europe.”

The former prime minister also pointed to the prospect of the US cutting aid to Kiev as a potential risk, claiming some people with “wrong” views on the issue were in president-elect Donald Trump’s inner circle. “Donald Trump has lots of different voices in his ears and there’s a front of the Republican Party, quite a lot of them actually, who take the wrong line on Ukraine,” he said. If aid to Ukraine is reduced and Kiev starts losing, London could be forced to deploy troops to the region, Johnson claimed. “We will then have to pay to send British troops to help defend Ukraine,” the politician stated.

Russia has repeatedly stated that it had no plans to attack NATO or any of its members. At the same time, Moscow has also warned on multiple occasions that by providing military aid to Kiev, the bloc increases the risk of a direct clash, specifying that it would treat the provision of long-range missiles for Ukrainian attacks deep inside Russian territory as a direct assault by the countries which had supplied the weapons. Earlier, Putin ordered changes to the nation’s nuclear doctrine that listed attacks by a non-nuclear state supported by a nuclear power as a reason for a nuclear response on Russia’s part, among other things. Last week, The Telegraph reported that the UK, together with France, could push for further escalation of the Ukraine conflict by attempting to convince Washington to allow Kiev strike targets deep inside Russia with Western weapons, including Storm Shadow/Scalp cruise missiles.

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“First, the United States will refuse to export liberal democracy.”

Trump Will Abandon Two Key Principles Of US Foreign Policy (Gevorg Mirzayan)

The return of Donald Trump to the White House portends significant changes in American foreign policy. Experts name at least two US foreign policy features that Trump will be forced to abandon. Why from them and who personally in the immediate circle of the US president will embody this new approach? A two–month period of political fortune–telling begins in the United States before Trump takes office. American experts and journalists are trying to figure out who will join the new administration of the President-elect. And in particular, who will lead his foreign policy – who, that is, will take the posts of Secretary of State, National Security Adviser, and head of the Pentagon. Various candidates have been named, including former Defense Secretary Mike Pompeo and U.S. representative to the United Nations Nikki Haley. However, Trump has made it clear: he will not rely massively on his ex-officials, even those who served under him during his first term.

And this has its own logic – after all, the classic Washington establishment is unlikely to fit into Donald Trump’s new foreign policy strategy. A strategy that will not comply with a number of principles of classical American diplomacy. First, the United States will refuse to export liberal democracy. “We have built our foreign policy on intimidation, moralizing and lecturing countries that seek to avoid cooperation with us. In contrast, China’s foreign policy is focused on building roads and bridges, as well as providing food for the poor. And I think we should follow a foreign policy based on respect… and the national interests of the United States,” U.S. Vice President–elect J.D. Vance said a year and a half ago when he criticized the appointment of the “moralizing Stephanie Sullivan” as the American ambassador to the African Union.

And Trump fully shares this approach. “The new Trump administration will try to implement a realistic foreign policy course and abandon the liberal hegemonic traditions that were characteristic of American foreign policy throughout the period after the end of the Cold War. They will try to make American policy more pragmatic and more successfully counter American rivals,” Dmitry Suslov, the Deputy Director of the Higher School of Economics Center for Integrated European and International Studies, explains to Vzglyad. That is, to China, Russia and their global projects (like the BRICS). This approach has actually been overdue for a long time – after all, moralizing no longer works. Not only because the United States has ceased to be a moral beacon, but also because many countries (including a number of American allies) have begun to pay increasing attention to their own sovereignty; and, accordingly, to resist the imposition of any values destructive to their societies from the outside.

Under Trump, moralizing is generally impossible. After all, it implies demonstrative loyalty in exchange for the material benefits provided by America – in particular, access to the American market. And Trump is not going to hand out economic carrots. “The new administration will pursue a more protectionist and self-seeking foreign policy line. We strive to ensure that investments go to the United States, and not from the United States to third world countries,” Dmitry Suslov explains. Following moralizing, another important principle of Western globalist diplomacy will be thrown into the trash: “whoever is not with us is against us.”

Unlike Russia, which professed the principle of “we work with those who are not against us” (allowing states to pursue a multi-vector policy), the West has rigidly forced Third World countries to make a choice between it and its opponents. For example, the West has forced Ukraine to cooperate with either the EU or Russia in 2013. And then it forced Ukraine to turn into an anti-Russian springboard within the framework of “who is with us”. Perhaps eleven years ago, this strategy was effective – then the collective West was strong and had a reputation as a player who should not be messed with. However, the situation has changed now. And just in recent years the strategy “who is not with us is against us” has produced at least five misfires.

With Turkey, which, while remaining in NATO, has continued to cooperate with the Russian Federation. With India, which the United States unsuccessfully tried to force to stop working with Iran and Russia (in particular, to buy Russian hydrocarbons). With Saudi Arabia, which is establishing relations with China and has even transferred oil trade with it to the yuan. Washington’s attempts to train the Saudi leadership only led to a humiliating hours-long wait for US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to have an audience with the head of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. With Hungary, whose Prime Minister Viktor Orban has refused to follow the pan-European policy of isolating Russia. He is betting on national interests – and as part of this bet, he is blocking Brussels’ initiatives on new sanctions, He even flies to Moscow. And also, with Georgia where the local leadership has defiantly refused to open a second front against Russia, participate in anti–Russian sanctions, or accept Western LGBT values.

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“..Biden’s hardline policy toward Tehran ultimately harmed his major foreign policy initiative, of defeating Moscow..”

What Rough Beast? (Juan Cole)

President Joe Biden has now joined the ranks of Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush as a president whose Middle East policy crashed and burned spectacularly. Unlike Carter, who was stymied by the Iranian hostage crisis, or Bush, who faced a popular Iraqi resistance movement, Biden’s woes weren’t inflicted by an enemy. Quite the opposite, it was this country’s putative partner, the Israeli government, that implicated the president in its still ongoing genocide in Gaza, as well as its disproportionate attacks on Lebanon and Iran, for which Biden steadfastly declined to impose the slightest penalties. Instead, he’s continued to arm the Israelis to the teeth. Israel’s total war on Palestinian civilians, in turn, significantly reduced enthusiasm for Biden among youth and minorities at home, helping usher him out of office. It also created electoral obstacles for Kamala Harris’s presidential bid.

By his insistence on impunity for the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden has left the Middle East in flames and the U.S. and the world distinctly in peril. During his first three years in office, his administration wielded the tools of diplomacy in the Middle East. Donald Trump’s sanctions against the Houthis in Yemen had imperiled the civilian population there by denying them humanitarian aid and gasoline to drive to the market for food. Biden lifted those sanctions and sponsored continued negotiations between those in power in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa and in the neighboring Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh. Only relatively small contingents of American troops remained in Syria and Iraq to help with the mopping-up operations against the so-called Islamic State terrorist organization.

Danger signals nonetheless soon began flashing bright red among friend and foe alike in the region, as Biden’s team quickly squandered an opportunity to restore the 2015 “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,” or JCPOA, between the U.N. Security Council and the Iranian regime in Tehran, which Trump had so tellingly trashed. Between 2015 and 2019, that deal had successfully kept Iran’s civilian nuclear enrichment program purely civilian, closing off the four most plausible pathways to a nuclear weapon. In those years, the Iranians had, in fact, mothballed 80% of their nuclear program in return for sanctions relief. While the U.N. Security Council lifted economic sanctions on that country, Republicans in Congress refused to halt unilateral American sanctions, which applied to third parties as well. European investors had to jump through hoops to invest in Iran while avoiding Treasury Department fines. As a result, a disappointed Iranian leadership went unrewarded for its careful compliance with the JCPOA.

Then, in May 2018, Trump stabbed the Iranians in the back, withdrawing the U.S. from the JCPOA and slapping the most severe economic sanctions ever applied by one country to another in peacetime on Iran. It essentially added up to an invisible blockade of the Iranian economy, even interfering with ordinary commerce like that country’s oil sales. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted of having convinced the gullible Trump to take such a step, which led Iran’s petroleum exports to plummet over the next three years. Trump even designated the Iranian National Bank a terrorist organization, again with potentially crippling consequences for the entire economy. In revenge, Iran went back to enriching uranium to high levels and building more centrifuges, though without actually producing weapons-grade material. To this day, its civilian nuclear program remains a form of “the Japan option,” an attempt at deterrence by making it clear that it does not want a bomb but that, if it feels sufficiently threatened, it can build a nuclear weapon relatively quickly.

As soon as Joe Biden defeated Trump in 2020, the centrist Iranian President Hassan Rouhani declared that the JCPOA could be restored by the two leaders virtually by fiat. And Biden’s foreign policy team initially appeared to consider negotiations to reinstate the treaty, only to ultimately retain Trump’s outrageous sanctions as “leverage,” demanding that Iran return to compliance with the JCPOA before the two sides could talk. Perhaps the Iranian public got the message that Biden was determined to be as hostile as Trump. Certainly, in the next round of voting in the summer of 2021, they swung behind hardliner Ebrahim Raisi. And despite occasional modest diplomatic forays since then, relations have been in a dumpster for the remainder of Biden’s term, with most of Trump’s “maximum pressure” sanctions still in place. And once again, as in the Trump years, the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu has lobbied Biden hard to cease all negotiations with Tehran.

Iran, which might have been drawn into the Western camp, has instead become a hostage to Beijing. Starting in 2019, China accepted smuggled Iranian petroleum at a substantial price discount. Then, when the Ukraine War broke out and Biden imposed maximum sanctions on the Russian Federation, Moscow and Tehran found themselves pushed ever closer. Now, the two countries plan to sign a “strategic partnership agreement,” while, in July 2023, Iran joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, cementing the alliances with both China and Russia into which it had been so vigorously pushed by Washington. Iran also became a definite asset for Russia in its Ukraine War, providing Vladimir Putin with crucial weaponry. In short, Biden’s hardline policy toward Tehran ultimately harmed his major foreign policy initiative, of defeating Moscow.

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“What in the world is going on? Israel’s security problem, on its border, is 50 miles to the south. What’s an Israeli army doing here in Beirut?”

A 1984 Conference Forged Israel’s Influence Over US Media (Klarenberg)

The story of how Western media was transformed into Israel’s doting, servile propaganda appendage is not only a fascinating and sordid hidden chronicle. It is a deeply educational lesson in how imperial power can easily subordinate supposed arbiters of truth to its will. Comprehending how we got to this point equips us with the tools to assess, identify, and deconstruct lies large and small – and effectively challenge and counter not only Israel’s falsehoods but the entire settler colonial endeavor.

On June 6, 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon. The effort was ostensibly intended to drive Palestinian Liberation Organization freedom fighters away from their positions on Israel’s northern border. But, as the IDF savagely pushed ever-deeper into the country, including Beirut, it became clear that ethnic cleansing, massacres, and land theft were – as in Palestine – the true goal. Throughout the Lebanese capital, news crews from major networks and reporters from the West’s biggest newspapers were waiting. Israel’s rapacious bloodlust and casual contempt for Arab lives had hitherto been, by and large, successfully concealed from the outside world. Suddenly, though, scenes of deliberate IDF airstrikes on residential housing blocks, Tel Aviv’s trigger-happy soldiers running amok in Beirut’s streets, and hospitals overflowing with civilians suffering from grave injuries, including chemical burns due to Israel’s use of phosphorus shells, were broadcast the world over, to nigh-universal outcry.

As veteran NBC news anchor John Chancellor contemporarily explained to Western viewers: “What in the world is going on? Israel’s security problem, on its border, is 50 miles to the south. What’s an Israeli army doing here in Beirut? The answer is we are now dealing with an imperial Israel, which is solving its problems in someone else’s country, world opinion be damned.” Global shock and repulsion at Israel’s conduct would only ratchet during the IDF’s resultant illegal military occupation of swaths of Lebanon. In September 1982, an Israel-backed armed Christian militia, Phalange, entered Sabra, a Beirut neighborhood home to many Palestinians displaced by the 1948 Nakba. Over a two-day span, they slaughtered up to 3,500 people while mutilating and raping countless others. Again, unfortunately for Tel Aviv, mainstream journalists were on hand to document these heinous crimes first-hand.

To say the least, Israel had an international PR disaster of historic proportions on its blood-soaked hands. The risk that further exposure of its genocidal nature might decisively and permanently shift global opinion in favor of the Palestinians and the Arab world more generally was significant. The attack on Lebanon had already spurred Western news outlets to critically reassess other illegal annexations and occupations in which Israel was and remains engaged. As ABC News reporter Richard Threlkeld commented at the time: “Israel was always that gallant little underdog democracy fighting for survival against all the odds. Now, the Israelis have annexed East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, settled down more or less permanently on the West Bank, and occupied close to half of Lebanon. In the interests of self-defense, that gallant little underdog, Israel, has suddenly started behaving like the neighborhood bully.”

So it was that in the summer of 1984, the American Jewish Congress – a major Zionist lobby organization – convened a conference in Jerusalem, Israel’s Public Image: Problems and Remedies. It was chaired by U.S. advertising supremo Carl Spielgovel, who a decade earlier provided pro bono advice to the Israeli government on strategies for publicly communicating why Tel Aviv refused to adhere to the terms of the Henry Kissinger-brokered 1973 Sinai Accords. Spielgovel later recalled: “It occurred to me then that the Israelis were doing a good job at training their military people, and they were doing a relatively good job at training their diplomatic corps. But they weren’t spending any time training information officers, people who could present Israel’s case to embassies and TV anchormen around the world. Over the years, I made this a personal cause celebre.”

The 1984 Jerusalem conference offered Spielgovel and a welter of Western advertising and public relations executives, media specialists, editors, journalists, and leaders of major Zionist advocacy groups an opportunity to achieve that malign objective. Together, they hammered out a dedicated strategy for ensuring the “crisis” caused by news reporting on the invasion of Lebanon two years earlier would never be repeated. Their antidote? Ceaseless, methodical, and wide-ranging “Hasbara” – Hebrew for propaganda – for “changing people’s minds [and] making them think differently.”

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Roman precision
https://twitter.com/i/status/1856294347643199665

 

 

Feed fish

 

 

Tesla Berlin

 

 

Madre

 

 

Tuck in horse

 

 

SOS

 

 

Dog

 

 

2 points

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Oct 222024
 


Floris van Schooten Still-Life with Glass, Cheese, Butter and Cake 1st half 17th century

 

Musk Fires Back At Der Spiegel Over ‘Enemy No. 2’ Claim (RT)
Surprise, Surprise! (James Howard Kunstler)
Alex Jones Issues Terrifying Post-Election Prediction (VF)
A Citizen Journalist Wins Key Reversal for New Media (Turley)
Court Denies Class Action Status for Lawsuit Against Twitter (ET)
Russian “Restraint” Towards Assassination of Arab Leaders (Helmer)
EU Troops Could Be Deployed To Ukraine – Politico (RT)
Pentagon Pours Cold Water On Claim Of North Korean Troops In Ukraine (ZH)
Medvedev Warns Of ‘Total War’ (RT)
A New World Order In The Making: This BRICS Summit Will Be Special (Behanzin)
Date With Destiny – BRICS Offers Hope in a Time of War (Pepe Escobar)
Fani Willis Laid Groundwork For Prosecuting Trump Before Taking Office (JTN)
Trump Assassination Probe Finds ‘Stunning’ Failures (RT)
The EU Doesn’t Need Moscow To Interfere In Its Democracy (Marsden)
US Interest Payments Top Defense Spending For First Time In History (I&I)
German Doctors Alarmed At Growing Failures Of Antibiotics – Bild (RT)

 

 

 

 

Dark money

MSNBC

Speaker

PA


https://twitter.com/i/status/1848133402559721646

JD

Trump Biden
https://twitter.com/i/status/1848020588679348583

No tax

Racist

Bronx

DOJ

 

 

 

 

“Donald Trump is probably the current biggest threat to the free world. His buddy Musk [is] at least public enemy number two..”

Musk Fires Back At Der Spiegel Over ‘Enemy No. 2’ Claim (RT)

Elon Musk has hit back at German magazine Der Spiegel, after it branded the billionaire “public enemy No.2” and claimed he is working with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to “decompose liberal democracy.” In response, Musk insisted that he is a staunch defender of democracy. The German outlet published an article on Sunday with a cover depicting a close-up of the tech mogul with Trump’s features emerging through part of his face. The piece noted that the X owner and Tesla CEO has amassed huge economic clout and a prominent media profile. “Within a few years, he [Musk] has not only become the political right-wing hardliner, but also a declared opponent of the liberal democracy in the US. The Troll-in chief has mutated into a political agitator.

“One could say: Donald Trump is probably the current biggest threat to the free world. His buddy Musk [is] at least public enemy number two,” the article said, drawing parallels with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, who rose to power thanks in no small part to the support of German industrial moguls. Musk addressed the accusation during a townhall meeting with American voters in Pennsylvania. “I’m like, enemy No. 2 of what? Democracy? I mean I’m pro-democracy. I’m literally trying to uphold the Constitution and ensure we have a free and fair election,” he fired back, drawing cheers from the crowd.

