René Magritte The Pleasure Principle (Portrait of Edward James) 1937
NEW: Biden Admin Hiring 1,200 DEI Bureaucrats Before Handing Over to Trump
The jobs offer annual salaries of up to $310,000 and could inflate the federal payroll by $160 million annually.
Daily Wire reporter @lukerosiak explains how the Biden administration is sabotaging the… pic.twitter.com/83CREzREGh
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) December 20, 2024
Mottur
Former Hillary Clinton Campaign Advisor scolds Democrats for covering up Joe Biden's mental decline, and admits Democrats have lost the moral high ground:
Al Mottur: "I'm disappointed in the Wall Street Journal story only in the sense that there are people now leaking on the… pic.twitter.com/W9bgttKzUu— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) December 20, 2024
Dana White
Dana White speaks on how Trump impacted his life. pic.twitter.com/wxeH2FigRG
— Defiant World (@DefiantWorld) December 21, 2024
The only reason there’s a war going on.
“..41 US corporations out of the top 100. They received $317 billion, or 50% of global arms-sales revenues..”
“..the combined revenues of the world’s 100 largest weapons manufacturers in 2023 reached $632 billion.”
• Ukraine A ‘Gold Mine’ For Western Arms Makers – Moscow (RT)
Ukraine has become a lucrative opportunity for Western arms manufacturers, who profit from weapons supplies that prolong the conflict, Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia has claimed. Speaking at a United Nations Security Council briefing on Friday, Nebenzia accused NATO member states of exploiting the conflict in Ukraine to enrich their defense industries. “It is well known that Ukraine has become a genuine gold mine for the military-industrial complex of the [US and UK] and their allies. But it is American companies that are profiting the most from the conflict,” he stressed. The Russian diplomat alleged that Western countries are prioritizing economic gains over peace. “According to the latest data, half of total arms sales in 2023 were processed by 41 US corporations out of the top 100. They received $317 billion, or 50% of global arms-sales revenues,” Nebenzia said.
The Russian UN representative cited a recent report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), noting that the combined revenues of the world’s 100 largest weapons manufacturers in 2023 reached $632 billion. “It would be naive to expect that these unscrupulous traders, who have tasted the flavor of lucre, will give up riding this gravy train for the sake of those miserable Ukrainians,” he argued. Nebenzia went on to suggest that Western military companies “often act in cahoots with the Kiev regime,” citing the example of 25 foreign lobby and consulting firms that began representing Ukraine’s interests free of charge after the conflict began. He specifically mentioned BGR Government Affairs, whose leadership has publicly advocated for increased military assistance to Kiev and which also represents Raytheon Company, a major US arms supplier.
Nebenzia also alleged that the US military-industrial complex funds think tanks, whose conclusions are later cited by the media. On Wednesday, the Defense Ministry in Moscow reported that Ukraine fired six US-donated ATACMS and four UK-made Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missiles, at the Kamensky chemical plant in Rostov Region in southern Russia. On Friday, in retaliation to the attack, the Russian military claimed it struck a Ukrainian command center and targeted installations of US-supplied Patriot anti-aircraft missile systems. Russia has consistently stated that Western aid cannot prevent its forces from accomplishing the objectives of their military operation or alter the final outcome of the conflict. Moscow has argued that by supporting Kiev, they only prolong the conflict.
“BREAKING: In latest threat to German democracy, dangerous fascist Elon Musk tweets six words about Alternative für Deutschland..”
• Dangerous Fascist Elon Musk Tweets Six Words About AfD (eugyppius)
German democracy, which has endured since 1949 but is somehow always shaken to its foundations whenever anybody sings the wrong song or holds a televised debate with the wrong person, is once again on life support. Christian Lindner, head of the market-liberal Free Democrats, did much to trigger the present catastrophe on 1 December, when he said that the Free Republic should “dare more Milei and more Musk.” Because there is little distinction between praising Milei and Musk and demanding the return of National Socialism, there ensued a brief period of establishment hyperventilation. Less than a week later, CDU chief and probable future German chancellor Friedrich Merz did his part to denounce Lindner’s political wrongthink in a statement to Deutschlandfunk:
“So neither the Argentinian president nor, how shall I put it, the American entrepreneur Elon Musk – let’s put it plainly – are role models for German politics in my view. I don’t see where we can find similarities in German politics. What Christian Lindner meant will probably remain his secret.” The next day, Merz repeated the same denunciations, only more harshly, explaining to one of our extremely adult and far-sighted pantsuit talkshow hosts that “To be honest, I was completely appalled that Christian Lindner made that comparison.” Milei, Merz said, is “really trampling on the people there.” Yesterday, all of this came to the notice of the (honestly rather tiresome) influencer Naomi Seibt, who posted a video statement to X rehearsing all of this old news to her largely American audience: Elon Musk then brought down the hammer on the German democratic order, retweeting Seibt’s video and remarking that “Only the AfD can save Germany.”
