May 032025
 
 May 3, 2025  Posted by at 9:35 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , ,  41 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Girl with a boat (Maya Picasso) 1938

 

US Demands Direct Russia-Ukraine Talks (RT)
Russia and Ukraine ‘Closer’ To Settlement – Rubio (RT)
Ukraine Conflict ‘Not Going to End Any Time Soon’ – Vance (Sp.)
Ukrainian MP Threatens Terror Attack On Red Square (RT)
Brussels Floats Trade Solution To Trump – FT (RT)
European Security Is Impossible Without Russia (Fetouri)
Trump Claims US Did ‘More Than Any Other Country’ to Win World War II (Sp.)
Ukraine Can’t Reclaim Lost Territory – Rubio (RT)
The Hardest Working Man In The Trump Administration (Sarah Anderson)
What’s Normal, Exactly? (James Howard Kunstler)
We’re Gonna Lose the PR War Over Tariffs Until We Start Doing THIS (Pinsker)
Germany’s AfD Party ‘Definitely Right-Wing Extremist’: Spy Agency (RMX)
Germany ‘Has Rebuilt The Berlin Wall’ – Vance (RT)
Germany Is Weaponizing WWII Memory Against Russia (Amar)
Germany Is ‘Tyranny In Disguise’ – Rubio (RT)
Odessa Massacre: Point of No Return Marked Ukraine’s Slide Into Nazism (Sp.)
Trump Reportedly Turns To L3Harris For “Interim” Air Force One Jet (ZH)
The Ghost in the Machine. AI and The Spectral Ontology of Value (Ruggeri)

 

 

 

 

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As the week progresses, attention will increasingly shift to the consequences of the tariffs dispute. It’s been a month since Liberation day, and that’s the time Chinese goods need to arrive in the US – or not. The MSM will milk it not just for everything it is, but for everything they can make it appear to be.

As for Ukraine, the US needs to lose Zelensky and his Azov neo nazi support.

US Demands Direct Russia-Ukraine Talks (RT)

The US will no longer serve as mediator in negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce has said. Speaking at a regular press briefing on Thursday, she stated it was time for the two parties to propose their own solutions and engage in direct talks. Trump had previously pledged to end the Ukraine conflict “within 24 hours” if elected, though he later described the claim as an “exaggeration.” Since taking office in January, he has pressed both sides for a ceasefire but has expressed frustration over the slow progress in the talks. Trump has warned that the US may withdraw from the peace process if it continues to falter. Earlier, Moscow signaled it’s ready to start direct negotiations with Kiev “without preconditions,” while Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian forces to observe a short ceasefire during Victory Day celebrations next week.

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has branded the Russian truce announcement a “manipulation.” “We will not be the mediators,” Bruce told reporters when asked about Washington’s future role. “We certainly are still committed to it and we’ll help and do what we can, but we are not going to fly around the world at the drop of a hat to mediate meetings.” “It’s time for both of the nations involved in this conflict to come up with concrete proposals about how this conflict ends. It’s going to be up to them,” Bruce added. Her remarks contrasted with comments by US Vice President J.D. Vance, who said earlier this week that Washington planned to dedicate another 100 days to mediating a peace deal.

Media reports have claimed the US peace proposal includes recognizing Russia’s sovereignty over Crimea and its de-facto control over parts of four former Ukrainian regions that chose to join Russia. It also reportedly calls for “freezing” the conflict along current front lines. Commenting on Moscow’s decision to halt military operations next week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the pause should serve as “the start of direct negotiations with Kiev without preconditions.” Kiev, however, demanded an immediate, unconditional 30-day ceasefire.

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“They’re closer, but they’re still far apart..”

Russia and Ukraine ‘Closer’ To Settlement – Rubio (RT)

Russia and Ukraine are closer to a peace agreement than at any point in the past three years, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said. He cautioned, however, that the sides still need to bridge numerous differences to end the conflict. In an interview with Fox News on Thursday, Rubio reflected on efforts by US President Donald Trump to settle the Ukraine conflict, a promise he had made while still on the campaign trail. “For a hundred days he has done efforts to bring about peace… Look, we’ve gotten closer. We – for the first time – we haven’t known this for three years – we kind of can see what it would take for Ukraine to stop. We can see what it would take for the Russians to stop,” Rubio said.

However, stark differences between Moscow and Kiev remain, the State Secretary noted. “They’re closer, but they’re still far apart. And it’s going to take a real breakthrough here very soon to make this possible… or I think the president is going to have to make a decision about how much more time we’re going to dedicate to this,” he added. His comments come as State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce affirmed that the US is committed to settling the conflict, but is “not going to fly around the world at the drop of a hat to mediate meetings.” Instead, she signaled that it is now up to Russia and Ukraine “to present and develop concrete ideas about how this conflict is going to end.” Last month, the Trump administration indicated that the US could withdraw from the peace process altogether if there is no clear indication of progress in the talks.

Earlier media reports suggested that the US had proposed a peace agreement that includes Washington’s recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea, as well as “freezing” the conflict along the current front line and acknowledging Moscow’s control over large parts of the four former Ukrainian regions which voted to join Russia. The deal would also reportedly prevent Ukraine from joining NATO and initiate a phased removal of the sanctions imposed on Russia. Russia has maintained that any peace settlement must include recognition of the new territorial reality on the ground, Ukraine’s demilitarization and denazification, as well as assurances that Kiev will not join NATO. Ukraine, however, has consistently refused to acknowledge its former territories as part of Russia.

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“..Ukraine ditched the 2015 Minsk Agreements and the 2022 Istanbul peace deal, and has repeatedly ignored Russia’s calls for talks — including President Vladimir Putin’s 2024 peace proposal..”

Ukraine Conflict ‘Not Going to End Any Time Soon’ – Vance (Sp.)

US Vice President JD Vance said Russia and Ukraine know each other’s terms for peace, and it is up to Moscow and Kiev to reach a deal. “For three years, these sides have fought, and each of them has said, no peace, we’re going to fight until the other guys are basically knocked out. What we’ve seen now in the last couple of weeks is each side has put down. This is our peace proposal. The Ukrainians did it. The Russians did it. And now I think the question is to see whether we can actually find some middle ground here for these guys to bring this conflict to a close,” Vance boasted about a ‘deal’ that doesn’t exist. He said it would be up to Russia and Ukraine to decide. “It’s not going anywhere. It’s not going to end any time soon,” Vance emphasized.

“When I say this deal, I mean getting these guys to actually propose a peace settlement,” Vance said — blissfully unaware that Ukraine ditched the 2015 Minsk Agreements and the 2022 Istanbul peace deal, and has repeatedly ignored Russia’s calls for talks — including President Vladimir Putin’s 2024 peace proposal. Russia has been conducting its special military operation since February 24, 2022. President Vladimir Putin has said the operation aims to “protect people subjected to genocide by the Kiev regime.” According to the president, the ultimate goal of the operation is to completely liberate Donbass and create conditions that guarantee Russia’s security: Ukraine must undergo demilitarization and denazification.

Moscow says arms supplies to Ukraine hinder the settlement and directly involve NATO countries in the conflict. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has stressed that any cargo containing weapons for Ukraine will be a legitimate target for Russia. The top diplomat has called the US and NATO out for not only supplying weapons to Kiev, but also training personnel in the UK, Germany, Italy and other countries. The Kremlin has stated that Western arms supplies to Ukraine hinder peace talks.

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“..the final decision rests with Ukraine’s military leadership, taking into account the presence of foreign dignitaries from neutral countries..”

Ukrainian MP Threatens Terror Attack On Red Square (RT)

Kiev could target Moscow’s Red Square during next week’s Victory Day celebrations, a Ukrainian lawmaker has suggested, despite Russia’s offer of a three-day ceasefire. May 9 marks the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a 72-hour ceasefire from May 8 to 10, citing “humanitarian considerations.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov later described the truce as a chance to begin “direct negotiations with Kiev without preconditions.” However, in an interview with Ukrainian media on Wednesday, Yury Pavlenko openly suggested that Ukraine could try to derail Victory Day, which is one of the most revered holidays in Russia, as well as many former Soviet republics.

”I think the time will come when we will strike Red Square – whether it happens this May 9 or sometime later, that time will come,” Pavlenko said, claiming that the Russian capital is full of “legitimate military targets… that have brought much grief to Ukrainian soil.” He noted that the final decision rests with Ukraine’s military leadership, taking into account the presence of foreign dignitaries from neutral countries. This year’s Victory Day parade is expected to be attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, among others.

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has branded the Russian truce proposal a “manipulation,” while calling for a longer ceasefire of 30 days. “They are now concerned that their parade is in jeopardy and rightly so,” Zelensky said. “What they should worry about is that this war continues.” In response, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova suggested that Kiev “is literally planning terrorist attacks on air,” which she said undermines the prospects for peace talks. Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, Kiev has conducted a number of drone attacks on Moscow. On May 3, 2023, Russia accused Ukraine of attempting to assassinate Putin by targeting the Kremlin with two drones, which were shot down before they could cause significant damage.

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US purchased $230 billion more from EU than vice versa. The European Trade Commissioner sees a $56 billion deficit problem.

Brussels Floats Trade Solution To Trump – FT (RT)

The EU wants to substantially increase purchases of goods from the US, according to European Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic, as cited by Financial Times. The move could help the bloc secure the elimination of import tariffs proposed by US President Donald Trump, the official has said. As part of his sweeping ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs on major trading partners, Trump sharply raised duties on US imports from the 27-nation bloc. The US president sees the tariff campaign, which targeted over 90 countries, as a solution to what he calls unfair trade imbalances. If what we are looking at as a problem in the deficit is €50 billion ($56 billion), I believe that we can really … solve this problem very quickly through LNG purchases, through some agricultural products like soybeans, or other areas, Sefcovic said on Thursday in an interview with the newspaper.

He emphasized that the bloc would not accept the 10% tariffs on its goods being kept in place as a fair resolution. He also warned that it would be “very difficult” to strike a deal that is “clearly good and acceptable for our member states and our European parliament.” Earlier this year, the Trump administration announced a sweeping 20% tariff on all EU goods and a 25% tariff on all car imports in an effort to eliminate the trade deficit with the bloc. Brussels was set to introduce 25% retaliatory tariffs on US imports before Trump announced a 90-day pause on most tariffs to allow for talks. However, the 10% baseline tariff and 25% tariff on certain goods remain in place.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has offered Washington a deal whereby tariffs on all industrial goods would be removed. However, Trump has rejected the zero-for-zero tariffs proposal, saying that it doesn’t solve the problem of the trade imbalance. Trade volumes between the US and the EU amounted to $975.9 billion in 2024, according to official data tracked by the Office of US Trade Representative. The US purchased $605.8 billion worth of EU goods, while the bloc’s imports from the US amounted to $370.2 billion.

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Because it is a European country.

European Security Is Impossible Without Russia (Fetouri)

The narrative around Russia’s role in European security has become increasingly distorted in recent decades. Once a central player in European geopolitics, Russia is now considered an outsider at best and an outright enemy at worst. Looking at Moscow through this narrowed prism has become the norm not the exception. It makes the focused observer wonder if European leaders really believe that much can be done without Russia, particularly security-wise. To say such a European view of Moscow is both unfair and short-sighted may be an understatement. It is only 80 years since the Soviet Union, of which Russia was the center, led the liberation of Europe from what was essentially the European evil of Nazism, which is coming back to haunt the old continent.

Do current European leaders really forget such recent history or do they, intentionally, want to rewrite it to suit their current agendas and future Europe, in another generation or two? There is an irony here: while some European leaders are intentionally casting Russia as a “non-European” entity, the historical and practical reality paints a starkly different picture – where Russia is not only a European country but an essential player in ensuring the continent’s stability and prosperity. What cannot be changed is this: Russia is and will always be as European as France or Germany. Any serious debate about security in Europe is meritless and factitious without acknowledging Russia’s pivotal role. Throughout history Europe needed some kind of balancing powers between its internal powers (such as France and Germany), and Russia has been key in maintaining the balance of power on the continent.

A case in point: had it not been for the Soviet Union defeating Nazi Germany, who knows what kind of Europe would have emerged from World War II? The Soviets sacrificed more than 27 million human lives – soldiers and civilians – to rid the world of Nazi Germany and help create a new Germany, even though Germany has never been fully denazified. The United States played a part in liberating Europe and some 190,000 of its soldiers were killed, but that does not make the US a natural ally of Europe more than Russia. After the war, Western Europe accepted US hegemony, but that does not change the fact that Russia is a European and neighborly country and should be part of any European context discussions.

After the Cold War ended, Russia became even more important to be considered European than even the United Kingdom. The UK, eventually, chose to be an extension of America geopolitically and ended up threatening the EU had it not left the superficially harmonic union. Even the claim that shared values unite Europe and America and Europe within NATO is more of a justification for excluding Moscow than a reality. What are the noble values the UK shared with America in invading Iraq or Afghanistan? Where are such shared values within the NATO alliance, led by the US, that compelled it to destroy Libya in 2011? In both cases Moscow was out of the calculation except as a potential adversary.

This negative image of Moscow across much of Europe has been on the rise, becoming what the Russians rightly describe as “Russophobia,” taking a life of its own after the escalation of the conflict in Ukraine. Today many European leaders have reinforced this binary view of Russia as a threat, despite its historical and cultural ties to Europe. It seems that, in modern European politics, the question of Russia’s European identity is too often answered with a resounding “no.” Portraying Russia as a non-European country is an unfair characterization loaded with adversarial connotations. Who can deny the simple geographical fact that the Russian Federation is part of Europe and that Moscow lies firmly within Europe? Yet European school textbooks hardly count Moscow as a European capital city. Commonly, Russia in this context is described as the “other,” implying exclusion.

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And WW! too.

Trump Claims US Did ‘More Than Any Other Country’ to Win World War II (Sp.)

US President Donald Trump declared May 8 Victory Day, saying that the United States did “more than any other country” to win World War II. The Soviet Union bore the brunt of defeating Nazi Germany and its European allies — destroying the vast majority of German forces on the Eastern Front. With over 27 million dead, it was the Red Army’s relentless push from Stalingrad to Berlin that shattered Hitler’s war machine. The USSR also played a crucial role in Japan’s defeat, crushing the Kwantung Army in August 1945 — a key factor in Tokyo’s surrender.

“Many of our allies and friends are celebrating May 8th as Victory Day, but we did more than any other Country … I am hereby renaming May 8th as Victory Day for World War II and November 11th as Victory Day for World War I. We won both Wars, nobody was close to us in terms of strength, bravery, or military brilliance, but we never celebrate anything — That’s because we don’t have leaders anymore, that know how to do so! We are going to start celebrating our victories again!” Trump said on Truth Social on Friday. As for America’s so-called “military brilliance”? The US became the only country in history to use nuclear weapons — killing hundreds of thousands of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. World War I wasn’t much different: the US talked big, joined late, and still claimed victory. So much for all that “bravery.”

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“Should Kiev abandon plans to join the US-led military bloc and withdraw its troops from the four new territories, Moscow is ready to institute an immediate ceasefire..”

Ukraine Can’t Reclaim Lost Territory – Rubio (RT)

Ukraine will not be able to reclaim its 2014 borders from Russia, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said. Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has publicly stated he will never recognize the lost territories, including Crimea, as Russian. The peninsula voted overwhelmingly to join Russia in 2014, shortly after the US-backed armed coup in Kiev. Kherson, Zaporozhye, Donetsk and Lugansk regions held their own referendums in 2022 to become part of Russia. Earlier this week, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Keith Kellogg told Fox News that Kiev has expressed a willingness to cede land de facto, if not de jure, as part of a peace deal. “Ukraine can’t push the Russians all the way back to where they were in 2014,” Rubio said in an interview with Fox News on Thursday.

After months of US-brokered peace efforts, Washington has a pretty clear idea of what both sides want, the top US diplomat noted. “We kind of can see what it would take for Ukraine to stop. We can see what it would take for the Russians to stop,” he said, adding that Moscow’s and Kiev’s settlement demands are still “far apart.” “It’s going to take a real breakthrough here very soon to make this possible, or I think the President is going to have to make a decision about how much more time we’re going to dedicate to this,” Rubio said. Both Trump and Rubio have previously warned that the US could walk away from being a peace broker in the Ukraine conflict, if there is no progress soon.

“Not that a war in Ukraine is not important, but I would say what’s happening with China is more important,” Rubio said, adding that Iran is another US concern. Moscow has repeatedly stated that its peace terms include Ukraine’s neutrality, demilitarization and denazification, as well as for Kiev to give up its ambitions to join NATO. Also, ceding the new Russian regions of Kherson, Zaporozhye and the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics is not up for discussion, Russian President Vladimir Putin said last year. Should Kiev abandon plans to join the US-led military bloc and withdraw its troops from the four new territories, Moscow is ready to institute an immediate ceasefire, he added.

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“In recent years, it often seemed like he was the only adult in the room when it came to recognizing just how big of a problem China is for us..”

The Hardest Working Man In The Trump Administration (Sarah Anderson)

I’ve heard various members of Donald Trump’s administration say that it’s hard to keep up with the president at the pace he’s been going since Jan. 20. But there may be one man in the cabinet who can do it. Marco Rubio. In case you missed the news on Thursday, Trump shook his administration up a bit by announcing that Mike Waltz would no longer be his national security advisor. A little while later, the president surprised pretty much everyone — including State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce, who was mid-briefing — when he posted on Truth Social that he’d be nominating Waltz to be the next United States Ambassador to the United Nations instead. In the same post, he announced that he would be appointing Rubio as acting national security advisor. If you’re keeping track at home, Rubio now serves four — four! — roles in the Trump administration.

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/1918032465219776901?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1918032465219776901%7Ctwgr%5E131b83389bf4f01796a60ebe103fda880dc04efd%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fsarah-anderson%2F2025%2F05%2F02%2Fthe-hardest-working-man-in-the-trump-administration-n4939427

Of course, Trump nominated Rubio for Secretary of State almost immediately after he was elected in November, and he was confirmed hours after Trump was sworn in on Jan. 20. On Feb. 3, which seems like years ago now, the president announced that Rubio would become Acting Administrator of USAID, and that the State Department would absorb the agency. Since then, we’ve learned what a mess USAID was, and Rubio announced that about 83% of its programs would be canceled. Shortly after that, on Feb. 7, Trump fired the Archivist of the United States, Colleen Joy Shogan, and on Feb. 16, he announced that Rubio would take her place. And now he can add national security advisor to his resume. Not bad for the guy Trump once called “Little Marco.” Rubio’s new workload has become a major talking point online and throughout the media ever since Trump made the announcement.

The Guardian points out that Rubio is the “first person since Henry Kissinger to hold the national security adviser and secretary of state positions at the same time. In the article “Marco Rubio, Secretary of Everything,” the New York Times also writes, “The former senator from Florida is now the head of four government bodies. He has outdone Henry Kissinger and even Xi Jinping, China’s leader, who has only three titles.” (Pretty sure the Jinping reference was meant to be some sort of dig after skimming the article, but I didn’t read the whole thing carefully, but it’s the New York Times, so the odds are…) Heck, even People magazine wrote an entire article based on the fact that Rubio has four jobs now. nRubio himself appeared on “Hannity” on Fox News tonight and spoke briefly about it, and he posted, “I’m honored to serve under the leadership of @POTUS” on X.

And here I am, sitting in my bed with my laptop after midnight on Thursday, writing about it for PJ Media, even though I told a couple of our editors earlier that I wasn’t going to. Why am I doing that? Well…If you come here regularly, you might notice that I write about Rubio and the State Department often. There are a few reasons for that. First, I’ve been a huge Rubio fan since he became a senator. He’s a bit older than me, but I always felt like he understood my generation more than any other politician in my lifetime, and he spoke to us about topics that mattered to us. (I could dig a little deeper into this and maybe one day I will, but not tonight.) I always felt like he understood things in ways that most other people who supposedly represent the country never did. Not only was he book smart, as they say, but he possessed a lot of common sense. It’s hard to find that, well, anywhere, much less in Washington, D.C.

I know many of you are Rubio fans now, too. Every single time I write one of those articles, I see dozens of comments about how impressed most of you are with him so far. Back during the 2016 primary, he became the only presidential candidate whose campaign I’ve ever supported financially. I’ve defended him both privately and professionally at times when many conservatives turned on him, and when I hopped back on the Trump train last summer, I hoped the president would choose him for, if not vice president (which I know was an issue because of Florida), Secretary of State. One reason for that is China. In recent years, it often seemed like he was the only adult in the room when it came to recognizing just how big of a problem China is for us. You could hear that loud and clear during his Senate confirmation hearing in January.

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“The job here is to enforce the federal civil rights laws, not woke ideology.” — Harmeet Dhillon, US Assistant AG for the Civil Rights Division

What’s Normal, Exactly? (James Howard Kunstler)

When a claque of deep state shills such as Norm Eisen, Chuck Schumer, Bill Kristol, David Brooks, and Larry Summers holler about Mr. Trump’s attempt to reform a depraved political culture as “an assault on norms,” are you not prompted to wonder what, exactly, those norms might be? Looks like they are describing a colossal matrix of racketeering operations in concert with an epic program of crypto-Marxist mind-fuckery, mountains of money purloined under color-of-law, swindles galore of practically every public enterprise, the capital city of a so-called republic fogged in gaslight to conceal a Satyricon of pedophilia, sodomy, and sado-masochism in every closet, cabinet, and pigeon-hole of the political class. So, along comes Mr. Trump for the second round, with a supernaturally able clean-up crew this time, and the monsters feeding off that depraved normality commence to shriek in mortal panic as the scaffold of their crimes gets methodically disassembled and secrets are revealed.

Many of you have been pouting over the lack of criminal prosecutions these first hundred days. Why is AG Ms. Bondi preening on Fox News when she should be banging-out subpoenas and arrest warrants, you ask? And what broom-closet is Dan Bongino hiding in over at the Hoover Building? How is Hillary Clinton still at-large in the land? Does Alejandro Mayorkas still make his Saturday excursions to the boutiques along M Street? Looks like the months of May and June are setting up to be the season of shocks and consequence. Item: James O’Keefe, founder of Project Veritas (he was cancelled from it) and now running O’Keefe Media Group, put out a mighty strange eighteen-second video this week. Looks like it was filmed in a basement somewhere. “I’m going dark, he says ruefully. “I’m not suicidal. Pray for me. This one scares me, guys.”

A week earlier, O’Keefe announced that he had bombshell recordings of public figures breaking the law, involving billions of dollars, which he expected would lead to indictments. What spooked him in the week since then? I guess we’ll have to stand by to find out, or see if JO’K was bluffing. Meanwhile Virginia Guiffre, a former Jeffrey Epstein teen sex slave, likewise said just over a week ago: “I am making it publicly known that in no way, shape, or form am I suicidal. If something happens to me, for the sake of my family do not let this go away and help me to protect them. Too many evil people want to see me quieted.” This was a month after she was injured in a traffic accident with a school bus in Western Australia. On April 24, she reportedly committed suicide at home, after release from the hospital. What do you suppose changed her mind?

An ominous silence surrounds the promised release of the Epstein case material, whatever it consists of: depositions, flight logs, photographs, video recordings of prominent people in compromising situations. Remember, not long after inauguration day, the FBI’s New York field office was found to be sitting on a huge trove of previously hidden Epstein case evidence. The DOJ swiftly “retired” the chief agent of the office, James Dennehy, who additionally had failed to cooperate with requests to disclose the names of agents involved in the Jan-6 investigations. Supposedly, since the discovery of the Epstein trove, a thousand agents were assigned to “process” it, redact the names of the innocent victims, so they say. Are they close to finishing?

Speaking of the J-6, 2021 matter, pressure is building for the Republican majority Congress to hold hearings on exactly what went on that fateful day. FBI Director Patel has yet to disclose how many government agents (not just FBI), and how many “confidential human sources” (i.e., provocateurs), were in the crowd around and inside the US Capitol. It’s getting to be past time to ask Mr. Patel for a straight answer on that in an official proceeding, and continue from there to related business, such as Nancy Pelosi’s failure to reinforce the Capitol Police with National Guard troops that day, and the strange doings around the DNC pipe bomb ploy few blocks away. Personally, I doubt that Mr. Patel is inclined to lie or dissemble about all that. But the natives are getting a little restless.

Mr. Kennedy at HHS is already pretty frisky in his role supervising the enormous cluster of agencies that have done so much to wreck the nation’s health in recent years. Goodbye fluoride in the drinking water. Hello to placebo testing for new drugs and vaccines. Welcome to a vigorous six-month campaign to determine a likely cause of the autism epidemic. RFK is even asking what exactly is in those aviation contrails that folks have been observing and complaining about for so many years. And then there was the bomb he dropped during this week’s cabinet meeting: that under Joe Biden, HHS acted as a major vector for the trafficking of children. Say, what??? Lotta people wondered, did Bobby really say that? And does he know exactly who in HHS is responsible. . . like, names attached? I guess we’ll find out.

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“As of today, Americans are thinking about tariffs though the lens of the mainstream media outlets..”

We’re Gonna Lose the PR War Over Tariffs Until We Start Doing THIS (Pinsker)

I’ll begin with the counterargument: If everything goes according to plan, the PR war over tariffs will be irrelevant, because the ultimate “spin” is a complete and total victory. And there’s a clear path to the finish line, which we outlined a month ago:

“Trump’s best PR path forward is to do exactly what he just did: On day one, impose painful tariffs on everyone. This way, you frontload the bad news. And then, after a few weeks of economic turmoil, the other countries will (hopefully) come begging to renegotiate — their hat in hand — because the possibility of losing the rich, rewarding, ultra-lucrative U.S. marketplace makes ‘em panic. After a few weeks of horrible, devastating economic news (which, alas, we’re seeing now), the headlines will then change in a hurry: Every other day, Trump would have a new, positive tariff treaty to announce! After the first few countries cave, it will incentivize all the other nations to get their [tushies] in gear and get a deal done fast — lest they wait too long and are frozen out of the U.S. marketplace. Done right, it creates a win-win domino effect: The new American gold rush!”
However, there was a caveat:
“But it’s still a high-risk strategy for Trump, because there’s no guarantee the other top countries will quickly fold. Sure, we expect places like France to live up to their white-flag-waving reputations (“Je suis un lâche!”), but national pride is tricky to predict. In the foreign countries that viscerally loathe Trump, the politicians can score points by “standing up the American bully.”

We’re now one month removed from Liberation Day, and MAGA Nation certainly frontloaded the bad news. There was a lot of it. And the latest polls reflect it. Here’s a hodgepodge of headlines over the last seven days:
• Fox News: Trump poll numbers on economy fall during trade fight, survey finds
• Gallup News: Most Americans Skeptical About Benefits of Tariffs
• CNN: CNN Poll: A growing majority says Trump has made the economy worse, with most skeptical of his tariff plans
• ABC News: Nearly two-thirds of Americans disapprove of Trump tariffs
• The Hill: Almost 6 in 10 say Trump policies making economy worse
• Yahoo News: Poll: After 1st 100 days, Trump’s approval rating continues to crater as 57% say he’s ‘gone too far’ on tariffs
• CBS News: Trump’s first 100 days seen as bringing big changes, but still too much focus on tariffs — CBS News poll
• NBC News: Poll: Americans vent disappointment with Trump ahead of 100 day, especially on tariffs
• Reuters: Risk of global economic recession surges on US tariff shockwaves: Reuters poll
• Newsweek: Americans Lose Faith in Economy Amid Trump Tariffs

Not good, and it’s a credit to Trump that the polls weren’t worse. This entire month has been a loud, angry drumbeat of media negativity — and Americans weren’t well-educated about tariff policy or global trade deals beforehand, because it’s not a sexy topic. In those (boring) days pre-Trump, Bill O’Reilly on Fox News and Rachel Maddow on MSNBC almost never mentioned ‘em. So, it’s not like illegal immigration, where we’ve heard the different arguments a zillion times and have already settled on a conclusion (which is why the media’s negativity about that lovable Maryland family man failed to move the needle). But with tariffs, we’re still hearing the arguments. Some Americans for the first time ever.

Without the “institutional knowledge” (including, sadly, those lovely on-air tutorials from the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies; he would be so helpful right now) to sort through the hysteria, the public is vulnerable to PR manipulation. As of today, Americans are thinking about tariffs though the lens of the mainstream media outlets. And those outlets are focusing on:
• The economy is cratering! Everything’s crashing!
• Trump is a power-hungry maniac and out of control!
• Inflation will explode! We’ll all be broke!
• Shelves will be bare!
• Tariffs are stupid and destructive, lowering America’s standing in the world!

That’s a problem.

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Reads a bit like: what if Kamala Harris had been elected president? (In Germany, she was). The divide between Germany and the US is gaping.

Germany’s AfD Party ‘Definitely Right-Wing Extremist’: Spy Agency (RMX)

The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has been declared “definitely right-wing extremist,” by the powerful domestic spy agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV). The party is reacting with outrage. The BfV claims that the party is pursuing efforts against the “free democratic order,” which the agency now says is “certain.” Previously, the party was only declared as a “suspected case,” with this new designation paving the way for not only a ban but also mass surveillance of the entire party, including all its members. With this new designation, the BfV can surveil members, including their emails, phone calls, and chats, without a warrant. In addition, the BfV can now legally infiltrate the entire party with informants and use other spy techniques. Already, other parts of the AfD at the state level were classified as “definitely right-wing extremist,” but the new designation now applies this label to the entire national party.

The party is reacting with outrage, with Alice Weidel, the co-leader of the party, writing: “The decision of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution is a severe blow to German democracy!” Regarding the statement by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, AfD federal spokespersons Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla said: Today’s decision by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution is a severe blow to German democracy: In current polls, the AfD is the strongest force. The federal government only has four days left in office, the intelligence agency doesn’t even have a president anymore. And the classification as a so-called suspected case is not yet legally binding. Nevertheless, the AfD, as an opposition party, is now being publicly discredited and criminalized shortly before the change of government. The associated, targeted interference in the democratic decision-making process is therefore clearly politically motivated. The AfD will continue to defend itself legally against these defamations that endanger democracy.”

The BfV, however, is attempting to justify its decision, which will be seen by many as an attack on the country’s largest opposition party. Due to the “extremist character of the entire party, which disregards human dignity,” the BfV noted in its statement. Vice presidents of the authority, Sinan Selen and Silke Willems, further indicated that statements and positions of the party “violate the principle of human dignity.” One of the key factors that the BfV is attempting to use to justify the designation is the AfD’s alleged position on “ethnic Germans.” “The ethnic-descendant understanding of the people prevailing in the party is not compatible with the free democratic basic order,” reads the statement from the BfV. “The AfD, for example, does not consider German citizens with a migration history from predominantly Muslim countries to be equal members of the German people, as ethnically defined by the party.”

The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has been declared “definitely right-wing extremist,” by the powerful domestic spy agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV). The party is reacting with outrage. The BfV claims that the party is pursuing efforts against the “free democratic order,” which the agency now says is “certain.” Previously, the party was only declared as a “suspected case,” with this new designation paving the way for not only a ban but also mass surveillance of the entire party, including all its members. With this new designation, the BfV can surveil members, including their emails, phone calls, and chats, without a warrant. In addition, the BfV can now legally infiltrate the entire party with informants and use other spy techniques.

https://twitter.com/RMXnews/status/1888999118326108392?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1888999118326108392%7Ctwgr%5E1c7ec0fa2146094423148b3c66b422bb2d906d25%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Frmx.news%2Farticle%2Fbreaking-germanys-afd-party-is-declared-definitely-right-wing-extremist-by-bfv-spy-agency-paving-the-way-for-a-ban%2F

Already, other parts of the AfD at the state level were classified as “definitely right-wing extremist,” but the new designation now applies this label to the entire national party. The party is reacting with outrage, with Alice Weidel, the co-leader of the party, writing: “The decision of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution is a severe blow to German democracy!” Regarding the statement by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, AfD federal spokespersons Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla said: Today’s decision by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution is a severe blow to German democracy: In current polls, the AfD is the strongest force. The federal government only has four days left in office, the intelligence agency doesn’t even have a president anymore. And the classification as a so-called suspected case is not yet legally binding.

Nevertheless, the AfD, as an opposition party, is now being publicly discredited and criminalized shortly before the change of government. The associated, targeted interference in the democratic decision-making process is therefore clearly politically motivated. The AfD will continue to defend itself legally against these defamations that endanger democracy.” The BfV, however, is attempting to justify its decision, which will be seen by many as an attack on the country’s largest opposition party. Due to the “extremist character of the entire party, which disregards human dignity,” the BfV noted in its statement. Vice presidents of the authority, Sinan Selen and Silke Willems, further indicated that statements and positions of the party “violate the principle of human dignity.”

One of the key factors that the BfV is attempting to use to justify the designation is the AfD’s alleged position on “ethnic Germans.”“The ethnic-descendant understanding of the people prevailing in the party is not compatible with the free democratic basic order,” reads the statement from the BfV. “The AfD, for example, does not consider German citizens with a migration history from predominantly Muslim countries to be equal members of the German people, as ethnically defined by the party.”

Read more …

“The AfD is the most popular party in Germany, and by far the most representative of East Germany. Now the bureaucrats try to destroy it,” Vance wrote on X.”

Germany ‘Has Rebuilt The Berlin Wall’ – Vance (RT)

US Vice President J.D. Vance has compared the German government’s treatment of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party to rebuilding the Berlin Wall. On Friday, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the BfV, classified the anti-immigration AfD as an “extremist” organization, citing “xenophobic, anti-minority, Islamophobic, and anti-Muslim statements made by leading party officials.” The label enables police to closely monitor the party’s activities. “The AfD is the most popular party in Germany, and by far the most representative of East Germany. Now the bureaucrats try to destroy it,” Vance wrote on X. “The West tore down the Berlin Wall together. And it has been rebuilt – not by the Soviets or the Russians, but by the German establishment,” he added.

The party’s co-leader, Alice Weidel, accused the government of attempting to quell dissent. “Since the AfD is the strongest party in polls now, they want to suppress the opposition & freedom of speech,” she wrote on X. AfD was founded in 2013 as a backlash to Germany’s handling of the eurozone debt crisis. It has since shifted focus to demanding tighter immigration and asylum laws and opposing the “woke agenda.” The party also criticizes NATO and has staged protests against sending weapons to Ukraine. AfD finished second in the federal elections in February, winning 152 seats in the 630-seat Bundestag. Last month, it topped opinion polls for the first time, with 26% support. The party is especially popular in the economically underdeveloped regions of former East Germany. AfD has also been embroiled in controversy, as some members have had links to far-right and neo-Nazi groups or used slogans associated with Nazi Germany.

Major German parties have refused to cooperate or form coalitions with AfD under the so-called “firewall” principle. Vance criticized efforts to isolate the party during his speech at the Munich Security Conference in February. “Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters. There is no room for firewalls. You either uphold the principle or you don’t,” the US vice president said. The Berlin Wall was a concrete barrier built by East Germany in 1961 to stop its citizens from fleeing to West Berlin. It became a powerful symbol of the Cold War and remained in place until it was torn down in 1989, leading to German reunification.

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Russia: 26 million deaths. US: just over 292,000.

Germany Is Weaponizing WWII Memory Against Russia (Amar)

Eighty years ago, Germany suffered its worst self-induced military – as well as moral, political, cultural, you name it – catastrophe ever. First, Nazi Germany led the global fascist challenge that we call World War II. Then, Germany was not merely defeated but crushed by the combined efforts of, in order of importance, the Soviet Union, the US, and UK, to name only those powers that really mattered decisively for the outcome of the war in Europe. This Allied victory in Europe is celebrated in May. In the West, the commemorations peak on the 8th and in Russia, one day later. In Asia, things were different. World War II started earlier – in July 1937, not September 1939, and ended later – in August, not May, 1945. Regarding the war in Europe, the West has always, with varying intensity, sought to diminish the preponderant role of the Soviet Union – and within the latter, of Russia.

Concerning the war in Asia, the West’s main target of this weaponized forgetfulness has been China, rightly labeled “the forgotten ally” by historian Rana Mitter. China, like the Soviet Union and now Russia, has always dared challenge Western hegemony and especially US ‘primacy’. And, as with Russia and the former Soviet Union, it is this geopolitical independence that has led the West to deny the Chinese people’s real and massive World War II contribution and sacrifices, which were enormous (the death toll alone, to quote only one figure, is estimated at 12-20 million). But for now, back to the European part of the war. There, in historical reality, it was the Soviet Union that did the most – by far – to destroy Nazi Germany. And that is a simple, even quantifiable historical fact. Merely a decade ago, it was occasionally admitted even in Western mainstream media, such as America’s Washington Post and Britain’s Independent.

A few figures suffice to sketch just how predominant the Soviet share in the victory over Nazism was: Over the course of the war, in all its theaters, 17 to 18 million Germans served in the Nazi forces (including the Wehrmacht and the smaller but especially important and vicious Waffen-SS). At least 4 million German soldiers were killed in the fight against the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1945 alone. Estimates indicate that at least as many were injured, probably more; around 3 million became POWs. The upshot of this is simple: A massive chunk, some historians estimate up to 80%, of the total German fighting manpower of World War II – not only those who invaded the Soviet Union – was eliminated on what the Germans called the Eastern Front. Without going into easily available details, the picture is similar when we focus not on men but materiel.

Ask, for instance, Google’s Gemini AI in Deep Research mode, and it will sum it up thus: “It is evident that the Eastern Front absorbed the vast majority of Germany’s total tank losses throughout the war.” It turns out that the failure of Germany’s touted Leopard tank in the Ukraine conflict has a long tradition reaching back to Nazi Germany’s Panthers and Tigers: Russia, neutering German cats since 1941. Put simply, as with Sweden’s Gustav XII and France’s Napoleon, it was Russia and the Soviet Union that broke Hitler’s back. And at enormous cost and sacrifice: Current, solid figures put Soviet losses (military and civilian combined) at 26-27 million. (Compare, for instance, with the US: Military casualties, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, just over 292,000; civilian losses were negligible, even if every individual death is, of course, tragic.)

And now it is Germany – of all places – that has marred the run-up to this year’s May anniversary with an embarrassingly ugly scandal. Its essence is a German government attempt to crudely instrumentalize the commemorations to make them serve the propaganda war that has been part of the West’s proxy war in Ukraine, while accusing Russia of doing just that. In Germany, more and more often, every accusation is a confession, as they say about Israeli propaganda.

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“..officially designate AfD a “confirmed extremist entity.” This legal status allows the BfV to deploy surveillance and intelligence measures to monitor the party’s activities without restriction.”

Germany Is ‘Tyranny In Disguise’ – Rubio (RT)

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has sharply criticized Berlin for designating Alternative for Germany (AfD), the country’s most popular party according to recent polling, as “extremist.” Such actions have nothing to do with democracy, he has warned. “Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition,” America’s top diplomat wrote on X on Friday. “That’s not democracy – it’s tyranny in disguise.” Earlier in the day, the German domestic security service (BfV) announced the decision to officially designate AfD a “confirmed extremist entity.” This legal status allows the BfV to deploy surveillance and intelligence measures to monitor the party’s activities without restriction.

Explaining the move, the agency cited “the extremist nature of the entire party, which disregards human dignity.” It pointed to the party’s “prevailing understanding of the people based on ethnicity and descent,” which it said was “incompatible with the democratic basic order.” The AfD has long been known for its harsh anti-immigration stance. “What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD… but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes,” Rubio argued, calling on Berlin to “reverse its course.” The right-wing party has been enjoying steady support from Washington ever since US President Donald Trump entered the White House for his second term.

US Vice President J.D. Vance strongly criticized politicians who shun parties such as the AfD at the Munich Security Conference in February. US-based billionaire and Trump adviser Elon Musk has repeatedly openly expressed support for the party. In January, ahead of the German parliamentary vote, he hosted a livestream on X with AfD co-leader and then chancellor candidate, Alice Weidel. The party came in second during the February election, behind the center-right Christian Democrats, which ruled out any coalitions with the AfD. Recent polls show the two parties being neck-and-neck, with one survey published by Forsa Institute putting AfD one percent point ahead of their center-right rivals.

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“Ukraine’s drive to join Europe involved denying its heroic past, glorifying criminals and Nazi collaborators, and promoting the “Banderization” of society.”

Odessa Massacre: Point of No Return Marked Ukraine’s Slide Into Nazism (Sp.)

On May 2, 2014, a pro-Maidan crowd outnumbering anti-Maidan protesters trapped dozens inside the Trade Union building and set it on fire with petrol bombs. At least 42 anti-Maidan activists died—either burned, asphyxiated, or killed by gunfire. The mass murder of innocent people in Odessa’s Trade Union house marked a “point of no return” for Ukraine, Ukrainian politics expert Alexander Dudchak told Sputnik. Those behind the West-backed coup that year were driven by Nazi-fueled “hatred for humanity.” Their goal was to build an “anti-Russia,” with Russophobia stoked from abroad. After the tragedy, “it became clear to those who disagreed with the [pro-Western Ukrainian] government that there was no way to defend their rights except through force.” Thus, the Odessa massacre can be seen as the turning point for all subsequent events.

“It became obvious what these forces represented – human-hating, pure Nazism, which came to power in Ukraine,” said Dudchak. Long before the Soviet Union’s collapse, NGOs and foreign funds, like the notorious Soros foundation, began distorting history to ideologically target the younger generation. Ukraine’s drive to join Europe involved denying its heroic past, glorifying criminals and Nazi collaborators, and promoting the “Banderization” of society. Despite the public’s strong preference for ties with former Soviet countries, a West-inspired coup took place, reshaping public consciousness. History was rewritten, dissent silenced through brutal methods, and media control imposed.

On May 2, 2014, Ukrainian nationalists locked anti-Maidan protesters, who opposed Euromaidan and Ukraine’s rapprochement with the European Union, in the Odessa Trade Union House and set the building on fire. Almost 50 people died, and some 250 protesters were injured in clashes with the radicals, according to the United Nations. The massacre was executed by the West’s protégés and under their control. “I don’t rule out that the West may have even written the script for this event. They needed to show the population what happens to those who try to oppose them. And that is what they did – with an animalistic cruelty,” concluded Dudchak.

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Boeing’s problems are all over the company. Engineers used to run the company; now it’s accountants.

Trump Reportedly Turns To L3Harris For “Interim” Air Force One Jet (ZH)

Frustrated by repeated delays in Boeing’s new Air Force One production timeline, President Trump has reportedly commissioned defense contractor L3Harris Technologies to retrofit a Boeing 747 previously used by the Qatari government as an interim presidential aircraft. The Wall Street Journal reported that L3Harris has been tasked with retrofitting the Qatari 747 with communications systems and other equipment to transform the luxury aircraft into Air Force One. According to the people familiar with the matter, President Trump requested that L3Harris complete the needed retrofitting of the jumbo jet by as early as fall. In February, FOX Business’ Edward Lawrence confirmed that Boeing had suffered global supply chain snarls that changed project timings and delayed the completion date to 2029.

White House communications director Steven Cheung told FOX Business at the time: “It is ridiculous that the delivery of a new Air Force One airplane has been delayed for such a long time,” adding, “The president working on identifying ways to speed up the delivery of a new plane, which has been needed for a while.” Months later, WSJ’s L3Harris report may suggest that there were very limited options to speed up the Boeing delivery. Here’s more from the report:

“Before Trump’s inauguration, White House Military Office and senior Air Force officials considered canceling Boeing’s contract for the new planes, according to people familiar with the matter. White House officials under Trump have also discussed whether they can sue the plane manufacturer, some of the people said. Trump initially tapped the bloated defense contractor to build the next-generation presidential aircraft during his first term, aiming to replace the aging fleet. Boeing’s failure to deliver on time has become emblematic of the broader military-industrial complex: bloated, sluggish, and unaccountable. The military-industrial complex’s failures must urgently be corrected. For now, L3Harris is stepping in, aiming to deliver a retrofitted Qatari 747 as an interim Air Force One jet by this fall. America’s defense space needs more domestic competition if it wants to compete in the 2030s.

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“The manufactured presentation of the self (fabricated authenticity) is the ultimate neoliberal imperative: people are actively encouraged to become producers of themselves. The name of the game is “fake it till you make it.”

“..this state of affairs is undermining real engagement and driving an increasing number of frustrated and disillusioned users away from these platforms, leaving bots to interact with other bots, as advertisers already lament.”

The Ghost in the Machine. AI and The Spectral Ontology of Value (Ruggeri)

By now it should be abundantly clear how social influencers operate. Self-promotion, exaggerated claims, and a well-crafted image can snowball into credibility before anyone checks credentials. They build parasocial relationships with their followers who feel like they know the influencer, even if they have never met. Influencers attempt to create an aura of individuality and authenticity through personal storytelling, share raw footage or sensational material, invite followers to “peek” into their lives encouraging voyeuristic engagement. However, this aura is even more fragile than the artificial aura mentioned by Walter Benjamin when in the 1930s he described the Hollywood-driven phenomenon of elevating actors to celebrity status, creating cult-like personas that compensated for the loss of aura in in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Not only is the influencers’ derivative content easily replicable, they too are vulnerable to replacement by AI-generated personas.

Benjamin recognized in the spell of the star’s personality “the phony spell of a commodity.” But most importantly, he warned that a medium that has a dual capacity to abolish distance between the audience and the depicted world while simultaneously detaching the audience from the physical world and its material conditions, is ideally suited to the aims of fascism. Benjamin was primarily referring to film and photography, but in an era of algorithmic reproduction controlled by a handful of tech companies his observations have become more relevant than ever.

Influencers leverage the bandwagon effect, that mix of conformity and fear of missing out. Once a persona gains momentum, with the help of thousands of bots whose cost is now less than a cent for basic accounts, humans jump on. Social media’s smoke and mirrors work because we are wired for stories, not audits. But with billions of automated bots flooding social media platforms, there is a roughly 50% chance that any account you engage with, whether by liking a post, commenting, or following, is a bot. Bots have become so sophisticated that it has become increasingly harder to detect them. As to the remaining accounts that are still operated by humans, about half of them publish content that is generated by artificial intelligence.

Even those with limited expertise on a given topic can produce persuasive posts and articles, while readers would need an AI tool such as GPTZero to identify their artificial origin. A simple prompt ensures that the AI-generated content they publish is aligned, and resonates, with their followers’ ideological leanings, interests and preferences. An article that appeared in a conservative news outlet can be automatically rewritten to please a liberal audience and vice versa. A paper published by an academic can be summarized and interspersed with jokes and colloquialism to appeal to a non-academic audience, three articles can be seamlessly meshed into one creating a cohesive piece that synthesizes their content, etc. You get the drift.

Shaped by a mix of human activity and AI-generated content, the Internet and social media now resemble a phantasmagoria, a make-believe optical show that projects ghostly images, fetishizes human desires and experiences, and intensifies narcissistic self-reference to create an illusion of authenticity. The manufactured presentation of the self (fabricated authenticity) is the ultimate neoliberal imperative: people are actively encouraged to become producers of themselves. The name of the game is “fake it till you make it.” Lack of qualifications or professional expertise is no barrier for aspiring influencers. Ambition, a background in marketing, a good knowledge of psychological manipulation techniques, the ability to leverage algorithms, and an initial investment in an army of bots to boost content are better guarantors of success.

Those who make the cut can rake in juicy contracts to promote products, services or a political agenda. The more engagement their hustle generates, the more data capital social media platforms accumulate. Unsurprisingly, this state of affairs is undermining real engagement and driving an increasing number of frustrated and disillusioned users away from these platforms, leaving bots to interact with other bots, as advertisers already lament.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Hydroxide

mRNA

Tom plays dead

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Apr 232025
 


Edward Hopper Sailing 1911

 

Trump Makes ‘Final Offer’ To End Ukraine Conflict – Axios (RT)
Trump Signals Step Back On China Tariffs (DC)
‘Only Trust Primary Sources’ On US-Russia Talks – Kremlin (RT)
Ukraine Not Ready to Discuss US Peace Plan Proposal – Reports (RT)
Ukraine Will Not Recognize Russia’s Crimea – Zelensky (RT)
Rubio and Witkoff To Skip London Ukraine Talks (RT)
EU and UK Preparing Naval Blockade of Russia – Patrushev (RT)
Zelensky Could Easily Rig Wartime Election – Ex-Campaign Chief (RT)
US To Propose Crimea Recognition As Part of Ukraine Peace Deal – WaPo (RT)
Putin Offers To Halt Fighting Along Current Front Lines In Ukraine: FT (ZH)
Tesla Shares Pop 5% After Musk Says He’ll Limit Time With DOGE In May (ZH)
Rubio Announces MAJOR State Department Overhaul (PJM)
Trump’s Courage to Fight the Good Fight (DS)
How Trump ‘Restored Law and Order’ to US Borders (Allen)
Woke Blackout in Tinseltown (Ryumshin)
The Big Short and The Bigger Long (Egon von Greyerz)

 

 


Nikas Safronov (gifted to Trump by Putin)

 

 


https://twitter.com/iam_smx/status/1914636471778111601

JFK

Nap/Sachs

Rice

Zeldin

BlackRock
https://twitter.com/JimFergusonUK/status/1914581682675449912

 

 

 

 

“..the US is said to be prepared to grant “de jure” recognition of Crimea as part of Russia, and unofficially acknowledge Moscow’s “de facto” control over the[four regions]..”

Zelensky simply says no, not acceptable. For Kiev, It’s just a game.

Trump Makes ‘Final Offer’ To End Ukraine Conflict – Axios (RT)

Washington has presented Kiev with what US President Donald Trump is calling a “final offer” to end the conflict in Ukraine, according to a report by Axios. The Kremlin, however, has urged the public to rely on official sources for developments in US–Russian talks. The one-page document was reportedly drafted following Trump envoy Steve Witkoff’s four-hour meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month, and was presented to Ukrainian officials in Paris last week, Axios reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed sources with direct knowledge of the discussions. Under the proposed deal, the US is said to be prepared to grant “de jure” recognition of Crimea as part of Russia, and unofficially acknowledge Moscow’s “de facto” control over the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics, as well as the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions.

The plan also includes provisions for lifting post-2014 sanctions on Moscow and enhancing bilateral economic cooperation. In addition, Washington would formally oppose Ukraine’s bid to join NATO. In return, Ukraine would reportedly receive a “robust security guarantee” from a coalition of EU and other like-minded countries, though the proposal lacks details on how this “peacekeeping” operation would function. Russia has consistently rejected the deployment of NATO forces to Ukraine under any pretext. The framework also promises Kiev unimpeded access to the Dnepr River and potential compensation for reconstruction efforts, although it does not specify where the funding would originate. The plan references a minerals deal between the US and Ukraine, which Trump expects to be signed on Thursday.

Another component of the proposal, according to Axios, involves designating the area around the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant (NPP) as neutral territory under US administration. Washington reportedly expects Kiev to respond to the proposal during a multinational meeting in London on Wednesday. Both Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio will skip the event, with General Keith Kellogg, another Trump envoy focused on Ukraine, leading the US delegation instead. Witkoff is expected to travel to Moscow for a follow-up meeting with Putin. Rubio warned last week that the US could abandon the peace initiative and “move on” to other issues if negotiations fail. Trump said on Monday there is “a good chance of solving the problem” this week.

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has repeatedly ruled out ceding any territory to Russia and continues to urge the US and other allies to provide sustained military support. Moscow has consistently stated that the status of Crimea – which joined Russia in 2014 following a referendum held after a Western-backed coup in Kiev – and the four other former Ukrainian regions that voted to join Russia in 2022 is not open to negotiation. Russian officials insist that any peace agreement must address the “root causes” of the conflict. Putin has added that a viable ceasefire would require Western nations to halt arms deliveries to Ukraine.

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“..I think they’re going to be happy, and I think we’re going to live together very happily and ideally work together.”

Trump Signals Step Back On China Tariffs (DC)

President Donald Trump signaled Tuesday evening from the Oval Office that the U.S. will ease tariffs on China, saying they’ll “come down substantially” but won’t be eliminated entirely. On April 2, Trump announced reciprocal tariffs on several countries, with higher rates for nations like China due to their own trade barriers against the U.S. When asked Tuesday about the tariffs against the foreign country, Trump said that the 145% hit would not last forever. “I’m sure 145% is very high, and it won’t be that high, not going to be that high,” Trump said. “It got up to there. We were talking about fentanyl where, you know, various elements built it up to 145. No, it won’t be anywhere near that high.” Following Trump’s initial tariff announcement, the U.S. and China entered a tariff war, with China responding by imposing steep tariffs of its own.

By April 9, Trump said the U.S. would raise tariffs on China from 104% to 125% — after the country refused to lift its retaliatory measures — while implementing a 90-day pause on tariffs for other countries. “It’ll come down substantially, but it won’t be zero. It used to be zero,” Trump said. “We were just destroyed. China was taking us for a ride and just not going to — it’s not going to happen. We’re going to be very good to China. I have a great relationship with President Xi, but they would make billions and billions and billions of dollars a year, and they were building a military out of the United States on what they made.” By April 10, the White House said that Trump’s announced 125% tariff would actually total 145% on all Chinese imports, according to The New York Times.

The administration said the 125% would be added on top of a previously announced 20% tariff already in place on goods from China, the outlet reported. “So that won’t happen. But they’re going to do very well, and I think they’re going to be happy, and I think we’re going to live together very happily and ideally work together. So I think it’s going to work out very well, but, no, it’s at 145%. It will not be anywhere near that number,” Trump said. During a speech Tuesday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he expects a “de-escalation” in the tariff war between the U.S. and China, adding that the ongoing conflict would be unsustainable in the long run, according to the Associated Press.

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Maybe the no.1 item for the day. If the Kremlin feels they must warn about what everybody already knows, it’s serious. The other day I mentioned NPR, NYT, Politico as suspicious sources on the topic. Today the FT very much joins those ranks.

“A lot of fakes are being published now, including by respected publications..”

‘Only Trust Primary Sources’ On US-Russia Talks – Kremlin (RT)

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has urged people to go to the primary sources regarding developments in talks with the US on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, warning of fake news. In an interview with RIA Novosti on Tuesday, Peskov was asked to comment on a recent report from the Financial Times claiming that Moscow is ready to freeze the conflict along the current front lines. “A lot of fakes are being published now, including by respected publications, so you should only listen to the primary sources,” he said. According to the FT article from Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to freeze the conflict during his meeting with US special envoy Steve Witkoff earlier this month in St. Petersburg.

Russian presidential foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov confirmed on Tuesday that Moscow is expecting another visit from Witkoff later this week. This will be the diplomat’s fourth visit to Russia since the start of the US diplomatic push regarding the Ukraine conflict. US President Donald Trump has touted a big reveal of his plan to wrap up the hostilities in Ukraine. “I will be giving you a full detail over the next three days,” he told journalists on Monday, adding that the US has “had very good meetings on Ukraine, Russia.” The Kremlin stated that while work is underway, the peace process is unlikely to conclude soon.

“This topic is so complex that it probably shouldn’t be constrained by strict timeframes,” Peskov told the press on Tuesday. Trump and his administration have signaled growing dissatisfaction with the pace of the peace talks. “If it is not possible to end the war in Ukraine, we need to move on,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters last Friday. Throughout the conflict, Moscow has said it is open to talks with Kiev. Negotiations must be based on the realities on the ground and address the root causes, such as Ukraine’s aspirations to join NATO. The Kremlin previously stated that it would not accept a temporary halt in the hostilities, saying this would simply allow Ukraine’s Western backers to rearm its military.

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“Not ready yet.” Trump is being played.

Ukraine Not Ready to Discuss US Peace Plan Proposal – Reports (RT)

Ukraine appears to be reluctant to discuss the peace plan framework, prepared by the United States, during the upcoming talks in London, Axios reports, citing a US official. In the past 24 hours, there had been “indications from the Ukrainians” that they only planned to discuss a 30-day ceasefire on Wednesday, instead of US President Donald Trump’s complex peace plan proposal, Axios said on Tuesday night. The Washington Post reported earlier on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter, that the Trump administration was going to propose during the upcoming talks with Ukrainian and European representatives in London that Crimea gets recognized as part of Russia and that the front lines get freezed as part of a peace agreement.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing a person with knowledge of the negotiations, that British and French officials were “open to a scenario” where Ukraine would “accept the loss of control of some of the territories taken by Russia,” in exchange for economic support and security guarantees. The newspaper specified that France and the United Kingdom would prefer a Ukraine peace deal that acknowledged control of territories “only in a de facto way.” The New York Post reported, citing a senior US administration official, that Kiev was seemingly “willing to give up 20% of its land,” but only if it was considered a “de facto” recognition of the territory and not “de jure.”

Last week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff, the US special presidential envoy for the Middle East, held talks on the conflict resolution with representatives from Germany, the United Kingdom and Ukraine, as well as with French President Emmanuel Macron, in Paris. On April 18, Rubio said he hoped the next meeting between Ukrainian and European representatives would lead to progress in the Ukrainian settlement. On Tuesday, US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said that Rubio was not going to attend the upcoming talks in London. The US will be represented by special envoy Keith Kellogg. Axios suggested on Tuesday that the decision to send Kellogg was made because of Kiev’s reluctance to discuss Trump’s peace plan framework.

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Zelensky claims Russia wants to prolong the war…

Ukraine Will Not Recognize Russia’s Crimea – Zelensky (RT)

Kiev refuses to discuss recognizing Crimea as a Russian territory, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky told journalists on Tuesday, according to Ukrainian outlet Suspilne. “[Crimea] is our territory, the territory of the people of Ukraine. We have nothing to talk about on this topic – it is outside our Constitution,” Zelensky said. The Ukrainian leader claimed that discussing the issue of Crimean ownership will only lead to prolonging the war. “As soon as we start talking about Crimea, about our sovereign territories, we enter the format of prolonging the war,” he said, adding that this is “what Russia wants.”

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The US will now send Kellogg, who was recently demoted to make place for Witkoff.

“Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov reportedly told the US envoys that Kiev is “90%” aligned with Washington’s proposed peace framework..”

Rubio and Witkoff To Skip London Ukraine Talks (RT)

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will not attend the upcoming Ukraine talks in London, despite earlier plans to take part, the State Department has confirmed. President Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, has also withdrawn from the meeting, according to the Financial Times, and is expected to visit Moscow instead. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce cited scheduling conflicts as the reason for Rubio’s withdrawal from Wednesday’s talks, insisting this does not signal a change in the US commitment to the peace process. “Secretary Rubio is a busy man… And so when there’s certain plans, they’re conditional. And in this particular instance, while the meetings in London are still occurring, he will not be attending. But that is not a statement regarding the meetings; it’s a statement about logistical issues in his schedule,” Bruce told journalists on Tuesday.

General Keith Kellogg, another Trump envoy tasked with negotiating with Kiev directly, will represent Washington at the London discussions. The talks will include officials from the UK, France, and Germany – countries that advocate continued military support for Ukraine – as well as representatives from Kiev. The London talks follow a series of high-level meetings in Paris last week, where Rubio and Witkoff held discussions with European and Ukrainian officials. According to the New York Post, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov reportedly told the US envoys that Kiev is “90%” aligned with Washington’s proposed peace framework, which has not yet been made public. Sources cited by the Washington Post on Tuesday claimed that the US proposals include formally recognizing Crimea as Russian territory and potentially lifting sanctions on Moscow as part of a future agreement.

Meanwhile, the Financial Times claimed that Russia is prepared to halt the hostilities along the current front line. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov urged the media and public to rely on official sources regarding developments in US–Russian talks on the Ukraine conflict, warning that “a lot of fakes are being published now, including by respected publications.” Both Washington and Moscow have officially confirmed that Witkoff will travel to Russia for talks “later this week.” Moscow has stated that the status of Crimea – which joined Russia in 2014 following a referendum held after a Western-backed coup in Kiev – and the four other former Ukrainian regions that voted to join Russia in 2022, is not subject to negotiation. Russian officials maintain that recognizing the “reality on the ground” is essential to achieving a lasting peace.