The billionaire added that he would “definitely upgrade… my security” after the article, noting that he is sometimes “shocked” by what he sees from the left. “You know, the level of vitriolic hatred on the left, which is supposed to be tolerant. They claim they are tolerant and yet they are incredibly intolerant and spewing hate.” Musk, a self-described “free speech absolutist,” endorsed Trump after the failed assassination attempt on the former president in July, and has since donated tens of millions of dollars to his campaign. He has repeatedly expressed concern about what he describes as increasing censorship in the US, as well as an overbearing bureaucracy that prevents any meaningful action. Meanwhile, Trump has vowed to create a Musk-led government efficiency commission to audit the entire federal government if he returns to the White House.

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“The left’s ideas have failed and failed spectacularly, and all they have left is cheating.” Elizabeth Nickson.

Surprise, Surprise! (James Howard Kunstler)

Of course, there’s no “pandemic” this time to cover for the trip that the Party of Chaos wants to lay on the country, no excuse for gross and glaring ballot fuckery, for the days of anxious uncertainty following an election. Everybody and his uncle expect a gigantic tantrum to follow November 6 if Mr. Trump somehow overcomes the tide of bogus harvested votes, illegal alien votes, phantom overseas votes, voting machine swapped votes, lost-and-found votes, last-minute rafts of votes, and other products of the Marc Elias election sabotage machine. I am not so sure that the tantrum will materialize. Despite the orgy of Orwellian language inversions you have been subjected to in recent years, and the bending of reality it induced, you will know a real insurrection if you see it. You already know the real reason the Democratic Party went insane: its crime spree against the citizens of this land was so obvious and outrageous that a thousand Beltway bureaucrats are now going crazy in fear of prosecution.

The tantrum everyone expects them to provoke would be a real insurrection and they are liable to find themselves in even deeper trouble for resorting to it. Crime is the whole reason for the Democrats’ desperation. There was no “policy” the past four years, only crime. The Covid operation was a mass murder. The open border was not something that just happened, like a spell of bad weather. It was a colossal racketeering operation. They worked it hard. “Joe Biden” paid dozens of NGO cut-outs to systematically jam more than ten million sketchy interlopers into the country, and then support them lavishly with cash payments when they got here. The political prosecutions of AG Merrick Garland are gauche and lawless. The pervasive censorship by DHS and other agencies is an affront to our constitution. The transgender campaign is a malicious prank against American children (and their parents).

Our CIA may be a party to the fentanyl crisis. The war in Ukraine is a failed resource-grab, unbelievably stupid in inception. “Joe Biden’s” empty treasury is writing trillions in IOUs to stealthily bail out the banks and jack-up the stock market. Everything about our government has become criminal and those responsible for it know they are bound for a reckoning now. Will the Democrats’ Antifa street-army be allowed to terrorize the cities? I expect the remaining cops not de-funded in DC, New York, Chicago, and LA won’t hold back this time, no matter what mayors Muriel Bowser, Eric Adams, Brandon Johnson, and Karen Bass tell them to do. You will instead see the return of something that has been missing for years: a sense of duty to public safety and the common good. Won’t that be a surprise? And there will be nothing that the FBI can do about. It’s one thing to incite a riot among a mob of ordinary middle-aged folks moiling around the US Capitol. It’s another thing to try to subvert the police in carrying out their duties. New heroes will emerge and there will be no ambiguity about what happens.

Black Lives Matter had already been outed as a lowlife money-grubbing hustle. But the Democratic Party may no longer depend on its old “plantation” field-hands to stage mostly peaceful anarchy and arson if the election goes the wrong way for the masters. Forty years of pretending to be an oppositional culture hasn’t worked. It was just minstrelsy updated, when all was said and done. Too many black men are rising up to speak out in support of Donald Trump, and of one America, and of acting like men. They appear to be tired of self-stigmatizing as designated victims in the Woke-Jacobin DEI psychodrama. A new generation of black male leaders is emerging to replace embarrassing con artists like Al Sharpton, Michael Eric Dyson, and Ibram X. Kendi. It’s been a long time coming.

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“..while the Democrats accuse Trump of planning to use the military on the American people, the government is already making moves to do just that..”

Alex Jones Issues Terrifying Post-Election Prediction (VF)

He forecasts that once Trump becomes president, “Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and all these Islamic hordes that are allied with the left” will “engage in massive civil unrest.” The possibility is certainly real. And this scenario becomes even more terrifying when you realize that Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) is working on a bill to cripple Trump’s ability to respond to civil unrest. Specifically, Blumenthal is introducing legislation to limit unchecked presidential authority under the Insurrection Act ahead of Trump’s forecasted victory. What the bill means, if passed, is that Trump will be severely handicapped in the face of widespread violence and unrest. Blumenthal’s legislation is designed to handcuff the president by requiring approval from Congress before the military can be deployed to deal with domestic threats.

Adding to the possibility of civil unrest, Bill Gates, the man who seems to always financially profit when disaster happens, said in 2022 that America’s “political polarization may bring it all to an end.” He predicted that at some point, “We’re going to have a hung election and a civil war.” The trigger to civil unrest could be the election, of course. However, Alex Jones warned that an incident like the one we saw with George Floyd in 2020 could be exploited again to spark widespread riots. Jones pointed out that while the Democrats accuse Trump of planning to use the military on the American people, the government is already making moves to do just that. Adding to all the things that can go wrong is U.S. Department of Defense Directive 5240.01, which is an absolute nightmare.

What that directive does is that it gives the DoD the power to step in and use lethal force within U.S. borders, even against its own citizens, when it deems lives are at risk. Don’t want to wear a mask? You’re putting lives at risk. Lethal force could technically be used against you. Don’t want to take a vaccine? The same story exists. The potential for abuse is limitless here. The scope of this authority is chilling because the directive specifically states that the decision to use lethal force only needs the Secretary of Defense’s approval. Once lethal force is approved, anything can happen. For years, Alex Jones warned about martial law and domestic military control, and now we’re seeing that terrifying scenario unfold right before our eyes.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1848122086826606881

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“Only 31 percent express a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence in the media. Adults with no trust at all in the media is greater at 36 percent. In the 1970s, trust in the media ranged from 68 percent to 72 percent.”

A Citizen Journalist Wins Key Reversal for New Media (Turley)

This week, there was a little-noticed order out of the Supreme Court that decided a narrow legal question with much great implications for journalism. The justices tossed a decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that barred a lawsuit by Priscilla Villarreal. Known online as La Gordiloca (loosely translated as “the fat, crazy lady”), Villareal is part of a growing number of new media journalists. At a time when the public is rejecting legacy or mainstream media, the case is the latest reminder of a rising force of citizen journalists. Technically, the court instructed the lower courts to review the case in light of the recent decision in Gonzalez v. Trevino. That decision relaxed the standards for citizens suing over retaliatory arrests. Villareal was not just a citizen but a citizen journalist who claimed to be performing the same newsgathering functions as conventional journalists.

Villarreal had alleged that she was arrested for seeking and obtaining nonpublic information from police as a journalist — the identity of a person who had killed himself — and publishing it on Facebook. The Fifth Circuit ruled that the police could claim immunity from the lawsuit she brought, and the justices just set that decision aside. As I discuss in my book, “The Indispensable Right, journalism is in free fall in the U.S. as citizens reject the establishment media as biased and unreliable. For years, journalism schools have taught students that they have to abandon objectivity and neutrality for advocacy. Advocacy journalism is now the norm. Former New York Times writer (and now Howard University journalism professor) Nikole Hannah-Jones has declared that “all journalism is activism.” Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor-in-chief at the San Francisco Chronicle, similarly announced that “Objectivity has got to go.”

After a series of interviews with more than 75 media leaders, Leonard Downie Jr., former Washington Post executive editor, explained that objectivity is viewed as a trap and reporters “feel it negates many of their own identities, life experiences and cultural contexts, keeping them from pursuing truth in their work.” The response of the public has been to look elsewhere for news. Indeed, the mantra “Let’s Go Brandon!” was embraced by millions as a criticism of the media as much as it was a criticism of President Biden. Recently, the new Washington Post publisher and CEO William Lewis was brought into the paper to stop a collapsing readership and revenue. He told the staff, “Let’s not sugarcoat it…We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right? I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.”

They are, however, reading “the stuff” of figures like La Gordiloca, who is described as “a tattooed one-woman mobile newsroom who, until the coronavirus lockdown, often broadcast live while driving her car.” Her following on Facebook is now larger than her local newspaper. The New York Times described how La Gordiloca “reflects how many people on the border now prefer to get their news.” The paper admitted that she is is a “swearing muckraker who is upending border journalism.” New media journalists are more H.L. Mencken or sometimes even Hunter S. Thompson but they are viewed as more authentic and independent. Millions of Americans now get their news from social media and blogs. Various traditional media outlets have either closed or are fighting for their existence. What they are not doing is seriously questioning their course in adopting advocacy journalism.

Journalism has become a ship of fools who increasingly write for each other rather than the dwindling numbers of actual readers. And they have written off half of the country with their plunge into advocacy journalism. As a consequence, many have come to view mainstream media as a de facto state media. Today, over half of U.S. adults (54 percent) say they get news from social media. Only 27 percent now rely on TV as their first choice with only 6 percent preferring radio and only 5 percent preferring print. The recent polling figures from Gallup show how much harm this generation of editors and reporters has done to the field. Trust in the media is at an all-time low, continuing a consistent decline. Only 31 percent express a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence in the media. Adults with no trust at all in the media is greater at 36 percent. In the 1970s, trust in the media ranged from 68 percent to 72 percent.

Turley

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He wants a bonus, but: “..the plaintiff had argued against Twitter paying the bonus while he was under employment with the firm..”

Court Denies Class Action Status for Lawsuit Against Twitter (ET)

A California court dismissed class action certification for a lawsuit filed by a former employee that accused Twitter of not paying laid off workers bonuses that were allegedly promised. Mark Schobinger, the plaintiff, was Twitter’s senior director of compensation during 2022–23, a time when the company was in the process of being acquired by Elon Musk, according to an Oct. 16 order issued by the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California. At the time, Schobinger was a member of a group of employees eligible to receive annual bonuses in early 2023. However, the company was under no obligation to pay, a fact that is “undisputed” under the terms of the bonus, the order noted. Paying the bonus was “a matter of discretion” for the firm. Schobinger alleged that the company promised employees in April, May, and August of 2022 that it would pay the bonus provided the workers stayed with the firm throughout the acquisition.

The plaintiff claimed he did stay during this phase because of the promise. He filed the lawsuit after not getting paid, and sought class certification. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria denied Schobinger’s motion, noting he is unfit to act as a class representative. The judge pointed out that the plaintiff had argued against Twitter paying the bonus while he was under employment with the firm. In November 2022, months after Twitter’s bonus promise, Schobinger sent a message to the company’s “Head of People Experience,” stating that whether to pay the bonus was purely dependent on the “discretion” of Musk. Schobinger also wrote that he recommended not to pay the bonus. In February 2023, the plaintiff sent a “white paper” to several executives on the issue, stating that “not paying a bonus would be prudent.” Evidence also points to Schobinger telling Musk in a meeting a month earlier that the firm need not pay the bonus, the order stated.

These statements make Schobinger “not an adequate class representative,” Chhabria wrote. “At his deposition, Schobinger offered a convoluted explanation for how he could possibly have believed he was entitled to the bonus while simultaneously advocating that the company not pay it. It seems likely that Schobinger’s explanation is untrue,” the judge said. “But even if he is telling the truth, that’s beside the point for purposes of this motion. Because even if he is telling the truth, his conduct makes him the worst possible candidate to serve as a litigation representative for the other Twitter employees who didn’t get a bonus.” The court also highlighted a major issue with the motion—a “large number” of proposed class members signed arbitration agreements with Twitter, some of which also waived off class action lawsuits against the company.

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“In Russian diplo-speak, “restraint” means “Russia will not intervene if you do your worst”.

Russian “Restraint” Towards Assassination of Arab Leaders (Helmer)

The Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi was murdered on October 20, 2011, and to mark the thirteenth anniversary of his death, the Russian Foreign Ministry received Qaddafi’s daughter, Aisha Qaddafi, in Moscow on Friday. This is the first open meeting in Russia between high-ranking Russian officials and the Qaddafi family. The political significance was buried in the communiqué. “On October 18, the Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation for the Middle East and Africa, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Mikhail Bogdanov received Libyan public figure and artist Aisha Gaddafi, who is in Moscow in connection with the opening of an exhibition of her paintings at the State Museum of the East. During the conversation, issues of further strengthening historically friendly Russian-Libyan ties in the scientific, cultural and educational spheres were discussed.

At the same time, the Russian side confirmed its unchanged position in support of achieving Libyan national accord in the interests of ensuring the unity, territorial integrity and state sovereignty of Libya.” The official reason for Aisha Qaddafi’s visit to Moscow to open the exhibition of her paintings omitted that the paintings are in memory of her father, brother and other members of her family assassinated by the US and its proxies in Libya. “I show these works for the first time to honour my father and my brother on the anniversary of their deaths,” Qaddafi said in Moscow. “I can tell you that these pictures are painted not with my hand but with my heart.” Assassination of Qaddafi had been a secret US Government policy during the Carter Administration and then an open policy of the Reagan Administration.

Assassination of the Arabs of Palestine, including the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, is the open policy of the current US and Israeli governments. In this context, the unofficial reason for Aisha Qaddafi’s visit to Moscow is that the Russian Foreign Ministry is signaling its opposition to this decades-old US and Israeli policy. The signal also hints through several years of rumour and disinformation at fresh Russian support – that means armed protection – for Saif Qaddafi’s campaign to become the end-of-civil war president of Libya. “If the Libyans choose a strong president,” Saif told the New York Times in 2021, “the only thing is a strong president. That’s it. The Libyans will choose a strong one. Everything will be solved automatically.”

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“Allegations of Pyongyang supplying soldiers and equipment to Russia were originally raised by Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky last week..”

EU Troops Could Be Deployed To Ukraine – Politico (RT)

The EU should return to the idea of putting boots on the ground in Ukraine, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis has argued in a statement to Politico. The diplomat insisted that Brussels should revive talks about deploying EU forces in Ukraine in response to reports of North Korean ammunition and soldiers supposedly taking part in the hostilities on the side of Russia. “If information about Russia’s killing squads being equipped with North Korean ammunition and military personnel is confirmed, we have to get back to ‘boots on the ground’ and other ideas proposed by Emmanuel Macron,” Landsbergis told the outlet. Allegations of Pyongyang supplying soldiers and equipment to Russia were originally raised by Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky last week and have been seconded by South Korea.

However, neither the US nor NATO has yet been able to confirm any of these reports, while Moscow has dismissed the speculations as a “bogus story.” Meanwhile, Macron’s continued refusal to rule out the potential deployment of French troops to Ukraine has repeatedly been criticized by other EU leaders who have argued that such a move would lead to a serious escalation of the conflict. At the same time, Brussels is reportedly considering the possibility of deploying peacekeepers to Ukraine after the conflict has ended, Politico has said. Washington’s former ambassador to Japan, Kenneth Weinstein, has told the outlet that such a move would show that the EU still has “skin in the game.”

“If there is going to be a DMZ [demilitarized zone] between Ukraine and Russia, my suggestion would be to have it manned by EU troops — not NATO troops, and not U.S. troops,” the former diplomat, who is now chairman to the Hudson Institute, a conservative DC-based think tank, told the outlet. One EU lawmaker, who chose to remain anonymous, has also confirmed to Politico that the question of European peacekeepers in Ukraine “will come up” after the conflict is over. Moscow has repeatedly warned against the deployment of Western forces to Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin has stressed that such a move could lead to a “serious conflict in Europe and a global conflict.”

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“..over the weekend the Pentagon refused to back the reports, with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin explaining that he can’t confirm this narrative..”

Pentagon Pours Cold Water On Claim Of North Korean Troops In Ukraine (ZH)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has of late begun pushing hard new accusations that at least 10,000 North Korean troops are being sent to Ukraine where they will fight on behalf of the Russians. South Korea’s spy agency had also backed Zelensky’s claim, chiming in on Friday to say that at least 1,500 North Korean special forces have already been sent. The spy agency says it has satellite images tracking these movements. But over the weekend the Pentagon refused to back the reports, with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin explaining that he can’t confirm this narrative. “I’ve seen those reports in the media. I can’t confirm those reports at this point in time. This is something that we will certainly continue to investigate,” Austin said Sunday.

Zelensky has been pushing the idea that the ‘enemies’ of the West have formed an axis to fight in Ukraine and ultimately push back NATO. He’s identified them as Russia, Iran, and North Korea. He’s touted this curiously alongside desperate pleas for more urgent funding and weaponry from his Western backers. Kiev has especially sought long-range weapons for use inside Russian territory. As an example of this, Zelensky said in a weekend video address, “Now we have clear evidence that people are being supplied to Russia from North Korea, and these are not just workers for industries, but also military personnel. And we expect a normal, honest, strong reaction from our partners to this.” He followed by emphasizing, “In fact, this is another state joining the war against Ukraine.”