Today a lot of very important and influential people got out of bed and took to their keyboards to denounce Musk’s election interference. His statement might be illegal, at any rate it is very likely fascist and certainly it is beyond the pale for an American to voice an opinion about German politics. Germans absolutely never, ever, utter the slightest word about American politics and certainly would never advance negative opinions about the American president in the middle of an election campaign. Our Foreign Office would never try to fact-check an American presidential debate! Our journalists would never depict President Donald Trump dressed as a Ku Klux Klan member or offering the Hitler salute or decapitating the Statue of Liberty! That’s just not done!
Like a great stream of green diarrhoea, the outrage is pouring fourth. Matthias Gebauer, who writes for Der Spiegel, observes that “Elon Musk … is openly promoting the AfD” and concludes that “Putin is not the only one who loves this party.” Erik Marquardt, head of the Green faction in the European Parliament, says that “The EU Commission and EU member states should no longer stand by and watch as billionaires misuse media and algorithms to influence elections and strengthen and normalise right-wing extremists.” This “is an attack on democracy,” and “has nothing to do with freedom of expression.” Dennis Radtke, CDU representative in the European Parliament, concludes that “Musk … is declaring war on democracy” and that “the man is a menace.”
We are also under siege via “interference from Putin”; “the erosion of our democracy is being fuelled from both within and without.” Julian Röpcke, who writes for BILD, believes that “This is interference in the German election campaign by a tech billionaire who uses algorithms to decide what gets heard.” If Germany does not “respond with penalties, there will be no help for our eroding democracy.” Jonas Koch, at Die Zeit, complains that “the richest man in the world is now campaigning for right-wing populists in Germany.” Tech billionaire Elon Musk has spoken out in favour of the Alternative for Germany party in the German parliamentary election campaign. “Only the AfD can save Germany,” he wrote on his online service X.
You can almost see Mr Koch before you, clasping his pearls. He notes that the government are doing their best to weather this unprecedented assault on the German republic. He quotes longsuffering government spokesperson Christian Hoffmann saying that “It’s not the first time that Elon Musk has commented on German politics.” Olaf Scholz, he notes, “has been concerned about … X since Musk assumed control of it,” but he has inexplicably not yet decided to delete government X accounts.
Replace the MSM entirely.
• ‘Associated Propaganda’: Musk Hits Out At AP (RT)
SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has accused the Associated Press (AP) of disseminating propaganda following the global news agency’s coverage of Friday’s deadly incident at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg. Musk referred to the agency, commonly known as AP, as “Associated Propaganda” in a post on X that criticizes its reporting of the attack on civilians. Musk’s comment was in response to criticism by an X user over the Associated Press’s headline about the incident. The headline read, “A car has driven into a group of people at a Christmas market in Germany.” The user accused AP of using passive language that downplayed the severity of the attack, stating, “You don’t hate the legacy media enough. The Associated Press uses a passive voice when reporting on the Christmas market terror attack in Magdeburg, Germany.
As if the car simply drove itself peacefully, and the affected number of people small and insignificant.” “It wasn’t a ‘group of people’—it was an entirely mass of people whose bodies were flung by the force of the impact, and many more who were crushed beneath the wheels as the vehicle zigzagged its way through the packed market,” he added. A speeding vehicle rammed into a crowd at Magdeburg’s festive market on Friday evening, resulting in at least four fatalities, including a child, and injuring over 60 people, Bild reported, citing police. The driver, identified as a 50-year-old Saudi Arabian doctor residing in Germany, was detained by police at the scene. Authorities have classified the act as a deliberate attack, though the motive remains under investigation. X owner Elon Musk’s critique aligns with his history of challenging mainstream media outlets over perceived biases.
In 2022 Musk expressed concerns about the lack of public trust in news organizations, describing it as a “real problem.” This comment was in response to a Washington Post op-ed that criticized his involvement with X (then Twitter). Earlier this year Musk claimed that the “propaganda level” in mainstream media is “tediously high” and accused long-established outlets of bias in the narratives that they offer. The attack has prompted increased security measures across Germany, with several towns canceling weekend Christmas markets as a precaution. Earlier Musk lashed out at German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, insisting he must resign immediately, after it emerged that the man who mowed through a crowded Christmas market in Germany was an Arab immigrant with a residence permit.
This incident mirrors previous attacks on Christmas markets in Germany, notably the 2016 Berlin attack in which a truck was deliberately driven into a crowded market, killing 12 people and injuring 56. The attacker in that instance, Anis Amri, a Tunisian national who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, fled the scene and was later killed in a shootout with police in Italy.
"Old school journalism is dead. Citizen journalism is the future. It's by the people, for the people. It absolutely fundamental that the people actually get to decide the news and the narrative."
一 Elon Musk
— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) December 21, 2024
“If they want it so much, if their life is so bad, let them escalate..”