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Russia would have to react. EU and UK hope that starts a war with NATO.

EU and UK Preparing Naval Blockade of Russia – Patrushev (RT)

The EU and the UK are gearing up to impose a naval blockade on Russia, Nikolay Patrushev, a senior aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, has said. He warned that Moscow has a fleet powerful enough to respond to any such move. In an interview published on Monday by Kommersant, Patrushev, who chairs Russia’s Maritime Board, a body which oversees national policy in this domain, stated that Moscow is facing escalating threats and challenges at sea amid growing geopolitical tensions. “The collective West no longer hides its intentions to expel our shipping from the seas, while sanctions plans mulled, for example, by the British and some EU members increasingly resemble a maritime blockade,” he said. Patrushev warned that these steps would “meet an adequate and proportionate response” from Moscow.

“If diplomatic or legal instruments do not take effect, the security of Russian shipping will be ensured by our navy. The hotheads in London or Brussels need to clearly understand this,” he said. Patrushev emphasized that Russia is pursuing a large-scale naval modernization program, including the development and deployment of unmanned systems while refining navy tactics. However, Moscow does not intend to get involved in a “naval arms race,” he added. Western countries introduced maritime restrictions on Russia in 2022 over the Ukraine conflict, and have sanctioned dozens of Russian ships for allegedly circumventing an oil price cap. Russian ships have also faced major obstacles in accessing EU ports, insurers, and financial institutions.

The British Navy has been shadowing Russian ships passing near its waters for months, citing concerns about a perceived threat to national security and maritime infrastructure. Maritime tensions have also been heightened in recent months following several ruptures in underwater infrastructure in the Baltic Sea. While there has been speculation about alleged Russian involvement, Western officials have offered no evidence. The Kremlin has dismissed the speculation as “absurd.” NATO has increased its military presence in the Baltic Sea following the sabotage allegations, prompting Russia to warn that it would respond appropriately to any “violations” by the bloc’s vessels.

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You can’t have a fair election with him as a candidate, or an organizer.

Zelensky Could Easily Rig Wartime Election – Ex-Campaign Chief (RT)

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has the ability to manipulate the outcome of a presidential election under the current martial law, according to his former campaign chief, Dmitry Razumkov. Zelensky’s presidential term expired last year, but he asserts that no leadership change can occur while the conflict with Russia persists. In an interview with journalist Anna Maksimchuk on Monday, Razumkov, a seasoned political strategist who propelled Zelensky to power, expressed concern over his former client’s ability to maintain control. ”If someone devises a system for elections under martial law, Zelensky will end up with 102% of the vote,” he quipped. “They’ll station conscription officers at every polling station and draft on the spot anyone who dares not support the current government.”

Razumkov further criticized the notion of conducting a remote election via Ukraine’s e-government service, asserting that “whoever controls Dia will then secure that same 102%.” He quipped that Russia could engineer Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s election in Ukraine through such a faulty system. “Dia,” which translates to “the state and I,” is an app closely associated with Digitalization Minister Mikhail Fedorov. Razumkov managed the successful 2019 campaign that turned Zelensky from a comedian into a head of state. Subsequently, he served as the speaker of parliament until 2021, when he was ousted by fellow lawmakers from the president’s party in what many observers said was a consolidation of power.

Zelensky has continuously extended martial law in Ukraine roughly every three months, with the latest prolongation last week pushing the expiration date to early August. His emergency rule has even been condemned by US President Donald Trump, who called Zelensky a “dictator without elections” in February. Moscow contends that, according to the Ukrainian constitution, Zelensky should transfer presidential authority to the current parliamentary speaker, Ruslan Stefanchuk. Zelensky’s refusal to do so casts doubt on the legal validity of any documents he signs, including potentially a peace treaty with Russia, President Vladimir Putin has observed.

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“.. it was “Witkoff’s idea” for the US to designate Crimea as Russian “without forcing Ukraine to recognize it.”

US To Propose Crimea Recognition As Part of Ukraine Peace Deal – WaPo (RT)

Washington will propose a peace deal recognizing Russian sovereignty over Crimea and freezing the front lines in the Ukraine conflict at a meeting with Ukrainian and European officials this week, the Washington Post has reported, citing sources. The US is expected to hold talks in London on Wednesday with Ukrainian and European officials as US President Donald Trump continues his push for a deal. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Keith Kellogg are reportedly set to meet foreign ministers and security advisers from France, Germany, the UK, and Ukraine. People familiar with the matter told the outlet on Tuesday that US proposals, presented to Ukraine in Paris last week, include Washington formally recognizing Crimea as Russian territory and eventually lifting sanctions against Moscow under a future accord.

One Western official described the pressure on Ukraine as “astounding.” European officials are expected to push for security guarantees for Ukraine and postwar reconstruction efforts, possibly funded in part by frozen Russian assets, the report said.Trump has threatened to walk away if progress is not made soon, and told reporters on Monday that he would be releasing details of the US proposals “over the next three days.” US special envoy Steve Witkoff, who has had multiple rounds of talks with senior Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, will visit Russia later this week, Moscow has confirmed. According to one of the Post’s sources, it was “Witkoff’s idea” for the US to designate Crimea as Russian “without forcing Ukraine to recognize it.”

Crimea held a referendum to join Russia in 2014 following a Western-backed armed coup in Kiev. The new Ukrainian government, along with its Western supporters, has refused to recognize the vote’s legitimacy.Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has ruled out relinquishing any territorial claims against Russia and has urged the US and other nations to continue providing military aid – a policy the Trump administration has said it will end. Moscow insists that the status of Crimea, the city of Sevastopol, and the four former Ukrainian regions which voted to join Russia in 2022, is not up for negotiation. Russian officials have emphasized that recognizing the “reality on the ground” is key to achieving lasting peace.

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This is the report the Kremlin warns about.

Putin Offers To Halt Fighting Along Current Front Lines In Ukraine: FT (ZH)

In a huge development, President Vladimir Putin has offered to halt his invasion of Ukraine across the current front line as part of ongoing efforts to work with US President Donald Trump toward reaching a permanent peace deal. This reportedly happened during ongoing dialogue with Trump’s top envoys. This is according to several sources which spoke to Financial Times, which wrote further in a Tuesday report, “The proposal is the first formal indication Putin has given since the war’s early months three years ago that Russia could step back from its maximalist demands to end the invasion.” “The Russian president told Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, during a meeting in St Petersburg earlier this month that Moscow could relinquish its claims to areas of four partly occupied Ukrainian regions that remain under Kyiv’s control, three of the people said,” FT continues.

The Kremlin side has not publicly acknowledged this, and so the breaking report should be taken with a grain of salt, given this contradicts Putin’s public stance that Russia will never relinquish the four territories which were declared part of the Russian Federation after the Moscow-backed referendums of Sept. 2022. However, if Russian forces did simply halt their advance based on an agreed-upon freeze in fighting, there would be portions of these territories still not under Russian military control. The FT report goes on, “The US has since floated ideas for a possible settlement that includes Washington recognizing Russian ownership of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, the people added, as well as at least acknowledging the Kremlin’s de facto control over the parts of the four regions it currently holds.”

All of this is being reported hours after Ukraine’s President Zelensky said he has rejected the possibility of ceding over Crimea, after the Trump administration reportedly offered the ‘gift’ to Putin of US recognition of Russian sovereignty over the strategic peninsula and home to the Russian navy’s Black Sea fleet. According to Ukrainian media: “Ukraine will not legally recognize Russia’s occupation of Crimea under any circumstances, President Volodymyr Zelensky said during a briefing in Kyiv on April 22. “There is nothing to talk about. This violates our Constitution. This is our territory, the territory of the people of Ukraine,” Zelensky told reporters. Zelensky added, “As soon as talks about Crimea and our sovereign territories begin, the talks enter the format that Russia wants — prolonging the war – because it will not be possible to agree on everything quickly.”

Kiev has also recently accused Moscow of using negotiations as a smokescreen while in actuality prolonging the war, also coming off the 30-hour Eastern truce, which saw both sides accuse the other of many violations. The Financial Times acknowledged this possibility, and the fact that Moscow is in the driver’s seat related to any potential settlement that would end the conflict, in the following: But European officials briefed on US efforts to end the war cautioned that Putin would probably use the apparent concession as bait to lure Trump into accepting Russia’s other demands and forcing them on Ukraine as a fait accompli. “There is a lot of pressure on Kyiv right now to give up on things so Trump can claim victory,” one of them said.

The reality remains that if Zelensky can’t so much as admit that Crimea will be permanently in Russia’s hands, with no hope of Kiev ever getting it back, the prospect of a peace settlement happening anytime soon seems very remote. But clearly Moscow is seeking to show itself willing to compromise by these overtures, but whether there’s much substance or genuineness behind the offer to halt all frontline fighting is another question. At the moment, at least 99.5% of Kursk territory is back in Russia’s control. Russia’s military also still continues to advance in remaining parts of Donetsk still held by Ukraine, but slowly and village by village.

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Tesla will be alright. So will Musk.

Tesla Shares Pop 5% After Musk Says He’ll Limit Time With DOGE In May (ZH)

In a candid call with analysts on Tuesday, Elon Musk announced that he will begin scaling back his involvement with the federal government starting in May, signaling a shift in priorities back toward Tesla. As a result, Tesla shares were up 5% late in the after hours session.“I think starting probably next month, May, my time allocation to DOGE will drop significantly,” Musk said. Musk has been a central figure in the effort to streamline the federal government under the Trump administration through an initiative he dubbed the “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE. That effort has involved an aggressive reduction of federal workforce levels, targeting DEI programs, and a broad reorganization of agency resources. Despite growing protests against Tesla and Musk’s role in Washington, he remains unapologetic. “The work with DOGE is critical,” he stated, while dismissing the backlash as “organized and paid for.”

Although the billionaire entrepreneur holds the title of “special government employee”—a designation that legally limits him to 130 days of federal work per year—his presence in the capital has been nothing short of influential. Musk indicated that the heavy lifting to establish DOGE is “mostly done,” allowing him to reallocate his schedule. “I will spend ‘a day or two’ per week on government matters if President Trump wants me to,” he said, but emphasized that more of his attention will now return to Tesla. Despite his pullback from the capital, Musk said he will “continue to advocate for lower tariffs, rather than higher tariffs,” noting that this is the extent of his ongoing engagement on trade policy. Tesla remains the only publicly traded firm among Musk’s sprawling portfolio, which includes SpaceX, Neuralink, XAI, and The Boring Company. As such, it has absorbed much of the public response—both praise and criticism—related to Musk’s deepening political ties.

Yet, the CEO expressed confidence in Tesla’s direction. “I remain extremely optimistic about Tesla’s future,” he said, pointing to the company’s ambitions in autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots. He reiterated his forecast that Tesla will become the most valuable company in the world, noting that robotaxis are expected to deliver a meaningful financial impact by mid-2026. He also revealed that Tesla aims to have thousands of its Optimus humanoid robots operational in factories by the end of the year, with plans to scale to one million units annually within five years—a pace he described as faster than any product in the company’s history. Closing the call with idealism, Musk said, “I like this phrase sustainable abundance for all,” and affirmed his commitment to continue leading Tesla through its next phase of innovation and expansion. Tesla reported earnings after the market closed that were worse than analyst expectations. The stock, with most of the bad news seemingly already priced in, held its ground in after hours trading. The results were:

• Revenues $19.34BN, big miss to estimates of $21.37BN
• EPS 27c, missing estimates of 43c
• Gross margin 16.3% (down from 17.4% y/y), and beating estimates of 16.1%
• Automotive gross margin ex reg credits 12.5%, beating estimates of 11.9%
• Operating income $399 million, -66% y/y, missing estimates of $1.13 billion
• Free cash flow $664 million (vs. negative $2.53 billion y/y) missing estimate $1.08 billion
• Capital expenditure $1.49 billion (down -46% vs $2.77Bn y/y and down 47% vs $2.78BN Q/Q), missing estimates of $2.49 billion
Of note, Tesla eked out positive free cash flow number by slashing capex almost in half compared with the prior quarter and a year ago. Absent that, it would have burned cash.

Tesla offered a measured outlook during its earnings report, signaling that it will revisit its 2025 guidance in the Q2 update, while notably omitting any concrete forecast for a return to growth. The company emphasized that its rate of growth will hinge on a range of variables, including global trade policy, which it admitted is difficult to quantify in terms of impact. Tariffs, in particular, are expected to weigh more heavily on the company’s energy unit than its automotive business, with Tesla cautioning that the broader tariff landscape could have a larger effect on demand and operational strategy. Nevertheless, the company maintained that actions are being taken to stabilize performance over the medium to long term, and it expressed confidence in having sufficient liquidity to fund its product roadmap. Tesla confirmed that plans for new, more affordable vehicle models remain on track for production in the first half of 2025, though it acknowledged that these models may lead to less dramatic cost reductions than previously expected. Even with trade headwinds, the company reiterated a growing need for energy storage solutions across markets.

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“In its current form, the Department is bloated, bureaucratic, and unable to perform its essential diplomatic mission..”

Rubio Announces MAJOR State Department Overhaul (PJM)

Secretary of State Marco Rubio made a huge announcement on Tuesday regarding the State Department and the Donald Trump administration’s “America First” agenda. It’s being called the biggest shakeup at State in decades. “Today is the day,” Rubio began in a post on X, adding, “Under @POTUS’ leadership and at my direction, we are reversing decades of bloat and bureaucracy at the State Department. These sweeping changes will empower our talented diplomats to put America and Americans first.” The post included an official statement from the State Department, which reads (emphasis mine): We are facing tremendous challenges across the globe. To deliver on President Trump’s America First foreign policy, we must make the State Department Great Again. In its current form, the Department is bloated, bureaucratic, and unable to perform its essential diplomatic mission in this new era of great power competition.

Over the past 15 years, the Department’s footprint has had unprecedented growth and costs have soared. But far from seeing a return on investment, taxpayers have seen less effective and efficient diplomacy. The sprawling bureaucracy created a system more beholden to radical political ideology than advancing America’s core national interests. That is why today I am announcing a comprehensive reorganization plan that will bring the Department into the 21st Century. This approach will empower the Department from the ground up, from the bureaus to the embassies. Region-specific functions will be consolidated to increase functionality, redundant offices will be removed, and non-statutory programs that are misaligned with America’s core national interests will cease to exist. Under President Trump’s leadership, we have a commander in chief committed to putting America and Americans first. As his Secretary of State, I am confident a reformed State Department will meet the moment and help make our country great once again.

So what exactly does a “comprehensive reorganization” of the State Department look like? According to The Free Press, which Rubio says has the “real exclusive,” — by the way, how do we get one of those exclusives here at PJ Media? — internal documents show that the Department “will close 132 agency offices, including those launched to further human rights, advance democracy overseas, counter extremism, and prevent war crimes.” That’s a 17% reduction to start. Additionally, “under secretaries at the State Department are also being instructed within 30 days to present plans to reduce their U.S. personnel in individual departments by 15 percent,” including “six top offices employing thousands of people.”

Rubio also wrote about the shakeup in what appears to be a new Substack for the State Department, stating that “The Department has long struggled to perform basic diplomatic functions, even as both its size and cost to the American taxpayer has [sic] ballooned over the past fifteen years. The problem is not a lack of money, or even dedicated talent, but rather a system where everything takes too much time, costs too much money, involves too many individuals, and all too often ends up failing the American people.” He also expanded on a topic I covered last week, the shuttering of the Global Engagement Center — an office that censored U.S. citizens — citing it as just one of many reasons why this overhaul is necessary.

“An example of an out-of-control Department is the Global Engagement Center (GEC) that I shuttered last week. The office engaged with media outlets and platforms to censor speech it disagreed with, including that of the President o the United States, who its director in 2019 accused of employing ‘the same techniques of disinformation as the Russians.’ Despite Congress voting to shutter it, the GEC simply renamed itself and continued operating as if nothing had changed. Unless we confront the underlying bureaucratic culture that prevents the State Department from carrying out an effective foreign policy, while allowing offices like GEC to flourish in the shadows, nothing will change. That is why I am initiating a broad reorganization of the Department to address the steady growth of bureaucracy, duplication of functions, and capture by special interests that have crippled American Foreign Policy.

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“Courage means feeling fear but behaving in a way that is noble and good..”

Trump’s Courage to Fight the Good Fight (DS)

When the White House invoked the “Immortal Chaplains” to illustrate the history between the United States and Greenland, it touched on a theme emerging in the second Trump administration: the importance of courage. On Feb. 3, 1943, the American steamship SS Dorchester embarked with 902 souls—soldiers, merchant seamen, and civilians—bound for a U.S. Army base in southern Greenland to support the buildup of military personnel during World War II. The ship’s captain ordered those on board to sleep in their uniforms and life jackets in case of an attack by German submarines, but many disregarded the order because of heat from the ship’s engine. Just after midnight, a U-boat’s torpedo slammed into the Dorchester’s starboard side below the water line. Four Navy chaplains—a rabbi, a Methodist minister, a Catholic priest, and a Protestant reverend—gave up their own life vests and guided panicked crew members to the lifeboats.

The Dorchester sank in 20 minutes. One of the 230 survivors later recalled what he saw as he swam away from the ship: “The bow came up high and she slid under. The last thing I saw, the four chaplains were up there praying for the safety of the men. They had done everything they could.” Courage means feeling fear but behaving in a way that is noble and good, as the chaplains did when they acted on their deepest convictions aboard the Dorchester. Donald Trump once wrote that courage is not the absence of fear but “the ability to act effectively, in spite of fear.” In 2016, Trump showed moral courage when he spoke the truth to American voters: A parasitic “establishment” of political and corporate interests had been exploiting our workers, farmers, and soldiers. When Trump challenged 16 opponents in the Republican primary, he exposed untruths in a conservative orthodoxy passed down from Ronald Reagan through George W. Bush.

Establishment foes hounded him with investigations and impeachment proceedings throughout the four years of his presidency, but Trump refused to compromise his principles or check his ambition to “make America great again.” Emboldened by Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021, the establishment connived to use the 14th Amendment to prevent Trump from running for president a third time. They leveled charges against him in two federal district courts, tried him in a New York state court, and indicted him in Georgia for alleged RICO Act violations. Though Trump was unbowed, his campaign manager, Susie Wiles, was concerned: “I just worry that if they can’t get him this way, they’ll try to kill him.” And that almost happened on July 13 at the fairgrounds in Butler, Pennsylvania, when an assassin’s bullet grazed Trump’s ear.

Where Trump modeled courage, the establishment shows only cowardice—their decade-long effort to destroy Trump has been prosecuted from the shadows, hiding behind the anonymity that bureaucratic power affords. They falsely claimed that Trump “colluded” with Vladimir Putin and Russia. They used a cloak-and-dagger plan to scuttle the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh in 2018. And, in 2022, someone leaked a copy of the Dobbs decision overruling Roe v. Wade. In spite of Chief Justice John Roberts’ promise, the leaker remains unidentified and unaccountable. Some say that Trump’s opponents exemplify courage in their bold attacks on his character and reputation. But talk doesn’t make them courageous, least of all because it costs them nothing. Their admonitions are purely performative means to curry favor with the media and the establishment at large, which are viciously opposed to Trump’s reforms.

There is nothing courageous about yelling “F–k Trump” into a microphone. Whatever force it has in the political sphere depends on showing that the saying is accompanied by a doing. Trump’s been talking tough for years and backs it up by action of some kind. In the moment that he rose to his feet in Butler, with his face bloodied and yelling, “Fight! Fight! Fight!,” he gave the final proof that he’s more than a tough talker. Biden’s presidency is a rich example of cowardice: Insiders worked for years to conceal that the sitting president was incapable of executing the duties of the office. In the book “Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House,” longtime political reporters Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes pull back the curtain on Biden’s presidency, detailing how his staff stage-managed a declining president and hid his impairment from the American people. Biden “lived in bubble wrap inside bunkers,” the authors write.

Though “the signs of decline were clear to anyone who was willing to see them,” Biden’s inner circle believed that “no one walks away from the house, the plane, the helicopter,” so, onward they went. When the scam was exposed at the presidential debate last June, the power players in Washington again retreated to the secrecy of the back room and hatched a scheme to cede the delegates that Biden had secured to nominate a candidate of their choice rather than the people’s choice. For decades, presidents talked about moving the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, but no one did until Trump. For years, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, and Bernie Sanders called for tariffs to restructure world trade. But when Trump did what he said he would do and imposed tariffs? That was all it took for the same people to discover their opposition to tariffs.

The cowardice of Biden and the leading lights in the Democratic Party contrast sharply with the new administration. Trump and many others have gambled their reputations, fortunes, and future interests on a bold but polarizing agenda. They face the American people, every day, openly and fearlessly. For Trump, the most important quality for aides and Cabinet members is not loyalty but courage—and the willingness to pay a price for things that matter.

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Turns out, the border is a problem only if you invite people over.

How Trump ‘Restored Law and Order’ to US Borders (Allen)

The House Homeland Security Committee released its latest “Border Brief” Tuesday, highlighting significant changes at the border since President Donald Trump took office, and a staggering year-over-year decline in the number of illegal immigrants attempting to enter the United States. “Southwest border crossings have hit another record-low because we now have a president and [a Department of Homeland Security] secretary who enforce the law,” Rep. Mark Green, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told The Daily Signal. “In less than three months, President Trump has restored law and order to our nation’s borders, removed criminal illegal aliens from our communities, and helped ensure the safety of the American people by empowering Department of Homeland Security law enforcement to do their jobs,” according to a committee press release.

In March, encounters with illegal aliens between ports of entry at the southern border fell by 94% compared to March 2024. Customs and Border Protection encountered 29,065 illegal aliens nationwide last month, down 88% from the 246,505 encountered in March 2024. Border Patrol’s daily apprehensions nationwide were the lowest in recorded history in March, averaging 264, a 94% decline from the previous year. The House Homeland Security Committee credits the decline in illegal crossings to the “Trump administration’s sustained deployment of military and federal law enforcement across the Southwest border, as well as partnerships with countries like El Salvador.” Since Jan. 20, the Trump administration has deployed thousands of troops and additional military resources to the southern border. The U.S. also formed an agreement with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to house deported illegal aliens in El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center.

The Trump administration has also ended various parole programs set in place or expanded under the Biden administration, such as the CBP One mobile application that allowed illegal aliens to schedule an appointment at a port of entry to claim asylum. The result of ending the Biden administration’s parole programs, according to the House committee, is an 80% decline in migrant encounters at U.S. ports of entry since March 2024. The daily average of known “getaways,” illegal aliens who manage to evade Border Patrol apprehension, has also fallen by more than 90% since Trump took office. Last week, a Maryland jury found Victor Martinez-Hernandez, a reported illegal alien gotaway from El Salvador, guilty of murdering Rachel Morin, a mother of five. The number of unaccompanied alien children arriving at the southern border declined by 92% last month when compared with March 2024.

Border Patrol has also witnessed a 97% year-over-year decline in the number of Chinese nationals crossing the southern border between ports of entry. Rather than “commending this return to law and order,” Green, R-Tenn., said his “colleagues across the aisle are working to defend an illegal alien MS-13 gang member who was rightfully removed from our country.” Democrats are advocating for the return of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, an illegal alien with ties to MS-13 who the Trump administration recently deported to a prison in El Salvador. Some Democrats, such as Mayland Sen. Chris Van Hollen who traveled to El Salvador to meet with Abrego Garcia, claim the man was wrongfully removed from the U.S. “To the American people, the contrast could not be clearer,” Green continued.

“Make no mistake—our communities are safer because the Trump administration has empowered DHS law enforcement to do their jobs, remove violent criminals, and dismantle the cartels’ business model. Now, Congress must codify President Trump’s homeland security agenda and provide the necessary funding to continue successfully securing our borders.” The House Homeland Security Committee’s March “Border Brief” celebrates the 32,809 arrests of illegal aliens at the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers during the first 50 days of the Trump administration. The nearly 33,000 arrests included “14,111 convicted criminals, of whom 1,155 were criminal gang members, as well as 39 aliens on the Terrorist Screening Data Set,” according to the committee. ICE has also arrested more than 300 members of the violent prison gang Tren de Aragua since Trump took office.

The committee in April advanced legislation introduced by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., that would require the DHS to publish the known number of special interest aliens, that is illegal aliens who pose a possible national security risk to the U.S., who cross U.S. borders. In its first border-related hearing of the 119th Congress, the committee highlighted the changes at the border during a Border Security and Enforcement Subcommittee hearing on March 28, aimed at showcasing the Biden administration’s “failure” at the border. “President Trump continues to deliver on the promises he made to secure our border,” Rep. Michael Guest, R-Miss., told The Daily Signal. “As the chairman of the Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement, I am honored to have the opportunity to work alongside President Trump to continue delivering results for the American people.”

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Woke has bankrupted Hollywood. Or almost. Bad for business.

Woke Blackout in Tinseltown (Ryumshin)

The conservative winds that have swept across America since January 20, 2025 have reached all the way to California. Hollywood, once the global capital of progressive values, is rapidly turning its back on the previous narrative. Transgender characters are quietly being cut from scripts, LGBT-themed productions shelved, and studios are shifting toward content with Christian and family-oriented values. Entire projects have been dropped. Others are being rewritten on the fly to avoid positive portrayals of LGBT characters. Just a year ago, such a reversal seemed unthinkable. Hollywood, which had long been synonymous with ‘woke’ ideology, appeared firmly entrenched in its liberal agenda. Anti-Trump themes were being churned out with near industrial efficiency, and conservative attempts at counter-programming lacked the budget or reach to compete. In the cultural trenches, liberals were not just winning, they were dominating. But now, studios are backing off.

The liberal press, already ringing alarm bells, has pinned the blame squarely on Donald Trump. In this rare case, they might have a point. Following his re-election, President Trump wasted no time in asserting ideological control. He signed executive orders recognizing only two genders, reinstated the ban on transgender individuals serving in the military, and scrapped federal Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) guidelines. In the cultural sphere, he made a bold appointment: Brendan Carr, a staunch Trump supporter and co-architect of the ‘Project 2025’ conservative reform blueprint, was named chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The FCC might seem bureaucratic, but under Carr, it has become a powerful cultural weapon. Investigations were quickly launched into media outlets seen as hostile to Trump.

Disney, one of the most vocal progressive corporations, was accused of violating equal opportunity laws through its DEI policies. After making some adjustments, Disney still found itself under pressure, with Carr even threatening to revoke ABC’s broadcasting license. The result? Rapid, widespread self-censorship. Studios aren’t backpedaling because they’ve had a change of heart, they simply don’t want to attract the regulatory wrath of Washington. Amazon, led by Jeff Bezos, was ahead of the curve. Bezos cultivated ties with the Trump camp, quietly axed DEI advisors, and began investing only in “safe” content. The reward? Government scrutiny vanished. Still, it would be unfair to credit Trump alone for Hollywood’s pivot.

The shift had begun before the 2024 election, driven by cold economic realities. The traditional business model of cable TV is collapsing. Streaming services, flooded with progressive content, have failed to turn a profit. Worse, many of those “inclusive” productions have sparked controversy, underperformed at the box office, and alienated large swathes of the audience. Family-oriented and religious films, by contrast, often require modest budgets and cater to a mainstream audience. Conservative content, it turns out, is not just safer – it’s more profitable. There’s also the matter of public fatigue. Americans are tired of being lectured. Box office returns, streaming numbers, and network ratings all tell the same story. Once-dominant liberal cable channels are in freefall. As of December 2024, CNN and MSNBC had lost half their prime-time audiences, plunging to 30-year lows.

Fox News, meanwhile, is thriving. So are conservative-leaning podcasters like Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan, now the dominant voices in America’s ‘new media’ landscape. None of this is a coincidence. The broader cultural and economic environment in the United States has shifted. Hollywood’s liberal monopoly was unsustainable, both financially and ideologically. Trump’s return to power merely accelerated a transformation already underway. Will this rightward turn change the face of global culture? Almost certainly. Will it return Hollywood to its former glory? Time will tell. But what is already clear is that the old narrative is dead – and the new one is being written with a red pen.

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“..the total collapse which is about to happen, is not “Trump’s fault”. He just happened to be the right person to execute the inevitable downfall of a major monetary era. But even if it is not his fault, history will unfairly blame him as the villain who brought the world economy down, and thus see him as probably the worst president in history. So not the best of timing for Mr Trump.”

The Big Short and The Bigger Long (Egon von Greyerz)

For at least 35 years, the monetary system has been telling us that the current era is coming to an end. That means a debt collapse, a currency collapse and a collapse of most bubble assets like stocks and property. THUS THE BIG SHORT! As I am writing this on Easter Monday, the Dow is down 1,100 points (2.9%) and the Nasdaq is down 3.3%. Anyone who buys the dips will be slaughtered. As I have said for a very long time, before this is over, stocks will be down 90-99% in real terms, which is gold. More importantly, this total collapse has very little to do with TRUMP. More later.

And don’t for a moment believe that gold is overvalued. As many have used conventional technical tools to predict a gold correction, I have been saying for a long time that gold is in an acceleration phase and will reach multiples of the current price. (Yes, of course, there will be corrections on the way up, but most probably not yet.) THUS THE BIG LONG! As many have used conventional technical tools to predict a gold correction, I have been saying for a long time that gold is in an acceleration phase and will reach multiples of the current price. (Yes, of course there will be corrections on the way up but most probably not yet). THUS THE BIG LONG!

END OF A MONETARY ERA The end of a monetary era is always the same, with bubble assets going up in smoke. The majority of investors haven’t got a clue what is happening. They are hanging on to their stocks, hoping that Trump will save them by firing Powell and telling the next Chairman of the Fed to lower interest rates. But the time of manipulating rates is over. The market will now determine rates, which it should always do. And with uncontrollable debt escalation in the US and many other countries, the cost of debt can only go one way – UP! Remember, there is only one buyer of US debt, which is the Fed. But the Fed can only buy debt if the US government issues more debt. And therein lies the crux. More debt must be created in a futile attempt to save the ever-growing and out-of-control finances of the US. This is without doubt the biggest Ponzi scheme in history. Madoff would certainly have enjoyed it.

And still, it would have been so easy, as all of this has been totally predictable. To paraphrase Churchill, the more you study history, the more self-evident the future becomes. Still no government, no central banker, no journalist and virtually no market student spends any time on learning from the past. Why, why, why, you ask yourself. Well, it is clearly sheer arrogance in believing that we know better today and that we have better tools. And of course, “The times are different today”. Hmmm! But they are not and have never been. Every monetary system has collapsed in history, and every currency has gone to ZERO, without fail. As I witnessed Greenspan’s expansionary policy after the property market collapse in the 1990s and how debt and derivatives quickly continued to grow, I was certain that we were seeing the end of a major monetary system.

I had, since the late 1980s, been convinced that gold was the best insurance against yet another coming failure of the monetary system. As major central banks like the UK and Switzerland were selling their gold in the mid to late 1990s, it was clear that we were near the bottom. So we waited until the 1999 gold bottom at $250 and confirmation of the gold price recovery in the early 2000s before buying physical gold. BACK TO TRUMP – the culprit. But everything is, of course, Trump’s fault! All the misery hitting the world now is due to Trump’s capricious actions. Here are just a few examples of how TRUMP is now wrecking not just the US but the whole world economy, according to the general public as well as the media and politicians in most countries:

Stocks crashing, bonds crashing, rates up, dollar crashing, trade wars with massive daily tit for tat yo-yo swinging tariffs between 10% and 145%, much higher Inflation, collapse of global trade etc, etc. Yes, all of the above is happening and much more and it is all Trump’s fault.But is it really? No, Trump is not the culprit. Instead, Trump happens to be the catalyst. An absolutely superb analysis of the US-China trade war was given by this very acute Chinese influencer: “Leaders are instruments of their time, and they appear at the time in the cycle to carry out what was going to happen anyway.

Just like Thatcher and Reagan were the right leaders to lead the upturn in the early 1980s, Trump is perfect for creating the havoc and chaos that comes with the end of a major monetary era. What is happening in the US and global economy today, and the total collapse which is about to happen, is not “Trump’s fault”. He just happened to be the right person to execute the inevitable downfall of a major monetary era. But even if it is not his fault, history will unfairly blame him as the villain who brought the world economy down, and thus see him as probably the worst president in history. So not the best of timing for Mr Trump.

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ivm

 

 

Malhotra

 

 

Hotez

 

 

https://twitter.com/DiedSuddenly_/status/1914837101486518732

 

 

 

 

Phone

 

 

Mom

 

 

Goose

 

 

https://twitter.com/Lin11W/status/1914406273602277705

 

 

Feynman

 

 

Goats
https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1914628619722281004

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Apr 202025
 


Edward Hopper The long leg 1935

 

Opposition to ‘Eurofascism’ Driving US and Russia Closer – Spy Agency (RT)
Russia Announces Easter Ceasefire (RT)
European Union Bans Commemorating The Defeat of Nazi Germany (SCF)
Trump Administration Plans To Send Envoy Witkoff To Russia Again – CNN (RT)
Scott Ritter: Rubio’s Threats to Quit Ukraine Talks Look Like Sabotage (Sp.)
US Threats To Quit Ukraine Talks Aimed at Kiev Rather Than Moscow (TASS)
US Sets Timeline For Kiev To Agree To Ceasefire (RT)
Germany Wants The UK To Hold Its Hand While It Starts WWIII (Marsden)
Moldova Wages War On Christians To Please Its EU Overlords (Romanenko)
Will Trump’s Tariffs Hurt GOP in Midterms? (Caldwell)
US, Iran Agree To Enter Next Phase Of Nuclear Negotiations (JTN)
Trump On Deported Migrant: ‘He’s Got MS-13 Tattooed’ On His Knuckles (JTN)
SCOTUS Order Pauses Deportations Under Alien Enemies Act (Allen)
SCOTUS Blocks Deportation of Alleged Venezuela Gang Members for Now (ET)
SCOTUS Halts Venezuelan Deportations, 4th Circuit Upholds Garcia Order (Turley)
Judge Blocks Trump’s Order Ending ‘X’ Gender Marker on Passports (ET)
Tesla Continues to Reign Supreme Despite Leftist Violence (Blackmon)

 

 

 

 

90 days

Cernovich
https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1913298101915238458

Tish
https://twitter.com/LynneBP_294/status/1913223009462010142

DEI

injunctions

Left

Ireland

Conor

 

 

 

 

“.. work together to prevent “a new global conflict” and confront “possible provocations both from Ukraine and from the ‘maddened Europeans’..”

Opposition to ‘Eurofascism’ Driving US and Russia Closer – Spy Agency (RT)

The US and Russia are natural allies against “Eurofascism” and the tyrannical tendencies prevalent in Western European countries, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has said. The spy agency published a text on its website on Wednesday titled ‘Eurofascism, just as 80 years ago, is the common enemy for Moscow and Washington.’ The SVR argued that Europe has a “historical predisposition” to “various forms of totalitarianism that periodically produce devastating, global-scale conflicts.” It cited the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution and the “bloody actions” of Napoleon as examples. It also referenced the Charlemagne Division of the SS, made up of volunteers from Nazi-occupied France.

The agency credited French author Pierre Drieu la Rochelle, who collaborated with Nazi Germany, with introducing “the concept of Eurofascism… and its ideology.” According to the SVR, la Rochelle believed that “Eurofascism … [is] inherent not only to the Germans but to other European ‘societies’ as well.” The agency cited unnamed experts as saying that the current rift between the US and the EU facilitates a “situational rapprochement of Washington and Moscow.” “The United States is free due to the willingness of the ancestors of modern Americans to confront such dictatorships as the British Monarchy or the Jacobin Revolution,” it said. The SVR claimed that “conservative expert circles in the USA believe that the British elite … is very much inclined to commit the gravest crimes against humanity.”

“America felt the effect of similar inclinations of the British back in August of 1814, when the British troops occupied Washington, burned the Capitol and the White House,” the SVR claimed. The agency said that “foreign expert circles” are hopeful that Russia and the US will work together to prevent “a new global conflict” and confront “possible provocations both from Ukraine and from the ‘maddened Europeans’ traditionally urged on by Great Britain.” The statement was released as the US is attempting to broker a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Russian officials said that, unlike the Biden administration, President Donald Trump and his team have shown a readiness to listen to Moscow’s positions and understand the root causes of the conflict.

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It took just seconds for Zelensky to claim Russia was violating its own ceasefire. And that is the only newsbit broadcast all across the west.

Russia Announces Easter Ceasefire (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced a temporary Easter pause in hostilities with Ukraine, which is slated to begin at 18:00 Moscow time on Saturday and last until midnight on April 21. The announcement came during his meeting with Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov in Moscow. Putin expressed hope that Kiev would demonstrate goodwill and adhere to the ceasefire. ”At the same time, our troops must be prepared to respond to any violations or provocations by the adversary, to any aggressive actions,” he said. Putin stated that Ukraine’s reaction to the ceasefire would be a clear indicator of whether Kiev is sincerely willing to engage in negotiations to end the conflict. The president referenced the US-brokered 30-day energy infrastructure truce agreed to on March 18, accusing Ukraine of violating it.

“We know that the Kiev regime has violated the agreement on pausing energy infrastructure strikes more than a hundred times,” Putin explained. “Therefore, I ask you [Gerasimov] to remain extremely vigilant and prepared for an immediate and full-force response.” Shortly after Putin’s statement, the Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the ceasefire, calling on Kiev to reciprocate. ”The ceasefire is being introduced for humanitarian purposes and will be observed by the Russian Joint Group of Troops, provided it is mutually observed by the Kiev regime,” the ministry said. While Kiev did not immediately provide a clear response to Putin’s announcement, it appeared to reject the temporary truce. Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky branded it an attempt to “play with human lives,” claiming that swarms of Russian kamikaze drones were detected in the country’s skies at 17:15 Moscow time.

The drones “in our skies show Putin’s true attitude to Easter and human lives,” Zelensky said in a statement. According to RT war correspondent Andrey Filatov, reporting from the Pokrovsk (Krasnoarmeysk) area in Donetsk People’s Republic, multiple violations of the ceasefire were observed within an hour of it taking effect. Ukrainian forces in the area have been actively using drones, mortars and heavy artillery, striking Russian positions with cluster munitions. Earlier this week, Moscow suggested a full long-term ceasefire with Ukraine was highly unlikely, given Kiev’s long history of broken promises and violations of previous deals.

Speaking to reporters at UN headquarters on Thursday, Russian envoy Vassily Nebenzia said there are “big issues with the comprehensive ceasefire,” referencing the fate of the long-defunct Minsk agreements, as well as repeated violations of a US-brokered 30-day moratorium on energy infrastructure strikes. In the meantime, Washington has signaled that time is running out for finding a solution to the Ukraine conflict. On Friday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump administration was prepared to throw in the towel soon. “We need to figure out here now, within a matter of days, whether this is doable in the short term. Because if it’s not, then I think we’re just going to move on,” Rubio stated.

Read more …

In case you were wondering what the EU stands for. This should be hard to believe. Unfortunately, it is not.

European Union Bans Commemorating The Defeat of Nazi Germany (SCF)

The European Union is warning European leaders not to attend the 80th anniversary of Victory Day in Moscow on May 9. Ostensibly, the rationale for such a ban is that Russia is allegedly waging a war against Ukraine and threatening the rest of Europe, according to the EU. That’s one way of seeing it. Another way of seeing the matter is that the conflict in Ukraine is a proxy war sponsored by the EU and NATO to defeat Russia, eight decades after Nazi Germany failed to do it. The Euro elites who have come to dominate policymaking share the same fascist mentality. No wonder, then, that they are against attending the 80th anniversary event in Moscow next month. They need to sully that event by way of covering up their despicable politics. The event marking the defeat of Nazi Germany and fascism in Europe is a massively important historical date for the entire world.

Eighty years ago, on May 9, 1945, the Soviet Red Army crushed the Nazi regime in Berlin thereby ending the most horrific war in human history. Up to 27 million Soviet citizens – perhaps more – gave their lives in the epic struggle to defeat Nazi Germany and its fascist European allies, including Vichy France, Italy, Hungary, Finland and the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Russia holds the honor of liberating Europe from the evil of fascism. By comparison, the other anti-fascist allies of the United States and Britain lost less than 5 per cent of the casualties that the Soviet citizens endured. It is fitting that many international leaders are attending the Victory Day parade in Moscow this year. They include China’s Xi Jinping and India’s Narendra Modi. Many others, however, will not be in Moscow, which is lamentable.

The American President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer should be present to pay respects to the soldiers and civilians who sacrificed their lives. Deplorably, the toxic politics that have poisoned relations between Western states and Russia have rendered such participation impossible. What is all the more appalling, however, is the explicit ban on European leaders attending the celebrations in Moscow. This week, Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s Commissioner for Foreign Affairs, issued a warning that any politicians who went to Moscow would face severe consequences. Kallas, who was formerly the prime minister of the tiny Baltic state of Estonia, was appointed last year as the EU’s most senior official on foreign policy. One of those defying orders is Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico. He rebuked Kallas for daring to tell him, as the leader of a sovereign nation, where and where not to go.

He added: “I will go to Moscow to pay respects to thousands of Red Army soldiers who died liberating Slovakia.” Fico was elected on a platform calling for friendly relations with Russia and an end to the NATO proxy war in Ukraine. He has consistently opposed sending more military aid to the Kiev regime. Last year, Fico survived an assassination attempt in which he was shot by a gunman motivated by pro-Ukraine politics. Of particular note, the European Union’s sanctions on politicians attending the Victory Day commemoration in Moscow are targeting candidate states joining the 27-member bloc. Kallas threatened that their candidacy could be cancelled. They include the Balkan nations of Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia, as well as Moldova and Georgia. Nevertheless, Serbian President Aleksander Vucic stated that he would be going to Moscow despite intense pressure from Brussels.

“We are proud of our struggle against fascism, and that was the key reason why I accepted the invitation”, said Vucic. He spoke, however, of the sinister leverage on his government. “It seems to me that the sky is about to fall on my head due to the pressure surrounding the trip to Moscow,” said the Serbian president, who added that his country was being destabilized by outside agitators. The unseemly controversy over the Victory Day parade in Moscow serves to highlight the growing malevolent tendencies of the EU. Increasingly, the bloc’s centralization of political power is becoming more authoritarian and hostile towards Russia. Any dissent among the EU members questioning the bloc’s support for the proxy war in Ukraine is ruthlessly suppressed with threats of political and economic sanctions.

The EU leadership, under Russophobic autocrats like European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Kaja Kallas, is implicated in suppressing elections in Romania, Moldova and Georgia to prevent parties that are calling for an end to the war in Ukraine and better relations with Russia. The recent dubious prosecution in France of nationalist politician Marine Le Pen, who has been critical of NATO’s proxy war, is another baleful example of the EU moving to crush dissent. It is startling how much the EU has come to operate like a fascist bloc. Policy decisions about funding a NeoNazi regime in Ukraine to fight a proxy war against Russia are being made by Russophobic elites with no democratic accountability.

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This will be visit no. 4. Putin and Trump now know from each other what they want, not just what they say they want.

This is the first time that I see Witkoff saying a peace deal would include not only the recognition of Crimea as Russian, but also the other 4 regions.

Trump Administration Plans To Send Envoy Witkoff To Russia Again – CNN (RT)

US President Donald Trump’s administration is planning one more meeting between special envoy Steve Witkoff and senior Russian officials to get Moscow on board with its vision for peace in the Ukraine conflict, CNN has claimed, citing an anonymous source. Witkoff has already met with Russian President Vladimir Putin three times this year as the US president tries to broker a ceasefire between Kiev and Moscow. In its article on Saturday, CNN further quoted its source as saying that Washington’s plan, which was reportedly presented to Ukrainian officials and several European leaders during a top-level meeting in Paris on Thursday, envisages a ceasefire along the current front line. The US government also supposedly signaled a willingness to recognize Crimea as Russian territory.

Commenting on his meeting with Putin in Moscow last Friday, Witkoff told Fox News on Monday that the nearly five-hour talks were “compelling” and that the Kremlin is seeking a lasting solution to the Ukraine conflict. Trump’s special envoy claimed that Moscow and Kiev “might be on the verge of something that would be very, very important for the world at large.” According to the US official, any potential peace deal would include the recognition of Crimea, the Donetsk, and Lugansk People’s Republics, and Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions as part of Russia. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday that while there were “no clear outlines of any agreement yet,” Moscow values the “constructive and substantive” contact with the US.

Witkoff’s remarks did not sit well with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, who on Thursday accused Trump’s envoy of “wittingly or unwittingly spreading Russian narratives.” He reiterated that Kiev will “never recognize any temporarily occupied Ukrainian territory as Russian.” Russia has maintained that it is open to peace talks with Ukraine in principle, as long as its key security concerns are addressed. Moscow demands among other things that Kiev renounce its NATO aspirations and recognize the territorial “realities on the ground.” The Kremlin has insisted it will not accept a mere freeze of the conflict.

On Saturday, President Putin announced a temporary Easter truce effective from 18:00 Moscow time through midnight on Sunday night. While he expressed hope that Ukraine would reciprocate, he also stated that the “Kiev regime has violated the agreement on pausing energy infrastructure strikes more than a hundred times.” Putin argued that Ukraine’s reaction to the ceasefire would be a clear indicator of whether Kiev is serious about wanting to achieve peace.

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Trump cannot leave the talks. They’re his, after all. And it would lead to a Moscow-Brussels war, which would involve Paris, London, Berlin and … NATO. They will try to blackmail the US into that fight. Trump should simply say, beforehand, that he wants none of this to happen.

Scott Ritter: Rubio’s Threats to Quit Ukraine Talks Look Like Sabotage (Sp.)

Marco Rubio warned Friday that the US could walk out of the Ukrainian peace process if progress is not made “within days.” A day earlier, Volodymyr Zelensky accused Trump Ukraine envoy Steve Witkoff of “spreading Russian narratives,” and claimed Witkoff has no “mandate…to speak about Ukrainian territories.” The US secretary of state’s remarks on potentially ending the US peace push in Ukraine signal dual frustrations: with Steve Witkoff’s influence over Ukraine policy, and with Russia’s demands for a lasting peace instead of a temporary ceasefire, military analyst and former Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter told Sputnik. “I think this is an effort by Marco Rubio to insert himself into the process, but I want to remind people that he doesn’t make policy, especially policy concerning US-Russian relations,” Ritter emphasized.

Ritter sees Rubio’s comments as an attempt to “create the atmosphere of a failed policy” to try to get the US to abandon its current policy on Ukraine, but doesn’t see President Trump accepting this position. Ritter also recalled that Rubio’s position in the Trump administration has forced him to pull a 180 degree turn on the traditional pro-Ukraine, anti-Russia posture he held throughout his career in the Senate. “Rubio’s statement actually empowers Europe and Ukraine in many ways because now all they have to do is drag this out. The key here is for Europe and Ukraine is to get the United States out of the peacekeeping business and hopefully get the US back into the war-fighting business, that is, to continue their proxy conflict against Russia. That doesn’t seem to be the policy direction that Donald Trump favors,” the observer stressed.

Ultimately, Ritter said, what the Ukraine crisis needs right now is diplomacy. “This requires the United States to put pressure on Europe, to put pressure on Ukraine. The Trump administration doesn’t seem to have the leverage necessary to achieve that. This is where Marco Rubio is supposed to be stepping forward to take the lead diplomatically to see the president’s will translated into actual policy that can be implemented. But Rubio doesn’t seem to be inclined to do this.” “So what I envision happening is, in a week or so, you’ll see Marco Rubio make a play with the Trump administration, with the president himself, to terminate America’s effort to bring this conflict to an end. But I don’t see Donald Trump accepting that. I see Donald Trump rejecting that advice and continuing to press forward and giving Steve Witkoff a chance to work with the Russians. But this is a process that if it continues, is going to take weeks, if not months, before you get the kind of detailed agreement necessary to allow Russia to accept a ceasefire,” Ritter summed up.

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“..we’re just going to say, ‘You’re foolish, you’re fools, you’re horrible people.’

US Threats To Quit Ukraine Talks Aimed at Kiev Rather Than Moscow (TASS)

Washington’s threats to walk away from the negotiation process on Ukraine are directed against the Kiev regime rather than Moscow, the Axios portal said, citing European officials. “Two European diplomats confirmed Rubio said Trump was losing his patience and might withdraw from the process if a deal wasn’t reached soon,” the portal wrote, adding that “three European diplomats felt Rubio’s comments were mostly aimed at the Ukrainians.” “A source close to the Ukrainian government also said it seemed Rubio’s comments were aimed at pressing Ukraine. The source was also concerned that a Trump withdrawal from the negotiations could lead to suspension of US military aid to Ukraine,” the portal noted.

The European diplomats pointed out that during talks in Paris, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has not mentioned “increasing the pressure on Russia.” “The impression was that Rubio and Witkoff are under a lot of pressure from Trump and they are channeling it to the other players,” a European diplomat said. According to Axios, Rubio said that US President Donald Trump had decided that “he has dedicated a lot of time and energy to this, and there are a lot of things going on in the world right now that we need to be focused on.” “We need to figure out <…> within a matter of days, whether this is doable in the short term. If it’s not, then I think we’re just going to move on,” the top US diplomat added.

Rubio told reporters in Paris that Trump may abandon his efforts to settle the Ukraine crisis if there is no immediate progress. “We’re not going to continue with this endeavor for weeks and months on end,” he explained. Earlier, Trump himself did not rule out the US leaving the negotiations. “Now if, for some reason, one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say, ‘You’re foolish, you’re fools, you’re horrible people.’ And we’re going to just take a pass, but hopefully we won’t have to do that,” he told reporters at the White House.

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“..as early as next week..”

I think the talks will take much longer.

US Sets Timeline For Kiev To Agree To Ceasefire (RT)

US President Donald Trump reportedly expects to “make a determination for a full and comprehensive ceasefire” between Ukraine and Russia as early as next week. Both are to be presented with the final offer, the New York Post has claimed, citing an anonymous senior administration official. Trump has stated on multiple occasions that he wants to put an end to the Ukraine conflict as soon as possible. Since he assumed office in January, Washington and Moscow have been engaged in active diplomacy, holding several rounds of high-level talks. The newspaper quoted a source on Friday as saying that “this coming week in London, we want to make a determination for a full and comprehensive cease-fire.” The unnamed US official added that the “intent then is to have [discussions] with the Russians” and determine where Moscow and Kiev stand on this “final offer.”

According to the publication, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov told US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and President Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff during their meeting in Paris on Thursday that Kiev is “90%” on board with Washington’s peace framework, which has yet to be made public. Ukraine’s remaining concerns mostly revolve around territories which Kiev claims as its own, but are in fact under Moscow’s control at present, the Post reported.Russia has demanded that Ukraine officially recognize the “reality on the ground,” while Vladimir Zelensky has repeatedly ruled out such a scenario.

The media outlet further alleged that the US could offer Russia a “carrot”: the relaxation of sanctions and the potential unfreezing of Moscow’s seized assets, which are currently held by Western institutions. Speaking to reporters on Friday, Trump echoed a remark made by Rubio earlier in the day, stating that “if for some reason one of the two parties makes it very difficult… we’re going to just take a pass.” Russian authorities have expressed skepticism about the feasibility of a ceasefire with Ukraine and accused Kiev’s backers in Europe of undermining US efforts. Speaking to journalists on Thursday, Moscow’s UN representative, Vassily Nebenzia, stated that due to the West’s record of using peace deals to help build up the Ukrainian military, expectations of a full ceasefire are “simply unrealistic at this stage.”

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“..Merz needs a useful idiot to ride shotgun alongside him in the doltmobile to share in any responsibility for the eventual mayhem when things inevitably go pear-shaped. “You rang?” say the Brits.”

Germany Wants The UK To Hold Its Hand While It Starts WWIII (Marsden)

Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz doesn’t officially take office until May 6, but that hasn’t stopped him from hitting the press circuit like it’s demolition day. Apparently, he’s got some lost time – and infrastructure – to make up for. In a chat with Germany’s public broadcaster, ARD, he floated the idea that Kiev, which seems to rank higher than Berlin on his priority list, needs to “get ahead of the situation” on the battlefield and “shape events” instead of playing defense. The event he seems most eager to shape? Oh, just the Third World War, apparently. Because he pivoted straight to the Kerch Bridge – mainland Russia’s lifeline to the Crimean peninsula – like it’s been living on borrowed time.

Merz said that “if for example, the most important land connection between Russia and Crimea is destroyed, or if something happens on Crimea itself, where most of the Russian military logistics are located, then that would be an opportunity to bring this country strategically back into the picture finally.” Cool, cool. Which picture would that be, exactly? The one labeled “Catastrophic Misjudgments of the 21st Century”? Probably. Which is why Merz needs a useful idiot to ride shotgun alongside him in the doltmobile to share in any responsibility for the eventual mayhem when things inevitably go pear-shaped. “You rang?” say the Brits. Or at least that’s what Merz is apparently hoping they say. “Our European partners are already supplying cruise missiles,” Merz said in an interview. “The British are doing it, the French are doing it, and the Americans are doing it anyway, this must be jointly agreed. And if it’s agreed, then Germany should take part.”

Merz’s fellow Christian Democratic Party MPs have been floating the idea in the Western press that he’s waiting for an official permission slip from London. It would probably read something like this: “Dear Herr Friedrich, You are hereby authorized to partake in a highly coordinated, militarized pub crawl. First stop: a punch-up with Russia, followed by a wobbly march to a greasy spoon for black coffee, bad lighting, and a collective hangover.” Merz is just days away from grabbing the wheel, and he’s done pretending to be the guy in the backseat yelling directions at Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Scholz, for his part, always said that Germany wouldn’t hand Kiev the Taurus long-range missiles. Not that he had much wiggle room after last year’s leaked audio from Russian intelligence of German Air Force brass workshopping ways to hit the Kerch Bridge without leaving any German fingerprints.

Kind of a bad look for a guy who keeps overtly declaring that he wants peace. So naturally, he was furious. Which is why, if Team Scholz suddenly turned around now and said, “You know what? Let’s try a few long-range missile strikes, just for funsies,” people might reasonably assume that he’d undergone a surprise lobotomy with a NATO letter opener. As the coalition partners for Merz’s incoming government, Scholz’s Social Democrats’ support would be needed on any vote. And so far, they’ve shown no interest in greenlighting his WW3 passion project. You know, democracy and all that. Minor hiccup, I know. If military ambition and musings alone were all it took, Merz would already be well on his way to having a Netflix original named after him and maybe even a seat with his name on it waiting at The Hague.

But hey, hear the guy out. What if it’s, like, a group project? Das ist gut, ja? Nah, dude. Nicht gut. Nicht gut at all. What exactly does Team Merz think this would look like? Would the Brits and Germans sit side by side, fingers hovering over their respective missile buttons, doing a tense little “one, two, three, fire” and just praying that neither one flinches at the last second and leaves the other one with some very awkward phone calls to make? If so, that would certainly explain why they’re talking about specifically needing Britain’s non-negotiable participation and not France – the country that trained a flagship brigade for the Ukrainian army, who apparently learned how to bail out before even seeing action. “Paris hailed it as a ‘unique’ initiative,” reported France24. Training 1,700 Ukrainians in France to fight who then just end up surrendering to the foie gras and rosé at the local café prior to deployment is ‘unique’, alright.

“Ah, wonderbar!”

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“..Moldova’s airport detentions echo the trajectory taken by the Kiev authorities in Ukraine..”

Moldova Wages War On Christians To Please Its EU Overlords (Romanenko)

On Thursday, Moldovan authorities chose to detain Bishop Marchel of the Moldovan Metropolis, a metropolitanate under the Russian Orthodox Church, at Chiinau International Airport. Bishop Marchel was on his way to Jerusalem to bring back the Holy Fire for Easter, one of the most sacred ceremonies of the year for Orthodox believers. According to reports, he was pulled aside for a thorough inspection of his person and luggage, had his passport confiscated, and was not allowed to board his flight even though nothing suspicious was ever found. His documents were only returned thirty minutes after the plane departed. By contrast, the rival Metropolis of Bessarabia, a different Orthodox Christian church in Moldova, canonically under the Romanian Patriarchate, sent its own delegate, Bishop Filaret, on the same mission unmolested.

This isn’t an isolated outrage but rather the latest episode in a systematic campaign against anyone deemed pro Russian. On March 25, 2025, Eugenia Gutul the democratically elected head of the Gagauz autonomy was detained at the very same airport. Her passport was confiscated and she was held incommunicado for 72 hours on opaque corruption and illegal financing charges, before being put under house arrest to await trial. Two days later, opposition figure Alexei Lungu was stopped from leaving the country on murky grounds, and Viktor Petrov another Gagauz leader was held for hours in February after flying in from Istanbul, an arrest he claims was orchestrated by Prime Minister Recean’s office. These incidents form a clear pattern: every pro Russian politician, cleric or public figure is under suspicion of destabilizing European choice or colluding with foreign powers.

At its core, what is being played out in Moldova in regards to the Moldovan Metropolis is an attempt to hold the spiritual life of the majority hostage to a political agenda. Nearly 70 percent of Moldovans adhere to the Moldovan Metropolis of the Russian Orthodox Church. By making its shepherds and representatives into targets, the government is sending a message: worship with a Romanian or European aligned body and you re free to practice your faith; profess loyalty to a politically inconvenient church and you risk being treated like a criminal. This is not a security measure it is a politicization of religion.

Worryingly, Moldova’s airport detentions echo the trajectory taken by the Kiev authorities in Ukraine. In August 2024, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law effectively banning any religious organization affiliated with a state engaged in armed aggression a barely veiled reference to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC MP). The bill sailed through 265 29 and obliged each parish to sever ties with Moscow or face court ordered closure within nine months. President Zelensky hailed it as a step toward spiritual independence, yet by criminalizing an entire denomination, Kiev set the stage for unprecedented state intrusion into religious life.

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“if a far-left radical is the one raising the most money, and someone who’s arguing that Democrats should go even further left, that’s good for Republicans.”

Will Trump’s Tariffs Hurt GOP in Midterms? (Caldwell)

As President Donald Trump moves at a feverish pace in imposing tariffs and undoing much of his predecessor’s legacy, a question has emerged: How will voters react to these bold actions when midterm elections arrive in 2026? Trump has said that his tariffs—which have corresponded with a drop in his economic job-approval rating—will end up benefiting him and Republicans in midterms. “And I really think we’re helped a lot by the tariff situation that’s going on, which is a good situation,” he said at a National Republican Congressional Committee fundraising dinner last week. “It’s going to be legendary. You watch.” But Brad Bannon, a veteran pollster and political consultant for Democrat congressional campaigns, told The Daily Signal he thinks lower approval ratings and higher uncertainty on the economy will benefit Democrats significantly.

“I don’t believe that anybody should panic, but the Republicans should be worried, based on the latest polling I’ve seen,” said Bannon. Bannon said he was paying particular attention to a CBS poll that showed 53% of people thought the economy had worsened in the past three months and 54% thought Trump had ownership for the state of the economy, rather than former President Joe Biden. Though he acknowledged that Trump’s economic approval rating has risen since its nosedive amid the market crash, he suggested that the fall in the stock market would trigger backlash from voters with 401(k)s who “got basically killed during the tariff thing.” But Republican consultants painted a different picture.