But not even NATO leadership is backing these assertions. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte recently said there’s no evidence of an influx of North Korean troops into the conflict. “At this moment, our official position is that we cannot confirm reports that North Koreans are actively now as soldiers engaged in the war effort,” he stated. Some video clips of unknown context, origin or location have circulated online in the past days, purporting to show North Korean troops being outfitted by Russia’s military before battle. Pundits have described one circulating video as showing a base in Russia’s eastern Primorye region, which shares a small border with North Korea, incredibly far away from front lines in Ukraine.

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“..there should be a “full-fledged counterweight” to the US, such as during the time of the USSR..”

Medvedev Warns Of ‘Total War’ (RT)

The US must abandon its ambitions of “world domination” or risk a war which could lead to the “complete extermination” of humanity, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned on Monday. According to Medvedev, who currently serves as the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, Washington’s goal is “domination over the Old World, as well as over the rest of the world.” However, this policy is merely leading to the “weakening and humiliation of the West, including Europe” within the framework of the modern multipolar global order, Medvedev wrote on his Telegram channel. The official issued the post in the context of the upcoming BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan, which is set to kick off on Tuesday. Medvedev argued that the world needs a balance of powers rather than a dominant one, meaning there should be a “full-fledged counterweight” to the US, such as during the time of the USSR.

The development of BRICS as a global power, as well as the growth of similar regional unions and the comprehensive development of relations with the countries of the Global South, are signs that such a balance is already in the making, Medvedev argued. “After all, the alternative to such a balance of power is a total war leading to the complete extermination of humanity,” the senior official warned. A world without balance in today’s conditions will not last even a decade. If the West does not realize this simple truth, it is the end for everyone. And this is not a situation where the death of some will mean the victory of others. Medvedev was Russian president from 2008 to 2012, before serving as prime minister until 2020. He is well known for his hardline stance on the Ukraine conflict and the West’s sanctions policy against Russia. He has also accused the US of pursuing a “global neocolonialism” agenda.

BRICS, which is widely seen as a rival to the G7 group of countries, is holding its 16th annual summit later this week. Initially founded in 2006 by Brazil, Russia, India, and China, it now consists of nine countries, including South Africa, Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia and the UAE, representing about 46% of the world’s population and over 36% of global GDP, according to estimates by global financial institutions. Many analysts have suggested that the rapid development of the group signals that the Western monopoly over the international system is over, and that the world is firmly headed toward multipolarity.

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“This summit could mark the beginning of the end of Western supremacy and the emergence of a new era..”

A New World Order In The Making: This BRICS Summit Will Be Special (Behanzin)

The upcoming BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia could mark a turning point in global geopolitical history. Faced with the slow erosion of the Western world order, a new balance is emerging, driven by a coalition that seems increasingly determined to chart its own course. This unique event brings together 24 heads of state from various nations, including iconic figures such as China’s Xi Jinping. The inclusion of Antonio Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, in this assembly raises major questions about the current dynamics of global governance. Traditionally, the UN has been seen as a bastion of multilateralism, but its alignment with the Western powers is being called into question. This summit in Kazan could be the catalyst for a strategic repositioning, where the UN might seek to navigate between old alliances and emerging trends.

The BRICS are no longer just an economic coalition; they are asserting themselves as a viable alternative to the historical dominance of Western countries. The unipolar world, as we have known it, seems to be giving way to a multipolar era, where several emerging powers are claiming their rightful place in the global decision-making process. The Kazan summit represents an unprecedented opportunity for the BRICS to draw a new map of international cooperation. The heads of state present will discuss a multitude of issues, ranging from the economy to security, including environmental challenges. By forming strategic alliances, this group, which represents over 45% of the world’s population, seeks not only to strengthen its influence but also to offer an alternative platform for developing countries that often feel marginalized within traditional Bretton Woods institutions like the IMF or the World Bank.

These discussions could lead to agreements that, depending on their scope, might redefine the rules of the international economic game. The West, rather than standing on the sidelines, is forced to respond to the growing and increasingly popular BRICS dynamic. Western governments, which often disagree and are divided over their approaches, may be compelled to reassess their relationship with emerging market countries. The current situation is marked by growing tensions, as illustrated by the declining confidence in Western-centered institutions. The stance of NATO and European actors towards the BRICS could become the focus of heated debates, highlighting an inevitable need for adaptation.

By attending this event, Guterres is likely illustrating the UN’s desire to revitalize its role in a changing world. His intervention could underscore the growing importance of South-South dialogue, and exchanges aimed at establishing cooperative partnerships that transcend the usual divides. [..] Multilateralism, as it was conceived after World War II, is facing a period of uncertainty. Established institutions struggle to effectively address contemporary challenges such as climate change, growing inequality, and governance crises. The BRICS summit could offer a new vision of multilateralism, more inclusive and adapted to current realities. This model could create synergies among the countries of the Global South, proposing an alternative to the rigidities of the current Western framework.

The future looks fascinating with the BRICS summit in Kazan. This is not just a series of diplomatic discussions but a laboratory for forging a new global architecture. As the West may witness a redistribution of power in international affairs, the developing countries, represented by the BRICS, are taking the reins of this transformation. This summit could mark the beginning of the end of Western supremacy and the emergence of a new era where the voice of the Global South is finally heard. The events in Kazan thus promise to have lasting repercussions on how we conceive the world order in the decades to come.

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‘Not an Anti-Western Group, Just a Non-Western Group’

Date With Destiny – BRICS Offers Hope in a Time of War (Pepe Escobar)

This is it. A date with destiny. All set for the most crucial geopolitical/geoeconomic gathering of the year and arguably the decade: the BRICS Summit under the Russian presidency in Kazan, capital of Tatarstan, where Sunni Tatars coexist in perfect harmony with Orthodox Christians. All the excruciating work by sherpas and analysts throughout 2024 – supervised by the lead Russian diplomat in charge of BRICS, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov – converged to three final, separate key meetings in Moscow before the summit, grouping BRICS finance ministers and central bank governors, working groups, and the Business Council. All that in a context that is now familiar for the Global Majority. The combined GDP of the current BRICS nations is over $60 trillion, way ahead of the G7; their average growth rate by the end of this year is projected to be 4%, higher than the 3.2% global average; and the bulk of economic growth for the near future will come from BRICS member-nations.

Even before the meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov was stressing that BRICS is keen to bypass “politicized” Western platforms – a subtle reference to the sanctions tsunami and the weaponization of the US dollar – as BRICS work to create their own, Global Majority-friendly international payments system. The context for what will be decided in Kazan this week is no less than incandescent, as the uncontrolled chaos of the Hegemon’s Forever Wars – from Ukraine to West Asia – has even materially affected the heavy work of BRICS and the necessity to build a new international system of geoeconomic relations practically from scratch. A credible war escalation scenario may have been thwarted by the leak of secret high-level intel to the Five Eyes on the preparations by Israel-US to strike Iran. The strike will eventually happen – with dire consequences – but probably not this week, when it could have been timed to explicitly, and completely, disrupt the summit in Kazan and expel it from global headlines.

The joint statement by the BRICS finance ministers and central bank governors may not sound too adventurous, but the constraints reflect not only caution when facing a dangerous, cornered Hegemon, but internal contradictions among BRICS members. The statement recognizes “the need for a comprehensive reform of the global financial architecture to enhance the voice of developing countries and their representation.” Yet it remains clear the US has less than zero interest in a profound reform of the IMF, the World Bank and the Bretton Woods system. Russia and China, especially, are fully aware that what is needed is a post-Bretton Woods. The statement is more forceful on the BRICS Cross-Border Payments Initiative, dubbed BCBPI, welcoming “the use of local currencies in international trade” and “the strengthening of banking networks” to enable them. Yet everything for the moment is only “voluntary and non-binding.” Kazan is expected to give the process some edge.

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“And was there outreach to you to be part of the search committee prior to January 1, 2021?” “Absolutely..”

Fani Willis Laid Groundwork For Prosecuting Trump Before Taking Office (JTN)

House Judiciary Committee Jim Jordan on Monday released the transcript of closed-door testimony from Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor hired by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to help manage her office’s Donald Trump election interference case before coming under scrutiny for his romantic-financial relationship with Willis. Wade testified that Willis was planning to prosecute Trump and began discussing a search committee to find a special prosecutor to investigate the former president prior to assuming office in January 2021. The former special prosecutor was also confronted with his own records showing that he met with White House officials, for eight hours on one occasion, though he told investigators he could not recall the details of the meetings.

Wade served on that search committee, which was instated on day one of Willis’ term in January 2021. After an unsuccessful search, Wade was ultimately invited to assume the role himself, which he claimed he reluctantly accepted. “And so the search committee, you said that began when DA Willis took office on January 1, 2021. Is that correct?” investigators asked. “Yes,” Wade replied. “And was there outreach to you to be part of the search committee prior to January 1, 2021?” “Absolutely,” he confirmed, saying the outreach began “Sometime after the election, but prior to her taking office.” The transcript of Wade’s deposition Tuesday was released by Jordan’s committee a week after the interview. The GOP-led committee subpoenaed Wade as part of an investigation into his relationship with Willis. Last year, Willis indicted Trump and 18 codefendants in Georgia over their alleged efforts to challenge the 2020 election results in the state.

Wade resigned from the case in March after a Georgia judge made his stepping aside a condition of allowing Willis to remain on the case after evidence of an improper financial and romantic relationship emerged between them. Wade also failed to recall key details about meetings with White House officials, despite recording them in his invoices to Willis’ office. According to the transcript, Wade billed Willis’ office for an eight hour meeting with White House lawyers. These meetings were reported by Just the News after court documents filed by a Trump codefendant showed Wade recorded an entry for a meeting with the White House Counsel’s office in Athens, Georgia in May 2022.

Though Wade testified that he did not remember the meeting, he told congressional investigators that “the invoice says travel to Athens. So that means to me that I traveled to Athens.” The invoices provided in the suit show at least one more meeting with Biden White House staff, on November 2022, that appears to have taken place in Washington, D.C., though there is no record of a visit by Wade in the White House visitor logs. Willis last week attempted unsuccessfully to block Wade from testifying to the committee on the grounds that it could “improperly divulge confidential information” about her investigation of the former president.

Read more …

Failures?!

Trump Assassination Probe Finds ‘Stunning’ Failures (RT)

The US Congress task force investigating the July 13 attempt on the life of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has confirmed that the Secret Service and local law enforcement did not coordinate properly. Trump was speaking at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania when a bullet nicked his ear. One rally-goer was killed and two more seriously injured before the Secret Service neutralized the attacker on the roof of a nearby factory. “Put simply, the evidence obtained by the Task Force to date shows the tragic and shocking events of July 13 were preventable and should not have happened,” said the preliminary report published by the bipartisan body on Monday. The 53-page document contained eight main findings, starting with the lack of planning and coordination between the Secret Service and local law enforcement.

The factory roof from which Thomas Crooks opened fire was not included in the security perimeter, despite having “clear sight lines to the stage, and elevated position,” the report said. Local officers posted inside the building did not secure the complex or the roof, believing their job was just “overwatch” of the rally site. The Secret Service and local police had separate command posts and did not have a shared radio channel, the report said. This created gaps in communication which Crooks was able to slip through. A member of Congress with a law enforcement background who investigated the site in early August suggested that the FBI investigators may have destroyed evidence in the case by scrubbing the roof and allowing Crooks’ body to be cremated before the autopsy results were made available.

The Butler County Coroner’s office released the remains to Crooks’ family after the FBI said no additional evidence was necessary, the new report said. According to the autopsy, Crooks died of a single gunshot wound to the head, presumably inflicted by a Secret Service counter-sniper. He managed to fire eight shots prior to that, however, and may have stopped only after a local police officer shot at him. The coroner did not find evidence of alcohol or drugs in Crooks’ blood, but did find traces of antimony, selenium, and lead.

The new report also clarifies that Crooks did not use a ladder to get to the top of the building, but climbed using the outside air conditioning unit. The ladder seen in the photos after the incident was placed there by local police afterward to let investigators access the roof. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned ten days after the Butler shooting. The House of Representatives task force consists of both Republicans and Democrats and has been charged with investigating both the Butler incident and the thwarted ambush at Trump’s Florida golf course in September. Their final report is due December 13, well after the presidential election.

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“..before Marvel Studios’ costume department comes knocking on the door of the EU clown tent to ask for their capes back..”

The EU Doesn’t Need Moscow To Interfere In Its Democracy (Marsden)

The EU superheroes did it, guys. They stopped Russian President Vladimir Putin from being elected to Brussels. And now they’re telling us all about how they did it, before Marvel Studios’ costume department comes knocking on the door of the EU clown tent to ask for their capes back. The Russians and their “disinformation” didn’t have any impact on the European Elections earlier this year. That’s now the official word from the EU itself. Vera Jourova, the Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency, has emerged from an Orwellian novel to announce that “based on currently available information, no major information interference operation capable of disrupting the elections was recorded.” So much for the public freak out that European parliamentarians were having back in April 2024, demanding even more censorship of “Kremlin-backed media outlets” and “disinformation campaigns” in what they qualified as “Kremlin-backed attempts to interfere with and undermine European democratic processes.”

We’re supposed to believe that it’s all because Jourova had embarked on a crackdown, er, “Democracy Tour” to commiserate not just with election officials and authorities, but also with “civil society” NGOs, industry, and media. Surely it has nothing to do with the fact that there wasn’t really much disinformation to begin with and that they’ve been blowing the issue way out of proportion. Jourova herself acknowledged that even the EU’s Digital Media Observatory was only able to find between 4% to 8% of what they qualify as “disinformation” among all articles analyzed between May 2023 and March 2024, and that the figure climbed to just 15% in May 2024, right before the EU’s June election. This means that around EU election time, a whopping 85% of information and analysis floating around in the public domain was EU-approved.

Jourova said that “disinformation narratives followed the topics we expected: there were allegations that the elections are rigged, but mostly topics that trigger a strong emotional impact – the war on Ukraine, the Middle East, false narratives on climate change, and migrants.” We used to call those things topics of debate. But that was before they decided that the agendas Brussels was trying to ram down everyone’s throats across the entire bloc wouldn’t be served by messy democratic dissent. Best to just dismiss, marginalize, or censor opposing information and narratives and be forced to deal with being violently mugged by reality later on issues like Ukraine’s not actually “winning,” regardless of how expensive life has become for EU citizens as a result of the bloc’s suicidal pro-Ukraine policies, and migration being an actual five-alarm problem for the EU as it faces the palpable rise of populism backlash for not doing enough earlier.

And the EU elections are certainly not rigged! The people elect representatives to EU parliament, then a ‘president’ is handpicked behind closed doors and plopped in front of them for a simple yes/no confirmation vote. That person, currently ‘Queen’ Ursula von der Leyen, who has never actually been elected to the EU parliament, then runs a ‘royal’ European Commission of bureaucratic desk jockeys that crafts and dictates policy for the entire bloc. Anyone calling this anything other than a model democratic institution must be a Russian agent.

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“..interest payments on the national debt. These payments hit $882 billion in FY 2024, the Treasury report says. That’s a 35% jump from last year..”

US Interest Payments Top Defense Spending For First Time In History (I&I)

“SUNNY HOSTIN: Would you have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years? KAMALA HARRIS: There is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of — and I’ve been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact.”

On Friday, the Treasury Department released a report showing the kind of impact Harris is talking about. If nothing else does, it should cost her the election. The latest monthly Treasury report shows spending and revenues for the full fiscal year 2024, which ended in September. Among the terrible results: The federal deficit topped $1.8 trillion in 2024 — the third highest in history and eclipsed only by the two COVID-19 panic spending years. That’s not for lack of revenues, which were up by nearly half a trillion dollars this year. Spending under Biden-Harris this fiscal year climbed more than $617 billion – a 10% increase.

But the real shocker is the explosive growth in interest payments on the national debt. These payments hit $882 billion in FY 2024, the Treasury report says. That’s a 35% jump from last year. And it’s $8 billion more than we spent on National Defense. This marks the first time in our nation’s history that interest on the debt has exceeded defense spending. And the gap is on track to rapidly widen – with the government spending $200 billion more in interest than in protecting America from her enemies by 2029. Why the massive run-up in interest costs? Blame Harris’ tie-breaking votes (something for which she routinely brags). Because of them, Biden-Harris added trillions in new spending at a time when the economy had already fully recovered from the COVID-19 panic. That sparked a huge increase in inflation, which in turn drove up interest rates. More debt and higher interest rates meant a sharp increase in the cost of financing that debt.

How do we know Biden and Harris are to blame? Before they took office, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected net interest payments for the next decade, based on the policies that Donald Trump had in place. The CBO said that, had Biden not spent us to the poorhouse, interest payments on the national debt this year would have been only $284 billion. In other words, Harris and her tie-breaking votes are responsible for a 210% increase in interest costs this year alone. What would Kamala Harris do about this terrible state of affairs if she were elected president? No one has bothered to ask her. But we do know that she wants to do exactly what she and Biden have already done: add trillions of dollars of inflationary spending, impose economically ruinous tax hikes, and pile on still more growth-killing regulations. Harris is right about one thing. It is time to turn the page — before it’s too late.