• Putin Says If World War Three Is Underway (RT)
The threat level is rising globally, but there is no need to scare people with talk of World War Three, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. During an interview published by Russia 1 TV journalist Pavel Zarubin on Sunday, Putin was asked if the extensive involvement of the US in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine meant that WWIII has already begun. “You know, one should not scare people,” the president replied. However, he added that “there are many dangers, and they keep increasing.” “We see what our current opponents are doing. They are escalating the situation,” Putin said after Zarubin mentioned plans by the administration of US President Joe Biden to drastically increase the amount of weapons deliveries to Ukraine during his final weeks in office.
“If they want it so much, if their life is so bad, let them escalate,” the president stressed during a conversation recorded after his end-of-year press conference on Thursday. Russia will “always respond to any challenge” coming from the West, he insisted. “And when our current opponents – and maybe potential partners – will finally hear, understand and realize this, it seems to me that at that point the realization will come that what is needed is to seek compromises,” he said.Moscow is ready to try to rebuild ties with the US and its allies, but it should only happen “without harming our interests,” Putin pointed out.
“..destroying the chances of its successor,” Trump, of fulfilling his campaign promise of swiftly finding a diplomatic solution to the conflict..”
• Biden’s Officials Trying To Destroy Trump’s Push For Peace – Moscow (RT)
The outgoing administration of US President Joe Biden is doing everything to make sure that President-elect Donald Trump will not be able to facilitate peace in the Ukraine conflict once he returns to the White House in January, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has said. The policy currently pursued by the White House is “quite risky, even self-destructive,” Ryabkov told RT in an exclusive interview on Saturday. “We caution them against it,” the diplomat added. He was referring to the permission given by Washington to Kiev to carry out strikes deep into Russian territory with American-made weapons, and an increase in arms deliveries to Ukraine, which happened after Biden’s loss to Trump in November’s election.
”The outgoing US administration demonstrates a unique capability of doubling down and destroying the chances of its successor,” Trump, of fulfilling his campaign promise of swiftly finding a diplomatic solution to the conflict between Moscow and Kiev, the deputy FM stressed. There have been several strikes with US- and UK-supplied missiles on internationally recognized Russian territory in recent weeks, with the deadliest coming on Friday as five people were killed and twelve others wounded after the Kiev forces targeted the town of Rylsk in Russia’s Kursk Region with an American HIMARS system. Russian President Vladimir Putin warned last month that Russia will respond to all such attacks and could go as far as using “weapons against military facilities of those countries that allow the use of their weapons against our facilities.”
Ryabkov also commented on various ideas voiced in the West about how peace between Russia and Ukraine could look, saying that Moscow is considering them, but views them as “informal.” “They are a way to probe our position, but that is absolutely unnecessary as the President has repeatedly laid it out in full,” he explained. Speaking at his end-of-year press conference on Thursday, Putin reiterated that Moscow remains open to negotiating with Kiev without any preconditions, except those that had already been agreed upon in Istanbul in 2022, which envisaged a neutral, non-aligned status for Ukraine, as well as certain restrictions on deploying foreign weaponry. He also noted that such talks would have to respect the realities on the ground that have developed since that time.
Orban is smart: he wants the gas to officially become Hungarian while it still flows in Russia, before it reaches the Ukraine part of the pipeline. ‘The moment I pay upfront, it’s my gas’.. They won’t agree, but it’s smart.
• Orban Proposing Russia, Ukraine to Preserve Gas Transit by Changing Owner (Sp.)
Hungary is interested in preserving the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine and negotiates this opportunity with both states by proposing an option to transfer gas under Hungarian ownership right on the Russian-Ukrainian border, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Saturday. “We are not abandoning our plans to receive energy through Ukraine, and we are holding talks with both Russia and Ukraine. We will continue to negotiate next year as well. We want to pull off such a trick: what if the gas entering Ukraine was no longer considered Russian, but would be owned by the buyer? In other words, when it crosses the border into Ukraine, it would no longer be Russian but Hungarian gas. It is currently being discussed whether Ukrainians and Russians would agree to this, but we are not giving up on the idea,” Orban told a press conference.
Hungary is interested in diversifying its energy supply routes, Orban said, adding that “if you rely on energy from only one pipeline, you are always vulnerable.” “We are dissatisfied that the Ukrainian route has been replaced by another one. Of course, if it hadn’t worked out, there would have been problems. But this does not bring joy. We would be happy if three or four affordable energy sources were constantly available,” Orban stated. Hungary believes that the sanctions against Russia have to be fully lifted as soon as possible, but only a few EU member states agree with this, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Saturday. “If it [the Ukrainian conflict] ends, the sanctions [against Russia] tormenting Europe will end. Hungary’s point of view is that the sanctions have to be lifted as soon as possible and to the full extent,” Orban said at a press conference.