Jason Roe is a reelection campaign consultant for Rep. Tom Barrett, R-Mich., who flipped Michigan’s 7th Congressional District in 2024, which is one of the most volatile swing districts in the country. Michigan is in a special situation as a state that’s especially reliant on Canadian goods, but also has many voters who suffered from deindustrialization in the wake of prior free-trade agreements. Roe says polling suggests to him that voters are willing to give Trump a chance on his ambitious restructuring of the economy. “Everyone seems to—even people that don’t love Trump—feel like we’ve got to do something,” Roe said. “It’s unsustainable as it is.” “So, I think there’s this willingness to give the benefit of the doubt, and you see that in polling on issues like tariffs that don’t poll well, yet Trump’s numbers are still holding. He’s at 47 in the most recent CBS poll. For him to be doing what he’s doing and being who he is, that’s an extraordinarily strong number… but if we get much past Labor Day and people aren’t seeing results… then we could see political problems.” he added.

Democrats also have much to fear as they look toward the 2026 midterms. The Democratic Party had a 27% approval rating in an NBC poll in March. Additionally, the Democratic Party has begun to gravitate toward polarizing figures, such as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Jasmine Crockett of Texas, as leaders. Republican strategists think that will be a great asset when midterm season comes. “The national party heads become great targets,” said Brett O’Donnell, a veteran of many presidential campaigns who is consulting for the reelection campaign of Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark. He contends that figures such as Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., would alienate most voters. “They make for great targets because they’re talking about things that, for the most part, aren’t the concerns of the majority of Americans,” O’Donnell said.

Todd, the Republican consultant, who argues that the Democrats suffered in 2024 because “they’ve allowed themselves to get so far out of the mainstream,” thinks that those figures will hurt Democrats in the next election cycle. Asked about Ocasio-Cortez’s massive fundraising efforts, he replied, “if a far-left radical is the one raising the most money, and someone who’s arguing that Democrats should go even further left, that’s good for Republicans.”

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“..Iran completely free of nuclear weapons and sanctions, and maintaining its ability to develop peaceful nuclear energy..”

US, Iran Agree To Enter Next Phase Of Nuclear Negotiations (JTN)

The U.S. and Iran have agreed to enter the next phase of negotiations over the Iranian regime’s nuclear program. The second round of the talks began in Rome on Saturday between Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and President Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff through the mediation of Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi. The envoys have “agreed to enter into the next phase of their discussions that aim to seal a fair, enduring and binding deal which will ensure Iran completely free of nuclear weapons and sanctions, and maintaining its ability to develop peaceful nuclear energy,” a spokesperson for Oman’s foreign ministry said in a statement posted on Saturday on X. “It is only in dialogue and clear communication that we will be able to achieve a mutually credible agreement and understanding for the benefit of all concerned regionally and internationally. It is also agreed that the next round will take place in Muscat in the next few days,” the statement also read.

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Is that the hill you want to die on?

“Two other Congressional Democrats have asked the House Oversight Committee to allow them to travel to El Salvador on the taxpayers’ dime to visit the migrant, but Chairman James Comer denied the request on Friday.”

Trump On Deported Migrant: ‘He’s Got MS-13 Tattooed’ On His Knuckles (JTN)

President Donald Trump on Friday night doubled down on his administration’s allegation that a deported migrant now in El Salvador is connected to the violent MS-13 gang. Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who was originally from El Salvador, has become the focal point of one of the biggest deportation cases in recent history, after he was sent back home with another group of illegal migrants. Democrats have argued that Abrego Garcia was a peaceful, law-abiding man from Maryland prior to his deportation, but the Trump administration argues that he was a member of MS-13, who had beaten his wife. Court documents from 2021 showed Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez, applied for a protective order against her husband, though the case was eventually dismissed. Trump, in a post on Truth Social, shared an image of what he claimed was Abrego Garcia’s hand, which showed tattoos on his knuckles that included a marijuana leaf, a cross, a skull and a smiley face.

“This is the hand of the man that the Democrats feel should be brought back to the United States, because he is such ‘a fine and innocent person,'” the president wrote in the post. “They said he is not a member of MS-13, even though he’s got MS-13 tattooed onto his knuckles, and two Highly Respected Courts found that he was a member of MS-13. “I was elected to take bad people out of the United States, among other things,” he continued. “I must be allowed to do my job. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” The post comes after Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen met with Abrego Garcia in El Salvador this week. Two other Congressional Democrats have asked the House Oversight Committee to allow them to travel to El Salvador on the taxpayers’ dime to visit the migrant, but Chairman James Comer denied the request on Friday.

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“I am sympathetic to everything you’re saying, I just don’t I think I have the power to do anything,” Boasberg told the attorneys for the illegal aliens.”

SCOTUS Order Pauses Deportations Under Alien Enemies Act (Allen)

The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration early Saturday morning to pause the deportation of some Venezuelan illegal aliens until the court can rule further. The Court did not grant or deny the use of the Alien Enemies Act to remove the illegal aliens, who the Trump administration claims are Tren de Aragua gang members, but instead the justices simply hit pause on the matter. “The Government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this Court,” the order states. After designating Tren de Aragua as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, the White House announced in March that President Donald Trump would use the powers of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to remove members of the gang from America.

The illegal immigrants in question in the ongoing case are currently being held in Texas. The Supreme Court order is in response to an emergency appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented from the Court’s order. Before the Supreme Court issued the order, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington, D.C. told the lawyers representing the illegal aliens that he did not have the power to stop deportation flights. “I am sympathetic to everything you’re saying, I just don’t I think I have the power to do anything,” Boasberg told the attorneys for the illegal aliens.

Boasberg did, last month, issue a temporary restraining order barring the U.S. from using the Alien Enemies Act to rapidly deport illegal aliens, but shortly thereafter the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration could resume deportations of Venezuelan criminal illegal aliens under the Alien Enemies Act. The previous 5-4 decision from the justices was narrow and did not address the constitutionality of using the Alien Enemies Act to deport members of the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua. Instead, the court said in its opinion that “judicial review” was requested in the wrong court. The attorneys for the illegal alien should have filed their lawsuit against the deportations in Texas, where the illegal aliens are being held, instead of filing in Washington, D.C., the court found.

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“..immediate apprehension, detention, and removal” of members of the group who are Venezuelan citizens 14 years of age or older and who are not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents of the United States.”

SCOTUS Blocks Deportation of Alleged Venezuela Gang Members for Now (ET)

The Supreme Court on April 19 temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deporting an unspecified number of Venezuelan men currently in immigration custody who are alleged to be members of a criminal gang. The new, unsigned order granting the Venezuelans’ emergency application was issued on Saturday at about 12:55 a.m. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented. Alito’s reasoning will be added to the court’s file later, according to the order. “The Government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this Court,” the order states. The order notes that a request to block the deportations is currently pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

After the Fifth Circuit acts, Solicitor General D. John Sauer should file a response to the application with the Supreme Court as soon as possible, the order states. The order was issued after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed an emergency request on behalf of its Venezuelan clients late on April 18 asking the Supreme Court to immediately block the Trump administration from deporting the clients. The emergency application in A.A.R.P. and W.M.M. v. Trump, which challenges President Donald Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport illegal immigrants who are alleged or confirmed criminal gang members, was directed to Justice Samuel Alito. The ACLU is also seeking a temporary restraining order from the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, as well as a stay of removal order from the Fifth Circuit, according to the application.

On March 14, President Donald Trump signed Proclamation 10903, in which he officially declared that Tren de Aragua, a designated foreign terrorist organization, “is perpetrating, attempting, and threatening an invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States.” The group is using mass illegal immigration to the United States to harm U.S. citizens, undermine public safety, and support the goal of the Venezuelan regime with which it is associated to destabilize “democratic nations in the Americas, including the United States,” the proclamation said. The president invoked the Alien Enemies Act to authorize the “immediate apprehension, detention, and removal” of members of the group who are Venezuelan citizens 14 years of age or older and who are not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents of the United States.

The application said the ACLU’s clients are challenging the Trump administration’s use of the federal statute to deport them. The clients “are in imminent and ongoing jeopardy of being removed from the United States without notice or an opportunity to be heard, in direct contravention of this Court’s order in Trump v. J.G.G.” “Many individuals have already been loaded on to buses, presumably headed to the airport” and are at risk of being sent to a prison in El Salvador, according to the application. On March 15, the Trump administration used the Alien Enemies Act to deport at least 137 Venezuelans to El Salvador, where they are now incarcerated “possibly for the rest of their lives” at the Salvadoran Terrorism Confinement Center, which is “one of the most notorious prisons in the world,” the application said.

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Turley ignores that there are a million+ cases, and they cannot possibly all be heard.

Yeah, the law works on paper. But the people do not.

SCOTUS Halts Venezuelan Deportations, 4th Circuit Upholds Garcia Order (Turley)

It has been a busy 24 hours in the courts. Early this morning, the Supreme Court blocked (for now) the deportations of any Venezuelans held in northern Texas under the Alien Enemies Act, a law only used three times before in our history. At the same time, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld the lower court’s order in the case of Abrego Garcia. Despite the growing counter-constitutional movement, both decisions show how the courts are functioning appropriately and expeditiously in sorting out these difficult cases. Indeed, I wanted to flag a couple of paragraphs in the Fourth Circuit case that I hope everyone will take a second to read and consider from Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson, a widely respected conservative judge. The justices ordered the Trump administration not to remove Venezuelans being held in the Bluebonnet Detention Center “until further order of this court.”

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented from the order. However, this is merely a hold on deportations pending further review of the emergency appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union, which is challenging the use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. This rarely used and highly controversial law stretches back to the Adams Administration. There are good-faith arguments on both sides of the case that the Court wants to consider. Accordingly, this is not surprising. The Fourth Circuit also correctly upheld the lower court order in the Garcia case. I remain confused by the administration’s appeal. The Supreme Court already upheld the order requiring the Administration to facilitate Garcia’s return. I have been critical of that opinion, but it clearly recognized the authority of the district court to issue that part of the earlier order.

However, Judge Wilkinson’s opinion contains one passage that I wanted to excerpt. It is a measured and important point that both branches need to show mutual respect in these cases. This sage advice is not coming from a critic or a liberal jurist. It is coming from someone who has been at the heart of conservative jurisprudence for decades:

“The basic differences between the branches mandate a serious effort at mutual respect. The respect that courts must accord the Executive must be reciprocated by the Executive’s respect for the courts. Too often today this has not been the case, as calls for impeachment of judges for decisions the Executive disfavors and exhortations to disregard court orders sadly illustrate.

Now the branches come too close to grinding irrevocably against one another in a conflict that promises to diminish both. This is a losing proposition all around. The Judiciary will lose much from the constant intimations of its illegitimacy, to which by dent of custom and detachment we can only sparingly reply. The Executive will lose much from a public perception of its lawlessness and all of its attendant contagions. The Executive may succeed for a time in weakening the courts, but over time history will script the tragic gap between what was and all that might have been, and law in time will sign its epitaph. It is, as we have noted, all too possible to see in this case an incipient crisis, but it may present an opportunity as well. We yet cling to the hope that it is not naïve to believe our good brethren in the Executive Branch perceive the rule of law as vital to the American ethos. This case presents their unique chance to vindicate that value and to summon the best that is within us while there is still time.”

Well said, your honor. One can disagree with the ultimate merits on legal issues. However, as I have previously written, the disagreement on those issues should not trigger demands for impeachment or other extreme measures.

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At first I thought Elon Musk had filed a lawsuit.

Judge Blocks Trump’s Order Ending ‘X’ Gender Marker on Passports (ET)

A federal judge ruled against the Trump administration’s executive order banning the use of an “X” on passports marked by people self-identifying as neither male nor female. U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick of the District Court of Massachusetts awarded the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) a preliminary injunction on April 18, staying the president’s executive action requiring sex, instead of gender identity, to be used as an identifier on government-issued identification documents. The executive order titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” was one of several signed by President Donald Trump on his first day in office. “It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female,” the order stated. ”These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”

The order stated that gender identity “reflects a fully internal and subjective sense of self, disconnected from biological reality and sex and existing on an infinite continuum, that does not provide a meaningful basis for identification and cannot be recognized as a replacement for sex.” It ordered the secretaries of State and Homeland Security, and the director of the Office of Personnel Management to “implement changes to require that government-issued identification documents, including passports, visas, and Global Entry cards, accurately reflect the holder’s sex.” It also ordered the rescinding of prior federal guidance documents, including “The White House Toolkit on Transgender Equality.”

The ACLU took legal action against the order on behalf of five plaintiffs who identify as transgender and two who identify as nonbinary, seeking to preserve the pro-LGBT policies put in place under President Joe Biden, allowing a third option on identification documents. “We all have a right to accurate identity documents, and this policy invites harassment, discrimination, and violence against transgender Americans who can no longer obtain or renew a passport that matches who they are,” ACLU lawyer Sruti Swaminathan said in a statement. The Trump administration argued that the president had broad discretion in setting the passport policy, and those policy changes did not “violate the equal protection guarantees of the Constitution.”

The federal government also denied any harm befalling the plaintiffs due to the policy, since they were still free to travel abroad. The judge said the administration didn’t demonstrate substantial government interests in changing the rule. “The Executive Order and the Passport Policy on their face classify passport applicants on the basis of sex and thus must be reviewed under intermediate judicial scrutiny,” Kobick wrote. “That standard requires the government to demonstrate that its actions are substantially related to an important governmental interest. The government has failed to meet this standard.”

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“Overall during the first 3 months of 2025, Tesla sold more EVs than the next 10 EV makers combined in the United States..”

Tesla Continues to Reign Supreme Despite Leftist Violence (Blackmon)

The obviously organized attacks on electric carmaker Tesla’s infrastructure and owners of Tesla cars by leftists apparently suffering from Musk Derangement Syndrome dominated the news throughout much of February and March. Sadly, the campaign was supported by a variety of virtue signaling celebrities and cynical politicians like Arizona Democrat Sen. Mark Kelly putting out videos of themselves selling off their own Teslas and replacing them with other electric vehicles or, in Kelly’s case, a gas-guzzling SUV. You can’t make this stuff up, you really can’t.

The frequency of these attacks appears to have largely died down after law enforcement officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Justice Department, arrested and charged a number of the activists with felonies, but the objective was clear: The campaign of attacks was designed to damage Tesla’s brand, in the process hoping to punish founder and CEO Elon Musk for his efforts to support the Donald Trump administration by leading the DOGE project to cut government waste and fraud.Certainly, some damage was done to Tesla’s infrastructure, and to its reputation among its liberal-heavy consumer base. But if the goal was to dethrone Musk’s EV juggernaut as the dominant player in the U.S. and global EV industry, first quarter results show the campaign of violence, vandalism, and virtue signaling to have been a miserable failure.

Web-based EV news site Teslarati compiled the numbers, and reports that Tesla still dominated the US market during the first quarter of 2025, and not just by a little, but by a lot. Tesla’s Model Y and Model 3 cars lead all others in total sales for the quarter with 64,051 and 52,520 units, respectively. Coming in a very distant third was Ford’s Mustang Mach E with just 11,607 units sold. Tesla’s vaunted, weirdly designed Cybertruck continued to be more than a bit of a disappointment, selling just 6,406 units, trailing the equally underperforming Ford F-150 Lightning by more than 700 units sold. But here’s the kicker: Overall during the first 3 months of 2025, Tesla sold more EVs than the next 10 EV makers combined in the United States. Musk’s car company dominates the EV space every bit as overwhelmingly as Google dominates the search engine space in the U.S.

Obviously, as I wrote here a few weeks ago, rumors of Tesla’s looming demise are highly overblown. And its dominant status in the market is not limited to the United States. Germany-based Blackout News reported on April 9 that just four EV companies worldwide are operating profitably today. The only one of those four EV makers not based in China – where we must admit that financial reporting is suspect at best – is, you guessed it, Tesla. That’s right: Not a single pure-play EV maker in the United States, Europe, or anywhere else outside of China is operating in the black even after 30 years of heavy financial subsidization by western governments and regulatory actions tilting the automaker playing field in their favor.

But Blackout News does not limit its report to pure-play EV companies like Rivian, Lucid and Fisker, all of which are either in bankruptcy or teetering on the brink today. The report also details the struggles of traditional car companies like Ford, GM, BMW, and others to record profits in their own EV business units, a topic I’ve covered here several times in the past few years. What it all boils down to is this: No matter how hard cynical Democrats like Sen. Kelly and crazed activists try to damage what has become one of America’s great automakers and its thousands of employees, the market is going to be the ultimate decider of the company’s fate. For the first quarter of 2025, the market has spoken, and Tesla and Musk have come out as the clear winners. That may be a bad thing for Democrats, but it’s a great thing for America.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Severe autism

Makary

Measles

Fauci

Neura

Maculatus

Catmouflage

Santorini
https://twitter.com/mamboitaliano__/status/1913482407660990550

Malaga

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Apr 182025
 
 April 18, 2025  Posted by at 10:03 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , ,  33 Responses »


Salvador Dali The knight of death 1934

 

China Is In Much Deeper Trouble Than Most Realize (Strom)
US Expects Ukraine Ceasefire Within Weeks – Bloomberg (RT)
Europe Seeking ‘Direct Line’ With Trump – NYT (RT)
Meloni’s White House Trip Paves Way For European Union Rapprochement (JTN)
US Will Pull EU to Pieces Before Letting It Partner Up With China (Sp.)
Trump Admin Fights Back Against Rogue Judge’s Contempt Warning (Margolis)
Convicted FBI Lawyer Clinesmith Was Spared From Prison By Boasberg (JTN)
REPORT: President Trump Opposed Israeli Strikes on Iran Nuclear Sites (CTH)
Pam Bondi Outlines Timeline and History of MS13 Illegal Alien (CTH)
Bondi Announces Lawsuit Against Maine Over Boys in Girls’ Sports (ET)
Rubio Shuts Down Censorship Program Biden Admin Claimed was Ended (Turley)
A Chihuahua That Thinks It’s A Lion: The Decline of Britain (Bordachev)
China Replacing US Oil With Canadian – Bloomberg (RT)
Trump Tariffs Could Cost EU $1.25 Trillion (RT)
German Anti-Russia Propaganda Is Reaching Nazi-era Levels (Amar)
Court Rules Google Illegally Holds “Monopoly Power” In Online Ad Tech (ZH)
Trump to Make an Epic Move at the IRS (Margolis)
Climate Myths (John Stossel)

 

 

 

 

Trust

Ritter

Poso
https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1912573038303863007

What is China’s messsage here? That you might as well make it at home?No wait, that’s Trump’s message.
https://twitter.com/acnewsitics/status/1912841340968395205

 

 

Pepe

 

 

 

 

Contentious topic.

“[Xi] has counted on making the US economy dependent on China to keep us cowed. Trump is turning that logic on its head.”

China Is In Much Deeper Trouble Than Most Realize (Strom)

In the tariff war between China and the United States, a lot of chatter in the Pravda Media is about Xi Jinping’s defiance, his outreach to European countries and other less important but collectively significant developing countries, and his retaliatory moves against America. They make it sound like China has a lot of cards to play in the trade war with America. Collectively, these stories tell a tale: Donald Trump may have bitten off more than he can chew in his economic war with China. Trump’s moves will hollow out the American middle class! Europe will choose China over the United States! We are doomed! The Chinese are putting up a very brave front, until recently matching Trump’s blow for blow and pointing to Chinese willingness to endure everything up to eating grass for a year to defeat their adversaries. The Chinese plan for the long term! Yeah, well, not so much.

It all sounds impressive, and some pissed-off ally countries have even hinted at turning Chinaward as a response to what they consider a stab in the back from President Trump. Except…Reality. Our ticked-off allies are acting like 6-year-old children angry at their parents, threatening to run away. As much as they resent the United States, they are utterly dependent upon us and chose to be so. They are militarily weak and have sputtering economies that rely on the US as an export market. The United States, not themselves, defends its sea lines of communication, and they all know that China is a predatory power and not a reliable economic partner. The US not only represents 25% of the world economy, which is quite impressive in itself. But it has about 40% of the world’s consumer spending. No manufacturer of consumer products can afford to turn their backs on the US.

China may be an attractive market, but it is not sufficiently large enough to make a dent in their losses should the US close our markets to them. Which brings us to China itself. All that bluster sounds good, but it hides a stark reality: their economy is utterly dependent on US consumption. As much power as they have over us–they can cause us temporary pain as we adjust to finding new suppliers–we have infinitely more over them. Even their holdings in US debt are a double-edged sword. The US has relied on China to purchase government bonds, but as the old saying goes–If you owe the bank a billion dollars, you have power over them. The tariffs on China have been DEVASTATING. Not will be devastating. They are already devastating. China’s economy is reeling from the impact of tariffs, and public discontent is growing.

On Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, videos show citizens openly criticizing the government’s rigid stance on tariffs, with some even taking to the streets in protest. Chinese authorities are cracking down, forcibly dispersing crowds and suppressing evidence of unrest, but these efforts can only hold for so long. As joblessness and food shortages deepen, desperation is setting in, pushing people to the brink. China’s heavy reliance on the U.S. market gives America the upper hand—we can outlast them until they yield or face internal upheaval, potentially threatening President Xi’s leadership. China’s government is and appears quite strong because it is. But something can be both very strong and very brittle–meaning that it performs well until the moment it shatters. Think ceramics or glass, both of which can be very strong until the moment they shatter. They don’t bend and spring back–they are good until the breaking point, and then boom.

China’s government is not loved, but it is tolerated because it is strong and because it generally delivers on its major promise: economic growth, pulling a billion people out of poverty as quickly as possible. Tariffs aren’t just a threat to that strategy. If Trump really pushes, Xi Jinping’s government is in real trouble, and not the kind of trouble that means a midterm loss or failure to get reelected. This is regime-threatening. Xi, who looked to be in the catbird seat, could be facing a collapse of his legitimacy as leader of China. The Trump administration plans to use ongoing tariff negotiations to pressure U.S. trading partners to limit their dealings with China, according to people with knowledge of the conversations. The idea is to extract commitments from U.S. trading partners to isolate China’s economy in exchange for reductions in trade and tariff barriers imposed by the White House.

U.S. officials plan to use negotiations with more than 70 nations to ask them to disallow China from shipping goods through their countries, prevent Chinese firms from locating in their territories to avoid U.S. tariffs, and not absorb China’s cheap industrial goods into their economies. These measures are meant to put a dent in China’s already rickety economy and force Beijing to the negotiating table with less leverage ahead of potential talks between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. The exact demands could vary widely by nation, given their degree of involvement with the Chinese economy. China’s strategy of growing its economic power and influence depends on a river of money with its headwaters in the United States. And its ability to make deals in countries not hostile to the United States is only possible because the US tolerates its moves and is committed to using only modest soft power to oppose the moves.

Donald Trump is not in a mood to tolerate expanding Chinese influence. Look at the Panama Canal port deals. Trump’s goal is not so much to own the canal as to deny China influence in the region. China, not Panama, is the target. In fact, most of Trump’s seemingly bizarre foreign policy moves–Canada as the 51st state and annexing Greenland are about trying to change the political geography to keep China from gaining influence in the Arctic. The flow of information out of China on economic performance since the tariffs hit is sparse, but I have been checking in on the social media chatter coming out of China, and the news is bleak. Consumer spending is down, export products are being sold at firesale prices, and business owners are locking doors and leaving employees unpaid. This is all chatter right now, but also likely true.

Trade wars suck for everybody involved, and when the cost of Chinese-made products go up there will be some pain here in the United States, whatever Trump and his people say. But none of this pain will be an existential threat to Trump, the country, or the Republican Party. There will be a price to pay, but it will be modest in the longer term. Not so for China. Their regime is under threat because their hand is much, much weaker. Weaker than Trump’s and weaker than people think. Of course, if China were a normal country, what Trump is doing would be a horrible policy. Generally speaking, destroying a trading partner’s economy is both morally questionable and terrible for business. Normally you would cut a deal. But China and the United States are heading for a war, and a big one at that. Xi Jinping has made that abundantly clear, and he has counted on making the US economy dependent on China to keep us cowed. Trump is turning that logic on its head.

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I don’t think they do. Looks more like they’re getting ready to pull out.

US Expects Ukraine Ceasefire Within Weeks – Bloomberg (RT)

Senior US officials have told European allies that Washington anticipates a comprehensive ceasefire in the Ukraine conflict within weeks, Bloomberg has reported. US presidential envoy Steve Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio outlined the timeline during a series of meetings in Paris on Thursday, hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron, Bloomberg reported the same day, citing anonymous sources. The European side sought to persuade the Americans that President Donald Trump should “harden its position toward Moscow,” the report said, describing the discussions as “the latest attempt by Europe to influence the outcome” of US talks with Russia.

Last week, Witkoff traveled to St. Petersburg for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which he has characterized as “compelling.” Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has criticized Trump’s envoy, accusing him of echoing “Russian narratives.” Russian officials have expressed skepticism about the feasibility of a ceasefire with Ukraine, asserting that Kiev’s backers in Europe are undermining US efforts. Speaking to journalists on Thursday, Moscow’s UN representative, Vassily Nebenzia, highlighted that Kiev has failed to adhere to a US-mediated moratorium on strikes against energy infrastructure.

The diplomat said that the West’s record of using purported peace deals to build up the Ukrainian military means that expectations for a full ceasefire are “simply unrealistic at this stage.” “I cannot speak on behalf of President Trump,” Nebenzia said. “Perhaps, he knows better what I don’t know.” The 30-day energy ceasefire announced on March 18 is set to expire this week. When asked on Wednesday whether Russia would alter its military strategy, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that Putin had issued no new directives on the matter.

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What Europe? Do you mean Von der Leyen, who has no links to any European, or Macron, who’s despised by those he does have a link to? Who would Trump talk to, and why?

Europe Seeking ‘Direct Line’ With Trump – NYT (RT)

European officials are seeking to establish a “direct line” of communication with US President Donald Trump, unsure whether his team can make any real decisions or is willing to cooperate at all, the New York Times reported on Thursday, citing sources. The report, based on interviews with numerous unnamed European officials, describes the US president as “the ultimate decision maker” who is often difficult to predict, making the goal of getting Trump’s ear a priority for the Europeans. Many top-level negotiators in European NATO countries have found traditional diplomatic channels – such as the State Department and embassies – ineffective, the report said. The confusion is compounded by the fact that the most effective interlocutors on the US side are not career diplomats but rather trusted special envoys and advisers, such as Elon Musk and Steve Witkoff, the article said.

The officials also told the NYT that their US counterparts are primarily focused on fulfilling the president’s wishes, showing limited interest in the perspectives of America’s allies. The Trump administration is “not terribly interested in what the Europeans have to say,” a NYT source said. “It’s all about unilateralism and they don’t consult much. After all, if they don’t consider us allies to that extent, why would they?” While senior Trump officials have held “cordial” talks with their European counterparts on a number of issues, “it is never clear to allies” whether they have “real power over foreign policy or trade,” the article said. ”Everyone in D.C. says you have to talk to Trump directly,” a senior European official told the NYT.

However, this has proved difficult even for the highest-ranking EU officials, as Trump “despises the collective power of the European Union and sees many NATO allies as freeloaders,” the paper said, adding that leaders such as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are struggling to get on Trump’s calendar. The communication breakdown comes at a time of tenuous US-EU relations, marred by Washington’s decision to slap the bloc with tariffs and its push to make European NATO members pay more for their defense. Differences over the Ukraine conflict have also come into play, with Trump pursuing active diplomacy with Russia to end the conflict while the EU insists on supporting Kiev for “as long as it takes.”

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Yes, Meloni might be the EU contact for Trump. But Brussels would not give her any voice of her own.

Meloni’s White House Trip Paves Way For European Union Rapprochement (JTN)

President Donald Trump’s meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Thursday at the Oval Office came amid the ongoing trade dispute between the European Union and Washington and appeared to pave the way for a presidential visit to the continent to address the matter with its leaders. “I want to thank President Trump for having accepted an invitation to pay an official visit to Rome in the near future and consider the possibility in that occasion to meet also with Europe,” Meloni told reporters in the Oval Office. “The goal for me is to make the West great again, and I think we can do it together. We can and we will keep [working] on that.” The Italian leader generally ranks among those European figures with the strongest relationships with Trump himself.

A stalwart conservative and opponent of illegal immigration, Meloni shares many of Trump’s own positions, putting her on solid footing with her counterpart in the Oval Office. She further acknowledged those points in the meeting, saying “I know that we share lots of things on tackling illegal migration, on fighting against synthetic drugs.” Meloni was the only European Union leader to attend Trump’s 2024 inauguration and was among the first to congratulate him on his reelection. The pair have generally enjoyed a strong relationship and Trump himself called her a “great prime minister” during the meeting. Ahead of her trip to Washington, Meloni had been widely regarded as the European leader best suited to negotiating with Trump.

Italy is the 25th most populous nation globally with more than 59 million residents, according to data from the U.N. Dept. of Economic and Social Affairs, and a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $2.3 trillion (USD). In January 2025, the United States exported $2.82 billion to and imported $6.11 billion from Italy, resulting in a negative trade balance of $3.29 billion. The Observatory of Economic Complexity reported that in January 2025, the top exports of the United States to Italy were Hormones ($580M), Petroleum Gas ($249M), and Crude Petroleum ($211M). In the same month, the main imports to the United States from Italy were packaged medicines ($634M), vaccines, blood, antisera, toxins and cultures ($436M), and commodities not specified otherwise ($268M).

In early April, Trump declared “Liberation Day” and announced the imposition of sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs on most foreign nations. He later paused some of the largest tariffs, though he maintained a 10% baseline on most countries and left in place large-scale tariffs on China. Shortly after Liberation Day, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a “zero for zero” tariff offer to the United States, though Washington has yet to agree to any permanent arrangement. Trump initially imposed 20% tariffs on most European goods, but he has since brought Brussels down to the 10% rate for a 90-day period and Meloni was expected to pursue a resolution to the issue. Ahead of the meeting, the White House was optimistic that it would be able to secure agreements with many nations eager to reach lasting agreements. “We’ve got 90 deals in 90 days possibly pending here,” White House advisor Peter Navarro said.

Multiple White House officials have shared that sentiment publicly, though it is not clear which nations have expressed interest in negotiating trade deals. Meloni’s visit was decidedly more jovial than that of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which resulted in his removal from the White House after a tempestuous press conference. By contrast, the Oval Office meeting with Meloni saw many laughs as the pair exchanged compliments and pronounced the productiveness of their talks. “We have been talking about many bilateral topics and things that we can do together, about defense, about economic [sic], about economy, about space, about energy, Italy will have to increase its LNG imports and also nuclear that we are trying to develop,” Meloni said. “I think there can be ways to work together.” She further highlighted the commitment of Italian firms to American investment, but did not speak to the prospect of an individual trade deal between the United States and Italy.

“And the Italian enterprises will invest, as they’ve been doing for many years, as you know, in the next years, I think around $10 billions,” she added [sic]. “That shows how interconnected our economies are.” Meloni did not arrive officially as an envoy for the EU, though she did emphasize the importance of America’s relationship with the continent. During the Oval Office meeting, she pointed primarily to the economic relationships between Italy and the United States, but used the American relationship with her country as a segue to discuss the continental issue. “Mr. President, it’s not only about Italy, it’s about the entire Europe. The exchange between us is a very big one, investments, trade,” she said. “So I think even if we have some problems okay between the two shores of the Atlantic, it is the time that we try to sit down and find solutions.” “I know that when I speak about the West mainly, I don’t speak about a geographical space. I speak about [the] civilization, and I want to make that civilization stronger,” she added.

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“In the US’s ‘grand geopolitical chessboard’, the EU remains “one of the big, most important parts..”

US Will Pull EU to Pieces Before Letting It Partner Up With China (Sp.)

Trump’s global trade rampage has left the European Union and China seeking improved trade and investment relations. But that’s not a realistic prospect, says veteran Hong Kong-based Italian financial analyst Angelo Giuliano. For starters, “you need to keep in mind that the EU leaders were pre-selected by the Bilderberg Group and the US. Basically…the EU is actually a US project to destroy nation states,” Giuliano told Sputnik. Much of the bloc’s former and current top leadership (including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Economy Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni, Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany, France’s Emmanuel Macron and NATO chief Mark Rutte) are members of the Atlanticist club or have spoken at its meetings.

Second, the EU doesn’t decide its own fate, a reality demonstrated by Washington’s success in decoupling the bloc from Russia’s cheap, plentiful energy resources, and forcing it to import much more costly US LNG, Giuliano said. This left the EU’s industrial output uncompetitive globally and triggered widespread deindustrialization as hundreds of companies downsized, stopped production and shifted production abroad, including to the US. Washington can and will do the same vis-à-vis Europe and China as it consolidates alliances against the emerging, BRICS-led multipolar world order, Giuliano believes. “There’s going to be some backfiring from the business community, but ultimately [Europe’s] leaders are going to side with the US as they see Russia and China as the enemies,” the observer emphasized.

Besides US vassalage, closer EU-China ties are stymied by other factors, like:
• China’s warm relations with Russia, a sharp contrast to active EU support for the anti-Russia proxy war in Ukraine.
• The acrimonious relationship with Russia means new infrastructure like the Northern Sea Route, the North-South Transport Corridor and overland transit via Russia remain closed to the EU. Instead, Europe-China trade relies on transit via the Red Sea, hindered by Houthi ops against the US and Israel.
• Fears of China’s sophisticated and cost-competitive automotive and green tech, which along with consumer goods, chemicals and steel could further deindustrialize the EU, especially as China enjoys access to discounted Russian energy while the bloc is stuck with pricey American gas deliveries.
• Unresolved industrial subsidies, agricultural dumping, IP and tech-related bitterness.

Ultimately, enhanced EU-China would be possible, and advantageous, Giuliano says, but only if Brussels “had a more neutral stance” in international affairs, “siding a little bit with BRICS and also the Belt and Road Initiative. “But again, there are a lot of obstacles for that, and the US would not allow it to happen, because they want to have a sphere of influence between North and South America and the EU. They want to control those blocs. And they fight with the multipolar world and this transition to a multipolar world,” the observer noted. In the US’s ‘grand geopolitical chessboard’, the EU remains “one of the big, most important parts,” Giuliano summed up.

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“A single Obama-appointed district judge is trying to hamstring the entire executive branch’s ability to enforce immigration law.”

Trump Admin Fights Back Against Rogue Judge’s Contempt Warning (Margolis)

The Trump administration has just shown exactly how to handle judicial activism: by fighting back with everything it has. In a bold move that’s sure to have the Democratic establishment sputtering with rage, Trump’s legal team filed an immediate appeal Wednesday evening against Judge James Boasberg’s outrageous contempt threat. The judge’s unprecedented power grab attempted to block crucial deportation flights, and he’s learning the hard way that the Trump administration isn’t taking his judicial overreach sitting down. The administration’s legal response was swift and devastating. Its appeal systematically dismantled Boasberg’s ruling, pointing out how it represents a “massive, unauthorized imposition on the Executive’s authority” and directly contradicts recent Supreme Court precedent.

The Trump administration’s brief appeal to the D.C. Circuit Court does not include any new details, as the facts of the case have already been heard by the district and appellate court. The appellate court last month ruled 2-1 to uphold Boasberg’s temporary restraining order. The Supreme Court, however, ruled 5-4 last month that the Trump administration could resume its deportation flights under the Alien Enemies Act, so long as individuals subject to removal under the law were given due process protections, and the opportunity to pursue habeas relief – or the ability to have their case heard by a U.S. court prior to their removal. Boasberg said Wednesday that the court found that the Trump administration had demonstrated a “willful disregard” for his March 15 emergency order, which temporarily halted all deportation flights to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 statute providing for such deportations during “a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion” by a foreign nation.

What makes this pushback so satisfying is how it exposes the left’s double standard. When Trump follows the law and exercises his constitutional authority to protect Americans, leftists cry “contempt.” But when Democratic appointees like Boasberg ignore Supreme Court rulings they don’t like? Crickets from the mainstream media. Team Trump’s legal filing didn’t pull any punches. It meticulously detailed how Boasberg’s ruling attempts to usurp executive authority that the Supreme Court explicitly confirmed just last month. The 5-4 decision authorized these deportation flights, but apparently, left-wing district court judges think they can override the Supreme Court because “Orange man bad.” The administration’s response demonstrates exactly why Trump’s approach to the judiciary is so necessary.

While previous Republican administrations might have meekly complied with such judicial overreach, Trump’s team recognizes these tactics for what they are — an attempt to legislate from the bench. A single Obama-appointed district judge is trying to hamstring the entire executive branch’s ability to enforce immigration law. The Trump administration isn’t just fighting back against one bad ruling; it’s defending the fundamental separation of powers. This appeal systematically addresses every aspect of Boasberg’s flawed and blatantly partisan reasoning while simultaneously highlighting the urgent national security implications of these deportation flights. Of course, the left is not used to an administration that actually fights back against judicial activism. It expected Trump to roll over like so many Republicans before him. Instead, it’s getting a masterclass in constitutional governance.

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“Knee-deep in the mud..”

Trump’s present day nemesis judge fulfilled that role also during the Russiagate years. When Clinesmith falsified a FISA application.

Convicted FBI Lawyer Clinesmith Was Spared From Prison By Boasberg (JTN)

Convicted FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith — whom Judge James Boasberg gave a slap on the wrist for his crimes years before becoming a public foe of President Donald Trump’s deportation policies — was more deeply involved in the deeply flawed Crossfire Hurricane investigation than previously known. Clinesmith, who worked on both the FBI’s Hillary Clinton email investigation and on the Trump-Russia collusion inquiry, pleaded guilty to falsifying a document during the bureau’s efforts to renew FISA authority to wiretap Carter Page, who was an adviser to Trump’s 2016 campaign. Newly-declassified details about Clinesmith’s involvement include a wide swath of information about his role in the case. He was a key go-to for former FBI lawyer Lisa Page and fired FBI special agent Peter Strzok throughout the debunked collusion saga and a main driver in obtaining a FISA warrant against Page based on the infamous Steele dossier.

Clinesmith also granted his seal of approval on a document describing the FBI’s pretextual briefing of then-candidate Trump, was deeply involved in the investigation into retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, played a role in going after former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, and more. He also helped the FBI push its “Cross Wind” investigation, which Just the News can confirm related to the targeting of security expert Walid Phares, which resulted in no accusations of wrongdoing and no charges. Clinesmith confessed in August 2020 that he had manipulated a CIA email in 2017 to state that Carter Page was “not a source” for the CIA when that agency had actually told the bureau on multiple occasions that Page was in fact an “operational contact” for the CIA.

Boasberg, the federal judge who is blocking Trump’s efforts to deport Venezuelan gang members, also played a key and controversial role in the aftermath of the Trump-Russia collusion saga as the leader of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The judge, nominated to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by then-President Barack Obama in 2011, is currently engaged in an all-out legal battle with the Trump Justice Department. But in his role as the head of the FISA Court he made a number of divisive decisions, including a slap on the wrist for a member of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane team, the appointment of officials who had defended the FBI’s actions during the Russiagate saga, the renewal of the FBI’s FISA powers, and more. Boasberg ruled this week that “probable cause exists” to hold Trump administration officials in criminal contempt after they violated his orders by continuing deportation flights. But his ruling follows the Supreme Court holding that Boasberg’s court was in an improper venue for the case altogether.

Boasberg, in his role as a federal judge, denied the Justice Department’s efforts to seek up to six months behind bars for Clinesmith, who pleaded guilty in Special Counsel John Durham’s Trump-Russia investigation — instead giving Clinesmith a year of probation, 400 hours of community service, and no fine. Durham argued that Clinesmith’s “deceptive conduct” related to the FISA application fabrication “was antithetical to the duty of candor and eroded the FISA’s confidence in the accuracy of all previous FISA applications worked on by the defendant,” and said his deception “fueled public distrust of the FBI and of the entire FISA program itself.” But Boasberg seemed to defend Clinesmith’s deceptive FISA-related actions during his January 2021 sentencing.

“Mr. Clinesmith likely believed that what he said was true,” Boasberg wrote, adding, “I do not believe he was attempting to achieve an end he knew was wrong.” The judge claimed that “it is not clear to me that the fourth FISA warrant would not have been signed but for this error. … Even if Mr. Clinesmith had been accurate about Mr. Page’s relationship with the other government agency, the warrant may well have been signed and the surveillance authorized.” Durham had argued that Clinesmith’s deception “fueled public distrust of the FBI and of the entire FISA program itself.” Anthony Scarpelli, then a top prosecutor on Durham’s team, also argued that “the defendant’s criminal conduct tarnished the integrity of the FISA program” and that “the resulting harm is immeasurable.”

Clinesmith told the court that “I am deeply remorseful for any effect my actions may have had” on the FISA process even as he claimed that “I never intended to mislead my colleagues about the status of Dr. Page.” But Boasberg lamented that Clinesmith had been “abused” and “vilified” on a “national scale” when the judge handed down his sentence, though he did acknowledge that the FISA court’s reputation “has suffered” from the ex-FBI attorney’s actions. DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz in 2019 found huge flaws with the FBI’s Russia collusion investigation, finding at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the FISA warrants against former Trump campaign associate Carter Page. He also criticized the “central and essential” role of British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s debunked dossier in the FBI’s politicized FISA surveillance. Clinesmith reportedly circulated the dossier to other law enforcement staff.

FBI notes of a January 2017 interview with Steele source Igor Danchenko showed he told the bureau he “did not know the origins” of some of Steele’s claims and “did not recall” other dossier information. Danchenko also noted much of what he gave to Steele was “word of mouth and hearsay,” some of which stemmed from a “conversation that [he] had with friends over beers,” and the most salacious allegations may have been made in “jest.” The special counsel assessed that “the FBI ignored the fact that at no time before, during, or after Crossfire Hurricane were investigators able to corroborate a single substantive allegation in the Steele dossier reporting.” The new revelations about Clinesmith come partly through further declassified text messages sent by Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and others involved in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.

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“We keep watching….”

REPORT: President Trump Opposed Israeli Strikes on Iran Nuclear Sites (CTH)

The report comes as a result of leaks to the New York Times. Which, given the nature of the subject matter and administration officials involved, indicates the sourcing is from the domestic IC side of things. Specifically, the greatest likelihood is from someone in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) talking to media. Keep that in mind. According to leaked information to the New York Times, President Trump did not agree with an Israeli proposal to launch military strikes against Iran. According to the narrative as advanced, President Trump, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth were in agreement to attempt diplomatic solutions instead of bombing Iran. Israel could not conduct the attack without U.S. support, which President Trump decided not to give. Instead, Trump wanted a more forceful push toward engagement and diplomacy with Iran surrounding the ongoing contentious issue of nuclear development.

NEW YORK TIMES – “Israel had planned to strike Iranian nuclear sites as soon as next month but was waved off by President Trump in recent weeks in favor of negotiating a deal with Tehran to limit its nuclear program, according to administration officials and others briefed on the discussions. Mr. Trump made his decision after months of internal debate over whether to pursue diplomacy or support Israel in seeking to set back Iran’s ability to build a bomb, at a time when Iran has been weakened militarily and economically. The debate highlighted fault lines between historically hawkish American cabinet officials and other aides more skeptical that a military assault on Iran could destroy the country’s nuclear ambitions and avoid a larger war. It resulted in a rough consensus, for now, against military action, with Iran signaling a willingness to negotiate.

Israeli officials had recently developed plans to attack Iranian nuclear sites in May. They were prepared to carry them out, and at times were optimistic that the United States would sign off. The goal of the proposals, according to officials briefed on them, was to set back Tehran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon by a year or more. Almost all of the plans would have required U.S. help not just to defend Israel from Iranian retaliation, but also to ensure that an Israeli attack was successful, making the United States a central part of the attack itself. For now, Mr. Trump has chosen diplomacy over military action.”

This is where we need to insert the element that all media generally refuse to associate, Russia.” Iran has reengaged with officials from President Trump’s administration following a letter Trump wrote to the leadership in Iran. President Trump wants Mideast peace; he also wants to avoid the issue of Iran having a nuclear weapon. President Trump views military action as the last possible resort for failed diplomatic and geopolitical efforts. Israel wants to attack Iran. President Trump wants to support Israel but doesn’t want expanded military conflict that pulls the USA into more Mideast war. As we see in the continued issues within Ukraine, the CIA supports expanded conflict in both Ukraine and Iran. Israel and the CIA are in alignment. Hence, in our ongoing restaurant analogy, the CIA is the kitchen, and Israel has a table there. Russian President Vladimir Putin could be an influential geopolitical partner with President Trump, if Trump can get the issues of Ukraine and Russia solved and then pivot to Iran.

Unfortunately, the CIA does not want the issues within Ukraine solved, doesn’t want Trump and Putin coordinating and certainly doesn’t want Trump and Putin to work out a new strategic global map that does not contain useful conflict. Again, Israel and the CIA are in alignment. If President Trump builds a new bridge to Putin the bypass will significantly hurt traffic around the restaurant. The congressional zoning commission (House) is sympathetic to the long-term contract held by the chef, and the Israeli chamber of commerce are paying the county commissioners (senators) ‘indulgency fees’ to maintain the current ingress and egress. With the January change in shingle, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is now the maître d at the front of the house. Secretary Rubio is not using the menu options created by the kitchen team.

The kitchen is not happy (drones into Moscow). DNI Gabbard in place as the IC hostess, is trying to keep the restaurant operation seamless so the customers generally don’t notice. Unfortunately, the kitchen isn’t soundproof, and we can hear plates crashing (NYT leaks). Around the neighborhood, the locals are worried the kitchen staff might start spitting in their food if they are seen enjoying the new service and menu options. A few of the regulars have told the maître d and hostess about the rumors. The issue is being discussed as part of a pre-planned remodel. The interior architect (Trump) and interior designer (Musk) are proposing to remove the walls so the customers can see the kitchen operation as part of a new and modern decor, style and ambiance [transparency]. However, the guys who eat in the kitchen aren’t going to be happy if they are exposed to the riffraff and forced to eat at ordinary tables.

We keep watching….

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“Pam Bondi: Every American should be thanking Trump tonight..”

“..it was a stealth DOJ Lawfare operative who purposefully wrote in a court filing that Garcia’s deportation was a “mistake.”

Pam Bondi Outlines Timeline and History of MS13 Illegal Alien (CTH)

Not since the Sandra Fluke election operation have the intel democrats coordinated so heavily with their media allies to organize support for a random person within the political/social narrative space, as they have with Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Apparently, the controlled U.S. media and their leftist politicians in office are choosing to use Garcia as a 2026 midterm election cry, similar to 2020’s George Floyd. The professional democrat party, their social media warriors/foot soldiers and the aligned propaganda media are all-in to use Kilmar Abrego Garcia as the face of their politics.

Attempting to counter the false narratives that surround the deportation of Garcia, Attorney General Pam Bondi makes her 77th appearance on Fox News to push back. Sean Hannity provides the Fox venue du jour. The responsibility is accurately applied to Bondi’s effort, considering it was a stealth DOJ Lawfare operative who purposefully wrote in a court filing that Garcia’s deportation was a “mistake.” The failure of Main Justice to catch the Lawfare operation within their ranks, has triggered these media events.

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“Maine Democrats have doubled down on their far-left agenda, and now our students and families stand poised to lose hundreds of millions in federal funding..”

Maine claims that keeping guys out of girls’ private rooms is “politically motivated”. Huh?

Bondi Announces Lawsuit Against Maine Over Boys in Girls’ Sports (ET)

The Department of Justice is seeking a federal court injunction requiring Pine Tree State schools to immediately stop transgender boys from competing in girls’ sports and return all athletic records and titles to their rightful female owners. The federal agency will also consider retroactively pulling funding from school districts that have not complied with Title IX regulations in the past, Attorney General Pam Bondi said during an April 16 news conference in Washington. “Pretty basic stuff,” she said. “This is about women’s sports. This is also about young women’s personal safety.” Bondi was flanked by Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Maine Assemblywoman Laurel Libby, who was censured by her state’s Democrat-led state legislature for posting photos and the identity of a male transgender athlete from Greely High School who won an indoor track state pole vaulting title this year.

Maine high school athletes who competed against transgender males also appeared on stage, along with Riley Gaines, a former NCAA swimmer who brought this debate to the national stage after losing the championship to a transgender male who had competed in the men’s division until his senior year. Bondi said a Maine transgender male also won a cross-country state title last fall in the girls’ division and placed at state-level skiing competitions this past winter. “That took away a spot from young women in women’s sports,” Bondi said. “Shame on him.” Bondi did not disclose where this federal lawsuit was filed. In a separate court case related to the same debate, a judge ordered the federal government to unfreeze Department of Agriculture funding to schools.

President Donald Trump previously issued executive orders clarifying Title IX and prohibiting males from competing in women’s sports. The NCAA has already complied, and Republican House members are working on a bill to codify that regulation. Maine’s attorney general has already informed Bondi that his state has no intention of complying with the order. School district superintendents told their communities that until directed otherwise, they are expected to comply with state laws that are contrary to Trump’s executive order. Trump publicly sparred with Maine Gov. Janet Mills at a governor’s workshop on Capitol Hill in February, warning her that he would pull funding if she continued to defy his executive order. At the state level, the Greely High School community has shown public support for all transgender athletes, including their state champion pole vaulter, criticizing Trump and the NCAA for its compliance. But Libby has also received plenty of support via her social media presence and continues to state that most Mainers do not support men competing as women in their state.

“Maine Democrats have doubled down on their far-left agenda, and now our students and families stand poised to lose hundreds of millions in federal funding,” Libby said in a statement provided to The Epoch Times. “Their radical gender ideology is endangering the continued existence of women’s sports and penalizing Maine students against the will of Maine citizens.” Mills issued a statement after Bondi’s news conference, saying that Trump and the Department of Justice’s actions are politically motivated. “As I have said previously, this is not just about who can compete on the athletic field, this is about whether a President can force compliance with his will, without regard for the rule of law that governs our nation. I believe he cannot,” the governor said.

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They would simply rename a office and say they shut it down.

Rubio Shuts Down Censorship Program Biden Admin Claimed was Ended (Turley)

For years, I have written about the Global Engagement Center (GEC) in columns and my book, The Indispensable Right. It was one of the hubs of the censorship network under the Biden Administration, which claimed it was shut down after Congress cut off funding. However, Secretary of State Marco Rubio just announced that he has terminated the office, which was operating under a different name (a familiar tactic by the anti-free speech movement). Secretary Rubio announced the closure of the State Department’s Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference office, which was previously known as the Global Engagement Center (GEC): “Over the last decade, Americans have been slandered, fired, charged, and even jailed for simply voicing their opinions. That ends today…

When Republicans in Congress sunset GEC’s funding at the end of last year, the Biden State Department slapped on a new name. The GEC became the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R-FIMI) office, with the same roster of employees. With this new name, they hoped to survive the transition to the new administration. Today, we are putting that to an end. Whatever name it goes by, GEC is dead. It will not return.” Bravo, Mr. Secretary, Bravo. We previously saw this dishonest practice in the Biden Administration when they claimed to shut down a censorship office only to shift work to other offices.

As we celebrated the demise of the infamous Disinformation Governing Board, the Biden administration never disclosed a larger censorship effort. That includes a recently disclosed back channel to Twitter where dozens of FBI agents tagged citizens for censorship. I have testified on that evidence of evasion and censorship. The new move will remove 50 full-time staff positions at the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference office. Rubio discussed his decision in an op-ed for The Federalist. The GEC was part of the Election Integrity Partnership, which we have also discussed as a consortium of nonprofits, social media platforms, and government agencies that were key to the censorship system.

The Biden Administration created censorship offices throughout the government while sending massive amounts of federal funding to groups and universities to help target individuals and groups.Rooting out these offices and grants will take a prolonged effort, but great progress has already occurred under the Trump Administration. Of course, this will add to the ranks of censorious Ronins looking for new sponsors. Many will find homes in academia and in Europe. Yet, there is reason to take heart even as we fight to regain the ground lost under Biden. As Winston Churchill said in 1942, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

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A Chihuahua rules the waves…

A Chihuahua That Thinks It’s A Lion: The Decline of Britain (Bordachev)

There are only two countries in the world that have exercised full autonomy over major political decisions for more than 500 years: Russia and Britain. No others come close. That alone makes Moscow and London natural rivals. But now, we can say with confidence that our historical adversary is no longer what it once was. Britain is losing its foreign policy clout and has been reduced to what we might call “Singapore on the Atlantic”: an island trading power, out of sync with the broader trajectory of world affairs. The fall from global relevance is not without irony. For centuries, Britain caused nothing but harm to the international system. It played France and Germany off one another, betrayed its own allies in Eastern Europe, and exploited its colonies to exhaustion. Even within the European Union, from 1972 until Brexit in 2020, the UK worked tirelessly to undermine the project of integration – first from within, and now from without, with backing from Washington.

Today, the British foreign policy establishment still attempts to sabotage European cohesion, acting as an American proxy. The late historian Edward Carr once mocked the British worldview with a fictional headline: “Fog in Channel – Continent Cut Off.” This egoism, common to island nations, is especially pronounced in Britain, which has always existed beside continental civilization. It borrowed freely from Europe’s culture and political ideas, yet always feared them. That fear was not unfounded. Britain has long understood that true unification of Europe – especially involving Germany and Russia – would leave it sidelined. Thus, the primary goal of British policy has always been to prevent cooperation between the major continental powers. Even now, no country is more eager than Britain to see the militarization of Germany. The idea of a stable Russia-Germany alliance has always been a nightmare scenario for London.

Whenever peace between Moscow and Berlin looked possible, Britain would intervene to sabotage it. The British approach to international relations mirrors its domestic political thought: atomized, competitive, distrustful of solidarity. While continental Europe produced theories of political community and mutual obligation, Britain gave the world Thomas Hobbes and his “Leviathan,” a grim vision of life without justice between the state and its citizens. That same combative logic extends to foreign policy. Britain doesn’t cooperate; it divides. It has always preferred enmity among others over engagement with them. But the tools of that strategy are disappearing. Britain today is a power in steep decline, reduced to shouting from the sidelines. Its internal political life is a carousel of increasingly unqualified prime ministers. This is not simply a result of difficult times. It reflects a deeper problem: the absence of serious political leadership in London.

Even the United States, Britain’s closest ally, is now a threat to its autonomy. The Anglosphere no longer needs two powers that speak English and operate under the same oligarchic political order. For a time, Britain found comfort in the Biden administration, which tolerated its role as transatlantic intermediary. London leveraged its anti-Russian stance to stay relevant and inserted itself into US-EU relations. But that space is narrowing. Today’s American leaders are uninterested in mediators. During a recent trip to Washington, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer could barely answer direct questions on foreign policy. His deference reflected a new reality: even the illusion of independence is fading. Meanwhile, France’s Emmanuel Macron, for all his posturing, at least leads a country that actually controls its nuclear arsenal.

Britain claims to have authority over its nuclear submarines, but many doubt it. In ten years, experts believe it may lose even the technical capacity to manage its nuclear weapons without US support. At that point, London will face a choice: full subservience to Washington or exposure to EU pressures, especially from France. Recent talk in London of sending “European peacekeepers” to Ukraine is a case in point. Despite the unrealistic nature of such proposals, British and French officials spent weeks debating operational details. Some reports suggest the plan stalled due to lack of funds. The real motive was likely to project relevance and show the world that Britain still has a role to play. But neither the media spin nor the political theater can change the facts. Britain’s global standing has diminished. It is no longer capable of independent action and has little influence even as a junior partner. Its leaders are consumed by domestic dysfunction and foreign policy fantasy.

In practical terms, Britain remains dangerous to Russia in two ways. First, by supplying weapons and mercenaries to Ukraine, it increases our costs and casualties. Second, in a moment of desperation, it might try to manufacture a small nuclear crisis. If that happens, one hopes the Americans would take the necessary steps to neutralize the threat – even if that means sinking a British submarine.There is nothing positive for Russia, or the world, in the continued existence of Britain as a foreign policy actor. Its legacy is one of division, sabotage, and imperial plunder. Now, it lives off the crumbs of a bygone empire, barking from the Atlantic like a chihuahua with memories of being a lion. The world moves on. Britain does not.

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Trump will have tariffs for that.

China Replacing US Oil With Canadian – Bloomberg (RT)

China has been importing record amounts of crude oil from Canada and drastically reducing supplies from the US in light of the trade war with Washington, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday. Washington and Beijing have implemented a series of reciprocal tariff hikes over the past two months in light of which the latter has slashed purchases of US oil by roughly 90%, according to the outlet. China previously indicated that it would not implement more tariff hikes against US goods but would rather employ alternative ways to retaliate. Chinese crude imports from a port near Vancouver on Canada’s Pacific coast soared to a record 7.3 million barrels in March and may exceed the figure this month, Bloomberg reported, citing data from London-based global oil and gas cargo tracking firm Vortexa Ltd.

Chinese imports of US oil, meanwhile, have fallen to 3 million barrels per month from a peak of 29 million last June, it added. China’s direct imports of Canadian crude oil had historically been minimal, primarily due to infrastructure constraints. Chinese refineries have mainly sourced crude from the Middle East and Russia. Roughly 1.7% of China’s total crude imports came from the US last year, according to Chinese customs data, down from 2.5% in 2023. Nearly all of Canada’s oil is shipped to the US to be processed there or re-exported to Asia. However, the completion last May of the Trans Mountain Expansion pipeline, which takes crude to Canada’s Pacific coast, provided the country with an alternative route to export more volumes directly, primarily to Asia, thus reducing its reliance on the US.

“Given the trade war, it’s unlikely for China to import more US oil,” Bloomberg quoted Wenran Jiang, president of the Canada-China Energy & Environment Forum, as saying. “They are not going to bank on Russian alone or Middle Eastern alone. Anything from Canada will be welcome news.” China accounted for roughly 5% of US crude oil exports last year, according to ship-tracking data from Kpler. Russia remains China’s largest supplier of crude oil. Russian shipments to China reached the highest level on record in 2024. The increase in recent years is largely attributable to the discounts being offered on Russian crude. China’s imports of oil from Saudi Arabia, its second-largest supplier, declined by 9% year-on-year in 2024.

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EU will buy US LNG. Lots of it.

Trump Tariffs Could Cost EU $1.25 Trillion (RT)

A trade war with the US could cost the EU up to €1.1 trillion ($1.25 trillion) over the next four years if Donald Trump proceeds with proposed tariffs, according to a study by the German Economic Institute (IW). Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced a sweeping 20% tariff on all EU goods and a 25% tariff on all car imports in a bid to eliminate what Washington sees as a large trade deficit with the bloc. Brussels was set to introduce 25% retaliatory tariffs on US imports before Trump announced a 90-day pause on most tariffs to allow for negotiations. If an agreement is not reached and US tariffs are imposed, the EU’s cumulative costs are estimated to range between €780 billion ($886.5 billion) and €1.1 trillion ($1.25 trillion) from 2025 to 2028, depending on the scenario, the study released on Thursday said.

The institute also projects that Germany’s GDP could slump by 1.2% annually during the same period under tariffs. If trading partners respond with similar measures, the costs for Berlin could rise to 1.6%, according to the report. Germany’s economy, already facing challenges, is expected to grow by only 0.1% in 2025 after two consecutive years of contraction. The IW forecasts a total economic output loss of €180 billion (around $205 billion) by 2028 for Germany, primarily due to export losses and declining investments. The US was Germany’s largest trading partner in 2024, with bilateral trade totaling €253 billion ($287.5 billion). A trade conflict could significantly impact key sectors, including automotive and pharmaceuticals, experts have warned.

The IW also pointed out that although the tariffs have been suspended for 90 days, uncertainty remains high, hitting global investment planning.European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen earlier proposed a “zero-for-zero” tariff agreement to eliminate duties on industrial goods between the EU and the US. However, Trump rejected the offer, stating it was insufficient and demanded that the EU commit to purchasing $350 billion worth of American energy to receive tariff relief. Trump has criticized the EU’s trade practices, asserting that the bloc is “very bad to us” and highlighting the US trade deficit as justification for his stance. Officials from Washington and Brussels met for trade talks earlier this week, but made little headway in resolving their differences. US officials signaled that most tariffs on EU goods are likely to remain in place, according to Bloomberg.