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“..up to 39 million deaths around the world by 2050 due to antibiotic-resistant pathogens..”

German Doctors Alarmed At Growing Failures Of Antibiotics – Bild (RT)

The world risks going back to the era before the discovery of penicillin, German doctors have cautioned, pointing to the rise in antibiotic-resistant pathogens. Penicillin, discovered in the late 1920s, extended the human lifespan by up to 30 years by countering most bacterial infections, according to the outlet Bild. All of that progress is now reportedly in peril. “We are currently losing the achievements of modern medicine and falling back into the time before the discovery of penicillin,” Mathias Pletz, head of the Paul Ehrlich Society for Infection Therapy, told Bild. “Antibiotics were the greatest achievement of medicine ever,” said Professor Yvonne Mast, a microbiologist and researcher at the Leibniz Institute in Braunschweig. “The fact that more and more resistance is now emerging and new antibiotics are lacking is a major threat.”

The German outlet quoted a study that estimated up to 39 million deaths around the world by 2050 due to antibiotic-resistant pathogens. Such infections already account for 35,000 deaths in the EU every year. According to Professor Frank Brunkhorst of the Jena University Hospital, one of the reasons is that doctors overprescribe antibiotics for outpatient procedures. For example, antibiotics are useless against almost all respiratory infections, which are caused by viruses. “Second, many resistant germs are coming to us due to international travel, which is booming again after [Covid],” Brunkhorst said, pointing to resistant strains “especially in countries like Greece, Portugal, Turkiye, but also in India and other Asian countries.” He warned Germans returning from vacations that the germs they bring back could be “life-threatening” to their grandparents.

The medical industry has been slow to develop new antibiotics because the research is too long and too expensive, while the profits are too low, according to Professor Mast. Only 12 new medications have been approved since 2017, she said. Only one in 5,000 substances reaches market maturity, the development period is anywhere from 8-15 years, and R&D costs can range up to $2 billion, according to Mast. She urged more funding for research and faster approvals, noting that China has already overtaken Germany in this field. “It is a huge task for politicians to bring antibiotic production back to Germany and Europe. Today, not a single drug is manufactured here anymore; everything comes from India or China. And we are dependent on it,” said Professor Brunkhorst.

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KY/NC
https://twitter.com/i/status/1848109522230837705

 

 

NC

 

 

Starship

 

 

Summer’s day
https://twitter.com/i/status/1848233408469881293

 

 

Owls

 

 

Waterfall

 

 

Deep
https://twitter.com/i/status/1848386780409823724

 

 

Rube Goldberg
https://twitter.com/i/status/1848237891765354548

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Aug 272024
 
 August 27, 2024  Posted by at 8:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  86 Responses »


M. C. Escher Development II 1939

 

A Period of Great Uncertainty – Martin Armstrong (USAW)
France Extends Durov Arrest – Media (RT)
Rumble Boss Flees EU After Durov Arrest (RT)
#FreePavel: Telegram CEO Becomes Latest Target of European Censors (Turley)
Telegram Founder Finds Out That ‘Freedom’ Isn’t Free (Marsden)
The Undemocratic Party (Miles)
Trump Suggests He Might Pull Out of ABC Debate With Harris (ET)
“RFK, Jr. Murders Whale with Chainsaw!” (Kunstler)
Secret Service Rescinds Protection For RFK Jr. After Trump Endorsement (ET)
The Agenda Is To Elect Kamala (Paul Craig Roberts)
Another Former Democrat Joins Trump Campaign (RT)
Trump Suggests Consulting Role for Musk in Cabinet If Elected (Sp.)
This Election Is a Referendum on Free Speech (RCP)
Trump Lauds Russia’s ‘Winter Fighting’ (RT)
America’s Reckoning With Reality (Douglas Macgregor)
Is President Putin Preparing For Istanbul-II? (Helmer)
Hezbollah Could End Normal Life in Israel, Drive Israelis ‘Underground’ (Sp.)

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1827776519625949331


https://twitter.com/i/status/1827851477366505802
https://twitter.com/i/status/1827778206365098106

 

 

Cut the fat
https://twitter.com/i/status/1827860033268498585

 

 


– 2016: 51% of young men identified or leaned Democrat
– 2023: This number dropped to 39%

 

 

Promo
https://twitter.com/i/status/1827865650624413853

 

 

Sequel

 

 

Salad

 

 

Debate 1,2

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I am very concerned they will start WWIII before the end of the year and maybe by September.”

A Period of Great Uncertainty – Martin Armstrong (USAW)

Almost everything you see and hear with the Lying Legacy Media and the government is a lie. Just this past week, the Biden Administration backtracked about employment as it was widely reported, “US economy added 818,000 fewer jobs than first reported in year that ended in March.” A huge miss or a huge lie–take your pick. Other big lies we have been told in recent years: “Trump is colluding with Russia,” “Hunter Biden’s laptop is Russian disinformation, and the “CV19 vax injections are “safe and effective.” That is just scratching the surface of the lies we are told on a daily basis. The lies, which people realize are becoming preposterous, are adding to the public’s lack of confidence in everything, including the economy. Martin Armstrong says, “We are in a period of great uncertainty. . .. When people are uncertain, they don’t spend. They save. That’s what happens in a depression and a recession. . ..

So, if you have no confidence in the future because of all this crazy stuff going on, what do you do? You don’t borrow, and you pull back and say let me see what is going to happen.” Armstrong says another big lie told to the public is the approval rating of Kamala Harris. The so-called polls say Harris is running neck and neck with Donald Trump in the presidential race. Don’t believe it. Armstrong says a recent data dive on his Socratees computer program shows, “Kamala’s approval rating came in around 10.5 %. (A second confidential source says Kamala’s approval rating is 8.5%.) Confidence in government is 7%. So, how can Kamala possibly be 40%, 50% and 60%? It’s illogical. . .. The polls are really propaganda at this point. They were propaganda back in 2016. They all said Hillary would win, and she would sweep Trump under the carpet.”

On news RFK Jr. suspending his campaign and endorsing Trump, Armstrong says, “I was always pushing RFK Jr. to be Attorney General. I think I got his eyes to light up when I said if you take the Attorney General job, you could even indict Pfizer.” Armstrong says the Trump camp is seriously considering RFK Jr. for AG, and Armstrong says he has been in contact with top Trump advisors. We will see, but we do know RFK Jr. is going to be a part of Trump’s Administration. On Trump winning in November, Armstrong says, “Look, the computer says Trump should win. I don’t know how the hell they allow that to happen.

They have to trap Trump into a war or they kill him, one or the other. These people are unconscionable. . .. We are looking at serious civil unrest regardless of who wins in November. Neither side is going to accept it.” On gold at $2,500 an ounce, Armstrong says it’s not about inflation, it is about the fear of a US debt default. This is why central banks are buying. Armstrong says, “If there is a big war, the US will default on it’s debt. . .. I am very concerned they will start WWIII before the end of the year and maybe by September.”

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Tomorrow the judge must press charges or let him walk.

“..the arrest warrant was issued by France’s OFMIN, the agency tasked with combating violence against minors..”

France Extends Durov Arrest – Media (RT)

The judicial authorities in France confirmed on Sunday the arrest of Pavel Durov, the CEO and founder of the Telegram messaging app, extending the detention of the Russian tech entrepreneur, AFP has reported, citing a source close to the investigation. The detention of the 39-year-old dual Russian-French national was reportedly extended beyond Sunday night by the investigating magistrate who is handling the case. The detention period for initial interrogation is limited to 96 hours in France; however, it can be extended to 144 hours for serious offences such as drug trafficking and terrorism. During the detention phase, the judge must either press charges and remand in further custody, or release the detainee.

Officials speaking on condition of anonymity told the news agency that the arrest warrant was issued by France’s OFMIN, the agency tasked with combating violence against minors, to conduct a preliminary probe into alleged fraud, drug trafficking, cyberbullying, organized crime, and promotion of terrorism. Reuters reports, citing unnamed sources, that a cybersecurity gendarmerie unit and the national anti-fraud police are leading the investigation. The Paris prosecutor’s office told RT that a press release concerning the case will be issued later on Monday. French media had previously reported that Durov’s detention at Paris-Le Bourget Airport on Saturday was related to alleged offenses regarding Telegram.

The reports indicated that the authorities believe he is complicit in a range of crimes allegedly committed via the social media app due to insufficient moderation. Telegram, which has nearly reached 1 billion active monthly users, was created by Durov and his brother in 2013 in Russia. The entrepreneur, who is also a citizen of the UAE and St. Kitts and Nevis, left Russia in the mid-2010s and settled in Dubai. He was granted French citizenship in 2021. Commenting on Durov’s arrest, Telegram said the platform “abides by EU laws, including the Digital Services Act – its moderation is within industry standards,” adding that claims that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse committed by users are “absurd.”

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Probably a smart move.

Rumble Boss Flees EU After Durov Arrest (RT)

France has crossed all boundaries by arresting Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov, Chris Pavlovski, the CEO of video-sharing platform Rumble, has said, adding that he left Europe after the news broke. Durov was taken into custody at a Paris airport on Saturday evening after arriving from Azerbaijan by private jet. While the French authorities have yet to publicly announce the reason for detaining the Russian tech mogul, reports indicate that the charges are related to his alleged complicity in drug trafficking, pedophilia offenses, fraud, as well as failure to address criminal activity on the messenger. Telegram has denied any wrongdoing, adding that it is “absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform.”

In a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday, Pavlovski said he had “safely departed from Europe” in the aftermath of Durov’s arrest. He slammed the move by France, saying it “crossed a red line,” while noting that the country had already threatened Rumble. ”Rumble will not stand for this behavior and will use every legal means available to fight for freedom of expression, a universal human right. We are currently fighting in the courts of France, and we hope for Pavel Durov’s immediate release,” he added.

Pavlovski’s platform, which has positioned itself as a free speech alternative to YouTube, has been embroiled in its own legal battle with the French authorities. It began in November 2022 after officials in Paris banned Rumble over its refusal to comply with a request to remove Russian media accounts blocked in the EU due to sanctions over the Ukraine conflict. Though Durov’s arrest occurred in France, a number of opinion leaders, including American entrepreneur David Sacks, have suggested that the US was behind the move. In April, Sacks also predicted that Washington could go after Telegram, X, and eventually Rumble, given that the US passed a law that would ban the video-sharing platform TikTok if its Chinese-based developer, ByteDance, refused to sell it within 12 months.

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“Social media is now the dominant form of communication between people. It surpasses telephones.”

#FreePavel: Telegram CEO Becomes Latest Target of European Censors (Turley)

Elon Musk put it simply: “#FreePavel.” For many, a hashtag of one billionaire calling for the release of another billionaire is hardly a compelling cause. Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, 39, is neither a familiar nor sympathetic figure for most Americans. However, for free speech advocates, Durov’s arrest is a chilling escalation of global censors in using European laws to control speech on the Internet. The press and pundits heralded the arrest and played up the allegations that Durov is under investigation for fraud and child abuse. Some might think from the headlines that Durov is himself being investigated for committing such crimes. While we have not seen anything akin to a charging sheet, reports indicate that French authorities took the action because of his refusal to yield to their demands to censor content on his messaging app.

Others have been ecstatic that censors could soon come for Musk. Retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who testified in the Trump impeachment proceedings, declared “There’s a growing intolerance for platforming disinfo & malign influence & a growing appetite for accountability. Musk should be nervous.” Social media is now the dominant form of communication between people. It surpasses telephones. There is, however, a major difference in how such communications are protected. There would be an outcry if AT&T broke into a telephone call to object to the views of the parties and cut off access to the telephone lines until they moderated their views. The Europeans have been threatening to hold executives liable for how others use their sites. Imagine if a mobster used a telephone to do business and the FBI arrested the CEO of AT&T.

The implication of this case goes far beyond Durov. Social media sites allow large numbers of people to communicate and to associate. They share values or viewpoints, including some that most of us find offensive or repulsive. However, free speech should protect the right of people to associate so long as they do not commit crimes. Under free speech principles, those crimes should not include viewpoints or ideology. If individuals are engaging in child pornography or human trafficking, they should be arrested. That is conduct, not just speech. While the media emphasizes the allegations that there are people engaged in fraud or child porn, officials add that Durov has failed to remove viewpoints that they consider extreme or offensive. French officials have cited the failure to engage in greater “content moderation,” the euphemism of censorship.

We have been discussing how countries like France and the United Kingdom have been ramping up anti-free speech crackdowns. Recently, the European Union threatened Musk that he could be charged if he did not censor political speech in this election, including any information deemed by the EU to be false in his interview with Donald Trump. European Commissioner for Internal Markets and Services Thierry Breton issued a threatening message to Musk, “We are monitoring the potential risks in the EU associated with the dissemination of content that may incite violence, hate and racism in conjunction with major political — or societal — events around the world, including debates and interviews in the context of elections.”

The law behind these threats is the Digital Services Act. The act bars speech that is viewed as “disinformation” or “incitement.” European Commission Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager celebrated its passage by declaring that it is “not a slogan anymore, that what is illegal offline should also be seen and dealt with as illegal online. Now it is a real thing. Democracy’s back.” In addition to Musk, Robert Kennedy Jr. has denounced the arrest. This action is not due to the encryption capacity or child porn rationales. European officials have been making the same threats against other sites over the failure to censor views that they deem unacceptable. Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski wrote “France has threatened Rumble, and now they have crossed a red line by arresting Telegram’s CEO, Pavel Durov, reportedly for not censoring speech.”

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“Russia could actually start looking not too bad by comparison the minute that his new pals decide that they’re fed up with him..”

Telegram Founder Finds Out That ‘Freedom’ Isn’t Free (Marsden)

French officials have sprung into action with an arrest warrant that seemed to have been scribbled on the back of a napkin when they realized that the founder of the globally-popular online chat app, Telegram, was about to make the colossal mistake of landing in France, despite his company being based well out of the EU’s reach in Dubai. Russian Pavel Durov mysteriously managed to get French citizenship in 2021 without ever even living in the country. Normally, French citizenship requires proof of five years of residency, and seemingly more importantly to French authorities, five full years of paying income tax in France. Instead, Durov managed to get fast-tracked citizenship through a French Foreign Ministry initiative that awards naturalization based on some kind of action that contributes to the image, prosperity, and international relations of France.

No one has been able to actually articulate what exactly Durov has contributed to France beyond badmouthing Russia, or having created the chat app that French media have long qualified as the top choice of French President Emmanuel Macron and his entourage since at least 2016. Just as equally puzzling is the fact that just three years later, the judicial branch of the same French government that gifted him with a highly political shortcut to citizenship is now suddenly accusing him of taking an overly laid-back approach to his platform’s content. French press reports have been citing anonymous judicial sources close to the case, alleging that the app has turned into a giant free-for-all for assorted scum of the earth (in addition the aforementioned elites): terrorists, money launderers, drug traffickers, pedophiles.

No explicit mention of people who happen to just have opinions that the establishment doesn’t particularly like, and whose online proliferation European officials are always whining about and threatening these platform operators about publicly – the most recent being X platform owner Elon Musk. TikTok, owned by China? National security threat that the West wants to ban – unless they hand over data management and access to the US. Huawei? National security threat, mostly for honing in on the turf of Western competitors who struggled to compete. RT and other Russia-linked platforms? National security threat offering alternative views and information to the EU’s official narrative on Ukraine. Now we’re down to French media outlets like C8 and CNews being threatened like they were Russian – because they haven’t fallen in line with the French regulator’s content demands.

Durov’s arrest was apparently enough to incite the Canadian founder of another free speech platform, Rumble’s Chris Pavlovski, to grab his go-bag and get the heck out of dodge. “I’m a little late to this, but for good reason – I’ve just safely departed from Europe,” Pavlovski wrote on the X Platform.”France has threatened Rumble, and now they have crossed a red line by arresting Telegram’s CEO, Pavel Durov, reportedly for not censoring speech.” Pavlovski previously opted to outright geoblock Rumble across France rather than censor content that the French government had asked him to – like RT for example. But Durov was singing a tune that the West really liked for a while, about how he was pressured by the Russian government over content control and backdoor access and how he basically just flipped them off heroically.

His persecution by Russia was such that he was never actually arrested or charged with anything there, and Telegram is still operational in Russia while Durov is free to go around the world promoting himself as a professional victim of his homeland. Durov even fell right in line with top-down EU demands to censor RT and other Russian media. But there has been a significant shift recently. He had started to change his tune to one that probably wasn’t such a crowd pleaser for the Western establishment, suggesting a few months ago in an interview with Tucker Carlson that the FBI tried to convince one of his engineers to basically start installing Western-friendly backdoors that would allow intelligence services easy access to encrypted Telegram content. He added that they seemed particularly interested in infiltrating groups that opposed Covid mandates and jabs.

Former Russian President Dimitry Medvedev said in the wake of Durov’s arrest that he previously warned him that he’d have problems in virtually any country where he didn’t want to cooperate with the authorities on major crimes. Not that people denouncing Covid mandates are committing major crimes, which makes you wonder how much of this is really just France playing up the major crime element in order to tackle much lesser things that they consider a threat to their own power rather than to society. Durov may now be on the verge of learning that despite his anti-Russian rhetoric, Russia could actually start looking not too bad by comparison the minute that his new pals decide that they’re fed up with him – and your app goes from being the toast of the Elysee to the trash bin.