The removal of Russia sanctions will end the streak inflation and the economy will start to recover, the Hungarian prime minister said. He stressed that Hungary advocates for this at European discussions, but with no success, as “only one or two member states think the same way, while the rest, including the big players, are opposed and not even discussing this.” The West stepped up sanctions pressure on Russia after the start of the special military operation in Ukraine in 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that the West’s long-term strategy of containing Russia hurts the global economy. The sanctions target Russian politicians, companies, athletes, students, scientists and artists.
“One idea was to allow the flow to continue on condition that Russia would not receive any payment until the end of the Ukraine conflict. “What fool will give us gas for free?”
• Slovakian PM Warns of ‘Serious Conflict’ With Kiev (RT)
A “serious conflict” is possible if Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky “doesn’t release our gas,” Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico warned on Friday. He made the comment a day after a behind-closed-doors meeting between the two in Brussels. =Slovakia is considering retaliation against Ukraine over its refusal to continue transit of Russian gas to the EU nation, Fico announced in a Facebook post. Kiev is determined not to renew a multi-year transit contract with Russia, which allowed the fuel to flow across its territory despite the armed conflict between the two nations. Slovakia is one of the recipients of the gas. Slovaks are not servants doing the bidding of Zelensky, Fico, who in March was shot multiple times at close range by an activist who disagreed with his stance on arming Ukraine, insisted. Kiev is “losing decisively,” while Zelensky “absolutely rejects any ceasefire,” he said.
Bratislava is sympathetic towards Kiev’s situation and Zelensky’s predicament, the prime minister said, but Slovakia is “not at any war” either with Russia or Ukraine. Fico said the proposals regarding the gas situation, which Zelensky outlined to him at a European Council meeting, seemed “absurd.” One idea was to allow the flow to continue on condition that Russia would not receive any payment until the end of the Ukraine conflict. “What fool will give us gas for free?” Fico asked journalists. Slovakia is helping Ukraine by providing non-military assistance, including by transferring electricity to its capacity-starved power grid, the prime minister said. Relations between the two nations cannot be a one-way street, Fico asserted, adding: “I cannot completely rule out reciprocal measures.” His government will consider its options over the next week, he said.
Kiev previously floated the idea of letting gas that is not Russian in origin to be pumped through the Soviet-built pipelines on Ukrainian territory. Azerbaijan could be the source of such supplies, according to officials. On Tuesday, European buyers of Russian pipeline gas, including Slovakia’s SPP, warned the European Commission that the looming termination of Ukrainian transit posed significant risks to members of the EU, and urged Brussels to act. The escalating row has been caused by Kiev, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, during his annual Q&A marathon. Russian gas giant Gazprom “can live” without the transit, he insisted.
“..a possible Putin-Fico meeting “will provoke a reaction from other European leaders from the EU, and you can see how complicated things are.”
• Putin To Meet Slovakian PM On Monday (RT)
Russian President Vladimir Putin is scheduled to meet Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico on Monday, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has claimed. The reported meeting comes as Belgrade is preparing for the US sanctions against the country’s main oil and gas company, Naftne Industrije Srbije (NIS). “As I learned unofficially, and when I say unofficially, as I said about the sanctions against NIS, it is absolutely certain, on Monday Robert Fico will go to Putin, as the leader of a European Union country,” Vucic said during an interview with Serbian Happy TV on Friday, as quoted by Euronews Serbia. President Vucic stated that starting January 1, 2025, gas supplies from Russia through Ukraine will stop. This decision will greatly affect European energy security and Serbia’s preparedness for winter demands. He stated that Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmigal had signed the relevant order on Friday.
Additionally, Vucic previously mentioned that US sanctions against NIS could also come into effect on January 1, 2025. The expiration of a transit agreement between Moscow and Kiev, which facilitates the flow of Russian gas to the EU, has raised concerns among countries like Slovakia that rely on this route for their supplies. As Fico warned on Friday, Slovakia is considering retaliation against Ukraine over its refusal to continue the transit of Russian gas to the EU nation. Relations between the two nations cannot be a one-way street, Fico asserted during the same speech, adding: “I cannot completely rule out reciprocal measures.” His government will consider its options over the next week, he said. Vucic added in his interview that a possible Putin-Fico meeting “will provoke a reaction from other European leaders from the EU, and you can see how complicated things are.”
“Burns came to Kiev to tie up loose ends and coordinate actions with Zelensky for when Trump begins his review of the multi-billion-dollar US budget spending on Ukraine..”
• CIA Chief Pays ‘Last Visit’ To Kiev (RT)
The Central Intelligence Agency’s director, William Burns, has made yet another unannounced trip to Kiev, likely his final before stepping down from his position, according to Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky. Zelensky disclosed the meeting in a Telegram post on Saturday, highlighting the significant role Burns has played in supporting Ukraine during its ongoing conflict with Russia. “Bill Burns paid his last visit to Ukraine as CIA director. We have held many meetings during this war, and I am grateful for your help,” Zelensky wrote, accompanied by a photo of him shaking hands with Burns. The Ukrainian leader acknowledged that such high-level meetings are typically kept confidential but emphasized the importance of highlighting their continued communication.