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“The current iteration of traditional German the-Russians-are-coming..”

German Anti-Russia Propaganda Is Reaching Nazi-era Levels (Amar)

Like people almost everywhere in NATO-EU Europe, Germans are currently being subjected to a relentless barrage of shameless, often astonishingly crude propaganda. That’s because their political elites and mainstream media are desperately trying to prepare them for war against Russia. And this time, not by proxy, that is, by way of a devastated Ukraine and dead Ukrainians, but directly. As a former, very evil but in his prime all-too-popular German master of mass manipulation – who also happened to love war with Russia more than was good for him (or Germany) – explained a century ago, effective propaganda keeps the world very, very simple. Or, to add a little detail, propaganda’s sometimes literally stunning success is built on two primitive yet powerful – and very old – tricks: the broken-record principle and the litany effect.

Their meaning, too, is elementary: In essence, if your image of reality is delusional, you don’t have sound arguments, and your case is absurd, do not despair. Instead, ceaselessly drum in a few very basic and bogus ideas until the audience is dizzy with repetition (the broken-record principle), while also eliciting frequent consent from it (the litany effect). In short: Keep shouting the same nonsense at them and make them bleat back “yes” regularly. You know, like a ritual, really. In the case of the manufacturing of the current iteration of traditional German the-Russians-are-coming hysteria as well, it is easy to identify its handful of specious, daft, and childishly simplistic key motifs: Russia and Russia alone is to blame for the war in Ukraine; Russia intends to attack Europe (if not the world) – and soon; and Russia is incredibly devious and scheming, so you cannot find a reasonable compromise with it.

Yet what about the nuts and bolts of this propaganda campaign? Even a simple story needs detail, and, if told and retold almost without letup, that detail at least needs to vary: Same old story but different flavor. That’s where things get tricky. For one thing, if you pick the wrong flavor, your propaganda may start looking as silly as it actually is. A current example in Germany – as well as the EU parliament – would be the recent hysteria over the global hit Sigma Boy from Russia. Its brilliantly catchy tune is a piece of art, like it or not. But its lyrics are about as profound as a margarine commercial.

Yet that won’t stop Germany’s radical-Centrist elite from exploring the song’s ominous depths as a weapon of nefarious Russian cultural warfare. Because Sigma Boy, one EU parliamentarian from Hamburg has noticed – with a little help from Ukraine – is really “a viral Russian trope used on social media that communicates patriarchal and pro-Russian worldviews” as well as “only one example of Russian infiltration of popular discourse through social media.” Also, you see, Sigma Boy is really just code for – scary sound effect – PUTIN!

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Google is huge, it has many branches and companies, spends a fortune. Still, 77.4% of its revenue came from online ads in 2023. Break it up fast. It’s a threat to a million small companies.

Court Rules Google Illegally Holds “Monopoly Power” In Online Ad Tech (ZH)

A U.S. federal court ruled that Google had illegally monopolized key digital advertising markets, including publisher ad servers, ad exchanges, and advertiser ad networks. This ruling could deal a major blow to Google’s core business pillar: advertising revenue (advertising accounted for about 77.4% of Google’s total revenue in 2023). U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema found on Thursday morning that Google had violated antitrust law by “willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power in the open-web display publisher ad server market and the open-web display ad exchange market.”

Here are the key findings in the landmark antitrust case (U.S. v. Google, 23-cv-00108, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Virginia (Alexandria):
Google violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act by willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power in:
• The open-web display publisher ad server market, and
• The open-web display ad exchange market Google also violated Sections 1 and 2 by unlawfully tying its publisher ad server (DoubleClick for Publishers/DFP) to its ad exchange (AdX). The court did not find that

Google held monopoly power in the third alleged market: advertiser ad networks.
Legal and Procedural Notes:
• The DOJ and 17 states originally brought the suit, accusing Google of monopolizing three key ad tech markets.
• Google had earlier tried to dismiss the case and transfer it to New York but failed.
• The court conducted a three-week bench trial and reviewed extensive expert testimony and evidence.

This case is one of several antitrust actions pending against Google. In a separate lawsuit, the Justice Department seeks to force Alphabet to divest its Chrome browser following a landmark ruling that found the company had monopolized the online search market. “Google will be drastically reshaped by court decrees in the next year or two,” The Information said, adding, “Google will likely be forced, as a result of today’s decision, to dismantle much of its ad tech business which dominates both how advertisers buy ads on independent websites, and how web publishers sell their ad space.”

Here are the next steps for Google, and it appears the court will be deciding on potential remedies:
• Google was found liable on Counts I, II, and IV, violating Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act. Count III was dismissed.
• The court will set a schedule for briefing and hearings to determine remedies, potentially including divestiture of DFP and AdX, injunctions against anticompetitive practices, and other measures to restore competition.
• The ruling highlights Google’s decade-long strategy of tying products and imposing exclusionary policies to maintain dominance in digital advertising, harming publishers, competition, and consumers.

Market response: Alphabet shares fell as much as 3.2% after the ruling. Competitor The Trade Desk’s stock jumped nearly 8%, reflecting investor optimism about improved competition in the ad tech space.

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He put the whistleblowers in charge.

Trump to Make an Epic Move at the IRS (Margolis)

Tax Day was Tuesday, and it goes without saying that we’d all love to see the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) disappear into the dustbin of history. But just as it is certain that we’re all going to die, we’re going to have to pay taxes. There have been some welcome changes at the IRS. As PJ Media previously reported, the IRS is now sharing illegal aliens’ tax information with ICE to help facilitate deportations. Trump has been pushing to turn every federal agency into an effective tool for catching and deporting illegal immigrants. And wouldn’t you know it, acting IRS Commissioner Melanie Krause couldn’t handle doing the right thing and resigned. And guess who’s likely to take her place? Gary Shapley, the IRS whistleblower who blew the lid off the Hunter Biden tax probe. He testified under oath that he faced retaliation simply for doing his job and cooperating with congressional investigators looking into the shady business dealings of the president’s son.

Now, according to the Associated Press, Shapley is expected to be promoted to acting commissioner of the IRS. Shapley and fellow IRS investigator Joseph Ziegler were sidelined from the Hunter Biden probe in December 2022 after raising serious concerns with their superiors. According to their testimony, the Justice Department under then-U.S. Attorney David Weiss repeatedly “slow-walked investigative steps” and stalled enforcement actions in the critical months leading up to the 2020 election. The saga over Hunter Biden’s taxes ended when Joe Biden gave Hunter a blanket pardon for any and all crimes he may have committed for a nearly ten-year period. Hunter had been facing trial in California for failing to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes but abruptly agreed to plead guilty just as jury selection was about to begin.

Despite that unfortunate ending to the story, the promotion of Shapley is welcome news. It’s a classic Trump-style move — putting truth-tellers in positions of power and pushing out the bureaucrats who’ve been protecting the swamp. In March, Shapley was promoted to Deputy Chief of IRS Criminal Investigations, and another IRS investigator who testified about Biden’s taxes, Joseph Ziegler, was assigned to the Treasury Secretary’s office as a senior adviser for IRS reform. Now, the tax collection agency is planning to name Shapley to one of the highest-ranking roles at the agency — in an interim role — as former Missouri congressman Billy Long awaits a confirmation hearing to lead the agency permanently, the people say. They were not authorized to speak publicly about the plan.

President Donald Trump nominated Long, who worked as an auctioneer before serving six terms in the House of Representatives, to serve as the next commissioner of the IRS. “Gary is a long-tenured civil servant who has dedicated the last 15 years of his professional life to the IRS,” a Treasury spokesperson told the Associated Press. “Gary has proven his honesty and devotion to enforcing the law without fear or favor, even at great cost to his own career. He’ll be a great asset to the IRS as we rethink and reform this crucial organization.” Shapley may only serve temporarily, but you can’t ignore the symbolism behind the move.

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“The era of global boiling has arrived!”

Climate Myths (John Stossel)

I guess United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres didn’t think his hyping global warming risks brought him enough attention, so now he says, “The era of global boiling has arrived!” Global boiling? Give me a break. Yes, the climate is warming. We can deal with that. What annoys me is politicians, activists and media pushing hysterical myths.

Myth 1: The Arctic will soon be ice-free. It “could already be ice-free by the summer of 2030!” shrieks a DW report. “‘Doomsday Glacier’ is melting faster than scientists thought,” adds the BBC. “Earth’s biggest cities are at risk!” Nonsense. “It’s not happening at nearly the catastrophic pace that they claim,” says Heartland Institute fellow Linnea Lueken in my new video. But the media show dramatic images of melting and missing ice. “No ice! There’s all these walruses laying out on a stony beach. … It’s because it’s the summertime! In the winter, it all comes right back!”

As far as ice disappearing in winter, too, “Compared to the amount of ice that’s in the Arctic,” says Lueken, it “is like a grain of sand … so minuscule compared to the amount of ice that’s there, it doesn’t even show up on a trend chart when you plot it.” But zealots push hysteria. In 2009, Al Gore, while collecting a Nobel prize, said there was “a 75% chance that the entire north polar ice cap … during some of the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years!” In just five to seven years! Oh, no! Wait … seven years have passed. In fact, 16 years passed. The ice cap has plenty of ice, even in summer. Yet nobody calls him on it. “They absolutely should be calling him on it,” says Lueken.

Myth 2: Polar bears are going extinct. Polar bears look cute, so environmental groups use them in ads to sucker you into donating money. But Polar bear populations have increased! In the 1960s, 17,000-19,000 was the highest of three scientific estimates of polar bear population. Today, there are about 26,000 polar bears. Yet the Environmental Defense Fund collected almost a quarter-billion dollars from gullible donors running ads that say: “Your support can help Environmental Defense Fund save the polar bears!” The EDF hasn’t agreed to my interview requests. I understand why. I would call their advertising sleazy. “Absolutely,” agrees Lueken, “the data is right there. It’s not hard to find out that polar bears are fine.” OK, maybe polar bears aren’t going extinct, but we might starve!

That’s Myth 3. MSNBC shrieks, “Climate change could create a massive global food shortage.” President Barack Obama said, “Our changing climate is already making it more difficult to produce food!” “There is no claim less true.” sighs Lueken. “Food production has skyrocketed.” She’s right, and the data is there for everyone to see. Agriculture output sets record highs year after year. In fact, the extra carbon dioxide in greenhouse gasses probably increases food production. “We inject CO2 into greenhouses for a reason,” Lueken points out. “It helps to fertilize plants for faster and better growth.” As the climate has warmed, the world experienced the biggest drop in hunger and malnutrition ever.

Still, when food prices rise, media idiots still blame climate change. The New York Times claimed “devastation that climate change had wrought” caused a rise in coffee prices.But global coffee production has increased by 82% since the 1990s.The Times story focused on a brief decline in coffee production in Honduras. But since the ’90s, coffee production there rose more than 200%. “They never apologize,” I note. “They never say, ‘Oh, we got this wrong.'” “No,” replies Lueken. “Even if they did have a retraction, the damage is already done.” Alarmist media and environmental groups never apologize. When doom doesn’t happen, they just move on to the next scare. I’ll cover four more myths about climate change next week..

Read more …

 

 

 

 

IVM

 

 

Alarma

 

 

K2-18b

 

 

Cartoon

 

 

Egret

 

 

 

 

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Mar 252025
 
 March 25, 2025  Posted by at 10:59 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  65 Responses »


Caravaggio Conversion on the way to Damascus 1600-01

 

“A New World Order With European Values” (Turley)
‘Nazis’ In Ukraine ‘Nurtured’ By Europeans – Lavrov (RT)
Kiev Wants Trump Envoy Witkoff Sacked (RT)
Ukraine Doesn’t Want Peace – Moscow (RT)
US and Russia Engaging In ‘Creative’ Talks – Moscow (RT)
Rubio Accuses ‘Other Countries’ Of Blocking Peace In Ukraine (RT)
DOGE Reveals Mind Shocking Fraud Propping Up Economy – Ed Dowd (USAW)
The Pentagon’s War on Wasted Dollars (RCD)
Mike Davis Cooks Judge Screwing Around With Trump’s Deportation Flights (Vespa)
Anti-Trump Judge Makes Another Outrageous Ruling (Margolis)
New Dirt on Judge Boasberg Raises More Questions (Margolis)
The Last Resort (James Howard Kunstler)
Pentagon Chief Hegseth Comments On ‘Yemen War Plans’ Leak (RT)
Trump Team Unwittingly Sends Yemen Strike Plans to Editor of The Atlantic (Sp.)
Trump Names Alina Habba To Be Interim US Attorney For New Jersey (NYP)
The ‘Real’ Epstein Files Are Coming. Here’s What to Know. (Margolis)
“Tread Carefully”: Pam Bondi Issues Warning Over Musk “Takedown” (ZH)
Elon Musk Disguises IRS Building As Tesla Dealership (BBee)

 

 

Carpe
https://twitter.com/CarpeDonktum/status/1904173446759625176

RFK

2.924

Taxes
https://twitter.com/TONYxTWO/status/1904206868269945336

Gingrich

Zeldin
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/1904209863128814043

 

 

 

 

“The problem is that this vision for a new Holy Roman Empire lacks a Charlamagne. More importantly, it lacks public support.”

“A New World Order With European Values” (Turley)

“A New World Order With European Values.” Emblazoned across banners and signs, those words met the participants at this week’s meeting of the World Forum in Berlin. Each year, leaders, executives, journalists and academics gather to address the greatest threats facing humanity. This year, there was little doubt about what they view as the current threat: the resurgence of populism and free speech. In fairness to the Forum, “a New World Order” likely sounds more ominous for some civil libertarians than intended. While the European Union is a transnational government stretching across 27 nations, the organizers were referring to a shift of values away from the United States to Europe. As one of the few speakers at the forum who was calling for greater protections for free speech, I found it an unnerving message.

Even putting aside the implications of the New World Order, the idea of building a world on today’s European values is alarming for free speech. Free speech is in a free fall in Europe, with ever-expanding speech regulations and criminal prosecutions — including for having “toxic ideologies.” The World Forum has a powerful sense of fraternity, even an intimacy, among leaders who see each other as a global elite — a cadre of enlightened minds protecting citizens from their own poor choices and habits. There has long been a push for transnational governing systems, and European figures see an opportunity created by the conflict with President Trump. The European Union is the model for such a Pax Europaea or “European peace.” The problem is that this vision for a new Holy Roman Empire lacks a Charlamagne. More importantly, it lacks public support.

The very notion of a “New World Order” is chilling to many who oppose the rise of a globalist class with the rise of transnational governance in the European Union and beyond. This year, there is a sense of panic among Europe’s elite over the victory of Trump and the Republicans in the U.S., as well as nationalist and populist European movements. For globalists, the late Tip O’Neill’s rule that “all politics is local” is anathema. The European Union is intended to transcend national identities and priorities in favor of an inspired transnational government managed by an expert elite. The message was clear. The new world order would be based on European, not American, values. To rally the faithful to the cause, the organizers called upon two of the patron saints of the global elite: Bill and Hillary Clinton. President Clinton was even given an award as “leader of the century.”

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“..the West’s approach to public messaging that “portrays itself as infallible and suffers from an exceptionalism complex.”

‘Nazis’ In Ukraine ‘Nurtured’ By Europeans – Lavrov (RT)

European NATO members are willfully ignoring the “Nazi” character of the Ukrainian government, which they have empowered as an anti-Russian instrument, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has asserted.On Monday, the senior diplomat expressed concern over the “demons of neo-Nazism, Russophobia, and other hateful ideologies” spreading across multiple EU nations. Member states are deliberately overlooking Kiev’s misconduct, even as it persecutes ethnic Russians and violates human rights, he stressed. “Ukraine – ‘that’s different.’ Those Nazis have been nurtured for the latest attempt to unite all of Europe under racist, Nazi banners for a war against the Russian Federation,” Lavrov stated.

The minister was speaking in his capacity as a trustee of the Gorchakov Fund, a Russian NGO aimed at enhancing public diplomacy. He emphasized the organization’s mission of presenting an authentic view of Russia and contrasted it sharply with the West’s approach to public messaging that “portrays itself as infallible and suffers from an exceptionalism complex.” The EU is pursuing a multibillion-dollar rearmament plan, justified by what Brussels labels a growing Russian threat. European officials have warned that a direct NATO confrontation with Moscow may break out within the next few years. Russia, however, denies any hostile intentions toward the US-led military bloc.

Tensions between European NATO members and Washington resurfaced after President Donald Trump assumed office in January. The new US administration has sought a swift resolution to the Ukraine conflict and intends to shift security responsibilities onto Europe once a truce is achieved. Moscow’s goal of ‘denazification’ remains central to its stance on the Ukraine conflict. Russian officials have denounced the Ukrainian government as a “neo-Nazi regime” due to its discriminatory domestic policies, alleged war crimes against Russian citizens, and veneration of historical nationalist figures who collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II.

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“..this person needs to be removed from this delegation, he should not be a representative of the [US] president. Since he’s either completely unprofessional or simply repeats Putin’s narratives..”

Kiev Wants Trump Envoy Witkoff Sacked (RT)

US President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, who has played a central role in opening negotiations on resolving the Ukraine conflict, is “spreading Russian propaganda” and should be sacked, according to a senior Ukrainian lawmaker. The head of the Kiev’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Aleksandr Merezhko, made the remark in response to Witkoff’s interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson, during which the envoy spoke about the status of former Ukrainian territories that have joined Russia, describing the issue as “an elephant in the room” that “no one wants to talk about.” “They’re Russian-speaking. There have been referendums where the overwhelming majority of the people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule,” Witkoff said.

“The Russians are de facto in control of these territories. The question is: Will the world acknowledge that those are Russian territories? Can [Vladimir] Zelensky survive politically if he acknowledges this? This is the central issue in the conflict,” he added. Merezhko strongly condemned the “disgraceful, shocking statements,” accusing Witkoff of acting as an envoy of Russian President Vladimir Putin rather than of Trump. “We are talking about a representative of the president who should have professional expertise in this matter and know some basic things. obvious things. And he doesn’t know this. He spreads Russian propaganda,” the lawmaker insisted in a televised interview.

Merezhko said that [he] wasn’t sure if “ignorance, naivety, or unprofessionalism” was behind Witkoff’s statements and called for the US official to be booted from his role. “We clearly can’t dictate to American friends who should represent them. But this person needs to be removed from this delegation, he should not be a representative of the [US] president. Since he’s either completely unprofessional or simply repeats Putin’s narratives,” Merezhko added.

Moscow and Kiev have taken bipolar positions on the former-Ukrainian Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions and the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, all of which officially joined Russia in autumn 2022 following a series of referendums. Kiev also formally claims Russia’s Crimea, which seceded from Ukraine in the aftermath of a violent Western-backed coup in Kiev and joined Russia in 2014, as its own. Moscow has repeatedly signaled that its sovereignty over the territories is not negotiable, while Kiev has repeatedly pledged to seize back control of all the territories it claims as its own. The Ukrainian leadership has seemingly softened its rhetoric as of late, now insisting it will never recognize “occupation” of the territories and Russian sovereignty over them in any form.

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The US should simply leave.

Ukraine Doesn’t Want Peace – Moscow (RT)

Ukraine continues to attack Russian civilian infrastructure, proving that Kiev does not actually want peace, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said. Last week, following a phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, Moscow and Kiev agreed to a partial ceasefire and pledged to suspend strikes on each other’s energy infrastructure for 30 days. However, the Russian Defense Ministry has since reported multiple Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian energy facilities such as oil and gas pipelines. The latest attack reportedly took place at 2 a.m. on Monday on the Kropotkinskaya oil pumping station in Russia’s Krasnodar Region. The station is operated by the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), which works with US energy giants such as Mobil and Chevron.

Russian air defense systems intercepted a Ukrainian attack UAV some 7km from the facility, with fragments falling in the area of a railway station, according to the Defense Ministry. In an update on Monday, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed that Ukraine had also launched drone strikes on the Glebovskoye gas condensate field in Crimea on March 23 and on a gas distribution center in Belgorod Region on March 22. Commenting on the recent attacks, Zakharova claimed it is typical of Kiev’s behavior, particularly ahead of international events such as this week’s Russia-US talks in Saudi Arabia.

”Every time it’s the same story. Before any contacts, including during visits to Moscow by foreign delegations, the Kiev regime commits terrorist acts, attacks on civilian infrastructure, on civilian objects, extremist acts, and so on… They don’t need peace. They have stated this repeatedly,” Zakharova told reporters. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has stressed that despite Kiev’s repeated violations, Moscow continues to uphold the energy strike truce and that President Putin has not issued any new commands to the country’s armed forces. However, Zakharova warned over the weekend that Russia reserves its right to respond to Ukraine’s attacks, including “symmetrically,” if Kiev continues its “destructive course.”

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The talks will intensify.

US and Russia Engaging In ‘Creative’ Talks – Moscow (RT)

The US-Russian talks held in Saudi Arabia are a “creative” endeavor, though they may not yield a diplomatic breakthrough on Monday, a Russian lawmaker who is part of Moscow’s delegation told journalists. Grigory Karasin, chairman of the International Relations Committee in Russia’s upper chamber of parliament, provided the media an update during a break in the talks in Riyadh. The discussions, which he described as “technical,” focus on maritime security in the Black Sea and the possibility of reviving the Black Sea Initiative, which was originally mediated by the UN and Türkiye. Russia withdrew from the deal in July 2023, citing the West’s failure to provide sanctions relief for its grain exports, as the conditions of the arrangement required.

“Not every negotiation yields a high-profile document or agreement,” Karasin remarked before returning to the closed-door meetings. “What matters is maintaining communication and understanding each other’s positions. In this regard, we are succeeding.” Alongside Karasin, Russia’s delegation includes Sergey Beseda, an adviser to the director of the Federal Security Service. Their American counterparts, as identified by Reuters, are Andrew Peek, a senior director at the White House National Security Council, and Michael Anton, a senior State Department official. When asked about possible outcomes, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov remarked earlier in the day that they “primarily concern the safety of maritime traffic. However, if you recall [the original version] of the deal, there were significant obligations made to our side that were never fulfilled. This remains part of the agenda.”

US President Donald Trump has suggested revisiting the grain deal as part of his efforts to mediate a broader truce between Russia and Ukraine, Peskov added. Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to Trump’s proposal to suspend attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, while Ukraine committed to reciprocate. However, Kiev has violated the partial ceasefire multiple times, including on Monday morning, according to Russia. Moscow has warned that it reserves the right to withdraw from the arrangement should Ukraine fail to meet its commitments. A Ukrainian delegation is also present at the same luxury hotel in Riyadh where the US-Russian talks are taking place, but they have no direct contact with the Russian team. The Ukrainians had their own talks with the US delegation the previous day.

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There are 27 of them in the EU.

Rubio Accuses ‘Other Countries’ Of Blocking Peace In Ukraine (RT)

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that unnamed foreign governments are obstructing efforts to end the Ukraine conflict, crediting President Donald Trump with leading negotiations to mediate peace between Moscow and Kiev. Senior Russian and US officials held marathon 12-hour talks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Monday, focused on resolving the Ukraine conflict and ensuring maritime security in the Black Sea. However, the two sides have yet to release details or announce the outcome of the discussions. Speaking during a cabinet meeting at the White House before the talks concluded, Rubio stressed that the conflict “needs to be brought to an end” through negotiations, not military means, and praised Trump as “the only one leader in the world that’s capable of bringing two sides to a table.”

According to Rubio, Trump’s diplomatic initiative has faced resistance from other governments, although he did not name any specific countries. “You’ve done it despite impediments from other countries and others who maybe have different opinions about how this should go,” Rubio said, addressing Trump directly. “Ultimately, I think that the only chance we have for peace is through the President’s leadership.” Following a phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart last week, Moscow and Kiev agreed to a partial ceasefire and pledged to suspend strikes on energy infrastructure for 30 days.

However, the Russian Defense Ministry has since reported multiple Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy facilities. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has stressed that despite Kiev’s violations, Moscow will continue to uphold the energy strike truce. In an interview on Sunday, Peskov also remarked that instead of seeking peace and addressing the root causes of the conflict, EU member states are now discussing the deployment of NATO contingents to Ukrainian territory. “This rampant militarist policy of Europe – there is no other way to describe it – is hard to comprehend,” he said.

Tensions between Washington and European NATO members resurfaced after Trump assumed office in January. The new administration has pushed for a swift resolution to the Ukraine conflict and plans to shift security responsibilities to Europe once a truce is in place. Following an emergency summit in London earlier this month, the UK and France signaled that they are open to sending Western “peacekeepers” to Ukraine once a ceasefire is reached. Moscow has rejected the proposal, stating that it makes no difference under what pretext NATO troops enter the country. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned that this could lead to a direct war between the military bloc and Moscow.

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DOGE vs the NGOs.

“Martin Armstrong says all the gold movement coming to the US is because of a coming war..”

DOGE Reveals Mind Shocking Fraud Propping Up Economy – Ed Dowd (USAW)

Former Wall Street money manager and financial analyst Ed Dowd of PhinanceTechnologies.com is back with an update of a report on “Danger of Deep Worldwide Recession in 2025.” It was not just heavy government spending on illegal immigration, but “mind shocking” fraud that has been revealed with DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency). Investigators have uncovered $115 billion so far with many hundreds of billions more to be exposed. Dowd says, “Both sides of the aisle are probably going to have problems. The DOGE revelations are mind shocking. The clear way in which the government was spending money through NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and people taking kickbacks and profits along the way is going to come out. There may have been theft along the way. What business does Stacy Abrams have getting $2 billion for an NGO? This doesn’t make any sense.

It’s going to be shocking, even shocking to me. I knew there was rot in the system, but the mind blowing way the NGOs were used to facilitate the illegal immigration just blows my mind. The 10 million plus illegals that came in over the last four years, you just don’t wake up one day in Central America and say I am going to the Darien Gap, and go to the Mexican border and then meander my way into the interior of the US without a tremendous amount of aid along the way. NGOs facilitated that and probably took their cut. What was the all-in economic cost of the goodies they got once they got here? Plus, the NGOs spent and what the government spent themselves to facilitate this, it’s not hard to imagine $50,000 to $100,000 all-in cost per illegal. . . . This is the all-in cost up and down the entire economic food chain. . . . It was anywhere between $500 billion to $1.5 trillion depending on the illegals. It was an illegal project funded purposely, and it was very logistical. It was not something that just happened overnight.”

The result, says Dowd, was the US economy was propped up when it should have already tanked. Now, all this spending on this illegal invasion is going away. Dowd says, “When we wrote our report, we were surprised on how fast DOGE would get to work. . . . This is why our thesis is playing out a little quicker than we thought. . . . The housing market was on fragile ground the last year or so. It was held up by illegal immigrants supporting rent prices. So, as that unwinds, we think there will be a mini 2008–2009 housing issue. Housing prices are going to come down, and that is a big driver of consumption in the economy. That needs to happen because home affordability is off the charts.”

Dowd also see a recession coming as the government downsizes, illegal alien funding gets cut and illegals continue to self-deport. Dowd says, “Consumer confidence has taken a nosedive recently, and you can see why. There are 10 million to 15 million illegal immigrants worried about their gravy train coming to an end. So, they may be holding back on their spending. There are millions of government employees worried about their jobs. Then, you have the NGO networks that employ about 6 million people. So, you have about 20 million to 25 million people that are in the workforce . . . worried about where their money is going to come from, and that can cause consumer spending to slow down.”

There is good news with the spending cuts, according to Dowd, and that will come in the form of lower interest rates in the bond market. Dowd still likes gold as a core asset and does not see Trump tariffs as inflationary. Dowd says the problems with tariffs are “overblown” and are a negotiation tool to get fair trade for America around the world. Dowd sees “deflation” and possibly a short but “deep recession” coming before inflation. A possible black swan event is an intensified war in Ukraine and no peace deal along with the EU getting deeply involved in a war with Russia. This could be a plus for the US if it stays out of the conflict. Dowd says, “There seems to be war drums beating in Europe, and capital will flee to the US. Martin Armstrong says all the gold movement coming to the US is because of a coming war, and of all the theories on this, that makes the most sense to me. I am not predicting war, but that is a geopolitical risk out there. That is one of those ‘black swan’ events. Another ‘black swan’ event is a Bank of Japan currency crisis and, also, something going on with Iran and the Middle East. . . . Black swan events add to the risk, and those are hard to predict.”

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“America cannot afford inefficiency..”

The Pentagon’s War on Wasted Dollars (RCD)

So far, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has swept through government agencies like the United States Agency for International Development, brushing off cobwebs and uncovering skeletons as it goes. Now, DOGE is set to enter a much bigger agency whose shortfalls demand reform: the Department of Defense. Long criticized for its budget woes, the DOD has recently faced accusations of overspending, underspending, and even simple misspending—criticisms which are all well founded. In fact, the DOD consistently mismanages its budget, a fact that’s led it to fail all of its last seven audits.To address these issues, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently announced that he would work with DOGE to conduct a DOD-wide budget review.

Already, this initiative has revealed $80 million in wasteful spending, including $1.9 million in “DEI transformation and training” and $3.5 million in “Defense HR Support for DEI.” While the Pentagon is notoriously resistant to change, additional pressure from DOGE and the administration could finally force the reforms needed to modernize the American military, refocus on warfighting capabilities, and rid the Pentagon of absurd budget line items. But DOGE’s mission isn’t just to slash budgets: it’s also to restore efficiency. Specifically, DOGE’s role is to ensure the federal government makes the most effective use possible of American taxpayer dollars.

Fundamentally, the DOD exists to ensure America’s warfighting capability—a task DOGE has no intention of obstructing. And even as the DOD’s mission grows more and more urgent, Pentagon dollars continue to be misused, a flaw that cries for immediate correction. Hegseth recently announced he’d be implementing a DOD budget “cut” of 8%, or about $50 billion. Rather than simply imposing strict cuts, this plan seeks to “refocus … and reinvest … existing funds” to build a more lethal fighting force, restore “warrior ethos,” and reestablish global deterrence. This shift is essential at a time when our arsenal is severely depleted and outdated and we lack the ships and planes to deter China from launching an attack in the Indo-Pacific.

To fix this, Hegseth should prioritize reinvesting funding cuts into procurement and, specifically, into the construction of new ships, planes, and munitions. Hegseth should also divert dollars from personnel—a category that accounts for almost a quarter of the DOD’s budget. Already, he and Musk have announced plans to reduce the civilian workforce by between 5% to 8%, a cut that will save the DOD between $9 and $14.5 billion. So far, he’s implemented this plan via a hiring freeze and the firing of probational employees and recent hires.

Many have sought to villainize the Pentagon’s budget purge. Yet those in national security should recognize the need to cut defense budget waste, especially given recent developments on the international stage. There, China continues to rapidly modernize its military to challenge U.S. dominance, while Russia persists in its aggression in Eastern Europe. North Korea still pursues its ever-growing nuclear ambitions (and strengthens its support for Russia), while Iran maintains its destabilizing influence in the Middle East.

These various actors all share one common feature: a vicious antipathy toward the United States. The burden falls on the Pentagon and the DOD to protect the American people. DOGE represents a historic opportunity for the DOD to further this mission by rethinking how it organizes, supports, and employs its people. The goal isn’t to cut corners—it’s to reinvest in the capacity and capability of America’s warfighting force. In a world of rising global threats, America cannot afford inefficiency. The Pentagon must embrace DOGE’s mission to break free from outdated bureaucracy and inefficient spending. Only then will the DOD be able to enhance American warfighting capability and ensure our security and prosperity.

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“He publicly exposed an ongoing U.S. military, intelligence, and law-enforcement operation with an American ally dealing with the most vicious terrorists (Tren de Aragua) and international gang member (MS13) in the Western Hemisphere. That public exposure put American and allied lives in grave danger.”

Mike Davis Cooks Judge Screwing Around With Trump’s Deportation Flights (Vespa)

Well, Attorney General Pam Bondi isn’t going to discuss further the details regarding the deportation flights of Tren de Aragua members, a Venezuelan gang that the Trump administration has designated a foreign terror group. Judge James Boasberg, however, wanted to know the classified details regarding this operation. No, sir. This will not happen, as the Justice Department informed the courts that they’re invoking the State Secrets Act. Move on, little man.

It still doesn’t negate the days of judicial overreach and insanity from Boasberg, who thought he was the executive, or at least in charge of deportation policy. He is not,andd never will be. He dabbled in the Russian collusion hoax, ran legal interference for those caught fabricating evidence to secure illegal FISA warrants. This man is a disgrace to the bench. Before Ms. Bondi invokes the state secrets provision, Boasberg insisted that those marked for deportation should be afforded court dates. Mike Davis, a former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, took a hatchet to little Boasberg, arguing that it’s time to impeach for his serial incidents of judicial overreach: Here is the fatal flaw with DC Obama Judge Jeb Boasberg’s order:

“Even if these designated foreign terrorists are entitled to individual court review before their deportation, which is disputed, the DC court is not the proper court. Judge Boasberg did not, and does not, have the power to do what he is purporting to do. For this reason alone, everything he is doing is lawless. But it is much worse; it is also dangerous. Judge Boasberg ran to his courtroom to hold a Saturday hearing, even though he was not even serving as the emergency judge that weekend. (How did he get this case?) He publicly exposed an ongoing U.S. military, intelligence, and law-enforcement operation with an American ally dealing with the most vicious terrorists (Tren de Aragua) and international gang member (MS13) in the Western Hemisphere. That public exposure put American and allied lives in grave danger.

Stunningly, Judge Boasberg even ordered the President to turn around planes full of terrorists over the Gulf of America, without knowing the fuel levels, the security footprint back in America, or other crucial operational details. We saw the enormous security footprint in El Salvador. Why would we have had that same footprint in America, as who could have ever imagined an activist DC judge could or would order the President to return planes full of terrorists? And not completing the mission would have humiliated and politically damaged El Salvador’s president, who had hundreds of military, law-enforcement, and other officials awaiting–and who took a significant political and personal risk by agreeing to take these terrorists. Judge Boasberg’s Saturday hearing and order crossed the red line. But Judge Boasberg is doubling down by demanding details about the military operation, to which he is not entitled.

Judge Boasberg says he has a security clearance, but he definitely does not have the need to know. And allowing judges to meddle in military operations like this is dangerous and unacceptable. Foreign leaders are less likely to work with the President, if they fear an activist American judge may disclose their secrets. This harms the President’s ability to conduct foreign policy and his constitutional duty to keep us safe. The President has a constitutional duty, as the chief executive officer and commander-in-chief, to conduct international affairs, repeal foreign invasion, and protect American lives. The President has a constitutional duty to ignore any clearly unlawful court order that imminently endangers American lives, like Judge Boasberg’s orders. Judge Boasberg is refusing to back down. So the House must move forward with impeachment proceedings for his lawless and dangerous sabotage of the President’s core Article II powers.

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“He dragged us into court on a Saturday without any notice. And then he’s continuing these hearings. He’s trying to ask us about national security information, which he is absolutely not entitled to.”

Anti-Trump Judge Makes Another Outrageous Ruling (Margolis)

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg is at it again. In a mind-boggling 37-page decision, he has blocked the Trump administration from swiftly deporting members of the notorious Tren de Aragua gang. The judge’s ruling reads like a progressive wish list, demanding “individualized hearings” before any deportations can proceed. Because apparently, we need to roll out the red carpet and due process for criminal aliens who shouldn’t be here in the first place. Even more outrageous, the government must now prove these individuals are actually gang members — as if their presence alone isn’t a violation enough of our immigration laws. Boasberg previously ordered a deportation flight for these illegal alien gang members to turn around back to the United States; however, since he made the ruling while the plane was over international waters, he had no jurisdiction, and the deportations continued as planned.

Boasberg’s memorandum opinion, which accompanied the order, maintains that these individuals must have “the opportunity to challenge their designation as alien enemies.” In other words, we’re giving suspected gang members a chance to argue that they’re actually upstanding citizens who deserve to stay in our country. Now he has the audacity to say that the court “need not resolve the thorny question of whether the judiciary has the authority to assess this claim in the first place.” This is an obvious reaction to the Trump administration’s position that district court judges don’t have the authority to micromanage the president of the United States or the executive branch. Boasberg’s opinion continues:

“That is because Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on another equally fundamental theory: before they may be deported, they are entitled to individualized hearings to determine whether the Act applies to them at all. As the Government itself concedes, the awesome power granted by the Act may be brought to bear only on those who are, in fact, “alien enemies.” And the Supreme Court and this Circuit have long maintained that federal courts are equipped to adjudicate that question when individuals threatened with detention and removal challenge their designation as such. Because the named Plaintiffs dispute that they are members of Tren de Aragua, they may not be deported until a court has been able to decide the merits of their challenge. Nor may any members of the provisionally certified class be removed until they have been given the opportunity to challenge their designations as well. The Motion to Vacate will thus be denied.”

This isn’t just judicial overreach; it’s judicial insanity. “This is an out-of-control judge, a federal judge trying to control our entire foreign policy, and he cannot do it,” Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday. “He dragged us into court on a Saturday without any notice. And then he’s continuing these hearings. He’s trying to ask us about national security information, which he is absolutely not entitled to.” The plaintiffs now have until Wednesday to request converting the temporary restraining order into a preliminary injunction. If granted, this would further cement this dangerous precedent and extend protection for these gang members from deportation. Because obviously, what America needs right now is more legal shields for criminal aliens. This ruling sets a dangerous precedent that undermines our immigration enforcement capabilities and makes a mockery of our national sovereignty.

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They’re organized.

New Dirt on Judge Boasberg Raises More Questions (Margolis)

The district court judge who recently blocked President Donald Trump’s efforts to deport illegal alien gang members attended a suspiciously partisan legal conference just months before his ruling, according to a judicial ethics report. Judge James Boasberg, who serves on the D.C. District Court, participated in what appears to be nothing more than a Democrat strategy session masquerading as a legal conference in Sun Valley, Idaho. The conference’s agenda items, “Judges in a Democracy” and “State of Democracy,” sound eerily similar to the Democrats’ tiresome 2024 campaign rhetoric about “saving democracy” — which, of course, has become the justification for their using the courts to obstruct Trump’s agenda.

“Called a ‘Privately Funded Seminar Disclosure Report,” the document discloses that Boasberg was in attendance but offers no details of whether Boasberg was paid for his attendance or travel, or what the remuneration was,’ reports Just the News. The outlet was “alerted to the conference and to Boasberg’s attendance by a retired Democrat-appointed judge, who was concerned the July 2024 conference’s focus on judges’ role in a democracy was too close to a political party’s theme for comfort.”

“Overseen by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, the ethical rules governing federal judges require that a private entity who “issues an invitation to a federal judge to attend an educational program as a speaker, panelist, or attendee and offers to pay for or reimburse that judge, in excess of $480, must disclose financial and programmatic information.” The rules do not require a specific accounting for each judge, or even how much was paid to judges at all. […] It is possible that his “payment” was merely reimbursement for expenses, but Boasberg did not respond to a request for comment from Just the News.”

The entire arrangement reeks of the same swamp politics that President Trump has been fighting since day one. Is it any surprise that after rubbing elbows with fellow liberals at this partisan powwow, Judge Boasberg decided to obstruct Trump’s efforts to remove dangerous gang members from our streets? This is exactly why Americans have lost faith in our judicial system — unelected judges attending partisan conferences, then making decisions based on partisan biases, not constitutionality. The conference was part of the Rodel Institute’s Judicial Fellowship, and each attending judge, including Boasberg, was a first-year fellow, according to the institute’s website. Notably, Rodel receives funding from the same foundations that frequently bankroll anti-Trump organizations, programs, and publications. Additionally, the institute’s faculty advisors — twenty in total — are overwhelmingly outspoken Trump critics or those who have opposed his policies.

The Rodel Institute’s Board of Directors is stacked with Trump critics, including Ian Solomon. Co-founders Bill and Don Budinger have deep ties to Democratic organizations and candidates, with Don opposing Arizona’s immigration enforcement efforts and backing Democratic Senate candidates. Former Montana Gov. Steve Bullock was under consideration for Kamala Harris’s Cabinet, while former Arizona legislator Heather Carter abandoned the GOP and endorsed Democrats like Katie Hobbs. Jamie Woodson co-chaired a report lamenting “political disinformation” in 2016, and former Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna has openly attacked Trump, calling him a “demagogue” and dismissing his legal arguments as “flimsy.” Maybe next time, Judge Boasberg can hold his strategy sessions somewhere less obvious than a millionaire’s playground. But then again, the left has never been particularly good at hiding its contempt for Trump or the rule of law.

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“What is the alternative to presidential oversight and management of the agencies listed in this branch of government? They run themselves? That claim means nothing in practice.” —Jeffrey Tucker

The Last Resort (James Howard Kunstler)

Law is humanity’s instrument for creating order out of the terror and chaos of nature, where anything goes. The result of law theoretically, is a civil society, where only the good, true, and right things can go. These days, lawyers are hard at work to replace civilized order with the terror and chaos of nature — which is to say, the seeking of raw power: this is what I can do to you! That primal despotism is the motivating engine of the Democratic Party in its terminal phase, a feral, power-seeking monster. It was why, in case you hadn’t noticed, the essential drive of Woke politics was the sadistic pleasure it took in exacting its endless punishments — cancellation, personal ruin, censorship — not correcting alleged injustices against marginalized minorities.

And that tells you, by the way, exactly why the J-6 defendants were treated so harshly by the likes of Judge James Boasberg, Tanya Chutkan, and their colleagues of the DC federal district. The enabling device for that monstrous power seeking of the Democratic Party was the colossal racketeering operation they implanted in every corner of the federal government, an insidious process that accelerated during the Obama years, eluded discipline during Trump One — with the many distracting ruses such as RussiaGate — and surged into final overdrive during the perfidious term of “Joe Biden,” America’s first false-front president. The racketeering operation was perfectly illustrated in the DOGE’s recent deconstruction of USAID.

That agency worked as a gigantic money laundering matrix to pay Democratic Party activists for the sole purpose of maintaining and expanding the party’s power — its ability to push American citizens around, control our lives, tell us how to live, how to think, and, ultimately, in the Covid-19 scam, telling us to take our shots, get lost, and die. Pitifully, a lot of those vaxx victims were the Democratic Party’s own rank and file, which shows you how psychotically suicidal the Democratic Party became. By and large, it was conservatives who avoided the vaxxes because they were able psychologically to entertain the evidence that Covid was a nefarious set-up and that, month-by-month, the vaxxes were proving to be both ineffective and harmful. Democrats, in their Woke fugue state, could not do that. Even today, they insist that their vaxx injuries are “long Covid” and would be worse if not for the additional boosters they took. Poor dumb bunnies.

Mr. Trump was played masterfully in the initial 2020 Covid roll-out by the likes of Dr. Fauci, Deborah Birx, and the faithless Veep Mike Pence who directed the Coronavirus Task Force (and whoever was behind it). The president could not bring himself to oppose or cast doubt on their diktats and to this day he must remain embarrassed about how that all worked out. But he also probably learned to not be fooled again. And so, after the fishy 2020 election, and during the disastrous “Biden” years, Mr. Trump had time to lay careful and comprehensive plans for ending the massive racketeering and for restructuring the federal apparatus into a leaner, more efficient, and more lawful enterprise for managing the civil society known as the USA. Which brings us to the present.

Mr. Trump’s lawfully appointed agent, Elon Musk, and his legally chartered investigative advisory unit, called DOGE, has begun making recommendations for severe cuts in agencies and employees, which have been executed by the lawfully confirmed heads of agencies, and the chief executive himself. Thus, the rapid, systematic disassembly of the Democratic Party’s grift machine and the end of its immense revenue stream. No more USAID and its thousands of NGO money laundromats. No more Department of Education and its Grant-O-Matic depredations in the universities. No more work-from-home (but not really) nonsense. No more DEI reverse racism in hiring. No more flooding the swing state voting precincts with illegal aliens. No more stupid proxy war in Ukraine. No more gender pretending chaos. You see how it goes now.

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CNN yesterday didn’t talk about anything else.

Pentagon Chief Hegseth Comments On ‘Yemen War Plans’ Leak (RT)

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has addressed a recent leak of high-level discussions about US airstrikes against Yemen’s Houthi rebels, calling the journalist involved “deceitful” and downplaying the significance of the disclosure. The incident came to light after The Atlantic reported on Monday that its editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, had been accidentally added to a Signal group chat that included top Trump administration officials such as Vice President J.D. Vance, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, and Hegseth. The group had been actively discussing potential US military operations against the Houthis for days prior to President Donald Trump ordering strikes on Yemen on March 15. Goldberg claimed that one of Hegseth’s final messages before the attack “contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.”

When asked about the leak on Monday, Hegseth dismissed Goldberg as “a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who’s made a profession of peddling hoaxes.” “Nobody was texting war plans, and that’s all I have to say about that,” Hegseth said when pressed on the content of the messages. National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes told Reuters that the message thread “appears to be authentic” and confirmed that an internal review had been launched into “how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.” “The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials,” Hughes added, without clarifying whether national security protocols had been breached or if any disciplinary action would follow.

Trump ordered a “powerful military action” against the Yemen-based Houthi militants last Saturday, accusing them of conducting an “unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence, and terrorism against American, and other, ships, aircraft, and drones.” The group, officially known as the Ansar Allah movement, has controlled large portions of Yemen – including the capital, Sanaa – since the mid-2010s. In what The Atlantic described as a “fascinating policy discussion,” senior US officials reportedly acknowledged the difficulty of building public support for a new military campaign.

“There is a real risk that the public doesn’t understand this or why it’s necessary,” the account labeled ‘JD Vance’ said, arguing that “the strongest reason to do this is, as POTUS said, to send a message.” In response, Hegseth agreed, stating: “I think messaging is going to be tough no matter what – nobody knows who the Houthis are – which is why we would need to stay focused on: 1) Biden failed & 2) Iran funded.” Trump has claimed that the Houthi attacks “emanate from, and are created by, Iran,” warning that from now on, Washington would view every shot fired by the Yemeni group as if it were fired by Tehran. “Iran will be held responsible, and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire,” the president wrote on his Truth Social platform last Monday.

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“..the president dubbing it a “second-” or “third-rate,” “failing magazine” and calling “sleazebag reporter” Goldberg out by name..”

Trump Team Unwittingly Sends Yemen Strike Plans to Editor of The Atlantic (Sp.)

The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was included in a confidential Signal messaging chain detailing US planning. Here’s what was revealed. In a message to Pete Hegseth, Vice President Vance said it was at the DoD chief’s discretion whether or not to proceed. “I just hate bailing Europe out again,” Vance said. Hegseth responded by saying he “fully” shared Vance’s sentiments about the “free-loading” Europeans, but added that the US was the only one capable of engaging the Houthis “on our side of the ledger.” A user named S M (presumably WH deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller) chimed in, saying that “as [he] heard it, the president was clear: green light.” In return, the US would look to “extract” “some further economic gain” from the Europeans, S M indicated. A follow-up message by Hegseth titled “TEAM UPDATE” provided operational details on the attacks, targeting details, which weapons the US would be using, and attack sequencing.

By Goldberg’s account, he was added to the confidential chat by National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, and didn’t believe it was real at first, fearing it might be an attempt “to somehow entrap” him or a script “by a particularly adept AI text generator.” The White House has confirmed that Goldberg had been made privy to classified discussions and information by mistake. “We are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,” NSC spokesman Brian Hughes said. The Atlantic and its editor-in-chief have been a longtime source of Trump’s ire, with the president dubbing it a “second-” or “third-rate,” “failing magazine” and calling “sleazebag reporter” Goldberg out by name multiple times over what Trump said was false reporting on his private conversations.

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Re-organizing the legal teams. Time for the heavies.

Trump Names Alina Habba To Be Interim US Attorney For New Jersey (NYP)

President Trump on Monday appointed his former personal attorney Alina Habba to serve as interim US attorney in New Jersey — with Habba vowing to clean up “corruption” in her home state. Habba, 40, became a public figure while repping Trump in a defamation case brought by writer E. Jean Carroll between the president’s terms of office, and has held the senior role as presidential counselor since January. “There is corruption, there is injustice, and there is a heavy amount of crime right in [Senator] Cory Booker’s backyard and right under Governor [Phil] Murphy. And that will stop,” Habba told reporters on the White House driveway.

“I look forward to working with [Attorney General] Pam Bondi and with the Department of Justice and making sure that we further the president’s agenda of putting America first, cleaning up the mess and going after the people that we should be going after, not the people that are falsely accused.” Habba declined to say if she viewed the appointment as a stepping stone toward elected office in the Garden State — despite aiming her initial remarks directly at the Garden State’s two most prominent Democrats. “I think Cory Booker and Governor Murphy have failed the state of New Jersey,” Habba said. “If you look at what happened in crime, what’s going on in Newark, what’s going on in Camden, this has been a neglected state. It is one of the most populated states for its size, and it needs to stop. We’re going to do a bang-up job. I cannot wait. It’s a great honor.”

Trump announced Habba’s selection after selecting current interim US attorney John Giordano to serve as ambassador to Namibia. “It is with great pleasure that I am announcing Alina Habba, Esq., who is currently serving as Counselor to the President, and has represented me for a long time, will be our interim U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, her Home State, effective immediately!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Alina will lead with the same diligence and conviction that has defined her career, and she will fight tirelessly to secure a Legal System that is both ‘Fair and Just’ for the wonderful people of New Jersey.”

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“I recognize that when you’re dealing with children, it takes much more time. You’ve got to ensure that what you’re sending out publicly is not revealing any personal information.”

The ‘Real’ Epstein Files Are Coming. Here’s What to Know. (Margolis)

The Trump administration is proving once again that promises made are promises kept. After successfully releasing over 80,000 pages of files connected to the assassination of John F. Kennedy on March 18, the focus has now shifted to perhaps what should be an even more explosive collection of documents—the Jeffrey Epstein files. As you know, there was a huge document dump of files related to the Jeffrey Epstein case last month that was, to say the least, underwhelming. Part of the problem, it turns out, was that rogue officials out of the Southern District of New York office had withheld documents from the Department of Justice. So, where’s the good stuff? Well, according to a report from Vanity Fair, it should be coming soon.

It’s the FBI’s flagship field office, with more than a thousand agents and another thousand or so civilian employees. And right now, multiple sources with knowledge of the matter say that one priority at the bureau’s New York field office is taking precedence over all others: the review and redaction of sensitive information in the Jeffrey Epstein case files, to prepare for possible publication.“It’s literally all hands on deck,” one source familiar with the matter tells me, adding that dozens and dozens of agents are working around the clock on the case, instead of on their regular duties. “I even saw an agent walking in with a pillow,” the source added. Attorney General Pam Bondi, appearing on Maria Bartiromo’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” spoke about this massive undertaking. Bartiromo pressed Bondi about the release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein. Acknowledging the complexity of handling such sensitive material, Bartiromo noted,

“I recognize that when you’re dealing with children, it takes much more time. You’ve got to ensure that what you’re sending out publicly is not revealing any personal information.” She then asked Bondi whether more details would be forthcoming. Bondi confirmed that updates were on the horizon, stating, “You’re absolutely right, Maria. You know, tens of thousands of pages of documents and hundreds and hundreds of victims, um, of Jeffrey Epstein.” Bartiromo reacted with a stunned “Wow.” Bondi assured viewers that federal authorities were making progress. “The FBI, they have been working round the clock at my directive, at [FBI Director] Kash Patel’s directive,” she said, adding that FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino is also involved. “Dan Bongino’s there, who is a great asset for all of us at the FBI as well.”

Bondi reiterated the need to safeguard victims while ensuring transparency. “We have to protect their identity, their personal information, to make sure they’re safe,” she said. “But other than that, we are releasing all of these documents as soon as we can get them redacted to protect the victims of… of, of all of these horrific crimes he has committed.” Bartiromo responded, “Understood.” Rest assured, transparency is coming, everyone.

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“She is an elected public official, so she needs to tread very carefully because nothing will happen to Elon Musk..”

“Tread Carefully”: Pam Bondi Issues Warning Over Musk “Takedown” (ZH)

We certainly did not have a member of Congress conspiring with radical far-left NGOs to sabotage the most made-in-America car company and critical to retirement and pension funds for millions of Americans on our 2025 bingo card. But here we are, and far-left Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) joined a “Tesla Takedown” teleconference last week, laughing and rooting for Tesla and Elon Musk’s demise. Other revolutionaries on the call described how they wanted to “kill the Tesla brand” and “drive down the stock price” to push Tesla “into a death spiral.” Now Attorney General Pam Bondi is getting involved, warning Crockett to “tread very carefully” following her support for the Tesla Takedown. “She is an elected public official, so she needs to tread very carefully because nothing will happen to Elon Musk, and we’re going to fight to protect all of the Tesla owners throughout this country,” Bondi said on Fox’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”

Bondi’s warning to the unhinged Democrat comes days after her appearance on the Tesla Takedown teleconference:

Crockett’s alliance with Tesla Takedown is alarming, considering the Soros-funded non-profit Indivisible is preparing a multi-city assault on Tesla service locations nationwide by the end of the month. There have been far-left terrorist attacks on Tesla service centers, showrooms, Supercharging networks, and vehicles that paint the Democratic Party as in disarray and resorting to communist revolutionary tactics. Polling data for the party has collapsed, while the latest ploy by the party to improve optics was entirely disproven to be “inorganic” by GPS data. The American people are finally getting to see the real Democratic Party—filled with hate and violence as its revolutionaries attack Tesla, all because the owner, Elon Musk, is uncovering massive fraud and waste by the Deep State. Remember when Democrats wanted to defund everything after George Floyd? Yet suddenly, now they don’t.

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🙂

Elon Musk Disguises IRS Building As Tesla Dealership (BBee)

Proponents of eliminating the federal income tax rejoiced today as Elon Musk cleverly disguised the Internal Revenue Service headquarters as a Tesla dealership so Democrats would burn it down. The billionaire inventor and entrepreneur hatched the genius plan to cover the main IRS building with Tesla emblems and signage, which goaded angry Democrats to launch a large-scale firebomb attack against the building. “This’ll show Musk who’s boss! Burn it to the ground!” one enraged leftist reportedly shouted before throwing a Molotov cocktail through a window of the IRS building. “This looks different from any other Tesla dealership I’ve ever seen. It’s almost like a really old government building. Oh well. It’s all got to go. Everything he owns must be destroyed.”

When reached for comment, Musk was quietly pleased that his plan had worked. “It was quite a simple idea, really,” he said. “If Democrats are trying to burn down anything belonging to me, why not redirect that anger in a useful way to burn down something that should be demolished? For the cost of a few Tesla signs, we’ve now freed the American people from the terrible burden of excessive taxation. Ironically, once the rubble of the IRS building is cleared, we will, in fact, build an enormous new Tesla dealership in its place.” At publishing time, reports had circulated that the U.S. Capitol would be next to be disguised as a Tesla dealership in a plot to round up and imprison Democrats for attempting a violent insurrection.

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MS

Swan
https://twitter.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1903880749935206439

Rooster

Elephants

Bounce

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Mar 132025
 
 March 13, 2025  Posted by at 10:34 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  35 Responses »


James Ensor The frightful musicians 1891

 

Trump Is the World’s Worst Dictator (Joecks)
Moscow ‘Studying’ 30-day Truce Plan, Makes Steady Battlefield Gains (ZH)
Trump Envoy Witkoff To Present Ceasefire Deal To Russia This Week – White House (RT)
Kremlin Drags Its Feet On Ceasefire Deal As Armies Steamroll Ukraine (JTN)
US Discussed Territorial Concessions With Ukraine – Rubio (RT)
All The Pressure Is Now On Zelensky After Ceasefire Offer (Proud)
Free Trade: Ricardo’s Theory To Dispossess The British Aristocracy (PCR)
Medvedchuk Cautions Trump On Dealing With Kiev (RT)
Why Won’t Europe Step Up and Help Ukraine? (Victor Davis Hanson)
EU Accuses Trump of ‘Blackmailing’ Zelensky! (Pinsker)
800 Billion Euros of Delusional Promises (Dionísio)
This Is Literally The Worst News Democrats Could Get Right Now (Margolis)
Shutdown Schumer, the Shifty Democrats And a Government Standstill (Thorne)
Old Joe’s Fake Oval Office – and Its Fake News Apologists – Exposed (Victoria Taft)
Made in China 2025 – Revisited (Pepe Escobar)

 

 

 

 

One of his people was brutally murdered this week

Inflation

Maloney

 

 

Lavrov and the US new media

 

 

 

 

“Trump is one of the most successful men in the world, but he’s a complete failure at being a dictator.”

Trump Is the World’s Worst Dictator (Joecks)

Dictators crave power. President Donald Trump is using his power to give Americans more freedom. That’s a massive difference. Desperate to find an effective attack against Trump, some Democrats are recycling an old one. They claim he’s an authoritarian. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., invited laid-off federal workers to attend Trump’s recent speech to Congress. She said she was standing “shoulder to shoulder with people in defiance to a dictator.” That type of defiance led Democrats to callously withhold applause from a 13-year-old brain-cancer survivor simply because Trump introduced him. Shameful. Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams recently called Trump a “petty tyrant.” The Associated Press claimed that Trump “has embarked on a dizzying teardown of the federal government and attacks on long-standing institutions in an attempt to increase his own authority.”

These accusations aren’t new. Former President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris frequently labeled Trump a threat to democracy. Last year, historian Jon Meacham called Trump a “tyrant” who would cause the downfall of the American Republic. Trump has fed into this. After he attacked congestion pricing in Manhattan, the White House posted a picture of him wearing a crown. Trump said, “Long live the king.” While that was obviously not a serious claim to monarchical authority, it sent the propaganda press into a tizzy. Many Americans believe the worst about Trump as 41% of Americans say Trump is a dictator, according to a February YouGov poll. Those people aren’t just wrong–they have it backwards. Trump is doing the one thing dictators never do–reduce their own power.

It’d help to define some terms. Merriam-Webster says a dictator is “one holding complete autocratic control.” An autocracy is a “government in which one person possesses unlimited power.” Tyrant has a similar meaning–“an absolute ruler unrestrained by law or constitution.” Therefore, by definition, you can’t be a dictator while increasing freedom and shrinking the size and scope of government. It’s a contradiction. That’s what Trump is doing. He rolled back Biden’s target for electric vehicle sales. He’s unshackled the energy industry. He wants to undo Biden administration restrictions on dishwashers, shower heads and light bulbs. He’s ordered agencies to eliminate 10 previous regulations for every new one they put in place. He’s increasing freedom. He’s also pushing for a significant tax cut. Dictators aren’t known for wanting to let you keep more of your own money.

He’s laid off tens of thousands of federal workers. Another 75,000 federal workers took buyouts. The Department of Government Efficiency is attempting to reduce federal spending by more than $100 billion. He’s shrinking the government he runs. The Trump administration is even gearing up to eliminate the Department of Education. In early March, Education Secretary Linda McMahon laid out “our department’s final mission.” She wants “to send education back to the states and empower all parents to choose an excellent education for their children.” Indoctrinating a nation’s children is a powerful tool for any would-be dictator. Communist dictators wanted kids’ primary loyalty to be to the government. They sought to drive a wedge between children and their parents. Trump wants to give parents more control of their children’s education.

Now, Trump is governing aggressively. The executive orders have been fast and furious. He’s closed the border. He’s clearing out the deep state. He’s rooting out diversity, equity, and inclusion in the government. He’s recognized that men are not women. But an elected official changing government policy isn’t tyranny. That’s the point of having an election. It’d be tyrannical if an unelected, unaccountable bureaucracy could stop a democratically elected president from running the executive branch as he sees fit. Just look at the obstacles Trump faced in his first term. Trump is one of the most successful men in the world, but he’s a complete failure at being a dictator.

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For now it’s just some statements, they haven’t been given the “plan” yet.