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“..observers worry about the precedent set by the Democrat Party’s end run around its own voters.”

The Undemocratic Party (Miles)

“For the first time since 1968, the Democratic nominee will win the nomination without winning a single primary vote… it would be a culmination of the elite-oriented trends that have shaped the nominating process since 1984, in which party elites have played an increasingly large role in shaping the presidential nomination,” [Beth] Daley warned. “If Democrats truly want to make this election about democracy, they might start by looking at the recent trends in their own house.” Analyst Richard Morgan considered America’s democratic deficit as demonstrated during previous presidential administrations, such as that of Gerald Ford in the 1970s. Ford was selected to be Richard Nixon’s vice president after the resignation of Spiro Agnew in 1973 then became president the following year when Nixon stepped down amid the sprawling Watergate scandal. He is notable for having served as both president and vice president of the United States without winning a single vote.

Harris has also come under scrutiny for her political track record, with critics accusing her of opportunism. “Her record as a [San Francisco District Attorney]… sounds spotty, with her embracing two different extremes at different times – from strong against drugs and crime to weak,” said former US Justice Department prosecutor Ronald Sievert in an interview with Sputnik. Harris has received criticism from some in the Democratic Party who accuse her of running as a self-styled “tough on crime” politician in the years before Black Lives Matter and a string of high-profile police shootings brought a renewed focus to criminal justice reform. She was famously criticized by former Democratic Party Rep. Tulsi Gabbard during a primary debate in 2020 for her record as District Attorney and California’s attorney general during which she enforced heavy penalties for drug possession.

“When you were in a position to make a difference and an impact in these people’s lives you did not, and worse yet in the case of those who were on death row, innocent people, you actually blocked evidence from being revealed that would have freed them until you were forced to [turn it over],” said Gabbard during an exchange often credited with ending Harris’s previous run for president. “There is no excuse for that and the people who suffered under your reign as prosecutor, you owe them an apology.” Harris’s acceptance speech during the final night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago has been slammed by many within the party for its hawkish tone. The Democratic candidate signaled strong support for Israel’s military operation in Gaza and the Western proxy war in Ukraine while also receiving an endorsement from controversial former CIA director Leon Panetta.

Panetta delivered a speech praising Harris during which he claimed he was “proud” to have served in the US Army and as head of the CIA. US military aggression throughout the Middle East during the so-called “War on Terror” is estimated to have caused the deaths of at least 4.5 million people while the CIA has been implicated in numerous coups and human rights violations. “In her speech [Harris] was talking about how [former US President Donald] Trump supposedly coddled [foreign leaders] like Putin, and that’s totally false,” said CovertAction Magazine managing editor Jeremy Kuzmarov on Sputnik’s The Final Countdown program recently. “Trump had a pretty hardline policy toward Russia. He pulled out of the INF Treaty. He ramped up weapons supplies to Ukraine. So that’s just like an extreme right-wing position that they’re adopting.”

“They’re celebrating this war in Ukraine [that] siphoned off billions of hard-earned taxpayer dollars into a sinkhole just like Afghanistan, and a lot of those weapons have been stolen. And this party is cheerleading for that. So that’s where they are.” The 2024 presidential campaign cycle represents the third in a row during which Democratic Party leaders have intervened heavily to boost their favored candidate. Leaked DNC emails revealed the extent to which party officials sought to subvert Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ candidacy during 2016’s party primary while former President Barack Obama intervened to once again undermine Sanders in 2020. 2024 marks the first year in decades that a major US political party’s presidential candidate has been chosen without a democratic primary process, and observers worry about the precedent set by the Democrat Party’s end run around its own voters.

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“The Vice President is ready to deal with Trump … in real time,” Fallon said. “Trump should stop hiding behind the mute button.”

In the Biden debate the Dems insisted on the mute button.

Trump Suggests He Might Pull Out of ABC Debate With Harris (ET)

Former President Donald Trump suggested on the evening of Aug. 25 that he may skip a Sept. 10 ABC News debate with Vice President Kamala Harris amid dueling statements issued by both campaigns about whether the microphone should be muted. Trump wrote on Truth Social that he did not like how the network’s Jonathan Karl handled an interview with Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on Aug. 25, questioning ABC’s capacity to be impartial. Trump then wrote, “Why would I do the debate against Kamala Harris on that network?” On Aug. 26, Trump told reporters inside a Vietnamese restaurant in Falls Church, Virginia, why he didn’t like how the network handled the Cotton interview. “When I looked at the hostility of that, I said, ‘Why am I doing it? Let’s do it with another network,’” the former president said. “I want to do it.”

When asked directly whether he will participate in the September ABC debate, he said, “We’re thinking about it. We’re thinking about it. They also want to change the rules. You know, the deal was we keep the same rules. Now, all of a sudden, they want to make a change in the rules.” He did not elaborate on the proposed rule changes but said he wants to have a fair debate and is seeking “tough questions.” He argued that the Disney-owned channel should not be holding the debate. “I‘d much rather do it on NBC. I’d much rather do it on CBS. … And certainly, I‘d do it on Fox. I’d even do it on CNN. I thought CNN treated us very fairly the last time,” Trump said. Statements issued by both campaigns on Aug. 26 indicated that there was an impasse over microphones and whether they should be turned on or off. Trump told reporters in the Virginia press conference that he would prefer to have his microphone switched on.

During his CNN-hosted debate with President Joe Biden, his microphone was muted much of the time. “Doesn’t matter to me. I’d rather have it, probably, on. But the agreement was that it would be the same as it was last time,” the former president said. “I’m not spending a lot of time on it. I think my whole life I’ve been preparing for a debate. “You can’t cram knowledge into your head, for, you know, 30 years of knowledge in one week. So, you know, there’s a little debate prep, but I’ve always done it more or less the same way.” In response to Trump campaign comments and his Truth Social post, Harris spokesperson Brian Fallon said in a statement that their campaign wanted ABC News to keep their microphones on for the full event and not be muted. “The Vice President is ready to deal with Trump … in real time,” Fallon said. “Trump should stop hiding behind the mute button.”

Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller said in a statement that the team already agreed to the same terms as the debate hosted by CNN in June. “We said no changes to the agreed-upon rules,” he said. Harris obtained the Democratic Party’s nomination after Biden stepped aside last month, and she had said that she would do the Sept. 10 debate hosted by ABC News previously agreed to by Biden and Trump. Trump had floated another debate hosted by Fox News on Sept. 4, which he said would become a televised town hall with just himself and host Sean Hannity if Harris didn’t accept. The Harris campaign said it was not interested. The vice presidential candidates, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, are scheduled to debate on Oct. 1 on CBS News.

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“..it’s become obvious that Mr. Trump’s aims and ideas are more in-tune with those forsaken principles of Mr. Kennedy’s father and his uncle, JFK.”

“RFK, Jr. Murders Whale with Chainsaw!” (Kunstler)

The raptures of “joy” tend to obscure the idea that there is a future to be concerned about. Enter Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. He explained his view of the situation and his role in it with unsurpassed clarity last Friday in a powerful and moving speech outlining a decision that must have been very painful for him. As I averred he would do last Friday morning, he denounced the party of his ancestors in unequivocal terms for coming to militate against its own traditional principles — opposing war, fighting for free speech, helping poor working people, and against weaponizing government agencies. He threw his support to Mr. Trump because it’s become obvious that Mr. Trump’s aims and ideas are more in-tune with those forsaken principles of Mr. Kennedy’s father and his uncle, JFK.

And now he’ll campaign on behalf of Mr. Trump, with the expectation that he will play an important, well-defined role in the next Trump administration — in charge of a range of public health issues that he is deeply familiar with from decades of litigation and researching the books about pharmaceutical racketeering actually written by himself. It’s Monday after the convention. What’s on the candidates’ campaign schedule today. CNNs “Campaign Latest” page says that Mr. Trump will give a speech in Detroit today to the National Guard Association where he is expected to greet the endorsement of former Rep. (and Lt. Col. In the National Guard) Tulsi Gabbard. Kamala Harris has no public appearances scheduled, but CNN reports that she has raised a fabulous $540-million since her launch a few weeks ago. Isn’t that nice? Boolah boolah, lotsa moolah. On Wednesday, Ms. Harris and her veep sidekick, Tim Walz, embark on a bus tour around Georgia. Bus tours will be the signature of their campaign.

Let me tell you what that means: instead of flying expeditiously between campaign stops where they might have to state some positions on public issues, Harris & Walz will eat up many hours on long bus rides from Point-A to Point-B, hiding from the public and the press. Bobby Kennedy, meanwhile, is cramming as many media appearances as possible into his schedule, submitting to questions about everything, including the latest barrage of accusations about his fully-disclosed personal history. Fox has had him on several programs, though the other cable news stations are ignoring him, as are The New York Times and the WashPo, except to publish scurrilous stories from his mindfucked siblings and cousins — the latest being that he cut the head off a dead whale on the beach at Cape Cod with a chainsaw. Readers are supposed to construe that to mean he murdered a whale with a chainsaw.

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They want them both dead.

Secret Service Rescinds Protection For RFK Jr. After Trump Endorsement (ET)

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will no longer receive Secret Service protection after he announced on Aug. 23 that he was suspending his campaign in 10 battleground states and urging voters in those states to support former President Donald Trump instead. “Mr. Kennedy no longer has USSS protection,” Kennedy’s press secretary, Stefanie Spear, told The Epoch Times on Aug. 25. Anthony Guglielmi, Secret Service chief of communications, confirmed that Kennedy “is no longer a protectee given he suspended his campaign,” in an Aug. 25 statement to The Epoch Times. Kennedy was denied Secret Service protection five times before the Department of Homeland Security granted it shortly after the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump on July 13.

Thomas Michael Crooks was identified by authorities as the gunman. Trump’s ear was grazed by the gunfire, former fire chief Corey Comperatore was killed, and two others were injured. Following the attack, Trump said that Kennedy should “immediately” get Secret Service protection. “In light of what is going on in the world today, I believe it is imperative that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. receive Secret Service protection—immediately,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Given the history of the Kennedy Family, this is the obvious right thing to do!” On July 15, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas authorized Kennedy’s Secret Service protection.

“We are in a heightened and very dynamic threat environment. The United States’ Secret Service, we—including the FBI and our other partners across the federal government—take the threats very seriously and adjust security measures as warranted, maintaining the safety and security of the president, the former president in their campaign events is one our most vital priorities,” Mayorkas said. “In light of the weekend’s events, the president has directed me to work with the Secret Service to provide protection for Robert Kennedy Jr.” It’s standard procedure for the Secret Service to end protection when a presidential candidate drops out of the race. Kennedy said that he has suspended his campaign in 10 battleground states but will be on the ballot in the other 40 states during his Aug. 23 address. He encouraged voters to support him in states where he would not be considered a “spoiler” and detract backing for their Trump or Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris.

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“What the Russians will end up destroying is a Sodom and Gomorrah Tower of Babel. No one will miss it.”

The Agenda Is To Elect Kamala (Paul Craig Roberts)

Dear American, this is your next presidential administration: It will be anti-white, anti-family, pro-open borders, pro-legalization of sexual perversity, pro-sexualization of young children, and pro-war. It cannot be deterred by your votes, because the election will be stolen. In the swing states the methods used by Democrats to steal the 2020 and 2022 elections have been legalized. Moreover, if news reports are correct, in some, perhaps all, of the swing states it is now illegal to challenge election outcomes. If you will remember, when Kamala Harris competed for the presidential nomination in 2020, she was immediately eliminated. She had zero support. If you will remember, she has been an unpopular vice president. Yet today the media presents her as leading Trump, who continues to turn out massive attendance at his appearances, as the likely next president.

The media uses rigged polls and positive coverage of Kamala and negative coverage of Trump to create in the voting public’s mind the expectation of a Kamala victory. The polls are rigged by overweighting Democrats in the polled population. Google Kamala and you will find 90% of the information is favorable. Google Trump and 90% is unfavorable. By creating the expectation of a Kamala victory, the ground is laid for stealing the election. It is not possible to steal an election unless the election is close or the person for whom the election is stolen is presented as the leading candidate. Ask yourselves, how did Kamala go from zero support among Democrats to the leading presidential contender? She did not win the primary election as there was no primary. She has not had any debates, much less triumphed in one.

She represents everything but white Americans, families, sexual morality, peace, law as a shield of the people instead of a weapon in the hands of government, nationhood instead of a tower of babel, truth instead of lies, the Constitution instead of a woke agenda- based rule. The media have made it completely obvious that the election is going to be stolen. Why else the rigged polls and biased coverage? The public is being prepared to accept a stolen election. And Republicans are silent. If Trump raises the issue, the media will say that Trump has already admitted that he is going to lose and is already raising the theft issue prior to the election. Obviously, Trump cannot be the one who raises the obvious issue in front of our eyes that the Democrats are going to steal the election. The theft has to be raised by Republican governors, US Senators, US Representatives, and that small part of social media where free speech is still possible.

Try to imagine Republican wimps raising a real issue. Republicans are incapable of fighting. As they have never done it, they don’t know how. Moreover, even if they were capable of fight, they wouldn’t, because it would cast aspersion on the purity and sanctity of “American democracy.” Republicans regard any effective self-defense as a reflection on the American myth. The “USA USA USA” crowd would get upset. Americans need to try to understand what life is going to be like under a Kamala regime. Federal marshals and FBI SWAT teams are going to be sent house to house in red states seizing firearms. Once disarmed, legions of immigrant-invaders will be sent to throw you out of your homes and move in. It will be treated as a rental issue and be decided in favor of the tenant, the underdog favored by the Democrat regime. Your unrealized capital gains, which you were relying on for your retirement, will be taxed. You will have to sell retirement funds in order to pay the tax. When the market falls, you will not be compensated for the disappeared capital gains that you paid taxes on.

You will lose all control over your children, who will be groomed in public schools for pedophiles and gender change. Not too far into this process of “transformation to a diverse, equitable, and inclusive society,” white people, as in The Camp of the Saints which we are now living, will not be permitted to marry and to procreate. The white people you see in the video of the DNC convention are so utterly stupid, or brainwashed, or insouciant that they cannot realize that they are supporting their own elimination. They signify the inability of white Americans to recognize their peril and to defend themselves. Defense is impossible, because not even the Republican Party will say a word about the election theft that has so obviously been set in place. The border remains wide open.

Critical race theory continues to be taught in public schools. Transgender promoters are gaining parental authority over children. The attempted assassination of Trump remains non-investigated and has disappeared from the media. Free speech has been labeled “a threat to democracy.” My advice to young white heterosexual Americans stands: Get out of the country. You have no future here. White women who remain can expect to be used for the sexual comfort for the immigrant-invaders, just as they are in Sweden, Norway, UK, Germany, France, and the rest of what was once Western civilization. What the Russians will end up destroying is a Sodom and Gomorrah Tower of Babel. No one will miss it.

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Join in, Tulsi. Many more will follow.

“..describing the ex-president as the only candidate who can walk the US back from “the brink of nuclear war.”

Another Former Democrat Joins Trump Campaign (RT)

Former Democratic lawmaker Tulsi Gabbard has endorsed Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, describing the ex-president as the only candidate who can walk the US back from “the brink of nuclear war.” Trump brought Gabbard on stage during a speech at the National Guard Association’s annual conference in Detroit on Monday, introducing the former Hawaii congresswoman as a “true American patriot” with “great common sense” and “great spirit.” Gabbard, a 17-year National Guard veteran who served two combat tours in the Middle East, praised Trump’s isolationist brand of foreign policy. “We saw this through his first term in the presidency when he not only didn’t start any new wars, he took action to de-escalate and prevent wars,” she said, adding that Trump had “the courage to meet with adversaries, dictators, allies and partners alike in the pursuit of peace.”

“The same can not be said about Kamala Harris,” Gabbard continued. “In fact the opposite is true, and we’re living through this reality today as this administration has us facing multiple wars on multiple fronts in regions around the world, and closer to the brink of nuclear war than we ever have been before.” “This is one of the main reasons why I’m committed to doing all that I can to send President Trump back to the White House,” she told the crowd. “Because I am confident that his first task will be to…walk us back from the brink of war.” Gabbard left the Democratic Party in 2022, arguing that it had fallen “under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers” and social-justice ideologues. Three years earlier, Gabbard was widely credited with ending Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign with a single debate performance.

In the 2019 Democratic primary showdown, Gabbard slammed Harris’ record as California’s attorney general, criticizing her for jailing thousands of marijuana offenders “and then laughing about it,” for her use of prison labor, and for blocking evidence that would have freed innocent men on death row. “There is no excuse for that and the people who suffered under your reign as prosecutor, you owe them an apology,” Gabbard said, leaving Harris unable to respond. Gabbard has long opposed US involvement in and funding of foreign conflicts. During her four terms in office from 2013 to 2021, she advocated dialogue with America’s rival superpowers, coupled with a hardline policy on Islamic terrorism. Like Trump, she has faced accusations of being a “Russian asset,” most notably from failed 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Gabbard responded to Clinton’s 2019 jab – likely a reference to her past praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fight against terrorism in Syria – by calling Clinton “queen of the warmongers” and suing her for defamation. Gabbard is the second high-profile former Democrat to endorse Trump in recent days, after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his third-party campaign and backed the former president on Friday. Gabbard and Kennedy have both cited President Joe Biden’s funding of the Ukrainian military and “weaponization” of the justice system and intelligence agencies against Trump as key factors behind their decision.