“Usually, such meetings are not reported publicly, and all our meetings – in Ukraine, in other European countries, in America, and in other parts of the world – took place without official information. But now, after the last visit, it is worth saying openly,” Zelensky said. Burns has held the position of CIA Director since March 2021 and is set to leave his role after the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump, scheduled for January 20. Trump has nominated former National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe to succeed Burns. Zelensky expressed his commitment to maintaining contact with the new leadership at the CIA. Throughout the conflict, the United States has been Ukraine’s most crucial sponsor, providing the bulk of financial and military support as well as intelligence. The visit by the US spymaster comes at a critical juncture, as Trump has pledged to quickly end the Ukraine conflict, raising concerns in Kiev that it could not only face a decline in aid but also an audit of the billions of dollars it received from Washington under President Joe Biden’s administration.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry suggested that Burns’ trip aimed to warn Ukrainian authorities against sharing potentially compromising information with Trump’s auditors. Senior Russian diplomat Rodion Miroshnik described Zelensky as a “weak link” and suggested that Burns sought to ensure he would not disclose any sensitive “evidence of illegal actions by American officials related to the Democrats and Biden.” “Burns came to Kiev to tie up loose ends and coordinate actions with Zelensky for when Trump begins his review of the multi-billion-dollar US budget spending on Ukraine,” Miroshnik told TASS on Saturday. “The Democrats hardly expect Zelensky to keep his obligations to them, which is why they sent Burns,” the diplomat said, noting that Kiev is the most vulnerable link in the chain of corruption that has seen billions of US taxpayer dollars thrown “into a bottomless pit.”
The EU can’t afford it. You’re instigating revolt.
• Trump Plans To Continue Aid To Ukraine But Will Raise NATO Spending To 5% (ZH)
President-elect Donald Trump is expected to continue sending military aid to Ukraine, despite Trump earlier on the campaign trail mocking Zelensky for being the “greatest salesman on earth” for his getting tens of billions of US taxpayers’ money with ease. A new Financial Times report has cited European officials who say Trump’s team told them he plans to continue military aid to Kiev after his inauguration. He’s reportedly trying to calm fears of an immediate US withdrawal of support, and this is connected to an expected Trump policy for NATO member states to increase defense spending to 5% of their GDP. “Donald Trump’s team has told European officials that the incoming US president will demand Nato member states increase defense spending to 5% of GDP, but plans to continue supplying military aid to Ukraine,” FT writes.
NATO’s existing target of 2% of GPD for defense spending certainly has not been met by all members… not even close. The 2% is being met by only 23 of the alliance’s 32 members, and so a significantly higher bar set of more than double that is certainly going to rile Europe. European NATO leaders have long been trying to figure out how to ‘Trump proof’ future defense aid for Ukraine, as has the Biden administration. But there’s at least one severe critic – Hungary’s Viktor Orban. He estimated in a radio interview on Friday that the US and the EU have pumped over $300 billion in financial aid and military assistance into Kiev’s coffers since the war’s start. “During the negotiation with the Americans, I received the figure that Europe and America together have spent €310 billion so far. Those are huge numbers!” the Hungarian prime minister declared.
He went to describe that such a massive amount “could have done wonders” for European people themselves, instead of sinking the funds into an unwinnable war, while avoiding the necessity of negotiations with Moscow. The 5% defense spending for NATO members could also be a ‘tough’ tactic as the new administration deals with NATO allies. According to more from Financial Times: One person said they understood that Trump would settle for 3.5 per cent, and that he was planning to explicitly link higher defense spending and the offer of more favorable trading terms with the US. “It’s clear that we are talking about 3 per cent or more for [Nato’s June summit in] The Hague summit,” said another European official briefed on Trump’s thinking.
Once again: The EU can’t afford it. You’re instigating revolt.
• Trump Gives Oil Ultimatum To EU (RT)
US President-elect Donald Trump has said the EU should reduce its trade gap by boosting purchases of American oil and gas, or it risks being hit with tariffs. The US goods trade deficit with the EU stood at €156 billion ($162 billion) in 2023, according to Eurostat data. In a post on Truth Social media platform, Trump wrote on Friday the EU should “make up their tremendous deficit with the US by the large-scale purchase of our oil and gas.” “Otherwise, it is TARIFFS all the way!” he warned. According to Eurostat, the US already supplied 47% of the EU’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports and 17% of the bloc’s oil purchases in the first quarter of 2024. Data shows US crude exports to Europe stand at around two million barrels per day, representing over half of the country’s total exports, with the rest going to Asia.