Rubio was doing fine so far, but here he leaves the impression that if Russia doesn’t respond to a “plan” they don’t even know, it means they don’t want peace. Confused comments galore.

Moscow ‘Studying’ 30-day Truce Plan, Makes Steady Battlefield Gains (ZH)

The Kremlin says it is “studying” statements issued by the US and Ukrainian delegations following yesterday’s talks in Jeddah, and further describes Russian officials are waiting for a fuller briefing from the US on the proposal. The 30-day ceasefire plan calls for a halt to all the fighting on land, sea and in the air – which can be extended by mutual agreement, with a hoped-for path to a permanent truce based on negotiations in the interim. President Zelensky in a Tuesday X post said the ceasefire will apply to missile, drone and bomb attacks “not only in the Black Sea, but also along the entire front line” – though its as yet unclear what mechanism there will be to monitor this. The joint statement issued from Jeddah said the sides “will communicate to Russia that Russian reciprocity is the key to achieving peace.” Thus nothing will happen unless Moscow agrees.

Washington has agreed to lift the Trump ban on arms and intelligence for Kiev, while at the same Kiev and Washington agreed on inking a deal on Ukraine’s critical minerals “as soon as possible”. Russian state media is meanwhile reporting that President Putin is open to holding a telephone conversation with his US counterpart. On the potential for a new Trump call to discuss progress toward setting up negotiations and a truce, spokesman Dimitry Peskov said Wednesday, “We also do not rule out that the topic of a call at the highest level may arise. If such a need emerges, it will be organized very quickly. The existing channels of dialogue with the Americans make it possible to do this in a relatively short time.”

If it happens this would mark the second call since Trump’s inauguration, after the prior February 12 call. Theoretically this could lead to an in-person meeting between the two leaders if all goes well. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is traveling back from the meeting in Saudi Arabia, and gave some remarks to a press conference in Ireland:
• Deterrence against future attacks on Ukraine will be a crucial element of future negotiations.
• The US-Ukraine minerals deal benefits both nations and deepens Washington’s interest in Ukraine, but “I would not couch it as a security guarantee”.
• European sanctions against Russia will be part of the negotiations, making Europe’s involvement in the process essential.
• Any truce could be effectively monitored, but “one of the things we’ll have to determine is who both sides trust on the ground” to oversee it.

Ukraine continues to hold little to no leverage, given Russia is fast taking back its territory in Kursk as of mid-week. Over a dozen settlements have been liberated, and by all accounts Ukraine forces are in retreat there, also as Russian troops are currently in the center of Sudzha town. One regional source says that the Russian advance has been swift especially after one particularly daring operation: “Reports over the weekend claimed that 800 Russian special forces had crawled for 15 kilometers through an unused section of pipeline, which once carried Russian gas to Europe via Ukraine, in order to carry out a sneak attack on Ukrainian forces in Sudzha,” writes Moscow Times. These developments mean that Putin is even less likely to agree to any temporary pause in fighting. In January statements he had warned the Kremlin will not sign off on any temporary truces – given Ukraine could just use it to rearm, resupply, and regroup. Moscow has less incentive to sign onto a deal unless territorial concessions are part of it, given that at this rate it can just keep advancing in territory, particularly in the Donbass.

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“Steve Witkoff, the president’s special envoy, is making his way to Moscow this week again..”

Trump Envoy Witkoff To Present Ceasefire Deal To Russia This Week – White House (RT)

US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff will be traveling to Moscow later this week to deliver the US ceasefire proposal for the Ukraine conflict, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz met with representatives from Kiev in Jeddah on Tuesday to discuss a diplomatic end to the Ukraine conflict. In a joint statement afterward, Ukraine agreed to a 30-day ceasefire, while the US resumed all military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine. Waltz held a phone conversation with his “Russian counterpart” on Wednesday to discuss the proceedings, Leavitt told journalists in a media stakeout at the White House. Trump’s envoy will be traveling to Russia in person, she added. “Steve Witkoff, the president’s special envoy, is making his way to Moscow this week again to urge the Russians to sign on to this negotiation,” Leavitt told Fox News on Wednesday.

Russia and the US will hold a “big meeting” on Thursday, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. When asked about potential US leverage on Moscow to accept the ceasefire deal, the US president warned of “devastating” financial measures he could impose. Moscow is “carefully studying the statements that were made as a result” of the US-Ukraine talks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. He cautioned against making rushed statements, and stressed that Russia first needs to receive “detailed information” on the proposed ceasefire teased by Waltz on Tuesday. Moscow has previously opposed any temporary truce in the Ukraine conflict, saying that it would simply be a repeat of the ill-fated 2014-2015 Minsk agreements, which it claims were used by Kiev’s Western backers to rearm them.

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How can you “drag your feet” on a “deal” plan you’re not part of or party to?

Kremlin Drags Its Feet On Ceasefire Deal As Armies Steamroll Ukraine (JTN)

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday indicated that Moscow was in no rush to reply to the American-Ukrainian plan for a 30-day ceasefire, an announcement that came as Russian armies drove battered Ukrainian troops out of a salient in its own Kursk Oblast and appear poised to advance along the front. On Tuesday, Ukrainian diplomats reached an agreement with American officials to restore military aid and intelligence sharing to Kyiv in exchange for agreeing to an immediate, 30-day ceasefire deal that they would present to the Russians. That exchange followed a public squabble at the Oval Office between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and President Donald Trump in which Zelensky was removed from the White House. Zelensky had been in Washington to sign a mineral resources deal that was not executed. Ukraine recommitted to the deal as part of the Wednesday deal.

“Look, you are getting a little ahead of yourself, we don’t want to do that,” Peskov told reporters about the ceasefire, according to Russian outlet RIA Novosti. “Yesterday, when talking to the press, both [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio and [National Security Advisor Mike] Waltz said that they would pass on to us detailed information about the essence of the conversations that took place in Jeddah through various diplomatic channels. First, we need to get that information.” A ceasefire proposal appears to be unpopular with some members of the Russian government, with high-profile politicians condemning the idea. State Duma Deputy Viktor Sobolev, a member of the Duma’s defense committee and notably, an opponent of the pro-Putin coalition, called a temporary ceasefire “absolutely unacceptable,” saying it would allow Ukraine to “regroup and rearm” and “play into the hands of” Kyiv.

Russian troops are currently advancing along the front and posting substantial gains against the Ukrainian military at the moment and a ceasefire would potentially bring that momentum to a halt. Ukrainian forces last year invaded Russia directly, carving out a large swath of territory in the border “oblast,” or region, of Kursk, centered on the city of Sudzha. That location became a cauldron for the Ukrainians as Russia stiffened its defense, and the region became decidedly unstable in recent weeks after the recapture by Russian forces of Sverdlikovo, exposing the Ukrainian flank. A daring operation by Russian special forces, moreover, saw personnel travel through a drained pipeline to attack the Ukrainian rear, which triggered a rout and led to the Russian recapture of Sudzha on Tuesday. Geolocation-based territorial maps show varying degrees of Russian control in the city.

Complicating matters for both sides is their history of dubious and short-lived ceasefires since the outbreak of the Donbas War in 2014. The Minsk I and II Accords both followed a decisive Ukrainian defeat on the battlefields of Ilovaisk and Debaltsevo, respectively. In those battles, Ukraine fought Russian-backed separatists and not the official Russian military. Both sides blame the other for violating both agreements. Explicitly pro-Ukrainian analyst Julian Ropcke, senior editor for security policy at Bild-Zeitung, a German-owned tabloid, highlighted that history and implied a ceasefire deal would lead to a repeat of those incidents. “Amazed to see people thinking a ceasefire deal would stop Russia’s war in Ukraine,” he wrote on X. “After signing Minsk 1 in September 2014, Russia pumped in more troops and kept advancing, capturing Donetsk airport and 20 more towns and villages. After signing Minsk 2 in February 2015, Russia further advanced and captured Debalsteve and five more villages.”

The Russians themselves previously ruled out a ceasefire, with Russian President Vladimir Putin stating last year that he would not accept a temporary agreement and would only allow a ceasefire after a lasting accord had been reached. Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergei Lavrov, meanwhile, downplayed the seriousness of a ceasefire proposal ahead of the Ukrainian meeting with the Americans on Tuesday. “Zelensky is saying publicly that he doesn’t want any ceasefire until Americans give him any guarantees that they will destroy Russia with nuclear weapons. It’s not serious,” Lavrov told reporters on a Russia Today webcast. In an interview with bloggers Mario Nawfal, Larry C. Johnson, and Andrew Napolitano published Wednesday, moreover, Lavrov insisted that Trump had no desire to provide Ukraine with security guarantees while Zelensky remained in power.

“He has his own view of the situation, which he bluntly presents every now and then that this war should have never started. That the pulling Ukraine into NATO, is a violation of its constitution, a violation of the declaration of independence of 1991,” Lavrov said. “On the basis of which we recognized Ukraine as a sovereign state for several reasons, including that this declaration was saying no NATO.” The terms of the deal itself remain unclear and the joint statement from the State Department and Ukrainian government did not offer much detail other than a proposal for an immediate 30-day ceasefire, during which they hope to hold negotiations with Moscow. At present, Russia maintains a swath of Ukrainian territory from the Khariv to Kherson Oblasts, providing a land bridge to Crimea, which it annexed in 2014. Russia formally annexed four more regions amid the war but does not fully control any of them. Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested that the Ukrainians would likely have to give up some territory in a peace deal.

“The most important thing that we have to leave here with is a strong sense that Ukraine is prepared to do difficult things, like the Russians are going to have to do difficult things to end this conflict or at least pause it in some way, shape or form,” Rubio told reporters Tuesday. “I think both sides need to come to an understanding that there’s no military solution to this situation.” The state of the Russian economy has also appeared as a contributing factor. Trump previously threatened the Russians with additional sanctions if they refused to come to the table, though the scope of those sanctions and their potential impact remains unclear. “Based on the fact that Russia is absolutely ‘pounding’ Ukraine on the battlefield right now, I am strongly considering large scale Banking Sanctions, Sanctions, and Tariffs on Russia until a Cease Fire and FINAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT ON PEACE IS REACHED,” Trump wrote on Truth Social last week.

Conversely, some analysts believe Putin may use the ceasefire offer to drag out negotiations and demand greater concessions for a pause. Bloomberg News, citing an unnamed person “close to the Kremlin,” reported that he may demand an end to arms shipments to Ukraine. “Putin won’t give a hard ‘yes’ or a hard ‘no,’” Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center Senior Fellow Tatiana Stanovaya told the outlet. “Even in a fantastic situation where Putin makes some gestures toward a truce, it would still be a temporary one and with very harsh conditions.”

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“Moscow has repeatedly stated that the status of these regions is non-negotiable.”

US Discussed Territorial Concessions With Ukraine – Rubio (RT)

American and Ukrainian delegations discussed the issue of territorial concessions during their meeting in Saudi Arabia, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed on Wednesday. Representatives from Washington and Kiev met in Jeddah on Tuesday to discuss a path toward a peaceful resolution of the Ukraine conflict. Kiev claims sovereignty over Crimea, the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, and the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions. These territories officially became a part of Russia after each of them held referendums in 2014 and 2022. Moscow has repeatedly stated that the status of these regions is non-negotiable. After a nearly 9.5-hour meeting, the two sides released a joint statement in which Kiev agreed to a 30-day ceasefire while the US announced the resumption of military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine.

Speaking to journalists on Wednesday, Rubio, who took part in the meeting, was asked to disclose more details about what had been discussed and whether the issue of territorial concessions had been brought up. The secretary stated that “we had conversations” on the issue but declined to disclose specifics. He emphasized that the key point was figuring out what the negotiation process would look like and what issues would be on the agenda. Rubio called it obvious that the Ukraine conflict cannot be resolved militarily, and that “neither side can militarily achieve their maximalist goals” and that the only way to stop the fighting is through negotiations.

On Monday, ahead of the Jeddah talks, Rubio also indicated that Ukraine would inevitably have to relinquish the goal of regaining all the territory it claims in order to facilitate peace negotiations with Russia. “Obviously, it’ll be very difficult for Ukraine in any reasonable time period to sort of force the Russians back all the way to where they were in 2014,” the secretary told the New York Times. Moscow has not yet commented on the statement released by the US and Ukraine following the talks in Saudi Arabia, nor has it yet reacted to the proposed 30-day ceasefire. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has stated that Moscow first expects to receive the details from the US, which should be sent in the coming days.

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“..it wants the big questions addressed front and centre. These include Ukraine’s aspiration to join NATO, the status of the four oblasts annexed by Russia since the start of the war and the protection of the Russian language in Ukraine.”

All The Pressure Is Now On Zelensky After Ceasefire Offer (Proud)

I assess that Russia will agree with the U.S. on a proposed ceasefire in Ukraine. This would put the ball back in Zelensky’s court to sign a peace deal that could destroy him politically and may give President Putin the security assurances he has sought for over seventeen years. In a quite remarkable turn of events, the BBC announced that Britain had helped the U.S. and Ukraine agree on the need for a 30-day ceasefire. This is spin of the most disingenuous kind. The UK has done everything in its power to prevent the possibility of ‘forcing’ Ukraine into negotiations on ending the three-year war. Indeed, just last week, a prominent UK broadsheet reinforced this point in a searing editorial. The British narrative for three years has been that, with sufficient support and strategic patience, Ukraine could impose a defeat on Russia. To use a British military phrase, that plan ‘didn’t survive contact with the enemy’.

Ukraine’s sudden collapse in Kursk, after Russian troops crawled ten kilometres through a gas pipeline that President Zelensky had, with much fanfare, shut down in January, was an astonishing defeat. It was astonishing because it revealed what many western commentators had said since August 2024, that seizing a small patch of land in Russia would turn out to be a strategic blunder for Ukraine. Since the Kursk offensive was launched, Russia has occupied large tracts of land in southern Donetsk, including several important mines and one of Ukraine’s largest power stations. The basic maths show a significant net loss to Zelensky over the past six months. The bigger picture proves that the overall direction of the war has been moving in Russia’s direction since the failed Ukrainian counter-offensive in the summer of 2023. In Ukraine itself, the vultures are already circling in the sky as the body of Zelensky’s now six-year presidential term approaches its final breath.

Arestovich was quick to call for Zelensky to resign after the damaging shoot-out at the Oval Office. Poroshenko has come out to say Ukraine has no choice but to cut a deal. Even Zelensky’s former press spokeswoman has called for peace and implied that the Ukrainian government tries to limit free speech on the subject of a truce. Team Trump is apparently talking to the egregiously corrupt former Prime Minster Yulia Tymoshenko about the future, heaven help us. The domestic political space for Zelensky to keep holding out with meaningless slogans like ‘peace through strength’, and ‘forcing Russia to make peace’ is rapidly closing around him. That Ukraine has come to the negotiating table at all is a sign that it has been given no choice, since America paused the military and intelligence gravy train. There is nothing in the Jeddah meeting that suggests any change in the U.S. position towards Ukraine.

All that the ceasefire does, if Russia agrees to it, is pauses the fighting. Indeed, it goes further than the unworkable Franco-Ukrainian idea to pause the fighting only in the air and sea, allowing Ukraine to keep fighting on the ground. Ironically, the Jeddah formulation favours Russia, as a partial ceasefire would have provided succour to the Ukrainian army which does not enjoy strategic air superiority, despite its mass drone attack on Moscow and other parts of Russia. The joint U.S.-Ukraine statement calls for Ukraine and others to ‘immediately begin negotiations toward an enduring peace that provides for Ukraine’s long-term security’. If Russia agrees to a ceasefire, the clock will start on 30-days of intensive talks aimed at delivering a durable peace. Russia has said consistently that it will not agree to a ceasefire only; it wants the big questions addressed front and centre. These include Ukraine’s aspiration to join NATO, the status of the four oblasts annexed by Russia since the start of the war and the protection of the Russian language in Ukraine.

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“Trump has spoken of substituting tariffs for the income tax. This is a brilliant thought. The income tax taxes labor and capital, factors of production. Thus income tax reduces GDP and living standards.”

Free Trade: Ricardo’s Theory To Dispossess The British Aristocracy (PCR)

In their book, Global Trade and Conflicting National Interests published in 2000 by The MIT Press, Ralph E. Gomory and William J. Baumol proved that the free trade theory with which economists today are still indoctrinated is false. Economists have done their best not to notice that a part of their repertory is invalid. A number of years ago I presented Gomory and Baumol’s analysis to libertarian economists at the Mises Institute. They didn’t like it, but they couldn’t confute it. Over the years I have called attention to the defective theory that economists hold close to their breasts, but it is unpleasant information that they don’t want to hear. With Trump’s talk of tariffs, the invalid free trade theory is being used as a weapon against Trump. Those on Wall Street who are indoctrinated with free trade have been driving down the Dow with their panic.

As for Trump’s tariffs, at the present time it seems that often they are threats leveled at specific countries to get them to do what they should be doing or to get them to give their help to Trump’s agenda. For example, the initial tariffs Trump announced against Mexico and Canada were withdrawn once the two countries agreed to police their borders with the US to help halt the flow of immigrant-invaders into America. It remains to be seen whether a full blown tariff system is put in place. The American market is a large one, and although US consumer demand has been weakened by the offshoring of middle class manufacturing jobs, debt expansion has kept the American consumer market going, and the US remains a lucrative market for foreign produced goods.

It is possible that tariffs could recover their historic role in the financing of the US government. The US government was financed over most of its history by tariffs. It was not until 1918 that the income tax passed in 1913 affected the population, so the US government has been dependent on income taxation only for about a century. As I have explained, the introduction of an income tax resurrected a form of slavery as it gave government ownership rights in our labor. The definition of a free person is a person who owns his own labor. Today people subject to an income tax are in the same position as medieval serfs who owed part of their labor to feudal lords.

Trump has spoken of substituting tariffs for the income tax. This is a brilliant thought. The income tax taxes labor and capital, factors of production. Thus income tax reduces GDP and living standards. Classical economists, unlike the present day “junk economists” as Michael Hudson correctly calls them, said, correctly, that consumption, not factors of production, should be taxed. That is what a tariff does. If you don’t consume goods produced in other countries, you pay no taxation. Countries once understood that being dependent on imports of necessities, such as food, was a threat to national existence. A country could be subdued by the cutoff of food.

The British had the Corn Laws (corn was the term for all grains–wheat, barley, oats) that protected English farmers. The Corn Laws protected the incomes of the landed aristocracy, Britain’s leadership class during the years that Britain was the world power. As income is a basis of power, the rising British middle class wanted the power that was in aristocratic hands. David Ricardo, a bourgeois financier, attacked the incomes of the landed aristocracy with his concocted free trade theory. The repeal of the Corn laws shifted power from one class to another. The bourgeois gained and the aristocrats lost, and the British became dependent on food imports. The repeal was followed by Death Duties that appropriated the estates of the aristocrats, thus destroying the leadership class of Great Britain. Look at the post-aristocratic leadership of Britain. What do you see?

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“What US President Donald Trump does not realize is that as soon as he gets rid of Zelensky… the Ukrainian political system will throw another clown at him..”

Medvedchuk Cautions Trump On Dealing With Kiev (RT)

US President Donald Trump will not be able to reach any kind of agreement with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky, nor with any other politician from his circle who may eventually replace him, exiled Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Medvedchuk has cautioned. Zelensky’s presidential term officially expired in May 2024 as he has refused to hold a new election, citing martial law imposed during the conflict with Russia. Trump reportedly insisted earlier this week that the Ukrainian leader should hold elections and possibly step down. Writing in an article for the ‘Other Ukraine’ news outlet on Wednesday, Medvedchuk – who was ousted in 2022 – suggested that removing Zelensky might not help achieve peace, as the country’s political system could produce another leader with similarly obstructive tendencies.

“What US President Donald Trump does not realize is that as soon as he gets rid of Zelensky… the Ukrainian political system will throw another clown at him,” Medvedchuk claimed. Medvedchuk cited the recent talks between Zelensky and Trump in the Oval Office, which escalated into an unprecedented public confrontation, as proof that there is a pervasive culture among Kiev’s pro-Western political factions that prioritizes self-interest. Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance ended up accusing the Ukrainian leader of disrespectful behavior, a lack of gratitude, and an unwillingness to pursue peace. “America’s problem is that it’s not just Zelensky who doesn’t understand how he disrespected Trump, but most of his entourage doesn’t… Ukraine’s pro-Western politicians are not accustomed at all to considering the interests of others,” Medvedchuk argued.

He went on to claim that “Zelensky’s Ukraine is raising citizens to be spoiled, hysterical, illiterate, infantile and irresponsible; they believe that everyone owes them, and that they never owe anything to anybody in return.” Medvedchuk was leader of the Opposition Platform – For Life party, formerly the second-largest group in the Ukrainian parliament, until his arrest in April 2022. The party was subsequently banned, and Medvedchuk was sent to Russia in September of that year in exchange for several POWs. He founded the Other Ukraine movement in 2023 and acts as chairman of its council. In January, Zelensky imposed sanctions against him.

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“We have 500 million people in Europe and they’re very upset that 330 million people across the ocean will not help 40 million people fighting 140 million people in Russia…”

Why Won’t Europe Step Up and Help Ukraine? (Victor Davis Hanson)

Europe is greeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as if he’s a rock hero and giving us all sorts of dramatic, melodramatic, psychodramatic pronouncements that they are going their own way because of the Trump isolationism, and sometimes it’s Trump Jacksonianism. They can’t count on us. And Ukraine was the catalyst. But let’s look at that issue for a moment. We have 500 million people in Europe and they’re very upset that 330 million people across the ocean will not help 40 million people fighting 140 million people in Russia. In other words, of all the players in this drama, it’s Europe who should be in the driver’s seat. They have 500 million people. And yet, when we look at their expenditures, nine countries out of the 32, 11 years later, have not increased their NATO contributions to 2%. What should they be doing? They should be meeting with the Trump administration and telling the American people why countries in Europe still won’t meet their military responsibilities.

They’re also running a $200-plus billion trade surplus with the United States. They need to tell us—instead of just saying, “We don’t want to get in a tariff war; Trump is a protectionist”—just explain to us why we in Europe believe that we deserve a $200 billion surplus each year with the United States. And maybe you could explain why your tariffs are not symmetrical with ours. We just need to know. We need to know that very quickly, in fact. Another thing we need to know from Europe that we’re not getting, besides their surplus and the inability for all the NATO nations to meet their responsibilities and their promises of 11 years ago, is what is the strategy for Ukraine? They’re very angry that President Donald Trump temporarily cut off some aid to Ukraine to urge Mr. Zelenskyy to consider a truce so he can negotiate a more lasting peace and stop the Stalingrad slaughter between Ukraine and Russia.

I don’t even mean between Ukraine and Russia. It’s basically caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and they’re on the defensive, but Ukraine has not been able, strategically, to show a pathway to strategic resolution and victory. Again, my interest and your interest is, what’s the alternative position by Europe? Is it we have 500 million people, we’re going to rearm, we’re going to divide up tasks? Finns have great artillery. They will supply the artillery to Ukraine. The Swedes and the French have good air forces. They will supply the air cover. The Germans have a tradition of great tank-making. They’re not very productive in tank production today. But perhaps they’ll promise to send 500 tanks. And then outline a position or a trajectory or a pathway where they can force, apparently, Russian President Vladimir Putin all the way back to where he was either in February 2022 or maybe even 2014.

But we don’t get any of that. We don’t get anything but rah-rah talk that we’re all Europeans. We’re not Donald Trump. We’re going to stick together. We’re going to put boots on the ground. We have what? Logistical capacity, armor, air force. Why can’t they just get together and get an exact, detailed plan of military wherewithal, coupled with a strategy, coupled with a renewed commitment to meet their NATO promises, coupled with an explanation to the American people why they feel that $200-plus billion trade surplus is essential to Europe’s survival and it is not a result of asymmetrical and unfair trade practices? That’s all we’re asking for.

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“They want a peace guarantee that’s backed by American blood..”

EU Accuses Trump of ‘Blackmailing’ Zelensky! (Pinsker)

Yesterday’s pacifists are today’s Rambos, it seems: 442 lawmakers in the 720-seat European Parliament just agreed to a joint declaration that “strongly deplores any attempts at blackmailing Ukraine’s leadership into surrender to the Russian aggressor for the sole purpose of announcing a so-called ‘peace deal.’” It passed via landslide: 61%. Not all EU politicians supported the measure: Melonian Nicola Procaccini, co-chair of the Conservatives (ECR), had tried to delay the vote arguing that a strong stance by the chamber would risk undermining the delicate ongoing discussion between the United States and Russia on the conditions of the ceasefire that were agreed yesterday in Jeddah — on which the Kremlin has yet to officially comment — casting a negative light on the efforts of the star-studded administration.

But the parliament rejected his request, and thus the joint resolution submitted by EPP, S&D, ECR, Renew and Greens (which followed a debate last February) passed with 442 votes in favor, 98 against and 126 abstentions. Which means, less than 14% of our “friends” in the EU had the testicular fortitude to oppose this brazenly anti-American statement. Thanks, guys. But perhaps we’re being unfair. Perhaps the EU genuinely, sincerely opposes browbeating a democratic nation — especially one that was just invaded and attacked! — into accepting a permanent, immediate, and unconditional ceasefire. Perhaps this isn’t another example of our European “friends” acting selfishly and cowardly, but a heartfelt moral position. Nah: Fun Fact: Just one year ago, this is the same European Parliament that demanded Israel commit to a ceasefire in Gaza!

Hypocrisy, thy name is EU: The European Parliament was able to call for a permanent, immediate, and unconditional ceasefire in Gaza only last month, on February 28, over 140 days after the genocidal war began. On that day, at the initiative of the Left, the European Parliament’s plenary in Strasbourg amended the 67th article of the 2023 Report on the ‘Human Rights and Democracy in the World and the European Union’s policy on the matter’ to include the call for an “immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, allowing uninterrupted access to food and water for its inhabitants.” [emphasis added] It raises the very obvious question: Israel was attacked by invaders, too. Why is it moral and just to impose a ceasefire on Israel, but “blackmail” to do so to Ukraine? As Politico reported today:

“The European Parliament on Wednesday accused the Trump administration of “blackmailing” Ukraine’s leadership into capitulating to Russia with a forced ceasefire, and denounced Washington’s decision to leave the European Union out of negotiations.” It’s unclear why the European Parliament insisted on using the word “blackmailing.” We’re not threatening to disclose harmful information about Zelensky. Besides, how do you blackmail a guy who’s already been videotaped [playing piano with his dick]: Usually, the “victim” of blackmail is the one who lost his money. Not here: The EU is claiming that Zelensky was blackmailed because Trump DIDN’T pay him. It doesn’t make much sense.The Politico article continued: “The statement also condemned as “counterproductive and dangerous” the current attempts by the Trump administration “to negotiate a ceasefire and peace agreement with Russia over the heads of Ukraine and other European states.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin, they added, was being “rewarded” for Moscow’s ongoing three-year invasion of Ukraine. Even after all these years, Europe’s level of entitlement never ceases to astonish. What Ukraine and the EU really want is an American war guarantee. When you strip away the diplomatic niceties and coded language, Zelensky’s tantrum and EU’s fury can all be boiled down to this: They want a peace guarantee that’s backed by American blood. And because Trump doesn’t believe a Ukrainian war guarantee would “Make America Great Again,” he’s trying to find an off-ramp that averts World War III. He’s trying to stop a war between a nuclear superpower and a near-west ally that’s already cost 1.5 million lives.

By any objective standard, that’s a laudable goal. (If this had been Obama doing the negotiating, the Nobel Prize committee would’ve called an emergency meeting and earmarked him the next 10 awards.)Yet the EU not only objected, they actually called it “blackmail!” Sigh. If only they were willing to stand up to Putin like they stand up to Trump. Because the EU will do everything they can to protect Ukraine… just as long as they don’t have to do any of the fighting themselves.

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“..the EU will discuss proposals to exclude military spending from the limits imposed by the Stability and Growth Pact..”

800 Billion Euros of Delusional Promises (Dionísio)

Von der Leyen has accustomed us to her grandstanding nihilism and disconnection from reality. Listening to her, one might sometimes get the impression that she sees herself as a kind of a god of creation, capable of transforming everything into matter with the mere power of her words. But of course, this is not true! The Russian economy has not collapsed in “tatters”; in fact, it has shown remarkable resilience, with wages growing at their highest rate in 16 years (a 21.6% increase compared to March of last year, and an 11.3% real growth after inflation—a dream for any Portuguese citizen), with the average wage expected to reach $1,113 by 2025, while everything remains cheaper than in any EU country.

It is also not true that the Russians have been stripping semiconductors from washing machines, nor is it true that the G7 has blocked Russian oil exports with their oil caps. In fact, Russia has never exported as much oil as it does today. The broker Ursula von der Leyen was also wrong when she claimed that the U.S. had the cheapest LNG—why would Trump want to lower prices now?—urging European countries to buy more shale gas, in violation of the European corporate sustainability directive, which requires suppliers to comply with environmental sustainability rules. As is well known, shale gas is extracted through fracking, a method highly damaging to the environment and banned in the EU. It seems that for the unelected president of the European Commission, directives are applied according to her whims.

But the latest delusion from the European Commission president is the announcement of a “massive boost”—as she loves these Americanized propaganda slogans with supposed creative power—to European military spending, which has already been increasing over time, but now she proposes to raise it by an additional 840 billion euros. It’s worth noting that she was Germany’s Defense Minister, during the scandal involving the sale of Trident submarines to Portugal, a deal that led to the imprisonment of several intermediaries. During that time too, von der Leyen, when investigated about several businesses, said that she lost the cellphone which helped her avoid jail. Similarly, during her time at the European Commission, she was involved in the vaccine procurement scandal. Certain character traits never disappear, and it’s a pity that these are the traits that determine who gets chosen for such positions. To our detriment.

Of course, the European Commission president could have proposed, instead, a massive diplomatic effort, a vigorous and mobilizing movement for world peace, a series of proposals for disarmament and the reduction of military stockpiles. Would it have worked? Maybe not, but as a leader of a vast population and the guardian of the keys that unlock the doors to death, it was her duty, first and foremost, to make every effort to negotiate not just peace, but a relationship of unity and cooperation across Europe, promoting prosperity and improving the living conditions of its people. Wouldn’t this be expected of any leader who claims to be democratic, humanistic, and a lover of freedom? The first step should never be to deepen the war.

She could even blame Vladimir Putin, demonizing him to unimaginable levels, but always keeping her feet on the ground and acknowledging the enormous responsibility she claims to bear: the guardian of the free world. A “guardian of the free world” is expected to make every effort to preserve that freedom. Instead, von der Leyen has done everything to erode and erase it from the map. Instead of setting an example of elevating and exalting our civilizational values, the European Commission and all the actors parading around the European Council have chosen to adopt a rigid, backward, isolationist, and sectarian stance. “I won’t move from here,” “I won’t talk to them,” “I won’t even think about them!” The EU is the only bloc today that behaves this way, except for Israel with the Palestinians. This should give us much to think about.

But this isn’t even the biggest problem with von der Leyen’s proposal. I’m not even talking about the arbitrariness of a commission composed of unelected bureaucrats proposing draconian rearmament plans, which the Council approves almost unanimously, without criticism, except for Orban. It’s more than that. Von der Leyen doesn’t have the authority to approve such a thing, nor can she force member states to spend this money, or compel them to approve eurobonds that would allow such a magnitude of debt. I’ve mentioned in other articles that by 2026, with a military budget exceeding 600 billion euros, the EU and its member states will already be close to spending 3-4% of GDP on armaments, as Trump desires—the same Trump they claim not to align with. With this increase proposed by von der Leyen, 5% of GDP would be guaranteed.

The truth, however, is that when we look at the proposals, we see that what’s on the table is a line of credit, available to member states, worth 150 billion euros, with the remaining amount coming not from the “European Union,” but from the member states themselves. To facilitate this, the EU will discuss proposals to exclude military spending from the limits imposed by the Stability and Growth Pact, allowing increased investment in armaments to not count toward deficit or public debt limits. In other words, if it’s for weapons, states can borrow as much as they want.

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“..the news of lower inflation..”

This Is Literally The Worst News Democrats Could Get Right Now (Margolis)

The left’s desperate attempts to paint Donald Trump’s second term as an economic disaster are crumbling faster than Hunter Biden’s art career after his daddy left office. After spending four years gaslighting Americans about “Biden’s amazing economy” while families struggled to put food on the table, Democrats have suddenly discovered that inflation exists — and they’re trying to pin it on Trump. How convenient. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) recently embarrassed himself on ABC News when he claimed, “Donald Trump and Republicans consistently promised that they were going to lower the high cost of living, and they’ve done the exact opposite.” That’s not what the facts say at all. Remember when the left couldn’t stop squawking about egg prices? Well, those same Democrats are mysteriously quiet now that egg prices have plummeted.

After reaching an all-time high of $8.17 per dozen in early March, egg prices have plummeted to $5.51. Democrats will be sad to know that this is below the $7 average price when President Trump took office in January. But that’s not all — gas prices have dropped for three straight weeks. Funny how we’re not seeing wall-to-wall media coverage of these positive developments. The Democrats’ economic fearmongering hasn’t aged well. Their claims that Trump would cause runaway inflation have been proven laughably wrong. For Our VIPs: Sorry Dems, but the Trump Recovery Is Underway. The latest economic data shows inflation cooling to 2.8% year-over-year in February, with monthly inflation at just 0.2% — both numbers came in below expectations.

Even CNN had to swallow their pride and report on these positive developments. CNN’s Matt Egan had to concede that the latest economic report was “good news on the economy,” and he emphasized that inflation is “really the number one issue for many Americans.” He noted that both the annual and monthly increases were “a step in the right direction, and both were better than expected.” “This is definitely very encouraging to see,” Egan continued, adding that it is going to “relieve some fears that inflation was perhaps reaccelerating.” He pointed out that February’s report “actually breaks a streak of four straight months… where the inflation rate was going in the wrong direction, right? It was going higher and higher. Finally, we’re seeing it dip.”

Americans may finally be seeing some relief from Bidenomics. Remember how Democrats were lamenting the recent stock market woes? The market has rallied in the wake of the news of lower inflation. This is exactly why Americans are turning their backs on the Democrats’ economic policies. While Biden and his cronies were telling us to lower our expectations and accept sky-high prices as the “new normal,” Trump has been delivering actual results. The stark difference between Democrat rhetoric and reality couldn’t be clearer. Maybe it’s time for Democrats to admit what the rest of us have known all along: their economic policies failed miserably, and Trump’s America First approach delivers results for working families. But don’t hold your breath waiting for that admission — they’re too busy planning their next round of failed talking points.

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Smells like lawfare.

Shutdown Schumer, the Shifty Democrats And a Government Standstill (Thorne)

D.C. Democrats have always ruled the shutdown game. When they are in charge of Congress, they are positively allergic to passing a budget, let alone a balanced one. They prefer to clobber Republicans over the head with shutdown showmanship, ultimately getting their spendthrift way while reaping the fringe benefit of demolished approval ratings for their rival party. Here’s how it works: Democrats sit on their hands and do nothing about spending until the budget deadline looms. Once they are operating in a time-crisis setting, Democrats put forth a grotesque, bloated, and usually immoral omnibus spending bill rife with grift for their friends and economic incontinence. Republicans naturally recoil at this abomination and refuse to vote for it. Democrats and their media allies then bray that Republicans are obstructionists.

If the deadline passes without an agreement, the blame is uniformly heaped upon the Republicans. It is always they, never the blameless Democrats, who shut down the government by refusing to pass the perfectly good spending resolution the Democrats produced. If there is a Democrat president, he does his part by making the shutdown as absurdly public and painful as possible. Who can forget Barack Obama somehow finding employees who were magically exempt from furlough to put up fences around open-air monuments and parks? And to enforce closure of 1,100 square miles of open ocean off the coast of Florida? The compounded applied pressure — generally combined with a greasy offering of pork — is intense enough to shake loose just enough persuadable Republicans to pass everything the Democrats want.

In fact, Republicans were savaged and rolled with this technique enough times that after a while, all the Democrats had to do was threaten to shut down the government to get enough GOP senators to capitulate. But things are different now. Democrats aren’t in power in Congress or the White House, and their media arm has finally lied itself out of relevance. On Tuesday, the Republicans in control of the U.S. House passed a continuing resolution that would keep the government running until this summer — without profligate spending increases — and passed it along to their colleagues in the Senate. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer took to the floor Wednesday, still trying to play the Democrats’ game of blaming the Republicans for his party’s obstructionism. “Funding the government should be a bipartisan effort,” droned Schumer dolorously.

But alas, those dastardly Republicans “chose a partisan path, drafting their continuing resolution without any input — any input! — from congressional Democrats. Because of that, Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to invoke cloture on the house CR.” Republicans brought this shutdown upon themselves, you see. Meanwhile, said Schumer, the virtuous Democrats were “unified on a clean April 11 CR that will keep the government open and give Congress time to negotiate bipartisan legislation that can pass.” Finally, he expressed his fervent hope that “our Republican colleagues will join us to avoid a shutdown on Friday.” But somehow, the blame does not seem to be falling on the Republicans this time. “With Schumer saying that Democrats are not ready to proceed, the Democrats hold the cards,” explains ABC News Delaware affiliate 6ABC. “If they do not furnish the votes to clear this procedural hurdle and get on to the bill, things could be at a stand still, and a shut down could be on the horizon.”

Meanwhile, House Democrats are urging their Senate colleagues to vote no on the funding bill they almost unanimously opposed when it passed through the House on Tuesday evening. “House Democrats are very clear. We’re asking Senate Democrats to vote ‘no’ on this continuing resolution, which is not clean, and it makes cuts across the board,” said Vice Chair Ted Lieu, flanked by five other members of House leadership at a press conference at the Issues Conference at the Lansdowne Resort. Lieu’s comments came before Schumer pushed for a 30-day clean stopgap bill. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said that conversations are “continuing” with Schumer all the way down to rank-and-file Democratic members about keeping the Democratic caucus united against the bill. “The House Democratic position is crystal clear as evidenced by the strong vote of opposition that we took yesterday on the House floor opposing the Trump-Musk-Johnson reckless Republican spending bill,” Jeffries said.

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Was anything not fake?

Old Joe’s Fake Oval Office – and Its Fake News Apologists – Exposed (Victoria Taft)

Joe Biden’s stage set is to the Oval Office what Dylan Mulvaney is to women: completely fake. We know that now, but there was a time when the media said all claims that Joe Biden was working from a virtual or fake Oval Office were considered to be “fake news.” Now, with Trump White House adviser Alina Habba personally finding the fake Oval Office set and showing it to the public in a video, people are discovering the story all over again. From January through September 2021, Joe Biden’s water carriers in the media went out of their way to “debunk” the claims that he was doing appearances from a phony Oval Office, a Hollywood-like set. Here’s a Reuters “fact check” that gives you an idea of how completely in-the-bag the White House media were for the man who ran for president from a set in his basement.

“Social media users have shared photos of President Joe Biden in the Oval Office, claiming they provide proof that the office is fake or a film set. The “evidence” includes a supposed change in wallpaper, allegedly darkened windows and claims that former President Trump is walking in the background outside the office. Reuters has examined each of these photos and found none of the claims to be true.” Reuters’ “debunking” went on to link Facebook posts that are no longer available, probably because Mark Zuckerberg’s social media platform instituted censorship on all posts that were from “right wing” sources that took a verbal shot at the man “saving democracy:”

“As so-called evidence, the post includes a series of photos [it] says show that Trump can be seen in the window behind Biden; the color of the rug has changed from Trump’s Oval Office; there is a tank outside the window; the background in the windows behind Biden does not match that of Trump’s Oval Office (here, here); the windows are darkened; the wallpaper is not the same as Trump’s Oval Office; and the post also includes photos of Oval Office movie sets”. When Politifact was at the center of the censorship industrial complex, it, too, “fact checked” the claim in its usual way; it took the claim, changed it, fact-checked the change, and pronounced the whole thing to be false. Here’s Politifact: “Since President Joe Biden was inaugurated in January 2021, false claims that his presidency is staged have proliferated online. We’ve debunked social media posts that a White House event was filmed at Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta, and that his administration created a fake set for him to get a booster shot.”

Neither was true. Remember: the original claim was that Biden had a fake Oval Office. Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA took a victory lap when he saw the Biden Administration optics as Joe got a COVID shot on a set: Here’s another Politfact fact check from September 2021 listing a Facebook meme as false. The headline reads, “No, White House didn’t create fake set just for Joe Biden’s booster shot.” The supposed fact-checking outfit was looking into a meme featuring a photo of Joe getting a COVID shot on the Hollywood-style set that said, “[The White House] created a fake set for (President Joe) Biden to get his booster shot. The entire Biden presidency is one giant charade.” You can see what they did there. The claim was that the Oval Office with the COVID shot was fake.

Politifact conflated that claim with the poster’s opinion that the “entire Biden presidency is one giant charade” and then denounced the whole thing as false. (Later, when proven wrong, Politifact went back and changed its fact check to include a revised version of the story it got wrong in a highlighted box with an “If your time is short” prompt to keep eyes off its incorrect story). Have I ever told you about Politi”fact”, as I call it, fact-checking a claim I made on the radio and my website about bike lanes in Portland? I provided photos and everything. The Politi”fact” reporter checked my claim and pronounced me a liar. When I called her out, the fake fact checker admitted that she checked when it was dark so she couldn’t see properly to verify my claim. She never removed her fake “fact check.”

And then, in October 2021, Newsweek tried to paper over Fourth Estate’s fake news about the Hollywood set in a clean-up piece entitled, “Why the White House Built a Fake Oval Office for Joe Biden.” There, the reporter pacified, “But there is a logical explanation as to why the White House has decided to construct a set version of the Oval Office.” This is the back story that Alina Habba referred to when she sent this video from the fake Oval Office this week. The fake Oval Office production set is in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which is part of the White House complex.

This map is from the White House tour office. Note how close the West Wing is to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

Since it’s so close to the Oval Office (and probably accessible via tunnel or shortcut, but that’s classified), I propose liberating the rooms used by White House Correspondents in the West Wing and relocating the media to the auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where the fake Oval Office is. Move them all, offices and press room — the whole shebang. The West Wing is crammed full as it is, so why not move the fake news to the fake Oval Office?

Read more …

“Made in China 2025” is a plan from 2015.

Made in China 2025 – Revisited (Pepe Escobar)

Now let’s focus on China’s extremely complex domestic equation. At the opening of the Two Sessions, Premier Li Qiang came up with a rallying call for the whole nation to rise up to a series of “very challenging” goals, including growth of 5% in 2025 (it was 4.9% last year). Essentially, to revitalize the economy, Beijing will issue 1.3 trillion yuan (around US$182 billion) in ultra-long special treasury bonds. The deficit-to-GDP ratio was set at around 4%. The official policy of “opening up” will reach the internet, telecoms, healthcare and education industries – meaning more opportunities for foreign investors and possible partnerships up and down the industrial supply chain. All those moving parts of the ambitious Made in China 2025 tech project will be on overdrive: AI, smart terminals, the Internet of things, 5G, plus a new mechanism set up for “future industries” to support hi-tech domains,including biomaterials manufacturing, quantum technology, embodied intelligence and 6G.

Premier Li enthusiastically praised the role of regional growth drivers such as the Greater Bay Area – the super high-tech cluster in Guangdong province linked to Hong Kong. Predictably, he extolled the “one country, two systems” model and the further economic integration of both Hong Kong and Macau. Arguably this is the best analysis anywhere not only of why Hong Kong-based CK Hutchinson had to get rid of its port operations in the Panama Canal, but also because it offers a crisp Chinese evaluation of the “three powers” behind Trump 2.0: Wall Street, heavy industrial capital (energy, steel, mining) and Silicon Valley. CK Hutchison Holdings, founded in Hong Kong by notorious tycoon Li Ka-shing, essentially had to sell 80% of Hutchison Port Group, a subsidiary that owns 43 container ports in 23 countries, including a 90% stake in the Balboa and Cristobal docks at either end of the Panama Canal, because of hardcore geopolitics. Hutchison will continue to control its ports in China, including Hong Kong.

President Trump made a huge fuss about the BlackRock-led deal. The view in Hong Kong is more pragmatic. Hutchinson was not eager to engage in a furious court battle in US courts – not to mention potential sanctions. So they chose to opt for a “strategic exit”. Premier Li noted how consumption in China now is “sluggish” and, somewhat euphemistically, how there were “pressures on job creation and income growth”. Enter a promised “vigorous boost” to household demand, plus the creation of 12 million new urban jobs, with help focusing on fresh university graduates and migrant workers. In parallel, Beijing will expand its military budget by only 7.2% in 2025, reaching roughly 1.78 trillion yuan (US$ 245 billion). That’s not much compared to the Pentagon budget.

It’s quite enlightening to observe the proposals of the Two Sessions – and the tone-setting by Wang Yi – in relation to the analysis by a certified Asian star such as former Singaporean ambassador to the UN Kishore Mahbubani.
Kishore once again resorts to Sun Tzu, explaining how Chinese rulers always privilege the best way to win as not fighting kinetic wars. What matters is to coordinate expansion – epistemologically, educationally, economically, industrially, techno-scientifically, financially, diplomatically, militarily – under the aegis of deterrence. The bottom line is that Beijing will not be trapped by any possible, bombastic provocation coming from Trump 2.0. Once again, it’s all about “coordinated expansion”.

Example. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute, partly funded by the Australian military, and frankly Sinophobic – and Russophobic – at least did something useful by developing a Critical Technology Tracker of 64 current, critical technologies. This is their latest report, from August 2024. It shows that between 2003 and 2007, the US led in 60 of 64 technologies. China led in only 3. Cue to between 2019 and 2023: the US led in only 7, whereas China led in 57 – including semiconductor chipmaking, gravitational sensors, high-performance computing, quantum sensors, and space launch technology.

All that is inextricably linked to the successful planning – and achieved targets – of Made in China 2025. Talk about two five-year plans back to back (Made in China was conceived in 2015). So this is what China 2025 will be all about: serious investments coupled with lots of partnerships with the whole Global South. Once again, in a sort of Sun Tzu framework tweaked by Bruce Lee, China is bound to use Trump 2.0 and the coming mix of confrontation, competition and periodic negotiation as a trampoline to expand its global reach even further. That might be one of the unstated meanings of what Xi Jinping told Putin in Moscow nearly two years ago: “Changes unseen in a century.” Beijing will be sure to find shelter from the storm – any storm. And without having to fight a single kinetic war.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Mother and son

Humming rain
https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1899897177243312326

Puli
https://twitter.com/gunsnrosesgirl3/status/1899758633291759933

https://twitter.com/buitengebieden/status/1899746630837887170

 

 

Book of Enoch
https://twitter.com/JasperUnleashed/status/1899676260550545736

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Feb 272025
 
 February 27, 2025  Posted by at 10:57 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  45 Responses »


El Greco La Pietà c1575

 

US Relations With Russia Promise Rollback To Pre-Gorbachev Period (Krutikov)
America as Republic, not as Empire (Alastair Crooke)
US To Impose Blanket 25% Tariffs On EU – Trump (RT))
US Can No Longer Subsidize NATO – Rubio (RT)
Trump Says US Could Lift Russia Sanctions (RT)
EU Trying To Block Ukraine Peace – Lavrov (RT)
Lavrov Calls Out Europe’s Peacekeeper Plan As Ploy to Rearm Kiev (Sp.)
Russian, US Diplomats To Meet In Istanbul On February 27 (TASS)
Zelensky Now With Only The Dictatorship In London To Support Him (Jay)
Ukraine Can Forget About NATO, Says Trump (ZH)
Ukraine Should Get As Much Land ‘As Possible’ – Trump (RT)
Most Ukrainians Abroad Won’t Come Home – Unity Minister (RT)
Federal Government Can’t Comply With Judge’s Order To Unfreeze Funds (ET)
Rubio Cancels EU’s Kallas At Last Minute (RT)
NATO-Skeptic Romanian Presidential Candidate Arrested (RT)
Tulsi Gabbard Labels CNN ‘Propaganda Arm’ Of Spies (RT)
AG Pam Bondi Announces Thursday Release of Epstein Files (ZH)
Trump Gaza VIDEO With Bearded Belly Dancers Sparks Outcry (RT)

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1894796332206039412

Press

Paper ballot

Bongino

ComeyKash

Ron Paul

 

 

 

 

It’s been a busy first 5 weeks of the Trump team. But every single day it feels again like we are just beginning.

John Helmer posts a translation of a piece by Yevgeny Krutikov, which describes the US withdrawing its troops from Europe pretty much entirely, or at least from those parts added after 1997. Let Europe take care of Europe. Problem is, it can’t. It’s pretty much broke, and it’s hopelessly divided. It needs its own Trump and Musk, but none are in sight. I guess we must hope for Brusssels to implode sooner rather than later. But that might take pitchforks.

John Helmer: “An essay by Yevgeny Krutikov, published this week in Vzglyad, the Kremlin-funded security analysis platform, suggests senior officials at the Security Council believe in the possibility of arms withdrawal from the current battlefield and of military deconfliction with Russia – without attempting the impossible, the dismantling of the NATO membership to the 1997 cutoff. At its simplest, this would mean the withdrawal of American troops, long-range missiles and nuclear ordnance (bombs, missile warheads, targeting systems) to the lines of 1997. This would leave in place NATO security guarantees for the post-1997 member states and their territories, combined with Russian non-aggression guarantees.”

US Relations With Russia Promise Rollback To Pre-Gorbachev Period (Krutikov)

The United States is preparing to eliminate its military presence in Europe, including Poland, the Baltic states and Kosovo, in order to normalize relations with Russia. At first, the news about this in the European media has looked like fakes, but now it appears too logical to ignore them. Is this a bluff or a real prospect of “detente”? Citing an intelligence source in an Eastern European country, Bild claims that the United States is preparing to withdraw troops from Europe. More precisely, from those bases and positions which appeared there after the expansion of NATO to the east. “According to our information, we are talking about the Russian president’s demand for 2021, that is, the withdrawal of American troops from all NATO countries that joined the alliance after 1990,” the German magazine writes. And it wants to believe this.

The facilities from which the Americans are not discussing withdrawal are the bases in Ramstein, Germany, and the United Kingdom, which existed before the collapse of the USSR. But the largest American base in Europe after Ramstein, the Kosovo Bondsteel, is allegedly preparing for liquidation, and the Italian command of the peacekeeping forces in Kosovo (KFOR) inherits its infrastructure. Currently, American military personnel (just over 600 people) in Bondsteel are not part of KFOR, this is a purely American position. In the near-sensational Bild article, it’s not so much the detail that matters as the message. This is the first (!) attempt to link President Trump’s rhetoric and plans with the creation of a new security configuration in Europe that would take into account Russia’s interests.


Map of US forces and their bases in Europe, Jan 2022

Trump himself has been talking about reducing the American military presence in Europe all the time – this has been one of his narratives since his inauguration, interspersed with demands for Europeans to “defend themselves on their own” — for example, to increase their own military spending and bring their armies to a combat-ready state. For now, threats to withdraw the United States from NATO should be regarded as deceitful and frivolous. However, events are developing at such a pace that everything seems possible. This includes the rollback of the US military presence in Europe to the “basic settings” of the pre-Gorbachev period. If the White House is really ready to discuss this with Moscow as part of the process of restoring normal relations between Russia and the United States, this is a truly revolutionary event for American foreign policy. In the light of such normalization, any other pales by comparison, including Trump’s decree that the United States now recognizes only two genders – male and female.

The simultaneous withdrawal of all American troops from Eastern Europe is a “horror story” that can be used for a variety of purposes: from attempts to influence the election campaign in Germany to fueling anti–Russian sentiment. And this “horror story” is being launched against the background of unprecedentedly harsh statements by the US authorities regarding Europe, of which the most memorable is the cavalier speech by Vice President J. D. Vance at the Munich Security Conference. In this context, it is easy to believe the panicky rumours that the United States is abandoning Europe to its fate. For the last month, Europeans have been living uncomfortably under the “American umbrella.” But the fact is that the Italian military in Kosovo are indeed showing strange activity around Bondsteel.


Left: the US Bondsteel base in Kosovo; right, red dot marks the base location on the map.

Serbian sources also confirm the possible transfer of the base under the control of KFOR, which automatically means that the Americans will leave there. The Serbs, of course, are happy; when they are happy, the information coming from them should also be treated with reasonable skepticism. That is, something is definitely afoot in Kosovo, but it is not yet clear what exactly, and in what broader context this idea should be assessed. It is noteworthy that the Bild source referred to a certain demand of Vladimir Putin from 2021. Most likely, this refers to the famous declaration of the Russian Foreign Ministry dated December 2021. No one has canceled or disavowed this document, and in theory it can indeed be on the negotiating table between the Russian Federation and the United States as a certain opening of Moscow’s diplomatic position.

Smolenskaya Square [location of the Russian Foreign Ministry comparable to Foggy Bottom for the US State Department] unequivocally claims that negotiations in Riyadh are underway not only around the Ukrainian issue, but also about the normalization or, if you want, reformatting of bilateral relations. This is not a “conference on Ukraine,” but Russian-American talks about everything. Specifically, the Istanbul agreements may become the basis for negotiations on Ukraine, but in a broader context, we really need to talk about creating a configuration of continental security that would take into account Russia’s interests. The main thing here is to take into account the threats posed to the Russian Federation by the current security organization in Europe, which has developed after the uncontrolled expansion of NATO to the east.

The problem is not only attempts to draw Ukraine or Georgia into the alliance – Trump himself calls this “involvement” a mistake which has worsened the situation on the continent. In a broader context, other examples of NATO expansion have posed a threat to the Russian Federation. The current borders and configuration of the alliance cannot be the basis for lasting peace for many years. Roughly speaking, no one feels safe right now, and the source of these worries was and remains NATO as an outdated and decaying system. In the Smolenskaya Square declaration of December 2021, the first paragraph states that the Russian Federation and the United States should act on the basis of the principles of “indivisible and equal security, without prejudice to each other’s security.” Further, this basic principle is specified in slightly less general terms, but, in fact, this is a proposal to take into account the security threats to the Russian Federation that stem from the expansion of NATO to the east.

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“Europe’s “sound and fury” after jaw-dropping pivots in U.S. policy..”

“..the ‘blitzkrieg’ was “exceptionally well-planned” and had been discussed in Trump circles since late 2020..”

“That the U.S. would in essence leave Europe to their own delusions would be a calamitous event for the Brussels technocracy.”

America as Republic, not as Empire (Alastair Crooke)

The bits are falling into a distinct pattern – a pre-prepared pattern. Defence Secretary Hegseth at the Munich Security Conference gave us four ‘noes’: No to Ukraine in NATO; No to a return to pre-2014 borders; No to ‘Article 5’ peacekeeper backstops, and ‘No’ to U.S. troops in Ukraine. And in a final flourish, he added that U.S. troops in Europe are not ‘forever’ – and even placed a question mark over the continuity of NATO. Pretty plain speaking! The U.S. clearly is cutting away from Ukraine. And they intend to normalise relations with Russia. Then, Vice-President Vance threw his fire cracker amongst the gathered Euro-élites. He said that the élites had retreated from “shared” democratic values; they were overly reliant on repressing and censoring their peoples (prone to locking them up); and, above all, he excoriated the European Cordon Sanitaire (‘firewall’) by which European parties outside the Centre-Left are deemed non-grata politically: It’s a fake ‘threat’, he suggested.

Of what are you really so frightened? Have you so little confidence in your ‘democracy’? The U.S., he implied, will no longer support Europe if it continues to suppress political constituencies, arrest citizens for speech offenses, and particularly cancel elections as was done recently in Romania. “If you’re running in fear of your own voters”, Vance said, “there is nothing America can do for you”. Ouch! Vance had hit them where it hurts. It is difficult to say what specifically most triggered the catatonic European breakdown: Was it the fear of the U.S. and Russia joining together as a major power nexus – thus stripping Europe from ever again being able glide along on the back of American power, through the specious notion that any European state must have exceptional access to the Washington ‘ear’? Or was it the ending of the Ukraine/Zelensky cult which was so prized amongst the Euro-élite as the ‘glue’ around which a faux European unity and identity could be enforced? Both probably contributed to the fury.

That the U.S. would in essence leave Europe to their own delusions would be a calamitous event for the Brussels technocracy. Many may lazily assume that the U.S. double act at Munich was just another example of the well-known Trumpian fondness for dropping ‘wacky’ initiatives intended to both shock and kickover frozen paradigms. The Munich speeches did exactly that all right! Yet that does not make them accidental; but rather parts that fit into a bigger picture. It is clear now that the Trump blitzkrieg across the American Administrative State could not have been mounted unless carefully pre-planned and prepared over the last four years. Trump’s flurry of Presidential Executive Orders at the outset of his Presidency were not whimsical. Leading U.S. constitutional lawyer, Jonathan Turley, and other lawyers say that the Orders were well drafted legally and with the clear understanding that legal challenges would ensue. What’s more, that Trump Team welcome those challenges.

What is going on? The newly confirmed head of the Office of Budget Management (OBM), Russ Vought, says his Office will become the “on/off switch” for all Executive expenditure under the new Executive Orders. Vought calls the resulting whirlpool, the application of Constitutional radicalism. And Trump has now issued the Executive Order that reinstates the primacy of the Executive as the controlling mechanism of government. Vought, who was in OBM in Trump 01, is carefully selecting the ground for all-out financial war on the Deep State. It will be fought out firstly at the Supreme Court – which the Trump Team expect confidently to win (Trump has the 6-3 conservative majority). The new régime will then be applied across all agencies and departments of state. Expect shrieks of pain. The point here is that the Administrative State – aloof from executive control – has taken to itself prerogatives such as immunity to dismissal and the self-awarded authority to shape policy – creating a dual state system, run by unelected technocrats, which, when implanted in departments such as Justice and the Pentagon, have evolved into the American Deep State.

Article Two of the Constitution however, says very bluntly: Executive power shall be vested in the U.S. President (with no ifs or buts at all.) Trump intends for his Administration to recover that lost Executive power. It was, in fact, lost long ago. Trump is re-claiming too, the Executive’s right to dismiss ‘servants of the State’, and to ‘switch off’ wasteful expenditure at his discretion, as part of a unitary executive prerequisite. Of course, the Administrative State is fighting back. Turley’s article is headlined: They Are Taking Away Everything We Have: Democrats and Unions Launch Existential Fight. Their aim has been to cripple the Trump initiative through using politicised judges to issue restraint orders. Many mainstream lawyers believe Trump’s Unitary Executive claim to be illegal. The question is whether Congress can stand up Agencies designed to act independently of the President; and how does that square with the separation of powers and Article Two that vests unqualified executive power with one sole elected official – the U.S. President.

How did the Democrats not see this coming? Lawyer Robert Barnes essentially says that the ‘blitzkrieg’ was “exceptionally well-planned” and had been discussed in Trump circles since late 2020. The latter team had emerged from within a generational and cultural shift in the U.S.. This latter had given rise to a Libertarian/Populist wing with working class roots who often had served in the military, yet had come to despise the Neo-con lies (especially those of 9/11) that brought endless wars. They were animated more by the old John Adams adage that ‘America should not go abroad in search of monsters to slay’.

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“..asked [..] whether EU countries would retaliate in-kind to any US tariffs, Trump replied: “They can’t, I mean they can try, but they can’t.”

US To Impose Blanket 25% Tariffs On EU – Trump (RT))

US President Donald Trump has claimed that the EU was designed to weaken America and has issued new threats of 25% tariffs on all imports from the bloc. Trump made the remarks on Wednesday at the White House during his first Cabinet meeting of his second term as president. The trade row between the US and the EU has been escalating since Trump announced plans to introduce a wide range of import duties in an effort to tackle what he describes as a trade imbalance. “Look, let’s be honest, the European Union was formed in order to screw the United States, that’s the purpose of it,” Trump told the meeting. “And they’ve done a good job of it. But now I’m president.” He reiterated that his administration plans to impose tariffs on EU imports “very soon.”