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Musk can pick his own role.

Trump Suggests Consulting Role for Musk in Cabinet If Elected (Sp.)

US presidential candidate Donald Trump has said that SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk would likely be too busy to serve in his cabinet but suggested that the entrepreneur could play a consulting role in his administration if he wins the November election. “He wants to be involved. Now look, he’s running big businesses and all that, so he can’t, really, I don’t think he could be cabinet… He can sort of, as the expression goes, consult with the country and give you some very good ideas,” Trump told The Shawn Ryan Show, as quoted by US media. Trump emphasized that he had an excellent relationship with Musk, who stated earlier that he was willing to take up a position in the White House. The entrepreneur also posted an image of himself behind a podium, with the caption “Department of Government Efficiency.”

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“The Supreme Court had multiple opportunities during the last term to end the censorship of conservatives by social media. It chose a different path.”

This Election Is a Referendum on Free Speech (RCP)

The Supreme Court had multiple opportunities during the last term to end the censorship of conservatives by social media. It chose a different path. Now, Democrats are free to double down on the Biden-Harris administration’s massive censorship enterprise. There is every indication they intend to do so. The bedrock of American democracy, the First Amendment, prohibits Congress from making laws “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” The prohibition also applies to executive actions and state governments. Until recently, there was bipartisan agreement on the centrality of free speech to American liberties. Today, nearly a third of Americans believe free speech rights go too far. When Donald Trump was elected president, Democrats in Congress threatened social media platforms with antitrust actions and repeal of the libel protections in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act if they failed to rein in conservative speech.

When Joe Biden took office, the federal government institutionalized a censorship enterprise that coerced and collaborated with social media platforms to censor, suppress, and demonetize disfavored views. The New York Times acknowledges the left has long sought to limit “unfettered speech.” Former president Barak Obama told a Stanford University conference that government controls must be imposed to stop so-called “disinformation.” Vice President Kamala Harris announced a White House task force to block disinformation involving women’s issues. Democrat vice presidential candidate Tim Walz told MSNBC, “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech.” In fact, both are generally protected by the First Amendment. The Democrat platform sees controlling disinformation as a priority.

By contrast, in July, the Republicans adopted a platform that states: “We will ban the Federal Government from colluding with anyone to censor Lawful Speech, defund institutions engaged in censorship, and hold accountable all bureaucrats involved with illegal censoring. We will protect Free Speech online.” In Murthy v. Missouri, healthcare professionals, Missouri, and Louisiana sued to block the Biden-Harris censorship regime. During discovery, officials testified that they knowingly sought to end-run the prohibitions on government interference in free speech by working with and through third parties, including Stanford, non-profit associations, and social media companies. After reviewing extensive discovery, U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty found that the Biden-Harris administration had engaged in “a broad pressure campaign designed to coerce social media companies into suppressing speakers, viewpoints, and content disfavored by the government” and issued an injunction to stop it.

A unanimous panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the findings but tailored the injunction to eliminate ambiguities and exclude some agencies. Florida and Texas then passed laws to make it more difficult for social media platforms to ban political speech. The 11th Circuit struck down Florida’s law, finding that it impermissibly limited editorial discretion, while the Fifth Circuit upheld Texas’ law, concluding that content moderation activities are not speech.

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“He also promised to have it “settled” as president-elect and not wait for the January inauguration.”

Trump Lauds Russia’s ‘Winter Fighting’ (RT)

Former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has expressed admiration for the Russian military’s warfighting skills and vowed to end the Ukraine conflict before the end of the year, if elected. Trump addressed the Russia-Ukraine conflict as part of an hour-long interview, posted on Monday. Advertised as “unfiltered stories of heroic events and current world issues,” the show is hosted by the former US Navy SEAL and CIA contractor Shawn Ryan. “Russia’s a great winter fighter,” Trump told Ryan. “They beat Germany and they beat Napoleon. They’re not easy to beat. And they are a massive military, and Ukraine isn’t. But Ukraine has us giving them a lot of money.”

The US and its allies have channeled more than $400 billion in aid to Kiev since the conflict began in 2022, including over $120 billion in direct military aid, according to estimates from the Kiel Institute, a German think-tank tracking the contributions. Without going into the details, Trump objected to the US accounting for the lion’s share of the military aid, arguing the European members of NATO needed to “equalize” their contribution. “That war is much more devastating than people understand,” Trump said in the interview. He also promised to have it “settled” as president-elect and not wait for the January inauguration. Trump has repeatedly argued that the conflict would not have broken out had he stayed in the White House, instead of being replaced by Joe Biden in 2021. He has also claimed he would end the fighting within 24 hours.

The Shawn Ryan show was not the first time Trump has praised the Russian “war machine,” either. He first brought it up during a Fox News town hall in February, then again in July, recounting a phone call with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky. Asked by Ryan what he would spend the $175 billion that the US Congress has appropriated for Ukraine aid, Trump pointed out that the US has over $30 trillion in national debt. The former president also lamented the fact that the Pentagon has managed to empty the stockpile he had worked so hard to replenish during his time in office. “These guys gave it all to Ukraine,” Trump told Ryan. “Now we have no ammunition again.”

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“As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”

America’s Reckoning With Reality (Douglas Macgregor)

Why would the Uniparty inflict this damage on the American People? The Uniparty knows that, without common identity or kinship, democracy is replaced with tribal anarchy, a societal condition that leads to nihilism, drug abuse, criminality, and worse. The goal is painfully obvious. It is the denationalization of the United States, the fundamental destruction of national identity and the social cohesion that supports it. The process involves the conversion of Americans into an amorphous mass of sedated consumers. The transformation of the U. S. Armed Forces into mercenary military formations staffed by illegal migrants is an enormously important step in the direction of denationalization. After all, before Americans won their independence, their national identity rested on the shoulders of the Continental Army.

If General Washington could hold the Continental Army together despite fearful odds, our country and its governing body—congress—existed. The Continental Army was, and today’s Armed Forces still are, the repository of American national Identity. The Uniparty rejects these charges. Instead, the Uniparty tells us how fortunate we are to welcome tens of millions of foreigners into our country where they will enhance our culture, society and way of life. Really, how many “Rs” are there in “fat chance?” Meanwhile, the Uniparty promotes the sexualization of children in our public school systems. Naturally, the Uniparty pretends to care for the workingman or woman, and it promises everything to everyone for nothing in perpetuity—tuition-free college, free health care, free housing, free everything. The Uniparty is giving non-paying, illegal immigrants access to our healthcare system.

How the Uniparty will pay for these things is a question no one answers. Servicing the national debt on an annual basis already involves a sum larger than the defense budget. Are the presidential candidates aware? Do they care? For the Uniparty, none of these concerns matters. The daily life of the Uniparty is about self-enrichment, sensual pleasure, and social prestige. The Uniparty motto is “When in doubt, print more money.” Equally troubling is the Uniparty’s enthusiasm for war. In fact, the Uniparty sees enormous benefit to war, even to the point of turning over control of the U.S. Armed Forces to the direction of a foreign power for use in a major war that will escalate to involve other nuclear-armed powers.

But Americans are not stupid. Americans know that open borders are not a net benefit, and they know that modern war is not a game or an event that occurs only on foreign soil. The new, emerging constellation of potential adversaries in Eastern Europe and the Middle East is no longer a loose collection of hapless opponents without armies, air forces, navies, air defenses, or persistent surveillance from seabed to space. President Abraham Lincoln was right: “If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.” The time for Americans to halt the destruction is upon us. The question is whether Americans will remain bystanders or intervene to save the Republic.

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“Moscow sources believe it was the Kremlin which was taken by surprise by the Kursk attack on August 6, but not the General Staff and the military intelligence agency GRU..”

Is President Putin Preparing For Istanbul-II? (Helmer)

Remember the old adage — sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never harm me. In the war by the US and its Anglo-European allies to destroy Russia since 1945, the propaganda war has been lost by the Russians many times over. That war is still being lost. But for the first time since 1945, the battlefield war is being won by the Russian General Staff. The uncertainty which remains is whether President Vladimir Putin will continue to restrict the General Staff’s war plans in order that Putin can go to negotiations with the Americans on terms which will forego the demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian territory between Kiev and the Polish border, and concede to the Kiev regime unhindered control of the cities to the east — Kharkov, Odessa, Dniepropetrovsk.

Call those terms Istanbul-II. As with the draft terms initialled in Istanbul at the end of March 2022, Istanbul-II amounts to an exchange of dominant Russian military power for US and Ukrainian signatures on paper with false intention and temporary duration. The US administration says it believes Putin will concede. It also believes that by staging its war of pinpricks — that’s the drone, artillery and missile barrages fired by the Ukrainian military, directed by the US and UK – in the Black Sea and Russia’s western border regions, Putin’s red lines and threats of retaliation are exposed as empty bluff. The same interpretation of Putin, and confidence that he will accept US terms, are the foundation of the Ukraine “peace plan” of Donald Trump’s advisors. The Trump plan’s offer of “some limited sanctions relief” reflects the conviction in Washington that Putin’s oligarch constituency can be bribed to push Putin into the same “frozen war” concessions as Roman Abramovich got Putin to accept at Istanbul-I – until the General Staff stopped them both.

Putin’s restrictions on the General Staff’s proposals for neutralizing the US and British air surveillance and electronic warfare operations; and his orders to stand by while the Ukrainians have assembled several thousand forces, first to cross into Kursk, and then into Bryansk and Belgorod, are now as visible in Moscow as they have been in Washington. Moscow sources believe it was the Kremlin which was taken by surprise by the Kursk attack on August 6, but not the General Staff and the military intelligence agency GRU. They understood the battlefield intelligence as it was coming in and requested Putin’s agreement to respond. In retrospect, they say “we told you so”; they imply their hands were tied by the Kremlin orders.

“My understanding for now,” says one of the sources, “is that these are pinpricks that feel painful but they are not life threatening. Russia will not take any land, for now, other than the four regions. It should be the eight regions but it’s obvious Putin doesn’t have the will and the military does not have the capacity to hold. So we will see Ukrainians inside Kursk for a while. But it should be downplayed because it should not be allowed to be a bargain chip in negotiations the other side is aiming at.” Putin said this himself, the source points out at his meeting on August 12 with the Chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, and others. “These [Kursk] actions clearly aim to achieve a primary military objective: to halt the advance of our forces in their effort to fully liberate the territories of the Lugansk and Donetsk people’s republics, the Novorossiya region.”

Putin also said: “It is now becoming increasingly clear why the Kiev regime rejected our proposals for a peaceful settlement, as well as those from interested and neutral mediators…. It seems the opponent is aiming to strengthen their negotiating position for the future. However, what kind of negotiations can we have with those who indiscriminately attack civilians and civilian infrastructure, or pose threats to nuclear power facilities? What is there to discuss with such parties?” “It’s obvious at this point,” comments a military source, “that the Americans and Ukrainians have decided that Putin will come to terms if they snatch enough Russian territory and keep up their strikes behind the Russian lines…The Ukrainians are going for broke in the north while the centre collapses. But they know, no matter how expensive it is, the longer they remain on the attack, the worse it looks for the Russian leadership. They also have the measure of Putin who gives orders for half measures.”

This is also obvious in the Security Council in Moscow. The Council’s deputy secretary, ex-president Dmitri Medvedev, made the point explicitly in his Telegram account declaration on August 21, implying that until he had said it, no one else dared: “In my opinion, recently, even theoretically, there has been one danger – the negotiation trap, into which our country could fall under certain circumstances; for example. Namely, the early unnecessary peace talks proposed by the international community and imposed on the Kiev regime with unclear prospects and consequences.” Medvedev was referring to Istanbul-I. “After the neo-Nazis committed an act of terrorism in the Kursk region, everything has fallen into place. The idle chatter of unauthorized intermediaries on the topic of the beautiful world has been stopped. Now everyone understands everything, even if they don’t say it out loud. They understand that there will BE NO MORE NEGOTIATIONS UNTIL THE COMPLETE DEFEAT OF THE ENEMY! [Medvedev’s caps]”

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“Hezbollah has the “will and the ground resources it needs [to] have a very, very, very large impact on Israeli soil..”

Hezbollah Could End Normal Life in Israel, Drive Israelis ‘Underground’ (Sp.)

Tensions between Hezbollah and Israel have boiled over amid a series of increasingly powerful back-and-forth attacks. But neither side, nor their allies truly want a full-scale war, since it would end any semblance of normal life in Israel, sink Tehran’s hopes on the diplomatic front, and stretch US resources to a breaking point, observers say. Major airlines began canceling and diverting flights to and from Beirut and Tel Aviv over the weekend amid fears of all all-out war between Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Israel. The cancellations came in the wake of large-scale preemptive aerial attacks by as many as 100 Israeli warplanes against suspected Hezbollah targets across southern Lebanon, with the militia launching a barrage of hundreds of drones and rockets at 5 am Sunday morning in retaliation to Tel Aviv’s assassination of senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut last month.

Smaller follow-up targeted back-and-forth air-drone and rocket attacks have been reported, with scores Hezbollah fighters, Israeli soldiers and civilians killed or injured in the latest escalation. In a televised speech Sunday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah cited the militia’s successful targeting of Israeli military and intelligence sites. Nasrallah said the delay in the militia’s response to Shukr’s July 30 murder was meant to provide time for the Gaza ceasefire talks to bear fruit – a chance he said was squandered by Prime Minister Netanyahu and the United States. “Our goal…is to end the aggression on Gaza, so we gave it [the ceasefire process, ed.] enough of an opportunity, but after all this time, it is clear that Netanyahu is putting in new conditions and the Americans are working with him and this is all a waste of time, so there was no reason to delay any longer,” Nasrallah said.

“Regional and international actors indirectly involved in this war such as the US and Iran have no intention to directly be involved,” American University of Beirut Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy international affairs section coordinator Yeghia Tashjian told Sputnik, commenting on the escalating tensions between Hezbollah and Israeli. Pointing to the factors of the upcoming US presidential election, plus Iran’s attempts at diplomatic rapprochement with Western countries following July’s elections, Tashjian said he believes the recent back-and-forth strikes, serious as they are, remain “managed clashes,” signaling that neither side is “ready to shift the current status into a major war.” There are other reasons Israel and the US in particular don’t truly want a full scale conflict, says Furkan Halit Yolcu, an academic and Middle East Institute faculty member at Turkiye’s Sakarya University.

Hezbollah, unlike Hamas, isn’t “a small-scale non-state actor,” but a force to be reckoned with approaching national armies in terms of its ground strength, and has missile and air defense power that can do great “harm and hurt” to any army attacking it, the observer told Sputnik. Hezbollah has the “will and the ground resources it needs [to] have a very, very, very large impact on Israeli soil,” Yolcu warned, noting that ordinary Israelis may literally be driven into underground bomb shelters their government has prepared for them, and see their day-to-day lives disrupted completely thanks to Hezbollah’s ability to saturate Israeli air and missile defenses.

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Sprinkler

 

 

Daughter
https://twitter.com/i/status/1828077033567469633

 

 

Elephant

 

 

Ride
https://twitter.com/i/status/1827958010389352673

 

 

BaldEagle

 

 

Pickup
https://twitter.com/i/status/1828057315645559188

 

 

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Aug 152024
 
 August 15, 2024  Posted by at 8:38 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  97 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh The Rispal Restaurant at Asnieres 1887

 

Will Trump End Elections? Anatomy Of A Failed Hoax (Miele)
Olympic Boxer’s “Cyberbullies” Lawsuit A Threat To Free Speech (MN)
Olympic Gold Winner Sues Musk Over ‘Cyber Harassment’ (RT)
‘Democracy Dies in Darkness’ WaPo Urges White House Crackdown on Media (Sp.)
WaPo Reporter Calls on White House to Censor Trump for America (Turley)
Scott Ritter Says FBI Monitored Him For Years (TASS)
The Murder of Others (Scott Ritter)
Hunter Biden Asked State Department To Aid Burisma Deal While Joe Was VP (ZH)
Biden Admits ‘Direct Contact’ With Ukraine Over Assault On Kursk (RT)
Ukraine Wants Talks Using Kursk Nuclear Plant Seizure as Ultimatum (Sp.)
Ukraine Has Defaulted – Fitch (RT)
Pro-Israel Lobby Overrides US Public Opinion on Gaza (Miles)
Cracks in the Dome: Israel’s Security Mirage (Raiss)
FTC Hints Tech ‘Monopolist’ Google Should Be Broken Up (ZH)

 

 

 

 

Doocy

 

 

One time

 

 

Kamala headlines

 

 

Internet czar
https://twitter.com/i/status/1823379194258010348

 

 

Taliban

 

 

 

 

Benz

 

 

O’Leary

 

 

RFK
https://twitter.com/i/status/1823592168549728720

 

 

RFK

 

 

 

 

“This election will be the most important election in the history of our country. We’re going to save our country with this election.”