The Netherlands, France, Germany, Spain, Denmark, Italy, and Sweden are the biggest US energy importers, government data shows. The European Commission (EC) responded to Trump’s warnings, saying it was ready to discuss how to deepen what it described as an already strong relationship, including in the energy sector. “The EU is committed to phasing out energy imports from Russia and diversifying our sources of supply,” an unnamed EC spokesperson was quoted as saying by Reuters. The EU pledged to stop consuming Russian fuel following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. Supplies of higher-cost US fuel have replaced much of the cheap pipeline gas that was previously delivered by Russia. Data, however, shows that EU countries still continue to buy billions of euros’ worth of Russian gas each month. In 2024, the bloc is expected to import 10% more LNG from Russia than in 2023, according to energy analytics firm Kpler.
The bloc’s plans to completely phase out energy imports from the country by 2027 have been met with strong opposition from some EU members, particularly Hungary and Slovakia, that are still heavily reliant on the imports. Trump, who takes office on January 20, has pledged to impose sweeping tariffs on several major US trading partners, including Canada, Mexico, and China. He also has repeatedly said during his campaign that Europe would pay a heavy price for having run a large trade surplus with the US for decades. EU exports are dominated by Germany, with key goods being cars, machinery and chemicals, which means Trump’s levies could wreak havoc on the bloc’s already struggling major economy.
“We were just told: ‘Everything is about to change. This is your moment. Either Assad will fall, or you will fall.’ But they did not say when or where, they just told us to be ready.”
• US Had Foreknowledge of HTS Offensive To Topple Assad (Antiwar)
The US had foreknowledge of the offensive led by the al-Qaeda-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham that ousted former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and helped another rebel group join the fight, The Telegraph reported on Wednesday. The report said the US notified the Revolutionary Commando Army (RCA), a US-funded militia based out of a US base at Al Tanf in southern Syria, to “be ready” for an attack that could lead to the end of Assad’s rule. “They did not tell us how it would happen,” Bashar al-Mashadani, an RCA commander, told The Telegraph. “We were just told: ‘Everything is about to change. This is your moment. Either Assad will fall, or you will fall.’ But they did not say when or where, they just told us to be ready.” In October, the US brought several other Sunni Muslim militias under the command of the RCA, swelling the force from 800 fighters to about 3,000.
All of the fighters are armed by the US, and the US pays their salaries of $400 per month. The US also backs the Kurdish-led SDF in eastern Syria, but the RCA is a separate force. When the HTS-led force began its offensive from Syria’s northwest Idlib province and advanced south toward Damascus, the RCA headed north. According to The Telegraph, the US-funded group now controls about one-fifth of Syria’s territory. Mashadani spoke to the paper from a former Syrian government air base that was used by Russia outside of the city of Palmyra. Mashadani said RCA and HTS were cooperating during the offensive and that the US coordinated the communication between the two groups from Al Tanf. The US has celebrated the overthrow of Assad and made clear it’s willing to work with HTS despite the fact that the group is an offshoot of al-Qaeda and designated by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization.
The Telegraph report makes clear that the US was aware of the planned HTS offensive. RCA members said the US told them about the opportunity to overthrow Assad in early November, about three weeks before the offensive started. Mashadani said the US wanted his group to capture territory to keep it out of the hands of ISIS, which RCA has helped the US fight in the past. The Biden administration is sending a high-level State Department official to Damascus to meet with HTS’s leader Mohammad Abu al-Julani, who has a $10 million US bounty on his head. Julani founded the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, known as al-Nusra Front. In 2016, Julani changed the name of Nusra as part of a rebranding campaign to gain support from the West and merged the group with several other Islamist factions to form HTS in 2017.
“Turkey was considered a secular nation when it sought entry into NATO after World War II. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Turkey has been attempting to resurrect its Islamic fundamentalist, Ottoman roots..”
• NATO Must Talk Turkey (Baumann)
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) hasn’t just outlived its usefulness. One of its member states has been wearing out its welcome since the fall of the Soviet Union. Turkey was considered a secular nation when it sought entry into NATO after World War II. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Turkey has been attempting to resurrect its Islamic fundamentalist, Ottoman roots. Sadly, we the people of the United States are obligated to protect and defend it. Exactly 30 years ago, in 1994, while speaking to young fundamentalist Muslims in Antwerp, Belgium, a Turkish Sheikh named Nazim Al-Kibrisi al-Haqqani took to the stage in a stadium filled to capacity, with close to 20,000 people present. After putting the phrase, “Allahu Akbar” to a repetitive musical chant, he exhorted the crowd to join him. He even referred to the audience as a “flood of people (being) a small sign of the glorious rise of Islam”.
There, in the front row, stood a smiling, young Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is currently the President of Turkey. In his speech, Kibrisi bemoaned the failures of his generation over the previous 70 years to preserve Islam. He insisted the young crowd which filled the stadium would restore the glory of Islam. This was a clear reference to the defeat of the Turkish Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I, in 1922. It was also a personal reference. Kibrisi was born that year. Even the stadium was built between 1921 – 1923. Did I mention that Erdogan was in the front row? In 1952, a very secular Turkey joined NATO amid concerns that the Soviet Union be problematic. Membership in NATO provided Turkey with a hedge against invasion. Then, when the Soviet Union fell, Neo-Ottomanism began to rise. Unfortunately, NATO continued growing as well, even becoming more corrupt, with the central component of its mission – Soviet style communism no longer a threat.