“It will be 25%, generally speaking, and that will be on cars and all other things,” Trump said, describing the EU as “a different case than Canada… they’ve really taken advantage of us in a different way.” The US and EU similarly found themselves locked in a trade dispute during Trump’s first term, when he introduced tariffs of 25% on European steel imports and 10% on aluminum, to which the EU responded with countermeasures. Trump also threatened tariffs on European cars, though those never came to pass. In total, the two sides exchanged duties on goods worth over $10 billion. As part of his current tariff push, Trump has imposed 25% duties on all steel and aluminum imports from the EU starting March 4, adding to existing tariffs. He has also directed Howard Lutnick, his nominee for US trade representative and commerce secretary, to propose new levies on a country-by-country basis by April 1 in a bid to rebalance trade.

Since taking office on January 20, Trump has slapped a 25% tariff on all imports from Mexico and Canada and an additional 10% on Chinese goods, citing concerns over illegal immigration and drug trafficking. However, following talks with the Mexican and Canadian leaders, those tariffs have been postponed for 30 days after both nations agreed to bolster border security. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen condemned the latest US tariffs, expressing “deep regret” over the decision. She said earlier this month that the levies on steel and aluminum “will not go unanswered.” Asked on Wednesday, whether EU countries would retaliate in-kind to any US tariffs, Trump replied: “They can’t, I mean they can try, but they can’t.”

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Neither can Europe.

US Can No Longer Subsidize NATO – Rubio (RT)

Washington can no longer allow its wealthy Western European NATO allies to take advantage of US taxpayers to fund their defense budgets, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox News on Wednesday. The top US diplomat was responding to comments by Friedrich Merz, whose Christian Democratic Union (CDU) won last week’s elections in Germany. Merz claimed that the US-led military bloc is in “jeopardy” due to Washington’s “indifference” toward Europe’s security. “NATO is not in jeopardy,” Rubio said. “The only thing that puts NATO in jeopardy is the fact that we have NATO allies who barely have militaries or whose militaries are not very capable because they’ve spent 40 years not spending any money on it.” The current US administration considers it unfair that some wealthy Western European member states only spend 1% to 1.5% of their GDP on defense, Rubio added.

“We just can’t keep subsidizing that,” he stressed. “These are rich countries, especially in Western Europe. They have plenty of money. They should be investing that in their national security, and they’re not.” US President Donald Trump has argued that NATO’s current defense spending target of 2% of GDP per year – already a challenge for a number of member states – is too low and should be raised to 5%. During his reelection campaign, Trump said he would “absolutely” consider leaving the bloc if members do not “pay their bills.” The US allocates around 3.4% of GDP to military expenditures, according to a 2023 estimate by the World Bank. In contrast, European NATO members spend an average of 1.9%, less than 60% of the US’ spending, Reuters reported earlier this month, citing S&P Global.

Meeting Trump’s proposed 5% military spending goal would cause France and Germany’s budget deficits to rise to 4.6% and 8.9% in 2025, respectively, compared to the current projections of 1.7% and 6%, S&P estimated. Since 2022, the US and its allies have provided more than $258 billion in aid to Ukraine, including over $134 billion in military assistance, according to Germany’s Kiel Institute. Western nations have depleted their military stockpiles and struggled to increase arms production due to deindustrialization, offshore manufacturing, green policies, and sanctions on Russian energy.

Trump claims that Washington spent up to $350 billion on Ukraine under the administration of his predecessor, Joe Biden, and has vowed to recover this money. Moscow has warned that NATO’s military aid to Ukraine effectively makes member states parties to the conflict. Trump is the first and only Western leader to acknowledge that one of the root causes of the Ukraine conflict was “the previous administration’s ‘pushy’ policy of dragging Ukraine into NATO,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said last week.

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As Europe adopts new sanctions…

Trump Says US Could Lift Russia Sanctions (RT)

The US could lift sanctions against Russia “at some point” during the Ukraine peace negotiations, President Donald Trump indicated on Tuesday. He noted, however, that no decision has been made so far. The US and other Western nations have placed an unprecedented number of economic restrictions on Russia since the Ukraine conflict escalated in 2022. Moscow considers the sanctions illegal and has consistently demanded their removal. “No, we haven’t lifted any sanctions on anybody… I guess it will be at some point, but right now we haven’t agreed to lift sanctions on anybody,” Trump said at a press briefing, responding to a question on whether the issue has been part of Russia-US discussions so far.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently suggested that Western nations will have to consider lifting sanctions on Russia in order to find an “enduring, sustainable” solution to the Ukraine conflict. Speaking after high-level talks between Moscow and Washington in Saudi Arabia last week, he indicated that in order to bring an end to the conflict, “there has to be concessions made by all sides,” including letting go of sanctions policies. Rubio noted, however, that the EU will have to be “at the table” to discuss sanctions relief as well, as it has also imposed restrictive measures targeting Russia. Brussels has indicated it is prepared to pursue an independent sanctions policy regardless of Washington’s stance. EU Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said last week that the bloc has no plans to lift sanctions against Moscow even if the US decides to do so.

Earlier this week, the EU adopted its 16th package of restrictions, largely targeting Russia’s military-industrial complex and energy projects. It also introduced additional measures against alleged sanctions circumvention, including dual-use export restrictions. Moscow has often noted that sanctions have failed to destabilize or isolate it while backfiring on the countries that imposed them. Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that Western sanctions have inadvertently bolstered Russia’s development. Speaking at the Future Technologies Forum in Moscow, he stated that despite the challenges that Russia was forced to overcome due to the measures, they played a “stimulating role,” prompting closer collaboration between Russia’s domestic businesses and science and bolstering the country’s economic and technological sectors.

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“..Europe’s role in fomenting crises and its reputation in this area, which it has acquired over centuries, remains unchanged..”

EU Trying To Block Ukraine Peace – Lavrov (RT)

The EU is seeking to derail the Ukraine peace process by pushing the country to continue fighting against Russia, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. Speaking at a press conference in Qatar on Wednesday, Lavrov weighed in on a resolution drafted by the US calling for a “swift end” to the Ukraine conflict, which was approved by the UN Security Council on Monday. The document, which was supported by Russia and China, excluded strong language denouncing Moscow. The resolution also came after US President Donald Trump refused to condemn Russia over the Ukraine conflict while blaming Kiev for failing to prevent the hostilities. The Russian foreign minister said that as soon as the political landscape regarding the conflict began to shift, “Europe immediately tries to undermine this trend, announces new large packages of military aid to Kiev, incites it to continue military actions.”

Lavrov went on to state that “Europe’s role in fomenting crises and its reputation in this area, which it has acquired over centuries, remains unchanged,” adding that the EU’s approach to the conflict is “hopelessly outdated and failing.” Last week, Politico reported that the EU is preparing a military aid package worth at least €6 billion ($6.3 billion) for Ukraine, with the magazine’s sources claiming that it could potentially balloon to €10 billion as the bloc’s members “dig into their inventories to see what they can send.” Meanwhile, Trump said on Tuesday that the US is not currently supplying Ukraine with any defense assistance. Russia has condemned the Western arms shipments to Ukraine, warning that they only prolong the conflict without changing the outcome.

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Who’s going to volunteer to be a Russian target?

Lavrov Calls Out Europe’s Peacekeeper Plan As Ploy to Rearm Kiev (Sp.)

For Russia, any course of action involving the deployment of European peacekeepers to Ukraine is out of the question, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday. “No, we cannot consider any such options,” Lavrov told reporters after talks in Doha. The approach being imposed by the Europeans, namely France and the UK, is aimed at further fueling the conflict and “pumping Kiev with weapons again”, Russia’s diplomacy chief added. US President Donald Trump stated that he believes the presence of peacekeeping forces in Ukraine is necessary in one form or another, but the format of this mission must be acceptable to all parties. Russia is not blocking negotiations on Ukraine, Lavrov said, emphasizing that the best way to resolve the conflict is to understand its root causes.

“We are waiting for our European colleagues to stop spreading lies that Russia is blocking the negotiations. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly responded to these false claims, pointing out that the Ukrainian leadership, instigated by Europe, refuses to negotiate,” Lavrov told reporters after his visit to Qatar. Lavrov noted that European politicians assert the conflict in Ukraine should be resolved through military means rather than through negotiations. “We believe that the best help from those who sincerely want to help resolve the conflict is to understand its root causes, as [US] President Trump did recently,” Lavrov added. An upcoming Russian-US meeting that will focus on normalizing the operation of embassies will be held on February 27 in Istanbul, Lavrov said.

“We announced that our high-level diplomats and experts, will meet and consider the systemic problems that have accumulated as a result of the previous administration’s illicit activities to create artificial obstacles to the functions of the Russian embassy, to which we naturally reciprocated and also created uncomfortable conditions for the work of the US Embassy in Moscow. Such a meeting will take place tomorrow in Istanbul,” Lavrov told reporters. Based on the outcome of the talks, it will be clear how fast and efficiently both countries can move, the top diplomat added. Israel’s presence in the south of Lebanon and the south of Syria requires constructive solutions which will not violate security of any party, Lavrov said.

“At present, the Israeli armed forces have entered the south of Syria, just as they decided to stay in the south of Lebanon. All this creates a new situation, which demands not simply understanding, but working out some kind of constructive steps, which take into account the security and development interests of all the countries of the region, including, of course, Israel. But these security problems must not be solved by violating the security and development of other [countries],” Russia’s diplomacy chief said at a press conference. Lavrov also said that Russia is deeply concerned about the fact that day by day the Israeli armed forces take steps that are not envisaged in the Hamas-Israel deals and create situations which contradict the agreements and the resolutions of the UN Security Council.

Read more …

No more time to wait or waste. There are major problems to be solved..

Russian, US Diplomats To Meet In Istanbul On February 27 (TASS)

Russian and US diplomats will hold a meeting in Istanbul on February 27 to discuss issues related to the operation of the two countries’ embassies, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced. “Such a meeting will take place in Istanbul tomorrow,” the top Russian diplomat said at a press conference following his visit to Qatar. “We have announced that our diplomats and high-level experts will meet to address the systemic problems that have piled up as a result of the previous [US] administration’s illegitimate activities aimed at creating artificial obstacles for the work of the Russian embassy, to which we clearly responded in kind, also creating uncomfortable conditions for the operation of the US embassy in Moscow,” Lavrov noted.

According to him, the problem of Russia’s frozen assets “has nothing to do with the operation of embassies” because “the asset issue is a state-level one.” Lavrov expects that the Istanbul meeting “will make it clear how capable the parties are of moving forward quickly and effectively.” Earlier, the top Russian diplomat announced that Moscow and Washington had held two rounds of preliminary technical consultations on the issue. Russian and US delegations held talks in Riyadh on February 18, which lasted over four hours. Russia was represented by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Presidential Aide Yury Ushakov, and CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) Kirill Dmitriev. The US delegation consisted of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, and Special Envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff.

According to Ushakov, the delegations held a serious talk on all the issues they wanted to discuss, including ways to bring Russian and US positions closer to each other and future consultations on Ukraine. Lavrov described the meeting with Washington officials as very useful. According to him, Russia and the US agreed to make sure that ambassadors to both countries are appointed as soon as possible. Rubio, in turn, said after the talks that the US and Russia had agreed to reestablish embassy staffing. Embassy staff cuts began in both countries after 2014, when Washington adopted a policy aimed at “systemic containment” of Russia.

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“Who could forget Sean Penn giving him his own Oscar, or Ben Stiller chilling with the Ukrainian leader and making small talk? Angelina Jolie is even reported to have been paid 20 million dollars to meet with him..”

Zelensky Now With Only The Dictatorship In London To Support Him (Jay)

What is the definition of a ‘dictator’? In the days that followed Trump’s social media post calling President Zelensky one, British media seized upon the subject and ran with it for days. Various public figures were asked whether Trump was right to use the word and whether they believed Zelensky was actually one. Two figures from the right, Nigel Farage and Liz Truss both said they thought Trump was both wrong to call him one and that in fact he wasn’t one. This remarkable endearment for Zelensky is really the core of the problem in the west in particular the UK, where its leader Sir Keir Starmer declared that he would be ready to send British troops to Ukraine – a suggestion which was quickly shot down by the elites of Germany and France as preposterous. It’s rare that the giants of the EU put the British government in its place on world affairs but we are living in unprecedented times of sensational stupidity and perhaps ignorance from politicians which we have never seen before.

Farage’s views on the Middle East tell us he is both ignorant of what is happening there and doesn’t have any advisors covering the region. But his views on Ukraine are even more shockingly deranged. Zelensky is a leader who has shut down anything which resembles an ‘opposition’ both politically and media, he has conglomerated all TV stations into one state-owned entity so as to shut down even the slightest criticism or accountability of his own actions, he has had the few dissident voices arrested and thrown into prison, with some predicting that there are thousands of journalists and media workers. Add to that it is rapidly emerging that the level of corruption and embezzlement linked directly to Zelensky is on a scale that even hard line critics in the West could not have even imagined.

In my own investigation in October 2023, where a very angry Ben Wallace insulted me in a WhatsApp interview before blocking me, I outline how the original, more sensational claim that only about a third of all military equipment sent to Ukraine was actually making it to the battlefield was in fact realistic. This analogy was bandied about for some time and was dismissed by Wallace and others like Alecia Kearns MP as nonsense and yet turned out to be more than just realistic but likely. That is to say that 66 percent of what was being sent to Ukraine was being sold on the black market in Libya making Zelensky and his close circle billionaires.

In recent weeks now mainstream journalists and politicians are talking about the arms scandal and it is only a matter of time before we shall see the realities of this. The British government have always turned a blind eye to it, both in Ukraine and further afield. It would cost them nothing to do a study in the Sahel to evaluate how much of the equipment there funding terrorism is coming from the arms bazaars of Tripoli where all of this kit is ending up. I suggested to Wallace that his own government at the time should send some investigators there (Libya) to look at what’s available. I was more or less told to go there myself and do the job for them.

But Zelenksy support structure for so long has been that of a dictator, in particular media. The hundreds of media outlets in Ukraine which were receiving USAID funding is extensive, not to mention the hundreds of civil servants which support him being on the same payroll. If that doesn’t shock Farage and Truss, then consider the same slush fund which paid out around a 100 million dollars to movie stars to go and visit him and fake their adulation, all for the purposes of cheating the humble U.S. taxpayer by raising his profile.

Who could forget Sean Penn giving him his own Oscar, or Ben Stiller chilling with the Ukrainian leader and making small talk? Angelina Jolie is even reported to have been paid 20 million dollars to meet with him but didn’t even manage that and simply mooched about a but in the country before jetting back to the U.S. Of course, the celebrities all dismiss these claims, through the same left-wing woke press which is part of their extended political family. But the question we should be asking ourselves is simply this: if they were not paid, then why won’t they show up now and show support at the precise moment when Zelensky needs it the most? Given that these celebrities supported Biden and are Democrats, this would be the most logical thing for them to do. In reality, the wall of silence is what we see.

Dictators don’t stand over their hired killers and watch their victims in their final moments like Idi Amin did. In reality, they only indicate and hint to the thugs on their payroll what she should do to fix problems. Does Farage and Truss actually believe that dissidents are not rounded up and thrown into jail where they are tortured and in some cases murdered? Now that the vultures are circling over Zelensky and many are wondering how many days in office he has left, more reports are emerging with details of such cases. The story of Gonzalo Lira, the American Chilean blogger whose vlogs were often well-informed and threw a very poor spotlight on Zelensky is a very sad one as he was brutally tortured while in prison and finally died. If the Zelensky cabal can do this to an American citizen, perhaps Farage and Truss will not be too surprised when in the coming weeks we will have the same Damascus prison media moment where it transpires that there are certainly hundreds, possibly thousands of journalists, commentators and political rivals in Ukraine’s prisons.

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“The European Union was formed in order to screw the United States, that’s the purpose of it. And they’ve done a good job of it. But now I’m president.”

Ukraine Can Forget About NATO, Says Trump (ZH)

Huge and unprecedented words issued by America’s Commander-in-Chief in a press briefing on Thursday… Trump says Ukraine can “forget about” joining NATO: “That is probably the reason why the whole thing started.” Of course, Vice President J.D. Vance earlier this month voiced this point of view of the administration while addressing a gathering of defense leaders in Brussels. But never before has a US president so forcefully voiced that a path to NATO membership simply won’t happen. This also marks the most directly Trump has ever said NATO expansion is a key reason for the tragic war, which has taken hundreds of thousands of lives, having started in the first place. Mainstream media fact-checkers have been out in force, decrying this perspective as ‘Russian propaganda’. But is this really the case?

The head of NATO itself in the recent past said the quiet part out loud and fully admitted that constant NATO expansion to Russia’s doorstep was a central driving factor: “From the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we’ve been told that the issue of NATO expansion is irrelevant to the war, and that anyone bringing it up is, at best, unwittingly parroting Kremlin propaganda, at worst, apologizing for or justifying the war. So it was curious to see NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg earlier this month say explicitly that Russian president Vladimir Putin launched his criminal war as a reaction to the possibility of NATO expanding into Ukraine, and the alliance’s refusal to swear it off — not once or twice, but three separate times.

“President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement,” Stoltenberg told a joint committee meeting of the European Parliament on September 7. “That was what he sent us. And [that] was a pre-condition for not invade [sic] Ukraine. Of course we didn’t sign that.” “He went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders. He has got the exact opposite,” Stoltenberg reiterated, referring to the accession of Sweden and Finland into the alliance in response to Putin’s invasion. Their entry, he later insisted, “demonstrates that when President Putin invaded a European country to prevent more NATO, he’s getting the exact opposite.” How much clearer could the then NATO Secretary-General have said it (in the Sept. 2023 comments)?

https://twitter.com/i/status/1706173936025874767

How much clearer could the then NATO Secretary-General have said it (in the Sept. 2023 comments)?Trump also on Wednesday blasted the European Union… “The European Union was formed in order to screw the United States, that’s the purpose of it. And they’ve done a good job of it. But now I’m president.” Among other things, Europe has lately been accused of seeking to thwart Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine, even offering a rival rare earth minerals deal. The Europeans and Ukrainians have been cut out of direct negotiations with Moscow under Rubio.

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Aka very little.

Ukraine Should Get As Much Land ‘As Possible’ – Trump (RT)

US President Donald Trump has said he wants Ukraine to regain as much territory “as possible” under a potential peace deal with Russia. He claimed that Moscow will have to make concessions, but that the agreement should ultimately represent the best possible outcome for both parties if finalized. Five formerly Ukrainian regions have voted to join Russia since 2014. While Kiev rejects the territorial changes, Moscow views them as final and non-negotiable. Following a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Trump was asked if a peace deal that involved Russia maintaining control over Ukrainian-claimed land could send a message to China detrimental to American interests. ”We’re going to do the best we can to make the best deal we can for both sides,” Trump responded, adding that for Kiev that means “they can get as much back as possible.”

Although an agreement is not guaranteed, Trump expressed hope that it would materialize “for the sake of humanity.” If a resolution is reached, Trump stressed that Ukraine “can forget about” joining NATO as this aspiration lies at the heart of the ongoing conflict. He asserted that Russia will “have to” make concessions as well. Earlier in the day, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov indicated that Moscow would reject a truce that merely freezes the conflict along the current front line, leaving parts of Russian territory under Ukrainian jurisdiction. ”Some propose maintaining the line of engagement – this section is Russian, that one is Ukrainian… That won’t happen, as we have a Constitution reflecting the will of the people,” Lavrov said, referencing the referendums held in the five former Ukrainian regions.

Trump’s approach marks a departure from his predecessor Joe Biden’s strategy of isolating Russia, as he seeks to normalize bilateral relations. Both Moscow and Washington suggest that this shift provides hope for a swift resolution to the Ukraine conflict. Additionally, the Trump administration aims to recover taxpayer funds spent during Biden’s tenure through a forthcoming minerals deal with Kiev, expected to be signed on Friday. The new US administration has declined to offer security guarantees to Ukraine, arguing that the country holds minimal interest for American priorities and that European nations should address the issue instead.

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There’s nothing left to come home to but a crazed dictator and some neo-nazis in a barren landscape.

Most Ukrainians Abroad Won’t Come Home – Unity Minister (RT)

The majority of Ukrainians who left the country over the past three years will not return to their homeland even after the military conflict ends, Minister of National Unity Aleksey Chernyshov has said, according to local media reports. An estimated over 5 million Ukrainians are still living abroad, three years since the conflict escalated. Kiev wants them back as it seeks to address the country’s imploding demographics, boost conscription and generate human resources for the post-conflict reconstruction. The minister reportedly claimed on Tuesday that 30% of Ukrainians currently abroad are “seriously considering coming back” when the security situation stabilizes, according to Ekonomicheskaya Pravda. “We also clearly understand that a significant portion of Ukrainians will not return,” the national unity minister said. “They have decided to stay where they are. This is not a catastrophe, it must be acknowledged.”

Chernyshov said that Kiev is developing measures to encourage people to return and cited statistics indicating that Ukraine loses 300,000 people annually for reasons unrelated to the conflict. “For post-conflict recovery and doubling Ukraine’s GDP within 10 years, it will be necessary to attract between 3.1 to 4.2 million repatriates and immigrants,” he noted. A study by the Ukrainian think tank Center for Economic Strategy (CES) published last week found that around 5.2 million Ukrainian refugees remain abroad, of which 60% plan to settle outside their homeland. Meanwhile, the share of those considering returning home had dropped to 43% by the end of 2024, compared to 74% in December 2022. The exodus peaked in March 2022, when around 2.5 million people left the country within weeks. Since then, the outflow has slowed, with around 300,000 people departing Ukraine last year, the CES said.

The agency estimates that up to 2.7 million Ukrainians may choose to remain abroad permanently, even after the conflict ends. The majority of refugees are women and children, while Germany and Poland are the most popular destinations, a Eurostat report published earlier this month showed. The report also revealed that the share of adult men fleeing Ukraine has jumped by nearly 10% over the past year amid the massive mobilization campaign. This prolonged emigration could have devastating consequences for Ukraine’s economy. CES projects it could reduce the country’s annual GDP by 5.1% to 7.8%. According to the think tank, the primary reasons Ukrainians are not currently returning home include the ongoing security threats, destroyed housing, low living standards, and difficulties in securing employment in Ukraine.

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Remember Alastair Crooke: “..the Orders were well drafted legally and with the clear understanding that legal challenges would ensue..”

Federal Government Can’t Comply With Judge’s Order To Unfreeze Funds (ET)

Federal officials told a U.S. judge on Feb. 25 that they could not comply with his order requiring the release of frozen foreign aid within two days. U.S. District Judge Amir H. Ali’s order, which gave a deadline of Feb. 26 at 11:59 p.m. ET, would mean paying at least $1.5 billion across some 2,000 outstanding and newly created requests for payment to the U.S. Agency for International Development, the official serving as deputy administrator for the agency said in a court filing. It would also require paying at least $400 million to resolve outstanding payment requests to the State Department, Pete Marocco, the official, said. “These payments cannot be accomplished in the time allotted by the Court and would instead take multiple weeks,” he wrote.

Earlier on Tuesday, Ali, in a hearing with government lawyers and attorneys representing the groups that sued over the freeze, was told that the groups had not yet been paid despite his multiple previous orders, including one on Feb. 13, mandating that the Trump administration unfreeze the foreign assistance. “I’m not sure why I can’t get a straight answer from you on this: Are you aware of an unfreezing of the disbursement of funds for those contracts and agreements that were frozen before Feb. 13,” the Washington-based judge asked Indraneel Sur, the lawyer for the government, during the hearing. “Are you aware of steps taken to actually release those funds?” “I’m not in a position to answer that,” Sur said. It’s the second time a judge has found the Trump administration did not follow a court order. U.S. District Court Judge John McConnell in Rhode Island also found this month that the administration had not fully unfrozen federal grants and loans within the United States after he blocked sweeping plans for a pause on trillions of dollars in government spending.

In the Washington case, plaintiffs recently filed an emergency motion to enforce the judge’s temporary restraining order, saying they’re still owed millions of dollars and that their contracts terminated under Trump’s foreign assistance pause remain terminated. Ali granted the emergency motion during Tuesday’s hearing and ordered the government to comply by Thursday. Marocco’s declaration came with a motion from the government asking the judge to stay his order as a federal appeals court considers overturning it. “Defendants are likely to succeed on appeal from the Court’s order for several reasons,” government lawyers said in the filing. “To start, it is not possible for Defendants to comply,” they said, pointing to Marocco’s declaration. The government has appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

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A subtle hint.

Rubio Cancels EU’s Kallas At Last Minute (RT)

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has cancelled a meeting with EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas at the last minute “due to scheduling issues,” Euronews reported on Wednesday. Kallas, who is on an official visit to Washington to discuss the Ukraine conflict and new dynamics in transatlantic relations, intends to meet with representatives from the US Congress and Senate, according to her spokesperson cited by the EU’s news network. The bloc’s top diplomat had been scheduled to meet with Rubio on Wednesday, and news agencies had expected images from the bilateral talks, Euronews wrote. However, a spokesperson for the US official told the outlet that the meeting had been cancelled “due to scheduling issues,” adding that Kallas and Rubio “last met during the Munich Security Conference” earlier in February. According to the report, Rubio’s public calendar for February 26 did not list Kallas as an agenda item.

Former Estonian prime minister Kallas has been critical of the new US administration’s handling of the Ukraine conflict, denouncing President Donald Trump’s call with Russian leader Vladimir Putin earlier this month as a form of “appeasement.” She has accused Washington of adopting a “Russian narrative” and argued that Brussels should “support Ukraine right now more than ever.” Kallas also claimed that Moscow emerged as the winner in the recent US-Russia meeting in Saudi Arabia, stressing that any peace deal concerning Ukraine must involve both Europeans and Ukrainians to be effective. Following the Riyadh talks on February 18, Kallas held a phone call with Rubio, later warning, “Russia will try to divide us. Let’s not walk into their traps.” On Monday, while announcing the now-cancelled meeting with Rubio, Kallas stated “I have been very clear that no deal without us, without Ukraine or without Europe will work in practice – and that is for the US, which also needs to work with us.”

An unnamed EU diplomat commented on the canceled meeting for Politico, saying it “seems that the Trump administration doesn’t miss a chance to show that for them the EU is not a player.” On Tuesday, the Russian Foreign Ministry stated that the aggressive stance of Ukraine’s EU backers makes them unfit to participate in the peace process. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov further accused Brussels on Wednesday of attempting to derail peace efforts by encouraging Kiev to continue fighting against Russia. Kallas has recently suggested extending arms deliveries to Ukraine into 2025. The proposed package, worth €10 billion (over $10 billion), has faced resistance from some EU member states and is set for discussion at the March 6 summit of the bloc. Moscow has repeatedly warned against Western arms shipments to Ukraine, arguing that they only prolong the conflict without altering the outcome, while increasing the risk of a direct Russia-NATO confrontation.

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Europe is full of highly unpopular “leaders”. Who target the few that are actually loved.

NATO-Skeptic Romanian Presidential Candidate Arrested (RT)

Romanian police have arrested Calin Georgescu, the front-runner in last year’s annulled presidential election, and conducted dozens of raids on his supporters and people tied to his campaign, local media reported on Wednesday. A critic of NATO and the EU and an opponent of sending aid to Ukraine, Georgescu made headlines in November last year when he unexpectedly garnered 23% of the vote in the first round of the presidential election in Romania. However, the Constitutional Court annulled the results shortly before the second round, citing intelligence documents alleging ‘irregularities’ in his campaign. Georgescu’s communications team has said on Facebook that he was arrested just as he was about to submit his new candidacy for the presidency.

”The system stopped him in traffic and he was pulled over for questioning at the Prosecutor General’s Office! Where is democracy, where are the partners who must defend democracy,” his team wrote. Prior to his arrest, Georgescu condemned the raids on his supporters in a post on Facebook. “The communist-Bolshevik system continues its odious abuses,” he wrote, accusing the Romanian authorities of trying to “invent evidence to justify the theft of the elections and to do anything to block my new candidacy for the presidency.” The Romanian Prosecutor General’s Office is reportedly investigating Georgescu over allegations of involvement “in a fascist organization and the promotion of controversial ideologies and historical figures in the public space,” G4Media outlet reported, citing sources close to the investigation. According to media reports, police found “weapons, live ammunition, and more than a million dollars hidden in a safe” during the raids.

Following the reports of Georgescu’s arrest, dozens of people gathered in front of the Prosecutor General’s office, chanting his name. The president of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) party, George Simion, said his MPs have also made their way to the Prosecutor General’s office to demand an explanation. Digi24 quoted Simion as saying that he maintains his support for Georgescu and that “until we see undeniable evidence, we suspect that this is political policing.” He added that so far, “not a single piece of evidence” has been presented. Georgescu’s surprise election victory last year and the subsequent annulment over unproven claims of Russian interference in the electoral process sparked controversy in the country. Both conservative and liberal parties have suggested that the establishment parties – the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the center-right National Liberal Party (PNL) – are trying to hold on to power by pulling strings within the Constitutional Court.

The canceled election over alleged ‘Russian meddling’ has also been criticized by US officials. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference earlier this month, Vice President J.D. Vance suggested that “old entrenched interests” in Romania are “hiding behind ugly, Soviet-era words like misinformation and disinformation” and “don’t like the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might… win an election.” Throughout his election campaign, Georgescu repeatedly insisted on Romania’s geopolitical non-alignment and highlighted national sovereignty and self-sufficiency. While expressing skepticism towards Western influence over the country’s policies and criticizing both NATO and the EU, he stated that Romania would respect its commitments to these organizations, but only “to the extent that they will respect theirs” toward Bucharest. He also vowed to halt Romania’s military aid to Ukraine if elected.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1894722137941749825

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Dismissed/disgruntled/disloyal spies.

Tulsi Gabbard Labels CNN ‘Propaganda Arm’ Of Spies (RT)

Newly confirmed US Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard has accused CNN of acting as a “propaganda arm” for disloyal intelligence agents, calling the network’s report on potential retaliation by dismissed spies an “indirect threat” to President Donald Trump’s administration. As part of Trump’s broader effort to downsize and restructure the federal government, the Central Intelligence Agency has recently offered so-called buyouts to its agents. In a report published on Monday, CNN, citing unnamed sources, claimed that some senior CIA officers were “quietly discussing” how the dismissals “risk creating a group of disgruntled former employees who might be motivated to take what they know to a foreign intelligence service.” “I am curious about how they think this is a good tactic to keep their job,” Gabbard told Fox News on Tuesday.

“They are exposing themselves, essentially, by making this indirect threat – using their propaganda arm, CNN, that they’ve used over and over again – to reveal their hand,” she continued. “Their loyalty is not to America, not to the American people or the Constitution; it is to themselves.” She stressed that these disgruntled employees are “exactly the kinds of people we need to root out, get rid of, so that the patriots who do work in this area, who are committed to our core mission, can actually focus on that.” Gabbard also claimed that many within the intelligence community had reached out to her personally, expressing support for Trump’s efforts to “clean house” and refocus on the core mission of serving the American people.

A former US congresswoman from Hawaii, Gabbard rose to national prominence in 2016 when she resigned as vice chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to endorse Bernie Sanders for president. She later ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, advocating against US military interventions abroad, which she argued are harmful to service members like herself and detrimental to national interests. As tensions with the Democratic Party escalated, Gabbard left the party in 2022. After two years as an independent, she joined the Republican Party and endorsed Donald Trump during the 2024 presidential campaign.

Trump’s nomination of Gabbard for the top intelligence role in November sparked criticism from establishment figures, who labeled her a security risk. Despite the backlash, she was confirmed earlier this month by a 52-48 Senate vote, with only one Republican, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, opposing her appointment. In January, the Senate also confirmed another Trump nominee, John Ratcliffe, as director of the CIA in a 74-25 vote. Ratcliffe, a former Texas congressman and ex-director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term, is known for his skepticism of intelligence agencies and his criticism of investigations into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election.

CIA

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“..this will make you sick..”

We’ll see a lot of comments on redactions. Pam better be careful.

AG Pam Bondi Announces Thursday Release of Epstein Files (ZH)

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on Wednesday evening that she’s going to release DOJ files on dead pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. “You said last week that you had the Epstein files on your desk. When can we see them?” asked Fox News’ Jesse Watters. “Jesse, there are well over – this will make you sick, 200 victims. Well over… over 250 actually. So we have to make sure that their identity is protected, and their personal information. But other than that, I think tomorrow Jesse – breaking news right now, you’re going to see some Epstein information being released by my office.” “What kind? Are we going to see who was on the flights? Are we going to see any evidence from what he recorded – because he had all of his homes wired with recording devices,” Watters asked. “What you’re going to see, hopefully tomorrow, is a lot of flight logs, a lot of names, a lot of information… it’s pretty sick what that man did,” Bondi continued.

Epstein, a financier and convicted sex offender was found dead in a New York jail cell while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. While his death was rules a suicide, he was also good friends with the Clintons and several other high-profile figures such as Bill Gates, Britain’s Prince Andrew, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, former Barclays CEO and ‘Disney princess’ aficionado Jes Staley, Larry Summers, Harvey Weinstein, and former Victoria’s Secret boss Les Wexner. Watters’ question about recordings stems from earlier reporting that the deceased sex trafficker’s homes were wired with recording devices. In late 2019, Jeffrey Epstein victim Maria Farmer alleged that the deceased pedophile had a “media room” on the first floor where high-profile johns were allegedly recorded having sex with women and children.

“So if you’re facing the house, there’s a window on the right that’s barred – that’s the room, the ‘media room’ is what he called it,” Farmer said. “And so there was a door that looked like an invisible door with all this limestone and everything and you push it and you go in and I saw all the cameras.” Maria said: “What it was – was like old televisions basically, like stacked.” “They were monitors inside this cabinet and there were men sitting here and I looked on the cameras and I saw toilet, toilet, bed, bed, toilet, bed. “And I was like I’m never going to use the restroom here and I am never going to sleep here.” -The Sun

The claim was supported in a 2024 lawsuit by two women – Danielle Bensky and Jane Doe 3, who said Epstein employed a sophisticated system involving constant CCTV surveillance within his New York mansion. Bondi’s appearance came hours after the DOJ appeared to give Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) the brush-off, telling her in a Wednesday letter that they are “reviewing your requests and look forward to engaging further to accommodate your oversight and legislative needs.” On the campaign trail, Donald Trump suggested that he would be open to releasing the Epstein list, while Bondi said in November that anyone named in the documents who are “still fighting to keep their names private, Sean, they have no legal basis to do so unless they’re a child, a victim or a cooperating defendant.”

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Opens in new tab/window. No comment needed.Note: Trump did not make this.

Trump Gaza VIDEO With Bearded Belly Dancers Sparks Outcry (RT)

A video re-envisioning Gaza as a lavish resort complete with bearded belly dancers and dollar bills raining down posted on US President Donald Trump’s social media channel has elicited a backlash from users. The clip, which appears to be AI-generated and comes after the US leader recently suggested turning Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East,” appeared on Truth Social on Tuesday. The 30-second clip begins with what appear to be current scenes of destruction in Gaza, with barefoot children running between wrecked buildings. The wreckage then morphs into a futuristic-looking Gaza with skyscrapers reminiscent of Dubai, pristine beaches, casinos, and opulent hotels branded “Trump Gaza.” The video depicts an AI-rendered Trump enjoying the local attractions, including sunbathing alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Elon Musk, also AI-rendered, is seen dining on the beach, surrounded by what appear to be bearded belly dancers. The video also features larger-than-life golden statues of Trump and kids frolicking under a shower of dollar bills.

The video is accompanied by a jingle with lyrics praising Trump’s supposed vision for Gaza:
“Donald is coming to set you free, bringing the light for all to see,
No more tunnels, no more fear, Trump Gaza is finally here.
Trump Gaza is shining bright, a golden future, a brand new light,
Feast and dance, the deed is done, Trump Gaza number one!”

Trump suggested earlier this month that the US was prepared to take control of Gaza and transform it into a resort. He has reiterated the idea several times since, claiming that because the enclave is unsafe to live in, it should be raised completely to the ground and rebuilt. While Israel applauded Trump’s initiative, other regional players and many global powers have strongly opposed it, particularly given that it would mean relocating Palestinians living in the enclave to neighboring countries. Trump’s video has so far drawn significant backlash over its tone and messaging, even from the US leader’s own supporters. Users on Truth Social described the clip as “horrible,” “creepy,” and “in poor taste.”

“I hate this. I love our president, but this is horrible,” one user wrote on Truth Social. “This feels all wrong and actually makes me sick,” another user stated. “I could not be a bigger supporter of President Trump but this particular video is in very poor taste!” another one wrote. Some suggested that the bearded belly dancers and golden statues were excessive, while others questioned whether the video had actually come from Trump’s team. “Something does not add up here??? Really does not feel that this is something Trump would post!! Wonder if someone is messing with his account??!! I surely hope so!! Very creepy!!” a user wrote. Several more suggested that Trump should “strongly re-evaluate” the communications team responsible for creating the video. Neither Trump nor his administration has commented on the video, nor was the clip accompanied by any explanation or caption.

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Catwalk
https://twitter.com/i/status/1894497772797141391

 

 

Owl

 

 

Donkey
https://twitter.com/i/status/1894819783696359446

 

 

Dachs

 

 

Trust

 

 

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Feb 222025
 


Pablo Picasso Young girl throwing a rock 1931

 

Trump Allies Believe Zelensky Should Leave Ukraine ‘Immediately’ (RT)
Zelensky ‘Not Important’ For Meetings – Trump (RT)
US Has ‘Frozen’ Weapons Sales To Ukraine – MPs (RT)
US Threatens To Shut Down Starlink In Ukraine – Reuters (RT)
Marco Rubio Allows For Easing Sanctions Against Russia – NYT (TASS)
Rubio Explains Purpose of Russia-US Talks (RT)
Liz Truss Calls For ‘Elon & His Nerd Army’ To Investigate ‘UK Deep State’ (ZH)
Pete Hegseth’s Military (Victor Davis Hanson)
Trump Fires Chairman Of The Joint Chiefs of Staff (NYP)
NATO Leaders Back Zelensky Over Trump (RT)
Europe’s Leadership Continues To Fail Its Citizens (Mevissen)
Germany Issues Warning To US (RT)
Macron Calls For ‘Massive Defense Plan’ For EU (RT)
Trump Deputy Chief Of Staff Blasts Media Propagandists To Their Faces (MN)
Funny Money (Kunstler)
Kash Patel Is Already Making Huge Changes at the FBI (Margolis)
The Democrats Are Standing Against America (Paul Craig Roberts)
Millions of Long COVID Patients May Actually Be Vaccine Injured (Thacker)

 

 


© Alvaro Herrero/UPY2025 Radiant Bond

 

 

Bondi

Rubio
https://twitter.com/i/status/1892806427808522684

First 30 days

 

 

 

 

“..Zelensky “would lose a future election by 30% to 65% to Valery Zaluzhny,” if the latter ran for office..”

Trump Allies Believe Zelensky Should Leave Ukraine ‘Immediately’ (RT)

Vladimir Zelensky should leave Ukraine “immediately” and move to France so as not to impede peace talks with Russia, a source close to US President Donald Trump has said, according to the New York Post. The outlet reported that frustration with Zelensky is growing in the White House. Tensions between Washington and Kiev escalated this week after Zelensky criticized Trump for ending the period of diplomatic non-engagement with Russia. On Tuesday, US and Russian officials met in Saudi Arabia for high-level talks aimed at restoring ties and addressing the Ukraine conflict. Zelensky has demanded a seat at the negotiating table, although Trump has said he and other Ukrainian officials are in no position to complain. He further blamed Zelensky for failing to resolve the conflict with Russia despite having years to do so.

A source familiar with White House discussions told the New York Post that the developments are “nothing new,” adding “I heard months ago it’s time for an election [in Ukraine] and new leadership.” The source emphasized that opposition to Zelensky is widespread within the West Wing. According to another person close to Trump, “the best case for [Zelensky] and the world is that he leaves to France immediately.” Zelensky, whose presidential term expired in May 2024, has refused to hold a new election, citing martial law due to the ongoing conflict. On Tuesday, Trump suggested that Zelensky’s leadership lacks legitimacy and that “he’s down at a 4% approval rating.” Trump later posted on his Truth Social platform that Zelensky “refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls,” saying he “better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left.”

Zelensky responded by accusing Trump of repeating “Russian disinformation” and citing a presidential poll that has him at 57%. “If somebody wants to replace me right now, it will not happen,” he said. An internal poll cited by The Economist on Wednesday suggested that Zelensky would lose to his former commander-in-chief, Valery Zaluzhny, by a large margin if elections were held in Ukraine today. According to data cited in the report, Zelensky “would lose a future election by 30% to 65% to Valery Zaluzhny,” if the latter ran for office. Zaluzhny currently serves as Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK. Zelensky’s popularity skyrocketed to 90% during the first months of the conflict with Russia in 2022, but has since decreased due to mounting losses on the battlefield and problems with the economy. Russia has also said it considers Zelensky “illegitimate” and recognizes the Ukrainian parliament and its speaker as the only legitimate authority in the country.

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“He’s been at the meetings for three years and nothing got done. So I don’t think he’s very important to be at meetings to be honest with you..”

Zelensky ‘Not Important’ For Meetings – Trump (RT)

Ukraine’s leader Vladimir Zelensky is actually “not very important” to have at meetings, US President Donald Trump has said, adding he only makes negotiations difficult. Trump ramped up his ongoing criticism of the Ukrainian leader in an interview with Fox News’ Brian Kilmeadeon on Friday, during which he suggested Zelensky was an obstacle to making any deal to end the conflict with Russia and suggested the it is “not very important” to have him at meetings at all. “He’s been at meetings for three years with a very, with a president who didn’t know what the hell he was doing,” Trump said, referring to his predecessor Joe Biden and dismissing Zelensky’s complaints about Ukraine not being represented during recent talks between Moscow and Washington in Saudi Arabia.

“He’s been at the meetings for three years and nothing got done. So I don’t think he’s very important to be at meetings to be honest with you… He’s – he makes it very hard to make deals. But look what’s happened to his country, it’s been demolished,” Trump added.Earlier this week, the US president branded Zelensky a “dictator” for refusing to hold presidential elections, and claimed the Ukrainian leader had an extremely low approval rating in his country. When repeatedly pressed by the host about whether Russia was responsible for the ongoing conflict, Trump dodged the question, suggesting that other parties were at fault. The US president also reiterated his claim that the hostilities would never have started if he had been in office at the time.

”Every time I say, oh, it’s not Russia’s fault, I always get slammed by the fake news. But I’m telling you, Biden said the wrong things. Zelensky said the wrong things. They got attacked by somebody that’s much bigger and much stronger, which is a bad thing to do, and you don’t do that. But Russia could have been talked out of that so easily,” Trump asserted. Ties between Kiev and Washington appear to have rapidly deteriorated in a matter of a week, with Trump and Zelensky, as well as other senior officials from the two nations, trading various accusations.

Among other things, Zelensky has claimed that the US leader was “living in a disinformation bubble” allegedly created by Russia and has also rejected a proposed deal that would give the US access to Ukraine’s rare-earth minerals to compensate for military aid. He has also refuted Trump’s estimates on the amount of aid Kiev has received, claiming it had not got even half of the sum. On Wednesday, Trump branded Zelensky a “dictator without elections,” claimed that the Ukrainian leader has had an extremely low approval rating and warned that the Ukrainian leader would not “have a country left” should he continue with his policies. Top US officials, including National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, said Trump has grown frustrated with Kiev’s rhetoric, branding it “unfortunate” and “unacceptable.”

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Not frozen, I’d say. Arms makers simply demand to know who’s going to pay the bill.

US Has ‘Frozen’ Weapons Sales To Ukraine – MPs (RT)

The US has halted weapons sales to Ukraine, senior MP Roman Kostenko, who serves as secretary of the Verkhovnaya Rada’s Defense Committee, claimed on Thursday. Washington has been the biggest source of military aid to Ukraine since the escalation of its conflict with Russia in early 2022, including through weapons and equipment shipments and financial support. Part of the financial aid has been used to pay US arms makers to procure new weapons for Ukraine’s army or replace old ones previously provided. In an interview with journalist Natalia Moseychuk, Kostenko stated that “according to my information, the weapons that were going up for sale have stopped. Those companies that were ready to transfer these weapons are now waiting because there is no decision [from Washington].”

He claimed that the suspensions were linked to the budding rapprochement between Washington and Moscow, who held their first direct negotiations at senior level in three years in Saudi Arabia this week. According to Kostenko, the fact that Ukraine was not invited to the talks has prompted uncertainty among US arms manufacturers about deliveries to Kiev. Kostenko said Ukraine is attempting to resolve the issue and has offered to pay for the weapons directly instead of counting on their delivery as part of US aid. His remarks were confirmed by fellow MP Aleksey Goncharenko in a Telegram post on Friday. “The US has frozen arms sales to Ukraine. Roman Kostenko’s statement yesterday is absolutely true,” Goncharenko wrote, adding that “American companies confirmed this to me.”

Neither Washington nor US arms makers have commented on the reported pause in shipments. Ukrainian MP Alexandra Ustinova, who serves as an adviser to the defense minister, refuted the claims in a post on Facebook, stating that “the US has NOT stopped selling weapons to Ukraine” and advising fellow MPs not to “add fuel to the fire” by voicing unconfirmed information. The remarks come amid a growing spat between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky. In a post on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday, the US leader accused Zelensky of mismanaging the conflict with Russia and misusing American financial aid.

Trump earlier threatened to cut aid for Ukraine, and has insisted that Kiev must repay Washington for the funding it has received, which the US leader claimed was “more than $300 billion.” He demanded the “equivalent of $500 billion worth of rare earths” from Ukraine in return.Zelensky has accused the US leader of “living in a disinformation space” supposedly created by Russia. He rejected the proposal for Ukraine’s rare earths, saying last week that it was not “in the interests of sovereign Ukraine.” Zelensky previously refuted Trump’s estimates of the aid provided by Washington, insisting Ukraine had not received even half of that sum.

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There are still some who think the rare earths are there.

US Threatens To Shut Down Starlink In Ukraine – Reuters (RT)

US officials have warned that they could block Ukraine from using Elon Musk’s Starlink internet terminals if Kiev doesn’t grant access to its critical mineral reserves, Reuters reported on Saturday, citing three people familiar with the matter. Musk, a major ally of US President Donald Trump, has donated more than 40,000 internet terminals since 2022, which have been widely used by Ukrainian troops on the battlefield. According to Reuters, during a meeting between Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky and Trump’s envoy, Keith Kellogg, in Kiev on Thursday, the Ukrainians were told that they faced an “imminent shutoff” of Starlink’s satellite service if they did not sign a deal on critical minerals with the US.

“Ukraine runs on Starlink. They consider it their North Star,” a source told Reuters, adding that losing the service “would be a massive blow.” In an effort to ensure further military aid from the US, Zelensky has pitched Trump a preferential partnership in developing Ukraine’s resources, including rare-earth minerals. However, he refused to sign an agreement that would have granted the US ownership of 50% of the nation’s mineral wealth. “I cannot sell our country,” he said on Wednesday. Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, said that Kiev’s reaction was “unacceptable” and advised Ukrainian officials to “tone it down” and sign the minerals deal.

Both Trump and Musk ramped up their criticism of Zelensky earlier this week, branding him “a dictator” and claiming that he is deeply unpopular at home. The US president argued that Ukraine was in no position to complain about his decision to restore direct talks with Russia that were suspended by his predecessor, Joe Biden. Zelensky acknowledged earlier this month that around half of its rare-earth deposits are “under Russian occupation.” Writing for Bloomberg this week, commodities expert Javier Blas argued that Trump’s expectations from a deal are grossly exaggerated because Ukraine “has no significant rare-earth deposits other than small scandium mines.”

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“..agreed to ensure the earliest possible appointment of ambassadors in both capitals..”

Marco Rubio Allows For Easing Sanctions Against Russia – NYT (TASS)

In a telephone conversation with a number of European diplomats after the US-Russian talks in Riyadh, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio kept open the option of easing some anti-Russian sanctions if Russia begins to take the steps that Washington is seeking, the New York Times reported, citing a summary of the conversation prepared by European officials. “No, he said, the administration would not lift U.S. sanctions on Russia absent a noticeable change in Moscow’s behavior, though he left the door open to easing some sanctions in limited ways if the Russians began taking steps that the administration was seeking,” the newspaper wrote. The publication did not specify the names of the participants in the conversation with Rubio, noting that among them were representatives of the UK, France, Germany, and Italy.

Overall, the newspaper writes, Rubio conveyed to his European colleagues “a more nuanced and conciliatory” message than the statements that were made publicly by representatives of the US administration. “The Secretary of State sought to reassure nervous European allies that the talks [in Riyadh] did not represent an abrupt departure from American policies, as many feared,” the newspaper wrote. The State Department did not respond to the newspaper’s request regarding Rubio’s talks with his European colleagues. Judging by the information provided by the publication, we are talking about a telephone conversation that took place on February 19 after the meeting in Riyadh. In particular, the conversation was reported at that time by Italian Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani. In addition to Rubio and Tajani, ministers from Great Britain, France, Germany, as well as EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas took part in the talks.

On February 18, Russia and the US held talks in Riyadh, which lasted 4.5 hours. Russia was represented at the meeting by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, presidential aide Yury Ushakov, and RDIF head Kirill Dmitriev. The US was represented by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, and the US leader’s special envoy for the Middle East Steven Witkoff. According to Ushakov, the delegations talked at length about everything on the agenda, including bringing the positions of Russia and the United States together and contacts on Ukraine. Lavrov called the conversation with US officials very constructive and reported that Russia and the United States had agreed to ensure the earliest possible appointment of ambassadors in both capitals. In turn, the State Department noted that Lavrov and Rubio agreed at the meeting to create negotiating groups on Ukraine, as well as on future cooperation on issues of common geopolitical interests.

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“..we can’t work on the things we might potentially agree on or deconflict on things that could lead to dangerous confrontations as long as this Ukraine impediment stands in the way.”

Rubio Explains Purpose of Russia-US Talks (RT)

The US and Russia sought to restore normal diplomatic relations during this week’s talks in Saudi Arabia because global nuclear powers must communicate to resolve conflicts such as the one in Ukraine, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said. Senior officials from both countries met in Riyadh on Tuesday in what Moscow and Washington both described as a productive dialogue. According to Rubio, who led the US delegation, the primary objective was to restore normal communication channels, which were almost completely severed under the previous administration of President Joe Biden. ”Even in the worst days of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union maintained communication,” Rubio said in an interview with journalist Catherine Herridge on Thursday.

He underscored that political disagreements should not impede statecraft, asserting that mature leaders must engage with nuclear-armed nations. ”Whether we like it or not, Russia is a power, a global power,” Rubio added. “We’re going to disagree on a lot, but we can’t work on the things we might potentially agree on or deconflict on things that could lead to dangerous confrontations as long as this Ukraine impediment stands in the way.” According to Rubio, Washington remains cautious about Moscow’s stated intentions to find a peaceful resolution to the Ukraine conflict, but that future discussions would bring more clarity. No details about potential territorial concessions by Ukraine or the lifting of sanctions against Russia were debated in Riyadh, the US official added. Rubio rebuffed claims that the US was sidelining Kiev and its European allies, stressing that their involvement would be essential in any agreement with Russia.

He characterized such suggestions as exaggerated, driven by “hyperbole” and “hysteria,” and urged a recognition of US President Donald Trump’s peacemaking efforts, noting that previous Western strategies had not been successful. ”There was an effort in Istanbul a couple years ago, and it involved a number of European countries, and it failed,” he noted. In 2022, Türkiye facilitated Russian-Ukrainian peace talks, resulting in a preliminary agreement for a treaty that would have seen Ukraine become a neutral nation with a limited military, backed by security guarantees from major world powers, including Russia. However, Kiev later withdrew from the deal after then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged it to continue fighting.

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“We want Elon and his nerd army of muskrats examining the British Deep State!”

Liz Truss Calls For ‘Elon & His Nerd Army’ To Investigate ‘UK Deep State’ (ZH)

Former British Prime Minister Liz Truss told the audience at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that her country is “failing,” and needs a MAGA-type movement to save it. “We now have a major problem in Britain that judges are making decisions that should be made by politicians,” said Truss, speaking from National Harbor, Maryland, and adding that the British judiciary is “no longer accountable” due to reforms by her predecessor, Tony Blair, who handed power over to an “unelected bureaucracy.” “There’s no doubt in my mind that until those changes are reversed, we do not have a functioning country. The British state is now failing, is not working. The decisions are not being made by politicians,” Truss continued. Truss also said that UK voters have grown increasingly angry because they keep voting for change – only to be let down over and over, including by current PM Keir Starmer.

“The same people are still making the decisions. It’s the deep state, it’s the unelected bureaucrats, it’s the judiciary,” Truss said. “And I think what ultimately will happen, what I hope to see, is a movement like you have in the US with Maga [‘Make America great again’], with CPAC, with all these organisations, that ultimately pushes change we all want. We want to have a British CPAC.” Truss then said “We want Elon and his nerd army of muskrats examining the British Deep State!” Truss’s comments are emblematic of a growing right-wing movement across Europe – as voters in Germany, Austria, France and the Netherlands have been gravitating towards populism amid failed ‘green’ policies, unchecked immigration, and censorship policies that violate basic human rights.

According to the NY Times, which spoke with Europeans who voted for right-wing candidates, people cast their ballots “in fury, in frustration, in protest and perhaps most of all in a bid to bring change to a system they believe has failed to fulfill the contract between their democratically elected governments and the people.” They talked openly about nationalism, immigration, stagnant economies, the cost of living, housing shortages, anger at the elite and their countries’ perceived buckling to what many consider politically correct views. Their voices offer a window into the choices Europeans may make in the year ahead. The main event will be a Feb. 23 snap federal election after the collapse of the governing coalition in Germany, where the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, has made tremendous gains. Voters in Italy, Poland, Norway, Ireland, Romania and the Czech Republic — all countries where populist movements are either well established or on the rise — are also expected to choose leaders on the local or national level.

Meanwhile, Nigel Farage’s Reform Party is on track to win the next election. Farage has notably slammed the impact of Net Zero on the British Economy, and says he’s on a mission to “reindustrialize” Britain and achieve a “180 shift” in the country’s policies. There’s reason for cheer at Reform HQ this morning: Nigel Farage’s party is leading Labour in a YouGov voting intention poll for the first time. According to the poll, Reform UK leads on 25 points with Labour in second place on 24 per cent and the Conservatives in third on 21 per cent. Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats are on 14 per cent and the Greens on 9 per cent. While there have been a handful of polls to date putting Reform in the lead, they have so far been regarded as outliers. In response to the poll, Richard Tice, the deputy leader of Reform, said: ‘Much more to come as common sense policies welcomed to save Britain and make us better off’. -Spectator.co.uk.

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“..I think he’s gonna be very successful. He is gonna be very controversial. And that’s why the Left went after him more than anybody else..”

Pete Hegseth’s Military (Victor Davis Hanson)

Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. I’d like to speak a little bit today, very briefly, about the Pentagon under new Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Did you notice that of all the controversial Trump nominees—Kash Patel, Pete Hegseth, Pam Bondi, RFK, Tulsi Gabbard—the Left went after Pete Hegseth the most vehemently? And he required JD Vance to break that tie. There was a reason for that. He is proposing radical changes in the Pentagon. Remember where we are right now with the Pentagon. We spend $820 billion a year. It’s about 14% of the entire budget and it’s immune to criticism. It really is. And we are building $14 billion carriers. We’re building $85 million F-35s. We have built $140 million F-22s. And we’re watching, in Ukraine and the Middle East, the entire mode of 21st-century warfare being revolutionized.

It’s more of—not that we’re going to have bad quality, but it’s more quantity than quality. They’re flooding the zones with cheap drones—cheap drones on the ocean, in the air, and on land. And we’re not there yet. We’re not doing it. So, what Pete Hegseth wants to do is change the entire manner of procurement.What we have now is more or less a monopoly. We have Raytheon. We have the Boston military group. We have Northrop. We have General Dynamics. We have Lockheed. And the way it has worked is that four-star generals, who have very generous pensions, rotate out. They work for these consortia and then they use their contacts of subordinate officers to favor their procurement. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it but it’s an inherent conflict of interest. And Pete Hegseth is going to stop that. And he can stop it in a number of ways.

First is, he can just go back to what we used to do. We used to say that a military officer cannot be secretary of defense in the civilian role. But the last two were fine men. Gen. [Jim] Mattis, I know him, whom I like, and also Gen. [Lloyd] Austin. We waived that. I don’t think we should continue to do that. There was a reason we had a law. I wrote that we should waive it for Jim Mattis because I thought he was a superb [choice]. Looking back, I think it puts too much pressure on the military officers to distance themselves. So, it would be better to have that position as a civilian one. Another thing we’re going to do is, whether we like it or not, we’re going to get rid of diversity, equity, and inclusion. And he’s already doing it and he’s going to save, I think, billions of dollars. And that has already had a profound effect.

We have record number of recruitment, per day. It’s accelerating, at almost 10,000 a month. And we were down 40,000 or 50,000 recruits. And the military, instead of saying, “This is a crisis,” said, “We really didn’t need 40,000 or 50,000. So, we met our goals.” No, no, no. We were down and now we’re not down. And you can see that socially, culturally, Pete is trying to associate with the rank and file. Lift weights with him, jog. It’s going to be a people’s person defense secretary. He’s also not going to tolerate retired admirals and generals that come out of the woodwork during election season, use their rank—they’re still subject to Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which is enforced against lower-ranking officers. The statute says that retired or serving flag officers shall not disparage major civilian officials in the executive branch; Cabinet officers, vice president, especially the president.

And yet we’ve seen in these recent news cycles, I won’t mention all of the generals’ names, but they’ve called their commander in chief a fascist, a Nazi-like, a Mussolini character, an architect of Auschwitz, a liar, a cheat, who should be removed sooner—just terrible things, with impunity.

We’re not going to see that anymore under Pete Hegseth. So, the procurement will be different. Recruitment will be different. Retired officers will adhere to the code. There’ll be no more—less conflict of interest. There’s a lot of fat in that budget with DEI. And he’s basically sending a message that we’re not going to look at the superficial color of one’s skin, or their religion, or their gender. We’re going to look at the content of their character, and more importantly, even than that, the ability to fight well for the United States. And I think he’s gonna be very successful. He is gonna be very controversial. And that’s why the Left went after him more than anybody else. And I think that the Pentagon budget will shrink and it will be more bang for the buck. And it’s just all welcome.

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Hegseth’s move?!

Trump Fires Chairman Of The Joint Chiefs of Staff (NYP)

President Trump on Friday night abruptly fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr., in a major shake-up of Pentagon leadership. And the president just as quickly named his pick to replace Brown – Air Force Lt. General Dan “Razin” Caine, who served as the associate director of military affairs for the CIA from 2021 to 2024. “I want to thank General Charles ‘CQ’ Brown for his over 40 years of service to our country, including as our current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “He is a fine gentleman and an outstanding leader, and I wish a great future for him and his family,” the president said. Just hours before his sudden dismissal, Brown was touring the southern border according to posts on social media.