Will Trump End Elections? Anatomy Of A Failed Hoax (Miele)

The good news is that Donald Trump is very familiar with the Democrats’ tactic of character assassination. For the past nine years he has been subjected to endless false attacks that aimed to polarize him as first a Russian stooge, then a white supremacist, and finally an enemy of democracy who threatened a “bloodbath” if he wasn’t reelected in 2024. Those attacks have all been exposed as partisan chicanery, but that doesn’t stop his opponents from repeating them every chance they get. Two weeks ago, Democrats and the mainstream media were caught red-handed as they tried to jump-start a new hoax that suggested Trump would cancel future elections if he were elected this year. The video that played on Sunday morning shows and across the universe of cable news channels for three days at the end of July came from a speech that Trump delivered to the Turning Point Action Believers Summit on Friday, July 26.

This clip from CNN typified the way Trump’s words were portrayed, with one commentator saying that “it certainly sounds like a presidential candidate that is determined to shut down the democratic process.” CBS News reached the same conclusion, saying that on social media there were “some calls of alarm in response to Trump’s comments, expressing concern that they alluded to authoritarianism and could be interpreted as an indication that he would not leave office if he wins the election.” That’s ridiculous, of course, and if there should be any concern about Trump’s words, it would be about how nonchalantly the media distorted them for the purpose of character assassination.

The part of Trump’s speech that was played or quoted ad infinitum by mainstream media for those three days was this: “Christians, get out and vote, just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what, it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote any more, my beautiful Christians … In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good you’re not going to have to vote.” Twisting those words to suggest Trump was planning “to shut down the democratic process” is just cynical. But if anyone were sincerely alarmed, you’d think that their next step would be to listen to the entire speech where these words were uttered to find out if there was any missing context.

A real journalist would look for answers before running with a hugely damaging and potentially slanderous story. But this episode demonstrates conclusively that there are very few real journalists left in America. I knew the real meaning of Trump’s words because I had watched the speech live on a streaming channel, but how much work would it take for a highly paid network reporter or anchor to look at the Believers speech after the fact before accusing the former president of plotting to eliminate elections? If they had, they would have found that, a little over 37 minutes into his speech, Trump explained to his audience that Christians vote in disappointingly low numbers, and if they wanted him to return to the White House, they needed to go out and vote “at least this election.” Here’s the full quote that I don’t believe was ever played, not once, by any major media outlet:

“And by the way, Christians have to vote. You know, I don’t want to scold you, but do you know Christians do not vote proportionately, they don’t vote like they should. They’re not big voters … They have to vote. If they don’t vote, we’re not going to win the election. If you do vote, we’re going to win in a landslide. Too big to rig. We’re gonna win in a landslide. … You know, you have tremendous power, but you just don’t know that. But you have to use that power. Christians are a group that’s known not to vote very much. You have to go out at least this election, just get us into that beautiful White House. Vote for your congressmen and women. Vote for your senators. We will change this country for the better. This country will be great again like never before. You gotta vote. … This election will be the most important election in the history of our country. We’re going to save our country with this election.”

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Wonder who set up XY for this.

Olympic Boxer’s “Cyberbullies” Lawsuit A Threat To Free Speech (MN)

A human rights lawyer has warned that a lawsuit brought by Algerian Olympic boxer Imane Khelif against the likes of Elon Musk and JK Rowling could set a significant precedent against free speech. Khelif, who competed and won a gold medal in the women’s welterweight division, despite having XY chromosomes, is charging that prominent personalities and bodies engaged in “acts of aggravated cyber harassment.” Questions were raised by both the World Boxing Organisation and the International Boxing Association regarding Khelif’s eligibility to compete as a woman following two previous ‘failed’ gender tests. Speaking to GB News, human rights lawyer David Haigh warned that the lawsuit could lead to “policing of social media” across borders. Haigh outlined “If they proceed with this, the Paris prosecutors have the reach jurisdiction to come to other countries. And if that is the case, that then is a very concerning development.”

“You can have countries around the world basically policing social media in other countries. It could be a very, very significant case in free speech, the use of social media,” Haigh added. He continued, “are we now going to see France trying to extradite or issuing arrest warrants for JK Rowling? It’s a very slippery slope and it could become a very significant case.” The lawyer also noted that the case could also set a legal precedent in terms of gender ideology. “If it proceeds, and that’s a big if, it could have significant ramifications. Whether or not there has been harassment, you will have a debate on what is and isn’t a man or a woman in the court,” he noted. “If part of whether or not there has been harassment and abuse comes down to whether or not that boxer is a man or a woman, obviously evidence will need to be put forward on both sides of that,” Haigh further explained.

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Trump will also be part of the suit. You could get a Paris prosecutor go after a US president for saying “I will keep men out of women’s sports!”

They want a French judge to redefine for the whole world what a woman is.

Olympic Gold Winner Sues Musk Over ‘Cyber Harassment’ (RT)

French prosecutors have opened a probe into a claim by Algerian Olympic boxer Imane Khelif over alleged “acts of aggravated cyber harassment” during the games by several prominent figures, including Elon Musk, according to Variety magazine. Prosecutors reportedly said on Wednesday that the X (formerly Twitter) owner was named in the criminal complaint, along with Harry Potter author JK Rowling. In the complaint, Khelif claimed she was targeted by a “misogynist, racist and sexist campaign” as she fought her way to gold in the women’s welterweight division. Nabil Boudi, the Paris-based attorney for Khelif, told the magazine that the complaint was posted to the anti-online hatred center of the Paris Prosecutor’s Office on Friday.

The prosecutor’s office reportedly confirmed that an investigation had been launched. “J. K. Rowling and Elon Musk are named in the lawsuit, among others,” Boudi told the magazine, adding that former US President Donald Trump would be part of the investigation. “Trump tweeted, so whether or not he is named in our lawsuit, he will inevitably be looked into as part of the prosecution,” he stated. The attorney also noted that the lawsuit was filed against X, which under French law means that it was filed against unknown persons. That “ensure[s] that the ‘prosecution has all the latitude to be able to investigate against all people,” Boudi said. The 25-year-old boxer, who on Saturday won the Olympic gold medal in the women’s 66-kilogram boxing competition, has found herself at the center of a gender controversy. Khelif became the subject of global attention after defeating Italian boxer Angela Carini in just 46 seconds in a preliminary match.

The short bout sparked outrage online, with many calling the Algerian athlete ‘male’ due to previous failed gender tests. According to Algeria, Khelif is not transgender at all but a woman affected by a condition known as hyperandrogenism, characterized by a high level of testosterone and the presence of XY chromosomes. Following the match, J. K. Rowling posted on X a picture of the boxers, accusing Khelif of being a man who was “enjoying the distress of a woman he’s just punched in the head.” Musk, meanwhile, shared a post that claimed “men don’t belong in women’s sports,” captioning it “Absolutely.” Trump’s post about the boxing match was accompanied by the message: “I will keep men out of women’s sports!” The International Olympic Committee, for its part, defended Khelif and denounced those peddling misinformation.

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“..you think your job is to collude with the White House press secretary to censor Americans with whom you disagree?”

‘Democracy Dies in Darkness’ WaPo Urges White House Crackdown on Media (Sp.)

Washington Post White House reporter Cleve Wootson Jr. is taking flak from conservatives, media impartiality and free speech activists after a controversial exchange with WH press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre apparently urging the federal government to “stop” the spread of “misinformation” relating to the 2024 campaign and beyond. “I think that misinformation on Twitter is not just a campaign issue. It’s an America issue. What role does the White House or the president have in sort of stopping that, or stopping the spread of that or intervening in that?” Wootson asked in anticipation of the Elon Musk-Donald Trump interview on X Monday night, which reportedly wound up garnering as many as a billion combined views. “You’ve heard us talking about this many times from here about the responsibilities that social media platforms have when it comes to misinformation and disinformation.

I don’t have anything to read out from here about specific ways that we’re working on it. But we believe that they have the responsibility. These are private companies, so we’re also mindful of that too. But I think it is incredibly important to call that out as you are doing. I just don’t have any specifics on what we have been doing internally,” Jean-Pierre responded. The Wootson-Jean-Pierre exchange spread like wildfire online, with commentators sarcastically recalling the Washington Post’s ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness’ slogan and expressing concern over the outlet’s apparent request that the White House “cancel the Bill of Rights,” whose Free Press Clause protects the publication of information and opinions, no matter their content. “The Washington Post trying to get the government to shut down private citizen interviews with presidential candidates. Because democracy dies in people speaking freely,” one popular response quipped.

“Washington Post reporter asks if Biden/Kamala administration should permit Trump to talk to Elon Musk or if the government should block their conversation. This is where we are, much of the media opposes free speech,” one person lamented. “Truly pathetic…You are a White House reporter for the Washington Post. And you think your job is to collude with the White House press secretary to censor Americans with whom you disagree? Do you understand how dumb and dangerous you sound? You’re truly shameful,” another wrote. WaPo critics’ outrage over Wootson’s suggestion is itself somewhat of a surprise, given the increasingly well-documented collusion between the US government, traditional media and Big Tech, from orders to ban or otherwise restrict foreign media (including Sputnik), to revelations in the ‘Twitter Files’ detailing some of the “specifics” mentioned by Jean-Pierre of government-big tech complicity in taking down stories and banning users to try to control informational awareness on topical issues ranging from wars and politics to elections.

The Washington Post’s request that the White House cracks down on “misinformation” also comes in the face of increasingly bald-faced attempts by the mainstream media to control the narrative relating to the upcoming US election, with a slew of blunt efforts by outlets to prop up one candidate, or silence criticism of said candidate’s lack of media interviews, being met with increasingly loud resistance.

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“There was a time when a reporter calling for censorship of a political opponent would have been a matter for immediate termination in the media..”

WaPo Reporter Calls on White House to Censor Trump for America (Turley)

In my new book on free speech, I discuss at length how the mainstream media has joined an alliance with the government and corporations in favor of censorship and blacklisting. The Washington Post, however, appears to be taking its anti-free speech campaign to a new level with open calls for a crackdown. The newspaper offered no objection or even qualification after its reporter, Cleve Wootson Jr., appeared to call upon the White House to censor the interview of Elon Musk with former President Donald Trump. Under the guise of a question, Wootson told White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre that censoring its leading political opponent is “an America issue.” During Monday’s press briefing, the Washington Post’s Cleve Wootson Jr. flagged the interview and said “I think that misinformation on Twitter is not just a campaign issue…it’s an America issue.” After making that affirmative statement, Wootson then asked

“…What role does the White House or the president have in sort of stopping that or stopping the spread of that or sort of intervening in that? Some of that was about campaign misinformation, but, you know, it’s a wider thing, right?” Note how his question was really a political statement. Wootson begins by stating as a fact that Musk and X are engaging in disinformation and it is a threat to the country. He then asks a perfunctory softball question at the end to maintain appearances. Jean-Pierre’s response was equally telling. While noting that this is a private company, she praised the Washington Post for calling for action, saying “[i]t is incredibly important to call that out, as you’re doing. I just don’t have any specifics on what we have been doing internally.” So let’s recap. The Washington Post used a White House presser to call for censorship of one of the leading candidates for the White House and then demanded to know what the White House would do about it. The censorship was framed as an “America issue.”

There was a time when a reporter calling for censorship of a political opponent would have been a matter for immediate termination in the media. Instead, the newspaper that prides itself on the slogan “Democracy dies in Darkness,” has been entirely silent. No correction. No qualification. The Washington Post has long run columns supporting censorship of information that it deems disinformation or misinformation. For many of us in the free speech community, it has become one of the most hostile newspapers to free speech values. Now censorship has become “an America issue” for the Washington Post. The collapse of any semblance of support for free speech is complete. The call for censorship for disinformation is ironic given the Post’s publication of a series of false stories and conspiracy theories. When confronted about columnists with demonstrably false statements, the Post simply shrugged.

[..] The decline of the Post has followed a familiar pattern. The editors and reporters simply wrote off half of their audience and became a publication for largely liberal and Democratic readers. In these difficult economic times with limited revenue sources, it is a lethal decision. Robert Lewis, a British media executive who joined the Post earlier this year, reportedly got into a “heated exchange” with a staffer. Lewis explained that, while reporters were protesting measures to expand readership, the very survival of the paper was now at stake: “We are going to turn this thing around, but let’s not sugarcoat it. It needs turning around,” Lewis said. “We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right. I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.”

Other staffers could not get beyond the gender and race of those who would be overseeing them. One staffer complained “we now have four White men running three newsrooms.” The Post has been buying out staff to avoid mass layoffs, but reporters are up in arms over the effort to turn the newspaper around. Yet, in this case, a reporter openly advocated for censorship and pushed the White House to take action against X and Trump; to use government authority to “intervene” to stop Trump from being able to make certain claims on social media.

We have previously written how the level of advocacy and bias in the press has created a danger of a de facto state media in the United States. It is possible to have such a system by consent rather than coercion. The Biden White House has become more open in its marching orders to media, including a letter drafted by the Biden White House Legal Counsel’s Office calling for major media to “ramp up their scrutiny” of House Republicans. President Biden has even instructed reporters “[t]hat is not the judgment of the press” when asked tough questions. To the credit of the Post, it is not killing “democracy in the darkness.” This incident occurred in the light of day for all to see as its reporter pushed the White House for the censoring of political opponents.

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“It came down to their concern about my relationship with the Russian government, and that somehow I’m taking direction from the Russian government..”

Scott Ritter Says FBI Monitored Him For Years (TASS)

Former US intelligence officer Scott Ritter said the FBI had monitored him for years. “They admitted that they’ve been monitoring me for years,” he said on a podcast called Judging Freedom, which is hosted by Andrew Napolitano. “I got nothing to hide here. But they [the FBI] are concerned. It came down to their concern about my relationship with the Russian government, and that somehow I’m taking direction from the Russian government,” the former officer said. On August 7, NBC television reported Ritter’s home was subjected to a search. The FBI confirmed to TASS that its agents conducted investigative actions at the former officer’s home. Ritter had previously said the searches could be related to the US government’s concerns about violations of the US Foreign Agents Registration Act. The Times Union reported that the law requires individuals and organizations representing foreign interests in the United States to register with the Department of Justice and disclose their activities. Ritter strongly denies all of the allegations. He also stated the US government is seeking to intimidate him.

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“There was, literally, no valid reason to drop an atomic bomb on a Japanese city.”

The Murder of Others (Scott Ritter)

Ignoring the fact that the Soviet Union and its leader, Joseph Stalin, were exhausted by a war that had destroyed a third of its industry and killed more than 27 million of its citizens and, as such, were looking for peace, not a new war with the West, Truman fell under the sway of his closest advisers, including his choice to be secretary of state, James Byrnes, who viewed the Soviets as a threat that had to be contained and, if necessary, confronted by U.S. military power in the post-war period. How to square the need to simultaneously defeat Japan, deal with the increasing political pressure to demobilize, and present a strong military posture to the Soviet Union was one of the more pressing challenges facing Truman and the men he had gathered in the White House cabinet room. The answer lay in the atomic bomb — J. Robert Oppenheimer’s “gadget ”— which was, at the time of the June 18 meeting, being prepared for testing in the badlands of New Mexico.

The huge responsibility that attached itself to the existence and potential use of this new weapon weighed heavily on the attendees. During this meeting, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson reminded those present that “our leadership in the war and in the development of this weapon [the atomic bomb] has placed a certain moral responsibility upon us which we cannot shirk without very serious responsibility for any disaster to civilization which it would further.” When the discussion turned to the use of the atomic bomb as a “war winning” tool designed to break the spirit of the Japanese and compel them to surrender unconditionally, Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy proposed a compromise: why not show flexibility regarding the need for “unconditional surrender,” such as allowing the Japanese emperor to stay in place as the head of state, and, as a way of reinforcing to the Japanese the reality of America’s overwhelming superiority in arms, tell the Japanese about the existence of the atomic bomb, giving them the clear option of capitulating under reasonable terms or watching their cities be destroyed?

Truman, intrigued with the concept, had McCloy take his proposal to Byrnes to see what the future secretary of state thought about it (Byrnes was, at the time, in the process of being confirmed by the U.S. Senate). Byrnes, concerned about the perceived threat from the Soviet Union, rejected McCloy’s proposal, opting instead to go forward with the use of the atomic bomb on Japan with the dual mission of helping bring a rapid end to the war with Japan and, perhaps more importantly, since McCloy and others believed Japan was ready to surrender, obviating the need to use the bomb, as a demonstration of U.S. military power to the Soviet Union in an effort to deter any post-war antics on their part in Europe.

Byrnes’ strategy, however, was nonsensical given what subsequently transpired. On July 17, 1945, Truman was in Potsdam, Germany, for a major post-war conference with Joseph Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (the “Big Three”). The day before, July 16, Oppenheimer had successfully tested a prototype of a plutonium bomb in the deserts of Alamogordo, New Mexico. (Oppenheimer and his team of nuclear scientists had also developed an atomic bomb that made use of highly enriched uranium as its core. This weapon was far simpler in its design, and as such the need to test it was not as acute.)