Neo-Ottomanism seeks a restoration of the old empire, which seeks expansionism and ultimately, a global Islamic caliphate. The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in the 1920 s as well. It too seeks a return to life under the Ottoman Empire. During the one year reign of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt following the Arab Spring, this became even more evident. Erdogans support for the Muslim Brotherhood was clear. Both expressed a desire to restore an era of Islamic rule. As an aside, the history between Turkey and Russia goes back well more than 500 years; it is an adversarial history at that. It includes the fall of Christianity in Constantinople. The seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church then moved to Russia. Even then it was Muslims vs. Christians. This says nothing of the Armenian genocide committed by the Ottoman Turks during World War I.
Despite the extermination of between 600,000 and 1.5 million Armenians, the Turks remain holocaust denialists. The removal of Bashar al-Assad is largely perceived as a good thing. Is it? The answer to that question depends on what replaces him. The Syrian rebels are comprised of various factions, but the Muslim Brotherhood is chief among them. Again, the Muslim Brotherhood’s loyalties to the Neo-Ottoman movement should not be questioned; it’s alive and well. Of course, a rudderless Syria, especially one that helps to serve Turkey’s interests, doesn’t bode well for the Iranian Mullahs either. The attacks of October 7, 2023, have had a cascading effect that has very much helped us get to this point. Israel, rightly so, decimated Hamas and its leadership; it did the same to Hezbollah. Exploding pagers and precision strikes very much contributed to the conditions that led to Assad’s ouster.
It’s far too early to tell if the Iranian regime has been weakened, if at all. It’s likely very capable of counteroffensive attacks. Nonetheless, if the Iranian mullahs are toppled the same question will need to be asked: Is it a good thing? Again, it depends on what replaces it.
“Controlling who gets to speak and what can be said is essential to the left’s dominance over our institutions..”
• How the Left Will Defend Its Censorship Regime Against Trump (RCW)
The reelection of President Donald Trump could serve as a historic turning point for free speech in America. President Trump has said he will investigate censorship practices by the federal government, end the rampant disrespect for First Amendment rights on our college campuses, and take on Big Tech’s Orwellian policing of speech on the Internet. If successful, these efforts would make the First Amendment stronger than ever before. Yet President Trump’s opponents will not simply stand by and watch as he dismantles their carefully crafted censorship machine. Controlling who gets to speak and what can be said is essential to the left’s dominance over our institutions. They will not give up such an important source of their power without a fight. To ensure the success of Trump’s free speech agenda, the right must anticipate and prepare for the left’s inevitable attacks.
Fortunately, their methods are not hard to predict. In fact, Democrats tipped their hand during the campaign. Back when the party’s out-of-touch leadership thought Kamala Harris would propel them to victory, they set about making plans to silence opposition to their agenda once in office. At the Democratic National Convention, Sen. Chuck Schumer promised sweeping changes to elections, voting, and campaign finance if Democrats won control of Congress and the White House. All of these efforts would slant the political playing field further in the left’s favor. Among the bills was legislation that would strip Americans of their privacy when supporting nonprofit groups that speak out on hot button issues like abortion, crime, the border, or extreme gender politics. The importance of this provision should not be underestimated.
The left calls it “transparency” when they publicly expose a private citizen’s personal information, including their name and home address, but Americans know it better as doxxing. They also know the purpose is not good government, but power politics. Exposing donors allows the left to build enemies’ lists and harass anyone who backs the “wrong” cause. Harris, who co-sponsored the DISCLOSE Act in the Senate, has her own long record of attacking conservative donors and journalists. As California Attorney General, her demand that nonprofits expose their confidential donor lists to her office led to lawsuits and a rebuke from the U.S. Supreme Court. The First Amendment protects the right to give privately, as the justices reminded her. Now that the election is over, Democrats’ designs for regulating speech and exposing conservative donors may form the heart of their resistance strategy to splinter the Trump coalition. We have seen this movie before.
After the fight over Obamacare sparked a massive conservative movement known as the Tea Party, the left painted targets on the backs of the organizations and donors at its heart. IRS bureaucrats began grilling conservative groups about their activities and intentionally slow-walked their applications for nonprofit status. The massive targeting campaign succeeded in suppressing grassroots conservative activism in the run-up to the 2012 elections, where Democrats made gains. Yet Democrats do not even need to control the White House to target conservative donors. Threats can arise from inside federal agencies like the IRS, or from state legislation or regulatory actions, or even from unscrupulous media aided by leaks and hacking of confidential donor data. President Trump himself saw his tax returns illegally leaked in a politically-motivated scheme.