Brown served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the last 16 months and was only the second black general to hold the vaunted post. The general was seen in mid-December at the Army-Navy football game seated next to then president-elect Trump. Trump named Caine, a former F-16 pilot, as his nominee to succeed Brown in the same Friday night Truth Social post. Caine will need to be confirmed by the Senate as is customary with all new military leaders. “General Caine is an accomplished pilot, national security expert, successful entrepreneur, and a “warfighter” with significant interagency and special operations experience,” Trump wrote. The commander in chief also credited Caine with the “complete annihilation” of the ISIS caliphate which occurred during the president’s first term.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth celebrated the nomination of Caine as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “General Caine embodies the warfighter ethos and is exactly the leader we need to meet the moment. I look forward to working with him,” Hegseth said in a statement, which also honored Brown. However, Hegseth previously had harsh words for Brown. “First of all, you gotta fire, you know, you gotta fire the chairman of Joint Chiefs” Hegseth said in a podcast in November.

Hegseth also questioned how Brown got the job in one of his books, according to the Associated Press. “Was it because of his skin color? Or his skill? We’ll never know, but always doubt — which on its face seems unfair to CQ. But since he has made the race card one of his biggest calling cards, it doesn’t really much matter,” Hegseth wrote. Despite these criticisms, Hegseth gave Brown a nod of approval after a face to face meeting late last month, according to the Washington Examiner. Brown wasn’t the only senior military officer ousted on Friday night. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti and Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen. Jim Slife were also fired, Hegseth said in the statement.

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NATO has no leaders other than Trump. Scholz will be dumped in Sunday’s election, Macron and Starmer are in single digits. It’s one big vacuum.

NATO Leaders Back Zelensky Over 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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“Europe needs to grow up, leave Disney world and come to terms with this new world..”

Europe’s Leadership Continues To Fail Its Citizens (Mevissen)

While Europe is still reeling from the Munich security conference last weekend, Putin probably couldn’t believe his luck when he saw Trump’s message accusing Ukraine of starting the war and calling president Zelensky a dictator. For the past four years, Europe knew very well that there was a chance that Trump could be re-elected. And during all these years, From a military perspective, European leaders did close to nothing to prepare themselves for a possible second Trump administration. Most notably German Chancellor Scholtz, who spoke of a zeitenwende just days after Russia’s invasion, failed to deliver any meaningful progress in rebuilding Germany’s army and its defence industry. And now the chickens have come home to roost.

While it is the new US administration that seems to shock the European elites the most right now, they should actually fear their own inaction, lack of urgency, can’t do mentality and in some cases the inability to overcome national interests. On top of that we see a lack of strategic thinking, apathy, panic and victimhood. All of this points towards a theme that we have often discussed. Europe continues to be plagued by a leadership crisis and does not do what is considered to be the core tasks of any government: protecting its citizens and their belongings. All this leads to one conclusion. Europe needs to grow up, leave Disney world and come to terms with this new world. Illustrative of this new world is the inability of G7 countries to agree on a common statement. The US has opposed the phrases that mention “Russian aggression,” which were included previously in statements of support released on 24 February. All this would have been unthinkable until recently.

But there is more for Europe to worry about. This weekend, Germany will hold elections and the far right AfD is polling to win about 20% of the votes, doing especially well in the Eastern part of the country. A complex formation of a new government could further delay much needed decision making within Europe on crucial areas like defense cooperation and complying to more ambitious and realistic NATO spending targets. Read more in our special covering the German elections. And Europe faces more than security challenges alone. Its manufacturing sector is still struggling with high energy prices and lots of red tape. This has led to a prolonged period were sentiment in the European manufacturing sector can only be described as pessimistic. That pessimism may now be bottoming out, but we don’t expect a rapid rebound. Today’s first estimate of the manufacturing PMI for Germany came in at 46.1. That’s slightly better than the 45.5 that was expected, some improvement from the 45.0 reading for January.

France also saw a some improvement of sentiment within the manufacturing sector with a figure of 45.5 compared to 45.3 expected and 45 for January. While sentiment in the manufacturing sector slightly improved, the French services sector came in at a very disappointing 44.5. The S&P report noted: “The services sector is a cause for concern, with a significant downturn in activity compared to the previous month.” The data present a weak picture of the sector at the start of 2025. Order intakes are shrinking at a rapid pace and future activity expectations remain well below the historical average. That’s weighing on French hiring, and we saw substantial layoffs in February. Earlier this morning there was more positive news coming in from the UK which showed that British consumers spent considerably more than was expected. However this was after very disappointing retail sales during the all-important holiday month of December. Furthermore consumer sentiment continues to remain weak.

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Everything that’s wrong, caught in just a few words:

“Europe should not hesitate to put pressure on the US if it fails to fall in line with “liberal democracies..”

Germany Issues Warning To US (RT)

Europe should not hesitate to put pressure on the US if it fails to fall in line with “liberal democracies,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Friday. The diplomat made the remark following talks between the US and Russia that excluded representatives from the EU and Ukraine.Speaking at a campaign rally in Potsdam on Friday, the Green politician stated, “We’re increasing pressure on the Americans [so they know] they have a lot to lose if they don’t stand on the side of Europe’s liberal democracies.”With respect to EU-US relations, Baerbock warned against drawing any precipitous conclusions, remarking that “nothing has been decided there.”“No one can decide about war and peace for the Ukrainians or us Europeans, and this is the clear German stance,” she insisted.

Baerbock also warned against forcing Kiev into a “phony peace” or “capitulation,” which she said would only invite further “war and violence.”A rift has opened up between Washington and Brussels since US President Donald Trump took office last month. Trump has taken a tougher stance on trade with the EU by threatening tariffs and demanded that its European-NATO partners boost spending on collective defense.Addressing Munich Security Conference attendees last Friday, US Vice President J.D. Vance delivered a sobering speech to Europe’s political elites, suggesting that the biggest threat the continent is facing is one coming from within – the erosion of democracy. ”In Britain and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat,” the official stated, concluding that “if you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you.”

The speech sent shockwaves across governments, with leaders, including Germany’s Olaf Scholz, scrambling to rebuke Vance’s assertions. The fallout was further highlighted when Washington and Moscow held high-level talks in Saudi Arabia this week without bothering to invite EU representatives. This perceived slight prompted an outpouring of anguish and indignation on the continent. Trump blasted Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky this week, branding him a dictator without elections, but a number of European leaders have rejected the US president’s assertion that he lacks legitimacy. In an interview with Fox News on Friday, Trump said he sees no point in having Zelensky involved in peace talks with Russia. He also insisted that French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer “haven’t done anything” to put an end to the bloodshed in Ukraine for the three years since it started.

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Macron’s on his way out, and Europe has no money.

Macron Calls For ‘Massive Defense Plan’ For EU (RT)

The EU needs to develop a “massive defense plan” and boost military investment due to rising tensions with Russia and US President Donald Trump’s stance on the Ukraine conflict, French President Emmanuel Macron has said. Speaking at a Q&A session on X on Thursday, the French leader stressed that EU members must reduce their reliance on the US over the next five to ten years.“We need innovative European spending to innovate together, maybe, in the first place to help Ukraine, but also for ourselves,” Macron said, arguing that significant investment in the military should come “in the coming weeks.” The French leader claimed that the world has entered a “new era” in which states have to increase defense spending while diminishing the population’s purchasing power.

He also addressed the shift in Washington’s strategy on the Ukraine conflict, which this week saw US officials hold their first high-level talks on resolving the crisis with their Russian counterparts since February 2022. “I’m going to tell him [US President Donald Trump]: ‘You can’t be weak with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. That’s not who you are, it’s not your trademark, it’s not in your interest,” Macron said, noting that he is due to meet the US leader in Washington on Monday. Macron has for years championed the creation of a “European army,” initially floating the idea in 2018 during Trump’s first term. His remarks at the time did not result in any real action, with NATO officials voicing concerns that any new army would compete with the bloc rather than complement it.

Trump has consistently demanded that Washington’s European allies boost their defense spending, complaining that the US is bearing the main burden.Following the EU’s exclusion from the US-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia this week, Macron called an emergency summit in a bid to drum up the bloc’s unity and discuss ways to ensure its role in the settlement of the Ukraine conflict. President Putin has dismissed claims that Russia plans to attack Western countries, describing the speculation as “nonsense.” He has also repeatedly said that one of the key causes of the Ukraine conflict was NATO’s expansion towards Russia’s borders.

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Stephen Miller is one of the early stand-outs.

Trump Deputy Chief Of Staff Blasts Media Propagandists To Their Faces (MN)

The White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller torched fake news reporters Thursday during a briefing for playing along with the charade for years that Joe Biden was mentally fit, before giving them a lecture about how government works. “Many of the people in this room for four years failed to cover the fact that Joe Biden was mentally incompetent and was not running the country,” Miller told leftist media correspondents. He then noted that to counter the ridiculous leftist talking point that Elon Musk is an unelected bureaucrat, the media was in need of “a brief civics lesson.” Miller then began his short but ever so sweet fact smackdown.

“A president is elected by the whole American people. He is the only official in the entire government that is elected by the entire nation. Judges are appointed, members are Congress are elected at the district or state level,” he noted. “The Constitution, Article II, has a clause known as ‘the vesting clause,’ and it says ‘the executive power shall be vested in ‘a’ president — singular. The whole will of democracy is imbued into the elected president. That president then appoints staff to impose that democratic will onto the government,” he continued. “The threat to democracy — the existential threat to democracy — is the unelected bureaucracy of lifetime, tenured civil servants who believe they answer to no one; who believe they can do whatever they want without consequence; who believe they can set their own agenda, no matter what Americans vote for,” Miller explained.

“So, Americans vote for radical FBI reform, and FBI agents say they don’t want to change. Or Americans vote for radical reform on our energy policies, and EPA bureaucrats say that they don’t want to change. Or Americans vote to end racist DEI policies, and lawyers at the DOJ say they son’t want to change,” Miller further outlined. “What President Trump is doing is he is removing federal bureaucrats who are defying democracy by failing to implement his lawful orders, which are the will of the whole American people,” Miller asserted. As we’ve previously highlighted, it seems shocking to the leftist media that Trump, given a mandate by the American people, would put into place people who are loyal to him and will implement his policies.

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“..the blob is getting methodically disassembled, one bureaucratic office at a time. Before much longer we are going to be a different country, and most probably a better one.”

Funny Money (Kunstler)

The key to understanding how the Democratic Party works is how it uses federal grants to redistribute taxpayer money into jobs programs for its rank-and-file. As seen in the recent USAID scandal, the action revolves around the creation of countless NGOs (non-governmental orgs). They are easily created, poorly supervised, and assembled into large networks of self-serving, inter-dependent organisms whose main mission is paying staffers — and secondarily pretending to do good works, as suggested by a given group’s name is. These staffers make up the matrix of Democratic Party activists, well-paid foot-soldiers in do-nothing jobs who can be called upon to cheer-lead for the party, organize street protests and, most critically, harvest ballots when the time comes. S

tacey Abrams became a kind of field marshal for setting up NGOs around her campaigns for office and then later turned them into money laundromats for the trillions of dollars fire-hosed out of the US Treasury during the Covid-19-darkened “Biden” years. Here are some of Stacy’s NGOs:· The New Georgia Project and its affiliated NGP Action Fund — set up for her 2018 run for governor. It was eventually fined $300,000 for failing to disclose millions in contributions, failing to register properly, and sixteen violations of campaign laws. Its main purpose was providing jobs for an army of activists. One question that might have been asked: how many of Stacey Abrams’ books were purchased by The New Georgia Project, juicing her royalties?

· The Southern Economic Advancement Project, founded in 2019 to “promote equity” in twelve southern states, paid Stacey a $700,000 annual salary.

· The Fair Fight Action group raised nearly $62 million in dark pool donations by 2022, with 96-percent from 252 large, unidentified donors.

· The Fair Count Project was created to lobby for counting illegal aliens in the 2020 US Census, in order to pad state congressional districts.

· The Third Sector Development group, created as an “incubator” for other groups (including the New Georgia Project).

· The Fair Fight 2020 group, created to “train voter protection teams” in twenty “battleground states.” That is, ballot harvesting.

Out of the $27-billion from “Joe Biden’s” Inflation Reduction Act sent to EPA in 2024, $2-billion from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) ended up in the Stacey-associated Rewiring America org and its offshoot the Power Forward Communities org. Stacey was listed as “senior counsel” to Rewiring America, which also happened to “partner” with her prior NGOs Fair Count and Southern Economic Advancement Project.What you might surmise from all this is that “Joe Biden’s” green energy agenda was used as a green smokescreen for a giant patronage racketeering operation. The billions allocated would go ostensibly to innumerable corporations set up to carry-out “green” good deeds, most of which would never actually happen, but would, along the way, pad thousands upon thousands of bank accounts for favored contractors.

Stacey’s Power Forward Communities NGO was incorporated in the state of Delaware where loose corporate governance requires such orgs to pay out only five percent of the org’s funds to its stated mission recipients each year. The rest of the $2-billion not allocated to staff salaries can be socked away in safe investments garnering, say, $50-million-a-year in returns, which can be rolled back into the org and used for spinning out new NGOs with more paid staff positions. . .grift upon grift. . . . That is what patronage is, and that, by the way, is how it became such an urgent national issue over a hundred years ago when it was openly known as the “spoils system” in electoral politics — to the victor go the spoils— which was resolved by the 1883 Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. Alas, in our time patronage (that is, corruption) has reinvented itself as the blob, the runaway system that almost sank the country.

Do you see how all this works now? The ever-expanding matrix of NGOs creates an army of useful idiots working hand-in-hand with an ever-expanding rogue bureaucracy that has become effectively a fourth branch of government accountable to nobody. This is how your tax dollars disappear down a rat-hole and why the US government is insolvent. The difference now is that the Democratic Party no longer has its hands on the levers of power. Different managers are in place at the critical agencies, most particularly Pam Bondi at DOJ, Kash Patel at the FBI, Russell Vought at OMB, Lee Zeldin at EPA, and Elon Musk in the DOGE. In the past, nothing was done about these shenanigans. This time is different. The Democratic Party will lose its principal means for staying alive. That’s why senators like Chuck Schumer, Chris Coons, and Adam Schiff are out mewling and hollering in the streets. Meanwhile, the blob is getting methodically disassembled, one bureaucratic office at a time. Before much longer we are going to be a different country, and most probably a better one.

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He had his plans ready.

Kash Patel Is Already Making Huge Changes at the FBI (Margolis)

Newly confirmed FBI Director Kash Patel is on fire. After his swearing-in, he gave a not-so-subtle speech, showing that he’s ready to handle the media’s smears. “I know the media’s in here, and if you have a target, that target’s right here,” he said, pointing to himself. “It’s not the men and women at the FBI.” “You’ve written everything you possibly can about me that’s fake, malicious, slanderous, and defamatory,” he continued. “Keep it coming — bring it on. But leave the men and women, the FBI out of it. They deserve better.” He also promised that a new day at the FBI has started. “I promise you the following, there will be accountability within the FBI and outside of the FBI, and we will do it through rigorous constitutional oversight — starting this weekend.”

Kash continued, “I am living the American dream, and anyone that thinks the American dream is dead, just look right here. You’re talking to a first-generation Indian kid who’s about to lead the law enforcement community, the greatest nation on God’s green earth.” He wasted no time turning his bold rhetoric into action. Following his blistering speech on Friday, he ordered the transfer of 1,500 agents and staff from the bureau’s Washington, D.C., headquarters to field offices across the country. Roughly 1,000 will be sent to high-crime cities that the Trump administration designated, where they can focus on fighting crime instead of political games. Another 500 will be reassigned to Huntsville, Ala., which is widely seen as D.C.’s version of exile.

This is just Patel’s first move, and if any Democrats want to shed a bunch of tears over the move, they can, but they can’t claim they shouldn’t have expected it. As the Washington Post reported, Patel made this plan known during his confirmation hearings. Patel, in his 2023 book, vowed to shutter the Hoover headquarters building and turn it into a “museum to the Deep State.” He’s made similar recommendations at his confirmation hearing and in appearances on conservative TV news shows. “One of my biggest personal recommendations is … you send those 7,000 agents in the headquarters building down range to chase down rapists, to chase down murderers, to chase down drug traffickers and let the cops be cops on the streets across America,” Patel said during an August appearance on “Stinchfiled Tonight.”

During his confirmation hearing last month, Patel was asked about his previous comments suggesting he wanted the FBI’s headquarters emptied out and shuttered. His responses did not directly address whether he would actually shut the building down or seek to transform it into a museum, but suggested that he believes the FBI’s workforce in Washington should go out into the country. “A third of the workforce for the FBI works in Washington, D.C.,” Patel said. “I am fully committed to having that workforce go out into the interior of the country, where I live west of the Mississippi, and work with sheriff’s departments and local officers.”

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“Trump does not want war. War would put his domestic agenda on the back burner.”

The Democrats Are Standing Against America (Paul Craig Roberts)

This is my interview by Larry Sparano of a few days ago prior to my learning, as I posted yesterday, that the temporary injunctions that judges are issuing against Trump and Musk’s activities in rooting out corruption from the federal budget are only good for a few days and are not effective except in the sense of giving the corrupt elements in the federal departments and agencies a few days to hide, erase, destroy, and “lose” evidence before Musk can get his hands on it. To be effective in blocking Trump, the hearing on the temporary injunction must succeed in advancing to a preliminary injunction, which is a rare event.

If a temporary injunction becomes a preliminary injunction, that is when it enters the appeal process and becomes subject to the long delay of the judicial process. The hearings on the temporary injunctions against Trump and Musk are resulting in the dismissal of the injunctions and are not carrying forward to preliminary injunctions. At the time of the interview it did not occur to me that the judges’ injunctions were short-lived temporary measures. The whore media were presenting the injunctions as if they were defeats for Trump. Almost anyone can request one and it seems judges almost always have to grant them. What this means is that the concern I state in the interview about the judiciary’s ability to block Trump is overstated. I think overall the interview is a good stab at this time at a picture of the fight ahead.

Skeptics perhaps endeavoring to demoralize Trump supporters say it is all just an act. To see how unlikely this suggestion is, consider that the American Establishment has spent 8 years trying to destroy Trump. They tried to destroy him politically. They twice impeached him. They tried to imprison him. They tried to steal his property. They tried to assassinate him physically both with gun shots and with 8 years of heavy stress that would have killed most people of his age. Would Trump be inviting more such stress if he were not serious? Would he have appointed the people he did if he were not serious?

Trump has a beautiful wife and plenty of money. He doesn’t need the stress of the task he has undertaken. He is literally in a fight to the death for our country and for us. It is extraordinary that there can be Democrats and leftwing freaks who believe that DEI is more important than equality under law, that multicultural nirvana can exist when blacks are taught to hate whites, who are happy when perversity is elevated above normality, and who believe a Sodom and Gomorrah Tower of Babel is preferable to Western Civilization.

Trump is trying to save our country for us. The people who oppose him are traitors and our deadly enemies. The Democrats and the leftwing are standing against America. As Trump and Vance have said, America’s real enemies are at home, not in Russia, China, and Iran. Trump does not want war. War would put his domestic agenda on the back burner. War would produce demands for unity, which means stopping the attack on the domestic enemy. War is a way of defeating Trump’s agenda. We must keep our eyes open. A false flag attack that traps Trump into war is a real possibility.

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Millions of them… This will be a long storry.

Millions of Long COVID Patients May Actually Be Vaccine Injured (Thacker)

Yale researchers released a study today that posits millions of Americans thought to have Long COVID may have been misdiagnosed and actually have post-vaccination syndrome caused by exposure to the spike protein in COVID vaccines. Spike protein produced by the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines triggers the body’s immune response, and the FDA claimed in a 2023 Politifact fact check that vaccine spike protein is not toxic and does not linger in the body. However, Yale researchers report that some patients, who were never infected with COVID virus, were sick with post-vaccination syndrome (PVS) and had elevated levels of virus spike protein in their blood up to 709 days after vaccination.

“There is considerable overlap in self-reported symptoms between long COVID and PVS, as well as shared exposure to SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) protein in the context of inflammatory responses during infection or vaccination,” noted the study authors. NIH has poured $1.6 billion into Long COVID research, while ignoring patients harmed by COVID vaccines, causing some well-known patient advocates to hide vaccine injury. After a 13-month battle with Long COVID, Hollywood screenwriter Heidi Ferrer took her own life after deciding death was preferable to another minute in her own “personal hell.” Death of the Dawson’s Creek writer made headlines across the media including places such as People, the Guardian, Variety, CNN, Newsweek, and The Daily Mail—each recounting Ferrer’s struggle with Long COVID.

But in a private video circulating among patient groups and obtained by The DisInformation Chronicle, Ferrer’s husband Nick Guthe stated that Moderna’s COVID vaccine was the final straw, causing Heidi to develop tremors and then internal vibrations when she lay down for bed, so that even prescription sleeping pills would not allow her to sleep. “And that’s when things turned,” Guthe said in the video. Prominent patient advocate Beth Mazur also committed suicide after a COVID vaccine apparently worsened her struggles with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), a chronic illness with many similarities to Long COVID. Mazur co-founded #MEAction for patients with chronic illness. #MEAction reported in early 2021 that a significant number of ME/CFS patients experienced “both new symptoms and long-lasting exacerbations of their pre-existing ME/CFS symptoms” after a COVID vaccine.

“Beth was a compassionate advocate for ME/CFS and a fierce advocate for vaccine injury after she experienced this herself sometime before she took her own life,” said one of Mazur’s personal friends who did not wish to be identified. “Having people come after you for vaccine injury is worse than being sick itself. And people can’t handle that. It’s a shroud of shame.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Buster

 

 

Dino
https://twitter.com/i/status/1892960793282441308

 

 

Anaconda

 

 

Baby bear

 

 

Baby

 

 

Eagles

 

 

Lioness

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Feb 072025
 
 February 7, 2025  Posted by at 11:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  54 Responses »


René Magritte The conquerer 1926

 

USAID Media Payments Could Be ‘Biggest Scandal In History’ – Trump (RT)
Politico Pleads Innocent (ZH)
WikiLeaks: USAID Has Been Funding Over 6,000 Journalists Worldwide (ZH)
‘Leaked’ Plan: Trump To ‘Force’ Zelensky To Agree On Ceasefire By Easter (ZH)
Trump Envoy Responds To Zelensky’s Nuclear Weapons Demand (RT)
White House Softens Aspects Of Gaza ‘Takeover’ – No Boots On The Ground (ZH)
What is Trump Really Thinking About Gaza? (Larry Johnson)
The Greatest Showman’s “Inside Out” Political Solution (Alastair Crooke)
How the Democrats Became the Party of Puppets (Pinsker)
Investor Demand For X Debt Upsized, Musk Sees Revenue Improving Rapidly (ZH)
Rubio To Boycott G20 Meeting in South Africa (RT)
FBI Official Accused of Defying White House Reform Efforts (Turley)
EU Plays Trump Card To Advance Its Globalist Agenda (Villamor)
What Is Really Destroying Europe? The EU (Godefridi)
What to Know About US Withdrawal From the WHO (ET)
‘Gov’t Is the People’s Business’: A Tribute to Ronald Reagan (Salgado)

 

 

 

 

Evo
https://twitter.com/i/status/1887475768508252227

Mike Benz exposes USAID for 11 straight minutes

Sen. Kennedy

3rd temple

Alwaleed

 

 

 

 

Sounds like a bombastic headline. But is it? Do (re)check the Nicole Shanahan clip below that I opened with yesterday. She explains that DOGE has a super search engine for files (data mining research), that finds in seconds/minutes what would otherwise take days or weeks. The USAID “library” is vast and complex but “He did that over the weekend”. USAID is just the start.

USAID Media Payments Could Be ‘Biggest Scandal In History’ – Trump (RT)

Billions of dollars have been stolen at USAID and used to pay for positive media coverage of Democrats, US President Donald Trump has said. The claim comes in conjunction with a White House announcement that it will stop “subsidizing” Politico. In January, the Trump administration initiated significant changes to the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Trump ordered a near-total freeze on foreign aid, aiming to align assistance with his “America First” policy. Trump took to Truth Social on Thursday to warn that “the biggest scandal in history” was brewing, after White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt acknowledged that American taxpayer money had been used to subsidize government subscriptions to Politico and other media outlets. Leavitt was referring to Politico Pro, a premium legislative and regulatory tracking service used by multiple government agencies.

Politico Pro subscriptions are reported to cost up to $10,000 annually. ”Looks like billions of dollars have been stollen [sic] at USAID, and other agencies, much of it going to the fake news media as a ‘payoff’ for creating good stories about the democrats. the left wing ‘rag,’ known as ‘Politico,’ seems to have received $8,000,000,” Trump wrote. He questioned whether The New York Times and other outlets were also receiving “payoffs.” Politico said it had “never been the beneficiary of government programs or subsidies” and that the “overwhelming majority” of subscriptions come from the private sector.

Some conservative commentators online claimed that Politico, The New York Times and the Associated Press were receiving “government funding” or “grants,” from USAID and other agencies. Kyle Becker, a former Fox News producer, dug into public records on USAspending.gov and discovered that the government paid Politico $8.2 million in the last 12 months. However, only about $24,000 of this total came from USAID, with the largest contributor being the Department of Health and Human Services. Elon Musk, who oversees the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), called the payments “a huge waste of taxpayer money.” “Many media outlets are going to experience a mysterious drop in revenue,” he warned on X on Wednesday.

The outlets in question denied receiving government subsidies, stating that agencies purchased subscriptions like any client, and insisted on their editorial independence. CNN went as far as to decry the accusations as “a false right-wing conspiracy theory,” and accused Leavitt of elevating a “bogus claim.” The freeze on USAID funding has led to the suspension of numerous senior officials, layoffs of contractors, and the halting of various international aid programs. Legal experts have questioned the legality of dismantling USAID without congressional approval. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was appointed as the acting administrator of USAID, with plans to merge it into the State Department. Elon Musk criticized the agency as a “criminal organization” that should “die.”

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What exactly is the role of German publisher Axel Springer?

Politico Pleads Innocent (ZH)

During Wednesday’s White House presser, spox Karoline Leavitt confirmed that Politico has been getting ‘more than $8 million taxpayer dollars,’ which has ‘gone to essentially subsidizing subscriptions.’

* * *
On Tuesday, staffers at Politico were notified that a ‘technical error’ had prevented paychecks from going out. Many joked that this had something to do with the Trump administration putting a freeze on USAID funding. And while there’s no evidence the two are linked, the suggestion prompted internet sleuths to look into Politico’s sources of funding. What they found was absolutely shocking. According to government spending tracker website USASPENDING.gov, Politico – which laundered the Hunter Biden ’51 intel officials’ propaganda during the 2020 election – received up to $27 million (and by some counts $32 million) from various US agencies during the Biden years. In one instance, roughly $500,000 was spent on 37 Politico ‘pro’ subscriptions. Of note, Politico was sold to German media giant Axel Springer (which also owns Business Insider) for $1 billion in 2021, meaning US taxpayer dollars have been flowing to the German media giant to prop up their US propaganda rags.

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That’s a large chunk of the media.

WikiLeaks: USAID Has Been Funding Over 6,000 Journalists Worldwide (ZH)

Yesterday’s report that the US government has been funding outlets such as Politico, the Associated Press, the BBC, and others raised more questions than it answered – though the obvious implication is that the US government has effectively been propping up regime-friendly media, which then peddles regime-friendly coverage – and spent years attacking independent outlets such as ZeroHedge, The Federalist, and many unlucky ones who have since been starved out of business. And while funding for Politico and others has come from all over the federal government – WikiLeaks, citing a RSF report, highlighted that USAID was funding over 6,200 journalists across 707 media outlets and 279 “media” NGOs, which includes 90% of the reportage out of Ukraine.

According to RSF, the Trump administration’s freeze on foreign aid – roughly $268 million earmarked to fund “independent media and the free flow of information,” has ‘thrown journalism around the world into chaos.’ “Almost immediately after the freeze went into effect, journalistic organizations around the world that receive American aid funding started reaching out to RSF expressing confusion, chaos, and uncertainty. The affected organizations include large international NGOs that support independent media like the International Fund for Public Interest Media and smaller, individual media outlets serving audiences living under repressive conditions in countries like Iran and Russia.


USAID programs support independent media in more than 30 countries, but it is difficult to assess the full extent of the harm done to the global media. Many organizations are hesitant to draw attention for fear of risking long-term funding or coming under political attacks. According to a USAID fact sheet which has since been taken offline, in 2023, the agency funded training and support for 6,200 journalists, assisted 707 non-state news outlets, and supported 279 media-sector civil society organizations dedicated to strengthening independent media. The 2025 foreign aid budget included $268,376,000 allocated by Congress to support “independent media and the free flow of information.”

Note the recurring use of the term ‘independent media.’ Of course, the RSF report, and another from the Columbia Journalism Review are sounding the alarm over the ‘silencing of independent media’ around the world. The critical context they omit, however, is that USAID – despite the best of intentions when it was formed, has been corrupted into a deep-state slush-fund.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1886764407700472231

And so, no matter how ‘independent’ these USAID-funded media outlets are around the world, they’re all eating fruit from the same poisonous tree.

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“The EU will reportedly be asked to assist Ukraine in its reconstruction efforts, which may cost as much as $486 billion over the next decade..”

‘Leaked’ Plan: Trump To ‘Force’ Zelensky To Agree On Ceasefire By Easter (ZH)

As of the start of this week, the Kremlin said ‘no progress’ had been made in arranging peace talks on Ukraine between Moscow and Washington. Rumors and speculation abound, given that US diplomats under Trump are without doubt working behind-the-scenes to arrange something, with the possibility that talks could be hosted in a ‘neutral’ location like Saudi Arabia or the UAE. A Thursday Daily Mail report has just added immense fuel to the fire of speculation, presenting the allegedly leaked Trump ceasefire plan which he intends to present for Russia’s consideration. The report says Trump will try to ‘force’ Ukraine’s President Zelensky to agree to a ceasefire by Easter, which is on April 20 this year.

The Trump administration is seeking to end the war within 100 days. “The unconfirmed plans, reported by Ukrainian outlet Strana, have been doing the rounds in ‘political and diplomatic circles’ in Ukraine, and will include a ceasefire by April 20 that would freeze Russia’s steady advance, a ban on Ukraine from joining NATO, and a demand for Kyiv to accept Russian sovereignty on annexed land.” While still very much unconfirmed, the headline is having an immediate impact on oil prices. Zelensky’s office has vehemently denied the legitimacy of reports of the peace plans being reported and floated. On top of these alleged key aspects of a ban on NATO admission, freezing the front lines, and agreeing to Russian sovereignty over the four annexed territories in the east, the leaked report says the following is also included in the proposal:

• On top of this, Ukrainian troops will be made to leave Russia’s Kursk region, where it launched a counteroffensive in August, while a contingent of European soldiers, which could include British troops, would be asked to police a demilitarised zone. American troops will not be involved in this contingent.
• The EU will reportedly be asked to assist Ukraine in its reconstruction efforts, which may cost as much as $486 billion (£392 billion) over the next decade according to the German Marshall Fund thinktank.
• The plans will reportedly begin with a phone call between Zelensky and Vladimir Putin in early February, a meeting between the two warring leaders in late February to early March and an official ceasefire declaration of a ceasefire by April 20.
• A declaration on the agreed parameters for ending the war would then be released by May 9, after which Kyiv would be asked not to extend martial law or mobilize troops.

This essentially gives Moscow most everything it wants – particularly the ban on NATO admission – and so if true the plan is likely to be entertained positively by Putin. Zelensky has been complaining that talks about Ukraine between the US and Russia must never happen without Kiev’s representation and input, but Zelensky it seems is being left behind. He’ll likely reject the above ‘leaked’ plan, but for Moscow and Washington that probably won’t matter too much. [..]

* * *
Ceasefire by Easter:
• NATO Membership: Ukraine would be barred from joining NATO under the plan.
• Territorial Concessions: Kyiv would recognize Russian sovereignty over annexed lands and withdraw troops from Kursk.
• Demilitarized Zone: European, possibly British, troops would police it; no U.S. involvement.
• Reconstruction: EU assistance sought for Ukraine, estimated at $486 billion over a decade.

Timeline:
1) Early February: Zelensky-Putin phone call.
2) Late February to early March: Leaders’ meeting.
3) April 20: Ceasefire declaration.
4) By May 9: Agreement terms released, no further martial law or mobilization.
5) Additional Support: Continued U.S. military aid for Ukraine, with a pathway to EU membership by 2030.

Read more …

“Let’s be honest about it, we both know that’s not going to happen..”

Trump Envoy Responds To Zelensky’s Nuclear Weapons Demand (RT)

US President Donald Trump’s envoy to Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, has brushed aside Kiev’s demand for nuclear weaponry, stating that it is “not going to happen.” Kellogg made the remarks on Thursday while speaking to Fox News Digital. He was asked about the latest call by Vladimir Zelensky for “nuclear weapons” and “missile systems” from Kiev’s Western backers. “The chance of them getting their nuclear weapons back is somewhere between slim and none. Let’s be honest about it, we both know that’s not going to happen,” Kellogg said.The idea of arming Ukraine with nukes goes against “common sense” and is not something the Trump administration would consider, Kellogg stated. “Remember, the president said we’re a government of common sense. When somebody says something like that, look at the outcome or the potential. That’s using your common sense,” he explained.

Zelensky, speaking to British journalist Piers Morgan earlier this week, said that Ukraine must either be fast-tracked into the US-led NATO bloc or given more weaponry to “stop Russia.” “Give us back nuclear weapons, give us missile systems. Partners, help us finance a one-million army, deploy your troops to the areas of our country where we want to stabilize the situation,” he stated. While the Ukrainian leader has raised the issue of nuclear weaponry before, including shortly ahead of the escalation of the conflict in February 2022, he has done so increasingly in recent months. Zelensky has expressed regret that his country surrendered its portion of the Soviet nuclear arsenal after the collapse of the USSR in exchange for security guarantees in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. In 1991, Ukraine possessed some 1,700 warheads, which however, remained under Moscow’s operational control.

Russia insists that Ukraine never possessed any nuclear weapons of its own, as the assets belonged to Moscow as the sole legal successor of the Soviet Union. The 1994 memorandum also envisioned Ukraine’s neutral status, which has been undermined by NATO’s eastward expansion and Kiev’s aspirations to join the US-led bloc, Russian officials maintain. In November, Russian President Vladimir Putin explicitly stated that the any procurement of nuclear weaponry by Kiev was non-starter and would compel Moscow to use all available means to destroy it. “What do you think – on the level of common sense – if the country with which we are essentially now engaged in military operations becomes a nuclear power, what should we do? In this case, use all – I want to emphasize this – precisely all the means of destruction at Russia’s disposal,” the president said.

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For Trump and Gaza, do watch this lady first:

White House Softens Aspects Of Gaza ‘Takeover’ – No Boots On The Ground (ZH)

Israel announced Thursday it has begun preparations for the departure of large numbers of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip following President Trump earlier this week publicly backing a controversial mass resettlement plan in neighboring Arab countries. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Trump’s plan for Gaza as “remarkable” in an interview with Fox’s Sean Hannity published Thursday. “The actual idea of allowing Gazans who want to leave to leave. I mean, what’s wrong with that? They can leave, they can then come back, they can relocate and come back. But you have to rebuild Gaza,” Netanyahu said.In the face of fierce condemnation and pushback from an assortment of countries like Saudi Arabia, China, Russia, Ireland, as well as the United Nations – Trump has still doubled down in a Thursday Truth Social post.

He explained that “the Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel” after the end of hostilities. He reiterated that Palestinians could be relocated to “far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region” and would “actually have a chance to be happy, safe, and free.” The president said the that the US would oversee development teams from across the world, which will “slowly and carefully” begin the construction of what would become “one of the greatest and most spectacular developments of its kind on Earth.” That’s when he emphasized the following: “No soldiers by the US would be needed! Stability for the region would reign,” Trump wrote. Given that it’s an active war zone, and Hamas and Islamic Jihad are still openly displaying their weapons in battalion-sized displays and deployments, it seems doubtful any of this could happen without serious military intervention.

Trump said all of this after on Tuesday he declared he wants to the US to “take over” and “own” the Gaza Strip. Some aspects have been softened or walked back by the White House, however. When pressed for clarification on Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “They need to be temporarily relocated out of Gaza for the rebuilding.” Thus the plan has changed to a non-permanent resettlement, apparently, though it’s hard to see the logistics and politics of all of this actually playing out. Leavitt continued, “It’s been made very clear to the president that the United States needs to be involved in this rebuilding effort to ensure stability in the region for all people.” “That does not mean boots on the ground in Gaza. That does not mean American taxpayers will be funding this effort,” she added.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has also sought to distance the administration from criticisms that this looks like a potential major foreign military intervention. He said the idea was of “temporary” relocation, and said the proposal “was not meant as hostile. It was meant as, I think, a very generous move — the offer to rebuild and to be in charge of the rebuilding.” And Trump’s envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, echoed something similar. He said the US doesn’t want to put any US troops on the ground, and that no US dollars should be spent. He acknowledged that Trump had been “gestating” on the idea for a while.

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“..while many interpreted his remarks as catering to the Zionists, the language he used was just the opposite. He did not say that Gaza was Israel’s.”

What is Trump Really Thinking About Gaza? (Larry Johnson)

I am not making excuses for Donald Trump. I fully understand why many have interpreted his scripted remarks yesterday during the joint-press conference with Bibi Netanyahu about relocating the Palestinian inhabitants of Gaza and the US taking control of Gaza as insane or heartless or both. I want you to entertain another possibility — maybe Trump is really trying to secure a deal that does not cater to the Zionist vision of occupying all territory from the river to the sea.

We are 16 days into the second Trump administration and the flurry of activity coming out of the Oval office is akin to a Category Five hurricane. It is clear that Trump did not spend the last four years in political exile moping and despairing of the lawfare tsunami unleashed by his political opponents. He tacitly conceded that he was totally unprepared to confront the monster of the Deep State when he entered office in January 2017. He did not make that mistake this time. The day after securing his election victory in November he began executing a plan for governing that has left his political opponents and the Washington establishment reeling. This is akin to a military blitzkrieg. He is attacking across a broad front.

With this in mind, let me suggest another way of looking at what he said about taking control of Gaza during the Tuesday press conference with Netanyahu. First, he was reading from a script. This means it was drafted and vetted in advance, most likely with Michael Waltz taking the lead. Second, while many interpreted his remarks as catering to the Zionists, the language he used was just the opposite. He did not say that Gaza was Israel’s. He said that the US should take control of Gaza and oversee the rebuilding. However, he did not propose a specific plan for doing so and made it clear that someone other than the US would foot the bill for the rebuilding. Would Trump entertain a Saudi offer to rebuild Gaza with its funds? I think so, but it would likely be part of a broader agreement to resurrect the Abraham accords.

It is true that Netanyahu has publicly embraced Trump’s plan, but in announcing this proposal, Trump has made it almost impossible for Netanyahu to abandon the ceasefire agreement, at least the second phase, which he reportedly promised finance minister Smotrich he would do. If the Zionists decide to launch a fresh offensive on the Palestinians in Gaza, this would be a direct slap in the face of Trump. Scott Ritter reminded me during the roundtable with Danny Haiphong of Trump’s crazed, insulting remarks about Kim Jong-Un that preceded his face-to-face negotiations with Kim. It is a classic Trump negotiating tactic — bombast and insult up front followed by diplomacy and deal making. Is this Trump’s plan with respect to re-framing the Palestinian issue? I think it is a possibility. I also could be wrong (and I’m sure many of you will let me know).

Trump’s heated rhetoric regarding Iran also appears to be another example of his bad-cop-good-cop routine. Steve Witkoff reportedly is negotiating with the Iranians on orders from Trump. I think it is highly likely that Iran, despite press reports to the contrary, is not pursuing a nuclear weapon, primarily because of the security treaty they signed with Russia on January 17. If Witkoff succeeds in crafting an agreement with Iran then Trump will be able to claim that his tough guy approach created the conditions that made a deal possible. Okay. You are now free to tell me why I am full of crap.

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“Netanyahu at this juncture is utterly dependent on Trump. The PM’s wiles will not be enough to get him off the hooks: Trump has him where he wants him.”

The Greatest Showman’s “Inside Out” Political Solution (Alastair Crooke)

Dissing Putin as a loser in Ukraine perhaps was more addressed to the U.S. Senate and its ongoing confirmation hearings. Trump made these comments days before Tulsi Gabbard faces Senate hearings. Gabbard already is criticised by U.S. ‘hawks’ for allegedly holding ‘pro-Putin’ sentiments, as well as being subjected to a media slur campaign by the deep state. Was Trump’s apparent disrespect toward Putin and Russia (which caused anger in Russia) said primarily for the ears of U.S. Senators? (The Senate is home to some of the most ardent ‘never-Trumpers’). And were Trump’s egregious comments about ‘cleansing’ Gaza’s Palestinians to Egypt or Jordan (co-ordinated with Netanyahu, according to an Israeli Minister) intended primarily for the ears of the Israeli Right? According to that Minister, the issue of encouraging voluntary Palestinian migration is now back on the agenda, just as the Right-wing parties have long wanted – and many in Netanyahu’s Likud had hoped. Music to their ears.

Was it then a Trumpian pre-emptive move, designed to save Netanyahu’s government from imminent collapse over the ceasefire’s second-stage, and the threat of a walk-out by his Right Wing contingent? Was Trump’s target audience in this case then Ministers Ben Gvir and Smotrich? Trump pointedly confuses us – by never making it clear to which audience he is addressing his ruminations at any one time. Is there nonetheless some substance sedimented within Trump’s comment that any Palestinian state must be resolved ‘in some other way’ than the Two-State formula? Maybe. We should not discount Trump’s strong leanings towards Israel. Netanyahu faces harsh criticism for mis-handling both the Gaza and Lebanese ceasefires. He has been guilty of promising one thing to one party and the opposite to the other (an old vice):

He has promised the Right a return to war in Gaza, yet committed to the unequivocal end to war in the actual ceasefire agreement. In Lebanon, Israel was committed to withdrawal by 26 January on the one hand, yet its military is still there, provoking a human wave of Lebanese returning to the south, hoping to reclaim their homes. Consequently, Netanyahu at this juncture is utterly dependent on Trump. The PM’s wiles will not be enough to get him off the hooks: Trump has him where he wants him. Trump will get ceasefires, and will tell Netanyahu,no attack on Iran (at least until Trump has explored the possibility of a deal with Tehran). With Putin and with Russia, the opposite is the case. Trump there has no leverage (the favourite word in Washington). He has no leverage for four reasons:

Firstly, since Russia steadfastly refuses the idea of any compromise that “boils down to freezing the conflict along the line of engagement, that will give time to the U.S. and NATO to rearm the remnants of the Ukrainian army – and then start a new round of hostilities”. Secondly, because Moscow’s conditions for ending the war will prove to be unacceptable to Washington, as they would not be susceptible to being presented as an American ‘win’. Thirdly, because Russia holds the clear military advantage: Ukraine is about to lose this war. Major Ukrainian strongholds are now being taken by Russian forces without resistance. This ultimately will lead to a cascade effect. Ukraine may cease to exist if serious negotiations do not take place before summer, the head of the Ukrainian Military Intelligence Kyrylo Budanov recently warned. But fourthly, because history is not reflected at all in the word leverage. When peoples who occupy the same geography have different and often irreconcilable versions of history, the western transactional ‘split the power spectrum’ simply doesn’t work. The opposed sides will not be moved – unless some solution recognises and takes account of their history.

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“..because they don’t know what the heck else to do, the Dems are kneejerk opposing EVERYTHING..”

“.. There’s more “breaking news” in one day of Trump than six months of Biden. Team MAGA is churning through news cycles faster than a jackrabbit on Red Bull.”

How the Democrats Became the Party of Puppets (Pinsker)

“There’s nothing new under the sun” is found in Ecclesiastes 1:9. But if the statement is correct, then the idea itself must be older than Ecclesiastes; otherwise, that would be something new under the sun. (Right? Or is my Vulcan-like grasp of logic experiencing carpal tunnel? Yeah, I think I’m right.) For the statement “There’s nothing new under the sun” to be truthful, by definition, someone else must’ve already made a similar observation. Which makes sense: Life gets tedious after a while. We all get into ruts of the same-old, same-old. Life is cyclical. If you live long enough, it’s pretty easy to identify all the different cycles. So maybe there really is nothing new under the sun. Heck, as one PJ Media reader pointed out, even my (seemingly original) idea to relocate the Palestinians to Greenland was a blatant rip-off of “The Golden Girls”: (My apologies to Ms. Rose Nylund and/or all the good people of Saint Olaf.)

Perhaps it’s the monotony of life that gives older folks a nagging, unavoidable sense of “been there, done that.” Like Jerry Seinfeld noted, once we realized we could make our own people, we lost interest in the rest of you: But political parties don’t have the luxury of avoiding the real world. Nor do they ever get to suspend operations for a few months and try a soft reboot. They’re always on, always engaged, always connected to current events. It’s less like a play — with actors, actresses, and a well-written script — and more like a never-ending conga line. New faces appear when old faces exit, but the choreography itself never changes. Too much institutional momentum. They’re not the only ones, of course. The GOP has its conga line as well; all political parties do. If politics can be analogized to a dance, then D.C. is a crowded, competitive, cutthroat dancehall.

But the difference today is, the Democrats want us to lead. This hasn’t happened since the early days of the George W. Bush administration, nearly 25 years ago. It’s a generational opportunity for the Republican Party. Usually, even when the Democrats are voted out of power, they shamelessly push their own agenda, manipulating the mainstream media to reframe every news cycle in pro-Democratic terms. They never interpret an electoral defeat as a repudiation of their ideas; instead, the culprit must be misinformation, or Russian interference, or the racist, sexist, homophobic voters. And so, they double down and keep on pushing forward. Not anymore. Not since Donald Trump walloped them in 2024, capturing an electoral landslide. They’re simply too shell-shocked.

It won’t last forever but right now, they’ve given up on their agenda. All they can do is follow Donald Trump’s lead: whatever he supports, they oppose. Which means, Donald Trump has a generational opportunity to rebrand the Democratic Party. Part of their rebranding is already underway. Because Trump is such a kinetic whirlwind of manic activity, he’s firing ideas and initiatives at a million miles a minute. (Those poor Democrats are drinking out of a firehose!) And because they don’t know what the heck else to do, the Dems are kneejerk opposing EVERYTHING. This might’ve worked if Trump moved as slowly as Biden, but Trump is still the Great Disruptor. There’s more “breaking news” in one day of Trump than six months of Biden. Team MAGA is churning through news cycles faster than a jackrabbit on Red Bull.

For the audience at home, the volume and content far exceed their bandwidth. They have lives of their own and can’t keep track of everything. So, from their perspective, Trump is constantly trying SOMETHING… and the Democrats are opposing EVERYTHING. And there’s a whole lot of “everything.” Which is why the Democrats are being rebranded as the party of pearl-clutching. WAH! They’re the party of crybabies.

Whatever Trump says or does, Democrats cry and scream and soil themselves. Every molehill is a mountain; every Republican is “literally Hitler” and “a threat to democracy.” There’s more Democratic “hysteria” than anything Def Leppard did in the 80s. Knowing this, Trump could do one helluva troll move: He can turn the Democratic Party into his puppets. By structuring his agenda specifically and methodically, he can pull their strings and walk them off the cliff. Trump can get ‘em to do whatever he wants — simply by doing the opposite. They can’t help themselves. They’re just too proud and stubborn to change. Once again, the Bible was eerily prescient: “Pride goeth before the fall” (Proverbs 16:18). So maybe there really isn’t anything new under the sun.

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He won.

Investor Demand For X Debt Upsized, Musk Sees Revenue Improving Rapidly (ZH)

Investors want a slice of X as Elon Musk’s social media platform becomes the epicenter of news distribution, while corporate leftist media outlets and their government-funded censorship cartel face a fiery demise (see: Politico). This follows a multi-year advertiser boycott led by mega-corporations and relentless lawfare by an army of leftist nonprofits in their attempt to destroy the platform. However, those efforts have failed, and Musk has gone on the offensive, positioning X for a year of success. In the latest report from The Wall Street Journal, top banks finished up a sale of debt backed by X. Sources familiar with the debt deal stated that the banks initially planned to sell around $3 billion in debt at 95 cents on the dollar. However, due to surging demand from large high-yield fund managers, the deal was upsized to $5.5 billion.

Buyers of the debt included Pimco and Citadel, who agreed to pay 97 cents on the dollar. The floating-rate debt carries an interest rate of 11%, with borrowing costs several percentage points higher than some of the riskiest loans on Wall Street. The upsized sale of X debt marks the end of the multi-year doom loop for Musk’s social media company. Since purchasing the platform in 2022, Musk has faced relentless advertiser boycotts and endless lawfare from shadowy leftist billionaire-funded nonprofit groups. However, X’s ability to circumvent the Biden-Harris regime’s censorship cartel and play a key role in the Trump-Vance presidential victory has placed Musk in Washington as a special government employee leading DOGE efforts. This, in return, has strengthened Wall Street’s confidence in X.

Additionally, Trump’s executive order on “restoring free speech and ending federal censorship” is expected to provide additional tailwinds for X and other alternative media platforms. This is yet another key driver of soaring optimism around X. Last Friday, X CEO Linda Yaccarino and Morgan Stanley bankers presented prospective investors with metrics showing the social media platform’s financial health was set to rebound in 2025.

“Revenue should improve rapidly this year, as the advertising boycott winds down,” Musk told one X user. WSJ noted: “Financial documents reviewed by investors showed that the artificial-intelligence company transferred hundreds of millions of dollars to the social-media company, the people said. That money has helped X pay its bills and stay current on its obligations, the people said. Growing advertising revenue at X should mean fewer transfers in the coming months and years, the people said.” The financial documents said X now holds a 10% stake in xAI, valued at around $5 billion, people familiar with the matter said. The AI company last year was valued at $50 billion. Musk had previously posted that X investors would own 25% of xAI.

X also reported to the investors 2024 adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of about $1.25 billion and annual revenue of $2.7 billion. Investors said that was a better picture than they had expected and that X’s finances hit an inflection point a few months before the November election. In 2021, Twitter reported adjusted Ebitda of about $682 million and about $5 billion in revenue. That was the last full year before Musk took the company private.-WSJ . X’s debt sale is a big relief for banks…

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“South Africa is doing very bad things. Expropriating private property. Using G20 to promote solidarity, equality, & sustainability. In other words: DEI and climate change..”

Rubio To Boycott G20 Meeting in South Africa (RT)

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said he will not attend a meeting of the G20 group in South Africa later this month because Pretoria is “doing very bad things.” The decision by the top American diplomat on Wednesday comes amid US President Donald Trump’s feud with the African country’s government over a new land ownership reform. South Africa will host the G20 foreign ministers’ summit in Johannesburg on February 20-21. Last December, Pretoria officially assumed the rotating presidency of the intergovernmental forum, which it will hand over to the US in November 2025. In a speech during the launch of Pretoria’s chairmanship in Cape Town, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the group of 20 major economies has enough “shock absorbers” in place against an ‘America First’ policy by the Trump administration.

Ramaphosa promised to advance Africa and the Global South’s development priorities, including addressing the impacts of climate change. However, Trump has repeatedly opposed international cooperation on climate issues. Ramaphosa also announced that he has invited Trump to South Africa for a state visit and to the G20 summit in late 2025, where the US leader will take on the chairmanship role. “I will not attend the G20 summit in Johannesburg. South Africa is doing very bad things. Expropriating private property. Using G20 to promote solidarity, equality, & sustainability. In other words: DEI and climate change,” Rubio wrote on X. “My job is to advance America’s national interests, not waste taxpayer money or coddle anti-Americanism,” he added.

In response, South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola said on Thursday that Pretoria’s “G20 Presidency, is not confined to just climate change but also equitable treatment for nations of the Global South, ensuring equal global system for all.” President Trump said on Sunday that he is halting funding to South Africa, accusing the country’s government of “confiscating” land and “treating certain classes of people very badly.” The US leader declared that Washington “won’t stand” for Pretoria’s “massive human rights violation.” The threat followed the passage of the Expropriation Act by Pretoria aimed at addressing racial disparities in land ownership, a long-standing issue in Africa’s most advanced economy since Apartheid ended in 1994.

The government has set a target of transferring 30% of farmland from white farmers, who still own the majority of it, to their black counterparts by 2030. President Ramaphosa has defended the reform, saying his government “has not confiscated any land.” Foreign Minister Lamola also denied the US allegations on Thursday, stating that “there is no arbitrary dispossession of land” or private property under the new legislation. “This law is similar to the eminent domain laws,” he said, referring to US legislation that authorizes the federal government to acquire property for public use. On Monday, Ramaphosa’s office said he spoke with Trump’s close ally, South African-born billionaire Elon Musk, to clarify “issues of misinformation and distortions” after he also accused Pretoria of having “openly racist ownership laws.”

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“.. the Administration is moving far more aggressively in this second term. If Trump wanted to defibrillate the federal system and shock the status quo, he is succeeding in doing so.”

FBI Official Accused of Defying White House Reform Efforts (Turley)

Last week, some of us discussed concerns over the demand of the Trump Administration for the names of all FBI agents involved in January 6th cases. While noting that we did not have all of the details, I wrote that this would be a critical test for the Administration between reform and revenge. Line FBI agents should not face punishment for carrying out the orders of their superiors or courts. Now, the Trump Administration has offered additional information, alleging an alarming defiance by a high-ranking official in sharing information. If true, the controversy involving Acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll is reminiscent of the entirely improper conduct of former acting Attorney General Sally Yates. Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove released a statement stating that FBI agents were never being rounded up or targeted for their work on the cases. A reported force of over 5,000 agents was assigned to these cases.

According to Bove, Driscoll refused to turn over the “core team” involved in Washington, D.C., in the cases as part of its review of the weaponization of the legal system under the Biden Administration. Bove’s memo stated that:“That insubordination necessitated, among other things, the directive in my January 31, 2025 memo to identify all agents assigned to investigations relating to January 6, 2021. In light of acting leadership’s refusal to comply with the narrower request, the written directive was intended to obtain a complete data set that the Justice Department can reliably pare down to the core team that will be the focus of the weaponization review pursuant to the Executive Order.”Bove dismissed allegations of a purging of the ranks:

“Let me be clear: No FBI employee who simply followed orders and carried out their duties in an ethical manner concerning January 6 investigations is at risk of termination or other penalties. The only individuals who should be concerned about the process initiated by my January 31, 2025 memo are those who acted with corrupt or partisan intent, who blatantly defied orders from Department leadership, or who exercised discretion in weaponizing the FBI.” Again, we have not heard Driscoll’s side. Yet, I cannot understand the basis for an FBI official to refuse to share such information with his superiors in the Administration. One can raise concerns over the motivations or even the legality of measures taken against line agents. One can also object that there is no reason to collect the broader information after being allegedly denied the narrower request. However, the Administration has every right to such information, particularly as part of its long-promised review of the agency during the campaign.

The alleged defiance brought back memories from the start of the first Trump term. As previously discussed, Yates was lionized for her stance in the media. She was then selected as one of the featured speakers at the Democratic National Convention in 2020 and presented as the personification of a new Justice Department’s commitment to the rule of law. Yates declared: “I was fired for refusing to defend President Trump’s shameful and unlawful Muslim travel ban.” The problem is, she wasn’t. She was fired for telling an entire department not to defend a travel ban that ultimately was upheld as lawful. I was critical of the initial memorandum supporting the travel ban, particularly its failure to exempt lawful residents. However, I also said Trump’s underlying authority would likely be found constitutional. Despite revisions tweaking its scope and affected countries, opponents insisted it remained unlawful and discriminatory.

They continued to litigate on those same grounds all the way to the Supreme Court, where they lost two years ago. The Supreme Court ruled in Trump v. Hawaii that the president had the authority to suspend entry of noncitizens into the country based on nationality and had a “sufficient national security justification” for his order. It also held that, despite most of the banned countries being Muslim-majority, the ban “does not support an inference of religious hostility.” That is why Yates deserved to be fired. Yates issued her order shortly after learning of the travel ban and despite being told by Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel it was a lawful order. She never actually said it was unlawful, only that she was not sure and was not convinced it was “wise or just.”

Rather than working to address clear errors in the original ban, she issued her categorical order as she prepared to leave the department in a matter of days. Yates maintained afterward that she believed the ban might still be discriminatory, even with revisions. The courts rejected those claims. Yates was due to retire from Justice within days when she engineered her own firing. It made her an instant heroine and allowed her to denounce Trump at the convention for “trampl[ing] the rule of law, trying to weaponize our Justice Department.” But that’s precisely what she did when she ordered an entire department not to assist the recently elected president. It is not clear what transpired between Bove and Driscoll, but I cannot imagine a basis for refusing to share personnel information and records with the Trump Administration.

The initial coverage of the request clearly omitted this context and led to the usual media stampede declaring a purging of the ranks by political commissars. The irony is that, once again, the true story may be even more interesting in an alleged defiance of the Trump Administration within the FBI. We have seen recently the actual locking out of Trump officials from agencies like US AID, leading to a security official being placed on leave. As someone who covered the first Administration, this is a very different profile and approach. Trump learned in his first term how officials could stymie and delay reforms. That process has begun anew, including a plethora of lawsuits designed to slowdown such efforts. However, the Administration is moving far more aggressively in this second term. If Trump wanted to defibrillate the federal system and shock the status quo, he is succeeding in doing so.

I have no problem with officials raising concerns over possible personnel action against agents who were only carrying out their assigned tasks. These officials have a duty to advocate for their agents and insulate their institution from concerns over political retaliation. However, if the FBI refused to supply personnel information, it would move the matter from internal deliberation to outright defiance of a lawful order.

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Putin is no longer Brussels’ enemy no. 1. Trump is.

EU Plays Trump Card To Advance Its Globalist Agenda (Villamor)

The reappearance of Donald Trump on the international political scene has left Brussels in a state of panic. Considering the current international context, it could well signify a revolution within the European Union. However, the European Union, under the leadership of Ursula von der Leyen, is using the American magnate’s return to power as a golden opportunity to strengthen its own supranational integration agenda, further weakening the sovereignty of member states and promoting a centralized vision of the European bloc. If the last term was an example of the ‘new Europe’ designed for us, the next four years will bring more of the same, but now tinged with a particular European patriotism in the face of the expansionism of the ‘Eagle Empire.’

During her speech at the Davos Forum in January this year, von der Leyen made the EU’s new approach clear: continuing climate policies and protecting “our European way of life” (whatever that means to EU leaders) against external threats, particularly those stemming from Donald Trump’s United States and China—after years of declaring that the main enemy was Vladimir Putin’s Russia. “The world is in a ‘race against time’ to tackle global challenges such as climate change and seize the opportunities of AI,” she stated during her speech at the World Economic Forum. Brussels’ stance is clear: continue decarbonizing at any cost. “Europe will continue to seek cooperation and is ‘open for business’ to those who wish to improve clean technology and expand digital infrastructure.”

It is no coincidence that this rhetoric aligns with Brussels’ attempts to reform the EU’s founding treaties, granting even more powers to European institutions at the expense of member states. Although the call on the Commission to initiate these reforms passed in the Parliament with only a paper-thin majority, there’s no doubt the efforts will continue in both institutions. Among the reforms under discussion is the elimination of the unanimity principle in the European Council, the only tool blocking Brussels from making key decisions without the consensus of all member states. There is also talk of creating new powers in taxation, defense, and energy policy, which would significantly curtail the autonomy of countries reluctant to follow the European Commission’s lead.

After Trump’s ascent, the U.S. is continuously being portrayed as an ‘imminent threat’ to European stability, enabling the EU to strengthen its control mechanisms and discipline countries that resist its directives. The European Commission is now promoting a narrative in which only a stronger and more united Europe can withstand the ‘winds’ of populism, protectionism, and the so-called far right. However, this strategy is not only aimed at consolidating power in Brussels. It also serves as a weapon to weaken patriotic and sovereignist movements that have gained strength across the continent. Growing public outrage over mass immigration, draconian climate policies, and the imposition of ideologies alien to national traditions has led to the rise of parties challenging the EU’s globalist consensus.