Truman revealed the existence of this weapon to Stalin on July 24. The Soviet leader, nonplussed, said he hoped the Americans would put it to good use against the Japanese. Stalin had committed to entering the war against Japan no later than Aug. 15. Soviet forces, fresh from their victory over Nazi Germany, were being redeployed to the Soviet Far East, where they would be used to defeat the more than 1 million Japanese soldiers who occupied northern China and Korea. With the promised involvement of the Red Army, the military defeat of Japan was assured. Truman, in notifying Russia of the existence of the bomb, had put the Soviets on notice about the reality of American military might. There was, literally, no valid reason to drop an atomic bomb on a Japanese city.

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“The Ambassador already replied to one letter from Mr. Biden. He may be shopping for more support than he got here..”

Hunter Biden Asked State Department To Aid Burisma Deal While Joe Was VP (ZH)

While Joe Biden was vice president, his son Hunter attempted to obtain State Department assistance in securing a deal for Ukrainian gas company Burisma, of which Hunter was a highly-compensated board member despite having no experience in its industry, the New York Times reported on Tuesday. The revelation of the 2016 episode underscores allegations that Hunter sought to enrich himself by trading on his father’s influence. The Times report draws on newly-released government records pertaining to Hunter’s pushing of a Burisma deal in Italy. The Biden White House had resisted releasing the files for years, only to relent soon after Biden was pressured into abandoning his reelection bid. The Times says it was unable to read Hunter’s email to the US ambassador, as it appears to have been “redacted in its entirety” somewhere within the trove of documents turned over by the government.

However, in communications sparked by Hunter’s 2016 inquiries, federal government officials appear to have been anxious about Hunter’s request. For example, a Commerce Department official assigned to America’s embassy in Rome wrote: “I want to be careful about promising too much. This is a Ukrainian company and, purely to protect ourselves, USG should not be actively advocating with the government of Italy without the company going through the [Commerce Department] Advocacy Center.”

The White House told the Times that then-Vice President Biden had no knowledge of his son’s inquiries. Hunter’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, acknowledged that Hunter asked US ambassador to Italy John R. Phillips and “various people” for help facilitating a dialogue between the president of Tuscany and Burisma leaders. “No meeting occurred, no project materialized, no request for anything in the U.S. was ever sought and only an introduction in Italy was requested,” Abbe told the Times. Burisma was pursuing a geothermal energy project. Though Burisma didn’t respond to inquiries, an unnamed businessman associated with the Italian machinations told the Times that Biden’s moves came when Burisma or partner entities were struggling to obtain regulatory approval for a geothermal project.

The initiative was also the subject of communications that were found in Hunter’s infamous laptop, which he abandoned at a Delaware repair shop. For example, Hunter business partner Eric Schwerin wrote an email to an Italian businessman who had connections to Tuscany’s president. “Burisma is hoping that some of its executives can get a meeting with the president to discuss their geothermal business in Tuscany,” he wrote in July 2016. Meanwhile, the government records seem to suggest a persistent effort by Hunter across multiple US government channels. “The Ambassador already replied to one letter from Mr. Biden. He may be shopping for more support than he got here,” a Commerce official emailed other federal officials.

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To what extent did they push for the assault?

Biden Admits ‘Direct Contact’ With Ukraine Over Assault On Kursk (RT)

Washington is in touch with Kiev about Ukraine’s ongoing incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region, which is creating a problem for Moscow, US President Joe Biden has said. Last week, Ukraine sent several thousand troops across the Russian border to seize a dozen villages and indiscriminately target civilians, according to Moscow. “I have spoken with my staff on a regular basis, probably every four or five hours for the last six or eight days and it’s creating a real dilemma for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin,” Biden told reporters on Tuesday, in his first remarks about the Kursk offensive. “And we’ve been in direct contact, constant contact with the Ukrainians. That’s all I’m going to say about it while it’s active,” he added. The US leader spoke just outside Air Force One, as he arrived in New Orleans. Earlier in the day, EU foreign policy commissioner Josep Borrell said that Kiev had the bloc’s “full support” for the Kursk offensive.

Washington and Brussels have previously responded to press inquiries about the events in Kursk by quoting generalities about support for Ukraine and unchanging policies. “We’re in touch with our Ukrainian counterparts, and we are working to gain a better understanding of what they’re doing, what their goals are, what their strategy is, and I’m going to leave a little bit of space for us to have those conversations before I try to characterize what’s going on,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Friday. Later that same day, the US announced another $125 million in military aid to Ukraine. On Monday, however, Senator Lindsey Graham – a South Carolina Republican – went to Kiev and praised the Kursk incursion as “bold” and “beautiful.” He also urged retired Western pilots to enlist in the Ukrainian air force and fly NATO-provided F-16 fighters against Russia.

At least 12 Russian civilians have been killed and another 121 wounded by Ukrainian invaders, acting regional governor Aleksey Smirnov said on Monday. Ukrainian soldiers who spoke to Western outlets have admitted taking significant casualties in the invasion. They also said their objectives were to capture some territory that could be traded away in possible peace talks with Moscow, as well as to relieve pressure on the Donbass front. On Monday, Putin said that the Russian forces were actually advancing at a faster pace, while military enlistments were up because of the fighting in Kursk.

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Failed.

Ukraine Wants Talks Using Kursk Nuclear Plant Seizure as Ultimatum (Sp.)

The Ukrainian Armed Forces went on the offensive on August 6 to seize territory in Russia’s Kursk region, but their advance was stopped, said Valery Gerasimov, chief of Russia’s General Staff. He stressed that the operation in Kursk will be completed by defeating the enemy and reaching the state border. Units of the Russian Armed Forces are in the Kursk city of Sudzha, which the enemy does not control but there are daily clashes, commander of the Akhmat special forces Apti Alaudinov told Russian media. “Today there are units of the Russian Defense Ministry in Sudzha. There is an enemy around and in some parts of the city. There are active clashes there every day. The enemy cannot say that he completely controls Sudzha, because he does not really control it,” Alaudinov said.

The major general also said that Kiev is planning on seizing the Kursk nuclear power plant on August 11 and use this to start negotiations with Moscow with an ultimatum. “We received very interesting materials — the whole layout of the operation, which was being prepared, by what forces and what was planned. What can I say: on the 11th [of August] it was necessary to take the nuclear power plant in Kurchatov… [Ukrainian President] Zelensky’s blitzkrieg, which was planned with the seizure of the Kursk nuclear power plant and already entering negotiations with an ultimatum… failed,” Alaudinov explained. The operation had not been completed, despite all the reserves directed by Kiev in this direction, Alaudinov said. “Most of the equipment has already been destroyed from what was deployed in the Kursk direction,” Alaudinov concluded.

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There’ll be nothing left after Zelensky.

Ukraine Has Defaulted – Fitch (RT)

Fitch Ratings has downgraded Ukraine’s credit rating to ‘restricted default’ on Tuesday, citing the expiry of a ten-day grace period for the coupon payment on the country’s $750 million 2026 Eurobond, which was due on August 1. The US-based credit-rating agency said it has lowered the rating on the 2026 Eurobond to ‘D from ‘C’ and affirmed the other foreign-currency bonds at ‘C.’ The downgrade comes after Kiev passed a law permitting the suspension of foreign debt payments until October 1. On July 18, the Ukrainian parliament approved legislation that allows the government to temporarily suspend payments on state and state-guaranteed external commercial debt until a restructuring agreement with external commercial debt creditors is completed. “This marks an event of default under Fitch’s criteria with respect to the sovereign’s IDR [Issuer Default Rating] as well as the individual issue rating of the affected security,” Fitch stated.

Rival US ratings agency S&P Global also cut Ukraine’s rating to ‘selective’ default on August 2. Ukraine has been negotiating with creditors a restructuring of its nearly $20 billion in international debt. A preliminary deal with a committee of its main bondholders was achieved on July 22, two weeks before the grace period for coupon payment expired. Kiev secured a preliminary deal to suspend debt repayments back in 2022 after the escalation of its conflict with Russia. The two-year payment moratorium on payments expired on August 1. Fitch had earlier projected Ukraine’s state deficit to remain high, at 17.1% of the country’s GDP this year, noting that defense spending amounted to 31.3% of its annual economic output in 2023. The agency expects government debt to surge to 92.5% of GDP in 2024.

According to the Ukrainian Finance Ministry, the country’s public debt surged by more than $1 billion in June, with its total volume now exceeding $152 billion. The International Monetary Fund in June revised downwards Ukraine’s gross domestic product forecast for this year to 2.5% from its April estimate of 3.2%, citing worsening sentiment among consumers and businesses over the course of the conflict with Russia.

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“It is acting with complete, insouciant, contemptuous disregard for international law, conventions, and common morality..”

Pro-Israel Lobby Overrides US Public Opinion on Gaza (Miles)

“It is most especially in the conduct of foreign relations that democratic governments appear to me to be decidedly inferior to governments carried on upon different principles,” wrote Alexis de Tocqueville in 1835 after his famous visit to the United States. The famed French political philosopher was impressed by the still-nascent experiment in self rule underway in the young country, walking away with numerous insights and accolades. But Tocqueville questioned whether the country’s democratic principles could extend to the realm of international affairs, writing, “foreign politics demand scarcely any of those qualities which a democracy possesses; and they require, on the contrary, the perfect use of almost all those faculties in which it is deficient.” Nearly two centuries later questions remain over the extent to which the popular will can dictate matters of foreign relations, which often require rapid and complex decision making.

Analysts claim the functioning of the US government has only become more opaque since the mid-twentieth century, with the development of nuclear weapons requiring an unprecedented level of secrecy that informed the creation of the modern-day “deep state.” Independent journalist Dr. Jim Kavanagh joined Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program Tuesday to discuss the Biden administration’s foreign policy and the growing gulf between public opinion in the United States and its actions on the world stage. “Israel has crossed all and everybody’s red lines,” Kavanagh wrote in a recent piece published on the website The Polemicist. “Israel is telling the world it will kill anyone and any number of people, anywhere, at any time of its choosing and it does not give a damn about what anyone in the world thinks of it. It is acting with complete, insouciant, contemptuous disregard for international law, conventions, and common morality, certainly of the people and nations it considers its adversaries and of the countries on whose support it depends.”

“Israel is only slightly less contemptuous of Americans than the Palestinians,” the journalist claimed, noting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s skill in manipulating the United States to serve his interests. “Palestinians they consider subhuman and dispensable persons versus the Americans they consider necessary fools whom they have to pretend they’re interested in ceasefires and two-state solutions for because the Americans are stupid enough to believe it.” “They just got to keep the Americans around because the Americans are their patrons,” he continued. “The United States of America is the indispensable patron of Israel. They could not do anything that they’re doing without it. And we are completely complicit in it.” The longtime Israeli Prime Minister once claimed the United States is “a thing you can move very easily” in private comments secretly recorded in 2001. Since then the controversial leader has often publicly waded into US politics, perhaps most famously in 2015 when he gave a speech to a session of the United States Congress denouncing former President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal.

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“..its most prized defensive weapon is part of a broader branding effort, rooted in techniques pioneered by Edward Bernays..”

Cracks in the Dome: Israel’s Security Mirage (Raiss)

The Iron Dome, touted as Israel’s most-effective defense shield, was designed to project an image of security and technological superiority. Promoted as a cutting-edge mobile air defense system, it was intended to symbolize an impenetrable barrier safeguarding the occupation state from external threats. However, the reality reveals a different picture: much like a child in a knight costume – impressive against plastic swords but utterly defenseless against real weapons – the Iron Dome excels mainly against the relatively crude weapons of the Palestinian resistance in Gaza. Israel’s carefully-crafted image of its most prized defensive weapon is part of a broader branding effort, rooted in techniques pioneered by Edward Bernays. The occupation state has positioned itself as a cosmopolitan, progressive, and democratic society – in stark contrast to neighboring West Asian states, which it portrays as violent and repressive.

The Iron Dome is not just a defense system but also a psychological construct designed to reinforce the image of an invulnerable entity under constant threat from less enlightened neighbors. Despite its reputation, the Iron Dome’s performance has often fallen short. Numerous videos have surfaced showing malfunctions – the Tamir missiles performing erratic maneuvers, exploding near civilian areas, or being triggered by false alarms and causing damage to infrastructure. These failures contrast starkly with Israel’s claims of a 90–99 percent interception rate. Professor Emeritus Theodore Postal of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) offers a vastly different assessment. “I would say that the intercept rate is at best 4 or 5 percent,” Postal said in an interview with the Boston Globe last October. In a 2018 study published in the Journal of Global Security Studies, Michael Armstrong also questions the Iron Dome’s touted “90 to 99 percent” interception rate.

For starters, he clarifies that “the interception rate is the percentage of rockets destroyed before they hit defended areas; it ignores rockets over undefended areas.” In other words, the defense system is, from the onset, only targeting a small portion of the rockets fired. For example, Israeli officials claimed that of the approximately 1,000 projectiles fired into Israel by Hamas during November 2012’s Operation Pillar of Defense operation, Iron Dome identified two-thirds as “not posing a threat” and only intercepted 90 percent of the remaining 300 rockets. Armstrong points out further holes in the calculations of Iron Dome proponents:

The empirical analysis suggests that Iron Dome batteries intercepted less than 32 percent of all hazardous rockets during Pillar of Defense, but between 59 and 75 percent during Protective Edge … The calculations further suggest the number of rockets hitting populated areas during Pillar of Defense may have been understated. The number of threats to populated areas, on the other hand, may have been overstated. This implies that Iron Dome’s effective interception rate may have been significantly lower than reported.

The situation is particularly dire in northern occupied territories, where the town of Kiryat Shmona – a settlement once believed to be under the Iron Dome’s protection – has seen its population flee from rising threats. Thousands of residents have abandoned their homes, exposing the vulnerabilities the Iron Dome was supposed to eliminate. With Hezbollah expanding its rules of engagement, the number of displaced persons is likely to rise, further exposing the system’s inadequacies. As Israel desperately scrambles to expand its defense options, the new solutions prove equally flawed, leaving the population vulnerable beneath a defense system that no longer lives up to its myth. The once-vaunted shield is crumbling, and with it, the carefully constructed narrative of invincibility that has long underpinned Israel’s security strategy.

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No-one ever mentions their ad monopoly.

FTC Hints Tech ‘Monopolist’ Google Should Be Broken Up (ZH)

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed an amicus brief in the Epic Games antitrust lawsuit against Google’s monopolistic behavior, suggesting that the court impose stringent actions against such practices. The lawsuit was filed in 2020 by developer Epic Games against Google. Epic claimed that Google violated antitrust regulations by monopolizing two markets: the market for distribution of mobile apps for Android users and the market for processing payments. In addition, Google benefits from gaining access to user data. “Google has thus installed itself as an unavoidable middleman for app developers who wish to reach Android users and vice versa,” Epic said. In December 2023, a district court jury in California ruled in favor of Epic, finding that the game developer proved that Google was in violation of antitrust laws. District Judge James Donato has yet to decide on what relief Epic should be provided.

Naveen Athrappully reports for The Epoch Times that on Aug. 12, the FTC filed an amicus brief in the case, suggesting how the court could consider remedies. Ensuring antitrust laws are strictly enforced “is essential for protecting and preserving economic freedom and the free-enterprise system,” the agency pointed out. “When a company engages in business practices that are found to violate the antitrust laws, courts are empowered to remedy those violations by ordering all relief necessary to restore competition in the affected markets,” it stated. This includes “identifying and requiring actions that the defendant must affirmatively take toward that end.” If companies violating antitrust laws reap the advantages secured through such actions, it will end up incentivizing other firms to engage in similar behavior, the agency warned. As such, the district court should ensure that the violating firm does not continue securing the benefits obtained via breaching antitrust rules, it stated.

Though it should be said that at no point does the FTC outright say that Google should be broken up, Duncan Riley reports via SiliconAngle.com, that any lay reader with a knowledge of U.S. antitrust law and English can reasonably come to that conclusion. And there’s more. “Looking forward in cases like Epic v. Google often requires the consideration of network effects, data feedback loops, and other key features of digital markets,” the FTC writes. “This could help ensure that potential competitors can overcome the advantages established digital platforms often gain, which include network effects and data incumbency.” But the real kicker comes towards the end. “Google’s monopolistic behavior has significantly harmed millions of users in the United States,” the FTC adds. “Allowing monopolists to reap the rewards of illegal monopolization while avoiding the costs of restoring the competition that they unlawfully eliminated would undermine deterrence.” There is a strong possibility that the FTC is hinting at a possible breakup of Google as a negotiating tactic; nonetheless, it should be taken seriously.

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D*ck

 

 

Trump Roseanne
https://twitter.com/i/status/1823751458988167540

 

 

AI
https://twitter.com/i/status/1823742501884453312

 

 

Mark Jon
https://twitter.com/i/status/1823790299061030988

 

 

Lesson

 

 

Why?

 

 

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