Organizations that are successful in promoting conservative policies have also seen coordinated campaigns to bully their donors into ending their support. These harassment campaigns are one of the tactics that allowed the left to seize control of corporate America. Today, many companies pay a heavy price for any public association with the right. America First organizations and citizens are more than familiar with this kind of discrimination. This time, however, they must not merely persist through it but fight back and defeat it. If not, the left’s control over our institutions will soon reemerge, strong as ever, despite our best efforts. The solution is simple: Ensure every American can freely, safely, and privately support the organizations that represent their values and beliefs. We must end the ability of bureaucrats and political operatives to spy on donors and nonprofits. If the Trump coalition can do this and protect its own, it can achieve its bold free speech agenda – and more.
“..you can bet your paycheck the 2028 establishment campaign will dust off the 2016 playbook and get right to work.”
• The West’s Romance With Elections Is Dead (Ottenberg)
It’s been a bad few months for democracy. Election results offensive to the European Union were annulled in Romania; an attempted coup occurred in Georgia over elections that didn’t go the way the west wanted; the French government, widely hated, teetered over the abyss as president Emmanual Macron tried to ignore the last election; on December 16, Washington’s pet German government fell; lots of funny-business happened in the Moldovan referendum and election, amid widespread disenfranchisement of Moldovan voters living in Russia; elections were long ago cancelled in dictatorial Ukraine; and South Korea hosted an attempted coup. In short, western democracies’ storied enchantment with elections is over. As western populations grow sick and tired of their political class and vote against it, what are elites to do? Annul, cancel, overturn and ignore the elections, that’s what. The problem, for the west, is the voters.
What will happen if far-right Alternative for Deutschland sweeps the early German elections in February, or if far-left France Insoumise does the same in France? Will the U.S. through its NATO and EU tentacles annul those votes? Don’t think it won’t try. And Washington doesn’t even have to give the order, because its European puppets know exactly what’s expected of them. Granted, the Romanian front-runner, so feared by NATO, Calin Georgescu, was far right. But so what? Besides, I doubt that’s what led to the constitutional court vacating the vote. More likely it was his opposition to the Ukraine War – hence the court citing “foreign influence” (translation: Russian) via TikTok as its flimsy basis for negating the election. Incidentally, reports are coming in that the heat and internet to Georgescu’s house have been cut off, and, surprise! he can’t get anyone on the phone to help with this.
But you can’t blame European honchos for ditching elections. They’re just following Washington’s lead. After all, the post-2016 phony Russiagate hysteria may not have succeeded in ousting Trump, as was intended, but it did provide the template for American vassals. The four years of lawfare against Trump (and then another four after he left office) blazed the trail for Europe, so that now, if a candidate not favored by political bigwigs wins, all they have to do is scream “Russian influence!” to dump the election. In other words, democracy is dying in the west. It’s kicking the bucket in Europe – and if Trump ends the Ukraine War (provided Biden doesn’t utterly sabotage his peace efforts before he takes office) or gets us out of the NATO sinkhole, you can bet your paycheck the 2028 establishment campaign will dust off the 2016 playbook and get right to work.
In western media, Georgescu has been portrayed as an unknown. This is false. He is well-known in Romania and had a diplomatic career. But he is also a religious nationalist, and that’s verboten in the EU; worse yet, the U.S., aka NATO, built its biggest military airbase in Europe – where? You got it, Romania. So Washington can’t have just anybody running that country. It must be someone who will keep everything copacetic with the U.S. A nationalist opposed to Washington’s pet proxy war in Ukraine is not that someone.
As for Georgia, there the electorate proved itself most unreliable to the Exceptional Empire. It voted in a government that actually dares to require foreign NGOs to register as such – you know, the way we do, here in the United States. But here, those NGOs don’t aim to overthrow the government, like they do in Georgia, in order for Tbilisi to open a second front against Moscow. Indeed, the vast majority of rioters against the Georgian government, who were arrested, were – I’m shocked! Shocked! – foreign, i.e. European. The icing on the cake is that the French president of Georgia refused to leave office when her term expired – a president with French and Georgian passports, who boasts Nazis in her family tree.
Martyr
Christian men in Spain celebrate a 5th Century Holy Martyr. Muscular Christianity right there. pic.twitter.com/kfhvwMhMU9
— Knights Templar International (@KnightsTempOrg) December 20, 2024
Lions
Beautiful moment
🎥 lion. Passions, Instagram pic.twitter.com/pixp0Ie7eE
— All About Nature (@NAmazing44779) December 20, 2024
Murmuration
https://twitter.com/i/status/1870445083520344416
Great white
This is when Ocean Ramsey and her team encountered what is possibly the largest great white shark ever recorded, approximately 6 meters long (~ 20 feet).https://t.co/eqO1S96mcj
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) December 22, 2024
Elvis
Elvis Presley performs "Blue Christmas" ('68 Comeback Special) 🎸🎄 pic.twitter.com/JjTmjN0JS4
— 🎸 Rock History 🎸 (@historyrock_) December 20, 2024
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