In response, the European establishment has intensified its offensive: any movement that questions Brussels’ agenda is immediately labeled as “far right”, “fascist”, or even “Nazi”. This phenomenon is not new but has become more aggressive in recent years. Censorship attempts, media persecution, and the systematic exclusion of dissenting voices from public debate have become normalized. Anyone opposing the EU’s policies is presented as a threat to democracy when, in reality, what is at stake is the ability of European peoples to decide their future—if such a possibility even exists today. The tactic is cheap but at least transparent: use the figure of Trump as a scarecrow to justify the centralization of power in Brussels and delegitimize political movements that challenge the EU’s ideological hegemony.

What we are witnessing is, in essence, a perfect excuse to push forward a project of forced integration that many Europeans have neither voted for nor approved. The supposed fight against populism is nothing more than a strategy to consolidate a political elite that refuses to accept that European societies are changing and that more and more citizens reject the progressive dogma imposed by Brussels. This is not the first time the EU has taken advantage of an external crisis to strengthen its control. It happened with the euro crisis when centralized austerity measures were implemented, with the COVID-19 pandemic, which facilitated the expansion of bureaucratic control, and with the war in Ukraine, which was used to justify energy and military policies without the necessary widespread consultation. Now, Trump is the new excuse. Will it also be an opportunity for change in the Old Continent?

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“The European Left, like the American Left, devotes unlimited antagonism to anything that does not think like it, talk like it, dream, eat or work like it.”

What Is Really Destroying Europe? The EU (Godefridi)

The founding idea of the European Union was to build, through shared prosperity, solidarity and a sense of shared destiny among the nations of Europe. That was why three communities were formed: the economy, coal and steel, and nuclear energy. Until around 2000, in terms of growth and innovation, the European economy, year in, year out, was on par with the American one. Of that initial — and fairly brilliant — gesture of “peace through prosperity,” literally nothing remains. None of the EU’s current leaders cares about the financial well-being of Europeans. Coal is regarded as the devil’s fuel, and nuclear energy is abhorred by Europe’s elites, who say they prefer the inefficient and erratic wind turbines. Since 2000, the European economy has been mired in stagnation, which has worsened since 2008 and threatens to reach its height in the coming years — ending in the destruction of Europe.

Green Deal
The EU is a web of institutions with which an American would find nothing familiar, so let us just say that this web is dominated by one institution: the European Commission. It is a kind of European “government'” with a monopoly on legislative initiatives. Nothing is voted on in the EU without the Commission’s assent. The Commission makes no secret of the fact that its absolute priority is the Green Deal: to turn Europe into a “Carbon Neutral Society” by 2050. This means achieving a balance between the greenhouse gas emissions produced and those absorbed by natural or technological carbon sinks. The EU’s key strategies to achieve this balance include reducing emissions by massively increasing the use of “renewable energy” sources such as solar, wind, hydro and biomass, improving the energy efficiency of buildings, vehicles and industries, and moving towards low- or zero-emission industrial processes, particularly in steel, cement and chemicals.

They also aim to develop carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies to absorb and store CO2 from combustion sources or from the air. Carbon dioxide captured is typically stored in geological formations such as depleted natural gas fields, or old coal mines. In Europe, the North Sea seabed serves as an ideal location for carbon storage. The problem is that these CCS technologies are extremely expensive. Imposing them in the gigantic way that zero-carbon requires implies additional costs that are impossible for any developed economy to digest. That is probably why these fantastical CCS technologies play such a marginal role in Europe. The truth is that the reduction in CO2 emissions in Europe is almost exclusively due to industry leaving Europe. That is the dirty little secret of the Green Deal: Europe is reducing its CO2 emissions to the extent and in proportion to the destruction of its industry.

[..] If there is one reality that leaders whose power is founded on myths abhor, it is transparency. Whereas in 2020, the power of the American legacy media still allowed it to make people believe that Hunter Biden’s laptop was a Russian disinformation operation, over the last few years, this power was been reduced to shreds. The same shift is happening in Europe, under the influence not of European social media networks, because they do not exist, but of American ones, such as X. The EU elite has lost control of the narrative. Europeans are turning away from the lies and myths of the Green Deal en masse. This is what the EU cannot tolerate. By adopting the Digital Services Act (DSA), the EU wanted to give itself an instrument with which to subdue the American platforms, and are obliged to fund hordes of censors to hunt down content that disagrees with the European Queen-Commission. The EU has been requiring a fine of 6% of worldwide revenue from social media companies, which would inevitably kill off the platforms.

These faceless censor-hunters, who are accountable to no one, are supposed to remove all content that is hateful, discriminatory or transphobic. None of these vague terms can be rigorously defined. Given the absence of precise definitions, the censors do whatever they want. The arbitrariness is total. In practice, these censors massively quash so-called “right-wing” content, while leaving the abundant anti-Semitic, Islamist and Marxist literature untouched. That, apparently, is the whole point. The European Left, like the American Left, devotes unlimited antagonism to anything that does not think like it, talk like it, dream, eat or work like it. By introducing legislation such as the DSA, Europe is asserting itself as a major player in the censorship camp, following the example of China, Iran, Russia and Islamist countries, and contributing to the de-civilization of the European continent. After all, isn’t freedom the definition, the reason for being and the sole distinguishing criterion of Western civilization?

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Milei took Argentina out as well yesterday.

What to Know About US Withdrawal From the WHO (ET)

On the first day in office of his second term, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO), making good on a project from his first administration. Trump’s Jan. 20 order halted U.S. funding to the United Nations body, citing the WHO’s “mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that arose out of Wuhan, China,” as well as other global health concerns. Negotiations with the group about a pandemic agreement and the International Health Regulations will be suspended while the withdrawal is taking place.Because of the 1948 joint resolution by Congress, the United States has the right to withdraw from the WHO, but it must give a one-year notice. The resolution also requires the United States to fulfill “financial obligations” to the WHO for the current fiscal year.

The United States is currently the largest WHO funder, contributing about $1.28 billion during 2022–2023, the last reported year on the organization’s website. That equates to almost half of the WHO’s joint external evaluation missions for the last fiscal year. The 2024–2025 fiscal year is shaping up similarly, with the United States serving as the largest donor by far, contributing an estimated $988 million, or roughly 14 percent of the WHO’s $6.9 billion budget. Documents obtained by The Associated Press show that the United States covers about 95 percent of the WHO’s work on tuberculosis in Europe and about 60 percent in Africa and the Western Pacific, and that the WHO’s Europe office is more than 8 percent reliant on U.S. contributions. Additionally, U.S. funding provides “the backbone of many of WHO’s large-scale emergency operations,” covering up to 40 percent of that funding.

WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described relations with the United States as “a good model partnership” during a press briefing in Geneva in December 2024. “[We] have been partnering for many years, and we believe that will be the case. And I believe the U.S. leaders understand that the United States cannot be safe unless the rest of the world is safe,” he told reporters. Following the announcement of Trump’s decision to remove the United States from the organization, Ghebreyesus spoke out, asking world leaders to push the White House to reverse the decision. The WHO chief said during a closed-door meeting with diplomats that the United States would miss out on critical information about disease outbreaks, The Associated Press reported.

George Kyriacou, the agency’s finance director, said if the WHO’s spending continues at its current level without funding from the United States, the organization would be “very much in a hand-to-mouth type situation” regarding cash flow for at least portions of 2026. Officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have ordered agency employees to stop working with the WHO, effective immediately. John Nkengasong, the CDC’s deputy director for global health, sent a memo to agency leadership on Jan. 26 calling on staff to cease collaborating with the WHO immediately and wait for further guidance. CDC staff also are not allowed to engage with the WHO, virtually or in person, and staff members are not allowed to visit the WHO offices.

Some public health experts, including Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a professor of medicine and global health at UCLA who works with the WHO on sexually transmitted infections, have voiced concern about halting the collaboration.“Stopping communications and meetings with WHO is a big problem,” Klausner said. “People thought there would be a slow withdrawal. This has really caught everyone with their pants down.” The Trump administration said the WHO was not able to demonstrate independence from the “inappropriate political influence” of member states and had failed to “adopt urgently needed reforms.” The president’s executive order also cites “unfairly onerous payments” by the United States that Trump said are “far out of proportion with other countries’ assessed payments.” “China, with a population of 1.4 billion, has 300 percent of the population of the United States, yet contributes nearly 90 percent less to the WHO,” the order stated.

This is Trump’s second attempt to withdraw from the WHO. The president began the process in 2020 because of frustration over the WHO’s reaction to China’s coverup of details surrounding the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The House Oversight and Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released a report in December 2024 on the WHO’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, calling it “an abject failure.” According to the report, the WHO is accused of bending to pressure from the Chinese Communist Party and placing “China’s political interests ahead of its international duties.” As part of the alleged failure, the WHO reportedly ignored warnings by Taiwan on Dec. 31, 2019, about “atypical pneumonia cases” in Wuhan, which it asked the WHO to investigate. “The initial mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic not only potentially caused the further spread of the virus, but it created a situation where people lost trust in the global public health organization,” the report stated.

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“Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people.”

‘Gov’t Is the People’s Business’: A Tribute to Ronald Reagan (Salgado)

On this day (Feb 6) in 1911, a boy was born who would go on to be one of the greatest American presidents: Ronald Reagan. “Government is the people’s business, and every man, woman and child becomes a shareholder with the first penny of tax paid,” Reagan said. It is unfortunate that some even in his own party no longer value his legacy much, framing him as a status quo president. He was not — he was a fighter, a reformer, and a great man hated by domestic leftists and foreign Communists alike but beloved by the Americans to whom he brought morning again in America.

Of course, he didn’t just bring America out of the horrible economic and political nightmare of the Jimmy Carter years; he also brought about the fall of the Soviet Union. Rejecting short-sighted pleas to drop the line, he stood fearlessly in front of the Berlin Wall, the physical divide between the free West and the authoritarian East, and cried, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” When the Berlin Wall came crashing down in 1989, in spite of the naysayers and petty dictators, in the same year Reagan had left office, it was Reagan’s victory as much as it was a victory for all the Germans and other Europeans who had defied Soviet tyranny.

There were leftists who sneered at Reagan because he had been an actor, and there were leftists who hated him because he was a Republican not afraid to challenge corrupt politicians. But not even a bullet could stop him. He was undoubtedly one of the greatest and most successful presidents in American history. And Americans knew it so well that in the 1984 election, he won 49 out of 50 states. Like those of so many other great men, Reagan‘s words are not only applicable to his own day but often applicable to ours. America will always be fighting authoritarians, both foreign and domestic; we will always have to struggle to preserve our constitutional republic. Or, as Reagan himself put it, even years before he became president:

Perhaps you and I have lived too long with this miracle to properly be appreciative. Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. And those in world history who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again. How true it is that freedom is a fragile thing! Many individuals and groups, most notably the Democrat party, have been trying to limit or destroy our freedom for centuries now in America. Think how great the contrast has been between the Biden-Harris administration and the first couple weeks of the Trump administration.

Reagan knew what so many other politicians deny, that the rulers of America are supposed to be its citizens. “With all the profound wording of our federal Constitution, probably the most meaningful words are the first three, ‘We, the People,’” he said, in his same gubernatorial inaugural address quoted above. “And those of us here today who have been elected to constitutional office and to the legislature are in that three-word phrase. We are of the people, we are chosen by the people to see that no permanent structure of government ever encroaches on the people’s freedom or assumes a power beyond that which has freely been granted to us by the people. We stand between the taxpayer and the tax spender.”

The Founding Fathers would approve, but not the bureaucrats and political hacks who get into government only for their own benefit. It seems somewhat ironic that this address was originally delivered in California, when Reagan was becoming governor there. How far woke California has come from those days. Reagan must also have made his opponents squirm as he added, “Now, it is inconceivable to me that anyone could accept this delegated authority without asking God’s help. And I pray that we of the legislature and the administration can be granted the wisdom and the strength beyond our own limited powers. That with divine guidance we can avoid easy expedience. That we can work to build a state where liberty under law and justice can triumph, where compassion can govern and wherein the people can participate and prosper because of their government and not in spite of it.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Dana

 

 

Sunglasses

 

 

Queen

 

 

Mariana
https://twitter.com/i/status/1887327855882735634

 

 

Chirodectes

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Feb 042025
 
 February 4, 2025  Posted by at 11:11 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  64 Responses »


Jean Metzinger The blue bird 1912-13

 

Panama Caves to Trump. Are You Tired of Winning Yet? (Margolis)
US Halts Tariffs On Mexican Goods After ‘Very Friendly’ Talk (RT)
Trudeau Announces Tariff Deal With Trump (RT)
China Retaliates Against Trump Tariffs (RT)
Tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China, Tyranny on America (Paul Craig Roberts)
Medvedev Warns That US Deep State Might Swallow Musk (ZH)
USAID Closes Headquarters (RT)
Musk: “USAID A Ball Of Worms, No Apple. Must Get Rid Of Whole Thing” (ZH)
USAID Absorbed Into State Department Under Rubio (ZH)
Ukraine Has Lost – Arestovich (RT)
NATO Plans To Oust Zelensky – Russian Intel (RT)
Ukraine Renews Efforts To Seize Russian Assets – WaPo (RT)
‘Shy Musk Voter’ Could Hand Victory to AfD (Sp.)
NYT Shock Poll Reveals the Complete Collapse of Democratic Party (Pinsker)
Pro-Russian Versus Anti-Russian Social Media (Helmer)
Last Rites (James Howard Kunstler)
Lawmakers Urge RFK Jr to Recuse Himself From All Vaccine-Related Decisions (ET)
What Tulsi Gabbard Should Have Said About Ed Snowden (Larry Johnson)

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1886487372583637368

Kash

Mike Benz knows USAID

Jennings

Bernie

USAID Power
https://twitter.com/i/status/1886327327497285779

FCC
https://twitter.com/i/status/1886210118892867706

 

 

 

 

The tariff stories keep on coming, and rapidly. I put them in chronological order:

Panama Caves to Trump. Are You Tired of Winning Yet? (Margolis)

Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino on Sunday, making it clear that the U.S. won’t tolerate China’s growing influence over the Panama Canal. “Secretary Rubio informed President Mulino and Minister Martínez-Acha that President Trump has made a preliminary determination that the current position of influence and control of the Chinese Communist Party over the Panama Canal area is a threat to the canal and represents a violation of the Treaty Concerning the Permanent Neutrality and Operation of the Panama Canal,” the State Department said in a statement. “Secretary Rubio made clear that this status quo is unacceptable and that absent immediate changes, it would require the United States to take measures necessary to protect its rights under the Treaty.”

The Associated Press had an interesting take on the situation: “The statement was unusually blunt in diplomatic terms, but in keeping with the tenor and tone Trump has set for foreign policy. Trump has been increasing pressure on Washington’s neighbors and allies, including the canal demand and announcing Saturday that he was imposing major tariffs on Canada and Mexico. That launched a trade war by prompting retaliation from those close allies. Mulino, meanwhile, called his talks with Rubio “respectful” and “positive” and said he did not “feel like there’s a real threat against the treaty and its validity.” The news had barely settled before another bombshell dropped: Panama has backed down.

Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino announced that after his meeting Rubio, his government will not renew its 2017 memorandum with China on the “Belt and Road Initiative.” He also stated that Panama will seek to terminate its agreements with the Chinese government ahead of their scheduled end dates in 2027 and 2028. “One important thing, which is a decision I made and communicated to you, is that the 2017 MoU on the Silk Road, the Bell and Road Initiative, will not be renewed by my government. That is the case,” Mulino said according to a translation of his remarks. “We are going to study the possibility of whether it can be finished earlier or not, but I think it is due for renewal in one or two years, because it is every three years. So that initiative that was signed when it was signed, at the time it was signed, will not be renewed by my government. I think “that this visit opens a path to build a new stage of relations.”

He continued, “That’s how I see it, that’s how I felt from Secretary Marco Rubio, and at the same time, we’re trying as much as possible to increase U.S. investments in Panama. I explained to him a series of infrastructure projects that the government has in its portfolio, in the hope that they’ll be aware of them and that when the time comes, the bidding process that will begin very soon will be done, so that they can get involved.” They’re not just refusing to renew their 2017 deal with China; they’re scrambling to cut ties ahead of schedule. China’s influence over the canal is coming to an end.

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“..she agreed to deploy 10,000 Mexican soldiers to the northern border. The troops will be “specifically designated to stop the flow of fentanyl, and illegal migrants into our country..”

US Halts Tariffs On Mexican Goods After ‘Very Friendly’ Talk (RT)

US President Donald Trump has announced that he is pausing the planned tariffs on Mexican imports for one month following a “very friendly” talk with his Mexican counterpart, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo. The announcement on Monday came two days after Trump imposed 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada, citing concerns over illegal immigration and drug trafficking. Levies of 10% were also imposed on Chinese imports. Trump wrote on his Truth Social social media platform that he had held a “very friendly conversation” with Sheinbaum, during which she agreed to deploy 10,000 Mexican soldiers to the northern border. The troops will be “specifically designated to stop the flow of fentanyl, and illegal migrants into our country,” Trump stated.

He added that the nations will engage in high-level negotiations led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Howard Lutnick, Trump’s pick for commerce secretary, from the US side. Sheinbaum confirmed the troop deployment in a post on X, highlighting a US commitment to curbing the “trafficking of high-powered weapons” into Mexico. She described the exchange as a “good conversation.” Over the weekend, tensions escalated when Trump accused Sheinbaum’s administration of an “intolerable alliance” with Mexican crime groups. Sheinbaum rejected the claim as “slanderous” and, in response, threatened retaliatory tariffs on US imports along with other measures to protect Mexico’s national interests.

The US and Mexico have a strong trade relationship, anchored by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which replaced NAFTA in 2020. The deal eliminated most tariffs and trade barriers among the three nations. Millions of cars sold in the US each year are assembled in Canada and Mexico, with 30-50% of their parts sourced from these countries. While the tariffs on Mexico have been put on hold, the US is proceeding with those on Canada and China. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau swiftly announced 25% retaliatory tariffs on American goods following Trump’s measures on Canadian imports. China has also vowed “corresponding countermeasures” and signaled plans to challenge Trump’s move at the WTO. The tariff pause helped stabilize Wall Street on Monday, with major indices paring earlier losses.

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Rapidly shrinking big words.

Trudeau Announces Tariff Deal With Trump (RT)

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced that the United States will postpone the imposition of 25% tariffs on Canadian imports for at least 30 days, following discussions with US President Donald Trump. The agreement was reached after a phone call between the two leaders on Monday, during which Canada committed to strengthening border security. The announcement follows President Donald Trump’s decision on Saturday to sign executive orders imposing tariffs—25% on imports from Mexico and Canada and 10% on imports from China—citing concerns over illegal immigration and drug trafficking. ”Proposed tariffs will be paused for at least 30 days while we work together,” Trudeau stated in a post on X.

“Canada is implementing our $1.3 billion border plan — reinforcing the border with new choppers, technology, and personnel, enhanced coordination with our American partners, and increased resources to stop the flow of fentanyl,” Trudeau added. As part of the deal, nearly 10,000 frontline personnel will be deployed to secure the border, according to the Canadian PM. Canada also announced new initiatives, including the appointment of a Fentanyl Czar, a government official responsible for coordinating efforts to combat the opioid crisis and prevent the trafficking of fentanyl. ”We will list cartels as terrorists, ensure 24/7 eyes on the border, and launch a Canada-U.S. Joint Strike Force to combat organized crime, fentanyl, and money laundering,” Trudeau stated. “I have also signed a new intelligence directive on organized crime and fentanyl, and we will be backing it with $200 million.”

President Donald Trump expressed his satisfaction with the initial outcome of the agreement with Canada in a recent post on Truth Social, stating, “I am very pleased with this initial outcome, and the Tariffs announced on Saturday will be paused for a 30 day period to see whether or not a final Economic deal with Canada can be structured. FAIRNESS FOR ALL!” Earlier in the day, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum reached a similar agreement with President Trump, agreeing to deploy 10,000 National Guard troops to the US-Mexico border to address fentanyl trafficking and illegal immigration. In return, the US pledged to intensify efforts to stop weapon trafficking into Mexico. Markets experienced increased volatility with major stock indices and cryptocurrency valuations fluctuating, following in response to what has been described as a “Trump tariff tantrum” before recovering some of their losses after news broke of the deal with Mexico.

Trump has consistently emphasized tariffs as a key negotiation tool in trade discussions, both during his first term and following his re-election in 2024. Trump has not yet offered a 30-day delay for the new 10% tariffs on Chinese imports but told reporters on Monday that he anticipated discussions with China “probably over the next 24 hours.” On Sunday, Trump signaled that the European Union could be the next target for US tariffs, without specifying a timeline. In response, EU leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, emphasized their readiness to defend Europe’s interests and consider reciprocal measures if necessary.

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They’ll be talking imminently.

China Retaliates Against Trump Tariffs (RT)

China has announced new tariffs and trade restrictions, following a similar move by the administration of US President Donald Trump, which views competition against China as a key foreign policy point. Last week, Trump ordered additional 10% tariffs on all goods from China, saying he is using his emergency authority to fight a national emergency caused by drug trafficking and illegal immigration. In the same executive action, the president targeted Canada and Mexico. Both US neighbors have since offered concessions on border security to deflate the growing trade conflict. The Chinese government responded minutes after the new tariffs came into force on Tuesday. It included restrictions on certain American goods – a 15% tariff on coal and liquefied natural gas, and a 10% tariff on crude oil, agricultural machinery, and some vehicles.

Announcing its policy change, the Chinese Finance Ministry condemned Trump’s decision, saying it “seriously violates the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO)” and “undermines the normal economic and trade cooperation between China and the US.” Meanwhile, the Commerce Ministry announced that China has filed a complaint over the US tariffs with the WTO. Beijing has also introduced a licensing regime for exports of products containing tungsten, tellurium, bismuth, molybdenum, and indium. The measure will “safeguard national security and interests” the Commerce Ministry said, without specifically mentioning the US. The minerals are essential for advanced manufacturing.

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“The United States has become too disunited for Congress to perform its constitutional function..”[..] “The same thing happened to Rome when executive authority took precedence over the Roman Senate..”

Tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China, Tyranny on America (Paul Craig Roberts)

The US will impose 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada, and 10 percent on China, the Trump White House said. The purpose of tariffs is to protect domestic manufacturers and their work forces. What American manufacturers and workers are being protected by Trump’s tariffs? So much of US manufacturing is located offshore, what purpose are the tariffs serving? The “tariffs” in reality are taxes imposed on imports of foreign produced goods, including the offshored production of US corporations of goods and services sold in the US. If the tariffs are paid by the consumer rather than by the US corporations that offshore their production for the American market, the effect will be to reduce the quantity demanded because of the higher price. How much this harms the offshore producers depends on whether their products are price elastic or inelastic. Some are one and some are the other.

This approach to bringing offshored US jobs back to America is incorrect. It demonstrates the economic ignorance of Trump and his advisors. Consider, for example, if US auto assembly relies on parts made in Canada, a 25% rise in parts cost could shutdown auto assembly and result in US unemployment. As best as I can tell, few auto parts are any longer produced in the US, so there is no industry to protect or to supply the parts that tariffs keep out. Before you can protect industries, you first must have them. Instead of tariffs, the income tax should be used. US Corporations that produce domestically using American labor–not H-1B and L-1 imported labor– should have a lower tax rate. US corporations that produce abroad with foreign labor goods and services sold in the US should have a higher tax rate.

The tax rate should be high enough to more than offset the lower labor and regulatory cost of producing abroad for American markets. The higher after-tax profits from producing at home would bring manufacturing and jobs back to America where they belong. A country that divorces the consumers of products from the incomes associated with their production, as jobs offshoring does, is stupid and incompetent beyond belief. No such country can possibly be made great again. Some people believe, correctly or incorrectly, that this business model was imposed on America in an effort to destroy us, using threats to finance takeovers of the American firms that refused to abandon their American workforce and cities. In other words, offshoring America’s manufacturing sector was a step in turning America into third world country that makes nothing and imports its needs.

Is Trump overlooking one important element of making America Great Again? The moral element. It seems to be the case. Trump’s support for Israel is disturbing to Americans who still have a moral conscience and are shamed by Trumps support of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians and their country and their ethnic cleansing so that Trump’s son-in-law can become a multi-billionaire by developing Gaza as a resort. Another problem with Trump’s imposition of tariffs is that it is another encroachment of executive power on the authority of Congress. It used to be that tariffs were a legislative issue. For many years the South tried to prevent the North with the Missouri Compromise, and in other ways, from gaining a sufficient majority in Congress to impose a tariff on British goods that would require the South to finance in higher prices and lowered agricultural sales abroad the industrialization of the North.

The Morrill Tariff, a huge increase, was passed the day prior to Lincoln’s inauguration. The Northern congressmen also passed that day a resolution that if the South would stay in the Union and pay the tariff, a Constitutional Amendment would be passed institutionalizing slavery forever. Lincoln endorsed the federal government’s protection of slavery and declared that there would be no war against the South unless the South refused to pay the tariff. The agricultural South seeing ruin in the face succeeded from the Union. The tariff, not slavery was the issue. Lincoln called it insurrection and invaded. That is how the so-called “civil war” happened. Clearly it was no civil war. The South was not fighting for the control of the government, it had its own government. The South had to fight as it was invaded.

How did tariffs move from being an legislative issue to an issue of executive orders? We are witnessing in this transformation of power from the legislature to the executive the transformation of democracy into dictatorship. It has been going on for a long time: Lincoln, FDR, George W. Bush, Obama. The United States has become too disunited for Congress to perform its constitutional function. This is the real problem that America faces, and there is no awareness, no discussion. The same thing happened to Rome when executive authority took precedence over the Roman Senate. I look in vain for discussion of the real problem, and I cannot find it. In America despite Trump, or perhaps because of him, insouciance still rules.

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“Smart move by Elon Musk, trying to plug USAID’s Deep Throat. Let’s hope notorious Deep State doesn’t swallow him whole..”

Medvedev Warns That US Deep State Might Swallow Musk (ZH)

Having long witnessed the phenomenon of USAID-backed ‘color revolutions’ in neighboring and regional former Soviet satellite countries, Russia has been closely following the Trump administration’s efforts to fully dismantle the United States Agency for International Development. Head of the recently established US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Elon Musk, has been spearheading this, saying on Monday that “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper. Could gone to some great parties. Did that instead.” And now Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev has weighed in with a message and a warning.The former Russian president and top national security official expressed hope that the US deep state won’t consume Elon Musk after shutting down the long-running agency known for having funded regime change operations abroad for many decades.

“Smart move by Elon Musk, trying to plug USAID’s Deep Throat. Let’s hope notorious Deep State doesn’t swallow him whole,” Medvedev wrote on X.Ironically this came the same day that never-Trump neocon and intellectual architect behind Bush’s disastrous Iraq war issued a tweet declaring his preference for the deep state, and he was being quite literal. “The deep state is far preferable to the Trump state,” Kristol said, in a rare moment saying what many other career government operatives are thinking, or saying the quiet part out loud. Interestingly Medvedev also took the opportunity Monday to blast Ukraine and President Zelensky over alleged ‘missing’ USAID funds meant for Kiev. According to Russia’s RT:

“Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s recent claim that he is unaware of the whereabouts of more than $100 billion of Western aid funds allocated to Kiev is a “brazen and cynical lie,” former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has suggested. In a Telegram post on Monday, Medvedev, who now serves as the Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council, accused Zelensky and his associates of embezzling significant sums. “In a fit of candor, the Bandera regime’s boss admitted that he and his cronies had siphoned off $100 billion,” he stated.” Zelensky had told the Associated Press in an interview published the day prior that Ukraine received just over $75 billion in military and other types of assistance, despite $177 billion in military aid had been approved under Biden.

“When it is said that Ukraine received $200 billion to support the army during the war – that’s not true. I don’t know where all that money went. Perhaps it’s true on paper with hundreds of different programs – I won’t argue, and we’re immensely grateful for everything. But in reality, we received about $76 billion. It’s significant aid, but it’s not $200 billion,” Zelensky said, in remarks that have raised eyebrows. There may also be serious questions from the new Trump administration over the line about not knowing where all that money went. Time for a full stoppage at least until there is a thorough US-sponsored audit? Medvedev has alleged, “The hundred billion lined the pockets of all kinds of kleptocrats from Washington to Kiev.”

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A lot of USAID news, some of it overlapping. Pretty insane that it could exist the way it did. This alone was enough reason to suspend foreign aid for 90 days. They knew reactions to that were inevitable.

USAID Closes Headquarters (RT)

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has closed its main office in Washington DC, multiple US media outlets reported on Monday. Most personnel have reportedly been told to stay away from the building. The development comes after US President Donald Trump accused the agency’s leadership of being “radical lunatics” and proposed major changes to the organization. Established in 1961, USAID is responsible for administering foreign aid and development programs abroad to promote American interests. According to an email obtained and shared by CNN, USAID leadership directed that the “headquarters at the Ronald Reagan building in Washington, D.C. be closed to Agency personnel on Monday, February 3, 2025.”

“Agency personnel normally assigned to work at USAID headquarters will work remotely tomorrow, with the exception of personnel with essential on-site and building maintenance functions individually contacted by senior leadership,” the letter said. AP has confirmed the email, adding that more than 600 employees discovered overnight that they had been locked out of USAID’s computer systems. The development comes after Trump blasted the agency, arguing that “it’s been run by a bunch of radical lunatics.” “We’re getting them out, and then we’ll make a decision,” he said. Tech billionaire Elon Musk, the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and a close ally of the US president, has also been a fierce critic of USAID. He described it as a “criminal organization” which he believes was financing bioweapon research, including projects that allegedly led to the emergence of Covid-19.

“It became apparent that it’s not an apple with a worm in it. What we have is just a ball of worms. You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It’s beyond repair,” Musk said. He also revealed that he had spoken with Trump, claiming that the president had “agreed” that USAID should be shut down. The crackdown on USAID comes after the Trump administration suspended foreign assistance, with a few exceptions. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the US would carry out a program-by-program review to determine which projects make “America safer, stronger or more prosperous.” He claimed that shutting down US-funded programs during the 90-day review had resulted in “a lot more cooperation” from recipients of various assistance.

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“..USAID is a front for the CIA. And together with NGO’s like the Open Society Foundation, they have been using US tax dollars & govt resources as their personal piggy bank..”

“..Musk’s involvement with DOGE suggests that the rapid counteroffensive against the Deep State is underway. What likely happened with USAID is a precision-guided strike aimed at severing the Deep State’s key funding source..”

Musk: “USAID A Ball Of Worms, No Apple. Must Get Rid Of Whole Thing” (ZH)

About one day after the US Agency for International Development’s website went dark and its official X account disappeared, President Donald Trump addressed reporters Sunday night, declaring, “It’s been run by a bunch of radical lunatics. And we’re getting them out.” By midnight, Elon Musk—who oversees the government efficiency initiative “DOGE”—provided taxpayers with an update on USAID’s status during a live X Spaces session. Musk told the more than 682,000 listeners who tuned in that the president “agreed we should shut it [USAID] down.” This would be one of the largest planned cuts to date, and the fate of USAID is likely that it will lose its independence and be rolled into the State Department.

“As we dug into USAID it became apparent that what we have here is not an apple with a worm in it, but we have actually just a ball of worms. If you have an apple with a worm in it, you can take the worm out. If you have a whole ball of worms, it’s hopeless. USAID is a ball of worms. There is no apple. And when there is no apple you just need to get rid of the whole thing. That’s why it’s got to go. It’s beyond repair,” Musk explained. Musk wrote on X, “USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die.” The move to end USAID as a stand-alone agency comes as the DOGE creator revealed: “Did you know that USAID, using YOUR tax dollars, funded bioweapon research, including COVID-19, that killed millions of people?”

AP noted: “Musk’s comments come after the administration placed two top security chiefs at USAID on leave after they refused to turn over classified material in restricted areas to Musk’s government-inspection teams, a current and a former US official told The Associated Press on Sunday. Members of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, eventually did gain access Saturday to the aid agency’s classified information, which includes intelligence reports, the former official said. Trump has already ordered a freeze on foreign aid as part of his “America First” foreign policy. As some note, USAID has effectively served as a laundering scheme for the Deep State. [..] “Like I said before, USAID is a front for the CIA. And together with NGO’s like the Open Society Foundation, they have been using US tax dollars & govt resources as their personal piggy bank. It has been infuriating to watch. Hopefully now the whole truth will come out,” journalist Lara Logan wrote on X.

Musk’s involvement with DOGE suggests that the rapid counteroffensive against the Deep State is underway. What likely happened with USAID is a precision-guided strike aimed at severing the Deep State’s key funding source. Always follow the money—neutralizing the Deep State’s ability to launder taxpayer funds is a good start. Musk was also joined by DOGE co-leader Vivek Ramaswamy and Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) on X Spaces. Ramaswamy noted: “If USAID is rolled into the State Department, Marco Rubio will ensure grant scrutiny, preventing taxpayer funds from being stuffed into the coffers of the Deep State. And this will ultimately mark a historic shift in America’s role in the world.”

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“If USAID is rolled into the State Department, Marco Rubio will ensure grant scrutiny, preventing taxpayer funds from being stuffed into the coffers of the Deep State. And this will ultimately mark a historic shift in America’s role in the world.”

USAID Absorbed Into State Department Under Rubio (ZH)

Update (1210ET) “USAID will be merged into the State Department with cuts in the workforce, but it will remain a humanitarian aid entity, sources told @saraecook and me. Trump admin expected to announce the moves in coming days. Discussions of reductions in funding were still fluid today,” CBS News senior White House reporter Jennifer Jacobs wrote on X. Over the last several days, the Trump administration’s move to strip USAID of its independence and be rolled into the State Department has been well-telegraphed with leaks and reports via media outlets. As we noted earlier: If USAID is rolled into the State Department, Marco Rubio will ensure grant scrutiny, preventing taxpayer funds from being stuffed into the coffers of the Deep State. And this will ultimately mark a historic shift in America’s role in the world.

All USAID lacked was grant distribution oversight, turning the agency into a Deep State slush fund. Not anymore, under Rubio at State.

* * *
About one day after the US Agency for International Development’s website went dark and its official X account disappeared, President Donald Trump addressed reporters Sunday night, declaring, “It’s been run by a bunch of radical lunatics. And we’re getting them out.”

By midnight, Elon Musk—who oversees the government efficiency initiative “DOGE”—provided taxpayers with an update on USAID’s status during a live X Spaces session. Musk told the more than 682,000 listeners who tuned in that the president “agreed we should shut it [USAID] down.” This would be one of the largest planned cuts to date, and the fate of USAID is likely that it will lose its independence and be rolled into the State Department. “As we dug into USAID it became apparent that what we have here is not an apple with a worm in it, but we have actually just a ball of worms. If you have an apple with a worm in it, you can take the worm out. If you have a whole ball of worms, it’s hopeless. USAID is a ball of worms. There is no apple. And when there is no apple you just need to get rid of the whole thing. That’s why it’s got to go. It’s beyond repair,” Musk explained. Musk wrote on X, “USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die.”

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Arestovich is also still a candidate to succeed Zelensky.

“Trump will sort things out with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping “without consulting us, because engaging with those who deny reality is futile.”

Ukraine Has Lost – Arestovich (RT)

Ukraine has lost the armed conflict with Russia, primarily due to the inability of the Ukrainian people to take personal responsibility for their failures, Aleksey Arestovich, a former aide to Vladimir Zelensky, has argued. He expects the US, Russia, and China to decide on a resolution without consulting Kiev. Arestovich resigned from his government post in early 2023 after making claims about a missile incident that contradicted the official narrative. He is now a sharp critic of the Zelensky administration. In a Telegram post on Sunday, he argued that the changing tone of Western discourse about Ukraine signals a significant policy change. US President Donald Trump will sort things out with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping “without consulting us, because engaging with those who deny reality is futile,” he wrote.

“We have lost the war due to our own stupidity, pride and stubbornness. In truth, we have defeated ourselves,” Arestovich added. “We have created a society of mutual hatred and intolerance, in which every individual is right and everyone collectively is to blame.” He cited several recent news stories, calling them a wakeup call for Ukrainians to acknowledge defeat and their role in it. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for the Ukraine conflict, has called on Kiev to resume presidential and parliamentary elections, which Zelensky suspended under martial law. Conservative US political commentator Tucker Carlson branded the Ukrainian leader “a dictator” during a debate with British television host Piers Morgan. Additionally, Washington’s decision last month to suspend foreign aid programs has forced many Ukrainian NGOs and media outlets to solicit for private donations to avoid shutdown.

Public statements and media reports suggest that the Trump administration seeks a freeze of the Ukraine conflict along existing frontlines. Moscow has said that it won’t accept an outcome that would allow Kiev to rebuild its military and renew hostilities in the future. The core causes of the conflict, including NATO’s expansion in Europe, need to be addressed in order for a sustainable peace agreement to be reached, Russian officials have asserted. The Ukrainian military is reportedly plagued by large-scale desertion and poor morale, while Russia continues to advance. Zelensky, meanwhile, has called on Kiev’s Western backers to deploy at least 200,000 troops as “peacekeepers.” He has also urged Trump to adopt a “peace through strength” approach to pressure Moscow into accepting truce terms favorable to Kiev.

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“..the bloc is reportedly preparing a campaign to discredit Zelensky ahead of Ukraine’s next presidential elections..”

NATO Plans To Oust Zelensky – Russian Intel (RT)

NATO is considering trying to facilitate the removal of Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky from power by discrediting him ahead of potential elections next fall, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) claimed in a statement on Monday. The agency believes that Western officials see Zelensky as a key obstacle to peace talks with Moscow. Zelensky remains in office despite his term having officially expired last May. He has refused to step down and postponed presidential elections, citing the martial law imposed in 2022 following the escalation of the conflict with Russia. Western leaders are looking to “freeze” the conflict by pushing both Moscow and Kiev toward negotiations, but Zelensky is seen as a barrier, the SVR said.

“Washington and Brussels agree that the main obstacle to the implementation of such a scenario is Zelensky, who is referred to in Western circles as nothing more than ‘expendable material,’” the agency said in the statement, adding that “even NATO understands that Zelensky’s time is up.” To address this, the bloc is reportedly preparing a campaign to discredit Zelensky ahead of Ukraine’s next presidential elections, which the agency said could take place next fall. The SVR claimed that Western officials plan to release information linking Zelensky and his team to the embezzlement of over $1.5 billion in funds intended for purchasing military equipment.

Additionally, the report alleged that Zelensky’s administration was involved in schemes to divert the salaries of 130,000 deceased Ukrainian soldiers who remain listed as active service members. The SVR also claimed that Zelensky was implicated in the illegal sale of Western-supplied weapons to armed groups in Africa. The SVR suggested that the return of Donald Trump to the White House has created uncertainty over future Western support for Ukraine, which could accelerate efforts to replace Zelensky. According to the agency, NATO’s broader goal is to maintain Ukraine as an anti-Russian foothold, regardless of the situation on the battlefield. Neither NATO nor Ukrainian officials have responded to the SVR’s claims so far.

In an interview with the Associated Press on Saturday, Zelensky accused Russia of avoiding peace talks and reiterated his calls for Western security guarantees as a precondition for negotiations. He argued that Ukraine’s membership in NATO would be the “cheapest” option for the West to ensure such guarantees. Moscow has repeatedly stated its willingness to engage in peace talks but has pointed out that it is unable to do so because of the prohibition on negotiations with Russia announced by Zelensky in 2022. The Russian leadership has also stated that freezing the conflict is unacceptable and that Ukraine’s accession to NATO cannot be allowed. Russian officials have maintained that Ukraine’s neutrality, its withdrawal from Russian territories, and legal protections for Russian-speaking populations are necessary conditions for any settlement.

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“Kiev reportedly hopes to persuade Washington to back the move by suggesting the money be used to pay for US weapons..”

Ukraine Renews Efforts To Seize Russian Assets – WaPo (RT)

Ukraine has renewed its push to confiscate frozen Russian assets following Donald Trump’s reelection as US president, the Washington Post reported on Friday, citing anonymous officials. Kiev hopes Trump’s business acumen and influence over the EU could sway opponents of the move toward supporting it, the newspaper claimed. After the Ukraine conflict escalated in February 2022, Western states froze an estimated $300 billion belonging to the Russian central bank held in foreign depositories, a move Russia has branded as theft. While proceeds from the assets are already being used to back a $50 billion loan for Ukraine from the G7, most Western nations have stopped short of seizing the assets themselves. Opponents of the move, including Belgium, Germany, and France, fear it could set a legal precedent and undermine trust in the Western banking system.

According to the Washington Post, Ukrainian officials believe Trump could persuade skeptical countries if he sees the move as beneficial for the US. “We firmly believe that it’s President Trump who can be a change maker,” Irina Mudra, deputy head of Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’ office, told the news outlet. “[Trump] has the power to change the stance of more-skeptical countries… they know he’s not joking, that his are not just hollow words. That’s exactly why we need his help convincing our partners that transferring Russian assets is a necessary tool to finish this war,” she added. Kiev plans to frame the seizure of Russian assets as an alternative source of funding for weapons and reconstruction. Zelensky claimed in an interview with podcaster Lex Fridman that he had “spoken to Trump” about using the money to buy US-made arms.

“I told him, take the $300 billion of frozen Russian assets… and we will buy all the weapons from the US… It will be very good for your industry,” Zelensky said, describing it as one of Ukraine’s key security guarantees for future peace talks with Moscow. Analysts suggest the proposal may appeal to Trump, given his ‘America First’ stance and calls to cut foreign aid. “That’s a very clear quid pro quo. And they would love for Trump to adopt that argument and basically say to the Europeans, ‘Look, if you want me to continue to supply Ukraine with weapons, well, let’s buy them with Russian assets,’” Jacob Kirkegaard of the Peterson Institute for International Economics told the news outlet.

Former US President Joe Biden’s administration previously expressed cautious support for the idea, but Trump’s stance remains unclear. Some EU countries reportedly prefer to keep the assets frozen as potential leverage in future peace negotiations with Moscow. Russia has repeatedly condemned the freezing of its assets. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned in December that Moscow would pursue legal action against any attempts to channel the funds “stolen” from the country to Ukraine. Russian officials also warned Moscow could mirror the West’s actions by tapping income from frozen Western assets held in the country.

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“In a surprising twist, AfD co-chair Alice Weidel leads as the most popular choice for chancellor on 35%..”

‘Shy Musk Voter’ Could Hand Victory to AfD (Sp.)

A new survey by the Washington-based Democracy Institute has sent shockwaves through European politics. It suggests the Euroskeptic Alternative for Germany (AfD) is on the brink of winning the country’s snap elections—and Elon Musk might play a key role. The AfD is now the second-strongest party with 25% support, trailing the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) by just two points, the poll shows Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) are third place on 15% and the Greens fourth with 13%.

In a surprising twist, AfD co-chair Alice Weidel leads as the most popular choice for chancellor on 35%, leading CDU head Friedrich Merz by nine points. But the real shocker? A striking 28% of Germans say they are more likely to vote AfD due to Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s endorsement, compared to 23% who say they are “less likely”. Democracy Institute director Patrick Basham dubbed the phenomenon the “shy Musk voter”. The German Bundestag elections are set for February 23.

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“..the Democrats are in a PR freefall. Keep an eye on the numbers: Should the Dems’ unfavorable rating hit the mid-60s, it will likely lead to a full-on liberal-on-liberal civil war for control of the party.”

NYT Shock Poll Reveals the Complete Collapse of Democratic Party (Pinsker)

It happens a lot: You’ll hear about a new movie or TV show with a really cool, totally original premise, but alas, the writers and actors fumbled the football in the execution. The first few minutes are promising, but you quickly realize that the script’s premise far exceeded the participants’ talents. It’s frustrating and annoying. An example of this is the 1995 supernatural thriller “The Prophecy,” starring Christopher Walken and Viggo Mortensen, where humans discover a “lost” chapter in the Book of Revelation:
Joseph: What is it?
Thomas Daggett: Twenty-third chapter of Saint John’s Revelations.
Joseph: And?
Thomas Daggett: There is no twenty-third chapter.
Joseph: Well, maybe this is the Teacher’s Edition.
Here’s the 78-second original trailer:

The film has its moments (and actually spawned a ridiculous number of straight-to-video sequels). But I can’t recommend it; way too much silliness and nonsensical writing. But there’s an absolutely brilliant line of dialogue in the very beginning: “Some people lose their faith because Heaven shows them too little. But how many people lose their faith because Heaven showed them too much?” I was thinking about that quote when I read today’s article in The New York Times, “Most Americans Say the Democratic Party Does Not Share Their Priorities.” As the article states:Many Americans say they do not believe the Democratic Party is focused on the economic issues that matter most to them and is instead placing too much emphasis on social issues that they consider less urgent.

Asked to identify the Democratic Party’s most important priorities, Americans most often listed abortion, L.G.B.T.Q. rights and climate change, according to a poll from The New York Times and Ipsos conducted from Jan. 2 to 10. The issues that people cited as most important to them personally were the economy and inflation, health care and immigration, the poll found. The kinds of social causes that progressive activists have championed in recent years ranked much lower. When it comes to publicity and brand-building, the GOP is often forced to go off-roading — hitting the podcasts or using alternative media — since the mainstream outlets are unwelcoming. At first, this greatly handicapped the GOP’s outreach, but as we say, “Necessity is the mother’s milk of invention.”

The Republican adapted and evolved: They learned how to streamline their message, master the social media game, and claim an ownership stake in emerging, nontraditional outlets. And now, we’re better at it. Meanwhile, the Democrats always had an embarrassment of riches: They didn’t have to streamline anything! They controlled broadcast television, the daily papers, and all the syndicated news services. There’s no need to streamline when you’ve been given unlimited real estate. And so, they didn’t: On issues likes gender, Hamas, late-term abortion, and radical climate change initiatives, they let their liberal freak flag fly. They kept circling further and further to the left. To echo “The Prophecy,” the Democrats didn’t lose in 2024 because they showed the voters too little. They lost because they showed the voters too much.

The article continued: “The country remains deeply divided over Mr. Trump’s leadership, with roughly equal shares of people saying that his second term is cause for celebration or concern. But the poll suggests that people do not view the Democratic Party as an appealing alternative. In a broad sense, the poll, which surveyed a representative sample of 2,128 adults nationwide, found that Americans think the Republican Party is more in sync with the mood of the country. The issues that people said mattered most to Republicans were also, for the most part, the issues that mattered to them: immigration, the economy, inflation and taxes. That’s the beauty of competing in a binary marketplace: You don’t have to be perfect. You can still make lots of mistakes. All that matters is that you’re better than the alternative. [..] The article continued:

“Overall, voters view the Democratic Party more negatively than the Republican Party, according to a Quinnipiac University poll conducted the week after Mr. Trump took office. The 57 percent unfavorable rating for Democrats is the highest Quinnipiac has recorded for the party since it first started asking the question in 2008.” Right now, the Democrats are in a PR freefall. Keep an eye on the numbers: Should the Dems’ unfavorable rating hit the mid-60s, it will likely lead to a full-on liberal-on-liberal civil war for control of the party. Those numbers would threaten their ability to raise money or compete nationally, and simply aren’t sustainable. And if we know anything about today’s Democratic Party, we know how much it values money. Interestingly, The New York Times specifically labeled the LGBTQ plank as especially problematic to the Democrats’ public image:

“On lesbian, gay and transgender rights, people perceive the Democratic Party’s priorities as particularly misaligned with their own. Just 4 percent of Americans listed L.G.B.T.Q. issues as very important to them personally. But 31 percent said they were a Democratic Party priority.” Once again, the Democrats lost because they showed the voters too much. They were marketing to their activists instead of to the voters. I’ve never met Democratic strategist Adam Jentleson (I don’t believe), but he 100% nailed the problem: “Politics is about perception,” said Adam Jentleson, a Democratic strategist who has urged his party to rethink how much influence it allows activist groups to have over its agenda. “And people perceive Democrats as being focused on the demands of activists instead of kitchen table issues.”I suspect Jentleson’s advice will fall on deaf ears. The liberal activists aren’t going away; they’d rather destroy the Democratic Party internally than cede an inch of ideological turf. They’re (im)moral absolutists. And thus, the cycle will continue.

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“As a rule you couldn’t win over your enemies, but you could lose your friends.”

Pro-Russian Versus Anti-Russian Social Media (Helmer)

When Tulsi Gabbard, nominee to be the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), was asked by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence what she thought of Russia Today (RT), she replied: “RT News is a propaganda arm of the Russian state government and is not a reliable source of objective news reporting.” This was one of the few unequivocal responses Gabbard gave to the hostile questioning she faced from the Russia warfighters on the Intelligence Committee last week. She also implied – but stopped short of saying — that if a news medium, publication, tweet, or podcast is paid for by a government or one of its agencies – any government, any medium including the Voice of America and the British Broadcasting Corporation — it follows that whatever is reported is state propaganda, so its truth value is zero and should be dismissed. This is the 400-year old maxim that he who pays the piper calls the tune.

It’s not the rule for truth-telling which the Anglo-American courts observe – beyond reasonable doubt for capital crimes, balance of probabilities for civil offences. It is also not the rule of truth-telling in politics the world over. “It was worthwhile making sure of your potential friends,” the English science official and novelist C.P. Snow put into the mouth of an ambitious cabinet minister he knew in London a half-century ago. “As a rule you couldn’t win over your enemies, but you could lose your friends.” In the present information war accompanying the military and economic campaigns against Russia, Snow’s rule should be understood to mean that telling the truth isn’t going to win over the enemy. Gabbard’s condemnation of RT at the Senate is a proof of that. Snow’s rule is also a warning that truth-telling risks alienating your allies – particularly those allies competing for reward from the Pied Piper.

Throughout his career, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has accepted and followed the Snow rule: he always keeps his friends, the Russian ones. But Putin, his officials and friends have misunderstood the other half of the rule. Since 2000 their attempts to win over Russia’s enemies by persuasion have been a mistake they have been slow to acknowledge and learn from.

Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin were quicker learners. They understood it was impossible by means other than force against their enemies, so they didn’t put their trust in persuasion. They also shared an ideology explaining why the protracted combat which engaged them, including class war and war against imperialism, was relentless, permanent. Since Lenin and Stalin had few friends and ended up treating most of them as enemies, the second half of the rule, risking loss of friends, didn’t apply in Russia for the entire 20th century. Mikhail Gorbachev got both parts of the rule wrong. For different reasons, so did Boris Yeltsin. Their mistakes have cost Russia and the Russians severely, especially those who thought the permanent war between Russia and the US had ended with the collapse of Communist Party rule in 1991.

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“We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper. Could have gone to some great parties. Did that instead.” — Elon Musk

Last Rites (James Howard Kunstler)

“In private meetings and at public events, elected Democrats appear leaderless, rudderless and divided. They disagree over how often and how stridently to oppose Mr. Trump. They have no shared understanding of why they lost the election, never mind how they can win in the future.” — The New York Times.

Maybe that’s because the four years of “Joe Biden” was little more than a vaudeville show in front of the curtain, distracting you from what was going on backstage — the world’s biggest political racketeering operation as conducted by a vast bureaucracy gone wild and mad: the blob in florid, mature efflorescence, doing its blob-thing to the max, looting and punking the nation. Now it is all being uncovered, disclosed, unmasked.

Think of the Democratic Party as the entertainment arm of the overall operation. Its aim has basically been to induce you to doubt your sanity. You were asked to swallow one fabulous absurdity after another — lockdowns, vaccines that don’t prevent illness, mostly-peaceful arson, US soldiers in puppy masks, pronoun police, shoplifting-is-reparations, the wide-open border — an epic acting-out of manifold mental illness in living color. The climax was drag-queens in the primary schools, obese men in fright-wigs presenting nightmare varieties of Mom-as-monster, often with some exposure of their male junk as part of the act. Suburban mothers watched approvingly, insisting on video that this was all wholesome, edifying fun for the kiddies (while some of the more insane moms went even further at home, coaxing their little kids toward medical “transitioning”).

Can you grok how insane all this was? So, if you were a Democratic Party strategist, perhaps the first thing you’d consider these days is to stop being insane. Second, at this particular juncture, you might consider apologizing to the people of this land for your heinous antics of recent years — like an alcoholic parent who has acted very badly against the family — and promise to make the effort to get your shit together. This is obviously the part that Democrats are struggling with now, and it explains why they pretend to be at such a loss to make course corrections. Of course, any further failure to come to grips with all this will lead to the death of the Democratic Party. Never in history has a political faction gone out in such pathetic ignominy.

Yet it is not just this feckless party that needs to expiate its shame, it is also America’s thinking class as a whole, its “experts,” its managers, its educated elites, its doctors and lawyers, its curators of “news” and opinion, and most of the denizens of showbiz. For the moment, they are all cowering and shuddering before the juggernaut of Mr. Trump, who they so grievously underestimated.

They know — they can see in plain view — that he is coming for them, and many might find themselves called to account in a rebalanced justice system. Many of them committed crimes against the nation and its citizens. The raft of lawyers fired out of the DC federal district this weekend for cause —namely, for conducting overtly malicious prosecutions under dubious predication — are an early sign. Ditto, the warning issued to Chuck Schumer concerning his 2020 incitement of violence against Supreme Court justices. Imagine, too, how many officials in the public health agencies need to answer for their roles in Covid-19 — the creation of it in their labs, the worthless vaccines, and the deadly treatment protocols they insisted on.

Now, the fate of the blob itself is a thing somewhat apart from the fate of this evil vaudevillian Democratic Party fronting for it. A purge of the blob is pretty clearly underway. USAID was shot dead like a rabid dog over the weekend. The agency had gone completely rogue, serving (Mike Benz explains) as the pivot between every nefarious operation coming out of the CIA, the DOD, and the State Department’s many black box units. The billions of dollars laundered out of USAID went to support hundreds of NGOs, many of them dedicated to harming the life of this nation, such as the orgs that handed out money to illegal aliens and advice on evading detection in-country. And these many NGOs represented an employment racket for the “elite overproduction” of grads coming out of universities with useless degrees and Maoist political training. There was, of course, a giant revolving door between these NGOs and the activist ranks of the Democratic Party.

The country needs a functioning, sane, opposition party to whoever is in power, since power inevitably corrupts. Like any other powerful office-holder, Mr. Trump needs a governor and guard-rails on his actions. Something will have to take the Democratic Party’s place, maybe even a group that uses the same name for convenience and the sake of tradition. But it will have to jettison just about everything the party stands for in its current incarnation, its insane ideas and policies. It might also consider the value of not lying about everything it does.

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Kennedy’s role is a bit murky.

Lawmakers Urge RFK Jr to Recuse Himself From All Vaccine-Related Decisions (ET)

Several Democrat lawmakers said on Feb. 2 that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. should commit to avoiding all decisions related to vaccines if he becomes the next U.S. health secretary. “Given the breadth of your involvement in vaccine litigation, such a recusal would help ensure that you and your family do not benefit financially from official government actions that you will oversee and control,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), wrote in a letter to Kennedy. President Donald Trump has selected Kennedy, a lawyer, to take over the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The department includes the Food and Drug Administration, which clears vaccines, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which issues vaccine guidance that is widely adopted by states.

The Senate Finance Committee is scheduled this week to vote on Kennedy’s nomination. If a majority approves, the nomination will be sent to the full Senate. Kennedy said in an ethics agreement that, if he is confirmed, he would resign from a consulting arrangement with the Wisner Baum law firm that involves referring cases to the firm. “Pursuant to the referral agreement, I am entitled to receive 10% of fees awarded in contingency fee cases referred to the firm. I am not trying these cases, I am not an attorney of record for the cases, and I will not provide representational services in connection with the cases during my appointment to the position of Secretary,” Kennedy wrote. The Finance Committee identified at least five cases related to litigation over the Gardasil human papillomavirus vaccine in which Kennedy is still listed as the attorney of record.

“When questioned by the Committee, you did not directly acknowledge this omission or provide clarity about any financial compensation you might receive related to these cases,” Wyden and Warren said. While Kennedy agreed to divest from those cases, Kennedy declined to recuse himself from decisions related to Gardasil in written communication with the panel, the senators said. He also disclosed that he was divesting his interest in cases referred to Wisner Baum to his adult son, which would let an immediate family member benefit from Kennedy’s secretary role if Kennedy is confirmed, they added. Recusing from vaccine-related decisions and communications will “ensure vaccine-related policymaking and communications are not inappropriately skewed by your personal views at the expense of scientific evidence,” they wrote.

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A number of senators insisted Tulsi should call Snowden a traitor. Larry Johnson has the perfect riposte:

“..the answer to your question is quite simple — Edward Snowden has not been charged with treason and has not met the legal standards required to impose such charges. Therefore, Edward Snowden is not a traitor.”

What Tulsi Gabbard Should Have Said About Ed Snowden (Larry Johnson)

Democrat Senator Michael Bennet, who I think is a disgraceful representative of his Colorado constituents, played a silly and dishonest game of gotcha with Tulsi Gabbard during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Bennet demanded that Tulsi declare Ed Snowden, who exposed Top Secret US government programs that illegally spied on US citizens, as a traitor. Tulsi refused to take the bait. Tulsi is a very smart person and a woman of unimpeachable character. I hope she is confirmed. That said, she missed a golden opportunity to school Senator Bennet. Here is what I wish she had said:

“Senator, Edward Snowden has not been charged with treason. You’re asking me, as part of a political stunt, to cave to political pressure and give you the answer you want. Sir, that is not what you want for a Director of National Intelligence (DNI). I am here today to explain to you why I am qualified and competent to serve as a DNI. My first obligation is to present the President and his aides with the best intelligence and facts. Not my opinions. Here are the facts: The U.S. government charged Mr. Snowden with two counts of violating the Espionage Act and theft of government property after he leaked classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA). He violated his Non-Disclosure Agreement.

I would note that The Espionage Act of 1917 is a U.S. federal law that primarily addresses issues related to national security, such as the unauthorized gathering, possession, or transmission of defense-related information that could harm the United States or aid a foreign nation. That clearly applies to Mr. Snowden’s case. It covers a wide range of activities, including spying, sharing classified information, sabotage, and other acts that could undermine national security. In the case of Mr. Snowden, he stands accused of unlawfully divulging classified information. A violation of the Espionage Act does not necessarily require intent to betray the United States. It can involve negligence or recklessness in handling sensitive information. In Mr. Snowden’s case, we face a conundrum. Mr. Snowden also took a pledge to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Mr. Snowden claims that he only took the actions he did because of the consistent and demonstrated pattern of hostility by the US government towards whistleblowers. Mr. Snowden cited the precedent of the US government’s menacing actions towards previous NSA whistleblowers, such as Bill Binney, Ed Loomis, Kirk Wiebe and Thomas Drake. Drake was wrongly charged under the Espionage Act. You are demanding that I declare Edward Snowden a traitor, even thought the US government has declined to charge him with that count. Treason is explicitly defined in the U.S. Constitution (Article III, Section 3) as levying war against the United States or adhering to its enemies, giving them aid and comfort. It is a much narrower offense and requires a direct act of betrayal against the United States, such as providing material support to an enemy during wartime.

While Mr. Snowden was granted asylum in Russia, we were not at war, in the legal sense of the word, with Russia at the time. If confirmed as the DNI, my primary responsibility is to present the President and his team with the best facts and intelligence available. There is no place for my opinion or personal beliefs in carrying out those duties. I will set politics aside and ensure the President is provided with the best intelligence available, regardless of whether it promotes or threaten the President’s political agenda. I leave the politics to you. So, Senator Bennet, the answer to your question is quite simple — Edward Snowden has not been charged with treason and has not met the legal standards required to impose such charges. Therefore, Edward Snowden is not a traitor.”

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